(From a post of Rahul Banerjee. About internet being brought to the remote tribal hamlet of Kakranam Alirajpur.)
Rahul Banerjee Cowmesh is community owned wireless mesh, a technology that allows internet to be provided in remote locations far away from mobile towers. The government is not supporting this as it is a cheap means of empowering the poor and that is why it has to be there in the name.
Aparna Krishnan who designed it - is it free ?
Rahul Banerjee A guy called Arjun Venkatraman
did the set up. It cost us 40000 to install. Running cost is minimal.
However, to insulate against long power outages we are investing another
100000 on a solar backup.
Aparna Krishnan so open source in a sense. anyone can replicate it anywhere ?
Rahul Banerjee They will have to take training to run it. The people in kakrana can install it. You will have to pay some nominal fees its not totally
free.
Aparna Krishnan
Ok, np. In principle however i do beleive that all
knowlege after creation belongs to society. The society which in many known and
unknown ways has sustained the person who created that knowlege. Like the
ayurveda texts which were written and handed over - with the writer not even
claiming authorship, just some general name of vyasa or vagbhata placed for
form ! That was the same bread labour concept in more recent times - where each
works for his food, and creativity is given over to society.
Aparna Krishnan
Anyway thats by the by. In the here and now I agree
things are different, and a nominal fee is very reasonable.
Arindam
Ghosh The rishis were supported by kings thru
grants
Arindam
Ghosh So you can say it was like university
work. Once published you don't have IP on it. People on those time also tried
to keep things secret only disseminated to chosen few.
Aparna Krishnan
No, rishis were not always in courts. But those days
knowlege was supposed to go with austerity, as a value. That is essential, so
that knowlege not lead to arrogance. A brahmin was to have read very deeply,
and was to live on bhiksha, asking from home
to home. That brahmins perverted that ideal is a different story. Today
they are all grazing in greener pastuers, forgetting even debt to those
who worked to feed them in fields !!
Aparna Krishnan
Maybe they kept things secret, maybe not. I dont
know, and it does not matter to me. Just have a general beleif that knowlege
belongs to all. Only the here and now interest me. the past to the extent that
it helps me understand the present.
Arindam
Ghosh I understand your point. But there was
this unwritten agreement: If a sage needed something he can go to any king and
his demand would be instantly met.
Aparna Krishnan
Yes, austerity and learning was considered higher
than wealth and power. But that austerity has to be real. that detachment real.
The yamas and niyamas learn from early years would give an orientation.
Aparna Krishnan
Anyway if people say things were different, maybe
they were. It does not matter. Its matters only so far as it helps us get a
sense of direction and a societal understanding today.
Rahul Banerjee In reality the ideals of vedanta were given a quiet burial
and the karmkandi caste oppression riven monstrosity of everyday Hinduism has
ruled the roost for two millennia.
Aparna Krishnan
i would differ. many many things i have seen and
sensed in the village show me that essential values of the gita are there.
Termed differently maybe. There is respect for austerity, for the medicant who
wanders singing songs of god and asking for alms. There is unfathomable
generosity (to share with a mendicant the last glass of rice at home comes from
a different courage rooted in a different faith) which is termed dharmam. Yes,
there are many unforgivable perversions. and each of those have to be uprooted
with sweat and blood. But when we rebuild we need to rebuild on what the
foundations of a civilization are. That is the vedanta. And to understand the
foundations of a civilization is why we need to delve into a true history and
into society outside the malls and 4 lane highways.
Rahul Banerjee Your village is as caste oppression riven as any other so
no point in romanticising it away.
Aparna Krishnan
I have little interest in romanticizing anything. My
only real interest these days is survival, and all i do is answer FB messages
and phonecalls on gada rates and bag rates of bags that are being stitched in
the village. My only point here is that a civilization
has its strengths and weaknessess. To throw the baby out with the
bathwater, and to convince a civilization that its essentially a rotten
civilization is one strategy. And the leaders can then define and build a
new civilization with the broken bricks. The other is to reiterate the
strengths, and question even failure unforgivingly - and rebuild on the
strengths and the valid roots. I would go with the latter. Thats all.
