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“Ecological Agriculture, Empowerment of Women & Poor farmers for sustainable life “
Report of the activities of Pipal Tree/ Fire Flies from October 2002 to March 2003
Funded by the Dharma Gaia TrustPipal tree initiated a project on ecological agriculture, empowerment of women & poor farmers at Uthari village on the Bangalore Kanakapura Road in the Kagalipura panchayat about 35 kms from the city. This village is next to Fireflies ashram. The meaningful participation of the communities is vital in the empowering process. In order to promote viable, sustainable communities, Pipal Tree has tried to facilitate effective coordinated action on social and economic justice issues.
Objectives of the Project
a. Forming women’s groups for self –reliance through small savings, income generation programmes and socio, economic and political empowerment.
a. Watershed management practices
b. Promoting integrated organic and traditional knowledge based agriculture and health practices.
c. Curtailing soil erosion and improving soil fertility
d. Protecting catchments areas, improving infrastructure of tanks and tank desiltation
e. Undertaking community forestry.
f. Sensitisation of urban youth to problems of villages and arranging for interaction and participation in a few activities.
g. To propel village youth and women for leadership and to build self sustaining “ self Help Groups”Programs & activities
1. Empowerment of Women:
Strengthening the Self Help Groups of women:
a) 3 Trainings were organized on capacity building, leadership, and book keeping & social awareness for 45 women representatives of these groups in November and December 2002.
b) Training on Herbal Soap making was held at Fireflies by an expert from Kerala on January 7th for 18 women from SHGs (self help groups) using extracts of herbal leaves like ’Tulasi’ and ‘Neem’. The women need practice to reach the right quality. However the women are using the soap in their homes.
c) Educational sessions were conducted for women and adolescent girls on preventive health care, reproductive & sexual health and awareness on HIV/AIDS and need for compassionate community action in January, February & March 2003. Doctors and paramedical personnel from hospitals of Bangalore were invited for the sessions.
d) An Eye camp was organized at Uttari village with the help of Mahavir Jain, Eye Hospital, Bangalore. 28 elderly persons were taken to the hospital and operated for Cataract free of cost. SHG women and youth were actively involved in organising the camp..
e) Vermi compost and income generation: 15 women of SHGs have been trained in vermicomposting . As a support system and encouragement a plot was provided to the women for the construction of compost pit. And as motivation Fireflies ashram has initiated a ”Buy Back” scheme in order to help with the marketing. Fireflies, in turn, sells the compost to those who visit the ashram.The women have availed the loan for the construction of the compost-container and built 2 containers for vermicomposting in the month of November 2002. Women monitor the process regularly. In the initial stage the earth worms which were introduced in the containers could not survive due to unfavourable conditions. The women’s group was disappointed but anyway continued to rebuild the earthworm population. Their efforts did not fail. From January 2003, 265kgs of vermicompost was produced and sold to Fireflies at Rs.5per Kg. They have also sold to the outsiders at the rate of Rs. 8 per kg. The income of Rs. 1875 was earned out of this and the group was able to repay their loan amount. With greater experience the women hope to sell a few thousand kilos of the compost in the next 12months.
II. Social and environmental issues|:
1. Land Rights to Dalit (untouchable) and tribal women- landless labourers
Negotiations for allotment of residential of plots is under way for 20 dalit & tribal women-agricultural labourers. These women have been living in small thatched huts on the private land outside the village “Dinnepalya” for almost 2 generations. Prior to intervention of `Fireflies team’ the local upper caste leaders who would not tolerate any demand for land rights oppressed the women. After organising the women into groups and with gradual social and economic security the issue of getting some land to build their huts was raised. But the strategy was not to have an outright confrontation with the upper caste leaders but to skilfully bypass them and approach the local political and government leaders who are not totally weighed down with local vested interests. The need to recognize the dignity of these women through dialogues has led to common understanding and fruitful results.2. The peoples struggle against encroachment of community water tank in the village.
