Why we don't need a house

It is nearly three months since I left inter-agency group and started working directly for the people. In the three months I have hardly required a home, in strict sense of the term. I have been on the move, sleeping in buses, trains, families, institutions, hotels and occasionally in friends' homes. I have also begun to realize that actually you don't need a house! It only captures you and binds you to a geographic location. We are born free. I am able to freely move, wash my clothes, eat my food....and importantly I am able to be with the people and for the people. Yes, that is what that actually gives me the energy to live like this. Once you begin to think all the time about people and their needs, all your needs disappear. It is just a world, that can offer you everything, and you choose to have only what you need. You begin to understand the difference between want and need, greed and giving!

ICT for Early Warning

Catholic Relief Services offered my ticket and stay in Hyderabad to attend a meeting with the scientists from the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (www.incois.gov.in). The whole day of discussions on 11 Aug 2010 was an inspiring one, as I found ways and means to get more information in shorter time, which would mean I can send out alerts earlier than normal.

Although previously the early warnings sent out by me was limited to cyclones, floods, river erosions, probable embankment breaches, and possible landslides, now we will be able to send out alerts on tide heights and wind speeds. This would be really interesting! This would also mean I will require a person everyday to help me out in sending the information to various villages. I shall work out the modalities of sharing the information. (For now, it is trade secret! I am not going to reveal it on the blog!) Let me see how it works out! I will have to check out with some organization to support financially for this venture, as I may require about 60,000 - 80,000 per year for this purpose.

Indexing Poverty

What is the number of people living below poverty line even after making adjustments and attempts to hide the poverty in India, that has the second largest number of billionaires in the world? It counts for about 645 million people or 55% of India's population made up of ten markers of education, health, standard of living, access to basic services, income and achievement levels. This is more than the entire population of the United States of America.

Well, there are 140 million from just 8 north Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattishgarh! This is more than all the poor of the Africa put together! Many international humanitarian organizations are walking away from India, targeting on Africa and South America. Even some of my own friends from America and Europe feel that the poverty is high in those continents. True. In those continents, poverty is geographically concentrated. But here, it is widespread, making it more difficult to control.

Nutritional deprivation is overwhelmingly the largest factor in overall poverty, unsurprising given that half of all children in India are under-nourished according to the National Family Health Survey III (2005-06). Close to 40% of those who are defined as poor are also nutritionally deprived.

The "intensity" of the poverty in parts of India is equal to, if not worse than, that in Africa. When Indian Madhya Pradesh state, which has a population of 70 million, was compared with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the war-racked African state of 62 million inhabitants, the two were found to have near-identical levels of poverty.

The Scheduled Tribes have the highest MPI (0.482), almost the same as Mozambique, and a headcount (the percentage of people who are MPI poor) of 81 per cent. The Scheduled Castes have a headcount of 66 per cent and their MPI is a bit better than Nigeria. Fifty-eight per cent of other Backward Castes are MPI poor. About one in three of the remaining Indian households are multi-dimensionally poor. In West Bengal (MPI = 0.32), 58 per cent of people are MPI poor, and they are on average deprived in 54 per cent of the dimensions or weighted indicators

The survey found that in Madhya Pradesh poverty levels were higher because of malnutrition. In Congo, access to schooling was a problem.

The study's conclusions will reinforce claims that distribution of the wealth generated by India's rapid economic growth – recently around 10% year on year – is deeply unequal. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and Ms. Sonia Gandhi, the chief of the ruling Congress Party have repeatedly said they want to see "inclusive" growth.

Poverty has long proved difficult to define. The World Bank bases its definition on household income and estimates that a quarter of the developing world lives on $1.25 (85p) a day or less. However, relying simply on money excluded everything that is outside the cash economy and didn't look at issues such as housing or access to safe water, or access to education and standard of living.

A comparison of the state of Madhya Pradesh and the sub-Saharan nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which have close to the same population and a similar MPI (0.389 and 0.393 respectively), shows that nutritional deprivation, arguably the most fundamental part of poverty, in Madhya Pradesh far exceeds that in the DRC. Nutritional deprivation contributes to almost 20% of the state's MPI and only 5% of the DRC's MPI. MP's drinking water, electricity and child mortality levels are better than that of the DRC.

The new index is also designed to track variations within countries much better. Based on the MPI, Bihar is by far the poorest of any state in the country, with 81.4% of its population defined as poor, which is close to 12% more than the next worst stateof Uttar Pradesh. In Kerala (the best in the country) there are only 16% of the population who are MPI poor.

