|
Blog Home
News Home
Write your Column at iVarta
India, Asia and Global
Breaking Stories, Latest News Headlines, Opinion, Analysis
Columns and Discussions Business, Social and Community Networking.
Comprehensive
Collection of India News, Articles, Columns, Analysis and Research Papers.
Facts about India, Indian History, Culture, Yoga, Meditation & Ayurveda and
more…
|
|
|
|
6/2/2008 12:24:58 PM
Author's Home Page
Views expressed here are author"s own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is
at the bottom.
 Feedback to author
At Mr. J. P. Sondhi"s request I visited DRI (Deendayal Research Institute) from Jan 12 -16, 2008. Mrs. Jaya Kamlani accompanied me to collect data and research for a book on India. Dr. Bharat Pathak hosted and Mr and Mrs Sondhi guided us at the DRI Chitrakoot campus, and organized the visit to Chitrakoot and many surrounding villages. For us the visit turned out to be a vacation at the DRI Chitrakoot guest house, which is a five star facility for Ayurvedic healthcare, naturopathy, and research and training centers for rural development and management.
Deendayal Research Institute (DRI) is located at the border of MP and UP, two BIMARU states, where relative to other Indian states in south and west progress of rural development has been slow. My primary objective for visiting DRI Chitrakoot was to understand how INDUSA Endowments, an unregistered family trust established by Kiran, my wife and I, can help accelerate rural development projects undertaken by DRI under leadership of Shri Nanaji Deshmukh, a freedom fighter, an ex- Lok Sabha member and a social entrepreneur activist who has been associated in revitalizing rural development in areas of education, water harvesting, rural electrification, healthcare and income enhancement initiatives.
I had heard of President A.J.P. Kalam visiting Chitrakoot in 2005 to honor DRI for success in introducing panchayati environment to eliminate civil litigations in 80 villages. I wanted to feel and learn how the communal harmony thus created had allowed the communities to continue its march for advanced rural developments. Pictorial views of various DRI initiatives are available at http://www.chitrakoot.org/html/index.htm.
A visit to DRI campus and a few of the surrounding 500 villages under various stages of development show that the economic face of rural India is gradually changing for the better. Chitrakoot is on the border of UP and MP, two BIMARU states, where the slow rate of progress in rural development is attributable to over emphasis on religious dogma, other traditions and literacy rates estimated at less than 50% compared to near 70% for all India and near perfect for Kerala.
We visited 91 year old Nanaji, a frail man, now in poor health, but mentally very alert and very involved to the self-reliance campaign he introduced to guide all developmental activities at DRI Chitrakoot. A dedicated group of volunteers is now working hard under leadership of a husband and wife team of Dr. Bharat Pathak and Mrs. (Dr.) Nandita Pathak. They are following in foot steps of their mentor to continuously add more developmental projects to build up on Nanaji"s legacy.
Our visit coincided with Makar Sankranti celebration, a three days holiday and Chitrakoot being home to Lord Ram during vanwas (exile) we got to visit many Ram temples and other places of pilgrimage for Hindus. Chitrakoot is a religious heritage site and home to Godavari Ganga Caves where Lord Ram, Lakshmanji and Sitaji may have spent up to 11.5 of 14 years of vanwas according to folklore. Other places of pilgrimage include Sati Ansuya"s Temple, Shri Kamanath Temple and a 5km Parkrima to pay a tribute and seek God"s Grace and ashirvad.
I am not a fundamentalist religious person; I consider myself a good Hindu and I routinely follow a set of Hindu beliefs I am comfortable with for my daily spiritual uplifting. As a child, as a youth and also as a senior citizen I have visited many pilgrimage centers of India at Nasik, Madurai, Kanya Kumari, Goa, Allahabad, Varanasi, and Buddha Gaya, to name a few. I am accustomed to a level of unhygienic environment in Hindu places of worship and questionable collection practices of Pujaris (clerics) usually followed at each of these places. Chitrakoot is no different. The environment and practices of Pujaris at Hindu places of pilgrimage stand out as undesirable compared to spiritual environment I have experienced visiting many ancient Christian churches in European nations, ruins of ancient temples on several Greek islands, modern churches in America, Australia and Latin America, and places of worship in some Muslim majority nations in Middle East and Africa.
The visit to places of worship in Chitrakoot may be spiritually beneficial to people of faith if one ignores uncomfortable practices as most Indians pilgrims we came across appeared to do. Makar Sankranti being a pilgrimage period pedestrian traffic was heavy; business was brisk at businesses housed in shanties along the road to temples and cave. One ancient temple - Sati Ansuya"s Temple - was under renovation and messy construction areas were distracting. Overall the environment along the road to temples and cave was unsanitary and it certainly didn"t fill me with peace and tranquility I expect to find at a place of worship. Pujaris manning the temple and cave were out to make financial gains by exploiting and appealing to visitor"s generosity. For example, the Godavari Ganga Caves had about 20 collection spots, each with a Pujari along a km long walk inside the caves. At each spot donation were sought by appeals to seek blessings.
It occurred to me that most tourist or pilgrims were poor villagers and if they donated one rupee at each spot, they would be out of Rs. 20 or more by the time they completed touring the caves. I felt this was exploitation and should be avoided. Every tourist who covers all places of worship we visited in Chitrakoot would be easily out of a hundred rupees or more if s/he were to seek blessings by donating one rupee at each worship spot.
In India rules are made to be ignored!
A pond at the entrance of the cave was filled with Godavari water from the caves but it was filthy as many pilgrims were washing clothes and taking bath ignoring prominently placed signs prohibiting such use of the pond water. It is an unsanitary practice and certainly an unpleasant sight to see. Same emotional turbulence surfaced at each of other temples identified above.
