Yoga’kshemam
As a world, we are in a state of transition. Change and Transformation is happening now at a pace hitherto notimagined. From hunter-gatherer to agriculture (100000+ years),to industry (10000+ years), to IT (a mere 300+ years), and now (single digit years)! Then, my great great grandfather was the best – I were to imitate/emulate him; gradually, I learnt from my parents; then, I learnt in school and go on to perform till I retire;now ‘learn – de-learn – learn’ in quick cycles lest I become obsolete. We need to cope with this pace.
2007 UN Population Report confirms that urban population in the world outstripped the rural population. India is fast catching up. What does it mean in terms of understanding livelihoods in general and of the poor in particular? We need to make a hugeparadigm shift for allocating resources, focusing attention and addressing poverty. This becomes more relevant when half of the world’s poor live in our sub-continent.
This April, Hyderabad has become Greater Hyderabad and now an A-1 city. This would mean more investments in Hyderabad Infrastructure, changing the land situation further in its vicinity. Transactions of Rs.40 Crore per acre in Hyderabad suburbs already are heard! It was Mecca Masjid blasts six months ago. A month ago, it was Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat blasts. An MNCrepresentative walked away to Kaulalampur, instead of Hyderabad, to establish their IT unit, and 5000+ potential jobs were lost.
Governments are approving SEZ after SEZ across. Locals are opposing. There is a retail boom now, after the IT, cell phones and credit cards. What do the poor think about all these? How does the Daridra Narayana cope with his not-so-extravagant demand for a decent livelihood? Of course now, in SEZs,Governments talk of compensation - land, shares and jobs.
People want jobs. The employers need candidates. What aparadox! The organizations, that train the youth to preparethem to match both, are increasing and the existing ones are growing up.
Of all the capitals, spiritual capital – the will to improve, achieve,and live a better and meaningful life for oneself and for the society, now and in future – matters the most, within the contours of ecological context that sets the limits to growth. All other capitals ‘conspire’ and cooperate. Contexts realign.Livelihoods arrows improve for one and all. People’s collectives help in this process.
Self-reliant cooperative acts are coming in state after state. Yet, we see a Government Order saying that dairy cooperatives can not be registered and the existing ones are deemed to be registered in the traditional act. A court quashes this. Anassembly confirms the GO with a bill. What do we understand of all this?
Sec 581 of the companies’ act provides for registration of producers’ companies that function like cooperatives. JJ Irani Committee finds it not a good idea. One more Act is contemplated.
More and more states are coming up with a rural poverty reduction projects with livelihoods focus. These projects, DRDAs and most NGOs have ensured that women get into SHGs, linked to banks or Micro-finance institutions. Nobel Peace Prize to Md. Yunus and Grameen Bank has confirmed theimportance of micro-finance in addressing credit needs of the poor. We witness the growth of MFIs in size, area etc., in double quick time. In AP alone, Banks have lent Rs.3500 crore last year to women SHGs. AP Chief Minister talks about ensuring credit of Rs. 100,000 per woman. Indian Government contemplates a bill to regulate MFIs. Ironically, we will have one more Act to regulate cooperatives!
These collectives and other support organizations require services of new and existing human resources. They need livelihoods orientation and continued learning support. They need to practice seeking knowledge and skills to use resourcesoptimally, and transferring these insights to people, to show the ‘elephant’ and the ‘ant’.
We need large pool of bright minds and dedicated hands - professionals, community level resource persons, volunteers from mainstream, part-timers, full-timers and life-workers. We need non-poor partnerships and collaborations. They need platforms and forums to come and contribute. Like Akshara Sakthi - Livelihoods Volunteer Force - a platform for volunteers. Like Community Livelihoods Facilitators’ Forums - informal self help groups of community level resource persons and leaders. Like Chelama LPC – Livelihoods Professionals’ Collective. More platforms and more people into them are needed.
An ILO report on occupational profiles, sadly, does not list development work, while it is one of the largest domains employing people. It reinforces that development/livelihoodsworkers/professionals need to come together for meeting their solidarity, security and learning needs. To be more effective, we have to quickly pick up our multiple twin-capacities for – leading and following; mentoring and being mentored; learning and offering learning; being in-charge and let go; seeking support and supporting; being passionately attached to action and vision and detached to results; bird’s view and worm’s view; and planning for ends and action for means.
How do we go forward? As “this world has enough to feed the needs of every one” (Gandhi), get ready to “attend to the suffering” (Jesus), “throw away meditation … attend to the suffering” (Buddha - and he went on to serve the suffering). Sanjaya, the reporter at Kurukshetra through the last stanza inGita, sums up – “where man of wisdom Krishna and man of action Partha practice, there is prosperity, success, happiness/ welfare and fairness and justice.”
