Paterno     Monday was a long day in the La Citta campaign office.  The organizing committee was trying to get as many planes in the air as possible, but it was not an easy task.  As a new organization there were the usual tensions of learning what to expect from each other [...]]]>

Picture in La Sicilia

Paterno     Monday was a long day in the La Citta campaign office.  The organizing committee was trying to get as many planes in the air as possible, but it was not an easy task.  As a new organization there were the usual tensions of learning what to expect from each other and missteps in different directions as both program and practice struggled to align.  Having listened hard all day and navigated my way (poorly!) through Italian, I was finally able to contribute a detailed 2-page checklist of tasks that needed to be done and decisions that needed to be made, but at 1030 pm, I punched out and headed for the crash pad, since I was little more than a bystander in the often heated discussion in the cold office.

It was a fun surprise to be greeted at the coffee bar by one of the committee with a copy of the popular La Sicilia, widely read in the southern parts of the island, which showed a picture of several of the committee and me sitting before the La Citta sign.  The article’s headline quoted Rathke as saying, “the people’s voice shall be heard.”  What a hoot!  I tried to read the article myself, and it seemed ok, but we’ll see what the committee thinks soon enough.  New Orleans got some press and one guy was quoted who always calls me the “American” because it is difficult for Italians to pronounce “Wade.”  There is no “w” in Italian.  It took me sometime to remember enough of my high school Latin that “vir” which means man in Latin for example was pronounced as if the “v” were a “w,” but there was no “w.”  My daughter, Dine’, and the Canadians who enjoy calling me “wadee” after the African pronunciations would be having a field day with the new twists on “wade” here in Sicily, but they’ll get no help from me!

Exciting to get an attachment from ACORN India’s Vinod Shetty of an article from the Indian edition of People Magazine naming our Dharavi Rock project a “people’s hero!”  The internet connections are terribly slow, but I could see an excellent picture of Vinod and read enough about our collaboration with Blue Frog to know this was a good one.  Enjoy the article at http://www.acorninternational.org/images/ACORNIndiainPeople/acornindia.pdf  I’m still trying to download it myself and read the rest!

Reading Leon Panetta, the USA CIA director’s accounts of the search for Bin Laden, I found it telling that one of the last steps before presenting [...]]]> New Orleans Like many I’ve read the Osama Bin Laden deathwatch and Seal 6 commando raid stories, word for word, and line by line.  I’ve found it fascinatingly educational.

Reading Leon Panetta, the USA CIA director’s accounts of the search for Bin Laden, I found it telling that one of the last steps before presenting to President Obama for final decision was his statement that when they thought they had the whole piece nailed several months ago they then “red teamed” it with outside experts.  The story in the Times presented this process as turning over all of the documents and analysis to “outside experts” to see if their assessment of the likely of Bin Laden’s presence in the hideout was the same and whether or not they agreed with the plan.

When I read that, I have to admit, I said to myself, “thank goodness!  Man, that’s smart!”  My reaction probably reflects a lack of confidence in the in-bred cultures of the American sky and military apparatus, and in truth, who knows if the “outside experts” weren’t just retreaded, portfolio consultants only one step removed from the CIA and military itself, but the process was right.  Testing internal information and decisions against an outside “reality” check that trumps the bureaucracy and identifies vulnerabilities is an invaluable management technique that may be resented internally, but is essential to good decision making.

The lingo of “red teams” comes from the military of course and field exercises where some soldiers and commanders become the red team in mock maneuvers to test military strategy and tactics.   When a red team “wins,” heads roll and ranks are stripped off the sleeves of the big brass at least in the movies, where we get most of our information these days.

