SAMAJIK YAYAVAR

I believe, we need to think about the contents and the goal of the education at each level, primary to higher to research education. We need to redesign our universities, their purpose and the content of the education. At every level, the education must lead towards actual sustainability, peace and the harmony. Without de-conditioning us by redefining money, market, economy, family & social values and other; we can never move towards the sustainability, peace and harmony.

The goal of this project shares the idea and the ambition. Please share your thoughts, expertise and experiences. I request you; please read the full article with photos, photo albums and videos. If you feel, you should contribute your expertise, knowledge, skills, experiences, ideas, thoughts, research, vision to this proposed residential school, please let me know. In future, if needed we will try to pay for your national/international travel from your place to the school.

Why a long article?

This article is asking your support on a project for education, a school with the vision and the values towards a harmonious and sustainable society. You should know about us, our strength, our weakness, our commitments, our vision, our understanding, our efforts, our works, our mass-strength and other. This article is written with honesty and transparency.  

If you are interested in the idea, you would like to know more about us. Please read the detailed article below with our works for the masses on the ground, photos, photo albums, videos and my experiments/works on education. 

In the detailed article, I am adding a chapter with the dolorous-souvenirs of my life. I term these souvenirs as "My Universities". After reading that chapter, you could get a bit idea about me. I am opening myself for a transparent, sincere, thoughtful and trusted companionship with you for the efforts towards a sustainable and harmonious society, a better society for everyone. English is not my first language; please forgive me for the errors. Thank you, with love, in solidarity.

The Saga of Educational Institutes in Khagaria, Bihar

The Solidarity

I founded a monthly Hindi journal “Nirman Samvad” around twelve years ago jointly with one of my social friends, this friend introduced me with Dr Swami Vivekanand Yadav, MD, of Khagaria, Bihar. Dr Swami Vivekanand Yadav stayed in my Delhi residence for a few days, sharing his old dream of establishing education institutes in Khagaria. I told him establishing education institutes is a straightforward task, get some funds from anywhere, construct the buildings, apply for the recognition with the government apex bodies, start taking intakes of students; that’s it all done.

I suggested him that the governments get money from the common people, we could also get support from the common people. It is tough but definitely will work. I shared my ideas with him on the social ownership and local governance. We started to work together for establishing educational institutes as the hospital, medical college, nursing training college, teachers training college, paramedical college, livelihood training college and other.

My Universities

Terrible childhood

I always saw fights between my parents. If my father was at home, there was a fight each moment. I could not remember a moment when my father talked with me in a friendly environment as father and son. I could not remember sitting on the lap of my father although my father used to play with other kids in front of me. I do not remember having food with my father in my childhood and teenage. I do not remember any celebration even a small scale in my home. I do not remember going parks or playgrounds with my parents as a family.

I have been enduring the frustration, depression, irritation, and reactions of my mother since my childhood. I have been used a dustbin by my parents to throw their reactions, irritations, frustrations, depressions and negativities, probably this is why they do not feel emotions for me even now. They do not even feel emotions for my son also, born one year ago, seems I never existed for them.

When I was about twelve years old, the conflicts between my parents were very intense also were at the peak. My mother had started to threat my father for divorce although she was not working, not earning any money, owning no parental property, no support from parents.

Sometimes as pressure tactics, when my father was in the home, my mother left the house leaving a suicide note in the home, but we always found her near a railway track, waiting for my father bringing her back to home on her conditions. Each time I was very sad to lose her; I always took her suicide note sincerely.

Probably to put huge pressure on my father, one day my mother eloped and started to live with her parental family. She lived there for many months. I travelled a few times to request my mother to come back home, but she was waiting for my father to follow her conditions.

My mother always thinks that she is a victim, my father is always wrong, and she must force him to do right things. For everything, she always instructed my father. How to talk, how to smile, how to behave. She used to instruct my father, how to speak with me. She always thought that my father is a fool and immoral person, and she is very expert of psychology and a highly valued person. She never gave a chance to my father to behave and live with his originality with me; probably this is why he had no interest to talk and play with me. 

I think because my mother kept opposing social commitments of my father although he was very committed to downtrodden people. He was not wasting life; he was struggling for exploited people. With the time she turned to a very selfish, self-centred, full of negativity and psychological sick woman. A kind woman ended as a termagant, cruel and insensitive mother. I realised that a person could never be a sensible person by opposing and abusing social commitments and values.

Sexually abused childhood

When I was in class sixth, just nine and a half years old, I began to look for my father in various villages, when he was not visiting home for many weeks, sometimes three or four months. It was not easy to find my father. Maybe he was in a different village in the noon, in a different village in the evening and night in a different village. There were no connecting roads and google map to search a village. Usually, he was working for very backward communities of the region. No mobile, no internet, no phone.

Usually, each time I accompanied with a political volunteer of my father. Always it took a few days to find him; occasionally I returned without seeing him, leaving a message for him in a village in the hope that maybe he will visit that village again soon and will get a message. For a child, it was harsh and painful to travel with heavy crowded transports, unknown strange communities and people. Sometimes staying in their houses, eating their food.

