Social Capital Restoration

In the 1980s it had become evident that bona fide requirements of communities in rural areas cannot be entirely met from natural forests and Social Forestry Projects were started in most states to create village woodlots with communities as partners in forest management.

As Divisional Forest Officer, Dhenkanal, I went from village to village explaining the new paradigm shift in forest management and solicit cooperation of villagers. We organized meetings in villages to drive home the point that we actually wanted them to be our partners. On one occasion a middle-aged man, after the meeting commented with a sarcastic smile, “Indeed a nice theatrical presentation!” I wanted to know why he felt that the whole exercise was a drama. He said, “Sir, for us Forest Guard (FG) is the final authority in case any of us is apprehended committing an offence in forests. The Sarpanch, who was sitting next to you in the meeting, aspires to be a watcher under the FG. We know the Forester is a bigger official and Ranger is an enigma. You must be a big shot; the Ranger, the Forester and the FG are scared to come in front of you even. What you told us was very nice to the ears, but we know once you leave, we will be at the mercy the FG.”

I wanted to go deeper and understand the dynamics at village level. After initial hesitation he opened up and made some candid statements; a good lesson for me on community resource management. “Sir, we villagers have been depending on the adjoining forests since ages. We go to forests regularly to collect fuelwood, fodder, small timber and medicinal plants. There are unwritten rules for collecting these items. Earlier the forests were under control of the king, it is now under the government and we know these are legally out of bounds for us. But, we also know that unless we trade forest materials the FG would not bother us. We help him in forestry operations and for extinguishing fire. We know that smugglers enter forests to take away valuable trees, but we don’t indulge in organised smuggling.” He narrated a dynamic sustainable system of harvesting forest produce for personal consumption.

After this interaction, I changed my style of networking with villagers. I endorsed their practice of sustainable harvesting of resources and acknowledged the role of the FG as head of forest governance at the grassroots level. Rather, I focused more on sensitizing FGs to recognize and accept the forest management systems that existed in the field and have stood the test of time.
Communities have their own mechanisms for handling issues at village level. Although they might appear to be divided based on caste, religion, income, etc. still they have robust mechanisms to handle eventualities. That is the Social Capital with the communities, not tangible but profound.

The Super Cyclone that devastated coastal Odisha in October 1999 was perhaps the worst ever natural calamity to have hit the state. When wind speed raged at an estimated 300 km per hour, sea water was gushing into the habitations, without any possibility of help from any quarter, villagers united to maximise synergies and faced the disaster as a group. They utilized their Social Capital, but the impact was so devastating that it got seriously dented. What caused more damage to the Social Capital was not the cyclone, but its aftermath. Several organizations got into the act of relief and restoration, some had their own vested interests, some had their axes to grind, for some it was disaster tourism, for some publicity in electronic media, some wanted to reach out to targeted groups. Those communities which unitedly fought the fury of nature, started bickering for relief materials and that was what shattered the Social Capital.

After the Super Cyclone, the state constituted Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) to put in place a robust system for disaster management. I was among the first persons to join OSDMA. It was a lean and efficient organisation. We had engaged Satya Mishra, a social scientist as consultant to help on soft skills. Satya, a bachelor and a brilliant student from Delhi University, was full of energy and enthusiasm. (Later, Satya joined the World Bank, then renounced the world to become a monk and has now settled down in Rishikesh). He persuaded us to take up a scheme under the Word Bank project for restoration of Social Capital, primarily with the objective of ‘improving community cohesiveness’ thorough group and community-based initiatives. A Social Capital Restoration Project (SCRP) was designed to make use of existing Social Capital and generate more that would strengthen preparedness and catalyse development initiatives.
We referred to Social Capital as (a) societal norms and ties those enhance cooperation, trust and mutual help in communities, (b) issues responsible for successful implementation development activities and (c) factors those play positive role in strengthening community-based emergency response and post-disaster recovery activities. The process of Social Capital restoration centered around strengthening existing vulnerable Community-Based Organizations (CBO) such as women self-help groups, youth and shared-interest organizations including cooperatives of farmers, fisherfolk, milk producers, weavers, artisans and wage labourers so that it could play a key role in disaster preparedness initiatives. The objective was to establish horizontal and vertical linkages with local institutions and local representative bodies. SCRP also focused on capacity building of Panchayati Raj Institutions.

The idea was initially scoffed at by many government servants, who were generally comfortable handling tangible targets. But Satya very strongly persuaded us to take up SCRP which required soft skills enhancement to achieve intangible objectives. We very carefully selected credible NGO partners to implement the project and meticulously prepared mechanisms for continuous evaluation of activities during execution. Although it was a very small component of the overall Cyclone Restoration Project, it gave us a lot of satisfaction. And, I am sure, it has yielded longer term benefits for building the state’s resilience.