By Tsewang Rigzin*
This essay is primarily an extension of the set of recommendations that I made in the report of my recent survey research titled, ‘Survey Research on Tibetan Entrepreneurs in India’, which I conducted in association with Federation of Tibetan Cooperatives India Limited, during my summer internship period of 2014. For the full report, please visit http://emory.academia.edu/TsewangRigzin
The main purpose of the survey research on Tibetan entrepreneurs in India was to bring facts-based recommendations on the challenges that Tibetan Entrepreneurs in India face in their process of starting a new enterprise or scaling up their existing enterprises. The survey report, in many sense reiterates what others have observed and advised based on anecdotal evidence, but have not researched or presented in a clear, comprehensive, and systematic manner.
In this part of the essay, I will further discuss on the implication and implementation of recommendations that I had made in my report. Following recommendations are product of three months of intensive inquiry into the status of Tibetan entrepreneurs in India that I had conducted in summer of 2014.
Before I continue with more detailed description of each of these recommendations, it is essential that I explain some points regarding these recommendations. The purposes of these recommendations are of two folds: first to sustain the non-assimilative principle that was envisioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama when settlements were initially established in consultation with then the Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Second purpose is to enable creation of more material resources to boost our effort on promotion and safeguarding the unique cultural and traditional heritage of Tibet without being dependent on external funds.
These recommendations are:
➢ Appointment of special legal officer under the office of entrepreneur development desk of Department of Finance.
➢ Empowerment through training – Legal Matters and business development plan.
➢ Collaborating with Government and Non-governmental organizations.
➢ Opening of ‘Settlements Development Bank’ based on the model of Grameen bank and other microfinance institute (MFI).
These set of recommendations are made on the basis of two important principles. These two principles are: the principle of feasibility and practicality of proposed recommendations and the principle of operational scale of identified challenges. With these two guiding principles, above recommendations, in its practical sense, attempt to address some of most urgent yet surface level impediments for the growth of entrepreneur ecosystem in exile Tibetan community.
However, I am cognizant of the fact that these recommendations do not directly address some of the fundamental or immaterial impediments for the fostering an environment that is more conducive to entrepreneurship such as mentality and outlook of society on the concept and philosophy of business. At the same time, these recommendations also do not address some of problems at large and extended scale that have significant impacts not just on growth of entrepreneurship but on all dimension of existence of Tibetans refugee settlements in India such as issue of transitory nature of refugee’s life and that of statelessness. Since these issues are complex and need considerable time and resources to address, I have formulated above recommendations solely to address surface level challenges that are being faced by Tibetan entrepreneurs in India.
1. Appointment of special legal officer under the office of entrepreneur development desk of Department of Finance
As finding suggest, the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs across the business categories is related to government trade rules and regulations or lack of proper registration and licenses. (Rigzin, 2014:17) This problem is more prevalent among the enterprises that are operating in settlements. Although many surveyed entrepreneurs have capacity and willingness to scale-up their enterprises, lack of proper legal registration, documents, and licenses restrain them from further growth.
Prior to this study, my assumption was that people do not register their enterprises intentionally to avoid tax and other obligation mandated by these acts. But in the process of this study, I realize that I was wrong. Through the numbers of interaction with around 100 Tibetan entrepreneurs in India, I learnt that people do want to register their businesses but, so far not able to obtain these licenses due to various reasons. One of the primary reasons that I heard from people is that they are not aware of the process as it involves very long and complicated bureaucratic procedure. It is therefore, highly recommended that the concerned stakeholders especially CTA should appoint special officer under the office of entrepreneur development desk of Ministry of Finance.
The primary responsibility of this particular officer should be supporting the established and potential entrepreneurs in legal matters such as registration of their enterprises and obtaining licenses for operation of their trade. Other important responsibility of this officer/s is to conduct frequent field trip to various settlements and train Tibetan entrepreneurs on various legal issues pertaining to small and medium enterprises in India.
In addition to these two primary responsibilities, this officer/s should create a network of Tibetan lawyers who are willing to support Tibetan entrepreneurs in various legal matters. One such potential collaboration in this regard is with newly formed Tibetan Legal Association that is based in Dharamsala, India. The primary aim of this association, as mentioned in their declaration, is ‘to provide, represent, promote and safeguard the legal interests of the Tibetan community in exile and provide free legal aid to the underprivileged Tibetans’.
