Believe nothing Merely because you have been told it Or because it is traditional Or because you yourself have imagined

it Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for your teacher. But, whatever after due examination and analysis You find conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings, that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. ******** Gautam Buddha

READING MODULE

PHASE 1

EXPLORING LIFE AND WORK IN THE RURAL SECTOR

2013

Reading 1: WALKING IN ONES INTEGRITY Ravi J Matthai

Do you think fairy tales are only for children? Well, if you do, then think again. The simplest tales often carry the deepest messages. Ravi Mathai takes us through the famous Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersens Ugly Duckling. Are we as lucky as the ugly duckling is? Each of us is constantly searching for ourselves. What is my place in the world? Where do I belong? Who am I? Are there others like me? As you embark on your voyage of discovery, perhaps you might find some part of the ugly duckling in yourself
I am sure all of you must have read or at least will have heard of Hans Andersens beautiful little fable of The Ugly Duckling. I shall recount this tale in an abridged form. The ugly duckling was hatched on a farm by a duck. The egg was much larger than a normal ducks egg and the egg took much longer to hatch. And when the duckling emerged it was larger than most other ducklings: it was disproportionate, it was gawky, it was clumsy and it was altogether thoroughly grotesque. And all the birds, animals and people on the farm thought it was the most terribly ugly duckling: They made its life so miserable that they drove it from the farm and it flew over the hedge and went out into the wide wide world feelings so very ugly, hopeless and useless. The ugly duckling went through many adventures, and all these adventures reinforced its feeling of being ugly, hopeless and useless. I shall recount two of these adventures which I particularly like. In the course of his wandering through the wide wide world, he came upon a lake and on this lake he found some wild ducks. The ugly duckling went up to the wild ducks and asked whether he could join them on their journeys across the world, because ducks are migratory birds and they fly all over the place. The wild ducks looked at the ugly duckling and said You are remarkably ugly, but that is nothing to us, so long as you do not marry into our family. Unfortunately that argument could not get very much further because there were hunters on the lake and bang-bang went the guns and the wild ducks dropped dead. The poor ugly duckling hid in the reeds and one of the hunters dogs came searching for the wild duck. It came across the ugly duckling, had one look at it and ran away. The poor duckling thought, I am so ugly that even dogs get frightened of me. And aga in the ugly duckling went off into the wild wide world feeling even more ugly, even more hopeless and even more useless. One evening he came to a tiny broken down hut. He found a place in a corner and went to sleep. In this hut there lived an old woman, a hen and a cat. When the old woman woke in the morning she saw the duck and said, Ah! Now I will be able to eat ducks eggs. And so the very superior hen asked the duckling, Can you lay eggs? The duckling said, No. To which the hen said. Then will you hold your tongue! The cat asked, Can you curve your back and purr and give out sparks?

The ugly duckling said, No. The cat replied, Then you will please have no opinion of your own when sensible folks are speaking. But the ugly duckling said, There is something I would dearly love to do. I would like to dive into a pond of water and allow the cool water to close over my head and swim about. The hen and the cat were absolutely shocked. Dive into water? asked the hen. Do you think the cat, which is the cleverest animal I know, likes to swim? Do you think the old lady dives into water and lets it close over her head? But the ugly duckling said, I am awfully sorry, but I am afraid you dont understand me. And the hen said, We dont understand you? We who have opened our doors to you, we who have given you a roof of over your head, we who have given you the warmth of our fire, we who have offered our friendshipwe dont understand you? You are an unpleasant chatterer. Did you not fall into company from which you could learn? I speak for your own good. I tell you disagreeable things and by that you may know your true friends. Only learn how to lay eggs, curve your back, purr and give out sparks. So the poor ugly duckling said, Oh dear, there is no future for me here I had better go off into the wide wide world. Yes, do go, replied the hen. And once again ugly duckling went off into wide world, feeling even more ugly, even more hopeless and even more useless. One day it came to a river and on the river it saw three of the most beautiful birds that it had ever seen. Children on the banks of the river were clapping their hands with joy and people were feeding the birds with bread. The ugly duckling had a tremendous yearning to join them and so he spread his wings and sailed on to the river. And as he landed, he saw his reflection in the water. And what he saw was the most beautiful snowwhite bird, with a magnificent arched neck, even more beautiful than the beautiful birds on the river. All the people on the banks clapped their hands and said, Look, we have a new swan and it is even more beautiful than the others. And the three swans swam up to the ugly duckling, folded him in their wings and took him to them. That is the story of how the ugly duckling grew up and came to realize himself. All of us throughout our lives go through the same process as the ugly duckling. Our stories dont have an end until the grave. We are constantly looking for the swan in us and we never find all of it. The ugly duckling perhaps was lucky. But we find new environments, we find new contexts, we find new problems, we find new approaches, we discover new capabilities in ourselves and we are, until we die, constantly looking for the swan in us.

Reading 2: INDIA OF MY DREAMS

BY M.K. GANDHI

Published by Navajivan Trust, Ahmedabad first on Agust 15, 1947, R.K. Prabhus compilation of seleced passages from Gandhijis writings presents some of Gandhijis views on important Indian problems. As stated by President Rajendra Prasad in his forward to the book, .it places before the reader not only those basic and fundamental principles, but also indicates how we can help to fulfill them through our freedom by establishing a polity and social life, and through the instrumentality of a constitution and the dedication of the human material which this country will now throw up to work without any external fetters or internal inhibitons.

One might say that Gandhiji thought, wrote and acted in a particular historical context, and his ideas and experiments cannot easily be borrowed across barriers of time and history. Yet, it is fascinating how his ideas demonstrated tremendous foresight, and many of his experiments and moral and intellectual struggles are increasingly relevant to the situation in India today. The enclosed excerpts focus on Gandhijis thoughts about the village (Back to the Village and The Village Worker).

Definition of the word profession according to Webster A calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive preparation including instruction in skills and methods as well as in the scientific, historical or scholarly principles underlying such skills and methods, maintaining by force or organization or concerted opinion high standards of achievement and conduct, and committing its members to continued study and to a kind of work which has for its prime purpose the rendering of a public service.

Reading 2 a): BACK TO THE VILLAGE BY M.K. GANDHI BACK TO THE VILLAGE I have believed and repeated times without number that India is to be found not in its few cities but in its 7,00,000 villages. But we town-dwellers have believed that India is to be found in its towns and the villages were created to minister to our needs. We have hardly ever paused to inquire if those poor folk get sufficient to eat and clothe themselves with and whether they have a roof to shelter themselves from sun and rain. I have found that the town-dweller has generally exploited the villager; in fact he has lived on the poor villagers subsistence. Many a British official has written about the conditions of the people of India. No one has, to my knowledge, said that the Indian villager has enough to keep body and soul together. On the contrary they have admitted that the bulk of the population live on the verge of starvation and ten per cent are semi-starved, and that millions have to rest content with a pinch of dirty salt and chillies and polished rice or parched grain. You may be sure that if any of us were to be asked to live on that diet, we should not expect to survive it longer than a month or should be afraid of losing our mental faculties. And yet our villagers go through that state from day to day. Harijan, 4-4-36 Over 75 per cent of the population is agriculturists. But there cannot be much spirit of self-government about us if we take away or allow others to take away from them almost the whole of the result of their labour. Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, p.323 The cities are capable of taking care of themselves. It is the village we have to turn to. We have to disabuse them of their prejudice, their superstitions, their narrow outlook and we can do so in no other manner than that of staying amongst them and We gave to teach them how to economize time, health and money. Lionel Curtis described our villagers as dung heaps. We have to turn them into model villages. Our village-folk do not get fresh air though they are surrounded by fresh air; they dont get fresh food though they are surrounded by the freshest foods. I am talking like a missionary in this matter of food, because my mission is to make villages a thing of beauty. Harijan 1-3-35 It is profitless to find out whether the villages of India were always what they are today. If they were never better it is a reflection upon the ancient sharing their joys and sorrows and spreading education and intelligent information among them. Young India, 30-3-31 We have to be ideal villagers, not the villagers with their queer ideas about sanitation and giving no thought to how they eat and what they eat. Let us not, like most of them, cook anyhow, eat anyhow, live anyhow. Let us show them the ideal diet. Let us not go by mere likes and dislikes, but get at the root of those likes and dislikes. Harijan, 1-3-35 We must identify ourselves with the villagers who toil under the hot sun beating on their bent backs and see how we would like to drink water from the pool in which the villagers bathe, wash their clothes and pots, in which their cattle drink and roll. Then and not till then shall we truly represent the masses and they will, as surely as I am writing this, respond to every call. Young India, 11-9-24 We have got to show them that they can grow their vegetables, their greens, without much expense, and keep good health. We have also to show that most of the vitamins are lost when they cook the leaves.

culture in which we take so much pride. But if they were never better, how is that they have survived centuries of decay which we see going on around us. The task before every lover of the country is how to prevent this decay or, which is the same thing, how to reconstruct the villages of India so that it may be as easy for anyone to live in them as it is supposed to be in the cities. Indeed, it is the task before every patriot. It may be that the villagers are beyond redemption, that rural civilization has had its day and that the seven hundred thousand villages have to give place to population not of three hundred millions but thirty. If such is to be Indias fate, even that wont come in a day. It must take time to wipe out a number of villages and villagers and transform the remainder into cities and citizens. Harijan 7-3-36 The village movement is as much an education of the city people as of the villagers. Workers drawn from cities have to develop village mentality and learn the art of living after the manner of villagers. This does not mean that they have to starve like the villagers. But it does mean that there must be a radical change in the old style of life. Harijan 11-4-36 The only way is to sit down in their midst and work away in steadfast faith, as their scavengers, their nurses, their servant, not as their patrons, and to forget all our prejudices and prepossessions. Let us for a moment forget even Swaraj, and certainly forget the haves whose presence oppresses us at every step. They are there. There are many who are dealing with these big problems. Let us tackle the humbler work of the village which is necessary now and would be even after we have reached our goal. Indeed, the village work when it becomes successful will itself bring us nearer the goal. Harijan 16-3-36 The village communities should be revived. Indian villages produced and supplies to the Indian towns and cities all their wants. India became impoverished when our cities became foreign markets and began to drain the villages dry by

dumping cheap and shoddy goods from foreign lands. Harijan 27-2-37 It is only when the cities realize the duty of making an adequate return to the villages for the strength and sustenance which they derive from them, instead of selfishly exploiting them ,that a healthy and moral relationship between the two will spring up. And if the city children are to play their part in this great and noble work of social reconstruction, the vocations through which they are to receive their education ought to be directly related to the requirements of the villages. We have to tackle the triple malady which holds our villages fast in its grip: (i) want of corporate sanitation; (ii) deficient diet; (iii) inertia. They dont appreciate modern sanitary methods. They dont want to exert themselves beyond scratching their farms or doing such labour as they are used to. These difficulties are real and serious. But they must not baffle us. We must have an unquenchable faith in our mission. We must be patient with the people. We are ourselves novices in village work. We have to deal with a chronic disease. Patience and perseverance, if we have them, overcome mountains of difficulties. We are like nurses who may not leave their patients because they are reported to have an incurable disease. Harijan 16-3-36 The moment you talk to them [the Indian peasants] and they begin to speak; you will find wisdom drops from their lips. Behind the crude exterior you will find a deep reservoir of spirituality. I call this culture you will not find such a thing in the West. You try to engage a European peasant in conversation and you will find that his is uninterested in things spiritual. Harijan 28-1-39 In the case of the Indian villager, an age-old culture is hidden under an encrustment of crudeness. Take away the encrustment, remove his chronic poverty and his illiteracy and you have the finest specimen of what a cultured, cultivated, free citizen should be. Harijan 28-1-39

