GREAT STORIES OF CHANGE

INVENTIVE INDIANS

FOREWORD ELA BHATT EDITED BY RITA & UMESH ANAND

INVENTIVE INDIANS

GREAT STORIES OF CHANGE

NIMBY stands for not in my backyard. NIMBY BOOKS is an initiative of Civil Society magazine, which reports on change leaders across India and South Asia. NIMBY BOOKS seeks to build dialogue and find creative solutions to the problems of communities.

INVENTIVE INDIANS
FOREWORD ELA BHATT EDITED BY RITA & UMESH ANAND

GREAT STORIES OF CHANGE

NIMBY BOOKS
LEADERSHIP SERIES

NIMBY BOOKS NIMBY BOOKS is an initiative by Civil Society magazine and an imprint of Content Services & Publishing Pvt Ltd A-53 D, Panchsheel Vihar, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi 110016

Text and photographs Civil Society All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reported or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher

First published in 2009

Layout : Virender Chauhan Cover Concept: Lakshman Anand

Mailing Address E-2144, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon - 122017, Haryana Phones: ++91(0124) 4071956 ++91-9811787772

www.civilsocietyonline.com E-mail: nimby@civilsocietyonline.com

ISBN: 978-81-906570-1-3

Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd

PUBLISHERS NOTE

NVENTIVE Indians has been a long while in the making. The stories have been collected over the six years that Civil Society, our monthly magazine, has been in circulation. The book itself was put together and taken apart three times for various reasons. The most confusing question before us was with regard to size. Should a book with so much in it to read be done in this size? Would it be convenient to hold? We had strong pictures, but there was also so much in the stories. The challenge was in putting the stories and pictures together in a form that would be dramatic and yet easy to read. We put out initial versions of the book as samples. They were smaller than what you now have in your hands. The feedback we got was that readers wanted something big and celebratory. The stories were about remarkable individuals and groups with outstanding achievements to their credit. They deserved to be given an identity that was larger than life. We finally did what we should have done in the first place: we opted for the size and pulse of Civil Society, which knows to use large formats to great effect in showcasing the work of unsung heroes. Being a book we could be even more lavish with pictures and colour and draw on the impact of a cover that makes a single statement. The stories are about serious issues and complex situations. The change leaders who are portrayed are invariably an intricate blend of passion and pragmatism. But the style of writing is simple and engaging because we want everyone to tune in. It can be said that we arent critical enough and perhaps at times too effusive. The reason is that these stories are so fascinating that reporters and editors get sucked in. It is a willing surrender.

Inventive Indians is a tribute to the kind of change individuals can bring against difficult odds. It presents a side of India that doesnt get reported because of the jumble of priorities that propel big media. Civil Society has shown that it is possible to change the rules. As our friend Aruna Roy puts it, in reinterpreting the mainstream the magazine crafts space for the unheard.

Umesh Anand New Delhi July 2009

CONTENTS
FOREWORD 10 INTRODUCTION 12 BRIDGES FOR EVERYONE 16 AFFORDABLE HEART CARE 24 SCHOOLS BY DESIGN 30 THE LUCID WATER GURU 36 HOW THE MANTLE PASSED AT FRLHT 42 THE PEOPLES DAILY 52 AMAZING HOSPITAL SAVES A LIFE 58 TOP DOCTORS IN DELHI SLUM 64 GREEN CAR TO BEAT ALL OTHERS 70 SAVING THE GIRL CHILD 76 THE LAVISH ZERO EMISSION HOME 84 SMILE, YOU CAN DO IT TOO! 90 ORGANIC UPRISING NEAR MEERUT 94 YOGAS FIRST FAMILY 100 SMALL FIELD, BIG CROP 106

ALL ON BOARD WITH TVS 114 PONDS KEEP A RIVER CLEAN 120 OWN YOUR POWER, LIVE WISELY 124 ROLLING BACK THE TSUNAMI 130 HAWKERS IN BATTLE MODE 134 MY TONGUE IS STILL THERE... 142 NATIONAL MODEL ON SILICOSIS 144 BRIDGING THE LEARNING DIVIDE 146 FOR DISABLED, SEE THE OPPORTUNITY 148 HOTLINE FOR THE AGED IN KOLKATA 150 RED BEE HAS GOT WHAT IT TAKES 152 TASTY, FAT-FREE JUNGLE FOOD 156 SEWA BRINGS HOPE IN KABUL 158 MANY SURPRISES IN RIVER REBIRTH 160 THE MASALA MESSIAH 162 SCHOOLS AT BRICK KILNS BRING HOPE 164 CYRILS LORETO KNOWS HOW 166

FOREWORD

The India we want

ELA BHATT

T worries me the way India has been moving ahead in recent years. Surely, India cannot carry on in this way glamour in crime, hunger as continued violence, growth without equity. It almost seems as if we have lost track of what we want India to be.

This book, Inventive Indians, is a positive and creative response to what we would like India to be. Here are profiles of Indians who have thought afresh and taken new paths. Among them are skilled surgeons performing operations for needy people who come all the way from interior India; an enterprising engineer building inexpensive bridges that connect communities; or an idealistic college teacher who became an activist and helped farmers bridge the gap between the farm and the market. If Civil Society magazine had not introduced us to such Indians who give us hope we would have remained impoverished. These are people with valuable knowledge. They have the spirit to shape India from within. The world has changed. True, it is not how many innovative ideas get created which matters any more. It is how many of those innovations you make happen that matters. The innovations need to be delivered. Whether the innovation is in ideas or theories or methods or projects, it has to give results. Here are Indians who have delivered results with their innovations. More importantly, they have thought as insiders, understood the Indian reality, and found ways to shape India. Once innovative ideas are on the Internet, they are available everywhere simultaneously for all. So the idea of owning an innovation or controlling and capitalising on it is becoming less possible. In a way civil society has gained over business and the government. Innovations must be enlivened into concrete, usable, measurable and in many, but not all cases, marketable products or services. It seems it will matter less who had the innovative idea. What matters is who delivered the innovation, who turned it into reality. This shift, from imagining to actualisation, is becoming more and more important, not only for big corporate sector companies but for small traders, tiny manufacturers (including lone home-based workers), street vendors and farm labour. Indias civil society can play a key role in making India a garden of many blooms. Drawing water from a village well is a demanding task, more so when the water table goes lower every season. We frequently hear of women falling into wells along with the rope. Rural women have been risking their lives like this for centuries. No one took up research and development for improving wells and

10

making them safer until, as far as I know, Amrutbhai of Junagadh provided a simple solution of attaching ball bearings and a stopper on both sides of the pulley. He was supported by the National Innovation Foundation. The improved design was accepted by SEWA women who also participated in the application of this innovation process. Although SEWA villages are flourishing with this lifesaving new pulley on their wells, the product is still waiting to be manufactured on a large scale so that it can reach every village market. India needs huge investments in the peoples sector to make peoples lives and livelihoods more secure. And only when this happens will our Mother Earth be more secure. A lot of innovations to make India better are happening at the local level. There is need to strengthen the entire value chain of converting green grassroots innovations into enterprises. This will help generate jobs locally and provide a knowledge-based approach to poverty alleviation and resource conservation. Inventive Indians have the mission of making India lead the new world. Yes, it is high time we questioned the value of certain elements of the present model of governance and management of the economy. It is a model based on inherently false and destructive concepts. These concepts have yet to build a constructive peaceful society. Therefore, the innovations described in the book have much relevance to India in these tumultuous times. Small changes can make a big and crucial difference. A small change in cataloguing genomes can make a big difference while a big change in making vehicular engines may or may not make any crucial difference. In other words, the distance in terms of time and money between innovation and opportunity is now more valuable than it was before. The rate at which this distance reduces in India will ensure success of the particular innovation as well as of India. I am happy that Civil Society, itself a product of innovative journalism, has over the past six years put together these inspiring stories that have now come to us as a book. Reading it makes me feel assured that Indians are resourceful, creative and self-reliant. The inventive Indians in this book will help spread the spirit of swaraj around the country.

Ela Bhatt is founder of the Self-Employed Womens Association (SEWA), Indias largest union of informal women workers.

11

INTRODUCTION

Everyone is someone
RITA & UMESH ANAND

HERE is more change taking place for the better in India than gets advertised. Eager to get on with their lives, people are finding solutions to their everyday problems and filling the gaps resulting from incomplete development. Stitch these efforts together and you get an interesting mosaic. They arent a substitute for good governance, but these initiatives offer a measure of what Indians aspire to.

Chances are that you have completely missed out on the many stories of change featured in this book. Perhaps we too would have were it not for our decision six years ago to launch Civil Society, our monthly magazine, with the mission of seeking out people who make a difference and showcasing their contributions. As we looked around us over these years, we found a rich haul of innovations in health, agriculture, industry, water conservation, architecture, education, energy, rural engineering you name it. For us as journalists it was a dream come true to be able to examine these initiatives and connect with the remarkable individuals and groups behind them. It was also a challenge to tell their stories attractively and simply so that they could be widely understood. In Civil Society we take a worms eye view of progress. Being small media makes this possible. We earn less and so we are free to go bottom-up. Everyone is someone is our slogan. That includes us in the magazine as well as the people we cover. The local solution has its own importance. In its weave are tucked away all those under-served concerns, forgotten traditions and remote efficiencies that tend to get swept aside in mega waves of development. To strike a balance between size and sustainability is the real test in emerging economies. Small initiatives dont go far enough and the big ones come with too much collateral damage. How can one draw on the other? What can national planners learn from neighbourhood realities? The footprint of Civil Society has shown us that there is a national readership for local solutions. For instance, there are conditions of drought in Karnataka which make it similar to Rajasthan. So, there is an eagerness to build the same kind of tanks and ponds with which the Tarun Bharat Sangh solved problems of water scarcity in districts like Alwar. When we published the story on Girish Bhardawaj, who builds low-cost bridges in Karnataka and Kerala, the first expressions of interest in his work came from Arunachal Pradesh where connectivity is a problem. The work of the rural surgeons of India as depicted in our story on the Rural
12

Medicare Centre in the outskirts of Delhi evoked interest from a variety of people. For all the super-specialty hospitals that have come up, there remains a huge unmet demand for reliable and affordable health care. People want surgeons who will do the relatively small things like take out a kidney stone or repair a hernia. It is this search to be relevant that has prompted Dr Devi Shetty to create a unique business model for his facility, the Narayana Hrudayalaya, in Bangalore where technology and a sense of mission have been combined to drastically reduce the cost of cardiac care. The Narayana Hrudalaya is a milestone of what modern India can achieve by harnessing market forces for the benefit of all. Smaller efforts are no less significant. So, when some of Delhis top physicians spare time from their private practices to revive a community health centre in a ramshackle resettlement colony, they offer a solution that deserves to be multiplied. As disease burdens grow in urban India, it wont do to wait for city governments to create facilities that the poor can access. The health centre which these Delhi physicians revived had existed on paper. In reality it was a den for local criminals. Today it serves thousands of local people. An effort to make village school buildings in Rajasthan more hospitable resulted in a string of innovations. Doors began to be used to teach angles, window grills letters and so on. Lowering window levels let more air and light into classrooms. Making bathrooms functional and giving a fresh coat of colourful paint to the building changed the way communities felt about their schools. They suddenly began to seem like assets. The work done by architect Kabir Vajpeyi and the Vinyas team now has takers in different states. It deserves to be propagated as a national model. Imagine a school can be turned around for as little as Rs 20,000! So, what does it take to put innovations on bigger platforms? How do good ideas get to be implemented and then become national objectives? The inventive Indians we have been watching dont have answers to such questions. They belong to a breed of doers and seekers who are completely absorbed by their immediate objectives. It cant possibly be any other way. Nothing matters more to the innovator than the innovation. It is for society to create an environment in which new ideas flourish and find more takers. There are many practices that are overlooked merely because they come from traditional technologies but in reality are modern and relevant. For instance, Chandrashekhar Hariharan has shown how old construction techniques are hugely efficient in the context of todays squeeze on resources. Similarly Anupam Mishra has documented the science behind stepwells and other water structures in Rajasthan. In Kolkata, ponds used as fisheries do the work of expensive sewage treatment plants. As India looks for speedy growth and prosperity, it will be necessary to go beyond the known in the search for what works and doesnt. Big ticket strategies will have to draw on multiple local realities. Getting Inventive Indians into the mainstream should be a priority.

13

32 GREAT STORIE

ORIES OF CHANGE

INVENTIVE INDIANS

1
BRIDGE BUILDER
Girish Bhardawaj is a mechanical engineer with a passion for erecting low-cost bridges that have changed the lives of 200,000 people in remote rural areas

BRIDGES FOR EVERYONE

SHREE PADRE

VER since they can remember, most of the villagers of Delampady in Keralas Kasaragod district have lived a dual existence: as part of the mainland for six months and as a fragile and worried river island for the rest of the year when the surging waters of the Payaswini cut them off during the monsoon. Now, a simple and sturdy suspension foot bridge has put an end to such uncertainty. It spans 105 metres and makes it easy for villagers to go to work and school, transfer provisions or get a sick person to hospital. Constructed in four months, the bridge has cost just Rs 21.5 lakhs. Villagers cant believe that it has taken so little to end five decades of isolation. The villagers hero today is Girish Bhardawaj, 57, a mechnical engineer from Sullia, in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. Girish is not new to such adulation. He has been building bridges for the past 18 years. There are 66 that he has to his credit. The bridges are mostly in Karnataka and Kerala, but there are a few in other southern states as well. In his career as a grassroots engineer, Girish has helped at least 200,000 hapless villagers cross rivers safely. For them he is a saviour. In the initial years, local civic bodies used to reject the idea of a suspension bridge. It is only a temporary structure the

Army builds in emergencies, they would say dismissively. The Army dismantles such bridges after their purpose is served. Now, fully convinced, they call for tenders for constructing suspension bridges. In Karnataka, it is only Girish who builds them. With the success of each bridge, the word spreads. There are now eight bridges across the Payaswini. Nine bridges have been erected over the Chandragiri, which the Payaswini joins. The bridge completed at Delampady is the fourth in that panchayat area, which is plagued by communication hardships. This is the culmination of a long struggle, says MC Narayanan Nayar, one of the villagers who will benefit from the new bridge at Delampady. Purushoththama, a farmer, is also relieved: My work demands that I have to cross this river twice daily. My bread is on the other side. The inner bank becomes an island for half the year. It has meant crossing the river in country-boats and walking four kilometres to catch a bus, he says. For bringing home provisions, transporting patients and so on one would have to hire a jeep. A single trip by jeep costs Rs 150, which is a steep price for us villagers. It would also mean doing 13 km on a circuitous road. Like Purushoththama, there are half a dozen other locals who

16

BRIDGES FOR EVERYONE

Girish Bhardawaj inspecting one of his bridges

17

INVENTIVE INDIANS

have voluntarily worked on the suspension bridge because of the difference it will make to their lives. Involving local people is an integral part of Girishs bridgebuilding. So, he normally camps at the construction site with his crew of 15 or so, eating, sleeping and solving technical problems on the spot. Being around facilitates close supervision. He can see for himself that technical specifications are being met. But even more than the hands-on engineering, it is the spirit that really matters. Each bridge is an expression of bonding. We bridge the gap between places, people and hearts, says Girish. HIS FATHERS SON Girish belongs to a farming family from Aramboor, near Sullia. He wanted to become an engineer because his father was one. However, Balekkala Krishna Bhat, his father, would call an engineering degree a begging bowl. Having served the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) at various places, he was fed up with the system. He saw little point in his son being an engineer. Girishs mother had to intervene to persuade his father to send him to an engineering college. The college fees were Rs 600 a year and hostel fees Rs 90 a month. It was a lot of money for us, recalls Girish. He studied mechanical engineering at PES College of Engineering in Mandya and got a first class. Girishs father wanted him to stay home and serve the local rural community. When Girish sought his blessings before going to Bangalore for an interview for a job, he remarked, Go, enjoy Bangalore and come back. I will keep praying that you shouldnt get the job. Girish went on trying. Jobs were difficult to find at that time. One day he had gone to the office of the local transporter with his father. An old pump-set was kept there. The agent said it was being sent to Puttur for repairs. While returning home, Girishs father said to him: When you, an engineer, are here, why should our farmers have to send their pump-sets elsewhere for repair? You start a small workshop. Later on it will grow. Kirloskar too came up the same way. For the youngster who was dreaming of a city job, this was a great disappointment. His father was asking a qualified engineer to perform the role of a mechanic. Yet on second thoughts, Girish recalls, I bowed to my fathers wishes and wore the blue overalls of a mechanic. His small workshop in Sullia opened in 1975. Being the only workshop in the town, he was asked to do different types of jobs from machinery erection to general fabrication. For all his aspirations of employment in a big city, Girish did not mind working with his hands. Indeed, with time he found that he really enjoyed it. He took up local assignments with great zest and did not shy away from manual work. THE STEPPING STONE In 1989 came a turning point. A Range Forest Officer approached him to build a small hanging bridge at Nisargadhama, in Karnatakas Kodagu district. At that time Girish didnt know anything about building bridges. But he took on the work. I didnt have any design, nor did I have calculations. Yet, the bridge continues to serve, he says laughing heartily.

I never dreamt at that time that I would end up constructing bridges throughout my life like this. Nevertheless, that is what destiny had decreed. A few years after the first bridge, villagers from his native village of Aramboor requested him to construct a bridge across the Payaswini. They would not take his pleas of lack of experience seriously because he had already put up a bridge. Girish had to yield. As it was his native village, he took only the cost of materials. When two days were left for the inauguration, a village elder, Kittanna Rai, admonished him, Why have you put such a narrow rope? Wont people fall while crossing? This question haunted me. When I closed my eyes, I would see the picture of a falling bridge, says Girish. He couldnt sleep that night. So worried was he that at midnight, he rushed to his workshop to check whether anything had gone wrong with his calculations. No, Girishs calculations were correct. The rope was narrow, but the bridge was secure. Finally, the bridge was inaugurated with much fanfare. After Aramboor, there was no turning back. He consulted many books. The principal of a local engineering college was of much help. Now, when it comes to making low-cost bridges in difficult terrain, there is perhaps no one in India equal to Girish. Yet, he takes each new bridge as seriously as he did the one at Aramboor. At all the crucial stages of construction he invariably remains with his crew. The mood is wholesome and productive. During an entire day spent with him, we didnt notice any indication of tension, anger, complacency or arrogance in his interactions. See, its a big responsibility. I can sit pretty at home and leave my boys to do the work. But that makes me tense. If I am at the site, I can caution them, ensure quality and safety both for the bridge that is being built and my boys. Initially he used big trees as pylons if they were available at the right place. Concrete pylons are now preferred because of their assured long life. Multi-strand steel ropes pass through rollers fixed above the pylon. These are tied to specially built anchors on both sides. Rods suspended from the rope at fixed intervals from these suspenders has come the name suspension foot bridge are connected to transoms. A lengthy floor element is later fitted connecting all these transoms. Before doing this, our boys cross the bridge by hanging on to these transoms like circus performers, says Girish. The ferro-cement decks inside a steel frame are finally fitted onto the floor element. On both sides of the bridge, PVC coated chain-link fencing is erected till waist-level. If girders are used in place of chain- link fencing, it reduces vibration considerably. Though slightly expensive, the girder uniformly distributes the load. Over the years, the bridges have seen many innovations. Earlier, in place of ferro-cement decks, wooden ones were used. This time he has opted for a tapering circular column for the pylon. The earlier columns were rectangular. It required four columns for a pylon on one side. With intercon-

18

BRIDGES FOR EVERYONE

A suspension bridge looks delicate but is very sturdy

19

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Workers run many risks while putting up a bridge

necting beams that design was costlier. Now there are only two columns. For the next bridge, he intends to have a single pylon. This was an idea he got on the Internet where he saw how two ropes can be hung from the same pylon. Girish has already incorporated this new design for three proposals he has submitted. In the present bridge he has provided extra holes on both edges of the transoms. This is for easier fitting of stiffening girders, if required sometime in future. If the holes are not there, to get them drilled later in certain villages is expensive. Taking the future into account in the local communitys interest is another aspect of Girishs mission. Are the bridges completely safe for two-wheelers? You are okay if you ride carefully. Braking suddenly can cause problems for the bridge. An extra longitudinal beam has been incorporated in the floor to make the bridges safer, but it is necessary to be cautious.

Cattle too can use the bridge, but the dung they leave behind can be corrosive if it isnt washed off periodically. The bridges bear a load of 400 kg per square metre. The figure varies. One being constructed at Kuntaru near Sullia is 1.2 metres wide. That means every running metre can take 480 kg. The point to remember is that a hanging bridge is a low-cost alternative that is easy to build. It is not meant to do heavy duty. BRIDGING PEOPLE Girishs people-based approach attracts considerable local support. People are happy to give their labour free of cost. The Aramboor bridge was built entirely with peoples participation. At Bavikere, near Kasaragod, people on either side of the river were not on good terms. But by the time our bridge was complete, their differences had melted, remembers Girish. At the inauguration, one side brought benches for people to sit on and the other side brought homemade sweets.

With a bridge in place, 30 two-wheelers were bought by the villagers of Baluvanthadka. They can take their produce to the market, drop their children to school.
20

BRIDGES FOR EVERYONE

At Baluvanthadka, in Kasaragod district of Kerala, where a 143 metre bridge was built eight years ago at a cost of Rs 15 lakh, almost everybody seems to know Girish intimately. We dont have words to describe his contribution to connecting these cursed hamlets, says Raveendra Nayak stopping his motorcycle on the bridge. Once the bridge was ready, 30 two-wheelers were bought by the villagers of Baluvanthadka. The bridge allows them to take their produce to the market, drop their children to school and so on. Earlier, on many occasions, villagers who had gone to Kasaragod, just 30 km away, had to spend the night away from home because boats wouldnt ply after 5.30 pm. A boatman would charge Rs 10 per person. The result was that only 10 or 15 people would venture out of the village on most days. Now, on an average, 200 people cross the bridge every day. During its construction, despite the panchayats contributing to the bridge, there was a shortage of Rs 60,000. Girish suggested that if more villagers gave their labour, the money would not be needed. Recalls BS Thimmappa, a local farmer who agreed to camp with Girish and his crew in a tent at the site, It was like a festival. Every day, 60 to 100 people assembled in the morning and worked until dusk. This went on continuously for two months. That apart, at the final stage, the villagers again fell short of Rs 90,000. They never managed to pay up and Girish waived the amount saying, Oh, forget it. It was just my profit. Instead I have got the affection of so many people. The bonds between the villagers and Girish are very strong. They invite him for all the functions at Baluvanthadka. Land values have gone up at Baluvanthadka. Prices of essential commodities have come down. Since the village no longer has the black mark of being inaccessible, marriage proposals have begun coming in. During construction, civil works like pylon construction, digging the land for building the anchor etc are done in the first phase. After the concrete is cured, work on the bridge continues without stopping. Totally it takes about four months to put up a bridge. Most of the staff who made the initial bridges 18 years ago still work with Girish. Those who have grown too old for the rigours of bridge-building are employed at his fabrication unit, Ayas Shilpa, which is Sanskrit for structures of steel. But what about you, we ask Girish. I never get old. My body might have grown old, but the spirit is the same, he smiles. Even now, if need be, I climb up the pylon. Today those who see Girishs workaholic nature, his hectic schedule and frequent travel wouldnt believe that he had a heart attack seven years ago. Later, he underwent angioplasty. Immediately after the attack, while he was being treated at a hospital in Puttur, he was busy designing a bridge for a Hyderabad builder. Till a bridge is completed, he floats between both banks of the river at least six to eight times a day in a unique boat. There are no moving parts in Girishs bridges. The only maintenance required is greasing and painting against rusting. It is enough if this is done at least once in two years. Girish believes that the bridges can last for a century if there is prop-

A great deal of workmanship goes into the making of a bridge

21

INVENTIVE INDIANS

A bridge makes life easier for everyone

er maintenance. The ropes might require replacement in 50 years if no maintenance is done. However, by the coast a hanging bridges life would be shorter. If the span is big, a suspension bridge is cheaper than a concrete footbridge. A suspension bridge can also be dismantled and erected again elsewhere. This, says Girish, can save 60 to 65 per cent of the total cost. The rest of the expenditure is on civil works. A bridge has been shifted from Pallangodu to Munhampara. The reason was that a motorable concrete bridge came to be constructed at Panathoor. The hanging bridge was no longer required. Is it possible to build motorable suspension bridges? Yes, but again, if its a small span, it is better to go for concrete bridges, says Girish. An estate owner from near Ooty wants him to build a 50metre-long hanging bridge on which his jeep can pass. I strongly advised him against it because a concrete bridge would be a better choice and relatively cheaper; but the owner seems to be adamant about a hanging bridge, he says. Right now he has six bridges in the pipeline and is planning a 1.2 km long one in Tamil Nadu. It will serve 9,000 people. It is possible. But depending on the availability of the length of the multi-strand steel rope, we might have to go for four or five spans in between, says Girish. Since there is no other agency in Karnataka and neighbouring states which regularly builds hanging bridges, Girish has to yield to pressures now and then. It is under such pressure that he started taking government contracts for bridges. Such contract work is not without delays in payments and unforeseen losses. It is quite an irritating experience. You have to yield if

you are to complete the work. I sometimes feeling like dumping the contract, but seeing how unhappy people without a bridge are, I tell myself that at least for their sake I should tolerate this unpleasantness. BRIDGES UNLIMITED The ground reality is that there are hundreds and thousands of sites where a hanging bridge is required to help cut-off communities. Girish says: The Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat has received applications for susepnsion bridges at 41 sites from three taluks alone Puttur, Buntwal and Belthangadi. These are community demands. There must be more sites where other communities need bridges. Hundreds of bridges are proposed, but never taken up for want of funds. Girish points out that voluntary labour by local people who benefit from the bridge is one way of completeing these projects. But is there any way of speeding up the construction of bridges? Girish believes it is possible by training efficient teams. I was telling the secretary of a Member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh to give me a dedicated engineer and a dozen hard- working boys. I will guide them for two or three bridges. Thereafter, they can do it on their own. About 30 per cent of the cost of a bridge is labour. Even unskilled labour will do. If communities organise themselves and provide voluntary labour, points out Girish, they can save this amount. Girish always has a mix of trained staff and freshers. In this way some new people are trained each time. This is work anybody can learn, he says. Peoples participation is important for one more reason. Labour is becoming scarce. Earlier we had any number of

22

BRIDGES FOR EVERYONE

It is teamwork that puts a good bridge in place

people willing to be employed as workers on a project. Now they are hard to find even if we advertise. PEOPLES PARTICIPATION Out of the 66 bridges built so far, 24 were made in Kerala. Peoples planning has been a blessing in Kerala with the three-tiered panchayats being able to sanction money for such development works. This is one reason why so many bridges have come up in Kerala. The spirit of peoples participation is also far more there when compared to Karnataka, Girish says. Some years ago, Instruct, a Bangalore-based training organisation invited Girish to conduct classes for Bhutanese engineers. While he was explaining the suspension bridge design, he noticed that the trainees looked bored. On asking, Girish learnt that they knew the design very well, but faced problems with erection. The method followed by them was very cumbersome. They were so impressed by Girishs work that after the workshop was over they came to his hometown, studied the bridges and went back filled with confidence.

As we were talking, a message came that the new footbridge was almost ready. We were the chosen ones to inaugurate it. Entire families came out to welcome their new neighbour, the hanging bridge, at the impromptu inauguration. As the sun began sinking, Girish walked on the footbridge with his never fading smile. Looking back, what do you now think about this? If you hadnt heeded your fathers advice, what would you have been? we ask Girish. Oh, I would have been lost somewhere, he said. I would have been a cog in the machine. I get a lot of happiness from this work. In between bridge projects, my general fabrication work continues to sustain me and my staff. Girish then recited from HW Longfellow, a poet who has inspired him greatly. Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

23

INVENTIVE INDIANS

2
VISIONARY SURGEON
Dr Devi Shetty has shown how technology and volumes reduce the cost of cardiac surgery. It is his mission to make the best health care affordable for all in India

AFFORDABLE HEART CARE

VIDYA VISWANATHAN

T is 7:26 pm. Dr Devi Shettys day is not over but he looks as fresh as he did at 7 am. He is Indias topnotch cardiac surgeon and yet Dr Shetty makes it a point to meet nearly every patient who comes for treatment to the Narayana Hrudayalaya in Bangalore and wants to see him. He understands their need for reassurance. This evening about 30 patients wait for him. The first, accompanied by his brother, is from Bangladesh. They sit at the end of a long table. Dr Shetty walks in, dressed in surgical green. He has a calm, unhurried, even saintly demeanour. An intricate, attractive clay model of a heart rests on his table. He looks at a digital image on a slick laptop behind him. Dr Shetty explains his prognosis to both brothers, using the clay model. The main artery is blocked 100 per cent and the second 80 per cent. Surgery is required. The doctors second patient is a 40- year-old from Assanpur in Kerala. An assistant ushers in the patients extended family and seats them at the other end of the table so the doctor can just slide across as soon as he finishes with the first patient. There is an electrical disturbance in the heart, Dr Shetty explains to this patient. Then there is Subramani, a mason. His brother explains that Subramani cannot walk even half a kilometre. Dr Shetty shows him a blockage in the main artery. Subramani has had a heart attack and will have to be operated. The fourth is a baby that needs surgery. The doctor pats the

mothers hand reassuringly and says in Kannada, Hanake neevu thale bisi madiku bedi or Dont heat up your head over money. He coos gently to the baby. The family members prostrate themselves in front of Dr Shetty before they leave. Narayana Hrudayalaya is a hospital for the poor like this family and not for the rich, he explains. He talks to the family of Jyothi a seven-year-old girl who needs a major heart surgery. Her father is a casual agricultural labourer from a village in Tumkur district, Karnataka. Narayana Hrudayalaya has three packages for surgery. The lowest slab is Rs 65,000 and for those who cannot even afford to pay that, there is a trust which raises money. The next slab is for the general ward that costs Rs 110,000 and then come the special wards at Rs 195,000. The break-even for the hospital is Rs 90,000 for surgery on an adult and Rs 130,000 on a child. Most patients in the hospital get themselves admitted to the general ward. A small elite, along with patients in the general ward, subsidise the rest. The treatment and care in all cases is identical. We look at our balance sheet daily. If we are profitable on a given day, we step up charitable cases. Otherwise we postpone cases that are not urgent. We make sure that we keep our nose above water, says Dr Shetty. An angioplasty costs Rs 75,000 in the general ward, Rs 1 lakh in a twin-sharing room and Rs 1.2 lakhs in a single room. For the poorest patients, an angioplasty is done for Rs 45,000. For

24

AFFORDABLE HEART CARE

Dr Devi Shetty

25

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Dr Devi Shetty spends time talking to patients and their families

those who cant afford this, the trust steps in. No one is turned away. The hospital on an average sees 400 patients a day. Surgeries and interventions are taken up on the basis of the urgency of the case. But this is just the beginning. As Dr Shettys model acquires new efficiencies, he hopes to be able to finally offer openheart surgery, including in-care facilities at a fixed price of Rs 40,000. Non-cardiac surgeries such as for removal of stones in the kidneys or the gall bladder would be for less than Rs 10,000. This will happen when we build our 5,000-bed health city. This is Walmartisation of healthcare, says Dr Shetty with a gleam in his eyes. His mission is to make state-of-the-art health care affordable to all in India and then make that process a model for the world. Dr Shetty makes sure that everyone in the hospital shares his mission. A plaque quoting Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, is prominently displayed on his sideboard. It reads: Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, that is the only thing that has. Narayana Hrudayalaya claims to be the largest childrens cardiac care unit in the world. Nearly 40 per cent of operations are done on children. The pediatric critical care unit has rows and rows of small bay stations with complicated monitoring equipment. There are 60 bays occupied by newborn babies on life-support systems. Each bay is monitored 24/7 by an individual nurse. One child needs three nurses in three shifts.

In 1989, Dr Shetty created history by performing an openheart surgery on a nine-day-old baby. Today, some newborn babies in the critical care unit are even younger. Dr Shetty says the hospital has a 98.8 per cent success rate with newborns. Indians are genetically prone to heart disease. In many cases a heart attack gets passed off as indigestion. Every year about 224,000 babies are born with congenital heart conditions and the incidence is higher among the poor. India needs 2.4 million heart surgeries a year and all our heart institutes put together do just about 60,000. The reason is that cardiac surgery is sold as a boutique product. We should try and dissociate health care from affluence. Ten years ago who would have imagined that an auto-rickshaw driver could afford a mobile phone? Has he become wealthier? No, he is as poor or as wealthy as before. But the technology of mobile companies has changed. The same thing is going to happen to health care. The technology of health care delivery will change, he says. Dr Shetty is not content with running four hospitals, which he has set up under the banner of the Asia Heart Foundation. He wants to take on the whole system communications technology, design and manufacture of medical equipment, affordability, training manpower, hospital processes, administration and software, hospital consumables and generic medicines. WALMART WITH A HEART The first step has been to play a volumes game and drive down costs or to Walmartise health care. Along with Dr Alok Roy, Dr Shetty set up the Asia Heart

26

AFFORDABLE HEART CARE

Foundation, a non-profit which helped start two heart hospitals the BM Birla Heart Research Institute and the Manipal Heart Foundation. The non-profit then built its own 150- bed hospital in Kolkata, the Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS), and Narayana Hrudayalaya, a 500- bed hospital in Bangalore. Together these hospitals perform 12 per cent of all heart surgeries in India. Narayana Hrudayalaya does 23 surgeries a day. The hospital hopes to increase this number to 70 surgeries a day. That gives us tremendous bargaining power. We operate on zero inventory, says Dr Shetty. The hospital does not pay for a lot of its medical equipment. It pays for the reagents. But that volume is so high that the vendor makes enough profit. Cost reduction is a mission for us, says Srinivasa Rao, CFO of the hospital. When Rao worked for Canara Bank he helped Dr Shetty with project finance. Rao gets a report on each patient. He keeps a close watch on costs. We dont have longterm contracts. We bargain with suppliers every week. Consumables are a big part of the cost. We have brought prices down by 35 per cent in four years, he says. The hospital uses a shift system to reduce costs. If 150 X-rays

Government hospitals in the northeast are linked via satellite to Narayana Hrudayalaya. Patient data, such as ECG, X-Rays, CT Scan, MRI, echocardiography, angiograms are transmitted back and the patient gets prompt advice from Indias leading doctor. Nearly 20 developing countries approach the hospital and Dr Shetty is keen to extend the telemedicine project to Malaysia, Tanzania and Bangladesh. At 5 pm every day he goes to the top floor for a video-conference. General physicians, trained by the Asia Heart Foundation hospitals in cardiology, bring their patients online from the district centres. Even very poor people are not intimidated by technology. They are so comfortable talking in a video-conferencing mode. They need to see the doctors body language and compassion. Only those who require surgery will then need to travel to Kolkata or Bangalore, points out Dr Shetty. When Civil Society sat in on a video conference Mathias Weber, the global VP for GEs diagnostic cardiology and a colleague were also present as guests.

We got the price of the ECG machine down to Rs 10,000. The goal is to make this machine for Rs 5000. Several Indian companies have come forward.
can be taken in one day, then in three shifts three times as many can be done. The operation theatres work till 8 pm. A team of more than 90 surgeons and cardiologists, who are full-time employees of the hospital, work in stints. If nurses can come in shifts, why cant they? That is the mentality we have here, points out Rao. Existing manpower is put to use as much as possible. Staffing is lean. The hospital has 1,300 nurses and technicians and just 24 are engaged in administration. Narayana Hrudayalaya does not pay mind- boggling salaries. The hospital has an assembly line operating process. Doctors work from morning to night and operate four or five times a day, says Dr Shetty. They make Rs 3 to 4 lakhs a month, but could make that much in a day if they worked in Mumbai or Delhi. We address their need, not their greed. The greatest satisfaction for surgeons is that they dont have to turn anyone away because of money. ATOMS TO BYTES Dr Shettys favourite presentation is called Atoms to Bytes. He is convinced that advances in information technology and communications will make quality health care available to everybody. His telemedicine project with ISRO is now legendary. The hospitals next big project is to get all 30,000 general physicians in Karnataka to have a mobile ECG machine. The readings from these machines will be transmitted to Narayana Hrudayalaya. The mobile ECG machines, made by a company called Schiller, cost Rs 37,000. The hospital got its sister software concern, SN Informatics, to develop the software to get this reading into a PC so that it can be transmitted. We got the price of the ECG machine down to Rs 10,000. We give the software free and that drives volumes. The goal is to make this machine at Rs 5,000 and there are several Indian companies that have come forward, says Dr Shetty. He explains how these readings are transmitted to the hospital. Weber asks him what will happen when volumes increase. Perhaps a piece of software could read the ECG, detect abnormal ones and route those to a specialist. Weber says his company already has such a software platform but that it is prohibitively expensive. The driven Dr Shetty immediately offers to test it in the hospital. You find a business model later, he quips. Dr Shetty believes what happened in computing will happen to medical equipment and reduce costs. Proprietary equip-

27

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Narayana Hrudayalaya is the largest childrens cardiac care unit in the world

28

AFFORDABLE HEART CARE

ment will give way to open systems that will drive volumes. What happened to IBMs mainframes because of the PC will happen to expensive medical machines. Shetty wants all of his software running out of computers instead of specialised equipment. He is sure that volumes are going to increase making it viable for companies to produce machines much more cheaply. Any bunch of engineers that want to make medical equipment or software gets an audience with the doctor. There are always four or five people in the car with him wanting to show something or the other, says Rao. A group of final year students from a Bangalore engineering college wanted to work on a project. Dr Shetty got them to work on an online oxygen saturation monitor that is now manufactured by a company called Metronic and costs Rs 500,000. He got a functioning piece of equipment that worked off a Rs 35,000 laptop fitted with a Rs 800 sensor from Taiwan. Narayana Hrudayalaya has also worked with Texas Instruments to produce a digital X-Ray plate that went off patent in June 2004. Earlier, the plate was very costly. But what the hospital has developed comes for Rs 15,000. We will give these to government hospitals. They will save on film and wont need a radiologist. We will interpret it for them, says Dr Shetty. A NEW HEART COURSE Dr Shetty stresses changes in medical studies to suit a vision of cardiac care for all. India produces 18,000 doctors and 180 cardiologists every year. According to Narayana Hrudayalayas calculations the country needs 3,000 to 4,000 cardiologists. So Professor George Cherian at the hospital has developed a curriculum for a diploma course in community cardiology through the Indira Gandhi Open University. After taking the course at 50 different cardiac centres in the country, doctors will be able to read echocardiograms and diagnose but will not be able to make any interventions. Narayana Hrudayalaya also has a training college for nurses which mainly admits girls from underprivileged backgrounds. There is a programme in specialised cardiac nursing. We organise loans for them and assure them jobs. The training includes six months in a critical care unit in the hospital, says Rao. In turn the nurses work in Narayana Hrudayalaya during their training period. Ask Dr Shetty how he manages turnover among the nursing staff and his answer characteristically paints a larger picture. The greatest gift that you can give a poor country with a population of a billion is education. Our nurses are in very high demand. Let them go overseas and earn a good salary. We will train a fresh bunch. However the hospital retains a core group of nurses who are managers and pays them well. They make up to Rs 35,000 a month which is a good amount in the Indian situation. HEALTH INSURANCE Dr Shetty is fond of quoting Amartya

Sen. The Bengal famine was not due to lack of food but a shortage of money to buy food. So also India has health care infrastructure. We have 600 nursing colleges. We educate the largest numbers of doctors and paramedics in the world. But people cannot pay. In Karnataka the average occupancy of hospital beds is only 35 per cent. So, you need to create a capacity to pay for health care. Dr Shettys answer is Yeshasvini, a heath insurance scheme for farmers who belong to cooperatives. How did a doctor who spends from 7 am to 9 pm every day in a hospital discover the farmers network? It all began when farmers from the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMC), a cooperative with more than two million members in Bangalore, asked him to endorse milk in an advertisement. When I chatted them up I realised what a cooperative could do. I told them I would give my endorsement if they signed up for insurance, says Dr Shetty. Each farmer pays Rs 10 a month and the government Rs 5. The farmer can avail of surgery in one of 500 hospitals registered under the scheme. It takes just a quick calculation to see that the scheme can be viable. Only about one in 150 need surgery. If 150 farmers dont need surgery the amount collected in a year for one surgery is Rs 27,000. This scheme covers about 1,600 surgical processes and not just medicines. The cooperatives truck, which delivered milk, also carted along the paperwork so the incidental cost of administration was zero. Hospitals whose facilities are anyway not being used optimally give the farmers a discount and further bring down the cost of treatment. By the second year of the scheme, 2.4 million farmers had enrolled. Narayana Hrudayalaya with Biocon and ICICI bank have now launched a similar scheme. Biocon is one of the largest, lowcost producers of pharmaceutical intermediaries in the world. The idea is to bring everyone into a network, so that the healthy subsidise the ill. For retired people, the hospital figured that their monthly expense works out to Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000. I spoke to Kiran Majumdar of Biocon and we have now launched Biocon branded life saving generics at 20 per cent of the cost, says Dr Shetty. Biocon and Narayana Hrudayalaya have adopted a village in the Anekal district where they have set up a rural health clinic. They have trained women in the village to test blood sugar levels. The generics are distributed here and loans are organised for medicines. They have hooked this rural centre through satellite for consultation. Children will use the same facility for learning. If this project is successful Narayana Hrudayalaya, Biocon and ICICI want to create a network across the state. The doctor is in a hurry because his mission is to make state of the art health care affordable in India as soon as possible.

29

INVENTIVE INDIANS

3
ARCHITECT ACTIVIST
Kabir Vajpeyi and the team at Vinyas have more than 150 design ideas that can easily be used to reshape schools and make them more attractive to children

SCHOOLS BY DESIGN
RITA & UMESH ANAND

MAGINE a school where children learn angles from the sweep of a door: half open at 45 degrees, fully open at 90 degrees and so on. Or fractions from the iron grills of windows always in place to catch the attention of straying minds eager to get out there and play. Or weights and measures from furniture: a 2 kg chair, a 5 kg table. And language from a wall on which the teacher leaves new words for ready reference so that it is easy to go back and check for days together. Imagine a school so imbued with the spirit of inquiry that the lessons are in its very structure: mystery walls and floor tiles; riotous colours; mud maps and sundials. Architect Kabir Vajpeyi and his team at their NGO, Vinyas, have been hard at work for several years now reshaping schools to make them more attractive to children instead of being built for adults by adults. Vinyas has published a book, Building as Learning Aid, or Bala, which shows how this can be done. It has 150 design ideas that can be easily implemented. Generally a school building is seen only as infrastructure. Teaching is centred round the teacher, textbooks and blackboard inside a classroom. The child is expected to surrender, obey, perform. But in Bala the entire school is so designed that children can learn from their surroundings. Floors, walls, pillars, staircases, corridors, doors, ceilings, fans, windows, poles, even rainwa-

ter, trees and flowers can all be used as learning aids. Everybody wants a child-friendly school but they dont know how. We can tell them, says Kabir. Interestingly, the Bala ideas were born in rural Rajasthan where Kabirs team was a part of the Lok Jumbaish programme of former bureaucrat Anil Bordia. The idea then was to redesign dilapidated village schools without changing existing structures. As one thing led to another and the schools took new shape, Vinyas young architects and engineers, with time on their hands in rural Rajasthan, began prospecting for innovative and cheap learning aids they could install at the schools. The ideas came from the villagers and temporary teachers at government schools. They began with the rather mundane Mera Bharat mahan for window grills and soon began to be more purposeful and interesting. The Vinyas team helped the process along. From those remote beginnings, Vinyas Bala has now caught the imagination of several state governments and is being implemented in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Many others have shown an interest and plan to follow. In Rajasthan, however, the Lok Jumbaish was given an untimely political burial. Anil Bordia became the target of numerous inquiries. The teaching innovations were written off in the very state where they were conceived by village folk

30

SCHOOLS BY DESIGN

Kabir Vajpeyi

who wanted schools they could be proud of. And in Delhi, where Vinyas is based, the municipal authorities have heard several presentations but have not been able to implement the ideas. When we wanted to shoot Kabir for this cover story we took him to a municipal school at Andrews Gunj in south Delhi. The classrooms were dark and filthy. The doors had locks, but whole panels were missing. Inside, the ambience was one of a penitentiary with barred high windows. The Lok Jumbaish programme began in the early 1990s. Anil Bordia had been education secretary in the government. Lok Jumbaish sought to involve the community in education. The programme wanted villagers in educationally backward regions of Rajasthan to take up education at every level the teacher would be answerable to the community, the building construction would be undertaken by them and they would also have a say in the curriculum. Fifty per cent of the money came from Sweden through SIDA, two-thirds from the Government of India and one-third from the government of Rajasthan. Among the several innovations Bordia thought of was to send architects to backward regions where they would be stationed and learn to work with communities and develop ideas with them through close interaction. Architects were to repair dilapidated schools, not build new ones, and create a learning environment.

It made economic sense, says Kabir. Repairing old structures was a labour intensive, not a material intensive job. We used labour from the same village. No contractors were allowed. It had to be simple, easy to implement and practical. They were to make existing toilets functional, ensure availability of drinking water, restore classrooms, provide ventilation and make storage spaces. Kabir got involved with the Lok Jumbaish programme in 1992. He had studied architecture in Bhopals Regional Engineering College. His first job was with Neeraj Manchanda, a Delhibased architect whom he admired. Manchanda offered the services of his outfit to Lok Jumbaish. Kabir, passionate about architecture and with a yen for doing something different, was keen to go. Manchanda sent him to work in Banswara, a tribal district in south Rajasthan to repair 100 dilapidated schools. First, the community was sensitised about the importance of education. The programme had a team of local village youngsters who were good at communicating ideas. They performed at Bhimsaur village in Banswara district. Kabir went to watch. It was very exciting, he recalls. I realised that I had come to the right place and there was a role for me here. Kabir surveyed schools with the community. Repairs would be identified and an estimation of the costs made. It was the architects job to identify a structural engineer and seek his advice if needed. No machines were brought in. Money for the school was routed through the community. The

31

INVENTIVE INDIANS

architect would make the estimates and send them to the Jaipur office of Lok Jumbaish. The zilla parishad office would be told to release the money. A bank account was opened and operated by two members from the community. The whole process, once it got streamlined, would take not more than 12 days. The project gave us architects a new role, says Kabir. And the community got access to a professional architect interested in their ideas. Budgets at that time ranged from Rs 20,000 to Rs 70,000 to repair a single school depending on size, location and extent of damage. The cost of repair was substantially lower than of making new buildings. At the 100 sites that Kabir worked on, the level of corruption was just four per cent. Schools are still a neutral subject. Repairing a school building tends to galvanise even a bickering community into action. In my experience the smaller and more remote a community is the higher the chances of success are, says Kabir. To get the community to handle future repair work they trained local villagers, especially the women, to be masons. There was a lot of resistance to the idea, says Kabir. Our argument was, look, they earn Rs 30 per day as labour. If they train to be masons they can earn upto Rs 100 per day. A resource centre was built to train the women. While the building was being built, the training started so it was all hands-on. In 1994 Kabir fell ill and left the Lok Jumbaish programme to start Vinyas with his wife Preeti. Lok Jumbaish taught us to innovate. We wanted to link research and design, he explains. Kabir rejoined the Lok Jumbaish programme in 1996, but this time with a team of his own under Vinyas. Lok Jumbaish was expanding and needed more architects. Vinyas agreed to renovate 60 schools in two blocks of Rajasthans Pali and Jhalore districts. They took up 15 sites initially stationing an architect and engineer in each. They would work for two months and then get a 10-day break because it was hard work and people tended to leave after a while. For us what was important was to do a quality job, concentrate on each site in the time-frame provided, says Kabir. To speed things up they created a software that used Hindi for estimates and costing so that it could be understood by the community. No time was lost in translation in this way. They developed a master plan for each school. The engineer would survey the site with the community, identify what needed to be done for six to seven sites and then tabulate the information. This would be faxed to the Vinyas office in Delhi. The programmer would enter it into the Hindi software and send it by courier the next day to the Jaipur office. The building officer would receive the letter and at once inform the block officer to release funds for the sites. Verbal communication speeded things up. This was a major confidence building measure for us and for the community, recalls Kabir. They were given 20 months. Sometime in 1997, Kabir realised Vinyas engineers and architects were getting restless with the project. The first 15 sites were completed and the novelty of the assignment had begun to wear off.

