Very early in its history Satyodaya realized that research on questions of poverty and a less anti-poor world - which was the original intention of the Founders - was not sufficient in itself. In order to achieve authenticity and credibility it had to join to research on poverty efforts of actual service to the poor.

As early as 1975 in an article to a local weekly journal, The Tribune, entitled “The Forgotten People”, one of our founders, explained that the People were the Poor, in contrast to the Elites who are not poor. The poor were those most in need and they were the majority of the population.

In the next three years - the period to be covered by the Proposal - Satyodaya proposes to proceed with its programmes in favour of the poor. But with one difference. In the next three years we propose progressively to select among the poor those who are the poorest as our principal collaborators and the principal beneficiaries of the programmes we shall undertake.

The poorest, like the poor, have their self-respect and dignity. They do not want handouts. A very few of them become street beggars, stretching out their hands to the hurrying passer-by for a coin. But for every one of them who publicly begs in this way, there are one thousand or more whose sense of dignity and justifiable pride prevent them from publicly displaying their poverty, their indigence and social deprivation.

There is also - we may remember - the spic and span poverty of the middle class homes. The poverty of these people is not known to anybody outside, because for historical reasons they belong to the middle class. Some of them would certainly be among the poorest in our country today. Yet, because we cannot do everything, the poorest who come from the middle class will nor ordinarily be beneficiaries of our programmes.