From: krishna@iss.nus.sg (...Krishnamoorthy.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: ARTICLE: The Missionary Zeal of an Autocratic Reformer
Keywords: AWARE, Chenchus, Andhra Pradesh, tribals
Date: 9 Sep 92 02:19:33 GMT
Organization: National University of Singapore
Originator: krishna@suliman


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                                 P.K.S.Madhavan
                  The Missionary Zeal of an Autocratic Reformer
                  ---------------------------------------------
The campaigner for social rights believe in helping people to help themselves

                               By Amarnath K.Menon


     (This article excerpted from the India Today, 15 September 1992 issue)


For about a million Harijans and tribals in rural Andhra Pradesh,he is almost
  god  incarnate.  Held  in  awe by the people, his portraits occupy pride of
  place in homes alongside gods from the Hindu pantheon. If Pudhucode Konghot
  Sethu  Madhavan,   the  47-year-old  founder  of  Action  for  Welfare  and
  Awakening  in Rural  Environment  (AWARE),  is  revered  to  the  point  of
  deification, it's not without reason. Thanks to Madhavan's tireless efforts
  millions of helpless tribals have stepped out of the quagmire of poverty to
  stand on their own feet.

Madhavan stumbled into  the  world of development work by accident. Seventeen
  years ago, a social anthropologist  by  training, he visited Andhra Pradesh
  to write a book on the Chenchus, one of the country's most primitive tribes
  . He  never did write it. Instead,  horrified  at  their  appalling  living
  conditions, he started working for the uplift of the tribals. As the chubby
  faced, pot-bellied reformer says: "The Chenchus awakened me."

But the awakening by itself wasn't enough. He needed something more tangible,
  namely money. His mother got him started with a small contribution. After a
  chance meeting with an Australian at Madras airport, Madhavan had his first
  foreign donation  of  Rs  13,500  with  which AWARE put down roots in 1975.
  Since then AWARE has come a long way: today  it  resembles  a multinational
  corporation with an annual budget of Rs6.99 crore - much of it from foreign
  funding agencies - and a staff of 700. Although highly religious,  Madhavan
  studiously avoids taking funds from any agency which uses rural development
  programmes for proselytisation.

The confident,  and some would say pompous, Madhavan is in many ways a bundle
  of paradoxes.  Though his method is based on people's participation, he has
  a streak of the autocrate  in  him.  He  may  delegate  authority,  but the
  ultimate decision is always his and he is intolerant of dissent.  He  seems
  to  revel  in the adulation: "It's the magic of faith in an individual that
  propels people to keep my photograph in their homes."

Yet the bespectacled reformer  is the picture of humility. He draws no salary
  and  lives  an spartan conditions  in  a two-bedroom  house  in  Hyderabad.
  Perhaps as  a hangover of a stint as a sanyasi in the Himalayas in the 70's
  he still sits  on  a  deerskin  attached  to  a chair. "This symbolises the
  absence of all wants," he says. He remains a bachelor,  starts his day with
  meditation, eats just one vegetarian meal and fasts on  Thursdays,  the day
  his mother died.

Alongside the  abstemious  habits  is  a demon which drives him to work tire-
  lessly. His day begins at 4.30 a.m.  and he often puts in 18 hours of work.
  It certainly shows. His baby, AWARE, has moved out of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil
  Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka to Uttar Pradesh  and  Orissa - in a limited way
  though. The Madhavan method is simple and has elements  of  Gandhian  self-
  help. Madhavan often provides the start-up money to help the villagers. 

The commitment has brought him acclaim. He has received awards from FICCI and
  the Indian Merchants  Chamber. The biggest triumph came when the Federation
  of Non-Government Development  Organisations  in Belgium awarded him member
  ship.  Nelson  Mandela  and  Julius  Nyerere  are  the  only  others  to be
  similarly  recognised. Madhavan, however, explains: "But for the collective
  effort of the staff,  I  may not be here today." The biggest testimonial to
  his success is the voice  of  the  tribals. Bakka Naik from Amangal village
  is profoundly grateful: "I couldn't  have  become  a  mandal  president  if
  AWARE hadn't opened my eyes to my rights."

