Jothi’s Story

I first met S.R. Jothiramalingam (Jothi) when we visited Tamil Nadu for the Partners’ Forum and to see the Tsunami recovery work. Jothi leads CRUSADE an organisation that he founded in 1991. AVI has been an associate, providing practical support, since its inception. On his recent visit to London we were able to have a long conversation about his work. David Knock writes…

There is a sad irony in the fact that India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have all had female heads of government while at the same time these countries have many, many millions of women living and dying under enormous disadvantage. Consider the ‘missing’ females in the Indian population. In Europe there are 105 female per 100 males: in India there are 93: a better comparison is with sub-Saharan Africa, they have 102. This suggests that over 9 percent of the female population is missing. Nothing illustrates more clearly the low value that India places on its female population.

A generalisation perhaps, as we have seen some women are highly valued, but nonetheless a shocking fact. CRUSADE was established to focus on the very poorest of women who struggle every day for existence. They are Dalits, the caste that was known to the British as ‘untouchables’ and to Gandhi as ‘harijans’ or children of God. These are the people who suffer most in natural disasters, such as the tsunami.

Jothi is the youngest child of a small businessman. When he came of age, Jothi was fortunate that his family could afford to send him to university; his older brothers and sisters were not so lucky. He gained a postgraduate degree in economics. The perfect background for a career in business, we might suppose, but Jothi’s education had made him aware of the iniquity of large disparities in income and wealth. His father’s insistence on maximising profit when he sold his cloth meant that the poorest went without. Jothi had developed a philosophy that went beyond family commitment. The way he sees it, ‘when we are young we are dependent, we receive, but in adulthood we should make a return to the community, to the unfortunates.’

After working in the public and voluntary sectors, in 1991, Jothi decided that a new approach was needed to help the Dalit and other poor women in his local area in Tamil Nadu. His approach relied heavily on self-help, mainly for philosophical reasons but also for very practical reasons: he had very few resources. He saw that poor people can work together to help each other and themselves. That people can become aware that they have the power to change their situation. That progress can be sustained.

Working in his own locality was not comfortable: Dalit live separately outside villages, in so called “colonies”, predominantly in small thatch houses. When it was known that Jothi would sit down with Dalits to eat, he was ostracised by many in his community. A friend who sold him rice refused to continue when he found who it was for.

The first women’s self-help group, established in 1992, is still going strong, functioning independently. CRUSADE now works in 150 village hamlets covering a total population of about 200,000. What do the self-help groups (SHGs) do? A central activity is organising mutual savings schemes which make loans to members. Their success has been recognised by the government policy of linking SHGs to banks to obtain extra credit funds. Major reasons for taking loans are to pay for education, medical expenses, construction of toilets, housing and to establish income generating activities. Supported by CRUSADE, SHGs enable skills training to be provided, for example, in tailoring, embroidery, kalamkari (drawing with vegetable dyes) and dairy farming. As well as building communities through mutual support and demonstrating the potential of women in the community, these activities enable increased income generation and further investment, leading to continuous increases in income.

It is easy to underestimate the achievement in operating a self-sustaining group. These uneducated women, regarded as the lowest of the low, live at the margins of survival. Yet they operate savings and loans schemes, undertake training and run small businesses. These activities include record-keeping, which allows a transparent accountability to their community and to government organisations, banks and NGOs. Their success underlines the waste of human life of those not fortunate enough to have the opportunities provided by CRUSADE and similar organisations. When we visited some of the self help groups in the tsunami-affected area, we saw the pride of their achievements in the women’s eyes. They stood tall with the realisation of the power they now possess. This power is beginning to have an impact politically. In their manifesto, the winning group in the recent state elections included promises for women: recognition that women can be valuable members of society.