Reading 2 b): THE VILLAGE WORKER Excerpt from "India of My Dreams", Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1947 CHAPTER XXXVII The village work frightens us. We who are townbred find it trying to take to the village life. Our bodies in many cases do not respond to the hard life. But it is a difficulty which we have to face boldly, even heroically, if our desire is to establish Swaraj for the people, not substitute, one class rule by another, which may be even worse. Hitherto the villagers have died in their thousands so that we might live. Now we might have to die so that they may live. The difference will be fundamental. The former have died unknowingly and involuntarily. Their enforced sacrifice has degraded us. If now we die knowingly and willingly, our sacrifice will ennoble us and the whole nation. Let us not flinch from the necessary sacrifice, if we will live as an independent self-respecting nation. Young India. 17-4-'2-l There is no school equal to a decent home and no teachers equal to honest, virtuous, parents. Modern (high school) education is a dead-weight on the villagers. Their children will never be able to get it, and thank God, they will never miss it if they have the training of a decent home. If the village worker is not a decent man or woman, capable of conducting a decent home, he or she had better not aspire after the high privilege and honour of becoming a village worker ......' What they need is not a knowledge of the three R's but a knowledge of their economic life and how they can better it. They are today working as automatons, without any responsibility whatsoever to their surroundings and without feeling the joy of work. Villages have suffered long from neglect by those who have had the benefit of education. They have chosen the city life. The village movement is an attempt to establish healthy contact with the villages by inducing those who are fired with the spirit of service to settle in them and find selfexpression in the service of villagers.... Those who have settled in villages in the spirit of service are not dismayed by the difficulties facing them. They knew before they went that they would have to contend against many difficulties including even sullenness an the part of villagers. Only those, therefore, who have faith in themselves and in their mission will serve the villagers and influence their lives. A true life lived amongst the people is in itself an object-lesson that must produce its own effect upon immediate surroundings. The difficulty with the young man is, perhaps, that he has gone to the village merely to earn a living without the spirit of service behind it. I admit that village life does not offer attractions to those who go there in search of money. Without the incentive of service village life would jar after the novelty has worn out. No young man haying gone to a village may abandon the pursuit on the slightest contact with difficulty. Patient effort will show that villagers are not very different from city-dwellers and that they will respond to kindliness and attention. It is no doubt true that one does not have in the villages the opportunity of contact with the great ones of the land. With the growth of village mentality the leaders will find it necessary to tour. In the villages and establish a living touch with them. Moreover the companionship of the great and the good is available to all through the works of saints like Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Tulsidas, Kabir, Nanak, Dadu, Tukaram, Tiruvalluvar, and others too numerous to mention though equally know and pious. The difficulty is to get the mind turned to the reception of permanent values. If it is modern thought p o l i t i c a l , social, economical, scientificthat is meant, it is possible to procure l i t e r a t u r e that will satisfy curiosity. I admit, however, that one does not find such as easily as one finds religious literature. Saints wrote and spoke for the masses. The vogue for translating modern thought to

the masses in an acceptable manner has not yet quite set in. But it must come in time. I would, therefore, advise young men... not to give in but persist in their effort and by their presence make the villages more livable and lovable. That they will do by serving the villages in a manner acceptable to the villagers. Everyone can make a beginning by making the villages cleaner by their own labour and removing illiteracy to the extent of their ability. And if their lives are clean, methodical and industrious, there is no doubt that the infection will spread in the villages in which they may be working. Harijan, 20-2~'37 Essential Items of Village Work If rural reconstruction were not to include rural sanitation, our villages would remain the muck-heaps that they are today. Village sanitation is a vital part of village life and is as difficult as it is important. It needs a heroic effort to eradicate age-long insanitation. The village worker who is ignorant of the science of village sanitation, who is not a successful scavenger, cannot fit himself for village service. It seems to be generally admitted that without the new or basic education the education of millions of children in India is well-nigh impossible. The village worker has, therefore, to master it, and become a basic education teacher himself. Adult education will follow in the wake of basic education as a matter of course. Where this new education has taken root, the children themselves become their parent's teachers. Be that as it may, the village worker has to undertake adult education also. Woman is described as man's better half. As long as she has not the same rights in law as man, as long as the birth of a girl does not receive the same welcome as that of a boy, so long we should know that India is suffering from partial paralysis-Suppression of woman is a denial of Ahimsa. Every village worker will, therefore, regard every woman as his mother, sister or daughter as the case may be, and look upon her with respect. Only such a worker will command the confidence of the village people. It is impossible for an unhealthy people to win Swaraj. Therefore we should no longer be guilty of the neglect of the health of our people. Every village worker must have a knowledge of the general principles of health. Without a common language no nation can come into being. Instead of worrying himself with the controversy about Hindi-Hindustani and Urdu, the village worker will acquire a knowledge of the Rashtrabhasha which should be such as can be understood by both Hindus and Muslims. Our infatuation for English has made us unfaithful to provincial languages. If only as penance for this unfaithfulness the village worker should cultivate in the villagers a love of their own speech. He will have equal regard for all the other languages of India, and will learn the language of the part where he maybe working, and thus be able to inspire the villagers there with a regard for their own speech. The whole of this programme will, however, be a structure on sand if it is not built on the solid foundation of economic equality. Economic equality must never be supposed to mean possession of an equal amount of worldly goods by everyone. It does mean, however, that everyone will have a proper house to live in, sufficient and balanced food to eat, and sufficient Khadi with which to cover himself. It also means that the cruel inequality that obtains today will be removed by purely non-violent means. Harijan, 18-8-4O

Requisite Qualifications (The following are some qualifications prescribed by Gandhiji for Satyagrahis. But as a village worker was according to him also to be a true Satyagrahi, these qualifications may be regarded as applying also to a village worker). 1. 2. He must have a living faith in God, for He is his only Rock. He must believe in truth and non-violence as his creed and therefore have faith in the inherent goodness of human nature which he expects to evoke by his truth and love expressed through his suffering. He must be leading a chaste life and be ready and willing for the sake of his cause to give up his life and his possessions, He must be a habitual Khadi wearer and spinner. This is essential for India. He must be a teetotaler and be free from the use of other intoxicants in order that his reason may be always unclouded and his mind constant. He must carry out with a willing heart ail the rules of discipline as may be laid down from time to time.

3.

4. 5.

6.

The qualifications are not to be regarded as exhaustive. They are illustrative only. Harijan. 25-3-'39

CHAPTER XXXVIII ALL-ROUND VILLAGE SERVICE A Samagra Gramsevak must know everybody living in the village and render them such service as he can. That does not mean that the worker will be able to do everything single-handed. He will show them the way of helping themselves and procure for them such help and materials as they require. He will train up his own helpers. He will so win over the villagers that they will seek and follow his advice. Supposing I go and settle down in a village with a ghani, I won't be an ordinary ghanchi earning 15-20 rupees a month. I will be a Mahatma ghanchi. I have used the word 'Mahatma' in fun but what I mean to say is that as a ghanchi I will become a model for the villagers to follow. I will be a ghanchi who knows the Gila and the Quran. I will be learned enough to teach their children. I may not be able to do so for lack of time. The villagers will come to me and ask me: "Please make arrangements for our children's education." I will tell them: "I can find you a teacher but you will have to bear the expenses". And they will be prepared to do so most willingly. 1 will teach them spinning and when they come and ask me for [he services of a weaver, I will find them a weaver on the same terms as I found them a teacher. And the weaver will teach them how to weave their own cloth. I will inculcate in them the importance of hygiene and sanitation and when they come and ask me for a sweeper, I will tell them: "I will be your sweeper and I will train you all in the job." This is my conception of Samagra Gramseva. You may tell me that I will never find a ghanchi of this description in this age. Then I will say that we cannot hope to improve our villages in this age. Take the example of a ghanchi in Russia. After all the man who runs an oil mill a ghanchi. He has money but his strength does not lie in his money. Real strength lies in knowledge. True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength. Everyone seeks the advice of such a man.

Harijan. 17-3-46 Village Factions Alas for India that parties and factions are to be found in the villages as they are to be found in our cities. And when power politics enter our villages with less thought of the welfare of the villages and more of using them for increasing the parties' own power, this becomes a hindrance to the progress of the villagers rather than a help. 1 would say that whatever be the consequence, we must make use as much as possible of local help and if we are free from the taint of power politics, we are not likely to go wrong. Let us remember that the English-educated men and women from the cities have criminally neglected the villages of India which are the backbone of the country. The process of remembering our neglect will induce patience. I have never gone to a single village which is devoid of an-honest worker. We fail to find him when we are not humble enough to recognize any merit in our villages. Of course, we are steer clear of local politics and this we shall learn to do when we accept help from all parties and no parties, wherever it is really good. Harijan, 2.3-47 CHAPTER XXXIX A CALL TO YOUTH My hope lies in the youth of the country. Such of them as are prey to vice are not vicious by nature. They are helplessly and thoughtlessly drawn to it. They must realise the harm that it has done them and society. They must understand too that nothing but a rigorously discipline life will save them and the country from utter ruin. Young India. 9-7-25 Above all, unless they visualize God and seek His aid in keeping them from temptation,, no amount of dry discipline will do them much good. Seeing God face to face is to feel that He is enthroned in our hearts even as a child feels a mother's affection without needing any demonstration. Young India, 9-7-'25 Young men....claiming....to be the fathers of tomorrow, should be the salt of the nation. If the salt loses its flavour wherewith shall it be salted? Young India, 22-12-"27 Youth will be emotional all the world over. Hence the utter necessity of preconceived and deliberate brahmacharya during the study period, i.e. at least 25 years. Harijan, 6-5-'33 Innocent youth is a priceless possession not to be squandered away for the sake of a momentary excitement and miscalled pleasure. Harijan, 21-9-35 Put all your knowledge, learning and scholarship in one scale and truth and purity in the other and the latter will by far outweigh the other. The miasma of moral impurity has today spread among our school-going children and like a hidden epidemic is working havoc among them. I therefore appeal to you, boys and girls, to keep your minds and bodies pure. All your scholarship, all your study of the

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scriptures will be in vain if you fail to translate their teachings into your daily life. I know that some of the teachers too do not lead pure and clean lives. To them I say that even if they impart all the knowledge in the world to their students but inculcate not truth and purity among them, they will have betrayed them and instead of raising them set them on the downward road to perdition. Knowledge without character is a power for evil only, as seen in the instances of so many 'talented. thieves' and 'gentlemen rascals' in the world. Young India. 21-2-'29 I ask you (young men) to go to the villages and bury yourselves there, not as their masters or benefactors, but as their humble servants. Let them know what to do and how to change their, modes of living from your daily conduct and way of .living. Only feeling will be of no use just like steam which by itself is of no account unless it is kept under proper control when it becomes a mighty force. I ask you to go forth as messengers of God earning balm for the wounded soul of India. Young India. 29-12-17 As father of, you might say, many boys and girls, you might almost say of thousands of boys and girls, I want to tell you that after all you hold your destiny in your own hands. I do not care what you learn or what you do not learn in your school, if you will observe two conditions. One condition is that you must be fearlessly truthful against the heaviest odds under every circumstance imaginable. A truthful boy, a brave boy will never think of hurting even a fly. He will defend, all the weak boys in his school and help, whether inside school or outside, all those who need his help. A boy who does not observe personal purity of mind and body and action is a boy who should be driven out of any school. A chivalrous boy would always keep his mind pure, his eyes straight and his hands unpolluted. You do not need to go to any school to learn these fundamental maxims' of life, and if you will have this triple character with you, you will build on a solid foundation. With Gandhiji in Ceylon, p. 109 We are inheritors of a rural civilization. The vastnesses of our country, the vastness of the population, the situation and the climate of the country have, in my opinion, destined it for a rural civilization. Its defects are well known, but not one of them is irremediable. To uproot it and substitute for it an urban civilisation seems to me an impossibility, unless we are prepared by some drastic means to reduce the population from three hundred million to three or say even thirty. I can therefore suggest remedies on the assumption that we must perpetuate the present rural civilization and endeavour to rid it of its acknowledged defects. This can only be done if the youth of the country will settle down to village 'life. And if they will do this, they must reconstruct their life and pass every day of their vacation in the villages surrounding their colleges or high schools, and those who have finished their education or are not receiving any should think of settling down in villages. Young India. 7-11-"29 If the sense of shame that wrongly attaches to physical labour could be got rid of, there is enough work and to spare for young men and women of average intelligence. Harijan. l-3-"35 No labour is too mean for one who wants to earn an honest penny. The only thing is the readiness to use the hands and feet that God has given us. Harijan. 19-12-'36

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Reading 3: CAREERS IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Now is a time for you to explore yourself, in the context of a career in rural development. PRADAN is just one of the many organizations involved in rural development work. You yourself could, perhaps, identify a host of organizations working in the rural sector, directly or indirectly. 3a) The Rural Sector Broadly Defined explicitly defines what we mean by rural sector. It has been excerpted from a background paper to the study of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), prepared by Vijay Mahajan, also the founder of PRADAN. 3b) An excerpt from Innovative Management, also written by Vijay Mahajan, discusses the need for and role of a professional in the development sector. 3c): Sardar Patel University: convocation address, Gujarat by Dr. V. Kurien, December 1990. In this excerpt, Dr. V. Kurien shares his experience of Dr. Nayudamma and, in the transcript of his convocation speech that follows, he shares his own experience of returning to a small, dusty, god-forsaken town in Gujarat after higher studies in the U.S. and how he transformed it into the largest producer-owned dairy in the world.