The 5-km Parkrima walk was memorable as we saw a religious procession with horses, an elephant and a not so good band taken out to celebrate Makar Sankranti. Monkeys prominently present every where in Chitrakoot added to the ambiance of the procession path. Monkeys begged for food and vendors - school age children - were around hawking nuts, monkey food.
For me the walk was pleasant as I am used to a daily 5 mile walk but it was made uncomfortable by Hindu practice of walking barefoot. Those not accustomed to taking a long walk and that too barefoot were in pain by the time we finished it. There were a few faithful who were paying their respects to honor a pledge and seeking Lord"s blessing by crawling on hands and knees all 5-km of the Parkrima path. I heard of similar Ancient Greece practices by devotees on Greek Islands Kiran and I recently visited.
At the end of the walk we purchased some trinkets for souvenirs. Bargaining with souvenir sellers is an art and a fun activity. I am always amused by NRI tourists bargaining to save a few rupees (a few pennies) usually on a purchase costing less than twenty rupees (fifty cents) at such places.
We took a gondola ride in Godavari flowing past a pilgrimage site to experience a candle light worship ceremony after the sun set. It was a pleasant experience not marred by the ugliness witnessed earlier at other places as any unpleasant environment was carpeted by the darkness.
We learned that to break away from shackles of dependency - tradition, dogma, etc - the DRI Chitrakoot emphasizes Satvic (purity of mind related self-reliant and environmentally friendly) developmental practices that employ hybrid rural development strategies of supplementing traditional knowledge with appropriate modern scientific and technological advances.
DRI has instituted an innovative Samaj Shilpi Dampati (SSD) program to gain confidence of villagers and guide them into Satvic practices. The SSD program places a college graduated married couple with children in villages and each couple is given charge of motivating and guiding families in 5 villages. With persuasive power of SSDs the residents of 80 developed villages have resolved not to take civil court actions against fellow villagers and instead agreed to amicably resolve all disputes, if necessary, through intervention of the village panchayat.
During our visit we inaugurated a solar street light at Udmita Peeth where a solar training center of the DRI Chitrakoot campus is located. We were also present at the inauguration of a solar street light at a remote Village called Pichita, which is 24-km off main road. We also saw introduction of solar lamps in the home of the area"s SSD family; it will now serve as a demo center for replacing unsafe kerosene lamps with LED home lamps in other homes in the area villages.
There are about 100 poor landless families in this village and these poor families can benefit with an installation of a THRIVE designed battery (4.5V) operated LED home lamps (www.thrive.in and www.ircpi.org) that provides three-four hours of light per day and require recharging every 15+days. These THRIVE home lamps will be available in a couple of months at affordable cost of a few hundred rupees.
Each of 500 area villages like Pichita can be a home to entrepreneurial business women who can establish a battery charging unit using the grid power to serve homes that invest in LED home lamp lightening system. At the estimated cost of less than $2,000 per village homes of all families in 500 villages can be electrified in a few months. Electrification of rural homes will help children study at night and also enhance income generation potential for women. So far we have helped provide LED lamps to more than 100 rural families.
This model of rural electrification requires no application to electricity board, no deposit, no meter rent, no harassment of or by electricity board, and no house wiring. It is definitely superior as it is not like any cost-prohibitive government plans, both state and center; the cost to poor rural family will be less than the cost of fueling with a government subsidy an unsafe kerosene lamp.
The 53 acre DRI Chitrakoot campus houses Arogyadham, Ayurveda and Naturopathy centers in addition to a school for 1,000 students, a Gurukul for 100 residential students, a unique primary school called Nanhe Munhe Duniya, and an educational Research Institute (ERI).
The Gurukul for 100 students under supervision/mentorship of retired couples deserves a special mention. Each of ten elderly retired couple supervises and mentors 10 students to inculcate traditional cultural, social and moral values to facilitate their growth in an inspiring loving environment.
Other significant ERC initiative is to uplift social consciousness enabling villagers to be self-motivated for development using self-reliant practices.
It was heartening to learn that Arogyadham was researching ayurvedic herbs and preparations using modern scientific practices, that for improvement of farmers" productivity better farming and livestock management practices were being institutionalized and that water shed programs were implemented for transforming uneconomical land holdings into productive lands.
DRI Chitrakoot has completed rural development of 80 of 500 villages within 100 km radius of its main campus and development of the balance is expected to be completed by January 2009. The emphasis is in five development areas: education, water harvesting, and infrastructure for renewable power (solar, biomass and biogas) generation, healthcare, and income enhancement.
The DRI is engaged in applications research to improve agricultural and live stock maintenance practices. The DRI"s KVK centers are participating in the Moringa plantation project developed by Mr. Balbir Mathur, President, Tree for Life organization, Wichita, Kansas (USA). Moringa or "drum stick" plants have many useful properties. A slurry preparation of Moringa leaves improves crop yield if used as an herbicide-pesticide for organic farming. Moringa based fodder for animals enhance milk production by an estimated 40% to 65%. This project should be up and running in MP and UP villages by 2009.
INDUSA Endowments and Mr. Sondhi are cooperating to initiate several renewable energy projects along with proposed rural electrification strategies outlined in a separate paper, Cost-Effective Rural Electrification Strategies by the author. Relevant information collected during my rural India yatra to 20 NGOs in seven states in seven weeks (Dec.11, 2007 to Jan 31, 2008) is posted at the www.ircpi.org website. By supporting and sponsoring initiatives taken by the Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajasthan and the DRI the INDUSA Endowments as a catalyst is extending a helping hand to rural development in three BIMARU sates of India. We are especially focused on rural electrification strategies.
Feedback to author
References & Notes:
Author's Home Page
|
|
|
|
|