SOCIAL WORK AND RESEARCH CENTRE, TILONIA

When Sankar Datta told us about the genesis of voluntary organisations in India in his course at IRMA, he would reel off names of people and institutions, pioneers who had influenced the course of development action in the country. We learnt of Bunker Roy and SWRC then. In the years since we left IRMA, we continued hearing about SWRC and the Barefoot College, about Bunker and his disdain for ‘professionals’. We would have liked to engage in a debate with him over this, but unfortunately he was not around when we visited. We had interesting discussions though with Vasu – a contemporary of Bunker, who helped us understand to some extent SWRC and its motivations.

Demystifying technologies
We met ‘Professors’ of the Barefoot College, both men and women from the local area, training a team of 32 men and women from Ethiopia, in all that there is to know about solar home-lighting systems. What struck us in this was that the trainers and the trainees had no common language between them. In fact the Ethiopians spoke four different languages and many among them did not understand each other. Only two among the team from Ethiopia and three of the eight trainers had a functional knowledge of English. Four charts in the room listed translations of all the essential terms required for survival (water, food, bread, dal, etc), and for the technology (green, black, red, white, circuit, plug, etc). Yet there were situations in the beginning, we were told, where unable to understand what was being said, the Ethiopians construed laughter and conversations among the trainers as ‘being made fun of’. Five months into the training and with a month to go, the trainees greeted everyone with cheery smiles, and spoke snatches of Hindi – ‘namaste, kaise ho?’ was a common greeting we heard when we passed them.

The trainees will take back with them lanterns and home lighting systems, which they fabricate as they learn. They will also take back with them skills which will help them set up their own solar systems workshops and become trainers, back home in Ethiopia. Two trainers from Tilonia will accompany them to help them set up their workshops. One trainer is in Afghanistan currently, following up on a previous training programme for people from there, we were informed. If Barefoot College considers itself a ‘national organisation’, it could well be on its way to becoming an ‘international organisation’.

A lot of SWRC’s work is visible in its campus itself. The ‘old campus’ houses most departments of the Barefoot College, while the ‘new campus’ has offices and residences. The new campus is provided continuous power supply by a 40-KW solar photovoltaic power system. Five battery banks, of varying capacity, connected to panels installed on top of the buildings and controlled by invertors, constitute the system. While there are no recurring costs, battery replacement once in five or six years costs close to Rs.25 lakhs. The systems run efficiently, operated and managed by the barefoot engineers.

Crafting livelihoods
The handicrafts, weaving and tailoring units which create garments, furnishings and crafts sold under the ‘Tilonia’ brand are among the major income generating activities promoted by SWRC. More than 600 women are involved in activities like appliqué, stitching of garments and household items out of cotton cloth. The weaving section provides most of the input for this (natural dyed cotton fabric). Masterji, who coordinates the weaving section, is a traditional handloom weaver from a village near Tilonia. With obvious pride he showed us the range of hues that the weaving section produced using vegetable dyes. The market unfortunately was not well developed, rendering the activity unviable. Kailashkuwar who coordinates the stitching section and the lady coordinating appliqué work also come from villages in the vicinity of Tilonia. What we found remarkable was their articulation of and understanding about the crafts market. In a trade where even management and design graduates find it difficult to run a viable business, these women are managing a fairly successful brand. We found that the products on sale at the craft shop on campus were quite reasonably priced. We were told that the craft activity was a self-supporting one, with no subsidy provided from other sources. It is then, a real business management case that IIM’s or IRMA could draw upon, if SWRC will allow them.

We also saw a number of activities like carving wooden toys and educational materials, screen printing, book binding and what SWRC calls kabad-jugad, making small craft materials from wastes. 5-10 people are trained in each of these activities every year and further support provided to them to set up their own production units. Some of these activities like kabad-jugad are of recent origin.

Services for health
SWRC’s work in the area of health includes a 10-bed hospital on its ‘new campus’. Originally a TB Sanatorium, it now provides herbal, homeopathic and allopathic care to villagers in the area. The hospital also organises regular camps in mental health, family planning, homeopathy treatment and ante and post natal care. Other health related activities are training of village health workers and traditional birth attendants. A pathological laboratory attached to the hospital also provides services to the villagers. There are ‘barefoot nurses in the hospital, fortunately no ‘barefoot’ doctors. The 80-year old doctor who runs the hospital is probably the only person in SWRC who is not ‘barefoot’.

Igniting minds through education
As part of the education programme, SWRC runs night-schools for child labourers in over 100 village hamlets. Shivram, struck by polio waist downwards, has been with the education unit for over eight years. The curriculum, he explained, was developed by the facilitators, drawn from the villages where they worked. The schools were intended to prepare children to standard five, at which stage they are assisted to join the mainstream, by enrolling in government schools.

While almost two-thirds of those enrolled (a total of over 3,000) in the night-schools are girls, Shivram shared that continuing education for girl children was difficult, because of access conditions and social taboos. An innovative aspect of the education programme is the ‘Bal Sansad’ or children’s parliament, which has won prestigious international awards. The Prime Minister’s post is reserved for girls, which apparently drove a young boy to tears, protesting that he would make a better candidate. He was made Speaker of the Parliament. The parliament is set up with the intent to involve children in functioning of the schools, and gradually expands their involvement and influence over other facets of development in their village.

