Voluntary Organizations and Militancy:
- A   Personal Account

Sanjoy Ghose


Sanjoy Ghose with his AVARD-NE crew

In April 1996, a group of seven development workers moved to Jorhat, in Assam. Three of us had worked together in Urmul, a voluntary organization in western Rajasthan; of the other four, one from Arunachal Pradesh, another from Nagaland, a third although originally from Himachal Pradesh, had been living and working in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh for the last two years; and the fourth was an Indian of Chinese origin from Bangalore, with a background of social work. Before the move all of us had spent time in doing workshops for development workers and traveled in all the North Eastern states; Sumita was the link person for the eastern and north eastern region for the Beijing conference, and her work had brought her here often; and Sunil as a doctor with Army in Arunachal, and traveled extensively there.

The idea behind our move was based on our analysis of voluntary action in the region. We felt that the present context of voluntary action was too rooted in the charity mode and had not developed to the extent of allowing it to become a platform for self-expression. If youth could be involved in a full time way in this, it may be possible to find solutions to some of the endemic problems, using the democratic space that already existed, but which had not been explored sufficiently. Small facts led us to the kind of analysis: there was little protest about the flagrant deforestation in the region, and if the Supreme Court ban finally did get enforced, if was on the strength of litigation filled outside; in spite of number of malaria deaths every year, there is little by way of concerted voluntary action to research understand and evolve solutions; while the region is abundant in natural resources, there was little by the way of value addition and employment; though weaving and bamboo and cane craft were household skills, there had been few attempts to develop market outside that could increase returns to producers.

Yet there was powerful underground movements, a dynamic student force, high levels of literacy, strong community norms and respect for traditional culture, and on the whole better status of women – all possible ingredients for a transformation of the system.

It is not that voluntary action does not exist in the North East: quite the contrary. In fact most of the group formation for social development activities is totally voluntary, and often membership-based. Powerful examples exist in the women'’ organizations -–the Meira Peibis in Manipur; the Naga Mother’s Association in Nagaland; as well as the Young Mizo Association in Mizoram, and the innumerable youth clubs and Mahila Samities all over the region. The context of voluntary action though is quite different. Virtually all of its is linked to notions of charity and doing good, and since there is little institutional continuity or stability (organizations come together around issues, and festivals, rather than working continuously on one area). The only "sustained" voluntary action – if one could term it that – is that of the insurgent groups, Interestingly, many of these groups are now organizing around notions or redistribution and equity: autonomy or independence in not sufficient to create a classless society, and the underpinnings of these revolutionary groups is communist.

Our idea of working in the North East was to open up the space for voluntary action in the society. Perhaps through a process of strengthening and supporting grassroots groups, and developing support institutions, we would be able to engender a process in which needs of people were met, as well as provide opportunities for young people to experiment with forms of constructive dissent – raising questions of State and society, as well as coming up with some answers.

We are actually aware of the fact that our experience in the past had been in Rajasthan, and it would be completely inappropriate to develop "training" programs without understanding the local situation and context better. We also needed to earn our spurs here, actually demonstrate how community development processes could be initiated. Only if we could show something in a practical way, would we have the credibility to get people to accept what we are saying.

We decided to work on the island of Majuli. It was the largest river island in the world, the spiritual center of Assam, yet was one of the most backward and underdeveloped pockets in the State. It was close to Jorhat, but nearly inaccessible, and faced severe problems during the floods. It was a majority tribal population, and had other communities as well, a sort of microcosm of the North East situation. There was little else by way of organized voluntary action, and it would be easier to measure impact.

Majuli is a beautiful place. Now in the season before the floods, you can see the raindrops bounce off the fast flowing Brahmaputra; the purple flowers of azhar are in full bloom. Taking the ferry upstream is a Zen-like experience, time passing with the illusion of movement.

We decided to work in Majuli in April 1996. When we came, we did not know the language, the culture, the problems. SO leave alone implementing a development plan; we did not even have the basic information to prepare a blueprint for action. That was how we had planned it actually. We were supported with the individual fellowships, and small core grant, and resolved to spend the first year just getting to know the place and the people, and understanding the way the system was playing itself out. It was a luxury we had not been able to afford ourselves when we started work in Rajasthan twelve years ago, and we had price for that haste and arrogance.

We spent the first three months living in people’s houses, all over the island. We split up to cover the whole island, picking remote hamlets and people of all backgrounds – tribal farmers, Scheduled Caste fisher people, school teachers – and gradually came to be accepted as part of the total scene in Majuli.