“Hanumanthayyana Kere”, a freshwater tank, (3 acres) was encroached by an outsider who bought the adjacent cultivable land in the village with the support of a few local unscrupulous villagers and govt officials. He had also filled the tank with earth mud. For this new landowner the lake was mere land that he could cover and sell later after having doctored the records.
The women SHG members and active youth had challenged the powerful individuals against this encroachment. After confronting and appealing to the elected representatives and government officials for almost one and half years the village community finally succeeded to get the local MLA (member of the legislative assembly) to investigate and break the granite-pillar-fence which the new landowner had erected around the tank. The MLA passed an order that the ashram would be the guardian of the lakes in the village on behalf of the whole village.
The efforts to restore the lake have begun. A part of the late that was covered has been restored. We hope to continue this restoration in the next few months. This is a victory for Mother Earth and for the poor people who need water to graze their cattle , wash their clothes etc.III. Eco Agriculture and water
1. Focus on farm ponds
There has been acute water shortage for the past two years because of the failure of monsoon rains and also over exploitation of ground water. The farmers ,especially the small and marginal ones, have been affected as they totally depend on rain water for farming.
During February and March 2003 several discussions were held between agricultural and water experts and the farmers in the villages regarding the need for harvesting the rain water in the coming monsoons. The focus was on the reviving rain water harvesting through farm ponds.. Though this used to be a traditional rainwater harvesting practice it has been neglected by most of the farmers. Five farmers have decided to build ponds measuring 30ft X 30ft before the next monsoon.2. Desilting of Tank:
The tank “Reddikere” was partially disilted by the village community with the support of government in 2001. Pipal Tree put in a lot of effort to motivate people to lobby with the government to get the necessary funds. Over a metre of earth was removed from about two acres of the lake and carried over to the fields of the farmers as compost. This earth is rich in bio-mas as it is the topsoil washed into the tank. Despite the poor rains the silt served as rich manure for the ragi crops.
The women & youth along with Pipal Tree team have taken up the responsibility of restoring the rest of the tank.
When the lake holds more water as a result of de-silting then water will percolate downwards and there will be more water in the wells. The water will also go through the cracks in the rocks of the tank bed and restore the deep aquifers.
We hope that slowly we can restore all the lakes in the village.3.Tree cemeteries
The traditional practice of planting saplings on the tomb of the dead used to be common among the tribal people. By planting they believed in the continuity of the positive energy of the loved ones in the trees and sharing this energy with all living beings. This has been one of the ways of connecting oneself with the dead ones and with nature. In modern times the people have neglected this traditional practice of conservation of ecosystems and started using brick and stone for the tombs. (In our village the local people bury and not cremate)
This traditional wisdom has been revived and the women enthusiastically started planting fruit saplings on the tombs. These trees will never be cut as they are sacred.4. Roof top rain water harvesting on the rural school building.
The community and the local govt has been motivated to participate & contribute to the urgent need of the hour i.e harvesting rainwater, as every drop of water is precious. Rainwater harvesting in the rural school building is being carried out and will be completed before May 2003. The students and the youth are involved in promoting this model approach. Pipal Tree brought in a rain water harvesting expert to initiate this process.IV. Bhoomi Jatre:- “Festival of Earth MusicAn all night festival of Earth Music was held in Fireflies on 15th February 2003 to coincide with the peace marches all over the world. Music groups both in English & Kannada (our regional language) and dancers performed. There was a talk by Siddhartha on earth spirituality and peace at the beginning of the festival. More than 800 people from Bangalore city had joined the festival. It was a pleasant exposure to multi cultural dimensions for SHG and local women. They also participated in the festival by arranging `Food stalls’ and selling different types of tasty traditional foods. Vermi compost was also sold. At six in the morning about two hundred people were left. We ended with a meditation for half an hour.Money received
The first instalment received was Rupees 119,327.
