Page 42 - EducationWorld August 2022

Cover Story

goods and light industries model), ag- elite institutions were believed to be
riculture and rural development was weak and soft. Living in rural India
cruelly neglected (as it was in Stalin- required staying power, sacrifice, grit
ist Soviet Union), urban India is not and determination which they were
totally indifferent to immiseration of sure I didn’t have. Fifty years later, I
rural Bharat. There were some indi- am still here in Barefoot College,” says
viduals who stepped forward to aid Roy with evident satisfaction.
and enable the people of other India. Half a century later, Roy who mar-
Shortly after he graduated from ried social activist and trade unions
St. Stephen’s with a Masters degree champion Aruna Jayaram in 1970
in English, Sanjit (Bunker) Roy, a (no children), has cause to be proud
three-times national squash racquets of the track record of the alternative
champion and son of an Indian Rail- education and rural regeneration in-
ways engineer and mother, a former stitution designed and painstakingly
trade commissioner to the Soviet nurtured by him. Over the past 50
Union, was all set for a career in the years, SWRC/Barefoot College has
elite Indian Administrative Service educated 90,000 children who assist
(IAS). However, deeply moved by their parents in farming and livestock
graphic news reports of hunger and JS magazine cover 1972 rearing and attend BC’s 250 night
starvation deaths in rural Bihar which schools in ten states. Moreover, to in-
experienced an unprecedented famine ture written by Seetha Crishna which culcate the habit of school attendance,
in 1966-67, the young postgrad volun- included photographs shot by then the college has provided early child-
teered to dig wells “as an ordinary la- budding photographer Raghu Rai, hood education and supplementary
bourer” in Rajasthan’s water-stressed detailing the young idealist’s dreams nutrition to over 300,000 children in
Ajmer district. and aspiration to establish a commu- its preschools. Other BC initiatives in-
T HIS VOLUNTEER STINT lage attracted widespread attention, to 25,000 rural artisans in 48 villages,
nity skilling college in a backward vil-
clude marketing and logistics support
because of Roy’s elite education and
transformed into a five-
and the college’s unique globally ac-
year period. “My real
education started when I Delhi establishment credentials. His claimed Solar Mamas programme un-
grandfather was director-general of
der which 1,708 illiterate and semi-lit-
witnessed water diviners, traditional the Geneva-based Food and Agricul- erate women from 96 countries have
bonesetters, midwives and carpen- ture Organisation and communist been trained to become barefoot so-
ters at work in rural Rajasthan. They uncle Indrajit Gupta served a short- lar engineers. After returning to their
planted the seed of Barefoot College stint as Union home minister. The J S native villages, they have electrified
in my mind. At that time it wasn’t the cover story prompted the government 75,000 rural homesteads around the
teachings of Gandhi or Marx but ex- of Rajasthan to award Social Work & world (see box p.50).
posure to ordinary people with tradi- Research Centre (SWRC) registered “Yet perhaps BC’s greatest accom-
tional knowledge, grit, determination on February 16, 1972 under the Societ- plishment is that we have devised an
and amazing capability to survive with ies Act, 1860, a dilapidated warehouse integrated village development model
dignity and self-respect without any in Tilonia village at the nominal rent which reduces dependence on urban
official support, who inspired promo- of Re.1 per year. professionals by demonstrating that it
tion of the college. These ideas were “The bureaucrats who approved is possible for poor and semi-literate
reinforced with extensive study and the lease were convinced that with rural citizens to serve their communi-
teachings of Mahatma Gandhi who my background, I wouldn’t last long ties as barefoot solar and water en-
believed that prosperity of India’s in the village because graduates of gineers, architects, teachers, health
600,000 villages was the prerequisite workers, communicators and even
of national development,” recalls Roy. Deeply moved by reports computer programmers,” says Roy.
While toiling and learning in des- Undoubtedly, over the past half
ert conditions in rural Rajasthan, Roy of hunger and starvation century since Roy and his rural com-
got a lucky break when his story came deaths in rural India, the rades-in-arms willingly adopted the
to the notice of Desmond Doig, editor descriptive nomenclature of Barefoot
of the Calcutta-based J unior S tates - young St. Stephen's postgrad College because “millions of under-
man, a magazine promoted by The volunteered to dig wells in privileged citizens of India who pass
S tatesman, then the city of joy’s un- water-stressed Rajasthan on traditional knowledge, skills and
disputed #1 daily. A novel cover fea- wisdom of their forefathers sit on

42 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2022