सब कुछ बदल रही है

            Over the last few days, I’ve been reluctant to update because I haven’t been sure of what exactly to say. Neil and I have had to undergo a complete restructuring of our project, and while I think this will be more feasible, I’m disappointed that we’ve had to move so far away from our original idea. My disappointment comes namely from the fact that we have restructured the project so as to render interviewing people who are actually affected by these macroeconomic policies unnecessary…Sorry. That was jargony and incomprehensible. Let me clarify.

            Originally, the intent of our project was to compare and contrast different NGOs' strategies for assisting women to gain property rights, and, from surveys with women, interviews with NGOs about their strategies, etc, and draw conclusions about best practices from this.

The problems we encountered were: 

1.     Our topic was so specific that there was really only one NGO that in Mumbai that we could potentially work with, Majlis, and that NGO was too busy and gets too many other similar requests to be able to engage in this sort of project with us.

2.     Since we weren't able to reach out earlier, it also appears that it will prove very difficult for us to establish enough of a relationship/trust with any other NGOs/community organizations to allow us to conduct interviews with the populations that are affected by these organizations' works.

            Our modified proposal broadens the scope of our research, taking the emphasis away from interviewing the affected populations, and shifts the focus more towards interviewing government officials, NGO representatives, and other community organizations that work on slum rehabilitation issues. Our goal is to note the different works that these bodies work on in a short-term daily basis to assist slum-dwellers, as well as to determine these organizations' long-term visions when it comes to slum rehabilitation. Does this long-term vision tend more towards the notion of "rights-based" property for slum-dwellers (trying to establish credible property/tenancy rights for slum dwellers so they at least have a durable investment in the city), or "reallocation-based" (shifting slum dwellers out of slums and into government-sponsored "better" or "permanent" housing). Our aim is to determine the similarities and differences between the long-term visions of all of these different bodies that work on slum rehabilitation issues. 

            The catalysts that brought about this drastic change were two of our meetings last week. Last Tuesday (the 18^th), we met with Dr. Meena Gopal of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Located just outside the BARC Hospital (Bhaba Atomic Research Center is India’s top secret nuclear testing facility), TISS is a campus filled with Indian students after my own heart. This is a top-notch college for those not looking to study engineering, medicine, or commerce, those automatically lucrative careers. TISS is filled with Indians studying Politics, History, Literature, Economics—in other words, score! Dr. Gopal proved to be a very attentive listener with good suggestions for organizations to reach out to, but she seemed a bit doubtful of our ability to carry through with our original research on such a niche topic.

            The next day, in a last-ditch effort, we traveled to speak to the NGO Majlis, the organization that works in the arena most closely related to our original research design. Majlis law provides legal assistance to women who are trying to gain property rights for themselves. When we approached Majlis, we got a less-than-warm welcome from an office that was obviously overworked and understaffed. The women seemed genuine and hardworking, but as one of their head directors explained, they had to work around the clock as an organization staffed with only 25 employees. This left them with no time to entertain young potential researchers such as ourselves.

            After a lot of soul-searching, we have come up with this new idea. We are excited (and nervous) to see how it goes. Tomorrow, we are making a trip to the Slum Rehabilitation Authority’s office in Bandra, to see if someone will talk to us. As a former researcher in India advised me, “Most of the time, you just gotta show up.”