The SWRC campus also houses a library open to public. The library proudly displays all the awards and recognition that SWRC and Bunker Roy have received over the years.

Protected and assured water
SWRC’ early work involved drilling tube wells and repair of hand pumps for drinking water. Nodarmal who accompanied us was very proud of the fact that Bunker Roy himself used to drive the drilling rig around to the villages. SWRC also trained women to install and repair tube-wells. Initially shunned, they are now accepted and invited by the government and villagers as tube-well experts! Water quality of the tube wells is regularly monitored by youth trained at the laboratory in the new campus. SWRC keeps a regular tab of the water quality testing activity by the ‘Barefoot Chemists’.

From digging tube wells SWRC moved its focus to harvesting rain water. Quite appropriate, given, as we were told, that water table in the villages of Ajmer had fallen by more than 15 metres in the years between 1985 and 1995. Currently one of the big projects implemented by SWRC is a rooftop rainwater harvesting system for schools. Meant to meet the drinking water needs of school children (availability of which, SWRC says, is a factor governing attendance in schools). This is part of a large project that Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India has approved – the pilot phase of which covers 300 schools in all of India. SWRC is doing some 25 projects in its area of operation.

Ramkarn who coordinates this activity (together with the women’s development programme) has been involved with SWRC since he was twelve years old. He shared with us the system SWRC has developed to ensure complete transparency in implementing of the Schools rainwater harvesting project. A committee consisting of parents and teachers is set up and this committee does the construction work. Money is transferred to a bank account operated by this committee. Each school has a file to itself, which contains all the records of work. These include capacity estimation and design calculations, muster roll of labour employed, bills of material purchase, and photographs (taken from the same angle) of the site before work, during work and after completion. Upon completion of work a social audit is conducted where the committee explains every aspect of work done to the villagers assembled. Only after this meeting approves of the work done, does SWRC accept accounts for money spent. Ramkarn says that this kind of social audit has motivated villagers to demand the same level of transparency in works done by the Gram Panchayat. He also narrated several incidents where villagers forced the Sarpanch and Panchayat Secretary to stop work that was being done in violation of norms prescribed. Ramkarn contends that the Right to Information law in Rajasthan has enabled people in demanding information from these functionaries. He adds that mere legislation is not much use unless people know how to use it, and develop collective capacities and confidence to demand their rights.

Spaces for women
SWRC mobilises women in villages to organise themselves into ‘mahila samuh’. Ramkarn was quick to add that these are not conventional SHGs. In fact, there is no thrift or credit involved at all. Work on organising women began when SWRC motivated an agitation by women labourers engaged by government contractors, for equal wages for women and legal minimum wages for all, in the early-1980s. The focus is on women from ‘landless and other marginalised families’ in the villages. During our visit to Tikavda village we found that only 20 women from a village of about 400 families were involved in the women’s group. Chotibai, the coordinator of the field centre, said that the other families are involved with SWRC’s work in other activities.

Reaching out
Apart from the campus at Tilonia SWRC has field centres in six locations of Ajmer district that cater to 20-40 villages each. The outreach of SWRC to villages is aided in a very substantial way, by its rural communications division. This division specialises in performances in the villages – street plays, puppet shows etc. – using these media to convey socially relevant messages. We were given an extempore performance of a puppet named ‘Jokhim chacha’, a wizened old man who dares to question the villagers about anything and everything. His quips are then used to generate discussions among those assembled. SWRC philosophy is also rooted in about 20 centres across the country, led by local NGOs, bound in a loose network.

Some thoughts
SWRC has made a virtue out of a disadvantage. Using people’s lack of formal education to motivate them to acquire new skills – productive and managerial, it has charted out a new paradigm of development action. The work of ‘ordinary’ men and women that we saw in different spheres was remarkable. In articulating their understanding of the development context and work and convincing ‘educated’ outsiders about the validity and effectiveness of the ‘barefoot’ approach, they are second to none.

This said, what also struck us was the disdain for the formally educated and the so-called professionals. One wonders if such forced exclusion of this category of people is necessary to promote the ‘barefoot’ paradigm. Is it that everyone in this category lives in glass palaces with little understanding of or empathy for the rural poor? It cannot be forgotten that the conceivers of the paradigm, themselves came from such backgrounds, and they continue to provide the leadership to the ‘barefoot’ workers.

SWRC offers a basket of about 20 different activities. In each village a combination from among these is implemented. Each activity has a specific target group – children, women, youth, parents of students – and seemingly work in isolation at the village level. We were unable to sense a village-wide institutional process or efforts in bringing together disparate groups within the village. The Barefoot College has apparent success in instilling skills and confidence among individuals from the weakest sections of society. How are these people then brought together to challenge hierarchies, fight oppression, demand their rights and create a more just and equitable society? How widespread effects are realised through ‘exclusive’ focus, we were unable to understand in entirety, in the brief time we spent there.