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Invited
speech delivered by Shripad Dabholkar in the seminar on `Ideas
That Have Worked' in New Delhi, 2001.
Introduction
The theme of my today's lecture is 'Prosperity with Equity'. I
am sure each one here must be curious to know how it is
possible, in the present poverty ridden world, this seemingly
paradoxical perspective 'Prosperity with Equity' can be
validated. I therefore request you to be kindly very critical
and alert throughout the lecture to give your esteemed
observations and judgements at the end of my exposition.
The
whole thesis is however apparently very simple. The Wealth and
Prosperity that abounds anywhere today is the creation of the
progress of Modern Science. But till today, the best and the
latest of the modern science and its work results have failed
to reach the last person. Then why not take the very essence
of the latest and the best of modern science straight to the
average grass root people and hand it over to them. Then with
that self earned science they can build their own techniracies
(Technical Literacies) to create whatever type of Plenty and
Prosperity they would prefer to establish on their own (and
not through the Government or the World Bank) in their
neighborhood (habitat). This whole new idea of sharing, the
best and the latest of the modern, post- graduate & research
level science with the last man has a long history reaching
back to my early childhood. But before I proceed further I
would like to quote two well-known lines
'Mai
Akela Chalatha Apni Manzil Fir Log Ate Gaye Our Kaphila Ban
Gaya'
[I was
proceeding alone to my destination (goal), but people began to
come & join and it grew into a big caravan]
To
continue further, since my early childhood I had a zest for
science and experimentation. This zest gradually matured, in
what is now popularly known as, "Prayog Pariwar". So our "Manzil',
our destination is that what is signified by the term "Prayog".
The root meaning of word "Prayog" is, "Pra" means, 'Going
ahead' and "Yog" is Yukti or Knack. . Thus, the knack of going
ahead, in any situation and in any circumstance is "Prayog".
While "Pariwar" is nothing but 'Fraternity' signifying " Sense
of "Belonging and Togetherness". In the beginning I started
alone to take the spirit of science through actual
experimentation to the people. This went on gathering momentum
from all sections of the society. Your invitation to me here
today is just of the same spirit.
Naturally I have to narrate some relevant part of my life
story today. I am however afraid my presentation will be of
very mixed nature; a narration, a speech or a talk, some times
real story telling. But mostly a lecture with new exposition &
discourse. The emergence of 'Prayog Pariwar' is preceded and
followed, and is still following, the emergence of very many
new lateral ideas. All of these ever-emerging new lateral
ideas are well worked out, verified, amalgamated, established
and networked. To quote some of these ideas and results, I
simply put a short list that I will have occasion to use in my
exposition:
-
Natueco culture - Understanding how Nature has evolved this
ecosystem and changing our entire agricultural practices and
entire life style accordingly.
-
2.Sagriculture - Agriculture based on four "S" - Sun,
Science, Sharing & Sovereignty. S4 Agriculture.
-
Prayog
Pariwar - A non-institutional network of sharing best of
science till the success is achieved.
-
Venture - Calculated risk-taking capacity in real life
situation.
-
Peer
Venture Networks - Pioneers experimenting together and
venturing together.
-
Gypsy
Venture Networks - Second generation of venturers who come
on their own to Interact and get involved in peer venture
network.
-
Activity Bank - A new type of venture Trusteeship extending
goodwill, credit, assurance, insurance etc. to venture.
-
De-mystification of science - Explaining science in local
idioms and analogies
-
EUCES
- 'Energy Unit Currency Exchange System' to replace present
Government green notes and share markets virtual money
system.
-
Prosumer Society - Producer & Consumer Society free of
global market pressures
Along
with these, many other terminologies as Equity Sharing,
Rurbanization, Concept of Additive Regeneration, Concept of
Eco-Humanhood, Concept of New Sociology of Science and
Education, have emerged and are getting rooted. Naturally
these new terminologies will come in my today's exposition. I
hope you will excuse me for the time being and allow me to use
them freely.