Aparna Krishnan
It is modernity and industrilizatin and
centralization that has broken my village. The caste discrepencies we could
have questioned and corrected in many ways. Modenity has rendered my village
resourceless today - in a few short decades.
Sridhar
Lakshmanan We will be installing
one soon
Aparna Krishnan
Sridhar, but actually why ? The same 'why' that we face over
pulling villages into the market economy - the gains and the costs, both
essentially unpredictable. The same questions with technology. The dependence
that it engenders. The electricity that becomes more essential. And unless the
gain is clear and substantial, I hesitate to rush in . So training the children
in making GPS maps in our village has been Nagesh's trip, and i have stayed
away - making local medicines with Eashwaramma. And the tribal communities you
work with are more remote and self sufficent than my village. What is the need
and gain you see for internet there ?
Sridhar
Lakshmanan There is some thing called intranet.
I generally prefer that over Internet it has a huge value and keeps negatives
of Internet out. When I get my chance I will do that likely b4 this year.
Technology is a factor multiplier Wat u put in gets multiplied so input matters. And who holds the access to what matters.
Having said all there is enuf loot that has happened in the name of ict4d and also bridging digital divide.
All said and done individual efforts are to be lauded. It's also interesting that there is lot of research that suggests technology doesn't improve learning outcomes only the teacher does
Technology is a factor multiplier Wat u put in gets multiplied so input matters. And who holds the access to what matters.
Having said all there is enuf loot that has happened in the name of ict4d and also bridging digital divide.
All said and done individual efforts are to be lauded. It's also interesting that there is lot of research that suggests technology doesn't improve learning outcomes only the teacher does
Rahul Banerjee the internet enables one to get more info. what and how
you interpret it is quite another matter!!! presently the internet is very weak
in kakrana and all it allows is emailing. for content we download stuff in
Indore and then take them by hard disk to kakrana called data muling and then
use the intranet to spread it around the campus.
Sridhar
Lakshmanan One sure way in which Internet helps
is in price discovery . A real market assumes free flow of information and no
assymetry and no skew . Internet almost makes this a reality
Aparna Krishnan
What is intranet ?
Rahul Banerjee neo-classical economics assumes free flow of information
in its conceptual markets but in real markets there is always information
asymmetry engineered by those who control these markets!! the internet has
helped in this process as now big financial institutions can control the
crucial online finance markets better!!!
Sridhar
Lakshmanan It's only for a dedicated set of
users
Aparna Krishnan
Rahul Banerjee i am supposed to
minimise use of technology as i criticize it ! I have been accused of double
standards and worse. So asking Sridhar directly is a more technology-free act !
Than googling.
Rahul Banerjee bull shit!!
Sridhar
Lakshmanan If u have shouted from ur roof top
and I did the same to reply Rahul Banerjee would have agreed
Aparna Krishnan
Sridhar, technology is not neutral. It takes on
colors based on a social and political reality. And the multiplier effect you
mention takes over. So overall this (as any) technology will only deepen the
industrial capitalist hegemony.
Aparna Krishnan
I may sell a few hundreds (or thousands) of cloth
bags through FB noise, and feel pleased. But that is just one of the fringe
matters, and the overall picture of who benefit is another story.
Aparna Krishnan
Thats my understanding, and my fear. I hope I am
wrong. because it is a fait accompli, like many other things seem to be.
Aparna Krishnan
Also, about learning and teaching, yes, I tend to
the same old-fashioned view as yours. That the teacher counts, both to inspire
learning and values, and technology is a simply a small extra.
Rahul Banerjee it all depends on who controls technology. capitalists
have been controlling it and deciding how it is to be used. we can only frolic
on the fringe without making much impact!!
Aparna Krishnan
yes, and i dont see that change.
Aparna Krishnan
And in that reality, the more we pull the
disadvantaged into the internet, thinking we are 'empowering' them. the more we
may be exposing them to the capitalist machinations. That dilemna is not just
about internet, it is in each step we take into integrating the rural
communities into the wider world. Either because we feel it will create new
worlds for them, or simply because they (and we) have reached the end of
imagination and see no other way in the here and now, however flawed the step
may be.
