‘We wanted to find a solution for the entire state’

“My contribution lies in being a great communicator and storyteller,” says Aamir Khan as he encapsulates the role he has played in making Paani Foundation and its Satyamev Jayate Water Cup a success in some of Maharashtra’s most water-deficient regions. The superstar of Hindi cinema is being modest as he downplays the effort he puts in, and the hours he clocks, for a cause as close to his heart as the movies he makes.

Describing Mr Khan as an actor or even a movie star seems inadequate. He is more than that and his passion for the water cup project illustrates the commitment he brings to “what makes me happy”. Philip Chacko and Christabelle Noronha caught up with Mr Khan at YRF Studios in suburban Mumbai in between time taken from post-production work on his forthcoming big-budget release, Thugs of Hindostan. Excerpts from the interview:

What does having Aamir Khan on its side mean for Paani Foundation and the work that it does?

Well, I don’t know how to answer that question. I think being involved with work that makes me happy is what I like to do all the time, whether it’s with my movies or Paani Foundation. For a very long period, I had this feeling that I had got a lot from people; I wanted to give back to society. It’s not to say that as entertainers we don’t contribute to society. Giving people a good time, making them laugh, keeping them engaged is what we do anyway, but I wanted to do more. That’s how I started with Satyamev Jayate, the TV series.

I wanted to take the goodwill I have earned over the years and use it for a social cause in the field I’m most qualified and trained in, which is communications. That’s when the concept for a TV show struck me. About this time, Uday Shankar [then helming Star TV in India] offered me a television game show. I told him I wasn’t interested. “Don’t you want to do TV,” he asked me, and I said I wouldn’t mind as long as I could use it to spark social change. He got interested.

I was not sure if television would be interested in a show on social issues but Star TV was. A couple of weeks later, I called up Satya [Satyajit Bhatkal] and told him about my idea. I also told him that I would be able to pull this off only if he came on board. I needed somebody I could trust completely.

What and who influenced you to get so involved with the Foundation?

There are two people who have influenced me a lot with the social development work that I am involved in: one is my mother [Zeenat Hussain] and the other is Satya. My mother has been a huge influence on me all my life. She has the amazing quality of being extremely sensitive to what other people are feeling. As for Satya, we were in school together — he was a topper and I was one of the backbenchers — and we became close friends.

Satya got involved with social work down the line and I became an actor. We kept in touch and I would feel guilty whenever I met him. He was doing a lot for other people, for the poor, and I was doing nothing. Not that I was doing something wrong — I was following my passion, which was cinema — but I knew I could do more.

What role do you play in the Foundation?

Between us, Satya is the one who works 24/7 for the Foundation. I give half my working time to it and the other half to my films. Our strength is a great idea that is well communicated. Add to that, I’m a star and I come with certain advantages. Also add the fact that we did Satyamev Jayate for three seasons and it was very popular.

Satyamev Jayate was about touching the emotions of viewers. It was hard journalism and it had mass communication embedded in it. With Paani, too, we are the communicators. We are not a government agency, we are not the administration and, actually, we are not an NGO either. The water cup is all about communication; its design is about communication and our training process is about communication.

You were clear from day one that there were no handouts in this initiative, no giving away of money and no beneficiaries in that respect.

Oh yes, and there was a fundamental reason for that. We researched the history of water schemes in Maharashtra and found that thousands of crores had been spent on them by various governments over the last four decades — and not much had happened or changed.

Satya and I felt that the change had to come from the people, not through laws or policies but from their hearts. We had to be sure about the design of the programme. If it had been faulty, the water cup would not have worked, no matter how many celebrities were behind it.

In order for the cup to have a deep impact, we had to understand human psychology, how to communicate and how to inspire. All of that is part of the design. A lot of thought has gone into our training module, for instance, and Aamir Khan does not come into the picture there. The module has to be powerful enough to ensure that the five people being trained can go back charged to their village and lead it forward. My presence as a star is not going to contribute to that.

How much of an impact has the prize money had?

The prize money was something we wanted to put forward to attract people, to create excitement. Yet there are a lot of villagers who tell us they are doing it for the water and not the prize. This is the only competition in the world where there are no losers; as long as you take part and do the necessary work, you cannot lose. Your village will get water and you will benefit.

