Some people say they will 'adopt' a village. A village is not a puppy.
A village is a vast civilisation, far superior to us. It has a culture of giving, that we with all our assets can never match remotely.
Our urban landfills are exploding, our sewage systems are collapsing, our alienation increases, our crime rates are on an exponential upswing - and we go to 'develop villages'.
If we go to understand and learn, we may yet be able to save ourselves and our earth. Lessons on sustainable living, lessons on reduced needs, lessons on spontaneous shareing, lessons on what a true and simple and universe embracing religiousness can be ...
How and since when did a skill with alphabets become superior to this skill with patterns, the muggus ?
And why am I called 'literate', and they 'illiterate' ? And why do I set up schools to civilise them, while they have the humility not to make any such presumptious moves ?
One cannot adopt a village, but one may seek to be adopted by a village.
A village was traditionally a no waste space. Cooking was done on local firewood, the woodash was used to clean the pots, the washwater and bath water flowed to the trees. The vegetable waste went to the cattle.
The shopping was very minimal, and the weekly provisions used to be wrapped in leaf or old newspaper at the local Friday santa..
The sanitation was such that the human waste returned to the soil and fertilized it.
Another community. Far inferior. Which could only cook on mined petroleum gas. Which could only travel by spewing noxious fumes. Which created overflowing landfills as it consumed and grew.
Whose sanitation system poured human waste into rivers and polluted them.
A rapacious community that drained the blood out of the hinterland as it consumed and consumed.
... went to the former to 'school them', to 'develop them', to teach them 'better sanitation'.
Instead of going to learn on how to save themselves.
Paalaguttapalle (Dalitwada)
Some people say they will 'adopt' a village. A village is not a puppy.
A village is a vast civilisation, far superior to us. It has a culture of giving, that we with all our assets can never match remotely. If we are lucky, a village gives us a space in their hearts. We can only learn from then, and sometimes help in small humble ways.
That 'help' is also actually just undoing a few of the harms that the urban world has unleashed on their world. On one side by depleting their resources to feed our needs - and they moved from growing their own food, to sugarcanes for us, and finished their water totally. On the other hand by building their consumerism as we need 'markets' to levels they cannot afford. So they skip food, and buy cell phones !
24 March 2016 at 19:49 ·
Is thinking superior to living ?
Is a professor superior to his driver ?
Am I superior when I write a nice article than when when I mop my house ?
In facing these questions we may be able to understand and address the basic inequities in society.
People assume that is a 'well educated' person moves to a village he will contribute more. Wrong.
'Modern education' simply gives us one world view, implying that those outside of that are backward and need to be civilised. In actualality, the 'modern educated' people with their inventions have driven the world to its breaking point, and the answers can only be found in the village skills and sustainable practices.
The 'well educated' person needs a lot more of unschooling before he can see village realities and strengths and participate sensitively and meaningfully. I have been that person, and I know what I am saying.
And my husband, 'well educated' in an IIT, realised soon enough that the actual practical engineering skills, and hands on ability of the farmer, was something way superior to his.
The point of that kind of post is may be to inspire other techies or the people who have expertise and are sitting at edge to leave their monotonous job.
We have to somewhere accept that most of the time,people who are technical sound and have expertise will be more beneficial than a 12th pass
More beneficial for what ? What do we feel needs to done ? What is the world we desire to create/ protect ? From that understanding we begin.
And why 'inspire techies' ? All youth I would think !
...
The sociologists and activists who have JNU, Oxford, Harvard in their history have already lost it. Unlearning all that will need a humility that is rare.
Those who have spend decades in a village, with those from villages, are the ones who will know the pulse of this land.
The ones who actually understand the soul of this land are the villagers. Only they may be able to yet restore this land to her own inheritence.
...
Just saw a post on NRI couple, adopting a village and empowering the people.
1. NRI. Irrelevant.
2. Adopting a village. One cannot do that. A village is a vast and gracious civilization. If one is humble, it may adopt you.
3. You cannot empower that community that feeds and sustains you. It empowers you. At best one can work with it.
Unless the words themselves are right, everything goes wrong.
I agree! Was reading and laughing.. it’s just some media hungry start up plan similar to a fashion designer ‘saving’ Khadi by designing one collection in a session.
We, with our urban skills, are most equipped to deliver those to the local communities, and in no way able to actually protect their own ancient and sustainable skills, and retain their pride in their own systems. That is their battle, and maybe can only come from them. By our very existance in the village, maybe we increase the value they give to the modern world.
We teach them a little English as they 'are otherwise unemployed post college', we link them up to markets as 'there is malnourishment and some money flow is desperately needed'. We think of 'better schools', when schooling itself is an alien construct. The local lives existed in the son working withe father through growing years learning pottery and weaving. Every real step seems a little further from the Gram Swaraj we dreamt of.
Yes, we document and try to being back the local herbs ... but one old person dying means the vanishing of a whole knowlege system and worldview, before which what we attempt is insignificant. Yes, we try to work with SRI and organic agriculture, but as we watch the groundwater is overused and exhausted. And there is neither inorganic nor organic agriculture anymore.
Once we accept the death of our dream of Gram Swaraj, then our activities of enabling them enter the mainstream makes sense. But while we pay obeisence to anarchisim, to Gram Swaraj, we are living a contradiction
Its one thing to have sympathy for the poor and work for them. For their right to food, against their displacement.
It is another thing to engage so closely that one understands the nuances in their lives, their ethos, their wisdoms. And to respect. Deeply.
The latter is what is the real starting point.
