Chambal Yatra with Ekta parishad
13–16 Feb
ROUTE — Sawai Madhopur, Sheopur(ektapura, karahal, kapuria), Shivpuri(aeravan,ranighati) and Gwalior
CO TRAVELLERS — Rajagopal PV, Ransingh, Ravi Badri, Sunil, Kapil Jain, Madhur, BRM — Abhishek, suruchi, kejal, aditya, kartik, ANSH — mohsin, Krishna, neeru, satish
MEETINGS- sahariya villagers, ekta parishad local teams, shivpuri SP, sheopur collector, mangalam social group in shivpuri, local youth in shivpuri
What?
A road trip to visit villages in Chambal region where Rajaji began his work. Understand work of ekta parishad in these regions. To brainstorm about a program to engage urban youth for rural situations like a fellowship.
INSIGHTS
RURAL REALITY:
· When I enjoy 10rs/kg tomatoes in Bhopal, they are being sold at 1re/kg by sheopur villagers
· The government machinery is more focused on symptomatic work like building toilets, banning gutka etc. the government offices we visited had worst toilets.
· Farming on small lands is really becoming unsustainable. The farmers often get caught in the cyclic debt of high input farming
· Land redistributed to adivasis is poor quality land, which needs much hard work to make it worth farming
· Well resourced farmers from Punjab are acquiring huge lands in that region, that is displacing sahariya adivasis and diluting their majority which gives them special rights.
· In winter, people have long meetings around fire at night. They work in day. I wonder when they sleep.
· Solving rural problems with high-tech is a kind of technophilia which the industry is supporting
· With the coming of school and tv, the aspirations of younger generations align to the city — they would want to move to cities, what happens to the sustainability of village then?
SOCIAL SECTOR
· Using metaphors in speech help connect with different people of the crowd — abhishek used the idea, seeding and nourish the plant to tree for building relationships, the under 10 kids thought that it’s about the importance of planting trees.
· Social work can extend to 24 hours and throwout work-life balance, it needs much aligned and understanding partners in personal life.
· Urban people go to villages and bombard them with solutions and the locals bombard them with problems.
· A young social worker shared with me how it was difficult to communicate with the leaders, if its difficult to communicate with leaders then how does a rural youth hope to communicate with civil servants?
· Difficult for founders to take breaks for personal rejuvenation. More difficult for founders to exit organisations.
QUESTIONS –
· What is the source of social action for people? Guilt, gratitude, moral responsibility, personal success, ambition
· How to build good connection and communication with civil servants?
· How to sensitise aspiring civil servants for challenging realities and indigenous cultures?
· There is path from representative democracy to participative democracy. But right now india is having trouble maintaining representative democracy, the politicians seem to be only heeding to the middle and upper class. How will this change?
· The growth and impact of an organisation can greatly increase with a charismatic figurehead, but devoid of strong next generation of leaders, the sustainability of organisation is weak. Can charismatic leaders create other leaders?
· It is easier to connect with people when you are travelling. How to build connections when you start living in a village/city/community?
· How to define impact?
· How would a sustainable village look like in today’s technology scenario?
