[Hamara-devel] Mera Atma Shikshak, Mera Karm - Swaraj, The Tibetian School, Mcleodganj

[shirish]

Hi all,


Longish post TL;DR Dayaji talks dignity of labour as part of schooling

Just saw 20 minutes of Mera Atma Shikshak, Mera Karm - 
https://vimeo.com/18230123

While I'll probably look at the rest either tonight or tomorrow, sharing 
a bit of background as to where it's coming from and an experience in a 
school that I can relate with it.

A small history sharing here :-

Now the thing to understand that that Mr. Dayaji is talking about 
'Swaraj' . Swaraj was an idea floated by Mahatma Gandhi before 
independence and after independence as well. It was a belief and history 
is showing that he was right that the village, small towns should be at 
the centre of everything.Few of the major features of Swaraj was :-

a. Be self-sustainable which meant growing your own food, hand-spun 
cloth the works.

b. Dignity of labour which automatically came from 1.

c. Small enterprises, small everything.

I am just sharing only some of the features of the idea of Swaraj which 
relate with the bit of documentary I have seen and is in effort for 
people to understand where the person is coming from. A larger write-up 
would basically end up in a dissertation and I definitely don't want to 
do that.

  What we had in both economical and political class was the move to 
centralization which was initiated in the early 50's by Mr. Jawaharlal 
Nehru. The idea of centralization was good at that time because the idea 
of nation-state was still in initial stages and hence the need for 
central schemes such as the 5 year plans, all of those were good for the 
formative years.

Ideally, it should have stopped about 10-15 years after it started but 
due to either political class unimaginative (if you feel like being 
charitable) or their vested interests it was allowed to continue.

The idea of swaraj continued to fascinate lot of people from people like 
JP to ordinary people as well. Even the AAP party used that to have 
mindshare among people. Although how far have they been able to emulate 
the principles of 'Swaraj' I'll let the people decide.

Even Ms. Medha Patkar of Narmada Bachao Andolan (incidentally whom I 
have had the fortune to meet couple of times, really fiery lady with 
lots of understanding on many levels) understood the aspect of having 
small dams instead of big dams. My own city witnessed destruction in 
1961. If you just type 'Khadakwasla Dam 1961 Pune' those terms will be 
enough to find more info.

Anyways, back to the documentary I think what Mr. Dayaji wants/wanted to 
share was about dignity of labour. While this has disappeared in most of 
the mainstream schools (and yes I remember the barefeet school which I 
had shared) especially KV's (Kendriya Vidyalaya's - public school for 
children of Central Govt. employees) and private schools, I had come 
across this when I was near Mcleodganj.

If you are in North India, you take the train Jammu Tawi (Jhelum, named 
after the river Jhelum) approximately 12 hrs. from Delhi you come to 
Pathankhot (very nice place if you want to get cheap yet high quality 
mountaineering equipment), anyways a jolting bus-trip of around 5-6 hrs. 
lands you in Dharamshala, I have been in love with the place and have 
been there number of times.

Dharamshala itself is split into two places, lower dharamshala where lot 
of hindus come for religious purposes. Lower Dharamshala itself has lot 
of lovely places but will not go there. You go 7-10 kms. up in a winding 
ghat road or 2 kms. as a lift (there are quite a few pathways) you end 
up at what is known as Mcleodganj. I don't remember the earlier name but 
apparently somewhere in the early 1920's or thereabouts an English 
general (Mcleod) (no relation to Connor MacLeod of 'Highlander' and 
'Highlander II' series) came to this place which was cold in summer and 
made it into a resort for English generals and their staff. If you go to 
some of the older houses, you can still find Victorian architecture 
present and recognize it easily. You can also find some Victorian 
momentos although whether they are real or not is left to you to judge.

Anyways, around 2-3 kms left of Mcleodganj is the Tibetan School. While 
the front side of Mcleodganj is full of tourists, the backside is where 
the whole Tibetan Govt. in exile can be seen. This is few years back,  I 
was there just by sheer coincidence as I was there on holidays + was 
teaching some westerners basics of GNU/Linux + some other initiatives. 
Anyways, came to know that each day they are supposed to do what we call 
'seva' everyday for an hour or two. For instance, at times I had seen 
them doing composting and they seemed very aware about ecology and 
environment as well. They used to also take part in farming, pottery all 
of which is to do with the hands, nature etc. This was about 10-12 years 
ago. One thing to note is that this school was made by European money 
and lot of Indians are and were jealous of all the attention the 
Tibetans get because of the Westerners. I have written about it in my 
travel log few years ago.

At that time, the idea seemed radical to me but then hadn't come across 
any alternative social ideas, structures, political ideas etc.

In conclusion, it is an idea whose time was always there, more now than 
ever as we live more in the head/mind rather than with earth, how to do 
it though is the key question.
-- 
Regards,
Shirish Agarwal,
Community Lead,
Hamaralinux.org