Under these circumstances, a friend of my parents got opportunities to abuse me sexually a few times, inserting his penis into my anal and dropping semen inside when I was about ten to eleven years old. I did not disclose these sexually abused incidents with anyone. Under the circumstances of my family and behaviours of my parents, as a child, I could not have said anything about it to anyone. Now at the age of more than forty years, I am speaking about it.

The Schooling

I was sent to a government school after primary education. The government school had big old buildings, big playgrounds built by the British. The teachers were so irresponsible although they were getting big salaries. There was no teacher for some subjects or one teacher for a few hundred students. In my class, there were two hundred students. Classrooms were huge and were able to accommodate more than two hundred students. There was no teacher for English.

Teachers were not teaching in classrooms, but they were directly/indirectly forcing students for tuition in the homes of teachers. Hundreds of students were going to tuition in the houses of teachers. Teachers were making extra money by this. If a student was not paying for tuition, he was failed intentionally in half-yearly or annual or both examinations by the subject teacher. Paying monthly fees for tuition was important, one could pay for tuition without attending tuition-classes to get marks in the examinations.

In future, I completed a graduation with mechanical engineering followed by research in decentralised energy systems.

The Awakening

I thought I could mediate between my parents; thus I started to read many psychology, sociology, history and great ideas books to understand the conditioning, consciousness and mindset of people. I read many books; I was too innocent that time, I was hoping that my parents will listen to me, will understand me and one day I will be able to resolve the issues to build a lovely family with my parents.

To live with a beautiful and loving family with trust and harmony was my ultimate goal. With the time, I understood about the conditioning of individuals, communities, manmade systems, religions and civilisations. I started with my family but ended with the entire society. I read thousands of books to understand many issues to build a better society.

I started YOG when I was hardly seven or eight years old. I was sitting all night in PADMASAN with straight backbone thinking about life, consciousness and soul, as I had understanding and presumptions that time. I did this up to my age of twenty-three years.

Many conditionings and beliefs were broken inside me. I actively wanted to understand the life, conditioning, beliefs and values. I decided to use my whole for a better and harmonical society. I never even for a second thought about myself, selfishness and security. I never used my life energy for personal gain, for self-interest, safety, security, likeness, lust or wants.

I wanted to know more and more things about life and thoughts, and I reduced my sleep a lot to save time. I started YOG. I reduced intake of grains a lot. Mostly, I began to take milk and fruits.

I started YOG with AASANAs, YAM, NIYAM and PRANAYAMA. I became used to sit on PADMASANA doing PRANAYAMAs all night. I used to hold breath outside and inside for many minutes. While I was holding the breath out means no breath inside the body, I was concentrating on my mind and consciousness. I realised many deeper values and understanding. It was like an awakening.

I reached into deeper levels of YOG. I realised that YOG is not aerobics, it is not physical exercise. YOG is something else entirely. YOG is understanding of life. YOG is universal consciousness. YOG is the realisation of being "unseparated universal ONE", means we are not separate we are one every unit of the existence. YOG is not lust but deconditioning. YOG is not physical fitness tool but selfishlessness. YOG is the complete merge of self in universal-existence.

I could have felt cognition, the changes in the electric/magnetic fields, disturbances in others’ minds, thoughts and emotions, negativity or positivity.

As I was reaching into deeper stages, I realised that my body could reflect with many minor changes in various fields. I started to understand the differences in local, relative and absolute truth(s). I wrote three diaries writing my realisation although it was as impossible to write the experiences in words. The words and the language are not empowered to express consciousness level deeper understanding, awareness and experiences. You could feel it, you could realise it, you could see it, you could experience it, but you cannot convert it in words and languages, impossible.

One day I realised that now I have only two options. One- eloping from the mainstream world; the Second- I should use my life and energy to make this world better with peace, harmony and awakening without exploitation, violence and conditioning. I decided to move towards the universal-consciousness-YOG, practical exploration of practical possibilities for making this world better for each unit living with harmony. I stopped YOG; my body took a long time to reduce reflecting on the changes of electromagnetic and other fields.

One day, they searched my room and found my diaries. After reading my diaries, they thought I am a very roughneck, uncouth and rotten person with putridity. They burnt my diaries. I still miss that loss; it was the most unfortunate loss of my entire life. These diaries were based on my organic thoughts, awakening and movements in the YOG.

YOG gave me the strength for segregating myself with any environment, situation and circumstances.

I had a deep and strong-will to understand consciousness level human psychology, conditioning, development of values/ideas, building and movements of conditioning, values and the systems of the society and civilisation. I wanted to understand each element of the society, culture and civilisation. Without understanding interrelated essences and influencing aspects of the psychology, conditioning and values of human and society; it is not possible to move even a single substantial step towards the solution and a harmony world.

The libraries in Lucknow and the punishments by parents

According to my parents, writing diaries, doing YOG, reading thoughtful books were depraved and evil deeds thus they started to punish me. After the physical and emotional tortures of more than a week, one day my mother told me that she does not want to see her younger son ruined because of me thus she does not want to see me in the house anymore. For her, it was a punishment to me, but it was a big opportunity for me. I had read many books in the available local libraries and wanted to explore more extensive libraries, Lucknow the state capital, had better opportunities. I told my mother I am happy to follow the punishment. I was around nineteen years old.

