PRIA: From villagers to involving the middle class

PROFILE: Rajesh Tandon

The non-governmental organisation, Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), turned 25 this year. For its mentor Rajesh Tandon, his journey over the last 35 years from an IIT Kanpur student to his position today as a guru of the NGO sector and a co-author of the nascent NGO policy, has been a long one.

Tandon the young electronics engineer was clueless about what he would do with his degree even though he went through the motions of completing a degree from IIM Calcutta.

"All I knew was that I wanted to do something related to social and organisational change," he says.

He got a PhD in the US from Western Reserve University in organisational change. On returning, he joined the National Labour Institute (NLI) in Delhi looking for some rural field work for his PhD.

He got his break when Mohan Singh Mehta, the Udaipur-based founder of Seva Mandir, asked him to come over.

He went to Kherwada block there and zipped off with the project officer on a motorcycle into the interiors. There he stayed for a year.

"Seva Mandir had formed groups of rural tribal youths but did not know what to do further. I helped them to organise, strategise, and to move into action, and here my IIM degree came in handy," says Tandon.

That was his first attempt at organisation and since then, he has done nothing but that. Forming organisations with ordinary villagers and then networking them into a family of organisations which can unitedly make themselves heard.

Sahbhagi Sikshan Kendra in Lucknow, Waghad Majdoor Kisan Sanghatan in Udaipur, Akhil Bharatiya Samaj Seva Sansthan in Chitrakoot and many others in 12 states are co-travellers with PRIA. Between them is a network of hundreds of small grassroot-level organisations.

PRIA got registered in 1982, drawing its name from the title of a newsletter Tandon used to bring out while in NLI. "It was an accident. The newsletter was about participation of the community in development. Contributors from Asia, Africa and different parts of the world requested me to retain the name of the newsletter for my organisation,'' he says.

Today when PRIA is turning 25, it is the key mouthpiece for issues on panchayats, as well as on the rights and duties of NGOs, with Tandon not only being the founder of a network of 2,200 NGOs, VANI, in India, but also a founder member of the international NGO body CIVICUS.

In PRIA's journey Tandon sees a reflection of the road travelled by the NGO sector itself in India . In 1986, the government proposed to regulate NGOs with a Bill. Tandon organised NGOs, which came together for the first time and the Bill was withdrawn.

The second milestone for PRIA and the NGO sector was the establishment of links outside India in the early 90s. Earlier, all foreign links invited inquiries from the IB, whereas now international networking is common place, says Tandon.

Meanwhile PRIA is in the middle of another struggle for the rights of NGOs as it opposes the new FCRA Bill to regulate NGO funds.

The journey has been long but PRIA is raring to go. Tandon has chalked out a plan. "We want to work with the private sector and the middle class, which has been shying away from participation," he says.

For more, visit www.pria.org