In all these years of working closely with young people in the region, I have learned that they are articulate and aspirational, but also lonely as they lack support from the family and community in pursuing unconventional professions such as working in the social sector or becoming an entrepreneur. They have dreams of changing the society for good, but are often held back by a dearth of know-how, funds, and proper mentoring. The communities also suffer from the social sector’s poor understanding of their cultures, geographies, and sociopolitical conditions.

Here are some learnings that I would like to share with the ecosystem of funders, nonprofits, and aspiring nonprofit leaders on working in the Northeast. I believe these lessons can be a starting point for anyone wanting to meaningfully engage with these states.

1. The Northeast is not homogenous

The social sector has grown rapidly in the Northeast in the past few decades, but this growth has not always been beneficial for community members. While big funders and nonprofits started working in the area, they did so without really understanding the complexity of the geography, politics, and culture of the eight states that form the region. This led to them replicating their pan-India programmes in the Northeast without customising it to the context of the place.

For example, many assume that Nagaland has a singular Naga identity, not realising that there are multiple communities and clans within it. They have their own distinct languages/dialects and cultures and, thus, their challenges differ even from one another. A homogenous solution won’t serve them all. Communities in the Northeast are divided by geographies—people live in the plains, hills, and riverine areas, and have their unique resources and problems. Can a nonprofit that doesn’t understand this diversity ever actually help the communities?

There’s a tendency in the social sector to chase numbers because the funders demand it. Nonprofits start working in a village with a select group of people (such as in the self-help group model), run their programme, measure impact, and move on to the next village. However, evidence shows that these groups often exclude people from marginalised sections. The secret to a more inclusive social development model might lie in thinking at a smaller scale. Instead of covering 30 villages in a state within a short time span, nonprofits could work with one village or a cluster of villages with all the community members in that area, until the community is empowered to self-sustain the change.

In fact, in Sonapur area in Assam’s Kamrup Metropolitan district, Bosco Institute has partnered with Spread NE, a nonprofit that works on farming and farm-based entrepreneurship. Every household—young people, women, and children—is part of this project on natural farming. Depending on which aspect of agricultural enterprise they are interested in, the community members are involved in production, marketing, and networking. People work at their own pace without the stress of meeting targets within a limited time frame. Since they have adopted the project as their own, they have come up with additional business ideas such as creating a tourism trail so that tourists can stay at the farms, earning them an extra income.

2. Funders should invest in ideas and allow failures

These states have gone through years of political unrest, which has had an impact on the people’s mental health and social well-being. There is a scarcity of resources that prevents them from taking up professions such as entrepreneurship and social work, which are considered risky. They are encouraged to pursue government jobs or become doctors or engineers, because these are thought of as stable career options.

When young people choose to work in the social sector, they do so by going against the tide. Many of them start an initiative, but are forced to give it up due to family and social pressure and financial stress. Further, the region is disaster-prone with annual floods being a common feature that adds additional challenges to nonprofit work. Funders investing in new nonprofits in the northeastern states must consider the possibility of failures unique to the region, and not pressure the organisations to meet deadlines that aren’t suitable to their current conditions. They should also make long-term commitments instead of time-bound, project-based funding.

If young nonprofit leaders fail, they shouldn’t have to carry the stigma of an assumed incompetence. If businessmen can start over, second chances should be provided to social sector leaders too and philanthropists and funders in the Northeast should come together to build a system that encourages this.

3. Funders should re-evaluate their expectations

At our incubation programme, we focus on social entrepreneurship because we believe it is extremely important for new nonprofits to be able to sustain themselves for a few years before applying for external funding. Getting funding at an early stage is challenging for small nonprofits in the region, and we don’t want young people to stop pursuing their endeavours due to a lack of money.

Even if a new nonprofit manages to attract funding, the funders often start dictating the work that the organisation should be doing. Young leaders lack negotiating power. Due to pressure from funders, many of them digress from the primary idea for which their initiative was launched.

Funders don’t invest in prior research about the region, and often make demands that are out of context with the place. Recently, I was speaking with a young nonprofit leader who is working with one such funder. They are planning to run online campaigns with women and adolescent kids in rural areas, but many villages in the Northeast don’t have a stable internet connection.

4. The sector must learn to listen to the communities

The shortcoming of the social sector in the Northeast is its inability to listen to the communities and the tendency to impose ideas on them. Funders and nonprofits from other states that start working in the region often complain about the lack of entrepreneurial spirit and productivity among the locals. But the people here had a self-sufficient lifestyle before the modern idea of development was thrust on them. They grew their own food, weaved their own clothes, and lived a slow life. You can still see reflections of this in the small towns and villages of these states. I always say that when I came from Kerala to Shillong in Meghalaya in 1975, we used to walk because it was pleasant and there were no vehicles; now the people in Shillong have to walk because the streets are clogged with too many vehicles and there are traffic jams everywhere. What kind of development is this? If people don’t want to work according to industrial time, if they prioritise their festivals and communal engagements over manufacturing for production units, it is an indicator of their refusal to be co-opted by market forces. Shouldn’t the social sector, which prides itself on serving the people, adapt to the ways of the community rather than force them to do something that goes against their concept of happiness?

Many communities in the Northeast are now struggling to preserve their culture, language, songs, and customs. Young community members have taken up the task of cultural conservation, but are struggling for funds. There are individuals and groups that promote slow food, slow fashion, compassionate farming, and indigenous music, art, and folklores. The sector can play a critical role in supporting these enterprises that matter to the people. This will take them one step closer to engaging with the communities on their terms. 

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Know more

• Read this article to understand why the social sector needs to invest in the Northeast.
• Read this report to learn about the development challenges that the northeastern states face.
• Read this article to understand how infrastructural development is affecting the youth in the Northeast.

The increased focus on scaling an organisation in the nonprofit world has tremendous implications on the breadth and depth of impact, as well as perceived and real obstacles. While capital and talent ultimately tend to be important, this article covers other challenges to scale. It is based on some of the observations I shared during a session at The Nudge Foundation’s celebration of their incubation of 100 non-profits.

Structural challenges that nonprofits face

To begin with, here are reflections on three structural challenges that nonprofits face when addressing questions of scale, along with potential solutions drawn from the world of impact investing and for-profit enterprises. This is not an exhaustive list, but one based on personal experience. 

1. Capital partners

The biggest challenge nonprofits face—and I believe this is one of the fundamental reasons for the paucity of scaled organisations in this sector—is the lack of long-term capital partners. By capital partners, I mean donors, funders, or funding organisations that provide grant support to an organisation, not just its programmatic work.

This situation is markedly different in the for-profit world, where a few key capital partners/investors tend to stay with an investee company for multiple rounds of funding. Elevar Equity has been the largest shareholder in various companies, starting with the Series A round and through subsequent financing rounds. Having access to this kind of long-term capital relationship disproportionately improves an organisation’s ability to make difficult decisions, build itself, and take appropriate risks. Nonprofits lack access to this kind of long-term, multi-year support. If available, it could help them grow their organisations, recruit senior talent, and make difficult decisions in the long-term interests of the individuals, households, and communities they seek to impact.

2. Currency of success

What constitutes ‘success’ for nonprofits and the metrics for impact are often not clear, and certainly not standard when it comes to internal and external stakeholders. This is complicated further as external stakeholders may seek different outcomes and benchmarks. In the for-profit world, there are straightforward indicators that are related to commercial returns as well as indicators that define success. Even in the world of impact investing and the companies they fund, there is a greater degree of clarity when it comes to communicating the impact of the organisation.

Funding agencies and nonprofits need to align on metrics of impact and access.

While the challenges of raising capital and identifying the currency of success exist for all entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders face unique challenges independent of the issue of not having long-term capital sources. In the nonprofit world, because of capital constraints, different currencies of success are used, such as the perceived credibility of the organisation, general awareness regarding its work, the impact it seeks to create, and other such proxies. This holds true even for nonprofit leaders, who often feel compelled to maintain a high level of visibility and measure their success by how well-known they are. Funding agencies and nonprofits need to align on metrics of impact and access, which can help them attract differentiated sources of capital.

3. Finding talent

Recruiting and retaining talent is complicated. Attrition levels tend to be high in both for-profits and nonprofits, despite the perception that the key challenge facing nonprofits is compensation. Attrition rates in the commercial world are not very different, which shows that financial considerations and compensation don’t paint the full picture. The for-profit and nonprofit sectors are plagued with the same challenges, though perhaps for different reasons. Typically, the answer lies in finding the right talent rather than in remuneration. Every organisation needs to identify a unique currency that serves as a differentiating factor and convinces people to join and stay, regardless of how well the organisation pays compared to the market.

Personal lessons about scaling organisations

Now, let’s pivot to what works—and what does not—in the scaling journey. These are a few of the practical lessons from my own experience of helping organisations think through scale.

1. Scaling the bad with the good

One must remember that while scaling, you scale the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ within the organisation. One can never scale only the good. Most entrepreneurs (myself included) have the hubris to believe that we can start by scaling the ‘good’ and will figure out and address the ‘bad’ in the process. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Therefore, before embarking on the path to scale a programme and amplifying its impact, entrepreneurs need to ask themselves a few pointed questions:

1. Why do you want to scale?
2. What does scale mean for your organisation?
3. Why are you the right person or organisation to drive this scale? For example, it is possible that another organisation is engaged in similar work and is better positioned to scale this model. In such cases, you might need to consider a different approach.

