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Opinion

Neo-Gandhians in Action

Youth groups from difficult backgrounds are transforming the rural narrative by practising the Gandhian way of life

In recent months, I happened to meet a large number of youth hailing from difficult backgrounds working with rustic folk in the remote areas with a hope to bring change in the life of the poor. They are unusual, determined, committed, passionate, energetic with perspective and hope, working in the remote villages without expecting any reward and social recognition. They are not self-proclaimed Gandhians but practitioners of Gandhian way of life. Due to their relevance in the present context as models to be emulated, I suggested a friend organising a national seminar on "Gandhi's Gram Swaraj: Theory and practice" to invite them. He readily agreed to invite them to speak on the practice side of the Gram Swaraj. In a three-day programme, one day was devoted to practice where all the practitioners from across Tamil Nadu participated. It was held in Gandhigram Rural Institute as part of the 150th Birth Anniversary celebration of Mahatma Gandhi from March 12-19, 2019. For the first two days, the practitioners put their stalls and listened to the lectures of the theoreticians. They were given a chance to speak on the third day. For students, the third day was the most important one as they learnt the practice of Gandhism from the youth.

One set of youth explained how they worked for strengthening Gram Sabha tirelessly for two years by bringing unity among the rustic folk beyond caste and political affiliations. They explained how poor women have been educated to raise questions in the Gram Sabha meeting through a video film. Only five young people joined together to empower the poor and to bring them together to Gram Sabha to raise questions in it by providing necessary information on the expenditure shown in the government website related to the activities carried out by the various departments of the government in Panchayat areas. More than 700 members of Gram Sabha participated in the deliberations and the Gram Sabha meeting went on very well with people, mostly the poor, achieving what they wanted to. The youth wanted to liberate the poor from the clutches of the state.

How social entrepreneurship has been initiated to create plastic-free and polythene-free villages, was succinctly explained by a team of young people in the seminar. They elaborated that their business ventures are not to make profits but to serve humanity and nature. Their profit is only for their sustenance and expansion. They plunged into action only by taking up the problems faced by humanity. This followed by another set of the youth sharing their experience in organising farmers for organic cultivation and natural farming. They explained how less money provides huge job opportunities in agriculture and how to earn profit out of this new practice of farming. The farmers shared their success stories.

Yet another group spoke to the participants about their intervention in the villages through IT. It enabled the poor to have access to get their entitlements and legitimate benefits from the government. Some of the individuals shared their experience of organising schools in rural areas with no schools. It was a thrilling experience shared by a few youth groups. No one belongs to an affluent family. They are from ordinary rustic families. All the individuals are leading a very simple life as they desire to work with the poor. Of the youth group members, some of them came from Jallikkattu struggle with a determination to work in the rural areas for the upliftment of the ultra-poor. Having a desire in them, they have chosen a difficult path. Their path and perspective comply with the Gandhian framework of development. They made it clear that they learnt it only through experience and not in the universities and colleges. They are Gandhians in action and not conventional Gandhians. They have contextualised Gandhian ideas and hence are called Neo-Gandhians. The third-day activities of the seminar provided contributions by students coming from rural areas as they got rich benefits from the inputs by practitioners. Since they are practitioners and visionaries, they communicated in Tamil and thereby connected with the students emotionally.

After the proceedings of the day, a mute question asked was how to expand those activities to the other areas by following the above models. The youth group members made it very clear that opportunities are abundant to transform India by using the Constitution, development rights given by the government, pro-poor schemes of both the Centre and state governments. It requires only an unconventional leader who can transform herself or himself to transform the community. A fire has to be created in every individual that could be possible only through training. This training cannot be given by any conventional training institutes. In our country, we have different types of training institutes but there is no leadership institution worthwhile to shape leaders. Even a few institutions in the name of leadership school train only business leaders, not transformational ones. Now we need Gandhian Institutions to be made as Ashrams to train transformational leaders by adopting the methods and procedures followed by Mahatma Gandhi.

(The author is a former Professor and Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayati Raj Studies, Gandhigram Rural Institute. The views expressed are strictly personal)

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