Professional schools have a higher calling that derives from their ability to be thoroughly informed about their profession, yet sufficiently detached to examine dispassionately its larger responsibilities to society. To the extent that (professional) schools neglect this responsibility, they become little more than purveyors of technique, indifferent to the ways in which their methods are used or to the ends to which they are directed. Derek Bok President Harvard University (Excerpt from the Presidents Report-1977-78, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA)

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Reading 3a):

THE RURAL SECTOR: BROADLY DEFINED

2. The Rural Sector: Broadly Defined Before we proceed further, it would be useful to explicitly define what we mean by the rural sector. A host of political, social and economic organizations work in the rural areas. For the purpose of this study, however, we shall confine ourselves to those organizations whose primary purpose is socio-economic development of people living in rural areas. Thus we are leaving out (a) organizations primarily involved in governance or law and order related functions, and (b) organizations involved in creation and maintenance of physical infrastructure for socio-economic development, such as roads, dams, canals, electric supply, telecommunications and transport. 2.1 A Typology of Rural Sector Organizations: One way to visualize rural sector organizations engaged in socio economic development is according to their ownership. Thus organizations could be - Governmental, such as a District Rural Development Agency - Quasi-governmental, such as a State Handloom Development Corporation - A member owned co-operative, such as a Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society (PACS) - A non-governmental association of persons, such as a voluntary agency for rural development or a privately owned entity , such as an agricultural commodity production company.

Another way to classify rural socio-economic development organisations is in terms of the level they operate at, as follows: - village level organisation, such as a primary credit cooperative society - block level organisation, such as a Panchayat Samiti or the branch of a commercial bank - district level organisation, such as a District Central Cooperative Bank (DCCB) - state level organisation, such as a Land Development Bank or a commodity marketing federation - national level organisation such as the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) Another way to delineate the rural organisations is by the nature of activities performed by them, as follows: Organisations implementing government development programmes, such as the DRDAs, and the Panchayat Samitis (Block Development Office)

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- Organisations charged with the responsibility for the development of specific segments of the population: such as,the SC/ST development corporations or women's development corporations - Organisations providing credit, such as the PACS, the land development banks, regional rural banks and commercial banks - Organisations specializing in the collection, processing and marketing of certain commodities, such as milk cooperatives - Apex organisations for commodity or functional cooperatives, such as FISHCOOPFED, NAFED, etc. - Organisations playing a policymaking or promotional role, such as the NDDB, NCDC, NABARD, KVIC and CAPART. - Organisations engaged in development and poverty alleviation outside the government's fold, such as voluntary agencies 2.2 Scope of Work of Rural Organisations: Category wise: For the purpose of giving a broad overview of the range of rural sector organisations, we will follow the third mode of classification, that is, by the type of activity engaged in. - Organisations implementing government development programmes: There are approximately 4 00 districts in the country, the number increasing as large districts are subdivided. Each district has a District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) which is the coordinating body for implementation of most of the central and state government sponsored development programmes. During the Seventh Five Year Plan period, the average annual budget of a DRDA was Rs. 42 million. The programmes handled included the self-employment promotion programmes : the IRDP, TRYSEM and DWCRA; the wage employment programmes NREP and RLEGP, now renamed the JRY; as well as some special programmes such as the rural water supply and sanitation programme, for installing hand pumps and sanitary latrines, and the Indira Awaas Yojana for building houses for low income groups. The total outlay of the two major set of programmes directly implemented by the DRDAs, during the Seventh Five Year Plan (i985-90) was as follows: IRDP, TRYSEM, DWCRA: Rs 34740 million, and NREP, RLEGP, JRY: Rs 42301 million. The outlay of the Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP) and the Desert Development Programme (DDP) was approximately Rs 5000 million. The implementation unit of the rural development programmes of the government is the Block, or the Panchayat Samiti. There are over 5000 Blocks in the country. The typical Block is engaged in the implementation of self-employment programmes such as the IRDP, TRYSEM and DWCRA, wageemployment programmes such as the JRY, as well as miscellaneous programmes such as the Central Rural Sanitation Programme, the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme and the National Biogas Demonstration Programme. In addition to these, the Block also looks after the education programmes in some states, where schools; up to the middle level have been handed over to the Panchayat Samitis. As the primary unit of implementation of government development programmes, the capability of the administration at the Block is a critical factor in the success or failure of most government programmes.

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- Organisations addressing special segments of the population: Virtually every state has a government corporation for the development of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Usually these corporations give low interest loans for productive activities engaged in by SC/STs. They also provide common services such as raw material supply, warehousing and marketing, in case of some economic activities. Examples of these are the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Development Corporation (TADDCO) and the Girijan Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh. In 1988, a National Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe Development1 Finance Corporation was established to provide refinance assistance as well as techno-managerial support to the state level corporations, in identification, formulation and appraisal of projects for the benefit of SC/STs. Women's development corporations also exist in a large number of the States, or are on the anvil. Their activity profile is similar to that of the SC/ST corporations. In Maharashtra, the Mahila Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM) provides training in skills, and start-up assistance to women microentrepreneurs. In Tamil Nadu, the Corporation for Economic Development of Women (DEW), is engaged in providing flexible credit to informal groups of rural women to engage in income-generating activities such as agriculture, food-processing and trading. In general, however, the reach of women's development corporations to rural areas is relatively poor as yet. - Organisations providing credit: As of mid 1988, there were 90,081 Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Societies (PACS) in the country, with 87.35 million members. PACS provide seasonal loans for crop inputs such as seeds and fertiliser. PACS are affiliated to the respective District Credit Cooperative Banks (DCCBs), which in turn are federated into State Cooperative Banks (SCBs). As per NABAPD data, in 1988-89, the total loans sanctioned to the SCBs were Rs 25530 million for seasonal agricultural operations. The SCBs also did a relatively small amount of medium/long term lending, to the tune of Rs 750 million. As of mid 1988, there were 906 Primary Land Development Banks (PLDBs), with 8.83 million members. The PLDBs are designed to provide medium and long term loans for such activities as land improvement, well digging or deepening, purchase of pumpset and agricultural implements. The PLDBs are organised into State Land Development Banks (SLDBs). The total credit disbursed by the SLDBs in 1988-89 was Rs 3810 million. As the performance of cooperative and land development banks left much to be desired both in terms of reach and recoveries, a new set of rura^ credit organisations was initiated in the" mid 1970s: the regional rural banks (RRBs). By mid 1988 there were 196 separate RRBs in the country, with 13,076 branches. These banks are subsidiaries of nationalised commercial banks, with equity participation from the respective state governments. In addition to the RRB network, the commercial banks themselves had 30,781 rural branches. - Organisations specialising in commodities or functions; In this category, the largest network is that of the dairy cooperatives. By mid 1988, there were 59,571 primary milk -producers' cooperative societies, with 6.9 million members. These societies were, in turn affiliated into 251 district or regional milk unions, further organized into 23 state level dairy federations. The nation wide network of milk societies is largely a result of the efforts made by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to organize milk producers into cooperatives. The NDDB also organised cooperatives of farmers producing oilseeds. By the end of 1988-89, there were 3476 primary oilseeds growers' cooperatives, with 512848 members, organised into seven state level federations.

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The only other commodity in which a large number of primary producers have got organised into cooperatives is in the case of sugar, with 1.9 million members joining 243 sugar factory cooperatives. In Maharashtra, 171 sugar cooperatives are federated into a Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Sangh Ltd. Fisheries are another sub-sector with significant number of cooperatives: 5717 societies, with 0.61 million members. There is also a national federation of fishermen's cooperatives, called Fishcoopfed. There were 2126 poultry cooperative societies with 0.71 million members, organised into five unions. Other livestock (sheep, goat, piggery) based cooperatives numbered 1379 with 53,000 members. In terms of functional activities, the largest number was marketing societies, numbering 6930, with 4.83 million members. This was followed by agro-processing cooperatives, numbering 1194, with 0.57 million members. Weavers seem to be one occupational group which has been organised into cooperatives in a big way: 17,677 societies with 2.15 million members. There are also state level cooperative federations, such as Cooptex in Tamil Nadu, and an all India handloom weavers cooperative marketing federation, which runs the Handloom House chain. Other occupational group based cooperatives are farming societies, irrigation societies, forest labourers and contract labourers. In addition to the cooperatives, which are at least by definition member-owned/ there are State-owned corporations for handlooms (such as Tantushree in West Bengal), handicrafts (such as Gurjari in Gujarat), for leather (such as Leather Industries Development Corporation of Karnataka, or LIDKAR) and for agro-industries (such as the Rajasthan Agro Industries Corporation) . A few states, such as Gujarat; have a rural development corporation; others have backward area development corporations, such as the Development Corporation of Vidharbha Ltd. (DCVL) in Maharashtra. There are also a few private sector companies specialising in procurement and processing of specific commodities. Examples of these are the agro division of ITC Ltd., dealing in tobacco and edible oils; Oswal Agro-Furane Ltd., dealing in paddy byproducts; and WIMCO Saplings Ltd., dealing in poplar. We are excluding from the purview, those companies which have their own captive commodity plantations, as is common in the case of tea, coffee and pulpwood. The companies named earlier deal with individual farmers and maintain substantial extension and procurement infrastructure. - Apex functional/commodity organisations: The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is, of course, the most well known example of an apex commodity organisation. The NDDB set up a nation wide chain of Anand Pattern dairy cooperatives, organised into district level unions and further into state level dairy federations to provide major processing an'd marketing support to unions, which would be unviable at the district level. The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) is an example of apex rural sector organisation. NAFED represents a federation of 29 state level marketing federations, 16 commodity marketing federations, 8 tribal cooperative marketing federations, 172 district/regional marketing societies and 5923 special commodity marketing societies. The primary societies .in the federation number 92,400. The total agricultural produce handled by these societies is worth over Rs 40,000 million, as per NAFED. The commodities handled by NAFED include foodgrains, pulses, oilseeds, spices, fruits and vegetables, eggs and tribal produce. NAFED is also involved in the processing and export of some of these commodities. It has also gone into the production of agricultural machinery, implements and bio-fertilisers. (Chemical fertilisers are produced and sold by various

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companies in the public and the private sector, as well as by two cooperative organisations: IFFCO and KRIBHCO). A specialised apex body, called the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Ltd. (TRIFED) was established in 1987. . It provides marketing assistance to tribals through state level tribal marketing cooperative federations. The commodities handled by TRIFED include minor forest produce (MFP) items-such as gum karaya, lac, myrobalans, sal seed, mahua seed, and tez patta. It also handles agricultural commodities grown by tribals, such as maize, niger, ginger and large cardamom. Outside the cooperative sector, apex bodies include the National Handloom Development Corporation, the Handloom and Handicraft Export Corporation, the Central Cottage Industries Corporation, and the Bharat Leather Corporation. These bodies, all in the public sector, provide marketing support in the respective sub-sectors implied by their names.