Abhijit Meenakshi
23 November 2015 at 13:01 ·
The whole debate about educated or uneducated ministers is nonsense. What are you trying to prove?... that only the formally-educated ones have the right to rule? and those who did not have a chance to get formal education in a country where only 15% people reach college, have no right to be ministers? Don't forget we had Oxford, Harward, Yale, and IIT educated ministers, who have brought to this state of the country where 75% people go hungry!
Let's challenge their policies and not their degrees!
A - Excess intellectualisation makes many of us lose real understanding
S - Intellectualisation is a form of elitism and a basis for self propaganda and propagation
A - Even literacy. I see that difference in Eashwaramma and me. The understanding and retention is far supeior. In her.
S - True. I personally think these are also related to the degree of harshness one faces in life or they get exposed to other people's difficult kife
A - Yes. Being brought up in a secure bubble is a huge handicap.
S - Very big handicap
The first and only thing for us to do is to advise/ correct our community of the Privileged. Which community has claimed such a large share of the pie that there is little left for the majority in villages.
To advise them to share it out responsibly. To advise them on how to spend such that livlihoods are supported. To advise them to reduce their carbon footprint.
Unable to do that, we all descend on villages to advise them instead.
I saw a site called 'IIT for villages'.
When will we stop being saviours ?
When will we realize that our modern education has only trained us in destructive technologies, and into a system that consumes the earth with insatiable appetite.
When will we ralize that villages are the last repositories of sustainable knowling and sustainable being. From where we can can only learn. In humility.
When will we face that the simplicity and contentment and a simple unselfconscious giving that may yet save the earth is the lesson we need today. From villages.
And yet we descend on villages. To school them into our unsustainability. With deep arrogance and a matching vast ignorance.
21Vigneshwaran RK, Subha Bharadwaj and 19 others
Comments
I met those kids at Pandeswaram and spoke to them. They are good kids wanting to learn about/from the villages unlike the older generations of "I am here to save you" types.
Kushal Reddy
is part of their team. He and his team should connect with you and the folks at the village.
I was speaking at a broader level. Yes, I am sure the kids are good kids. I was once that age, and as clueless !
Would be glad to engage with them. And have them at our village also.
Hello! We style ourselves IIT for Villages because we certainly do believe that there is a lot that we as students could do to help. However, this isn't a one way street - we are equally sure that we have a lot to learn from villages, and we have always tempered our believes belief by first trying to understand ground realities: We understand that arm-chair philosophy leads no where and hence try to go to the ground to learn. After-all, forming opinions and believes without interacting with the people concerned is not right
We would be happy to answer questions, if any, that you have about IViL. Do mail us at ivil.iitm@gmail.com!
It is a very important engagement, and it is most essential that the youth engage with villages. I congratulate you all on your effort and would be happy to contribute in any way.
We have all walked to a village at some point in our trajectory with the intention to 'help'. Slowly another understanding comes that in essential ways we have more to learn than to 'give'. Though yes, in the here and now, it continues to be a 2 way street.
When I hear of meetings to discuss poverty, or alternatives, or something like that, they do not interest any more. Even when respected intellectuals are on the podium.
Because the stakeholders, the people of the land, of the villages, are mostly missing. Or at best are presented as extra players. Sometimes receiving an award.
Because the people of this land are the people who know what the real questions are. And the real answers.
They are are ones who sustain this land with their grounded work and their grounded intelligence. And they are the ones who can show us The Way.
11 February 2015 at 14:11 ·
The sooner AAP supporters forget about the IIT in the biodata of many of its members, the better (I just saw some post about this - so I am responding !)
These degrees are the burden of false superiority we carry - that in the interests of the common people we ourselves need to quickly see through and reject. The common people, the vernacular people, the illiterate people have all the wisdom of the ages in them, as much as any IIT or IISc or IIA scientist - and more.
When, and only when, we realise and accept this, will we tune into the natural genius of the country and evolve in the best traditions of this nation. Modern skills and degrees are only that - some tools. The brick and mortar has to be the essence of the country, which is protected by the ordinary people in the villages even today.
5Ritesh Singh, Shaji Krishnan and 3 others
Regarding AAP, I have one caution I would like to offer. I see many followers take pride on the fact that AK has an IIT degree. That could be the stumbling stone.
A sense of superiority over the common Indian because of any degree IIT, or NIIT or Harvard is a false beginning. The common indian, and the villager, is chock full of intelligence and common sense. And unless we first and foremost realise that, we will not allow them to lead and define the problems and the solutions.
We will carry the white man's burden of educating the natives.
This is just a caution for us all - and once one is cautious of the pitfalls of false ego, it is OK. (AAP is more vulnerable to this because it has a greater share of 'english educated' members)
53Sanjay Maharishi, Archana Prasad and 51 others
Comments
It took me many years in a small illiterate community to realse these truths - both my own initial arrogance at thinking I knew the answers, when I did not even know the questions. And their own far vaster knowlege (hidden in their humility.)
yes, this point needs quite some attention, because English (based) education continues to be considered superior, unfortunately.
We had an IIT chief minister for 2.5 years in Goa and because of his inability to do anything, he was kicked upstairs as Defence Minister of the country! If all the IIT trained guys and their profs were put on a massive ship to Mars, this country would do very well because we have millions of people (like Aparna's community) who know how to grow food and make do. Right now, we train IIT guys with our hard earned money and then they use it for their own personal careers in the United States. This they have been doing ever since the IITs were started. Will the US give us the money we as a supposedly poor nation handed them in the form of trained IITs and other pros? Ask an IIT guy to plant some rice or vegetables and you will discover who really knows what.