If “red teaming” was an insight, the only chuckle I’ve found reading all of these stories is an article the other day on how it is possible to “hide in plain sight,” which was my son’s immediate insight and is frequently noted in the articles.  Some neighbors and kids in the area of the compound were interviewed by reporters and one told a story about a ball having gotten over the 12 foot high fence, undoubtedly in some rabid cricket match so common in the streets and vacant lots of India and Pakistan.  Trying to retrieve the ball, a guard at the house gave the kids 50 rupees (north of a dollar) to just buy a new ball.  The kids then regularly replayed this scam to raise money, and found it a surefire way to net the difference between 50 rupees and the ball.  In the story it indicated that Bin Laden’s folks always paid.   Such a common scam with such an unusual result in that area of the world, anyone who knew about that would have wondered what was really up in that joint!

Oh, and this guy is soooo dead, but I don’t want to even go there.  He’s been “dead man walking” for a decade.  I can’t believe that’s even news.

Delhi Last year’s stubbed toes in Delhi over India’s first shot at hosting the Commonwealth Games are still in the news in the wake of continued outrage at the national embarrassment caused by the widespread corruption that revealed shoddy construction and desultory preparations.  The headlines were full of charges and counter charges as [...]]]>

Delhi Last year’s stubbed toes in Delhi over India’s first shot at hosting the Commonwealth Games are still in the news in the wake of continued outrage at the national embarrassment caused by the widespread corruption that revealed shoddy construction and desultory preparations.  The headlines were full of charges and counter charges as the special report on accountability has been made public.  For the 45,000 families estimated to have been displaced by the Games, the memories are also still vivid and the experience still a daily grind.  With the ACORN Delhi organizing team, I visited the ITO community across from the now vacant athlete dormitory (waiting for condo sales!).

ACORN India with partners is operating a homeless tent across the highway from the dorms where up to 60 or more are staying nightly, still unable to find replacement housing.  This is one of 84 such homeless tents pitched about Delhi and provided by the Delhi Municipal Corporation.  Looking over the edge of the expressway from the front of the tent I could see recycling sorting going on all around complete with weighing areas and bundling, all crammed next to rows of bicycle rickshaws which are once again the livelihoods of many of these ACORN members.  Looking through a stack of membership applications and ACORN membership cards which also serve as Ids for many of these workers, the occupations were common:  rickshaw puller, domestic workers, hawkers, and waste pickers predominated.

Walking through the neighborhood nearby was a little like walking through a recycling center with walls, much like our work in Dharavi in Mumbai.  Doors were open that revealed ceiling high stacks of paper goods ready for recycling and then bundling.  On the streets young workers hardly in their teens used threadbare tarps to catch papers being pushed off of trucks and then readied for sorting, bailing, and weighing for the brokers.  In India there is no way to separate residence from livelihood for the poor, and every step through these crowed streets with life and work spewing out everywhere, reconfirmed that reality block by block.

Dharmendra Kumar, ACORN International’s Delhi director, explained to me that we had operated the tent here for four months and despite the fact that the DMC had only provided one month’s payment with three still owing for the work, we were trying to get them to agree to maintain the shelter for a full year or more, simply because it was so desperately needed.  I won’t be surprised to see it again in six months when I return, just like the empty Games housing that will still be hoping for sales, and the demands for accountability for the Games that will still in all likelihood be full of more contention than convictions.  The bitter residue of the Commonwealth Games still seems short on lessons learned even as the calendar more quickly turns.

Delhi      The Times of India and the Hindustan Times, among the largest papers in the world, were filled with incredulous and fawning stories on Sunday of a rarity in modern, big business India: a simple protest that ignited real change in the culture of political corruption. Most of [...]]]>

Delhi      The Times of India and the Hindustan Times, among the largest papers in the world, were filled with incredulous and fawning stories on Sunday of a rarity in modern, big business India: a simple protest that ignited real change in the culture of political corruption. Most of the stories centered on Kishan Baburao Hazare, variously described as a 71, 72, or 73 year old Gandhian leader, also known more popularly as Anna (essentially “uncle”) Hazare, whose “fast to the death” to force the drafting of a Lokpal Bill had won a governmental concession to create a joint committee including non-politicians to create a bill with a commitment from Prime Minister Singh to then have it introduced in the coming monsoon session of the Parliament.

