The microfinance phenomenon has now
caught the imagination of both academicians and policy makers all over the
world with its much touted success in the amelioration of poverty in Bangladesh
under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammed Yunus. Thus India has
also witnessed rapid expansion of the microfinance institutions in the various
parts of the country including the
microfinance component of the “Kudumbasree” in Kerala with the purported aim of
achieving inclusive growth. But, the fundamental question is whether kudumbasree-lead
microfinance programme is really inclusive as being often clamored? In my view,
it is exclusive rather than inclusive both conceptually and structurally. Firstly,
conceptually inclusiveness demands secure recognition of the individuality for
rights or privileges of members in the specific context of an entity like
kudumbasree-lead microfinance as it will induce the person’s incentives to
exert more effort in the right direction not indulging in the moral hazards like
deceit or secure recognition of individual property rights in the specific
context of property like land. For example, consider the land reform which is
obviously inclusive as it secures the property rights of the each individual
who got land. If so, where is the recognition of
individuality in the kudumbasree-lead microfinance? Of course, it recognizes
the individuality of rights, but to a very limited extent compared to,
ironically, the stipulation of the collective responsibility of individuals. In
other words, the overwhelming collective responsibility of the individuals in
the kudumbasree-lead microfinance to avoid moral hazard like non-payment of loan
dwarfs the recognition of individuality for rights as symbolized by the meager
benefit accrued to members through its services leading often to a situation in
which the very system get stagnated under the burden of responsibility without
being able to make progress on account of the meager benefits. Therefore, they
get further excludes and alienated from the system to which they were originally
meant to be included.
Secondly, since the kudumbasree system
is organized as a particular group of people being systematically carved out of
the general public and hence treating them as a separate entity with no formal
link with general public in regard to its functioning, it get excluded from the
general public and therefore, it misses those spillover benefits which it could
have derived had it functioned in a collaborative manner with the general
public. How can you achieve inclusion of a group into another group by
separating the existence and functioning of the former from the latter? Or does
this separation means that this group already possesses required resources to
be included into the mainstream, however, they are denied the leeway to make
use of such resources at their disposal for their upliftment as they are
closely associated to the mainstream and thus, they are separated from the
mainstream to circumvent this difficulty to gain freedom to make use of their
resources for their upliftment? I think this justification will not stand the
logical test as it is amply evident that people who join in the kudumbasree are
marginalized deprived sections of the society who lacks any sort of resources
to a considerable extent. Thus, nobody can contest the simple fact that if you
want to raise a certain group to a higher level on par with another group who
are already at a higher level, then the best strategy is to leave the former
group to be in close proximity with or amidst in the latter so that the former
can gradually pick up momentum in accordance with the momentum that exists in
the latter. This highlights the structural exclusivity of this initiative. The
fundamental question here is that what this inclusion is all about or where are
you trying to include these people? Of course, as I observed earlier, they are
meant to be included into the general mainstream public. If so, the recognition
of individuality of rights must be, at least, on par with the stipulation of
the collective responsibility to avoid moral hazard so that people will be in a
position to sustain their incentives to put extra effort for the development
and expansion of the entity which will improve the growth and pace of
inclusion.
Given this reality, one can doubt then why this initiative
is being structured like this in its current form without addressing its
structural imbalance defeating the very purpose of this initiative? The answer to
this question lies in the brutal politics behind kudumbasree movement in
Kerala. This movement is originally conceived to mobilize people especially
women from the marginalized sections of the society by political establishments
in the state as their hither-to employed means and ways of mobilizing people were
waning rapidly. That is why the kudumasree-lead microfinance initiative so
incoherently designed with the ulterior objective that people should never be
economically empowered for which the recognition of the individuality of
members when it comes to rights were
suppressed so that they will remain to be poor and excluded from the mainstream
forever so that these political predators can stalk them indirectly forever and
at the same time, they should be made
politically active as staunch comrades to sweat and even to die for the party
for which the recognition of their collective responsibility, to avoid moral
hazard in the form of desertion from the party,
must be over-emphasized so that they will always be alert and asleep to ensure that each group
remain intact and remain united to achieve the objective of inclusion under the
guise of the broad umbrella of politics. This readymade provisioning of a net
work of a united group feeds the political aspirations of their bosses without
much sweating. Thus, the kudumbasree movement is a part of a mega conspiracy
hatched to rope in party workers when hither-to used traditional methods of
mobilization was failed.
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