Claude
, I used to rue the 'brain drain' - in recent years I have discovered I feel its a non issue, or even a good thing. The sheer implicit and assumed superiority of the IIT animal is such a fatal disease that we are well rid of it. It is our fault that we sit and fund those white elephants (i myself studied in one over funded places - not IIT, i didnt get in after my 12th - and i remember the sense of 'we are the cream', and how we demanded and claimed a 'educational tour' to goa and treated this taxpayer funded holiday as our due. i am ashamed, but it took further experiances to show me my fakeness. Many I fear live with that sense of superiority.)
I agree. This automatic linking of his success to his IIT degree has to go. Probably, he had to overcome and unlearn many things he learnt in IIT, to be what he is today.
Not only the IIT tag, but we need to also ensure it does not become about a single man or woman
I am most worried aboult the implicit sense of superiority the educated Indian has over his uneducated compatriot - admitted, or unadmitted. IIT is only the label, there could be many. Simple fluency in English is enough to feel superior to the vernacular Indian, in this day and age. Thereby we will be the coloniser trying to save the native. And we will only pity him, and 'school' him - negateing him effectively. And his own identity and strength.
i have a close friend who says - i made 2 mistakes in life: one is IIT and other IIM and u know what he is doing now? organic farming in mathuranthagam:-)
the sense of the 'educated' animal 'being wiser' is the most dangerous sentiment today - negateing the ordinary people, and their wisdom. Mccauly won the first round - now round 2 ...
Education, Literacy and Wisdom are completely different things, it is sad that people often use one in lieu of the other. Presence of one doesn't guarantee the other AT ALL. Experience brings Wisdom, for the most part, Literacy is but an aid towards Education.
I have nothing against AAP - very much the contrary. I have deep respecrt for all there I know, and see in them hope. My observation is a different one, applicable to all the 'educated' - I simply used them as a peg here. All of us 'educated' feel superior to the 'illiterate villager'. My own learning in the village over many years is that true wisdom, a practical intelligence and a vaster perspective rests only there. If somehow people were to see that, and not feel enampured by their own acdemic and english learning - then a very different, and a truly Indian, growth might happen. The village can define that - and we the 'school' can assist. We do not need to 'save the poor' !
Mark Johnston
"When imposed from outside 'appropriate technology' like 'green revolution' or 'sustainable development' often end up, whatever the intentions, achieving the opposite."Why are urban people trying to teach the village people better stoves, or better sanitation ? Because it is an NGO livlihood for themselves ? Or is it the white man's burden they are carrying of 'educating the native'.
Very very few of these urban people have gone, and lived with the village people in humility and respect as one of them, understood realities before opening their mouths. And those very very few often do not open their mouths to 'improve the villagers'. They only question their urban compatriots for impoverishing villages in a million different ways.
Kishore Krishnamoorthy I feel, for someone to be qualified to contest in elections, they must spend one full year, surviving merely with the amount of money they fix as poverty line. Use nothing but public transport. Not use educational qualification received from private schools, colleges etc. Not use any other amenities provided by private profit making organizations.
By living such a life, they will know the pains of a normal citizen from rural area.
Thereby they can concentrate on what ever is important.
Dhanesh Rathinasamy Gounder You need not get qualified and again come and live a village life for a year. You cannot learn a village in one year. It takes years and every single minute you realize many things.
People in the village does not need roads, cement constructions, electricity, gadgets....and these stuffs. Their needs are different. But we people are imposing our needs on them as if they needed it.
And one last question. Why should we go and represent them? Why cant they represent themselves? First we should provide them their space and we should not try to occupy their's with our ideologies. It won't fit them.'
Kishore Krishnamoorthy I'm not saying they shouldn't represent themselves. They can and should.
But if a city brought up were to contest, he may have to do these things so that he understands their life is what I'm saying.
A rural citizenay not have to do these things additionally to learn their lifestyle. They will have innate knowledge of it.
People from affluent sections who have no clue of the rural life should do this.
Something like the Rajini 's father's instruction in the movie Thambikku Endha Ooru.
Vijayalaxmi Jeyasingh No class, incl me, will ever give up their luxuries voluntarily.
Aparna Krishnan so they have to claim power and represent themselves.
Vijayalaxmi Jeyasingh Aparna Krishnan - literally themselves. Not even people like them.this has seeped into every crevice.
This is the reason I am against the 'education' dogooders they are creating the foot soldiers of civilization. The village was civilized long back. I meant the Jarawas and other tribals
Our greatest loss is that we do not understand what hunger is. Or what uncertianity on how to feed our child tomorrow means.
And thereby we are completely ineligible and incompetent to decide the priorities and policies of this land.
Eashwaramma and Sankaranna, Paalaguttapalle Dalitwada, would design the countrys budget completely differently. And in a far more humane and meaningful manner.
Looking for an alternative to the word 'village empowerment'. Please suggest.
We cannot empower those who feed us, labouring on their own tired bodies. It is an invalid term.
The problem with 'village empowerment' is that empowerment is a verb derivative. And implies an empowerer. Ourselves ??
We from the modern framework are only equipped to destroy. Every city stands testimony to this.
The only space which can empower us to regain a direction to a simpler, saner, sustainable way of living and being is the village.
But in infinite hubris, we create the word Village Empowerment, and place ourselves as the facilitators in this Empowerment.
And in that heady mix of arrogance and ignoranc, we can never grasp the opportunity to learn from a community way superior to ourselves. As we set ourselves to be their teachers, their saviours !