This is really very important, so led me quickly translate for non-Indians what this really means and what is fueling the excitement of “Egyptian-style” change dominating the news and the talk of the town.

A Lokpal would be an independent ombudsman with the ability, if the bill is properly drafted and passed, to independently investigate and take action on corruption.

Winning an independent joint commission breaks the death grip that parliamentarians had had over any review or transparency for their own actions. Previous versions had essentially required politicians to write the bill and the same politicians to decide who and what business might ever be referred to a corruption monitor, essentially guaranteeing that such a post would have no power and no business.

Anna Hazare’s fast to the death, an old tactic suddently captured the imagination of the middle classes of India often portrayed correctly as indifferent to corruption and common practitioners of the steady diet of bribes at all levels and all direction that is a discordant note in the narrative of an emerging India. He did not create a movement but he did create a happening which led many sectors of civil society to rally around him and his fast to break the logjam in Delhi around corruption, drawing supporters from Bihar to Bollywood to the old warrior and his fast. The compromise was an advisory ruling, similar to what we would call an Attorney General’s opinion in the USA, which said that though it was unprecedented, there was no legal reason an independent body could not be appointed to draft the Lokpal Bill. The Prime Minister, seen to be personally honest, but teetering with the Congress Party around huge and embarrassing scandals with the mess of the Commonwealth Games fiasco last fall and the more recent billions lost in the piecing out of 2G telephone spectrum, quickly appointed folks from civil society including as co-chairman a legal gadfly in India who had headed the equivalent to the ACLU here and is described by the Times of India as a “William Kunstler” type lawyer, meaning an advocate of highly unpopular causes.

The celebration at the India Gate in Delhi across from the governmental buildings attracted more than 10,000 to witness the end of Hazare’s fast. Similar celebrations were reported throughout India. Is this Hazare’s 15 minutes of national fame or the start of something that could be a game changer in India?

That’s the project now. Perhaps Hazare and his dangerous fast-to-the-death simply caught lightening in a bottle with the right tactic for the right issue at the right time. The real question is whether or not a the protest can lead to more mobilizations and the happening to a genuine movement for reform. The poor are the real victims of corruption in India and if the emerging middle class stops turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the culture of corruption and allies with them, this could be the dawn of great social change in India.

It is almost hard to believe, but it is breathtaking to imagine!

Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance

Microfinance has many positives, but should never be confused or misnamed as a “poverty reduction” strategy.   There is simply no way to reduce poverty through debt.  Microfinance or microcredit or micro-lending or whatever the name has a value for the poor as a way to access minimal credit [...]]]> New Orleans

Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance

Microfinance has many positives, but should never be confused or misnamed as a “poverty reduction” strategy.   There is simply no way to reduce poverty through debt.  Microfinance or microcredit or micro-lending or whatever the name has a value for the poor as a way to access minimal credit to create or improve livelihoods, but such livelihoods, usually in the informal sector are marginal and fraught with the same risks common to all informal work and small business for that matter.  ACORN International’s experience around the world is also very clear that there should never be any confusion about whether or not many of these loans are charitable because in fact they are often simply predatory.

I say all of this to put in some context a confusing article in today’s Times entitled “Microcredit is Imperiled in India by Defaults” by Lydia Polgreen and Vikas Bajaj.  The handwringing in the article painted the problem as a “subprime” crises because 80% of the money being lent in India comes from the state banks and in Andhra Pradesh the article says, “…almost all borrowers have stopped repaying their loans, egged on by politicians who accuse the industry of earning outsize profits on the backs of the poor.”

Indian politicians have deservedly earned a lot of skepticism and abuse for their probity and fairness, but in this case there’s a lot more to the story, and the politicians are right about this, as even some of the industry officials partially concede.

Here’s the real story in India in a nutshell.   The microfinance industry is no longer your older brother’s microfinance industry of even a decade ago with small non-profits and NGO’s and do-gooders.

