Grassroots & Gramkosh

SSVK has been working with the most depressed sections of the rural society for their all
round development and mainstreaming. SSVK has been working to empower the most
downtrodden and marginalised people, especially women, in one of India's poorest states,
Bihar. SSVK's development work aims to build assets, reduce poverty, increase capacity
for new livelihoods, strengthen local democracy and reduce injustice. SSVK, and its
community network Lok Shakti Sangathan (LSS), work intensively with socially and
economically depressed rural communities, particularly the Dalits, in Madhubani,
Saharsa, Darbhanga and Supaul districts. Over the years the organization has
geographically extended its coverage around mobilisation of identical target groups on
right based issues to 14 other districts of Bihar(India).

SSVK’s operational area counts amongst one of the most poverty endemic pockets of
North Bihar. Within this operational context it works with the most depressed
communities with a historical legacy of marginalization which is reflected even in
spatial terms as they reside on the periphery of the settlements in a hamlet at some
distance from the village. Embedded structural inequity (class and caste) in a context of
extreme ecological vulnerability (recurrent floods) has been responsible for their extreme
poverty by limiting their access to, and control over, assets, education, health care and
other constitutionally ordained entitlements. The communities tend to depend on
agricultural wages or casual non-farm jobs for income, as a large percentage are landless,
owning, if any, lower quality livestock. Even such opportunities are rendered scarce by
the recurrent floods and the poor evolution of the secondary and tertiary sectors in the
region forcing men to depend on seasonal migration to bigger cities or other states to
secure their livelihood. Even such opportunities fail to meet their existential needs
forcing them to take recourse to moneylenders who charge usurious rates of interest.
Dominant social forces coupled with the drudgery entailed in meeting survival needs
hardly allow these communities to organise and to resort to development initiatives
collectively. Fatalism is a predominant characteristic of these communities who look
upon their present state as a fate ordained for them by some superior force which in turn
hinders any conscious building of social capital. Thus class and caste characteristics get
strongly associated with lack of opportunities with scheduled castes being thrice as poor
when compared with upper castes. Lack of education, poor health, inadequate access to
safe drinking water and sanitation and poor hygienic conditions get further perpetuated
by these high levels of poverty.

Given the profile of its target group, a core thrust area of the organisation has been its
involvement with grassroots mobilisation, organisation, and facilitating mass activities to
enable the most marginalised sections of society [the dalits (the scheduled castes) in
particular] to access their rights and entitlements. In its perception the way to effective
empowerment is one hinging on and oriented towards evolving autonomous community
based organisations endowed with capabilities required for the actualisation of a spirit of
self-determination and self-reliance. The organisation’s approach received a major thrust
in the direction of activism through its extensive capacity building at the grassroots
geared towards creation of a trained and informed pool of social animators, mostly from
its target community. A significant fall out of this intervention has been the evolution of a
strategic network of community based organisations (CBOs), under the banner of Lok
Shakti Sangathan, a frontal organisation with an avowed aim to facilitate issue based
interventions from time to time and advocate for desired changes in the policy
framework. This network, now intensively spread over 1399 villages of Madhubani,
Saharsa, Supaul and Darbhanga Districts and with a growing presence in 14 other
districts (310 villages) of Bihar, has contributed greatly towards enhancing the self-
esteem and self-worth of these families. Strategies deployed for mobilisation involve
intensive animation inputs at the village level, periodic larger meets on entitlements
related issues and mass contact programmes through `Padyatras”. Protest strategies
involve petitioning, demonstrations, sit ins and legal redressal.

At the core of SSVK’s successful mobilisational initiative has been the strategically
conceived “Gram Kosh” (a fund base at the community level created with contributions
made by the community members themselves). Working with communities on the brink
of survival with only indebtedness to fall back upon, SSVK realized rather early in its
journey that harnessing and holding together the social capital inhering in these
communities was only possible if they could have economic teeth of their own.
Otherwise, the over powering poverty would hurl them back into the insular isolation of
making both ends meet for their respective families. The idea of building their own
reserve of funds through making small savings on a regular basis from whatever little
they earned was mooted. Awareness drives were carried out to convince the target group
members about the utility of this initiative. Special emphasis was laid on the fact that
such a contributory fund would enable them to have their own reserve of funds,
something they could immediately dig into in their moments of crisis without having to
take recourse to the moneylender. As this was their own fund, it was important that they
returned the borrowed amount at a premium so that their fund base could grow.

A small beginning was made from five villages of Lakhnaur Block of Madhubani District
in the early nineties with the community members from these villages agreeing to make a
regular monthly contribution of Rs 5/-. Members who could not make even this small
contribution were given the option of contributing in kind in the form of grain with the
rider that sixty percent of the annual contribution had to be in cash and the balance forty
percent in grain. However, in practice these savings did not come on a monthly basis but
as and when they could make this contribution. Care was taken to ensure that whenever a
member felt capable to make the contribution, he or she cleared all the contribution due
from him. Community members mutually agreed to levy a monthly interest of 2 % on
the borrowers.

The movement for gram kosh gradually picked up as word spread about the benefits it
brought to the communities practicing it. Early instances of perceived benefits had to do
with the kosh coming in handy for meeting health contingencies and food security needs
and for financing the travel of the migrants. As he movement spread and the fund base
deepened, the usage of the fund also diversified. Groups with a sizeable fund base used it
as a fall back mechanism in the struggles they waged for just wages and for pond and
land related rights.
Over the years it became obligatory for the CBOs wanting to come under the banner of
Lok Shakti Sangathan to have a gram kosh of their own. Currently gram kosh is an
essential constituent of the CBOs in all the 1709 villages spread over 18 districts which
have come to be under the banner of Lok Shakti Sangathan. As on date the Lok Shakti
Sangathan (LSS) has a collectively generated internal resource pool of approximately Rs
13’780’150/- (Rupees One Crore thirty seven lakhs eighty thousand one hundred and
fifty only). It has not only reduced the dependence of its target group members on the
local money lenders but also enabled them to sustain many a struggle for their rights. The
contribution of gram kosh has been in no small measure in enabling the LSS members to
successfully struggle for laying claim to 525 acres and 18 kattha of arable and homestead
land and 127 acres and 12 kattha of pond area. Thanks to Gram Kosh the struggle for
laying claim to another 1055 acres and 14 kattha of land and 49 acres and 12 kattha of
pond area continues.