This is my only learning in 20 years in a small interior village. Of landless agricultural labourers. Wise, rooted in their gods and their customes. Anchored in simple contentment, and sustainable ways of being. Slowly being attacked and overpowered by the modern world. Mainstream wallahs and alternative wallahs. Out to 'develop' this world. Paalaguttapalle - Dalitwada
Naveena CK
Village fulfilment / betterment ?
Aparna Krishnan
Not sure. They are the ones sustaining us. It's like saying 'bettering ones mother'.
Naveena CK
Of course each thing can be made better. But since you have a view of reverence (as we ought to have), not sure what can it be called. The closest that I can think of is the position that my father got when he joined the Department of Agriculture. He was called the “Graam SEVAK.”
Kavya Ecofeminist
It should be "don't loot villages" or "learning from basics"
Nimish Narshana
village privilege
triumph of togetherness
Aparna Krishnan
poetry !
Bobby Kunhu
It's a serious prelidiction for many of us. It may be useful to check out Adam Hinnis Metropolis Hinterland thesis and some of the works of Andre Gunder Frank, apart from Paulo Freire to understand this
Aparna Krishnan
Im not well read in all these. The truth I beleive is simple,only needs honesty and courage to face it.
Aparna Krishnan
I seek my learnings from the unlettered of this land. After half a lifetime, that is my understanding.
Bobby Kunhu
Aparna Krishnan of course, but they have worked on the field and have explained how and why villages are disempowered and the need for consumers in cities to keep them that way and unlettered as well
Aparna Krishnan
Yes. And yet I seek less and less learnings from outside these days.The best and most grounded learnings are from teh peoples of this land, untouched by modern education.
Chitra Sharan
then it would be a good idea to ask the people of Palaguttapalle for a word.
Rama Subramanian
Stop looking for such words in English, unless you look for the what is the term that best represents the collective aspirations of the local community and use it in the local language in all our discourses, we will keep dis empowering our villages
Shyam Sekhar
Rural mobility
Mobility of whom ? To where ?
Narasimhan Sesh
Ennoble
Aparna Krishnan
Ourselves. Learning from them.
Pravin Singhania
'Yog' seems to me the only appropriate word. This is because viyog is the cause of all current rural ills
Aparna Krishnan
I think only they can teach us how. To integrate. Living and thought.
· Reply · 2y
Sorry spell check! Gramiya sambhashana
Aparna Krishnan
Yes. Thinking ... Something that places us at the learner, seeker level vis a vis the village.
Sashikala Ananth
Some more suggestions- Unlocking the village wisdom; a quest to becoming human- the village story
Aparna Krishnan
Unlocking is a verb based word. So there is a doer. Who unlocks ... We ? That's a problem !
Mohua Lahiri
Unlearning@village
Aparna Krishnan
Learning@village !
Mohua Lahiri
Been thinking about it. Learning@village had that connotation of picking up some art/craft skills, or discovering some skill which needs to be promoted. All are within that discourse of the village needs to be rescued or exploitation of village resources for personal gains.
Your understanding I think would be better conveyed with unlearning@village. It has that connotation of being humbled by something when you encounter the village which makes you question your own assumptions. Learning automatically follows.
Just a suggestion.
R
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, there will be peace - jimmy hendrx.
Actually, anarchists, ideally, reject power altogether.
Aparna Krishnan
Power is a way of life. To face it and learn to deal with it is pragmatic. Every society, through history, has been a process of different communities jostling for their space in a hierarchy. Awareness is important, as that brings the awareness of need for justice through the changeing processes.
Here the awareness that the implied positioning of the village as the taker and the 'socially responsible urban' as the giver has to be questioned. As incorrect.
R
Aparna Krishnan since it first takes and decimates, the ruling elite has to then perforce wear a fig leaf of giving to mask its depredations.
Aparna Krishnan
Not just the ruling elite. The so called socially conscious individuals also see the villager as backward, to be educated, to be saved.
That essential premise itself has to be overturned.
R
Aparna Krishnan that premise flows from the ruling elite of whom the rest of us are all lackeys in one way or the other. Our so called social consciousness also is a fig leaf to hide our actual perfidiousness.
Aparna Krishnan
The issue is deeper. It is an understanding of who is more evolved. It is a civilizational question. Which needs to be faced today.
R
Aparna Krishnan the civilisation has gone the way it has because of greed which has now become institutionalised in late capitalism. Unless this stark fact is kept in focus your analysis will be wishy washy.
Aparna Krishnan
The modern industrial civilization, as fitted into capitalism or communism, has spelt the death of all that sustained life and well being.
When we question that industrial civilization, we also need to see clearly that the villages alone have the learnings that can allow us another way of living, producing, relating. Being.
All our modern learnings only enable us to destroy effectively. It is the village learnings that can show us the way back. To sanity.
For that we need first of all, humility.
There was a post where it was suggested that urbans go and sweat and help farmers.
Would an urban expect a farmer to come and help in coding software ? Does the urban not realize that plowing, sowing, transplanting, deweeding are deeply skilled practices, even more than coding.
Perceptions are so deeply biased, even when we set out to 'do good'!
Narayana Sarma Good Idea. Farmer's toil is a lot under priced, mailnly because most townsfolk do not know what it actually is like to work on a farm. Sowing, weeding, plucking, cleaning- all such farm activities require unimaginable amounts of physical strength, knack and expertise which most townsfolk - unfortunately- do not possess. But there is no way an urbanite would understand this- unless he/she actually undertakes to do it in all earnest. Aparna Krishnan ?