2. Empowerment through training – Legal Matters and business development plan
As indicated in the finding of this survey research and other studies, there are positive correlations between training and net-profit. The net-profit seems to be higher among those Tibetan entrepreneurs who have attended one or other training. (Rigzin, 2014:19) Therefore, empowerment or capacity building through Training and workshops is very important for growth of any business. More so in case of Tibetan entrepreneurs in India as it is evident from my study that majority of Tibetan entrepreneurs have limited technical know-how. (Rigzin, 2014:13)
There are many ways through which the capacity and technical know-how of these entrepreneurs can be enhanced. As saying goes, “give them a fish and they will eat for a day. Teach them how to fish and they will eat for rest of their life”. This is one of the most important guiding principles for sustainable development. This can be achieved mainly only through short-term and long-term training, workshop and other capacity building interventions.
As far as the empowerment of Tibetan entrepreneurs through training and workshops is concerned, there are some important issues that need serious considerations. Broadly speaking, these issues are: topic and contents to be covered in training, medium of instruction in training, advertisement of training and proximity to venue of training.
On the topics of training or workshop, trainers should not decide the topics just on the basis of perceived needs. Prior to giving such training, the needs of entrepreneurs should be well researched. As far as my study is concerned, training on government’s regulatory and legal matters received the highest priority. As far as training on this subject matter is concerned, I have briefly discussed this in my first recommendation.
In addition to that, I would like to add here one more components and that is training on accessing various State and Central government provisions and schemes on small and medium enterprise developments. There are many such provisions and schemes. Credit Guarantee Scheme, Micro & Small Enterprises Cluster Development Program (MSE-CDP), and Design Clinic Scheme for MSMEs, just to name a few. They are many more schemes and I encourage Tibetan entrepreneurs to visit the website of Ministry of MSME, Government of India. This particular part has direct relation with legal registration of one’s enterprise. Without proper registrations, it is impossible to avail all these schemes and benefits. In the process of availing these benefits, better understanding of recently declared “Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy 2014” (Policy paper not yet release in public domain) can be of tremendous use.
Another important area where Tibetan entrepreneurs need training is on basics of business development planning. This is indeed a vast area in which all components of business, i.e. marketing and market analysis, branding, cost-benefit analysis, application of technology, and various management principles can be included. In this regard, it is of vital importance that all such trainings in these components should be contextualize and made appropriate and relevant to the characteristic and needs of Tibetan entrepreneurs.
Language or medium of instruction in these capacity-building training is another important aspect on which the organizer of the training should pay great attention. If possible, these training should be in Tibetan or in Hindi language. If such trainings are to be given through English, they should have translator/s.
In order to have these trainings in Tibetan language, it is of utmost important that the concerned organizer should do thorough investigation on the availability of resource person within diasporic Tibetan community including in western countries. The concept of “Tibetan Serving Tibetan” which is guiding principle of Tibet corps, can be good way to search and motivate potential resource person.
Another important aspect of training is advertisement or dissemination of information on trainings within Tibetan communities. It is learnt through my study that most people who did not attend any training cite ‘not being aware’ of availability of such training as a main reason for not attending training. In addition to traditional way of advertisement, effective use of social media can be of tremendous help in advertising such trainings.
2.1 Entrepreneurs support help-line.
Creation of particular telephone number, i.e. ‘entrepreneur support help-line’ for purpose of providing quick and easy access to information about various components of entrepreneurship development can be very useful resource for established and potential Tibetan entrepreneurs in India. This particular helpline can be operated from officer of Tibetan Entrepreneur Development Desk of Finance department, CTA.
This sub-recommendation can be useful under both the recommendation one and two. Some of the services that can be offer through this help-line number include but not limited to dissemination of information regarding legal components of enterprise development, networking entrepreneurs from one settlement to another, providing information about support system, providing information about government schemes and benefit and so on.
3. Collaboration with Government and Non-governmental organizations
Building Collaboration with various governmental and non-governmental entrepreneur development organizations in India and around the world is an important area on which the concerned stakeholders should work upon.
This is particularly important, given the fact that there is a limited capacity, in terms of both human and other resources, of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and other organization such as Nyamdel (FTCI) There are many willing impact investors, enterprise incubators and other entrepreneur development organizations in India and around the world, which will support our initiatives with their resources. An effective collaboration with these organizations will mitigate the risks of inefficiency of Central Tibetan Administration and other Tibetan Organization in promotion of economically prosperous Tibetan exile community.
In this regard, there are two levels on which collaboration can be established. At the broader level, collaborating with governmental agencies. This includes both the State government as well as Central government. If we are able to build good collaboration with concerned governmental agencies, this will help us in the matters related to registration of one’s enterprise and in availing various supports and schemes that are available at state or national level. For effective collaboration at this level, as mentioned earlier, thorough understanding of “Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy 2014” can be tremendous help.
