Observations & Views:
"It's one war you can't complain against, bloodless and noble and promising to eradicate poverty from India. Among its footsoldiers are some of the world's leading development agencies &emdash; a clutch of them from Germany, the Department for International Development (DFID) from England, and some old players like Oxfam and ActionAid. And their principal weapon is money.
"Even its philosophical underpinning is endearing &emdash; it's the moral responsibility of the rich to help the less fortunate overcome their debilitating poverty. You can't complain, can you? But hold on, there are skeptics who perceive a hidden agenda in this munificence. Claiming that India has belied the global expectations of a thriving, expanding market, they think the war the developed world is waging on poverty is aimed at bolstering the purchasing power of the people and increasing the number of consumers exponentially. And all this, obviously, to have more buyers for foreign brands.
"Says a senior home ministry bureaucrat, 'The poverty elimination drive is complementary to the reforms process, which has not failed to spark off the trickle-down phenomenon. In fact, it has rendered people on the margins jobless. The aim of these development agencies is to encourage self-help among this class and make them economically independent. It's here that international agencies play a crucial role.'
"No quarrelling this as long as people benefit. But in some cases foreign aid comes in with certain preconditions that have little connection with poverty. For choosing partners (state government) in India the DFID strategy paper lists, among other things, the criteria of willingness to make radical shifts in fiscal priorities or having 'interest in partnership with the UK, either because of past links, or because they are actively seeking external help and advice.'
"Pointing out these aspects of foreign funding, the home ministry bureaucrat asks: 'What does this have to do with the war against poverty?' In other words, foreign charity has strings attached.
"A senior functionary of an international funding agency says, 'What these agencies want is that every penny spent towards the elimination or reduction of poverty should ensure them returns in the shortest possible time. This undermines the holistic approach to charity.' He cites the case of a top US development agency that forced the Uttar Pradesh government to spend its foreign aid on a particular community. He recalls, 'I argued with them that in a mixed population area it will be difficult to confine charity to only the poor upper castes. But they wouldn't listen. Their argument: a poor upper caste person is more likely to catch up with his well-to-do brethren and become a 'consumer' than the lower castes.'
"The home ministry's figures of foreign aid allocation to different regions show that charity is no simple affair. Thus, only 9 per cent of foreign aid goes to BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) states, arguably the states crying for anti-poverty programmes. In contrast, nearly 50 per cent of all foreign assistance is allocated to the relatively prosperous states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
"Adds a senior official of FNST, a top German development agency, 'It's not true to say that we are interested in charity work because we want to widen the market for MNCs (multi-national corporations), which fund us. The MNCs are bothered about the top 30 percent of the population, and that's good enough for them. We only work for development purposes.'
"Home ministry officials, however, scoff at this, claiming that no seller can remain satisfied with a static market. Says one, 'For them, the market must grow. With all the reforms and the expanding middle class, we only have 15-crore consumers. Different surveys show that the developed countries want a market of nearly 40 crore in the next few years.' Indeed, the cruelest cut is that the relentless logic of the market determines even poverty elimination programmes &emdash; and this is bound to widen regional disparities, and leave unattended the poorest of the poor."
Footnote:
1) The readers are encouraged to study 'Charity: A Jain Scriptural View' by Dr. Trilok Chandra Jain Shastri, Studies In Jainism: Reader 2, pages 127-131, published by the Jain Study Circle, 1997. - D. C. J. Back up
Greed knows no bounds. Individuals and organizations who indulge in greed go to great lengths in pursuit of money and materials. Even charitable institutions invent clever schemes to collect funds and justify their greed with the excuse of doing good to the less fortunate. Rev. F. Forrest Church in an interview on Bill Moyer's TV Program 'A World Of Ideas' stated:(1) We can do tremendous evil in this world in the name of good - in the name of God. Answering Bill Moyer's question 'When do you know that virtue carried to excess is becoming a time bomb that is about to go off?', Rev. Forrest said, "When you get to a point where you are absolutely sure that you are better than somebody else and, therefore, that the ends justify the means in your behavior. . . . Once we start rationalizing in cutting corners, we better watch out because we may be fooling ourselves and others with the nobility of our goals. . . . . The means themselves not only destroy the integrity of the action but in many ways make the action much more evil."
To promote their ulterior designs, businessmen, politicians and economists give excuses such as effecting progress and creating jobs, although their exploits might lead to more harm than good. They do not care about the overall impact of their actions on the common people and environment, especially of the developing countries. Individuals consider that as long as the law can not apprehend them, their sins will be absolved through prayers and worship, confessions and donations. An article entitled 'W.H.O. says files show tobacco companies fought antismoking efforts' by Barry Meier published in the New York Times of August 2, 2000 presents a glaring example of such practices. The headline of another feature on ABC News of August 2, 2000 was "U.N. study denounces tobacco industry campaign against smoking curbs." Among other things, it was stated, "The World Health Organization accused big tobacco companies of waging a covert campaign to subvert its efforts to reduce smoking, and warned that companies may now try to undermine work on a new global anti-smoking accord. . . . Swiss health official Thomas Zeltner, who headed a WHO expert panel on the issue, said "the evidence shows that tobacco companies have operated for many years with the deliberate purpose of subverting the efforts of WHO to control tobacco." The WHO report accused the companies of influencing or placing consultants at WHO, who did not declare their links. It said they used other U.N. agencies - notably the Food and Agriculture Organization - to acquire information on WHO and tried "well into the 1990s" to persuade delegates from developing countries to resist anti-tobacco resolutions. "The attempted subversion has been elaborate, well financed, sophisticated and usually invisible," Zeltner said. The report said tobacco companies funded "independent" experts to conduct research, appear at conferences and lobby WHO scientists with the intention of distorting, discrediting or influencing studies.
Footnote:
1) Jain Study Circular, January 1989, pages 21-22. Back up