Helena Norberg-Hodge fights development's impoverishing sweep

A bit beyond Leh's profanely hard-sold culture bazaar of Nirvana cafes, Shangrila hotels and Potala travels is Helena Norberg-Hodge's tiny window to the real Ladakh. Tucked ahead of a guest house, eco-friendishly called Antelope, is a small, stubborn experiment at being different. It's called Women's Alliance of Ladakh (wal). And it's where enthusiastic Ladakhi women throng each day during the four-month 'season', bringing with them examples of 'local culture' that they have grown, spun, woven, dyed, stitched and baked with their own hands. These women make ordinary stuff like wool caps, hemp bags, Ladakhi jewellery and bring their organically-grown produce and seeds for a market that's addicted to garish replicas of monastic art.

When Helena first came to Ladakh as part of a British documentary film crew in 1975, she was struck by its proud people and their remarkable self-sufficiency. "The houses I saw were so beautifully constructed that I asked my guide to show me the places where the poor lived. But he told me that there were no poor houses in Ladakh," remembers Helena.

But things changed when government-led development and tourist-adventurers began happening to the region. The same people began to see themselves as impoverished. "I met a young man who told me that he was stupid as a donkey because he didn't know 'the' language: English," says Helena. She got interested in Ladakh's paradoxical change of fortunes when she saw that development had only managed to create a sense of deprivation.

The hitherto semi- and non-monetarised Ladakhis began seeing their new touristy marauders, who sometimes spent $100 in a day, as some sort of miracle-workers who could make things happen by the sheer power of their crisp currency notes. Added to that were government initiatives that sought to 'modernise' and 'develop' the area. "I started my work to break these impressions people had about development," says Helena. The idea was to bring in change by building up on the inherent frugality and 'wastelessness' of Ladakhi culture where even human waste is used as manure. But the government in its technological zeal created dependence on gigantic hydel projects and diesel generators.

After having mastered Ladakhi in her first year itself, Helena floated the Ecology Group in Leh to train local people in eco-sensitive methods of sustenance. Her rallying pleas of 'counter-development' were aimed at showing people that whatever came from outside wasn't necessarily the best. The fight was against the colonisation of "extractive economies where larger businesses have the power to shut down viable and sustainable local trade".

Among the Ecology Group's aims was to demonstrate that there was no one or absolute path to development. "We started organic farms and solar power projects in our bid to show to the people that industrialisation and mechanisation were not the only answer. To educate them about their own indigenous talents of productivity."

In 1991, Helena started wal, a continuation of her work with the Ecology Group. It was aimed at women because they were the ones who bore the brunt when men, inspired by development, sought greener pastures outside. wal's methods of "participational development" have succeeded in helping over 5,000 women by showing them that their values and traditions were not regressive and anachronistic but ideal to their situation.

In 1996, wal won the Right Livelihood Award, considered the alternative Nobel. At the organisation's humble headquarters in Leh, Helena's efforts are evident as traditionally attired women preside over stalls of local crafts and food, serving butter tea to those who stop by intrigued by the hand-painted board that lays out the ambition and charter of the organisation in a sentence. For Helena this sight means more than words can ever convey. "I am here only as a catalyst," she says modestly. After 25 years of braving criticism—both from the local administration that branded her a cia agent, and powerful western academics who call her an eco-fascist—this can only be an understatement.

To make contributions write to Women's Alliance of Ladakh; Sankar Road, Chubi, Leh, 194101, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir. Phone: 01982-50293.