A case study on compassionate Kozhikode: An innovative approach to creating a compassionate society

Abstract

Kozhikode, also known as the “City of Spices” is located along the Malabar coast in the state of Kerala and is well known for its warmth, hospitality and compassion. In Feb 2014, a certain Mr. Prasanth Nair IAS, popularly known as ‘Collector Bro’, took over as the District Collector and what followed was a slew of measures taken by the district administration that has transformed the face of Calicut. An umbrella initiative, “Compassionate Kozhikode” was undertaken by the district administration under the charismatic leadership of Prasanth Nair. The underlying philosophy of the program was to instill compassion and empathy in the people of Calicut. The idea of Compassionate Kozhikode started taking root in the mind of the then District collector Prasanth Nair, when on his second day of taking charge as the collector he was witness to some of the communal violence raging in Nadapuram - a town in the outskirts of Kozhikode district. He believed that it was a lack of compassion within the people that led to such violence and hatred. That was when he started giving serious thought on how best to make Kozhikode, above all, a compassionate place to live. It certainly was a highly ambitious program. The project aimed to harness the inherent compassion amongst the people of Calicut to bring about sweeping changes in the lives of the ordinary. This was mainly achieved through community driven projects with a large number of volunteers signing up for them. Such was the impact of the initiative that it bagged the ITB-Berlin award1 in 2016, one amongst 50 inspirational projects from across the world and the only one from India. The key highlight of Compassionate Kozhikode is that it employs an unconventional approach to solving the city’s issues rather than the traditional and bureaucratic approach. One of the projects under Compassionate Kozhikode ‘Operation Sulaimani’, that aims to feed the hungry with dignity, has already had nearly 40000 beneficiaries2 . As per this program any person can walk into a restaurant and have free food with dignity without being asked any questions. The idea was to not deny anyone from having food because of an empty wallet. More than 15 similar projects have become part of this initiative till date. Another important aspect about Compassionate Kozhikode is the transparency of the programs. The public were kept well informed, mainly through social media and the Compassionate Kozhikode website3 , about how each of the programs were faring. The results were there to be seen by the public. Even in the case of projects that did not take off as expected, the public were kept in the loop and taken into confidence. This brought about a togetherness between the public and the administration.