Aparna Krishnan Not so sure. Rich city kids on a holiday with poor children who have no other way. Need the poor kids be subjected to this. Its complex. Also the city folks will be little use to the farmer given their ineptness. At best, it is a learning exposure for the urban. Maybe best done on separate plots from where the real workers work. Yes, the urban needs education, certianly.
Aparna Krishnan I was just thinking of my village. No way I would have bunch of city school kids descend on Annasamy's land as he works sweatingly and hard.
Narayana Sarma Aparna Krishnan True. Agreed.
It is a good intentioned but nevertheless a flawed world view. The kind of urbans you speak of -- the kind who wants to volunteer their labour -- are to be appreciated and not ridiculed.
The kind I end up dealing with are those who build drones and all kinds of funky gadgets to "help" the farmer. Surely, we can say even this is "good intentioned" and that it might even be needed in the coming days.
But it is all deeply seated in ignorance of a very basic spiritual philosophy of material life on earth. We can't even begin to talk about it. It is to be experienced.
They need hunility to learn. Not the implicit arrogance to think they have solutions. Then they may actually see that they are the problem ... and that that is the first solution they need to find the answer to.
Urbanites first they will try on the field and feel its hard. Then they say - don't worry you don't need to work hard. We are all gonna develop codes, robots and AI for you to sow, grow, reep seeds and grains. You can sit idle. Then they invent one, apply them on fields and when they reep they yell at you for being idle and unproductive. Finally they will prove that their intelligence is what feeding people.
Physical exercises to keep body fit is superior to them than physical work to produce food. They are all intelligents, know to make money, does not use their body to do simple/complex works. Soon they are all gonna stop eating food and become immortals renunciating their bodies.
One can work if one approaches the work with humility and a desire to learn.
Yes, and not think they are going anything great !
There are hundreds of ladies who claim to be gardeners and even win prizes at shows. The irony is that they have never even touched the soil, they have mali's do do the "dirty" work! Biggest irony of our times!
I just sold a gardening thingy to such a lady. I'm atleast glad that someone at my village got an income in making that which i sold to the kind of award winning elite gardening urban woman that you so despise. What to do...
If you have the intent and an open mind, skills can be acquired.
Are those who come to 'help' more of a burden than a benefit? If people come as enthusiastic but are unskilled, clumsy and poor listeners they can greatly add to the workload of the locals whilst reducing productivity where there is nothing to spare. Add in people demanding high levels of comfort when they come to 'help' like electricity, internet, expensive foods, wasteful amounts of water and lots of precious time from the locals and you begin to realise that instead of expecting the hosts to be grateful for the contribution we should be humbled by the significant sacrifices they make for well intentioned visitors.
Paranthaman SriramuluIt all depends on the determination and interest. I have seen many software guys doing agriculture mainly ZBNF and Organic farming. They may be not able to do labour work like villagers, however they can plan, execute, network and market products.
They can invest and experiment new things. Youngsters in villages think about city life. Many urban people are thinking of villages.
Saw another post now.
'IIT grad quits high paying job to help poor village blah blah '.
How much longer do we need to play these tunes ?
Tunes of implicit hierarchies we celebrate ?
In what way is an IIT grad moving to a village superior to anyone else moving to a village ?
In what way does the IIT studies equip him or her to work in villages ?
How do we assume that he will 'help a village. And not the other way around ?
In our very language is embedded the superior arrogance of aeons. And the sense of the Saviour descending on Helpless Masses.
Unless those lies are called out.
Unless we realise that IITs of the world mean little. For the world.
Unless we realise that it is the village, the village skills, the village wisdom that may yet save us. Not the other way around.
All we will do is reinforce existing hierarchies. Whether we stay in a city. Or move to a village.
Comments
very true....this is also creating an atmosphere as if today villagers are poor and unable to do farming because they are not capable and THE 'learned' people are able to earn millions from the same farming...
this line of stories are creating harm in two ways..one ignoring the structural anamolies and putting blame on individuals for their fate, second, creating a hype which makes people follow similar things without proper understanding, planning and support.
i know many failed stories of these initiatives, no one speaks about them. ...
This new world hype around urban superiority in the alternate world, activist world, is again got very problematic.
That in all this structural issues get missed is a tragedy.
That farmers need to 'be taught farming' is the most laughable proposition, rooted in hubris.
Yes, we can walk a mile with them, sharing some few learnings from outside with them, even as we learn continously from them ...
Aparna Krishnan
yea...always there wud be something to learn...while thinking that farmers doesn't know anything is wrong... too much romanticising that farmers know everything is also equally wrong
The farmer knows best about his world. Like the theoritical mathematician knows best about his world. This whole game of picturing the villager as a ignoramus has gone on too long. The so called modern activist does it as much as the mainstream er. Wit…
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Ramanjaneyulu GV
Very true, the very reason is many I've seen has just lost their roots especially wrt natural/ancient methods but they are very keen & interested to learn as well.
IITians teach farming and Irmans teach rural development this notion has been constructed deliberately to create a job market for them. Farming is a way of life, it is to be lived rathan than taught so as RD it is to be indulged and felt being part of the process.
All rooted in arrogance. Hubris.
There is also another perspective: an IITian has decided to opted out of the 24 by 7 drudgery to call her/his life her/his own. Why can't we be more charitable in our views of others?
1. Why say IIT ian. The point you are making holds for anyone. A scientist, a shopkeeper, a mechanic, a nuse, an architect, a sweeper.
2. I also opted out in my twenties. I learnt infinitely from a village. Lets leave it there. None of my engineering training was of any use to 'help villages'. I learnt anew from scratch. All that was needed.