To begin
with, each one of us as a child is gifted by nature, to be a
"Mini Scientist". The child's constant prattle on 'Why',
'How', 'How much', 'Why not this way' etc., is it's inner urge
to get well acquainted with the things, events and satisfy
his/her curiosities. The spirit of enquiry is child's second
nature. Luckily, my mother was very well read and a very
considerate woman to share with me in such queries. She would
encourage me by telling stories, how Edison succeeded in
making first electrical bulb after countless repeated
failures, how Jagdish Chandra Bose had shown plants can
respond like us, how Ekalavya mastered the whole art of
archery better than Arjun, even though guidance to him was
rejected by Dronacharya and so forth. Leaving aside all this
nostalgia of my young age, I still remember how at the age of
12 years or so I was able to grow red pumpkin vine fruit in
only four liter size pot (an apparently impossible feat to
experts even today) and get pumpkin of triple the size of the
pot. Next, I succeeded in taking water melon fruits in a
bamboo waste basket, by creating 'river conditions' under the
basket, by keeping it in a water container and got assured
tasty fruits on the hot galvanized iron sheets of the second
floor of our house. I also succeeded to take a banana bunch on
this gallery in an average size container.
My
constant pursuit to achieve success in these ventures was
through my self-learning process, the process of observations,
recording, reasoning, questioning and finding the way out. I
learnt somehow, that the banana bunch is initiated in the
banana plant when it is only four or five months of age. So I
wondered, why not have such plants lifted and repotted ?
Likewise, upon reading in some popular science book, that
pumpkins have two types of flowers and some tribals in
Madagascar put powder from a part inside one type of flower to
the other type of flower, having small fruit below the flower
when that flower opens, I discovered my break through to get
fruits! So although I was not aware of the real scientific
principles of vegetative and reproductive growth patterns in
banana nor about the process of pollination in vine crops, I
was very near to hitting the cause and effect relations.
Such
success made me have a small organization with my friends
called "Shastra Siddhi Sadhanalaya"(Devote your self to
science and get all blessings of science). We collected more
than 30 different types of bird nests, we studied raising silk
worms and many other kinds of caterpillars and to raise
butterflies from them. We used to put hen's eggs in sparrows
nest or even in Kite's nest and see how it is incubated by
sparrows for a few days. As sparrow's eggs hatch early, there
is half grown chicken in the hen's eggshell; while the Kite
protects the hen's egg and never takes it as its food once it
is in her nest. At many times we incubated the eggs that we
found in birds nests on kerosene lanterns and reared and
hatched little ones by imitating their mother's beak by
joining two matchsticks to feed them. We succeeded in growing
them till they began to fly and sit on our shoulders. We also
brought country honeybee hives as also reared houseflies,
mosquito larvas, cockroaches and even bed bugs. (And that too
feeding these bugs lovingly on my own blood and observing
their interesting ways of sucking, escaping and hiding !)
The
reason for narrating some of my early years experiments (you
can call them sallies or even follies if you so choose) is to
emphasize, that it is each one's birth right to be a scientist
and grow like a scientist. But our present schooled system of
education, through its systems of entrance, course studies,
examinations, grades etc., polarizes the knowledge and creates
tribes of illiterates and experts in all spheres of knowledge.
Thus one may be an expert in one branch of knowledge but
mostly an utter illiterate in the rest of the branches of
knowledge. On the other hand, scientifically gained and used
knowledge is so infectious that even today my above mentioned
successes are loved, cherished, followed, grasped and used by
Adivasi women and men as if those successes provide answers to
their real life and living problems (of getting assured
pumpkin fruits to their vines or get regular banana fruits by
staggered plantation of different age group banana plants on
their daily household waste water only). These experiments
also trigger new ventures in similar hobby groups in city
dwellers. More and more of such ventures will follow in our
discussion later. So let me continue further.
Quit
India movement in 1942 had to make a more significant impact
on me. I was of college age in the period of Quit India
movement. Barely seventeen years old, I returned from my
college and had an urge to leave college and join the
movement. My father, a well-known advocate, advocated as a
father that it was his responsibility to see us finish our
double graduation. I then reasoned out to myself, 'knowledge
is also power that our country needs'. I argued to myself that
in our country it is a sin to build up an academic career, and
it is our duty to remove ignorance and poverty by taking
knowledge of all types to the people.
In that
mood and with this vague vision during the entire period of my
college days, I took to study on my own, various graduate
level studies. Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics were my course
subjects. The subjects I particularly liked and studied were
agricultural sciences, biology and especially botany. I also
studied psychology, Freud especially. I studied and practiced
and helped myself on Yoga and medicine, I studied different
social sciences, sociology, political sciences, economics,
philosophy and anthropology too. I also shared my readings and
had critical discussions in these subjects with other college
going members of my large family as well with many others.