We had one full time local volunteer, Bhagirath Das. We came across him by chance. He was a nephew of Anando Hazarika, our first contact in Majuli. Anando is a Professor of Geography in the local Majuli College. He was active in the AASU student movement in the early 1980s, but since then has stayed away from active support (…) most of the people who joined us were women, from the Scheduled Caste or Tribe community.

Our well laid plans for research were however put on hold by an Act of God – in August, Majuli experienced the worst flood in living memory. Many parts of the island were inundated. Thousands of people moved to embankments and the dikes to escape from the water.

For our group it was too difficult decision. We had resolved not to get involved in any kind of "development" program while we still understood the area and the people. All along we had answering the question, what exactly are you all planning to do with cryptic, don’t know yet, depends on what our understanding brings out, and what kind of partnership we can build with local people. Yet if we were to just watch while the flood played itself out, it would be cruel, researching while Majuli drowns.

Yet what could we do? We couldn’t get into food distribution, because that would go against our basic tenet or promoting self-reliance, and even if we wanted to, just the sheer logistics of getting ration across to 150,000 people was going to be too time consuming and expensive. We thought about trying to provide some kind of temporary shelters, but again the scale and management of that would be too big for us at this at this stage. Sorting through alternatives, we finally decided on a mix of two programs – making clean drinking water available, in form of a mobile shallow tube wells to displaced communities, and running a mobile medical camp service. We decided to work through existing organizations on the island – the All Assam Student Union (AASU) and the Assam Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chattra Parishad (AJYCP). The arrangement had its ups and downs, but we managed in the end to reach sixty communities, signing agreements for the maintenance of the wells with every village.

One minor problem was with the "Anchalik President" of AASU) one of the local units) of Bongaon, called Babul Hathimota. Although we had an agreed list of villages, he kept a tube well for himself. We thought the best way to deal with it was to make the information public, and we published the list of all the tube well sites in the next issue of Dweep-Alok, including this. This didn’t exactly endear us to him, and we made our first powerful enemy in Bongaon.

Again during the flood, we ere confronted with an apathetic administration – people had sheltered themselves from the problems of the poor, and were busy sitting in their offices (under water) signing papers and generally lording it over. We took up the issue and wrote critically in the local press about the attitude of these persons. This article although in an English daily, created a stir in Majuli, since it was the first time that some kind of public accountability was being demanded. The two singled out for criticism (by name) were AC Dutta, the then Sub Divisional Officer, and BK Bora, the then Extra Assistant Commissioner, and former BDO of Kamlabari block.

After the flood is over, we were involved with two small rehabilitation projects: organizing credit groups of the poorest twenty women in eight villages, and helping them with a winter crop; and in one village, through a local voluntary organization called Seuj Bandhu (Green Friends), promoting a nursery for indigenous timber spices, that will given about fifteen women year-round employment. Over the next six months we worked closely with these groups, trying to understand something about how people related to each other. People within the group, and group with the community outside.

The other outcome of our "home stays" was a newsletter – magazine in Assamese, called Dweep-Alok. We all found that there was a thirst for information, and hardly anywhere it could be accessed from. Dweepa-Alok is aimed at an audience of young men and women, and regular columns on self-employment, news about Government programs, and how to access them, as well as case studies on how these programs are actually working in the field. One feature that generated a great deal of interest in a column called "prathibha", focusing on someone remarkable from Majuli. The first issue profiled a male weaver (unthinkable in these parts); the second a poet who makes a living from pushing handicraft. The response to Dweep-Alok has been unprecedented, and unexpected. Coming from Rajasthan, where it was a task to even get people to read what was available, it came as a revelation how seriously the written word was treated. We also used the magazine for investigative journalism. The first issue uncovered a scam on Indira Awas Yojana in Bongaon Panchayat, where the local Panchayat President, a woman by the name of Parul Bora, had given the contract for building houses to her son. The work was incomplete, and it featured, with photographs, in Dweep-Alok. The lady in question was livid, and wrote a nasty letter to the editor, but when we met and explained that it was nothing personal, just looking at how the system could be improved, she cooled down a bit. But obviously the wound ranked, as later developments showed. Second enemy in Bongaon.

[Please click here for Part II of this article]

[Sanjoy Ghose was writing this article just before he was abducted on 4th July, 1997.]

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