Aparna Krishnan
Sridhar, you had mentioned your friend Sundar, who facing this
unsurmountable issue, simply stayed on his land 'doing nothing', as every step
in these times seemed compromised. I passed their farm while going to Ram's
farm (they are neighbours !) and wanted to stop and exchange woes, but it did
not work out !
Aparna Krishnan Kannan Thandapani
? You have been in a village long enough now. Every step I have taken
for two decades now (except maybe ayurveda where the doctor focusses to
trying to work out locally preparable medicines where possible ) has
seemed a step away from gram swaraj.
The dream is in one direction, of small local, self sustaining
communities. The immediacies make us take steps in diametrically
opposite directions. I suppose the old man with the stick (wand ?) faced
the same realities then.
Arjun
Venkatraman Re: Open Source - there is nothing
proprietary in anything we've set up at Kakrana. All the software is under the
GNU Public License or comparable similar license. The charge that Rahul da is
mentioning is pretty much at actuals on equipment etc.
Arjun
Venkatraman :D I quit
selling software to wall street to stand by that :D. But I've found as much intertia against tech among the
"dogood" crowd in India as I find in boardrooms on Wall Street. Rahul da and the Kakrana folks
are one of our earliest adopters!! Even more commendable since the gent who put
up the actual antennae etc is not a "qualified" engineer :D
Aparna Krishnan
Arjun Venkatraman i dont know if
i am 'dogood', but i admit that i am one of those who have 'much inertia' in
tech areas. But congratulations on both grounding the technology, and avoiding
the pitfalls of the patenting crookery. You may find your next partner in crime
in Sridhar.
Arjun
Venkatraman Rahul da, at the risk of
sparking everyone's isms...my theory is that tech sits happily with whoever
appreciates its power and uses it responsibly. If the non capitalists got hold
of the tech, we would see new problems stemming from that as well. In fact, I
think we will see our fair share of troubles even with the network we are
discussing. But with a collaborative attitude and scientific approach, these
can be resolved at the community level without becoming huge issues.
The problem is the religious mysticism that we let the technologists create and get away with. If we can break that, I think the rest will follow
The problem is the religious mysticism that we let the technologists create and get away with. If we can break that, I think the rest will follow
Aparna Krishnan
Modern technology is part of the industrial
globalized world that many of us question, and buttresses it, whether used for
good or ill. That is my fear. To use technology to destroy technology could be
a plan. I am personally very unsure of that process.
Though the other process of abstainaing is also problematic in these
times. With all my reservations,I have been teaching my children in the
village essentials of word and excel, just as i also teach them english,
so that it could 'equip' them as they step into a world that promises
to be very hard on them. I do not know if it will proved right or wrong
in the final analysis.
Sridhar
Lakshmanan EllamAe Mayai enjoy it as long as ur
alive
Aparna Krishnan
Sridhar
Lakshmanan Along with the concept of Mayai is
the concept of Dharmam, and the need to try to understand it and live by it !!
Btw, dharmam is part of the common vvillage vocabulary, and the attempt to live
by it. Mayai incidentally is not !!
Arjun
Venkatraman Aparna ji I see the source of
the tech inertia in the sentiment that you are expressing. I'd like to point
out though that the perception of what is "technology" and what is
not, is the key. This perception is what gets reinforced when we are subjected
to the hardness of the world. However, technology itself is not limited
to one sort of perception. Tool use has been a key step in the
evolutionary process and technology as we know it today is no different
in its effect from tool use among primates.
Arjun
Venkatraman The only way appears to be forward.
We must constantly push our tools and tool makers to do better with what we
have. One of the reasons we choose to make shared community accounts for all
our cowmesh efforts is that we wish to encourage people to do more things with
less concern for their own private space. For example the password to the email
cowmail.ranikajal@gmail.com is shared by all the students and teachers of the
Ranikajal school as well as anyone else who is using the network. The security
training required here is not to keep your password secret but to learn to tell
who is an appropriate person to share your password with. We call this model
peer validated self assertion. It is as technical as a computer and as
complicated to teach, but requires nothing except a group of human beings
communicating to implement.
