Dilip Thakore interviewed Sanjit (‘Bunker’) Roy, founder of Barefoot College, Tilonia. Excerpts:
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How satisfied are you with the progress and development of Barefoot College? In particular, what new milestones has BC crossed since we last featured a cover story in 2012?
I am fairly satisfied. Fourteen of the United Nations 2015 Sustainable Development Goals are embedded in the Barefoot solar electrification and other tertiary learning programmes such as rainwater harvesting, livelihood development and education.
Moreover, the Barefoot Gandhian approach to fabrication, repair and maintenance of clean energy technology has been implemented in 75 countries; 1,320 villages worldwide generate solar electricity and 565,000 people have been provided clean lighting in their homes during the past five years.
In addition, eight regional Barefoot College Vocational Training Centres — joint ventures directly between Barefoot College and the government of India and state governments — are under construction; the number of people working fulltime in BC’s solar technologies research and development has increased to 26, while the number of foreign offices inaugurated abroad (Latin America, Africa and Asia Pacific) has increased to four, and corporate partnerships we have signed in the past eighteen months have grown to 18.
Although outstanding rural development success stories such as BC, Operation Flood, Shetkari Sanghatana, Pardada Pardadi, Seva Vikas Mandal, Anna Hazare’s Ralegan Siddhi experiment etc have been reported, for mysterious reasons their influence has been limited to their local environments, i.e they have not multiplied countrywide. Can you explain this mystery?
There is a fundamental flaw in most NGO promoters. They fail to decentralise because they are insecure and want to be put on a pedestal and idolised. All are good public speakers incapable of multiplying their dreams nationwide. Fortunately, I like to think I don’t fall into this category. I am a poor public speaker. I hate crowds and I like to be challenged by equals.
In 1993, Barefoot College promoted its decentralised SAMPDA (Society for Activating, Motivating and Promoting Development Alternatives). Since then, the network has grown to 23 BC-inspired NGOs promoted by graduates of BC, Tilonia. They are registered in different names, have their own boards, raise their own funds, identify their own priorities and are totally independent of Tilonia. We meet once or twice a year to map collaborative projects on solar electrification, rainwater harvesting, and marketing of handicrafts that would have the widest impact.
Close to seven decades after independence as evidenced by the rising number of farm suicides and a long-term growth rate of a mere 2 percent per year, Indian agriculture continues to stagnate. What’s your prescription for its revival and regeneration?
Indian agriculture continues to stagnate because there are simple, direct solutions that ‘experts’ are unwilling to accept. Our agricultural scientists have lost touch with small farmers — the 98 million rural households which own less than 1 bigha today.
Our agri-scientists speak in riddles and have no idea of the enormous pressures that small farmers face while living a hand-to-mouth existence. Behind every tragic suicide is a pittance of a loan they cannot repay.
If I had the authority, I would form a National Committee of Repayment under (veteran journalist) P. Sainath and go house-to-house repaying their outstanding loans in direct cash and burn all the papers in banks which link petty rural branch managers to money lenders who hold the small farmers to ransom every year. For agriculture to progress, we need to make urban markets easily and cheaply accessible to the nation’s small farmers.
Given the current confrontationist political scenario, how optimistic are you about the revival and regeneration of rural India?
I am very optimistic. There are some simple solutions that need to be implemented. Despite the opposition of arm chair economists who have no idea of rural poverty and have never gone hungry for a day, the MNREGA (Mahatma National Rural Employment Guarantee Assurance) programme needs to be revived, encouraged and expanded on a war footing.
We need demystified and decentralised solutions that are bottom-up rather than top-down. We need to provide productive employment in village India so the rural poor are not forced to migrate to cities. We need to study Gandhi and revive the public primary education system which is in a shambles. Because of weak education foundations, the entire Indian economy is crumbling.