Mr Foreign Hand: Kailash Satyarthi now gets bashed for Nobel Peace Prize

The virtual ink had barely dried on our Kailash Satyarthi Google searches when the naysayers started raining on his parade. Narendra Modi himself met with Satyarthi, said the entire nation was proud of his “momentous achievement” and posted a picture of the two of them hugging on Twitter. But others were less gracious. [caption id=“attachment_1756551” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi. Reuters[/caption] Madhu Kishwar led the charge on Twitter with a series of tweets questioning Satyarthi’s credentials.

Satyarthi’s campaign 4Rugmark label led to global boycott of Indian carpets-hence supported by western trade unions & other vested interests. Swami Agnivesh wd have colorful stories to share abt Satyarthi- who left Bandhua Mukti Morcha coz of charges of property& financial bungling. Satyarthi collected 2 million dollars for his March against child labor 12 years ago. Incredible funding from German & American founadations. Wd be interesting to do audit of Satyarthi’s organization-how much money received, how many children actually rehabilitated, at what level.

Yes, of course, it is journalistically completely proper to do an audit of an NGO to see if they walk their talk. Mother Teresa was excoriated for being quite agnostic about where her donations came from. She was happy to take money (and honours) from dictators and tyrants like Jean Claude Duvalier and fraudsters like Charles Keating. Somaly Mam who became an international celebrity for her work saving hundreds of women from trafficking in Cambodia recently became the subject of a Newsweek cover story which alleged that many of her claims were exaggerated or could not be substantiated. It asked the question “Somaly Mam saved countless girls in Cambodia. Does it matter that key parts of her story aren’t true?” If someone suspects Kailesh Satyarthi of the same they need to prove that by arguments and data not by knee-jerk mudslinging just because he was feted by the West. Accusation 1: It’s the Foreign Hand Even as the government wants to open up all kinds of sectors, including defence, to foreign funding, somehow the NGOs must remain shuddh desi. In other sectors foreign investment is welcomed with open arms as FDI, but in the NGO sector it is regarded with great suspicion as the “foreign hand”. If Satyarthi was able to collect a lot of money for his March Against Child Labour it prima facie proves nothing other than that he is a successful founder of an organization doing what leaders of NGOs are tasked to do – raise the funds for their mission. If an accuser can prove that the money was never used for work and just funded jet-setting holidays or producing glossy pamphlets, that is a different matter altogether. Those accusations brought about the downfall of Greg Mortensen of Three Cups of Tea fame. That Satyarthi won a slew of foreign awards like the Wallenberg Medal and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award and yet was largely unknown to Indians perhaps says more about our media than it does about him. We have no problems going for treatment to fancy hospitals bearing the surnames of great industrial families without a second thought about whether our treatment is being funded by ill-gotten gains. But it seems NGOs have to bear the burden of not only doing social activism but to issue character certificates for the virtues of every rupee they acquire.Transparency about funding is important but to just take evidence of foreign funds as automatic evidence of shoddy morals is tarring with a very broad brush. Accusation 2: It’s undeserving and futile Some critics say the award is undeserving because rescuing children from factories does not make a dent in the poverty that forces them into child labour. In effect they argue poverty creates child labour. Satyarthi counters that child labour creates poverty by depriving children of education. Both sides hopefully agree that child labour is pernicious and if the award at least forces us to grapple with the issue head on, instead of arguing in circles, it’s well worth it. The other argument tossed out is that there are other more deserving organizations, including ones that do not receive foreign funds. Of course there are. There are other young women in Pakistan who are fighting the same fight Malala is fighting but outside the international spotlight. In every endeavour some people capture the global imagination. Foreign funding does help getting the word out further and foreign awards build on themselves. The Nobel has jolted us into a belated awareness of Satyarthi. But if we only remain focused on Satyarthi the person and not his larger cause, that’s our failing not his. Accusation 3: It’s poverty performance tamasha The accusation is Satyarthi exaggerates the problem for foreign funds and publicity. The main “proof” cited by all the nay-sayers and doubt-casters is one short blog post by Megha Bahree on Forbes.com about her experience with Bachpan Bachao Andolan while reporting on use of child labour in 2008. She writes that the BBA representative told her that in the carpet belt of UP “each house, each village is filled with children making carpets for export.” But when she tried to find proof of that, that was harder to find. Eventually she was shown two boys of six or so but when asked to show their weaving skills they couldn’t really demonstrate anything. So perhaps BBA can be accused of hyperbole and exaggeration. Every NGO whether working on child trafficking or HIV or the elderly destitute wants to present their issue as the nation’s critical problem. If hyperbole was a criminal offence most NGOs ( and politicians for that matter) should be behind bars. Those who flourish Bahree’s post to say “gotcha” as indisputable proof this is all about attracting more money from foreign donors however do not mention that she also says “child labour is a serious problem in India” and it is “alive and kicking” in the carpet industry as she found while traveling on her own in places like Mirzapur. Admittedly the Nobel organization’s announcement of the Prize was rather cringeworthy.

“What we are saying is that we have awarded two people with the same cause, coming from India and Pakistan, a Muslim and a Hindu. It is in itself a strong signal.”

It makes what Indrani Bagchi points out in The Times of India is a “thinly veiled political statement” through “two non-political entities”. But the overreach of the committee’s statement drafters is not the doing of either recipient. There is a case to be made as to whether the Nobel Peace Prize has long lost sight of its own mission of awarding a person who has done the “best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses” as this piece in The Diplomat argues. While child labour is worthy issue does it check off any of those Nobel Peace Prize boxes? One could also argue that the teenaged Malala Yousafzai is a symbol of the West’s selective hypocrisy and selective memory. Murtaza Hussain writes on Al Jazeera Malala is feted because she is a victim of the Taliban and can be used by supporters of the war as “ symbol of the purported decency of their cause, the type of little girl on behalf of whom the United States and its allies can say they have been unleashing such incredible bloodshed.” Nabila Rehman who also came to Washington DC to offer testimony about the Predator drone that killed her grandmother got no such hero’s welcome. Barack Obama, writes Hussain, was meeting the CEO of weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin while the Rehmans gave testimony which only five out of 430 Congress representatives bothered to attend. But none of that should take away from the inspiring symbolism of Malala Yousafzai’s gutsy fight or the decades of hard work put in Kailash Satyarthi. They might be “flawed” heroes but that does not mean the work they do is not heroic. They carry the scars of their struggles. And which Nobel Peace Prize winner was flawless anyway?