In Down South with the Poor

The last couple of weeks went in training of over 100 villagers in the Sunderbans, across two blocks in disaster risk reduction. Some of them had traveled for over an hour on boat to come for the trainings! It is encouraging to become more and more a part pf their lives. In Sonagaon, I was amazed by the "helplessness and hopelessness" exhibited by many people, as they kept repeating that they cannot overcome the kind of deluge exhibited by films on climate change. A man in his sixties even pointed out that they would be wiped out in 2012. He referred to the movie with the same name! Interesting. If only positive acts of coping can be equally included in these movies, people would both get entertained and educated. There was also certain amount of pessimism about the administration, governments and issues of fighting poverty. But by the end of the day, I had managed to turn them towards a positive vision.

Nothing is as contagious as courage. But, if the people are not ready to take the fight on, nothing else is worse than that. Once they begin to feel that they can over come the negative impacts of climate change, when they accept that they can turn the tide and make the world work on the positive acts to reduce global warming, and have the strength to remain prepared for disasters, they will survive--as humans, even if, as people living with lesser dignity.

Rediscovering the Journey

We have heard in the Gospels saying, "The foxes have their holes, the birds have their nests. But the Son of Man does not have a place to lay his head". It was only to mean that he had no specific place "as his own". When I left southern India in 1986 I thought I would be just traveling, probably with a bag, going around villages and towns, brings joy and God's love in hundreds of houses. I never thought I would be doing some "settled" works. The last weeks have taught me, actually Jesus is right. I do not need to be settled to do what is good. In the last 40 days I have never been short of place to sleep or to eat, as people have always wanted me and my help in whatever good thing they want to do. I have traveled from the top of Himalayas to the Sunderbans, from Kolkata to some of the most undeveloped villages in West Bengal, from the corners of a seminary to some of the families of friends of other religions. I have had no problem in staying or in serving the poor. The last month has seen me supporting the building of the houses of 12 very poor people who could not even gather the broken tins and roofs the tornado left in April 2010, starting an early warning system, that can be expanded across the country and can be made multi-lingual, and conducted special trainings and facilitation for over 10 days covering 100 persons in the 40 days, besides motivating several others.

When I did not need to sleep on a bed, I found the trains and buses as comfortable places to lay my head. And I have always found time to wash and iron my clothes, giving me enough time to refresh myself. Soon, I would be in more places, with the poor, the vulnerable, teaching them the art of surviving disasters, improving their livelihood and educating themselves to have access to government resources.

It doesn't matter...if I have a home or not! The world is my territory, and all people in it are my own.

Launching SMS Based Early Warning System

My friends, I am glad to inform you that with some necessary assistance from some of my close friends, and with enormous encouragement from many, I will be launching a SMS based Early Warning System on 01 July 2010. The system is based on Microsoft .Net Framework and will work to serve the poor and vulnerable, and to inform the funding agencies and non-profit organizations with Early Warnings and Alerts in times of emergencies. The service will be provided entirely free. (I have initially spent about Rupees 40,000, and I believe the running cost will be restricted to about 20,000 rupees per year.) I hope to work on this system for the next three months, strengthen it, and then hand it over to an organization who would continue the activity on my behalf, and for the benefit of the people. By the time of launch, we will be having over 1,000 persons already registered to receive the SMS. I hope you all appreciate this! Every message comes with the sender id: AlertIND.

The next thing I want to do is to set up community managed Rain Monitoring System, with simple gadgets to measure rain.... Anyone has an idea, or a simple gadget for that? I wish to set it up across at least 400 locations in the State, and interlink them, so that every severe variation can be noted, and informed as a Warning to the people. (May be students in Seattle or Western or Cornell or in Germany should go for this challenge!)

Monuments, Cathedrals and Tombs

I have begun to wonder why most monuments are relating to death or murder, and not relating to life and peace. We have in India, Taj Mahal, the finest of monuments meant as tomb for the wife of emperor Shah Jahan. There are hundreds of them across the country and the globe that mark similar things. We have the Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, St.Thomas’ Mount in Chennai, and the tombs of several kings and queens across the country. You can also get to see the memorials built on war sites! Memory of the victor having taken lives of many. There is something different in Christian religion. We have the tombs to bury the dead. And the Cathedrals, normally the biggest ones in a diocese, and known for their grandeur and artistic worth, are the burying places of the Bishops! And in their effort to have the best of places in the cathedral, and to leave them name for posterity, some of the Bishops build grand structures, only to build them as “graveyards of bishops”. Monuments, Cathedrals and Graveyards, all three seem to have one thing in common: the dirt is buried underneath. [This is not written to hurt the sentiments of anyone, but as an expression of deep sadness because a Cathedral is being built with millions of dollars, and the poor workers are not getting paid even 30 dollars a month!]