Kabir began to think how the project could throw up new creative challenges so that the restless Vinyas team wouldnt begin drifting. The idea of using school buildings as learning aids began to take shape. A social worker from Lok Jumbaish suggested that they use waste material like bangles and pebbles on walls. Kabir found this idea interesting. He asked his engineers to come up with creative ideas and offered Rs 1,000 for each. Technical support to carry it out would be provided by Vinyas. The engineers and architects began attending teacher training programmes to find out what else could be done to create a learning environment. One engineer suggested spaces other than the classroom could be designed for children to learn. He said he would like to make places outside the classroom that could be shaded. So Vinyas immediately started looking at places that could be cool during school hours. Then they thought why not plant trees that could keep the school cool in summer and warm in winter. Vinyas began to examine various species of trees. The cost of planting such trees was nominal but there was the prospect of benefits in extending the classroom and adding to green cover. Then it occurred to somebody to do something with grills on windows. The administrators of the Lok Jumbaish pro-

32

SCHOOLS BY DESIGN

gramme were asked whether they were interested. The initial reaction was no. But the Vinyas team went ahead encouraged by the community. They squeezed out money from the project. For instance, the landed cost of cement was Rs 130 but it could be reduced to Rs 122 by talking to the distributor. Similarly, transport costs could be reduced by appealing to somebody to transport the material and saving on diesel. The cost of the innovations was as little as Rs 300. Middle-aged teachers were indifferent. So Vinyas members contacted Shiksha Karmis or para teachers who were appointed temporarily by the community and asked them what they should do. Initially the ideas were not very exciting. One teacher suggested they shape grills into the words Mera Bharat mahaan. The Vinyas team didnt think much of the idea, but dutifully carried it out. But care was taken not to let banal ideas slip in at the next school. Vinyas told the community and teachers to come up with something more useful. Finally, one teacher said her children got confused between numerals in Hindi and English. Why not shape grills into numerals so that children could see them all the time and become familiar with them? There were several other ideas as well such as puzzles on the

floor and walls on which children could write and scribble. Demand poured in from other village schools within a100 km. Vinyas carried out ideas developed by the para teachers and the community in 26 schools, each time refusing to repeat ideas. In this way the inventory of new ideas grew. These included architectural innovations. They found that walls with small decorative holes (jaalis) excluded the heat and cooled the breeze. Using similar principles they splayed windows or brought them down to floor level so that rural children, who generally sit on the floor to study, could get breeze. Vinyas found that while sitting on the floor children had to crane their necks to see the chalkboard and the teacher. So, in some schools, they placed the children on a higher platform and lowered the level of the chalkboard and the teacher. They also noted that enrolment was higher in Class One and Class Two. So they joined two dilapidated classrooms to make one large one which could accommodate more children. Vinyas used ignored spaces between buildings to create open-air classrooms under shady trees. The Vinyas team invented a new method of making the perfect topcoat for the chalkboard by using discarded marble dust. They trained local masons to make these. Before leaving we had an exit policy, says Kabir. The resource centre was used to train fabricators, masons and carpenters to under-

33

INVENTIVE INDIANS

stand how a school should be rebuilt. In this way Vinyas created a technical cadre for a cluster of 15 to 20 villages. Lok Jumbaish now got excited about Vinyas innovations. But in 1998 the Vajpayee government exploded a nuclear device at Pokharan. SIDA hurriedly withdrew from the Lok Jumbaish project. The Union government too refused to provide funding and the entire programme collapsed. In December 1998 the programme was formally called off. We had built a good rapport with the community but we had to withdraw and we could not show our faces to the people, says Kabir. Back in Delhi, Vinyas decided to distil its experience and put together a book on how to create a learning environment for children in schools. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had intimated some interest in such ideas for its schools. Vinyas looked around for research but found nothing on the Indian situation. So it decided to put together an inter-disciplinary team. It drew on the Department of Child Development at Lady Irwin College, the Department of Elementary Education, Lady Shri Ram College and Samvay, an NGO. Vinyas also got a range of people from environmen-

be stolen and are less subject to wear and tear. To learn language there are Book Corners, Word Walls, Activity Boards, Grid and Dot Pattern Boards and plenty of visuals. Comprehending maths is easier when there are fractions in grills or angles marked in the door. Children can understand estimation and measurement better, when say, the length, width and height of their classroom are painted. They can even measure themselves. Sundials outdoors explain the concept of time. Revolving round a pole teaches how planets move in space. And mapping is easy when the school has an Activity Brick Map where you can mess around with mud and sand. The book has ideas to make school architecture eco-friendly. There are suggestions on how to do rooftop rainwater harvesting and use waste water to grow a herbal garden with plants that take care of cuts, wounds etc. Solar energy and biogas for the kitchen are also included. There are also ways to use nature as a teacher. The Vinyas team has come up with 150 design ideas, based on a careful study of child psychology. We cant get into the

There were several ideas such as puzzles on the floors and walls on which children could scribble. Vinyas carried out ideas developed by para teachers.
talist Anupam Mishra to toy designer Arvind Gupta involved in the research. Curriculum developers, physics teachers, theatre professionals and school teachers were also drawn in. What did this disparate team find? It found out that children in school like running, jumping on the floor, climbing, scribbling on walls, playing hide and seek or marbles, revolving round a pole, group games and collecting natural materials. Children want a school that is warm in winter and cool in summer. Most of all they like nature. Vinyas identified trees. The schools roof can be painted white to reflect direct sunlight. If the school doesnt have space, then vines, creepers and climbers grown round buildings can cut off sunlight. The species mentioned in the book are hardy and need little water to grow. The aim is not to try and replace the teacher or the curriculum. Design ideas are spread all over the classroom and the teacher can be a facilitator moving round the class as children use these ideas on their own. A child who might not understand the lesson in class can always figure out mistakes by just looking around. The built environment can reinforce lessons learnt in class. Besides, learning aids fixed on buildings, cant details of all of them but here are a few and the principles on which they work. TYRE FLIPPER Most government schools in rural areas find it tough to get sturdy play equipment. Vinyas has invented an inexpensive, hardy swing. The Tyre Flipper is made from a large truck tyre that still has some treads to provide stiffness. Round bars are used to pivot it. Timber posts fix the swing to the ground. Any carpenter or metal fabricator can make it. A bed of sand placed under the Tyre Flipper can cushion a fall. MYSTERY WALL Most children are Peeping Toms. They love to play hide and seek. A Mystery Wall built in a corridor of the school with holes and slits is just the right thing for them. They can disappear and reappear, or peep at others from behind. PLANETARY POLE Children love to go round in circles. Draw nine orbits round a flagpole or pillar. Children, as they go round it, can experience the two movements, rotation and revolution, of the planets through the actual movements of their own bodies. DOOR ANGLE PROTRACTOR Angles are always confined to

34

SCHOOLS BY DESIGN

textbooks. But we see a range of angles everywhere. Every door when it swings open shows a range of angles. Mark the angles or paint them on the floor right under the door shutter of the classroom. Children can then relate what they see in their textbook to real life. FRACTION AIDS Children can learn fractions better if they can see or touch a physical object to understand the concept of whole and parts or fractions. Fractions can be made in window grills. Fraction tiles can be inserted on the floor. A tiled wall can be designed. The first row would have tiles of a specific length. The second rows tiles would be half the length of tiles in the first row. GROOVED WALLS For visually, hearing or speech impaired children grooved writing patterns on walls can help strengthen finger muscles. Outlines of alphabet patterns can be made like grooves. Children can trace these with their fingers. ACTIVITY BRICK MAP This is a large outline map of a country lined with bricks, mud and sand filling. Children learn by doing. So they can playfully explore the features of a map happily messing around with mud and sand. They can make their own mountains, rivers and valleys. They

can make waterways, roads and railways connecting places and in doing so get a sense of direction. WORD WALL Most often we learn to read and write by being exposed to letters and words in the environment. The Word Wall is a friend for children struggling with language. The wall is a chalkboard on which the teacher can write words that children have learnt from textbooks. The words are then visually accessible to children. Children can compare what they have copied. The Word Wall has an alphabet border and can be used to play language games or reinforce vocabulary without the pressures of learning from a book. JAALI WALL A wall with jaalis leaves lots to the imagination. Different perforations on the jaali wall can be made so that when the sun shines through interesting patterns get reflected on walls and floors. Maybe children can spot shapes of animals. A jaali wall also diffuses the intensity of sunlight and lets cool air flow in. BOARD GAMES Children love to play games. A corridor has lots of space for games like hopscotch. Or for traditional board games that also help children follow rules, develop strategies, innovate techniques and win or lose with dignity. Board games can be placed on the floor. All that children need are some seeds and a dice.

35

INVENTIVE INDIANS

4
QUIET GANDHIAN
Anupam Mishra has studied tanks and stepwells to learn how communities have dealt with water scarcities and equally tricky problems of surplus

THE LUCID WATER GURU

UMESH ANAND
NUPAM Mishra is back from Barmer in Rajasthan full of news. There has been a downpour in the desert. Towns are under water. Railway stations have been decimated. An Air Force strip has been submerged. These are the headlines all over, but they are not Anupams news. He has found three forgotten rivers, a subterranean bed of gypsum that the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has confirmed and data which show that Barmer does get such downpours even if the last one was in 1917. Eighty-nine years is a long, long time. Everyone has forgotten Barmers 1917 deluge. Everyone has also forgotten that at one time three rivers would serve as drainage channels and carry all that excess water into the Loni basin. When it did not rain for a very long time, the rivers shrivelled up and people finally gave them up for dead. What used to be the courses of the rivers were built over. Now as the water looks for those old routes out of Barmer it runs into schools and homes and gobbles up fields. The rivers are back to life and they show no mercy on people who come in their way. Anupam Mishra is Indias low-profile Water Guru. He likes to call himself a clerk, a mere taker of notes. But during a lifetime of barefoot research for the Gandhi Peace Foundations (GPF) environment cell he has scoured much of the country trying to understand collection, storage and dispersal in traditional water systems. He has tracked tanks and stepwells like no one else in India has. He has gone deep into cultural practices and forgotten technologies in his quest to learn how communities deal with water scarcities and equally daunting problems of surplus.

Much of this learning has gone into two books in Hindi : Aaj bhi khare hain talab and Rajasthan ke rajat boodein. The first title has done over 100,000 copies, which must surely be a record in Indian publishing. Equally important by way of records should be the fact that Anupam hasnt taken a rupee by way of royalty nor does he have the copyright. But if you think Anupam is a crusty Gandhian bore who hides behind bushy eyebrows and dusty ledgers and mourns the decline of values in a quivering voice, you are mistaken. His writings are simple and attractive and the books have a mellifluous quality about them. His approach is interactive. He carries his cause lightly and passes his message around as though it were popcorn so that everyone can put a hand in the packet and take a little away. It is beyond Anupam to be tedious and so his approach to water is great Gandhigiri, practised with his personal stamp for more than two decades. Like the Gandhigiri of the film Lage Raho Munnabhai, Anupams message travels lightly and thrives where it settles. Both his books have inspired people to do their own thing with water. Many have gone from being casual readers to avid practitioners digging tanks, building bunds and generally trapping rainwater where it falls. There are English and French editions of the Rajasthan book. In recent times Anupam has been much in demand in Europe as a speaker and an exponent of traditional knowledge of how people use water and, sometimes, how water returns to haunt

36

THE LUCID WATER GURU

Anupam Mishra at the Gandhi Museum in Delhi

people who misuse it. He has been a distinguished visitor at one of Frances premier institutes for studies in the social sciences. Anupams quest has been a Gandhian one, a search for solutions that involve people, particularly those who dont have a voice and live in the fragmented fringes of the economy. The Gandhian way is of governance through self-help and articulation of local needs and solutions. Nothing perhaps serves the management of water better in India because it is hugely diverse in topography, far-flung and beholden to a few months of rain in the year. The research that Anupam undertook in the Environment Cell of GPF was really aimed at learning how people met their own needs for thousands of years before the centralised model of administration arrived under the British. It is this perspective that led him to celebrate not giant irrigation works and other temples to technology, but the humble tank. Two million tanks had been dug by communities before British rule and they worked efficiently for people by collecting rain and raising ground water levels. They were a dependable source of safe water. Importantly, tanks could be built by leaving habitats intact and because there was a sense of ownership over them they were maintained. The tank, the bund and the well for centuries served to keep the hydrological cycle in good health. People knew how to make and maintain them. They drew on them with an eye on

the sky, being conservative in times of scarcity and leaving surpluses in the bank for difficult days. There was balance. For instance, a Johad in Churu district in Rajasthan is a marvel of engineering. It has three tiers on four sides. Till the rains end in September, water collects and comes to the top. As the months pass into winter and then to March and summer, the open water surface reduces to half together with the depth. What does this do? It reduces the evaporation. In addition, there is a narrow ledge at each level to trap silt. Why does this matter? If the silt were not trapped, it would go all the way to the bottom and getting it out of there would be much more difficult. There is the exquisite Gadasisar at Jaisalmer. Satyajit Rays film Sonar Kela was shot here. You could call this the Golden Temple of Water, says Anupam. The Gadasisar, though it is in the middle of the Jaisalmer desert, is an expanse of blue water. Similarly, the Toda Rai Singh tank was built at least 350 years ago and was meant to serve the irrigation needs of 18 villages. Incredibly, it continues to perform that role though it has been acquired by the irrigation department of Rajasthan. What happened to these tanks and step-wells, many of which were built with great effort and expertise and can even today be regarded as marvels of engineering? Why did Anupam need to put in years of dedicated exploration to rediscover these subtle equations in water if at one time they did so much for people? Many of them remain in use today and are more reliable sources of supply than what the government has set up.

37

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Why then was it essential to seek so hard to understand their worth? The answer lies in the shift to a centralised regime under the British and the continuance of such a top-down model of governance in independent India. Management of resources such as water and forests went out of the hands of the people who depended on them and into the files of an amorphous government. Over the years local initiatives petered out and efficient traditional technologies went into disuse.

In addition, the mechanised pump has replaced the well and the tank. With it has come the crisis of depleting groundwater. So while on the one hand people have been forgetting how to catch the rain where it falls, on the other they have been depleting the earths reserves. Thirdly, there has been the uncharted growth of urban areas. Cities have come up without a thought for their needs. They have either depended on groundwater or looked to hydroelectric projects in the rural areas for their supplies. Dam after dam has been built by displacing rural people to meet urban

The Chand Bawri Abhanere in district Dausa. In this picture its grandeur is evident. Unfortunately, the Bawri is the target of smugglers who take away its stone to sell outside the country

By the late Seventies and early Eighties it was clear that serious problems related to water were looming up. Irrigation departments and their engineers couldnt deliver to people what people had been able to give themselves with efficiency at one time. That gap has only widened. While irrigation projects completed at great cost have initially shown some results, in the medium term they have faltered in ways more complex than governments can grasp. There has also been the growing spectre of displacement and migration from villages to the slums in the cities. Big projects need land and leave people homeless.

needs. A good example is the recent rejoicing in Delhi over the arrival of water from the Tehri Dam. Residents of Delhi are known to be most profligate in their use of water, sucking aquifers dry. Now they will squander the water from Tehri for which people have given up their lands and an entire ecology has been threatened. Such examples abound across the country and the postIndependence story of water is a complex one in which politicians, bureaucrats, engineers and the average Indian are all caught up in a twister of greed, ignorance and consumption.

38

THE LUCID WATER GURU

The rugged pulley in the picture on the left is locally known as a Bhun. It is used to draw water from 300 feet Believe it or not, the beautiful blue expanse of water at Gadasisar in the picture on the right is in the Jaisalmer desert. Such water bodies are created by harvesting the rain

It was in the late Seventies that Anupam (he is now 62) began working as a young researcher, in the Environment Cell of GPF. His father, Bhawani Prasad Mishra, the poet, was a Gandhian and a freedom fighter. The journey to GPF was, therefore, a short one. However, it wasnt an inevitable journey because Anupam had a Masters in Hindi literature and perhaps it would have been natural for him to choose teaching as a career. But his first job he got at GPF and it was to read proofs for Rs 350 a month. Very quickly he became involved with the Environment Cell. The first area of concern was water and Anupam found himself travelling across the country for his research. It is a strange conspiracy of circumstances that seems to have made a water researcher out of a poets son. Anupam has a

flair for writing and sensitivity to cultural traditions and both have proved to be vital in seeking an understanding of the problems relating to water. Perhaps someone else, for example an engineer, would not have been able to capture the spirit of community systems so well or approach traditional technologies with the respect and patience that is required for understanding them in a modern setting. Any other young man with a degree in the sciences would surely not have seen what Anupam could with his unique perspective tempered by literature and Gandhism. If I had studied engineering, I would have gone in a different direction. If I was very good I would have ended up at MIT or some such place. If I was no good I would have landed in Ghaziabad, says Anupam with his trademark wit.

Anupam carries his cause lightly and passes his message like popcorn so that everyone can put a hand in the packet and take away a little.
39

INVENTIVE INDIANS

A student of literature on the other hand has no hesitation in entering through cultural trapdoors in search of lost science and technology. Technology gets absorbed and embedded in culture. Rediscovering it means understanding culture first, says Anupam. So it was that Aaj bhi khare hain talab got written over 10 long years and published in 1993, a slim book almost poetic in design, embellished with fine line drawings and packed with vivid accounts of community efforts in water. In 16 years since, this one book, going from hand to hand, growing from one imprint to the next, has done more to change the way people think about water than any other work. More than 100,000 copies have been printed and sold without a rupee going to the author. It is available in Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali and Urdu. GPF only publishes one of the Hindi versions. It is always sold out even before it comes off the press. All the editions, apart from the GPF one, have been brought out by people who have read the book and felt influenced by it. Stories abound about each imprint. The most recent Punjabi version for instance was done by Souren Bansal, a journalist. When it was sent for

funding to restore traditional tanks. If you went to their offices five years ago, the walls featured reproductions of illustrations in Talab. Joya Mitra is a former Naxalite. In 1998 she came across something Anupam had written on the environment. She then read his books. So influenced was she that she travelled through the districts of Bengal reading out the books to people in villages. I have done this so many times now, but never have I come across resistance to the ideas. On the contrary people immediately make connections, says Joya. Asked what she personally finds in Anupams message, Joya says: When I was a Naxalite, I would go to the villages to educate villagers. It was our mission to bring them out of their ignorance. We assumed that because of our modern education we knew better. But from Anupam I realised the importance of going to villages to learn. It is this approach which has helped him discover traditional wisdom. Anupams Guru status comes from the way in which he is per-

In 13 years, Talab, going from hand to hand, has done more to change the way people think about water than any other work without a rupee going to the author.
printing, the owner of the press read it and liked it so much that he decided to do the job at cost price. Perhaps this is the only example of its kind of community publishing and absence of copyright for truly original work. It is not insignificant that such an effort should relate to water. So severe are the scarcities that the country is facing and so ineffective are the efforts of governments that people feel the need for a new approach. At Lapodiya village on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway, Lakshman Singh, a Thakur, began in 1995 creating tanks after eight years of drought. He was influenced by Talab. Now the water table is back and the village has no scarcity. At Pauri Garhwal in Uttaranchal, Sachidanand Bharti, a school teacher has been inspired to create 10,000 water bodies and grow trees. He enjoys his anonymity and so his story is rarely told, but the water bodies have directly served to improve the quality of life of hill people and they come handy in putting out disruptive forest fires. In Karnataka, the Jal Samvadhan Sangh used World Bank ceived by groups like the innovative Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS). Founded by Rajender Singh, TBS has been instrumental in digging tanks and building low-cost dams across Rajasthan. It has also been a source of inspiration for people with water problems elsewhere in the country. Says Rajender Singh: Anupamji is to me a friend. Our friendship goes deep, I would even say it is spiritual and I consider myself to be lucky to know him in this way. His books have captured like few others have the culture and tradition that is the soul of the water systems on which he writes. It has been much the same with the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The remarkable work CSE has done in creating awareness on water draws on the foundations prepared by Anupams research. Says Sunita Narain, CSEs redoubtable director: I have no words to describe Anupams work. He is one of the most unsung heroes of our country. His contribution to creating awareness of traditional water systems will never be adequately rewarded or understood. His book has been an inspiration for so many people. It is also amazing that he has done all this with virtually no resources.

40

THE LUCID WATER GURU

Anupam Mishra with the many versions of Aaj bhi khare hain talab

Ask Anupam how to define a Gandhian and you dont get a straight answer. He says Gandhi himself believed that he was merely restoring the good things from the past because they served the majority in the country well. The tank, the bund and the step-well certainly fall in this category. But what about the task of bringing them back and popularising them among Indians who have grown up without knowing what they are? That needs extraordinary skills of communication, Gandhigiri, if you will. Bhawani Prasad Mishra, Anupams father, was a poet who didnt get the recognition he deserved and is being reassessed today as one of the great writers of Hindi literature. Anupam says he never knew him as a poet. But as we talk, Anupam mentions the poem Geet Farosh or The Seller of Songs, which his father wrote after a brush with the Hindi film industry in Bombay.

Oh, so the self-effacing clerk does remember his great fathers verse? Is this some Freudian slip? Perhaps it is. In Geet Farosh, the poet is like a sari-seller offering a variety of colours and styles, making his verse seem as attractive as possible. He admits songs should not be sold like a commodity, but then he only sells songs. Others sell their self-respect.

Geet Farosh is regarded as a lament for the commercialisation of literature. Perhaps its message runs a little deeper: that all creativity involves salesmanship, but the creative person cant have a price.
Is Anupam then that poet in Geet Farosh? Selling but never making transactions? To date Anupam commands no great funding and survives on a modest salary with his wife, Manju, and his son, Shubham. Like the poet, he has so much on offer, but he himself is not for sale.

41

INVENTIVE INDIANS

5
Mr ROOTS HANDS OVER
Darshan Shankar set a new standard for transition in NGOs when he stepped down as director of FRLHT, an organisation which he nurtured for 20 years

HOW THE MANTLE PASSED AT FRLHT

RITA & UMESH ANAND

NE day in 2007 Darshan Shankar began a process that took his colleagues at the iconic Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) by surprise. He privately sounded them out on how they would react to him quitting as director. The normally placid and even-paced FRLHT campus outside Bangalore has since, in its own quiet way, been coping with this change. Talented scientists, foresters, taxonomists, researchers, computer professionals and Ayurveda physicians work here on giving traditional medicine modern meaning. Most of them were drawn to FRLHT because of Darshans vision and they stayed for the large reserves of positive energy that the organisation thrives on. FRLHT has done more for promoting Ayurveda and other traditional health systems and bringing them within handshaking distance of western science than any other voluntary organisation in its bandwidth. It has been instrumental in influencing national policy and has created awareness about medicinal plants and folk healers. Perhaps most significantly, FRLHT has tried to bridge the gap between traditional knowledge and the modern market for it in integrated approaches to health care. It is rare that heads of Indian voluntary organisations offer to demit office. In Darshans case, the decision to take early retirement was even more surprising because FRLHT is at the acme of a success built with hard work, innovation and much sacrifice over 15 years. Darshan had been at the helm all this while. And to go now was to walk out of the spotlight just when

he should have been basking in many watts of deserving glory.

Civil Society first reported on Darshan and FRLHT in a cover story, Meet Mr Roots, in January 2004.
In the grand sweep that Darshan was able to institutionalise, FRLHT moved from working with communities to creating digital databases of plants, documenting local knowledge, setting up a modern laboratory for validating therapies and finally establishing an Ayurveda hospital. The organisation leapfrogged from a city office in Bangalore in the nineties, to a campus on five acres in the fringes of the city. It now employs over a hundred people and its departments are headed by skilled and personally secure professionals who are empowered in their spheres. Darshan, a robust but benign head in this flat hierarchy, could have continued as director for life in such circumstances. But Darshan was adamant that he had to go. At 56, it was time, he said, to hand over the directorship to the second line. He could continue to advise the organisation, but he was insistent that others should have the opportunity to lead. And so with those first chats began the process of consultation about who that successor could be. If it was someone from within, would he/she have everyones approval? Would it be possible to shift to a collegiate model of paths chosen by consensus? Darshan had been a team player, but he had brought to the founder-directors job an entrepreneurial edge. Would a successor be able to wrest the same space, set the same tone?

42

HOW THE MANTLE PASSED AT FRLHT

Darshan Shankar on the FRLHT campus

Or was it necessary to replace Darshan with an outsider and make a clean break? Perhaps an outsider would come with new energy and vision and put the organisation on another trajectory. May be a better, more beneficial one than Darshan had been able to define. As it happened, the choice fell on someone from within. It was decided that Additional Director DK Ved would take over. Ved is a mechanical engineer by training, a forester by profession and perhaps one of the countrys most knowledgeable experts on the geographical distribution of the 6,000 species of medicinal plants of India. He has designed and developed multidisciplinary medicinal plant databases in FRLHT. However, even as consensus emerged several stages remained before the decision could be formalised. Even though the FRLHT team had talked it through, the governing body remained to be consulted. Darshan wrote to the redoubtable Sam Pitroda, chairman of FRLHTs board. Pitroda had helped Darshan in critical ways when he had wanted to set up FRLHT in 1993 and has continued to serve as chairman, nurturing the organisation with strategic directions and his many connections. Pitroda, who once fathered the technology missions and was a key advisor to Rajiv Gandhi, is now chairman of the Knowledge Commission and much, much more. Pitroda was often thrilled at what FRLHT had managed to achieve with his moral support and strategic advice. He has helped by opening a door here or there. Darshan had gone to him as a young man

with a big vision in search of a benefactor. Once asked by a leading light of the NGO movement what he as a technocrat was doing as chairman of an organisation working on traditional knowledge, Pitroda responded: Find me a hundred other Darshan Shankars who are as serious and committed to an idea and I will happily help open doors for them and be chairman of their organisations. Pitroda was okay with Darshan retiring if he really wanted to, but he insisted that the process of handing over would have to be structured. It is a world class institution and not some shop that you can transfer to somebody else, he said. A committee would have to oversee the transition, redefine roles and responsibilities of the second and third level leadership and endorse a successor. He wanted Darshan to hand over the mantle at a public function so that the world could know of the change, Darshans contribution and the many milestones that had been crossed at FRLHT. More importantly, it was decided that FRLHT needed a formal transition plan. Prof KRS Murthy, former director of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, who is on the FRLHT board, was given the task of drafting such a plan. The idea was to plot a path for the future growth of the organisation so that it could keep up its momentum. Darshan had not only been a builder of durable systems and a motivator of people. He had also been a hugely successful fundraiser. He had worked to create a wider identity for FRLHT, connecting it with government and private institu-

43

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Some of the plant raw material that goes into FRLHTs storehouse

tions across the globe. The transition plan needed to ensure that all this was not thrown into jeopardy. When there is a change of leadership, be it in a company or an NGO, it is necessary to examine what is at stake and how achievements can be consolidated. It is also the time to see whether a shift of gears is possible, Murthy told Civil Society in Bangalore. Change is inevitable. Even good, says Murthy. But change needs to be handled carefully. Darshans strengths in bringing good people together, providing a profile for the organisation, raising funds etc are essential for the future of FRLHT. So, it is necessary that he continue in an advisory and supportive capacity even as a new director takes over. Murthy observes that there are limitations to the roles that founders can play be it in commercial entities or voluntary organisations. They mostly tire, lose perspective and fail to make technological leaps. For instance, research shows that in family-owned companies, the business begins to wither by the fourth generation. Professionals are then needed to take over. The challenge founder-entrepreneurs face is when and how to hand over. The criticism of Indian NGOs is that their founders tend to hang on for too long. Organisations are built around individuals and tend to mirror their personal whims and fancies. The promoter of a good idea grows rapidly in the public eye, then plateaus and finally hangs on at all costs because of the insecurities associated with letting go.

Indian NGOs tend to pay little attention to structure and systems though they use public money. They prefer self-regulation to more rigorous forms of independent scrutiny. There is a sense that transparency worries them unless they can choose the parameters. NGO organisations are built mostly as pyramids with a huge gap between the person at the top and the next in command. Transition plans are therefore unheard of. And when they are implemented, they are invariably accompanied by undisguised backseat driving. No one is left in any doubt as to who is the real boss. In Darshans case he seems to be blessed with the temperament to let go. Asked what gave him the idea to quit, he replies with an example from his past: When I was in my twenties I set up an NGO in a tribal area of Maharashtra. At 35 I felt I should find a younger person who had the natural enthusiasm and energy to continue doing the kind of work that was required of me there. I then went out and looked for someone in his twenties who could take over and found such a person. When this person turned 35 he came to me and said he was ready to hand over. It so happened he died of a heart attack swimming in the river the day after he had found a successor for himself. There is an inevitability about handing over and passing on. The greater our success the closer we get to obsolescence. The stronger we burn, the weaker we get. Traditional systems of medicine make it easier to understand such permanent impermanence with their emphasis on connections between body and mind, on the inward-outward oneness with Nature.

44

HOW THE MANTLE PASSED AT FRLHT

Professor Lakshmi Thattachar explains a point as Darshan Shankar listens

But Darshan is no aloof philosopher. FRLHT would have never been built and grown into the institution it is today if he were not a man of action: impatient, practical, driven by the need to act. A poster by his desk quotes from Goethe: It is not enough to know. It is necessary to do. Pitroda too is a man of action. Speaking to us on the seventh floor of the Taj Palace in Delhi on one of his flying visits to India because he lives in the US, he says: We have to learn to move on. When C-Dot was over I never looked back. Pitroda almost changed the face of Indian telecom in the eighties with a young team of engineers in C-Dot. They came up with the small rural automatic exchange or RAX which made rural telephony possible in difficult Indian conditions. If politicians had allowed them to continue they would have provided the first large indigenously made telecom switch. As C-Dot lost momentum, Indias telecom revolution was delayed by a decade. Pitroda likes being a trigger, a sponsor of new and useful ideas. When Darshan came to me 20 years ago, I saw someone simple, honest and willing to do something different. I instinctively trusted him and have always trusted him since. It was my gut feeling. If we had more people like him, India would benefit. At first, the support Pitroda gave Darshan was in bits and pieces. Then came the idea of a foundation. I didnt do much.

Ive been a catalyst but he did it. It took 15 years, but now it is an institution, says Pitroda. Pitroda believes that there is little difference between a small NGO and a small business. Both have high expectations, chase great ideas and are invariably short of money. Both need help in finding their way through the system and this is where a Pitroda, reaching out to industry and government as a well networked benefactor, can help. But the challenge is to move from hand-holding to self-sufficiency. Like a business must depend on revenue streams, NGOs need to be sustainable and capable of institutionalising their gains. Very often NGO leaders want money to do what they like doing, as though it were a hobby. That is not good enough, says Pitroda. For Pitroda, the next stage at FRLHT is to commercialise and build market linkages so that the organisation can sustain its activities without asking for funding. As the wellness business grows along with interest in traditional therapies, FRLHT is certainly on the threshold of great opportunities. The first building blocks of a new identity are already in place. A hospital and wellness centre with 20 beds and plans for 80 more, a modern laboratory for validating therapies and a company for producing value-added herbal products whose shareholders are marginal farmers and rural women all serve to draw FRLHT into the gravitational pull of market forces. You could add to this a potentially lucrative finishing school

45

INVENTIVE INDIANS

FRLHTs laboratory is an important interface between traditional and modern systems

that FRLHT will shortly initiate for short-term training for doctors and therapists to equip them to serve in the Ayurveda and Yoga departments in allopathic hospitals and wellness centres. Such are the huge investments in holistic care across the world that FRLHT can hope to be much in demand. In addition, FRLHT is well advanced in terms of what it has already achieved to transform in the next few years into an Indian Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine. This is visualised to be an institution that will provide undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level training. It will be at the level of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). FRLHT began with the rather basic programme of designing and implementing an innovative strategy for preserving medicinal plants in the wild. That was in 1993. It is to Darshans credit that he foresaw the entire range of activities that could emerge from that beginning and moved as and when resources permitted to establish them.The evolution of FRLHT is a story of how a large vision can be realised step by step with steadfast perseverance and unwavering focus. Says Darshan: In 1993, the only support we could get was for the conservation of medicinal plants. But even then FRLHT dreamt of becoming a world class institution. The problem was resources. No one was willing to support a comprehensive vision of an unknown organisation in an unchartered field. But FRLHT kept taking the steps it needed. It developed its

strength in informatics in 1994 with the use of computers to store traditional knowledge and make it easily accessible. Now you can get CDs of the seminal Charak Samitha at FRLHT. Then came a bio-cultural herbarium in 1996, efforts for reviving community-based health traditions in 1997, a modern laboratory in 2001, the beginnings of the hospital in 2004 and finally research on medical manuscripts and the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda in 2005. The achievements of the past 15 years prepared the FRLHT institution to effectively contribute to the emerging era of pluralism in medicine that many had envisaged but few had been able to act upon in the early nineties. As Ayurveda and yoga acquire increasing importance in integrated health care, FRLHT is uniquely positioned to be an institutional bridge between traditional Indian systems and western science. FRLHTs mission has been to make traditional systems comprehensible to the modern world. The survival of traditional systems depends on them being understood in contemporary scientific terms without diminishing their original knowledge base. The problem is that while traditional knowledge is based on holism, modern science is rooted in reductionism. Making the connection requires a complex vision and a deep understanding of comparative epistemologies. It is the challenge in medicine as physicians and scientists explore uncharted frontiers. Some of the concerns belong in the realm of pop culture.

46

HOW THE MANTLE PASSED AT FRLHT

efit from reading an MRI or an ultrasound. He needs to however be trans-disciplinary in his perspective in order to be able to interpret the change in structural parameters in Ayurvedas systemic framework. The vaid in Ayurveda will still need to read the pulse and assess the body type of the patient in ways that are completely alien to the physicians trained in modern medicine. FRLHT was founded to find everyday solutions to such complexities. Its success will finally be in creating new and sustainable relevance for the wealth of knowledge that is Indias legacy but tends to get lost in debris of change and confusion about the content of an Indian programme of modernisation. CONSERVATION TO RESEARCH The FRLHT campus is amidst a green wilderness in the suburbs of Bangalore. The area is called Jarakbande Kaval and you get there via Yelahanka, invariably braving traffic jams, pollution and screeching horns. The campus itself, however, is an island of serenity and unruffled activity. There are three buildings with tiled roofs and architecture that ensures interiors are flooded with natural light and air. A fourth building is a gift from a patient. He was so happy with the treatment he received at Amruth, the FRLHT Ayurveda hospital and wellness centre, he insisted on paying for another building on the campus as a donation. Set up in 2004, Amruth is in a sense the crowning glory of FRLHTs activities. It rounds off the work which began in the early nineties with the identification of medicinal plants, and their preservation in the wild, creation of a herbarium, identifying of folk healers, development of medicines and value added products and the setting up of a modern laboratory as a testing facility. In this chain, the hospital puts everything in sharp perspective because it showcases Ayurveda in practice as physician deals with patient. Books like The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari look for body and mind solutions. Deepak Chopra dominates this space. The debate goes deeper and is difficult to enter in the absence of a common scientific idiom. Modern medicine is structurally defined and therefore is full of quantitative certitudes. The practitioners of Ayurveda on the other hand rely on knowledge that is based on systemic theories and hence the fields in Ayurveda cannot be reduced to structural entities. The challenge in integrative medicine is to evolve a methodology to define the relationship between the whole and the part. It is clearly not a one-to-one relationship. FRLHT or for that matter anyone else does not have the final answers, says Darshan. But it is a pioneer in exploring the relationships in the context of health sciences. It respects both holism and reductionism as ways of knowing Nature. The way we see it is that the whole consists of the parts, but the parts dont necessarily add up to the whole. A modern scientific laboratory is necessary for translating the systemic parameters of Ayurveda into the scientific structural parameters of modern science. It can develop quality standards for a plant or an Ayurvedic drug and check it out for toxins, heavy metals and so on. The laboratory tests become a means of epistemologically sensitive communication between practitioners of different systems. But the laboratory cannot measure the systemic parameters on which Ayurveda is based. It can only measure representative points in the systemic field. In the hospital an Ayurveda practitioner can benThe hospital is headed by the forward-looking Dr GG Gangadharan, who used to be at the Arya Vaidya Pharmacy in Coimbatore. In addition to him there is a clinical team of five doctors led by a postgraduate in Ayurveda with a decade and a half in clinical experience. FRLHT on the whole has 15 Ayurvedic doctors and Siddha, Unani and Yoga consultants. We started Amruth to mainstream Ayurveda, not as a science from the past, but as a contemporary system of medicine which can play a fruitful role in tackling degenerative, lifestyle related and chronic diseases. These are the problems of this century. Modern medicine is weak here and Ayurveda is strong, says Dr Gangadharan. The hospitals 12 departments include geriatrics, mental health, diabetes and neuropathy, cardiac disorders, gastrointestinal and respiratory disorders, ophthalmology, complementary treatment for cancer, skin diseases and so on. Ayurveda has been under assault on many fronts. If on the one hand the vanishing of medicinal plants has been depriving it of its raw material, on the other there arent the facilities where Ayurveda as a traditional science is kept alive in a contemporary setting and with a new relevance. Amruth in its very presence seeks to correct these imbalances. It is a modern, clean and well-equipped facility. It has 20 wellkept rooms for patients to stay and treatment facilities. In time to come there will be 100 rooms. All the Panchakarma

47

INVENTIVE INDIANS

treatments under Ayurveda are available here. There is a pharmacy stocked with Ayurvedic medicines chosen from the most reliable manufacturers across the country. It already has the odd landmark success to its name. A bus driver with paralysis after a bad brain haemorrhage was brought to Dr Gangadharan. He looked at the MRI and said there was nothing that he could do. When the family persisted, he agreed to treat the man. Herbal packs for the head and other medications were given to him and in three weeks he began moving. Fresh MRIs after two months showed that clots had gone. Dr Gangadharan is however cautious about presenting Ayurveda as some kind of miracle science. Ayurveda should be used for those ailments which it is known to treat. We believe one such hospital in Bangalore is not enough. We would like many in India and other countries, he says. So this hospital will become a module which can be integrated into health centres, women and child health centres, allopathic hospitals etc. People today seek choices in health care. The future, as Dr Gangadharan points out, is in integrated health systems. Amruth is keen to be part of the trillion dol-

The teaching of Ayurveda is either mechanical or doggedly conservative. Young Ayurveda physicians get degrees, but their knowledge tends to be superficial. It doesnt emanate from the philosophical and logical framework of Ayurveda. They cant explain their line of treatment and tend to hide behind the shastras as dogma. The result is that they suffer from low self-esteem in comparison to allopathic physicians who have clear answers for all that they do. In the absence of a deep understanding, the new Ayurveda doctor does not know how to enter into a dialogue with practitioners of modern medicine and build a constructive relationship. There is also a tendency to ignore present-day public health requirements and shy away from preventive and promotive health care in which Ayurveda can be very effective. The challenge therefore is to be classical with such rigour that it is possible to be modern without being contrived. For the Ayurveda physician caught in todays needs and exigencies, creative scholarship is the way forward. Get the texts right and all else will follow. It is precisely to achieve this that FRLHT has on board Prof

Conservation of medicinal plants is where FRLHT began. Amrutha Vana has more than 800 species of tropical medicinal plants from habitats across India.
lar wellness industry. TEACHING HOSPITAL Amruth is also meant to serve as a teaching hospital with its own syllabus and degrees both at a graduate and post-graduate level. The physicians who come out of here will be new in their orientation. They will learn how to give treatment guided by the shastras, but use modern diagnostics to interpret biomedical parameters and assess the outcomes of Ayurvedic treatment. They will also be encouraged to use information technology. Their training will be to remain within Ayurvedas systemic framework, but simultaneously connect with the reductionist theories of modern science. Making the connection is important for communicating the benefits of Ayurveda in an age when there is a huge demand for its therapies. Finally, it is physicians who can strike this delicate balance who will keep Ayurveda alive and relevant in a classical sense. At yet another level, Amruth will be a finishing school for shortterm training to doctors and therapists who can then work in clinics and alternative medicine departments of allopathic hospitals. A huge demand is envisaged for such professionals. Lakshmi Thattachar, former director of the Sanskrit Academy, Malkotte, Karnataka. He is a grammarian and he is assisted by his son, Dr MA Alwar, who is a Sanskrit logician. The two pundits are deciphering ancient medical texts, including the Charak Samhita. They have studied 500 catalogues, taking down technical details. They plan to make primers for students of Ayurveda. The exercise also serves to salvage important medical works. It also includes the process of finding out original manuscripts. There are many versions. The Charak alone has 40. Then they plan to bring out a critical edition of selected manuscripts. Their research associate is Dr Shankar, an MBBS physician, who has translated from Sanskrit to English a book on dietetics called Kshemakutubalam from 13th to 14th century written by Kahema Sharma, chief cook of a Rajput king and an ayurvedic physician. The book is a scientific book on how to preserve your health with details on the right diet, when how and where to eat food, the qualitites of a cook, utensils to be used, how to detect toxins and poisons. LABORATORY FRLHT set up a laboratory in 2001 to use chemistry and pharmacology for assessing traditional medi-

48

HOW THE MANTLE PASSED AT FRLHT

The herbarium at FRLHT has documented more that 70 per cent of the plants used by Indian systems of medicine

cine. The laboratory is headed by Padma Venkat, a PhD. She worked for 10 years in Cambridge University before Darshan got her to join FRLHT and set up the lab. The main idea is to determine the quality standards of medicinal herbs and traditional medicine not just from the modern scientific point of view, but also from the traditional viewpoint, says Dr Padma. The laboratory has the complex job of providing the methodology by which concepts of traditional knowledge can be correlated with modern science. But in a less intricate role it uses standard facilities in chemistry and biology to evaluate and certify raw materials and processes used in traditional medicine. It has developed innovative products such as a herbal soup for industry on a consultancy basis. Traditional healers say herbs should be collected only from a particular location at a certain time, stored in a certain way to be effective. The laboratory tries to find out scientifically whether such instructions make a difference to the quality of herbs. Pharmacognocy, or the identification of crude drugs is done here. All sorts of herbs are traded under one name. This can result in adulteration. The lab uses DNA markers to determine species. It has invented a diagnostic kit for small industries that can authenticate the quality of their medicine. FRLHT has applied for a patent. The lab validates certain traditional practices in the context of modern science. For instance, tests conducted at the lab have

found that copper vessels do kill bacteria which cause e-coli, typhoid and cholera. They have identified kitchen herbs which purify water. A squeeze of lime for instance gets rid of pathogens. Boiling pipali in milk increases its bioactivity. The lab has invented herbal soups in sachets for reducing acidity and improving digestion. I have totally expanded my knowledge base, says Dr Padma. HERBARIUM Work on a herbarium or botanical repository of Indian medicinal plants began in 1995. Till date the herbarium has collected about 70 per cent of the medicinal plants used by Indian systems of medicine. Work under the leadership of Dr Goraya and Dr Ravikumar is already underway to digitise the herbarium. FRLHTs herbarium is recognised by the government as the national herbarium for medicinal plants of India. It is also an internationally accredited herbarium. When it is expanded, the herbarium will include medicinal fauna and the metals and minerals used in traditional medicine. It could one day be a chemical and cell repository. The herbarium serves to identify plants and their variants and trace them to their habitats. Plant stems, leaves and seeds are then stored away. Digitising them involves scanning them and making them available as images on computer, which greatly enhances access. We have information on 7,361 medicinal plant species, with their vernacular names, distribution data, seeds propagation, says Vijay Barve, senior systems manager. There is a library of

49

INVENTIVE INDIANS

14,000 images and maps showing eco-distribution and forests. A team of four to five botanists make frequent trips to hunt and identify medicinal plant species. States which have been mapped include Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Statewise CDs of plants are available AMRUTHA VANA An ethno-medicinal garden, the Amrutha Vana, has been created on the FRLHT campus. It has more than 800 species of tropical Indian medicinal plants from habitats as far away as Arunachal Pradesh. There are grasses, herbs and trees. We would like to make this a national garden with medicinal plants from every region of India, says Dr K. Haridasan, one of Indias leading botanists and a specialist on the northeast. This garden has been lovingly put together by him and Ganesh Babu. The plants are organised in some 20 different themes. There are 30 species for hair and skin care, 27 species that work as antidotes for poisonous bites, 40 species for primary health care, 56 species that are on the Red List and highly endangered. There are also a great many aromatic medicinal plants and an aquatic herbal garden as well. The Amrutha Vana has been the inspiration for other home, community and institutional herbal gardens. Thousands of kitchen gardens have been created in the Bangalore area with plants taken from here. IT companies, Ayurveda resorts and spas are asking for these plants, says Dr Haridasan. A garden has been built by us in Hyderabads Genome Valley. There is scope of going commercial. We are backed by a great knowledge base. Dr Haridasan says FRLHT has a village botanist programme which teaches villagers to identify plants and educates them on IPR issues. This knowledge can be used for local health needs, tourism or for forest department surveys. There is also a plant identification course. IN SITU CONSERVATION It was with conservation of medicinal plants that FRLHT began in 1993. This conservation took place in forest habitats. Since then the programme has covered nine states and created 84 conservation areas for medicinal plants. These areas serve as wild gene pools. India is now a world leader in the in situ conservation of medicinal plants. FRLHT has had to work with the forest department and sensitise its staff, who have gone from being completely apathetic to medicinal plants as a forest community resource to now actively participating in efforts for their conservation. GA Kinhal of the Madhya Pradesh cadre of the Indian Forest Service is on deputation with FRLHT and oversees this programme. Kinhal says there has been a lot of learning among foresters. Most of all I have learnt to be persistent on certain aspects of forestry and to engage in community dialogue. There is a lack of interaction between society and the forest department, he says. Kinhal emphasises the importance of sustainable harvesting of medicinal plants. These plants should be planted within appropriate forests by the forest department to preserve the

The Ensete Superba is found both in the Western Ghats and the Northeast

gene pool. Cultivating species for industry does not mean conservation, he clarifies. To conserve, the causes of depletion should be removed. Using a mix of traditional and scientific knowledge, he has helped work out how and when medicinal and aromatic plants should be harvested. The role of the community is essential in this process. Plants harvested at the right time and using the correct method are easier to preserve after processing. Similarly seeds when collected at the right time yield more oil. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Since 1995, engineered by DK Ved, FRLHT has been putting on to computer the botany and materia medica of traditional systems. Dr SN Venugopal is an Ayurveda physician who works on digitising the texts so that they become easily available. He has built a huge database of 125,000 plant names used in Ayurveda. From the Charaka Samhita he has identified 12,875 Sanskrit names of

50

HOW THE MANTLE PASSED AT FRLHT

plants. After grouping these we get 620 plants, he says. There is detailed information on each plant: its formulations, properties, qualities, critical comments, botanical name, identity. There are pictures of each plant. Plants from Siddha have also been computerised. Dr Venugopal designed software for this documentation. A complete grouping of plant names from the Charaka Samhita is available on CD from him for Rs 250 for students and educational institutes. GRAM MOOLIGAI COMPANY FRLHTs work in mobilising communities and helping them use their local knowledge remains hugely exciting. The challenge before FRLHT lies in taking communities to the market through various connections. FRLHT has been instrumental in the setting up of the Gram Mooligai Company whose shareholders are rural women and small and marginal farmers. It is registered under the Companies Act and in the past three years has done business worth more than Rs 1 crore. The company cultivates and collects herbal plants and makes products from them such as a natural remedy for cows. MALARIA DRUG FRLHT seeks to bring back local health solutions in rural communities in southern India. To do this it has sponsored conventions of folk healers at the district and state levels. It has also been giving awards to outstanding folk healers. This has led to the evaluation of local remedies. An interesting trial was conducted in districts of Tamil Nadu with a local cough remedy. Its efficacy was measured against allopathic prescriptions. The study was done by M Abdul Kareem of FRLHT in collaboration with the Christian Medical College in Vellore. It showed that the local remedy was more effective. A study for scabies yielded similar results. Dr MNB Nair was asked by the Kannada Milk Federation (KMF) to help treat ailments of their cattle. Nair worked with folk healers to identify 190 herbs. Five inexpensive medicines

which could tackle mastitis, wounds, repeated breeding were made. KMF has got a licence to make the mastitis medicine which costs only Rs 60. Similarly, herbal formulations have been found to inhibit malaria in the liver. Traditional healers give different medicines for different types of fever, says Dr Prakash BN, who heads the malaria research programme. These fevers and medicines were identified. A number of observational studies were done, including in the Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts of Orissa. The group given the preventive herbal medicine did not develop malaria. Around 10 formulations have been identified. FRLHT will be collaborating with the Indian Institute of Science to commercialise these formulations. The involvement with folk healers has also involved evaluating the work of bone-setters. Says Dr Lokesh, Our studies have shown that they can handle simple fractures and dislocation, but not the complex ones. The benefits of folk medicine at an affordable cost have prompted FRLHT to work with other NGOs and self-help groups of women to promote over 200,000 home herbal gardens across the southern Indian states and in Maharashtra, Orissa and Chhatisgarh as well. Pushpa HK, a life sciences graduate says for urban residents a complete package of 21 plants costs only Rs 300. Advice on how to look after the plants is readily available from FRLHT. Twenty plants have been identified for primary health care. The home herbal garden is being promoted with herbal formulations to tackle anaemia in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, says Dr Nagendra. Women are encouraged to grow greens in their backyard. Around 161 herbal formulations for anaemia have been short-listed. Dr Nagendra has been organising folk healers. Each village has one or two, but they have no common platform, he says. A folk healers network of 150 associations has been formed in nine states. They have been taken for exposure visits and three state conventions have been held. This is the last generation of folk healers, says Dr Nagendra.

