Anchoring Change: Seventy-Five Years of Grassroots Interventions That Made a Difference
Reading Time: 2 minutes
About the book
All too often, the focus of conversation in India is on our failure as a socio-economic polity. We despair about our inability to realize our full potential as a country: we find fault with our political system, the leadership, the state of our institutions, the economic model and much else. What we do not do is reflect on the micro successes and the many examples of hugely impactful interventions that have shifted the needle of society in positive directions. We do not ask the questions: what were the ingredients of these successes? Are they scalable? Are there learnings from these that could be applicable elsewhere in India, and might these learnings provide the guts for a new developmental model?
Anchoring Change attempts to answer these and several other such questions, through accounts of organizations from across India, spanning the seventy-five years since independence. The idea is to revisit these examples of civic action and explore their relevance for the future of India.
The book has two objectives: to shift the conversation from failures to successes; and to distill from these successes relevant design principles that might have wide relevance to create an alternative, grassroots-based, sustainable development model.
Book review: Can NGOs Change the World?
Sustainability Next: Despair to Hope
Interview with the Editors | The Print: Tracking 75 Years of Social Interventions in India
Financial Express: Clocking 75: Books that capture the essence of India’s journey
Down to Earth: Recommended books
Millenium Post: Fresh off the Shelf
Free Press Journal: Flipping Through the Pages of History
Business Standard: Insiders in the development story
Open the Magazine: Towards A More Equal Society
The Print: Jamkhed was a picture of death—until these two doctors showed up
MoneyControl: Book excerpt | How SELCO helped to dispel 3 myths around solar energy use by rural communities
AESA Network: Anchoring Change: Seventy-Five Years of Grassroots Intervention that Made a Difference
Your Story: Empowerment and Transformation: Learnings and Stories from 24 Grassroots Interventions in India
Find on this page
The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is an independent, public policy think tank with a mandate to conduct research and analysis on critical issues facing India and the world and help shape policies that advance sustainable growth and development.