At the second level of collaboration, it has to do with non-governmental organizations. There are numbers of impact investors, enterprise incubators and other non-governmental entrepreneur development organizations in India and around the world. Ashoka, Skoll Foundation, Unlimited, and Endeavor are few examples of potential organizations with whom CTA and other organization can collaborate with. The recent collaborative effort of Department of Finance, Central Tibetan Administration with Omidyar Network and Sirolli Institute is a progressive step toward more collaborative effort.
In the process of such collaborative efforts, there are two important points on which the concerned stakeholders should pay special attention to. First, all the activities should be planned and implemented in according to the distinct needs and characteristic of target communities. In other words, all the programs should be tailored to and have relevancy to the target community. Secondly, major authority and responsibility should be taken cared by CTA or other organizations that are representing Tibetan entrepreneurs. This will ensure the presence of indigenous leadership that is vital for the development of any community.
4. Opening of Settlements Development Bank
Access to finance is still a major barrier for established and potential Tibetan entrepreneurs in the growth of their enterprises. Except for sweater sellers, who get easy loans from lala and banks, most of Tibetan entrepreneurs depend their initial investment on informal sectors. 76% of surveyed entrepreneurs indicate that their major source of loan is friends and relatives. During my field visits, I have met numbers of potential entrepreneurs who are producing different products. But due to lack of financial capital, these entrepreneurs could not increase their productivity in-spite of very high demand for their product in the local market.
When agriculture was main source of livelihood for first generation of Tibetan refugees in India, the CTA and other organizations have initiated various schemes and projects for improvements in farming practices, including lending money. Similarly, when sweater selling became predominant business activities of Tibetan refugees in India, CTA and other organization such as Nyamdel started many new initiatives such as sweater selling loans. Currently, there is new wave of Tibetan entrepreneurs that are growing in various Tibetan refugee settlements in India and it is high time that concerned organizations, most notably, CTA should come up with new initiatives to meet the new requirement.
If entrepreneur environment is to be promoted in exile Tibetan community, there is urgent need to fill this gap by establishing formal institution that can provide low interest rate and collateral-free loans to potential and established Tibetan entrepreneurs. “Nyamdel Finance Project”, a new project initiated by Federation of Tibetan Cooperatives India Limited, (FTCI) is step toward right direction.
One possible solution in filling this gap is opening of ‘Settlements Development Bank’ based on the model of Grameen bank and other microfinance institute (MFI) under supervision of Finance Department of CTA.
Currently, different departments of CTA, i.e. Home Department and Finance Department have some isolated projects in which seeds fund and other low interest rate loans are granted to potential entrepreneurs. Creation of such bank or finance institution under the leadership and supervision of particular department of CTA can be very useful in bringing more concentrated and collective effort in working on such project.
However, in opening such not-for-profit financial institution, it is important that all the planning and implementation should be based on unique needs and characteristic of Tibetan refugee settlements. Needless to say, such bank should have all the legal registration and functions mainly as development of income generation activities within various Tibetan settlements in India, Nepal and Bhutan.
One of the major foreseeable implementation challenges in this regard is lack of financial capabilities and human resources. In this regard, as mentioned in third recommendation, effective collaboration with other organizations can help in this project.
Conclusion
While all of the social problems are multi-dimensional, it is evident from many cases around the world that vibrant and successful community cannot be possible without equal blend of economic growth and social development. Depending on outside supports or funds for building a cohesive and stable Tibetan settlement is not a sustainable solution and worst, as evident from many cases, this creates dependency and cripples the potential of target beneficiaries of particular community. In this regard, it is important to reflect on phrase: ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’.
If Tibetan in Exile, under the leadership of Central Tibetan Administration were to have a vibrant and cohesive Tibetan refugee settlements in India, as envisioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, they should be able to create a vibrant environment for entrepreneurship.
In his address to the gathering of Tibetans at Birmingham, Alabama, His Holiness asked Tibetan who gathered from different part of United State whether we have any Tibetans who are Multi-millionaires or not. He further advised in a very a candid way that Tibetan should pay equal focus to economic growth if we were to be successful community.
If successful in creating a vibrant environment of entrepreneurship in diasporic Tibetan communities, in the short run, two major current problems of unemployment and out-migrations from the settlements will be solved. And, in the long run, we will be in a better position to preserve, protect and promote our unique and compassionate based traditional and cultural heritage.
*Tsewang Rigzin is Graduate student of Development Practice at Laney Graduate School, Emory University, Atlanta. He can be reached through tsewangrigzin59@gmail.com
