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Dalit Status ( A frontline review)

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Inspirational book "Give Us Credit" (Microfinancing)

http://www.indiatogether.org/reviews/counts.htm

Access to credit is a fundamental human right
Ashwin Mahesh reviews Give Us Credit, by Alex Counts.
 
March 1999: Imagine you're a moneylender of some sorts. A banker, perhaps, in a respectable institution, with millions, possibly billions, at your command to support new ventures. One fine morning, an unkempt, illiterate man walks in your front door, with a simple request. I have no money, no collateral of any sort, and to all appearances, I have very little means of sustaining myself even at my current economic level. I have never before managed my own business, and have never owned anything more substantial than a few pots and pans. However, I've got an idea, and if I had a few bucks to get it going, I would not only raise myself out of poverty, but would also repay your money.

Would you lend him the money?

Mohammed Yunus would, and think nothing of the risk. Banking institutions are tailored to a world that the poor do not inhabit, and even developmental banks have never exhibited an understanding of this basic truth. To get around their failures is a life's work, even for the most committed. And so sometimes, the details of our efforts are the inspiration, not the grand acclaim they might get. That is the message in Alex Counts' book, Give Us Credit. This is the extraordinary story of Grameen Bank's microlending success, along with a parallel story of a similar project in Chicago's South Side. It is a story of individual lives, a story that revels in the endurance of the human spirit. For the thousands of us who recognize the names "Grameen Bank" or "Yunus", it is an eye-opener, a manual for preparedness, in some sense.

For all the noble intentions we might bring to developmental work, we must nevertheless pass frustrating hurdles, sometimes ones placed before us by those we seek to empower, and sometimes by others. The impoverished are prone to the same failings as anyone else; of morality, financial indiscretion, or of simply being lazy every once in a while. Within every society there are those who benefit from the status quo, like the drug peddler in inner-city areas, the village elder who has a stake in preserving patriarchy. Combined with the machinations of outsiders, such as the petty urban businessman who would cheat a villager out of a few measly bucks, or the aid-agency consultant who lives high off grant money while the alleged beneficiaries continue to suffer, there are powerful obstacles to social change.

And yet positive change can be wrought. The drug peddler can be intimidated, politicians can be shamed, women can be empowered despite the resistance of their male relatives, and discipline can be fostered to ensure successes. Counts has written a remarkable book, chronicling his own involvement with Grameen Bank, yes, but presenting from his observations a story of measured and incremental progress towards betterment, often beset with setbacks along the way. If you're a policy wonk who's really inspired by the macroscopic details of radical change, and are inspired by simple and powerful observations, read the first fifty pages. On the difficult days when your efforts to improve a small part of your world seem a shade defeated, flip to any other page.

The full story is also a necessary part of creating positive change. Poverty and illiteracy don't exist in a vacuum; there is a history that has engendered them, and recognizing this is crucial. Racism in Chicago, and religious mores in rural Bangladesh are both storied matters. The largely white working class neighborhoods turned violent and black-dominated through many years of social change, and the pride that was Bengal fell from its grace through decades of alteration. Alex Counts' telling of change in these worlds far removed from each other suggests two important things. One, that without looking back at a past that angers us, we must be able to seek a future that seems bright. And two, that even those in the most deprived of environs have the ingenuity and and wherewithal to create better lives for themselves.

These messages transcend the cultural environs where they are learned, too, and surprisingly at that. Who would have believed that an economics professor working with the poor in Bangladesh would have much to teach American social policy experts on how to empower those in the inner cities? As Counts himself notes, not many, and yet the evidence suggests that Yunus has tapped into an understanding of human enterprise that suffers few boundaries. Combined with the integrity of the successful microcredit lending institutions profiled in the book, and the powerful personalities fighting difficult odds to better themselves, the book is an inspiring read. Additionally, though, it gives pause to ponder how challenging positive change can be, and that is a lesson well learned.

Ashwin Mahesh
March 1999

Give Us Credit may be available from Amazon.com, and if not in stock, can still be ordered through Amazon's network. Place your order for this book using this link and ASHA will receive 15% through the Amazon Affiliates program.

(Frontline) http://www.flonnet.com/fl2302/stories/20060210003804000.htm

Text and Photographs:
AMAN SETHI
in Bundelkhand

Chandavati, Bhagonia and Chunki Devi of Sukhram village show their Above Poverty Line ration cards.

THE three "richest" women of Sukhram village, in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh sit by themselves in a courtyard on a sunny afternoon. Until recently, Chandavati was too old to work and fed her family of four on Rs.200 a month. Bhagonia's family ate one roti a day. Chunki Devi's husband broke stones by day and battled tuberculosis by night. But one day the pradhan and the gram sachev issued them bright yellow ration cards inscribed "Above Poverty Line (APL)" making them the Dalit basti's richest families.

Far away in Delhi, Union Minister for Food Sharad Pawar explains why he feels that the food subsidy must be trimmed. According to Pawar, statistics released by the Planning Commission illustrate that while the consumption of ration foodgrains has reduced year on year, the subsidy itself has ballooned from Rs.9,200 crores in 1999-2000 to nearly Rs.26,000 crores in 2003-2004. In his defence, the Minister explains that for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families, the prices of essential commodities remain unchanged. The only significant change is a reduction in the ration allowance from 35 kg of foodgrain a family to 30 kg. For APL families, however, the cutback has been more drastic - an increase in issue price of grain and a significant reduction of foodgrain from 35 kg a household to 20 kg. However, Pawar is quick to assure the nation that the APL uptake of foodgrains stands at a measly 20 per cent, and hence subsidy reduction is necessary.

Back in Sukhram basti, the women systematically debunk the Minister's theories. "The Minister must first understand how APL and BPL cards are distributed," they say. "Then he must understand how rations are distributed, and finally he must stand in a queue and try and procure his monthly rations."

