Entry Completed in the Common Grounds Café at Mcleod Ganj, Himachal Pradesh on March 22, 2014
I spent the second week of March in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, about 100 km’s south of the Pakistan border. This was actually my second time in Rajasthan and I intentionally returned to take up a rare opportunity to spend time with…
The Wisest Man of the Desert
I met Dr. Arvind Ojha, one of the most inspirational and wise leaders I have ever come across, in December during Dasra’s sector workshop on Child Marriage. He is the Chief Executive and Secretary of an NGO called URMUL Trust which focuses on alleviating issues of rural poverty in the deserts of Rajasthan.
My only shot of Arvind Ojha (on the right) taken during the Dasra Child Marriage sector workshop
URMUL is one of the most successful NGO’s in India, employing a broad range of solutions to promote the development of one of the world’s inhospitable regions. The organization began with more of a traditional charity approach until 1987 saw the worst drought of the century in western Rajasthan which made them realize that fostering empowerment and collective action was essential for sustainable development. Today, their work is well known in India and they are backed by major funders such as the Aga Khan Foundation and the Save the Children Fund.
Dr.Ojha carried an incredible aura of leadership and wisdom that I have never witnessed before. Whenever he spoke, the entire room went completely quiet and listened. During the workshop, he made a stand as a leader to create India’s first network of NGO’s fighting the issue of Child Marriage. This was the first time such a community has ever formed during a Dasra sector-focused workshop.
We chatted during a break at the workshop and he graciously invited me to visit him in Rajasthan to learn more about his operations.
Needless to say, I gladly accepted the opportunity.
Four months after our initial meeting, I found myself sitting with Dr.Ojha at the office of URMUL Trust in Bikaner with my ears and mind completely open to soak in his knowledge.
Photo taken from the roof of a school I visited during my time in Bikaner. It is without doubt a harsh and inhospitable region to live. I was drinking about 3L of water a day and didn't notice it at all by the time I made it to the washroom
I spent a couple days in Bikaner shadowing Dr.Ojha and his staff, learning everything I could about creating impact at the grassroots level. The site visit provided an unreal level of exposure because I was just an independent guest with no real objective, agenda or script to follow.
Camels are still very much an essential part of life in Rajasthan. It is not uncommon to see them on rural highways pulling carts loaded with agricultural products
During my time in Bikaner, I learned that the retired patriarch of my guest house actually used to work URMUL. He spoke with incredible respect about Dr.Ojha’s vision for a great society. He is striving to create a society that looks at people as people, rather than through the lens of their respective castes, ethnicities, economic means or social status. Dr.Ojha’s once turned down funding from a large corporation because he saw the corporation’s interests as a PR ploy which would actually URMUL’s beneficiaries. It takes serious vision and courage to turn down free money as an NGO. I am grateful to have met a role model for the style of leadership I would like to demonstrate one day.
India: The World’s Sausage Fest
You know when a group of young men show up at a club expecting plenty of buxom ladies to try picking up, only to realize it’s full of dudes? It causes some serious disappointment, frustration and often even anger. Well there is at least one place on this world where the sausage fest isn’t in just one club, but an entire country. Imagine the social consequences in such a society.
Female infanticide is a real serious issue in India. Dr.Ojha has been observing the national census closely over the last 30 years and has been greatly alarmed by the demographic changes in his state. There are 888 females to every 1,000 males in Rajasthan, meaning that roughly 10% of female babies are either aborted or murdered post-birth.
Sadly, in a way you can’t blame them. The poverty level in Rajasthan combined with extremely conservative cultural norms place incredible odds against girls. While India does not have a universal one child policy similar to Chinas, a country which has created a similar demographic problem, there is an enforced two-child limit for those who work in the government (a coveted employer in the country). Generally, boys are strongly preferred in developing countries across the world because they carry on the family name, inherit the family’s possessions and can provide much needed muscle in rural agriculture. Cultural customs in India, such as the expectation for the bride’s family to bear wedding costs, disfavour the economics of raising a girl and create further reason to give her up.
I came across these kids while visiting another village as the starting point for a desert trek. The two girls in the middle were absolutely adorable. It saddens me to think that there's a 10% chance they would not even have existed.
Recognizing the issue, the Government of India has banned sonargraphies and sex-preference abortions. Unfortunately, doctors still perform sonargraphies under the table (the price of a human life in this context is sadly around $100 US) and surely they have many avenues to circumvent the rules for abortion. The combination of weak enforcement and corruption opposes the effectiveness of any judicial intervention of this frightening challenge.
Dr.Ojha taught me that the greater the sex ratio gets distorted, the more vulnerable women become. As they become scarcer, their safety even in public places is severely compromised and this is one of the reasons why rape is a real risk for women in India. The state of Haryana has legalized the marriage of one woman to multiple men… I can’t even imagine what her life would be like.
Empowerment is a major theme in helping alleviate gender issues in India. The economic empowerment of girls helps negate the cost advantages of raising a boy. The social empowerment of girls makes it harder to let go of a bright and happy daughter to child marriage. The personal empowerment of future mothers allow them to the stand up to the pressures of their family and society to produce a boy, and to say no to the option of a sonargraphy and female infanticide abortion.
Authentic Fair Trade
One of the challenges of desert life is the frequency and devastating effect of droughts which can completely compromise the livelihoods of entire families in a single season. Poor villagers cannot diversify their income generation effectively into alternate streams such as handcrafting because their customers are usually other poor villagers who face the same cyclicality that they do.