2. Elevar’s frameworks for scaling organisations

Based on our work at Elevar Equity, we have identified two frameworks that help us build the pathways for scale. Tweaked a little, they may be useful for organisations in the development sector as well.

Framework One: The three stages of an organisation’s journey

Organisations undergo three stages of growth. The first is the ‘proof of concept’ stage, where the organisation must focus on creating an effective and replicable model that works in the context of its impact and success. Do not think about scale at this point in time. Instead, focus on getting the model absolutely right. The second stage involves building the organisational platform, which includes developing the team, processes, governance, systems, technology, and risk management—all necessary to scale up.

Too many founders and entrepreneurs are advised to start the scaling journey after the completion of the first phase (figuring out the model). But the most important phase starts after developing the model. During the second stage, take the time needed to strengthen the organisation. In my view, this—and not the first stage—is the riskiest phase. In the third stage, with a working model and a well-oiled organisational machinery in place, the key focus shifts to scaling the organisation (built in the second phase) and the model (built in the first phase).

Framework Two: Twin flywheels

Most strategy tends to be inward-looking and organisation-focused, that is, it hinges around the question of “What is it that we want to do?” In the impact space, a scaling strategy must be outward-looking, focusing on the individuals, households, or communities one seeks to impact.

The twin flywheels framework developed at Elevar helps break this inward-focused approach and encourages entrepreneurs to think of both the organisation and the people they serve. Metaphorically, there are two invisible flywheels: one driving the organisation’s performance and the other driving the success of the people that the organisation works with. Often, these two flywheels operate at different speeds and are not necessarily aligned. But if the strategy can be premised on the needs of the community or customer, and if their success is aligned with the organisation’s, the twin flywheels accelerate and the foundation for scale is established. This requires patience, discipline, thought, and replicable execution.

3. Choose whom you talk to

There are far too many people willing to give advice. Based on my experience, building a great board—one that can challenge and listen—goes a long way. Beyond that, seek two to three generalists who may or may not be on your board. In addition, find a specialist to assist in understanding and addressing the specific issue or problem area that the organisation seeks to solve. In essence, I suggest shrinking—instead of increasing—the number of people to talk to. Engage with people who have experienced the challenges of scaling, as the scaling journey is messy.

More importantly, think of all advisors as equals. For example, I am uncomfortable with the idea of mentorship, given the inherent power dynamic. An entrepreneur takes the risk to solve the problem; a mentor does not. All your conversations as entrepreneurs must be conversations between equals.

In conclusion, one should always remember that scale is not elegant; it is not beautiful. It is very ugly. Scale is a question of execution, not vision. It has to come from within you as an individual and as an entrepreneur, and then go outward into the world. Many people speak of innovation, but innovation is an execution challenge, not an idea challenge. Contextualise the idea in the situation that you’re dealing with and move forward to find that path of execution, always keeping the person you want to impact at the centre.  

There are far too many visionaries who are unable to build anything worthwhile. Scaling is a step-by-step process that requires discipline , and it is surrounded by all the chaos that happens within an organisation. There’s no such thing as a perfect organisation; ultimately, the goal is to strive to do what is right. But the reality is that scaling will always be complex.

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Know more

• Read this article to learn why we must question how we think about scale.
• Read this article to learn more about how scaling a nonprofit can go wrong.

These active citizens have played a vital role in making our communities better. They are critical for the functioning of a democracy, as they recognise the gap between what should be and what is, and work to bridge this gap using the Constitution as a guide. In this article, we explore what active citizenship looks like in practice and what it means to take action based on constitutional values.

What makes one an active citizen?

Bryony Hoskins, who has worked extensively on active citizenship, loosely defines active citizens as those who engage in a “broad range of activities that promote and sustain democracy”. Unpacking this definition points to two aspects:

1. Active citizens undertake initiatives that strengthen a democracy. Depending on the context, this could include community development, social service, voicing opinions, participating in gram sabhas or city councils, voting, petitioning, campaigning for elections, protesting, and other such endeavours. Active citizens must base these activities on certain values and principles—such as freedom of choice, equal voice and participation, and respect for others and for the law—that are essential for a democracy. In the case of India, these fundamental values are enshrined in our Constitution.

2. Developing active citizenship is not an automatic process—it is learned and practised over time. The process to become an active citizen involves debate and dialogue and recognising and resolving conflicts.

Take the example of Rohini Chhari, a social worker from a small village in Madhya Pradesh. When the public cremation ground in her village did not allow the cremation of a person belonging to a Dalit caste, it sparked intense friction among the different communities residing there. Rohini, who herself belongs to a marginalised community, intervened and demanded action from the sarpanch; he then ensured that the cremation is performed in the public ground.

Rohini, however, did not stop there. She realised that unequal access to the public cremation ground was an ongoing conflict that required a more sustainable solution. Thus, she called for a meeting between communities and facilitated a dialogue. While the concerns and opinions of all sides were discussed, she brought attention to the discrimination that was being practised. Rohini invoked the values of equality, dignity, and fraternity that are enshrined in the Indian Constitution, and also talked about Article 15, which prohibits caste-based discrimination. Further, she informed everyone that caste-based discrimination was an offence under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. These discussions finally led to the decision that the cremation ground would be shared by all communities.

Rohini advocated for community action by linking it to the constitutional values of equality and dignity. She cited legal provisions upholding these values, actively engaged with community members including the sarpanch, and championed citizens’ rights and responsibilities. Through these efforts, she emerged as a vital force for democracy and development in her community.

The role of community-based nonprofits

As facilitators of social change and by virtue of working at the grassroots, community-based nonprofits are critical for developing active citizenship. They work closely with citizens, often with those from marginalised communities, to resolve issues that they face every day—discrimination, governance failures, and problems of inaccessibility, inequity, and injustice. By their very nature, community-based nonprofits exist to secure the values embedded in our Constitution.

By their very nature, community-based nonprofits exist to secure the values embedded in our Constitution.

At We, The People Abhiyan, we have been working with several nonprofits to enable them to incorporate an active citizenship lens in their work. One of these is Synergy Sansthan, an organisation that initially advocated for the rights of Adivasi youth in Harda, Madhya Pradesh. Their leadership team underwent immersive training to deepen their understanding of the Constitution and active citizenship. The process helped them realise that young people, across various communities, may be subjected to several levels of injustice. Therefore, focusing only on Adivasi youth would not factor in the intersectional injustices that, say, may be common to an Adivasi youth and a young person belonging to a scheduled caste. By applying a constitutional values lens to understand the root causes, young people from different communities can come together and examine structural inequality and discrimination from a wider ambit. Thus, Synergy Sansthan’s emphasis on active citizenship in their programmes expanded to address the concerns of all young people in the region.

PRADAN, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to enhancing rural women’s livelihoods, has recognised the necessity to empower women leaders who work with self-help groups (SHGs) with tools for active citizenship. We conducted several capacity-building programmes with them to improve women leaders’ understanding of constitutional values, rights, and laws. Before the training sessions, although the women met once a week to identify and discuss community issues, they saw PRADAN as the channel through which these issues would be addressed. The key difference after the training was that the women started seeing themselves as capable of resolving some of these issues—for example, widow pensions and access to rations and drinking water, which they also came to view as rights—by connecting with the state authorities. These leaders gained confidence from actively engaging with local self-government institutions and participating assertively in gram sabhas, which led to them influencing development in their communities. Increasingly, there is active discussion within SHGs on how members themselves practise these constitutional values and how they can do more to address the difficulties faced by the most marginalised among them.

Challenges nonprofits face in incorporating active citizenship in their work

From the above examples, it is evident that by incorporating an active citizenship lens to their work, nonprofits can enable people to take ownership of the vital role they must play in a democracy, participate in governance processes, and take steps to solve problems using the powerful values and framework defined by our Constitution. However, this may not be possible for all nonprofits to achieve. Here’s why:

1. There is a need to resolve urgent issues that communities face in terms of health, education, and livelihoods. In many cases, such as when the government does not respond or its response is inadequate, nonprofits become the sole recourse for communities in fulfilling their requirements. Organisations may not prioritise focusing on underlying values such as equality and justice, because tackling immediate challenges can be a lifelong process in itself.

2. Limited resources are another reason why nonprofits tend to concentrate on immediate issues at hand and may not be able to give attention to broader, longer-term needs. A sharp focus on fulfilling particular needs quickly and efficiently may also lead to viewing communities as ‘beneficiaries’ of services, rather than as citizens who rightfully deserve access to quality services from the state. Therefore, nonprofits tend to build capacities and provide training directly related to the issues they are working on, rather than prioritising the development of active citizenship through their programmes.

3. Getting engaged in long-term strategic issues can sometimes become a challenge for nonprofits as they find it difficult to secure funding partners for such endeavours.

Strategies for nonprofits to promote active citizenship

Based on our work with several nonprofits, here are some simple steps we have identified that nonprofits can take to start incorporating active citizenship in their work with communities:

1. Display copies of the Preamble of the Indian Constitution in the head office, field offices, and community centres, preferably alongside the vision and values statements of the organisation. The Preamble can serve as a tool to facilitate discussions on different constitutional values and to examine the connections between the vision and values of the nation and those of the organisation. This offers organisation members and the communities they work with a point of reference that they can look to when handling any issues of inequality, injustice, or oppression. Such an approach ensures that, even while dealing with the immediate issue at hand, they are consistently mindful of the root cause of the problem.