They moved me to Lucknow. Parents were giving me money hardly enough for survival. Managing expenses of the rent of a simple tiny room, food and local travel were impossible. Because of social conditioning and the feudal mentalities of the prominent families, I was not allowed to do any activities to earn some pocket-money; strictly prohibited by parents.

I needed money to travel to libraries and other things. To save money, I started to consume less food. I was getting supplies of lentils, wheat and rice from home farming. For saving money for local travels to the libraries, I changed my eating habits and stuck with only lentils and rice, no spices and vegetables except salt. I was not spending any money on food except for salt. Also, I was walking to libraries from the room for saving money. It was time-consuming to go various libraries on every day, or the alternate days thus I was walking to different libraries in one day and was borrowing many books and journals enough for a couple of weeks. On an average, I was walking more than twenty kilometres on the library-day.

To save time, I was not cooking food daily. I used to cook enough amount lentil and rice for few days. I did not have a refrigerator. India is a hot country thus eating the off-food was my regular habit.

In no-libraries days, I was staying at home, reading books after books all day. To study more and more books, I was sleeping decidedly less, hardly three hours, sometimes two hours and sometimes zero hours. Depend on books, the strength of the body and the food availability.

Breaking the boundaries of feudal mentality

One night, I was walking to my room from the inter-city bus station. I met a rickshaw puller. Daytime he was pulling rickshaw to earn money and night time he was using his rickshaw as his home. He was postgraduate. I became his friend; we used to have in-depth discussions about life.

After meeting him a few times. One day I requested him that I also want to pull the rickshaw. He agreed to give me his rickshaw in the night time. A few nights I pulled the rickshaw, earned money for him and affronts by the people I was manually pulling on the rickshaw. It was a big learning of human behaviours. I worked as a casual labourer in building construction for two days but pulling rickshaw was a very big learning curve towards human sensitivity.

As a YOG teacher

A maternal uncle of my mother moved to Lucknow. He was shifting his naturopathy centre to Lucknow. He needed a physical-exercise-YOG teacher for his centre. I accepted his proposal. I started to teach physical-exercise-YOG in three classes, repeating YOG exercises three times daily in the morning.

The learners had different agendas to learn YOG exercise. The graduate/postgraduate students who wanted to get concentration on the study to get seats in government service competitive examinations. People who wanted to cure their sickness. People who wanted to feel relaxed. People who wanted to be physically fit. Some people who wanted to improve their sexual capacity and other. None of them was for real YOG; they had their agendas of lust and consumption. I realised why India has hundreds of yoga shops internationally, having many so-called yoga gurus.

Yog is selfishlessness and state of consciousness; not a physical exercise or aerobics but yog is used only for various lusts, consumption, selfishness and physical fitness. The people who cannot attain the consciousness and mind level states, physical-YOG-exercises help them to control as a possibility to move towards YOG. But YOG has become the tool for consumption and laic and carnal pleasures.

My efforts for earning money and parents forced me to leave Lucknow

Somehow, my parents knew that I help the maternal uncle of my mother. My mother came to Lucknow. By chance, I was in the house of her uncle. She behaved with me very nicely in front of them. She told me that she brought some stuff for me, so she wants to visit my room. She hired a rickshaw, and she started to beat me publicly on the road while we were on that rickshaw. That rickshaw puller was no stranger to me because some YOG learners used to come to the YOG centre on his rickshaw. He was shocked to see me, beaten by my mother publicly. At the arrival in my room, my mother met my landlord, the first time. She told my landlord that he should beat me daily, but he said to her that Vivek is a nice person. My mother told him that she knows me the best. She left to Kanpur. My landlords spent a few hours with me he felt sympathy because of the behaviour of my mother.

All these incidents forced me to decide for breaking financial relations with my parents. I started to explore possibilities to earn money; I was prepared to face any punishment/reaction by my parents. One of my friends agreed with me to start a coaching centre jointly for mathematics and physics subjects for class eleven, twelve and undergraduate students. This endeavour needed very less capital investment; his father agreed to give me a short-term loan with fifty percent shares for his son. I took a nursery school on rent for evening timings. I got it with a cheap rent because the school was getting extra income for non-working hours. I did not need money to invest in furniture. Around thirty-five students were ready to join. We had paid one-month advance rent and waiting for the first day. But the first day never came.

One day, my father came to Lucknow with his people. Forcefully, I was taken to his house in Kanpur, after a couple of days, I was sent to his other house in Fatehpur. I was around twenty-two years old.

Home-jail by parents and continuous physical and emotional tortures for around two years

In Fatehpur house, all rooms were locked by parents except a tiny room where I got a bed to sleep. There was no extra space in that room other than the bed; now it is used as a storeroom. For stopping me from going outside from the house, the doors were locked. I was not allowed to use the doors of the tenant.

Parents were visiting Fatehpur house weekly. They used to beat me all nights on weekends; it was the routine for many months, the weekly tortures overnight. Probably, my mother had become bored or tired or enjoyed enough beating me, whatever the reason but she gradually reduced her visits to Fatehpur house for punishing me on weekends, from once in a week to once in a fortnight then once in a month.