51

INVENTIVE INDIANS

6
EDITOR IN THE TRENCHES
Harivansh has built Prabhat Khabar into Ranchis leading daily. He has shown that a newspaper that speaks for ordinary people can be a commercial success

THE PEOPLES DAILY

RITA & UMESH ANAND

N 1989, a small and unknown newspaper in Ranchi called Prabhat Khabar was up for sale. Its reputation was mostly mud. It was all of eight pages and it had a print run of just 500 copies which came off an outdated press. The Usha Martin Group was interested in buying Prabhat Khabar if it came cheap and, more importantly, if professional journalists could be brought in to revive it. The group had business interests in Bihar and a newspaper is always a nice thing to own, particularly in a state so prone to tumultuous politics.

achievement of a lifetime. Two decades later that dream is a reality. Prabhat Khabar prints more than 200,000 copies and has nearly a million readers in Jharkhand. It has of course knocked out the Ranchi Express and Aaj. But, more significantly, it has got the better of Hindustan, the Hindi avatar of the Hindustan Times, and Dainik Jagran. Both national media houses were eager to muscle their way into the region. They had worked on the assumption that Prabhat Khabar was easy prey. Far from succumbing to the might of the two big titles, Prabhat Khabars circulation and revenues have continued to grow. There have been consequent spikes in its profitability. This is a particularly laudable achievement because Prabhat Khabar has drawn on its own revenues. There has also been no change in its editorial mission. Hindustan and Dainik Jagran, having raised capital were flush with funds. Both had clear marketing strategies for their envisioned growth. The paper rolls out 11 editions from Ranchi alone. It has four publishing centres in Jharkhand and one each in Patna, Kolkata and Siliguri. A vast rural network has been created and it has been linked through computer and modem. The Usha Martin Group invested Rs 6 crores between 1989 and 1994 in reviving the defunct Prabhat Khabar. It now has a

At the same time in Kolkata, an assistant editor by the name of Harivansh in the Hindi weekly, Ravivar, was getting impatient with the quality of journalism that he was doing. Ravivar had gone from being a respected magazine under SP Singh to being a mouthpiece for the Congress. Harivansh was known within the profession for his skills and objectivity. He hadnt joined journalism to be anyones mouthpiece. He was restless and eager for a change that would put his own idealism to test. So, when the Usha Martin Group, after asking around, offered him the job of reviving the defunct Prabhat Khabar, he said yes at the first meeting. It did not take more than a minute for him to make up his mind. He was attracted to Ranchi even though he had never been there before. In South Bihars well-known contradictions Harivansh saw the perfect laboratory for an experiment in journalism. If a modern and independent newspaper could be built here, amid runaway corruption, violent politics, huge wealth, abject poverty and collapsing infrastructure, then it would surely be the

52

THE PEOPLES DAILY

Harivansh at the Prabhat Khabar office in Ranchi

53

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Harivansh recruited young people and trained them in Prabhat Khabars brand of journalism

brand and fixed assets which can be valued at several times the initial investment. Ironically, it is a business which has grown out of providing complete freedom to Harivansh as editor. This is rare in times when independent minded editors, who insist on telling a story as they see it, are widely regarded by proprietors as a liability. What is the secret of Prabhat Khabars success? The paper has relied primarily on the quality of its journalism. It has zealously guarded the sanctity of its editorial columns, keeping them free from the influence of political and commercial interests. It has become common for Hindi newspapers to sell their editorial space. In Prabhat Khabar, Harivansh has not allowed such excesses.

Palamau. The government denied the deaths and tried to browbeat the newspaper, but the reports finally became a part of the Supreme Courts ongoing intervention on the question of the right to food and the working of the public distribution system in the country. The court vindicated Prabhat Khabar. Harivanshs staff have been relentlessly reporting land scams and fake drug rackets, campaigning against the government over the shortage of power. They have delved deep into corruption by politicians and government servants, going to the extent of naming officials and printing the amounts charged as kickbacks in various departments. The paper has associated itself with mass movements such as the one for Jharkhand, which was created out of South Bihar and of which Ranchi is now the capital.

Hindustan and Jagran have offered colourful, tabloidish content. But Prabhat Khabar has stuck to serious issues with soft features pages and supplements to provide balance and completeness. Though tucked away in Ranchi, Harivansh has worked to inculcate a worldview among his young journalists and readers. He has encouraged them to look for modern and efficient answers to problems of equity and poor governance.
The newspapers commitment to the common citizen has been constant. It exposed the massive corruption in Bihars animal husbandry department in 1992, four years before the national media woke up to it. Prabhat Khabar did 70 investigative reports, which finally cost Laloo Prasad Yadav his job as chief minister.

Prabhat Khabar has raised an alarm over the flight of capital from the region because of poor governance. It has campaigned for land rights and community access to forests. Stories done by its reporters have helped tribals get back property usurped from them.
It has taken up womens rights on a sustained basis. It is important to understand that the variety of emotional bonds that Prabhat Khabar has built with its readers and its image as a courageous champion of the truth have been important ingredients in its commercial success. At a time in the country, and particularly so in Bihar, when journalists are

Prabhat Khabar also broke the news of starvation deaths in

54

THE PEOPLES DAILY

seen as being a part of the power structure, Harivansh and his team have been looked upon as bravehearts. So just who is Harivansh and what makes him so special? Harivanshs chosen hallmark is simplicity. It neednt have been so because he is easily one of eastern Indias most influential editors. But he has none of the self-importance that powerful journalists like to give themselves. He doesnt want to be a celebrity. A short man with a greying stubble and a quiet, polite demeanour, you would miss him in a room full of people. When he is late for lunch and finds we have left to complete our work at the Prabhat Khabar office, he dissolves with embarrassment. At his spacious but modest flat in the core of the Bengali quarter in Ranchi, breakfast is a leisurely affair amid light-hearted banter among local friends. The pace is easy, homely. But the phone rings for him every now and then. Harivansh, who is in his mid-50s, grew up in a village in Uttar Pradesh. School was under a tree. There was nothing there. When people fell sick, they died, he tells us in his office in Ranchi.

When life in Mumbai and work at the magazine did not appeal to him any longer he took the bank officers examination and moved out. A few years later he was back in journalism, at Ravivar, and from there he made the ordained journey to Ranchi. Building up Prabhat Khabar has meant mostly working round the clock. For a very long time we would be here in office at nine in the morning and leave at two the next morning, says Harivansh. Resources were scarce and at times there was not enough money for paper. In 1996, the Usha Martin Group felt that the Prabhat Khabar team was ready to fend for themselves. Harivansh remains grateful for the advice in running the business that came from DS Sharma, one of the directors on the board. The Prabhat Khabar management also had two key players who grew with the business. KK Goenka and RK Datta had been appointed as managers by Usha Martin in 1989. Datta originally handled only personnel, but then took over circulation. Goenka, a chartered accountant, looked after finance and marketing. It was first-time employment for both of

The emotional bonds that Prabhat Khabar has built with its readers have been important ingredients in its commercial success.
Since he knows what it is to be poor, he genuinely feels for issues which affect the poor. When we arrived in Ranchi he was away in Hazaribagh where women had come together to demand a ban on alcohol. Harivansh was impressed. There are uneducated women but they have managed to organise huge protests, he tells us. The next day Prabhat Khabar had a detailed story done by Harivansh himself. But while he cares for the poor, he isnt boring. He does not wear his heart on his sleeve. He can be as blunt and combative with unreasonable trade unions as with people who believe that the medias only role is to celebrate the lifestyles of the rich. Just as Prabhat Khabar investigates politicians, so also it scrutinises Naxalites and their lawlessness. Harivansh has uncomfortable questions to ask of NGOs. Thanks to his fathers foresight, Harivansh managed to go to Benares Hindu University to study. He did an MA in economics. He began writing letters to publications on the Jayaprakash Narayan movement. He then happened to take the examination for Times of Indias trainee journalist programme and after his training began working for Dharamyug. them. They were as stunned by the rundown condition of the paper as Harivansh was. But they were young men from small towns Datta from Ranchi itself and Goenka from Bankura in West Bengal and they decided to make a go of it. We have worked together as a team. Decisions are taken collectively. It is management and editorial together. No one side dominates. There is no all-powerful brand manager or marketing head, says Harivansh. Harivansh, however, is clearly the boss. It is he who has given Prabhat Khabar its soul and public presence. In his 14 years of editorship he has taken on politicians of all hues. He is hated equally by the BJP and Laloo Prasad Yadav. Ask him how many cases of defamation he has against him and he has to check with his lawyer. There are 30 cases.

Prabhat Khabar has come to be regarded as a watchdog for the ordinary citizen. But it hardly crows about its successes, unlike several national papers, which get all excited when they make even a small impact. At Prabhat Khabar, it all happens in the course of a days work. One of the few extravagances the paper permits itself is its chosen slogan: Not a newspaper but a movement.

55

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Prabhat Khabar seeks to be a modern workplace

Prabhat Khabars success has come out of Harivanshs unique vision for the paper as a modern product. So, while it has sharply focussed on corruption and poor governance, it has also built up features sections, colour supplements and a career guide. There is sports and foreign news.
He travelled to Malayalam Manorama in Kerala and Eenadu in Andhra Pradesh to see how these publishing empires have been built and are managed today. He learnt from them the need for connecting with readers and replicated their use of multiple editions so as to be able to highlight local stories for targeted audiences. Books like The Death of Distance made him aggressively pursue connectivity and computerisation. I realised we had to move to more efficient arrangements by which any of our journalists would have to know how to file a report, edit copy and make a page, says Harivansh. We also had to ensure accuracy with speed. An important strategy has been to stay in touch with readers. Aap Ke Dwar or At Your Door and Pathak Manch or Readers Forum have become popular devices for knowing what is expected of the paper. These devices have bridged the gap between the people who buy Prabhar Khabar and the journalists who produce it. When people hungry for information they can trust see young and idealistic faces their faith in the paper becomes unshakeable. Harivanshs own reputation is truly awesome. Repeated interventions to ensure better governance, such as

the campaign on Jharkhands power shortages and the exposure of corruption at all levels, has positioned the paper as a sentinel. Stories which help poor tribals get back their land may have no immediate relevance to the middle class, but they reinforce the perception of Prabhat Khabar as a weapon individuals can use against a callous state machinery. The strategy of reaching out has paid off repeatedly. For instance, when Hindustan and Jagran enticed hawkers into not distributing Prabhat Khabar readers would wake up early and insist on Prabhat Khabar being delivered. Harivansh is especially proud of two projects: A social audit conducted with the guidance of Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and a professional study undertaken by Indicus on where Jharkhand will be 20 years from now. Just in case you are interested, if governance does not improve and the current levels of corruption continue, Jharkhand will be no better off than what Zimbabwe is today. Similarly an entire edition highlighted corruption as Jharkhands biggest industry. It spared no one, not even Naxalites, detailing how much money they loot and the terror they have unleashed. Harivanshs endeavour has been to make his staff and his readers look beyond Jharkhand much in the same way as he travelled to Eenadu and Malayalam Manorama to learn. Or

56

THE PEOPLES DAILY

for the same reason that he ensures he gets the latest copy of The Economist. So it is that Prabhat Khabars edit page has writers like Ramchandra Guha and Prof Arun Kumar, Chaturanan Mishra, Narayan Dutt. Prabhat Kumar as governor of Jharkhand did a column on governance. Occasional writers have been Jean Dreze, Prabhash Joshi, Ajit Bhattacharya and many others. Similarly, Bharat Kidhar or Whither India? has become an event, attended by eminent people from elsewhere, at which the future of India is discussed. Harivansh has also stocked his pond carefully. He has chosen young people and empowered them to take decisions. The average age of Prabhat Khabars staff would be under 35. The paper runs a training school from which it draws fresh talent. Prabhat Khabar pays its journalists reasonably well and expects them to adhere to a strict code of conduct. Seminars, workshops and an active notice board, at least at its Ranchi office, are intended to be windows on the best in the world. All that Harivansh aspired for did not prepare him for the shock that he would get when he turned up at the office of Prabhat Khabar in Ranchi. It consisted of four dilapidated rooms, unhappy journalists, a Bandhu M20 printing machine, which produced eight pages in smudgy black and white, and an army of 250 employees. To tell you the truth I was stunned by what I saw and wondered where I had gone and landed, says Harivansh. Dharamyug, the bank and Ravivar had all been modern establishments with many facilities. Prabhat Khabar in 1989 by comparison seemed like a bottomless pit. But having made his choice, Harivansh got a few young journalists from Kolkata to join him in his adventure. He began focussing on reshaping Prabhat Khabars content and get-up. The new team began searching for stories and with help from many friends the look of the paper underwent a change. Several scoops followed and with each one the circulation grew. The going was painfully slow but as word went out of the new force at Prabhat Khabar, the paper began to gain credibility. Journalists have come and gone over the years. In most cases

they have gained valuable experience and been snapped up by publications in the big cities. Hindustan took away 20 journalists in a single swoop, hoping to cripple Prabhat Khabar. Harivansh responded by bringing in a whole lot of youngsters and setting up a training school together with the Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan. This way he could recruit from the course. The Ranchi office is always buzzing with activity. People work incredibly long hours. The news editor and resident editor arrive at 11 am and leave after putting the Ranchi city edition to bed, which is at two the following morning. These are punishing hours. But there is unquestioning loyalty to Harivansh and the paper. The resident editor, Vijay Pathak, has grown from being a district correspondent and a desk hand. What keeps people like me working here is the complete freedom that we enjoy, says Pathak. If you have an idea you can implement it. There is a sense of ownership. We are also free from internal politics and bickering because Harivanshji wont allow it. It is a modern organisation that Harivansh takes pride in. There is little or no hierarchy here. Of course people have to be pulled up when they come in late and there is accountability at every stage. But there is no hierarchy in the old fashioned sense. There is a lot of work to be done and it has to come from a willingness to slog. Harivanshs message to his journalists has always been not to take their salaries for granted. He expects them to face the market. A newspaper cannot hope to be around for long unless it is commercially viable. On the flip side, a newspaper that is only a business does not deserve to be around either. The big challenge he took up in 1989 was to build a newspaper that could make money without playing games with its content. In 2009, he can say he has succeeded.

UPDATE After Civil Society first reported on Harivansh and Prabhat Khabar, in November 2007, the paper has faced many market challenges. It was also almost bought by rival publications. Harivansh himself is much in demand as an editor.

57

INVENTIVE INDIANS

7
RURAL SURGEONS
The Rural Medicare Centre is one of those rare facilities where the poor get reliable treatment. It has an inclusive business model with a surgeons fees being as little as Rs 1,200

AMAZING HOSPITAL SAVES A LIFE

RITA & UMESH ANAND

HE life of Sunita, 25, was saved by a series of coincidences the other day. She was very ill with a foetus festering in one of her fallopian tubes and blood collecting by the litre in her abdomen. Left like that, she would have died, like so many women do in remote parts of Uttar Pradesh because they cannot find affordable medical help. Sunitas family had all but given up hope of saving her when chance encounters delivered her to the Rural Medicare Centre at Village Saidulajaib, on the outskirts of Saket in South Delhi. Once an ultrasound confirmed her complicated condition, the physicians at the centre were quick to act. The gynaecologist, Dr Seema Mehrotra, said that she would operate. Blood was needed, for which Sunitas husband and some well-wishers went to the White Cross blood bank in East of Kailash a good eight kilometres away. By the time they returned, braving Delhis deadly evening traffic, Dr Mehrotra was in her surgeons gear waiting to begin the operation. A statement in Hindi was ready for Sunitas husband to sign. It said that her condition was very delicate and she could die on the table. The operation went on for more than two hours. Internal bleeding had resulted in the intestines and adjacent organs in the abdomen getting affected. Bleeding makes tissues friable and difficult to handle and suture. Halfway through, Dr DPS Toor, director of the centre, arrived on a routine visit and decided to help Dr Mehrotra in the operation theatre. Together they worked dexterously to clean up Sunita and completed a surgery that was so challenging that it might just never have been performed.

In her delicate condition, Sunita would probably have been shut out by most private hospitals in Delhi. On the other hand, if a good hospital took her in the fees would have been way beyond her means. In a government hospital she would have had to await her turn and then, too, it is unlikely that the doctors would have taken the risk of opening her up. Government doctors know there is hell to pay for cases that go wrong. Sunita is back in her village some 40 km from Agra. She and her husband live on a few acres of farmland. They have two children. The family survives on what they grow and sell. Her case need never have been so complicated. But the first time she complained of her problem, a private clinic in Agra took her in for a few days, gave her blood and charged Rs 20,000. When she complained again, the local midwife was called and performed her own procedures, causing more harm than good. Another visit to Agra followed. This time a blurry ultrasound showed she was in some serious trouble. Her visit to Delhi it now seems was ordained and had more to do with sheer luck than the working of the health care system in the country. Her mother is a trusted maid in some houses in Gurgaon. It just so happened that people in one of those homes took her to the Rural Medicare Centre and put her in the missionary hands of Dr Mehrotra and Dr Toor. Most women in Sunitas situation arent so lucky. They rarely reach the city from their villages and the city mostly does not reach them. It is even more unlikely that they will make it to a rural medical centre that can access the sophistications of urban healthcare.

58

AMAZING HOSPITAL SAVES A LIFE

Dr DPS Toor in the wards of the Rural Medicare Centre

The Rural Medicare Centres team, of course, goes much beyond medical competence. They add soul to their professional skills and keep their centre going in order to serve the needy. Dr Mehrotras fee for the operation was an unbelievable Rs 1,200. The charge for the first examination in the OPD was Rs 20. All in all, Sunitas life was saved for just Rs 12,000, which includes the cost of blood, a reliable ultrasound at a nearby facility, taxi fare and five days spent at the centre after the surgery. If she had gone to a private hospital in Delhi, she would have spent at least Rs 60,000. But for Dr Toor and his 20-odd colleagues, this is no act of charity. They dont flit in and out of the Rural Medicare Centre merely to cleanse their consciences. They do have their own practices where they earn more, but the Rural Medicare Centre functions as a professional establishment in its own right. For instance, Dr Mehrotra is one of four gynaecologists who serve there. Three days in the week she performs surgeries and on three days she attends the OPD. The doctors take turns to be on Sunday duty, and on two days of the month each one is on standby for 24 hours. If a surgeon sees a patient in the OPD and a surgery has to be performed at short notice, then the operation is that surgeons responsibility. So it was with Dr Mehrotra after she had seen Sunita for the first time. It wasnt her day to operate, but she had to come in. In fact, on that night the son of one of the anaesthetists was getting married. Dr Toor and Dr Mehrotra should normally have been at the wedding. The Rural Medicare Centre has taken aid for some of its capi-

tal investments. But it runs on what it earns. It isnt a funded institution propped up by remote munificence. However, it does get the odd donation in cash or a free gift of blankets or cloth for making OT uniforms. Grateful patients turn up with heaters and desert coolers. It also has a poor fund drawn from interest on Rs 5 lakhs given to it by some generous individual a decade ago. But the centres mission is to treat people by charging reasonable fees. Its business model is aimed at demystifying the cost of reliable healthcare. What this really means is that though its fees seem paltry they are enough to provide professional services. The centres doctors earn on an average Rs 25,000 a month. That is not much and they all supplement it with their own practices. But the decision to spend time here involves forgoing a substantially larger income. These doctors have raised an ethical question: When millions need health care should doctors remain wedded to a system that makes them obscenely rich or should they redefine the paradigm by which they serve and earn? The Rural Medicare Centre was born out of such introspection. It was set up in the seventies by Dr JK Banerjee and his wife, Shipra, in a ramshackle godown in Mehrauli. Dr Banerjee had trained in England and returned to work in the Ramakrishna Mission hospital in Haridwar. He is a great admirer of Vivekananda. After working for the hospital for six years, he decided to make his personal contribution to taking quality health care to the masses at an affordable cost. In England I saw that what defined a developed economy

59

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Ward scene: There is action round the clock

was equality in access to facilities, says Dr Banerjee. In India on the other hand there are facilities only for a few with the vast majority being forgotten and having to fend for themselves. It is necessary in such a situation for the privileged few to reach out and share the benefits of progress. We have eight and nine per cent GDP growth these days, but it is only for 20 per cent of the population. What does that 20 per cent of the population do to enable the others to share in its prosperity? asks Dr Banerjee. When he set up a medical centre in a godown in Mehrauli in the seventies, he found that there were other doctors ready to join him. Similarly, he found some support for his ideas among members of the Association of Surgeons of India. They tried to get the association to endorse rural surgery as a specialisation, but met with serious opposition, not just from within the association but from the teaching fraternity as well. Finally, they walked out and set up the Association of Rural Surgeons. At the age of 69 and with a stroke behind him, Dr Banerjee now lives in Dehradun where he helps the Ramakrishna Mission. But the work he began has been carried forward. The Association of Rural Surgeons has some 400 adherents across the country. Internationally they are not alone because there are also associations of rural surgeons in the US, Africa and Europe. An international meeting is hosted by Tanzania because the

African countries are very eager to learn from the Indian experience. Dr Banerjee recalls how when he spoke in Sweden at a conference on surgical economy and efficiency in 1987 he was mobbed by the media there which wanted to know more about his approach to the delivery of health care. The rural surgeons movement is based on the belief that science and technology must be used as tools for inclusion. Doctors must seek out their social relevance. Specialised and expensive hospitals have their own roles to play. But an entire country cannot remain focussed on tertiary care. Rural surgeons are needed to cater to the periphery, which in a poor country like India is burgeoning and mostly neglected. If all doctors work at top-notch hospitals who will be around to use modern science to save the lives of people like Sunita? Rural surgeons dont do heart and brain surgeries. They take care of the everyday cases for which there is no reliable medical infrastructure in the country. Where, for instance, can someone with limited means go to have a hernia repaired or gallstones removed? Which doctor is on call to pluck out a poor persons infected appendix just in time? At a time when a career in medicine is equated with fat earnings and super specialisations, the rural surgeons prefer to get down to basics. It isnt easy to buck the trend and so many of the physicians who get drawn to the Rural Medicare Centre are initially enthused but then begin to fade out. However,

60

AMAZING HOSPITAL SAVES A LIFE

Dr Seema Mehrotra who saved Sunitas life

those who stay would have it no other way. Dr Mehrotra, for instance, turned up as a replacement for a friend gynaecologist and was happy to spend two years at the Rural Medicare Centre. There is mental and academic satisfaction at providing service at a minimum cost, she says. She studied at Rohtak Medical College and completed her senior residency at AIIMS. Her husband is a very senior physician and she could, given her qualifications and professional contacts, quite easily be anywhere else. Dr Mehrotras story holds true for all the other doctors who bring their professional expertise to the centre. If her case finds repeated mention it is because we watched her work on Sunitas case. Dr Toor used to be employed at Moolchand Hospital in Delhi before he made the switch in 1993 after a chance meeting with Dr Banerjee, who became his mentor. Dr Toor has an evening clinic at Khan Market, but it is at the centre that he spends all his time. A short, energetic and jovial Sardar, he says: I tell people that I spend the day in Bharat and come to India in the evening. He is at the centre on all days till afternoon and then back again in the evening for some unfinished work. He attends his clinic for a couple of hours on Sundays as well because for

many poor people it is the only day they can get off to see a doctor. Hawkers and others who live on the streets around the centre go there for treatment. A peanut vendor found to his surprise that he could have his cataract removed at the centre. There are others who come with common ailments to see the general physicians in the OPD. The faith in Dr Toor is enormous. It is not uncommon to see families pleading that he conduct an operation himself, though this is not necessary and often not possible. Dr Toor may be in full flow as the director of the centre, nimbly moving from room to room and ward to ward, but at his core he is a team player. He will introduce you to Dr Megha Vaze, also a general surgeon, emphasising that she is a laproscopic surgeon and is better qualified than him. I depend on her when I am in trouble. She is the one who bails me out, he says. A centre like this depends on teamwork, says Dr Toor. You need everyone feeling involved and working together. Above all, this applies to the centres employees who are not doctors. After all, we doctors perform the surgery and go away. It is the others who look after the patient checking the temperature, blood pressure, administering blood, saline, and drugs. A medical centre has to run round the clock and for that it needs dedicated and happy people. Dr Toors own involvement in the early nineties began by sheer chance when he came across Dr Banerjee and his

61

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Some of the team members of the Rural Medicare Centre

anaesthetist wife and began helping them. The Rural Medicare Centre was then still in its smaller avatar in Mehrauli. But it was a busy place because people from the surrounding areas knew they could go there and be treated by doctors with experience and sound qualifications. Dr Banerjees own reputation was huge. People who went there would only ask for him. In those years, Dr Toor seemed inexperienced because of his slight build and youngish looks. At 54 now he remains youthful, but he has greyed and his eyes tell you that he has seen a lot. But at the Mehrauli clinic no one wanted to go to him. They only knew of Dr Banerjee. Then one day a man turned up with the tip of his finger cut off. He burst into Dr Toors cabin and said: My finger is cut, will you stitch it for me? Dr Toor took a look and found that the finger was severed and there was nothing to stitch back. The man then fished in his pocket and took out the severed portion of the finger and asked Dr Toor to stitch it back. Dr Toor demurred saying it wouldnt heal. The man insisted: How do you know unless you try, he said. Dr Toor stitched back the finger and told the man to come back the next day convinced that the surgery would not work. The man returned and to Dr Toors surprise the finger hadnt turned black, but was instead red and showing signs of life. In the coming weeks the finger healed completely. The man told his story to others and began sending patients to the Rural Medicare Centre who now asked for Dr Toor and his reputation as a lucky surgeon grew. He finally took over as director when Dr Banerjee and his wife moved back to Uttaranchal. He is a team player, says Dr Banerjee, explain-

ing the choice. A director must be someone who does not dominate and carries others along. People flock to the Rural Medicare Centre because, like for the man who almost lost his finger, the doctors there are their only hope. Dr Toor points out that the role of the general surgeon is often not fully understood. For many ailments and diseases a patient can go to one doctor or the other. The medication can change as indeed can the diagnosis. But when surgery is needed nothing less than a surgeon will do. So, the finger that needs to be stitched back or the appendix that must be plucked out or that corrosive ectopic pregnancy in a festering fallopian tube, all need to be immediately attended to by a surgeon. It is this role that the rural surgeons fulfil. Dr Toor does three operations on his surgery days and so do the other surgeons at the centre and their work is just a drop in the ocean considering the vast number of Indians who have no access to health care. "When I go to conferences I always say that we are all needed. We need Max, Fortis, AIIMS, Escorts and our Rural Medicare Centre. You need a strong core but you also need to reach the periphery. If doctors serve only the rich, who will treat the poor and the needy? In fact the importance of serving the periphery keeps increasing. The government hospitals are overburdened and the doctors there struggle with inefficient and inadequate systems, says Dr Toor. Moreover, with an increasing number of people leaving rural

62

AMAZING HOSPITAL SAVES A LIFE

areas to come to the city, the majority of them in slums and on the streets, there will be an exponentially bigger need for affordable services of the kind the Rural Medicare Centre provides. Soon 50 per cent of India will be living in its cities and where are the facilities for them, Dr Toor points out. One way forward, according to Dr Toor and his colleagues, is to hand over primary health centres to voluntary organisations of doctors who want to serve the needy both in cities and villages. The government clearly cannot fulfil this role. There is also the need to recognise the role of rural surgeons. A big step has been taken with the Union Health Ministry deciding to introduce a course in rural surgery. It will give physicians a DNB or Diplomate of the National Board in rural surgery. The idea is to give physicians basic skills in surgery so that they can work at remote locations. But finally it is the spirit and not official recognition that drives the rural surgeon. Recalls Dr SK Basu, one of the founders of the Rural Medicare Society: Its very foundation was the dream to cater to the health care needs of the economically less privileged people and enable them to buy expertise with dignity across the counter. In the Mehrauli godown where it began in 1976, the Rural

moral support. Over time, the doctors moved from the godown to a small building in Mehrauli. The shift to the current location at Saidulajaib, near Saket, came in 1993 when the then Lt Governor of Delhi, PK Dave, gave them the land. SK Chakravarty and his wife Monica played an important role in this. The building went up as a simple red brick structure, quite unique in its architecture. It now has 30 beds, a modern operation theatre, 22 serving doctors, 66 paramedical staff and four resident doctors. There is a pharmacy and a canteen. There are two ambulances which are frequently pressed into service. Dr Banerjee believes that what India needs is several such small, efficient and affordable hospitals. The idea of creating the centre at Mehrauli and the one that now exists at Saidulajaib was to showcase a workable business model which others could replicate. You need facilities of 30 and 40 beds staffed with qualified physicians and paramedical staff and sustained by local communities. You also need to train local people, says Dr Banerjee. But to go beyond isolated examples such as the Rural Medicare Centre, a policy framework is required. Health care

The rural surgeons movement treats the poor. Specialised hospitals have their own role to play, but an entire country cant be focussed on tertiary care.
Medicare Centre had just three beds. The front of the godown was converted into the OPD where barely three patients could sit. The consultation fee was Rs 5. Leading the way at that time were Dr Banerjee, Prabhat Mukherjee, Arvind Das, Dr Jharna Sen, and Dr Shipra Banerjee. Nitish De was the chairman of the society and Prabhat Mukherjee the founder secretary. They were joined by Dr Gurjeet Singh, Dr J Trikha, Dr Shashi Ghosh. I still remember the thrill of performing the first caesarean section on a diabetic mother in a 6 ft x 9 ft operation theatre, says Dr Basu. I must admit that the act was not without a sense of trepidation as infrastructure at that time was virtually non-existent. Neither did we have the requisite number of colleagues to give us the much required encouragement and that reaches the masses will have to become a political priority. Right now there are no incentives for setting up decentralised, high-quality and affordable facilities. Instead the emphasis is on large corporate institutions, which are expensive and accessible only to a few. And so, doctors who want to serve where they are needed most have to, like the rural surgeons, cut their own paths in search of professional relevance.

UPDATE Dr Medha Vaze took over as director of the Rural Medicare Centre in March 2009. Dr DPS Toor continues to serve as a surgeon. Little else has changed at the hospital since Civil Society reported on the rural surgeons in February 2007.

63

INVENTIVE INDIANS

8
HEALING TOUCH
Some of Delhis best physicians take time out of their practices to help the Arpana Trust revive a defunct community health centre at a resettlement colony

TOP DOCTORS IN DELHI SLUM

RITA & UMESH ANAND

N an average day you may have to wait a couple of hours to see Dr Ashok Khurana at his Defence Colony clinic. So skilled is he with the use of ultrasound for diagnosis that he is the first choice of Delhis rich and famous. Private practices hardly ever get bigger than his with money and fame and no end to the number of patients seeking appointments. Defence Colony is also one of the posh addresses in Delhi. You dont live here unless you are rich and you wouldnt even think of consulting Dr Khurana if you happened to be just one of Delhis millions. But once a month, Dr Khurana transits to a very different world. Unknown to most people in his circle, he spends several hours at the Arpana Health Centre in Molarbund, a festering resettlement colony in southeast Delhi. Patients wait in large numbers to be examined by him and news of his arrival sends them scurrying to fall into a queue. If the elite at Defence Colony do not know of Dr Khuranas altruistic trips to Molarbund, the poor who gather to be examined by him in Molarbund dont have any clue as to his upmarket avatar. But patients rich and poor know a good doctor when they find one and he works for both. In the very basic examination room at the health centre Dr Khurana is much the same person he is in his Defence Colony clinic. He has his characteristic twinkle in his eye and he is engaging and attentive as he draws on all those insights that go to make an exceptional ultrasound specialist. For Molarbund, with its open drains and cholera count, Dr

Khurana is a godsend. But he is not the only one who takes time out of a busy schedule to do his bit for public health. Several other top physicians also visit the Arpana Health Centre and like him most of them seem to do so to without fanfare, as if to worship at forgotten altars of the medical profession. There is Dr Dilraj Gandhi, also an ultrasound specialist, with a flourishing practice in east Delhi, who comes once a week in his Honda Accord. Dr Yuvakshi Juneja, a gynaecologist with Moolchand Hospital, serves in Molarbund. Dr Sadia Zinzani, Dr Usha Mehta and Dr Rakesh Sachdeva all paediatricians are much in demand. Dr Vidya Gupta, a neo-natologist comes from Apollo Hospital and Dr Ashok Gupta, a vascular surgeon comes from Escorts. Dr Rastogi and Dr S M Govil, both chest specialists, make themselves available. Then there are those who dont make regular visits to the centre but are available on tap. For instance, Dr J S Khurana and Dr Rajni Saxena provide all possible assistance for reporting of X-rays. Dr Krishna Taneja, a senior paediatrician, is always ready to fill in for missing doctors. She helps conduct the outreach clinic from Arpanas mobile van in Ali Gaon, adjacent to Molarbund. Literally hijacking them all to Molarbund is Dr Rahul Gupta, a gastroenterologist. Rahul comes from a family of physicians. His mother, Dr Raj Gupta, is a respected gynaecologist. His father, Dr Indar S Gupta, is an ENT specialist. Rahuls wife, Lena, is a gynaecologist. The Gupta family is deeply influenced by the Arpana Trust and

64

TOP DOCTORS IN DELHI SLUM

Visiting doctors and staff of the Molarbund health centre

its head, Param Pujya Ma, who preaches the unity of faiths and a life of action in service to humanity. The Arpana Trust works extensively in rural Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. It runs a hospital, provides extension medical facilities and promotes womens self-help groups. It is this experience and spirit that the Arpana Trust brings to Molarbund in the creation of the health centre and a lot else. People in Molarbund live beyond the pale of governance. They would never know how to gain access to an ultrasound machine, let alone a specialist capable of reading its images with reliability. If they went to any of Delhis public hospitals run by the government, it could take them as long as a month, perhaps two, before they could get examined. Most private clinics would be too expensive for them to go to. Women in Molarbund get pregnant six and seven times. Often, they dont even know they are carrying. The water supply in the area is dicey and together with the filth in the drains it is the reason for stomach disorders. There is also the Badarpur thermal power plant next door that spews flyash all day. After people were evicted from slums in East of Kailash and other such neighbourhoods and dumped here by the Delhi government, there was no attempt to clean up and provide facilities. Molarbund has no urban infrastructure worth the name though it falls within the city of Delhi. The health centre, funded originally by WHO, was a part of the plan for the resettlement colony, but it was built and forgotten. When Dr Rahul Gupta first saw the health centre in 2002, it

was in a shambles. Its walls and woodwork had gone to pieces. On paper, it was meant to serve the health needs of the local people. But in reality it was no more than a deserted building used by marauding ruffians. This was the structure that the Arpana Trust took over. The municipal authorities had to be activated. As the Arpana Trust reached out, it got assistance and guidance from Dr Karuna Singh and her entire team of young municipal doctors. Like so many well-meaning people they, too, were prisoners of a bad system. The Arpana Trust brought them out of their shell. Now the health centre caters to 4,000 households or perhaps 22,000 people. Another 18,000 live in Ali Gaon. X-rays, ultrasounds, ECGs and pathology tests are done here. A dental clinic runs under Dr Kanupriya Saxena. A pharmacy doles out free medicines, which the Arpana Trust buys directly from the market, or sources in dribs and drabs from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). Apart from the services of visiting specialists, there are three full-time doctors on duty Dr R Sachdeva, Dr Anjali Soni and Dr Prabhjot Kaur. They are general physicians and get a salary from the trust. An ambulance and three other vehicles are stationed at the health centre to take people to hospital in emergencies at any time of the day or night. The health centre encourages women to have their babies in hospitals and helps to transport them there. Institutional deliveries have increased by 24 per cent. There has been a drastic reduction in the infant mortality rate. There has also

65

INVENTIVE INDIANS

been an increasing number of couples adopting family planning measures. Immunisation has steadily increased. Private hospitals that provide assistance are the Sama Nursing Home run by Dr S K Sama and the Ganga Ram Hospital, where Dr Rahul Gupta worked for nine years. The Ganga Ram Hospital provides free surgery. So, when it was found that a child who was crying all the time had a huge stone in the bladder, it was removed at the Ganga Ram Hospital. The health centre also sends women in its ambulance to the Ganga Ram Hospital for sterilisation. If you send them to a public hospital, they spend at least Rs. 60-70 on travel, have to wait 12 hours in a queue and lose all their motivation, says Dr Rahul Gupta. Similarly, X-rays, ultrasounds and blood tests at public hospitals take time and more than one visit. This invariably means losing wages for several days and is a huge disincentive. Registering with the Arpana Health Centre involves payment of a one-time fee of Rs 15. Each patient is given a laminated registration card because many people try to misuse the facility by calling relatives from other areas. The registration cards also help in tracking patients and diseases, especially when there are outbreaks. Thereafter there are nominal charges for X-rays, pathology services and ultrasound tests. Pregnant mothers are treated free of cost. The bulk of the health centres monthly expenses come from donations. Companies come forward and the Arpana Trust has found big supporters in the Japanese government and Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia. The medicines we get here are genuine and the doctors are very good and serious about treating us, says Shabnam, one of the patients. The popularity of the health centre, as indeed the need for it, can perhaps best be judged by the large numbers of women and children who turn up throughout the day. Once someone comes to the centre we ensure that the person does not leave without being examined and helped. No one is turned away when our gates are open and when the centre is closed and someone comes in an emergency, the instructions are to immediately provide the ambulance or one of the other vehicles, says Brigadier Ashok Sondhi, who is the trusts energetic administrator. Infrastructure created by the government, even in the Indian capital, often exists only in name. The Molarbund health centre became functional only when the Arpana Trust took it over and Dr Rahul Gupta and his family attracted some of Delhis best physicians to it. Till then it existed merely on paper like so many other health facilities. Clearly, government spending on health does not necessarily translate into better health for ordinary citizens. Molarbund is a huge and congested area with people either living in shanties covered with plastic sheets or in shaky brick houses. There are no sewers and the drains overflow. When people moved here after being evicted from elsewhere, they were given all of 12 square metres or 18 square metres to build shelter and resettle themselves!

Pediatricians Dr Sadia Zinzani and Dr Usha Mehta have many patients

The government does not even attempt to send doctors to such areas, though these are the conditions in which close to 30 per cent of Delhis population lives. You will find Molarbund-type settlements all over the Indian capital, but the government abdicates all responsibility for them and lives in perpetual denial of migration to urban areas. How difficult is it to get top doctors to spare a little time for the poor and needy? Especially when they hardly find time from their practices for their personal lives? Everyone wants to do good, says Dr Rahul Gupta, in his clinic on the seventh floor on Kasturba Gandhi Marg in Connaught Place. The problem is that we get so caught up in our lives that we dont know how to reach out. That is why we have devised a system at Molarbund for doctors to come there for two or four hours in a month or perhaps a week, whatever each one is comfortable with. The system works well. All the doctors, with the odd exception, who began visiting the health centre two years ago, have continued to go there. Recently, postgraduate students in paediatrics at Apollo Hospital have begun going to Molarbund every Thursday. Since Apollo is a private hospital, the students get more experience by seeing a larger number of cases at Molarbund and it is just down the road from the hospital.

66

TOP DOCTORS IN DELHI SLUM

problems of AIDS, tuberculosis, child mortality and the health of mothers. The trust has also worked at bringing about environmental changes. For instance, it has transformed a dump, which used to be piled high with waste and plastic right opposite the health centre, into a verdant park. There are 10 such parks that have sprung up. It has institutionalised garbage collection with households paying Rs 10 per month to have their waste removed instead of throwing it around. An NGO called Conserve helps remove plastic waste. The biodegradable waste is converted into compost. A scheme is to be launched for providing safe drinking water at one rupee for a litre by using reverse osmosis. A water filter company has chipped in with the RO system. Garbage removal carts are being motorised. The Molarbund story began in East of Kailash when Sushma Agarwal, Usha Seth and Krishna Shroff started working with slum-dwellers there. The slum was one day removed and its residents, together with slum-dwellers in Gautam Nagar and Vasant Vihar, were dumped at Molarbund. The three ladies had begun working with the slum-dwellers of East of Kailash in 1992, inspired by Ma Param Pujya of the Arpana Trust. After retirement I was looking for some work to do. Usha Seth introduced Mas teachings to us. We approached Ma and asked her what we could do. She told us to serve the poor and treat them as your own, says Sushma Agarwal. So the three spirited ladies went to a slum called Indira Camp near their residential colony. They talked around and discovered that the main problem people faced was that their children would drop out of school. They did not know how to study, says Agarwal. The three ladies collected 20 children and started a day care centre with one teacher. Demand swelled and the facility started expanding. They began introducing health services and sprucing up the slum. They invited the former MCD commissioner, Manjit Singh, to take a look. He was impressed and offered them two rooms of a rundown Bal Vikas Kendra building. But in 2002, came a new turn of events and the forced shift to Molarbund. When the ladies followed the slum-dwellers there they found that the number of people they had to work with had increased exponentially. From looking after 1,500 people they were suddenly expected to care for over 20,000 people. It looked like an impossible task. We went to Ma and asked her what to do. She told us dont worry. You begin working for the people of Molarbund. Everything will fall in place, says Agarwal. Unfortunately, the ladies lost Usha Seth. She succumbed to cancer. So Ma gave them Aruna Dayal who had been instrumental in setting up the Arpana hospital at Karnal and organising extension work. In addition, the Vasant Vihar slum clinic moved to Molarbund. At first Arpana had only a Bustee Vikas Kendra on a small plot of land provided by the government. There was no electricity or water supply to speak of in the area. The people who had

I think of all the professions, medicine is most suited to being pursued as a noble one. If you want to merely make money you dont have to become a doctor. You can always choose some business. It is important to earn a living and so on. But there is more to the profession, says Dr Rahul Gupta. In a sense we are all discovering ourselves. My father, for instance, is 81 and often has to skip his private practice because of his age, but he will be dressed and ready to go to Molarbund. For him, the patients at the private clinic can always go somewhere else, but where will the Molarbund patients go. But charity is not enough. Health centres of the type the Arpana Trust has set up need institutional moorings. They need the support of larger governance structures. A health centre can achieve little if it is surrounded by a sea of filth. The Arpana Trust has tried to help the area as a whole. To begin with the health centre has a record of people coming to it and from this it has been able to create disease profiles and seek long-term health benefits. It has Auxillary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), who go to homes, identify high-risk pregnancies and bring them for ante natal check-ups. Community health workers inform women about nutrition, the importance of iron and weaning food. Flash cards are used to explain. There is a well baby clinic which monitors the health of babies and tackles malnutrition. The trust seeks to address

67

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Dr Rahul Gupta

When Dr Rahul Gupta saw the health centre in 2002, it was in a shambles. It was meant to serve the local people, but it was no more than a deserted building.
been shifted there were given land but the plots had not been demarcated. Children played on garbage dumps. Arpanas members networked with the government to expedite the procedure for a final survey of plots. Next, the plots and the names of the owners had to be entered into the revenue records of the government. Arpana then helped the legal owners of the plots to mortgage the plots to banks for loans to build proper structures, which could be used as homes, shops and so on. Geeta Mehta, an Indian architect from Tokyo, designed a house that could be built on a 12 or 18 square metres, the two sizes in which the plots were allocated. A sewage treatment plant existed but wasnt up and running. The lanes between the plots were just of mud. Once again, advocacy by Arpana members brought funds from the government. The lanes were laid with bricks and some drainage channels were created. Individual houses are yet to be connected to the sewage plant. Working with the government is a part of the Arpana philosophy. It, therefore, is the local hub for the Pulse Polio programme. To deal with life threatening seasonal diseases like diarrhoea, Arpana workers hold three cluster meetings a day for three days a week. Volunteers were identified on each street and ORS packets were distributed. There is also an ongoing family planning programme. These are impressive achievements and owe much to the work of Agarwal and Shroff. At a nodal level within the Arpana

68

TOP DOCTORS IN DELHI SLUM

An anxious mother gets her child examined at the ENT clinic

Trust, Aruna Dayal has helped them work to scale. In the initial stages, R M Sabharwal, a former director of Burma Shell, proved to be a workhorse in getting permissions from the government. He was also instrumental in raising money. Tragically, he died in a road accident along with other key Arpana Trust members, Reva Bhandari and Preeti Madan. The Basti Vikas Kendra has gone from being a small shed into a beehive of activity. Several prefabricated rooms have been added. Children of all ages attended classes here so that they can catch up with their schoolwork. They get tuition in Hindi, English, Maths and Social Studies. The Kendra helps them access the open school system. Several computers are available. Vocational training is given. Girls can learn embroidery

and sewing. They get jobs in nearby garment factories. There is a free meal for children. Theatre, music and dance workshops are held. The Kendra has organised children into a Bal panchayat. One of their activities is to educate slumdwellers on waste management and health. They make banners and go round the colony, says Agarwal. After all this, Molarbund is still a dump. Evicting people from their shanties and pushing them into the fringes of cities is no solution. The squalor and filth does not remain hidden for long. Nobody should have to live in such conditions. What the Arpana Trust has shown is that nobody should sit back and watch either.

69

INVENTIVE INDIANS

9
CLEAN TECH INNOVATOR
Chetan Maini has built the Reva with passion. It is pollution-free, costs very little to run and doesnt dent. It is Indias only original automobile

GREEN CAR TO BEAT ALL OTHERS

UMESH ANAND

T seemed like just another showroom about to open in the Lajpat Nagar Market in South Delhi. But when the wraps came off, its bright orange and yellow dcor set it apart from a sea of conventional shopfronts. And then, lo and behold, a small, exotic electric car went on display. What was this oddity? Middle-class families out shopping stopped to check it out. Kids scrambled to get behind the wheel. Some mums did likewise, no doubt eager to break free. Dads asked about the price and tried to figure out the technology. Only 40 paise a kilometre running cost? Amazing! Just plug it into a socket and charge it? Really, is it that simple? No clutch, no maintenance, no pollution? Delhi is a city so crazy about cars that it puts some 270,000 new ones on its streets each year. In Lajpat Nagar you will find hardcore worshippers of combustion engines. There are families that own two and three cars with a scooter and a motorcycle thrown in for good measure. It is here that the Reva, the worlds most popular electric car, has finally made a full-fledged debut in its flamboyant colours. The Reva has at least a thousand takers in London and is getting noticed and picked up in other environmentally conscious cities of Europe where it has been test marketed. It has landed in Delhi all of seven years after it was launched thanks to a 29.5 per cent subsidy provided by the Delhi government. With the subsidy, you can now buy a basic Reva for

just Rs 3 lakhs. A top-end version with remote AC and heater, stereo, leather seats, security system and so on comes for Rs 3.78 lakhs on road. ICICI Bank provides loans. The Reva is manufactured by Chetan Maini at the Reva Electric Car Company in Bangalore. It is Chetans pet project. The Maini familys business, founded by the father, involves automobile components and battery-operated material handling equipment. What has made the Delhi government wake up to the virtues of the Reva? Right on the top of the list of reasons is runaway pollution caused by, among other things, the fumes coming out of personal cars. When it comes to air quality, Delhi is a downright unhealthy city. CNG was introduced for buses and the Sheila Diskhit government was quick to pick up awards for green governance. But the reality is that nothing was done to rein in private transport. On the whole, pollution has grown and the city is choking. Next comes congestion together with the absence of parking. In Delhi these days you crawl from one jam to the next. Parking lots are overflowing. Then there is global warming casting a shadow over the future of the planet. A citys persona is its biggest asset and decides who will live there, the tourists it will attract and how much investment it can hope to bring in. These days every city needs to worry about its carbon dioxide emissions. Public transport

70

GREEN CAR TO BEAT ALL OTHERS

Chetain Maini at the Reva factory in Bangalore

71

INVENTIVE INDIANS

is one way out because it reduces the number of vehicles on the roads. Clean personal transport like the Reva electric car is another. London exempts electric cars like the Reva from eight pounds a day congestion charge and provides free parking and so on that add up to benefits of over 5000 pounds a year! Most modern cities are going the same way. In Beijing, subsidies and other incentives were used to sponsor the switch to electric vehicles in a big way ahead of the Olympics. CHANGING CITIES Delhis realisation hasnt come a day too soon. It also coincides with swings in the prices of petrol and diesel. The economies of countries and cities will have to learn to come to terms with this reality. Also, the very shape of cities is changing. Suburban living is pass. Inner cores that once sustained urban aspirations are being revived. The new city aspires to have the dimensions of the old city and the benefit of modern technologies. If you think you can commute 50 km a day in a car and survive you are sadly mistaken. Not only is it ruinous for family budgets, it has become unacceptable in environmental terms. Cities that dont acknowledge this reality will find themselves getting left out. To be world class they need to be targeting zero emissions. It is into this scenario that the Reva fits. It was really a car ahead of its time when it was conceived of and launched by Chetan Maini. Had it then been given recognition and concessions as a new technology, it would perhaps have gone into extensive use across India and been seen as an iconic vehicle globally. If there were just 40,000 Revas on the road in India with an annual driving distance of 12,000 km per vehicle, the harmful effects of 130,000 tonnes of pollutants would be annulled. DELHIS STRATEGY Significantly, the Delhi governments recent decision to now encourage the Reva is part of a larger strategy to encourage clean personal vehicles, promote public transport and provide incentives for non-polluting technologies. The story is in the strategy and the big question now is whether Delhi will become the model for other cities in India that need to urgently deal with congested roads and runaway levels of air pollution. Delhis subsidy for encouraging electric vehicles comes from a levy of 25 paise per litre of diesel sold. As Indian cities go, this is an innovation because it means that polluters pay for supporting struggling cleaner technologies. Delhi has already led the way in using CNG for buses and autos. In recent days it has decided to discourage the use of large cars by making parking more expensive. Parking on the whole is going to be put on a centralised system accessed by smart cards. On the one hand this will mean more revenue for the municipal corporation. On the other hand it will make people think about shifting to public transport. The first effort to install a bus rapid transit (BRT) system in Delhi has been the target of protests by car-owners encouraged by local media eager to ride a wave of middle-class remorse.