2. Use copies of the Preamble in community meetings to discuss the roles and responsibilities of citizens. Pose questions such as: What kind of society are we hoping to build? What is expected of each of us and of state authorities? What are the values that should guide both citizens and the state? This can help them realise their own stake, articulate a common vision, and take ownership of working towards it.

3. Encourage community members to actively participate in gram sabha and ward-level meetings, as well as other platforms of local self-government. These assemblies serve as forums for local governance where citizens can actively engage in decision-making processes and connect the concepts of active citizenship taught in workshops with practice. By participating in these conversations, people are empowered and contribute to shaping policies and initiatives that directly impact their communities.

4. Incorporate foundational training on constitutional values and framework (including rights, directive principles, the role of the state, and the law) into the internal team’s training processes. This will help embed a constitutional values lens into any programme the team undertakes and approaches.

As the Indian Constitution enters its 75th year, it is imperative for citizens to embrace their roles as vital forces of development. Community-based nonprofits should acknowledge the valuable role they play in nurturing citizens on this transformative journey.

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Know more

• Learn more about how children perceive the idea of citizenship in an equitable country.
• Read this article to learn about the decline of the country’s democratic values.
• Know more about people-led initiatives that have furthered constitutional literacy.

Do more

• Join the national campaign Har Dil Mein Samvidhan.

The idea of systems change has origins in multiple movements—in people’s demands for land rights or in response to environmental crises; in calls for transitions to cleaner energy sources; in achieving the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs); or in the monitoring of this progress.

Systems change makes it necessary for us to ensure that the various parts of an ecosystem work in cohesion. But often, most organisations involved in such work do not consciously coordinate with one another. Hence, there is little understanding of what kind of systems change they are producing together.

It could well be the case of two people pushing a car from the back and two people pushing it from the front. Each pair thinks that they are the ones responsible for producing the change in the right direction, but in essence, the car is not moving. Would we still call it systems change just because the four players are adopting that lens and their efforts are being invested?

Competing goals or collaborative systems change?

Take the case of systems change in the energy sector, which requires the promotion of renewable energy and the decarbonisation of energy-intensive sectors. The former may involve setting up large-scale solar power plants and wind turbines on vast landscapes. Such efforts, accompanied by improved financing and subsidies for the uptake of renewables, are steps in the right direction. Consider another systems change goal, that of helping pastoralists and forest dwellers claim their land rights for a secure livelihood. This involves protecting landscapes where, for generations, people have been living and accessing the resources they need for their livelihood. What if the two initiatives—setting up renewables and protecting land rights—require the use of the same land? Are these efforts mutually reinforcing each other’s goals or could they lead to suboptimal outcomes due to their interactions? Are we collectively reflecting on the results our endeavours could be producing?

For systems change to be successful, goals must be seen together and implemented using a systems approach.

While the emergence of a potential conflict is not the aim of either of the goals, the interactions between them could unintentionally create more challenges. Systems change done in isolation runs the risk of producing less than ideal outcomes, and in some cases leads to the emergence of new problems. With an ill-planned application of this approach, we will see incremental change, while our pursuit or our dream is to create transformational change.

Another example is with regard to the goal of increasing farmer incomes, which focuses on intensifying the agriculture system in order to increase the output and thereby income. In the same agricultural system, there are other sustainability goals such as regenerating soil health and conserving groundwater. Now, increasing farmer incomes and soil and groundwater conservation may seem like competing goals. For example, improving farmer incomes might lead to the intensification of farming using external inputs and groundwater extraction while conservation efforts might result in the development of groundwater protocols and soil regeneration efforts by changing cropping practices. Altogether, they could send mixed signals to people who are at the forefront of implementation. For systems change to be successful, these goals must be seen together and implemented using a systems approach. If implemented in isolation, their execution could create push and pull factors on the ground that might lead to no impact. Meaningful systems change cannot be achieved in such a scenario.

What needs to change?

1. Zoom out from our own systems change boxes

While we are immersed in our own activities and in pursuit of our targets, we must periodically take the time to look at the larger effects our efforts are producing and then sync up in order to enhance collective impact. The key question to reflect upon is this: What is the larger system that we are embedded in and how are our attempts contributing to overall systems change, in desired and undesired ways?

We need different parts of the system to convene in order to reflect together. For a start, there could be simple roundtables where the different stakeholders are made to formally map the larger system that they are part of and then locate their own responsibilities and actions. This has to happen at two levels: a) a self-reflection process where each stakeholder positions themselves in the larger system, and b) together, everyone reflects on how their own actions are producing different types of results.

A recent effort in this direction was a systems convening that DESTA conducted at the Dialogues on Development Management organised by the Indian School of Development Management (ISDM) in New Delhi, where different philanthropies and nonprofits came together to consider why certain systemic problems persist despite their best efforts to solve them.

The convening highlighted concerns about an overemphasis on measurable results; a preference for short-term, tangible outputs over long-term outcomes; and an imbalanced funding landscape leading to overinvestments in specific issues. For instance, it’s easier to gather support for girl child education, whereas addressing long-term systemic issues like gender norms—which can be more challenging to measure—receives less attention. Similarly, climate mitigation solutions are easier to put a number to as opposed to climate adaptation and resilience solutions. The convening helped participants self-reflect on their institutional policies, behavioural aspects, and belief systems that are contributing to the problems they are trying to solve. The need for listening to, trusting, and co-creating solutions with people whose opinions might be different from ours, were some of the major takeaways.

The above example is just the beginning of what should become a ritual at an ecosystem level. Organisations should periodically come together for such reflective exercises in their own circles.

2. Develop a system for systems change

In order to operationalise systems change, we need to create a system for systems change that focuses on a greater objective and beyond individual efforts.

Any system must pull together various stakeholders through convenings where people ask questions, address barriers, talk about constraints, and contemplate on the larger system.

This needs to happen from the perspective of two sets of entities: the first set comprises those who are keen to take on this approach but lack the means to do it, and the second comprises systems change people or organisations who get boxed into smaller systems that they’re trying to influence. Both groups face limitations that make it difficult for them to zoom out and coordinate with each other to think about the larger system they’re influencing. The system for systems change should enable people and organisations to develop and use processes and tools that will guide them in achieving more holistic goals. It must enable diverse actors to break through the silos of ‘organisation’ and ‘expertise’ that they have acquired and within which they are situated, and allow for multi-expert teams to learn together and achieve long-term outcomes that work for all people concerned. Any such system must pull together various stakeholders through convenings where people ask questions, address barriers, talk about constraints, and contemplate on the larger system of which they’re a part, and how they situate themselves in it. What are their responsibilities? And what are the trade-offs or co-benefits that could be amplified?

3. Democratise systems thinking and creating knowledge commons

We need to democratise the means—tools, pedagogies, and methods—of systems change and create champions who could bring these means to different organisations. For this to happen, a knowledge commons must be built, one that can be used by people to undertake this ambitious journey. The commons can take various forms: It could be a guidebook or training manual for those who lack the resources for applying systems change, learning games that use serious simulations, multiple decision-support systems, or a model library published online and free for everyone to use.

For instance, at DESTA, we developed a groundwater simulation model that we used for scenario planning in different villages. The village further came up with seven progressive steps on how groundwater can be conserved.  Tools such as this one can be made publicly available and different organisations can use them to conduct participatory groundwater conservation exercises with communities. The practice of using such tools also allows organisations to co-create solutions. For example, groundwater conservation requires very local and place-based solutions that must evolve from discussions between the locals, who consume this groundwater and are responsible for its sustainability, and those who are involved in the national policymaking space. Thus, systems change has to be a bottom-up and collaborative process. It cannot be left to a set of experts who often don’t end up considering the knowledge and requirements of different stakeholders.

In essence, all knowledge commons should help people adopt the science and implement it in real-world systems as practitioners.

4. Build a systems leadership

For effective systems thinking to happen, merely creating knowledge commons or holding conventions may prove to be insufficient. Different organisations need to build a culture around systems thinking in order to continue such thinking. This calls for creating systems leaders—and not just systems thinkers—who build and execute technical work. Systems leaders could be organisation heads who produce enabling conditions for and motivate team members to learn and apply systems thinking even when they are too occupied with their day jobs to keep their curiosity alive.  The idea is for the process of the system for systems change to replicate itself at different organisations through the creation of systems leaders. It would then become a continuous process instead of being limited to a set of discrete events of collective reflections and the creation of knowledge commons.

The way forward

A system for systems change could take many physical forms. It could be a movement, a network, or a practice that can be adopted by organisations or groups of people. There need not be one central node that controls its existence and continuation.

This has to begin with some physical interventions such as the creation of knowledge products, open access to an online repository, training and creating systems thinking champions, systems convenings, and small roundtables and circles for collective reflections. In the long run, the process must replicate itself for its scale-up to be possible.

No one has the definitive answer to what the best practices of systems change are, but we all have some notions of what these could look like. We need to integrate these approaches and strengthen them for wider adoption. We will know what works and iteratively improve as we apply these tools. This learning process will help us drive individual and collective systems change that are aligned together.

