Invisible people keep a society on course. There is mostly no heroism involved. It could be just a day spent sincerely at work or an assignment creatively handled that makes all the difference. But so obsessed are we with those who may be extraordinarily talented, influential or menacingly well networked that we tend to forget the significance of smaller contributions and how they add up. An industrialist who puts a miniscule part of his wealth into philanthropy gets all the media attention he wants. But for the headmaster who turns a government school around and earns very little by way of salary, no one seems to have any time. We launched Civil Society as a monthly magazine seven years ago to tell the stories of folks who do their bit and bring change without a fuss. These are people who work for India. They do things for the sake of doing them. And in their individual achievements, however circumscribed, there lie some of the solutions to our bigger problems. These are people from all walks of life. They could be doctors, teachers, lawyers, activists, entrepreneurs, managers, farmers, scientists, accountants. You will find them all in our magazine. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
People at Rampurabas, in Rajasthan's Tonk district, would mostly stay clear of the government's Upper Primary School in their village. A few would send their children to private schools. But by and large there was little interest in education. Tonk district, remember, is infamous for having the highest number of child marriages in India. When Rajkumar Sharma joined the Rampurbas school as a teacher in 2007, he could immediately see that the school had no standing in the community. The building itself lay unkempt, its grounds swallowed up by some influential families. There was poor enrolment and a low retention rate. Some of the children on the rolls had lost their parents and were working as child labourers. These children were not coming to school. The school was also devoid of any greenery, giving it a barren and unwelcome look. Apart from these problems, a big issue was encroachment on the school's land by powerful families belonging to different castes in the village. It was an issue which no one was ready to take up as the chances of being beaten black and blue were very real. Rajkumar Sharma had begun his career in 1998 as a government teacher in the Upper Primary School in Ganwar, also in Tonk district. Ganwar serves as a kind of hub for a cluster of schools which includes the one at Rampurabas. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
Mathematics is a subject which drives many children to tears. But students of the Government Girls' Middle School at Veerampatnam, near Puducherry, don't have to live with such stress. Their headmaster, K Loganathan, has been an inspired maths teacher for 20 years and knows how to make the subject easy and interesting. In his long innings, Loganathan's students have been known to mostly clear their maths papers. It is quite an achievement because government school children come from poor homes where there is no money for tuition classes and special attention. The secret of his success is his ability to bring maths alive. Take the example of Angle Tangle which he created as an interactive software for teaching geometry through body language. Your arms can form a right angle or fold into an acute angle. You can watch nature too. It is full of geometrical shapes and sizes. So are objects we come across every day. Loganathan, 57, says he always wanted to be a teacher. He graduated in mathematics and did his post graduation in English and psychology. He now has 36 years of experience and never has he regretted his decision to become a government school teacher. The village of Veerampatnam is around 7 km from Puducherry. Loganathan was transferred here about a year ago. He arrived with an impressive track record as headmaster of Government Middle School, Nallavadu, another village close to the sea. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
WHEN V Ganesan joined his new post as head teacher of the BR Ambedkar Government Middle School at Pichaveranpet, in Pudducherry, he found the school in an utter mess. Every evening a gang of drunkards congregated in the school to make merry. They came from the surrounding slum. The school is located right in the midst of the 3,000 odd people living in the slum. Head teacher after head teacher had given up in despair, saying it was impossible to run an efficient school with such neighbours. Slum dwellers didn’t give a damn about the school or of giving their children an education. But in just one year, Ganesan, 59, transformed the school. With over 30 years experience as a teacher behind him, he understood intuitively what needed to be done. He hugely improved the quality of learning and changed the relationship of the community with the school into one of mutual respect. “Ganesan Sir has revolutionized the school,” says Krishnamurthy, a mason whose son studies in Class 5. “We never ever had parent-teacher meetings. Now these are mandatory.” Ganesan found that money was not an issue. Funds from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for the previous two years were lying unused and were on the verge of being returned. He added the current year’s grant to this accumulated fund and he found he had almost Rs 65,000 to spend on critical school requirements. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
NIKHIL Dey has done more to fight for the rights of people than he will ever allow the world to find out. Always far from the spotlight, he has worked quietly to shape legislation, lobby governments and politicians and build grassroots campaigns. Born in 1963 in the city of Bangalore, Nikhil was educated in India and the US. Before the formal completion of his graduate course at the George Mason University, he left to ‘follow his bliss’ and came to India. His initial work was with the Kheduth Mazdoor Chetna Sangathan in Madhya Pradesh. He then joined Aruna Roy and Shankar Singh in 1987 to go to a village called Devdungri in Rajsamand district, Rajasthan. Devdungri was soon to become the head office of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a peasants-workers-women organisation founded by the trio in 1990. Starting with a struggle for community land and payment of minimum