Aparna Krishnan
Yes, the charkha, the cycle. Beyond that I would not
be categorical. (The cycle, because I need it rather desperately !) Also, I
have been deeply suspicious of electricity dependece, maybe strengthened by the
year spent in the Narmada struggle in days of youth. But I see a world gone
amuck, and devouring all those outside its ambit. And so we try to get those on
the fringe in somewhat. But I suspect we are simply sawing the branch we are
sitting on, steadily.
Arjun
Venkatraman BTW we've managed to establish that
just as you can use a Charkha to generate your own clothes you can also use a
dynamo equipped charkha to charge a battery to power your radio/laptop while
you get your clothing sorted :D
Arjun
Venkatraman I totally share your suspicions of
electricity dependence myself. Centrally provided electricity is as dangerous
as centrally provided information. This is why we are keen to get to a state
where both the grid and the mesh can run without centralized assistance. Rahul
da is already working on solar for Ranikajal's cowmesh. If it comes
through, it will become at least India's first completely independent
communication system. A few hundred of these around the landscape will
make it that much harder to dominate opinion
Aparna Krishnan
Your work per se is phenomenal. These are just some
deeper questions I face.
Arjun
Venkatraman Oh I love discussing this stuff on
FB so that it's there in documentation. At some point I will write a program to
collect all these conversations and compile them into a book :D
Arjun
Venkatraman Hmmm, actually if you just want
clothing, the solar charkha works out. But I suppose you could still stick the
dynamo on there and have the sun do both your jobs for you...
Arjun
Venkatraman The dams that have been built on
rivers we can do little about. But we can prevent dams of inertia from being
built on our streams of consciousness. Hopefully these conversations will serve
to do that for others too :D
Kannan
Thandapani Charging a battery using charka is
great. Is there a disposal-friendly battery too?
Arjun
Venkatraman Don't know of a disposal friendly
battery. The only thing I can think of to do with them is to join a bunch
together and use as a paperweight...in perpetuity.
Arjun
Venkatraman Or if its a bigger battery as a base
weight for a free standing punching bag or antenna
Aparna Krishnan
Easiest to reduce, no. Safest, I mean.
Rahul Banerjee Anarchism classically speaks for rational use of tools
controlled by a socially and environmentally conscious community. State of the
art solar power for cowmesh ranikajal will be operational next month!!
Aparna Krishnan
SF (science fiction), "socially and
environmentally conscious community" !! What about tools for a socially
and environmentally irresposible community - coming to the real world ? How
much and how far should we aid technology use and dependence.
Rahul Banerjee Classical Anarchism is ideological fiction and not science
fiction!! We are operating in an imperfect world and offering partial patchwork
solutions all of us. No one is capable currently of posing a viable challenge
to modern induatrial development.
Aparna Krishnan
The multiplier effect ot technology that Sridhar
mentioned is the heart of the matter. The good gets multiplied as also the bad.
As of now, the latter would subsume the former is my fear. And in my village,
validated. There is 'development' there as shown by cable TV population and
cell phones. There is also the other side of waterlessness traceable to the day
electricity entered 30 years ago. Which desertification makes all 'development'
meaningless.
Aparna Krishnan
Modern industrial development is a genie let loose.
It will consume itself only the day the petroleum gets over. Or nature will
bring us to our knees before that day. The poorest and those with least role in
the mindless consumption, and who earn least dividends from this lethal game
will get consumed first, and we will follow. The head sees that
dispassionately. The heart has a rationality of its own, and affirms what the
head rejects - and so it is all our lot to try to restore and build. Often even
against all hope.
Arjun Venkatraman Responding to a couple of points - An intranet is a network that uses the same underlying technology as the internet in terms of infrastructure, but is not connected to the "mainstream" internet. A sort of local network...We think of it as a lake/pond as distinct from the sea. Which in turn contributes both to the cloud as well as to the mist, i.e. global data sharing as well as local data sharing.