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Know more

• Read this article to learn more about a nonprofit’s attempts to change systems that impact children with developmental disabilities.
• Listen to this ‘masterclass’ on systems change approach to solving complex societal issues. 
• Read this article to know more about creating systems change to protect India’s 200 million acres of community lands.

Do more

• Explore different knowledge commons tools, including this landscape management tool, this energy simulation model, and this solar pump simulation model.
• If you are inclined towards systems thinking and would like to contribute to a knowledge commons initiative, connect with the author at mihir@desta.co.in.

The DPDP Act applies to the processing of digital personal data within India, and to data collected outside India if one is offering goods or services to Indian residents. The act encapsulates various principles of data protection, such as purpose limitation, data minimisation, storage limitation, and accountability. It also provides multiple data subject¹ rights (rights of individuals whose data is being collected), including access, data correction, deletion, and grievance redressal.

Beyond its legal ramifications, however, the passage of the DPDP Act calls for a moment of introspection for the philanthropic community. The act’s emphasis on data protection and privacy rights is a timely reminder of the evolving responsibilities and challenges faced by philanthropic organisations and their grantees.

While the DPDP Act covers a broad spectrum of data concerns, this article focuses on exploring its implications on impact measurement within the philanthropic realm. As we delve into this facet, it’s worth noting that the act, like any evolving legislation, will invite further interpretations.

CSR’s focus on data-driven impact measurement

India’s CSR regulations have historically pushed companies towards a data-driven approach to demonstrate their social and environmental impact, insisting on detailed tracking of both user data and impact measurement. This is regardless of the model adopted by CSRs, that is, whether they run their own social and environmental projects or allocate grants to nonprofits to execute initiatives on their behalf.

The rigorous demand for data and impact evidence is now at odds with the stringent provisions of the DPDP Act.

For instance, if a company undertakes an education initiative directly, it might require detailed student profiles to demonstrate the tangible outcomes of its interventions. In a similar vein, nonprofits being funded by companies are often asked to furnish comprehensive reports showcasing impact—this necessitates the collection of data such as medical histories, personal narratives, or academic progress, depending on the project.

This rigorous demand for data and impact evidence (in both approaches) is now at odds with the stringent provisions of the DPDP Act, especially those pertaining to user data collection, storage, and reporting.² Such a clash has significant implications for funders and civil society organisations that engage in impact measurement and evaluation, and raises important questions about user data collection and reporting and compliance.

What will change?

Collecting personal details without informed consent was an ethical conundrum even before the introduction of the DPDP Act.³ The act merely crystallises these ethical concerns into tangible legal mandates. For example, under Sections 3 and 4 of the new legislation, gathering intimate personal information such as health records or financial data without explicit consent could pose legal risks.

Moreover, the act’s emphasis on data security, minimisation, and explicit consent complicates the previously straightforward reporting processes integral to CSR. Complying with data security and minimisation requirements in Sections 8 and 11 may add substantial administrative burdens for resource-strapped organisations.

In addition, if nonprofits are to comply, they will be confronted with increased legal liabilities and administrative overheads. This cost is more than just financial; it takes away from resources that could be channelled into doing transformative work.

Going beyond numbers

Given the stringent requirements of the DPDP Act, there’s a pressing need for revisiting and potentially revising the CSR guidelines. Striking a balance between accountability and privacy becomes crucial in ensuring compliance with both CSR and data protection mandates.

While accountability remains paramount, it’s time to transition from rigid metrics to narratives of change. By fostering relationships built on mutual respect and shared learning, practices followed by donor organisations can resonate with the ethos of the DPDP Act and nurture a more collaborative philanthropic ecosystem.

This necessitates a fundamental rethinking of how social impact can be measured, and shifting the focus from data collection to storytelling and community empowerment. By upholding privacy and agency, as per Sections 6 and 12, the law provides an opening to develop more participatory and human-centred evaluation frameworks. Funders are pivotal in enabling this evolution by modifying expectations, building capacity, and championing new trust-based and collaborative models of assessing progress.

While the philanthropic sector, especially CSR, has traditionally leaned heavily on quantitative metrics to measure impact, it’s becoming increasingly evident that numbers alone don’t capture the full spectrum of change. Trust-based philanthropy does not seek to abandon these metrics but to complement them. It suggests that, alongside traditional measurements, there’s room for more qualitative, human-centric indicators.

Drawing from the experiences of pioneering funders and nonprofits, here are our learnings on implementing trust-based philanthropy in the context of the DPDP Act.

1. Have conversations with your grantees

Funders have an obligation to understand impact, but the understanding becomes more profound when it’s rooted in both data as well as human experiences. Strict numerical metrics sometimes miss the nuanced changes and adaptations taking place in communities.

Instead of solely focusing on end results, trust-based philanthropy encourages funders to appreciate the journey—the collaborative learning processes, the stories of resilience, and the community-led innovations that are responsible for those results. This doesn’t mean throwing away the numbers, but instead adding layers of narratives and community feedback to them.

Rooted in values such as equity, community, and opportunity, trust-based philanthropy aims to build stronger relationships with grantees, cultivate mutual learning, centre trust with nonprofits, and redistribute power in the philanthropic sector.

Funders can start by initiating conversations with grantees about their experiences and stories on the ground. Impact assessment can become a richer, more holistic process by incorporating tools such as participatory storytelling and feedback loops. The idea is to strive for a balance between quantitative outcomes and qualitative process learnings.

Trust-based philanthropy envisions a future where impact measurement is not only about hitting targets but also about understanding the depth and breadth of change—change that is driven by people and their stories, and supported by numbers, not dictated by them.

2. Streamline data demands

By streamlining data demands, trust-based philanthropy liberates grantee partners from the complexities of data management and aligns seamlessly with the DPDP Act. The implications of excessive data collection extend beyond administrative burdens. Constant monitoring can feel invasive to communities and reduce their rich life experiences to mere data points. Such scrutiny can be emotionally taxing and may alienate the very individuals we aim to uplift.

Trust-based philanthropy inherently champions data minimisation and privacy—both of which the DPDP Act emphasises—by valuing qualitative insights over exhaustive quantitative data.

From an economic perspective, trust-based philanthropy offers undeniable benefits. By minimising costs related to data collection and compliance, funds can be redirected to more impactful initiatives, optimising the societal value of every rupee invested.

A compass for CSR and philanthropy

Recent research provides mounting evidence that trust-based practices are taking hold in philanthropy. A 2023 CEP study found that more than half of the nonprofit leaders surveyed reported increased trust from funders compared to the previous year. Many nonprofits also experienced shifts towards alignment with trust-based tenets, including 48 percent seeing reduced grant restrictions, 40 percent receiving more multi-year funding, and more than 50 percent facing streamlined applications and reporting. Nonprofit leaders specifically cited unrestricted and multi-year funding as the most helpful changes. This demonstrates the growing embrace of flexibility, responsiveness, and mutual understanding.

The DPDP Act should serve as a compass for CSRs and the philanthropic community. By moderating our data demands, we uphold the privacy and agency of the people we serve and alleviate the burdens on our grantee partners.

As we stand at this crossroads, we envision a future where Indian philanthropy is celebrated for both its generosity as well as its trustworthiness. This is an opportunity to champion philanthropy that’s not just compliant with the law but also resonates with the communities

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Footnotes:

1. The terminology used in the DPDP Act is ‘data principal’ for the person to whom the data relates and ‘data fiduciary’ for the processor of the data. This is intended to recast the provider as the primary owner and rights holder (as the principal) and implies fiduciary duties on the data processor (to ensure that processing remains in the interest of the data principal).
2. It should be noted that Section 7(d) of the DPDP Act allows for the processing of personal information used in reporting required by the State.
3. The requirement of active and affirmative consent for sensitive personal data (health records and financial data) was already a feature of the IT Rules. With the DPDP Act, there has been some easing of norms—while informed consent is the norm, Section 7 allows a data fiduciary to proceed with processing personal information that the user provides voluntarily and for a specific purpose. This is in the spirit of opting out rather than in. However, providing notice and opportunity to exercise rights (access, correction, and erasure) are required even in non-consensual processing, and so there will be administrative overheads to ensure compliance.

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Know more

• Read this analysis to learn more about the development of data protection legislation in India.
• Read this article to learn more about the role of technology and real-time data in nonprofit programming.

These strategies are the equivalent of turning a single powerful gorilla into a herd of nimble deer, with the organisation acting as a life-giving oasis. Let’s explore how leadership can guide this transformation using the idea of fractals.

Fractals are shapes in geometry that repeat the same pattern on different scales. Leadership is much like this. It’s not a one-way journey but a process that needs constant refining and adjusting, just like a fractal shape that keeps refining itself. Small changes in the beginning can lead to a significant difference later. Similarly, in a community, small decisions can create large effects.

Consider an instance where a leader’s values differ slightly from the organisation’s. At first, it may not be a reason for concern, causing only small ripples. But as this difference is repeated, it can create larger problems in the organisation, leading to confusion and inefficiencies. Over time, this slight difference can become a big issue, leading to the failure of the organisation.

I’ve learned from my experiences that leadership is like a fractal. It starts with one person making a change, which then affects those around them. Here are six ways in which leaders can help their communities grow and make a bigger impact.