My father was not coming to Fatehpur house for days. Without proper food somehow I was trying to survive. Sometimes the wife of the tenant was giving me some food, feeling pity for me. Sometimes my father left five or ten kilograms potatoes before leaving the house for one or two weeks. I had to eat those potatoes without salt and other vegetables. Days and days I was eating only boiled potatoes with salt. In the periods of no gas in the cylinder, I used to live without food some days. No money was ever given to me; I was locked in the house.

- Beaten publically by father including the presence of hundreds of strangers

Living like this, one day I used the door of the tenant to go outside. That day father was in Fatehpur; he was in his court-office. I went to his office; he became furious at me, I asked him a simple question that why I am here in home jail, how long I will be like this. He started to beat me there in front of hundreds of people. When he stopped, I asked him to hit me more, but I need an answer. He beat me more and more but no response, some strangers came to intercept beating; I told them very bluntly not to intercept him. That day when my father came home in the night and beat me all night, but that day I felt relaxed because at least I vented myself a bit. After this incident, I was mentally prepared for few more months to live in that home jail without venting myself.

- Ears damaged, beaten brutally for hours by my father

One day I was beaten for around six hours with a stiff rod by my father. He hit on my ears intentionally or unintentionally, my both ears were damaged, were releasing blood. The left ear was severely damaged, leaked water twenty-four hours for around three years. After beating, my father left home and came back after few days with my mother to take me for attending the marriage of younger brother of my mother. Ears had bled two days; my singlets had become red. I was putting and changing cotton singlets in my ear twenty-four hours because of ear water leakages. But my parents did not care for my ears, did not ask anything, not a single word of sympathy or care or sadness. My mother took me to the doctor after three years when I was a student of the second year of engineering graduation. Till now even after many years, I have to take precautions for my ear although ear has become used to various weathers.

- Moved to Kanpur house, tortures continued by my mother

I do not know why, but I was sent to Kanpur house. I did not know how should I feel after spending around one year in a parent-home-jail with dense and continuous tortures, broken ears with constant water leakages; had lost fertility of brain; had lost fluency in the English language; many other capacities were lost. But I was dreaming that probably after moving me into Kanpur house, now parents will not abuse and will show some sensitivity after torturing me so brutally continuously for almost one year, and I will get some opportunities to study. But after few weeks my mother told me that I would have to compete for engineering entrance examinations in next session. She said it would be the last opportunity in my life. If I have the intelligence and strength, I have no other choice than opening the doors of this opportunity.

I had no idea, where my life is heading. But I had no options except following my mother's instructions without if or but. Just because they gave me birth, they were right, perfect, rational, sensitive, honest, and thoughtful for me. It was me, who was wrong, evil, thief, characterless, insensitive, illogical, thoughtless and...

My mother made me a timetable. She gave me two sleep-slots for choosing one; 9:00 pm to 1:00 am or 12:00 am to 4:00 am. I picked 9:00 pm to 1:00 am sleep-slot; only four hours sleep in twenty-four hours.

My mother locked all rooms in the house; only one room was open for me. She shifted her bed also in my room. She started to lock the kitchen after cooking food to prohibit me from eating more food than the amount given by her. She was deciding the amount and type of food; I should eat in a meal per day; very less amount of food because according to my mother a big amount of food influences a person to sleep. Toilets were locked, each time I needed to go toilets, I had to take her permission also the keys.

Daily without any reason probably should be termed as beating for preventions; she was beating me two or three times for no reason. She used to beat me brutally with any tool she found.

According to the timetable given by my mother, I got only four hours to sleep. But practically I got only around two hours sleep daily. Daily in the night at 9:00 pm just before my time of sleep she used to deliver lectures that I sleep a lot, I am a rubbish person, and she is one of the most unfortunate women having an evil son like me, her words resonated in my mind daily while I was sleeping. Even she gave me waking time at 1:00 am but at around 12:30 am sometimes also at 12:00 am she used to kick me with her feet to wake me up.

Between 1:00 am to 6:00 am in the morning, daily she was beating me a few times saying that I was sleeping although my eyes and books open. I have no idea how did she get an impression that I could sleep with open eyes. She never understood one fundamental thing that it is me who wants to sleep least because I want to get a seat in engineering college to get rid of from these inhumane and brutal circumstances.

I did not know, under these circumstances how did I survive! I had decided that if I do not get a seat in an engineering college, I will end my life. I did not want just to keep myself alive. I was thinking I will end my life because just eating, poohing and sleeping is not a meaningful life for me. I was very sad because of all my struggles; all my sufferings were ending with nothing.

I survived and still surviving.

My wish as a child and a son

When I was a child, I had deepest wish to live with happiness, trust, peace, love and harmony with my parents and the family. I wanted to eat food sitting with my father. I wanted to share my queries with my parents; I wanted to ask many questions about their understanding of life. I wanted to play with them together. I wanted to tell them what I like what I don’t like. I wanted to say, my mother, that if I am getting 99 marks out of 100 in mathematics or science, then she does not need to punish me because getting one or two marks less are not significant issues, she should praise me for getting 99 marks. I wanted to say my parents that I could do a lot better things if I am not instructed and punished.

