In April 1999, Dr B V Parameswara Rao, a social enterpreneur from India, visited Madison on the request of Asha-Madison to give a lecture provocatively titled Only a genius can keep India poor. He was in the US to find out if Indians in the US could come together to work towards a better India, and he visited a number of cities in the US as part of this endeavour. Subsequently he helped launched the Rejuvenate India Movement (RIM) which aims to unite all Indians who wish to act on their dreams for a better India.

Left: Dr Parameswara Rao, Right: Dr V N Rao of the Center for South Asia at UW-Madison

The following is a summary of Dr Rao's lecture and our impressions of him, as observed by Asha-Madison volunteer Venkatesh Ganti.

At first sight, Dr. Parameswara Rao clad in khadi strikes either as a dedicated social worker or this intellectual journalist interested in reporting only on social issues. (Journalist P. Sainath tells us that such journalists do not usually have much money to spare because reporting on poverty and the problems people in its grip have to endure is not fashionable in the world of (Indian) journalism). True to his appearance, Dr. Rao is synonymous with his yeoman contributions in uplifting the life of the poor in villages around Yelamanchili (near Vizag) and further influencing several government policies through his services on the respective committees. The spread of his experiences in life is amazing: starting with a PhD in Nuclear Physics at the university of Pennsylvania, he renounced lucrative positions to live amidst the poorest of the poor and catalyze their intellectual and economic development. In the process, he also met and discussed with the decision-makers (PMs, CMs, Governors, and World-bank president to name a few) within the country and abroad, many of us would never even meet. Because of this vast experience and his gentle nature, it was a pleasure to hear Dr. Rao talk about his experiences and his insights about the psychology of the people.

Parameswara Rao left for his native village of Dimili immediately after his PhD to improve the living conditions of the people there. Prior to Parameswara Rao's departure, his advisor told him that the doors at UPenn will be open for a long time (unconditionally for two years, and with a prior notice of 15 days subsequently). What made young Parameswara Rao leave his so-called lucrative comfortable life for the believed-to-be hard life in his village? While doing his PhD at the university of Pennsylvania, Parameswara Rao realized that India does not need his technical expertise as much as his services for the betterment of the poor people. So, he decided to head for his native village of Dimili. Below, we summarize what we learnt from him during his talk and subsequent lively discussions spanning two days.

The title of his talk at Madison was "Only a genius can keep India poor." He believes that the people in villages evolved a self-sustaining environment-friendly village economy. That these economies thrived successfully explained the success of ancient India. However, the destruction of the village economy during the colonial period and subsequently due to massive industrialization has impoverished them. What more, the people have not been involved in the decision-making process even after independence thus depriving them of their political power. The lack of power to influence any decisions pertaining to their own local communities deroded their confidence slowly but surely. When he went back to Dimili, he wanted to feel for himself if the genius of India was still alive and whether the village economy can be revived. He discussed a few projects which he undertook, the success of which proved to him that there is still a lot of hope.

When he returned to Dimili, he realized that the village did not have a school and kids had to walk five miles to go to the nearest school. Needless to say, few parents sent their kids to school and even among the rest, the dropout rate was very high. He talked to the villagers who completely agreed with him that a school was necessary. Moreover, they agreed to donate liberally. However, despite his continuous efforts for six months he managed to collect only a couple of hundred rupees to the school. One fine day, a villager told him that people suspected his motives: that he wanted to contest the Panchayat elections and hence was actively promoting the school project. Some others suspected that he may go back to U.S.A. with their money. Once he knew the reasons he worked to quell their suspicions. Immediately, money started flowing smoothly and the school was complete in a short while.

The lesson that Parameswara Rao learnt from this experience: the confidence and the involvement of the people was necessary, and that he may be a mere catalyst. Feeling the pulse of the people and ensuring their whole-hearted participation is important for the sustained success of any local development project, however small. To ensure the continued success of the shool, all parents are expected to three rupees per month for the upkeep of the teacher. (something more about the result of this procedure.)

After this project, he won the confidence of the people. He came up with new ideas to improve the village and its surroundings. He started a salt-manufacturing plant adjacent to the coast, through which he earned his own livelihood besides providing the same for many other local poor families. Then, he struck another idea: using the children arriving at school as messengers of social change. First, to spread the importance of cleanliness then to improve adult literacy.

The poor daily labourers do not think that it is important to take a bath everyday. Consequently, the kids also didn't need one and are sent to school without a bath. The teacher made the kids feel that it is good to take a bath every day. They ``empowered'' kids demanded and got something as simple as a daily bath. The process did not stop there. They even made the kids want a bath only from the clean hands of a parent; the parents themselves had to have a bath before giving one to their kids. Similarly, the kids in high school were sent as messengers of literacy to improve adult literacy in the surrounding villages.

Not just stopping here, they also improved the waste land around the village by cultivating, planting trees etc. This served two purposes: provided the all-important livelihood for some people as well as prevented further soil erosion. Dr. Parameswara Rao's technical bent of mind must have helped him in bringing new technology to help these projects. For instance, they used drip irrigation for better and more efficient irrigation.

Dr. Parameswara Rao visited a small village Marripalem one of his project visits. At Marripalem he met women who were extremely poor. Somehow, he got them to start saving money, however small (5 to 10 paise per day), and pool them together to form a cooperative. In three years, the cooperative had an amount of three lakhs. The success of the Marripalem women's cooperative led him to believe that the Indian poor does not require financial help but rather requires a little help to pool their own resources and knowledge for their betterment. In their daily struggle for survival, they lack the confidence and courage to start anything new. To support this belief, he recalled a few other experiences. How extremely poor daily labourers saved enough money to send their kids to a school once they realized the importance and confidence in their capability to save enough.

He criticizes the populist government policies to borrow large sums of money from money-lending institutions like the World Bank. Dumping large sums of money in development projects in which the villagers do not participate is useless in the long run. Moreover, borrowing large sums of money places undue burder on later generations.

Somewhere along the way, he wanted to start an umbrella organization to coordinate all these developmental activities. With a little initial financial help from his father, he started the Bhagavathula Charitable Trust (BCT) which he coordinated and developed into a great non-governmental organization. BCT has been initiating and coordinating various projects in almost 40 villages around Dimili.

This web site requires stylesheets! Click here for more information.