- Organisations providing policy-making and promotional support: In the credit sector, the policy-making and promotional body is the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). Though major policies such as interest rates and credit allocation to priority sectors come from the Reserve Bank of India, thereafter it is NABARD which lays down norms and guidelines for -lending by commercial, regional rural and cooperative banks. NABARD also provides refinance to all these organisations for the rural loans. The promotional body for processing and marketing activities in the cooperative sector is the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC). Its maintfunctions are to plan, promote and finance programmes of agricultural inputs, processing, storage and marketing as also supply of consumer goods in rural areas. Its activities also include allied sub-sectors such as dairy, poultry and fishery as well as nonfarm sub-sectors such as handlooms, where it promotes spinning mills, among other things. The Khadi and Village Industries Commission {KVIC), is the apex body for policy making and promotional support for the "Khadi" sector, which includes production of handspun, hand-woven cloth, as well 22 other village industries reserved for this purpose. The list of village industries in the KVIC fold is planned to be increased significantly. The outlay on the KVI sector during the Seventh Plan was Rs 54 00 million. The production of Khadi cloth in 1987-88 was Rs 2275 million and of village industries Rs 12609 million. The sector generated employment for 4.24 million persons, mostly in the rural areas. The KVIC operates through a network of State level Khadi and Village Industries Boards (KVIBs) as well as certain voluntary khadi institutions such as the Shri Gandhi Ashram, U.P., and the Tamil Nadu Sarvodaya Mandal, which have fairly large operations in certain regions. Another apex body providing policy-making and promotional support is the Council for the Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART). CAPART falls within the administrative purview of the Department of Rural Development and is the premier agency for channelising government funds to the voluntary sector. CAPART has sanctioned 3376 projects worth Rs 790 million till February, 1990, since its inception in September 1986. Apart from funding projects, CAPART provides support to voluntary agencies through dissemination of rural technology, marketing of rural products and sponsorship of training programmes. - Organisations engaged in poverty alleviation outside government: This category is largely comprised of voluntary agencies,, although it includes corporate sector efforts as well. There is no authoritative estimate of the number of rural voluntary agencies in the country, but the number is generally believed to exceed 5000. The largest of these agencies, perhaps no more than 100, work in many districts of a state, if not in many states, with thousands of poor families. The typical

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voluntary agency, however, is small in reach, confined to 10 to 50 villages. Their activities span a broad range from awareness building of the poor to provision of services such as health care and primary education, to income generation activities. Most voluntary agencies depend substantially on foreign resources or government funds. Voluntary agencies can be categorised according to their ideological origin. The oldest category are missionary agencies, mostly Christian, but also of other faiths such as the Rama Krishna Mission. They are driven by the ethic of service to fellow human beings and generally concentrate on education and health, although some have diversified into promoting livelihoods for the poor as well. The second category are Sarvodaya agencies, who were inspired by Gandhiji's stress on rural reconstruction and took up such work as promotion of Khadi and village industries, Bhoodan ("land reforms through voluntary donation, inspired by Vinoba Bhave), and later, Lok Shakti (people's organisation, inspired by Jaya Pirakash Narayan). The third category are radical organisations, usually inspired by a leftist ideology. They tend to focus on issues which affect the every day life of pobr people, such as land reforms, minimum wages, forest dwellers' rights, oppression by local landlords, moneylenders and petty officials. The fourth category of voluntary agencies have a professional ideology: they are usually established by individuals with a professional training who are seeking alternatives to the mainstream mode of development or service delivery. Such groups span a wide range of activities whose distinguishing feature is their alternative nature: non-formal education, community health, appropriate technology, sustainable agriculture, participatory planning and barefoot management. There are a small number of corporate sector efforts in the field of rural- development. The more prominent ones are the Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) working around Jamshedpur and the Integrated Rural Development Project of Hindustan Lever Ltd. in Eta in Western U.P. In addition, there are numerous smaller efforts. Corporate efforts for rural development are often alleged to be driven by motives other than rural development itself, such as seeking publicity, improving industrial relations by working in the catchment area of their labour force, or getting tax concessions, although the latter has been severely restricted since 1985. As can be inferred from the foregoing description, there is a large number of organisations in the rural sector, with a very significant level of activities, in terms of financial budget, number of programmes/functions/commodities handled/ geographical coverage, number of members or individuals benefited and finally, in terms of the organisations' own staff. Given the recent thinking at the highest levels, it is likely that the resources devolving to the rural sector will increase substantially, with a simultaneous attempt to decentralise planning and decision-making to the district and panchayat levels. Thus the role of rural sector organisations, large already, is poised for a major expansion, both in terms of the resources handled and the scope of decisions.

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Concerned individuals and hard-nosed professionals alike are entering the multifarious and evolving field of development. Sanjoy Ghose, founder of URMUL in Rajasthan s Bikaner district and winner of the Sanskriti Award, writes on the need, the opportunities and the caution for a career in development.
Even as recently as ten years ago, the notion that once could make a career in development work seemed a contradiction in terms. The life of a development worker was that of an activist; and the practice of development was a vocation, a calling. Activists remained activists, waging a battle against the establishment of the time. Their causes would loom large, and they would capture the public imagination, grab their five minutes of fame and slip back into the woodwork of society, playing the role of conscience keepers. They are the Baba Amtes and the Medha Patkars, the Sunderlal Bahugunas and Ela Bhatts; people whom society has given both space and respect. They are the official dissenters; listened to and held in regard in private, but dismissed in public, because the causes they have supported have always been for the minority. Gradual Disillusionment Over the last ten years, there has been a gradual disillusionment with the ability of the State apparatus to deliver services efficiently. This has had implications for voluntary action, NGOs stepping in where Governments were hesitant to tread. Although, this has been primarily in the social sectors (health and education), the same role has been played in water supply schemes, promotion of renewable energy, and off-farm income generation (especially in the promotion of handicrafts). Qualitatively the work is not different from the earlier avataar of voluntary action, which was also philanthropic, but there is one vital difference; NGOs are no longer seen as confrontationist but as partners. A couple of examples to clarify: In the 1970s, when Bunker Roy started work in Tillonia, a small village in Ajmer district in Rajasthan, one of the first things the organization did was to demystify the technology of maintenance of hand pumps, the major drinking water source for villagers in the area. Earlier the work has been entrusted to the Government Public Health Engineering Department, and once the pumps were fitted, there was little maintenance and little that people could do about it. Today, the Government officially encourages communities to invest in their own drinking water schemes, and pays a 50% subsidy to agencies that can raise the remainder from the community. It is the same story in primary education, with the Shiksha Karmi programme (SKP). Faced with a chronic problem of teachers not showing up in distant villages, many institutions experimented with the notion of training local people to manage the school, and now that has been institutionalized. The Government of Rajasthan pays NGOs that are involved in the programmes the costs of salaries, fuel, provides a motorcycle, and some basic office furniture. The scheme went furthest when it was extended to non-school areas, such as the irrigated hamlets of Bikaner.

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Socialised Privatisation In a sense what is happening is a socialized privatization, through development organizations. At the Earth Summit in Rio, a new category was created for these new creations of society and State: the independent sector, as opposed to the purely private sector (still distrusted for its pursuit of profit), and the public sector, distrusted for its bloated inefficiency and lack of accountability. So what does all this have to do with careers in development? A great deal, Now that the voluntary sector is accepted as par of civil society, an institutional logic, an emerge and new structures can be created that have endurance, as opposed to the earlier notions on the withering away. Once it is accepted that voluntary agencies have a permanent role to play in shaping society, the question of human resources development, and careers can be addressed. There is still a practical problem though. Much of the funding for this development work is project based, and without the kind of institutional resources to invest in long term planning. It is akin, in a metaphorical sense, to expect a poor person to plan for the future without the security of the present. But this situation is changing: as NGOs become more imperative to society and State, resources are bound to flow in. But before getting into concrete terms of what careers and how they can be linked to development processes, an aside on three more troublesome issues: remuneration, accountability and gender. Is it necessary to have a voluntary orientation, and earn less, in a development organization, if they are now accepted players in the development business? Yes, it is: because development organizations are value driven, and these are nourished on such symbols of sacrifice and selflessness. It neednt be a pittance, because then only the highly motivated or the financially self-sufficient would be able to work, but there has to be a reasonable correlation with the kind of work that you do, the people you work with and the money that you make. The net contribution that you make as a volunteer is the difference between what you earn and how much money you could actually make in the marketplace, and how much extra effort you put into your job. There is, of course, an ethical issue here. At a personal level, its been the cause of sleepless nights for many, coming to terms with the differences in the condition of the people we work with (or for) and ourselves: though we may live simply, and earn less than we could, the fact is that a failed monsoon means different things to us. For them, its a long trek northwards, to face the wrath of winter as they eke out a precarious living, uncertain about how many will return: for us, the monthly paycheck is underwritten and we tell stories of their hardship. That brings us to the issue of accountability: to whom? At an abstract level, we know all the answers accountable to society, to the community, to ourselves but as managers, and professionals, how do we define this concept? In a corporation, hierarchies guide careers and the pinnacle is a place on the Board: here the higher you get personally, the more dispensable you should become almost a contradiction in terms. The issue is even more complex if we look at the pattern of funding, both from international agencies, and the State. When money is taken from Government, the watchdog role that NGOs have played highlighting excesses, wastage, and misuse gets compromised. When we take money from international agencies, we implicitly accept the market-led notion of development in the West, and this has its drawbacks. Two interesting cases in the health sector: UNICEF sells in wholesale packets of ORS (Oral Rehydration Solution) to NGOs at Rs. 2/- per packet and allows them to market it for Rs. 4/-. In this context, who will take on the role of advocating much lower cost, and equally effective, home based therapies? Similarly, the Government is in a bind politically over the introduction of hormonal contraceptives, so NGOs are enticed to participate: how many would have the courage (and resources) to turn down offers they cant refuse?

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The gender issue has always been a subject of development work in itself, but as agencies follow an aggressive policy of affirmative action, the impact on professionals is beginning to assert itself. Today, being a woman means that you have a much better chance of landing a job as a development professional in a development organization, or a funding agency, but the biases remain. The top slots are almost invariably held by men, and the quota is filled at the lower and middle levels. At the same time, as the numbers of women in the profession increase, the perception of the development business as feminine might affect all the lateral movement of professionals between sectors, say from sector (its usually the other way round). The development sector has the connotation of soft, messy, unstructured: the antithesis of a professional environment. But as I will point out later, its precisely in dealing with this that the challenge lies. So what are the career options open in development now? First of all, theres all the technical vocations that could be used by the Government or by the private sector to further individual benefit and cater to the market: the architects, the lawyers, the doctors. For these, and other professionals the challenge is to use the skills and concepts finetuned by years of theory on its head. So an architect, instead of grappling with the technology of high-rise construction, and interior decoration, may research traditional rain water harvesting systems, to try and understand the method in their design so that it can be replicated elsewhere: a doctor would shed reliance on sophisticated technology and work out low cost ways in which diseases can be prevented: lawyers would grapple with transferring their acumen into a simple lexicon for use by minimally educated people: and so on. The skys the limit. Business Side Then theres the business side of development. Goods and services have to be brought and sold and manufactured and processed and competed in the marketplace. Savvy marketing managers can increase brand share for toothpaste, but put them up to the challenge of breaking the cartel of handicraft exporters, or increasing the market share of cobblers in an environment that is swamped with mass production, cheaper and longer lasting plastic and the difficulty is apparent. Its not that you dont need whats taught in business school its just that you need to use it so much better, and so much more efficiently. Then theres the organizer/manager breed of development professional. Whether schooled in social work or management, or just by nature inclined to work with people, the potential for using these human relations skills to work in development is enormous. The real challenge in development work is to be able to interact a many levels throughout the day: confront the Block Development Officer on a technicality, figure out the political arithmetic to help you deal with the local Pradhan, or MLA, inspire trust in people who have traditionally been exploited by the system, translate local needs into proposals for funding agencies, give space for staff to grow and develop: lead the institution by example. Ways that are shaping up for careers in development nowadays are from being a manger (usually of a sector, such as health, education or income generation) in a development organization working at the grassroots to a funding agency. This has taken two directions in the past: some funding agencies encourage people to stay on in the field, so people are able to earn much more than they would have had they been on the payroll of the local organization, but still remain in touch with field level work. The other direction, which is much more common, is for these sector managers (usually No. 2 or 3 in the organization) to move into administrative positions that are city based, and deal with the whole game of making grants and monitoring them.

