HASTE MAKES WASTE

Non-profits and civil society organisations are increasingly opting for quick-fix solutions to all issues, a tendency that needs to be moderated

- K J JOY

THERE IS a mindset change in our approaches, evident in the past two decades. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s, many of us are now after quick-fix solutions. Initiatives like Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, a Maharashtra government initiative of 2014 that targeted river widening, deepening and straightening to make the state drought-free by 2019; Water Cups, a competition initiated by non-profits in 2016 to incentivise Maharashtra villages to harvest water for drought-proofing the state; and planting trees along the banks to rejuvenate rivers are all examples of such quick-fix solutions. Watershed-based development, which involves management of land and vegetation to conserve the quality and supply of water, is no more fashionable, because it takes seven-eight years to complete, stabilise and show results. Nonprofits known for their good watershed development projects, which would earlier have argued for longer watershed projects, are now queuing up for quick-fix solutions like the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan. This is also aided by access to quick and easy money through the corporate social responsibility (CSR) route for such works.

CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT

In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a culture amongst most non-profits and civil society organisations to engage in more of "critical engagement" or make sense of the various interventions and projects from a political economy perspective (how political forces affect the economy and vice versa). This is slowly getting eroded. We are more into "thin-king like the state" or "thinking like the corporates", especially with substantial money into the sector coming from the corporates under CSR.