A Reva holds its own amidst traffic on a flyover in Delhi

Customers take a close look at the Reva in Delhi

72

GREEN CAR TO BEAT ALL OTHERS

But in a city where more than 60 per cent of the residents dont use cars, a BRT will be inevitable. Already low-floor buses have made an appearance and are being appreciated. The BRT trial was also welcomed by commuters and many drivers too, because it brought sanity to the road. But a shrill minority with sympathy in the media made sure that it was heard over everyone else. The result is that the BRT has been deferred, but no one doubts that it will come to Delhi in much the same way as it is being put in place in cities across the world. If the Delhi state government hadnt lost its nerve, it could have seized the moment and rewritten the future of urban transportation in India. The question now is whether the policies Delhi is trying to put in place will also become a national goal? Can a combination of clean fuels, electric vehicles, a switch to public transport and disincentives for personal transport be made the norm for Indian cities? A national policy can work wonders. China had just 40,000 electric two-wheelers in 1999. Policy made it 18 million this year, said Maini in an interview at his new showroom. It was all because China decided it was necessary to clean up its act for the 2008 Olympics. The cities in China also serve as a catalyst. In the rural areas where there is no regulation 70 per cent of the purchases are electric vehicles. Delhi can lead the way in India, says Maini. Its model of a cess on polluting diesel to provide a subsidy for clean electric vehicles can be followed by other cities. Similarly, if the Delhi government provides facilities for recharging electric vehicles in public places and companies come forward and buy electric vehicles, more and more people will start using them. The idea is to create visibility for electric vehicles so that people see them as a practical means of transport within a city. In London, the Reva became visible when we crossed 400 cars. London is a much bigger city than Delhi but its congestion zones are smaller. In Delhi, too, when people begin using the Reva it will get seen and become popular, predicts Maini. Popularity is a combination of many factors. If shopping malls for instance create recharging points, awareness will grow. Similarly, if companies encourage their employees to use electric vehicles and give them free charging facilities, usage will increase. It is already happening at Infosys and Wipro in Bangalore. Both companies, says Maini, have designated Green Zones for parking and charging electric cars. London has over 160 recharge points activated by prepaid smart cards and plans are to increase them to 1,000 this year. If Delhi were to do the same together with its new tax incentives, cess on diesel and so on, the efforts of the Indian capitals administrators could be showcased for the rest of the country. "You need policies to create an environment to encourage people to use a technology. After that market forces can take over," says Maini. The big incentive to use the Reva is of course the price of oil. In London people say that what they pay to fill their tanks once is what it costs them to run the Reva for a full year, explains Maini.

73

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Revas parked on a street in London

The Revas USP is that it is an inner city car good for quick short trips on a daily basis. A single charge of the battery provides 80 km. The Reva is upgradeable to newer battery technologies such as lithium ion that will extend the range to 140 km and will be available in the future. The body is dent proof. So, each time the car takes a small knock, the body absorbs the shock and comes back to normal. A scratch proof body is also available and most people buying the high-end model are happy to go in for it. The car seats four people, but it is cramped at the back. The important thing is to get used to driving a car that is intrinsically different. It is not meant to be lavishly spacious. It wasnt designed to thunder down the street. It is a personal car in which you can get around nimbly, in thrifty spurts. Since the Reva does not have gears, it is easy to drive. It gets high marks for manoeuvrability. You get in, switch it on and drive off. All that you need to do is alternate between accelerator and brake. We asked Maini what technological improvements the Reva had been through since it was launched. "We have moved from a DC drive train to an AC drive train. This has made the motor 40 per cent more powerful," said Maini. The car has also been made more energy efficient by 10 per cent. Every time you brake on the Reva, the motor becomes a generator and charges the battery. There is also a unique hill -restraint feature that prevents the car from rolling down a slope when you remove your foot from the accelerator. There have been improvements in the onboard electronics as well. Heating, electronically controlled air-conditioning and central locking are all available. Heating and cooling for the

seats has also been introduced. The Reva now has disc brakes and anti-roll bars. There have been improvements on the rear suspension to make higher speeds up to 80 kmph possible. The Reva has zero emissions and its motor is a completely sealed unit that allows the car to pass through three feet of water without stalling. SMALL WORLD Several things have given the Reva new importance. Oil prices of course top the list. Everyones worried. But more importantly, it is a small world these days. People who travel abroad see the Reva in use in other countries and talk about it. They come back here and think about buying one. It is also true that by virtue of having been around for a decade, the Reva has takers in the Indian market. These are people who could be owners of expensive luxury vehicles which they drive from time to time, but use the Reva for their daily chores. They are seen as responsible intelligent citizens and their preferences become something to aspire to. Like most small brands fighting uphill market battles, Maini has come to read this dynamic well. Converts bring him customers and customers quickly become converts. Thus far it has been a slow and almost painful process. But suddenly the pace is picking up. Policy changes elsewhere in the world define consumer preferences that come to be acquired here. Similarly, the Delhi governments incentives for electric vehicles could be the hefty push that is needed to change regulation across India. MAINIS MISSION Mainis has been the ultimate garage oper-

74

GREEN CAR TO BEAT ALL OTHERS

ation: dreaming, innovating and standardising. He believes big strides similar to in information technology are possible if small teams with technological vision are allowed to develop new products. It was in the University of Michigan that Maini as a student got involved in a project on solar electric cars. The US department of energy supported the project, which aimed to make a car that would run on solar energy for 3,000 km across America. The student team from Michigan was sponsored to go to Australia to participate in the solar challenge there in November 1990. The race was from Darwin to Adelaide and the team finished third. What really excited me was that we could do 3,200 km on solar energy and the potential of this in a country like India,says Maini. With graduation behind him, Maini joined a start-up to manufacture electric cars. It was a firm founded by Dr Lon Bell of Amerigon. He soon went back to campus, now at Stanford, to

However, little has been done to support a path-breaking Indian technology. The factory in Bangalore can produce 6,000 cars a year, but in the absence of incentives the capacity has been seriously underutilised. In 1997-98 the Reva Car Company was given a subsidy of Rs 1 lakh per car and the excise was set at eight per cent while it was 40 per cent for other cars. But by the time the Reva was ready to be produced after two years, the subsidy vanished and excise on all cars was down to 16 per cent. This was a crippling blow and the Reva was reduced from a possible mass-produced, energy-efficient vehicle to a fad for those who would seek it out and be able to afford to pay for it. THE FUTURE So what does the future hold for the Reva? A lot will depend on the policy support it receives. As much as clean technology vehicles are required, the market is not structured for them. The kind of tax incentives that the Delhi government has announced will be required on a much bigger scale. In addition, it will be necessary to show some creativity in sponsoring the use of electric vehicles. Parking fees could be waived or

Since the Reva does not have gears, it is easy to drive. It gets high marks for manoeuvrability. You get in, switch it on and drive off.
develop more specialised skills. While at Stanford he worked on developing a hybrid electric car, the kind which Toyota and Honda market now. Maini went back to Amerigon and suggested to Dr Lon Bell that there was a huge market for electric vehicles in India and China waiting to be explored. It was at that time, in 1994, that the Maini Amerigon Car Compay was launched to produce electric vehicles. The company later took the current name of the Reva Electric Car Company. The Reva was developed by teams in the US and India over seven years with Maini flying up and down. From the research efforts emerged eight global patents and several other innovations. These efforts make the price of the car one-third lower than that of comparative technology elsewhere in the world. reduced. Recharging points could be set up in public spaces. Maini has a point when he says that a new technology blossoms when everyone comes together to make it succeed. So, it is important for companies, government, individuals and perhaps even activist groups to create an environment in which electric vehicles become popular. Every shopping mall that has the facility to recharge a car or a two-wheeler run on battery will be doing its bit. So also companies that give their staff free recharging facilities. Experience shows it is not so much the cost as the vision. The Reva could lead the way for battery-operated two-wheelers, which are already being marketed, school buses, delivery vans and three-wheelers. Much depends on how governments come forward and make it possible for manufacturers to scale up. Till that happens, electric vehicles will be driven more by the personal passion of entrepreneurs than the large-scale use that will make them affordable and seriously change the way we live.

75

INVENTIVE INDIANS

10
GYNAE WITH A MISSION
Dr Neelam Singh is a gynaecologist who is also a crusader for the right to life for the girl child in Uttar Pradesh, where sex-selective abortions are widespread

SAVING THE GIRL CHILD

MADHU GURUNG

UDHA Rani is fair, with a ready smile. At 40 she is the mother of five children. Her first three children were girls Prathana, Sukriti and Kirti. When she was pregnant for the fourth time and knew from an ultrasound that the baby was a girl, she went to Dr Neelam Singh, a gynaecologist, for an abortion. Instead of aborting the foetus, Dr Neelam, as she is popularly known in Lucknow, counselled Sudha to keep the baby. It is a gift from God, Sudha remembers her saying. Everyone at home had hoped for a son from the fourth pregnancy. My husband was without a job. We were facing serious financial problems. It was difficult enough having a baby, let alone another girl, says Sudha. Dr Neelam said you should not have got pregnant, but now that you have, keep the child. I agreed. I had only Rs 700 when I was admitted to the hospital for a caesarian birth. But God is great. The moment my daughter was born my husband got a contract to run a canteen and received an advance of Rs 50,000. We have named her Srishti. Our four daughters are our world and our pride. Not a single day goes by when I dont thank Dr Neelam. Srishti is eight years old today and wants to be a pilot. Sudha went on to have one more child, a son, Anand, who is now five. Hers is a happy family. Not every female foetus is as lucky as Srishti. But then there arent too many physicians like Dr Neelam who add social zeal to their practices.

The pattern of a declining sex ratio shows up again and again in the Census. In 1991, the sex ratio in Punjab was 875 girls to every 1,000 boys. In Haryana it was 879 girls and in Uttar Pradesh it was 927 girls. A decade later, in the 2001 Census, the sex ratio in all three states declined further. In Punjab it went down to only 798 girls, in Haryana to 819 girls and in Uttar Pradesh it had come down to 916 girls. The practice of female foeticide is spreading like an epidemic. People think that female foeticide is getting worse only in the prosperous states of Punjab and Haryana. Uttar Pradesh is as bad, says Dr Neelam. Traditionally the status of the girl child has always been low. Only a few days ago I came across this old saying in one of the villages: Lay out the cot in the courtyard as a daughter has been born. This was often the traditional way of leaving the girl child unattended to let Nature take its toll. Dr Neelams journey from a busy gynaecologist to a crusader for the right to life for the girl child in Uttar Pradesh has been full of its own drama. It has, she admits, shaped the path her life would take when it was at its most dismal low. Dressed in a crisp cotton sari, her shoulder-length hair pulled back in a clasp, there is an unadorned directness in her talk. Her eyes reflect the emotions of her words, strong and passionate with enveloping sensitivity. Our findings in Uttar Pradesh show that a growing number of

76

SAVING THE GIRL CHILD

Dr Neelam Singh at her clinic with posters on saving the girl child

77

INVENTIVE INDIANS

people abort female foetuses and if we compare the decadal difference from 1991 to 2001, 14 districts in Uttar Pradesh slip very badly in the category of sex ratio, says Dr Neelam. The 2001 Census data in the 0-6 years bracket shows the worst districts are mostly in western Uttar Pradesh bordering Delhi. These are Baghpat 847, Agra 849, Ghaziabad 851, Bulandsahar 868, Hathras 881, Aligarh 886 and Bareilly 899. The cascading effect can also be seen in the eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh where the declining sex ratio in Bijnaur is 902, Farrukhabad 904, Allahabad 920, Ambedkar Nagar 943 and Barabanki 945. Its important to identify clusters where the sex ratio is low as it helps in recognising the social factors. In a hardcore farming community of Uttar Pradesh, preference for a son has been an age-old tradition, explains Dr Neelam. In Shahjahanpur, where the overall sex ratio is 866, it is as low as 678 girls for 1,000 boys in its urban pocket. This can be attributed to a large migratory population from Punjab and the Terai region having settled here. What makes the sex ratio worse in western Uttar Pradesh is people are well-off, more

Her effervescent assistant, Sunita, bustles into the room and reminds Dr Neelam of her patient, Monica (name changed), who is seven weeks pregnant with her second child and has been bleeding for the past three days. Dr Neelam has recommended medical termination of her pregnancy as despite medication the bleeding has not stopped. Silence reigns in the small whitewashed room where the abortion takes place. Accompanied by an anaesthetist, Dr Neelam painstakingly sets about scraping the walls of the uterus using a flat steel instrument that looks like a large blackhead remover. She removes mucus-coated blood clots and shakes them onto a spatula that Sunita grips to hold open the mouth of the uterus. The suction machine Dr Neelam uses next gives out loud swishing sounds to pull out any remaining clots from the uterus. The transparent plastic tubes show up with some blood and particles of flesh. The process of gentle scraping and then using the suction machine is repeated till Dr Neelam is satisfied. These clots are actually cells that join together and form the baby, Dr Neelam explains, speaking through her mask on the magic of life she witnesses every day in her practice, Chances of her carrying this baby for a full term were very slim. It was

Vatsalya works with 100 civil society organisations and has nine formal partners with whom it generates awareness at the grassroots.
literate and there is pressure to keep families small. The one to be sacrificed is of course the girl child. In addressing these mindsets we need different strategies. The road outside Dr Neelams clinic and home has been dug up. Only the blue board with her name and qualifications has been left untouched. People cross a narrow ditch to get to her clinic. Lucknow is in a state of flux. Old, rambling Mughal and colonial landmarks are now being overtaken by tall buildings, malls, parks and flyovers. The city is undergoing a big makeover. Fine powdery dust from continuous digging follows you everywhere. DOCTOR-PATIENT EQUATION Inside Dr Neelams consultation room, a Vinoba Bhave Award for being a volunteer given by the National Foundation for India (NFI) in New Delhi and her photo receiving it adorn the wall. A lone fan cools the room. Two chairs face the rectangular table and the swivel chair Dr Neelam uses. A narrow examination table is set off by a round one with chairs with steel seats. Its a room minus fuss and beyond it a set of rooms has been converted into an office space for the staff she has. On the other side, flanking the consultation room, is an area where patients wait to see the doctor in turn. better for her pregnancy to be terminated. She can carry her next baby full-term when she is stronger. I have advised her to wait for a year. Abortions are a blind process and unless they are done by skilled doctors the chances of a womans uterus being ruptured is very possible. It is frightening to think of how many women end up dying on the table or are left sterile or end up with a lifetime of problems because of such procedures. In many rural areas of Uttar Pradesh where qualified doctors do not want to serve, such procedures are done by inexperienced quacks, under very unhygienic conditions. The young mother lies inert and drugged. She will recoup in a few hours and leave for home in the evening. Outside, her nervous husband sits with their elder child. Dr Neelam had delivered the first child and the two smile when they are told its all okay. Monica had gone to Dr Neelam when she was pregnant for the second time and had started spotting. The doctor-patient relationship is based on trust which becomes a life-long bond. A gynaecologist gets clubbed forever with the babys lifecycle. It begins with Dr Neelams hands taking the baby out of the secure womb and gently coaxing it

78

SAVING THE GIRL CHILD

Dr Neelam Singh and the Vatsalya team

to cry and take its first independent breaths. Dr Neelam smiles and says she has lost count of how many babies she has delivered but she recalls how around the early 1990s she first began noticing her patients asking for a sexdetermination test. She would refer them to her colleagues who did them. Many would return asking for an abortion. Some openly said it was because tests revealed it was a daughter. Others more reticent would plead contraceptive failure. I began feeling uncomfortable as around that time I started noticing hoardings of sex-determination tests and began questioning the ambiguity of government health practice, says Dr Neelam. SETTING UP VATSALYA Alarmed by such a negative approach towards bearing a girl child, she began counselling her patients against selective abortion. Some continued with their pregnancies, others sought abortions elsewhere. I realised that just because I didnt do selective abortions did not mean other doctors would not. That was the time my husband, a paediatrician with whom I ran a private practice, kept emphasising the need for an organisation that would advocate against sex-selective abortions. We thought long and hard and registered Vatsalya, which means love between mother and child, in 1995. We tried campaigning on female foeticide but faced discouragement from bureaucrats and doctors. We struggled to get funding but drew a blank.

A year later, after countless rounds of visiting offices in the hope of funding, the Sahabhagi Shikshan Kendra agreed to fund Vatsalya enabling it to collect people on a common platform on the issue of female foeticide. In 1997 Vatsalya conducted a workshop helped by Professor SS Agarwal, a geneticist who was also a member of the Central Supervisor Board, a national level apex body formed under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act. It was the first interaction of its kind held in Uttar Pradesh where NGOs, media, health department, medical college teachers people from all walks of life came together to talk on the falling sex ratio. After the workshop, UNICEF gave Vatsalya support for making a report. Things were finally looking up. Then, we discovered my husband had leukaemia, Dr Neelam recalls. There is a pause as she tries to recollect her thoughts. She clears her throat. Tears well up and course down despite her efforts to wipe them away fiercely. With no facilities for a bone marrow transplant in those days available in India, Dr Neelam took her ailing husband to Melbourne in Australia. Their two sons, then 10 and eight, were in boarding in Mayo College. Dr Neelam has vivid memories of the end: My husband used to be very sick because of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. I

79

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Sudha Rani with her four daughters and son

lost him in 1999. The morning he died he had written two emails. I still have them. One letter was to the boys saying he was sure that by now they both knew he had blood cancer but he was doing well and was determined on getting better and coming back home to them. The second was an unfinished mail to Kanchan Sinha of Oxfam where Vatsalya had asked for funding for doing research on the phenomenon of female foeticide in Uttar Pradesh after applying for an FCRA account. A VATSALYA STUDY After a month of mourning alone in Australia, Dr Neelam returned home to Lucknow determined to make a go at what she and her husband had started. Oxfam stepped in and supported her study, which she says was to become a road map for Vatsalya. A detailed written questionnaire was used to collect peoples perspectives on the issue of female foeticide. The questionnaire, developed with the help of 13 NGOs, was followed by discussions and made into a study. The study was released in the 2000 and showed that most people were aware of the decline in the sex ratio and considered ultrasound synonymous to sex determination. They believed it was morally and legally wrong to indulge in female foeticide. More importantly, the study found that nearly 43 per cent of the respondents were not aware about where they could lodge any complaint as nearly 50 per cent of the people polled did not know of the existence of the law banning sex determination tests.

We realised that working in Lucknow was not enough, so supported by the UNICEF, Vatsalya conducted workshops on the issue of female foeticide in nearly 50 of Uttar Pradeshs 70 districts, creating a network of organisations working on this issue across the state. We also created a whole lot of reading material on sex selection and on the law so that anyone going over the literature would be well versed with the issue and its gravity. After Vatsalyas endeavour of conducting district level workshops, Plan International stepped in and asked the organisation to work in Uttarakhand which had been carved out mostly from the hill states of Uttar Pradesh. Recalls Dr Neelam, The capacity-building workshops we conducted in Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand resulted in supervisory boards being instituted in these states. Since then we have done a lot of capacity-building workshops with government officials. For the past four and half years we have been supported by Plan International. Women continue to approach Dr Neelam for sex-selective abortions. It is very easy to know which women have done the test. They will mostly be mothers who have daughters. Couples these days want a small family. They want two children and so they want one boy one girl. Usually they get more desperate for a son after two daughters. I counsel them. Counselling is time consuming but it is the most effective method of countering female foeticide, says Dr Neelam.

80

SAVING THE GIRL CHILD

A happy father with his two daughters

My counselling is on different fronts. Medically, I tell them the foetus is a life. It has a heart, brains and emotions. If the pregnancy is three to four months old, I tell them that abortion is extremely risky for the mothers reproductive health. I also try the religious-spiritual angle. I tell them they should believe in their destiny, a girl or boy child is a gift of God. If that does not work I tell them about the law and punishment and make them aware of the social implications of the declining sex ratio. Such counselling is not restricted to the woman but is extended to the husband and her family as well, and helps stir a logical and emotional cord. Dr Neelam says that as she works both as a gynaecologist and head of Vatsalya she is able to see if her counselling has worked or not. Some of the women never return so she knows they have gone elsewhere, others come back and continue with the pregnancy. Family counsellors and psychologists can work on this issue on similar lines. She admits ruefully that it is a small number of people who she can reach out to in her individual capacity. VATSALYAS STRATEGY Dr Neelam and her Vatsalya team have been able to form a strategy to combat female foeticide. Currently Vatsalya works in one block each of the 12 worst-hit sex ratio districts of Uttar Pradesh: Lucknow, Unnao, Kanpur, Sitapur, Hardoi, Shahjahanpur, Moradabad, Mau, Jhansi, Jalaun, Allahabad and Aligarh.

While they work with 100 civil society organizations, they have nine formal partners with whom they work at the grassroots generating awareness, teaching panchayats, anganwadi and health workers how to streamline birth registration, mobilise community attention on the aspect of female foeticide and aim to create a network of like-minded people on this issue. We run mass awareness campaigns, conduct rallies, stage street corner plays and hold competitions in schools that promote and celebrate the girl child. We also hold workshops for social clubs, networks, and associations. To generate interest and attention we use audiovisual methods in big fairs and exhibitions, says Dr Neelam. It is essential to reach the youth and for this links have been established with educational institutions and organisations to which young people belong. Vatsalya also acts as the content provider for Doordarshan and Akashvani. DOCTORS TOO POWERFUL After eight years of working in the field, Vatsalya finds that the biggest stumbling block is in the implementation of the law. The major hurdle is the lack of political will and the fight is against a very strong section of society, the doctors. Dr Neelam says the conviction rate is abysmal. Currently we know from government figures there are 2,638 ultrasound and

81

INVENTIVE INDIANS

imaging centres in Uttar Pradesh and 14 mobile clinics. But nearly 13 years since the PCPNDT Act came into force there has hardly been any conviction, she explains. There was one conviction in Noida in 2007 because the BBC had done a sting operation. The case has been filed but a decision is till pending. There is no mechanism for monitoring ultrasound clinics. The implementation agencies have themselves not understood the law. It is very difficult to check sex selection in a hypocritical society. The medical community is also very organised and influences the government. This makes it doubly difficult to implement the law. We have to admit that sex ratios are falling. It will show up in the 2011 Census, she says. BUYING BRIDES The shortage of girls has led to men going to Orissa, Bengal and Bihar to find brides, who come at a price. Middlemen make it possible and there has been a steady increase in such marriages over the past decade indicating that they are finding social acceptance. Just a 45-minute drive from Lucknow city at Bakshi ka Talab, acres and acres of agricultural fields have been bought by Sahara, a finance company that has gone into real estate in

Through a middleman Ram Kumar arranged for Naresh to travel to Bengal. Their old mother, Ram Kumar says, was in complete agreement with such a marriage. Naresh recounts the trip to Bengal with evident relish. When I reached there I was amazed to see so many people from Sitapur, Moradabad, Barabanki looking for girls. I had to go back four times and each trip I ended up spending Rs 30,000. It was on my fourth trip that I finally married Rita. Inside the house watching television with stacks of Bhojpuri and Hindi film CDs, Rita lives like a pampered princess. Not more than 16, she is pretty with a dimpled smile and childlike innocence. Having studied up to Class 5, she is more educated than her husband and his family. Rows of coloured bangles adorn her wrists, silver anklets and toe rings her bare feet. She smiles and pulls her husbands arm, prompting the old mother to mutter, She does not let him go to work. The couple ignore her. Nareshs three elder brothers treat Rita like a child and insist their mother say nothing to her. They dont want anything going wrong in their brothers marriage.

Just because I did not do selective abortions did not mean other doctors would not. An organisation was needed to campaign against female foeticide.
a big way. Land closer to the highway lies fallow while as far as the eye can see golden wheat stands ready to be harvested. A rutted road ends in the dusty village of Palhari with 150 houses. A pregnant buffalo chews cud while an old woman eats her lunch nearby in a doorway. An altar of Durga adorns the shaded veranda of the house of Ram Kumar. His forehead marked with red vermillion, he has the sinewy and sunburnt body of a farmer past 50. Gaon wale hum logon ko goonda bulate the kyon ki hum ne apni mariyada bananeko bahar ki biradari mein shaadi ki. (The villagers called us anti-social because to preserve our lineage we married into a different community.) Sitting on the charpoys, his two brothers who are unmarried nod in agreement. Ram Kumar and his second brother, Indra Pratap, married, but within a year their wives, also from the Yadav community, deserted them. The third brother, Vijay Pratap, now on the wrong side of 40, decided he did not want to repeat his brothers mistake and bring home a bride. But when their youngest brother, Naresh Pratap, turned 35, Ram Kumar decided he had to marry so that the family could have children and their land would not pass on to others. We gave a big feast after Naresh came back with her. The whole village was there, says Ram Kumar asking Naresh to get his marriage album. It shows the happy couple posing with relatives from Ritas family in Bengali attire. Rita and Naresh have been married for two years and she now has a voter card. The old lady knows Dr Neelam is a womans doctor and they tell her Rita has not been able to conceive. Rita has an unenviable task as the familys collective aspirations for a child rest on her. Dr Neelam leaves her telephone number and asks the couple to contact her. Yadav men in Uttar Pradesh traditionally marry in their early 20s. But as there are no girls available from within the community, they are buying them in Bihar, Bengal and Orissa. Men dont openly admit that they have bought brides as it brings them down in the public eye. Almost all the men who have married from outside are in their late 30s, which means that for 15 years past their normal marriageable age they were unable to get a bride from within their own community. Buying is a fallout of 15 years of celibacy and a desperate measure to raise a family.

82

SAVING THE GIRL CHILD

MATA DIN AND SUSHMITA Mata Dins home is set on the edge of Saidapur village. A well-off farmer with rows of wheat and vegetables fields, he married Sushmita from Orissa two years ago. Sushmita was travelling home to Cuttack with their two- year-old child to bring her mother for her younger sister, Shalinis wedding that Mata Din has fixed with his nephew who works in a local factory and earns Rs 4,000 a month. Under a shady tree, dusky and comely, Shalini sits cleaning wheat. It is a balmy evening and women sing marriage songs to announce the arrival of what Dr Neelam calls yet another cross-migration bride. Sushmita had finished her high school, but Shalini was in Class 9, when their father, working as a labourer, died suddenly leaving behind his widow and four unmarried daughters in a precarious situation. Mata Din came as a knight in shining armour. Although unlettered, his native wisdom and fertile fields made him an anchor for the hapless family. Well-off, he is happy to take the burden of the entire wedding of his sister-in-law on his shoulders. Says Mata Din, his dark eyes lighting up, My nephews family is asking for dowry, thank god they have not asked for a car. I have calculated that the feast, dowry, clothes and jewellery will cost more than Rs 1 lakh. I have asked Shalini to learn how to cook the local food. She is a good girl and has learnt and will do well. She is like a daughter to me. Dr Neelam admits that such cases are the happy ones as many cross-migration brides usually do not have it easy having to contend with no support, being far from home, unable to understand the language or cook the food. They are also socially excluded and told not to mix with other women. Those who marry into well-to-do families are happier as life is easier for them here than back home. But those who marry into poor families are not. There are cases of the girls running away. Some never reach home and end up marrying another man. However, social acceptance for such marriages has increased. Dr Neelam asks, If the situation persists, what will happen in states like Bengal, Bihar and Orissa from where the majority of these girls come? Brides brought from other states are far younger than their husbands. The government will now have to contend with the phenomenon of underage marriages. The community at large is aware of the long-term problems of sex-selective abortions, but does nothing to extricate itself from the situation.

Patients and a sign which says tests to determine the sex of a foetus are not legal

GOVT LACKS VISION As an NGO opposing sex selection, Vatsalya contends with many frustrations. Dr Neelam points out that the government is difficult to work with because its approach is ad hoc. It has no long-term vision for solving the problem, she says. State boards set up to deal specifically with sex-selective abortions are inert. The government needs to realise that implementation of the law requires a policy of zero compromise. Perhaps one important measure is to sensitise physicians when they are under training. Gender issues should be incorporated into the medical curriculum in a way that doctors understand the implications of aborting female foetuses. Dr Neelam is treated as an outcaste by many in her own profession. But that doesnt bother her too much. I see my mission as an extension of my own feminine existence. The change is very slow and it may be visible only after a generation. What keeps me going is to see the face of a baby girl. I feel there can be many more like her I can save.

83

INVENTIVE INDIANS

11
THE NEW BUILDER
Chandrashekhar Hariharan has been linking green technologies to the marketplace. His companys housing projects near Bangalore have set new standards for construction

THE LAVISH ZERO EMISSION HOME

VIDYA VISWANATHAN

AMATA Krishna lives in a sparse, sprawling apartment that would make an environmentalist green with envy. She has a water conscience meter. She can switch off her lights using her mobile phone. Hot water comes from solar heaters. Her airconditioner circulates more fresh air than an ordinary AC. She doesnt get a big electricity bill. Imagine, she even earns carbon credits living a comfy, green lifestyle. Krishna isnt an eco-warrior. She teaches at Bhavya, an alternative school. Her apartment is at T-Zed Homes, a housing complex on six acres off Varathur Road in Bangalore. It has five buildings named Basil, Bay Leaf, Bilva, Begonia and Babool. Krishna lives in Bilva. A white hammock sways in her living space. A plank of reused wood knocked into a wall, covered with cushions works as a sofa. Furniture? Nah. I like it this way, she says of her minimalist decor. T-Zed stands for Zero Emission Development and these new -age apartments have been built by Biodiversity Conservation India Ltd (BCIL), Asias largest green building company. Promotional literature on some of its construction technologies reads like science fiction, though they have their roots in traditional knowledge. NGOs have so far flirted with these technologies. BCIL has sought to put them on a commercial platform. The purpose of BCIL is essentially to mainstream sustainability which means taking what are called alternate tech-

nologies and establishing these into cutting-edge systems needed in the marketplace, says Chandrasekhar Hariharan, CEO of BCIL, which he founded in 1995. The companys idealism comes from Hariharan, 52, whose exposure to the development sector has been both as an activist and a journalist. The company now has projects worth more than Rs 100 crore to its name. In India, residential buildings, offices and shopping malls are springing up overnight. Built with archaic, energy intensive construction material, these buildings need huge amounts of water and electricity. Municipalities, already stretched to the limit, cant handle such new loads. So garbage lies around, sewage is dumped in rivers and lakes, tankers ferry in water and power supply is erratic. BCILs mantra is: Be the change. It builds homes that reduce the burden on municipal services by harvesting water, reviving forests, reusing waste and tapping solar energy. You dont live like some pious hermit. You get to splash around in a natural swimming pool and cool off in natural air-conditioning. The company does not judge urban lifestyles. You can live your elitist life but with a softer ecological footprint. We will care for the world so much that you dont have to, says Hariharan. BCIL has architects, environmentalists, geologists, geophysicists and energy and water technologists who work it all out. The company attracts clients with green souls. So, at T-Zed, Mamata Krishna says she had thought of building a home

84

THE LAVISH ZERO EMISSION HOME

Towns End at Yalahanka in Bangalore

designed by an eco-friendly architect, Chitra Viswanath. Vinay, another resident who works in the merchant navy, says the TZed Homes were similar to what he had in mind for himself. LIFE AT T-ZED The T-Zed housing campus has 80 apartments and 15 independent two-storied homes named Candida. Most of Krishnas neighbours work for the IT industry and have paid between Rs 60 lakhs and Rs 2 crores to own such spacious homes. Each apartment has gardens with soil made of coir and mulch. Two cats loll in Krishnas sunken sky garden outside her living space. A centralised system of drip irrigation will be used to water it. Herbs have been planted. As she goes up a metal staircase to the floor above, Krishna says she grows her own vegetables in her roof garden. There are no bricks or ceramic tiles which are fired at 1,200 degrees in this place, says Vinay. T-Zed apartments have been built with sun-dried soil-stabilised blocks and reused construction debris. You have to reduce material use. All the excessive quarrying that we do will come back to haunt us. T-Zed residents take just 30 per cent of their water from Bangalores municipality. All rainwater is collected and flows along the contours of the land. There are 44 rainwater percolation wells that are interconnected. The water leads to a 400,000 litre water tank located beneath a road behind the housing complex. The water is purified in a central reverse osmosis system. A high-pressure pneumatic system pumps water to each apartment. Grey water is supplied for gardens,

toilets and for washing cars. All sewage is treated in-house. Biodegradable waste is fed into a biogas digester of 150 kg capacity. Since T-Zed residents produce only 60 kg of such waste each day, they have set up a Green Council and invited two other residential enclaves to dump their kitchen waste into their biogas digester. About 100 kg of wet waste should produce 4.5 kg of biogas a day, enough to run a community kitchen, reckons Hariharan. T-Zeds central air-conditioning has been specially designed by BCIL and is free of the ozone-depleting CFC and HCFC. We have gone back to the post-war technology of ammonia serving as refrigerant. Ammonia is a benign chemical and is risk-free in home settlements, explains Hariharan. Residents get fresh air from this air-conditioning system and pay only Rs 4 or Rs 5 per hour of usage as compared to Rs 9 or Rs 10 per hour for the regular air-conditioner. Streets within the T-Zed area are lit with CFLs and LEDs. Late at night, the CFLs go off, further conserving energy. Each family earns Rs 12,000 a year in the form of carbon credits. The spinal road is a soft road for which no macadam or asphalt has been used. Its surface is made of permeable tiles interspersed with vegetation. Rubber wood has been used in each apartment for doors and windows. Every residential block is Vaastu compliant. You dont need to switch on lights during the day. The apartments overlook green spaces. The natural topography of the land with all its twists and turns has been preserved. You can see tall coconut trees, a

85

INVENTIVE INDIANS

mango tree in full bloom and fruiting jackfruit trees. Within this foliage, an amphitheatre, clubhouse, pool, library and gym have been built. The curved clubhouse with a chequered ceiling is captivating. A play house for children has a roof made of bamboo sheets. Pillars too have been strengthened with bamboo. All the features of the complex run into a 40-page well-articulated document called The Dossier. It is hosted on the companys website. The document is well-researched and promises an organic farm, a swimming pool naturally heated and even installation art. Such homes have their own impact on the people who live in them. Five residents own a Reva, an internationally celebrated electric car manufactured by Chetan Maini in Bangalore, and have asked for charging ports. One resident has written to Hariharan asking that only medicinal plants and trees be planted in the rest of the campus as part of landscaping. Vinay, who only buys produce grown locally, has decided to help the organic store located here to procure vegetables and groceries for the community. This place is truly a community, says Shefali Singhal, who moved back from the US with her family because they did not want their son growing up in a high-consumption environment. The T-Zed complex was to be handed over to the residents association, reinforcing this sense of community. Annual maintenance contracts had been secured for each of the systems. It is all transparent, says Harsha Sreedhar, a 30-yearold architect who heads design at BCIL. LEARNING CURVE Ten years ago, if you said you built ecofriendly homes for a living, no one would have taken you seriously. Not so today. Chandrasekhar Hariharan has shown that this is the business of the future. If watershed management, forestry, biogas, traditional architecture and solar energy sound like things NGOs do, youve guessed right. It was the development sector which served as Hariharans learning ground before he decided it was better to run a business and started BCIL. Such technologies had to be combined with an enterprise that could push conservation values without compromising on everyday living and lifestyles, he says. Hariharans career shifts seem to have equipped him with a medley of skills. In 1981 he studied to become a chartered accountant. He then became a financial journalist working with The Indian Express, The Free Press Journal and the Times of India. He did his Masters in econometrics and corporate communications from Penn State, Harrisburg, in the US and picked up a doctorate in econometrics with a thesis on wave theory and the Indian economy. Hariharan returned to India to work on development economics and joined the NGO sector. As a journalist, he had befriended R Sreedhar who headed the environmental cell of Development Alternatives, the Delhi-based non-profit. Hariharan found the eco-friendly technologies being documented by Sreedhar inspiring for they opened up new vistas of development. For instance, could solar stoves be made instead of just smokeless stoves? How could heat efficiency be increased? There is a goldmine of technologies lying out there but

nobody implements them, says Hariharan. In 1991 when Uttarkashi was hit by an earthquake, Hariharan volunteered for relief work. In the winter chill, with rain lashing down, 800 bodies had to be cremated. Hariharan with other NGOs and volunteers got this emotionally wrenching job done. But it left him thinking: how could he improve the quality of life for people and promote development with a human face? Soon after, he joined a Ford Foundation-sponsored project to train people in construction in 13 villages of Uttarkashi. His ragtag team of 12 included architects, two young civil engineers from Rourkee and someone who could do inventive drawings with explanations in Hindi. They trained villagers in masonry and helped them revive traditional methods of construction. We worked with our hands, he recalls. His team went on to build gharats (traditional watermills) near Chamoli, fumbling at first and then improving on this ancient technology, all along convincing communities about how gharats would benefit them. Between 1991 and 1993, he built water-based flour mills, water ramps, hydrams for lift-irrigation and micro-mini hydel power units. Hariharan joined Sreedhar in The Action Research Unit

86

THE LAVISH ZERO EMISSION HOME

Mamta at home with her cat Chandrasekhar Hariharan, founder and CEO of BCIL

(TARU) but both left in 1991 to co-found the Academy of Mountain Environics (AME) and work with communities. We always had to go with a begging bowl. So it became clear to us that the three pillars of sustainability were technology, conservation and enterprise, he says. He figured there must be a way of ensuring accountability by delivering value to people and he went into the business of making eco-friendly homes by starting BCIL five years later. IDEALISM AND THE MARKET Hariharans first construction project, Trans-Indus, almost ran aground. In 1998, inspired by Alvin Tofflers book, The Third Wave, he decided to build a 50acre eco village called Trans-Indus with 60 homes on barren land off Kanakapura Road, 22 km from the heart of Bangalore. He wanted to replicate Tofflers idea of a community living in harmony with nature, sharing values and sensibilities. BCIL planned to convert this desolate stretch into a verdant forest. Each home would be built with eco-friendly material and lit with renewable energy, it was decided. As a business, BCIL had the freedom to plan and execute unlike an NGO, which would have to win over people and deal with several layers of government beginning at the village before being able to implement an idea, explains Hariharan. We knew that if we got this many clients we could do what we wanted to without having to worry.

The company first bungled on the cost of the land. BCIL estimated it would be worth about Rs 1 lakh an acre but the market rate turned out to be Rs 2.5 lakhs. After some haggling, BCIL settled on buying 40 acres for Rs 97 lakhs from a doctor. It was mutually agreed that the money would be paid over18 months, after BCIL sold the plots. Hariharan paid Rs 1 lakh as earnest money and went home in an auto-rickshaw. Then the second problem surfaced. BCIL had set its heart on creating a sensitive community which would move in within two years. Where were they going to find the members of such a community? It was decided to do direct marketing. We would read or hear about someone and call, recalls Hariharan. We would make 300 calls. Out of that around 20 people would be willing to talk to us. Finally, we would convert one person. BCIL sold six properties in the first year at Rs 100 per square foot. It took them five years to sell 30 plots. Plot sizes varied from 6,000 square feet to 2,600 square feet. Some customers like Kris Gopalakrishnan, the current CEO of Infosys, and his brother-in-law bailed him out by buying two plots each. BCIL, however, had practically no money left, yet it refused to sell land to anyone who did not seem to fit into the community and the eco-village. Hariharan and his team now faced the daunting task of developing the land and making those promised houses. Retaining

87

INVENTIVE INDIANS

The hallway and steps at T-Zed And Little Acres in the midst of a rainforest

the original topography, BCIL planted 80,000 trees of 26 species that were native to the area. An old banyan tree was healed. To improve the groundwater table, steps were constructed to slow down the flow of water and allow it to percolate into the soil. Water-loving vetiver was planted. A pond was thoroughly desilted. Experiments were done in building soft roads without asphalt. BCIL wanted to build a swimming pool with traditional technology. But it was tough to figure out how from local villagers. After three hours of cajoling, BCIL would glean a bit of useful information. Finally, a villager remembered a boulder and trench method of managing water. A trench (seven feet by six feet by 120 feet) was dug, the earth removed, boulders put in and then filled with water. The BCIL team had ideas but no execution skills. Workers were not familiar with the methods they wanted. Out of a staff strength of 35 to 40 people, only six were engineers. But we built the first 14 houses, says Hariharan. We tried traditional roofing methods using pillars and slabs and Madras roofs, earth plastering, soil structured blocks and natural floors. Short of money, BCIL could not pay salaries or contractors on time. So things got delayed and their customers got angrier and angrier. Essentially we wanted to do the mainstreaming

our way and we wanted customers to pay, says Hariharan. But customers started saying, Let us take the land and do what we need to do. So, pink granite and Italian marble found its way into homes. The original employees of BCIL began to leave in droves. Sixteen employees quit together. The team was so withered that BCIL just started building common areas, selling land and empanelling architects whom customers could use. Customers, in turn, constructed whatever they felt like. It took BCIL all of five years to complete the first project. Yet Trans-Indus is a showpiece. Twelve families have made it their first home. The others use it as a second one. It attracts 120 species of birds. We have restored the skin of the earth. In another 10 years, the forest dynamics will take over. The area was part of the Dandakaranya forests and was perhaps felled and cleared for cultivation. The pond that we have desilted is the only pond that does not dry up even in May in all of Kengeri Hobli, says Hariharan. Trans-Indus has a natural swimming pool, basketball and tennis courts, a health and meditation centre and a restaurant called Stillwaters. The residents association has set up a foundation which runs a school and a computer centre in the neighbouring village. Hariharan hasnt looked back since. In 13 years the company

88

THE LAVISH ZERO EMISSION HOME

The design for a third project, Red Earth, is being done inhouse. We now create good for construction (GFC) drawings that any builder can do, explains Hariharan. BCIL maps the risks. We ask what can go wrong and have mitigation plans. He dismisses notions that green buildings are expensive to make. The cost of BCIL homes works out to around Rs 1,250 per square foot. Sure, some extra plumbing is needed to separate grey water (for baths or washing) from black (sewage). But the cost for that is only 0.50 paise more per square foot. Even a builder will not be deterred, but he doesnt know. He has to change the way he looks at housing, says Hariharan. That minor amount is also made up in other ways, like aesthetic walls with no plaster or bathrooms with hardy taps and basins. Maintenance costs are 30 per cent less than those for ordinary apartment blocks. For all external lighting LEDs, which use less electricity, have been fitted. All homes have light- holders that can take only CFLs. There are no borewells so water doesnt need to be pumped and thereby energy is saved. Maintenance costs work out to Rs 1.60 paise per square foot in comparison to Rs 2.60 for conventional buildings. The company has revamped its management. It has 60 engineers and employs 140 people. Institutional investors like ICICI and the real estate company Jones Lang Lasalle endorse us. Our equity is held by a trust called Alt.tech, set up by BCIL. We have a core management of five people Harsha Sreedhar, an architect, A Ramaswamy, the chief operating officer, who came from TVS, LN Balaji, head of finance, who has relocated from Kenya and Venkatesh Shamugam, who heads all land processes and used to be in an IT company, says Hariharan. BCILs ongoing project includes Zed Collective, an apartment block with houses ranging from 550 square feet to 1,500 square feet. The Zed Collective will have a natural cooling system, intelligent lighting, conscience meters, gardens and community spaces. In Zed Collective we have rented a plot to create temporary living quarters for workers. Each quarter has lighting. The children go to a school run by an NGO onsite and are given three nutritious meals. The older children will be trained in skills. A doctor checks all the children and workers, says Prasad Rao who manages the T-Zed project. The company has branched into biodiversity tourism. In 1998, BCIL bought a forest in Coorg for Rs 70 lakhs. Little Acre, 30 minutes from Madikeri and in the midst of a rain forest, has 25 chalets for those who want to holiday in the heart of a jungle. We will build green office spaces and malls. If the land price is right and we gain confidence in managing projects remotely we will go to larger cities. As of now, we will not build high-rises which violate the landscape, he says. Also, on the agenda are low-energy offices and social housing projects which will offer workers homes between Rs 12 lakhs and Rs 20 lakhs.

has constructed 1.6 million square feet. Trans Indus was followed by Towns End in Yelahanka on 13 acres, adjacent to a 100-year-old stud farm. Not a tree was felled. Water was harvested, stored underground and supplied to homes through a hydro-pneumatic system. A sewage treatment plant was built. All waste-water is reused. There are leisure facilities too including a swimming pool and an amphitheatre. CHIC APARTMENTS In 2004, Hariharan decided to build three-storied apartment blocks instead of individual homes. You cannot stop the Armageddon of development, he says. The turning point came to me when I heard a speech at the National Gallery of Modern Arts (NGMA). Somebody said: The cities of the world occupy two per cent of the landmass, house 50 per cent of the population and consume 75 per cent of natural resources. Then I knew that we had to get into apartment blocks that consume less. For the T-Zed project, the tiniest details including knobs and the depth of plaster were designed and documented. A brief document was drawn up after extensive meetings with two architects. Hariharan has the typical founders weakness of intervening in great detail.I am poor at delegating. There is a thin line between delegating and abdicating, he says.

89

INVENTIVE INDIANS

12
NOT AS CHARITY
The Smile Foundation dislikes cheque-book charity. Its founders are professionals who support good ideas with some money and a lot of their expertise

SMILE, YOU CAN DO IT TOO!

AMIT SENGUPTA

HANDNIMAL is a village some distance from Sambhalpur town in Orissa. It is locally famous for a school set up by the residents, mostly scheduled castes and tribes, so that their children can get an education. The school works so well that it also attracts children from neighbouring villages and they board with Chandnimal families. When one of the trustees of the Smile Foundation turned up at the village, eager to learn more about the school, he found the headmaster gambolling in the local pond with the students. He was impressed by the bonding that was in evidence. The Hiradari Yuvak Sangh, a club of the villagers, had imbued the school with an enthusiasm for education that is hard to come by. The Sangh had also succeeded in getting government recognition for the school so that the children could take their Class 10 exam. But a good school needs money and the harsh truth facing Chandnimals gem six years ago was that it couldnt meet its expenses. The Smile Foundation decided to support the school with a small amount each year: just Rs 2 lakhs. That was all that was needed to keep its unique spirit alive. Now it gets government funding and Smile, having fulfilled its supportive role, has stepped back. It was Chandnimals good luck that it came on to Smiles radar. In 2002 Smiles birth took place at a reunion of a group of young successful professionals from fields of finance, management and law. They were proof of how quality education can transform families in a single generation. Smile is therefore primarily committed to providing children and young people in general with basic education to bring them out of

poverty and secure them against disease. Smiles founders wanted to give back to society so that others too could benefit. With their professional qualifications and concern for the underprivileged, they were ideally suited to be social venture philanthropists. Who, for instance, would dream of going to Chandnimal? Or who would fund the Jupiter Academy, which teaches hundreds of poor children and provides seed capital for street vendors in Lucknow? The social entrepreneurs Smile has supported are each unique in their missions. It could be a volunteer group that collects safe blood, a stained glass painter who auctions her work to set up a primary school, a retired Army officer who has a school for 500 underprivileged children, a retired squadron leader running a hospital and promoting insurance for widows. There are now over 100 projects that Smile backs. Some of them are in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai. But everywhere investment decisions are made on the same considerations: passionate people with vision and ideas about making a difference in the lives of the deprived, especially children, thus creating more social value from limited resources. How does the Smile model work? At the heart of Smiles operating philosophy is the multiplier effect of all that it does, particularly in the distribution of resources. Why put Rs 1 crore in one school when you can set up 10 schools with the same amount? Smiles social venture philanthropy model seeks to consciously broad-base investment in the belief that this will maximise reach and optimise returns. The focus has been on three key aspects: scalability, sustainability and accountabili-

90

SMILE, YOU CAN DO IT TOO!

The Smile Foundation team with some of their children at a school in Delhi

ty. Instead of confining attention to a single project and a limited number of beneficiaries, Smiles emphasis is on providing support that leverages the strengths and efforts of likeminded individuals and organisations countrywide. By doing this, Smile hopes to be able to reach an exponentially larger number of people (particularly children since its main mission is to provide education) than it would have done with the conventional single project infrastructure model. The result is the flowering of a breed of social entrepreneurs who are passionate about what they are doing and whose commitment to their cause is virtually a guarantee of delivery. There is also optimisation of benefits for various target groups with transparency. In addition, it is possible that social entrepreneurs Smile supports will go on to support others. Smiles strategy involves providing seed money for the project, venture capital for expansion and capacity building, professional guidance, training support and even counselling on productivity and efficiency enhancement, says KK Varma, Director, Programmes. It is in much the same way that Smiles trustees and larger circle of supporters position themselves. They may not each be capable of giving significant money, but they can bring in donors and provide their own professionals skills free of cost. Once again it is the multiplier effect at work. Smile supporters have different strengths. Some concentrate on structuring and guiding the organisation and for this they give their professional time. Others generate resources. Then there are those who give a share of their own earnings. Several make an important contribution through their networking.

Santanu Mishra is the only trustee who agrees to be in public view because he has been entrusted with the task of structuring Smile as an organisation with a CEO and a board which can function independently. Once that task is complete, Mishra too can go off stage into the wings. Smile already has five regional offices and projects it supports in 21 states. Anupama Kalra, as chief programme officer, has closely assisted Mishra in establishing Smile as an entity. Together they have built Smiles links with over 100 grassroots NGOs, won the support of 70 reputed institutions and companies and touched the lives of several thousand children. We work in creative social venture partnerships with authentic groups and individuals, says Anupama, herself an MBA. We are constantly looking for people who are doing significant, credible work, and are passionate about grassroots work for childrens health and education among the most underprivileged sections, while focusing on girls and women. We showcase their ongoing struggles and body of work with active support. We raise resources for funding their projects, but we monitor every detail and we follow-up minutely. Our emphasis is on self-reliance. Says Mishra: India has one of the worlds largest networks of schools and yet a sizeable number of Indians are illiterate. People are still not empowered and aware of their rights and thereby they dont know how to seek their rights. We have to reach out to the grassroots so that people can discover their own empowerment. So we like to focus on health and education. Projects that Smile supports are strung across the country. Visiting all of them was not possible.

