Remberging Gopal Krishna Gokhale

On His Centenary Year 2015

He spent last decade of his life to pursue for ‘Compulsory and Free Primary Education for All’ in India. He had to face opposition even at home. Finally, he succeeded to bring a law at Privy Council.

At early Twentieth Century, in his time, there were 2% educated people in India. In 1947, we were 400 millions. Today there are about 400 millions illiterate people. (I do not believe any statistics based on Sample Surveys.) I wonder those who are literate use their literacy in modern India?

I am sure my primary education at my native village in vernacular – Marathi – was possible by his efforts. I gratefully remember him now, and, whenever the issue of Education comes up.

He was mentor of Gandhiji; his mentor was Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade. What a great continuity! Gnadhiji introduced Basic Education... However, bureaucracy failed to implement it with relevance.

I learnt spinning and weaving during primary education, in Konkan where cotton is not produced. There Basic Education in Farming — Agriculture, Aquaculture and Horticulture or Forestry — should have been more appropriate. 

 Read More >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopal_Krishna_Gokhale

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Clay Silos in Villages of Gujarat (Slideshow)

Such silos are common in many parts of India. These silos are customarily built newly marries women. They learn this art or craft building silos at home, not in the schools.

View all

Get your own

 
Read more clay, cow-dung silos >> Clay–Cow dung Grain Silos of Gujarat

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

CRITIQUE of CREATIVITY

In Communion with Mother Nature

Constructive Criticism

Mainspring of Creativity 

Creativity: We generally attribute this action to the expressions of various arts. However, the basic force of creativity is only to conserve life. From conception of life to feed a baby and the innumerable actions onwards that follow are the parts of the creativity. Because of our mechanical way of living, we are not conscious; that's all.

Bhill youth playing bamboo flute

Bhills make their bamboo flutes by themselves. Its history indeed goes back to millennia.

2. Ancient bone flute (30,000 yBP)

 The bird bone flute was found (in 2009) by the archaeologists. It has five holes.

Interestingly Bhills too use five holes to their bamboo flutes.

Constructive Criticism

I learnt what may be called constructive criticism/critique from Anand K. Coomaraswamy. It was useful in many ways. Mainly, I left subjective reaction and moved to objective response to any event.

By the study of environment, which is the very foundation of “shelter” or architecture, I could go beyond personal and societal spheres.

My beloved Tukaram has major share in making me understand ecology: “plants vines wildlife (are) our kin”. To understand this mantra, came to help my physical labour and community participation in the fields of paddy - vegetable farming and cooking, mud house building, and cotton spinning and weaving (this under Gandhi's Basic Education) during childhood at my native village.

While learning architecture I came to understand how vary many rooms in buildings are interdependent in their planning. If a room or an element is shifted, changed or removed, the whole schema is affected. Hence it needs reworking.

Tukaram's five words also reveal how environment, ecology and energy (EEE) fields are interlinked. It helps if we meditate on simple looking work such as farming, cooking or shelter etc. to understand how the three – EEE – are interlinked and interdependent in the Nature.

This path is as much abiding and arduous that much joyous. No shortcut. No books. Only field work helps.

AK Coomaraswamy died in 1947 after Independence of India. From this time onward the change that came with British Raj accelerated in India.

The change was taking place in almost every sphere of life at large. It has affected most the majority i.e. agrarian society. Their rehabilitation should have been taken up on priority basis as soon as the British left.

The root cause perhaps is the development in Science and Technology by the turn of the last century in India. It has been taking place all over the world. The west, however, grew along with this change from the rise of Mechanical-Industrial Revolution; while in India it was imposed.

In 65 years we have not grown 'up'; we have only grown 'old', and culturally we tend to respect 'old' age - man or stone.

Indeed the change (which we tend to call 'development' is a misnomer) affected the primary needs: food-shelter-clothing and natural autonomous functions of all living beings: work-leisure-health-learning-propagation, not only in human world, but all living-beings in land-water-air across the world.

When these fundamentals are affected, then what about social, political, religious... blah, blah, blah institutions or Heaven and Hell?

Needs in Wanting Constructive Creativity

When we watch now the TV channels 24/7 throughout year that show us buttery love and marriage stories combined with crime and violence, with innovations aplenty, as if none else exists to entertain us, or rather to Think about.

In Mumbai, for example, about 200-300 movies are produced annually. But at what cost of resources, at what environment-ecology-energy cost, for what except passive entertainment, and for what social ends?

Presently millions of Indian ryot are going through crises of survival facing a billion problems of food, water, work, health, literacy, shelter etc. and scarcity of resources due to lack of equitable distribution. Who is going to answer them? Is it Government, Parliament, a trillion Rupee Bollywood-Tellywood entertainment industry, stock market, or economy?
Only ryot can answer these questions. 

For any planning, project, or progress, 'Ryot is the Means and the goal'.

Constructive Criticism raises the issues or context missed in the schema of any event, not only literary work, and comes up with relevant suggestions in larger interests.

Purpose of Art

Art takes place as self expression at any age or in times. Art has no definition. Civil Society may have put art in many divisions, trends or schools etc., but they are superficial.

One may express self in a spontaneous dance, song, scribble in soil, scratch or draw on a wall, make a clay toy, or tell a tale...