Fueled by private bank money, many private finance operations have swooped into this lucrative market for lending to poor families and poor workers.  Microfinance is a major player in South Asia in India and Bangladesh particularly.   Andhra Pradesh is leading the accountability parade because the penetration of microfinance in the lending market in that state now accounts for about 12.5% of the loans outstanding.  Karnataka, where Bangalore is located is next with over 9%, Tamil Nadu, where Chennai (Madras) is the largest city has almost 5%, as does West Bengal, home of Kolkata (Calcutta).

This is big, big business and this was never clearer than when SKS Microfinance,  which had operated a double-breasted private and NGO operation in microfinance, when public with an IPO, raised over $300 million USD, and saw its director and boss walk away with $13 millions USD and more.  As you might imagine this has been raging wild, huge news in India, coupled with one SKS misstep after another when shortly after the IPO, the founder kicked out the CEO and in mid-October a borrower committed suicide because of the pressure of the loan in Andhra Pradesh where SKS is a major microfinance player.

Politicians in AP have been calling for a cap on usurious interest rates involved in microfinance.  The state government had earlier asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cap interests, which on defaults scales up to 35%.  The proposal from AP to the RBI has been to cap rates on microfinance at 24%, which is still predatory, but an improvement on the current predatory rates in practice.  The RBI has refused to act as have the courts, claiming it was a state matter, and therefore pushing the ball back to Andhra Pradesh and in the lap of the local politicians, who have no taken up the cause.

It is important to understand that whether the lender is a big time microfinance outfit or an established brand like Citicorp, the pressure felt by the borrower is not simply a matter of sleepless night, but in fact can be broken bones and constant threats from the thugs employed by such banks to collect the debts.  This is frowned on in India, but allowed, and the press is constantly full of stories of injuries, deaths, suicides and mayhem caused by brutal collection techniques.  (Over the years I regularly sent copies of press clippings naming out Citibank from Bangalore for deaths resulting to brutal collection efforts, but there was no real response from New York – this has all been a scandal waiting to happen!)   The politicians of Andhra Pradesh are also calling for regulation of the collection practices, and who would not support their call, which to date has fallen on deaf ears from financial institutions of all sizes.

The Times does quote an industry executive, Vijay Mahajan, who “acknowledged that many lenders grew too fast and lent too aggressively.  Investments by private equity firms and the prospect of a stock market listing drove firms to increase lending as fast as they could,  he said.  ‘In their quest to grow they kept piling on more loans in the same geographies.’  He added, ‘That led to more indebtedness, and in some cases led to suicides.’”

North Americans and Europeans need to be careful about getting all starry eyed and gooey about microfinance.   This is another story of a predatory attack on citizen wealth motivated solely by greed.  Period.

An official of the well regarded SEWA is quoted in the piece as saying, “…the poor needed more than loans to be successful entrepreneurs.  They need business and financial advice as well….”  They need a lot more than that including justice which would provide them with fair and reasonable interest rates rather than the current predatory and usurious rates that dominate the industry not only in India but throughout the world, and they should be able to expect to live safely and out of harm as they attempt to repay these loans that are in some cases literally forced upon them.

The story of microfinance isn’t pretty, but it’s time for all of the truth to come out, and for politicians not only in Andhra Pradesh, but in all countries where such institutions are now playing a role, to demand and require accountability and protection for the poor.

New Orleans President Obama continues to sightsee and glad hand his way across India on his sales trip for US business interests, soft shoeing around the issue of jobs being outsourced to India, even as he argues to the US press that by meeting his sales quota [...]]]>

Indian Protesters burning FDI poster at demonstration

New Orleans President Obama continues to sightsee and glad hand his way across India on his sales trip for US business interests, soft shoeing around the issue of jobs being outsourced to India, even as he argues to the US press that by meeting his sales quota over there, he will create jobs over here.  What’s really up on the subcontinent?  Thanks to ACORN International’s Dharmendra Kumar who directs our Delhi operations and the work of the India FDI Watch Campaign, which has long been one of our signature efforts in India, we have a pretty clear view.

