This messiah does not walk on water; his feet are firmly planted on the ground. Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy was educated in the most prestigious of academic institutions – The Doon School and St Stephen’s College – but he found his moorings in the hinterlands of Rajasthan, where he set up the Barefoot College, now considered a touchstone model of community empowerment and rural development. Starring in the Time magazine's 2010 list of 100 most influential people, Sanjit Roy envisions significant contribution of Bharat to the future of India. An interview with Indira Parthasarathy…
You received some of the finest education one can dream to have in our country. Did Barefoot result because of, or despite that? Did you have to unlearn anything to start Barefoot?
It was Mark Twain who said, “Never let school interfere with your education.” There is a difference between literacy and education. Literacy is reading and writing and what you pick up in school. Education is what you receive from your family, your community and your environment.
Soon after leaving College, for five years (1967-1971) I worked as an unskilled labourer deepening and blasting open wells for water. That meant going down a 100ft open well by rope and blasting it with explosives. I lived with very poor and ordinary people under the stars and heard the simple stories they had to tell of their skills and wisdom that lectures and university education can never teach you. My real education started then when I saw amazing people – water diviners, traditional bonesetters, midwives at work. Through an unlearning process I reached this approach of the first Barefoot College of its kind.
Barefoot combines education and environmental activism. Do you think it’s high time mainstream education also went for a similar approach?
The CBSE syllabus will be shortly including Barefoot Colleges' initiatives as part of a chapter on Environmental Studies. Since 1993, elected MPs of the seven childrens' parliaments have emerged as environmentally aware future responsible citizens of their villages.
Till 2003, the educational curriculum up till secondary level had a chapter on Barefoot College emphasising its Solar Energy and Rain Water Harvesting initiatives of rural communities.
Children attending schools in Germany study environmental initiatives taken by the night school and Barefoot College students towards spreading environmental consciousness.
What is the biggest impediment an earnest NGO faces in our country?
The main difficulties that I faced in 1971, when we started the Barefoot College, remains even today in 2008. By far the biggest threat to development today, and why the poor will always remain poor, is the literate man and woman who is a product of the formal education system. This system makes you look down on the village. The fact is that the knowledge and skills were used for hundreds of years well before the urban doctor, teacher and engineer turned up in villages.
The biggest obstacle to developing our own Indianness is the mindset of the literate expert who cannot think beyond the box. Einstein’s definition of insanity, “Endlessly repeating the same process hoping for a different result.”
There is a far greater number of ‘for the rich, by the rich’ efforts around us than ‘for the poor, by the poor’. How can the distribution be made more equitable?
Distribution can be made more equitable if the Gandhian non-violent approach – strongly rejecting the classical arrogant top down development approach of the “experts” – is instead put into practice incorporating the following beliefs
l Identify, respect and apply existing traditional knowledge and skills and give practical skills more importance than theoretical knowledge.
l There are many more powerful ways of learning other than the written word.
l The demystified decentralised community-managed, community-controlled and community-owned approach put the traditional knowledge and village skills of the rural poor first.
l Taking the people into confidence from the very beginning of the process of planning and implementation, and not after the project is written and approved in places where experience of poverty is merely virtual (like in the World Bank or UN).
Do you think it is practical to suggest mandatory community service for every citizen?
No, it is not practical because anything forced is not going to work. One must not be made to feel community service is a punishment. It is a reflection on our formal system that anyone going back to the village after University or College is considered a “failure” and mandatory community service will not change this attitude.
Barefoot is reminiscent of Muhammad Yunus’ microcredit (Grameen Bank) model. Comment.
There are very few similarities. There are major differences in approaches, in methodologies, in how the Barefoot approach has been scaled up to only work in remote inaccessible villages around the world. While the Grameen Model can be applied in rural and urban situations, the Barefoot model can only work in poor rural communities across the world.
Back when you started Barefoot, Gandhism hadn’t even been re-modelled into Gandhigiri. Were you inspired by Gandhian values?
I never read Mahatma Gandhi in school nor did I read him when I started Tilonia (Rajasthan). I read him 30 years later and he made such eminent sense. I did not read Marx and so he was no influence on me. The motivation was to work with the really very poor people and see how best with very little money we could tangibly improve their lives. Free from hunger and want. Free from fear, discrimination, exploitation and injustice. The challenge was all.