Civil society is fond of divisions, grades, castes or classes and hierarchies. Hence it deviates from the essentials. So let us ignore all that nonsense.

Art as self expression comes from experience of reality and emotions. The reality could be Nature, Natural phenomena, other beings - persons, plants, animals... and experience of emotions out of these relationships.

Art transfers energy created from emotions in a creative work, which arrests Entropy. It could otherwise cause mental or physical malady. Art is not a prerogative of the professional or a class.

Community Participation: Paddy farming in Konkan | Image by Pooja Rani

Farming is not recognised by the elite society, though it uses the canvas of land, works in harmony with the Five Elements, fulfills the mainspring of creative art.

Incidentally, Indian tradition recognized 64 arts, which have been life supportive, for society as well as a person and family. My favourite claim is that Farming is the highest art form, which of course, the high culture of civilized society does not support. This is obvious because of its vested interests in the centralized power rested in higher castes/classes.

Purpose of Science

'Life', too, like ‘Art’, is not defined, not even by sciences, though there are dictionary meanings. We, however, understand what Life is (by death of a being that ends 'it' in an inert matter?).

‘God’ concept possibly came from extreme natural phenomena (in the remote aborigine past) to express their power in graphics and rituals.

Scientists, now, may call it a 'God particle' - whatever they claim to have discovered. It is not Truth. The Mystery of Nature continues to deepen!

Science works with analysis, whereas, Art is synthesis, in the civil society. This division did not exist once upon a time when fire, lever, flute, bow and arrow, pottery etc. were discovered.  Art, science or technology, whatever we may call, then, was for the well-being of the people.

There was a time when art, science and technology were not separated, just as now the line between science and technology is diluted because of vested interests in economy.

Critique of Creativity

Creativity for Everyone

 The true purpose of art, science, technology, other disciplines, and also the institutions is the welfare of, not only people, but also of the ‘Other’ (humans) and all the living-beings and their habitat.

Constructive Critique should be levelled at not only art and its various divisions, but also other disciplines, public and private institutions, at a street level. They should be subjected to the Justice by Peoples' Audit, not by courts of law: Justice is above the laws of the State.

Creativity is a buzzword now. It is applied to, from arts to sciences, warheads, engineering, ET-IT, commerce, politics... Almost everything in one go, which comes under the purview of market and consumerism, whosoever their godfathers are, sitting in their plush boardrooms!

However, the quality of creative object is hardly discerned; whether it is constructive or destructive, keeping in mind the 'Other' humans and all other living-beings and their habitat, their dependence on the natural environment, ecology and energy. Keeping in mind the present fast changing scenario, we cannot remain in our protective shells! Remember Tibet!!

It is crucial to look up at Constructive/Destructive Creativity, not in the compartments made by the so called experts, but in the Holistic way of Mother Nature, where no departments exist.

NOTES:
1. Please see the paragraph - Indian Architectural Terms, Essays in early Indian architecture (Book Review)
2. Image 2, Ancient bone flute (30,000 yBP). Image source: New York Times, Flutes Offer Clues to Stone-Age Music.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

The Youth in Life and Letters Now

 The Youth in Life and Letters Now

“The full potential of human creativity has not yet been tapped. Along with the ever-increasing miracle of love, this fact is one of the brightest hopes for human race” (Ben Okri, ‘A way of Being Free’, 1999, P.28)

Srishtiyoga - Way of Mother Nature

ACADEMIC year is about to begin: This issue is faced by a particular segment of 1200 plus million people. For the other segment of Indian society faces how to make both ends meet: their daily bread.

The elite youth (m/f) are now carrier-oriented (seeking affluence). They go through grading (degrading), reward (punishment), competition, pampering, pressures, info bombardment... blah, blah, blah.

EDUCATION is groomed to serve Industrial Society. Advent of Industrial Society brought break up of existing i.e. pre-Industrial Society, then came the breakup of family; now break up of nuclear family. (Check no. of divorce cases in family courts at metro cities.)

But this education has no social (read life supportive) orientation. Hence numbers of institutions (expertise) flourish to take over our personal and societal domain to solve our problems, which replaced the elders (put away in the homes for the aged). The result is present Mass Society that faces Identity Crisis.

WE, therefore, want to establish and/or assert our individuality or identity, where and when possible (e.g. in social networks, or looking for life partner on Internet), and even within family!

What is forgotten by the expertise is that human being is a dynamic entity. Hence generalizations fail: such as horoscopes/zodiac signs! Each individual is a unique entity. Humans cannot be graded like apples in the market place. Only awakening of their constructive creativity is in want.

India now is a picture of 'Culture of Contentment' and the Disparity turning into Despair; plurality turning to polarity; the powerful few seeking more power and the poor majority grows with their rising population by Nature's Unwritten Law of Survival of Species.

The million petal Lotus of Indic Culture turning to disintegrated Mass of the Collective, living either in the bygone Past or in speculation i.e. Future.

There is a silent war going on but without a bang. Who does notice it?

Nature knows no borders imposed by Civil Society

Iraq's oil wells were bombarded by Iran, during the war between the two. The soot from burning oil drifted by wind and settled over icy peaks of Himalayas. The black snow melted and came down to Sukhna Lake at Chandigarh. This was minor news.

