It all started with listening to the song Yeh tara, woh tara (look at these stars) from the movie Swades. As I was looking at Mohan (Shahrukh Khan) in the movie, to me, his life somehow resonated with the life of a development worker. There are multiple instances from the movie which are in total relation to the life of a development worker. I could see myself in a similar scenario after graduating from Indian School of Development Management (ISDM).
It’s evident that when I’ll start working with the community, they would have a perception of me being an outsider (sheherwala). The same was the scenario in the movie when Mohan enters the village in his RV (recreational vehicle). In the movie, he is a keen observer and understands some of the challenges faced by the community. When he tries talking to people to gain more knowledge and work on it, he gets a response that he is an outsider and he should just enjoy his vacations. As a development worker, it’s very important for me to learn from my observations and my daily interactions with different people. Mohan did the same and identified that the community had several issues and lack of electricity was one of them.
He is also a person of reflective practice. In his lone time, he used to critically think of the community and realised how the lack of awareness and accessibility to resources were affecting their lives. For a development worker coming from an urban background, there would be a lot of dilemma and dissonance with the privileges and access they have enjoyed in the current realities observed in these communities. But it is also a driving factor to commit oneself to the community and work towards minimising that dissonance.
Moving on, as Mohan observes that there is a severe water crisis in the community, he gets the idea of generating electricity through hydropower. The main challenge for him was to convince the community of his idea and get them on board to construct it. It’s pretty obvious that renting machinery and hiring labour for the work was out of the question, considering the remoteness and external support system that the community has. Here, Mohan’s skill of advocacy and appreciative enquiry were at their best.
Firstly, he reached out to specific people who could buy his idea and while doing so, he also made them understand the value proposition of the project. Once he found few champions among the community, his bid to collaborate and get people on board was a tad bit easier. Convincing them of the benefits it will reap in the community worked better when the people within the community started doing so. Once the community trusted and understood the project, it gave its blood and sweat in bringing that project into action.
Mohan also disrupted the existing social barriers in the community with his intervention. While he was doing the fieldwork, he interacted with communities on how girls are not being promoted to study after primary education and how people are oppressed on the basis of caste and excluded. Over here, he made the positive use of the power he enjoyed. He ensured oppressed people are included in the project and also encouraged families towards girl child education. This made me reflect that as I’ll be working in the community for a specific project, a lot of issues and situations which will emerge. And one way to address such issues is also to positively leverage the authority I may have owing to the project.
One must also admire the resilience and grit Mohan showed in successfully implementing the hydro-electricity project. There were failures but he knew the purpose he was working for and the lives he’ll be impacting with the project. Being conscious of my purpose in the sector and that of the organisation will be the key factors in giving my 100% to the project.
To conclude, even after the intervention is successfully implemented, the relationship between the community and the leader doesn’t end. It goes beyond that. Mohan after completion of the project went to the USA, but he couldn’t just continue his work as he was continuously reminded of the moments he had in the village, the relationships he built with diverse people in the community, the land, water, food, school, his home and the collective work and spirit.
He couldn’t get that out of his mind and also realised how development can be achieved by individual contribution along with the community. That’s what it comes down to. Happiness lies in the community and in continuing to work with them.