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An increasingly popular trend has been the export of Indian professionals to other developing countries, especially in the African region, through some of the foreign intermediary funding agencies that operate in India and abroad. These positions are paid international salaries, and offer opportunities to make several orders of magnitude more than it would be possible in India. Other than the money, these jobs also carry responsibility managing or being the deputy of a country programme, for example. Of course, as mentioned earlier the ethical issue is even more pronounced, but its upto the individual to come to terms with it. There is also the possibility of moving from field based to support organizations, that work more at the macro then micro level. In the last few years we have seen a mushrooming of this kind of intermediate NGO. Usually city based, they are well staffed with qualified professionals, and provide a range of support services mainly in the areas of research, documentation, and training. Some specialize in one sector like health or education and some play the role of a think tank for the sector on various issues. Move to Politics? What we havent seen much of is the move from voluntary agencies into mainstream politics. There is a suspicion of the tyranny of the majority, and since most development agencies work with client groups that are in the minority, there is an inherent difficulty in these groups being transformed into a constituency. At the same time theres the middle class hang up of the seamy side of electoral politics the corruption, the campaigning. I can think of at least two notable exceptions the Rangabelia project of the Tagore Society for Rural Development, from which many of the full time workers stood for elections, and captured almost all of the seats on the district council: and PRAYOG in Madhya Pradesh, which actively encouraged members of its village organizations to contest the recent Panchayat elections. But perhaps the most followed career path in the development sector is the change from being a worker in an organization to actually being the founder and inspiration of one. Today, we can confidently assert that the Indian NGO sector has come of age, and can begin applying concepts of human resource development and career planning, but we should be careful that were not replacing the State, or losing our independence. CHARKHA

WHAT YOU CAN DO?

As the author says and has experienced, few professions can be as satisfying and as abundant as development. There are many ways in which each one of us can get involved but nothing compares with actually jumping in to the thick or working for humankind.

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Reading 3c): INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT A movement for creative giving by professionals Vijay Mahajan

Innovative management features brief accounts of novel, off-beat management. These are accounts of creatively managed organizations or of innovative handling of management issues.. As for the others, we invite contributions and comments from readers for this feature too.
The voluntary movement in the field of rural development in India is well established. While no authoritative figures are available, it is known that voluntary agencies certainly number a few thousand. These agencies come in all shapes and sizes, and ideological colouring. There are two mainstreams of the voluntary movement in India. The first, and older, constitutes efforts inspired by the tenets of Christian charity. Many of these efforts began during periods of crisissuch as famines, floods, cyclones, and droughts as relief efforts and then continued thereafter in the field of rural reconstruction. The other mainstream, linked to the Independence struggle and Gandhiji's ideas of constructive work, consists of the Sarvodaya agencies. Many of them were established before 1947, but they really flourished in the post-Independence era. These agencies are primarily engaged in the work of Khadi production and in a variety of village industries. While the Khadi and Village Industries Commission provides a statutory umbrella, to their work, the spirit of voluntarism remains strong. The Sarvodaya have also been engaged in land development work, particularly for Bhoodan lands. Vol 8, No. 4, Oct.-December, 1983

Vijay Mahajan. an erstwhile MBA from IIMA is the founder of Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADA-N). (250-A DDA. MIG Flats. Rajouri Garden. New .Delhi. 110 027).

Towards the late 60s and in the 70s, a third category of voluntary agencies has come up. While not comparable in number and reach to the. two mainstreams mentioned above, the new group has often been characterized by a freshness of approach, free of both religious and quasi-political ideologies. Typical of such agencies is the Social Work and Research Centre at Tilonia (Rajasthan), started in 1971; Kishore Bharati at Bankhedi (MP), started in 1972, and the India Development Service at Medleri (Karnataka), started in 1978. Such agencies have usually been started by persons with an urban background, who have had the best of educational opportunities both in India and abroad, and many of whom have put in a normal professional career. It was their extreme sensitivity and urge to do something about rural development

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that led these persons to start a voluntary agency. very young person who joined such an effort sensitized dozens of similar people in some of India's best institutions. While on the one hand voluntary rural development agencies have been growing both quantitatively and qualitatively, on the other hand, the institutional infrastructure to provide technical support to "the development task is also coming of age. Most of India's engineering colleges and management institutes were set up by the late 60s. The substantial network of research institutions under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) was also well in place by the early 70s. While not particularly characterized by relevance to the environment, these institutions have harboured a few professionals, who, while contributing to the knowledge in their disciplines, would like to see the fruits of development spread to a large number of their countrymen. The pattern is quite remarkably consistent in virtually every such institution there are a few individuals who would like to contribute their specialized skills to the development efforts, and yet there are almost no avenues for doing so within the system. At the same time, in the 35 years since lnde-pendence, the government has assumed an ever larger responsibility for rural development. In terms of programmes, it has come a long way starting from the Community Development Programming in a few selected districts during the early 50s to the nationwide Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) in the 80s. An e-normous infrastructure has been created for the purpose of rural development. Other than specific departments such as for Irrigation, Agriculture, and Animal Husbandry, there are integrative organizations such as the District Rural Development Agencies. Also, since the late 70s, the commercial banks have been increasingly involved in the process of financing rural development. Finally, there is a growing realization among everybody concerned with rural development that harnessing technology is a major, though not exclusive, part of the process. Irrigation and crop husbandry were fields which were always recognized as 'needed' for rural development. Forestry arid watershed management have more recently been accepted, as realization has spread about the impact of environment on development and vice-versa, even in a localized situation. Animal husbandry provides important possibilities for increasing agricultural incomes, particularly in the drought prone areas. Renewable, local sources of energy as a field is now well accepted within the purview of rural development. As many agencies go into efforts related to rural industries, they seem more and more to appreciate the need for diverse technical inputs. Management skills such as project formulation, planning, marketing, and finance have also assumed importance. To summarize, the rural development scenario in India in the 80s is characterized by a large government effort,supplemented by a very substantial voluntary effort. The voluntary sector has by and large shown a remarkable capacity to mobilize people at the grassroots. It, however, needs professional inputs in a wide variety of technical and managerial fields. The governmental efforts, though much larger in scope, suffer from implementation problems. While targets for various schemes such as the IRDP are fulfilled to a reasonable extent, many doubts persist about the benefits actually reaching the poor. At the same time, there exist a large number of concerned professionals, both within the government and in autonomous research .and educational institutions who can and would like to contribute to the rural development process. What is needed is some way of bringing them together. PRADAN Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) is a small beginning towards creating an institution which could channel professional expertise to the field of rural development. Its primary emphasis will be to assist voluntary agencies, but it may extend its services to the government under appropriate circumstances. PRADAN's approach is to establish close links with a number of voluntary agencies, get involved in problem-solving for them, harness the necessary technical and managerial-expertise from appropriate institutions, and transfer the learning to other voluntary agencies and the government.

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PRADAN may not run its own development programmes. Instead it will assist other agencies already engaged in development action at the grassroots level, by bringing in professional inputs as required. In the process it hopes to satisfy the urges of a large number of young professionals (mentioned earlier), who want to make a contribution to the development effort. Also, in the process, it hopes to sensitize specialists about the ground realities so that they can make their technology more appropriate to the rural needs. Finally, PRADAN hopes to transplant successful ideas from one voluntary agency to another, and from the voluntary sector to the government. Although PRADAN was formally registered as a society only in April 1983, it has been working with voluntary agencies for over a year before.

Vikalpa

Reading 3 d): SARDAR PATEL UNIVERSITY: CONVOCATION ADDRESS, GUJARAT BY DR. V. KURIEN, DECEMBER 1990

Dr. Nayudamma was a scientist. He could have become a very wealthy man either here, or abroad. But he chose to live his life to bettering the lives of our countrys tanners, among the poorest and most backward of our citizens. He recognized that the tools of science were not meant only or even primarily for the privileged. They were not well used when they simply helped those with a great deal to earn even more. Rather the proper use of science was to benefit those whose life depended on it.
There are many other lessons that Dr. Kurien draws from Dr. Nayudammas life. And, in the transcript of his convocation speech that follows, he shares his own experience of returning to a small, dusty, go dforsaken town in Gujarat after higher studies in the U.S. And how he transformed it into the largest producer-owned dairy in the world. He says, finally, that each of us is, by some measure, a member of Indias elite. And it is with each of us, not with the government, not with politicians, not with anyone but ourselves rests the responsibility for a better India.

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SIXTH DR. NAYUDAMMA MEMORIAL LECTURE

ROLE OF THE PROFESSIONAL IN A LIBERALIZED INDIA

BY

V. KURIEN CHAIRMAN NATIONAL DAIRY DEVELOPMENT BOARD ANAND 388 001

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PRADAN

Mr. Chairman, trustees of the Dr. Y. Nayudamma Memorial Trust, ladies and gentleman. It is a long way to Tenali and normally I would have been reluctant to make such a journey. However, although I did not know Mr. Nayudamma well, I know of him and what I know commands my profound respect. To deliver a talk that is dedicated to Dr. Nayudamma's memory is a honour that I am proud to accept. I have found much in Dr. Nayudamma's life that is similar to my own and I have found much in his values that I too cherish. Most important, however, is the message to all of us that Dr. Nayudamma's life embodied, a message that is all the more important at this very critical juncture in our nation's history. Some in this audience might ask, What critical juncture?" I know that many of my fellow countrymen and women have welcomed liberalization and globalization with open arms. They are delighted that they will be able to enjoy the same flavored carbonated waters, the same hamburgers, the same fried chicken, the same designer clothes, and the same electronic toys as their counterparts in Europe, North America and Japan. It is this very perception or misperception of "progress 15 that is central to the crisis our nation faces today. With your leave, I would like to speak a bit about my own life and experience to illustrate what I mean. Like Dr. Nayudamma, 1 was sent abroad to study by the then colonial government just before Independence. I suspect that he, like I, was fired with a desire to contribute to our new nation. The India of our dreams was not simply one where our own flag flew, one where we could elect our own leaders, one in which we could set the rules. The India we dreamed of was a one in which an our citizens would participate fully in the building of our nation; and one in which all of our citizens would benefit from the just, equitable and fair nation we created. It was by chance, not design, that I became involved in dairying. Perhaps the same was true to Dr. Nayudamma with leather. And to be candid with you, when I returned to India from my studies in the United States, it was with great reluctance that 1 fulfilled my commitment to government a commitment that took me to a small, dusty, God-forsaken town in Gujarat called Anand. I believed that my contribution to India would be a far greater one, .helping to build our steel industry into one of the world's finest. For me, as a young professional, my assignment to a government creamery in Anand was a brief exile to be endured before I marched forward towards my destiny. A funny thing happened on the way to that destiny. As the officer in charge of the government creamery in Anand I had very little to do. In feet, each month I wrote to government expl aining how little I had done and requesting that I be relieved of my assignment, thereby offering government the opportunity to save the cost of my salary. By chance, however, the building where I was "employed1' was shared by a small cooperative which was struggling to prove that dairy farmers could own and manage their own business. With your permission, let me digress to provide a bit of the history of that cooperative.