For starters, yoga involves dialectics and logical reasoning, selfand supreme knowledge, duty, renunciation, meditation, eternal spirit, devotion, commitment, practice, and of course, salvation, as articulated at length in Gita.
Wherever you are, whatever you are, whatever skills you have,your role is significant. Give time. Give energy. Give spirit. Apply yourself. We will be proud to say that we live in a better place where people live to love this world and die to ensure that this world lives and lives for everyone.
Come with us into the world of yoga – the practice of action with knowledge and wisdom, for prosperity, for success, for welfare, and for fairness and justice. Kshemam - well-being of the poor, well-being of the world and actually, our own wellbeing – is guaranteed.
*Information till November-2007
Yoga’kshemam
It may be a strange coincidence! The world poverty eradication day and the Livelihoods ProfessionalsCollective’s founding day are the same. It willy-nilly points out an interesting but not so obvious fact that livelihoods workers/professionals at the ground level are poor. Like the poor, they also need to come together for meeting their solidarity, security and learning needs.
Against 8.2 pH that is best for the human health, we seem to consume acidic air,Acidic food, acidic water, etc.
I have been to Ahmedabad last week to participate in the 4th international conference on education for sustainable development, thanks to Centre for Environment Education. Over 1500 participants from 90 countries were there. As expected, Rajendra Pachauri, was there for the inaugural session as the chief guest. Gandhi was there all over. I heard this name and reference at least 100 times in two days I was there. Sustainable development – we cannot gloss over Gandhi. It reminded us of 1992 Rio Conference, 2012 framework for addressing climate changes.
One interesting insight – one climate change aspect is the fall in pH of oceans from 8.2 to 8.1. Against this,when 8.2 pH is the best thing for human health, we seem to consume acidic air, acidic water, acidic food etc. Themessage is consume less acid; increase your pH. A child participant urged us to shift to solar energy. If we tap solar energy for a day, it can meet all our energy needs for more than a year. Interesting calculation! A youth participant has urged the leaders to listen – listen to people, listen to inner voice, listen to voiceless, etc. Listen to lead is the message! Gandhi’s message – my life is my message, and he lived his life to give message.
In the conference, we were part of a thematic workshop –education for sustainable livelihoods, one of the thirtyworkshops being organized in parallel. Integrated knowledge – the elephant of the whole, the worm’s view – the ant of the reality, the best practices distilled, the ‘why’ of the situation and the ‘why’ of the solution, in addition to ‘how’ and metaskills are the critical elements of the education in sustainable livelihoods, the workshop indicated. The education is required for the community, the community leaders and facilitators, the livelihoods workers and the policy makers. The collective action institutional processes themselves offer education.
Livelihoods Framework places highest premium on the spiritual capital – the will to improve, achieve, and live abetter and meaningful life, now and in future, within the contours of limits to growth set by ecological andEnvironment context. Then, all the forces in the universe conspire to achieve your intent, as long as the intent is for universal good.
In response to Nara’s expressed confusion, Narayana in Gita elaborates this very lucidly – there is no superior path. Any path taken, based on one’s aptitude, towards the intent, will lead to the intent. We need to remember no one can remain action-less even for a moment. Everyone is driven to action helplessly indeed by the forces of Nature. Therefore, choosing a path towards the intent very early matters. Performing your obligatory duty, instead of not working or engaged in doubts and dilemmas, is the only way out as it would not be possible being without work.
Krishna explains further: every individual has to be assigned a specific vocation as a duty and it has to be in tune with his natural aptitude, svabhava. He has to be engaged in that work, karma. No one can claim the right not to work. None has claim to akarma. Further, the enlightened one should inspire others by performing all works efficiently so that others can emulate. Because whatever they do, others follow. Whatever standard they set up, the world follows. While doing so, one should remember one’s inferior natural work is better than superior unnatural work. Unnatural work produces too much stress.
Knowing the Self to be superior to the intellect, intellect purified by spiritual practices, superior to senses and body, one can discipline oneself through the practice, if one wills.For the one who has attained yoga, the equanimity becomes the means of Self-realization. A person is said to have attained yogic perfection when he or she has no attachment to the fruits of work, at the same timeon track without losing focus on the intent/vision/mission. A person is a yogi if s/he has both Self-knowledge and Self-realization, who has control over the mind and senses.
To practice yoga, one needs to know and remain committed to loving, with inner purity, without fear, to seek and to give. As we practice yoga, our intent will be a reality. When our intent is that people have portfolios of decent livelihoods, our path has to support people coming together as collectives and the professionals service these. Our path has to provide livelihoods orientation and continued learning support to the people already in the sector. Importantly, our path has to practice, practice to seek knowledge and skills to useresources optimally, and practice to transfer these insights to people, to place integrated and deeper whole before the people for them to make informed choices.