URMUL established a fair trade store called Abhivyakti next to its office to link rural handicrafts to the urban market of Bikaner and the broader global tourism market. These customer segments do not follow the same seasonal cyclicality that the rural poor do which opens up a market for their goods through even the toughest of droughts.
The building infrastructure is fully covered by URMUL and the operating costs (retail staff, electricity, etc.) are covered by the margins charged on the products. The rest goes to the villagers who created the goods. As an NGO, URMUL can’t profit on the goods beyond covering their costs, so the beneficiaries receive a respectable margin in return for their work. Awesome.
Rocking a silk Kurta. I'm actually tempted to wear this to a business meeting sometime
Unfortunately, there is a lot of money to be made off tourism and sometimes “Fair Trade” stores can actually be fake. I usually don’t write reviews on Tripadvisor but I will make an exception in this case to make sure more visitors support a great cause.
The Milk Man Cometh (Pun Intended)
I spent part of an afternoon with two of URMUL’s veterinarian doctors who are working on implementing Mission Milk, a government scheme created to improve the dairy yields of cows across India. I learned more about cow mating and sperm in an afternoon than I ever thought I would in a lifetime.
The Mission Milk plan is to identify a handful of champion bulls (who can naturally produce over an amazing 25 litres of milk per day) and to artificially inseminate all the lady cows of India with their genetic superiority. The milk yields of the offspring are then monitored to continue finding the best bulls for the next generation. The long term increase in productivity has potential to stimulate the economy while providing more food for the people. Villagers often have their own cow so a significant increase in dairy yields can lead to great leaps forward in fighting rural malnutrition and poverty.
This type of genetic selection might seem like a common practice in many countries but India has been challenged by poor agricultural education and countless stray bulls who rampage across the country spreading their genetic inferiority in milk production.
This epic bull would probably go after any good lookin' lady cow he can get his horns on. The milk productivity of his offspring is not guaranteed or refundable.
Mission Milk is a major national endeavour. URMUL alone has hired 58 artificial insemination technicians for the task and it is only one of dozens of NGO’s selected to implement the program. The entire plan and process was explained to me by a passionate Dr. Sahoo. I even got to see some cow sperm. Apparently it moves much faster than human sperm. Learn something new every day, right?
Nourishing the Desert Poor
I joined a couple of URMUL’s program officers for their routine rural site visits in the desert. First, we dropped by one of the beneficiary’s homes to see how they were doing.
Anaemia is a serious problem in rural Rajasthan, especially when combined with the issue of child marriage which leads to high mortality rates for both the newborn and the adolescent-mother. Getting food to the poor in a sustainable way is one of the most effective interventions against malnutrition (duh!). URMUL helps villagers grow food in their own backyards by providing tools, seeds and training, helping them save $1.50/day on groceries while introducing fresh natural produce into their diets.
I just wanted a photo of the garden patch but the son of the family eagerly jumped into the photo. Given what I know about how much Indians love photoshoots, this didn't surprise me at all =)
A wedding ceremony was happening when we arrived to the village and we were eagerly invited to join in. Before you knew it, I was busting out my best (albeit limited) Indian dance moves with some random dude’s turban on my head with the entire village cheering me on.
Dance dance revolution... Bollywood style!
This was THE craziest dance move I have ever seen. It is a special tribal ritual dance, starting with a sand-filled cup on the floor with a needle sticking out the top. Yes, he's doing exactly what he looks like he's doing...
...and there's the needle sticking out of his eye. Gangnam Style's got nothing on this. Mind. Blown.
Self Help Groups for Development
Self Help Groups (SHG’s) are a common best practice across the international development scene. As the name suggests, they are cooperatives to help with the mutual development of a community. SHG’s are usually run by women because they are proven to be far more effective at directing resources for long term sustainable progress than men.
I got to sit in on an URMUL check-up with an SHG leader and learned about how SHG’s work. Each URMUL-organized SHG comprises roughly 20 members who contribute 100 rupees (~$1.67 US) per month to the group. The women are aged 21-45, after which the women are unfortunately considered too senior to be relevant for community conversations.
The woman in yellow is Padma, the leader of the SHG. She is known to be an incredibly hard and dedicated person working towards the development of her local community
The money contributed to the SHG is managed as a pool to help develop the community, for example:
- Issuing loans at 1% monthly interest to its members. If a member wants to purchase a cow, she can borrow money from the group to do so and the money stays within the community rather than going to a bank
- Providing insurance against catastrophes. If a member becomes widowed and all of the sudden she has to burden unaffordable funeral costs, the SHG can provide assistance
- Constructing common infrastructure such as community toilets can be funded with SHG money
- Purchasing shared assets such as goats which can produce more income for the SHG pool
To date, the SHG I met has collected 25,000 rupees, 20,000 of which were loaned out to its members and the balance held in a bank as a cash float.
Two more women from the SHG. I heard you can tell if a woman is empowered just by looking at her eyes. This was definitely the case for these women.
I gained exposure to URMUL’s ability livelihood and adolescent girl education programs firsthand as well as part of my visit, where URMUL plays a role through the provision of financial support.
This visit was one of the most educational experiences in my life and I am incredibly grateful of Dr.Ojha’s generosity with his time and his invitation to join his staff in observing their work. If anybody is interested in supporting URMUL, do visit the website at http://www.urmul.org. They are an outstanding organization doing great work in the deserts of Rajasthan.
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