By the
time I got my double graduation our nation was a free
sovereign state. I planned to run 'Open Study Courses', for
school certificate courses and other external university
graduate courses too. The fees were charged only once, till
one got the final success.
These cannot be really termed as fees, but were clear sharings
under four heads:
-
For
the open courses, maintenance equally shared by all
-
My
personal maintenance, that too equally shared by all. (Lower
middle class level)
-
For
subject learning, share as per subjects learning share.
-
Future
development and risk covering share to be again shared
equally by all.
Thus all
money given by the student was taken as his share investment
in the institution and not only as fees, for teaching the
subject. (On reflection, I feel this was the genesis of my
idea of development through equity sharing)
I have a
very limited time to narrate here the outcome of this first
experiment of mine in knowledge communication. I was teaching
all these subjects for all school certificate and graduate
level courses. I would make the students first to learn in
their own idioms, the way knowledge is organized. Each topic
had some basic concepts and terms related to those concepts,
then catch words, then illustrations, and skills in writing,
reading and interpreting tables and graphs. Moreover I found
that knowledge once handed over to a group in a class rests
with the class so that the students can tutor one another
among themselves. This between tutoring creates confidence in
knowing and presenting the subject in their words and sharing
each other's information, understanding and grasping it. Thus
my technique was simply to hand over their knowledge unit
among them for once and allowing them to monitor and mature by
their own participatory interactions and involvements. Soon,
the fame of my courses spread like a fragrance amongst parents
of the students and students from medical and engineering
courses from far off cities used to come and join my courses
in their vacation periods. Most of the students got their
results with flying colors in external courses run by Nagpur
and Ajmer universities. Many dropouts in primary standard two
or three in one year or many repeaters earned their school
certificates with more that 60 to 70 % marks. I earned more
income than the income earned at that time by the principals
of well-reputed colleges. And to start with my real investment
was only a chalk and the blackboard. Please note that this was
an entirely different training from the one given in our
innumerable so-called classes. I had aptly named this venture
"Swadhyay Mahavidyalay".
Thus
these of my experiences and experiments confirmed my early
vision that anyone can earn by self study one's graduate and
post-graduate degrees like 'Ekalavya', and can also build a
new technique of knowledge communication for its spread
through participant's resources only. But the real potential
of this vision was yet to be fully realized. This was realized
some twenty years later in the 'Scientific Grape Revolution'
by small farmers in our state - the State of Maharashtra.
Prosperity with Equity
New Ideas
in Agricultural Productivity Research and Innovations
In Shri Mouni Vidyapeeth, each member of the staff was
provided one part of the twin quarters with a small space to
each. The space was well protected and with daily limited
water supply by tap. My latent desire to experiment with plant
kingdom flourished spontaneously in that setting. The small
space around my quarter soon became an experimental ground for
my studies in agriculture, horticulture, poultry, sericulture,
goat and rabbit rearing, soil fertility building, new
techniques of waste land development and so forth. I decided
to treat myself as a farmer below poverty line and living at
the level of disinvestments (i. e. under constant debt) having
no other resource than his own free labor.
I soon began
to realize that the so-called packages of practices, professed
by agriculture extension agencies were out of place in such
dire conditions. The whole process needed a new approach
towards the application of scientific principles and
techniques. It had to become entirely a within process of
assured day-by-day resource enrichment and enhancement.
I applied
myself to work out these constraints, and my insights and
innovation in these constraints began yielding results. In a
very small area of barely one thousand sq. feet I was able to
raise variety of fruit plants, grapes, lemon, pineapple,
guava, pomegranate, papaya, drum sticks, custard apple, mango
and so forth. Along with these, I used to grow a variety of
vegetables with assured yield. The whole place which used to
be a barren, wasteland became a rain forest of fruit plants
all healthy, all productive and all taking their nourishment
from the symbiotic built in aggregate from the garden waste
and of goats and poultry, sericulture and rabbits, that too
lived happily with my young children as their loved pets.
