Of clothes, coconuts and the way we serve — Anshu Gupta, Ashoka Fellow
I had the immense privilege of being privy to the wisdom of Anshu Gupta, veteran Ashoka Fellow, late Monday afternoon. Here’s what he had to share.
Sunlight streamed in to the grass-carpeted room. 20 of us were gathered here in The Compass, EPIC Collective’s HQ, for an intimate talk featuring Anshu Gupta, award-winning social entrepreneur and founder of Goonj.
Popularly known as “India’s clothing man”, Anshu is credited for starting the movement of recycling and reusing discarded material as a resource for rural development. In a nutshell, Goonj collects, sorts, repurposes and distributes in excess of 300 tons of clothing and other underutilized resources to India’s rural poor, where material poverty cuts deepest, everyday.
But I had yet to know any of the above. I went in blind, having rushed there on the tails of a whirlwind month of Ashoka-related travel, and was absolutely spellbound by the raw insights* shared by India’s veteran Fellow.
*I did my best to capture everything ad-verbatim, but I may have taken a few liberties here and there.
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“I sit on many juries for social entrepreneurship competitions,” he opens, in a sombre tone. “Do you know how many people say they’ve changed 100,000 lives? If that were true, why can’t we see the impact?”
The crowd tittered. It was, after all, a room full of social entrepreneurs.
“In India’s private schools, one in every five kids wear spectacles. In India’s public schools, I hardly see anyone wearing spectacles,” he deadpanned, looking around the room. “So many of you today are also short-sighted. Perhaps we are also being short-sighted about the problem.
“Education is seen as a policy issue. But what if it’s actual short-sightedness?
“What if kids can’t learn just because they cannot see?
“We aren’t listening. We’re telling people what the problems are; making them out to be bigger than they are.” He raised his eyebrows, making air-quotes with his fingers. “Like the ‘100,000 people’ we’ve each somehow impacted.”
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“As social entrepreneurs, we think we know best. We’re educated. We wear nice clothes; spectacles. But once we remove those lenses — the lenses of privilege — maybe we can start seeing our beneficiaries as equal stakeholders.
“We judge people based on what they wear. Clothes tell us so much — their socio-economic status, their level of education. So if earthquakes and floods are considered as natural disasters, why isn’t WINTER a natural disaster?”
“More people in India die from lack of clothing the winter than all earthquakes and floods combined. Poverty,” he pauses for effect. “Is a disaster.”
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“We need to contest the concept of charity. Charity robs people of their dignity, and there is no development without dignity.”
He looks around the room. “Village people? They don’t beg. Begging is a city phenomenon. If someone isn’t asking for something, why are you giving it to them? When you donate, you give what you have, not what they need.
“In the cities, girls wear T-shirts and jeans. In the villages, they wear sarees. How do you think they’ll make use of your second-hand clothing?”
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“How might we empower villagers to decide and co-create what they need?
“We went back to the roots of people’s basic needs. This village needed a body of water. We could’ve given them hand-pumps,” he said, referring to the near-notorious mainstay in international development literature, “But instead, we gave them the tools they needed to dig their own lake. And the next time the monsoon came, their problem was solved.”
He shows us a slide of a beautiful lake, filled with greenery.
“India has 600,000 villages. If we waited for technology to come to each one, it will take 60 years… But they need their problems to be fixed, now.”
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“Let me tell you a story about coconuts,” he smiled. “We were in a village, about to start work on a new water body. We’d been digging in other spots for about 100ft, but there was still no sign of water.
“Then one villager came up to me, and handed me a coconut.
“‘Can we try using this?’ he asked.
“I laughed at the thought, just like any educated, non-superstitious man. And then I took a step back, and asked myself: ‘If this man was my grandfather, would I listen to him?’
“I would’ve. In fact, the man was risking everything to let me know. Me, I’m an external consultant. I have no stakes. This man was a villager. If his plan fails, he could likely die. Why shouldn’t I trust him?
“So we used the coconut. Basically, if the coconut starts changing position, it means you’re near a body of water.
“We started digging at the first sign of movement. We hit water at 18ft.”
Everyone’s eyes were glistening as he delivered the final blow:
“What we call superstition is someone else’s beliefs. Where our machines fail, their wisdom doesn’t.”
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“There is so much shame and silence around menstruation,” Anshu laments, showing us a slide featuring a group of women. “In the villages, women share the same piece of cloth. They use rags, ash, sand. Anything to stop the flow. Anything to avoid talking about it.
“When there is no problem statement, there can be no solution.”
He tells us about the innovative product Goonj created to combat this issue, based on 3 factors: Awareness, Availability and Affordability.
“And it’s not just menstruation; it’s women’s bodies as a whole. 70% of Indian women have never seen their own bodies — due to the lack of private showers.
“When you shower wearing clothes, no amount of health programs will help.”
But then he changes slides, gesturing to the smiling group of men toiling over roads, rivers, a brick bathroom stall.
“That’s the power of people — when you give them the power.”
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If the modus operandi of entrepreneurship is connecting the right people to the right resources, then Anshu Gupta has mastered it.
“Your waste is their currency,” he beams proudly, showing us a slide of his theory of change. “Not a single dollar is spent. Everything is repurposed. These villagers, we don’t call them beneficiaries; we call them givers.”
I realized he doesn’t just give trash a second life. He does the same for people, too. He gives them what has been robbed from them in childhood — dignity.
“I hate pictures of sad-looking, naked children,” he says, showing us one for effect. “How long will you sell poverty to reduce poverty?” He transitions into another slide — one with the child dressed up in a collared shirt and pants.
“If you want to change his life, you need to get to know him first.”
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“Don’t fudge your numbers,” he concluded, alluding to the opening of his talk. “The more you lie, the more you need to fake to make up for it. It’s a cycle.
“Either you talk about the work, or the work talks about you. If you’re spending time on the former, you’re wasting it. Time better spent making mistakes and strengthening your foundation. The one you need to change the world.”
Thank you, Anshu, for this timely dose of inspiration and wisdom.
These are words every young person in service of a community needs to hear.
It’s been a privilege reflecting, documenting and sharing them here.
Gwen Yi is a social entrepreneur 2x Anshu’s junior who takes joy in the shared humanity of stories. She runs Tribeless, an experience design firm that helps people be more human with each other. Learn more at www.tribeless.co.
