Can There be a Better
Tomorrow?
The other day I visited an
organization called Better Tomorrow Welfare Organization. It was started by Mrs
Yasmeen Farouqi in 1994 as a welfare organization to teach poor children around
Chaklala, Rawalpindi area. The founder told me that her family had funded the
three schools she had initially set up. Later, in March 1998, it was registered
under the Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies Ordinance 1961. An industrial home
too was added and it now employs 10 regular workers and produces clothes which
sell well. While the industrial home is a business venture the schools still
operate as charitable institutions.
There are now a nursery and a primary school in Dhok
Chaudhrian, a place near Chaklala Scheme-3, which have 150 children each. Then
there is a new primary school in the same area with 240 students. There is a
fourth primary school in Dhok Kashmirian with 100 students too. The new school
started in April 2001 and it has been aided by the Trust for Voluntary
Organizations (TVO). The standard of this school is better as far as the
equipment is concerned but here too the Better Tomorrow Organization incurred
most of the costs.
The schools are Urdu medium schools and the children do pay
a tuition fees ranging between Rs. 23 to Rs. 50 per month. The uniform is given
to them on concessional rates. The teachers make between Rs. 600 to Rs. 800 per
month. In one of the schools I visited the headmistress’s salary was Rs. 1500
per month. In the school aided by the TVO, however, the pay of the teachers
ranges between Rs. 800 to Rs. 3000 per month. In this school, which is on top
of a hill, the view is superb and there is a nice playground. However, the
approach is through narrow and unpaved lanes.
The schools provide a service which the government is
supposed to but does not. They are not entirely free but they are quite cheap
and parents are keen to get their children educated in them. The teachers,
however, are lower paid than teachers in government schools but then there are
hardly any government schools in the area to employ them. In any case many of
them might not even qualify to be employed in a government school though one
knows how poor the standards of the latter tend to be.
The Better Tomorrow Welfare Organization has some very
dedicated and sincere workers who are doing whatever they can to help the poor.
The question is not whether this is enough? The question is can any welfare
organization actually bring about a real change? Can ‘better tomorrow’ be created
by welfare agencies? This is a crucial question and one I intend to address in
this article.
The philosophy of charity is radically opposed to the
philosophy of social justice through peaceful change. Charity accepts the
prevalent system of the distribution of wealth and power. As the system
produces casualties---the poor, the powerless, the distressed---it gives them
some relief. The relief is not given as a right but as a favour. This helps to
ease the conscience of the rich who feel that they are very nice people who
have done something for the poor. There is no denying the fact that those rich
people who start these schemes are either sensitive and concerned people or
egocentric and power hungry people. Even if they are sensitive and genuinely humane
(i.e saints) they still accept the system as it is and merely try to cater to
its cruelty. They are not revolutionaries and, therefore, are often opposed to
any radical changes in it. That is why the rich do not oppose them. After all
saints do not say that the system is wrong. They do not threaten the rich. They
are merely do-gooders who help the poor making both the poor and the rich feel
happy but not changing the system at all. As for the poor, they too have
internalized the values of the prevalent system. Thus they too feel grateful
for the charity they get. They too feel that poverty is their luck (kismet)
and that there are saintly people who help the poor anyway. This makes them
reconcile to the system and not to oppose it. Thus charity helps to perpetuate
injustice and inequality; it legitimizes that degree of poverty which makes
some people capable of giving charity and others of receiving it.
Moreover, the new wave of charitable organizations and NGOs
have given the state the opportunity to apscond from the social sector. The
state actively promotes the NGO philosophy that communities should help
themselves. The NGOs will provide them with initial funds and skills but
basically they must pay for the services they want. This eventually means that
the state will save money on opening new schools, providing free medicine,
clean drinking water, housing and so on. The private sector will take over and
only a very small fraction of it will be philanthropic. The rest of it will
simply fleece the people as it is already doing.
Does this mean we should not approve of charity? No. We
must appreciate the fact that some people have a humane conscience. That,
because they feel the pain of others, they put in money and efforts to help the
poor. If done genuinely to help the poor it shows the kind of conscience which
makes us quintessentially human. If done for enhancing one’s power or securing
glory, even then it is a good thing to do. Whatever ones motives, it does help
the poor in the short run. Not having the impulse to give charity; not trying
to help at all; shows a calloussness of the heart which one can and should
disapprove of. However, while praising philanthropists and welfare
organizations as short-term measures. One must make them aware that they are
not the answer to poverty. One must not allow the society to become complacent
in the knowledge that Abdul Sattar Edhi’s ambulances will pick up the sick and
the wounded. No! One must keep striving to change the system so that a welfare
state is created. This means putting pressure on the state to create a wage
structure which abolishes poverty. Moreover, it means creating a taxation
system which abolishes excessive wealth. And, above all, it means providing a
system of services which are available to everyone in the whole country free
and as a right---not as charity!
I end by suggesting that while we should help welfare
organizations like Better Tommorrow today we must do so in the knowledge that
they will never create a ‘better tomorrow’. They can only create a slightly
better today for a very very few people they cannot change the unjust system
which creates a bad today and a bad tomorrow for most of our society. A better
tomorrow will be created when wealth and power are equitably distributed i.e when
we have a welfare state as in Sweden.