Nature does not recognize borders of sovereign states, or exchange rates of international currencies, social hierarchies created by civilized societies.

What are our priorities when Life is at stake? Everything in Nature is coordinated and interdependent. Nothing is isolated in various departments. 'Butterfly created a storm' - as a saying goes!

Universal Art for Living

Eight Hours, poster © Ricardo Levins Morales

Let us spare some time for meditation!

Could art of living, or any art, and ambition go ever together? Ambition is for politicians. Laws and acts cannot regulate or control, or even take responsibility of life.

Theories don't create art. Art is transient, beyond space-time. Once done, it is over. In the act of doing there is meditation, discovery, joy, and the very act is the reward. Such an act reaches the state of vocation.

Preparing the canvas of soil, sowing seeds, caring the saplings, harvest as and when, and it is over. Then start to prepare the great canvas again. A farmer works in direct physical contact with Elements – Earth, Water, Fire (Light), Air and Space. Farmer's action, therefore, reaches the level of vocation in creative thinking and action. This vocation is Art for Living that is synonymous to Art of Living! Cooking too is similar ancient art form. When each of seven billion people need reach to 'the full potential of human creativity'.

Life, with all its five autonomous functions -- Work, Leisure, Health, Learning and Propagation -- is provided by Mother Nature to all the life forms, for its sustenance. This happened even before all the gods created by humans: Believe it or not. 

Or ask bacteria, algae, humble grasses, happy grasshoppers, bees and butterflies. But we neither understand their language nor do we ever watch them. Hence we don't know how they sustain.

Better ask ourselves, until the end of our logic. Better that our logic dies by rigorous labour before we die!

Read more SRISHTIYOGA or The Way of Nature

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Indian Society & Some Crucial Issues: Worm’s Eye view

Indian Society & Some Crucial Issues: Worm’s Eye view
By Remigius de Souza

Key words: society; institutions; nature-conservation; people-conservation; village-education.

People Energy

ANY EVENT that I notice /read makes me to introspect, watch what is burning under my feet and what is happening around, as far as my sight can reach... with whatever means available.

THE WHOLE PAST comes to my mind like a movie in a flash ...from the age I came to senses, the Four Worlds of India — the Third World (of peasants), the Fifth World (of the marginalized), the Fourth World (of Adivasis) and the First World (of Industrial Society) — where I lived, moved, worked and gained experience. Following few observations are based on this lifelong journey.

Society
WE generally use word 'society' that refers to all social collectives. However, there are some fine differences among the Indian social & cultural sub-groups. Some are civilized societies; some are aborigine communities and some ethnic communities.

India: Socio-Cultural sub-regions

Restore Languages to restore People’s Autonomy. There are as many languages as the cultural groups.

THE COLLECTIVES of the aborigines or Adivasis are better addressed as 'communities'. Because their social formation is not based on division of labour, caste and class, like civilized societies. Here, every individual is representative of whole community. A notable feature: there is no prostitution among Adivasis!

THERE ARE some ethnic communities. For example, there is matriarchal ethnic community in Kerala. Before Aryans came, there was matriarchal society in Karnataka (Bharatiya Sanskritikosha, editor: Pundit Mahadevashastri Joshi). There are also communities of Laman or Banjara (Romano), Dhangar (shepherd) etc.

Distribution of some major tribes of India

Adivasis come with the wealth of their ancient wisdom. The loss of their Forest habitat means assault on their existence and survival.

INDIA STILL HAS RICH BIODIVERSITY; hence, there is rich cultural diversity. The culture is the gift of Srishti, ‘Mother Nature’, to humans! It is, therefore, necessary in India, to include the subject of anthropology in all branches of higher education. It is necessary for the elite to learn about plural society of India. History of India, introduced by the British, is too narrow, mean and out of right context. It propagates feudalism, which is not good for democratic values, than “People History”.

Institutions
THE COLONIAL RULE brought here industrialization from Europe. It dominated entire educated and illiterate society, before anyone realized. It was not a revolution; it was borrowing; it was imposed. Industrialization came, along came many institutions and complex laws. They took over the private and public life of the collective and an individual. And both lost their autonomy of self-decision and self-reliance.

Social Work
BECAUSE OF INHUMAN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN INDIA, many institutions, movements, activists… committed to social work started during past 100 years. However, we speak from a public platform; we take for granted what is below the platform, the reality that is constantly changing. We say 'Chalata Hai – This goes on,’. And the work that remains for the experts, professionals, politicians is to find "curative measures" to save their skin.

IS THE WORK of a teacher, doctor, technocrat, engineer, architect, Govt/semi-government-employee, city planner, economist, scientist... police not "social work"? Aren't they the part of society? Of course, in a decadent society — whether Western or Eastern — this may not happen. We, however, caress our ego. That's all!

NGOs
THERE ARE NGOs from UN at global level to countless numbers in the bye-lanes of Delhi-Mumbai... These social institutions are started with noble aims and objectives. Some work within their specialized fields. Some of them face resource crunch; they have to struggle to collect funds to survive. Some disappear in the blue. Some show feudal / bureaucratic traits. Some of those working in rural areas think of illiterate peasants and the tribal as backward and "uneducated", and they have come to educate them. These professional social workers from cities find nothing worth "learning" from them.