wages, the organisation went on to play a significant role in
the demand, formulation and implementation of both the Right to
Information Act (RTI) and the National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act (NREGA). The MKSS also pioneered the concept and practice of
social audits and public hearings, which are now adopted by so many Nikhil has also been engaged with other enduring campaigns like those of the Right to Food, Right to Work, Election Watch and a range of human rights issues. He has been working with the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), and has recently been elected its Convener. He has written extensively on RTI and other related matters along with Aruna Roy and other members of the Sangathan. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
When Joya Mitra is not at her home in Asansol in West Bengal, you would probably find her at a village in the Birbhum district where she helps run a school for tribal children. The school is called Majorah or “Fun House” – a name given by the children themselves. Two years ago, the school began as a day care centre. It is not much more than that even today though there are six teachers with an assistant to help cook breakfast and a mid-day meal. Some 50 children between the ages of three and 12 from three neighbouring villages spend the day at the school while their parents work in local stone quarries. The school is one of the rare bright spots in the grim conditions that prevail in West Bengal's tribal belt. Four decades of unregulated quarrying have wrecked the ecology of tribal villages. Trees have been felled and water sources have been ravaged. Shady businessmen have coerced tribal families into giving up their lands. Stone from the quarries has had a growing market in the construction business. The lack of governance has allowed the mining businesses to get away with plunder. These are the harsh realities that have forced people to turn to the Naxalites now leading an insurrection across a big chunk of Indian territory – mostly forested areas where indigenous people with their own culture and identities have felt pushed to the edge. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
JAVED Tak’s struggle after a bullet hit his spine and crippled him has changed the lives of the disabled community in Jammu and Kashmir. Though he himself cannot walk, his strenuous efforts have helped people with special abilities lead an independent life. Javed, 36, is bound to a wheelchair. He is a victim of the armed conflict in Kashmir. On 21 March, 1996, unidentified gunmen barged into his uncle’s home at Bijbehara town in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district with the intention of kidnapping his cousin who was then associated with the National Conference, the political party currently in power. Family members tried to prevent the gunmen from firing indiscriminately. But their screams went unheeded and they failed to silence those ruthless guns. Javed, who had gone to his uncle’s home to enquire about their well being, got caught in the firing. He was hit by a bullet which damaged his spinal cord, liver, kidney, pancreas, spleen and intestines. He survived after undergoing multiple surgeries in which his right kidney, spleen, part of his liver and intestines were removed. Later, Javed underwent surgery on his spine and finally won the battle for life. Javed is from a low-income family. He was the only ray of hope for his parents. They expected him to become a doctor and take the family out of penury. “The idea did not displease me,” he recollects. “I was very keen to help others at that age. I was a regular blood donor. During my college days I took part in anti-smoking campaigns, save environment campaigns, the integrated Pulse Polio immunisation programme and many more.” ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
WHILE Delhi struggles to look like a futuristic city, Smita Vats, 44, wants young people to look at the past. Founder of Itihaas, a non-profit education society, Vats conducts study tours and walk programmes to connect Delhi’s students to their history. Itihaas’ study tours to the city’s many historic spots like Humanyun’s Tomb, Red Fort and the Walled City have pioneered heritage education in the country. These walks weave stories, tradition and culture to enable school students connect with what Vats calls their “tangible and intangible inheritance.” “We go beyond dates and architecture. It isn’t just about the colour of the marble in Jama Masjid. Our walks take students to the imam’s home or the artisan’s workshop,” explains Smita. “Schools often stop at showing students just a monument. There is no first person attachment in the way history is taught. We weave relationships, stories and anecdotes into our modules. Urban children from nuclear families don’t have elders who were like living libraries in their home anymore,” she says. “They need to recognise the richness and diversity of our legacy." Meeting young people during her travels across India as a filmmaker, she says, showed her just how imminent this danger was. “I’d find young people so alienated from their environment. Many knew more about the Berlin Wall or the Thames in London than Turkman Gate or Ghanta Ghar in Chandni Chowk,” recalls Smita, who did her Masters in Mass Communication from Jamia Milia Islamia University in 1989 after graduating in Psychology from Delhi University. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
IN 1982, the Doodhatoli Lok Vikas Sansthan was formed to restore the ecology of villages in the Pauri Garhwal district of the western Himalayas. It was preceded in 1980 by an environment camp for which a
