BENGALURU: In terms of frontage, 20 Lavelle Road, doesn’t stand out in a street dominated by glass-walled showrooms selling cars. But behind the tinted exterior is a building that’s more than half a century old, the office of an 82-year-old branch of an organization that’s been around for more than a century. 20 Lavelle Road is the office of the Rotary Club of Bangalore.
To non-members, organizations like the Rotary or the Lions Club are groups of people who do things like conduct health camps, organize blood donations, and involve themselves in “worthy” activities, or “community service”. But what exactly does that mean? Is it purely about networking, as some critics allege? What does it mean to be a Rotarian or a Lion? How relevant are they in this NGO age?
Ranga Rao is the current president of the Rotary Club of Bangalore. “It’s only one of the many Rotary Clubs in the city – but it’s the earliest,” he says. Rao is closing on sixty, but has the appearance and energy of someone much younger. He’s been a member of the club since he was 42, and for a decade before that, he was part of the Roundtable, a sister organization where membership is restricted by age. This year, the focus of the Rotary’s activities are around schools. “There are 39 Rotary schools in Karnataka. We identify a government school and look at what it needs – the buildings may be dilapidated, the school may not have toilets – any number of things. We then take it over and build it up– six classrooms, a playing field, a borewell for clean drinking water, and separate toilets for girls and boys, a waste disposal unit and so on. Our current target is called ‘a 100 happy schools’ in rural Karnataka. We’re looking at providing the basic infrastructure, toilet facilities, sports equipment, libraries, uniforms and so on,” he says.
Service in India
“What you’ve got to remember is that the concept of philanthropy is essentially Western. India has had a strong tradition of charity – especially religious charity. You could say that it was the
service clubs
that brought the concept to India,” says
Vijaya Balaji
, board director at Toolbox India, a non-profit that provides consultancy services to NGOs. “And they’ve been doing it for a long time, well before the idea of ‘giving back to the community’ became popular,” she adds. In the Lavelle Road building, TRN Prakash, the club’s soft-spoken manager brings out a stack of old bound volumes. “These are the oldest we have,” he says, a little apologetically. Inside, the pages are yellowed, and covered with neat type-written records, minutes of meetings held more than 60 years ago. There’s one dated 18th June, 1953. Walter Sobol was President, then. There’s a note about attendance, which for that meeting was “60.82%”. One wonders who the minute-taker was, and whether he did long division, the old-fashioned way, to get to that number, complete with two decimal points. There’s also a note that promises a “special programme of GREAT INTEREST TO EVERY ROTARIAN”. The subject of this programme of great interest? “My Job”. There’s an almost painful sense of earnestness about these typewritten minutes, and they wouldn’t seem out of place in a Sinclair Lewis novel, but there’s no denying that over the years, the Rotarians have built a very influential network – so much so that the ability to network is one of the organization’s greatest attractions. “One of the guiding principles of Rotary membership is that it would accept only one person from a given profession. And that person had to be at a certain level of eminence in the profession. The idea was that the club would be strengthened by the diverse areas of expertise different professionals would bring to it,” says
Vedam Jaishankar
, a sportswriter. “Naturally, over time, professions began to be defined more and more flexibly, allowing the clubs to keep growing. The other part of it, a certain level of eminence in a given area, was also vitally important. It meant that members would have both a certain level of financial comfort and the requisite contacts and connections that would help implement the clubs’ chosen projects. “For example, if I want to raise funding for building a school, I can get it done far cheaper because of the kind of contacts that we bring. It’s not that we are required to be where the school is to make our contributions. We are there to facilitate, to get the job done with the greatest efficiency and the best possible cost, and that’s possible because of the power of the people in the network,” says Rao. But given the emphasis on networking, on connecting with the city’s wealthy elite, how does he respond to accusations of snobbery? Rao laughs. “We’re not Bangalore Club. We’re a service club,” he says.
Teach Out: Service clubs have done a great deal for education in rural areas, building and maintaining schools.