91

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Civil Society has reported on Swabhiman, which seeks to empower women in urban areas and the Jupiter Academy (See Civil Society Jan 2005 & May 2007). For several other interesting projects go to the Smile website for details. But here below are some of the efforts that Civil Society managed to take a look at in the hope of highlighting how the Smile model of social venture philanthropy works and the kind of people from different walks of life who come forward to make a difference.
IN DELHIS SLUMS Smile has teamed up with the Population Foundation of India (PFI) for a project that covers nine slums across Delhi to address the problems of women and children. The project reaches 100,000 people. One of the components of the project is the Education and Health Care Society run by Ira Rajguru from Orissa. Rajguru is a hard-working human resources professional, who has held positions in multinational IT companies. She now freelances with several companies because she wants to give more time to slum children. For the last several years, apart from working in villages of Orissa and Tamil Nadu, she has been active in the slums of South Delhi. It has been almost a decade of hard-nosed social intervention for Ira Rajguru. But why did she choose this world and not the comfort zones of the corporate sector? My father was a doctor who always worked for the poor in Mumbai and then in different parts of Orissa. My grandfather was a politician during the Nehruvian era who relentlessly worked for the people. I have travelled all over the world. I dont have any fascination for that life now. I dont have children. I work among the slum children, girls and women, coordinating the school and health camps, she says. I work with the Balmiki slums, the Sriram Jhuggi Jhonpri Camp, the slum schools in Indira Camp and in Neb Sarai. I help them find their own identity and empowerment. I am also running medical camps with specialised doctors. This gives me satisfaction. An MBA from Delhi University, her PhD from Rajasthan University on Social Change and Womens Education in Rajasthan brought her face to face with the stark reality of womens oppression and poverty in the feudal, patriarchal interiors of rural Rajasthan. I have seen young girls brutalised, married to old men, beaten and left on the way. I have seen them destroyed, physically, without awareness of their self and body, unable to be economically independent, she says. We try to make them feel better about their own selves, change their lifes bitter circles, she says. Like 13-year-old Meera, who carried bricks on her head and lived a life of destitution. Several years later, she is now economically independent, training others in candle-making, block-printing, tailoring. Indeed, a little economic freedom makes the most oppressed of girls self-reliant. SANKALP SAKSHARTA SAMITI Based in Noida, this is another good example. It was started in December 1997 by Meena Nijhawan, a trained teacher and wife of a retired major general. At the outset it was a school in a garage with four children. The admission policy was precise: only the poorest children, mostly left on the streets in destitution, would be taken in. In one year, the garage had 40 students and then 80 and then 160. And who were the little ones? Children of slum-dwellers and the homeless, rickshaw-pullers, migrant workers, vegetable-sellers, daily-wagers, construction workers, domestic servants, ragpickers, security guards, watchmen, sweepers and drivers. The children were mostly hanging out on the streets, smoking, surviving on gathering scrap. They were in variably hungry and malnourished. Soon Meena Nijhawan shifted to a rented three-room house and gradually to a modest school building. Little Manisha, a ragpicker, one day came to the school, dirty and dishevelled, and asked for enrolment. The other girls and boys would run away from her because she was dirty, and she would smell bad. So we bathed her, removed the lice from her hair (all of them have lice), gave her clean clothes and food and made her feel at home, recalls Nijhawan. She was very different, she had the tendency to pick up stuff, as if it was scrap: rubber, pencils, snacks, etc. So I gave her the responsibility of picking up stuff, collecting it, and depositing it with the school. Gradually she became such a sparkling and responsible child. Today, she runs a vegetable outlet in the mandi and is married, and she laughs heartily when she comes here. The Sankalp experiment moved with meticulous detail to give self-confidence, self-identity, exposure and empowerment to the children so that they could redefine their lives, outside the usual story of subaltern childhood condemnations. It started with the basics: discipline and freedom, cleanliness and hygiene, daily baths, brushing their teeth, keeping clean nails and hair, clean environment, planting trees and saplings, hygienic sanitation habits, wearing washed clothes,

92

SMILE, YOU CAN DO IT TOO!

Nai Disha now has 500 children who are taught from the kindergarten level to Class 5. The school runs in two shifts. Vocational training is also imparted in cloth-cutting and tailoring for girls and women from poor families in Noida. A SCHOOL IN RAIGARH Stained glass painter Snigdha Nanda is based in Delhi. She has worked with deprived children putting in her own money, selling her paintings to fund her projects. She is now involved with Smile in nurturing her dream project a free primary school at Raigarh in Chhattisgarh for tribal and Dalit children. Nanda is from Rourkela but has settled down in Delhi. She has been working with physically handicapped children, leprosy patients, slum children. She has taught children of the sprawling Dakshinpuri slum in Delhi, despite the abysmal conditions they live in, the fine art of stained glass paintings. She has set up Tapaswini Navsadhna which runs the Tapaswini Vidya Mandir at Raigarh. But why Raigarh? My sister lived there. I used to go visit her. Thats when I saw the children, without even one square meal a day, while their parents worked as labourers. I did a survey and decided to do something. She set up the school to provide elementary education and health care with Smile providing financial support. But the money was not enough and she pitched in with her own earnings. RAGPICKERS OF CHATTARPUR In the Dalit settlement of Chattarpur village in the outskirts of Delhi an incredible experiment has been unfolding. Vijayalakshmi has liberated hundreds of ragpickers and child labourers with her initiative of non-formal schools. Born and brought up in Gorakhpur, Vijayalakshmi is tough and her life is a struggle. She set up Sahayogita, after years of social work in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Indeed, in this sprawling backyard of Chattarpur village, where Dalits and the poor live, her small and humble office, in a broken down brick structure located in Galli No 2 tells its own story of intense courage, vision and hope against all odds. learning to take medicines and eating school food. This together with essential courtesies: sorry, thank you, please, etc. There are parent- teacher meetings, adult literacy classes,vocational and handicrafts training, respect for all faiths, celebrations of all festivals, no caste or communal discrimination, yoga and meditation. Some girls joined as volunteer teachers in the school. Boys were given training as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and even pushed for army enrolment. Many children have gone on to find employment in IT companies. Without Smile, it would have been impossible to grow, says Nijhawan. NAI DISHA The Nai Disha Free Education Society was launched in 1997 by Capt L S Jaiswal, a retired Army officer, when he came across Amit, the child of construction workers, wandering around aimlessly. Capt Jaiswal took it upon himself to teach Amit. Soon Amits siblings turned up and with them a whole lot of other children. From the school under the tree with five girls and boys in a conservative Muslim locality behind the big masjid, to her non-formal school in a chaupal, with the help of the Smile Foundation, from one poor rented tenement to another gifted temporarily, to the current crche where children of dailywagers and migrant workers are fed and given basic lessons by community organisers: this is how Vijayalakshmi has pursued her mission. Her work also shows how much the poor seek an education. Vijayalakshmi teaches girls tailoring, embroidery and other crafts. She helps girls take courses in beauty treatment. She is young and driven by amazing motivation. The rich man has his rights, so does the man who lives on the footpath, she says. We are all equal in this world, the owner and the worker, the upper caste and the Dalit. No one can deny us this equality. The rich man can enjoy his wealth, but he cant destroy the rights of the poor.

93

INVENTIVE INDIANS

13
GENTLE CRUSADER
Anil Ranas Janhit Foundation helped 100 farmers go organic in Uttar Pradesh. This story on his remarkable work was written before he died prematurely of a stroke

ORGANIC UPRISING NEAR MEERUT

RITA & UMESH ANAND

ANTI Tyagi, a middle-aged farmer at Khandrawali village in Meerut district, is saying a tearful good bye to his beloved mango trees. They have been rendered useless by a combination of pests and chemicals.

Tyagis mango trees were the pride of his 10 acre farm. In his many attempts to save them, Tyagi consulted quacks and gurus and travelled all the way to Bangalore in search of a solution. The advice he got involved using more and more pesticides, which only seemed to make the pests resilient. Tyagis battle against pests is an old one. He knows how tough they are. He has taken on pests in his sugarcane fields and tasted defeat. He has watched them play havoc with his vegetables. Each round of confrontation over the years has taken Tyagi deeper into debt. He owes banks money for which he pays an annual interest of Rs 25,000. To him, farming has been all about losses and deficits and desperate ways of covering them from one year to the next. Seeds, fertilisers and pesticides have burnt a hole in his pocket. Dirty water and soil made his family sick. All around him diminishing incomes were being stretched to pay for doctors and medicines. A bigger loss has been the topsoil on his fields that has been rendered infertile by chemicals. You can go to banks for money. You can go to hospitals for illnesses. But where do you go to rejuvenate topsoil? There were times I felt I was going mad, he recalls with a smile.

Even as Tyagi mourns the demise of his mango trees, he prepares to celebrate a newfound freedom from the Green Revolution type of intensive farming. Along with 100 small farmers from 25 neighbouring villages, he has turned to organic agriculture with the assistance of the Janhit Foundation. For the first time this year farmers like Tyagi are seeing natural methods of agriculture succeed. More significantly, they are realising that there is money in going organic. They spend less on inputs because they dont have to buy a range of chemicals that only keep getting costlier as the soil loses its nutrients and pests become immune. Tyagi, for instance, says he saves Rs 22,050 per acre every year and he gets 25 per cent more for his organic produce. Janhit has sampled local demand and found it to be strong enough to set up a store in Meerut. This will be Uttar Pradeshs first organic outlet, says Anil Rana, director of the Janhit Foundation. Although he has been contacted by organic produce buyers from Delhi he is categorical that Janhit wants the farmers to first sell locally. Meerut has a big cantonment, two medical colleges, residential schools and institutions. It has a population of 1.5 million. There should not be any problem in marketing organic products. So far consumers have had to get their supplies from Delhi, says Rana. To test the market, Janhit set up a stall in the Meerut Cantonment. Organic produce from neighbouring fields sold

94

ORGANIC UPRISING NEAR MEERUT

Anil Rana out in the fields

95

INVENTIVE INDIANS

out even as it arrived. For farmers strapped by debt and falling yields, nothing could be more encouraging. Janhit then started a retail outlet called Aaharam in Meerut for sale of organic food. Farmers can now see the market. They are face to face with the urban consumer. There is no middle man and no suspense about what the governments minimum support price will be. Till date marketing organic produce was a Herculean task, says 86-year-old Ramchandra Singh, a farmer at Kaleena village. But now farmers have a point from where to sell. Janhits mission includes encouraging consumers in Meerut to buy organic certified wheat, flour, porridge and mustard oil. In due course cereals, vegetables, fruits and spices will be available. For Meerut, wracked as it is by industrial pollution and collapsing infrastructure, this is a big leap in knowing what is wholesome and how with some activism life can improve. Best of all, farmers get a certificate guaranteeing their crops are organic. There is a Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) for small farmers that is cheap and valid and will help them

instance, is growing wheat, mustard and potatoes on two acres. In the beginning he wasnt sure what the results would be, but Janhit provided encouragement by showing the farmers success stories. Janhit has built its case on hard facts. The farmers are aware chemicals rob the land of its yield. Across Meerut district you will see topsoil excavated and dumped along fields as farmers experiment with desperate ways of dealing with infertility. But getting them to shift to organic agriculture means showing them that it works and finding a market for their produce. Janhits project is being supported by the Ford Foundation. Its focus is income enhancement of the farming community by supporting select farmers to complete the circle of farming from seed to market. It is one of the Food and Agriculture Organisations (FAO) 14 pilot projects in India. GOING BACK TO GET AHEAD Ask farmers why they ruin their environment, health and bank balance by doing chemical farming and they will reply: this is what the government ordered. The shift from organic farming to chemicals was one of compulsion and not choice, remarks Rana.

Ask farmers why they ruin their environment, health and bank balances by doing chemical farming and they will reply that this is what the government ordered.
reach Indias burgeoning domestic middle class market for organic produce. Farmers who are transiting from chemical to organic farming can get certification under PGS. And, yes, more money as well. The biggest benefit is the increase in the income of farmers. If the government price for a quintal of wheat is Rs 700, the price for organic uncertified wheat is Rs 1,400 a quintal. As certification improves, the price goes up, says Rana. Organic farming will also restore the health of the soil badly degraded in this area because of excessive use of chemicals and pesticides. It will do away with monoculture by introducing crop diversification. So far, farmers here have been cultivating mostly sugarcane. As a hand-holder, the Janhit Foundation plays a crucial role. The switch from chemicals is full of uncertainties for farmers because it means leaving a known system behind and opting for another. Farmers depend on what they grow from one season to the next and live on fragile finances. They dont welcome failure. There is also the problem of removing chemicals from the soil. The bridge years are invariably full of fears. Tyagi, for In the early 60s, farmers in this region of Western UP known as the Doab dutifully cultivated their crops organically. Nobody had heard of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and nobody was interested. There was no earthly reason to be. The land was fertile. Soil was rich and moist. There was plenty of water. The Ganga, Yamuna, Kali, Hindon and many canals flowed through. Along came the Green Revolution. The government wanted farmers to switch to chemical agriculture and sent its emissaries to them. But farmers here were disinclined. They saw no reason to oblige. The governments officers failed to impress Meeruts farmers with their new fangled methods. So in desperation at night the officials would sneak into fields and throw around urea from bags. Deed done they would disappear. The farmer thought fine, since it was already there why not give it a try? Close on the heels of the governments emissaries arrived representatives of chemical companies with pesticides, fertilisers and urea. They offered the farmer tempting deals. All he had to do was buy the stuff and throw it on his fields. In the early days the chemicals did improve yields. The farmer got

96

ORGANIC UPRISING NEAR MEERUT

Janhit staff members. From left: Diwan Singh, Lalit, Sonakshi, Anil, Raman, Shiv Kumar and Devpal

hooked. Soon, tractors made their appearance. Farming became readymade. All around factories producing sugar and paper and distilleries sprang up. They dumped all their effluents into rivers and canals. In the runoff from the fields came urea, pesticides and fertilisers. A study done by Janhit in March 2006 revealed that agricultural soil and drinking water were suffused with pesticides and persistent organic pollutants like DDT, Eldrin and Dieldrin, which are really supposed to be banned. The honeymoon with the Green Revolution agriculture did not last long. Over the years farming became unviable. The price of chemicals kept rising. The soil lost its nutrients. Pests attacked crops. The farmer bought more and more chemicals. He became lazy. He just bought sacks of chemicals and threw it around his fields. The cow became redundant. When the farmer needed money he marched his cattle off to the slaughterhouse. The cow became an extinct species here. All you can see are buffaloes. Quick and easy money led to petty jealousies and rivalries. Every farm family wanted to keep up with the next. Meeruts law courts are now full of cases filed by squabbling farmers. The polluted atmosphere led to diseases unheard of earlier in the district like cancer, skin infections, stomach problems and neurological diseases. Nursing homes and hospitals sprang up to cater to this rising demand for treatment of pol-

lution-related ailments. The farmer became sick and broke. It took Janhit Foundations workers quite some time to convince farmers to give up their addiction to chemical farming and go back to organic agriculture. Farmers did not want to bestir themselves. Some had college degrees and were not interested. Agricultural universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras did not subscribe to the organic way. One reason for the farmers apathy was that they did not analyse their problems. Since farmers did not have access to soil testing labs they did not realise how bad their soil had become. Representatives of chemical companies were always there at hand to give them credit and egg them on with this poison or that. Besides, argued farmers, where was the market for organic food? REPAIRING THE DAMAGE Janhit organised small meetings in villages. Two agricultural scientists, Lalit and Devpal, talked to farmers about the harmful effects of chemical farming. A few farmers volunteered. The two scientists started training workshops on organic farming for them. The main problem is lack of knowledge, says Lalit. Farmers have irrational fears about lower yields. They need an education. Lalit and Devpal sat with pen and paper and did a cost-benefit analysis with farmers showing them exactly why and where they were making losses. Since livestock had vanished farmers had trouble making compost or natural pesticides. Lalit and Devpal came up with a range of alternative methods.

97

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Amar Singh mixing his compost

Sugarcane residues, leaves, sand and cow dung could be used for making liquid manure. They put on the table less labour intensive methods. Plant boosters can be made simply from weeds. The farmers named their most popular compost after its inventors Lalit and Devpal. It is called Ladep (Lalit and Devpal). Now manuals have been published in Hindi on organic manures and biopesticides. In about three months farmers found their soils quality improving. Less water was now needed. On an average, each farmer saved at least Rs 5,000 per acre every month by not buying fertilisers, pesticides or urea. Tyagi says he used to spend Rs 22,050 per acre every year on chemicals. And there was no guarantee his crop would fetch him good returns. If a farmer paid rent for the land he was really sunk, he says. Some of us had stopped farming and were selling buffalo milk to survive. Best of all no pests have attacked his field since. If the soil is rich, then plants are strong and can ward off attacks, says Devpal. Janhit also took farmers on a study tour. The NGO contacted the Maharashtra Organic Farmer Federation (MOFF). Its president, Claude Alvares, advised them to visit a region where

similar farming was done. So, a group of Meerut farmers met their counterparts in Maharashtra to study their methods of organic farming. At Khakti village feisty farmers recall with wonder all that they learnt. They watched Power Point presentations on farming and heard lectures by experts. Their sugarcane was really fat and eight feet high, says Amar Singh, a farmer with 10 acres. Here we plant 25 quintals on one acre. Those farmers would plant just one quintal on an acre with a gap of four to eight feet. Yet their yield was higher than ours and their sugarcane sweeter. In between, they grew crops like turmeric, lady fingers, wheat and coriander. Those farmers used much less water than us. I learnt that flooding the field takes away nutrients from the soil. I finally understood that less is more. The Meerut farmers were especially impressed with two technological inventions, the Rain Gun and the Cutter. The Rain Gun gently sprinkled water on crops. The Cutter scooped out the eye or seed of the sugarcane to make cultivars. In this way, says Amar Singh, we can save on diesel, fertilisers, seeds, water and pesticides.

98

ORGANIC UPRISING NEAR MEERUT

But the Meerut belt is thick with pollution. How do farmers deal with that? Its easy, they reply. We invoke the gods. The environment can be cleansed through Agnihotra methods. This is an ancient technique that dates back to the Vedas and is now being revived. At sunrise or sunset a copper urn is filled with cow dung and ghee. It is burnt in the field. The farmer sits on the ground and recites special mantras. Smoke from the urn purifies the air and gets rid of bacteria and pathogens. Its absolutely true, says Ram Kishan Giri. The pests have vanished. The Janhit Foundation has plans to set up a unit to manufacture biopesticides on a commercial basis. A business plan has been prepared by Somya Das and Bhaskar Jyoti Borah from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. While farmers would be their main customers, the biopesticides would also be sold through the Janhit organic retail outlet. All the farmers now want their cows back. Farmers are interested in local species of cows like Sahiwal, Gir and Thakarpar, says Rana. We all know cows matter a lot in organic farming. One enthusiastic farmer, Sudesh, has already got himself a traditional plough. He takes it to his small field and gives a demonstration grinning away while the other farmers look on respectfully. No more tractors for me, he says. The Meerut farmer has come full circle. At Khatki village the fields are lush with crops. Rambeer Giri admires the green coriander. Amar Singh holds up a bunch of brinjals, joy on his face. He then displays his lentils, chest swelling with pride. Just put this in a pressure cooker and see the difference. The chemical lentils are like stones. But the organic one just melts with one whistle. It tastes terrific too. With a gleam in his eye he produces freshly dug out turmeric Look at its colour, he says admiringly. This can fetch good money. But none of the farmers is in a rush to get to the market. First we will feed our families organic food, says Amar Singh as the other farmers nod in unison, only after that will we sell our crops in the market. Farmers here go from lane to lane sniffing their neighbours compost pits. Earthworms are examined affectionately like pets. Tips are readily exchanged. Squabbling farmers have become friends. There is no competition. And so knowledge is spreading. Almost everyone here knows about making compost now, though they may not be part of our team yet, says Rambeer Giri. The farmers say money can be made by selling compost or by making gur and honey. The Janhit Foundation supplied the farmers with traditional seeds. The NGO is planning to set up a seed bank so that farmers dont have to buy costly seeds. Instead every farmer will return to the bank double the quantity he takes. On February 18, Janhit Foundation organised a cultural festival on organic farming. There were full-throated songs on going organic. Accompanied by a tabla and a harmonium, composer Dharmender Puthi urged brave farmers to save

Mother Earth from chemicals. He reminded them about the ruinous effect chemicals have on their water, soil and health. Kamal, Babloo and Ramesh entertained farmers with organic folk songs. Documentary films were shown. One was on the endosulphan genocide in Kasargod district of Kerala where massive spraying led to cancer, children being born with deformities and mental health problems. Another film was about Deepak Suchde, an exemplary organic farmer in Maharashtra. Farmers are in the process of getting certification. We have contacted One-Cert in Jaipur for Third Party Organic Certification, says Rana. It is one of 14 agencies accredited by APEDA. But the process is costly. For 100 farmers it works out to Rs 90,000. Instead, Janhit is opting for a peoples method of certification called the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS). This system is in use in the US, Brazil, Philippines and New Zealand. Any respectable NGO, accredited agency or agricultural university can give this certification after following standard procedure. It is based on trust and the costs are negligible. It will have a logo and legal entity. Legal formalities are being worked out. The PGS will be cleared by the Union government since it is keen to remove the high cost of certification, says Rana. The PGS is ideal for the small farmer who wants to sell in the domestic market. Even if he applies as a part of a group, he gets an individual certificate and is free to sell to whomever he wants. The PGS supports the organic farmer through a network consisting of the Farm Family, the Local Group, a Regional Council and a National Committee. Farm inspection is done by the Local Group and certificates issued by the Regional Council. Inspection is thorough. Data on each Local Group and farm will be put on the Internet. Can the whole of Meerut, a toxic hotspot, become Indias first organic district? The UP governments Diversified Agriculture Sustainable Project (DASP) supported by the World Bank did aim to convert some districts. After studying the DASP model, Janhit Foundation concluded it had too many loose ends. There was no community participation. Farmers were not given enough knowledge. They did not go on field trips to study. Neither did DASP deal with certification, marketing and improving incomes, all critical to the small farmer. Janhit Foundations project works out each step for the farmer, removing the lacunae in DASP. Before the government dismisses the small farmer as a dead loss to the economy, it should take a look at how simple steps can make agriculture lucrative for him. May be the government should show the same missionary zeal as it did during the Green Revolution. But this time to spread organic farming, certification and marketing opportunities.

UPDATE The stress that social activists take is often underestimated. Anil Rana died tragically of a brain haemorrage in July 2008, perhaps the result of the hectic pace he was keeping. Janhit, however, lives on.

99

INVENTIVE INDIANS

14
THE PURISTS
TKV Desikachar and his family teach a pure form of yoga at their ashram in Chennai. It is yoga customised to meet the needs of the individual

YOGAS FIRST FAMILY

SAMITA RATHOR

VERYBODY is teaching yoga these days: from swamis in flowing robes to sexy gym trainers. Everybody is doing yoga too: svelte models, overweight housewives, stressed out executives. You see swarms of people in parks and auditoriums chanting Om, reorganising arms and legs into asanas while a sonorous guru gives instructions. This is not yoga, TKV Desikachar, founder of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM) in Chennai, will tell you. Desikachar practises and teaches yoga in its purest form, like his father, the legendary T Krishnamacharya. Yoga for them is a science that heals mind and body. Today yoga has blossomed. The best hospitals in the world recommend it. People acknowledge its healing benefits. But yogas popularity has also become its bane. Most practitioners do not understand its philosophy and teach it as mere group exercise. The science and philosophy of yoga has been lost sight of. Desikachar has spread yoga in its true form in India, the US and Europe. Some of the worlds best minds, like Jiddu Krishnamurti, sought a cure from his father and him. The finest yoga teachers began their yoga journey under their watchful guidance. Among them are BKS Iyengar, KP Jois and Indra Devi. T Krishnamacharya died in 1989 at the age of 101. He is remembered for stopping his own heartbeat at the age of 76 before a panel of medical doctors. It was Krishnamacharya who salvaged yoga, on the verge of extinction, from sages in the village of Mansarovar, in the Mount Kailash region.

In 1976, his son, Desikachar started the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM) to carry forward his fathers work and philosophy. When I came to understand the depth of my fathers knowledge, I was very disappointed that his teachings were hardly known or even acknowledged, says Desikachar frankly. It was for this reason that I set up the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in his name, as an offering or guru dakshina, for all the knowledge he passed on to me. The ancient texts tell us, Gurum prakasayet dhiman, which means it is the duty of a student to bring to light the teachings of his master. This is Indias first family of yoga. Desikachars wife, Menaka, also a yoga teacher, is an expert in Vedic chanting. Daughter Mekhala teaches yoga and has recorded two CDs on Vedic chanting. Son Kausthub, too, is a yoga teacher, a therapist and a Vedic chanter. He is taking yoga to Generation Next. KYM is the only yoga therapy institute of its kind in the world. Lodged in a simple white house with a gentle blue hue, it is located in the quiet lanes of Mylapore, Chennais old, historic quarter. Around the house there are enclosures with walls and windows made of large, dried, ochre coconut leaves. The ground inside is of natural earth and feels cool. Sounds of Vedic chanting waft through.

100

YOGAS FIRST FAMILY

Desikachar and his wife, Menaka, at the Yoga Mandiram in Chennai

KYM teaches yoga as a holistic system of healing. It has a faculty of around 50 teachers with departments for Yoga Studies, Yoga Therapy and a Research and Publications division. Vedavani, a separate unit, teaches Vedic chanting and does research. The Mitra division does philanthropy by teaching yoga to the underprivileged. MYTHS AND REALITIES There have always been many myths associated with the practice of yoga, says Desikachar. There used to be a belief that the practice of yoga was open only to people from certain communities. Some people believed that yoga was a mystical practice that gave practitioners the ability to levitate or even to remain submerged beneath water for days. However, Patanjali presents yoga as a universal discipline. Its primary focus is on the mind and relationships. Patanjalis Yoga Sutras, written about 2,000 years ago, are considered the Bible of yoga. In the Sutras, Patanjali, a humble physician, expounded yoga as a philosophy, a guide for living the right life and achieving spiritual bliss. Patanjali used the sutra as a thread of thought. Sutras are strings of rules or aphorisms written in verse. Patanjalis language is terse and symbolic. It was important to himthat the sutras be committed to memory and be passed on from one generation to the next. Altogether there are 195 aphorisms in the Yoga Sutras which encapsulate the principles of yoga and their relevance in life. Written in four chapters, the aphorisms are concise and deeply significant. There is a popular saying that what is not mentioned in the

Yoga Sutras is either not yoga, or probably not important at all. No learning of yoga can be complete without studying Patanjalis enigmatic and philosophical sutras. But you need a knowledgeable yoga teacher to demystify his book accurately. The first chapter is called Samadhipadah, the second, Sadhanapadah, the third, Vibhutipadah and the fourth, Kaivalyapadah. Patanjalis yoga is called Ashtanga Yoga which literally means eight-limbed yoga. The heart of his teachings are incorporated in the eight- fold path. According to Patanjali, the path of internal purification for revealing the Universal Self consists of eight spiritual practices, which have to be understood in their true depth. Desikachar explains these eight components of yoga: 1. Yama: our attitude towards our environment 2. Niyama: our attitude towards ourselves 3. Asana: the practice of body exercise 4. Pranayama: the practice of breathing exercise 5. Pratyahara: the restraint of our senses 6. Dharana: the ability to direct the mind

101

INVENTIVE INDIANS

7. Dhyana: the ability to develop interaction with what we seek to understand 8. Samadhi: complete integration with the object to be understood Krishnamacharya and Desikachar emphasise the application of the Yoga Sutras for healing patients/students and Desikachar gently puts yoga in the right perspective. YOGA IS SECULAR In the early 70s, Desikachar and Gerard Blitz, a Belgian Jew who became his student, started the Zinal Yoga Congress, an annual meeting that brought teachers from all traditions of yoga together. The objective was to promote unity in yoga. The primary organiser of the Zinal Congress is the European Yoga Union (EYU), also founded by Blitz. In one such gathering Desikachar noticed two things that disturbed him. First, yoga teachers were teaching the same practices to everyone irrespective of age, abilities and interest. Secondly, teachers were mixing Hinduism and yoga, presenting them as one, implying that if people wanted to follow yoga they had to follow the Hindu religion. Desikachar knew from his studies with his father that none of these practices followed the guidelines of Patanjalis Yoga Sutras. For instance, Patanjali saw religious affiliation as a students personal choice not the teachers. If yoga is tied with Hinduism, then it would have to exclude people who may not be comfortable with its religious content. The Yoga Sutras are a secular handbook devoid of dogmas, rites, rituals, caste or class biases. They tell us how to use meditation and yoga as a practical path to spirituality. Patanjalis notion of Isvarah is the consciousness within an individual. Chapter I.2 of the Yoga Sutras says, Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively towards an object and sustain focus in that direction without any distractions. YOGA IS INDIVIDUAL Desikachar says in KYM yoga is adapted to suit the needs of each individual so that anyone can practice and benefit from it. Teaching yoga is not just about teaching techniques to a group. Each individual is different. No two individuals will ever be the same physically, mentally and spiritually. So their needs and abilities cannot be similar. When people began to realise the multiple benefits of oneto-one classes, they were very receptive to the idea, he says. In KYM every student is seen privately by a consultant and then taught by a teacher. The intention is to nurture a good relationship between the teacher and student. This is why teachers are not assigned randomly. A lot of consideration and thought goes into the choice of teacher for the student. YOGA IS ABOUT THE MIND Desikachar believes that the success of yoga does not lie in the ability to perform postures but in how it positively changes the way we live our lives and manage our relationships. So yoga is about building sound relationships with teacher, student, family, friends and our world. This is why yoga heals the mind first. It can tackle schizophrenia, depression and other mental health problems. But a lot depends on the students own perseverance.

Reading the pulse is important in knowing the patient

The primary focus is to have empathy, not sympathy, explains Desikachar. It takes a lot of time to establish a relationship based on trust, especially with those who are mentally ill. As yoga teachers we need to be extremely patient. Once the student believes that the teacher can be trusted and will not harm or exploit him or her in any way then the transformation begins to happen. This is why my father always said that yoga is about building relationships. With the right connection, so many wonderful things can happen. YOGA IS HOLISTIC Like everything, yoga must be presented intelligently. It should be spoken of carefully and offered with due regard for the aspirations, needs and cultural background of the individual. This must be achieved in stages. The appropriate application of yoga involves physical exercises, deep breathing, relaxation, meditation, lifestyle, food, studies and so forth, explains Desikachar. Though his father was an acclaimed yoga teacher, Desikachar studied to be a civil engineer, graduating from the University of Mysore. For a while he worked in North India. In those days yoga was not considered a profession. Indians were not proud of it. The West saw it as exotica. T Krishnamacharya never insisted that his son should follow in his footsteps. Despite his fathers fame, the family lived a simple, middle-class life. Krishnamacharyas own lineage can be traced to the Yogi Nathamuni, a ninth century South Indian saint who was

102

YOGAS FIRST FAMILY

likely to occur should be anticipated and avoided. This is also the motto KYM follows. Recollects Menaka Desikachar: I saw with my own eyes a young girl of about 15 years gasping for breath. She came to see my father-in-law. After a while she came out looking happy and breathing normally. I asked my father-in-law what he had done. He said simply that he had made an Ayurveda preparation for the girl which harmonised her breathing. She relates another incident: Sometime in 1968 a middleaged man arrived in a car in front of my father-in-laws house. He had suffered a severe paralytic attack. It was so bad that he just lay in the back seat. I saw my father-in-law go inside the car and talk to this man. He taught him something. In a few days time this man began walking with the help of a stick. Soon he could walk without any support. Today he lives in America and is 80 years old. Desikachar quotes from the Yoga Sutras to explain: Exceptional mental capabilities may be achieved by genetic inheritance, the use of herbs as prescribed in the Vedas, reciting incantations, rigorous austerities and through that state of mind which remains with its object without distractions. Desikachar was Krishnamacharyas fourth child and second son. He might have continued as a civil engineer. But in 1961 while holidaying in Chennai, Desikachar witnessed the power of his fathers work. A foreign woman hugged his father and expressed her deep gratitude to him for helping her overcome insomnia. She was very wealthy and had access to all the latest medical facilities. Nothing had cured her of the insomnia that had troubled her for years. However, my father without any medical background, without even knowledge of spoken English had cured her. This event was the turning point in my life. It was then that I decided that I must study yoga under my father, says Desikachar. Since he was the sole breadwinner of the family for two years he continued working with a leading engineering firm in Chennai while studying with his father. I saw my father heal so many people. Sometimes he would prepare certain Ayurvedic medicines himself, often meditating in the sun before giving the medicine to the person. After he demonstrated his ability to stop his own heartbeat in 1964 at the age of 76, I never doubted him in the slightest, says Desikachar. Apart from yoga, Desikachar has studied Vedanta philosophy, Vedic chanting, Ayurveda, Sanskrit, Mimamsa (ritual) and Nadi Pariksa (reading the pulse). THE KYM METHOD Under the KYM roof a number of ailments are dealt with. These include psychological problems, gynecological illnesses, stress, muscular pain, swellings, lethargy, memory loss, constipation, insomnia, paralysis, stiffness in joints, hypothyroidism, diabetes, back pain, acidity, heart problems, arthritis, asthma and many others. The uniqueness of teaching at KYM is in applying yoga to suit the needs of the individual. Such is the respect that KYM enjoys that it receives close to 1,000 students a month even though there are innumerable yoga schools.

renowned for his works in Sanskrit and Yoga the Nyayatattva (an extensive work on the darshanas, nyaya, mimansa and Vedanta) and Yoga Rahasya (an ancient and lost yogic text, reputed to have been recovered by T Krishnamacharya). The Maharaja of Mysore, Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar, requested Krishnamacharya to set up a yoga programme at the Jaganmohan palace. He accepted, despite numerous offers elsewhere, mainly to be closer to his family. From here, he taught many students, including KP Jois and BKS Iyengar. Breaking tradition, Krishnamacharya taught yoga to women for the first time. He simplified asanas, adapting them to each student. He would teach yoga to anyone, fat or thin, old or young. He would never push a student to do something he or she was unable to do. Sometimes he even used props like ropes and wooden blocks to help his students practice. Such adaptations were one of my fathers most innovative efforts to make the practice of yoga accessible to everyone, says Desikachar. In fact, when my father taught Indra Devi the standing forward bend (uttanasana), he would ask her to bend her knees as she bent down. It was only gradually that he helped her to bend down keeping her legs straight. His principle in teaching yoga was that painful effects that are

103

INVENTIVE INDIANS

The teaching methodology deals with the causes of ailments and not merely its symptoms. Students at KYM are not just numbers or cases. They are not treated as patients but as students. An assessment is made of each person in his or her entirety. The student and teacher then understand each other through an evolving personal relationship. A course is designed for the individual and adapted according to the progress made. The personal factor plays a vital role. Therapy at KYM includes helping those afflicted by psychological and emotional suffering. Here, too, the course is designed for the individual and adapted according to the progress made under the guidance of a supervisor. A teacher is chosen for each student by a panel of senior consultants and teachers. More intensive therapy requirements are assessed by the Yoga Chikitsa Department of the KYM. Its director, Dr N Chandrasekhar, is an allopathic medical practitioner and has been one of the senior yoga teachers of KYM. Dr Latha Satish, a yoga teacher with KYM and a research scientist at the Department of Psychology, University of Madras, is succeeding S. Sridharanan, who is currently the managing trustee of KYM. When a student/patient first visits KYM, a senior consultant assesses his or her needs. The consultants are under the direct

an impossible task for him when he first came to KYM. He can now sit still with his eyes closed for a full five minutes. His supervisor says confidently: Working with Mahesh is a great opportunity for me to serve. It is team work and effort that has helped Mahesh to improve. I keep hoping and praying that he improves even more. Padmini had chronic asthma since she was eight. She tried allopathic treatment and steroids. But it didnt work. I was unable to sing, she says, I could not stand the sun and the rain as it would aggravate my condition. Even cooking was difficult. She began visiting KYM in the early nineties. That was the first step towards my healing, she says. My teachers, Desikachar and Menaka, who have been consistently inspiring me for over a decade, taught me the value and significance of regular practice. Sir encouraged me to learn chanting and that was the turning point of my life. He has helped me breathe again. Today Padmini is a yoga teacher at the KYM and at Vedavani where she teaches Vedic chanting. With a smile Padmini adds, I am now able to take regular yoga and chanting classes. Not only that, I can cook too.

The Yoga Sutras are a secular handbook devoid of dogmas, rites, rituals, caste or class biases. They tell us how to use yoga as a practical path to spirituality.
guidance of Desikachar. All teaching is done on a one-onone basis. Classes are scheduled at a time mutually convenient for teacher and student. Personalised practice is required to be done every day. The teacher meets the student/patient at regular intervals to review progress and modify the practice as required. Mahesh, in his early 20s, has been visiting KYM regularly for the past year. He was restless and could not stay still for even a second. If he remained stationary for too long he would fall off to sleep. He had difficulty obeying instructions. A prolonged and regular regimen was constructed for Mahesh by his supervisor/teacher. It included asanas, pranayama, chanting, movements and most of all, personal interaction. All these applications were designed keeping in mind Maheshs physical, mental and breathing capabilities. His poor attention span improved to a noticeable extent with the regimen that he was given. In fact, he can now memorise and chant mantras which were Padmini believes the Yoga Sutra, Tapaha swadhyaya ishwarapranidhanani kriya yogah (Yoga Sutra, Chapter II-1) has helped her heal further. Desikachar says this particular sutra means: The practice of yoga must reduce both physical and mental impurities. It must develop our capacity for self- examination and help us to understand that, in the final analysis, we are not the masters of everything we do. Sindhu, an eight-year-old, went into severe depression after her parents got divorced. She developed such severe trauma that she was unable to smile or laugh. Her teacher at KYM worked with her using various applications of yoga. Most of all the teacher gave Sindhu emotional strength to understand her circumstances. Today, Sindhu is a happy child, laughing, playing and enjoying life. Dr Latha Satish recounts the case of 30-year-old Mohan. Unable to cope with his job, he started suffering from severe anxiety. His mother was suffering from a psychiatric illness and Mohan felt he could be prone to it. So he was adding to his anxiety levels and thinking of things that had not happened.

104

YOGAS FIRST FAMILY

Desikachar with a portrait of his father

Adequate time was spent with him to understand the core of his mental disharmony. A long pranayama practice to regulate his thought process was designed. With continued faith in his teacher and regular practice Mohan realised that all his anxiety was self- inflicted. YOGA IN EUROPE As a reputed centre for yoga and yoga studies, KYM has links with international yoga institutes like Viniyoga International Association, Paris, Viniyoga Review Belgium, Viniyoga America, Viniyoga Spain, Viniyoga Helvetia, Switzerland and Union Europeene Des Federation Nationals De Yoga, Paris. It was through Desikachars association with Jiddu Krishnamurti that yoga began to gain respect in Europe. In the early 1960s, Krishnamurti approached Krishnamacharya for some yoga lessons. Krishnamacharya asked him to study with Desikachar who at that time was in his late 20s. Krishnamurti was very happy with the training he received and in 1963 he invited Desikachar to come to Switzerland and participate in conferences which he was involved with. In 1963, when Desikachar went to Europe, he was introduced as Jiddu Krishnamurtis teacher. Many of Krishnamurtis followers were eager to learn from him.

In Europe, Desikachar met Gerard Blitz. Born in 1912 Blitz, a Belgian Jew and a water polo player, had with his father founded Club Med, a French corporation with vacation resorts in exotic locations. Club Med was a precursor to the now popular all-inclusive resort concept. Blitz, a student of Krishnamurti, now became Desikachars student. Blitz founded the European Union of Nationally Federated Yoga Teachers. In each country in Europe, yoga schools are in a nationally federated union. The federation holds a large conference on yoga annually. Through Krishnamurti, Desikachar came into contact with many legendary personalities, some of whom would become yoga students and teachers: Rukmini Devi Arundale (the celebrated dancer and founder of the Kalakshetra Academy) and Vanda Scaravalli. Scaravelli, who died in Italy in 1999 at the age of 9l, is best known for her influential book, Awakening the Spine. It has striking photos of her as an eighty-year-old performing challenging asanas with ease. Scaravelli learnt yoga from BKS Iyengar and Desikachar. Desikachar follows the principle that Krishnamacharya always believed in and left behind, Teach what is inside you, not as it applies to you, but as it applies to the other.

105

INVENTIVE INDIANS

15
TATA STEELS VISION
Tata Steel has worked with tribals in Jharkhand to help them grow two and even three crops on their small plots. The result is food security and reduced migration

SMALL FIELD, BIG CROP

RITA & UMESH ANAND

AKSHMAN Oraon and his wife Sarla are no ordinary farmers. On less than an acre of land, they grow paddy, tomatoes, potatoes and onions. Their crop of paddy has just been harvested and you can see the dry remnants sticking out of the soil. But they are getting ready for a second major crop. It could be wheat with mustard and pulses in the margins. Water-harvesting structures at Mosodih village in the Seraikela-Kharsawan district of Jharkhand have given Lakshman and Sarla stable irrigation and moisture in the soil. They grow enough for themselves and their four children to eat all through the year. The surplus is sold in neighbouring markets. The yield of paddy on their land has been steadily going up and is now 1.2 tonnes. But just four years ago, life wasnt like this. Lakshman and Sarla would somehow grow a single crop of paddy, stash it away for their personal consumption and enlist with the visiting labour contractor who would take them and their children to cities in West Bengal where they would be put to work on construction sites. After six months of bondage, they would return with Rs 2,000 between them. It was all the money they had in a year. Till Lakshman and Sarla learnt to make their land productive, theirs was an existence full of deprivation. The conditions they knew werent just tough, they were inhuman. As construction labour there was no dignity. No place to stay in the city. The toll those years took shows. They are no more than 40 years old but look as though they are in their fifties.

Things began to change for Lakshman and Sarla when the Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) embarked on land and water management projects with the support of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) under its Central India Initiative. Checkdams, ponds, tanks and lift irrigation systems began to come up in their district. They now have two big ponds in their village. The Central India Initiative is an outcome of the research on the Central India tribal belt by the International Water Management Institute. The research was funded by SRTT. TSRDS began on a programme of integrated development in villages in the periphery of Jamshedpur, the city that is home to Tata Steel. The main purpose was to improve agricultural output on small fields and ensure food security. The tasks TSRDS set itself were to redefine irrigation, improve the fertility of the soil and introduce efficient methods of farming. A pilot project was taken up in 16 villages in the district of Seraikela-Kharsawan. More than 75 per cent of the people here are tribals like Lakshman and Sarla. The first results of this effort are now in evidence. The significance of what has been achieved has to be seen in the context of the current debate in the country on the viability of small landholdings. The TSRDS pilot has shown that small plots managed well can be very productive and significantly improve the economic, social and health conditions of the rural poor as well as prevent distress migration to urban areas in search of work.

106

SMALL FIELD, BIG CROP

Lakshman Oraon and his wife Sarla have gone from being migrant labour in cities to a life of dignity as farmers

In the four years since the TSRDS initiative began a lot has changed. Paddy cultivation has shot up from less than half a tonne an acre to 1.5 -1.8 tonnes an acre. In some pilot plots it is as high as 2.25 tonnes an acre and the target is to reach 3 tonnes. Not only has the first crop been secured, but a second has become commonplace. Wheat, vegetables, potatoes, onions, mustard and gram are also being grown. Tribals are even talking about a third crop and there are demands for better implements and mechanisation. We have tried to ensure that the villagers have at least one paddy crop. We call it paddy stabilisation, which means you try to see that the production goes up with the use of improved seeds, better practices, availability of water resources and so on, says Debdoot Mohanty, head of the Rural and Tribal Services Department at Tata Steel. The idea is to assure farmers that they will get one paddy crop which they are accustomed to in the kharif season and will have enough to eat. It is only then that farmers agree to go in for additional crops, explains Mohanty. I dont have figures for the extent to which migration has been stopped, says Arup Chakravorty, Manager, Rural Services, but I can say that when a farmer goes in for a second crop, he is not leaving the land and can be assumed to not have migrated. A TSRDS study done in the village of Sidmakudar shows that land under crops had gone up from 109 acres in 2004 to 133

acres in 2006 and was expected to reach 199 acres by the end of 2009. The area under more than one crop in this particular village had gone from just three acres to 21 acres and was expected to reach 73 acres. In this village, the net income per family for the year had gone from Rs 14,000 four years ago to around Rs 23,000 and is expected to reach around Rs 60,000 by the end of 2009. The tribal is no longer abandoning fields in search of daily wage labour and a life of misery in the city. Sidmakudar can be regarded as a typical village in the district of Seraikela-Kharsawan. It is the only one where a detailed study has been done. But anecdotal evidence from the other 15 villages in the TSRDS pilot project indicates that they enjoy at least similar if not better levels of prosperity. THE CHALLENGES Jharkhand is rich in minerals but is among the most backward states in India. It has experienced little or no development. When it was part of the much larger state of Bihar, it was neglected. As a smaller independent state for several years now, it has lacked resolute and visionary political leaders. The result has been limited intervention by the government to benefit the vast majority of people who live in conditions of poverty. More than 80 per cent of the labour force, mostly tribals, is dependent on agriculture. Yet, just nine per cent of the area where crops are sown is irrigated in Jharkhand compared to the national average of 39 per cent. The paddy yield is 0.7 tonne per acre compared to the national average of around 1 tonne.

107

INVENTIVE INDIANS

The conditions in Seraikela-Kharsawan district were even worse than Jharkhands dismal averages. In these conditions, the challenges before TSRDS were many. First of all, tribal people are not principally farmers. They belong in forests and survive on minor produce. It was necessary therefore to get the residents of the pilots 16 villages to see their small holdings as assets and agriculture as a means of enhancing their livelihood. Farming practices here were outdated and erratic. For instance, farmers would scatter seeds while planting and they made no attempt to plough the land to a good depth, which is necessary to aerate the soil and allow it to renew itself. The tribals also did not know how to prepare the soil before each crop. The result was that over the years, the topsoil had degraded. Making water available and managing it better were of course important. Jharkhand gets 1,100 mm to 1,300 mm of rainfall in a year, which is very good. But the tribals would use all this rain to grow just one crop of rice for their own consumption. They did not know how to harvest water and use just the quantity required through the year to increase the productivity of their fields.

ACMFs role was critical at field level. As a non-profit, it seeks to educate and train farmers in scientific agricultural practices. At the core of this approach is the demonstration farm and what ACMF calls its Pancha Karma: Land preparation Soil-testing and balance of nutrients Selection of the right crop Quality seeds and a healthy nursery Fertilisation, farm mechanisation and total management ACMF sent down its agricultural experts to work in the fields with the tribals, teaching them through practical lessons what had to be done. Tribals also went to Chennai on a study tour. They went to Pune and Hyderabad to see for themselves how other farmers had adopted better ways of farming. The TSRDS team went to villages and held lessons on the spot. These were especially useful because it was here that the new methods had to be implemented. It helped the women to

Experts worked in the fields with tribals, teaching them them what had to be done. Tribals went to Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune on study tours.
One reason why crop yields were dismally low was that the seeds the tribal farmers were employing were stressed out local varieties. Use of high-yielding varieties, hybrids and saplings were sophistications of which they had little knowledge and sometimes affordability and availability of quality seeds was an issue. THE STRATEGY The primary goal set by TSRDS was to increase income and also ensure food security by stabilising the paddy crop in the kharif season. The tribals were habituated to growing rice essentially for their own consumption. It wouldnt do to tamper with this. It was decided that once a good first crop to meet their needs was achieved and the tribals were more confident, a second crop, vegetables and so on could follow. TSRDS needed expertise. It took on as a partner the Chennaibased Agriculture Consultancy Management Foundation (ACMF), whose mission it is to make land more productive. TSRDS is also helped by ICRISAT, which has expertise in dryland farming. In the 1,600 acres identified by TSRDS, there are uplands which need special attention because the soil doesnt retain moisture. ICRISAT is also part of the larger Central India Initiative. pick up the new methods since they did not travel to Chennai and other places. Not only did ACMF send its experts to Jharkhand to work in the fields, but the tests it conducted for the soil in these areas in a special laboratory in Chennai helped in taking crucial decisions on what nutrients had to be put into it. It was also essential to show the tribal farmer how to prepare the ground before sowing seeds. This meant putting nutrients into the soil and using biopesticides wherever necessary. Villagers were taught how to plough the soil to a particular depth. Once the soil was prepared, instead of broadcasting seeds or growing saplings in nurseries and then transplanting, villages learnt to plant seeds directly into the soil using the row and furrow method which needs less water. Local varieties of paddy seeds were replaced with high-yielding seeds. The new seeds were critical to boosting crop yields. Innumerable tribal farmers we spoke to told us how helpful it was to be able to learn in actual practice what had to be done. The women were particularly happy. We would not have been able to go on study tours, said Bhejo Dao of Banditola,

108

SMALL FIELD, BIG CROP

Manoj Kumar and Arup Chakravorty (first and third from left) with farmers in the fields of Mosodih

a hamlet of Mosodih village. TSRDS came to my doorstep and taught me. A widow with one son and an aged parent, Bhejo now plants tomatoes, gram, coriander, potatoes, wheat and mustard. This year, for the first time, she has cultivated a second crop. Otherwise, she used to wander around looking for whatever work she could find. There was never enough food at home. Now she tells TSRDS she wants a tractor. A pump which takes water from the pond to the fields and makes irrigation so much easier has been installed by TSRDS. A curious clause in the ACMF agreement with TSRDS was the stipulation of the use of a digital camera in the fields. The images from the camera would give R Madhavan and other ACMF specialists in Chennai updates on how progress was being made in improving soil quality, planting methods, water availability and so on. It worked somewhat like telemedicine. Maps have been made of each field, the overall topography, layout, crop pattern, waterflows and so on in each village. At Kendua village, in the lower catchment of the Sona river, an experimental farm of 20 acres has been created with numerous small fields. You can see tomatoes growing and ladies fingers neatly planted in the ridge and furrow method. Each plot is micromanaged. Every farmer is closely supervised. Kendua is irrigated by just one pond. Water is pumped and goes down to fields through gravity, saving energy. The results have been really good, said Bhaskar Mahato, a local farmer. He says he got 2.5 tonnes of paddy from his one acre. I went to Chennai on a study tour. It was here that I met other farmers and learnt how to do it right.