Also, I wanted to tell them that at least for a few days I want to live with them as a happy and healthy family. I wanted to say them that I am a trustful person. I am not a lier. I am not a bad boy. I am not violent. I am not evil. I wish my parents should have hugged and kissed me. I wanted to tell them that they should not be worried about what others say, sometimes they should worry about what I think or feel or want to express.

There were many feelings I wanted to express in front of my parents. In the age of six or seven years, when kids do lovely and cute insistence on getting their wishes followed by parents, I was trying to read thoughtful books for developing myself to resolve psychological issues between my parents.

Epilogue : objectivity and rationality

With the experiences of my life universities; I firmly believe that the circumstances can never stop a person to live with values, sincerity, and thoughtfulness. There can never be an excuse; impossible. I believe in death; I firmly believe that one day I will die. Thus I want to utilise my life energy with the best of the values and humanity.

Following the theoretical assumptions of psychology, I should have become a psycho killer or a rapist or very very violent person, also a very insensitive, cruel and brutal father.

Usually, people do not want to see things with objectivity and rationally. This is why with the time they become worse in place of being mature and thoughtful. And they force other also to become worse. This process continues. This is why most of the people transfer hollowness, negativities, superficiality, selfishness and self-centredness to their kids. Mechanical and routine customs never make children or people real sensible, polite and thoughtful.

With the time I had understood one thing very clearly that it is rare that people change themselves. Usually, people use excuses to justify their negativities, hollowness, intolerance and negativities. I met many individuals who misbehave with others just because they did not get a good tea in the morning or did not have a bath or did not have breakfast, or did not get proper sleep or slept one or more hours less. Usually, people are trained to justify their violence and insensitivity by these minimal and superficial reasons. Because most of the people use these tricks for justifications, thus these methods are widely justified, accepted, praised, also termed as smartness; and the trick users are known/praised as practically smart people.

I faced continuously too many negativities, violence and insensitivity from my early childhood but moved into the path of social construction and continuous efforts for social-harmony and sustainability with no-rest. I took my sufferings as the teachings of nature the existence of more significant causes. I wanted to utilise my life to make this world better for all humans. There are billions of people who do not get food, no roof, no security; only get continuous exploitation, pain, brutality, violence, cruelty etc.

I always preferred to work/associate with very interior, remote and tough areas. I worked in very remote, interior and tough areas of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and other states of India. I started to work for indigenous people in the Maoists-violence areas of Bastar, Chhattisgarh when rare people were visiting there and government’s development works were not started. If I could understand and communicate a local language, I am ready to go and work anywhere in the world with most needy areas. The local language is the most important tool to connect with the people as their own, sharing their deep feelings/reactions/thoughts/experiences.

Experiments on Education

Education centres for children of indigenous migrant labours and beggars in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

When I was an undergraduate engineering student, I started weekly education centres for very low-income family children, beggar-children and children of indigenous migrant labours. I started with one centre and gradually formed ten centres.

I worked with these education centres alone. These homeless families were living in temporary slums or new construction colonies. For motivating them to send their children to the education centres, I never told them that their children would have a better life. I did not use any trick to motivate them for sending their children. I never gave money or toffee or chocolate or anything else to bribe children for coming to the education centres. I honestly told them that nothing would change except their children will know some of the basic reading writing skills and elementary mathematics.

Daily after finishing the engineering classes, I used to go to one or more of these education centres. I scheduled one or two education centres per day, with this arrangement I was able to cover all education centres in a week. Daily I needed to walk three to six kilometres to reach these education centres. Daily I needed to go to call each child to come. For these education centres, I only needed a white blackboard, a marker and myself. These centres had male and female children from the age of two years to eighteen years.

- Education centre for beggar-children

One of my friends who was an officer in a government department provided the car park at his residence for the education centre for beggar-children. These children were not going to any school; I should say they never went to a school. They were homeless, living at the edge of an open sewage-channel, the main sewage channel of the city of a population of around ten million people. The terrible odours of this drainage could be felt from a few hundred metres both-sides. I had to go to the edge of that sewage channel to collect beggar-children, sometimes the sewage was touching the feet. First few days I thought I should shut this centre, but I thought these children are humans like me and they live, cook and eat food there without shelter even in rainy seasons. Many times, it was hard to find them because they were busy with begging.

Although they were beggars, they offered me food whatever they had. I had meals a few times with them, cooked at the edge of sewage open-channel with not-drinking water. They were humans, if they were eating that food, I could have also eaten, and I ate their food. They trusted me, I trusted them, they accepted me, and I accepted them. I did not have any trace of hidden racism; I did not have an ego, I did not have superiority racism. They were insecure; I was insecure. I never became sick working with those children, eating their food at the edge of sewage channel.