Anawim of Yahweh and Worship of Money

As I write this, my favorite channel CNN-IBN is having a discussion on “Business of Spirituality”. And that made me write something that I have been reflecting about for the last three years. My mind goes back to Raiganj. The teachers teaching in the schools of catholic Diocese of Raiganj are getting paid about 1200 rupees (30 dollars) a month! The domestic workers who work from morning 6.00 a.m to evening 8.00 p.m are getting paid between 30 – 35 dollars a month. And the church is building a huge Cathedral, worth over 80 million rupees. Most people have estimated that it would hit about 100 million rupees by the time it is completed.

We have spiritual pedagogues and demagogues controlling religion and the religion is getting capsulated in the arms of a few. There is a move from worshipping God of the Poor and respecting the Poor of the Lord (Anawim of Yahweh) to a vulgar worship of wealth.

I read in a poster written by the Dravida Kazhagam party in the southern temple city of Madurai about five years back in the week of celebrating the marriage of Goddess Meenakshi. It said, “We have girls who cannot afford marriage once, why do we need marriage to a goddess every year?” That is it. Why do we need huge temples for a God who lives among the poor who cannot afford brick walls that can withstand simple storms that destroyed 90,000 houses and killed 45 in just 30 minutes by throwing down their mud houses just couple of months ago? Before I moved to Kolkata I had written to the Bishop of Raiganj requesting him to increase the salary of teachers to 40 dollars a month (Rupees 1500) and the salary of domestic workers working in the children’s hostels and presbyteries to rupees 1800 (45 dollars). Well, understandably, I got no reply. Long live Mammon!

Adieu

Following is the copy of my letter to all the partners of State Inter Agency Group - West Bengal:

Dear Friends,

Best regards from Puthumai !

This is my last mail as the State Coordinator of the State Inter Agency Group - West Bengal ! The State IAG-WB will have a full time coordinator shortly. Whereas I will be leaving as the Coordinator, I shall continue to support and strengthen the State IAG-WB to the best of my ability from wherever I am.

I am also glad to inform you that in June 2010, I wish to spend the time on setting up a state-wide SMS based geographically sensitive Early Warning System. I hope this will benefit you and the community. The system will be fully functional from 01 July 2010. Anyone can register to receive Early Warning updates. The very idea of this is to give real time geographically sensitive Early Warning (e.g. in case of a possible embankment breach, send alert to people of the area who are under threat, and heads of INGOs/NGOs working in the area only.). You are most welcome to register yourself by sending in a message "START ALERT" from your phone to 09547997119. Kindly encourage your staff and community members to register to this. I would like to keep this as an absolutely free service to reach to the last person in the village. Your suggestions are most welcome. I will be available for your contacts on my personal E-mail address: raigunj@gmail.com. The information collected for generating these alerts will be, from the subscribers to this system, community, IMD, Government and other relevant websites and media.

Coming to this departure of mine, I remember the circumstances which brought me to Kolkata and to take this challenging task. I remember with sorrow the hundreds and thousands of people who bore the brunt of Cyclone Aila. I sincerely thank Fr. I.P.Sarto, then Director of ABCD, the Convener organization of the State IAG-WB and Ms. Parnasri Roy Chowdhury for placing their confidence in me, and calling me in to shoulder this responsibility. Their guidance and support throughout the year will never be forgotten. I thank Fr. Reginald Fernandes, who as Director of Seva Kendra and later as State IAG-WB Convener since September, arranged my stay for the entire year, and guided me with enormous freedom to work and succeed.

I must thank the Honorable Joint Secretary, Disaster Management Department, Govt. of West Bengal, Sri Debabrata Pal, IAS, who has helped me with guidance and suggestions at various occasions. I thank the officials of the Disaster Management Department, and specially Mr. Himadri Maitra with whom I worked very closely. I also thank Mr. Subhasish Debnath of UNDP who has been my heart and voice with the government, and has always chipped in with such useful information that helped me achieve beyond my capabilities.