1. Sharing core values

Community building begins with identifying and articulating your organisation’s core values. These values serve as the lifeblood that guides the community’s interactions, behaviours, and goals. It’s essential to understand that these core values aren’t merely imposed from the top but rather emerge naturally as an embodiment of the team’s shared beliefs, experiences, and aspirations.

The values thus formed become the common thread that connects diverse individuals, magnetically attracting those with similar beliefs and instilling a sense of camaraderie and shared identity within the community.

These values also give everyone a common language and frame of reference, guiding their actions towards achieving collective goals. This process is not a one-off event but a continuous exercise requiring constant introspection, mutual conversations, and a deep understanding of the community’s mission and vision.

Each member must live and breathe these values, and not just pay lip service to them. This can only happen when they are shared openly, regularly, and with conviction. Leaders for their part should incorporate these values in all communications and demonstrate them through actions.

Socratus, an organisation that works towards arriving at political solutions by bringing together all key agents who are the proponents of competing schools of thought, undertook an exhaustive process of reformulating and crystallising its core values, involving everyone from the senior management to all levels of the organisation. This process aimed to ingrain these values in the organisation’s collective conscience and is consistently revisited in weekly meetings.

The aim is not to achieve a fixed set of values but to nurture a living ethos that resonates with the community.

Similarly, Agami, a nonprofit that works towards innovation in law and justice, has integrated service leadership into their operations and community interactions, reflecting the organisation’s core values. Arghyam uses its mission of providing ‘safe, sustainable water for all’ as a guiding star, helping them discern whether their actions mitigate or aggravate issues. By conducting regular dialogues with stakeholders and beneficiaries, Arghyam ensures alignment with its mission of water security.

Articulating and sharing core values is an ongoing journey. The aim is not to achieve a fixed set of values but to nurture a living ethos that resonates with the community, evolves with it, and guides it towards a shared vision.

2. Encouraging unexpected connections

Serendipity—the occurrence of beneficial events by chance—can fuel innovation and foster deep connections within the community. It is the impromptu conversation at a networking event, the unexpected collaboration from a casual chat, or the innovative idea sparked by a chance meeting. Serendipity brings novelty and spontaneity, allowing diverse ideas and perspectives to mingle and generate unique solutions.

As leaders, the task is to architect an environment that nurtures these moments and promotes open dialogue and cooperation.

Creating ‘collision spaces’ where members can cross paths, interact, and collaborate is essential in fostering this culture of serendipity. These are not necessarily physical spaces but occasions, platforms, or environments that encourage and facilitate unexpected interactions and exchanges among community members. This could take shape in various forms—community meetups, workshops, online discussion forums, virtual coffee breaks, or social gatherings.

As leaders, the task is to architect an environment that nurtures these moments and promotes open dialogue and cooperation. This involves striking a delicate balance between structure and freedom—enough structure to provide a sense of order and coherence, and enough freedom for members to explore, express, and experiment. It also includes crafting an atmosphere of psychological safety where members feel seen, heard, and valued—spaces where they find it safe to voice their ideas and concerns, take risks, and make mistakes.

3. Building trust in the community

Building culture transcends merely assembling individuals around common interests or goals. Instead, it is rooted in creating an environment where care and trust are the foundations of every interaction, relationship, and initiative.

Leaders play a crucial role in this process. Their task extends beyond simply setting rules or defining boundaries; they must embody and model the behaviours they wish to see reflected within the community. This means constantly demonstrating empathy, practising active listening, offering support, and extending kindness and respect to all members. Furthermore, leaders must reinforce these behaviours through effective policies, constructive practices, and responsive feedback mechanisms.

Investing in trust is equally essential. Building trust is not an overnight process; it requires persistent and earnest efforts, transparent and open communication, and a willingness to face conflicts respectfully and constructively. Trust is built and sustained through consistent actions that validate the words spoken. And as trust grows, members become more willing to contribute, collaborate, and take risks, knowing they are in a safe and supportive environment.

At Agami, camaraderie and trust between colleagues and external partners is built through activities such as retreats, offsites, and informal meetups. Responsiveness to user needs and addressing issues respectfully, even when they can’t be resolved, are part of the leadership’s approach at Pratham Books to cultivate user loyalty.

4. Developing a platform for engagement

Platforms serve as a communal space or ‘watering hole’ for your community, where members gather, interact, learn, and collaborate.

These platforms often emerge organically from the needs and aspirations of the community rather than being predetermined structures. Therefore, they must not merely be technical solutions, but instead offer a space that nurtures a sense of belonging and encourages co-creation.

Community members should feel empowered to contribute to, innovate within, and take responsibility of the platform’s development and governance. This active participation deepens engagement and creates a stronger sense of ownership and accountability. It results in a platform that evolves with its users, ensuring its relevance, utility, and longevity.

Pratham Books developed StoryWeaver by observing how translators work offline and replicating this process online, making the platform intuitive and responsive to the needs of marginalised users. Arghyam amplified community capabilities by creating digital spaces to make skills training data visible and reusable at scale. This approach also fostered collaboration between government departments previously operating in silos.

5. Getting ready for decentralisation

The journey towards a community-centric model is a significant transformational process that involves rethinking and reorienting traditional organisational structures. It necessitates the shift from a hierarchical, control-based approach to a more collaborative, decentralised model, embracing shared ownership and governance.

This shift is not just operational but also cultural. It requires a change in mindset among the leadership and individual team members. It’s about redefining power structures and creating an environment that allows community members to shape the organisation.

A shift towards real decentralisation makes the organisation more resilient and adaptable in the face of change.

Indus Action, for instance, is working towards a future where regional teams operate autonomously and are independently funded, while the central team focuses on specialised functions such as technology. Pratham Books has adopted a light-touch governance approach for their StoryWeaver platform, employing mechanisms such as red flagging to maintain quality while encouraging open contribution. The organisation believes in collective stewardship, allowing the community to control the platform with minimal gatekeeping.

Such a shift towards real decentralisation—handing over ownership and agency to the community members—makes the organisation more resilient and adaptable in the face of change. By embracing decentralisation, the organisation truly becomes a platform that is of the community, by the community, and for the community.

6. Becoming a gardener

In a community-focused model, leaders transition from being the central authority to adopting the role of a ‘gardener’, often both within the host organisation and in the larger community.

Much like a gardener who cultivates a thriving ecosystem, leaders provide the necessary resources, conditions, and support for growth but also step back to allow the community to take the lead and evolve organically. This means creating opportunities for members to spearhead initiatives, mentor others, and even make mistakes from which to learn and grow.

But it’s more than just stepping back. It’s also about being attuned to the changing needs and dynamics of the community. It involves listening, observing, and offering targeted interventions when necessary, not unlike a gardener who prunes a tree or enriches the soil. Leaders need to maintain a hands-off, eyes-on approach, nurturing the environment while respecting the autonomy and individuality of its members.

Ashoka recognises individuals in the ecosystem who spotlight others’ needs without pushing their own agendas. Ashoka believes it serves as magnets, bringing together different stakeholders. At CIVIS, the leadership encourages organisations to cultivate volunteers’ passions, encouraging them to take ownership of the work rather than focusing on internal scaling.

Building communities is a journey of learning, adapting, and growing. The most successful organisations are those that enrich and are enriched by their communities. By embracing this fractal approach, leaders can help their communities become more resilient, creative, and impactful.

So, what patterns will you adopt to grow a thriving community? What new possibilities could your leadership unlock?

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Know more

• Read this article on what it takes to be an abundant leader.
• Read this study to learn more about fractal leadership.
• Read this article to learn how the the open-source software movement has fostered communities in the tech industry.

While a lot has been accomplished in the last 75 years, a lot is yet to be achieved. Just one pair of statistics is enough to illustrate this point. The average life expectancy of Indians in 1947 was 32 years; this went up to 70 years in 2022. However, as per the report of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5, 2019–21), 35.5 percent of India’s children were stunted, 19.3 percent were ‘wasted’, and 32.1 percent were underweight.

We have witnessed similar dualities for decades in many spheres, whether it is environmental, cultural, social, economic, or political. As per the recent Tiger Census, the five-decade-old Project Tiger has doubled the tiger population in India to more than 3,000, and yet our very dense and moderately dense forest cover was down to 12.4 percent of the total geographical area of India by 2021. There is a similar dichotomy when we consider the economic scenario. On the one hand, India is one of the top five economies by size as well as growth rate of the GDP, and, on the other, it has the largest number of poor people and one of the highest levels of income and wealth inequality. In political terms, we are the world’s largest electoral democracy—more than 94 crore persons will be eligible to vote in 2024—and yet we stand as mute witnesses to the terrible decline in our politics—from Manipur to Mewat, from the Lok Sabha to the local self-governments. 

The pattern of dissonance—between two extremes of growth and neglect—is clear. What is the cause of this inability to achieve all-round progress and well-being, despite generations of shlokas ranging from ‘Sarve sukhina bhavantu’ to ‘Sarvodaya’ and slogans such as ‘Garibi Hatao’, ‘Inclusive Growth’, and ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’? This cannot be a matter of chance, and so evidently people with power and privilege have used policy and governance to their advantage and to the detriment of vast segments of the population. I argue that India’s elite who led the freedom movement and mostly comprised self-sacrificing idealists were gradually, after Independence, replaced with people who were largely self-serving and materialistic. With a few exceptions, the prevailing ethic among the post-Independence elite was ‘maximise benefits for me and my family’ and, in a few cases, my extended family—usually caste brothers. 