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PRADAN

During the Second World War, the colonial government became concerned because a good many English men and-women were falling ill in Bombay. The finger of suspicion pointed at that city's milk supply. Therefore, the Government of Bombay decided to call on an expert. In those days and, I regret even today, an expert was someone with a white skin who came from Britain, or Europe, or North America. And .so an expert came from England to study Bombay's milk supply. I can do no better than to quote one sentence from his report: 'The gutter water of London is bacteriologically superior to the milk supply of Bombay. Now, even in those days, Kaira District was well known as a milkshed. In fact, an enterprising Parsi gentleman had established a dairy there and his products, sold under the brand name of Polson's, were famous throughout the country perhaps almost as famous as the brand name Amul is today. So the Government of Bombay decided that it might be a good idea to bring milk from Kaira District to Bombay. They approached Polson's and, after all concerned were satisfied that milk could be safely transported by rail from Anand, the Milk Commissioner awarded a monopoly contract to Polson's to supply milk to the consumers of Bombay. This made a lot of people happy. The consumers of Bombay were happy because they got fresh, good quality milk at a low price. Polson's were happy because they earned a handsome profit on the milk they supplied. Perhaps happiest of all were the local vendors who because of their monopoly could dictate the price of milk to the producer. In fact, the only ones who were unhappy were the producers who received a very small share of what the Bombay consumer paid. Finally these producers went to Sardar Vallabbhai Patel for advice. Now, Sardar Patel was a very wise man who realized that true independence was far more than a matter of having one's own flag and Parliament. True independence was based on economic self -reliance, on control of the resources that the nation produced. So he advised the producers to form a cooperative to buy and market their own milk. He asked Morarji Desai to help organize the farmers. When the initial two cooperatives had been formed, a meeting was held to decide on the Chairman. When Morarji Desai asked who would be willing to serve in this capacity, a number of individuals stood up. One man, however, sat quietly under a tree. So Morarji Desai asked, "Tribhuvandas, don't you want to be the Chairman?" Tribhuvandas Patel replied that he had just been released from jail and had a great many things to look after and, no. he did not want to be the Chairman. And so, Morarji asked the farmers to elect Tribhuvandas Patel, which was a very wise choice. When the Milk Commissioner of Bombay refused to buy milk from this new cooperative, the tanners again sought Sardar Patel's advice. That advice was quite clear, they should refuse to supply milk to Polson's and Bombay until they were given the right to market what they themselves had produced. In a remarkable demonstration of unity and self-sacrifice, the farmers of Kaira District refused to pour a single drop of milk that would go to Bombay. Finally, the Milk Commissioner who, of course, was an Englishman, visited Kaira. When he met with the farmers they said that their only demand was that they be allowed to supply milk

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to Bombay through their cooperative. At that point, the assistant to the Milk Commissioner, who was an Indian, took his boss aside and advised him to agree. How, he asked, would a simple group of farmers manage such a complex and demanding business. It would, with certainty, flop within weeks at which time the original arrangement certainty, flop within at which time the original arrangement with Polson's could be restored. And so, the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union obtained the right to supply milk to Bombay. Now I should mention that all of this took place well before my own arrival in Anand. My sense of timing is excellent and I made my own entrance well after these struggles had been won! However, the cooperative did have some problems and, from time to time, Shri Tribhuvandas Patel would come and discuss these with me. In the course of these discussions. I had advised him to invest in a new pasteurizer as the cooperative was then working with World War I vintage equipment. Meanwhile my persistent efforts to leave government se rvice finally bore fruit. The Government of India accepted my resignation and, with profound relief, I prepared to leave Anand for a career that would help make and shape our new nation. I was in the final stages of these preparations when Shri Tribhuvandas Patel arrived at my home which, I might mention, was a garage the only place that anyone in Kaira would rent in those days to a meat-eating Christian bachelor from Kerala. Shri Tribhuvandas Patel had heard of my imminent departure and reminded me that on my advice the cooperative had invested in an expensive piece of equipment that was shortly due to arrive. Who was to help them set it up and commission it? He then asked if I had already secured a job, to which I replied that I had not, but was confident that several offers would be tendered no sooner than it became known I was available. After asking me what I expected to earn as a salary, Shri Tribhuvandas Patel pondered for a moment and then asked whether 1 would be willing to work for the cooperative until the new equipment was set up. Now, he was a shrewd Gujarati and instead, of offering me a salary, he offered me a fixed amount for installing and commissioning the equipment. He did not want me stretching out the assignment at the cost of the cooperative! But, when that work was done, he asked me to stay on. I did, and I have now been in Anand for more than forty years. I don't regret a minute of that time. In those forty years. I have learned a great deal. First, and foremost, I have learned that our greatest resource as a nation is our people. Not our scientists and technologists, our engineers and doctors our richest resources are the women and men who produce the food, fibre and forest products on which we all depend. And I have learned that just as we have neglected and even abused our natural resources our soil, our forests and our water we have neglected and abused our human resources. We have treated our rural producers as a means to an end, our own ends, which have been designed to ensure that our urban elite enjoy plentiful, inexpensive food, textiles, and other products based on agriculture. 1 have also learned that when our producers are given control over the resources they create, there is nothing they cannot achieve. The Kaira Cooperative or AMUL as it is better known is a testimony to that fact. Beginning with two cooperative has grown from strength to strength. Today virtually every village in Kaira District has a dairy cooperative society; the membership

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includes a significant percentage of the farm families of the district, and milk collection now exceeds 10 lakh litres a day. The success of our Kaira Cooperative led farmers in other districts of Gujarat to visit Anand and to request our help to do in their areas what we had done in ours. Now, can you imagine the Tatas or the Birlas or the Ambanis sharing their know-how, their expertise, their raw materials and even their people with budding competitors? That is precisely what we did. We tried in every way we could to help other cooperative unions to organize their farmers, to build dairies and to market milk. But what we were able to do was on a very small scale. Then, in 1964, the then Prime Minister, Shri Lai Bahadur Shastri, visited Anand. He had come to inaugurate our new feed factory, the largest and the most advanced in Asia at the time. Unknown to almost everyone, he chose to spend the night not as my guest, but as the guest of a fanner in one of Kaira District's villages. During that right, he spent much of his time talking to farmers. He spoke to well to do farmers and to Harijans. He spoke to Muslims as well as to Hindus. It was only very late that night that he could finally be persuaded to take some rest. And, early the next morning he again pursued his research. After the inauguration, the Prime Minister pursued his research. After the inauguration, the Prime Minister took me aside and said, "Kurien, 1 know that your cooperative is a great success. I know, too, that almost every milk scheme in the country is a resounding failure. And so, I tried to discover the secret of our success, I looked at your soil, it's good soil, but certainly not as good as the soil of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Your climate is the same as it is in much of the country, hot in the summer, cool in the winter, with very unreliable rain during the monsoon. 1 had expected to find green fodder everywhere, but it looks as brown here as it does anywhere in the country. I looked at your buffalo they are certainly not as good as the buffalo of Punjab. Your fa rmers are good farmers; hard working and honest but so are the farmers throughout India. What then, Kurien, is the secret of your success? The secret that I share with the Prime Minister, a secret that I believe he already knew was that in Kaira District the fanners owned the cooperative. In their wisdom, they had hired professional to work for them. In fact, in time, they had hired a considerable number of professionals. These professionals knew that they worked for the farmers that they had been hired and they could be fired by the farmers. And so they worked with a diligence and commitment that was uncommon, to say the least. It was an example of what could be achieved when the wisdom, energy and power of our farmers are linked with the training and ability of the professional. Prime Minister Shastri saw what we had achieved and what could be achieved, and he then asked if we would replicate Anand in other parts of India. This was the beginning of Operation Flood and the National Dairy Development Board. Later, having seen what had been achieved with milk, the Government of India asked NDDB to become involved in oilseeds and edible oil, and then fruits and vegetables, and then even with tree growers and salt producers. What has been achieved? At least some of you here today will recall when clean, fresh milk was a rationed commodity and consumers had to stand in long queues for a half a litre. When we began Operation Flood in 1969-70, our per capita milk consumption was falling and stood at 107 grams per day. This year, I suspect it will be close to 200 grams per person per day and, as most of you know, we have quite a few more persons in 1994 than we did 25 years ago. When

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Operation Flood began, we were importing most of our , dairy commodities, today we are virtually self-sufficient and, as the world's second largest milk producer, are poised to become an exporter of dairy products. More than 80 lakh women and men belong to more than 60,000 dairy cooperative societies in almost every corner of India. Cooperatives supply milk not only to our major metros, but to most of our large towns and cities. A more recent memory is our shortage of edible oil. Where only India exported oilseeds and oil, by the mid-1980s we were importing 20 lakh tonnes of edible oil .annually, at an enormous cost to our foreign exchange. In fact, only the cost of imported petroleum products exceeded that of edible oils. Today, again we are virtually self-sufficient, the result of farmer-owned and controlled cooperatives and an intelligent set of policies that have created a real incentive for increased production and productivity. These achievements are not insignificant. But they are not what Operation Flood or NDDB is about. True development is not the development of dairying, or oilseed production, or numbers of this or that, true development is the development of people. If you go to a dairy cooperative in the morning or evening, you will see a queue of women and men waiting to pour their milk. In that queue you will find Harijans standing in front of men. You will find poor standing in front of rich. What, I would ask you, does it mean to a Harijan and Brahmin to see their milk merge in a common can? Are not the age-old distinctions of caste and class submerged in that milk? In many villages, the building of the dairy cooperative society is constructed of modern materials and is kept clean, screening is there to keep out the flies, the floors are scrubbed, the utensils in which the milk is handled are carefully washed. Does this not provide a lesson in hygiene for all who pour milk at the society? Years ago when a buffalo became sick in Kaira District, a black thread would be tied round its horn and she would be left to die. For many years now, when animal is ill the farmers called the cooperative and a veterinarian arrives within hours. Animals that would have died have been treated and survived. Is this simply a veterinary service, or is it an important lesson in the ways in which modern medicine can improve our lives? A good many years ago, the Kaira Cooperative began to arrange for women members to come to Anand to visit the dairy. During the course of their visit, they were taken to the artificial insemination center where the miracle of conception was explained. Did this not help these women to understand the processes of reproduction and, more important that these can be controlled? Later, the women would visit the cooperative's feed factory where an officer would explain the importance of protein, vitamins, minerals, etc. He would stress how important it was that pregnant cow receive good nutrition, and that young heifer be fed as well as a milking cow. Was this simply a lesson in animal nutrition, or was it a lesson in the importance of proper feeding for pregnant women and young girls?