The list of achievements totted up by Madhavan speaks for itself: "Over three
  lakh families  have benefited from AWARE's economic programmes and two lakh
  landless poor have  been  helped  by  its employment generation programmes.
  The  reason  for  such  success  lies  in  Madhavan's  attitude:  he  isn't
  condescending. Participation is the buzzword  for  him.  "Development isn't
  charity," he says. There are some firm ground rules though.  Alcoholics and
  wife - beaters  are  forbidden  from  taking part in his programmes. "Where
  there's alcohol, there's no development,"  says  Madhavan  vehemently.  The
  consciousness - raising exercise has been effective. With the help of AWARE
  initial contribution and  money  pooled  in  by  the villagers, over 67,818
  acres  have  been cultivated  and 8,007 wells dug. Madhavan has also helped
  to  start  the  Chaitanya  Nidhi,  a  fund  of  Rs  1.05  crore  raised  by
  contributions from 37,000 women.

Among AWARE's other  achievements:  planting  three lakh trees, commissioning
  700 biogas plants and building 4,326 houses and 17  shelters in the cyclone
  prone  coastal  areas  of Andhra Pradesh. When 47 children were orphaned by
  the 1977 cyclone, Madhavan  came  up  with  a unique scheme. "I promised to
  feed 800-odd children in 10 villages provided  the 47 were allowed to sleep
  in  some  home,"  he explains.  The  scheme worked. Today the children have
  been adopted even though the feeding programme has been discontinued.
  
His success  makes  it  sound  as though it's been a smooth ride. But when he
  first visited Mahabubnagar district  in the  70's the tribals were hostile.
  With  his  alien  style  of  dressing - trousers  and  a  shirt - many even
  thought he practised witchcraft.

But he wasn't deterred. His informal manner won people over gradually. Though
  a Malayalee,  Madhavan  used  his  smattering  of  Telugu  and  the  tribal
  dialects  to  establish  a rapport with the people. The fact that he didn't
  discriminate socially against  the  Scheduled  Castes also helped. "I drink
  water from the same glass as them."

An organisation of this size, though, inevitably gets dragged into the vortex
  of murky politics.  Trumped  up charges of corruption were made against him
  in the Assembly and some politicians  threatened  to  kill him. He has even
  been  accused  of  being  a  CIA  agent.  Following  such allegations,  the
  Intelligence Bureau kept tabs on him and a team of auditors  scanned AWARE'
  account books. Only to give it a clean chit. Then the Supreme  Court  asked
  Madhavan  to  be its commissioner to inquire into cases of bonded labour in
  Andhra Pradesh.

Madhavan comes  down  heavily  on corruption. When seven of his staffers were
  found guilty of stealing Rs  1,48,000, he  made  sure they were prosecuted.
  "Corruption is like a cancer. I'd kill myself rather than accept it."

For all his  altruism,  Madhavan  remains a loner. The graduate from Victoria
  College  in Kerala, who later got  a  Master's  from  Sagar  University  in
  Madhya Pradesh,  is  driven  only  by  his  idealistic  dreams.  After  the
  mindless  tedium  of  a  job  as  an  evaluation  officer with the Planning
  Commission, "an inner determination to change things  inspired  by the life
  and  teachings  of  Gandhiji  and  Hindu philosophy brought me back to work
  with the people". To date, his only other  interest is reading on religion,
  philosophy  and  development.  His favourite  reading  material: the Vedas,
  the  Upanishads  and  Gandhian   writing,   Biographies   of   people  like
  Vivekananda and S.Radhakrishnan are also "sources of inspiration".

Madhavan may have packed in more in his 47 years than many have in a lifetime.
  But for him the mission  has just begun. With so much still to do, he fears
  he may run out of time. "There's  a  lurking  fear of what will happen when
  I die." In any case, his achievements so far assure  him  a prominent place
  in the reformers' hall of fame.
  
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