Our central task is to reform the political system and change the rules of this game, as it adversely affects every aspect of life.

I believe that we find ourselves in this situation as a result of a flaw in the design of our political system. We opted for an electoral parliamentary democracy with universal adult franchise, thereby ensuring that political equality becomes an important tool for bringing about social and economic equality. But, in practice, social and economic inequalities have overtaken the political process and, through a variety of stratagems, converted universal adult franchise into a token exercise—one that provides a stamp of approval for continuing with past social and economic inequalities. In the absence of a public-spirited elite, democracy has been reduced to demography plus demagoguery¹ and nation-building has been converted into a kleptocracy² with rampant sharing of the spoils. 

Thus, our central task is to reform the political system and change the rules of this game, as it adversely affects every aspect of life. This process must be carried out in at least five fundamental ways:

1. Reforming the political party system

This is important because parliamentary democracy depends on it. Political parties are the building block of democracy, yet paradoxically most political parties are neither internally democratic nor accountable to the people. Over the years, the Election Commission has added a number of disclosure requirements, but these are being complied with in letter and not in spirit. In addition, parties active in just one or two states should not be permitted to put up candidates for Lok Sabha elections. Only a party that has received a minimum of, say, 5 percent votes in at least five state assembly elections should be allowed to do so. This will ensure that the Lok Sabha truly deals with national and interstate issues, and does not become a lobby for a party that is popular in one or two states. 

2. Reforming the election process

This must be done to ensure electoral fairness. It involves the surveillance of unreported election expenses, which would then reduce malpractices such as distribution of cash and liquor on the days before polling. Political party funding through electoral bonds is a big distortion that must be corrected. We need to increase the share of public funding to candidates for elections. We can adopt a system where the Election Commission will match the retail contributions (say, a maximum of INR 2,000 per donor) and thus encourage parties to collect funds from a large number of people, rather than from a few wealthy individuals. 

3. Reforming the physical mechanics of elections

From getting grocery supplies to financial transactions, everything in our lives is increasingly happening electronically and at any time and any place. We must adopt a similar approach when it comes to elections, and do away with the archaic system of physical queues of voters in front of election booths—waiting for hours to press a button on an electronic voting machine (EVM). We should be able to press the same EVM button from anywhere. Doubters will say this means a further possibility of false voting, but we can design and implement systems that are tamper-proof to at least a six sigma (or one in a million) level. This means that with 94 crore voters, you can expect 940 frauds, which is far, far lower than in the prevailing system. Surely, for a country that has over billions of Aadhaar card–based authentications and billions of financial transactions happening every month, designing and executing a tamper-proof electoral system should be possible. 

4. Reforming the electoral system based on proportionate representation

In a nation characterised by diversity, we must have an electoral system based on proportionate representation rather than the present first-past-the-post system.³ Only when the membership of legislatures is proportionate to the population of different social groups can we expect the political system to start delivering social and economic justice. The social groups can be by religion, and within those by caste and/or economic class. There will be a special category, hopefully ever increasing, of those who do not wish to be grouped by religion or caste. They will elect their own representatives, the number being proportionate to the number of people who steer clear of religion and caste as a basis of vote grouping. Proportionate representation will ensure that there is no tyranny of the majority, since every segment of the majority community will seek proportionate representation and thus compete internally. Proportionate representation would necessarily imply 50 percent seats in the legislature for women, thereby giving gender due place in the power equation. 

5. Reforming election systems by making elected representatives accountable

Improving election systems is not enough; we need to significantly increase the accountability of elected representatives. This means an annual review of their performance by the electorate, again done electronically and at a relatively low cost. The representatives who do not secure a minimum approval rating should be recalled and a replacement should be elected. To ensure that the review is based on good information, the proceedings of the Parliament and the state assemblies and their respective standing committee meetings must be televised, and physical attendance of people in the legislature should be greatly encouraged.

Who will bring about these changes? It will have to be ‘We, the People of India’.

So who will bring about these changes? We cannot expect political parties to correct their own bad practices. Nor can we expect the political system as a whole to seek these systemic changes. It will have to be ‘We, the People of India’. In response to this challenge, some prescribe a revolution, even if by totalitarian means! I propose not a 360-degree revolution that brings us right back to where we started, nor the extreme disruption of a half revolution or 180-degree turn where everything points in the opposite direction. What we need is a 90-degree turn, a quarter revolution. 

The quarter revolution will have to be led by ‘elites of calling’, to use former JNU sociologist Dipankar Gupta’s phrase. Even after Independence, we had such ‘elites of calling’—be it a Jaya Prakash Narayan who shunned Nehru’s offer to be his successor in order to become a lifelong Sarvodaya worker, a Verghese Kurien who ushered in the White Revolution by scaling up the Amul Dairy, an Ela Bhatt who made women’s empowerment a reality through the SEWA movement, an Aruna Roy who led the right to information movement and subsequently the employment guarantee movement, or a Dr B D Sharma and a Medha Patkar who made the nation conscious of the historical injustices against forest-dwelling tribals. 

Even in today’s dismal situation, I know of hundreds, nay, thousands of people who continue to contribute to society despite all odds. This includes social activists, nonprofit workers, cultural figures, scholars, scientists, managers, even business people, civil servants, and politicians. Let them lead this quarter revolution for the reform of the political system. The generation that is now around the median age of 29 (plus or minus 10 years), that is, those born between 1984 and 2004, will have to take up their followership initially and the leadership subsequently. They will have to apply themselves to this task of improving our politics. It is to them that this article is addressed. 

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Footnotes:

1. Demography is the statistical study of human populations.
   Demagoguery refers to political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.
2. Kleptocracy refers to a form of government in which leaders use their power to steal money and resources from the country that they rule.
3. A system where each voter casts their vote for a single candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins the election. 

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Know more

• Read Arun Maira’s perspective on why civil society must revisit how it engages with politics.
• Explore the Global State of Democracy 2022 report to learn more about the erosion of democracy in India.
• Read this simple explainer to learn about your right to vote.

Grassroots Nation is a podcast by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies that deep dives into the life and work of some of our country’s greatest leaders of social change. In this episode, Sanjit Roy, better known as Bunker Roy, traces the story of the Social Work and Research Centre, now called the Barefoot College. In conversation with host Rajni Bakshi, Roy outlines the challenges he encountered in this journey and the lessons he has learned.

Here are some edited excerpts from their conversation:

2.50

Building Barefoot

Bunker: I went to the Bihar famine in 1965. And that was out of sheer curiosity because I didn’t know what Bharat was like. Had no idea, I wasn’t exposed to anything like that. And I had felt I had sort of a closeted existence. I didn’t know what really India was like. So at that time, Suman Dubey said, “Why don’t we go down to Bihar?”

It was a very traumatic experience for me, very traumatic. I still think about those days in the Bihar famine. And I said, “What am I doing here? I’m getting the best, so-called best education and I can’t do something in the villages of India.” So that’s when it sort of sparked in my mind- I would like to do something…

The first donation I got was from Tata Trust of 20,000. So we started doing the groundwater survey and we covered 110 villages. But then you know every organisation must go through a series of crises. You can’t have an organisation that has no crisis.

We started in 1972. Aruna[Roy] resigned from the service in 1974 and joined me. And with her administrative experience, she wanted to bring in some systems and management systems into place which all these professionals hated. They didn’t think this was a good idea because you know it will be a bit more professional. So that was the first crisis—when Aruna came and tried to bring in some systems into place and lots of people resented it. So most of them left.

First lesson, never depend on professionals from outside, urban professionals from outside. Always develop the capacity and competence of people from within the organisation first because they are the ones who will be there to stay forever and ever. So that was the first lesson I received and it’s helped me up to now. Because I think we must develop the grassroot leadership. And and depend on them to carry the organisations.

The second thing I learnt was that there was a difference between literacy and education. You know what Mark Twain said, “Never let school interfere with your education.” School is where you learned to read and write. Education is what you learned from a family environment and your community. So I felt that we must distinguish the two, we must not put them because when people say, “Arey Saab they are uneducated.” I said, “No, please, they are illiterate, but they are not uneducated.”

23.50

Choosing the right people

Rajni: But Bunker, is it, when you say that you have become stronger as a result, could it be that the second and third tier of your organisation were also involved in overcoming and addressing these crises? You are in a leadership role and yet there’s a very palpable sense that I get when I observe the people around you, your team. Of everyone feeling very much an authority in their own right. So how did this whole dynamic come about? 

Bunker: You are jumping twenty years, Rajni, because at that time in 1979 when we went through this crisis, we were a very small organisation, but the selection of the people who worked with us was deliberate. We only choose schedule caste, schedule tribes, OBCs and they were not powerful enough to buck the higher castes and the Rajputs and the Brahmins and Jats. So when it came to a crisis that we were facing, they were in the background. They would help us quietly, but they wouldn’t come out in front and shout and scream against them, because that was a completely different situation there. And as a result of us investing in such people, it’s been a great leveller for us because those people stood by us even after the crisis all along.

Rajni: What was that value frame which you applied when you selected such people or, you know, build this team? What were some of the key values that you looked for?