'IITian goes to help villages' is flawed on many counts. Apart from the implication that it refers to a special breed.
Aparna Krishnan
well, human beings being what they are, hierarchy/gender/ social standing , nothing is going to disappear, they only take on more subtle avatars because of political correctness.
The more we see only negative aspects of the general scenario, the more angry and negative we will bècome..
I suppose each of us choose different battles to fight, the fewer the better.
I am raising a question. If it does not seem a question to you, np.
Aparna Krishnan
I can detect a tone of irritation. I just wanted to smooth your ruffled feathers
no, not at all. just some questions being tabled, thats all. in a sense of no consequence. in a sense very essential.
Kejriwal is also a IITian
I remember seeing a panel discussion where the late Gnani had participated. He was of the opinion that we had got the whole education system wrong by introducing a hierarchy into it. His argument was how is the math, science stream superior to the rest? Everything depends on what one wants to do. A villagers knowledge of the trees, plants and farming is far more important to any other knowledge in a village. The same knowledge could be of less importance in another environment.
Who is to judge and rank this?
PS: Can anyone tell me why a doctor is valued more than a veterinarian? I thought a vet job would be more difficult wrt diagnosis.
A whole society has bought into these hierarchies so totally and mindlessly. Those at the top of these hierarchies , and those at the bottom.
IITians start NGOs and CSR funds are utilizes to save villages!
" ... but they are also missionaries", said my doctor.
Baring a very few who see the wisdom and sense and sensibility of villages, the deep rootedness therein which may yet save us from getting swept into destruction.
All the rest are on their civilizing spree.
Schooling, developing, saving the 'natives'. In their missionary zeal, forgetting that we are the ones who need saving. And that it is the village and its wisdom, and faith and worldview that can yet save us from our headlong flight
The day the english fluent realize they have lost the pulse of the country, and that they are simply talking to each other in a cozy club - that day they may start the journey to finding themselves, and the country.
They need to first face that they are not 'intelligent'. They need to go to the 'common man' to learn from start. Only a few will make it, most will fail.
It needs surrendering of the ego. Completely.
Pity that a small english speaking crowd, urban and elite, very distanced from the realities of India in small towns and villages, writes fluently (and disconnectedly), and directs the priorities and discourses of this land.
Everyone cannot work for the 'rights of the oppressed'. That right has to earned.
First is understanding and respecting the people, their gods, their ways, their jallikattus, their wisdom. Second is getting closer to them and their lives, in deed, as far as courage permits.
Only then does one gain the understanding required to work for and with them.
The vast foolishness of the educated masses.
Education dulls.
Agrarian crisis has escalated for several reasons..we as a nation have failed to respect the voice of our farmers (comprising 70% of our population). We have failed to engage him/her in dialogue while planning the nations budget, nor respecting him/her for their time tested sustainable knowledge. We the urban society, the educated lot think we know it all, when in reality its our farmers inherent skills that speaks volumes of experience in growing food sustainably. We have silenced him for his lack of education, plundered his self confidence and pride, then we expect our nation to prosper!
Why call it education at all?
Let us think of a better name.
For me this education is simply - Garbage-Feeding-Brainwashing-Mass-Hypnotism-Process.
In short instead of saying Educated People we could say Garbage-Fed Brainwashed People?
The oppressors of the people, and the saviours of the people are part of the same dominant narrative. Of leading the masses.
... and one seeks those who in respect and humility, seek to learn from the people. And then work with them to create new narratives based on the local.
As defined by the local, in the local, of the local.
We school communities that should school us.
When the village women would graze cows I would never have the ability to simply sit for hours on the meadow. I would be restless, and feel I needed to 'read' at least.
Till the day we stop feeling that 'reading' is a superior activity to grazing a cow, we literate will continue to exploit the world.
Ansu VT Can it be not be based on individual interest? Why is there a need to compare and judge?
Aparna Krishnan Literacy and schooling has been given a higher societal and monetary value over every hand based occupation today. That is why it has to be addressed squarely.
We live off that. Are we paid what a labourer would be ? Would we accept that ? Of if we have opted out of a career, our savings, or odd jobs are based on having demanded a superior pay for these skills.
Ansu VT I am not a believer of equal pay for all skill sets. This was a failed experience in Soviet Russia. Compensation should always be dependent on the complexity of skill delivered and the demand in the marketplace.
Hemal Thakker Complexity of skill delivered, farmers should be paid the most then I guess..
I see everywhere articles that 'IIT Alumni' moves to village, or gives some great understanding to the people, or affirms some other truth.
In the very deification of that 'IIT degree', we negate many many other truths and wisdoms. High time that adolescent glorification of IITs and IIMs and JNUs ended.
The reality and the truth is in the fields and in the work there. The the sweat and toil and consistent work there.
Us the Educated versus We the People.
Komakkambedu Himakiran Anugula well that's why I am campaigning for our roots; long battle ahead in all fields, but it starts with us searching, finding, understanding and promoting our roots.
Aparna Krishnan
Pity that many 'activists' to date have inherited the western theories and baggage and are unable to understand roots, let alone affirm them. And in many of their struggles to 'liberate' people, the roots are actually negated, and not affirmed. It is time for a very differnt struggle, the vision of which comes from the people in the villages and on the fields.
Never liked the word empowerment.
Urban do-gooders 'empowering' the rural worlds.
Rich people 'empowering' poor people.
The word implies superiority of one section which lifts the other section. A section already far superior is things that count. Unthinking generosity in the reality of poverty , courage, hard work, patience. The most essential strengths. The real power.