The ration card is perhaps the most widely recognised symbol of the Indian government. Issued on a "per household" basis, the card entitles families to a fixed quantity of rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene, and doubles as a proof of identity and residence for all government transactions and in some cases a voter identity card.

"There are four types of ration cards in our village - yellow, white, pink and green," says Santosh, a resident of Purvakhaincha basti in Bundelkhand. The colour coding is because of the introduction of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) in 1997. The yellow cards are meant for families that are above the poverty line, the white ones for those below the poverty line, the pink ones for severely impoverished families eligible for the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, and the green ones for special category families such as families headed by widows or the physically disabled. Each card comes with a fixed allowance available for a fixed price. The idea of the TPDS is to direct food subsidies to people who really need it; however, its introduction has spelt disaster for villages in Bundelkhand.

The most basic problem with the TPDS is that of exclusion. The segregation of the poor into multicoloured cardholders has put a premium on the yardstick used to measure poverty. Economists such as Utsa Patnaik believe that the poverty line adopted by the government is an insufficient measure as it represents a bare nutritional minimum, divorced from the realities on the ground. Thus, many genuinely poor families in urgent need of rations find themselves categorised as APL.

Another reason for this exclusion is the method of identification. With its emphasis on identification of the poorest of the poor, the TPDS concentrates all power in the hands of the local pradhan and kotwal (ration shop owner) of the area. The pradhan, who is usually a dominant caste member, is charged with identifying the families in the area and categorising them as eligible for yellow, white, pink or green cards. He is also the de facto issuing authority and has complete control over card allotments. Given that State governments usually issue a fixed number of BPL and Antyodaya Anna Yojana cards for a particular period, most of these cards invariably end up in the hands of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the region, while economically and socially weak sections of society are saddled with APL cards. This incorrect identification of the desperately poor as APL is the reason for the minimal uptake of rations by APL cardholders; APL families simply cannot afford to buy food at APL prices.

While the identification process itself means that many genuinely needy families are unable to afford food, the distribution process ensures that even those who are eligible for rations are unable to buy them. "In our village, the ration shop is only open from the 2nd to the 10th of each month," says Rajvanti of Purvakhaincha village. "And the kotwal insists that we lift all our rations at once. Often I can afford to buy only 10 kg of grain, but the kotwal enters the full amount in my ration book." The remainder is usually siphoned off into the black market.

The full quota of rations costs BPL cardholders Rs.205. Given that the average family earns between Rs.300 and Rs.500 a month, most cannot afford to purchase their full quota in a single instalment. They are then forced to buy wheat that costs Rs.5.65 a kg in the ration shop for Rs.10 a kg in the open market, and kerosene that cost Rs.11 a litre in the ration shop for Rs.50 a litre in the open market. These restrictions on shop timings and purchase in instalments have meant that families in the region operate on brutally tight budgets. It is not uncommon for families to sleep hungry during the last week of a month, or to ignore an illness until the monthly ration quotas have been purchased.

A Dalit woman in Sukhram displays the sugar she bought on her white card. Shop timings and the shopowners' refusal to sell in instalments have put much of the monthly rations beyond the reach of the poor.

The TPDS is also prey to routine corruption. "New regulations" among ration shops in the Chitrakoot region mean that APL cardholders are only entitled to kerosene and sugar, and are ineligible for foodgrain rations. Rations are often not weighed correctly; villagers seeking rations are turned back on the pretext of insufficient supplies, and significant amounts of foodgrains and kerosene find their way to the black market. The situation in Bundelkhand has reached a stage where entire villages have not received rations for months at a stretch. The ration cards in Sukhram village are shiny, well-preserved pamphlets, unsoiled by use. Page after page lies blank and the villagers struggle to eat one square meal a day.

The experience of Bundelkhand offers an interesting counterpoint to Sharad Pawar and the Planning Commission's bold assertions that ration uptake has fallen owing to a change in dietary habits.

While the Union government has stated that the food subsidy has reached unmanageable proportions, it failed to mention that reducing food subsidy by increasing issue prices actually leads to a net increase in food subsidy.

Utsa Patnaik, author of The Republic of Hunger, points out that increasing issue prices means that large sections of the population are priced out of the market and hence are unable to buy rations. This results in a massive build-up of food stocks, which have to be transported and stored in costly warehouses. A perusal of the food subsidy figures over the last five years shows that while the proportion spent on subsidising consumers has actually decreased, the costs of grain storage have sky-rocketed. That is, it is cheaper to feed people than to store the grain.

Patnaik's arguments are bolstered by a report on long-term grain policy, commissioned by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution in 2001-02. According to the report, Rs.13,915 crores, or 66.5 per cent of the total subsidy of Rs.20,943 crores allocated by the Central government, was spent on maintaining the country's buffer stocks. In contrast, only Rs.7,028 crores, or 35.5 per cent, was actually spent on subsidising the consumer. In fact, the report states that the absolute consumer subsidy in 2001-02 was actually lower than the consumer subsidy in 1998-99. What this proves is that as millions sleep hungry, the government is spending less on people, while simultaneously spending more and more on storage. The same report also states that the introduction of TPDS has meant that uptake of rations by both APL and BPL families has dropped drastically. The only States where the subsidy has not dropped are Kerala and Tamil Nadu where the governments have offered their own subsidies to APL families to offset the subsidy reduction by the Centre.

Intense pressure by almost all parties across the political spectrum forced the Food Minister to hold off the reduction. However, the Minister has made clear that a subsidy reduction is inevitable. In the meantime, the three "richest women" in Sukhram continue their daily struggles with the pradhan and the kotwal, labouring under the burden of their supposed wealth.

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