As I had
decided to work under the constraints of last rural person, I
had to search for new techniques outside the techniques taught
in the universities and in regular village extension workers
courses. Soon I found that a even on barren, stony soil you
can take good crop in heaps of soil and it is not necessary to
cultivate and turn the soil as is usually thought.
I took very
good record crop of sweet potatoes only in the half decomposed
leaf mold heaps. Similarly I succeeded in raising prize
pineapple fruit in such heaps of leaf mold. I still remember
how Dr. J. P. Naik had phoned me to come to Delhi with some of
my plants by air to speak before a large gathering of more
than 200 youths from different states in the northern zone of
India. I had then carried one such pineapple plant with its
light leaf mold soil in a plastic bag. It was then just at the
full flowering stage. My exposition on science behind that
success had triggered spontaneous desire in many of them. One
from Rajasthan asked how he could grow it in hot climate, and
I handed over that plant to him to see how he could succeed in
the micro-climate of the bathroom.
I had found
that my papaya fruits, when half ripe provided all the
necessary nutrients to egg laying poultry birds and no market
purchase of costly mash of poultry was required. Most of my
chickens were raised in chick mash that I got by rearing plump
larvas of houseflies, by breeding them in poultry droppings or
in some oil cake powder mixed with crushed green leaves. I had
also dug and maintained special white ant pits & kept inviting
them on waste papers and dry garden waste. Poultry and chicks
had a special weekly dish of this rich food.
I found that
the slurry of animal dung and urine, or fish waste works
miracles in plant growth. I used to get tasty, deep red,
watermelons on this slurry fertilizer, by methods similar to
my young age basket pot experiments.
I had taken
regular lemons throughout the year on a very small size (only
ten sq. ft canopy size) lemon plant in the heap of special
soil made from composted kitchen and garden waste with the
slurry. I used to get about 250 lemons on this Lemon plant. I
tried custard apple, fig fruit plants and later grapes as
mobile tabletop plants.
My success in
that small but very productive self-sustained rainforest type
multi-tier garden became a sensation to everyone in the
locality (educated, uneducated, literate, illiterate) and to
every one who came for short long term training courses in our
institute. The fame of my garden spread from mouth to mouth.
Daily on an average about thirty people used to visit my work.
In my spare time, we sat together to discuss and understand my
approach and gave their written impressions with their
addresses and with a desire to collaborate. I still have this
file with me.
Prosperity with Equity
With the
People
In 1965, war with Pakistan was fought and won. Our Prime
Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri asked the nation to forego one
time meal to avert the food calamity facing the country
because of the sudden change in foreign aid. I mused, why not
fight this battle on food front at every doorsteps. I wrote
about this to my close friend, Mukund Kirloskar, the editor of
well known 'Kirloskar' magazine with top circulation.
He phoned me
and asked me to be in his editor's chair and in January 1966
Kirloskar issue, a fully illustrated 24 page special
supplement titled 'Ladha Ladhavoo Ha Ghara Gharatun' ( Let us
fight the battle on food front at our every door step)
appeared. It described several of my small garden results and
approaches. This supplement created a tremendous response and
in a short time more than ten thousand letters began to pour
in. To channelise this enthusiasm, a new concept of 'Swashray
Vikas Mandal', meaning self help, self reliance for building
creative constructive possibilities in one's limited
resources, was put forth in October 1966 issue and later a
second supplement 'Perte Vha Perte Vha' (Start Sowing, Start
Sowing) also appeared.
These ten
thousand letters were all responded and at the end nearly 500
joined out of which 50 are with me even today and five of
them, the new visionaries became and have remained with me as
very close family members since then.
This response
and statistics helped me to analyze the reasons why it
happened that way and soon I realized the presentation of
results in my article was not fitting to the real life
situations of the participants who had written me to learn by
'course study' or as a 'package' and not with a desire to
share the process of best of scientific knowledge assimilation
and testing.
This
tremendous mass effect made me understand vividly for the
first time that no successful work or activity can bring any
within change if one tries to put it as an activity 'for' the
people, 'by' the people or even as 'of' the people. To make
these activities infectious, it should be of the nature of
'with' the people. We will come across this process in our
success story of Scientific Grape Revolution in Maharashtra.
All these experiments however made me vividly understand
various fallacies (hidden curriculums) in our education and
extension systems. It also made me wise to understand why most
of the Government and Non-Government development plans failed
though they were fully aided and were meticulously prepared by
the experts.