- Village of Dalit-prostitutes

More or less around ten kilometres, there was a village of Dalit-prostitutes. This village was established a few hundred years ago by upper caste people for their sexual lusts. The children did not have fathers, only mothers. Still, girls are supplied as prostitutes from this village to metro cities in India; some girls are supplied to foreign countries. Brothers sell their sisters as prostitutes to the customers, and mothers teach their daughters how to please the customers sexually. In Indian society, you could still find many villages of untouchable traditional-prostitutes. In their families, you do not have fathers. Anyone could go to them and use them for sexual pleasure with nominal payments.

I spent many days living in this village. Neelkamal and Ramkumar, two energetic youths from this village, were making efforts to aware the people of their village. They started a few education centres and self-employment skill development programs with the help of an NGO. I also supported them for these activities.

I was one of the rarest persons who stayed many days in this village but never touched any woman. I accepted them as my sisters; they also had regard for me, they always behaved with me as family members, not as prostitutes.

The Rainy season was too bad for that village. Their houses were tattered, dripping in the rain, changing places all night avoiding dripping. By one day rain, the village was used to entirely disconnected for more or less a week from the main roads because of the morass in village trackways, even walking was very tough; feet were captured up by the morass to the knees, hard to lift the foot.

I worked for the uses of renewable energy, smokeless mud stove also for the education.

- "Self-rule" village councils and smokeless energy-efficient mud stove

When I visited these villages the first time, villagers did not trust me. They thought I am an engineer thus came to their villages for fun, tourism, change of taste without a serious commitment. I was starting my day at 4:00 am in the morning and ending the day at around 11:00 pm in the night. I built smokeless energy-efficient mud stoves in many houses of these villages. At first, I did not know how to make mud-stove but I learnt from the illiterate village-women, I accepted them as my teachers. I modified their technics to make their mud-stoves a better smokeless and energy efficient. The technique I used for building the mud-stoves needed six to eight small iron rods for each stove. Daily after getting up in the early morning around 4:00 am, I used to spend a few hours to cut long iron rods into small iron rods by hands using a handsaw. In my life, I never had done this type of works thus used to get big blisters on my hands. Villagers took a few months to trust me, but they still remember me.

After gaining trust, I shared my idea of self-rule village-councils with the villagers, and they supported me for these ideas. These village councils had minimum one person from a family in the village council board. I motivated women and teenager-girls to join the board and attend the weekly meetings. These village councils were different from government village councils.

I also had been attending weekly village-council meetings. I motivated them for village funds to solve various issues locally. Villagers did many works with their small-scale village funds. Few families were in enmity and had killed each others family members in the past for revenge. Using weekly village-council meetings, followed by many talks and mediation with these families, somehow I was able to resolve their issues and motivated them to stop blood-violence to live with peace.

Experiments with innovative ideas in a school in a village of Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh

After graduation in mechanical engineering followed by research work in decentralised energy systems, I had a few reasonable job offers with good salaries, but I did not want to work for money, I wanted to do the real jobs, not the jobs for money. That time, I used to spend weekends in the house of Sandeep Rai (Sandeep Rauzi), discussing various social issues. One day on one weekend at his place I met Dr Rakesh Saxena (Rakesh Rafeeq). Dr Rakesh shared his wish of opening a school and invited me for implementing my ideas of innovative education systems. I accepted the offer and started to work the first academic day of the founding year as the executive director of education in the school. 

I was working there from 4:00 AM at morning to 11:00 PM at night daily, even on Sunday, but was not taking any salary. After 11:00 PM in the night I used to sleep on the typical wooden benches of the classrooms. 

- The school

The school had around half an acre land. As school building, there were only three small rooms and a small area with plastic polythene roof. There was no electricity, no drinking water supply, no proper toilet in the school. The school was situated about two kilometres from a small town. Agricultural lands of villagers surrounded the school. Students were coming from the villages of 25-30 kilometres of a radius. Some of these communities were very poor, and some were wealthy.

It was tough to run a school of eleven classes, from a lower kinder garden class to the ninth grade, for more than three hundred students, with three small rooms and ten teachers. There was no room for office, also no room for the staff. All teachers were on salaries. All students were paying standard fees equivalent to the other schools in the vicinity town. 

- The restrictions 

I wanted to explore new things to develop internal strength of teachers and students. I tried to generate mutual understanding between teacher and student. All teachers were postgraduates from the state universities but not knowing their subjects. For example, an M.Sc (master in science) degree holder did not know simple geometry, simple trigonometry, simple algebra and other; the MA (master in arts) in English did not know simple translations of primary standards. I was not able to understand, how were they able to get the degrees of postgraduates.  

A couple of weeks after my joining in the school, some guidelines, given below, were given to me by the school owners. 

• I can not hold teacher and students after school hours.
• The number of students must not be decreased because of my experiments.
• Parents of students should not complain because of my experiments. (usually, Indian parents do not like non-conventional or experimental things)
• I can not change textbooks, and I can not remove or change the dress code.
• No extra expenses will be given for my experiments.

I accepted these guidelines because I knew, once I will have a trusted relationship with teachers and students, these frivolous instructions will be in the dustbins. 

