And what does the Lord require of you? To seek justice and love kindness and walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

We learn from the prophet Micah that God leaves little room for confusion about the purpose of our lives. We are here to do three things: seek justice, love kindness (or mercy) and walk humbly with God. To me all three of these injunctions are critical and cannot be taken separately, lest we risk missing our life’s goal. I have been so blessed to live in the motherland for the past two years, working with tribal communities in India. After I graduated from college in May 2005, I received a fellowship from an organization called Indicorps, to do a project with an organization working in central India. In my first year I worked with Adivasi (or tribal) people on creating village level plans for community development. But the relationships I built with people, particularly with the youth, taught me far more than my project. After I finished my first year I decided that I wanted learn more about India and get more experience doing development work. This year I am working in Bangalore with an organization that is creating an alternative market for poor people to directly trade their agricultural products with each other. It is challenging and fascinating work, and sometimes I don’t want to leave here at all! However, I will be coming back to the US in June.

My two years in India have allowed me to understand that when we speak of helping those in need, those who are much poorer than us, we can understand this work in two ways: in terms of justice and in terms of charity. I believe both are required. However, what I have seen is that we are privileging the latter, in expense of understanding the former. What I am trying to say is that unless we understand justice and its role in society (social justice), we will be confined to seeking out narrow goals of charity work.

Charity work is not a bad thing. It is a beautiful thing. When a disaster occurs, it is charity that is immediately needed. Just as Hurricane Katrina wreaked destruction all across its trail, and the Asian tsunami destroyed millions of lives, natural disasters do not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the good and the bad. In situations like this it is our duty as human beings to respond with charity. And so many of us did, sending donations and volunteering our time in reconstruction and relief work.

However, it is after the disaster has occurred that the questions of justice start to arise. Where should the refugees be resettled? Will they be given access to new homes, new schools, and a chance at building new lives? Whose interests will be served when it comes to rebuilding the city of New Orleans? Or the South Indian coastline? What we have witnessed here in India is that the government has been forcing many fishermen to move far away from the coastline in the name of “safety”, while selling their village lands to the tourism industry who have their sights set on this newly-created “prime property”. Do we side with the government and facilitate the removal of these fishermen from their traditional villages, their occupations, and access to their traditional livelihoods? With a mere charity approach to our work, we will completely misunderstand the social justice aspect of the situation, and thus miss an opportunity to truly serve. Not only this, but by failing to recognize the power dynamics at play, we could actually be hurting those we are claiming to help.

It was this terrible realization- that I may in fact be doing more damage through my presence- that led me to question the charity approach towards development. I realized that without a critical evaluation of society and the history and context of this place, I may actually be harming people. This is what led me to realize that my desire to do “development” work needs to be rooted in an understanding of social justice.

What is social justice? It is an understanding of justice that is focused on the structures of society. Do these structures promote equality and fairness amongst people or do they do the opposite? Do they concentrate wealth and resources in the hands of the few or do they result in wider distribution and abundance for all?

Every country has a history of injustice. The history of Western nations has rested on the exploitation of third world countries for their resources and slave labor. They plundered natural resources from their colonies and used slaves to build up their economies using cheap labor. Both are currently involved in occupying an entire country for the purpose of control over oil. Oppression is true of India also, except rather than invade other countries, it is currently involved in subjugating its own people, particularly those from marginalized communities. The Dalits, or untouchables, have been at the bottom of the Indian caste hierarchy for thousands of years. Despite the creation of the Indian constitution and the outlawing of untouchability, there are still one million Indians who are banished to a life of human scavenging, which means carrying human feces on their heads. These people work as sanitation services for others not out of choice, but out of exclusion from any other societal role. The same is true of Adivasis, or tribal people, whose entire history has involved resisting one ruler after another, whether it was the Mughals, the British, or the Indian state. All of these conquerors have sought their lands, forests and natural resources. All have pushed them to the brink of extinction. Some have reached such a point of desperation that they have joined the Naxalites, a group of insurgents who are fighting to overthrow the Indian state.

So when I speak of a justice-approach to development work I am speaking of these issues. I mean that when we are to understand poverty and figure out a solution to it, we must first look at its causes. It is not sufficient to uncritically accept the idea that these are “backwards” or “lost” people who need our help. First we must see how society has destroyed their communities and is still choking their ability to exist, before we can consider “helping” them. First we must recognize the extreme exploitation that exists in society, whether it is the Adivasi man who is in bonded labor because of a debt his grandfather owed to a landlord, or whether it is the African-American man who is forced to cash his checks everyday at the liquor store because he cannot open a bank account. When we can understand these conditions as exploitative and the main cause of poverty, we can begin to formulate solutions and work with people, rather than merely for them. It is then that we will understand that it is not only “they,” or the poor who need to change, but that the structures and trajectory of society itself, or “we”, must change. This is the very meaning of social justice.

And this brings up the last and most important point of the exhortation of Micah: that we must walk humbly with our God. You see, when we start working with people rather than for them, we realize that there is no such thing as “lost” and “found” people. We realize that all of us are in need of salvation. We are all in need of God’s redeeming grace and we are all carrying the potential for Christ’s healing love. Then, with humility, we will truly understand Jesus’ command, “that they all may be one”.

"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together." Lila Watson