NRI Manthan

Our first presentation was this evening in the Bay area in northern California. We spoke about seasonal migration in India and our work with children of migrant families to a group of some 120 people.

Most of them are people of Indian origin who are donors to the American India Foundation which supports our work with the children of seasonal migrant workers and has organized this ’summit’ (’Summit’ makes it sound really important; like we are solving the India-Pakistan conflict or something). Many of them are Silicon Valley types who have sold their dotcoms for unbearable amounts of money and are now venture capitalists who want to put their money into India’s ‘emerging’ markets. Some also own vineyards and make their own wine.

Our brief is to appeal to the heartstrings (so that the purse strings will loosen). We start with a slide show with images from Gujarat and Orissa (I tell them that MK Gandhi is our most famous migrant worker and everyone laughs'it goes off well. It also helps that before the presentation they have been served wine, cheese and crackers, roasted vegetables and some unidentifiable cubes of pink meat).

A question answer session follows and its clear people are moved and want understand the situation' do people have to go to the salt pans and brick kilns? Why can’t you provide alternative employment? How do you convince parents to leave their children behind when they need the child labour? And what is your definition of success? The seasonal hostels for children is very soothing for them; when the partner from Orissa talks about the economic structure which keeps these workers in poverty and debt bondage the audience is clearly uncomfortable. It seems that they cannot take the situations which are emerging along with investment possibilities as they do a manthan of the markets.

These are well meaning people, hearts in the right place. Maybe they realize that it will take more than an IT revolution to change this world they glimpsed this evening.