With roots in the village community and a deep rooted respect for proper use of water, air, earth and the sun, the Barefoot educators have set an example of how not to waste or over exploit nature resources. They are a living testimony to Mahatma Gandhi’s famous saying, “The world has enough for every man’s need but not for one man’s greed.”
You received some of the finest education one can dream to have in our country. Did Barefoot result because of, or despite that? Did you have to unlearn anything to start Barefoot?
It was Mark Twain who said, “Never let school interfere with your education.” There is a difference between literacy and education. Literacy is reading and writing and what you pick up in school. Education is what you receive from your family, your community and your environment.
Soon after leaving College, for five years (1967-1971) I worked as an unskilled labourer deepening and blasting open wells for water. That meant going down a 100ft open well by rope and blasting it with explosives. I lived with very poor and ordinary people under the stars and heard the simple stories they had to tell of their skills and wisdom that lectures and university education can never teach you. My real education started then when I saw amazing people – water diviners, traditional bonesetters, midwives at work. Through an unlearning process I reached this approach of the first Barefoot College of its kind.
Barefoot combines education and environmental activism. Do you think it’s high time mainstream education also went for a similar approach?
The CBSE syllabus will be shortly including Barefoot Colleges' initiatives as part of a chapter on Environmental Studies. Since 1993, elected MPs of the seven childrens' parliaments have emerged as environmentally aware future responsible citizens of their villages.
Till 2003, the educational curriculum up till secondary level had a chapter on Barefoot College emphasising its Solar Energy and Rain Water Harvesting initiatives of rural communities.
Children attending schools in Germany study environmental initiatives taken by the night school and Barefoot College students towards spreading environmental consciousness.
What is the biggest impediment an earnest NGO faces in our country?
The main difficulties that I faced in 1971, when we started the Barefoot College, remains even today in 2008. By far the biggest threat to development today, and why the poor will always remain poor, is the literate man and woman who is a product of the formal education system. This system makes you look down on the village. The fact is that the knowledge and skills were used for hundreds of years well before the urban doctor, teacher and engineer turned up in villages.
The biggest obstacle to developing our own Indianness is the mindset of the literate expert who cannot think beyond the box. Einstein’s definition of insanity, “Endlessly repeating the same process hoping for a different result.”
There is a far greater number of ‘for the rich, by the rich’ efforts around us than ‘for the poor, by the poor’. How can the distribution be made more equitable?
Distribution can be made more equitable if the Gandhian non-violent approach – strongly rejecting the classical arrogant top down development approach of the “experts” – is instead put into practice incorporating the following beliefs
l Identify, respect and apply existing traditional knowledge and skills and give practical skills more importance than theoretical knowledge.
l There are many more powerful ways of learning other than the written word.
l The demystified decentralised community-managed, community-controlled and community-owned approach put the traditional knowledge and village skills of the rural poor first.
l Taking the people into confidence from the very beginning of the process of planning and implementation, and not after the project is written and approved in places where experience of poverty is merely virtual (like in the World Bank or UN).
Do you think it is practical to suggest mandatory community service for every citizen?
No, it is not practical because anything forced is not going to work. One must not be made to feel community service is a punishment. It is a reflection on our formal system that anyone going back to the village after University or College is considered a “failure” and mandatory community service will not change this attitude.
Barefoot is reminiscent of Muhammad Yunus’ microcredit (Grameen Bank) model. Comment.
There are very few similarities. There are major differences in approaches, in methodologies, in how the Barefoot approach has been scaled up to only work in remote inaccessible villages around the world. While the Grameen Model can be applied in rural and urban situations, the Barefoot model can only work in poor rural communities across the world.
Back when you started Barefoot, Gandhism hadn’t even been re-modelled into Gandhigiri. Were you inspired by Gandhian values?
I never read Mahatma Gandhi in school nor did I read him when I started Tilonia (Rajasthan). I read him 30 years later and he made such eminent sense. I did not read Marx and so he was no influence on me. The motivation was to work with the really very poor people and see how best with very little money we could tangibly improve their lives. Free from hunger and want. Free from fear, discrimination, exploitation and injustice. The challenge was all.
With roots in the village community and a deep rooted respect for proper use of water, air, earth and the sun, the Barefoot educators have set an example of how not to waste or over exploit nature resources. They are a living testimony to Mahatma Gandhi’s famous saying, “The world has enough for every man’s need but not for one man’s greed.”
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