The words we use reflect our thinking, and mould our actions.
Too many people are there to 'Develop Villages'. To teach them. To empower them. To teach them sanitation. To rid them of superstition. To save them from feudalism, and patriarchy and casteism. To save them from themselves !
Too few to learn from them. Of their eternal wisdoms. And their sustainable skills.
Someone was telling me today how progressive IITs are and they now do projects to 'help villages'. I stayed silent.
How can one 'help' a society far superior to oneself. In sustainable skills, in a real sense of community, in the strength of infinite giving while in material poverty,
How does one plan to 'help' a community one does not even understand ?
How does one first learn the differance between 'serving' and 'helping' ?
How does one acquire the first prerequisite, humility. Which may allow one to face that ones science which one seeks to help villagers with, maybe the essential problem.
That we, who are seeking to give solutions, are perhaps ourselves the real problem.
Dola Dasgupta, "I feel a person like Smriti who has worked her way up in life through sheer grit and hardwork, will have more wider perspective of education. She is the original 'working girl'. I could be proved entirely wrong of course. In this halla about her BA pass or BCOM Part 1, we are missing the whole bloody point. She is AAM Aurat. And that is her tremendous appeal. I am not interested in IITians running this country. These men and women have all mostly gone to IIT, taken advantage of huge government subsidies for which people like me paid from our hard earned salaries and then they went to the US and became professors in Ivy Schools and slave investment bankers to put the whole world in credit traps. Smriti is also talking of setting up IITs in every state it seems. Not a worthy IITian has invented anything for this country nor contributed to research and development of India. IIT either gives one a ticket to US ( somebody's daughter might just need to that soon) or disillusions one to become spiritual and fatalistic (jailed for not much to talk about) or churns out bestselling writers churning out crappy novels which get made into Bollywood blockbusters (at least he is speaking in favour of the India woman) . Smriti is talking of setting up parent's bodies to address educational needs. There is hope that she might also see value in expanding distance learning and vocational training facilities in India. Of course there is the Hindutva/bigotry angle always lurking in BJP and its leaders, that can also hijack the whole evolution of education and women's rights in India. But I feel once in office, totalitarian politics starts to dilute, especially in a country as diverse as India."
6Radhika Rammohan, Dola Dasgupta and 4 others
6 Comments
Vivek ShrivastavaPlease get your facts right about the contribution of IITians to India. In trying to defend Smriti Irani, you are going on a wrong track. This is bigotry of a different kind. A proud IITian.
Aparna KrishnanThis was not written by me. But I agree that fundamentally we have overvalued 'college degrees' criminally. The engineer feels that he is superior (and even better equipped to lead India with its myriad diversities) than a farmer ! Why ?? A farmer understands the situation of 60% Indians. And one has a skill of solving quad euations. The other of knowing planting times and harvesting patterns. I would consider the latter more relevent. I agree that a functional and fluent literacy is important.
Aparna KrishnanAnd the 'educated' Indian goes around trying to make the potter and weaver more 'schooled'. The weaver and farmer in their humility do not go about making the farming-illiterates (us !) go to farming schools (with a RTE). We feel they are inferior, and they also feel they are inferior. This is a tragedy of monstrous proportions.
Dola DasguptaVivek Shrivastava, the whole point is not about IIT or not, I am sure IITians are also working hard, but so are others. I am not defending Smriti Irani, I am speaking up against attachment to 'certain kind of education' . The whole point is there is too much emphasis on degrees and diplomas. There is too much superiority attributed to engineering and especially IITs or institutes of those kinds. Too much attachment to conventional education. Parents are obsessed, students are stressed out, education has lost it is true essence of keeping the spirit of inquiry alive. Education as we see it today in modern India is all about how to get a great job, with a fat salary and perks and two fancy cars, home loans, car loans, foreign holidays and a two year project in USA would be icing on the cake. There is so much value attached to IIT that millions of kids are losing sleep and sanity over it. A whole line of parallel institutes are getting richer promising kids entry into IITs. Please share some information if the resultant outcome of all this is proportionate to the numbers who stress over getting into IIT and the stress that millions go through. I must be really ignorant. As a IITian can you please throw some light on the R&D that ex-IITians are exploring and contributing to innovations that are originating in India and we are able to patent and sell as Indian technology. It will help me to increase my knowledge for future references for my writings and essays. And also please share what percentage of IITians since the inception of the first IIT, are into investment banking, running coaching centers, are in the USA, Australia and why. And what is percentage of innovators and how many have in the recent past invented any technology that has been patented in India. And also please share the hindrances that innovators and scientists face in India. It would be really enlightening to know this.
Some people say they will 'adopt' a village. A village is not a puppy.
A village is a vast civilisation, far superior to us. It has a culture of giving, that we with all our assets can never match remotely.
To all those trained in modern techniques - of extracting petroleum, of making plastics, of building dams and submerging forests, of mining metals and destroying farmlands, of making videos and distancing people from reality
... go to villages. Unlearn. And then Learn. There is still knowlege and wisdom and skills there.
Sustainable skills that may yet save the planet. Sustainable communities that may yet save the soul.
Saw another post , "IIT Alumnus gives up USA career and returns to India to do organic farming ..."
When are we going to stop these most obsessive of caste hierarchies ?
IIT Alumnus is most forward caste ? How and why ?!
USA career is something so great that to step out of it is headline material ?
Returning to India, ones own land, is something so newsworthy ??
These modernists and modern media are the most casteist of all communities. And the dumbest.