Bunker: Definitely anyone working with us in Tilonia would have to work on minimum wage. And the highest and the lowest ratio would be 1:2–the highest and the lowest. And we would self-evaluate that time–not anymore–but that time when we were growing, we would self evaluate ourselves about our performance and about our contribution to the organisation and we would give each other points– honesty, integrity, cooperation, innovation. Out of hundred points, three was given to your educational qualification. It didn’t matter whether you are illiterate or not, but this is your contribution to the organisation. 

30.35

The power of solar

Rajni: So Bunker, going back now to Tilonia and the next phase which emerged which I think we can call the “Solar Mama” phase, I mean, you did it long before solar was fashionable. And what are the key takeaways from that experience which you would highlight here that give us a sense of what are the possibilities going forward on the positive side of the technology story? Technology and people and democracy all three together.

Bunker: We have two campuses in Tilonia, both are fully solar electrified. We have three-hundred kilowatts of panels on the roof for the next twenty-five years. I have no problem with power as long as the sun shines. I have visited about sixty countries around the world–over sixty–and thirty-six of them in Africa. And what do you see? You see very old men, very old women and very young kids in the village. All the youth have gone. They’ve all left looking for jobs in cities. So… brainwave! Why not train women to be solar engineers from these very villages which are inaccessible? Away from the grid and there is no… and they are wasting $10 a month on kerosene, candles.

Rajni: What year was this Bunker? This brainwave?

Bunker: 1997 maybe. So I said, “Why not train women? And even if they are illiterate, so what? Let’s see if we can train them to be solar engineers.” So we started with Afghanistan.

I went to Afghanistan. And we chose three women to come to Tilonia. And the women said, “I can’t go without the men because they won’t allow us.” So three men also came with them. Six months of hell for them because it was in the heat of summer, but they became solar engineers. How did we make them solar engines? By sight and sound. No written or spoken word. We have a manual, which is only pictorial, where you can learn how to be a solar engineer just by following the manual in six months. Which means that you can fabricate, install, repair and maintain solar systems and solar lanterns in six months. And the beauty is that anybody from anywhere in the world who is illiterate woman between thirty-five and forty-five can become a solar engineer.

Rajni: What was the secret to your success in carrying the work across the world?

Bunker: Faith. You have to have faith in the people to be able to do it. You have to show it…It takes me two days to speak to the whole community in Africa, to send a woman to India. First of all, there is resentment, there’s hostility, there is anger saying why are you wasting your time taking a woman all the way to India? And that convincing…That was the process of which convincing people that fears they have–they are going to be sold to the Arabs or they are not going to come back–all these absolutely genuine fears. But I see the woman having guts, absolute guts to be able to go there. Can you imagine nineteen hours on a plane? Never been on a plane in her life. Can you imagine her coming to India and not being able to speak the language for six months?

Rajni: So in a sense it became a commitment formation exercise because you could easily have taken teachers from India and sent them across the world, but you choose to do the opposite.

48.10

Finding bottom-up solutions

Rajni: Bunker, what is then, if we now think of the larger society India as a whole, what is the possible theory of change that emerges from all this experience? I think one of the underlying assumptions of your work was that at least it looked like that to all of us from the outside, was that this should automatically start being copied, and as you have just described, it did in several places. Yet, these approaches have not informed and transformed the country as a whole, and I’m saying the collective voluntary sector. So how will that happen?

Bunker: Rajni, a simple solution is the most difficult to implement. There is no urban solution to a rural problem. There is a rural solution to a rural problem. We haven’t even explored that. We are always thinking that has to be someone from outside to actually bring in a solution, which is a myth. It has to be from below. 

Gandhi has to be bottom up, has to be summoned from below to be able to carry this through, which you have to take the people into confidence to well to make it work. And we haven’t immediately to do that. We have shown what is possible, but we haven’t been able to do that. Why is it not possible that just because you come up with the idea because there is a… I think you know the biggest threat to development today is the literate man and woman.

Rajni: Explain?

Bunker: They have come up with some ideas from the educational system which is damaging, which is out of control. The biggest problem with the educational system today is that you have taken courage away from the young people. They don’t want to take a risk. They don’t want to do something out of the box. They don’t want to fail as if that is going to be a reflection on them. This is the biggest problem today.

Listen to the full episode here.

Cut the jargon

In 1978, when we started working with vulnerable communities in coastal Gujarat, climate change was not the buzzword it has now become. We were studying the issue of bonded labour in Jambusar taluka in Baruch district. The community in the area was engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, and fisheries. About 3,000 such families were trapped in a cycle of borrowing and were bonded as chakars (servants) and panihars (water carriers) by moneylenders. Interacting with them, we realised that poverty in the area was linked to the 22 droughts it had witnessed in 30 years. These droughts were caused by the increasing erosion and salinity of the soil. Mangroves, which serve as buffers against erosion and hurricanes, were getting depleted.

We didn’t have the terms back then, but it was quickly evident that the community’s predicament was linked to the degradation of natural resources. My next thought was that if the degrading of the ecology is a verb, so is its upgrading. It is a simple thing: The relationship between nature and human beings is broken, and we need to restore it. We didn’t think of this as climate work but as poverty alleviation.

Focus on people and livelihood

Long-term improvement in the environment and development of natural resources should also ensure short-term employment and medium-term income for a community affected by ecological degradation. With this in mind, we started work on wasteland development and mangrove plantations in Jambusar taluka. The community gathered to plant Prosopis juliflora, a cactus-like shrub that absorbs salinity from the soil and improves its quality. This project generated short-term employment because plantation work is labour-intensive. The model was clear: The lives of the people were at the centre of the developmental effort and plantations were the means. It is critical to keep this focus.

A businessman, while appreciating our effort to restore coastal natural resources, inquired whether local people would contribute to the project with voluntary work. The people we work with are very poor and directly suffer the consequences of harsh climatic conditions and the degradation of natural resources. They do not have the financial resources to make such a sacrifice. Further, they are not responsible for the crisis. Those who have contributed to the crisis should shoulder the responsibility of restoring the balance. We need to change our perspective.

Engage with decision-makers

Business leaders and opinion makers will have to engage with the issue of restoring ecological balance—not just for the security of the local communities but also of their own businesses.

Before setting up extractive operations, those in decision-making positions should acknowledge the linkage between development and sustainability.

Gujarat has a 1,600 km coastline, the largest in the country. In the past 20 years, industry and the state have been in a race for natural resources in the area. Gujarat now has 42 ports. The Saurashtra belt is spotted with cement factories because of the large deposits of limestone here. Gas and energy from the Gujarat coast serve the whole of North India. The coastal belt holds much opportunity for economic growth. However, while pursuing this growth, we need to consider its consequences on the natural resources, the overall ecology, and coastal communities. Poverty in many coastal regions is closely linked with a community’s vulnerability to the changing climate. Those owning and running industries are often impervious to this impact, while local communities bear the brunt of their decisions.

Before setting up extractive operations, those in decision-making positions—businesses and policymakers—should acknowledge the linkage between economic development and environmental sustainability. As we centre conversations on rebalancing the ecology, those in positions of power, such as industry bodies and governments, will have to reorient their work to the evolving climatic condition. Environmental development demands greater attention and investment of effort and resources from business and the state.

Empower communities to mobilise

It is critical to centre this narrative on how communities define and articulate their experiences on the ground. We need to listen carefully when communities express what they are facing and build from these findings. The people affected by the changes should be the ones empowered to take decisions on them. Marginalised communities, especially women, should be enabled to take the lead on environmental work.

A community’s strength lies in its numbers. When they aggregate themselves and assert what they want, they wield power and civil society organisations (CSOs) can help them mobilise in this manner. In 1992, approximately 3,000 people from the villages in the area we worked in organised a rally demanding wasteland to be handed over to them under the Rural Land Ceiling Act. As a result, the government transferred 1,400 acres of wasteland to nine cooperative societies comprising 440 agricultural labourers. Another 1,600 acres of surplus land was transferred to agricultural labourers, and 21 ponds were given to them on lease for fishing. We then helped develop these resources with the community and community-led organisations such as Panchayati Raj institutions and self-helps groups.

Over time, they have planted approximately 6 million trees across 2,000 hectares of mangroves. The advantages are already clear. When cyclone Biparjoy struck earlier this year, the damage on land covered by these trees felt was less.

Don’t romanticise traditional wisdom

People’s traditional knowledge of the landscape is critical but so are scientific tools and know-how from experts. In 2007, in the Little Rann of Kachchh, we learned that when salt pan workers (or Agariyas) die, their feet are cut off before the cremation. Their feet don’t burn because of the salt they retain by working long hours in saline water. Seven to eight thousand families are employed in these salt pans. Despite this physical labour, which generates 15 percent of India’s total inland salt, the community earned only 1 percent of the final market value of the salt.

If I consumed salt for approximately INR 20 per kg, they got 8 paisa per kg of raw salt. We explored why this was happening. Annually, between October and May—for about eight months—they pumped out water that needed diesel pumps. The cost of diesel for this endeavour was approximately 70 percent of their final production cost. Farmers borrowed money from traders on high interest for these pumps. To break their debt cycle, we explored ideas on how to replace the diesel pumps. We realised that solar-power-based pumps would not only be more cost-effective but also more environmentally friendly. We approached NABARD to help us design solar-powered pumps. Between 2016 and 2022, approximately 3,800 solar pumps have been installed with 80 percent subsidy from the government. This shift for more sustainability has also altered the socio-economic fabric of the entire community in the area.