Prosperity with Equity
The New
Term Venture
The mass impact of my supplements and its rapid stabilization
on a fairly small number made me seek the reasons. I then
coined an apt word 'Venture'. Thus those who found it more
inviting to share my knowledge and not my packages alone
remained 'with' me. So also those who found the information in
my results fitting to their real life situations too remained
with me.
The first
group was with me to learn the process of taking calculated
risks by searching on their own to earn their cherished
results. The other group was happy to get some useful package
that was a good fit in their real life situations. Second
group left me as soon as their purpose of joining me was
served. But the first group always remained interactive and
involved with me.
These people
formed the real 'Peer Venture' group with me. We termed the
group as Cell. So I got two tools with which to avoid any
false commitments, but to share fully to search for new
innovations by venturing with them in their ventures.
The term
'Venture' has the following salient features:
-
Every
venture has some scientific principle, empirical knowledge
or result information content in it.
-
Every
venture always contains an element of calculated risk
fitting to certain real life situations only.
-
Every
venture helps to stimulate latent capabilities in the
individual till then not realized by him/her.
-
Every
venture when realized has the capacity to redefine and
better the existing form of real life situation in a
positive manner.
-
Every
venture has an inherent potential to go on budding by chain
reaction.
Lastly, the
functions of ventures is always in network of learning
exchanges. In the venture network, a new fraternity in
knowledge sharing and with a trust in knowledge utilization is
built up through method of experimentation by the
participants.
This new
venture dynamics is the real strength of the present ever
prosperous, successful, stable 'Scientific Grape Revolution'
in Maharashtra. We are coming to it in vivid details shortly.
My
supplements in the Kirloskar magazine had other interesting
outcomes. Many top level visionaries like Industrialist Dr. M.
G. Bhat, veteran top leading Gandhian leader and great
constructive worker Annasaheb Sahasrabuddhe, Shri Tatyasaheb
Kore (founder of Warana Sugar factory) came searching for me.
Dr. M. G. Bhat wrote to me in his own beautiful hand writing,
on a scented paper and sent in a rose colored envelope,
inquiring as if a close elderly friend, if I would like to
have some fair sum to propagate my ventures. From his newly
founded 'Bhat Family Research Foundation' soon I got my first
Ten Thousand Rupees, as participatory share in my ventures. He
was also sensitive enough to advice me never to take any grant
or donation or help, either through foreign funds or
government or help from sponsors because such grants can
tarnish my image at any time. He gave an analogy how a budding
beauty in the society tarnished with small blemish on her
character and then got exploited further. This advice later in
my life helped me to reject outright a really very large
donation from one German organization, working in India.
Though at first they came on their own for Integrated Rural
Development working with me on our lines, later they put
conditions. They sent me large money as first money to start,
before final approval from Germany. I had kept that money in
the bank unused. So I was able to refund it outright with due
interest paid. Annasaheb came searching for me. He used to
write to his acquaintances and others to share with me any
cash in any venture they would like to share. He was first to
enlighten me that the real problem before the nation is 'Waste
mind' and 'Waste land' and it appeared to him on seeing my
ventures that if there is no 'Waste mind' there will be no
'Waste land' and my ventures had a future potential to get
established and carry it all over India. Tatyasaheb Kore on
hearing about my results, was with me for one full night and
warned me that my results in grapes should not come in the
press or I would be the enemy of vested team of very big grape
growers in the state. Also, my article on grapes would be
screened by university professors as unscientific, since I had
worked on only one vine in the backyard and was making claims
of the potential in grape cultivation which according to their
own discipline was a very costly and expertise based
enterprise.
Prosperity with Equity
The
Scientific Grape Revolution
In my small backyard garden I had also tried grape plantation.
At that time, grape cuttings were burnt by the few large grape
growers. I however managed to get two cutting of grapes from a
Mali (gardener) through my cousin sister in Phaltan. These
cuttings naturally came in odd season at an odd time. But I
got success in establishing them in my garden. It was then
taken for granted that grape cultivation in good monsoon zone
climate is impossible. My garden had that climate.