Expenses
Under 1a) of report (womens training) 18,000
Under (1b) of report “ 6,000
Under (1c) of report “ 9,000
Under (1d) of report eye camp 17,000
Protection of lake 12,000
Salaries for 6 months 36,000
Travel 18,000
Telephone 4000
Total 120,000 Rupees
The following project was also supported by the Dharma Gaia Trust in 11/2003
Re-focusing the Proposal on Culture, Citizenship and World Parliament
It is clear that the Global and the Local are two sides of the same coin. At the same time Global citizenship means that the individual is able to rise above the narrow confines of caste, ethnicity, religion, language, region and nation to act in the interest of the global community. This does not mean that these categories are not important and do not need to be considered; rather it means that there are occasions when we must transcend everything else in the interest of the common good of the global community. How do we do this while respecting the integrity of the specific cultures ? For example, if India and Pakistan cannot be trusted with a nuclear bomb, then the particular interests of these countries must be transcended. Maybe, this cannot be done without looking at the issue of global disarmament as a whole. Likewise if the problems of the Himalayan eco-system have to be considered then we need to look beyond the individual interests of the countries concerned: Nepal, China, India and Bangladesh. All these countries have to come together and jointly resolve the problems.
Likewise citizenship at the local level means that we need to look at the self-sufficiency of the local community. Gandhi’s notion of village republics implies that self-sufficiency begins at the local level. What cannot be produced locally can then be produced nationally or inter-nationally. But first there must be the local effort. In today’s world the process has been reversed and the local is left powerless because it is unable to produce most of its needs. In many cases even the national is left powerless and the production of basic needs is done outside the country concerned. What can citizenship mean if a person’s basic needs are completely beyond his power to produce and control!
From our experience in South Asia the practice of citizenship will remain weak until we also tackle issues related to culture and religion. Increasingly, in South Asia today, peoples’ identity is being seen in exclusively cultural terms rather in terms of citizenship. The most important identity is becoming religious. This has dangerous consequences as we find that fundamentalism is on the rise instead of the idea of citizenship. Part of the reason for this situation is that the minority of well meaning secular intellectuals have abandoned the arena of religion. For Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime-minister of India, religion was a hindrance to ‘the tendency of change and progress inherent inhuman society.’ He believed that religion would weaken and lose its hold when economic conditions improved. Actually, the opposite has happened in South Asia and many other parts of the world.
Fifty years after independence South Asia is caught in serious religious conflict, whether it is between India and Pakistan, between Hindus and Muslims, Christians and Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus etc. It looks like Emile Durkheim’s prediction is turning out to be true. Durkheim said in 1915: ‘Religion seems destined to transform itself than disappear.’
The secular minority hoped it could shape the rest of society according to secular ideals. But it now realises it has failed. Unfortunately only the fundamentalists and the communalists have seen the importance of religion for their narrow understanding of political action. The negative aspects of religion have found political expression but the good that religion enshrines has not been allowed to flower. Mahatma Gandhi, who stood for freedom and compassion, always combined the secular and the religious. For him all democratic and transformative activity was governed by what he consider to be his religion.It is now time to bring the secular and the cultural/ religious discourse together so that both may inform and enrich each other. The secular understanding of society has contributed much by insisting on the separation of religion and the state. It has also expanded the realm of human freedom. Therefore, we believe that the idea of citizenship must now be discussed in its actual context bringing the cultural and the secular into dialogue.
In this connection our programme hopes to squarely face the cultural dilemmas of citizenship rather than to avoid them like an ostrich.
We want to start the process at the panchayat level, the most basic unit of self-governance. From there we hope to develop to national and international levels.
In concrete terms this means discussions on governance, democracy and citizenship at the local level, to begin with. It also means that all the local cultural and religious symbols are “dialogued with’ to see how to enshrine the idea of citizenship, democracy and a potential World Parliament. Obviously, this will have to done in a way that respects the diversity of cultures. Its not an easy task, but it must still be attaempted.
Let me try and explain with a recent experience of our local Fireflies process:
In eleven villages around Fireflies (representing about 10,000 people) we initiated a process to strengthen local self-governance. It was not easy since the local ‘panchayat’ system was hi-jacked by some of the more powerful upper-caste landlords, who always managed to get elected as office-bearers. They never held village meetings to decide how the budget was to be used. We tried to start a ‘conscientising’ process but people felt both cynical and powerless, although they wished that things would change.
