A tsunami of dilemmas

Last year after the tragic tsunami I came across the phenomenon of on-campus fund raising in the United States. It exposed me to a whole different ethos. At first I felt queasy at the manner in which the Americans went about raising funds, but over a period of time I began to appreciate their approach better. Yet, one year after, and having seen lot of other responses to natural disasters, I still haven't resolved my dilemmas completely.

After the school reconvened for Spring in January 2005, I was hit with flyers advertising free pizzas for coming to Room 240 at 5:00 pm. The words Free Pizzas were in a large bold font and below that in a smaller font the solemn purpose for the meet was stated. "To organise a comprehensive strategy for fund raising for the tsunami victims."

It had been just four months in the States for me and I carried a lot of baggage in terms of my Indian socio-cultural background. At that time I remember I found it jarring that people had to be induced by offering free pizzas and a soda for the noble objective of raising aid money for the tragic tsunami victims.

I went into the meeting all eager to contribute and help gather more funds. Almost 50-60 students showed up, out of which only 10-12 people participated in the actual discussions. Others were there for the free pizza. (The organisers were clever enough not to open the boxes till the meeting was over) The discussions were mainly about how to go about organising funds. They debated whether a party at the neighbourhood food joint would be more profitable or a party at a neighbourhood bar during the happy hour. In the end they decided to do both. The way these parties generate funds is that people are invited to come in large numbers at the restaurant/bar. The restaurant/bar owner gets a lot of customers at one go and he promises 15-20% of the bill in donation. So more the people having fun and spending, the more the donations collected. Somebody also came up with the idea of hiring a DJ and having a dance party on campus with tickets selling for $30. In one of my conversation with an NRI kid, who was coordinating the effort, she talked about how by taking this initiative she has enhanced her CV and improved her job prospects etc. I am not clear about this but apparently you earn some credits from your school for community service or something. This seemed to be a common thing here.

For me, the naïve 'fresh off the boat' Indian student, this was unbelievable. With my middle class background, the only fundraising I knew of was passing around a tin dabba covered with white paper and 'DONATE' written on it with a green sketch pen. Another form of fundraising I remembered was those embarrassing situations when as school going kids we were given a sheet of paper by Helpage India/Blind Youth Association and went about apartment complexes seeking money for those organisations. We expended all the goodwill we had earned with our neighbours (by not playing cricket on Saturday afternoons while they slept or by allowing their little kids to be part of the apartment cricket team) for this purpose. It was awkward and embarrassing. I used to pray that not every one of them follow the example of the neighbour who had proudly put in the amount of Rs. 2 besides his signature.Somehow my rich friends used to come up with amounts like Rs.1500 with Rs. 1400 donated by their parents, while I could gather only Rs.150. But I am digressing.

So coming from there, it was a huge leap for me into a setting where there were free pizzas and cans of coke just for offering suggestions, where it was ok to talk about enjoying yourself by dancing to raunchy hip hop and drinking alcohol; all for the cause of raising money for those tragic victims who were homeless and crying their eyes out. It seemed to bother no one's conscience but my own that I will be having a wonderful time drinking booze and having good food while the people in my country have lost thousands of their loved ones. I was raised in a home where Diwali and Ganpati celebrations used to be cancelled if a distant relative had died as a mark of respect. I remembered at the time of Bhuj earthquake I was in Fergusson College in Pune and a similar student body had been formed to organise a response. But there were no parties at Vaishali restaurant nor was there any talk of a 'Earthquake Bash' at the local dance club. Talk only centered around bringing more and more people to donate. If I remember right many colleges cancelled their annual college festivals as a mark of respect and mourning.

In India donation has to be associated with sacrifice. Otherwise it becomes meaningless. Newspapers may not carry stories about an industrialist donating 20 lakhs for a cause, but there will always be stories about how a retired schoolteacher with a salary of Rs.2,000 donated his lifetime savings of Rs. 20,000 to the victims etc. Indians empathise with that teacher more than the industrialist whose money actually makes all the difference. The sense of sacrifice is valued more than ruthless utilitarian view of what benefits more in real world scenario in absolute terms

But somehow the students here did not have any such compunctions about not sacrificing anything. They weren't sacrificing anything. If not the parties they would have spent the money at some other bar anyways. The money they were spending was not pinching them in any manner. They faced no such moral dilemmas as I did. And this was what set me thinking. Looking at it from a moral relativistic perspective this just proved that what I thought as moral was not an American's idea of morality. What I considered to be universally valid conscience prick was not universal at all. And when it comes down to it, the funds generated through the parties the Americans arranged, far outweighed any funds I might have collected going around holding a dabba in my hand.

It is the classic quandary of ends and means. If only I disregard the means, and focus on the ends, yes, the American system of fund raising works great. I am forced to acknowledge that. By incentivising fund raising for the youth, the amount earned is just phenomenal. I am not blind to the fact that had it not been for those parties, the donations would have been far less monetarily. So what is wrong about spending on alcohol and having good food yourself if in the end it is all for a good cause? Surely, my going into mourning was not going to help those Tsunami victims at all. They wouldn't know and wouldn't care less if I cried my eyes out for them or went on a fast or if I drank alcohol or ate good food or flirted with a girl on the dance floor. So long as they receive funds without hurting their own dignity in the process, I don't envisage a protest from their side about the source of funds. In fact this idea is brilliant. Everyone benefits. The students were going to spend their Saturday night out anyways. They merely spent it in that particular club. The club owner made a profit regardless. He did not lose any money. If his profit margin was 30%, he got twice the number of customers on a normal day and so in numerical terms his profits were more and so donating 20% of those was no big deal for him as he would have earned a 10% profit regardless. Add to this the 'look good on CV' argument. If by linking fundraising to a PR campaign for the student one can ensure enthusiastic participation, why not? It takes nothing away from the fund raising.

Apart from that, implicit in the idea of going into mourning is lack of spending and therefore loss to the economy. Whereas an American is actually spending and pouring money into the economy and the health of American economy might benefit the Tsunami victim through the invisible hand of the market. So from an economic perspective this is an open and shut case. In fact there was no case here at all. If raising money is the goal that is what should be the focus. So I have to concede that this model is great. Whether it will be replicated in India, I do not know. It is possible. However, a more creative alternative might be finding better ways for incentivising the sense of sacrifice while adopting this model. If one can weave that sense of sacrifice into an Indian fundraising party the revenue might be much more rather than just a consumerist feast.

Bottomline, I am sold out for this American idea for fundraising.

Then what is the word dilemma doing in the headline of this post? I have resolved my compunctions at this 'partying' model of fundraising but am still confused about the implications if this model is stretched any further.

The problem with a morally relativistic perspective is that only your imagination is the limit. Would you be equally comfortable had a brothel in Amsterdam organised a similar fund raising by inviting patrons to spend a night in their brothels? Economically there is nothing wrong. One can argue that an unintended consequence may be that a family man may be tempted to cheat on his wife 'for a good cause' etc. But even then the loss to the world economy by a couple of couples separating is far less than the gains by the revenue generated. The same may be the case about Dawood Ibrahim writing a check of 20 crores for tsunami relief. Would you accept it? Do the ends justify the means in these cases? Should laws of economics alone determine all human decisions? I have not resolved these dilemmas. Feel free to post what you think about this in the comments section.

P.S. Before posting your response do read this article from The Week's anniversary special issue about how Indians think. It captures the Indian mind perfectly and is aptly titled "We are like this only."