- The experiments

The very first, I wanted to know, who would like to be part of experiments at the beginning. I started to discuss my ideas with teachers, person to person interactions. I started to join their classes sitting with the students to understand teacher's abilities, method, attachment & behaviour with students and comparative knowledge of the subjects. Some teachers had ego problems with each other, so I prompted them for avoiding their egos in school hours for the sake of students.

There was a game period for one hour for all students. In one hour game period, I started to discuss with teachers collectively on education, personality development, sharing of experiences, visions, likes, dislikes of their lives and teacher-student relationship etc. 

I started to teach students to help teachers. The teachers started to understand, what I want to do in the school. They began to cooperate with me. I told them that if the teachers flower themselves, then the students will flower automatically. The teachers started to see the school and students beyond a job for money and monthly salaries. 

To correlate me with the students, also for gaining their trusts. Daily, I started to go in the school-vehicle to bring the children to school from their homes from various villages. I used to get up at 4:00 AM. The school-vehicle used to start the trip at 4:45 AM to bring children from their villages. The school vehicle, locally known as JUGAD, was a simple diesel-pump (usually used to lift the water from the wells) driven typical wooden vehicle with no shockers on wheels, no cushion on seats and without a roof. We used to carry a big polythene sheet with us for protection from the rain. 

By going in the school-vehicle, I could have spent more time with the children out of the classrooms as one of their friends while driving from their homes to the school. It also helped me to observe the activities of the students. I started to go in the vehicle after school time also, to drop the children in their homes, even started to meet their parents. I began to visit the homes of the teachers too on weekends to have dinner with them and their families.

I started to have lunch with the students. Daily, I was taking one bite from the tiffins of different students. I motivated them to eat from other's tiffins also they should give their tiffin to others. It helped them to generate mutual brotherhood. 

I made very clear that teachers must not beat or scold any student at any circumstance even for big mistakes. I motivated them to explore constructive approach than punishments. I told teachers, if you cannot handle, please bring the issue to me, I will handle the matter. I motivated students even five or six years kids to punish themselves with their own for their mistakes. Students were not scared of me. They could have shared anything with me including their teenage feelings of sex.

I had removed all periods, also had converted all periods in three sessions for a whole day, session before lunch, session after lunch and the third session for the games. I removed the teachers' chairs from the classrooms. The blackboards were not movable, could have been removed thus I told the teachers to use the blackboards minimum. 

I turned the regular class systems into the four classifications.

• Lower Primary (up to 1st standard)
• Primary (from 2nd to 5th standard)
• Upper Primary (6th & 7th standard) and 
• High School (8th and above standards)

I removed the systems of classes. There were only groups according to classifications. There was no class system. A student could have chosen a subject of his choice to read or could have chosen not reading any sub ject. A student could have slept in the classroom, and a student could have played all day without opening a book. Students could have changed the subjects anytime and as many times as they wish in a day. Students could have chosen not to study but play games all day even for all week. Students could have chosen to sleep all day. Although there was a lunch hour, they could have had lunch anytime. No mandatory homework to the students but they could have asked home-work if they wanted it. 

I motivated students to teach others. A student of the sixth standard could have taught eighth standard students if had more knowledge in the subject than them. 

I wanted to explore the possibilities of self-discipline without using mechanical and forced discipline. Gradually, I started to motivate them for a system, they could evaluate their mistakes and weakness and could decide constructive punishments themselves. I formed a joint coordination body of teachers and students that could have recommended introspections to students, teachers and me.

I was trying to form a system, where, students do not need teachers, they only need teachers to assist them in need. They should not have monitored by others because they could observe themselves with more honesty and transparency.

I never had trust in the examinations, marking systems, examination paper systems, rank systems and other related issues; so I tried to explore a different method of evaluation.

For each student, there were four types of evaluations. 

1. Evaluation by solving questions
2. Student's self-evaluation for himself/ herself on the subject
3. Assessment of the subject by other students of the class, based on mutual cooperations with stronger and weaker students of the subject 
4. Continuous evaluation by the teacher of the student in the subject

Children were coming to school with enjoyment and were learning happily. The more than 95% students were coming to school daily. They were not scared of schools; they were enjoying school more than homes. Many parents became pleased with the progress of their children. 

- The Cessation

I wanted these experiments continued for two years to become the inbuilt tradition by the students without needing teachers. 

But I was there in the school only for some months. The contradictions between the school owners and me were increasing too high. I left the school after almost six months. Teachers and students wept for few days before I left the school. More than a hundred students gave me their personal feelings for me in writings, and I still have those as souvenirs. Teachers wrote their feelings in a diary; they gifted to me.

The experiments I worked very hard, but the school owners terminated all and moved to the systems of the other routine schools after I left the school. Many teachers left the school within a few months after I left. Sometimes I visited that town and villages staying in the houses with the parents of students and the families of teachers. Many of them are still in touch with me as my social family.

We need schools and education systems without the hidden Violence of Competitions and Egos of Comparative Superiority.

Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth (Tarun Water University), drug-addict students, in a village of Alwar, Rajasthan

The Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth, TJV (The Tarun Water Institute) was founded by Rajendra Singh the waterman and Anupam Mishra the known environmentalist. Rajendra Singh received the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Thiess International Riverprize and the Stockholm Water Prize and other. Late Anupam Mishra was internationally known for his books "AAJ BHI KHARE HAI TALAB" and "RAJASTHAN KI RAJAT BUNDE". It was a Non-Conventional University for Community Water Management and Forest Management, funded by SIDA, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and was established at Tarun Ashram, Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura-Kishori, Thanagazi, Alawar, Rajasthan.

I was invited by Rajendra Singh and Anupam Mishra in the first meeting for idea discussions; I was also invited to the first meet of the advisors. Laurent Fournier, a French architect, was the first director of the institute but he resigned after a couple of months. Gopal Singh became the director of the Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth.

I had initiated an idea of a community university, the Asha University with Dr Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay recipient. According to my understanding, the society must have community universities and institutions. I liked the idea of Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth, TJV.

I joined Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth, TJV, Tarun Bharat Sangh, TBS as a faculty and the course coordinator for the founding year. TJV had courses for Diploma, Degree and Doctorate programmes. TJV got around 35 students for the founding year from various states of India including the northeastern states. Some students were not able to understand Hindi or English, and communication was challenging with them. But together, we all ran TJV very well.

It was a good experience in my life. I had an opportunity to work with Indian youths of various states/ languages/ age-groups, who did not understand my language but somehow we explored the methods for communicating with each other.

TJV was a non-conventional institute following non-conventional social-education systems. I taught them the theory of Water Engineering, Basic Mathematics, Basic Physics and Value Education.

- Drug-addict students and the experiment

We had students from t he age of fifteen years to thirty-five years. Most of their families were hopeless for them, and this is why with hope for their future they sent them to us.

Many of students were smoking, using tobacco, drugs, GANJA (hashish) and alcohol. I took responsibility to motivate them for the social volunteering with self-control and feeling of brotherhood for all members of society. I started with forming the honest and heartily relationship with them. I motivated them to leave their drug-habits without giving them any anti-drug medicine.

For developing self-control, I motivated them not to use salt in food for at least one month. For mutual brotherhood, also motivating for the social ownership from the conditioning of individual ownership, I motivated them to clean each other's clothes and food plates even using study materials and other kinds of stuff with no personal ownership. After some time, they did not know, who owns what thus they were caring things as their own with the best efforts.

I left TJV in the founding year. TJV stopped to run residential study programmes some months after my departure from TJV. Some of the students of this unique batch are working on water issues with various organizations, some went for higher studies and some are self-employed. A few of them are working outside India. All of them are living a life with more politeness, honesty and with social responsibility.

“Shikshagram” (education-village) in Maharashtra

Amla Ruia wanted to establish a residential school with innovative ideas for children of financially weak and very wealthy families. She had the vision to create a harmony between poor and wealthy families children to make a better society. She visited with me many schools including the most expensive schools in India, my gratitude to her for these opportunities.

We wanted to establish a chain of self-sustained residential schools based on innovative education systems in all over India. As a pilot project, we tried to build a residential school in Maharashtra at one of the highways connecting Mumbai to other cities.

She arranged very costly land and millions of dollars for the construction of the school. But we had to stop this project uncompleted. It was a good idea, and we worked hard for it. But ....

Some photos are enclosed here of that project, photos are around ten years old. Please click on photos to enlarge photos.

Bastar, Chhattisgarh: the Maoist violence region

Around nine or ten years ago, a PhD student with the New York University, USA, contacted me to work with us about one year as his field works for his research. His research guide suggested him to work with me, but that time I did not have essential assets, also, our efforts were too unorganised and zigzag, and we did not know what will happen the next day.

In Bastar, I did not work intensely for education although I tried to establish a residential school for indigenous and Maoist violence affected family's children. It took a few years to get promises of support from the people of Indian origin in abroad. The year I finalised a land for the residential school and was planning for the first stone foundation ceremony for the school, the Maoists killed the key person of this residential school project. The project was gone back completely. But after a couple of years, Om Prakash Chaudhary IAS joined as the district collector in Dantewada. He was a very enthusiastic person and constructed an education city in Dantewada; followed by the district collectors as KC Devasenapathi IAS and Saurabh Kumar IAS, who also made significant efforts for the education city and education for indigenous children.

I started to work in Dantewada, Bijapur and Sukama districts of Bastar region for the indigenous community around thirteen years ago. I had no network, no network even no acquaintance in Bastar. The day I was going to Dantewada from Raipur, a few days ago Maoists blasted a bus and killed many people in the area. But I decided to go, I reached Dantewada and stayed a couple of months there visiting many interior indigenous villages meeting the native people.

Those days, Maoist violence was at the peak with no organised police presence. No roads, no petrol pumps, no mobile networks, no organised markets.

I supported local communities for organic farming; many people did not know farming, we arranged training for them. I helped for Handloom units, Vegetable farming, Water harvesting structures, dairies and other. Because this article is based on Experiment on Education, thus I do not want to talk more about my works in Bastar. I am adding some photos to help you to understand a bit.

Other works for establishing the local community institutes

Please read one of the articles at,

Environmental & Economic Sustainability, Social Harmony and Social Transmutation : an example towards Self-rule/Swaraj