CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF JOCKIN ARPUTHAM (1946 - 2018) With thoughts on Jockin and the things he taught us from: Father Jorge Anzorena - Arjun Appadurai - Mikael Atterhög - Srilatha Batliwala - Evelyn Benekane - Erik Berg - Joel Bolnick - Somsook Boonyabancha - Robert Buckley - Sundar Burra - Gautam Chatterjee - Beth Chitekwe-Biti - Joan Clos - William Cobbett - Celine d’Cruz - Sonia Fadrigo Cadornigara - André Folganes Franco - Arif Hasan - Chris Hoban - Rajiv Jalota - Thomas Kerr - Inês Magalhães - Jack Makau - Jean Pierre Elong M’bassi - Ruth McLeod - Rose Molokoane - Joseph Muturi - Sarah Nandudu - Tim Ndezi - Pär Pärsson - Sheela Patel - Shirish B. Patel - Anacláudia Rossbach - David Satterthwaite - Alex Silva - Lindiwe sdi Sisulu - Rajesh Tandon - Jane Weru 2 Details of publication and publishers Joel Bolnick, Sheela Patel and David Satterthwaite prepared this book and edited it, with the support of Indu Agarwal and of Holly Ashley (who copy- edited it). Acronyms ACHR Asian Coalition for Housing Rights BMC Bombay Municipal Corporation BUILD Bombay Urban Industrial League for Development CCI Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI), Tanzania CLIFF Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility CODI Community Organizations Development Institute, Thailand DAE Department of Atomic Energy, India DFID UK Department for International Development FEDUP South African Federation of the Urban Poor HDFC Housing Development Finance Corporation IAS Indian Administrative Service IIED International Institute for Environment and Development MUTP II Mumbai Urban Transport Project II NDZ No development zone NGO Non-governmental organisation (or, according to Jockin, Not Grassroots Organisation) NSDF National Slum Dwellers Federation OPP Orangi Pilot Project PMGP Prime Minister’s Grant Project RSDF Railway Slum Dwellers Federation SDG Sustainable Development Goals SDI Slum/Shack Dwellers International Sida Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SPARC Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres SRA Slum Rehabilitation Authority SUF UN Habitat’s Slum Upgrading Facility TFUP Tanzania Federation of the Urban Poor UCLG Africa United Cities and Local Governments of Africa UNCHS United Nations Centre for Human Settlements1 UNDP United Nations Development Programme UPDF Urban Poor Development Fund, Phnom Penh UTI Unit Trust of India 1 In January 2002, its name changed to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). 3 1: INTRODUCTION 7 1.1 Introducing this book and how it is structured 7 Joel Bolnick, Sheela Patel, David Satterthwaite 1.2 Jockin’s timeline 17 2: ON JOCKIN 28 2.1 For Baba 28 Joseph Muturi 2.2 Jockin has not left the room 31 Sheela Patel 2.3 How shall I remember you then, Jockin my friend? 38 Sundar Burra 2.4 Conversations with Jockin 40 Arif Hasan 3: THE HISTORY OF A GRASSROOTS ACTIVIST 45 3.1 Developing new approaches for people-centred development 45 Jockin Arputham 3.2 Jockin and the fight to save Janata Colony 71 Shirish B Patel 4 JOCKIN AS OUR TEACHER AND WHAT HE TAUGHT US 79 4.1 How to make the ordinary extraordinary: the practice of community organisation according to Jockin 79 Celine d'Cruz 4.2 Jockin: my mentor 90 Gautam Chatterji with Sheela Patel 4.3 Making change happen: lessons and inspiration from my friend Jockin 95 Somsook Boonyabancha and Thomas Kerr 4.4 You never map fences: lessons in community enumeration 108 Jack Makau 4 4.5 Declassing social change activism and theory: lessons learnt from the guru called Jockin 117 Srilatha Batliwala 4.6 Jockin and the women 123 Pär Pärsson 4.7 Learning from Jockin 126 Arjun Appadurai 4.8 Travelling with and learning from Jockin 131 Rose Molokoane 4.9 Jockin Arputham: channelling scholars and franchising approaches to development 141 Robert Buckley 4.10 Oh… these NGOs 150 Rajesh Tandon 5 WORKING IN INDIA, BUILDING THE ALLIANCE, FORGING LINKS WITH GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES 154 5.1 Early innovations of the Indian Alliance triggered by Jockin, 1986–1996 154 Sheela Patel 5.2 Jockin stories: empowering women, managing resettlement, improving sanitation 161 Chris Hoban 5.3 Learning from Dr Jockin about the water and sanitation needs of slum dwellers 164 Rajiv Jalota 5.4 Jockin, Anami Roy and community policing 167 Sheela Patel 5.5 Arjun Appadurai and the Alliance 169 Sheela Patel 5.6 Memories of Jockin and dancing with financial risk 171 Ruth McLeod 6 JOCKIN, SDI AND SETTING THE GLOBAL AGENDA 177 6.1 Jockin causing trouble in South Africa and laying the ground for SDI 177 Joel Bolnick 5 6.2 Jockin, ACHR and the people’s process in Asia 184 Somsook Boonyabancha and Thomas Kerr 6.3 SDI’s godfather – Father Jorge Anzorena 190 Sheela Patel 6.4 Talk with government, not fight with them 193 Lindiwe Sisulu 6.5 Jockin: community developer, communicator and common man 193 Erik Berg 6.6 Jockin and small stories 196 David Satterthwaite 