Education (Learning)
AT THE BEGINNING OF 20TH CENTURY – the times of Ranade-Gokhale – there were two percent educated (not literate) people. Gokhale then was struggling to bring a bill of 'free and compulsory primary education' for India in the Privy Council. That was hundred years ago!

EDUCATION – Learning and Teaching – is now an occupation, no more a vocation. Educational Institutions prepare the highly educated, professional, specialist etc. candidates for employment- business. But our Public Education Institution has failed to impart literacy to large number of people in the past sixty years. Isn't it the "State-at-misfortune"?

Social commitment
WHAT IS SOCIAL COMMITMENT and whom does it apply? To give the last rites to a dead body, according to that person's faith (if known), may rank at the top on the part of society. Just imagine: if the dead is not disposed off in time, what problem would it cause to the society!

BUT THE SOCIETY, religion or person/s need not worry about it. Srishti is does it by ‘recycling’ a dead body. Millions of worms will be born in the dead body and finish it, and they too die and turn into soil.

An ordinary example of social commitment
IN MUMBAI at our home, an illiterate woman of untouchable caste was our maidservant. Once she brought a dispossessed sick old man about to die, at her home – a hut on the roadside pavement. She nursed him. She also gave him the last rites after a couple of days. Honestly, I couldn't have done this.

Reunion with Mother Nature

Conservation of Nature
VINOBA BHAVE, in his commentary on Gita, spoke of three-fold Yoga Actions, Sacrifices –Yajna, gift and penance – as I recall.
1. Yajna (sacrifice): whatever we take from Nature we must return back, for example, we take food grains from land; therefore, we restore it by putting manure, watering etc. That is Conservation of Nature.
2. Gift: society, parents, guru, kin-kith etc help us in many ways. Give them gift in gratitude and to restore their losses (this is not charity).
3. Penance: we use our body – mind, intelligence, limbs – in daily actions. We must restore the loss of energy and remove impurities etc.
Society and our body are not outside of Nature. Similarly, these three actions are Yajnas, Sacrifices. (Ref: Gita-Pravachane, Chapter 17). This interpretation of “Social Commitment”, on the part of an individual and the collective, may sound non-conventional to the believers of Gita.

A PYRAMID, TAJ MAHAL... To build these artefacts does the money come from a government mint? All the wealth that humans use basically comes from the Earth. We only process it. However, all the living-beings have equal rights to the Earth. The artefacts mentioned above indicate 'feudalism' of persons, caste or class. Unfortunately today this is repeated even by democratic nations.

THE LAND IS NOT ANYONE'S PROPERTY. None, neither the State nor a person, has ethical, moral right to own land. In its history of 5000 years, how the civilized society mutilated this land!

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT'S OBJECTIVE must be “Janata”, the People: only the People are "Means & Goal". All planning, projects, laws… their making and implementation processes should be guided and materialized through the People. Government and other institutions are only facilitators and accountable to Janata.

GOVERNMENT and other institutions are merely tools, faceless entities. Their primary duty is to the People, to protect their primary autonomous functions — Work, Leisure, Health, Learning and Propagation — and according to changing situation prepare development projects and make them available to the People.

Need for right education
"FOOD-SHELTER-CLOTHING are basic needs", a million times they – expert, planner, politician – must have chewed this old dry bone on the public platform! These celebrities royally forget a fact: Even animals have this knowledge by intuition.

Leisure - Children exercise their autonomy

Peasants and Adivasis don’t Need Entertainment / Leisure Industry.

SRISHTI, MOTHER NATURE, gave all the living beings — plants and animals — an ability and autonomy to fulfil their needs for survival. For this purpose she also provided them with five autonomous functions: Work, Leisure, Health, Learning and Propagation. Srishti, also, does not give any authority to manipulate over these functions to any human or supernatural power or institution.

THERE IS NO NEED TO REPEAT HISTORY time and again. History is before us by its litter everywhere. Question is, is there any remedy to the problems created by the history? Whether we correct root cause/s of mistakes, or find new technology, or carry on status quo policy to make superficial changes, or import a readymade foreign technology? What for creativity / originality then?

People-conservation and Social balance
INDIAN FARMERS continue to commit suicides. About 300 million people are bellow poverty line (BPL). There is no reliable count of how many are living in sub-human conditions in the slums in cities. In the 21st Century of Gregorian calendar, there are 400 million illiterate Indians in the Age of Computer-literacy. How could this 'Janata' face the forthcoming annihilation from 'technocracy'?

Learning by Sharing

The urchins here give a Fundamental Lesson in Learning. By this indigenous method the whole India will be literate in five years. People's Need is Access to Resources.

New Education for Six Lakhs Villages
HOW TO DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT EDUCATION FOR 900 PLUS MILLION PEASANTS? Who should be given priority, between Industry and Trade (organised sector), and peasants (unorganized sector)? About 90 crore people (not population) live in six lakhs villages. Which institution or media can give reliable facts about their despair in areas of food, water, education, health, agro-produce... and income? For this reason “Decentralization of Power” is an urgent need.

PREVAILING EDUCATION SYSTEM is being run for 60 years by making superficial adjustments time to time. There is no fundamental change. To bring a change following points must be attended and documented in details.