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Possible the most important lessons have been the lessons of democracy. Each year the members of each cooperative society meet. They review the performance of their cooperative and are plans for the future. Then they vote to elect board members for the next year. Later, the chairpersons of each society meet and elect the directors of the union. And at least in those states that don't fear the democratic process the union chairpersons of each society meet and elect the directors of the union. And at least in those states that don't fear the democratic process the union chairpersons later meet to elect their state federation directors. Here leaders learn that there is a relationship between performance and election. Here our farmers learn that that they can truly control their own destinies. If I may, let me turn briefly to the life of Dr. Nayudamma and some of the lessons that he has taught us. Dr. Nayadamma was a scientist. In his field, leather, he attained considerable distinction. There is little doubt that he could have become a very wealthy man either here, or abroad. But he chose to devote his life to bettering the lives of our country's tanners, among the poorest and most backward of our citizens. He recognized that the tools of science were not meant only or even primarily for the privileged. They were not well used when they simply helped those with a great deal to earn even more. Rather, the proper use of science was to benefit those whose lives depended on it. The second lesson that Dr. Nayudamma taught us is that there is much wisdom in our traditional practices. Years ago, when we built our first feed factory in Kaira District, we were surprised at the reluctance of our village women to feed compound feeds to their buffalo. We had to go to considerable lengths to convince and induce them to replace their traditional boiled cottonseed with our modern feed. Later, as animal nutrition evolved, we learned that bypass protein, which could boiled cottonseed, has significant nutritional advantages. Similarly we have now learned that the ghee which we were told was unhealthy - may well contain anti-oxidants that are extremely beneficial. As you probably know, Dr. Nayudamma had great respect for the wisdom of village tanners. Their practices often led him to inquiries that, in turn, improved tanning and leather working for others throughout the country. Too often, our scientists and technologists believe that their training has invested them with wisdom when, in feet, the unlettered villager often possesses the greatest wisdom of all. Dr. Nayudamma taught us that what is important is to synthesize modern science with the traditional wisdom found in our villagers, a task we must undertake before that wisdom is destroyed by knowledge. Dr. Nayudamma also recognized that there are significant and important relationship between technology and social and economic change, few technologies are neutral; almost all produce significant and often unanticipated changes in the lives of many people. This is one reason why we believe that it is our producers not scientists or bureaucrats who should control the application of technology. Rare among our scientists and technocrats, Dr. Nayudamma recognised that science must be directed to the needs of our people and the needs of the industries that science serves. During his tenure at the Central Leather Research Institute, that institution's research was widely recognized

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and respected because it directly addressed the needs of our leather workers and the leather industry. Similarly, while with CSIR, he attempted to refocus our national research infrastructure on the industries that they should serve. Had he succeeded, would we be importing technologies, even the simple technologies of frying potatoes and carbonating beverages today? Next, Dr. Nayadamma's life shows us that results come from commitment. His achievements at the Central Leather Research Institute were "rewarded" with the Director Generalship of CSIR. I fear most of our technocrats would have seen this merely as stepping stone to further glory. What did Dr. Nayadamma do? After six years at CSIR, he stepped down in order to return to his research at CL. RI. He had his purpose clearly in mind, and he-kept it constant. What a contrast to day's young men and women who, like honeybees, flit pollen, leaving little or nothing in return! I fear, however, that in the end they will find that whatever money they have earned, and whatever tame they may have achieved, they will have enjoyed little of the satisfaction that comes from a commitment well and truly served. Last, I would like to believe that Dr. Nayudamma's life shows a belief in the common man and woman, and a burning desire to empower them with the tools of science, to make modem technology the servant, not the master of the people who labour in their quiet way to make this country great and good. The brings me back to where I began, the crisis that faces our nation today. We have lost our sense of purpose as a nation. The men and women who fought and died for our freedom did not do so in order that we might watch STAR TV and buy Coca Cola. They fought and died to build a country in which all of our citizens would strive together to create a good nation, so that out of its goodness we could become great. At that time, we shared a belief in the equality of men, a recognition that many of our fellow citizens lacked the advantages we enjoyed. We saw that our villages and our slums lacked the very basics of adequate food, clean water, health services, education, and a voice in their own destinies. We, who came of age at the dawn of our Independence, accepted a trust to do all that we could to build a nation that was equitable and just. The trust has been betrayed. Today, seduced by consumerism, prodded by the international financial institutions and multinationals, driven by our own greed, and fuelled by corruption, our elite is creating two nations; a tiny nation of the rich resting on the backs and enjoying the fruits of the labour of a vast nation of poor. Again and aga in we have tried to encourage government to ensure that our rural people retain a stake in India's greatness only to be disappointed that even the smallest change that would benefit our farmers is sacrificed to the interest of "foreign investment". In our own country and around the world today, one senses a rather naive, even foolish belief that all is well: that there is enough food, and that there will always be enough food; that there are sufficient non-renewable resources to allow their want on and even senseless consumption. That we can cut our forests and destroy our land, for there will always be more trees and more soil. That we can ignore the vast multitude of ill-fed, ill-clothed and ill-cared for masses in our villages for, after all, has not socialism failed? Now we, the world's educated elite, can enjoy

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our won version of Reaganomics, the certification that narrow self-interest is not only acceptable but preferable. We do this at our peril. Not simply because a world divided between rich and poor , between North and South, cannot survive, but because we pursue such a course at the cost of our souls. There can be l it t l e to sustain a life that is based on greed and self-interest. Ultimately, like a body deprived of nourishment, the soul without commitment to a nobler cause will wither and perish. When I was young, I believed that those of us who were fortunate enough to receive a good education, to occupy good positions, to enjoy the unique privilege of work that we enjoyed, that we our educated elite, had a duty to turn our talents to the service of those less privileged. I believed, too, that if we did so, our nation would flourish. I still believe that. I believe that if our educated elite will cast aside self-interest and the desire for material goods. We can build the nation that our freedom fighters dreamed of. We can build a nation that is truly just. We can build a nation where the wisdom of our rural people is not only respected. but serves as a foundation for a better future. We can build a nation where our human resources blossom, rather than withering, in the dusts of neglect. And we can build a nation in which there is enough for ail to enjoy, not just the few. Dr. Nayudamma was a great man, a man who devoted his life to the dream of making science serve India's people. It is not enough that we gather once a year to celebrate the achievements of such a man, then go back to business as usual. Can we honour a man if the principles he stood for have been discarded by the institutions he build? Can we applaud what he did, then turn and do the opposite ? I would therefore ask; each of you to carefully consider what Dr. Nayudamma stood for: * * * ensuring, that modem technology benefits those who toil in our villages respect for the wisdom of our rural producers and artisans recognition that every technical change has important social and economic implications, reasons why producers not technocrats should determine the nature and pace of change. commitment to a field as a life's work, not as a passing fancy to be discarded when a "better opportunity" arises; and belief that our nation's future depended on empowering our poor.

Each of you present is, by some measure, a member of our elite. With each of us not with government, not with politicians, not with anyone but ourselves rests the responsibility for a better India. In his life, Dr. Nayudamma set a challenge for each of us. He lived his life in consonance with principles that were noble, and he ennobled those with whom he worked, and those he served. If each of us, in some small way, does likewise, there is not nation on earth that

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will be able to stand comparison with us. We will be a nation in which that which is good in man is realized and respected; our national democracy will b e underpinned in each village and town by a vibrant and living democratic spirit; our national wisdom will reflect the wisdom of all our people. That, then, is the challenge that Dr. Nayudamma has set before us, the challenge to create the India of our dreams. Thank you.

Reading 4: OVERCOME FEAR AND AMBITION AND DISCOVER YOUR TRUE VOCATION

These months are a special time, where you have the luxury to seek your true vocation, to explore if working with poor families is what you truly want. Is it what you would love to do, even in the face of opposition from others and at the cost of tension to yourself? You have the liberty to choose; can you use this freedom?
Reading 4 a): J. Krishnamurti discussed this in the enclosed excerpt, saying

To help you to discover your true vocation is very difficult, because it means that the teacher has to pay a great deal of attention to each student to find out what he is capable of. He has to help him not to be afraid, but to question, to investigate. You may be a potential writer, or a poet, or a painter. Whatever it is, if you really love to do it, you are not ambitious; because in love there is no ambition. Characteristically, he offers no easy solutions but helps individuals to see themselves with often devastating clarity and to know that the central human problem of truth can be solved in only one way by and for oneself. (Krishnamurti Writings. Inc. 1963;
Published by Krishnamurti Foundation India; Reprinted 1996)

Reading 4b): What is the basic purpose of our education? What does our

educational system prepare us for? Doesnt it seem in our country that there is a problem of supply and demand? That our supply of job seekers far exceeds the demand for their services? Where are jobs to be found? Only in the government or industry? Are there other paths that may be taken? Many opportunities will come your way, opportunities to contribute to building a strong and just nation. How do you assess which is the right choice for you? Share Dr. V. Kuriens thoughts, beliefs and experiences on these issues in this excerpt from Sardar Patel University: convocation address.

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Reading 4a): Excerpts From J. Krishnamurti's LIFE AHEAD.. J. Krishnamurti, long recognized as one of the world's foremost spiritual teacher, dedicated his life to speaking through the world Born in Madras, Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was fourteen when he was taken under the guardianship of Mrs. Annie Besant, socialist, reformer and President of the International Theosophical. Society at Adyar, near Madras. She and her colleague, C. W. Leadbeater, believed that Krishnamurti was the vehicle for the Messiah whose coming the Theosophist had predicted. The Order of the Star in the East, an Organization dedicated to preparing mankind for the coming of the world teacher, was formed in 1911 with Krishnamurti at its head. However, in 1929, he dissolved the order and relinquished everything which had accumulated in his name. He declared that truth cannot be found through any sect or religion but only by freeing oneself from all forms of conditioning and started his journey throughout the world. In the world of mounting crises, Krishnamurti teaches that a totally different kind of morality and conduct, based on an understanding of the whole process of leaving, has become an urgent necessity: Political, economic and social revolutions provide no answer. But there is one revolution which is crucial if we are to emerge from the endless series of anxieties, conflicts and frustration which behest us. The revolution must begin with the radical change of the mind and can be brought about only through right education and the total development of the human being. The discussions which take place at any meeting with Krishnamurti always throw up a multitude of questions. Characteristically, he offers no easy solutions but helps individuals to see themselves with often devastating clarity and to know that the central human problem of truth can be solved in only one way - by and for oneself. In this excerpt (pp.62-66) discusses about fear, ambition and true vocation. Krishnamurti Writings, Inc. 1963 Published by Krishnamurti Foundation India Reprinted 1996

You know I have been talking about fear; and it is very important for us to be conscious and aware of fear. Do you know how it comes into being? Throughout the world we can see that people are perverted by fear, twisted in their ideas, in their feelings, in their activities. So we ought to go into the problem of fear from every possible angle, not only from the moral and economic viewpoint of society, but also from the point of view of our inward, psychological struggles. As I have said, fear for outward and inward security twists the mind and distorts our thinking. I hope you have thought a little about this, because the more clearly you consider this and see the truth of it, the freer you will be from all dependence. The older people have not brought about a marvellous society; the parents, the ministers, the teachers, the rulers, the priests have not created a beautiful world. On the contrary, they have created a frightful, brutal-world in which everybody is