6.7 Working with Jockin to support poor but proud shack dwellers 204 Mikael Atterhög 6.8 The global campaign for secure tenure 206 William Cobbett 6.9 Remembering Jockin 211 Joan Clos 6.10 Slum dwellers and dignity 213 Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi 7 SDI ADVENTURES IN BRAZIL, SOUTH AFRICA, TANZANIA, KENYA, UGANDA, ZIMBABWE AND THE PHILIPPINES 218 7.1 Jockin bringing SDI’s experiences to Brazil 218 Alex Silva, André Folganes Franco, Anacláudia Rossbach, Inês Magalhães 7.2 Jockin in the Eastern Cape 225 Evelyn Benekane 7.3 Jockin’s legacy: challenging professional perceptions on how to address the urban poor 228 Tim Ndizi 7.4 Muungano’s beloved friend and mentor 230 Jane Weru 7.5 The impact of Jockin lives on 237 Sarah Nandudu 6 7.6 Savings and empowerment: Jockin’s support for the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation 240 Beth Chitkewe-Biti 7.7 Jockin and his work with the Homeless People’s Federation Philippines 244 Sonia Fadrigo Cadornigara 8 THE CONTRIBUTORS 249 Box 1. Key institutions 9 Box 2. Tools and methods used by the federations 10 Box 3. What Jockin brought for us: comments by Mahila Milan leaders 12 7 1.1 Introducing this book and how it is structured Joel Bolnick, Sheela Patel and David Satterthwaite Jockin Arputham died on 13 October 2018. A slum leader who redefined the role of slum/shack dwellers first in Mumbai, then in India and then globally. Founder of the first National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and one of the founders of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI). For more than 50 years, Jockin had sought to ensure that the residents of slums/informal settlements and their organisations were at the centre of designing and implementing solutions. In 2014, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside SDI. But Jockin has not left the room… because his incredible gift to us, the federation approach, lives on.2 His vision of giving voice and a seat at the development table to all the urban poor needs to continue guiding us all. This approach supports community-managed savings groups all over a city, formed and managed mostly by women to address immediate needs. These savings groups create federations to learn from each other, support each other and help develop responses to larger city issues – with national federations, and with SDI at a global level, supporting and learning from all the savings group-led initiatives. It has been able to support many federations working at scale, sometimes alone but in most cases in hard- fought partnerships with local governments. There are also all the strategies, tools and methods Jockin developed with women and their communities, around issues that mattered most to them. They are increasingly available to all, so that now they are being used in hundreds of cities in over 30 nations. This approach, pioneered by Jockin, has begun to transform the way that the governments in many of these cities view ‘slum’/shack dwellers. It has also transformed slum/shack dwellers, who 2 For more details on the federation approach, see Sheela Patel’s contribution in Part 1: Jockin has not left the room. 8 have become organised and ready to struggle for and then to work in partnership with local government agencies on a growing range and scale of different initiatives. This book brings together memories of Jockin from a large and diverse range of people. We encouraged contributors to include stories of working with him and reflections on what he taught them (and he did teach all of us). But the contributions do more than this – they contribute to a deeper and more detailed documentation of Jockin and the slum/shack dweller federations. They fill some spaces in our understanding of Jockin and the momentous social and political changes he drove and inspired. How do we respond to this legacy? By living and working with his principles and strategies that are described in contributions by Sheela Patel and Celine d’Cruz. Can we prepare regular reports to Jockin on progress within the federations as Joseph Muturi’s contribution does? And keep him in our rooms? As Somsook Boonyabancha notes, ‘Even now, after he has died, when I have some really difficult thinking, or see something happening that disturbs me, I think about him, and carry on those conversations with him in my mind. In this way, I still talk to him, still get inspired by him.’ The book’s structure For the reader that does not know much about Jockin and SDI, it may be difficult to make sense of all the stories the contributors tell. To help guide the reader, we have included a timeline, showing Jockin’s work over 50 years and Jockin’s own description of his early life.3 Box 1 has short descriptions of the key institutions that figure in most of the contributions. Also, throughout the book, there are references to tools and approaches that Jockin developed that are used by all the federations.