So, as nonprofits, we have the responsibility to bring technological and other resources required for some of the changes. The communities do not have all the expertise they need. While solving complex developmental and environmental challenges, equal weightage should be given to scientific expertise and traditional knowledge.

Stay small, agile, and creative

Nonprofits occupy a unique space as facilitators in the development ecosystem. Some of the toughest, most complex problems in the sector need creativity and enterprise. Staying small affords us the advantage of being flexible and enables us to take risks that larger bodies, such as the government and industry, may not be able to take. There is a strategy in remaining small and effective, especially with sustainability, which calls for decentralised and hyperlocal action.

We need to build models and solutions that can be picked up, multiplied, and scaled by other stakeholders.

However, many organisations have slowly been moving away from playing the role of facilitators and moving towards performing what ought to be the government’s role. Some have almost become corporations. When this happens, nonprofits become focused on their own organisational goals and preoccupied with managing their own resources.

To my mind, a nonprofit’s role is one of research and development (R&D). We need to build models and solutions that can be picked up, multiplied, and scaled by other stakeholders.

Work with all stakeholders

While we can only start small, large-scale ecological work cannot be done in silos. CSOs with effective models should facilitate linkages between the communities and resource institutions, knowledge institutions, financial resources, and the state. It is the need of the hour that all stakeholders join forces.

There is no going back on the issue of climate change. This awareness should cut across all sectors. It should also take centre stage in all kinds of work being done in the social sector. Staying focused on this challenge is not a choice any more, it’s a compulsion.

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Know more

• Read this article on why centring research around people and communities, is essential for problem solving in India.
• Read this article to learn about the role communities can play in conservation.
• Read this article on why nature-based solutions must be implemented at speed and scale in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.

India is not a homogenous society with everyone speaking the same language and practising the same religion, traditions and customs, as is the case of many European countries. Rather, the opposite is true, leading to differences among its people concerning their personal life. Over and above, the communities so located are marked off by certain structures of inequality in the sphere of economy, polity and demography, with implications for unequal relations among individuals. While some communities stand privileged, others suffer disadvantages along one or more such parameters. Of the disadvantaged along community lines, language, religion, caste and tribe have generally been identified as the key criterion.

Where protection exists–and where it doesn’t

The framers of the Indian Constitution recognised the diversity and its intricate interface with varied dimensions of inequality. They were acutely aware that societies marked by diversity (linguistic and religious) are hardly on the same plane either in demographic terms or others such as development or a combination of both. They recognised that equality before law does not necessarily guarantee the equality of a level playing field. It is with this end in mind that the Indian Constitution laid down protective provisions for certain groups and communities alongside the fundamental rights to freedom, equality and justice for every citizen in the country. The most talked about of such protective provisions has been the representation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes through reservation in state employment, state-run higher educational institutions and political institutions such as the parliament, state legislature and even local self-governing institutions following the 73rd and 74th amendments in 1992. Such protective provisions have been positive steps toward the realisation of equality.

Most tribes have their language but in the absence of any positive measures to protect and promote it, many tribal languages have become extinct.

There are also, however, protective provisions of other kinds which aim at safeguarding the identity and interests of religiously, linguistically and culturally disadvantaged groups that emanate from their being a numerical minority. This is best illustrated in provisions under Articles 29(1) and 30(1) meant for minorities and Articles 244(1) and 244(2) providing for the 5th and 6th schedules of the Constitution, as well as Articles 371A and 371G for Nagaland and Mizoram, respectively. In the protection of such provisions, however, the state has hardly provided or taken any concrete positive measures (excepting areas under the 6th schedule and with special constitutional status) to secure and safeguard their identity and interest–be it language, religion and, in the case of tribes, even land and forest.

Most tribes have their language but in the absence of any positive measures to protect and promote their language via school curriculum or other related measures, many tribal languages have become extinct, and many are already in the process. And so has been the case with tribal indigenous/traditional religions. Rather than recognising their distinct religious identity, these beliefs are being erased through the state administrative practice of co-option into the Hindu religious identity. The assertion for recognition of their distinct religious identity and their separate enumeration in the census today in different parts of India is a part of the process of reclaiming the above identity.

All these have been the result of the uniformisation of laws, policies and practices initiated from time to time, either by the Central or state governments. The violation of the provision inherent in the 5th schedule of the Constitution is the best example. Article 5(1) states that notwithstanding anything in the Constitution, the governor may by public notification direct that any particular Act of the parliament or the state legislature shall not apply to a scheduled area or any part thereof in the state or shall apply subject to such exceptions and modifications as he may specify in the notification or any direction given under this sub-paragraph may be given to have retrospective effect. Yet all through post-independence India, governors never applied this power conferred on them to secure tribal interest and welfare. Rather, every law passed by the parliament and the state legislature was applied in scheduled areas with far-reaching consequences on their land, forest and livelihood, paving the way for the poorest social development indicators in India.

The scenario in 6th schedule areas and states with special constitutional status in the form of Articles 371A and 371G is quite the opposite in all respects such as land, forest, language, customs and traditions, as the Constitution has given these areas a built-in institutional structure in the form of the Autonomous District Councils under the 6th schedule and states with special constitutional status to safeguard and promote their interests and identity. Further, unlike in the 5th schedule areas where the applicability of laws passed by parliament and state legislatures was vested in the office of the governor and his discretion which has hardly been used, the parliament-and state-enacted legislature concerned with subjects under the 6th schedule provision were not applicable in the 6th schedule areas. And so has been the case with parliament-enacted legislature on issues concerning social, religious and cultural practices in states with special constitutional status.

UCC is an attack on constitutional provisions

The announcement of a UCC is a brazen attack on the protective provisions inherent in the Constitution for religious minorities and cultural groups such as tribes. Moreover, in addition to being linguistic minorities, tribes also form religious minorities, both as Christians and practitioners of traditional/indigenous religions. Furthermore, tribal customary law, the font of personal law for tribal communities, has no religious moorings. For example, much of the personal life among tribal Christians is governed more by local tribal customs than religion, except for sacramental issues.

The UCC poses challenges to such provisions inherent in the Constitution. In fact, it comes in direct conflict with the provisions of the 6th schedule of the Constitution existing in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura. The same is the case for the states of Nagaland and Mizoram with special constitutional status of 371A and 371G, respectively. In both cases, the UCC violates constitutional provisions.

In the case of the 5th schedule, it can prevail as the governors, as mentioned earlier, have never used the power vested in them in the Constitution to secure and safeguard tribal interests and identity. The UCC may now, however, fall into legal entanglement while contending with the Provisions of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act 1996. Provision 4(a) of the Act unequivocally states that any state Act introduced in PESA shall be in accordance with the customary law, social and religious practices and traditional management practices of community resources.

Why these protections are important

Such protective provisions have been part of the larger design to address the issue of inequality not in the form of equality before the law but equal chances and conditions for the minority groups to practice and maintain their distinct social, religious and customary practices. This had taken the form of personal law in the case of religious minorities and the customary social and cultural practices in the case of tribes. In doing so, the Constitution had made a space for legal pluralism as a step towards celebrating diversity and thereby facilitating the maintenance of their distinct identity. After all, in a society where they form a numerical minority plus economically and socially disadvantaged, these ensured protective provisions or mechanisms for minorities to have equal footing toward maintaining their identity, interest, and ways of life.

The UCC is not the best of such means to achieve gender equality.

In the absence of such provisions, it may have been difficult for them to preserve and maintain their distinct identity as a minority in the country. Hence the Constitution equips them with constitutional protectionism. Yet while conferring citizenship rights in the form of equality before the law, such laws alone would have been unfair for vulnerable segments of society if special provisions were not made for them in the form of certain protective measures.  Thus, the protective measures were a provision toward the realisation of what may be called “equality in conditions to ensure equality outcomes”.

At the same time, such provisions pose the problem of citizenship in the sense of equal rights of the individuals within such groups and communities. This is most evident in gender inequality, which needs consideration and attention. However, the UCC is not the best of such means to achieve gender equality. The celebration of protective provisions enshrined in the Constitution is as important as the equality of individuals before the law as the UCC aims to achieve.

Unfortunately, the ethos and spirit of other protective provisions have not been adequately discussed and deliberated beyond the policy of reservation. Violating the protective laws by the general laws and policies in the name of equality or public good/public purpose outwits the provision of equal conditions or start points provided in the Constitution for the marginalised and vulnerable. Often this is also discussed in the form of equality of outcome.

The founding fathers of the Constitution were acutely aware of this denial of equality in respect of religious and cultural minorities and hence made provisions for protective provisions in the Constitution. Such provisions in the constitution have been an aspect of celebration in the writings of legal luminaries and social scientists in the 1960s and ’70s. However, the emergence of women’s and gender issues that dominated the academic and civil, and political space since the 1980s led to much criticism of religious and cultural diversity on account of gender inequality overlooking the fact of other forms of marginality.

Gender inequality is indeed imperative and should be pursued but probably it needs to be carefully thought through and calibrated as an agenda for social inclusion and gender justice rather than as a one-size-fits-all approach by introducing the UCC. 

This article was originally published on The Wire.