I must thank Ms. Lori Calvo, Mr. S.N. Dave, Mr. Nasir Ateeq, and Ms. Moumita Dastidar of UNICEF. It is they who helped me strengthen my technical skills, and with financial support and guidance at every step. Thanks to the entire UNICEF family of Unicef Kolkata Field Office.

I thank all the partners across the State. If at all I have achieved anything, it is because of you. All that I am, all that I am capable of, and all that I have come to be is because of your constant support, love, assistance and guidance. It would certainly be unfair if I miss any of your names in listing. But, I think, I must list at least persons who have made a great impression in the past 12 months: Anurag, Shubhro and Soma of WWF, Campoo and Logun of World Vision, Banku B Sarkar, Bhaswar, and Bipul of Oxfam, Nirmal of Rama Krishna Mission, M.A.Wohab of SHIS, Dr. Aniruddha Dey and Sutapa Ghosh of PRISM, Sanjay Rozario, Pallab and Bapi of Caritas India, Subhrokhali, Dr. Garai and Dr. Vijayakumar of Lutheran World Service, Taraknath of CARE India, Kasturi, Rama and Rajshree of CRS, Praful Rao of Save the Hills, Prof. Chandan Majumdar and Niladri of Jadavpur University, Ms. Gargi Mitra of CII, Fr. Soosaiappan of Palli Unnayan Samity, Dr. Subhomoy Pal and Arup of CINI, Chittaranjan Mondal and Surajit Neogi of Action Aid, Raja, Noel, Soumick, Lucas Gomes and Shubhra of ABCD, Ajanta Dey of NEWS, Ajitha Menon of ANI and Amitava of PTI, Samsur Alam of BMCDM, Anshuman of DRCSC, Shibani of Indienhilfe, Sebastian and Mamata Sahu of Concern Worldwide, Aloke Ghosh of CASA, Sandeep of Childline Foundation, Niraj of Children International, Vikas, Vikrant and Parimita of Sphere India, Sr. Sabrina Edwards of MWDC, Dr. Prabir Chatterjee (independent consultant), Tanaji Sen and Praveen Kumar of RedR India, Sujay Chowdhury of Goal India, Dr. Ujjwal Kr. Sengupta of IMA, Nazrul Islam of INSS, Shibesh Das of RCHSS, Saradindhu Banerjee of PRIA, Anshuman of Sabuj Sangha, Abinash, Jatin and Manabendranath of Save the Children, Mrs. Bani of SMS, Bidyut Debnath of SPADE, Fr. Valentine Rai of Anuggyalaya, Darjeeling, Raja, Bhaswati and Jayanta Das (all three of them worked as my collegues for a short term), and you, my friend, have made a positive difference in my life.

If ever you need my support in strengthening any of your systems or building the capacity of your staff or partners, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart! Lots of Love and Best Wishes to all of you !

Puthumai A. Nazarene

Frankenstein

It is already four days since the tragic “train murder” took place near Jhargram, a town 140 kilometers west of Kolkata. The Maoists (the anti-government, supposedly pro-poor) extremist groups damaged a railway line, that led to the derailment of a passenger train, While five of its bogies were lying on the tracks next to it, a goods train rammed into it, and the death toll has gone up to 146 so far! Nothing can justify shedding of innocent blood. “Threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

These same groups were promoted over the last two decades by various political parties, in order to threaten their political opponents. Today, the Maoists have grown into a monster! Yes, they cannot be called Maoists, just Monsters. They have killed over 1,000 security personnel in the last three years, and a few thousand civilians through bombings, murder and kidnaps. The home minister of the country has asked the defence ministry to support him with drones to track the movement of the Naxals in the secluded dark jungles of the region, and the defence ministry says, it cannot share its resources because it cannot be seen to be waging war against its own citizens!

My dear Defence Minister, we are talking of citizen’s right to life, and not the right of murderers to live.

Law and governments are meant to protect the people of the country, and not to let loose Frankensteins like this. Today, the jungles of at least five states are under the control of the Maoists, and the State (provincial) governments are finding it difficult to control their power. The anomaly of governance has led to blame games, and no one wants to take responsibility in the States. They are growing into a group like the LTTE that ruled parts of Sri Lanka until a year ago. Interestingly, most states haven’t even declared these groups as unlawful! I am afraid it will take an assassination of one of the top leaders of the country, for the governments to wake up and ban these institutions that work for hatred-building across the country.

We need the rule of law to be enforced strictly, immediately.