I had very
little or practically no knowledge of grape cultivation. But,
I tended my vines with mother's care, keeping close watch,
reading and finding whatever information I could gather on
grapes. I kept day by day (one may say hour by hour)
observations and records and to my utter joy, in the very next
year of plantations, I got more than two hundred bunches of
basket size; in the backyard plantation. I had sent the first
bunch to Dr. J. P. Naik and he had come straight to see the
crop. I may also add, I was very lucky to present, the first
box of quality seedless grapes that we later produced at
Tasgaon to Shri Jayprakash Narayan who was at Sangli as a
guest in college function. He praised the (1968) grapes as
superb and remembered how at one time he had worked in the
grape gardens in U. S. A.
A train of
exuberant events followed with these record grape results. A
sugar factory at Bidri, about 12 km from our institute thought
of trying grape cultivation in the factory. So they invited
me. They also invited one expert grape grower Shri Manilal
Mehta, from Nipani, a place 20 km from the factory.
Shri Manilal
Mehta was a top class scholar in inter-science examination.
But because of Quit India movement he went underground and
later due to his father's death had to leave education and
take to his farms. Being ignorant in this new line in the
beginning he suffered great losses. He then made a dint of his
mind to make his farm laborers as his guides. Through them he
mastered the whole traditional wisdom in agriculture. He also
kept himself in touch with the latest advances in agriculture
all over the world. He established close contacts with the
experts in Agricultural Universities in his state. He had
tried grape cultivation, but after initial heavy failures he
had become the master in grape cultivation. He had therefore
vowed to give all his expertise in grapes to whosoever would
need it.
My meeting at
Bidri with him turned very exciting. He wanted to test my
knowledge in grape cultivation. So he put up a pointed
question about the cane length I would keep in October cutting
to get the assured bunches. I knew that in all the books on
grapes, the answer was near fifth or sixth bud on the cane.
But I had my own findings. I said, if the buds fulfill certain
conditions, one can get bunches in all the buds of the cane.
He became upset; but in the arguments that followed, he began
to feel some sense in my statements. So he insisted to see my
vine in the backyard and discuss there. On visiting my vines
he became more convinced. But before leaving, he said I
believe in science. If your argument is correct, I will test
it on random canes in newly planted grape gardens and report.
The gardens were planted under his guidance, by friends of his
relatives at Tasgaon.
Soon after
October cutting, he confirmed that my observation on randomly
selected canes and the buds on these canes fulfilling my
conditions were observed. One such cane had twelve bunches,
one from each bud. Later they sent the photo of these twelve
bunches on a single cane.
The grape
growers' learning this new grape cultivation, were enthused
with these results. They felt the power of close observation.
They also felt the power of scientific thinking and the
universality of the results if one knows these principles and
uses them. They wanted to have interactions with me.
This event
happened some thirty-five years ago. The state transport
system was not well establised. I had to change the bus two
times to reach Tasgaon, 140 kms away from my place. It took
one full day to reach Tasgaon. The grape growers asked the
Sangli Jilha Parishad C. E. O., Mr. V. V. Gokhale to have
meeting of farmers who would like to take their new venture in
grape cultivation.
The meeting
was arranged and cancelled on the last day. Myself and Manilal
Mehta, the two of us were to guide the meeting. But Manilal
had some unexpected serious problems. So he could not attend.
The Z. P. Agriculture Office raised doubt that if I would lead
the meeting and later someone asked the question in the
Assembly, 'How a meeting was conducted by one having no
regular grape cultivation', it would create problems. So that
meeting was cancelled. But the C. E. O. told me that the
Tasgaon grape growers group was anxious to meet me. So he
would take me to them after the office hours. On that evening
we reached Tasgaon late in the evening after dark. I had a
very interactive meeting for two hours with them. The
'Scientific Grape Revolution' got rooted with that first 'Peer
Venture Cell on Grape' at Tasgaon.
Prosperity with Equity
PRAYOG
PARIWAR - Demystification of Science
I was very restless, feeling hurt that as I was neither a
grape gardener nor a double graduate in Horticultural Science,
I was prevented to have the open meeting with them. I had at
one time pined for having a group 'Shastra Siddha Sadhanalay'
when I was young. Later I had open external self study courses
'Swashray' with individual commitment with the students who
joined me. Then after my Kirloskar Suppliment I had thought of
having unregistered free activity 'Swashray Vikas Mandal', an
activity promising development within the neighborhood
resources, This activity gave me two new ideas: 1. Venture and
2. With the People.
I was then
intently in a mood to visualize some new idea again. And as a
flash, the concept of 'Prayog Pariwar' dawned on me. It also
amalgamated it it, all my previous ideas too.