Survey of local conditions in six lakhs villages
THE SURVEY must be carried with villagers' participation at local level. Such a survey, not only becomes a part of people's education, but there is essential transparency. This must not be a sample surveys done by statisticians. The Census Surveys are insufficient.
1. Environment: natural, social, economic, educational, political etc. all aspects of environment;
2. Ecology: local language and vernacular, and their mnemonic knowledge, folk arts, the life-supporting skills in practice, traditional knowledge and tools used for living;
3. Energy: Climate, human-energy, animal-energy, bio-energy, mineral wealth, plant wealth, such as food, plants for oil-insecticide-medicine-aroma-building-colours & dyes-fibres-spices & condiments etc. Plants from land and waters, from algae-grasses to vines to giant trees;
4. Geography: location and regional linkages

Subjects for Rural Education
SUBJECTS AND TOPICS should cover all related areas that influence, affect, help that are relevant in the present situation of villages.
1. Water and land conservation, Farming & related topics, Animal husbandry, Biotechnology: (Remember that rice was domesticated 10,000 years ago, when civilised societies, cities, nations, and the word, biotechnology did not then exist.)
2. Development of Alternative Energy Sources that are used by the peasants, marketing, commerce;
3. Local self-government, land revenue, Land Acquisitions Act(?) etc. related laws;
4. This education should have field orientation;
5. Access to young and adult of all ages, genders, timings & batches suitable for peasants.
Buildings – Schools buildings – should be built in local vernacular technologies, using local materials, maintained and repaired by the locals, and not by the Public Works Departments (PWD) or third party such as contractors.

Epilogue
HOW MANY OF OUR 'CITIZENS', though they may have migrated from rural area in the past, know intimately any 'village' and its ‘Janata’? Many may be well versed in world geography, yet their personal world remains flat – two dimensional. The Sun and the Moon, however, move tirelessly around the Earth and meet each of our godforsaken villages, day and night.

THE VILLAGES must have their rightful share of resources of the nation. Their major stumbling block is education. If this is not restored to the People, the so-called 'progress', praised by others, mostly by the vested interests, may prove merely a 'pseudo-progress'.
* * *
Related Posts
1. Politics of Literacy in India : Challenges of 21st Century
2. Farming: Politics of Education in India
3. Letters and Numbers, plus ‘Things to Make'
4. Work-Leisure-Health-Learning-Propagation

© 2011 Remigius de Souza | Mumbai

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Seeds of Hybrid-Cultured Mass Society

Seeds of Hybrid-Cultured Mass Society

Hybrid seeds of food-grains came much later. 

By then industrialization had successfully bred the hybrid culture through the assembly lines of mass education to produce mass society in the First World Nations, now named the (virtual) Global Village.

The result: "hybrid culture of mass society" who have no posterity ― no community, like hybrid seeds that have no second/third generation crop. 

Peasants must buy seeds for next crop from the markets. 

The culture of mass society characterizes its loss of autonomy to think and act on their own; now it is decided by the visible/invisible rulers.

No wonder, for the likes of the Gandhi, the Schumacher, the Thoreau… there are no takers on the assembly lines: no germination, no posterity.

They rest in peace in the archives, except for occasional ‘quotes’ in discourses by pundits and politicians.

They are already a part of the past, like socialism, radical humanism, modern, post-modern, Art Nouveau… but no action.

"Hybrid Culture of Mass Society" ia a milestone in the five thousand year old history of Civilized Society!

(04.07.05)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Anyone for brown collar job?

Is there anyone for brown collar job? (metafiction)

Brown collar job means farming – agriculture etc. – as an art.

Farming is a highest form of art; a compound of art and science; the beginning of biotechnology (current biotechnology, now, is in the safe custody of intellectual property rights); and constant contact with five primal elements – Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space, as some Indians believe.

However in the Age of ET-IT who would be ready for such a job, in India? Today 'mostpeople' [1] prefer white collar or blue caller job; job that pays cash and perks! Who does need to work that feeds! Haven’t their forefathers made enough estate!

Who does wish to toil in soil-muck, sun-rain-cold? Soil has become ‘untouchable’ in the age of progress and development, and the farmers are non-entities.

"Farming is best, Commerce is medium, Service is low"

When was it we often heard this idiom? Our nation, then, was on the threshold of Independence. What dreams did our toiling peasants may have had seen?

Water Woes –1: Taxing the life of the displaced Indian peasants in Mumbai

Today, however, we notice a different scenario. The farmers are debt-ridden, some chose to commit suicide, they are left without literacy and appropriate education for six decades, their life-line – land – is legally acquired for the benefit of the First World India.

Water Woes –2: Taxing the life of the displaced Indian peasants in Mumbai

They are getting displaced from their ancestral homestead as a price of India’s progress and development. Millions of displaced villagers move to cities, megacities in hordes. You could notice them in towns, cities and mega-cities in the slums and along transit lines.

Field days for commission agents

And now commission agents, pimps of progress, have a field day to make hay, and to reap profits in free trade and globalized market. From the farms to the end-users, the farm-products go through a chain of brokers and sub-brkers.

Now, we hear, it is alleged that even employment in bureaucracy has 'extra' earning according to the status in the hierarchy.

Bureaucracy everywhere

As a result bureaucracy has penetrated from schooling to institutions – not only governmental institutions but also other public and private, social and political organizations. It has entered even in the ancient institution of 'family': it is worth investigating the break up of family, which has been the unit of community (i.e. a cohesive collective), most essential for democracy.