young man by the name of Sachidanand Bharati sought support from He received a money order for the princely sum of Rs 1,000. It proved to be enough to bring people from neighbouring villages together to discuss the state of their forests. From that camp was born an effort that now involves 136 villages. Over the years, the Doodhatoli Lok Vikas Sansthan has revived an ancient Himalaya water conservation system called the khal to put moisture back into the soil, restore the water table and revive natural forests. These are all priorities because logging leases have wreaked havoc with nature’s delicate balance. With deforestation have come landslides and water shortages. The government’s choice of pine over local species has made the forests into tinderboxes. But the process chosen by the Doodhatoli Lok Vikas Sansthan has been an intentionally slow one. There has been no foreign funding or government support. There has been no great concern over scaling up. For Sachidanand, a college teacher by profession, the willing involvement of local people has been more important. Just like the Rs 1,000 that came in for the environment camp, small local resources have been enough to keep the movement going. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
ZAKIA Soman helped to start the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan in January 2007 to empower Muslim women fight communal forces as well as fundamentalist and patriarchal elements within their own community. Three years later membership has risen to 22,000 in 15 states. And women from different religions are joining a union meant for Muslim women. Zakia is an eyewitness and a victim of the Gujarat carnage of 2002. She and her family had to flee to save their lives. It is an experience which turned her from a genteel working woman to an ardent activist for women’s rights. Even before the Gujarat riots her grandmother’s house had been ravaged. Her parents’ house was burnt and attacked in the frenzied build-up to LK Advani’s rath yatra in 1990, before the Babri Masjid demolition in December 1992. But young Zakia and her family placed their faith in the pluralist, secular synthesis of Gujarat, the tradition of Gandhi and the freedom struggle, and the solidarity of their predominantly Hindu neighbourhood in the Azad Society in Ahmedabad. And Zakia was not even remotely involved in activism or civil society issues. Zakia has an MA and M Phil in English Literature. Her mother was a respected high school teacher and her father, a principal in a prominent local college in Ahmedabad. Her upbringing and surroundings were typically modern, liberal, secular, without the remotest trace of orthodoxy. Zakia held on to this liberal stream, hoping that fanaticism was nothing but an accidental aberration. But it all changed after the State-sponsored Gujarat riots of 2002. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
THERE are a few Kashmiri women who have achieved international recognition. Parveena Ahangar, 50, is one of them. Married at 12, without any formal education, Parveena has mobilised women who even after decades of the conflict in Kashmir are yet to know where their missing near and dear ones are. The night of 18 August, 1990, was a turning point in Parveena’s life. On that fateful night her son, Javed Ahmad Ahangar, then a 17-year-old student, was picked up allegedly by the Army who mistook him for a militant during a midnight raid on his uncle’s house at Bodhipora in the Batmaloo area of Srinagar City. “Another neighbour yelled and asked people to assemble. I was informed about my son’s arrest the next day after morning prayers. I confirmed his arrest since I saw his clothes in the house from where he was taken along with his wallet with some money and his identity card,” recollects Parveena. She started an agonising search for her son. She informed the local police station about his arrest and staged a sit-in on the road for a full day. She ran from pillar to post but her heartbreaking efforts proved futile. After a six- month search for her son, she finally approached the court which ordered an inquiry into her missing son’s case. Parveena approached almost all the powerful politicians in the State but in vain. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
FILMMAKERS usually make movies for an audience. Only the truly gifted make an audience for their films. Onir, 41, belongs to the latter group. His fiercely independent streak as a cinematic chronicler of contemporary urban reality sets the Bhutan-born filmmaker well apart from the Mumbai showbiz crowd. He asks: “Are we artists? Or are we just workers who are paid to create films for the mass palate, and not to guide and make better audiences?” Onir has answered that question emphatically with his steadfast adherence to his avowed creative credo. At this juncture of his career, his fame rests primarily on My Brother Nikhil, his 2005 debut film that brought the issue of homosexuality and AIDS into mainstream Hindi cinema for the first time. He has since made two more features – Bas Ek Pal and Sorry Bhai, both content-oriented dramas dealing with the grey shades of human relationships. Runaway box-office success may have eluded Onir so far, but he has continued to push in new directions, helped in no small measure by actor-producer Sanjay Suri. The latter not only plays pivotal on-screen roles in Onir’s films but also serves as his rock-solid production collaborator. It is the extraordinary gumption and perseverance of the duo that has brought India’s first citizen-funded film project to fruition. The I Am series has been funded partly by their production company, Anticlock Films, and partly by more than 400 individual film lovers and NGOs that have made contributions ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 15 lakh through a social networking site. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ About Us | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | ©2007 Civil Society....................................... .Webmaster Vishwanathan ( vishu4@rediffmail.com ) |
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