This new
concept immediately made me invincible. Now it was not
snobbery to make claims in various areas of knowledge without
having proper degree in those areas. I would simply say our
experiments are giving these results. You can test them,
improve them, reject them only on experimental grounds and we
are prepared for such sharings. I still vividly remember, it
was the day when my third son was born, my wife had gone to
rural hospital and I was with my two elder sons at home. As
usual, I was under the grape vine musing. The word 'Prayog
Pariwar' crystallized like a flash in my mind. I wrote to my
mother that day. Today, I have a third son but one new Idea
has taken birth today and I feel this child 'Prayog Pariwar'
would make its name with its growth in the coming time. The
term 'Prayog Pariwar' has thus made the entire domain of best
of post graduate and research level science free for all to
cherish and use on one's own.
Soon the
results I had got on my two vines, in the backyard got well
tested and established in the farmyards of our 'Peer Venture
Cells'. Their achievements in getting calculated assured
record yields, attracted nearby small farmers, on their own,
to come and interact with them. They too later became involved
and took to grape plantation on acre to acre basis. At first
the banks were not ready to give credit up to 500 Rupees per
acre of plantation, but the eye opening success of assured
crop, made them come on their own to extend credit up to Fifty
Thousand Rupees per acre on long-term basis. A new type of
fraternity between these farmers and experts from the
universities developed and at present the grape growers in
Maharashtra have established first order link with the experts
in grapes from most of the universities all over the world.
The experts are invited in the seminar and their problems in
the field are discussed with them to experiment and to find
answers fitting to the conditions in their farms.
I cannot
resist highlighting, how the word 'Pariwar' is the real spirit
of these ventures. A prominent national level political leader
and member of the parliament, late Mr. N. G. Gore from
Maharashtra, saw me when he came for some function in our
Rural Institute. He sat with me for three hours and took some
grape cuttings from me to join 'Peer Venture Grape Cells' that
we had begun to call as 'Peer Venture Grape Nets' as these
cells had begun to network among each other in a
non-institution free Pariwar method. Mr. Gore had no space
near his house, he had a pit made of bricks on the tiles in
front side of his house. The grape vines grew well in this pit
and reached the height of the terrace in the third story. He
used to have regular recording and interactions with me by
post card communication. He got more that 200 bunches in the
second year of the plantation. When our first Tasgaon Peer
Group had a car, as the first opening of the car, we had an
all India tour, to visit various Agricultural Universities. On
our way we were at his bungalow in Delhi where he was a M. P.
He was proud to show some grape vines growing there on the
cement floor in the backyard in brick pits. A retired deputy
collector had also become a Pariwar part who used to document
every news on grapes and pass his views on these. He used to
take one ton of assured grape from the vine reaching the
terrace gallery of his bungalow. He also used his scientific
insight in grapes to his kitchen garden coconut trees and used
to have 200 hundred fruits minimum from each of these trees.
Prosperity with Equity
Saving in
Fertilizers Techniracies
If nothing
but fruits are sold then the ash content of the fruits sold
can be studied. In fruits, ash is less than one percent of its
dry weight. That is 16 tons of grapes have 4 tons of dry
weight (75% water). So one percent means about 40 kg of ash
form. Accordingly we can have very little to give to the crop
from. This cost will come to about 400 Rupees at the most per
acre. We can have this ash content from garden weeds, thus
weeds become our friends. In this method all the cutting and
dead part of the vine are composted in the garden and not
thrown out. In books on grape cultivation, experts recommend
at least six thousand Rupees fertilizers per acre. Now about
20 thousand grape growers use these techniracies and are
creating one crore Rupees worth of savings. Such basic studies
in grapes help the growers to resolve their problems within
their own resources. The grape growers in Maharashtra never
depend on universities or government to resolve their field
problems.
The above
list will work as a sample on how success in grape cultivation
depends on studying, evolving and using such techniracies.
Grape growers in Peer Venture Net, learn more than ten
thousand such techniracies, while in Gypsy Venture Nets about
half of these. The other ordinary cultivators know still less
and they get less crop than record crop.