Alienation of the educated

The root cause of 'alienation of the educated' is in the mass education started by the British. Any changes subsequently made in the prevailing education system in the independent India have been superficial by knee-jerk reaction, which do not take account of the culture of plural mass (sic) society.

“Pangira” – Marathi movie exempted from entertainment tax

'Pangira' is a recent movie in regional language, Marathi. It is about the plight of farmers. It is more of a documentary, though it has a story based on a Marathi novel by Mr. Vishvas Patil. Maharashtra government obviously has exempted it from entertainment tax.

The movie ends with a gory event – police firing on agitated farmers, killing several of them. Such violence is a typical in movies and reality.

Unfortunately, the movie ends at an event where it should have started! Firing and killing the farmers is not the end / answer to farmers' plight. This story / movie has missed an opportunity provide creative alternative to the system.


This reminds us of a novel by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, 'Pather Dabi' (The Demand of the Road, 1926), based on armed uprising for freedom of India. It was banned by the British. The ban was lifted after Independence. The book ends with constructive creative option in precise words. We quote a specific paragraph near the end of novel:
Sarat Chandra Chatterjee wrote about 100 years ago [2]

“... from now onwards to serve village is my only solemn vow. Once there was such a time that village was life of our agrarian country Bharat. Village only was her bone-vein-blood. Today that village is on the way of destruction, the elite leave village and come to a city, from city itself they wield power upon village and from there they do exploit them. If they have any relation it is only this, none other. May they not keep? But until now the farmer who provided them with food for belly and cloth for body, that same farmer today is starving, is illiterate, and is haplessly on the way to death! Now onwards I shall devout myself for their welfare. Bharati also has agreed to help me wholeheartedly in this work. Now we will open school in villages. if need be, she accepted to teach children moving from house to house. My sanyas is for the country - not for myself, doctor."

Every year lakhs of science graduates come out of universities; some of them are biologists or botanists. Most of them end up doing clerical jobs. Their learning in science disciplines does never leave the laboratory and come "down to earth"!
Notes:
1. The term “mostpeople” is used by poet E. E. Cummings referring to people who don’t practice creativity.
2. This quote is translated from Marathi translation titled “Savyasachi” by the late B. V. Varerkar, and not from the original in Bengali (pages 399-400). It is only for information in simple language.

Related to this post

• Indian Schooling | 11 April 2007
• Politics of Literacy in India: Challenges of 21st Century | 13 January 2007
• Farming and the Politics of Education in India: Challenges of 21st Century | 09 January 2007
• One Step Quantum Leap in Education | 04 March 2007

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Indian Farmers' Woes and Joys

Key Word: Art, Farming (i.e. Agriculture, Aquaculture and Horticulture (forestry) collectively or separate)

Five Elements

Traditional farmers’ lives that depend on monsoon are almost identical in many regions of the world. Hence the following text is inclusive.

Very few would ever believe farmers are artists. Farmers' art is most risky vocation, among all types of occupations, professions and vocations. Even a few may not understand this fact though they may know what is farming.

Haiku by Remigius de Souza

Farmer's art takes place on real field down to earth. Like in words, painting, photography etc. it does not create virtual reality. Farmers take the colours from Mother Nature - Srishti, of five elements, Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space, and on a canvas of small or big plot of land; he works with contemplation. They are never verbose. They are fully in contact with every nook and corner of their farm; likewise the health of all the plants.

Haiku by Remigius de Souza

Farmers are not only artists, they are also planners, but not like town planners, who flatten the lakes and land, and cut it into pieces, make their 2D drawings to build 3D art of cities. Farmers use undulating land for management and conservation of water and land.

Poem by Remigius de Souza

Farmers are management experts, too! They manage land, water, seeds, fodder, weeding, manure, tools, carting, storage, other food crops, rearing animals and birds. And equally important are the repairs, maintenance, examination, improvement and policy planning in every aspect of home and farm, which is part of their homestead. All of these, they do within available resources. Many farmers may be ill-literate but are not 'un-educated' as the elite think.

Poem by Remigius de Souza

Traditional sculptors, for years, make Ganesha, Durga idols in clay. They are aware the deities are to be immersed. Yet they work with devotion, faith, without boredom. Farmers too work with same dedication. Their labour of love, therefore, is elevated to the status of 'vocation', of art. In their karma there is element of contemplation – Dhyan – hence it is 'spiritual' too. Traditional farming also involves action by Community Participation.

Haiku by Remgius de Souza

Politicians are like white clouds.

The educated elite class have an impression that farmers work only four months (during the season) and the rest of year lazy around. Even the experts like Amartya Sen are not exception. What about the governments and bureaucrats?

Haiku by Remigius de Souza | Image by Soojung Cho

More than natural calamities, the real cause of farmers' woes and miseries are the government and bureaucracy, market and industry, and their wrong priorities of progress and development.