36Prakash Thangavel, Ramanjaneyulu GV and 34 others
7 Comments
Maniza ThakkarI hear u urban dweller back to the land is enough. Better yet the stories of second generation farmer switching up the equation for better yield. More farmers next generation staying and building a stronger communities in rural india
Vaishali GadgilThank you
for this post. I have always wondered, whats so amusing about the same.
Aren’t we unknowingly “tagging” farming with other highly subjective words like (i object use of these words hugely) “uneducated” , “illiterate” ?
Subconsciously, we are recreating , reiterating the imagery of a farmer.
All the posts worthy of any mention has to start with such lineage? And not the lifestyle or thought process?
This can easily be changed.
Lalitha RangachariI do not see these posts in the negative way I am happy whatever maybe the reason they have come back. I wishtto see everything in the positive
Somashekhar NimbalkarWhy does not anyone do a article on PLU who didn’t want to go anywhere and stayed in India and worked hard?
To those who 'move to villages, giving up their jobs'. Good, but just one reminder,
You need the village more than the village needs you.
3 Comments
Sandhya Manian
we need them more especially after settling there, for their native knowledge, crop seasons, weather, physical support...
Aparna KrishnanFar far more. To understand and reclaim our very roots. Only they can show us the way ...
Aparna KrishnanThe first requirement to learn is humility. Before the teacher. Here, the village.
In strict honesty, we have nothing to give villages. We can only learn from them of sustainablity and of community.
We need to correct the omissions and commissions of our privileged community. Failing that, we descend on the poor.
11 July 2015
Subha Bharadwaj When I was 23 years old, I went on an internship with India German social services society to Pachchai Malai. I submitted a report which said 'please leave them alone, they are fine the way they are'. They never called me back for another internship because the Indian who managed the show did not like my report
10 Comments
Sanjay MaharishiThis reminds me of an article by Ivan illich called To hell with good intentions. A must read.
Aparna KrishnanYes, have read that. There is too much of do-gooding going on. And NGOing. To become simple is the first step. In mind and act. And engage in a simple real manner, while earning a simple honest living. Have been fortunate to have known and lived with such people.
Aparna KrishnanWe descend on the poor to save villages. After having failed abysmally to save the cities ourselves ! Without shame.
Aparna KrishnanBread labour, to earn a honest living, is more important than we care to accept. And then social work is done anolg with that. To live off social work has deep problems and inconsistancies.
Sanjay MaharishiYes it does, but what would you do if that's what you trained in, have an MA in? You're stuck until you realise the truth yoursel
When one walks with the so called poor, with so called backward villages, somewhere on the path one realizes their richness, their skills, their infinite wisdom. Far superior to ones own.
And it is then that the journey really begins. Of understanding that one is a taker, not a giver. Of unlearning and learning. Then of sharings. Of mutual growth. Of joy.
Some however never realize it. And see villages and the poor as backward illiterate superstitious people who need to be helped into light. And they struggle to 'help' them.
It never works. Though there may seem to be some temporary benefits. The saviour can never help. He needs saving first.
I have known both kinds in my own journey. The former are far fewer.
To live as a neighbour with the village people is to get far
deeper understandings than 'working for the poor', 'mobilizing the poor' or
'empowering the poor''.
Those understandings are essential.
Mark
Johnston
Lots
of paid employment opportunities around if you claim to be able to empower the
poor. Not so many opportunities if, instead, we try to make life easier for
those society defines as poor by working to disempower the privileged
(including ourselves).
Modern education, modern technology, only teaches us to (ab)use the earth.
Mechanical engineers build dams, that in the socio-political reality displace swathes of the poorest.
Electrical engineers enable borewells, that in the socio-political reality have rendered lands like ours (in Rayalseema) barren. Water which was there at 50 feet, is in 30 short years of borewell usage, unavailable even at 1000 feet. there is a permanent manmade drought.
Computer engineers enable every other modern engineering discipline.
In the interests of the vast majority of the country, the poor, I would wish all these away to any country of their choice. As of now, my country is better off without them.
When I was young I worried about brain drain. When I was young, after my engineering, when all my classmates wrote something called GRE and went on onto greener pastures, I stayed back to 'serve the country'. In two short years i discovered that I was not equipped to 'serve' through my engineering training, and nothing I did in any professional capacity would help the last man or women. I moved to a village to learn sociology and farming and essential engineering from the village - a so-called illiterate village. I am still learning about the vast wisdom that the village hold, in both technical and philosophical areas.
Suraj KumarThe fundamental mistake lies in the system of knowledge acquisition of modern science which is based on the assumption that we will eventually have all the answers to the mysteries of this universe. This implies that our current understanding is incomplete - which is good, but a mistaken assumption that we eventually will progress from the current state of half truths to absolute Truth - which can be a dangerous assumption to make. This leads to a tendency to think we can correct any mistakes we make today in the application of this science. However what we have are irreversible gifts of Nature with which we are trying to play God. This arrogance shows everywhere - from Bt-seeds whose real effects on the land and people is unknown and potentially never knowable... to "beached" sea creatures who become accidental victims to our "thirst for knowledge" in understanding plate tectonics... And needless to mention the obvious outlook that this materialistic science gives us in viewing the tribals and villagers as founded upon superstitions and thus as inferiors. As though they can never progress and as though we eventually will make progress.
It ultimately doesn't matter who is right... but who is left. One World is all we have.
The accumulated wisdom of ages , even if it hasn't lead to iPhones and other modern conveniences, did not leave the future at risk of mass extinction due to pollution, habitat loss and climate chaos and instead only left us with a profoundly useful body of knowledge to revere and protect the Web of life which we depend on to exist.
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