Dharmendraji shared a report filed by Maulik Vyas Maulik in Sunday’s Economic Times on Obama’s remarks to Mumbai business leaders:

President Barack Obama today said India should lift restrictions on foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, saying old concerns that small shopkeepers would be impacted ignore today’s reality.

Mr Obama, while addressing the US India Business Council summit in Mumbai on Saturday, Obama flirted with the issue that raises bogey in India by saying, “Here in India, many see the arrival of American companies and products as threats to small shopkeepers and to India’s ancient and proud culture. But these old stereotypes, these old concerns ignores today’s reality.”

“Going forward, commitment must be matched by steady reduction to barriers in trade and foreign investment from agriculture to infrastructure and from retail to telecommunications,” he said.

Those present including commerce minister Anand Sharma and planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia would have surely taken note of the US President’s hint that opening up the retail industry among others could mean better bilateral trade between the two countries.

A “hint” from POTUS is hardly persuasive and simply saying that restriction on FDI for multi-brand retail “ignores today’s reality” is hardly going to change the debate in India or sway any opinions one way or another in the Parliament.  If this was the boost that business was hoping to get from Obama, they were definitely left holding a big fat hot air bag.

Obama’s speech before Parliament in Delhi on Monday was even more general and obscure on this point.  This is all he said that came within a kilometer of pushing for FDI modifications in his speech:

Together, we can resist the protectionism that stifles growth and innovation.  The United States remains—and will continue to remain—one of the most open economies in the world.  And by opening markets and reducing barriers to foreign investment, India can realize its full economic potential as well.

It’s actually such a delicate carom off the bank that I should probably say that I think that was his pitch, and along with probably less than 20 Americans and probably more than one million Indians, I read every word.

FDI aside, where Obama obviously gave business what President Clinton once called in a conversation with me “a big wet kiss,” he clearly let the press go white hot on this while realizing that the “reality” of the politics in Parliament is still between “no go” and “go slow” on any modification in either multi-brand retail or finance (which was never mentioned anywhere at any time, so Wall Street, back of the bus, chumps!), and handled the politics accordingly both in the US and India.

The speech was actually well received in India and more interesting for other reasons to me at least.

In his Delhi speech Obama actually “represented” in a way that he has been unwilling or unable to in the United States in these polarized times.  The other day I was asked by a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor about how Obama might see India and our issues “as a community organizer.”  I had replied essentially that he was a long way from Kansas now and playing “a different game.”

In his speech rather than recoiling from his past as a community organizer, as he has over the last two years, he embraced it both humbly and eloquently:

Throughout my life, including my work as a young man on behalf of the urban poor, I have always found inspiration in the life of Gandhiji and in his simple and profound lesson to be the change we seek in the world.  And just as he summoned Indians to seek their destiny, he influenced champions of equality in my own country, including a young Martin Luther King [ Images ]. After making his pilgrimage to India a half century ago, Dr. King called Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent resistance “the only logical and moral approach” in the struggle for justice and progress.

So we were honored to visit the residence where Gandhi and King both stayed, Mani Bhavan.  We were humbled to pay our respects at Raj Ghat.  And I am mindful that I might not be standing before you today, as President of the United States, had it not been for Gandhi and the message he shared with America and the world.

Using the expression “urban poor” is a signal to the troops!  His comments on Gandhi and King restored a little, dare I say, hope, in place of my pique the other day when he was quoted widely as saying his visit to Gandhi’s Mumbai house and seeing King’s signature on the guestbook was “cool.”

The end of his speech to Parliament and to the Indian people was Obama at his best.  Importantly he chided the government on not standing up for democratic principles as much as needed, which is important.  On some of his partnership projects, I’m clueless, but the end of the speech is the kind of sentiment, I was hoping for.  I hope the President can put substance to it:

Now, in a new collaboration on open government, our two countries are going to share our experience, identify what works, and develop the next-generation of tools to empower citizens.  And in another example of how American and Indian partnership can address global challenges, we’re going to share these innovations with civil society groups and countries around the world.  We’re going to show that democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for the common man—and woman.