Note: There is lot to learn from farmers:
1. Watering the farms: Learning from the people. Governments could learn how to save resources, particularly currency spent for development, and seal its draining at the bureaucratic level - the starting point, which consumes its major part.
2. Cow dung, Rice and Amartya Sen (a critique):Challenges of 21st Century
3. SEE: Soojung Cho’s Artworks of Inner Vision (http://www.soojungcho.com/home.htm )
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Indian Schooling

In the year 1947 India's population was about 400 millions, and 60% to 70% persons were illiterate. Presently there are 400 millions illiterate persons. What at the beginning of 20th century G. K. Gokhale attempted, to bring 'free and compulsory education to all, is still not fulfilled.

Indian Schooling

I HAD AN OPPORTUNITY to watch a short play on Door Darshan (DD), India's State TV channel, on 21-09-1989, in the afternoon transmission. It was on the occasion of International Year of Literacy. The play was about schooling. Now I, sort of, admire its main actors, Sulabha Deshpande and A. K. Hangal. I consider them to be respectable artists in the Indian cinema, TV and theater.

The play is obviously propaganda for the good cause of the spread of education by schooling. In the play an old lady (Sulabha Deshpande) wants the little boy to go to school so that he does not remain stupid like her old man (A. K. Hangal).

The boy looks after the goats and does not want to go to school. At last the old lady sells the goats. But the boy is upset. He refuses to go to school. He even attacks the other boys who come to take him bodily to school.

I wondered if Hangal and Sulabha pondered for a while over the treatment of the theme!
Here the goats are projected as the pets in the affluent families like pedigree dogs, horses, cats etc. For a villager a goat, cow, buffalo or hen is a means of livelihood.

Why then is the old man said to be stupid? Is it because he is poor? He is poor perhaps because he has been exploited first by British rulers and now by the industrialized society in India?

Why is schooling so important that one should give up the very means of livelihood – goats? Why is the rearing of animal so inferior? (Well. Some people consider that the goat is an enemy of forestation. Forestation means left over — whatever that is left after modern man — has eaten away the forest. Otherwise the goat is a sturdy animal which can live in the deserts as well as mountains, in hot as well as cold climate and is most economical to maintain for the poor. Its milk is medicinal.)

I wondered, couldn’t a goat, a tree, a paddy field, the making of an earthen pot, or moving of a plough in the field be part of schooling in India?

Why can’t actual cooking or preparing food, treating the sick, growing a kitchen garden, Milking a goat or a cow (the method of milking is different for each of these animals), making a toilet, urinal, treating garbage in the village, potatoes and onions, water and washing, sand dunes and ravines, cyclones and floods be part of schooling — actually, not merely verbally — not merely on the blackboard — either inside or outside the school building?

But the system the British started is so powerful that there is not much change except in nomenclature and timings.The so-called educationalists are still in the grip of the system started by the British. The play that was shown on DD is typical of the way the educated, the urban elite project schooling and education.

What if 5.57 lakhs of villages in India gave up rearing animals?

What if every family of 557 thousand households brings up graduates, masters and doctorates? Then, perhaps, those sitting in the chairs will lose the power game, of musical chairs; they play with lives of poor people. Finally, what is the relevance of present day English-made schooling in the eyes of these villages where 70% of the population is still illiterate?

This English-made system of education has not much changed since it started in this vast country made up of villages having a variety of landscapes, regions, climates, dresses, tongues, topography.

I take a little time off to ponder meanwhile this ‘natak’ (play or Tamasha) of Door Darshan brings insult and humiliation to realities of living in an Indian village!

For further reading: 1. Politics of Literacy in India; 2. Farming and the Politics of Education in India; 3. One Step Quantum Jump in Education; 4. Letters and Numbers, plus ‘Things to Make': Restructuring (Indian) Education 

Note: After twenty years I find this note is still valid. It has not changed the situation other than few numbers, while the population is growing. I republish it.

[Published in (1) GOGRAS, publishers Akhil Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh, Vardha, India 442001, March 1990, year 14, issue 5, p. 236-7; (2) FOURTH WORLD REVIEW, Issue 44, p 14, The Close, 26 High Street, Purton, Wiltshire SN5 9AE, UK. 1990]
 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Emergence of The Fifth World India

Emergence of The Fifth World India 

This scene appears in a public square in Mumbai.

The Fifth World India of the marginalized and the displaced is already on the scenario. And we presume it may also be worldwide phenomena. However nobody wants to acknowledge its existence, particularly those who wield power. 

The people are marginalized and displaced for various reasons. However the primary cause is Industrial Revolution and the Industrial Society that grew with it over a period of time, and their rapid, wild and unrestrained growth, progressively.

The growth of Industrialization certainly is out of proportion to entire population on, and the resources of the planet. It has created imbalance between regions and peoples, resulting in deprivation of basic needs – Food, Shelter and Clothing – for the economically weaker section, which is a large majority.

The Industrial Society, now labeled a Global phenomenon, wields monopoly over the resources of the Earth that belongs to all living beings – humans as well as plants and other animals.

Industrial Revolution is not ‘Universal’ like Agricultural Revolution. It remains in the hands of a privileged few. The rest are denied its advantages in practice, though it may not be on paper. This is not an altruistic attitude generally ascribed to humans.

Columbus discovered ‘New World’ while searching India. It followed not only colonization of new land and faith but also annihilation / enslaving of aborigines / local people. Vasco da Gama when landed at Mahim in Mumbai, then Islands of Mumbai, there was war at Mahim Fort. On winning the war the soldiers went around Mahim village and killed the unarmed villagers to create terror; typically colonization of land and faith followed power. A known history!   

