A group of 40 people from varied backgrounds came together to participate in a workshop called

"Deepening Democracy" mentored by well known Forest Tribal activist from Maharashtra Mr. Pradeep
Prabhu who has been working for forest tribal rights for 45 years & Dr. V. Suresh Gen Secy for Peoples
Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) a leading human rights activist in India for the past 35 years.

The Intention of the Workshop was to bring together a group of people who not only wanted to change
the society but also become the change in the society. It was aimed at being a 2 day search for political
meaning, in terms of creating a political consciousness out of thoughts which come out during our
discussions and to learn from the wisdom arising out of such debates.

India is a diversified country with a variety of differences that the world can offer, like caste religion,
language, culture, community, regions etc. In the past 5000 years there has been a social construct
which made it possible for people this diversified to live together, this in Tamil language is called the
"Koodam" meaning a place where people come together. The workshop followed the concept of
Koodam. Koodam is a sacred place and not a religious place, usually in the center of villages where the
communities come together to discuss common issues with the value that "we are one", it was a honest
attempt to break the hierarchies in the mind within the koodam. It was an effort to question and critic
the participants. The purpose of course was not to criticize but be critical of the thoughts brought about
within the koodam.

Setting the agenda in motion the participants were given a task to discuss, deliberate and be critical
within smaller groups within the koodam and come up with value points on what an "Idealistic Society"
would be according to the team. Agreeable points were listed and points not agreeable to the team
should be listed separately. An idealistic society is a romantic dream for many and the usual wish list of
equality, bias free society, etc. were listed by almost all the groups as agreeable points.

However when it came to critical thinking on what each of them meant by equal society, But when we
delved in deeper into the topic, questions on who gets equality, what kind of equality, how should
equality be framed etc. cropped up for which there were no clear answers, voices for and against
reservation were raised and if one was a pro reservation the other not and divided opinions on pro
reservation for financially weak and caste based reservation were also expressed and debated upon. So
it exposed members within the koodam to a deep divide in their thought process and gave a glimpse of
how complex our democracy and society really is for even a common point we all agreed on initially at a
higher level. Our minds were divided on being politically correct and our upbringing, society and
lifestyles. Some of the participants in the koodam openly expressed that they were unable to even get
started as their own honest introspection into what an Idealistic Society means & can be is full of deep
divisions in their own thought process and their current life style. As one of the participant rightly
pointed out "When i think of this question i want to ask myself if i had been sleeping all these years?
What can i do to change this society? How many years would it take? I dont even know where to start
and where to end." The conflicting opinions and the grey areas it brought to the fore in our mind was
food for thought, but deep inside each one of us knew that the hunger remained...

One of the participants talking on equality expressed how untouchability was an evil and recalled her
childhood days when she was barred by her parents from making friends with poor children. During that
age she knew that it was wrong but she did not have the power to overcome the will of her parents, but
now as she has grown up, she was able to influence her thought process to her parents and brought the
same poor people to her home and treated them as equals and were good friends - A shining example of
what an idealistic society can be.

The deliberations were in depth as people sitting around were supposed to "experience" what the other
person was stating when they listed their points, being critical was the only way to get the real intent
and context to the points listed by the members. This method gave an enlightening experience to the
whole process as its was truly wholesome in its approach. This also raised the larger question of what
Im asking myself? What i value and what i know is what i see and what i practice. The lesson learnt from
this deliberation was that no one is born a Gandhi or a JP Narayan, it is their travel in time which created
situations and opportunities for them to have achieved what they did during their lifetime, so its our
experiences combined with our attitude and commitment to act upon the same and not inaction that
will catapult a revolution.

The participants were also exposed to self-realization of their inner self while playing 2 different games.
Different aspects of Democracy such as Capitalism, Socialism, Greed, Sharing, Compassion etc. It was
really interesting because when we were involved in a game our subconscious behaved in a way we did
not subscribe to in our minds. It made us realize that our system is so deeply ingrained in the way we
think and behave subconsciously.

The next day Pradeepji told us a story on the concept of belonging and how life revolved around it: "I
belong to you, you belong to me, and we belong together"

-- One of the main principles of an Adivasi group in a forest was that "you never send away a hungry
person who comes to your door". One day Pradeepji and his friend a tribal leader were cooking food
when another Adivasi happened to pass by the tribal leaders house. The tribal leader started shouting
out to him Come come we are going to eat, come eat with us", the passerby shouted back "No no i just
ate and i just cant eat anything more". Finally the passerby agreed and sat down to eat. After finishing
their lunch Pradeepji questioned the tribal leader as to why he kept on insisting as to why he should eat
with us though we only cooked food for two. He responded saying "poor man we dont know when he
has last eaten, i didnt want him to go hungry". Now Pradeepji turned back and asked the passerby as to
why he didnt agree to eat initially and then ate the food with us "He said i didnt want you both to go
hungry because of me, i didnt know how much grains were left". This story reflected the basis of an
Affirmative society and borrows the principles of belonging. The western society is an Adversarial
society. An Adivasis version of society is simple I am I because of you, you are you because of me thus
ends the story.

Dr. Suresh too told us a fascinating story of an Adivasi village in Rayagada district in Orissa, the
community story is fascinating, just read on...

-- The communities most important person was a woman called Jejuni - She was the keeper of seeds.
She is the decider of what crops would be grown at any point of time. She is the sole person of wisdom
related to crop patterns and agriculture. Dasaji is the person who takes care of health. Jejuni is given the
complete importance during the Harvest season, people of the community take her advice on what
plants to crop according to the rain patterns, soil demands etc... Their community plants around 40 - 70
crops per farmland by mixing crops to give nutrition to the soil, act as pesticide, etc... Dasaji is given the
complete importance during times of disease outbreak or health crisis. Dasaji advises and treats the
community for their health issues based on traditional knowledge. During the rest of the year the
community hierarchy is flat and no one is given extra importance, everyone is an equal member of the
society. Is this not a truly fascinating and advanced society based on living concepts asks Dr. Suresh and
the participants are only too eager to nod their heads in fascination.

These two stories give us ample wisdom to debate on what is a primitive society and what is a
developed society...

We also had a very engaging but deeply disturbing session of "The Invisible Layer" or the "Layer of the
Wretched". The common belief that someone wins / someone loses and we congratulate the winner
and wish better luck to the loser, and we treat this as a normal journey of our life. However in our
society some are always winning and some are always losing and this goes on as a never ending cycle,
this is the cycle of the invisible losers, the class of people who are dispensable such as the manual
scavengers who still work for the governments inspite of the Supreme Court orders prohibiting the
practice. It also gave a deep insight into the caste angle of these people which made it all the more heart
wrenching. How the whole system is constructed as if by design to keep the invisible layer intact so that
the rest of society is able to remain above.

Ruling Class

Policy Makers

Executive/ Officialdom

Professionals/Mediators/Agents

Daily Wage Workers/Labour Class/

HandtoMouth Class
Wretched Of the Earth / Invisible Class/
Dispensible Class

Pursuit / Process of Accumulation of Wealth

Last but not least there was a detailed session on the Constitution of India on the Fundamental Rights
Vis a Vis the Individual Rights vs Collective Rights. At the end of 3rd day of the workshop participants
went through a realization of self, society and how it all integrated together to keep the system the way
it is today, making the participants even more hard willed to bring about some positive change in the
society. Personally for a person like me who talks about Politics 10 times every day, it threw light of
what politics really means and why being Political is important!