As the world’s two largest democracies, we must also never forget that the price of our own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others.  Indians know this, for it is the story of your nation.  Before he ever began his struggle for Indian independence, Gandhi stood up for the rights of Indians in South Africa [ Images ].  Just as others, including the United States, supported Indian independence, India championed the self-determination of peoples from Africa to Asia as they too broke free from colonialism.  And along with the United States, you’ve been a leader in supporting democratic development and civil society groups around the world.  This, too, is part of India’s greatness.

Every country will follow its own path.  No one nation has a monopoly on wisdom, and no nation should ever try to impose its values on another.  But when peaceful democratic movements are suppressed—as in Burma—then the democracies of the world cannot remain silent.  For it is unacceptable to gun down peaceful protestors and incarcerate political prisoners decade after decade.  It is unacceptable to hold the aspirations of an entire people hostage to the greed and paranoia of a bankrupt regime.  It is unacceptable to steal an election, as the regime in Burma has done again for all the world to see.

Faced with such gross violations of human rights, it is the responsibility of the international community—especially leaders like the United States and India—to condemn it.  If I can be frank, in international fora, India has often avoided these issues.  But speaking up for those who cannot do so for themselves is not interfering in the affairs of other countries.  It’s not violating the rights of sovereign nations.  It’s staying true to our democratic principles.  It’s giving meaning to the human rights that we say are universal.  And it sustains the progress that in Asia and around the world has helped turn dictatorships into democracies and ultimately increased our security in the world.

Promoting shared prosperity.  Preserving peace and security.  Strengthening democratic governance and human rights.  These are the responsibilities of leadership.  And, as global partners, this is the leadership that the United States and India can offer in the 21st century.  Ultimately, however, this cannot be a relationship only between presidents and prime ministers, or in the halls of this parliament.  Ultimately, this must be a partnership between our peoples.  So I want to conclude by speaking directly to the people of India watching today.

In your lives, you have overcome odds that might have overwhelmed a lesser country.  In just decades, you have achieved progress and development that took other nations centuries.  And now you are assuming your rightful place as a leader among nations.  Your parents and grandparents imagined this.  Your children and grandchildren will look back on this.  But only you—this generation of Indians—can seize the possibility of this moment.

As you carry on with the hard work ahead, I want every Indian citizen to know: the United States of America will not simply be cheering you on from the sidelines.  We will be right there with you, shoulder to shoulder.  Because we believe in the promise of India.  And we believe that the future is what we make it.

We believe that no matter who you are or where you come from, every person can fulfill their God-given potential, just as a Dalit like Dr. Ambedkar could lift himself up and pen the words of the Constitution that protects the rights of all Indians.

We believe that no matter where you live—whether a village in Punjab [ Images ] or the bylanes of Chandni Chowk…an old section of Kolkata [ Images ] or a new high-rise in Bangalore—every person deserves the same chance to live in security and dignity, to get an education, to find work, and to give their children a better future.

And we believe that when countries and cultures put aside old habits and attitudes that keep people apart, when we recognize our common humanity, then we can begin to fulfill the aspirations we share.  It’s a simple lesson contained in that collection of stories which has guided Indians for centuries—the Panchtantra.  And it’s the spirit of the inscription seen by all who enter this great hall: ‘That one is mine and the other a stranger is the concept of little minds.  But to the large-hearted, the world itself is their family.”

This is the story of India; it’s the story of America—that despite their differences, people can see themselves in one another, and work together and succeed together as one proud nation.  And it can be the spirit of the partnership between our nations—that even as we honor the histories which in different times kept us apart, even as we preserve what makes us unique in a globalized world, we can recognize how much we can achieve together.

Big finish!  We’ll try to hold him to it at home and abroad!

