The third issue of Oppositional Conversations takes on the question of “reality”—how it is constructed, construed, and contested in every sphere of social life.

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In a prominent article in the Harvard Business Review, Vikram Akula (2008) made the case that microfinance—the practice of giving small loans to society’s poorest to enable their upward mobility—could and should be done on a for-profit basis. At the time, Akula was receiving wide recognition for founding and leading the rapidly growing $250 million company, SKS Microfinance, based in Andhra Pradesh, India. In the paper, Akula narrates the story of Saryamma, who joined SKS as a borrower in 2002. At that time, Saryamma and her husband were landless laborers earning about $1/day in rural Andhra Pradesh, a region plagued by droughts. Her husband had entered into a punishing form of bonded labor to make sure his family had enough grain to eat, and her son worked instead of attending school. The first loan that Saryamma took from SKS, for $200, was used to purchase a buffalo so that she could sell the milk. In line with the Grameen Bank-inspired group lending model that forms the basis for SKS lending operations, Saryamma borrowed money along with four other women from her village. The women collectively guaranteed the loans each took out. Saryamma repaid her initial loan $4.50 at a time, over the course of a year, and continued to take out loans in subsequent years, adding more buffalos, a pair of bulls, and two acres of land to her business. Now, the article says, Saryamma’s family makes $10/day, her husband is free from bonded labor, and her younger children attend school.

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