Historically, the water issue in Maharashtra has been about outsiders telling villagers what they needed; it has been about getting things done through government agencies or NGOs. What we were telling them, instead, was: “You know what you actually need. You can do it on your own and nobody needs to help you.”

Partnerships — with the government, donors and others — are critical to the success of the water cup. What are the big challenges in making collaborations of this kind work?

To be honest, we didn’t know what to expect when we got started — we were experimenting in the first year — but we understood that this had to be on a massive scale, simply because Maharashtra is huge. We decided early that we would empower participating villages with knowledge. We believed that the village had the power and the ability to solve its problems. Only then would the project be sustainable and have some meaning. We were not interested in finding a solution for one village; we wanted to find a solution for the whole state.

We realised that undertaking this on such a scale would be possible only if each village did its own work. Decentralised watershed management requires every village to identify and work in the area where the water falls. The solutions had to be local, but we needed the government and I told Satya as much.

I happened to meet [Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis] at an event where I was sitting right next to him. I explained what we had in mind and he seemed very excited. I got a call from his office within a week and Satya and I went to meet him. We soon had a meeting with an eight-member team from his office. It was clear that what we believed in was exactly what the government saw as the solution.

We needed to ask a fundamental question. Watershed management is not a new thing. What was stopping them? We told Mr Fadnavis that we needed time to do our research. He is a man in a hurry, passionate about solving Maharashtra’s water problem, but he did not rush us.

To answer your question, our experience of working with the government has been wonderful. The chief minister has made the effort to spread the water conservation message throughout the administration, in each district and sub-district that we work in.

How has the equation with donors worked out for the Foundation? How did you go about that?

It has gone really well. We identified a group of industrialists who I believed would be interested in something like this. I made a presentation to Mr Ratan Tata and, separately, I invited about 15 top industrialists — among them Mukesh Ambani, Anand Mahindra and Kumar Mangalam Birla — to my house and made the same presentation. I felt Mr Tata had a busy schedule and he is very senior, so we met him alone. An identical presentation was also made to Mr Fadnavis.

The three people who reacted most dynamically to our presentation were Mr Tata, Mr Ambani and the chief minister. Mr Tata understood what we were aiming for. He also understood that this was an experiment. He had a few questions but he could see the potential in the project and he put his weight behind it.

The Foundation’s principal supporters are Mr Tata and Mr Ambani; they believed in us and the water cup from the beginning. A lot of people have heard of us now and many are inclined to donate money for the project. My housemaid, Ashatai, wanted to. She was most disappointed when I declined her offer.

What about the challenges on the ground in the villages?

There are strong divides in every village along political lines, and I cannot tell you how strong. There are also divisions caused by caste, especially, and religion to a small extent. Add to these the divide between landowners and the landless, between rich and poor farmers, between those living close to a river or lake and those further away. You have to somehow get them on one platform.

The big question was: why were some villages not becoming a Ralegan Siddhi or a Hiware Bazar [two standout examples of localised watershed development]. These two villages have come together, they have worked as a community. For any watershed project to be successful, the village has to work as one.

Shramdaan [volunteering that involves physical labour] is central to what the Foundation is trying to accomplish. If you don’t undertake shramdaan, you cannot win the competition. We have given this so much value because we believe it’s the best way to bring people together. Working shoulder to shoulder in the hot sun to meet a critical need creates a bond.

Philanthropy and charity are mostly absent in the thinking of affluent India and famous people like you are generally disinclined to get involved in social causes. Is this changing?

Not entirely true. I can speak for the film industry, where celebrities have always come forward for social causes. I feel it has to come from within; you should do what makes you happy, and we don’t have to be judgemental about people who don’t spend loads of time or money on philanthropic endeavours.

I would like to speak a bit about the Tata Trusts in this context. The Trusts started from the emotion of an individual, Jamsetji Tata, who felt strongly about giving back to society and the community. That thought has led to the Trusts becoming such a vibrant institution in philanthropy.

What is your fondest wish for India from a social development perspective?

My wish is that we become a more caring people. Everything follows from that.