All put many of the onus of those tendencies on funders, not on the NGOs—large or small—which can be pushed alongside the scale of fakeness and flakiness by particular person funders and the harmful momentum on this sector.
However they had been scathing a few sure set of NGOs which can be tapping these funder-led tendencies to place themselves as self-appointed guardians and guides (SAGs) of India’s social sector.
Not solely are they cornering a disproportionate share of the out there funding for themselves, in addition they affect who else will get how a lot cash.
In some circumstances, they’ve grow to be intermediaries. Funders give them cash and so they in flip determine which NGOs to fund. That is referred to as ‘on-granting.’ Equally if no more damaging is their affect on what’s seen by funders and infrequently additionally the broader public pretty much as good or unhealthy work.
For positive, all SAGs will not be large, nor have all large NGOs grow to be SAGs. Neither is all ‘on-granting’ unhealthy. SAGs are each large and small. Some do on-granting and a few don’t. A few of them work throughout the nation and a few dominate sure areas.
As an alternative of taking names, let’s think about the 5 sorts of fakeness of those NGOs-turned-SAGs, together with these aspiring to SAG-hood.
The primary two sorts of fakeness are deeply inter-related: the fakeness of scale and the fakeness of depth. Typically, that is about projecting the size of your work as massive, or as massive as doable, by metrics and narratives which allow you to side-step the matter of the depth and depth of that work.
There are myriad examples of this. Right here is one. A few of these NGOs will declare that they work in a number of states, whereas all they do is figure with some state-level physique or division to arrange so-called challenge administration items, that are often nothing greater than ‘govt assistant’ assist to senior officers.
“Working in 5 states” tends to convey that they work throughout whole state programs, whereas that’s removed from the reality. And lots of of them could have a glib description of how they’re “catalysing systemic change.”
One other widespread instance is a declare like “we work in 10,000 colleges,” whereas all they’ve accomplished is distributed some books in these 10,000 colleges, and maybe carried out a one-hour on-line seminar on tips on how to use these books.
A few of these SAGs have invented a much more intelligent and convincing method. They may work at depth and with nice depth at a genuinely manageable small scale.
After which, some small component or ‘technique’ of that work will likely be disseminated at a a lot bigger scale. This lets them declare false credit score for a larger-scale operation, typically citing the identical mantra of ‘systemic change.’
All of this can be a play between the depth and depth of labor on one hand, and the size at which the work occurs, finessed by the phrases chosen to challenge this work appropriately. Allow us to notice that fakeness shouldn’t be the identical factor as crookedness.
“We dug 20 open wells,” after they dug 5, is crookedness. “Our programme labored with 200 panchayats to develop open wells,” when all they did was distribute some literature amongst panchayats is fakeness.
The third sort of fakeness summons a phrase typically used with a tinge of unconscious hubris: ‘influence.’ Combining overstatement of scale and depth results in massive claims about results. SAGs often have seemingly good knowledge to again these claims as a result of they’re conversant in what precisely will likely be convincing.
There is no such thing as a approach for funders to validate such claims at any degree of significant element. Real NGOs that give an sincere evaluation of the results of comparable work are pooh-poohed for not being ‘strategic’ or ‘formidable’ or sensible sufficient.
Faking immersion in ground-level actuality and being “of the folks” is the fourth sort of fakeness. For efficient work, the centrality of actually understanding what’s going on on this nation in all its nooks and corners, together with the why and the way of it, is universally acknowledged.
Which is why being within the warmth and dirt and dirt of the nation is a real advantage. SAGs and their leaders, although, have made a superb artwork of conveying that they’re immersed deeply in ‘actual India,’ whereas really spending most of their time and vitality in networking with funders and bigwigs at convention circuits and within the corridors of energy.
Their language and apparel are rigorously constructed to orchestrate perceptions. Lots of them have a collection of gripping anecdotes from the bottom for funders, who’re all too able to imagine them.
The fifth sort of fakeness is that of function and dedication. Most of those SAGs began with good intentions, often with actual dedication and real function.
However over time, within the actuality of their actions, each their function and dedication have grow to be considerably pretend, substituted by a starvation for visibility and energy. Lots of them are unaware of this corrosion on the core, very like the denouement of tragedies within the Mahabharata.
I’ve little hope that these SAGs can reform themselves to grow to be easy good NGOs. There’s a symbiotic relationship between the almost-wilful gullibility of NGO funders and the obliging fakeness of SAGs.
Funders have to step out of it and never maintain sliding down this slope tethered to SAGs. All different NGOs, those that haven’t taken this tragic trajectory, want to protect towards following the pretend and flaky.