One dramatic example must be narrated. Eighteen months ago a land-developer ( or a land shark !) from the city bought a few acres of land next to Fireflies. He illegally also fenced one of the village lakes and covered it with earth using a bull-dozer. There are four small lakes in the village and he had covered one of them. This was a crime, since the village is seriously short of water for agriculture, and for the cattle and sheep. But the local people were too scared to protest. The panchayat was also paralysed. He had also managed to bribe some of the panchayat officials. We tried to initiate a discussion on the responsibilities of citizenship and local self-governance. Many of the people realised how serious an issue it was, but they were not motivated to act.
About a year ago we helped start a discussion on the importance of songs within the women’s self-help groups in the villages around. These groups were concerned with violence against women, alcoholism among the men, learning new skills and exploring small income generating activities. As a result of the discussion the women expressed a desire to also sing songs in their meetings. They started to learn and sing several songs, which included old Vedic songs and new eco-social songs. They combined the spiritual songs with new songs dealing with ecological and social issues. There were ongoing discussions on the meanings that the songs threw up.
In a few months this song movement became a powerful force. The women not only sang the songs but discussed the values behind them. As a result of this song movement they developed the courage to solve difficult social issues. One important problem that they chose to resolve was the case of a land-shark fencing off the village lake and filling it up with earth. About twenty women went and met the local member of parliament (MP) who belongs to the BJP party (The Hindu nationalist party). They explained the problem to him and asked him to visit the village, which he did a few days later. When he came the women took him to the earth-filled lake and pointed out how the village officials had also colluded with the land shark. The MP immediately ordered to see the village maps and when he saw that the lake had indeed been fenced in and filled-up, he asked the women to go to their homes and bring crow bars and demolish the fence poles. The women did exactly this. The MP then asked the women’s organisation to be responsible for the village lakes. He promised financial help to restore the lakes.
When we later asked the women’s groups how they had managed to do such a courageous act, despite serious opposition, they said that the sacred songs had inspired them to act.
Let me mention another example, the festival of the elephant headed God, Ganesha, perhaps the best loved and most popular Indian God. He is half elephant (the top half)and half human (the lower half). We had a week long celebration. There were discussions in the villages on the significance of Ganesha festival. If Ganesha is the God of knowledge, what is the kind of knowledge we wish to have? Is pluralism and openness a part of it?
If Ganesha is the remover of obstacles what are the obstacles in the villages and in our society as a whole? What is our own responsibility as citizens to overcome these social obstacles? What is the role of the Panchayat? Should we start thinking of a World Parliament, even if the idea is new to us?
If Ganesha is half-nature, half-human..he represents the bond between the natural world and the human world. What are we doing to preserve our environment?
We also had an unpainted 6 foot Ganesha at Fireflies. All the Ganeshas are today painted with toxic paints, full of lead. On the 9th day Ganesha is immersed in a lake or river, along with the toxic paint!
The three villages around fireflies promised to have unpainted Ganeshas next year.
We put our own Ganesha into a bullock cart. Ananda sat on the cart. The rest of us walked behind. We walked through three villages. It took several hours as we had to stop at every home for them to receive the blessngs of the God. Finally at about 10.30 at night we immersed him in the village lake in front of Fireflies which had enough water, thanks to good rains.
I think this kind of pluralistic, participatory re-interpretation and hermeneutics is important to develop citizenship and integrate culture in the World Parliament process. In all this we will pay great respect to the integrity of local cultures, while accepting that there will be points of tension as we go along.
The goals of this process are:
1. Start a sensitive process of cultural re-appropriation to integrate the cultural and religious convictions of people to strengthen citizenship, pluralism, local democracy and the vision of a World Parliament.
2. Re-interpret festivals and religious symbols with the people, encourage citizenship oriented theological production with religious thinkers to construct the World Parliament vision.