The leaders need to listen - listen to people, listen to inner voice, listen to voiceless, etc.
As we quickly pick up our multiple twin-capacities, we contribute more effectively to the learning, loving, leading,
Livelihoods, and life of the poor and people at large, and our own salvation.
Therefore, come with us into the world of yoga – the practice of action with knowledge and wisdom, for
Prosperity, success, welfare, and fairness and justice. Our own, our Poor’s and our world’s Kshemam is the guaranteed bonus!
*Information till Dec-2007
Yoga’kshemam
Happy New Year 2008! Best Wishes for a satisfying and exciting life ahead to all of you!
During the month, I have been to ‘National Conference on farming’ organized by Consortium of Indian Farmers’Associations’ for a while at Hyderabad. A TV channel has asked us about the crisis in farming. Then, our livelihoods team went to Ongole and then to Guntur as part of the Livelihoods Orientation Campaigns. All of them have pointed out the looming crisis at large on all the traditional livelihoods and occupations.
We have grown from a mere 5 Crore families in farming with a mere 15% labourto about 15 Crore families with almost half as labour, in 60 years.
Yes, there is a crisis. A much larger crisis we ever imagined. The skewed resource distribution; the skewed skilldistribution; the skewed information availability; growing middle and rich classes; widening gulf between the rich and the poor; reducing charity; business orientation in public services; increasing allocations to some programs like Employment Guarantee, Oldage Pensions, Public Distribution System, Subsidy for low-interest loans, etc.; dying and drying traditional occupations; some paradoxes – unemployment and underemployment co-existing with employers not getting candidates for jobs, money of the poor in banks is more than the loans they receive, large unutilized infrastructure and investments for new infrastructure, demand for the products and services we can not give and no market for the products and services we can give; rapidly changing climate –ecological, social, economic and cultural; globalization and liberalization; changing (accelerating) pace of life anddecision making; low capacities of the facilitating civil society to teach the poor met fishing skills (beyond fishing skills), rather than fishing skills and offering fish.
We have, for example, grown from a mere 5 Crore families in farming with a mere 15% labour to about 15 crore families with almost half as labour, in 60 years. The well-being of 10- 11 Crore families depends on how well the remaining 4-5 crore families get absorbed in the lucrative and decent nonfarm livelihoods quickly. That would mean a whopping 5*2=10 Crore jobs just to rehabilitate farmers and farm workers. The crisis situation is more pronounced with other traditional livelihoods. Growing middle class wants products and services and these people have to produce/provide these products/services.
Fortunately, the parents do not want their children to continue in these livelihoods. The youth are reluctant toContinue. If educated, the reluctance is higher. Unfortunately, the quality of our education is pathetic. Arecent employability survey reveals that a mere 1% of our graduates and post-graduates are employable. This isSlightly better for professional graduates. Our own experience in recruiting candidates reveals this amply. About10000+ graduates/post graduates when assessed on four simple counts – writing 50-100 words in mother tongue about one self; reading a passage (in mother tongue) and responding to direct questions; translating a simple 2-3sentences; and simple arithmetic problem – most of them could not score a minimum grade. Surprising but that is the reality we are living with.
Thus, we are constrained by competent human resources in general and in livelihoods domain in particular. We need to build livelihoods workers at the community level and at higher levels. We need them to be part of the people’s institutions. We need them to provide services to poor for a reasonable fee. We need them to launch and manage enterprises that pool, process and market the produce and services of the poor and vice-versa. We also need the community leaders with commitment and competence.
Then, the livelihoods we are talking about are of the community. The community should be taking the decisions.Before that they need to be privy to the integrated ‘livelihoods’ knowledge (within the community and outside).This integration, deeper analysis together with community and facilitation for evolving choices for the people, matters and livelihoods workers are required for this. Then the livelihoods workers are required to assist them in implementing their decisions.
Therefore, Livelihoods Orientation has to become a state, national, and global campaign to reach out to the poor and the people who work with and/or for the poor. Even the non-poor and the people who have the capacity to work with the poor have to be reached out.
We need to remember, ‘Daridra Narayana’ will not remain forever. S/he is bound to come out sooner or later. Then, s/he will put her third foot on the heads of all those persons who have not supported although they are in a position to support (that is, most of us).
Narayana elaborates to the confused (or is he feigning confusion?) Arjuna - one is considered the best yogi whoregards every being like oneself, and who can feel the pain and pleasures of others as one’s own. And he goes on to emphasize - the yogi-devotee - who lovingly contemplates on the people with supreme faith, whose mind is ever absorbed in them, who develops the plan of action to serve them and who facilitates/ensures implementation of those plans - is the best of all the yogis.