Now the 20th century and its extension the 21st century have seen faces of Power, Colonization and Faith changed. They are now faceless entities, not a picture of personalized Maharaja, Map or Mother Goddess. Now they are Money (economy), Market and Machine (the make-believe-idol-of-salvation – Science and Technology). 

In India, tools with sexy and sugary names such as, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are coined to facilitate the First World India, and to allure people at large as if it is boon for heaven of happiness. As if it will work like magic wand to bring progress and development to the majority second-class citizens in 600,000 villages (by “trickle-down” formula).

Perhaps it may work for the First World India of yours and mine who live in Virtual Reality, for the Presidents, Prime-Ministers and Political Party-leaders who reach their “level of incompetence” (The Peter Principle). The peasants, of course, don’t believe in their antics. Hence they have been electing “hung” parliaments and legislative assemblies for decades; but politicians don’t learn their lessons. 

The obvious fallout of development of last six decades in India is the increasing number of the marginalized and the displaced from the rural areas. They have been migrating in hordes to mega cities and urban areas to earn their daily bread in the hope of survival.

From Nehru down till now the Government of India follows the priority of progress and development on the western model, rather than facilitating knowledge to and educating the agrarian society in six lakhs villages to face the Challenges of Industrialization, particularly in farming (agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, horticulture and related fields) and Market. This should have been the primary task before a government of any brand – right/left/centre, religion, language, caste, religion, colour and dogmas.

Slum-dog Millionaire Mumbai 

Stone Age humans must have been working in this manner!

Mumbai, said-to-be financial capital of India, has population of 110+ millions. It attracts the Global Capitalist Corporate; of course, to market their unsold / surplus goods & reap profits. Their primary interest is Indian Market, not Indian People. The First World India welcomes them.

People of The Fifth World India, the legitimate citizens of India, marginalized and displaced from their homestead, are the victims of many / different causes, including the Action., Non-Action, and/or Failed-Action by the Government/s. They are the slum-dwellers and squatters, 60%+ of Mumbai's population.

The First World India's elite citizens in Mumbai have different reactions and responses to their presence in Mumbai, which is mostly negative and hostile, very few empathize.  However, now, the landmark slum at Dharavi is a target for redevelopment, for its Land at Prime Location to mint money, by land-sharks the Real-Estate Corporate: They, too, are not interested in the People. 

It is best symbolized by Mumbai City's land use plan: Typically this 'Grey Area' of 60 plus million habitants is not shown on the map. It is as if city land is a market commodity, not for humans use. Industrial Civilization turns land-water-air-space... everything including humans into market commodity.

Government floated ‘curative’ measure called ‘free housing’ under slum rehabilitation & put the slum dwellers in high-rise concrete slums. This cannot be called the Rehabilitation of the Affected People. It is a poor planning action, either long-term or short-term. (This requires a separate chapter for evaluation.)

The Fifth World is a Global Phenomena 

Hindustan Times News

                                        Instead of strengthening autonomy of the peasants, the thrust has been on the development of industry and necessary infrastructure it required. The language of farming is Universal; therefore, Agricultural Revolution could spread across the continents, when there was neither urbanization (civilized society) nor institution of government.

As a saying goes, ‘wherever civilization stepped, it left desert behind’; now in modern times, it is Industrial Civilization. Interestingly emergence of The Fifth World is not limited to India alone; it is now a Global Phenomenon. 

Industrial Civilization, in the name of ‘Social and Financial Development’ (H G Wells, The Short  History of the World), leaves irreversible desert in the human world by effecting slavery (earlier physical, now intellectual), destitution (by constant wars), poverty – hunger – starvation – malnutrition – marginalization – displacement (by monopolizing resources – land, waters, forests, minerals, on which Peoples led, for tens of thousands of years,  Sustainable Living) and complete disregard for their cultures): Now it coins a new verbosity – Sustainable Development!   

India, in the frenzy to bring Industrialization, made several Laws and Acts (which also include Development Projects, such as dams, cities, expansion of cities…) without Enacting Rehabilitation of the Affected People, by design or default. There is no effort to scrutinize the obvious fallout of previous/existing/defunct Laws and Acts, their success and failures. Neither India does learn from others’ mistakes.

Following the draconian British-made law of ‘Land Acquisition Act’ the government took over lands. The compensation came by way of Cash that had no tangible value. Our learned leaders, bureaucrats and judiciary never thought of how people live and survive, or their Ancestral Right to land. Now with few amendments the law remains!  

The Governments in India, at Centre and the states, while following various divisive policies, which results in pushing India’s plural society to polarization and further weakening the weaker section – a large majority, unilaterally followed to develop Industry (where there is Money), and conveniently ignored Gandhiji (who ironically appears on Indian Currency).

More on this issue:

1. THE OTHER INDIA in THE OTHER WORLD (Review) 
2. Urban Renewal in the Regional Context 
3. ‘PRO-POOR’ – Election slogan by UPA-2004

Note: 1 Image, "Mumbai's Slum Population" Source: Hindustan Times, e Paper 17-10-2010
2. Images of squatters in Mumbai by Remigius de Souza 


~ ~ ~ ~ ~
©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.