Some 48 irrigation wells, 33 ponds and nine checkdams have been constructed in these 16 villages of Seraikela- Kharsawan, which has helped to increase moisture in the soil. They are also a source of irrigation by choice, so the farmers now use how much water they need and when they need it. At Mosodih village, Arup Chakravorty and Manoj Kumar of the TSRDS team show us a large tank with a near perfect catchment ringed by low hills. This tank serves an apron of fields that slope away from it. The tanks embankment is also very fertile and is used to grow chickpeas, among other things. To the right, at the other end of Mosodih, another tank, not as splendid, but very large, serves as a second source of water. Fish are also grown here and fishing has become common. The result of two strategically placed water bodies is quite unbelievable. Some of the fields remain laden with moisture the year round and the soil is visibly wet. Farmers draw on the ponds using pumps and pipes whenever they need water for their fields. SUCCESS STORIES Better farming is ensuring that no family goes hungry and that distress migration is a thing of the past. Vegetables and fish are available through the year. Surplus is sold in neighbouring markets. Personal accounts abound of the way life is no longer about scratching around for a single crop and then becoming bonded labour to a contractor in some distant city. We had no water and no knowledge about cultivation, say

109

INVENTIVE INDIANS

"We learnt to enrich, and plough the soil," say Makru and Jagannath

Jagannath Oraon and Makru Oraon, young men in their twenties who dropped out of school in Class 8. Both are from Seharbeda near the upper catchment of the Sona river. Jagannath says his family owns around two acres. Once a year they would grow paddy, broadcasting seeds. A relative took him to Chhattisgarh to work in a shop. He was so miserable he ran away and came back to his village. Jagannath is now a serious and accomplished farmer. He also plays a key role in motivating other tribals to make their land productive. Through lift-irrigation he gets water from the Sona river for two crops. He grows tomatoes, gram, chillies, snake gourd, onions and potatoes. In fact, last season he earned between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000 selling vegetables. Money earned from one season is ploughed into paying for the next seasons crop. He says TSRDS taught him how to enrich, plough and aerate the soil, how to plant, how to fight pests, use minimal water and fertiliser etc. Hemraj Oraon, 25, proudly shows off his field in Mosodih village. He has three fields on which he has currently planted potatoes, tomatoes and onions. He also grows lentils and chickpeas, he says. For three years he has been cultivating his fields twice a year and selling the surplus in the market. The income he gets from selling paddy is enough to pay for the next round of cultivation. TSRDS supplies the seeds at a subsided rate and the important thing is that the seeds are genuine, he says. His family has seven members. Nobody needs to migrate to

work in the city and nobody wants to. Previously he used to work as a daily wage labourer. His fields would yield just one crop of paddy, if there was adequate rainfall. My life was very different in those days, he says. I was always moving from one place to another in search of work. Hemraj is a member of the Village Development Committee, (VDC). He says the committee makes sure everyone has water for their crops. Women in the family help out in the fields. We also exchange our labour. So, villagers work in my field when I need help and then I work in their fields. Alternatively we pay around Rs 90 per day, he says. Farming here is done collectively. He says he would like to expand. I want to be able to grow a third crop, he says ambitiously. Hemraj has a bank account. He has savings of Rs 10,000. Fellow villagers and TSRDS field staff tease Hemraj about the amount really being twice or thrice that. He demurs, but not too strongly. Narayan and his wife Sambhari Oraon of Seharbeda village farm on three acres. Narayan owns the land with his five brothers. He says he earned Rs 9,000 last season from brinjals alone. He used to be a construction labourer near Chennai. He escaped the tsunami by a hairs breadth. After that he decided to stay on in his village. Tribals now see their land as an asset. Everyone has land here, says Bhejo Dao, the widow. If I go out to work my field will be uncultivated. If we rent out our fields, the sharecropper

110

SMALL FIELD, BIG CROP

will get the maximum benefit. But now see the field wholly belongs to me. I benefit because I cultivate it. True, I am alone. But here we help each other. Other women come and work in my field and then I go work in theirs. There is self-respect and dignity in farming on your own field, she explains. PARTICIPATION Nothing of course would have been possible without carrying the villagers along. It meant ensuring participation at every stage. It was necessary to involve the villagers in a process of planning. To introduce new methods of farming it was necessary to have trial plots where old methods and the new ones were used simultaneously so that the difference could be seen. Consent and acceptance and a willingness to implement were essential to the success of the TSRDS inititiave. The VDC proved to be an important mechanism in ensuring consultation and getting villagers to buy into ideas through collective decisions. Each village has had individuals who have taken the lead. Jagannath at Saherbeda, Hemraj at Mosodih, Mahato at Kendua and so on. Much has depended on individuals TSRDS put in the field such as Arup Chakravorty and Manoj Kumar. As we move through the villages with them, we find that they know farmers by name and have an easy relationship with them.

ful not to give anything free. So, seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, saplings are all part paid for by the villagers as a matter of principle. But it remains a delicate balance with TSRDS having to know when to take the lead and when to withdraw, when to suggest and when to consult. It is a process which has led to new kinds of decision-making among the tribals. For instance, Jagannath of Seharbeda will tell you that he wont be planting tomatoes rightaway because a tomato crop is already coming up nearby and he wont get a good price for his tomatoes. Winning the confidence of the tribals has sometimes meant looking out for those needs that have been crying out to be met. For instance, elephants are a menace in the area. They come down from the hills and play havoc with the crops. Traditionally, tribals light torches and beat drums to get the elephants to leave. But it is not easy. TSRDS identified a special torch with an intense light that the elephants cannot stand. The torch is available in Kolkata and by importing it for the tribals elephants can now be chased away. IS THIS CSR? An important lesson from the TSRDS project is that companies can make a serious difference to the quality of life in their hinterland if they choose to engage meaningfully with communities. It is also necessary for compa-

To introduce new methods of farming it was necessary to have trial plots where old and new methods were both used so that the difference could be seen.
Now Manager Rural Services, Chakravorty has spent 26 years with the Tatas, a great many of these years out in the field, sometimes at remote locations. Manoj worked with a fertiliser company and then became involved with field studies. He has the low-key approach of a good researcher. It is important to understand the tribal mindset, says Manoj. For instance, once you say you will do something, you have to do it or the faith is broken. A tribal who feels you have let him down will not talk to you again. For example, one of the problems that we encounter is the breakdown of a pumpset. Manoj promises to send another along to serve as replacement. Now that I have promised it, I will have to make sure that it reaches, he tells us. It is through such consistent relationship-building that the tribal farmer has been helped to give up older less efficient practices and adopt new ones that have brought prosperity and added value to life in the villages. To reinforce the sense of participation, TSRDS has been carenies to go beyond mere cheque-book charity and instead empower people to live their lives better. TSRDS involvement with the tribal farmers is entirely participatory. Teams that undertake such initiatives also need to consist of people who care and have an understanding of the issues and the environmental and scientific challenges. TSRDS, you could say, excels in this regard. It is also interesting how Tata Steel has used its own reach to bring in knowhow and talent from all over the country. It has been innovative in involving ACMF based in Chennai and ICRISAT in Hyderabad. Finally, companies that take on complex social tasks must have a vision that goes beyond the ordinary. In this particular case, Tata Steel through TSRDS laid out the vision of improving the economic and social status of the community by an increase in crop productivity, which would lead to an increase in household income and food security and have a direct correlation with reduction in distress migration. These goals have nothing to do with making steel, but are clearly the result of how the company sees itself as a creator of wealth and a driver of social change.

111

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Debdoot Mohanty, head of the Rural and Tribal Services Department at Tata Steel

Training has been given in the field

D
EBDOOT Mohanty is the head of the Rural and Tribal Services Department at Tata Steel. He was with the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, leading its Central India office in Jharkhand, before he moved to his current role. He works closely with the team that has helped promote better agricultural practices among tribal farmers in the SeraikelaKharsawan district. We spoke to Mohanty at his office in Jamshedpur. A pilot has to be followed by replication and then expansion. At every stage the responsibility of the promoting organisation is different. In some areas we are in the phase of replication and in some areas we are at the expansion stage. At expansion stage you begin cutting back on subsidies and focusing on technical support. The farmers have realised that the new methods work and have adopted them. What they look for and need is technical support. Such support means being with the farmers in the field and helping them in different stages of the crop. In such stages we also involve agricultural experts and scientists from the universities and ask them to use the field as a lab. For instance, we have involved ICRISAT to help with dryland farming techniques. There are uplands where farmers have been holding back because of dry conditions. Now in one of the villages we have taken up dry land farming over 40 acres with ICRISATs support.

What is the significance of this pilot project with tribal farmers in Seraikela- Kharsawan district? Every programme new to the area has got different stages. First there is the pilot project when the organisation doing the pilot with the farmers is taking the risk on their behalf. At this stage, essentially you are saying that if something goes wrong we will take responsibility. The pilot project has to be done with a few farmers. It cant be done with a thousand farmers. It has to be done with the farmers who have the capacity to take the risk.

112

SMALL FIELD, BIG CROP

The main objective has been food security and increase in the income of farmers from their patch of land. First step in this direction was to ensure that the villagers have at least one paddy crop. We call it paddy stabilisation, which means you try to see that production goes up with the use of improved seeds, better package of practices, availability of water resources and so on. The idea is to assure farmers that they will get one paddy crop, which they are accustomed to in the kharif season and that they will have enough to eat. It is only then that farmers agree to go in for additional crops. A lot of training has been given to farmers. Can you tell us about that? We have focussed mostly on training in the field directly. Ours is not classroom training. The other form of training we have given is by way of exposure so that they can go to other places and see how other farmers are doing things. We have also emphasised exposure in the farmers own fields. For instance, when ACMF experts come down from Chennai, they work directly with farmers in the fields. They demonstrate techniques at the field level. Even when people from ICRISAT come down, they spend the whole day from morning to evening running around in the fields. It is the same thing for our people - all their interactions are on the ground to see how things are working. You see at the pilot stage you have to be very serious. Close monitoring is needed. When you want to bring in change you have to make sure that what you are implementing actually works for people to want to adopt it. In Kendua village, for instance, we have worked intensively on 20 acres monitoring each plot and assessing the reasons for success and failure. The 20 acres have been broken up into 133 plots. By doing this we know the yield of each plot. A few plots by the canal had lower production. Since we were monitoring the data we could find out that the reason for the low production was a breach in the canal. Stagnating water had hurt the crop when it was 10 or 15 days old. On the other hand, a farmer, where the crop got the right distribution of

water, had the maximum return of 2.8 tonne per acre. We could understand all this because we were closely involved in the field. The credit should also go to the ACMF team for emphasising the need to monitor each and every field. What are the innovations that have emerged in the course of the project? I cant call them innovations. The changes that we have introduced are in our approach. You cannot have a crop without having knowledge of the soil. So you need soil testing. You need to find out the deficiencies in the soil and make good what is lacking. It is not as though production has gone up magically. We have done a lot of homework: soil testing, administered the dose that is required in the soil and so on. Then there is crop management. For instance, when should the farmer deweed his fields? We have found that farmers who have larger families are more thorough with deweeding. On water management I would not say that we have done that much. But yes, we have done plenty of water resource work. To go in for a second crop it is necessary to have a good water management system. The time has come to go in for that. You are making a distinction between resource and management Yes, resources you can go on creating, but they have to be managed properly. A consciousness is now setting in. Recently I found one of the farmers asking another why he was flooding his fields. So much water was not needed, he pointed out. But we have not done much on water management. We are going to introduce drip irrigation wherever possible. There are many low-cost drip irrigation systems available. There is also a good demand for mechanisation It is coming up. We are in constant discussion with Tata Agrico so that they can develop implements required for this area. Are there some unusual implements that are required? Not unusual. It is modification of the implements already available to suit the requirements in the field. Shovels for instance dont go low enough. Even using a tractor does not take you below 10 to 12 inches. But here we need to go to 18 inches to do really good work.

113

INVENTIVE INDIANS

16
INCLUSIVE COMPANY
The TVS Motor Company works closely with communities around its factories to create employment, promote small businesses and empower women

ALL ON BOARD WITH TVS

UMESH ANAND

URUGESAMMA used to work on the fields in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu as an agricultural worker. She earned a daily wage and could at best hope for seasonal employment. But in recent years her life has changed dramatically. As part of a selfhelp group (SHG), Murugesamma makes Rs 1,200 from just five hours of rolling out chapattis every alternative day. She has a house on land allotted to her under the Indira Awas Yojna. Her family has its own toilet. The children go to school. Her husband still works for a daily wage, but for Murugesamma the uncertainties of being a labourer on someone elses fields are something of the past. Her SHG of 15 women, the Gokularlakshmi Magalir Sangam, has pieced together enough money to lease one and a half acres on which the women grow bananas. The land has come for Rs 30,000 for the year. They have grown 1,300 banana plants and since they have relied on tissue culture they are reasonably certain about the yield. Each plant cost them Rs 12 and they spent Rs 60,000 on preparing the land. They hope the crop will give them a profit of Rs 3 lakhs, which will be divided among the SHGs members. This is light work. Previously I had no idea what it was like to have land and savings. I will use the money for improving my home, educating the children and so on, says Murugesamma. The turn in Murugesammas familys fortunes is the result of the efforts of the TVS Group, one of the countrys largest twowheeler manufacturers. The groups philosophy of reaching

out to communities around its factories has led it to be a catalyst for development work that changes peoples lives in enduring ways. These activities do nothing directly for the TVS bottom line, but they do help bring people out of poverty and create a sense of well-being at locations where the company has invested. If TVS gains in any way, it is by reinforcing its image as a trustworthy and caring company that wants to give back to society. In times when factories can no longer promise jobs, helping people like Murugesamma live a better life cuts hostility at factory locations. It also reduces the uncomfortable disparities that result from a modern business flourishing in the midst of poverty and collapsing infrastructure. On occasion TVS has gone beyond factory locations to work in Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari. Importantly, TVS refuses to do charity. Its strategy is to assist communities in investing in their own development. So, whether it is an SHGs business or a drain or clean drinking water, people have to make a contribution by way of money and labour. Thousands of families like Murugesammas have been helped to emerge from poverty. There are no cases of infant mortality in communities where its factories are located. It works with local schools by cleaning them up, helping provide better toilets, particularly for girls, installing computers

114

ALL ON BOARD WITH TVS

Murugesamma with proud members of her SHG at a banana field leased from the earnings of their chapatti kitchen

115

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Self-help groups get together on a special occasion

and building infrastructure. TVS has focussed on taking piped water to clusters of households. It has cemented village roads and helped people deal with the problem of garbage and waste. Villages around the factories in Mysore and Hosur are spick and span. Company doctors do regular rounds and animators from among the village residents get Rs 2,000 a month for disseminating messages of hygiene and a balanced diet. Kitchen gardens have been brought alive. TVS works through the Srinivasan Services Trust (SST), which was established in 1996 by Venu Srinivasan, chairman of the group. Since 2002, SSTs activities are overseen by Ashoke Joshi, a retired secretary to the Government of India. It is his responsibility to stitch together various social initiatives in locations at Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and, most recently, Indonesia. But it is through 389 SHGs in south India that the companys goal of bringing people up and making them self-reliant has been achieved. The SHGs involve 4,277 families whose incomes are now between Rs 800 and Rs 1,800 a month. The SHGs have savings of Rs 1.54 crores and have borrowed Rs 3.23 crores from banks. In Hosur and Mysore the SHGs have savings of Rs 52 lakhs.

They have borrowed Rs 1.44 crores from banks. The banks charge 12 per cent and the SHGs in turn charge 12 per cent from the women. The money thus comes with an interest burden of 24 per cent. But despite this there have been no defaults on the loans. In the vicinity of the Hosur factory, 900 women are members of 52 SHGs. They are mostly scheduled castes and normally speaking there would be little hope for them or their families. Now they run businesses in making chapattis and earn at least Rs 1,200 each a month from five hours of work every alternative day. The SHGs also make phenol, incense sticks, baskets, soap and rear livestock. But it is in the making of chapattis that they have found a business that is at the core of their emancipation from uncertain employment. The TVS factories buy all their chapattis from the SHGs of these scheduled caste women. So do other neighbouring units such as Biocon and Mico SKF. Several caterers have become regular clients. This means a demand for more than 6,000 chapattis a day. The chapattis are made in spotless kitchens on land which the SHGs have bought. The fact that the chapattis are made by

116

ALL ON BOARD WITH TVS

Making chapattis helps women climb out of poverty

scheduled caste women and eaten by everyone at the factories bridges an important caste divide. Normally the women would be untouchables. They dress in clean saris with aprons, caps and masks for the mouth. Each SHG has its own uniform. The chapattis are labelled with coloured dots on the aluminium packing so that if there is a problem with quality, accountability can be fixed. The SHGs had to be trained to make chapattis because it is not a part of the local diet. It is ragi that they eat. Initially it would take them one hour to make 100 chapattis. Now they can make up to 2,000 chapattis in one hour. The chapatti business has brought liberation in many ways. First of all it means ready money because they serve a captive market in the factories, which need to provide workers meals through the day. It is also a regular income. Secondly, it has given the women status in the uniforms they wear and the higher level of work they do. In this sense it has rescued them from the bondage of caste. It has also taught them ownership because the SHGs are in reality rapidly expanding micro-enterprises. They have a growing base of assets. Finally, incomes for the women have changed their status in

the family. They have become decision-makers. Their aspirations for their children are invariably focussed around education. All their children go to school. One of them has a son who has taken admission to an MBA course. Another hopes her son will be an engineer. The women need to work for only five hours every alternative day. There is therefore more time for the family. At the Mysore factory, Jason Samuel, the general manager, says 30 per cent of his 1,500-strong work force comes from nearby villages. That is a considerable number. But the same is not true of other locations. Moreover, of the 1,500 at Mysore, only 650 are permanent employees. The rest get temporary work. It remains a need to reach out and make people self-reliant. It is through SHGs that this is best achieved. Improvement of toilets, drainage, roads and schools on the other hand creates an overall sense of well being. TVS has shown that companies can connect with people in these ways. In Mysore, Jacob Philip, a civil engineer, has designed a community toilet for a cluster of families and is proud of a wetland where birds in large numbers visit. He works with Ravi, the community development officer, and A Chikkaswamy, a retired assistant commissioner of the Karnataka government. Since TVS believes in putting govern-

117

INVENTIVE INDIANS

ment programmes to good use, Chikkaswamys liaison work is very important. At Hosur, P Kamalakkannan is in charge of community development. He has a degree in social work. Kamalakkannan is a bundle of energy, out from morning to night networking the SHGs. His four assistants are Don Bosco Mary, Nanjappa, Veerabhadraiya and Manjunath. They are skilled animators. BN Srinivasan, the president of the gram panchayat of Belagondapalli near the Hosur factory, says that requests to TVS for jobs go unanswered. But when it comes to service to the community without fanfare you cant match TVS, says Srinivasan. They may not give us jobs, but they do much more for our uplift by providing us health care, improving schools, helping us install drainage systems. The Belagondapalli gram panchayat has won the Nirmal Gram Puruskar for having the cleanest village in the district of Krishnagiri. Srinivasan has also been felicitated by the President of India for implementing the total sanitation project. Ninety per cent of the villagers here have individual toilets and 10 per cent use community toilets. Both solid and liquid waste management programmes are being implemented

just about everywhere in Hosur, there appeared to be little future for a bus stand hopelessly located at the tri-junction of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It had users in tens of thousands, but, like most public assets, it belonged to nobody. Just one addition to the bus stand made all the difference. It was a pay-and-use toilet. TVS part financed the construction on public land and put the management of the toilet in the hands of an SHG. The toilet now generates Rs 1 lakh of revenue a month from users, who pay between Rs 1 and Rs 5 for the facilities. Some 3,000 people use it every day. It has running water and is perfectly clean. In addition, SHG members sweep the bus stand through the day. So, what was once a filthy terminal is now free of litter. A spot where men used to urinate in the open has been decorated with pictures of gods and goddesses with the result that no one dares to be a public nuisance any longer. Women who manage the pay-and-use toilet earn at least Rs 2,200 a month. They didnt have any source of income earlier. Revival of the bus stand has, therefore, made it possible to improve their lot as well.

Biodegradable waste is converted into compost through vermi-composting pits which TVS helped to set up. There is house-to-house collection of garbage.
Biodegradable waste is converted into compost through vermi-composting pits which TVS helped to set up. There is house-to-house collection of garbage. Families pay Rs 10 each a month. Now the panchayat is implementing a project through which sewage water will be sold to farmers and bring in revenue of Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 a year. All the sewage has been brought to a single point where in stabilisation ponds and with the use of reeds and trees it is being treated. The panchayat president says he has depended on SHGs in the area to implement these ideas. It is his ambition to make his village so attractive that people from the nearby urban areas will prefer to shift there. A village should be clean and developed. It is possible to achieve this, he says, seated behind his office table on which there is a picture of him receiving the sanitation award from the President of India. A year ago, the main bus stand at Hosur was like any other: it overflowed with garbage and spent plastic bags. The stench of unclean toilets was strong. Hundreds of buses rumbled in and out each day and for travellers on hot and dusty journeys there seemed to be no respite. With civic amenities collapsing The importance of toilets cant be stressed enough. In villages around TVS factories people no longer defecate in the open. The result is better hygiene and, as a consequence, improved health indicators. There is no infant mortality and there is a lower incidence of stomach disorders. Toilets at schools result in better attendance by girls. At one school, the children asked the principal for access to the toilets at all hours and won this concession. Personal hygiene and solid and liquid waste disposal have resulted in the incidence of skin and waterborne diseases going down from 48 per cent to 19 per cent. Getting toilets right can be a challenge both in terms of design and the use of space. In Mysore, at the village of Dadadahalli, Jacob Philips toilet for 53 families is a marvel of innovation. The land was gifted by Shivanna, a resident of the village. A circular structure, the toilet is open from the middle with a water tank in the centre of the courtyard. Toilet seats and bathing rooms are all on the periphery of the circle and open onto the courtyard. This could be a model for small-scale public toilets across the country. The open-to-sky design ensures that there is no

118

ALL ON BOARD WITH TVS

Women earn a living from managing the toilet at the bus stand at Hosur

smell. The sunshine flooding the entire toilet also disinfects it and keeps it dry. The cost of maintenance is met by each family paying Rs 10 a month to use the facility. Similarly, there are toilets for individual households that the company has helped construct. Some of them come for as little as Rs 2,500 with the government providing Rs 500. TVS helps out families with engineering and design advice. Should a two-wheeler manufacturer be investing company resources in supporting SHGs in making chapattis. Should it be designing and building toilets? In the TVS Group no one raises this question. It is a part of the groups corporate culture, says Ashoke Joshi who reports directly to Venu Srinivasan on matters relating to the Srinivasan Services

Trust. TVS social commitments are seen as having a direct bearing on its identity as a business. The interest in the community and the employees goes back to TV Sundaram Iyengar, who in 1911 started a bus service which was long remembered for punctuality and cleanliness. He was known for the personal interest he took in the welfare of the people he hired. For Indian industry today, coping with the demands of job reservation and problems of land acquisition, the TVS Groups use of SHGs to spread prosperity and its emphasis on local development where it invests is an example of how businesses can pledge themselves to inclusion and strengthen bottom lines by going beyond them.

119

INVENTIVE INDIANS

17
ENGINEER-ECOLOGIST
Dhrubajyoti Ghosh has shown how traditional fisheries in the eastern fringes of Kolkata are more efficient and much cheaper than a modern sewage treatment plant

PONDS KEEPA RIVER CLEAN

UMESH ANAND

ACH day Indian rivers come under assault as cities big and small across the country disgorge sewage into them. The Yamuna has been reduced to a drain as it trickles past Delhi. The mighty Ganga is no better than a cesspool at many locations on its long course. The stories of a whole lot of other rivers are no better. Since the eighties, huge sums of public money have been spent on trying to put an end to this pollution. Under dedicated action plans, sewage treatment plants have been set up, but they either have little efficiency or lie in complete disuse. Often, there just isnt the electricity to run them. Moreover, municipal administrations are so lacking in accountability that treatment plants really have no ownership. However, for the past 70 years or so, in the eastern fringes of Kolkata, a network of ponds managed by local people has been able to achieve what government initiatives have not. Untreated sewage flows into the ponds and is cleansed naturally and as efficiently as it would have been in a treatment plant. In addition, the sewage is used to grow fish, irrigate fields and finally, minus its original contaminants, it flows into the Kulti Gong. Kolkatas sewage, estimated at 750 million litres a day, goes through underground sewers to points from where it is pumped into outfall canals that take it into the eastern wetlands. These wetlands are an extension of Kolkatas drainage system beyond the sluice gates en route to the river. The ponds here serve the dual purpose of naturally treating

sewage and reusing waste. They have been globally recognised as a flourishing resource recycling system based on traditional knowledge and practices. The ponds provide a unique solution to concerns over urban ecological balance. They have a special position in a world that wakes up each day to new worries over energy, waste, livelihoods and food. The system is scientific, but for decades it has worked on knowledge of its intricacies being passed on from one generation to the next. When the sewage arrives in the pond network, it is kept standing in the sun, which results in biodegradation of the wastes through an algae-bacteria symbiosis. The local people have got this process right. They know to excavate the ponds to the correct depth, take in the right quantity of sewage and then judge when it is ready to be used for safely growing fish. Pond design is important. So is the use of water hyacinth to absorb heavy metals in the sewage and serve as a buffer for the sides of the ponds. When the managers of the ponds are through with purifying the sewage, the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), a measure of organic pollution, has been reduced by more than 80 per cent. Also, almost all coliform bacteria have been removed. The wetlands consist of fisheries, paddy fields that use effluents from the fisheries and vegetable garbage gardens. They together make a recycling zone.

120

PONDS KEEP A RIVER CLEAN

Engineer and ecologist Dhrubajyoti Ghosh

An average pond can produce as much as 5 tonnes of fish in a year. The species are Rohu, Catla, Mrigal and Tilapia. The ponds are believed to support 8,500 people directly. But they provide a much bigger service to Kolkata by ensuring a regular supply of fish to the citys markets, serving as a carbon sink with their greenery and water bodies and in addition they cleanse the citys sewage. The wetlands were originally used for growing brackish water fish. But when the Baidyadhari, which brought in sea water, died it became necessary to find an alternative source of water. It was then that local people experimented with waste from Kolkata leading to a whole new expertise in growing fish. This and more is known about the system because of the efforts of Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, an engineer-ecologist, who while employed in the West Bengal government in the eighties researched the system and showcased its benefits. For a planner, it is difficult to identify an alternative concept that can be less capital intensive than the Kolkata wetland system. It has been functioning for ages in harmony with nature, says Ghosh. Describing Ghosh as one of the worlds leading ecologists, MS Swaminathan, the internationally famous agricultural expert, says: In the east Kolkata wetlands, the local people have created the worlds largest assembly of waste water fish ponds. This is an excellent demonstration of traditional ecological prudence which leads to converting waste into a valuable resource.

East Kolkata has found recognition in very diverse quarters. It is hailed by ecologists and environmentalists. It is included in a World Bank handbook on ecosystem management. The ponds are also collectively listed as a wetland to be preserved under the Ramsar Convention. East Kolkata has been mentioned in the national environment policy. Recognition of the role played by its ponds in cleansing sewage also led them to be included in the Ganga Action Plan as a viable low-cost alternative technology. Three sites elsewhere in West Bengal were chosen for replication, in addition to some interest shown in Uttar Pradesh. At each of these sites, Ghosh demonstrated that a system like the one in east Kolkata could work. The pollution load was reduced to levels required under the Ganga Action Plan. The ponds produced fish. And the cost of setting up the system was barely a third of what it would have been for a conventional sewage treatment plant. But for all this validation, there has been little serious effort to examine how the east Kolkata system can be protected and perpetuated. No significant effort has been made to reinvent the system elsewhere in India as a workable solution to the problem of filthy rivers. Can, for instance, ponds like the ones in Kolkata be made to work on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi? Are they any good for the outfalls that serve rapidly expanding urban areas of Gurgaon in Haryana? There are several opportunities which could be explored.

121

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Possible hurdles could be cultural in nature. Not everyone eats fish and many actually turn up their noses at its smell. Then again, sewage is widely regarded as being dirty. Perhaps it is too much to expect communities to overnight acquire the decades-old conditioning of the people of east Kolkata. There is also the problem of having enough land. Several thousand hectares would be needed. A natural gradient in the topography, too, is required. Kolkata slopes gently from the west to the east and the drainage system of the city follows this gradient. Toxicity is another serious concern. With municipal administration becoming slack there is a growing danger of chemicals and other industrial wastes getting mixed up with the sewage. This has serious implications for the fish and agricultural produce from the wetlands. So far studies conducted in east Kolkata have shown that the contamination is not significant. Better urban management can ensure that industrial wastes do not mingle with the sewage. Adaptations of the east Kolkata model are a serious option. A little innovation in government has been seen to work wonders. Educating communities and giving them the incentives

The east Kolkata wetlands have been under attack in Kolkata itself for the past two decades despite the service they provide the city and their unique resource recycling role. With Kolkata being congested and over-built, developers and land sharks have looked to the eastern periphery, which runs adjacent to the city, for expansion. These are forces that have a huge influence over policy. The result has been the steady whittling away of the hinterland of the ponds over the years. Housing colonies, industrial estates, hotels, roadways and so on have eaten into the east. The entire resource recycling system, which includes agricultural fields, garbage gardens, channels and so on, now consists of some 8,500 hectares of which the ponds represent 4,000 hectares. This is protected under the Ramsar Convention. But international protection on paper can mean a lot and nothing at all. In the absence of adequate local government and political recognition of the worth of the system, east Kolkata is foundering. Property developers keep attempting forays of one kind or the other into the wetlands with the state CPI (M)-

In the conventional system reducing pollution is the sole objective. In the wetlands, quality improves, but resource recovery is an integral part of the exercise.
to use innovative solutions can go a long way. This may be particularly so in times when communities feel oppressed by pollution and water shortages. It is well known that farmers are ever-eager to take nutrient rich effluents from sewage treatment plants, where and when they are in working condition. They realise they are taking cleansed sewage. So, a possible mental block against sewage as a resource isnt an insurmountable problem where a tradition, as the one in east Kolkata, may not already exist. Similarly, state governments in regions far removed from the culture of eating fish have been encouraging fish cultivation with grand success, thereby providing local prosperity through small businesses and jobs and an important source of protein. Haryana is an example with a fish farmer in Karnal getting a national award for entrepreneurship. Perhaps the east Kolkata pond networks biggest asset, which is its innate simplicity, is its real undoing. Policy-makers find it hard to make the transition from a regime of tenders and purchase orders to a lithe, people-based, low-cost system that is truly entrepreneurial in spirit and managed without government interventions. led Left Front government looking the other way because of the interests involved. Fish pond owners are also constantly at the mercy of the municipal authorities over the availability of sewage, which must reach their ponds through designated channels. Maintenance of the channels is also required. A big challenge is in maintaining continuity. The younger generation feels insecure about the future and is therefore an unwilling inheritor of the system. So far the science in managing the fish ponds has been passed on from one generation to the next. But older people who know how the system works are fading out and the young are hesitant to come forward. TWO SYSTEMS In the conventional system of waste water treatment, reducing pollution is the sole objective. In the wetlands, the quality of the water released into the river is improved, but resource recovery is an integral part of the exercise. So while the wetlands help in keeping the river clean, they also seek to provide food and livelihoods. The five tonnes of fish per hectare per year that a well-managed pond delivers is not insignificant. The fish goes back to

122

PONDS KEEP A RIVER CLEAN

the city of Kolkata as food. On the other hand in the conventional system, assuming that it works to optimum levels, only the sewage is treated before it flows into the river. The key difference between the two systems is that one sees waste water as a pollutant and the other as a resource. Since local people benefit from the traditional system, they develop a keen interest in making the system work. The farmer gets nutrient-rich water for irrigation and fish production provides livelihoods. But a mechanically run treatment plant has few owners. So, when it shuts down, no one really cares. In the pond system, failure to perform will affect irrigation downstream. It is most likely farmers will protest at being deprived of their water. Then again, if the ponds are not properly maintained, fish production will suffer and the profits of the fish producers will be hit. The wetlands of east Kolkata have been kept alive by people who depend upon them. If they have worked well it is because the community ensures that they do. Another point is the flexibility of the traditional system. It can be expanded as you go along. On the other hand a sewage treatment plant is designed for the next 20 years and even after 10 years 30 per cent of the capacity of these plants is not being used. LITTLE KNOWN Little or nothing was known about east Kolkata till the eighties. It is only when Ghosh began studying the system and promoting it as a waste-as-resource example that awareness grew. For most of Kolkatas residents, the city ended at the tanneries on the eastern fringes. The Dhapa square mile where vegetables are grown on garbage from the city, the sewage-fed fisheries and the agricultural fields simply did not exist. The Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, skirting Kolkata and providing easy access to the airport, brought the city closer. But even then east Kolkata was chiefly known for the strong smell of wastes that Kolkatans would get while driving past. There would also be mountains of garbage at the landfill sites a reminder of the pressures building on Kolkatas civic services. Of the resource recycling system beyond, there was no awareness. There is slightly wider knowledge today of its working, but it is mostly academic. Ghoshs devotion to the system has resulted in some media coverage. However, the best stories were done in the 80s and coincided with Ghosh being able to bond with journalists sensitive to his ideas. Thereafter, Ghosh, despite international recognition, got pushed around in government for coming in the way of interests who saw in east Kolkata a real estate opportunity. Likewise journalists willing to explore the fisheries and understand the science in them moved on. There has been the odd effort in the courts to save the wetlands. Bringing them under the Ramsar Covention, of course, does the maximum to protect them. An outstanding docu-

mentary film by Jojo Karlekar and his team, the recipient of awards and once aired on Doordarshan, will preserve for posterity the life around the wetlands. But for the average Kolkatan the city still ends at the Bypass and the housing colonies and offices and so on that have come up along it. Getting to know the wetlands means leaving the bypass and taking the road to Bantala for instance. An hour down that road you will find expanses of fisheries. The air is fresh and free from the heavy diesel fumes that hang over Kolkata. On a clear day you can see the buildings of the city. Nevertheless the setting is entirely rural. Fishermen are out in their boats, bringing in a catch. There are others tending to nets or transferring fries from small ponds to big ones. There are machaan-like platforms for keeping watch over the ponds which get raided by marauders. Packs of dogs do guard duty all night and laze around during the day. The area around the ponds is hugely fertile. Pond managers grow vegetables in plenty and flowers too. Ducks are a part of this ecosystem. It is their job to get rid of snails that arent good for the ponds. NO MANAGEMENT PLAN Ghosh believes that the wetlands continue to suffer from the lack of a management plan and the absence of ownership of the system in the municipal administration. The danger is we dont have a management plan for the wetlands as yet even after five years of it being declared a Ramsar site. But governance is urgently needed, he says. On the question of ownership, he says, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) often pleads inability in maintaining the height of waste water at nine feet at Bantala. The pumping department does not want to cooperate. Ghosh argues that thanks to the wetlands the KMC has saved Rs 600 crores, which it would have had to spend on setting up a sewage treatment plant. It should therefore exercise ownership over the wetlands and do its best to help them flourish. The technology used here is not magic. It is well understood and recognized by sanitation engineers. Oxidation is one of the best methods of cleansing sewage, he explains. Ghosh considers it possible to replicate the system in any wetland area even if it is not as big an expanse as Kolkatas wetlands. Land wont be a problem if the wetlands are regarded as part of an agricultural system, he says. That is as much a solution as it is a problem. Initiatives that dont involve acquiring land and issuing contracts have few takers in the government. But Ghosh believes that despite the neglect of east Kolkata in India, its moment in a new set of global priorities has arrived. The fishermen of the wetlands are the forerunners of a contemporary worldview of waste as resource pursued by leaders and thinkers of the modern-day environment movement, he says. And in a shrinking world, saving east Kolkata and replicating it may well yet become an Indian priority.

123

INVENTIVE INDIANS

18
SMALL IS WONDERFUL
A micro hydel power plant lights up a Kerala village which had grown tired of petitioning the government for electricity. Is small, clean power the way forward?

OWN YOUR POWER, LIVE WISELY

SHREE PADRE

HE sun had just slipped into the Arabian Sea. Yet darkness had not covered us. Here at Pathampara, a sleepy hamlet up in the Western Ghats in Kerala, lights flickered at various levels like stars in the sky. A row of kiosks looked especially bright because they stood together up in front and the street on which they were located had no lights. In 1997, Pathampara, a 90-minute drive from Kannur, made headlines when it stopped petitioning the government for electricity and instead began generating its own power from a very small facility by using the flow of a local stream to run a turbine. The excitement villagers felt over their achievement is palpable even today. All that you see from here is our Janakeeya Current (which means Peoples Electricity). We have taken it to the highest peak of this hill, Govindan PK, a farmer, proudly tells us. Pathamparas achievement has been replicated in the Narmada Valley thanks to the interest shown by Medha Patkar and the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Similar small projects have also been set up in the interiors of Tanzania and Kenya. In power deficit India, can small hydel projects like Pathamparas meet one kind of demand: that of villages? Can they cut cost and time and provide the impetus for regenerating the rural economy by serving village-based industries? Pathampara was intended to be an experiment by activists

who wanted to demonstrate that eco-friendly power production is possible. But years later it is seen as a serious model for clean, sustainable power from decentralised sources with low investment provided of course the terrain is right and a reliable water source exists. At a cost of Rs 2.5 lakhs, the 5 KW hydel project was commissioned in 1997. Originally 36 families were beneficiaries, each contributing Rs 6,000 and labour. Later another 29 households were put on the system, extending its reach to two kilometres from the power house. Janakeeya Current has become well established. But some three years ago, the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) finally caught up with Pathampara and began supplying it electricity. The village now has two systems to choose from: its own Janakeeya Current and the power that comes from the government grid. It was the Pathampara Janakeeya Urja Committee that organised locals for this project. It now shoulders the responsibility of maintenance. An operator, who is paid a salary, is stationed at the power house to put the supply on for two hours in the morning and six hours after 5 pm. During festivals, the supply is continuous. Each family is allowed to light five CFL bulbs and a television set. High voltage devices such as grinder-mixers are disallowed. Each family has to pay a monthly maintenance fee of Rs 75. A small additional fee is charged for running a television.

124

OWN YOUR POWER, LIVE WISELY

Power cuts and maintenance failures arent known to these people. Voltage is always good. I wonder how many other areas there would be in Kerala that dont have power cuts and breakdowns and dont have to run after KSEB staff to get problems fixed, says Shibu, ex-secretary of the committee. Vijayan, the present secretary, points out: In the past 12 years, we havent increased the maintenance fee, except for an extra levy of Rs 10 on the shops. On an average, we have spent around Rs 7,000 for maintenance every year. Recently, we carried out some repairs using Rs 55,000 given by a donor. We have a savings of Rs 10,000. But there is an unavoidable annual problem. The flow in the stream on which the turbine depends dwindles in January. For four months from then the system draws power from a diesel engine. Maintenance charges for these months go up by Rs 25 from Rs 75 to Rs 100 per family. Now that the Kerala governments supply has reached the village some 20 families have completely switched to it. However, 45 families are using the old arrangement that is most dependable and quite inexpensive. A few enjoy both. Shibu recalls, Our efforts to get electricity date back to the early 1980s. We made several representations to the KSEB, our MLA and MP. Officials of the KSEB visited us many times, surveyed the area and even estimated the cost. But nothing happened. We waited and waited. It was at this juncture in 1997, a team of youngsters from the

nearby town of Alakode visited Pathampara, studied the locality in detail and made a proposal. The priest of the local church, Fr Mathew Ashariparambil, convened a meeting. The villagers were told that if they could collect Rs 2.5 lakhs and put in the labour required, the whole village could get electricity. The youngsters had been mobilised by the Peoples School of Energy (PSE). The work was completed in just two months in time for Christmas Day. Till the lights came on, there was a lot of scepticism about whether such a local power supply system would work. K. Anil Kumar, 41, an activist with PSE, says: At one time we were asked about the fate of villagers contributions if the project were to fail. I said we were ready to give a post-dated cheque as a guarantee. It was an offshoot of an environmental agitation, says Anil. In 1994-95, an atomic power plant was proposed at nearby Peringome in Kannur district. With the Chernobyl tragedy fresh in peoples minds, the atomic plant ran into stiff opposition. After two years of protests, it was finally shelved. PSE was started at this time by a group of young engineers and environmentalists to produce eco-friendly energy using local natural resources. At the same time, a section of the media and some politicians began accusing environmentalists of being anti-development. To counter this criticism, Anil and his group decided to provide an example of sustainable clean power and build the

125

INVENTIVE INDIANS

mini hydel project for Pathampara. Son of a school teacher, Anil is a diploma holder in electrical engineering. He runs an electrical shop, Sigma Electicals, at Alakode. From this shop, he services emergency lamps and assembles LED headlights for rubber-tappers. When Anil and his friends at PSE decided to set up a mini hydel project, they really did not know how to go about it. The team started searching for information. Hydronet, a periodical from London, was a bit helpful. It carried case studies of hydel projects that looked possible in this region too. Hydronet led the way to publications of the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in the UK. ITDG has done pioneering work in designing turbines. PSE came across the name of Akalman Nakarmi, a Nepalese engineer who bagged the prestigious Right to Livelihood Award in 1990. In Nepal, except for the capital Kathmandu, all other areas werent electrified till recently. It was Nakarmi who brought light to rural areas through his turbines. He has made an outstanding contribution to the development of sustainable micro hydel power in Nepal, says Anil.

adivasis. Since 1997, Anil and friends have built hydel projects with capacities ranging from 1KW capacity to 20 KW in more than a dozen remote villages. Slowly, the saga of peoples electricity has spread to other countries as well. Anil worked in villages in Tanzania and Kenya too. Except for the offshore projects, I have relied on my earnings from my shop, he says. COMMUNITY PROJECTS In fact, Anil and his friend Samuel Thomas had done a small project earlier. It was a 2 KW system where a pump is used as turbine. It is still functioning at Joseph Padavils house in Ashan Kavala. Initially, these two friends had spent from their own pockets for the project. That was repaid later by Joseph in instalments. This success prompted them to take up a community project. After Pathampara, the group concentrated on community systems. A 2 KW project in Eruvatty in the nearby Chapparapadav panchayat and a 6 KW one at Maloor, both in Kerala, followed. In 2002, they built a system for five adivasi families at Dhom Khedi (1KW) and another at Bilgaon in Maharashtra (20KW). Both these were sponsored by the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

In power deficit India, can small hydel projects like Pathamparas meet one kind of demand: that of villages? Can they cut cost and time?
Once he came to know of Nakarmi, Anil couldnt wait to meet him. Quite incredibly, without an address or a phone number, and with just Rs 5,000 in their pockets, Anil and his friend, Sahadevan, turned up in Kathmandu. They looked for a fortnight but couldnt locate Nakarmi. And then, just as they were about to return, they discovered that his workshop was virtually across the road from where they had been staying. Nakarmi, a public spirited person, not only taught them some of the things they needed to know, but also suggested that they go around Nepal and see the turbines that were working. This exposure gave Anil a clearer idea of what he needed to do in Kerala. I learnt a great deal from him. But for his advice, I wouldnt have made this much progress," says Anil. Flashing an ITDG publication, Micro Hydro Projects Designing, edited by Adam Harvey, he says, This is our Bible. Pathamparas peoples power project attracted visitors from far and near. An impressed Medha Patkar invited the team to Maharashtra to build a couple of systems for the poor Pawri A hydel power project depends on suitable terrain. It is necessary for a good amount of water to flow from a height. A check-dam is constructed across the stream. Water thus stored is diverted through a channel. This water is made to flow down through pipes of a required diameter. Turbines are designed according to the flow of water and the height from which it descends. There are other groups as well that take up small hydel projects. But their role is limited to installing the turbine and the rest of the system that goes with it. They do not organise locals, or guide the civil works. This is where PSE is different. At all the places where it has built hydel projects, it was not that PSE technicians simply took the components and fitted them inside a readymade powerhouse. They had to start from the scratch feasibility study, right location for the checkdam and power house, peoples participation, marking the water channel route, guidance in civil engineering, final fitting of pipes and installations. At Ashan Kavala, Eruvatty and Pathampara, Anil worked with Samuel Thomas, a junior engineer with the governmentowned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). Samuel Thomas and Anil shouldered the responsibility of implementation

126

OWN YOUR POWER, LIVE WISELY

The Govindan family watch television

which at times looked like a big risk. It was Samuel who designed the electronic load governor at Pathampara. It was a dream project, recalls Samuel, For two months, we didnt think about anything else. The community had finished its part of the work in a week. The inauguration date was also fixed. But we had no clear idea about the crucial technical work. Oh, in those three days of wracking my brains and consulting others, I learnt more than what I learnt in four years of my engineering course. Madhusoodhan CG, a civil engineer, accompanied Anil to Dhom Khedi, Bilgaon and Maloor. Chandra Bose, another friend, has had a key role in fabrication and installation. He has also been responsible for repairs. Sincerity of purpose drew Anil and his friends close to the adivasis in the Narmada Valley. They finally saw these engineer sahibs as men who worked day and night to bring electricity into their lives. The conditions in which they worked were invariably tough. In fact, in villages like Dhom Khedi, they did not even have a room for themselves. There were five adivasi families who lived in huts. They had to share one of these huts with a family. A sari was tied across as a makeshift screen to give Anil and Madhusoodhan some privacy. It was a place totally cut off from the outside world. The adivasis gave them four aluminium vessels for cooking. Vegetables werent available. Adivasis took them to the nearby hills. A dozen leafy vegetables were pointed out. Pluck these

whenever you want and cook your food, they told the guests. The nearest city was 110 km away. If a nut didnt match a bolt, one had to go that far to get a replacement. Bilgaon to Dadgaon was two hours in a jeep. Shahada, the nearest city, was four hours from Dadgaon. If one went in search of material it was only possible to return the next day. The 20 KW project of Bilgaon took eight months to complete. Praveen Shivashankar, a Narmada Bachao Andolan activist who is employed in Bangalore now, had stayed with Madhusoodhan and Anil and got the local villagers together to do the manual work. What is it like to stay for months together in remote areas? In the earlier Indian projects, including in Maharashtra, I had a friend all the time with me. Meeting new people, understanding their customs keeps one occupied. There are times when it can become monotonous, but then these are lifetime experiences, says Anil. Small hydel projects are done with the support of local people. So, it is important to know how to get people together within a short time. After all, deadlines have to be met. Explaining ideas in detail and involving the community is as important as getting the technology right. It is very easy to mingle with people, says Anil. Living among them builds bridges and creates understanding. Our message invariably is that we will help them help themselves. Of course it is important to show patience.