Vinod Shetty, director of the ACORN Foundation (India) in Mumbai and ACORN’s Dharavi Project and I wrote [...]]]> New Orleans Recently in the wake of his impending new book, Prince Charles of England made headlines throughout the UK and India, by holding up the Dharavi mega-slum in Mumbai as a “model” for sustainable development.  An interesting observation.

Vinod Shetty, director of the ACORN Foundation (India) in Mumbai and ACORN’s Dharavi Project and I wrote an op-ed that is circulating among papers in these countries arguing that the issue is not just “how green our valley” may be, but perhaps more importantly the need to link housing with work, residence with livelihood, which is at the heart of the development questions for Dharavi and other poverty reduction and housing schemes around the world.

Take a look:

The Real Lessons of Dharavi Sustainability

by   Wade Rathke, Chief Organizer of ACORN International and Vinod Shetty, Director of ACORN Foundation (India)

Prince Charles recently stirred up headlines in India and the United Kingdom with his controversial praise for Dharavi, the huge mega-slum in the hear of Mumbai where we work, as a “model” of sustainability for towns and cities in England and the rest of the world.  He was certain that despite his “call for a revolution” in his upcoming book, he would be accused of “naivety” for holding up our slum as a model for much of anything.

Prince Charles in our view – and experience – is actually onto something, perhaps even more profound than he realizes.

ACORN’s Dharavi Project which has organized a union of hundreds of recyclers in Dharavi who use our sorting center to process tons of gathered products and plastics from the surrounding slums, housing colonies, and more than 30 schools and assorted corporations who are our partners is a perfect example of exactly the kind of “green” sustainability project that the Prince trumpets.  Our recyclers, following our four “R” program of “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, and Respect,” have seen their efforts to survive and make a living in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire suddenly less an object of scorn than a source of admiration.  Specials on our work by the National Geographic and news and magazine articles in India and abroad have called us “green heroes,” “green worker,” and “invisible heroes.  It is hard to express how proud we are of the praise, we just wish it paid better.

And, that is perhaps the hidden message of sustainability that the Prince and many others might be missing, especially since the very future and existence of Dharavi is at risk to the billion dollar plans of a queue of developers for what is now our valuable acreage in the center of Mumbai.   Dharavi works because it is not only the home of our recyclers and more than a million others, but especially because this is also where they work.  The heart of sustainability is not simply full utilization of what we produce in a constructive way, but it is also livelihood.  Dharavi works because so many of us are  able to make a productive livelihood where we live.

The lesson lost on so many planners, urbanists, and developers both for the poor and other people, is that the farther livelihood is separated from living, the more unsustainable a community becomes.  The resettlement plans in Delhi that have moved recyclers and others 30 to 40 kilometers from their former slums have forced constant contradictions as recyclers move back to even worse conditions, because they cannot create a livelihood two hours away from their work.  In Bombay the new housing schemes that eradicate slums and  provide 200 meter housing units are bleak places, quickly abandoned by many who need the space to work where they live, and find there is no longer room for the their work where they are forced to reside.

This problem is not unique to Dharavi or India.  The abandoned housing tracts filled with foreclosures outside of Phoenix in the United States or the bleak acres of council housing that the Prince decries do not work partially because they are so removed from employment that they simply fester and rot, stranded by lack of transportation, and stifled by a paucity of opportunity.  The bustle of small industry physically located in Dharvi, is at the heart of why Dharavi is a model for many commmunities.

Sustainability is about living in harmony with the land, but living is not simply a matter of residence as the people of Dharavi prove every day, but a matter of livelihood.  It is past time for planners and politicians to understand that the real lessons embedded in why Dharvi works are found in the balance of home and work.  ACORN has found over and over again in Dharavi and the other countries where we support community organization that the more work, and the better it is paid, then the more people will come and sustain the community.  Separate these things and life in the community shrivels and shrinks.

The Prince has a point here.  We hope he takes it the rest of the way and reminds his audience and the world that Dharavi works because of the work itself, not just because of how green we seem.