Arjun Venkatraman Responding to a couple of points - An intranet is a network that uses the same underlying technology as the internet in terms of infrastructure, but is not connected to the "mainstream" internet. A sort of local network...We think of it as a lake/pond as distinct from the sea. Which in turn contributes both to the cloud as well as to the mist, i.e. global data sharing as well as local data sharing.
Arjun Venkatraman Also,
the comparison of technology to a genie would be much loved by Asimov,
who would also be quick to point out that if there exists a genie, it
must certainly not be forced to live in a bottle against its will. Which
means that artificially preventing the tech from flowing would be the
same as building a dam (I suspect I am repeating analogies here) and
would likely have the same effect.
Arjun Venkatraman Speaking
from my understanding (though limited) of Gandhi from Gram Swaraj, if
you consider the idea of a republic extending only up to the range of a
bullock cart and extend the analogy to communication networks, then any
network should extend only to such
extent as can be afforded by the users themselves and should not require
an external service provider to sell it to them. The idea of a COWMesh
works on the same principle. If you can build capacity in a village to
build a network ground up and have it eventually connect to the
mainstream in its own sweet time, the learning curve of the people
setting up and maintaining that network and of subsequent generations
who grow up without the notion of taking communications infrastructure
for granted would be stellar compared to the ones we see today.
Arjun Venkatraman This
is why when working with the COWMesh we usually tell people to focus on
building skills with the tech already purchased and available on the
ground, since a LOT of the potential in already available tools is still
untapped.
Arjun Venkatraman As a result, the COWMesh is far less about the mesh and more about the COW, i.e. about the community ownership.
Arjun Venkatraman The
"mesh" is simply a reminder to tell people to keep multiple links
between points to prevent any one node from becoming inappropriately
significant as compared to the others
Arjun Venkatraman So
now we tell people who speak of Jal Jangal and Jameen, to also include
Jaankaari as worth standing for and taking ownership of...we've only
lately started finding resonance with that sentiment.
Arjun Venkatraman And
we further encourage people to see things more in terms of connectivity
and communication than Internet or intranet or social media or any
specific application...there is a nice line by Kabir - bin dharti ek
mandal deese, bin sarvar ju paani....
Aparna Krishnan I
would tend to be very very cautious with introduction of almost
anything in a village. Because even something as innocuous as a school -
i will not commit to whether it does more harm or more good. And
something like borewell technology has laid waste
our village. Technology is not value free at all - it absorbs the value
of the current politics. But then time is not on our side, and also the
larger processes demand our responses, and so with mixed feelings I go
with certian processes. I teach my children English, I teach them some
computering on my laptop, I encourage them to pass 10th even when they
try to dropout. I stay deeply ambivalent about these however.
Arjun Venkatraman I
would say it is most important who introduces the skill and what they
say about it. If the driving instructor does not bake in caution early,
you have idiot drivers on the road. And we let kids on the information
superhighway with no training :/
Aparna Krishnan Yet technology does finally take the colours of the larger economics and politics.
Arjun Venkatraman It
has to. It is pure power. Power has no preference. It works for whoever
wields it. My job in life is to make sure that no one can dominate the
playground...
Aparna Krishnan It
is a highly skewed ground. yes, we are all in different ways trying to
address that. when in doubt i go back to gandhi, and wonder how he in
his essential practicalness would address it. he understood in that long
ago age, when his was a lonely voice, the madness of modern systems and
modernity.
Aparna Krishnan we
need to be practical, and we need to be idealistic. We need the long
term, and the short term. We need a strong local independence, and in
that strength we need o allow the whole world come in. This
multi-dimensional balanceing eludes our abilities. So every act we do
comes with its own baggage - and the maturity to face that, and to not
need to defend our actions is I think essential in these complex times.
Rahul Banerjee well
Gandhi may have understood the madness of modern development but he did
precious little to challenge it because he was funded by the crooks who
orchestrated that development in india.