127

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Micro hydel power has changed life in remote parts of Africa

AFRICAN EXPERIENCE Sahyadri, a Bangalore-based company, run by Ramsubrammanian, Puneeth Singh and their colleagues, were entrusted by the United Nations International Development Organisation (UNIDO) with the task of installing 10 KW of hydel power in Tanzania. Puneeth asked Anil to be associated with the project because of his vast experience with community efforts and his ability to innovate in difficult situations. Ramsubrahmanyam and Anil worked together. UNIDO also handed over to them the work of installing 10 units of 1 KW each at different locations in Kenya. Both the Kenya and Tanzania assignments were full of challenges. They involved reaching interior areas without motorable roads. Construction materials had to be carried on the head for miles. Villagers had to be taught how to bind wires to steel rods and mix concrete. Often there was no mason, no proper tools and no mixing machine. In the absence of transport, bricks had to be made at the location site and similarly gravel had to be got by breaking rocks. Language was another barrier. But with his close association with the villagers, Anil managed to pick up a working knowledge of Swahili in Tanzania. It helped him later in Kenya. Alexander Varghese, UNIDO Representative for Kenya, says: The Tanzania project was the first micro hydro power implementation of UNIDO in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was completed in six months. From the beginning of the project until it was implemented, Anil stayed with the community, a quality I found to be very admirable. He put up with the very poor

living conditions of that village, made friends with community members who in turn appreciated his company and praised his level of dedication and commitment. In subsequent projects at Kenya, he was also able to train a number of Kenyan engineers in the installation of micro hydro turbines. Anils good work has become one of the cornerstones of our project, Lighting up Kenya. For his success with communities in Tanzania and Kenya, Anil no doubt drew heavily on his Indian experience. Working in remote villages, he learnt how to bond with local people and connect in human terms that far outweigh problems of language and custom. Invariably, gestures matter more than words. Since drawing distribution lines is very expensive, in Kenya UNIDO has come out with a novel deviation from our old distribution system. As part of their Lighting Up Asia programme, the power generated by 1 KW units is supplied to one or two community centres of the respective villages. Villagers are provided with LED lanterns, which they can charge at the community centres. A single charge can last as along as a week. There are also computers at the energy kiosks and villagers learn to use them. A big headache that Anil faced in Tanzania and Kenya was the non-availability of quality pipe fittings and spare parts. These materials arent produced there. They are imported from elsewhere and middle-men take a huge cut. A lot of time would be lost, says Anil, because the pipes wouldnt fit and there would be leakages. In Tanzania and Kenya, winning over the village chief was essential. They would want to take credit for all the develop-

128

OWN YOUR POWER, LIVE WISELY

ment that comes to the village. Once the chief took interest, the community followed. So, generally, within a week we were able to bring the local people on track. Anil is deeply moved by the suffering and exploitation that he saw in Africa. The conditions in those villages were similar to what would have existed in our most backward villages a century ago, he says. The irony is that there is plant biodiversity and the topsoil is good. Unfortunately, in the absence of governance, there are no basic amenities. You will get Coca-Cola and bottled water, hybrid seeds and pesticides. But you cant easily find community sources of water that is fit to drink. People walk three to four kilometres to collect water from unpolluted sources. The poor have become poorer and the rich richer. Five years ago, one kilogramme of rice was available for the equivalent of Rs 10, now its Rs 80. The situation in these countries is a forerunner of what will happen here in India after some years, says Anil.

ed by streams and forests, are deprived of safe water. Their priority is to get clean water. More and more enquiries are coming to PSE from neighbouring Karnataka and other areas for building small hydel projects. Recently Anil was asked to survey Kannur district and to identify suitable sites where such small projects could come up. I was able to identify 88 locations, he says. The Kerala State Planning Commission has started seriously considering how these can be set up and has begun efforts to get funding. According to Anil, In the next phase, there are plans to survey the rest of the 13 districts in Kerala as well. The problem that remains is what should be done in the summer months when the streams dry up. One way out is for the KSEB to supply electricity from its own grid at this time. It is important to link micro hydel projects with the KSEB grid, but before this can happen policy changes are needed, says Anil. Anil and his associates now have the capacity to assemble tur-

Both Kenya and Tanzania were full of challenges. It involved reaching interior areas without roads. Construction materials had to be carried on the head.
You can see the real ill-effects of globalisation in Africa. The government has no control over prices. Education is free only up to the seventh standard. Though there are government schools providing higher education they are hugely expensive. Landlines are very rare. Even in public transport charges vary from day to day and person to person. Nobody is trying to focus on the path of self-reliance or as to how they can make sustainable use of their rich natural resources and strengthen the countrys economy. WATER TO DRINK Anil says that from Africa to India, wherever they have gone to set up a turbine, people have always first asked for water and then electricity. Only on Pathampara were they clear in their choice of electricity. In my 12 years experience so far, it was only the people of Pathampara who wanted electricity. Though the rest of them started enjoying the benefits of electricity after they got it, it was not their priority. Poor people, though they are surroundbines in local workshops. Based on our experience, we have now kept a good stock of different types of turbine buckets to suit different needs. But when we need a bucket that we do not have, we have to run to Gujarat to get the mould done. The group is not keen on requests for individual systems from far off places. We always prefer community systems. Looking back, Anil wonders whether the Pathampara project, if fitted with LED lights, could have managed with just 1 KW of power. We could have planned for the period when the flow is lean and run the small turbine round the year, even in summer. Anils dream is to use PSEs experience in small, decentralised hydel production for strengthening the rural economy. He sees greater scope for using LEDs for the needs of the community. This will reduce consumption and make it possible to have small amounts of surplus power which could go to agro process industries, even if it is for just six months in a year.

129

INVENTIVE INDIANS

19
FARM SAVIOURS
The tsunami of 2005 ruined fields along the coast in Tamil Nadu. They were revived by Manimekhalai and Bhuvaneshwari, who restored ancient irrigation channels

ROLLING BACK THE TSUNAMI

RINA MUKHERJI
HEN the tsunami struck the coast of Tamil Nadu four years ago, the village of Poompuhar in Sirkali taluk of Nagapattinam district was one of the worst affected. As the first wave swamped this fishing village, built on the remains of the ancient Chola capital of Poompuhar, 128 bodies were washed ashore. Houses collapsed in the face of the oceans mad wrath. Hapless villagers ran inland to save their lives. The lashing waves swept over miles of farmland, turning these fields saline. When the waves withdrew, more than death stalked the coastline. With livelihoods and homes gone, Nagapattinam was a land of the living dead. But thanks to the efforts of two women, after four years the farms are beginning to be productive once again. Canals of a traditional irrigation system have been desilted and farmers who had been shattered by the tsunami now have hope for their landholdings. Manimekhalai, 52, then the president of Poompuhar panchayat and Bhuvaneshwari Kannan, 39, an agricultural expert, stepped in promptly. Manimekhalai is a dynamic and much admired local leader. Bhuvana, as Bhuvaneshwari is popularly called, is a post-graduate in agriculture with a specialisation in plant genetics. She had shifted to Maiyaladuthurai after marriage. After a short stint as a research associate, Bhuvana was keen to pass on her expertise to farmers in the Kaveripoompatinam- Poompuhar area. With Manimekhalais help, Bhuvana began to familiarise herself with villages under Poompuhar panchayats purview. Just

a day after she had arrived, while she was moving around getting to know the topography of the area, the tsunami happened. There was utter chaos as people ran helter-skelter from villages along the Cauvery towards the town, recalls Bhuvana. Manimekhalai did not get fazed by the destruction of her panchayat area. She got down to work straightaway, inviting NGOs and charities to come and rebuild the homes and lives of the tsunami-affected people in villages falling under her purview. The Covenant Centre for Development (CCD) in Madurai was one such NGO which stepped in. Bhuvana had joined CCD as a coordinator. In the days after the tsunami, Bhuvana began to skillfully use her knowledge of agriculture to help farmers restore their fields. The sea water had so ravaged agricultural land that farmers had given up all hope. They were reluctant to even make an effort to redeem their fields. We found that even weeds and grasses which used to proliferate had withered away. Instead, we could see a blackish grey residue spread itself out on our fields, says Soundarrajan, a local farmer who now grows paddy, green lentils and peanuts on his two acres in Poompuhar. CCD first got the farmers organised into self-help groups (SHGs). The SHGs were then structured into two farmer federations, the Kazhi Kadaimadai Farmers Federation and the Poompuhar Cauvery Delta Farmers Federation. A revolving fund was given to each federation. The Kazhi Kadaimadai Farmers Federation received Rs 45 lakhs and the Poompuhar

130

ROLLING BACK THE TSUNAMI

Bhuvaneshwari Kannan at one of the revived paddy fields

Cauvery Delta Farmers Federation got Rs 60 lakhs. The two federations could now extend credit to members as and when the need arose. Tests on the soil revealed that the damage was not that serious. We found that the pH level was more or less intact, so the lands could easily overcome the salinity, explains Bhuvana. On the basis of what the farmers told us, we decided to try and restore farmlands to make them suitable for farming. Poompuhar lies in the Cauvery delta. Since the Chola era, this region has been served by an intricate network of canals created 2000 years ago by the Chola kings. The centrepiece of this irrigation infrastructure is the Grand Anicut or the Kallanai, a massive dam of unhewn stone. Built across the Cauvery river, it is one of the oldest water diversion structures in the world. It dates back to the 1st Century AD and it was built by the Chola king, Karikalan. The purpose of the Kallanai dam was to divert the waters of the Cauvery across the fertile delta for irrigation via canals. It used to irrigate 69,000 acres. By the early 20th century this ancient dam was irrigating an area of about one million acres. The request that came from farmers immediately after the tsunami was to desilt the irrigation and drainage channels of this ancient irrigation network. Since rain had been scarce in the preceding years and there was very little water in the Cauvery, maintenance of canals had stopped. For over five years, there had been no investment in drainage. The irrigation infrastructure here is complex in some places drainage

and irrigation canals are separate while in others, the drainage of one village is the irrigation channel of the next. Workers were engaged on a cash-for-work basis to desilt and make the canals workable. The fields, steeped in salt, were leached with fresh water many times over and then treated with gypsum and green manure. From January to February, immediately after the tsunami, fields in three villages were washed over and then this method was extended to fields in another 22 villages. Since indigenous saline-resistant varieties of seeds were lost due to the Green Revolution in the Cauvery delta, saline resistant varieties developed by agricultural universities were planted on the ravaged farmlands. The Trichy-I and Co-43 strains of rice, and the MCU-7 and SVPR-3 of cotton were tried out. However, the inadequate availability of water forced farmers to abandon cotton cultivation. To restore the land it was leached at regular intervals with fresh water. Experiments continued with better and more appropriate strains. Ultimately, the Trichy- I and Co- 43 varieties of rice proved to be the most suitable. Peanuts and lentils did well too. These methods have helped restore 3,000 acres in 15 villages of Nagapattinam district. Although post-tsunami cultivation began within a few months, Bhuvana and her team from CCD realised that the Poompuhar area was susceptible to a cycle of disasters. Drought was the most common. Rains were erratic. Out of four monsoon months, the region received rain for just two. Farmers like Paramasivam, Muthukumaraswamy and

131

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Devoted Leader
OUR years after the tsunami, the people of Poompuhar lead a well-settled life. You can see resettled villages of fishing and farming communities with neat rows of houses. There are well laid out roads flanked by neon street lights. The transformation of 10 villages in this panchayat goes to the credit of former panchayat president, Manimekhalai, and the district administration. Homes have been built even for the most backward villages. A lot of NGOs and charitable organisations helped in post-tsunami reconstruction. Manimekhalai, 52, is simple, articulate and devoted to social work. Born into the Meenava fishing community, her family was always politically active. Her father is a longstanding DMK worker. Manimekhalai got involved in social work at the age of 15 when her father was wrongly implicated in a murder charge. He was honourably acquitted and his young daughter Manimekhalai, continued to devote herself to working for the community. She became panchayat president in 1996 and served two consecutive terms. When the tsunami happened Manimekhalai swung into action quickly. I knew there were a lot of NGOs willing to help on behalf of the government. I decided to get in touch with them and get whatever was forthcoming for villages under my panchayat. Nagapattinam was acknowledged as the district that was worst-hit by the tsunami. The government acknowledged this fact and that helped to bring in relief quickly. Within a weeks time, the Covenant Centre for Development (CCD), St Josephs Eye Hospital, CHESVI and SOS Childrens Villages, got busy in villages under her panchayat. Meanwhile, Manimekhalai had temporary shelters set up and personally supervised the distribution of food, clothing and relief materials, day and night. She realised that not sufficient attention was being paid to the plight of farmers so she got in touch with Bhuvaneshwari Kannan who was working with the CCD. When the farmers federations needed land for an administrative office and a seed bank, Manimekhalai was prompt in making panchayat land available. Rolling credit extended to the farmers federations is now administered from the same office building today. A lot of construction in her panchayat has been funded by NGOs and charities. Joseph Eye Hospital of Madurai contributed 100 houses and a marriage hall, SOS Childrens Villages built 64 houses, the G L Swamy Foundation 300 houses. There were several others. But once things settle after a disaster, funds and aid are not forthcoming. Manimekhalai understood this. So she got organisations to contribute a few essentials before they made their exit. She got the elementary and middle-school buildings attended to. She roped in an NGO to impart training in disaster mitigation to villagers. A 20-member committee has been selected from among the villagers and is fully prepared to handle disasters. She is quick to acknowledge the cooperation she has received from bureaucrats at the district level. I have worked under 10 district collectors, and they have always helped me and my

Manimekhalai, former panchayat president of Poompuhar

panchayat colleagues. We function as a team. Apart from the way she handled the fallout of the tsunami, Manimekhalai has a long list of achievements to her credit. At a cost of Rs 6 lakhs, she set up a veterinary hospital in her village. When the fisher community contributed Rs 1.50 lakhs for a hospital she approached the government with this money and got Rs 22 lakhs sanctioned for a hospital. Manimekhalai cleared 23 acres occupied by squatters, widened roads and got new ones made. Ironically, this made her lose the last panchayat elections. Villages in her panchayat have sanitation. Open defecation is never seen in any of the villages. More than 500 public toilets have been constructed. Awareness and stringent rules have stopped open defecation. Her work has been acknowledged by the state and central governments with the Nirmal Gram Award. Poompuhar has a police station, thanks to her. There is even a tourist bungalow here constructed on three acres which she donated from her share of her familys property. In 1998-99, she had 20 houses constructed under the Indira Memorial Housing Scheme for people of lower castes. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has also been put in place here. In May, June and July there is no work for people in Poompuhar, she explains. In 2006, she had a community solar dryer set up for drying of fish. Women have been trained in fish preservation. She is now keen to set up a home for the elderly. In 1999, the National Commission for Women honoured her for her work as panchayat president.

132

ROLLING BACK THE TSUNAMI

Soundarrajan describe farming here as a lottery. The crop yield depended on an erratic supply of irrigated water sourced from the nearby Mettur Dam. As enlightened farmers they felt the need to spread awareness of better methods of cultivating paddy. The single seedling system of rice intensification (SRI) method, which requires paddy to be watered only once a week, was opted for. Once the yield got consolidated, the federation contributed to setting up a seed bank. Under Manimekhalais leadership, the panchayat handed over an acre on which the farmers federations set up an office. The seed bank was located here. The Poompuhar Cauvery Delta Farmers Federation today has some 90 tonnes of seeds stored in its bank which brings in a neat profit. The farmers were also linked to crop insurance schemes by the CCD, and now every farmer has the advantage of crop insurance in these villages. Building up farmers federations has benefited the work of the Irrigation Department. Maintaining the A class (main) canals arising out of the Cauvery and other rivers in this delta region was always a stupendous task for the department. In ancient times, villagers and local self-governing bodies would maintain these canals. After Independence, the canals were taken

In 1992-93, a management subsidy was introduced for the maintenance of these canals. Farmers, at that time, were not interested in cooperating with the Irrigation Department in any way. But once the farmers federations were set up, all farmers were willing to share the responsibility of maintenance. Now each farmer, rich or poor, contributes Rs 60 per hectare as against the governments Rs 540 per ha. Without a stake and personal involvement, most farmers did not want to contribute towards the task, leave aside help with the drainage and sewage, says Sridhar. With the recent rise in management subsidy from Rs 300 to Rs 400 per hectare, and the willingness of farmers to cooperate, the district is now witnessing a change in canal maintenance. Canals are being desilted under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). The farmers federations are monitoring the scheme. The farmers federations have managed to restore the Poompuhar region from the destruction wrought by the tsunami. Now they are successfully looking into various tasks involved in cultivation. There are four committees, each handling infrastructure, marketing, credit and technology. Since

The sea water had so ravaged farmlands that farmers had given up all hope. They were reluctant to even make an effort to redeem their lands.
over by the Irrigation Department which was given the responsibility of looking after them through the Public Works Department. Each major river channel has more than 150 A Class or main canals arising out of it. Each canal irrigates some 300 to 3,000 ha. The main canals branch out into numerous B Class canals. There were frequent fights over the erratic quantity of water. The farmers would blame the Agricultural, Irrigation and the Public Works departments for not desilting canals and failing to keep them in good condition, says R Sridhar, Assistant Engineer of the Agriculture Engineering Department. 2006, the federations are managing the committees on their own with the CCD only handling the administration. The CCD plans to withdraw next year. After that the CCD will only help the farmers federations in linking up and interacting with outside organisations. Fields still need to be leached several times with fresh water which, given the erratic rainfall, is a tough task. Our farms are yet to get back to their original shape, admit Soundarrajan and Paramasivam. However, the worst is over with farms having begun to yield crops again.

133

INVENTIVE INDIANS

20
VENDOR AS BUSINESSMAN
Kolkatas hawkers are good entrepreneurs who understand design, pricing, inventories and know how to please their customers. But do they stand a chance against big retail?

HAWKERS IN BATTLE MODE

RITA & UMESH ANAND

ALLAN Nandy, 33, sells bedcovers and sheets on the pavement at Gariahat, in south Kolkata. But that is not the life that he thinks he deserves. He has dreams and wants to go to Singapore, where he believes he will get self-respect and make money. I want to do something big, he says. Time is running out. Lallan is particularly worried that huge investments being pumped into retailing by Indian and international companies could wipe out 10 years of effort that he has put into building his small business. It would leave him nowhere because he does not have an education. Retail chains would be able to source their products more widely and sell them cheap in inviting shop environments. The Indian retail market is said to be worth at least $100 billion. It will take some time to eat into the pie, but with each chomp big businesses will change the ground rules of the retail game. The focus of the chains is on urban areas because it is only possible to have organised retail in the cities and towns. This frightens hawkers. They see the setting up of stores as the first step in an official urban development strategy that will decree their removal from the streets. A national policy on urban street vendors passed in 2004 recognises the hawkers right to a livelihood and says they play an important role in the supply of affordable goods. The policy recommends they be included in the master plans of cities. It proposes identity cards and social security for them.

But the Congress-led UPA governments decision to allow big national and foreign investments in retail chains virtually annuls the policy and makes millions of hawkers insecure. To keep out chain stores, hawkers like Lallan in Kolkata have turned to the Hawker Sangram Committee (HSC), which represents 42 unions. In 1996 the HSC thwarted the West Bengal governments Operation Sunshine to remove hawkers from the pavements of the city. The question now is whether hawkers will be able to fend off the new threat to their businesses through a combination of confrontation and dialogue in much the same way Operation Sunshine was repelled? The West Bengal experience is being shared across India in the hope of setting off a national upsurge. There are an estimated 40 million hawkers in the country with 10 million of them being in cities. In Kolkata there are some 270,000 hawkers, up considerably from the 150,000 at the time of Operation Sunshine. In the 12 years since 1996, the hawkers have also put in place an all-India organisation. The National Hawker Federation, set up in 2001, has been very active recently and now has an office in Delhi so as to be able to lobby government and members of Parliament and influence policy. The HSC is led by Shaktiman Ghosh, whose own union is the Kolkata Hawker Mens Union. Ghosh is also the general secretary of the national federation.

134

HAWKERS IN BATTLE MODE

Shaktiman Ghosh, general secretary of the National Hawker Federation

Ghosh believes that hawkers will be able to take on big retail chains. He foresees violence if the government does not go in for a policy corrective. Attacks have been made on stores belonging to Reliance in the smaller cities such as Indore and Ranchi where traders have been feeling insecure. But shopping malls and retail chains selling fruits and vegetables among other things are clearly here to stay. Middle-class people are happy with them. They also provide freewheeling employment in sales positions to young people many of whom have degrees but no jobs and will gladly settle for standing behind a counter till they can sort out their lives. For all their collapsing infrastructure, Indian cities want to look global. Chain stores with their smart interiors, air-conditioning and so on make the Indian consumer feel he/she has graduated. So, taking on the retail chains wont be easy for hawkers. They perhaps wont get the kind of public sympathy they got from the public in the face of Operation Sunshine. BIG MONEY COMING IN Large investment decisions are being made. Till the recession began, it was expected that in the next five years, $22 billion could be rolled out. Bharti and Wal-Mart were together to invest over $2 billion. Wal-Mart wanted to be in 75 cities. Tesco was similarly in the race and so was Metro AG. HyperCity hoped to have 300 grocery stores up and running. Reliance was investing Rs 1,000 crore in technol-

ogy alone for its stores. ITC wanted to be seen on the street with push carts. With the downturn, many of these plans are on hold. But companies are getting into the retail sector at various points. For instance, they are in clothing and pharmaceuticals. Food and groceries account for three-fourths of all retailing. The implications of this run really deep. Cold chains, packaging, efficient selling and extensive purchase networks that go straight to the farmer will forever change ways of doing business in the retail sector. The mandi as it is known today could well disappear. Fish, meat and vegetable markets will also go. Where will the hawker buy from? He can hardly be expected to match the sums companies will spend on advertising and branding. Since most hawkers have no education and know no other way of life, they see a dark cloud over their future. Says Ghosh: You cannot take the livelihoods of people away and just banish them from sight. Hawkers are creative, selfreliant people. They build their businesses with a lot of hard work in difficult conditions. Invariably, people with no other option, and for whom the State does nothing, become hawkers. They source their products cheap from small producers and sell at affordable prices to people. If companies like ITC, Reliance and Bharti think they can take away the livelihoods of people, we will resist them. There will be violence. If ITC wants to put vending carts on the streets we will destroy them.

135

INVENTIVE INDIANS

A food stall does brisk business not far from the upmarket restaurants of Park Street

136

HAWKERS IN BATTLE MODE

Ghosh says Indian hawkers will also shame these companies internationally for destroying livelihoods and pushing people into poverty for purely corporate gains. Consumer groups the world over will condemn what these companies are trying to do here. They should realise that this is a modern, networked world. It isnt the India of the sixties and seventies when you could manipulate policy by just buying politicians. We will make these companies pay dearly by tarnishing their names and brands and exposing them. Almost on cue International Hawkers Day was celebrated in Kolkata on May 26. Citywide events were held and social activists from all over were being invited to a grand rally. Asked to comment on the proposal that hawkers could be trained and given jobs by retail chains, Ghosh says it is no substitute for running their own small businesses. What kind of justice is this that businesses built by hawkers with their sweat and toil should be taken over by companies and the hawkers be given some lowly paid jobs? Ghosh points out that the hawkers have little or no education, which means they arent qualified for jobs. As entrepreneurs, however, they are creators of wealth and opportunity. Jobs as compensation for their stalls isnt the answer, he insists.

We keep them posted on changing styles and fashions, explains Lallan. If they are short of cash, I can lend a little. If my business closes, so does theirs. Thats why they join our rallies and protests. Time has always been running out for Lallan. He was a boy when he lost his father. Then he would clean floors and wash cars in homes. He moved on from that to becoming a vendor on the streets, at first selling knickknacks, then bags and childrens garments. Now he specialises in bedcovers and sheets, likes to dabble in design and has teamed up with seven others to occupy substantial pavement space and have a big display. Lallan calls the shots and controls 50 per cent of the partnership. They have Rs 8 lakh of stock and employ 12 assistants. The daily expenses at their stall are Rs 4,000 and sales are Rs 15,000. Abhijit Sahas story is very similar. He is 42, and has a stall for womens handbags and school satchels. He has two partners so that the stall has size and enough variety on display. Abhijit has a leadership role in the Gariahat Indira Hawkers Union. Asked if he had ever tried doing a job, he laughs and says: I have never had a job and I dont think anyone would ever give me a job. Asked why he has chosen to sell handbags, he replies that it is

Of the 270,000 hawkers in Kolkata, 143,000 are said to be food vendors. Office-goers, students and shoppers turn to pavement food. A sumptuous variety is on offer.
Moreover, retail chains are known to favour uniformity. They will dictate what has to be grown and produced. Local crafts, foods and skills invariably get lost in the search for homogeneity that big businesses wedded to volumes are known for. The diversity and innovation that Ghosh emphasises is in evidence everywhere on Kolkatas streets. It can be found in the household items that are so popular with low-budget shoppers, in the bags and junk jewellery, in the menus of innumerable food stalls. See this design, it is from Gujarat, says Lallan, spreading out a bedcover. The problem with cloth items from Gujarat is that they dont last. One wash or two and they are finished. I took the design, put it on good quality cloth and provided a better product. Hawkers are the rajas of duplicates, declares Lallan happily, pointing out how hawkers take a design from a shirt and put it on a bag or from a bag and put it on a canvas shoe. Small producers like artisans, weavers, leather and metal workers would never find a market if it wasnt for enterprising guys like him. because women just cant resist them. A woman will buy one today and another tomorrow and sometimes three and four together. Ive tried other things, but it is the bags that really sell. As we spend a couple of days hanging out with Abhijit, we find this to be very true. The customers are all middleclass women. The handbags they buy here could be Rs 100 or Rs 200 or as little as Rs 80. They are well crafted. And they invariably cost less than half of what the women would pay for them in big stores. STREET FOOD REVOLUTION The hawkers ability to reinvent themselves and face new challenges is perhaps best seen in food stalls. Of the 270,000 hawkers in Kolkata, 143,000 are said to be food vendors. Office-goers, students and shoppers turn to pavement food because it is hot and cheap and can be picked up while on the move. The stalls offer a sumptuous variety: rolls, burgers, chow, curries, rotis, biryani, fried fish, kebabs, idlis, dosas. In recognition of their role, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that food hawkers provide nutrition at the cheapest possible prices. On an average, you pay

137

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Rs 8 for 1,000 calories. The food stalls, however, had come in for criticism for not being hygienic. The food was hot, but the plates werent properly washed and the cooks were not clean in their person. The stalls were also the source of garbage, which would fester and further endanger the food that was being served. When the government backtracked on helping hawkers with training, the unions decided to do it themselves. At the initiative of Ghosh and the HSC the food stalls have been cleaning up their act. The HSC claim is that at least 3,000 hawkers have taken training in better practices from the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIHPH). What does the training involve? Anadi Saha, who owns Saha Fast Food on Chowringhee, near the Park Street crossing, says that first of all the hawkers own health has to be good. No coughing, sneezing and so on. Fingernails should be cut and clean. The cooks have to wear aprons. Next comes the washing of plates. Saha says all 54 hawkers on his stretch wash plates in hot water. They make sure that the plates arent washed near drains. Outlets for waste water have

Kolkatas business district can be replicated across the city. The HSC wants all the food hawkers in Kolkata to be covered in the next five years. To achieve this it hopes to be able to set up a training centre where 6,000 hawkers can be initiated into better practices every year. The HSC has received no support from the government for its idea. Costs of training have been borne by the hawkers. Sweepers to keep pavements clean are paid by them. The government has not given them any space or services. Anadi Saha looks longingly at a flyover across the road. If only the government would permit him and his colleagues to move under it. Customers would have space to eat and their stalls would not drown in rain. In the disaggregated way in which life on the street flows, no two hawkers are the same. Enforcing best practices is, therefore, not easy. So, plates dont always get washed in equally safe ways and there will be litter where there should be none. Drinking water may be covered, but will it be uniformly consumable? Yet there is no doubt that street food rules. It is tasty and affordable. Most importantly, it is always available. Since it is

Running a business on the street is tough and full of surprises. Hawkers have the strategies and responses of accomplished businessmen.
to be constantly supervised so that they dont get blocked and overflow. Leftovers are put in one bin. Four people are paid to sweep the pavement round the clock so that there is no litter. Model food stall zones have been set up on Camac Street, Russel Street, Chowringhee Road and Elgin Road. These are primarily office areas. The zones were inaugurated by the West Bengal Minister for Health, Dr Suryakanta Mishra. Also present were Dr Salim Habayib of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Daniel Gustafson of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Tushar Talukdar, an expolice commissioner of Kolkata. At Saha Fast Food, the menu is varied. You can get biryani and at least two other kinds of rice. Tandoori rotis are available as are several meat dishes. Saha belongs to Ghoshs Kolkata Hawker Mens Union. He plays a leadership role on this stretch of Chowringhee, encouraging the stalls to follow the new norms rigorously. The question now is whether this experiment in central served hot it is invariably free of infection. Fresh food is preferable to stored food. Hawkers wind up their stalls at the end of the day and have no means of keeping provisions overnight. At Sahas stall there is always a mixed crowd, which gets particularly thick at lunch time. But that is not all. Sahas mobile keeps ringing with orders coming in from nearby office buildings. These are regular customers. Our customers on this stretch have increased from 2,500 to 7,000 a day, he says. Our profits are better. He employs eight people, including his daughter at Rs 2000. Saha takes home a net profit of Rs 10,000 a month. The street food hawker provides a service that is primarily a necessity. Only quality will keep customers coming back. Says Ghosh: Kolkata has a population of about 14 million. In addition, about eight million people come into the city each day from neighbouring districts for work. Only street food can take care of their needs. You will never be able to build enough restaurants to feed so many people. We are asking for a night food market along the lines of Lahores famous Food Street.

138

HAWKERS IN BATTLE MODE

Middle-class buyers check out bedcovers at Gariahat in South Kolkata

The food hawkers are now banding together in a cooperative that will sell edible oil and spices and other ingredients to stalls under the Hawk brand. This will be a further step towards standardisation and improving quality. GOING NATIONAL After the failure of Operation Sunshine in 1996, when it became apparent to the West Bengal government that hawkers could not be wished away, an uneasy truce has prevailed. Hawkers are allowed to use one-third of the pavement. Their stalls have to be temporary and dismantled at night. But while the government has beaten a retreat, the hawkers have shown innovation and resilience. Their numbers have gone up by at least 100,000, if the HSC is to be believed. Under Ghoshs leadership, the HSC has lobbied with academics and journalists in Bengal and across the country to bring into currency an alternative view of the contribution that hawkers make. The problem is government officials and political parties associate hawkers with dirt, pollution, traffic jams and accidents. Their prescription is to remove all hawkers. They dont see us as a dynamic urban economy. Take a look at south-east Asia. It is full of hawkers, says Ghosh. There have been conferences and workshops, the most recent being in May in Kolkata which was widely attended. It drew high-profile activists and speakers like Vandana Shiva and Medha Patkar. After I met Medha Patkar I came to understand why evictions were taking place, about the World Bank and the mega cities project and the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban

Renewal Mission. So we started demonstrating before the World Bank, says Ghosh. The strategy of the Kolkata hawkers has been to bring themselves into the national mainstream and through the National Federation of Hawkers build bridges with people similarly employed in other cities. They have successfully identified themselves with the entire unorganised sector. Ghosh was prominently present by Medha Patkars side during the 10 days of Sangharsh 2007 in Delhi in April. In doing so he has made hawkers a part of the National Alliance of Peoples Movements. READY FOR ANYTHING On the streets of Kolkata, hawkers are ready for anything. Improvisation is their strength. Nothing is taken for granted. Their wares, like bags and even jewellery, hang where they are stationed. Electricity connections are borrowed from nearby stores. They have mastered the art of putting out their stock in attractive displays and then packing it up at lightning speed. So, one evening when an early May thunderstorm breaks over Gariahat, stall hands swing into action and make sure goods are protected. It is much the same at Saha Fast Food during lunchtime the next day. A shower sends customers scurrying into nearby buildings. Saha tells us to cross the road and stand under the Park Street flyover. We dont take his advice and end up drenched, with our photographer just about managing to put his camera away safely. Life on the street is tough and full of surprises. Running a business on the street and making money is even tougher. It

139

INVENTIVE INDIANS

Abhijit Saha in his bag stall

is easy to see hawkers only as the urban poor battling for an income in the unorganised sector. But the fact is that they are much more than that and have the strategies and responses of accomplished businessmen. Anadi Saha talks at length on the drawbacks of partnerships. Partnership businesses are full of problems. A disagreement and a bad partner can bring you down. In my view it is better to have a proprietorship or have a private limited company, he says, as we sit on stools on the Chowringhee pavement, with the roadside barber joining the conversation in between shaves and haircuts. Lallan at Gariahat is full of seasoned caution when talking about investment and sales figures. He is even more reticent when it comes to the profits his stall generates. But as our chit-chat moves along he tells us how he calls the shots with his seven partners. His Rs 8 lakh of stock comes in part from suppliers on credit. For the rest it is the money he and his partners have put in and what they raise from a bank when the need arises. The bank loan is possible because they have a godown where the goods are kept and pledged. Hawkers are mostly positioned on pavements in front of shops. In Gariahat we are told how the two coexist. We always have good relations, says Abhijit Saha. In those times when the government was trying to evict us, we would shift our goods into the shops at short notice. Since the hawkers sell at cheap prices, they attract customers in large numbers. This helps the shops as well. In some parts of Kolkata, particularly Burrabazaar, it is said

that the big shops own the hawkers stalls as well. This gives them a pavement presence, which otherwise they would not get. It also allows them to offload their unsold goods at substantially lower prices. Abhijit denies that this happens in Gariahat. Long visits to his stall certainly give the impression that he isnt a front for anyone, nor are a whole lot of his neighbours. COLLEGE STREET TO EAST DELHI Two small rooms on the third floor of a building in College Street go to make up the headquarters of the Hawker Sangram Committee. They also serve as the offices of the Kolkata Hawker Mens Union. With the hawkers preparing for a nationwide agitation Shaktiman Ghosh has taken a small flat in Lakshmi Nagar in east Delhi for the office of the National Federation of Hawkers. But it is from the modest location on College Street that the entire hawker movement has been run. The two rooms have anti-George Bush posters and a rash of stickers against the Asian Development Bank (ADB). A strong leftist view is in evidence, though the hawkers in West Bengal are pitted against the CPI(M)-led Left Front government. One of the rooms has an air-conditioner and a computer. There are a few unstable chairs and long desks with drawers along the walls. There are some young employees who do office chores. We spend several hours over two days with Ghosh as he tells us his account of the hawkers movement.

140

HAWKERS IN BATTLE MODE

Anadi Saha and other food hawkers

He is full of passion and speaks excitedly in the manner of a street campaigner. He recalls the days of Operation Sunshine with anecdotes of how the hawkers went from one day to the next as they braced for their eviction and successfully fended off the authorities. It is this experience of a street battle fought hard and won that continues to fuel hawker camaraderie. One thing is for certain: Ghosh himself enjoys huge support and trust. As we pick our way across pavements later, everyone seems to know him. In the style of a campaigner he nurtures contact and feeds on the recognition. So, what he tells us in the offices of the Hawker Sangram Committee is borne out on the streets as well. He is indisputably an influential leader of the hawkers. Ghosh interestingly is not a hawker himself. He is what you can call a professional trade unionist. My father paid just a few rupees for my school and college education. The rest was subsidised by the government. I am paying back society by taking up the cause of hawkers and helping them get justice, he says. Ghoshs costs are met by the donations that the hawkers make to the Hawker Sangram Committee and the Kolkata Hawker Mens Union. The membership fee is Rs 10 and thereafter hawkers pay Rs 2 per day. Ghosh points to a chart on the wall that is used to track the donations on a daily basis. You wont find a more transparent collection system, he says.

But can Ghosh do at a national level what he and his comrades have achieved in West Bengal? Defeating the Left Front governments misguided Operation Sunshine involved mobilisation of hawkers in known terrain. It is possible to rally together thousands of hawkers in a congested city like Kolkata, especially when their very livelihoods are threatened. Doing the same thing across India may not be quite so easy. The opponent this time is also not merely a state government, but big retailers with huge budgets. They are seeking to win over a market worth billions of dollars. Clearly the strategies that the hawkers adopt will have to be different. Small producers will join us since they are being killed with Chinese products. We are also looking for alliances with traders cooperatives and enlightened citizens. We will give our votes to political parties who support us. Also, we are allying with FDI Watch to shame these companies internationally, says Ghosh. In Kolkata, the hawkers have got critical support from people who buy their goods. They want them on the streets. Often they know their hawkers well. Do such bonds exist elsewhere? For Ghosh, the challenge has just begun. But in keeping with the spirit on Kolkatas teaming streets, he has decided to just plunge in.

141

INVENTIVE INDIANS

21
THE CHALLENGER
Bant Singh is a Dalit who took on the upper castes in his village in Punjab and paid dearly for it. He was beaten up so badly that he has lost the use of most of his limbs

MY TONGUE IS STILL THERE...

AMIT SENGUPTA

ANT Singh wants to walk. Bant Singh wants to talk. Bant Singh wants to red salute you with his half hands off from below the elbow. Bant Singh wants to crack jokes, to laugh, to spoof, to smile effortlessly, to reintegrate himself with his stark reality of tragedy, oppression and rebellion. One of his legs gone, two of his hands gone, this revolutionary Dalit Mazhabi Sikh still wants to sing. A soft melodious lilting Punjabi folk song, its words soaked with the smell of the soil, the hard labour on the fields and the empty stomachs of the landless, seething with angst and anger. They have smashed my body, they have taken my limbs, but my tongue is still there, he says, half-naked but for a white cloth on his body at the Mansa Civil Hospital. And I can still sing. Every day not less than 200 people come to visit Bant Singh in the hospital. He has become part-legend, part-icon, part-radical symbol of the poorest of the poor in this crisis-ridden most prosperous state of India where thousands of farmers have committed suicide in the last decade, especially in the debt-hit Malwa region where Mansa belongs. That is why, 5 January, 2006, will mark a rupture in the social and political consciousness of the deeply divided society of the rural interiors of feudal Mansa and Punjab. That was the day when they ambushed him outside his village, Burj Jhabber, tied his hands and legs with layers of cloth, and used hand-pump handles to smash his limbs. Will you stop us from loitering around the Dalit homes? the attackers, sons of influential local landlords and sarpanches, asked. They smashed his limbs meticulously and they avoided the rest of

his body including his head. They did not want to kill him. They only wanted to send a hard and brutal message to all those who dared to defy the diktats of the landlords in the region. They left Bant Singh to die. Later, they reportedly made a phone call to former sarpanch Beant Singh, who rushed with the villagers to save Bant. By that time, a bleeding Bant in abject pain was almost dead. Gangrene had slowly set in by the time he was put in Mansa Civil Hospital, 25 km away. The doctor on duty, subsequently suspended, refused to treat him, despite desperate pleas, unless Rs 1,000 was deposited. The money was then raised from the locals, a chemist and a hawker. But by that time it was too late. Bant Singh had to lose his limbs to save his life. But why did they attack Bant? It is because he fought back when his daughter was raped and saw to it that the powerful, landed criminals of the village were arrested. He refused to work on the fields of the landlords and became an independent entrepreneur, running a small piggery and poultry farm from his humble, mud-smeared home in Burj Jhabber, selling toys on local festival days and feeding his pigs with the leftovers of the langar in nearby villagers. I had decided I will never work as a bonded labourer or on low wages for the landlords, he said. I told my fellow comrades, dont work for them, boycott them, reject this ancient slavery, become your own man, rediscover your own identity. Inspired by the overground Naxalite organisation, CPI-ML (Liberation), he joined the party and the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha, and helped in enrolling hundreds of members while campaigning for the

142

MY TONGUE IS STILL THERE...

Bant Singh addresses a rally held in his support

rights of the Dalits. Reject the mental shackles of the caste system. Join the revolution, Bant would sing and he was quickly a hero. This basic instinct of rebellion sustained the inner spirit of Bant Singh who had earlier worked with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and other political entities. He simply refused to succumb. If the upper caste landlords would announce a social boycott of the Dalits from the gurdwara speakers and ban them from going for their ablutions to the fields (of the 250 landless Dalits in this village, not one has a toilet), Bant Singh would retaliate by demanding a social boycott of the rich farmers. He would never go to this gurdwara in the village. If he wanted, he would go to the nearby village gurdwara, says thin and tall Baljeet, his eldest daughter. I now want to travel with him and campaign for the rights of the landless and small farmers, the Dalits, the women, the bonded labourers who are caught in a debt trap. I want to work alongside my father in the liberation of our people, she says. It runs in the family, this spirit of rebellion. Bant Singhs wife, Harbans Kaur, slim and tall like Baljeet, with a serene and transparent smile, makes nimbu paani (lemonade) for the streams of visitors at the hospital. She lives with Bant Singh in the hospital and takes care of him. She cooks for him and feeds him, washes him and dresses him. The bathroom is

attached, but its not easy to go through the daily chores. But even great heroes and idealists have to cope with everyday problems. Bant Singh has no land. In his small home in the village, there is no toilet. His artificial legs are still a distant dream. He has always insisted that his eight children will go to school, but it is a big financial burden. Belatedly, the Punjab state government sanctioned Rs 10 lakhs for Bant Singh. But that will give his family a mere Rs 5,000 a month in interest. His Dalit village now wants toilets, land, official wages, an end to bonded labour, no sexual harassment or eve-teasing, free movement, rights to the gurdwara, education and health, and the money which is sanctioned to them but is appropriated by the gurdwara. Bant has taught us to rethink our lives. Why should the rains submerge our homes? Why should our daughters not have bathrooms and toilets here? Why dont we get running water from taps and electricity? Why dont we have an iota of land? Why are we condemned to work as bonded labour on such low wages, says an anguished 80-year-old Mukhtiyar Singh whose three generations have lived here in similar conditions of relentless oppression. As Bant sings, his eyes pierce you, So what did the girl going to be married tell her father? O father, dont give me dowry, give me a pistol, because my blood is boiling with rage

143

INVENTIVE INDIANS

22
LAL KUANS MOMENT
SA Azad took up the cause of stone quarry workers at Lal Kuan, a village in south-east Delhi. The quarries had been closed, but the workers had been left to die of silicosis

NATIONAL MODEL ON SILICOSIS

RITA ANAND

NE mans crusade has resulted in what should be a national model for providing justice to people who fall prey to occupational diseases. In 2001, SA Azad, a schoolteacher, was shocked to discover that villagers of Lal Kuan, a derelict village in south-east Delhi, were dying of silicosis. Silicosis is a death sentence. It is an incurable lung disease caused by breathing dust containing free crystalline silica. Over exposure to silica reduces the ability of the lungs to absorb oxygen. The people of Lal Kuan got this disease from working in stone quarries located here. Subsequently, in 1992, the quarries were ordered closed by the Supreme Court in the famous MC Mehta vs Union of India case. The quarries just relocated to Pali in Haryana. But the workers left behind lost their livelihood and health. Azad found men and women bone thin and desperately poor. Some were taking medicines for TB, instead of silicosis. Without nutrition, they were on death row. Azad and his small NGO, Prasar (Peoples Rights and Social Action Reseach) embarked on a mission to get them justice. It looked impossible. Physicians didnt know what silicosis was and confused it with TB. Government officials found Azads many right to information applications a real pain in the neck. Azad persisted, taking his fight to the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Finally, after

several years, the Delhi government agreed to rehabilitate the victims of silicosis and came up with a plan. Azad says its a good one and he is keeping tabs. I have had a lot of quarrels with the Delhi government but these are just family fights, he says. The truth is the Delhi government has a model rehabilitation package. Nationally, all states should implement a similar policy. I never saw Lal Quan as a local issue, says Azad. He is determined to get other state governments to prevent silicosis and implement plans like the Delhi governments for victims. With this in mind he approached the Delhi High Court in 2005 which advised him to take his petition to the Supreme Court. So he filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). On 27 March, 2006, the Supreme Court issued notices to the state governments of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Pondicherry, Haryana, the Union Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry for Law and Justice to formulate guidelines for the prevention of dust exposure in stone quarries and crushers all over India. With these notices, silicosis became a national issue, says Azad. The NHRC finally formed a national task force to find out the status of silicosis from states, whether the laws are adequate and what should be done in the short term and the long term. The NHRC said it would help create awareness, monitor states where silicosis was high, work out insurance, compensation and launch a national programme to eradicate silicosis. The NHRC said it would see to it that all states implement

144

NATIONAL MODEL ON SILICOSIS

SA Azad, crusader for the rights of quarry workers

Section 85 of the Factories Act. This law makes those employers in the unorganised sector who employ less than 10 workers liable for inspection and brings them under legislation. These units are some of the worst offenders, says Azad. If Section 85 is put into effect then all workers, regardless of how many they are in a mining unit, would be eligible for provident fund (PF) and Employees State Insurance (ESI) benefits. So far, the law said only if a company employed more than 20 people, workers would be eligible for ESI and PF. The NHRC also said that India should ratify the ILO convention on occupational health. Responses received by the NHRC from the states to its notices were forwarded to Azad. Madhya Pradesh had the largest number of victims with silicosis (198). Some states have notified Section 85 of the Factories Act or included similar provisions in related legislation. Strangely, Goa, where mining is a major industry, has not done so. Meanwhile, the Union Ministry for Labour and Employment got bombarded with notices from the Supreme Court, the NHRC and Azad. In December 2007, the labour ministry, the NHRC and the Director-General, Factory Advice Service & Labour Institutes, Mumbai, organised a national workshop to find out the extent

of silicosis in India, whether control and preventive measures were being taken and strategies to combat it. The meeting was attended by senior IAS officers from different states. For the first time it was decided that thorough surveys of all states should be done to collect accurate data on the number of people employed in the mining, quarrying and related sectors including the unorganised sector. Three committees were formed. One will collect data on unorganised workers. Where do they find employment? Is it in mines, gems, glass or ceramics? The second committee will ascertain the number of people working in mines. The third will find out how many find employment in registered industries like glass, stone crushing etc. The work of conducting the surveys is the responsibility of the union labour ministry and the department of labour in the states. Azad has suggested that 60 per cent of members in the committees should be NGOs, health experts, researchers and 40 per cent should be government officials. Azads quest for justice has uncovered the miserable conditions of workers in mining and quarrying. The picture that emerges is of an industry that has scant respect for human rights or the dignity of labour. It needs a strong State, an accessible justice system and activists like Azad to set it right.

145

INVENTIVE INDIANS

23
COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
The Bodh Shiksha Samiti has dedicated itself to making quality education available to all. It works in some of the poorest districts in the state of Rajasthan

BRIDGING THE LEARNING DIVIDE

AMIT SENGUPTA
ILLAGE education in Rajasthan has been experiencing a transformation through a community approach to learning. The Bodh Shiksha Samiti has been setting up Bodhshalas, or Community Resource Schools, and also working with government schools. The Bodh Shiksha Samiti was set up in 1987. It has bonded with government schools of four districts in the state: Jodhpur, Ajmer, Jaipur and Bharatpur next to Deeg. Its motto is: To participate in the formation of an egalitarian, progressive and enlightened society by contributing to the evolution of a system of equitable and quality education and development for all children. The Samitis work in Alwar is significant because the Thanagazi and Umren areas are extremely poor and inaccessible. Located close to the forest range of the Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary, amid the hard rocky terrain of the Aravallis, livelihood here is basically dependant on agriculture and cattle rearing. The population comprises Dalits, tribals, nomadic communities like the Banjaras, Nats, Lohars, Bawariyas, other backward castes, as well as Meo Muslims. The Bodh Shiksha Samiti currently works in 52 urban and educationally deprived localities of Jaipur and 43 panchayats of the Thanagazi and Umren blocks. Its Bodhshalas operate in seven locations in Jaipur and 40 locations in Thanagazi and Umren blocks. Over the years its outreach progamme has come to the assistance of 200 mainstream government schools, in several slum clusters of Jaipur and in Alwar district.

The Aga Khan Foundation supports the Bodh Shiksha Samiti. Says Dayaram, senior programme officer: Most often we delude ourselves with statistics, examinations, grades and white papers. The real quality of school education must transform the social psychology of children and their community. It should also transform history and society at the micro level. This is no less a creative revolution. Dayaram has been a key person in this initiative for several years. Says Yogendraji, the stoic stalwart of the Bodh Shiksha Samiti, We cant eternally wait for the revolution. It has to happen every day. We have to be constantly working with the people, so that they can define their own destinies. And what better way than to work for school education? That is why panchayats are important. Education has to be integrated with home, community, gender justice, social and political empowerment and peoples direct participation in local governance and nation-building. If the child has to go to school, then the parents should also be intellectually empowered. Most crucially, the men and women who control the panchayats need to be sensitised. Veteran sarpanch Yadhuvir Singh of Deeg, located in the backward Mewat region of Rajasthan, says: We spend money to fight panchayat elections, but this is not a business to make money, we are not going to make more money to compensate for the money we spent. This is social service, community work, nation-building. We are not driven by self-interest or political greed. Once a panchayat gets committed it becomes much easier to carry ordinary folks along.

146

BRIDGING THE LEARNING DIVIDE

Children discover the joy of learning at a Bodhshala

No wonder, despite owing allegiance to various political parties like the BJP and Congress, the panchayat leaders in Mewat have been unanimous in ushering quality school education with the help of the Bodh Shiksha Samiti. It was initially impossible. It took the efforts of all concerned to convince the people and get the children around: the schools were located far away, there were no transport facilities, girls were not allowed, the dropout rate was high, plus the poverty and backwardness of the region was a big obstacle, says Jawahar Singh, ex-pradhan of the panchayat in the Mewat region. But once we were convinced, it was like a slow miracle becoming a dream come true. Says Surjan Singh of Alwar, What are the challenges? There is total lack of awareness among pradhans, sarpanches, locals. There is no bhagidari or sharing of responsibility. Womens representatives are still way behind in terms of leadership and the caste factor is still an obstacle. It took almost six to eight months to even convince people that education is critical for the holistic development of the child. The very thought that community schools could be established in partnership with Bodh, did not go down well with the local community. In retrospect I can say that our convictions about what we were doing and our ability to patiently build trust helped these communities to change their opinion and encouraged us to move forward.