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fighting somebody; in which one group is against another, one class against another, one nation against another, one ideology or set of beliefs against another. The world in which you are growing up is an ugly world, a sorrowful world, where the older people try to smother you with their ideas, their beliefs, their ugliness; and if you are merely going to follow the ugly pattern of the older people who have brought about this monstrous society, what is the point of being educated, what is the point of living at all? If you look around you will see that throughout the world there is appalling destruction and human misery. You may read about wars in history, but you do not know the actuality of it, how cities are completely destroyed, how the hydrogen bomb, when dropped on an island, causes the whole island to disappear. Ships are bombed and they go up into thin air. There is appalling destruction due to this so-called advancement, and it is in such a world you are growing up. You may have a good time while you are young, a happy time; but when you grow older, unless you are very alert, watchful of your thoughts, of your feelings, you will perpetuate this world of battles, of ruthless ambitions, a world where each one is competing with another, where there is misery, starvation, over-population and disease. So, while you are young, is it not very important for you to be helped by the right kind of teacher to think about all these things, and not just be taught to pass some dull examinations? Life is sorrow, death, love, hate, cruelty, disease, starvation, and you have to begin to consider all these things. That is why I feel it is good that you and I should go into these problems together, so that your intelligence is awakened and you begin to have some real feeling about all these things. Then you will not grow up just to be married off and become a thoughtless clerk or a breeding machine, losing yourself in this ugly pattern of life like waters in the sands. One of the causes of fear is ambition, is it not? And are you all not ambitious? What is your ambition? To pass some examination? To become a governor? Or, if you are very young, perhaps you just want to become an engine-driver, to drive engines across a bridge. But why are you ambitious? What does it mean? Have you ever thought about it? Have you noticed older people, how ambitious they are? In your own family, have you not heard your father or your uncle talk about getting more salary, or occupying some prominent position? In our societyand I have explained what our society iseverybody is doing that, trying to be on top. They all want to become somebody, do they not? The clerk wants to become the manager, the manager wants to become something bigger, and so on and so ondie continual struggle to become. If I am a teacher, I want to become the principal; if I am the principal. I want to become the manager. If you are ugly, you want to be beautiful. Or you want to have more money, more saris, more domes, more furniture, houses propertymore and more and more. Not only outwardly, but also inwardly, in the so-called spiritual sense, you want 10 become somebody, though you cover that ambition by a lot of words. Have you not noticed thus? And you think it is perfectly all right don't you? You think it is perfectly normal, justifiable, right. Now, what has ambition done in the world? So few of us have ever thought about it. When you see a man struggling to gain, to achieve, to get ahead of somebody else, have you ever asked yourself what is in his heart? If you will look into your own heart when you are ambitious, when you are struggling to become somebody, spiritually or in the worldly sense, you will find there the worm of fear. The ambitious man is the most frightened of men, because he is afraid to be what he is. He says, "If I remain what I am, I shall be nobody, therefore I must be some-body, I must become a magistrate, a judge, a minister". If you examine this process very closely, if you go behind the screen of words and ideas, beyond the wall of status and success, you will find there is fear; because the ambitious man is afraid to be what he is. He thinks that what he is in himself is insignificant, poor, ugly; he feels lonely, utterly empty, therefore he says, "I must go

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and achieve something". So, either he goes after what he calls God which is just another form of ambition, or he tries to become somebody in the world. In this way his loneliness, his sense of inward emptiness - of which he is really frightened - is covered up. He runs away from it, and ambition becomes the means through which he can escape. So, what is happening in the world? Everybody is fighting somebody. One man feels less man another and struggles to get to the top. There is no love, there is no consideration, there is no deep thought. Our society is a constant battle of man against man . This struggle is born of the ambition to become somebody, and the older people encourage you to be ambitious. They want you to amount to something to marry a rich man or a rich woman, to have influential friends. Being frightened, ugly in their hearts, they try to make you like themselves; and you in turn want to be like them, because you see the glamour of it all. When the governor comes, everybody bows down to the earth to receive him, they give him garlands, make speeches. He loves it, and you love it too. You feel honoured if you know his uncle or his clerk, and you bask in the sunshine of his ambition, his achievements. So you are easily caught in the ugly web of the older generation, in the pattern of this monstrous society. Only if you are very alert, constantly watchful, only if you are not afraid and do not accept, but question all the time--only then will you not be caught, but go beyond and create a different world. That is why it is very important for you to find your true vocation. Do you know what 'vocation' means? Something which you love to do, which is natural to you. After all that is the function of education-to help you to grow independently so that you are tree of ambition and can find your true vocation. The ambitious man has never found his true vocation; if he had, he would not be ambitious. So, it is the responsibility of the teachers, of the principal, to help you to be intelligent, unafraid, so that you can find your true vocation, your own way of life, the way you really want to live and earn your livelihood. This implies a revolution in thinking; because, in our present society, the man who can talk, the man who can write, the man who can rule, the man who has a big car, is thought to be in a marvellous position; and the man who digs in the garden, who cooks, who builds a house, is despised. Are you aware of your own feelings when you look at a mason, at the man who mends the road, or drives a taxi, or pulls a cart? Have you noticed how you regard him with absolute contempt? To you he hardly even exists. You disregard him; but when a man has a title of some kind, or is-a banker, a merchant, a guru or a minister, you immediately respect him. But if you really find your true vocation, you will help to break down this rotten system completely; because then, whether you are a gardener, or a painter, or an engineer, you will be doing something which you love with your whole being; and that is not ambition. To do something marvellously well, to do it completely, truly, according to what you deeply think and feelthat is not ambition and in that there is no fear. To help you to discover your true vocation is very difficult, because it means that the teacher has to pay a great deal of attention to each student to find out what he is capable of. He has to help him not to be afraid, but to question, to investigate. You may be a potential writer, or a poet, or a painter. Whatever it is, if you really love to do it, you are not ambitious; because in love there is no ambition. So, is it not very important while you are young that you should be helped to awaken your own intelligence and thereby find your true vocation? Then you will love what you do, right

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through life, which means there will be no ambition, no competition, no fighting another for position, for prestige; and then perhaps you will be able to create a new world. hi that hew world all the ugly things of the older generation will cease to existtheir wars, their mischief, their separative gods, their rituals which means absolutely nothing, their sovereign governments, their violence. That is why the responsibility of the teachers, and of the students, is very great.

Reading 4b): EXCERPT FROM SARDAR PATEL UNIVERSITY: CONVOCATION ADDRESS 33rd Annual Convocation Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat December 15, 1990 I would ask those of you who will receive degrees today to look for a moment, into your hearts. You are part of small, privileged elite. Of those who could have entered school with you some 15 years ago, many never crossed the threshold of a classroom. Many more fell by the wayside as economic and other compulsions forced them to begin the effort to survive, before they were fully prepared to do so. Those of you who are here today represent a small handful of our nation, blessed both by your own efforts and by good fortune. But ask yourself, is that good fortune only for you to enjoy, or as a member of our privileged elite do you have an obligation to contribute your skills in some measure to the benefit of others? From what I have seen, the purposes and methods of education have suffered a serious decline. For many, the sole purpose of education is to get a job. The methods adopted are often not those of the scholar. In fact can the serious scholar compete with those who buy an examination paper or bribe an examiner? Each year at examination time, our newspapers are filled with stories about leaks of this exam and the theft of that one. If we can believe what we read, even the civil service examination is no longer safe from such depredations. Is this, then, an education system that is producing men and women of character, idealism, and the ability to build the India of our dreams? I am told that there is a reason for this decline in our educational system and that reason is unemployment- It would seem that in our country there is a problem of supply and demand: our supply of job-seekers far exceeds the demand for their services. Despite the best efforts of our business enterprises, we produce more graduates than can be employed in making steel, building ships, constructing buildings, roads and bridges. Even producing and selling lipstick and soap seems to have its limits when it comes to creating jobs. Our government has done its best to fill the void. We have government jobs throughout the length and breadth of India, in the village and in the South Block, and everywhere in between. There is no doubt that many of these jobs are quite attractive: they offer a salary without the onerous responsibility of work. The authority of government can often be advanced to earn a considerable additional income on the side. Perhaps for these reasons, some of the very skills learned in our educational system prove useful in selection for such jobs. And perhaps this explains the tragic events that ensued when it was thought that what amounted to a few tens of thousands of such jobs might be reserved.

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It is my concern with this that leads me to point out to you that not all jobs are to be found in government and industry: not even all good jobs. If I may, let me speak a bit about my own experience, if only to suggest that there are other paths to be taken. More than four decades ago I sat, as you sit today, awaiting a degree. In those days we, were an even more, the fortunate few who had access to a good education in modem science. It was the dawn of independence and we were full of hopes. Each of us looked forward to the chance to make a real contribution to a free India. Most important, we had learned rich and poor alike that by pooling resources, but standing together, we could succeed at anything. Had we not. by uniting, overthrown the awful yoke of our oppressor? My own expectations were raised further when I was selected as one of the 500 graduates to be sent abroad fey the government for further technical education. When I returned, a Masters degree in hand, I was confident that I was about to begin making important contributions to our new India. You can imagine my dismay when I learned that the government of India had posted me to work in an experimental creamery located in a dusty little town of 15,000 souls, deep in the countryside, some 400 kilometers from Bombay. While it was true that I had been sent abroad to study dairying, I had managed to combine this with a more intensive effort in metallurgical science, clearly a subject far more needed by a modern India. But the government was adamant: it was dairying I had been sent to study and it was dairying that I would practice at least for as long as my indentured service lasted. When I arrived at my posting, I discovered that the town had three landmarks: the railway station: the creamery that was in my charge; and a rather large, famous private dairy that was famous for its butter. The dairy was Poisons and. as you might have guessed, the town was Anand. Polsons was a rather dominant enterprise in Kaira district which was, even then, a fine milkshed. During the Second World War, when Bombay faced an acute shortage of milk. Polsons was given an exclusive contract to procure and ship milk to Bombay to supply the government's milk scheme. The contractors who procured milk for Poisons exploited the farmers of Kaira who became increasingly angry at the small share of profit that they received. Finally, they had decided to go on strike and refused to supply milk to Poisons dairy. But that, by itself, would not get them a better price. In fact, it got them no price. So they went to Sardar Patel who advised them to set up a cooperative to manage their own milk business. He asked one of his young lieutenants, Shri Tribhuvandas Patel, to work with the producers and to help organize the cooperative. One of the problems faced by the cooperative was the lack of reliable pasteurizing equipment. Without it, the milk spoiled on the way to Bombay. So I advised the cooperative that it should build a small, modem pasteurizing plant. At that time, all such equipment had to be imported, a process that took as long then as it does now. So, by the time the equipment was finally due to arrive. I had managed to get relieved of my responsibilities at the creamery and was happily awaiting my return to the glamour and excitement of big city life. It was then that Tribhuvandas came to me and pointed out that having talked the cooperative into investing in an expensive piece of equipment. I was now abandoning them before it had been installed and commissioned. After negotiating for some time, we agreed that I would stay on for a few months as manager of the cooperative until the new plant was on its feet. That few months continues until today. I have told you this story because it illustrates a very important less on: opportunities, both big and small, come to each of us. It is up to you to pick one and to make the most of it. In my case,

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an opportunity I had viewed with disdain has given me a cause to live and fight for a life filled with its struggle, and with sorrows, but also with immense satisfaction. Who could have imagined four decades ago, that Amul would be owned by 350,000 farmers? That it would employ more that 2,000 people, including some of our country's finest professionals? Or that it would become a household name in every comer of India? And that's not all. What began in Kaira district has spread to every milkshed in India and involves more than 70 lakh farmers. Today, the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union is the model for development programmes in India and around the world. As you get ready to leave academic life and begin your careers, look around you. Is there really an unemployment problem? Are the only jobs those offered by government and multinationals? I am not suggesting that each of you can. or should, choose to work for a farmer owned enterprise. In fact, there are many drawbacks involved in working for farmers. I can tell you that they can be very demanding. If a government veterinary doctor isn't available, they take that for granted. However, when the veterinary doctor is the farmers 1 employee, then they expect the highest standard of professionalism and commitment. It 's not a job for the lazy or the fainthearted. It is a job for those who want the satisfaction of an important job well done. Our cooperatives are proving something very important: the country's farmers do not have to live on promises. They can build institutions that meet their needs, that provide them with the best scientists, the best inputs and the best services. These institutions also offer an opportunity for our finest young men and women to work directly for and with our farmers, without the barriers of bureaucracy and free of an urban-oriented government and all the self-protective mechanisms which our elite has constructed to preserve its privileges. Our world is changing rapidly. As you leave this university you will face life's realities. It will be easy to adopt the cynicism and callousness that passes for sophistication these days. I would argue that this can only lead to a life of bitterness and small satisfaction. Instead, let me urge you to keep your eyes open for the real opportunities, the chance to contribute, in however small a measure, to building a strong and just nation. Years ago, fate offered me an opportunity. I took that opportunity and have been rewarded beyond measure. I hope that for some of you, at least, similar opportunities will arise and that you will seize them. That some of you will recognize and accept your responsibility, as pa rt of our nation's fortunate few to enter into a partnership with our rural people, helping to bridge the gulf that increasingly divides us. If a few of youeven if one of you-takes up such a challenge, then I shall feel that I have not done such a bad job today. I wish you well.

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