Last year, Atul Satija, chief revenue officer (CRO) at mobile ad network InMobi, quit his high-paying job to start The/Nudge Foundation, a non-profit focusing on sustainable poverty alleviation. The foundation’s advisory board reads like a Who’s Who of startup India, featuring names like PayTM’s Vijay Shekar Sharma, Practo’s Manish Dugar and InMobi’s Naveen Tewari. For Satija, it was his background in working with one of India’s top startups that led to his setting up his own outfit, instead of trying to work through a service club. “I’ve interacted quite a bit with service clubs like the Rotary and the Rotaract, and they do great work. But for me, I’ve found that results happen only when someone’s neck is on the line. And that’s why I run my non-profit like a company, with quarterly and annual targets, something that may not be always possible with volunteer-driven organizations. Balaji agrees. “Building accountability in volunteer-driven organizations is always a challenge,” she says. Rao, in his way, confirms this, but he highlights the dedication service club members can bring. “We’re not NGOs. It’s not our job to be there, in the field, all the time. For me, my priorities are: my family and friends; my job; and then Rotary. But that doesn’t mean we’re cut off. Our members have gone to sites where we were involved in building schools, along with their spouses and children. But we also have members who say, ‘Hey, I can’t do any field visits this year,’ because of work or family, and they give us money instead. In some way or the other, we all serve,” he says. But the fact remains that the service clubs still are a throwback to a slower age, a time of five-day weeks and 9-to-5 jobs. For today’s young achievers and contributors, their way may no longer be enough.
Ending Polio: The movement to eradicate polio is probably the Rotary’s biggest success – and the effort dates back to 1985. Polio may become only the second disease in the world to be eradicated. The lions in winter
“I started with the youth wing of the Lions Club – the Leos, back in 1978, and joined the Lions in 1989,” says Sanjay Udani, the CEO of Udani Opticians and a Lion of long standing. “At that time, I joined because one of my friends was a member. We were all keen on doing something for the community. One of our earliest projects – one that started in 1981 was a school in Kogilu village which we were involved in building, with the guidance of a social worker called Jayalakshmamma,” he says. “At that time, there were only 18 homes in the village. The school itself was a small affair – three classrooms – built at a total cost of Rs 80,000. I still remember painting and whitewashing the building,” he smiles. Udani and his friends continue to nurture the school, improving the place and adding facilities and resources. But while the Rotary Club has more or less maintained its membership levels, the years have not been as kind to the Lions. “I would estimate that the membership of Lions movement has come down by around 50 percent since my time,” says Udani. But that hasn’t prevented the Lions from continuing with their traditional activities – especially in the area of fighting blindness, an activity that goes back to Helen Keller’s association with the club, and her impassioned plea to the assembled Lions to help rid the world of blindness. Udani and his fellow Lions are also adapting. “There’s still a lot of good work that goes on in schools. And when we reached out to the
New Horizons College of Engineering
around three months ago, we found a significant amount of interest – around 40 students have joined up, and we are now planning to increase our student outreach, based on the response we’ve seen,” he says.
Catching them young
The Rotary’s Rao is more sanguine. “We’ve seen a 35 percent increase in the membership of our Rotaract Clubs in the state,” he says. “And, yes, while times have changed, our ability to do more has increased. For example, we conducted a ragasambrahmam, a series of jugalbandhis, to raise funds several years ago. We had Ustad Allah Rakha, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, MS Gopalakrishnan and Dr Balamuralikrishna performing here in Bengaluru to raise something like Rs six lakh. Now, for our happy schools initiative, I was able to raise Rs one crore with just four phone calls,” he says. Even so, Rao acknowledges the need to attract younger members. The club is planning to target students with a new programme called Early Act, working in conjunction with schools and parent-teacher associations. The idea is to have student-organized and managed Early Act clubs, which will pursue selected objectives under the mentorship of Rotary members. Explore the yearly horoscope 2025 for Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces zodiac signs. Spread love this holiday season with these New Year wishes, messages and quotes.