The Govdi village experiment since 2001 is an eye-opener. The sarpanch of Govdi, Rameshwar, happened to visit the Indauk village Bodhshala next to the Sariska sanctuary and was deeply impressed with the way children were enjoying themselves in school and learning at the same time. So why not Govdi also? he asked. The government school in his village was in decay: only 60 children were left, over 150 children had joined a private school. But the Govdi experiment began with all earnestness. A playground was created using 200 tractor-loads of mud. The Bodh Samiti helped with workshops for training teachers, the locals collected money, there were renewed initiatives within the community. Months later, 200 children from the private school returned. The classroom environment improved and so did attendance. The dropout rate fell. For the first time there was 100 per cent enrolment in the government school of Govdi. The district administration was witness to the success story, and so was the local MLA. More than 5,000 villagers from Govdi and its neighbourhood celebrated its success. The word spread. The story is now getting repeated, like an action-replay in slow and fast motion, in village after village. This was creative symbiosis between a sensitive administration, proactive panchayats and a deeply committed civil society group.

147

INVENTIVE INDIANS

24
DEVELOPING SKILLS
It is important that the disabled get the opportunity to earn and fend for themselves. The Blind School in Delhi runs a course that teaches massage

FOR DISABLED, SEE THE OPPORTUNITY

UMESH ANAND

T is tough finding employment for the disabled. Ask Absalom David of the Blind Relief Association in Delhi. A decade of trying to persuade employers has provided just about 300 jobs for people with defective vision. But on the other hand a little unconventional thinking can deliver just the right results. Once again, ask David. A suggestion four years ago that blind people could earn from massage led to the setting up of a training facility in 2003 at the premises of the association where 187 men and women have been taught how to pummel and knead muscles and 100 of them are actually earning a living for themselves. Shyam Kishore, 28 and visually impaired since an early age, now has clients across Delhi to whose homes he goes. Learning massage has made it possible for him to look after his two sisters and meet his own expenses. He has also teamed up with Asha, a fellow student, and what they earn together will perhaps be enough for them to set up home. Sunita, a blind woman from Manipur, did her training in Delhi and went back to Imphal. She has set up a massage parlour of her own. She identified three blind boys and sent them to Delhi for training. She now employs them. There are other such success stories, some of them difficult to track. But the massage skills of these people are prominently on display at the Diwali fair that the association holds each year. It is here that they meet up with clients who then call them to their homes.

When it comes to jobs for people coping with disabilities, industry, for all its stated intentions, mostly prefers to pass. The proposition of a blind worker on a machine invariably invites a flat no. Why should an establishment take the risk? Office or white collar employment on the other hand is limited. If employers are willing, the candidates dont have the academic qualifications or the skills. Rare is the organisation that has the imagination to create space for the physically challenged. The number of disabled people in India is however huge and is put at between 40 million to 80 million. The number of blind and visually impaired people is also anyones guess but without doubt it is significant. The disabled need to be absorbed into the workforce both quickly (to make up for past omissions) and systematically (to prepare for the future). Blind people who make it through school and college tend to get ahead. They are absorbed in the workforce in one way or the other. But what of the vast numbers who cant clear exams, drop out and arent given an opportunity to prove their usefulness in a seeing world? After several years of doing the rounds to canvass for jobs, David turned up at the door of a medical physician in the hope that he could put together a programme in physiotherapy. The physician had been on the board of consultants of Vandana Luthra Curls and Curves (VLCC), a beauty and fitness company. David was told that physiotherapy was perhaps not such a

148

FOR DISABLED, SEE THE OPPORTUNITY

A training session at the Blind Relief Association in Delhi

good idea because it had medical implications and involved a four-year course. Getting the right qualifications for people who had already been dropouts would be dicey. Chances were that they would be daunted by the course and give up. But why not massage instead of physiotherapy? The physician had just been to Thailand where he had found blind people making a living out of massage. Surely the blind in Delhi could be similarly taught massage, the physician suggested to David. He made the connection with VLCC, which readily agreed to help with training and certificates. The whole idea behind the massage course is for blind people to get self-employment since getting employment is difficult, says David. In Thailand blind people have been traditionally earning from massage. So, we had a brainstorming session with NGOs, people working for providing employment to the disabled, VLCC, doctors and people in the field and came to the conclusion that this would be a beneficial course. Now the blind school has its own training centre. Rampal Singh, who spent 22 years at the Oberoi as a masseur, runs the course, which has some theory but emphasises the practical because of the heightened sense of touch and feel that the blind seem to develop in compensation for their lack of vision as it were.

The training centre has a classroom with rows of chairs where Rampal and the other trainers can lecture. But the real action takes place in two rooms alongside that have two beds each. One room is for the women and the other for the men. Here they learn massage skills, mostly working on each others limbs or by calling students and staff of the blind school on the premises for a session. The course takes three months during which they are taught the contours of various muscles and pressure points. Once the training is complete getting into business means an investment of Rs 5,000 or so which mostly goes towards a mobile phone and some creams and oils. Clients come through well-wishers or contacts made at the associations popular Diwali fair where a stall is set aside for giving tired shoppers a foot massage. Shyams clients are all over Delhi. He is available on mobile phone and travels to his clients by bus or autorickshaw. His charges vary depending on how far he has to go but at Rs 250 a session his service comes cheap. It is much the same story for the others as well. For all of them the ultimate dream is to have a massage parlour like Sunitas in Imphal. And their problems are those of small entrepreneurs: where will the seed capital come from? Where does one find real estate in the big city?

149

INVENTIVE INDIANS

25
DOCTORS ON CALL
An NGO called Banchbo in Kolkata has doctors on call for old people who may not have family nearby when they are suddenly sick

HOTLINE FOR THE AGED IN KOLKATA

RINA MUKHERJI
ODERN medicine and improved health facilities have contributed to better life expectancy and a huge increase in Indias elderly population in the past 50 years. But medical systems and social security measures have failed to keep pace. Consequently, increased longevity, breaking up of the joint family and lack of geriatric care have left the elderly helpless in most cities and towns. To address these problems in Kolkata, an NGO, Banchbo, has recently introduced eastern Indias first 24-hour helpline to cater to the medical problems of senior citizens as part of its Project Banchbo Healing Touch. Banchbo has been working over a decade with underprivileged children in education and health in south Kolkata and in Patharpratima in West Bengals South 24-Parganas district. Its offshoot, Banchbo Healing Touch, is an initiative by several doctors and laypersons in and around Garia in south Kolkata to provide emergency and preventive services to the elderly. It hopes to soon spread to other parts of Kolkata and its hinterland. As an attending doctor, I found the elderly in need of not just medical help but love and care. Nuclear families and the hectic pace of life in urban India have isolated the old. We thought of an organisation that would provide medical attention at the patients homes, while monitoring their progress on a regular basis, explains Dr Dhires Chowdhury who founded Banchbo

when he was a medical student about 10 years ago with friends in Garia and the patronage of Dr Sudipto Sen, the then director of Woodlands Hospital and Nursing Home. On call are doctors Arijit Das, Nilanjana Majumdar and Roma Guha. Several eminent medical professionals serve on Banchbos board including the head of the WHO International Reference Centre and well-known specialist, Dr J Sil, gynaecologist Dr Pranab Dastidar and chest specialist Dr A K Roy Chowdhury. The medical help that the aged need can vary from emergency situations to regular attention for chronic problems. Renuka Chowdhury fell and had a femoral fracture. Since her sisters husband was a Banchbo member, her family rushed the 71-year- old to hospital as an emergency case and availed of prompt medical attention. Bharati Das is a 60-year-old housewife who is suffering from chronic hypertension since the past 20 years. She also suffers from acute amoebiosis. A couple of months ago, her hypertension worsened so she had to be hospitalised. Domestic matters prevented me from visiting my physician for a regular check-up. Probably this caused a flare-up and an attack. My blood pressure rose so much, that I nearly passed out with discomfort. Her husband, retired academician Dr Ranjit Ranjan Das, is a lifelong vertigo patient with severe hypertension. Similarly, Professor Sourin Bhattacharje has hernia and haemorrhoids while his wife Reba is a COPD patient.

150

HOTLINE FOR THE AGED IN KOLKATA

Banchbos physicians attending to a patient

Sebabrata Majumdar too needs constant monitoring. He suffered two massive heart attacks and had a urethra blockage that caused urine retention. He had to be hospitalised. With his son abroad, and a brother who is constantly ill with geriatric problems, Banchbo is the ideal organisation for him. Says JM Kar, who has aching limbs and hypertension at 73 years of age: Getting to be part of a group of friends and a community of people in the same age group is working wonders physically. Banchbo Healing Initiative has an annual membership fee of Rs 1,800. When there are two members of the same family the fee is Rs 1,500 for one and Rs 1,200 for the other. Members are provided a detailed medical history and identity card indicating the salient features of their medical condition, three mandatory medical visits at home per year, along with one specialist check-up at a chamber and a comprehensive laboratory test each year. All emergency calls are attended by a nurse, and an on-call doctor with an ambulance equipped with basic medicine and medical facilities against a payment of Rs 350 during the day, and Rs 500 between 10 pm and 7am.

Banchbo has five doctors on call to attend to its members at their residence. Several specialist senior doctors are also empanelled for their services, and a patient can avail of a 2550 per cent discount on every consultation with the doctors in their chambers. Although the services are not free, many senior citizens have opted for them mainly because geriatric problems are rarely catered to so holistically in India. As Dr A K Roychowdhury, senior chest physician and an empanelled doctor with Banchbo who has been actively involved in the organisations health camps in the Sundarbans says, Here in India there is no social security like there is in the developed world. We are trying to fill that gap and in a small way provide a service for the aged at affordable rates. Besides, even when patients have medical insurance, the right medical advice and follow-up is not available. There is always a problem about whom to turn to. As Dr Ranjit Ranjan Das explains, My wife and I have medical insurance cover. But in an emergency, reliable medical advice to see the right specialist is hard to come by. This is what got us to opt for Banchbo.

151

INVENTIVE INDIANS

26
FARM CREATIVITY
Innovative solutions are needed for many rural problems. In a rare partnership, a farmer and a scientist come together to revive bee-keeping in south India

RED BEE HAS GOT WHAT IT TAKES

SHREE PADRE

creative partnership between a farmer and a scientist has resulted in the creation of a disease-tolerant bee strain that promises to revive bee-keeping in south Karnataka, Goa and Kerala.

Dharmendra was depressed. Disease had killed all but two of his bee colonies. He had bought new bees many times from different areas. But they didnt survive. Earnings from his tiny quarter acre areca garden were paltry. His sole livelihood was honey. Basavaraja Gutti, one of Dr Prabhus team members, looked at Dharmendras bees and expressed surprise at their colour. Whats this? Are these honeybees or not? he exclaimed. Bees in our area are red. These are black. Gutti came from Ranibennoor, 90 kilometres away. Dharmendra had never seen red bees. Guttis remark stuck in his head. He was very, very curious. In 1999, when Dr Prabhu was transferred to the Agriculture Research Centre (ARC) at Sirsi, just 10 km from Dharmendras place, he asked him for some red bees. With Dr Prabhus cooperation, Dharmendra procured two red strain bee colonies from Ranibennoor. Within a decade, Dharmendra, working closely with Dr Prabhu, developed a promising TSB tolerant bee strain. The breakthrough is significant. The bee strain will hopefully revive not only the bee-keeping industry in Uttara Kannada but in the nearby districts of Dakshina Kannada, Kasaragod, Udupi, Kodagu, Shimoga, Chikmagalur and even in the coastal states of Goa and Kerala. When I arranged for a red bee colony to be handed over to Dharmedraji, what I had was a natural academic curiosity. We knew that this strain was not present here. I was just curious to know how it would fare. Amazingly, it has reached this level,

The bee strain is resistant to the dreaded viral disease, Thai Sac Brood (TSB). The bees are also much more productive and focused in producing honey. Bee-keeping in south India began flagging in 1992. TSB struck that year. It first hit the Koynadu bees in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. In a span of two years, the virus wiped out entire colonies of bees in many parts of southern India and dealt a blow to bee-keeping. Entomologists were deeply concerned. At that time, Ian Olsson, a bee expert from Denmark was in Karnataka. The Gandhi Krishi Vijnyan Kendra (GKVK) had tried introducing Italian Apis mellifera bees but the project wasnt successful. Introducing mellifera bees wont solve the problem, observed Olsson. The only way to emerge from this crisis is to identify and develop resistant strains from your own Apis cerana bees. To study the grave situation, Dr ST Prabhu, an entomologist with the Hanumanamatti Krishi Vijnyan Kendra (KVK) Ranibennoor, sent a team to Sirsi in Uttara Kannada district. The first bee farm they went to belonged to Mashigadde Dharmendra Hegde.

152

RED BEE HAS GOT WHAT IT TAKES

Dharmendra with his red bees

thanks to his consistent efforts, said Dr Prabhu. When Dharmendra first received the red bees, he wasnt very hopeful about their future since all his earlier experiments had failed. He kept the red bee boxes near the disease stricken black bee families. If they are destined to survive, they will, he thought, leaving the red bees to their fate. Eventually, he forgot about the bee boxes completely. A fortnight later when he checked, one red bee colony had fallen victim to the disease. But the other family was thriving without any trace of TSB. Now this was getting interesting. For the next few months, Dharmendra kept close watch. The red bee colony continued to be healthy. These bees might be suitable for our area, he thought with hope in his heart. It was worth his while to continue experimenting with the red bees, he decided. And from the red bee colony which survived TSB, Dharmendra started developing new bee colonies. Dharmendras first red bees had come from Ranibennur in Haveri district, a semi-arid region which, unlike Uttara Kannada, gets only 700 mm of rainfall. Crops like jowar, groundnut and onion are grown in these sprawling flatlands. Bee-keeping is rare in Haveri. Since pollen is scarce, honey productivity is low. Honey is not a tradition here. Red bee colonies live deep in Haveris abandoned wells. Dharmendra scoured Hubli, Chitradurga, Mari valley of

Hiriyoor and other areas for the red bee strain. He must have collected at least 150 red strain families. What was it that he found so special in the red bee? Its a search for better performance, he explains. Dharmendra looks for three main bee characteristics: willingness to stay within a colony, fast bee development and rapid honey production. Bee families that selectively collect pollen are weeded out. Those who visit all varieties of flowers are ideal. Only two or three colonies out of 10 have this character, he says. Productivity should be the first criterion. For this, one has to keep constantly selecting. It is a never-ending process. The lessons learnt this year might change next year. In the good old days, bees werent dividing fast. We could keep more super chambers. But now, they divide faster. Like modern human beings, the bees dont like joint families. Catching red colonies from the wild requires heroic efforts. The abandoned wells are 15 to 100 feet deep. Dharmendra used to take a team of four with him. He would go down the well with a rope tied across his waist. If we did not have a jeep or a tree to tie the rope to, we would bring a big rock, tie the rope to it and make two people sit on it, he says. It took him hours of sitting in a well to collect the bees. Some colonies were caught in a few hours others required more than a day. Queen replacement is a technique Dharmendra has used the

153

INVENTIVE INDIANS

most. If the queen is old, if her performance is poor, she is taken out and a new queen cell introduced. In a natural process, the bee colony produces only two or three queen cells. But if we induce the process, out of anxiety, they produce more queen cells. Transplantation of the red queen cell into a black strain family, in due course, converts it into a red family. This process is like top working, a process used to change the variety of a particular fruit plant. The queen cell, with proper care, can be transported over a short distance. Both red and black strains are almost of the same size, he explains. Red bees are very docile. Biting is rare. They arent affected by TSB easily. Compared to the black strain, disease occurrence in red bees is 80 per cent less. Deserting the box is pretty rare and the ability to collect pollen is very high. Visiting every flower is another good habit. Like trucks that carry loads of paddy straw, the red bees lug a lot of pollen. You should see them returning to the box. While the black bee gives about 10 or 12 kg of honey under optimum conditions, the red bee yields 15 to 17 kg. Lack of aggressiveness makes honey extraction faster. I used to

timber and labour is rising, he is likely to hike his rates too. The traits that attract bee farmers to red bees are tolerance to disease and being prone to stinging less. Once these bees get acquainted with the bee farmer, they wont bite. If they were black bees, they would fight among themselves and finally abscond from the box, he says. Shripathi Bhat Mavinakoppa has 35 years experience in beekeeping. He has 25 bee colonies, all brought from Dharmendra. Black bees get easily disturbed when we open the box. But the red ones continue their work unperturbed. Their productivity is nearly double. Dinesh Hegde Shashimane, another bee farmer, agrees. The moment we open the lid, the black bees get scared. They fly out and sit outside the box. In contrast, the red ones dont leave the combs. The red bees have completely adapted to our environment. Since we have a lot of flowers, it is a boon for them, says Dharmendra. In fact a promising development is that for the past three to four years, the new strain of red bees has started settling in a radius of 20 km around Dharmendras farm.

The traits that attract bee farmers to red bees are tolerance to disease and being prone to stinging less. Once they get to know a farmer, they dont bite.
extract 10 boxes a day from black bees. The red ones produce three times more. Dharmendra now has 80 red bee colonies. He does migratory bee-keeping. His annual production of honey ranges between 15 to 20 quintals and has a reputation of being adulteration free. In fact, the honey is called Mashigadde honey. It is popular and sells at Rs 130 a kg. WORD SPREADS In the last seven to eight years Dharmendras Bhargava Bee Nursery, must have sold about 1,000 bee colonies to Bijapur, Bengaluru, Maharashtra and Goa apart to farmers from his home district. The nursery is named after his younger son who is a bee enthusiast like his father. How do people so far apart get interested? Dr Prabhu recommends red bees to farmers who come to ARC Sirsi, seeking advice. Prakruthi, an NGO based in Sirsi, has also been popularising red bee-keeping. From one colony, two or three new ones can be produced in a year. Dharmendra produces around 100 new colonies every year. These are sold in a bee box for Rs 1,500. As the cost of These are the ones originally divided from my colonies, notes Dharmendra. Bee farmers who catch black bees here manage to entrap three or four red ones too. Red bees are easily available in nature now. Some farmers catch them without knowing they are different and better, says Balachandra Hegde Joganmane. He has 22 bee colonies out of which only four are black. One of his black colonies fell sick but the red bees by their side survived. This has given me much confidence, he says. Pointing to a red bee colony that has been living in his arecanut tree since four years, Joganmane observes that the red bees are not affected by wax moths. If the bees on the tree were black, they would have fled in a year. Says Mahabaleshwara Hegde Manjulli, programme executive, Prakruthi: Dharmendra lives a nomadic lifestyle. He will go to any extent for bees. He spends many days in forests and does not mind sleeping there either. He has the physical and psychological fitness his profession demands. What I appreciate most is his adherence to quality whether it is honey, bee box or bee colony. His bee colony always contains a minimum of five frames full of bees. He never gives inferior, lazy bees.

154

RED BEE HAS GOT WHAT IT TAKES

Dharmendras dedication along with the efforts of Dr Prabhu and the ARC is making bee-keeping popular. Dharmendra says he has sold roughly 350 colonies to farmers from different areas in Uttara Kannada. Farmers must have multiplied these. According to a rough estimate Uttara Kannada probably has by now about 1,000 red bee colonies being looked after by 100 bee farmers. The red bees are doing well in coastal Goa too. Abhijith Sawaikar had taken 10 colonies two seasons ago. Im getting an average of 8 kg of honey per colony. There is absolutely no symptom of TSB, he says. Arun Madgaonkar, another bee farmer, corroborates the red bees disease tolerance. Manjuli has arranged for 100 red bee colonies to be distributed to Goan bee farmers. Dharmendra always finds the time to clarify the doubts of new bee-keepers any time of the day, says Dr Prabhu. Each bee family is different from the other. Dharmendra knows that and so he carefully selects colonies for further development. Only if one has a clear knowledge of the entire goings on inside the bee box is it possible to be successful, says Dr Prabhu. Dharmendra has developed the strain like a qualified scientist.

Bee-keeping had been going down in Uttara Kannada because of TSB. Though we had been trying to rejuvenate it our efforts werent successful in the absence of a resistant strain. Now we can say with confidence that this strain withstands the disease to a great extent. Two years ago, the ARC in collaboration with GKVK, conducted training workshops for 60 Sirsi farmers in bee-keeping using the red variety. Five farmers who were trained Subraya Hegde Sirsimakki, Shripathy Bhat Mavinakoppa, Jagadish T Hegde Sirsimakki, Vishwanath G Hegde Heggarni and Balachandra Hegde Onikeri have been doing serious beekeeping with the red strain and are satisfied. The ARC is carrying out studies on the red bee strain in three aspects: productivity between the red and black strain, the absconding nature of both and their capacity to withstand TSB disease. The studies are expected to be completed by 2010. Meanwhile, Dharmendras Bhargava Bee Nursery has orders for 200 red colonies to be delivered in October. Such is the demand that Im not sure whether we can fulfill our commitment because mating of the queen bee depends much on natural conditions, he says.

155

INVENTIVE INDIANS

27
WILD BY CHOICE
Indian forests are full of plants and shoots that are healthy to eat. An Ayurvedic physician in Karnataka shows children how to make them part of their diet again

TASTY, FAT-FREE JUNGLE FOOD

ANITHA PAILOOR

HAVYA, Sharada, Kiran, Kavya and Ganesh listened intently as PS Venkatarama Daithota, a traditional Ayurvedic physician, guided them through a forest explaining the medicinal properties of plants. The children, who study in Class 6 at Kalave School near Sirsi in Uttara Kannada, were pleased to know that their favourite wild fruits were very nutritious. Daithota, fondly called the walking encyclopedia on herbs, identified 110 edible varieties in half an acre of forest. But it was the sumptuous lunch which bowled the children over. Leaves, roots and shoots they had seen in the forest had been turned magically into a mouth-watering meal. There were traditional dishes like tambli, katne, mandana appehuli, appehuli, gojju, palya, kadubu and chutney, which had been cooked using coconut as a base. Delicious food doesnt grow only on farms but in natural forests too. There is nutrition hidden in the jungle, but you have to know how to identify it. A two-day workshop explaining it all was organised by Sirsis Suvarna Sahyadris Environment Education Programme and Amma Prathisthana. Daithota guided about 100 participants through the course. Uttara Kannada has a rich tradition of cooking food from the forest. In Malnad, people are blessed with natural kitchen gardens in the form of the forest. This love for forest food is not just for its medicinal properties but for its distinctly delicious taste and appearance.

For generations women here have been able to obtain food from the forest, said Shivananda Kalave, a journalist who had arranged the workshop. We used to know all about plants and their uses. But as the purpose of food got limited to just filling the stomach, this knowledge of forest-based food degenerated. The objective of the workshop is to share the knowledge we have about native food habits and revive it. As natural forests gave way to mono-cultivation of acacia and teak in the last century, food habits changed. Tomatoes and potatoes began to appear on the plate with rice. But several traditional recipes like tambli, the health drink of Malnad, retained their importance. Tambli can be made with leaves and forest species ranging from kokum to drumstick flowers and brahmi. Jayalakshmi Daithota has not cooked vegetables sold in the market for the past 15 years. She has made the nearby forest her vegetable garden. Jayalakshmi has inherited traditional knowledge about such foods. She helps people keep disease at bay by telling them how to practice healthy eating habits. Proper knowledge of using these natural vitamin tablets in our food will keep us healthy and happy, she says. As participants discussed edible varieties available in the forest, tasty herbal drinks and forest-based food were passed around. As many as 60 dishes were prepared, including the highly nutritious bamboo rice.

156

TASTY, FAT-FREE JUNGLE FOOD

Venkatarama Daithota explaining jungle food to children

Participants listed around 40 types of tambli and 50 juices which they have used. The list didnt include cultivated forest species. Children were astonished to find out that the varieties they consider as useless wild plants play a greater role in keeping people healthy. Krishna Hegde, a pioneering hotelier in Bangalore, interacted with participants and felt that rich natural forest food could attract tourists without ruining our natural and cultural heritage. Health conscious people in cities are searching for nutritious food low in calories. This is the time to build the slow food movement in Karnataka with native diversities, he said. A morning walk with Venkatarama Daithota shed new light on our surroundings. He identified at least one plant per step and

explained its properties. He said there should be a favourable environment for wild species to prosper naturally. He feared that if forest plants were cultivated as crops they might lose their original properties. Veda Hegde, a resident of Neernalli village, said the workshop had taught her to use her surroundings as a vegetable garden. People still know how to make tambli, but the knowledge behind it was fading away. Food preparations also changed as taste began to acquire more importance than health. Modernisation has changed the way we cook. A tender leaf at our doorstep becomes acceptable only when it is converted into a packaged product with a label saying it is nutritious. But it is in the fresh leaf that real nutrition is found.

157

INVENTIVE INDIANS

28
HELPING HAND
Indias role in Afghanistan has been to promote development. SEWA has been teaching destitute women to run small businesses and be independent

SEWA BRINGS HOPE IN KABUL

AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR

AMILLA is 38 years old and has 12 children. Eighteen years ago, her husband, a labourer at construction sites, fell while erecting a scaffold for a building. He was seriously injured so he couldnt support the family anymore. Jamilla spent all these dark years moving with her family from Kabul to Kunduz to Mazar-e-Sharif, seeking refuge, not just from conflict, but from poverty. Jamilla earned some money selling boloni, the Afghan version of the stuffed parantha, to women who came to Kabuls only womens park, the Bagh-e-Zanana. It was here that she first heard of SEWA, (Self-Employed Womens Association), Indias largest union of women who run small businesses in the informal sector. In the park, SEWA was training 1,000 destitute Afghan women to run businesses that were economically viable and culturally appropriate. Jamilla enrolled for the ecological regeneration course. Its an opportunity to be independent and support my family better, she says. The SEWA project, which will run for one year initially, has been financed by the Indian government at a cost of $1.4 million. It is part of Indias assistance programme for Afghanistan. The idea for the project germinated in Indias desire to see the international communitys talk about gender empowerment and mainstreaming translate into building the talents and skills of Afghan women. Announced during the 2005 visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by his wife, Gurcharan Kaur, the project will train Afghan women in ecological regenera-

tion, food processing and garment manufacture. These vocations were selected after careful consideration. Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative society where the participation of women in the workforce and in public spaces is severely restricted. Infrastructure is absent. So is a robust market that could generate employment for women. The trainees have been identified by Afghanistans Ministry of Womens Affairs from names forwarded by local communities. The neediest women, including war widows and orphans, have been chosen. The stipend for the trainees was kept a secret to ensure that only those who really wanted to learn would come. SEWA trainers interviewed each aspiring trainee before making a final decision. Unlike many projects where the daily allowance is the attraction, these destitute women walk miles or spend their own money to reach the training site, said Megha Desai, SEWAs project coordinator. SEWA first trained a group of 32 master trainers in India. By training local Afghan women as trainers, the Indian government hopes to replicate the project in future in different provinces. Other NGOs are being invited to take up the project, said Jayant Prasad, Indias Ambassador to Afghanistan. The significance of the SEWA project is that the women can work in their own homes, said Dr Hussn Banu Ghazanfar,

158

SEWA BRINGS HOPE IN KABUL

Women being trained by a SEWA worker in Kabul

Minister of Womens Affairs, the only woman in the Cabinet. One beneficiary is Anees Gul. Her husband suffered a bullet injury while working as a policeman during Najibullahs time. He is incapacitated. Aneess Afghan trainer is Wasima Meri, a master trainer. Wasima is better off than the women she teaches. A school teacher, she felt she could do better as a professional cook. When we keep fruits and vegetables at home, they go bad very soon. With the skills I learnt here I will be able to preserve things longer and make jams and juices which can be sold. Twice since the training, I made carrot juice the way I had learnt. My family could not believe it could taste so good, she says in a voice bursting with pride. To understand local realities, SEWA, on the suggestion of the Indian embassy, carried out an intensive assessment of costing, finance and accounting for small businesses, cultural mores and educational standards. This contrasts with several wellintentioned programmes created on drawing boards in Western capitals which fail because ground realities dont match. The skills SEWA selected are indigenous to Afghans but need upgrading, says Desai. Gardening is something most Afghans do if they have land and water. Drying and preserving foods is

also a regular household chore. The challenge was to upgrade skills so that the women could sell their products. SEWA intends to preserve traditional skills that could be lost. Women who learn skills can help other women. What they produce would be for their families and the surpluses for the contiguous community. From this would emerge linkages to the market, explained Jayant Prasad. Most women who enrolled for the course were selling food at the womens park, which is a secure place but has limited opportunities for boosting incomes. Now I hope I can set up a shop outside the park with my son, says Shad Jan, a mother of five children. I can cook, he can sell and my daughters can help me. Garment manufacture is of poor quality in Afghanistan. That is why a wholesale market in second-hand clothes from Pakistan thrives. SEWA has imported 36 electronically operated sewing machines. After training, SEWA hopes to set up a community centre where the women can run their own garment units. But it is tough. Two months after the garment trainees returned from India, they could not continue their training because there was no electricity to power the machines.

159

INVENTIVE INDIANS

29
COMMUNITY EFFORT
Attappady in Kerala is known for its poverty and environmental decline. So, when a government agency works with tribals to bring a river back to life it is great news

MANY SURPRISES IN RIVER REBIRTH

SHREE PADRE
river that has come to life in Palakkad district of Kerala offers more than one surprise in its unique rebirth. This is the first time in southern India that a river has been revived. It is even more amazing that its resuscitation has been made possible by a government organisation generally criticised for being sluggish and corrupt. Called the Attappady Hills Area Development Society (Ahads), the government organisation worked with local tribals to achieve this miracle. The Kodungarapallam, which has a 28 km course, can now be seen flowing in Mannarkkad taluk, north of Palakkad town close to the Tamil Nadu border. Three rivers originate from the surrounding Attappady hills: Bhavani, Siruvani and Kodungarapallam. The three rivers join in Koodappatti. From there onwards, the river is known as Bhavani. It flows to Tamil Nadu and joins the Cauvery. Attappady and Kasargod are punishment postings for government officers. In fact in some parts of the state, fools are referred to as Attappady! Sadly Attappadys name used to conjure images of a backward desert where poor tribals like the Kurumbas, Mudugas and the Irulas had to fight for survival. Clement Selvaraj, assistant director of Ahads soil and water conservation programme, recalls the first day he visited Vattulakki, an Adivasi hamlet here devastated by environmental degradation: It was in 2003. There were no birds, not even

a dog. A goat was searching in vain for a blade of grass. An old woman with silver hair, Velliyamma, was climbing the hill with a vessel of water on her head. She had to walk two km to fetch it. How would we construct check dams when there wasnt even water to mix cement? That night I didnt sleep. If we dont do anything who else will? By next morning, I had taken it as a challenge. A few good-hearted bureaucrats had launched Ahads in 1995. They received financial assistance from the Japanese government and the Kerala state government. Their objective was watershed development of Attappady and improving the livelihoods of local communities. The Rs 219.3 crore project had a JPIC loan component of Rs 176.9 crore. The rest has been borne by the state government. Ahads comes under the Local Self-Government Department of Kerala. Nobody knows when the Kodungarapallam disappeared. The catchment of the river which is in Tamil Nadu was green. But the catchment in Kerala in eastern Attappady was completely dry and degraded. Yet Kodungarapallam was once a lush river. Recalls 65-yearold Nariyan, an Adivasi: Kodungarapallam had knee-deep water in summer. There were huge trees on both sides. During the monsoon, the adventurous among us used to tie a rope between trees on either side to cross the river. And then it gradually shrank and the catchment in Attappady became dry and degraded. Several factors contributed: government policies, road construction, charcoal production,

160

MANY SURPRISES IN RIVER REBIRTH

over grazing, cropping patterns and finally soil erosion, the highest in Kerala. Tribal families abandoned their land and turned to brick kilns for work. As the fertility of the soil declined thin topsoil began to be used for brick-making. The net result was that about 507 sq km out of a total of 745 sq km turned into wasteland. In 1999, starvation deaths, uncommon in Kerala, were reported from Vellakulam hamlet. Ahads had its share of teething problems. Low on staff, the group started trying to create awareness in 1997. However, it was only around 2000 that the project took off. We went to the communities with three new approaches: participation, transparency and financial accountability, recalls VH Dirar, assistant director, training. Ooru Vikasana Samithis or Village Development Committees (VDCs) were formed. The office-bearers were elected. The implementation of the project was done by the VDCs. Money was paid to the respective office-bearers only by cheque. People were handpicked for responsible posts. Most of Ahads staff is young and untainted by sloth. We didnt

demand 10 years experience. The average age of our 120 plus staffers is around 30. Then there are 300 volunteers working as animators who are young locals, said Vinod Uniyal, project director. The total area treated by Ahads in this river catchment is 60 sq km. Soil and water conservation structures were built using only stones and soil. The next year itself they struck water barely three feet below the surface. The project provided ample employment to locals as labourers. Instead of the occasional Rs 40 as wages, they started getting regular work at Rs 110-120 a day. This melted suspicion and distrust. At a later stage it was the water available nearer their houses that reinforced their belief. Six million plants have been planted on forest land and private wasteland. You can call this a stop-gap forest, said Radhakrishnan, assistant director, forestry. After 15 to 20 years, the plants will be trees with a good canopy. The Ahads team took their mission seriously. Yet nobody thought the river would flow again. Kodungarapallam hadnt registered in our minds as a river or even a dried river, confesses Sumesh Kumar, soil and water conservation officer. We assumed that it must have been a motorable road.

161

INVENTIVE INDIANS

30
ABLE ENTREPRENEUR
Baldev Gulati is blind, but he wants to prove through his spices business that a disabled person who tries hard enough can be as good as anyone else

THE MASALA MESSIAH

VIDYA VISWANATHAN

ALDEV Gulati could be just about any small businessman in Ghaziabads collapsing industrial estates. A few hands, modest turnover, low profits. But the truth is Gulati is a messiah in his own right. Visually challenged, he has started a spice business which employs 50 differently abled people like himself. The spices go by the name of NP Masale, the brand coming from Gulatis company, Navprerna, which supplies spices to retailers, households in Ghaziabad and institutions like the India Habitat Centre and Hotel Broadway. This is not just a business. It enhances our visibility in society, he explains. To make the packaged spices, physically challenged people buy ingredients from wholesalers. So wholesale traders treat them with respect and negotiate as equals. We deliver to housewives and caterers who negotiate with us. So mobility increases and that changes attitudes in society. Gulatis employees are mostly unskilled people. Before he got into spices, he ran a unit which made candles that float on water. Disabled people from villages were employed for 15 days. They underwent training in work ethics. Then they were assessed to find out if they could report on time and work productively for eight hours a day. After that, Gulati found them employment in industries in Ghaziabad because candle-making was seasonal and he couldnt hire so many people himself. He was tough on those who interned with him and he gave them a taste of what formal employment is all about. The disabled come with the expectation that they wont measure up

and so they work hard, he says. Gulati has got jobs for 253 disabled people in other companies. Gulati studied a whole lot of businesses before giving up candles for spices. This has the highest return on investment for the disabled. It can employ people with all disabilities, skilled or unskilled. It wont become obsolescent. As more people buy packaged spices, the market will grow. The food processing industry suffers from a high rate of adulteration and our products are pure, he explains. The shed for his business has been donated by Aditya Sachdev of Diamond Industries who runs three factories in Ghaziabad. For working capital, Gulati borrowed from banks. Gulati is clear that the disabled will have to create their own space in the competitive market economy. The State cant provide for us, he says. In 2001, when Gulati began doing the rounds of companies with his walking stick, he could not get past the security guards at most premises. The guards thought he wanted charity. He got entry when he went with his wife but for six months he could not convince any employer to hire him. Gulati and his wife then approached the Noida SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) Association and asked for a 20minute slot at one of their meetings. He promised not to appeal for charity. He got the Vocational Rehabilitation Centre in Delhi to ship machines and candidates to the meeting. During the tea break, association members saw disabled peo-

162

THE MASALA MESSIAH

Baldev Gulati and his team of workers in their shed in Ghaziabad

ple working on lathes, sewing machines and computers. When the meeting started again, he requested association members to light a floating candle for each person they were willing to employ. That worked. He now has a network of 30 companies who are willing to employ disabled people. Can the spices operation be scaled up? That is a big question. The problem is disabled people are sometimes lazy and expect sympathy. They are normal human beings and once they see opportunity, they too leave. I have to make sure that I dont lose my credibility, he says. Life has been harsh for Gulati. His father, an iron rod trader, died when he was very young. Gulatis four sisters are visually impaired too. His mother moved into her parents house. Gulati had to get up at 4:30 am to get milk from the government booth because it was cheaper than the Mother Diary milk. There used to be street dogs around. But then that is our country. We could not wait for things to get better and let life pass by, he says philosophically. People advised his mother to admit her children into special schools for the visually impaired which offered boarding and lodging. When she visited those schools, she was appalled at their condition. She read an advertisement for an integrated government school in the Presidents Estate and enrolled her children. For

several years she took them by bus from Tilak Nagar in West Delhi to Rashtrapati Bhavan and back. Her grit changed her destiny. She got a job at the telephone exchange on the estate and got government accommodation there as well. Gulati is extremely grateful for his school experience. This was in 1975, he recalls. The school had two special teachers and a resource room. We got braille training, books and scribes. He was determined to make a place for himself. When other boys played football, he kicked the ball against the practice wall. He graduated with high grades and an award for being an outstanding orator. In the early 1990s, if you were visually impaired, you were expected to opt for a BA in education and then get a secure job as a teacher reserved for the handicapped. Three of Gulatis sisters opted for that. But Gulati wanted more. He learnt French at the Alliance Francaise and graduated from the Delhi School of Social Work. Reality hit him after graduation. I wanted to work in the development sector. I was determined not to limit myself to working only for the disabled, he says. When he went for interviews, most employers advised him to carve a career in academics. That was demeaning. I did not go to them for career counselling. Not one employer was curious enough to ask me what I could do for them. When I interview people, I do not give them free advice on what to do, he says. These experiences got him to work more imaginatively for the disabled.

163

INVENTIVE INDIANS

31
THE WORKING CHILD
Schools set up at brick kilns show how with a little innovation, children who must work to help their families can be given an education and some joy in their lives

SCHOOLS AT BRICK KILNS BRING HOPE

RINA MUKHERJI

ORTH 24-Parganas district in West Bengal is dotted with brick kilns, which have always provided seasonal employment to itinerant labour from arid areas in the districts of Purulia and Bankura and the nearby states of Jharkhand and Bihar. But there are no amenities for the thousands of migrant families who throng to the kilns and child labour is rampant. Finally, there is a ray of hope. Thanks to Prayasams Progoti and Parivartan programmes at Icchapore and Manirampur in Barrackpore and Haroa, many of the children of migrant families can now dream of a better life. Previously, on a visit to any of these kilns one could see hundreds of children lending a helping hand to their parents as they carried soil from the river banks, prepared the clay mixture with various chemicals for bricks and then moulded the bricks by hand. The going rate of Rs 100 for 1,000 bricks was no small temptation for their families. In December 2005, realising that it would be difficult to wean children away from this kind of income for migrant families, the district administration invited Prayasam, an NGO working with underprivileged children, to chalk out a project. Prayasam decided to provide educational facilities to the children by reaching out to brick kiln owners. Parivartan, the Haroa project, was started with the support of UNICEF in December 2005. The project in north Barrackpore was started under the aegis of the north Barrackpore municipality with the support of Kolkata Urban Services for the Poor (KUSP).

Today, Prayasams 20 non-formal schools that double up as multiple activity centres (MACs) reach out to 1,250 children in Haroa, and more than 900 children in north Barrackpore. As Prayasam founder-director Amlan Kusum Ganguly points out, the two projects cater to 26 brick kilns in Haroa and 10 in north Barrackpore. How did they get brick kiln owners to agree? Some brick kiln owners found it difficult to retain labour since migrant families were getting a choice of jobs. They felt Prayasams project would help labour to stay on. Progressive kiln owners like Sandhya Singh of the BVS kiln were the first to respond to the NGOs request for cooperation because they genuinely believed in improving the lives of the workers. The restrooms of the overseers in such brick kilns were converted into classrooms. For the children, it was a novel experience and they quickly took to it. Take nine-year-old Pavan, whose family is from Wazirganj in Bihar. Constant migration denied him the opportunity to go to school until last year. A few months at the school at the Shankar brick kiln at Manirampur in North Barrackpore opened new vistas for him. I love learning numbers, reciting poems and singing songs. I have also learnt to make monkey masks now, says an excited Pavan. For fatherless Nandini Kahar and her siblings, whose mother works at the BVS brick kiln in Icchapore, school was a distant dream. But now she gets a chance to read and write. For 10year-old Pinky Mahato, who has two sisters and a brother

164

SCHOOLS AT BRICK KILNS BRING HOPE

Brick kiln children at Prayasams non-formal school

attending the non-formal school since the last three months has meant learning dance, singing and a few words in English. Her family comes from Gaya in Bihar during the brick-making season. These children work at the kiln from 6 am to 10 am in the morning. After a bath and a quick brunch, they are at the school till 3 pm after which they return to the kiln and work until dusk. The teaching pattern in both schools is similar. Children come in as they like. The younger ones, who do not assist their parents, are in by 11 am, while the older ones come in later. Learning is never by rote, as teachers Shibani Mukherjee and Shankari Das clarify. The children play football and learn to skip, make masks or draw. Songs, skits and dances are often learnt and staged. To encourage the children to express themselves, Prayasam has also been making use of comics. This has caught the imagination of the children, especially the girls. Besides, the childrens theatre group, Dakabuko (Dare Devils), and dance troupe, Ahladi (Loved Ones), teach them to stage plays and dance dramas on health and social issues from time

to time. This has helped children learn the significance of hygiene and sanitation and pass on their knowledge to their parents. Once a year, a camp is organised at one of the multi-activity centres. The activities depend on what they have learnt until then, explains Ganguly. The children make kites, dolls and collages from waste material, play and, in short, have a great time. The number of families that return home after the peak November-May season is dropping drastically. According to KUSP project co-coordinator Udita Ghosh Sarkar: Last year, very few families returned home. Parents have realised the advantage of staying back here, since it gives their children the opportunity of being mainstreamed into regular schools. Now even the parents express a desire to learn along with their children. As Ganguly and Sarkar say, They come and tell us teach us also. The parents dont confine learning to writing their names. They are as excited as their children to learn kite-making and stitching. A lot of mothers have taken to making dolls. They have also imbibed the basics of hygiene, population control and nutrition.

165

INVENTIVE INDIANS

32
THE GOOD SISTER
Rich and poor children learn together at Loreto House, Sealdah, in Kolkata, as Sister Cyril shows that it is really quite easy to have schools for everyone

CYRILS LORETO KNOWS HOW

RINA MUKHERJI

N 1979, when Sister Cyril took over as principal of Loreto Day School at Sealdah in central Kolkata, she noted that her school catered only to the elite. Outside her schools gates there were thousands of children on crowded footpaths in desperate need of an education. I could see no justification for running a big English medium school for a relatively small number and leaving out so many in need, she says. Sister Cyril decided to start admitting children from underprivileged families into her privileged school. Today 50 per cent of her students are either street children or come from slums. They have been integrated into the school system. Sister Cyril implemented the idea of inclusive education some 25 years ago. In contrast, elitist schools in Delhi, which are supposed to admit 25 per cent of students from economically deprived families, continue to debate the issue, despite a court order. They baulk at the idea. Loreto Day School looks like any other school. Walk through its iron gates and you will see brightly coloured walls, children playing games and mothers waiting for their wards. Look again and you will spot barefoot children strolling around. Nobody shoos them away. They are part of the school. The parents of these children are often rickshaw-pullers or domestic servants. Filling up an admission form is difficult for them so teachers sit with these parents and help them make the entries in the form.

Well-off students help enrol poorer children. Initially, the school targeted slum-dwellers. We would often walk up to slum-dwellers and tell them they ought to send their children to our school. It would ensure them a bright future, says Sangeeta Mondol, administrative assistant and an old student of the school. It was a tough proposition, but finally a small number started trickling in. In 1985, the school authorities extended enrolment to street children. They launched the Rainbow Project. Under this, street children were initially admitted as day scholars. Students from the school would teach them mathematics and language for three hours. But in 2002, a three-year-old girl was raped just outside the school gates. The incident jolted Sister Cyril. It made me realise that street children needed much more than a night shelter. With both parents off to work, they were vulnerable to all kinds of anti-social elements on the streets. So the school decided to provide boarding facilities for these children. Nearly 300 girls between the ages of two and 16 years live in the school. Older children are taught basics and then admitted to government-run Bengali medium schools or corporation schools. The younger ones are inducted into Loreto Day School. Currently, some 60 students from the Rainbow Project are studying as regular students. The problems of integrating children from diverse backgrounds, parental opposition and financial hurdles are a faint memory here. Part of the credit goes to the school authorities

166

CYRILS LORETO SHOWS HOW

Sister Cyril with some of her students

and, of course, to Sister Cyril. I made it clear to the parents that since the Constitution of India guarantees liberty and equality for all, they should not have a problem, she says bluntly. Parents now accept the schools philosophy and programmes. They often donate small amounts of Rs 500 and old clothes for the Rainbow Project. Even my students try saving out of their pocket money to contribute, says Sister Cyril. Certain rules have been laid down. The school has banned mobile phones, lavish birthday parties and generous pocket money. I taught my children to laugh at these practices since these are substitutes for people who have no personality, says Sister Cyril. I told them to stand out as people who do not need any of these trappings. The school consistently teaches children to be sensitive to the less privileged. They have a Barefoot Teacher programme under which school dropouts from rural areas are identified and trained to become primary teachers. There is also a Oneto-One Rural Outreach programme. Once a month, girls from Loreto Day School travel to rural areas adjoining Kolkata to teach children. The schools time- table is designed so that girls from Classes 5 to 10 get two hours every week to teach the Rainbow children as part of their work education class. There is an incen-

tive in this. Class 12 girls who find time to teach earn a Work Scholarship under which their tuitions and books are taken care of by the school. We do not have scholarships beyond Class 10. This enables junior college girls to earn and pay their way through, says Sister Cyril. There is also a value education course for students from Class I to Class 10. This syllabus is designed so that every child realises the need to lead a disciplined lifestyle, share what she has, return the love she gets from parents, be neat and tidy, sensitive to the less fortunate and never take part in teasing. Children are also taught to question the injustice of caste and class and respect all religions. The underprivileged children get food too from rations supplied by the government. The teachers contribute from their salaries. Sometimes children collect money. The Partnership Foundation from Holland, the Rotary Club and individuals sponsor many of the children. So far, we have managed to break even and we even have sufficient funds to help more children, says Sister Cyril. We have 500 children paying Rs 775, another 200 pay Rs 440 and others pay anything from Rs 300 down to nothing. However, if you do the calculation in some of the big schools who do not take any poor children, you will find that they make a handsome profit.

167

INVENTIVE INDIANS

PHOTOGRAPHERS
Civil Society magazine is distinguished by the strong photographs it carries to bring its stories alive. Many of them have been reproduced here in this book.
Gautam Singh has been chasing news stories for more than a decade. He is now based in Mumbai.
Photographs by him appear in: Affordable Heart Care - P 24

Green Car to Beat All Others - P 70

Lakshman Anand began his career as a news photographer covering events and people. He is
based in Delhi. Photographs by him appear in: Schools by Design - P 30 Peoples Daily - P 52

The Lucid Water Guru - P 36

How The Mantle Passed at FRLHT - P 42

Amazing Hospital Saves A Life - P 58

Car to Beat All Others - P70 River Clean - P 120

Uprising Near Meerut - P 94 Yogas First Family - P 100

Saving the Girl Child - P 76

Top Doctors in Delhi Slum - P 64

Smile, You Can Do It Too! - P 90

The

Green Keep a

Organic National

Small Field, Big Crop Ponds - P 106

Hawkers in Battle Mode - P 134

Model on Silicosis- P 144

My Tongue is Still There... - P 142

For Disabled, See The Opportunity - P 148

The Masala Messiah - P 162

Prasanta Biswas lives in Kolkata. His work is available through Drik, a network of photographers
in the developing world. Photographs by him appear in: Hotline for the Aged in Kolkata - P 150 Cyrils Loreto Knows How - P 166

Yajna belongs to Mangalore from where he has worked for Kannada publications for several years.
Photographs by him appear in: Bridges for Everyone - P 16 The Lavish Zero Emission Home - P 84 Own Your Power, Live Wisely - P 124

Pattabi Raman has recently shifted to Pondicherry. Photographs by him appear in:
Rolling Back the Tsunami - P130

168

INVENTIVE INDIANS

WRITERS
Civil Society has a wide network of active journalists. They have a nose for stories that distinguish the magazine from the rest of the Indian media.
Amit Sengupta has been the moving spirit behind many Indian publications. A caring journalist,
he has a sense of justice which has taken him deep within peoples movements.

Anitha Pailoor holds workshops which teach journalists to report on agricultural issue s in the
Indian context. She is based in Karnataka.

Aunohita Mojumdar has been reporting on South Asia for 20 years. She is currently based in
Kabul as a freelance journalist.

Madhu Gurung is a freelance writer with an interest in women's issues. Rina Mukherji is a Kolkata-based independent journalist who has specialised in issues pertaining
to environment and development.

Samita Rathor is a yoga teacher and a certified clinical hypnotherapist. She is also the founder of
Indian Dogs Association. She is a writer and cartoonist as well.

Shree Padre is a water journalist with an abiding interest in agriculture. He is the Editor of
Patrike in which farmers report on innovations in their fields.

Adike

Vidya Viswanathan began as a software programmer in 1986 and went on to study

management. She then moved to journalism.

169