Aparna Krishnan Thats
a line sadly beaten to death. I have no intention of defending Gandhi,
mainly because i do not feel he requires my defence.
Also because the idea and central philosophy matters more than the person. Humans will compromise, make errors of judgement. They essentially need the honesty to accept these as errors and compromises. Gandhi, more than most, was extremely unforgiving with himself.
Anyway in the existentialist crisis of the day, with the breakdown of society, and earth itself, in all ways, it is a return to morality, to simplicity that is in need. Charity by the rich, who otherwise continue unleashing violence by their very living, is passe. Even revolutions which speak of redistribution of profits, while continuing assault on a battered earth, is passe. What is left now are those thought and principles that go by the name of Gandhiism.
Also because the idea and central philosophy matters more than the person. Humans will compromise, make errors of judgement. They essentially need the honesty to accept these as errors and compromises. Gandhi, more than most, was extremely unforgiving with himself.
Anyway in the existentialist crisis of the day, with the breakdown of society, and earth itself, in all ways, it is a return to morality, to simplicity that is in need. Charity by the rich, who otherwise continue unleashing violence by their very living, is passe. Even revolutions which speak of redistribution of profits, while continuing assault on a battered earth, is passe. What is left now are those thought and principles that go by the name of Gandhiism.
Rahul Banerjee not only Gandhi but other anarchists too including myself face this dilemma which is never faced up to squarely
Aparna Krishnan Precisely.
Then why take off of Gandhi each time ? Ms. Roy can enjoy her takeoffs -
but someone like you who is totally grounded understands that in a
compromised world, we all make some moves which cannot stand upto the
ideals we vouch for.
When I moved to the village I was firm on 'Local Income' as the corner stone of integrating with a village, and living as one of them. It was a glorious failure. We did earn from farming in initial years, but it did not meet our full requirements. And then drought came, and the whole rural discourse changed. To live on Local Income then meant living on half stomach. Stronger men/women might have done it - I did not. You have also had to make your direction shifts in life.
So we simply need to draw on ideals and ideals from Gandhi or Ambedkar or Marx, and do what we can in depleted times.
When I moved to the village I was firm on 'Local Income' as the corner stone of integrating with a village, and living as one of them. It was a glorious failure. We did earn from farming in initial years, but it did not meet our full requirements. And then drought came, and the whole rural discourse changed. To live on Local Income then meant living on half stomach. Stronger men/women might have done it - I did not. You have also had to make your direction shifts in life.
So we simply need to draw on ideals and ideals from Gandhi or Ambedkar or Marx, and do what we can in depleted times.
Aparna Krishnan Personal
synchrony of thought and deed which was very important once to me, and
still is in a sense, is less so with passing years. It is more of how
we can collectively work out societal structures where life can find
more validity and justice. Yes, anarchisim or gram swaraj or the rose by
any other name ...
Aparna Krishnan Arjun Venkatraman,
this was my recent response to another post celebrating 'Literacy'.
This is one of my deepest questions - why we sell our knowleges as the
celebrated knowleges to other communities having far more essential
skills. By celebrating these, we are
de-celebrating those. This is my question (to myself also) when I teach
English, or computers to children. But having failed in securing Gram
Swaraj, a validity of the way of being with sustainable local skills -
these are other (damaging ?) interventions we indulge in. " Why should
confidence be rooted in literacy. Confidence should be rooted in her own
knowlege of agriculture and cattle rearing. By celebrating their
poweress of writing (or schooling) de we realize that we are parallely
undermining their essential self identitty. And subversively
strengthening our own superiority in the pecking order. By celebrating
our own inherited strengths. These are deep waters."
Rahul Banerjee because parroting Gandhi and Marx is not sufficient in today's context anymore
Aparna Krishnan Of
course. And Gandhi may not have been fully sufficent in those times
either, and there were other giants also. And he would have made
mistakes - show me one human being who did not. Yet there is such
strength and learning to draw from him, as from others, that denying or
denigrating is rather beside the point, to put it mildly.
Arjun Venkatraman Ambivalence is the root of ambidexterity :)
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