The success
of the scientific grape revolution (that is now having yearly
turn over above six hundred crore Rupees in Indian and foreign
market) is a collective ethos of grass root small farmers in
the state. At one time in our "Venture nets" we tried to
assess the worth of our various techniracies in terms of money
value terms. It turned out even on moderate calculation to be
no less than one crore Rupees worth, if the government,
universities or private research institutes had to build these
techniracies.
Many of the
venturers in the peer venture nets have their individual
libraries on grapes and related subjects worth fifty thousand
Rupees or even above that and that too in spite of the fact
that their knowledge in English is just at S. S. C standard.
or mostly below that. The choice of the books made was very
selective, mostly at graduate, postgraduate and research
level. Many research papers from various agricultural
universities in the world were searched, xeroxed, collected,
discussed and used to solve their own problems in the fields.
They would always say if they get one new clue to build new
technicracies, the entire worth of whole collection was
recovered. It was a genuine spirit of scientists that they
yearned, earned and lived. To study Bordo mixture from
original papers published anywhere in the world, they
established link at Delhi, who provided such services at very
high price of Rs 250 per Xerox copy. More than 100 such
original Bordo mixture papers were thus collected. They then
made deep study of these papers by many well planned trials
and evolved various new types of Bordo's than the usually
recommended Bordo. They had a new type of inverse Bordo
mixture, lime water Bordo mixture and developed one as black
Bordo mixture to be used for bud bursting by applying that
paste to only desired buds to have uniform crop.
I am putting
all of this here to emphasize that though I was lovingly
called by grape growers "Drakhsa Mouli", "Prayog Mauli" I had
never grown over more than few grape vine varieties and those
too in small number of two or three of each variety. My real
place in the scientific grape revolution was that of a Social
Scientist and no way of an horticulturist. I had some
successful ventures in grape cultivation studied and evolved
as my own individual search & then by accident only I had come
across the Tasgaon Group.
Prosperity with Equity
New
sociology of Science and Education
To take best
of latest science to the average common man, my concept '
venture' of 'peer venture cells' as well as 'gypsy venture
cells' and their network were by then well tested and very
clear to me. My first interactions and later close involvement
with the first "peer venture gape cell" at Tasgaon had
happened at a very ripe stage. They too accepted me as first
among equals and as friend, philosopher and guide. However my
knowledge in grapes at that time was very limited compared to
vast sea of scientific tested data on grapes then available.
But I had the new vision of demystification of science before
I met this new Tasgaon Peer group. It was due to my early
interactions with few peer groups in 'Swashray Vikas Mandal'.
But with this Tasgaon peer cell, I got the chance to explore
this process of demystification of science with the masses in
full depth and breadth & that too in the most complex
horticultural crop - grapes. Luckily in grapes as we have
seen, I had some of my own ventures studied and tested.
The Tasgaon
group tried to search for original study books on grapes and
learnt that only then, the Davis University of Agriculture in
California had brought forth of a 700 pages volume on grapes
under the title 'General Viticulture'. This book was not
available in India. But the group pursued and succeeded to get
two copies of this book. They kept one copy with me and the
other with them. Only one or two among them had knowledge of
English of lower high school certificate examination.
But in spite
of language difficulty the whole group would meet together
every evening, open the book and recognize some words and
terms often used in grape cultivation (As buds, canes, pruning
etc). They also learnt to read graphs and tables with the
titles of these. They would intently observe sketches and
pictures of different parts of vine (buds, canes, leaves,
roots) and compare them to their own garden vines. They got
well aquainted with the pictures of layout of the garden and
the tools used in the garden operations. This way they made
girdling scissors by guiding one ironsmith to do it. I used to
visit them very rarely because of transport inconveniences,
but when I would be there, I would stay for full 5 to 6 days
studying, discussing, arguing on their work and problems in
the fields or on some topics in the book. I very rarely had
free time to rest for more than 2 hrs a day in this long stay.
At other times, the correspondence by post was the only
contact link. Later for the benefit of all grape growers they
requested me to translate the big volume on Viticulture in
Marathi and the 'Maharashtra Draksha Bagayatdar Sangh' made
the book available to grape growers on no profit no loss
basis.
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