YSI - 3 Year Journey with young people and Gandhian thoughts
Written by Ms. Jane Sahe
Guide & mentor of 3 year YSI conference on Gandhian values. Ex-faculty of English Language at Azim Premji University, presently engaged in setting up libraries & an ardent admirer of Gandhiji.
It is now three years since the Youth Social Innovation Conference began with a particular focus on Gandhiji by Srushti Degree College. Each time it has deepened and expanded the scope of the Conference and has also touched the lives of many, especially in this challenging time of the pandemic ( 2021). In the course of the three years faculty, students and other professionals have been actively involved in thinking and acting on the foundational ideas of Gandhi: Truth, inner-conscious, and well-being.
The first year the theme was, “Understanding Honesty: a Way of Connecting to my Inner Self.” The topic was prompted, in part, by experiences within the college with students, which led the college to think about the concept of honesty and its relevance and the consequences of that, in an institutional space. This also coincided with the 150Th birth anniversary of Gandhiji, which brought the two together. Open discussions about this between faculty and students began a shared journey toward mutual understanding and dialogue which helped all to see beyond their narrow perspectives. From the beginning, Srushti College sought to work with students and faculties of other colleges in Bengaluru.
The second-year there was a sense that while the individual’s journey is deeply significant it is through relationships with others that we learn about ourselves and not in isolation. It was at this juncture that the Conference opened itself to the wider participation of faculty and not just students, besides including experts from a number of fields, and people of different ages and experiences. In addition, a number of others from other learning spaces who were engaged in it, who related to their work, in very different fields beyond educational institutions.
The process was based, on the idea that both faculty and students would take up an idea challenge that they faced in their campus, and explore it and find a solution to it. One person presented the challenge of facilitating engagement in a waste management scheme set up in particular wards in the city. Another person shared their experience of doing art activities with children who previously had no opportunity to participate in collaborative art camps. It was particularly memorable that the Principal of the Srushti Degree College, Ms. Lakshmi Hariharan very willingly talked through her own experiences of working with international students and the Srushti students with rural women near Mandya. The cross-cultural encounter was a testing ground to establish some form of dialogue and was frankly documented and shared.
This equal participation was a very unusual idea in the Indian context and was a powerful way of democratizing the more conventional hierarchies that exist in educational institutions. It enabled novices and ‘experts’, students and teachers to share their tentative experiences and experiments on an equal platform. This was very much in the spirit of Gandhiji who saw himself to the end of his life as a searcher for truth. He writes, “For as I examine myself, I am growing and evolving. No one is too old to grow, certainly not I.”[1]
The two years culminated in the third year and the theme of the Conference was: “My well-being is contained in the well-being of others”. This seemed like a step to balance the individual and the community and to see how closely they are interwoven. In June 2020 Abhay Bang, the well-known Gandhian health activist wrote an article, “Faced with Today’s Crisis what would Gandhi do?” The theme of this year’s Conference was explored from the perspective of well-being for ourselves and the well-being of the community, is one and the same thing. Gandhiji’s active response to the pandemic would surely have been based on the belief that well-being is a shared responsibility for all.
One thing that the pandemic has taught us is that we are all inter-connected and interdependent: a virus knows no borders, no political parties and no class or caste. But, as one of the participants insightfully pointed out, we are not all ‘in the same boat’. Metaphorically speaking some have navigated this pandemic from the comfort of a luxury cruise ship and others have narrowly survived or died in an overloaded fragile raft. The crisis of the pandemic has impacted almost everyone’s well-being in the last fifteen months. It was therefore obvious that the repercussions on students’ learning, the community’s health and teachers’ struggle to continue to be effective communicators would take center stage in this year’s presentations. Each one’s study came out of a deeply felt question, story, event, or concern. The papers that were presented were related to the actual experience of interaction with peers, neighbors, family members, students, and teachers. There was an effort to try and understand a situation and bring about positive change.
Some students started out wanting to change someone or something outside but ended up being changed themselves in the process. This again was very much in the Gandhian mode of being open to personal transformation. Gandhiji always insisted that respect must be maintained for the other even when their actions or ideas were unacceptable.
One example was when a student felt deeply frustrated by her family’s insensitivity to her needs to have space and quietness to study. Gradually through discussion a situation of conflict was resolved and fresh understanding of the other’s perspective was established.
Several groups discussed how relations between teachers and students became stressful on all sides but in the process came to recognize that the situation demanded a shared, mature sense of responsibility. For one group this took the very real problem of boredom in the class and another topic posed by a group of faculty was to look at lack of motivation in class. In some situation some practical solutions were tried out and students themselves came up with ideas to make the class more interactive and dynamic. One group explored other ways of learning and knowing beyond the words of a textbook and tried to think how ideas were relevant to daily life.
One group came up with the very specific statement of their problem declaring that, “Life had been reduced to screen time.” Remedies were tried out and creative and practical solutions were explored by supplementing screen time with ‘hands-on’ activities such as sketching, craft and stitching. Also some students tried to be more disciplined in their use of electronic devices. These different endeavours focused round learning from and supporting each other, sharing resources and improving communication.
Gandhi’s defined health as physical, mental and spiritual well-being. Further, for Gandhi, well-being goes far beyond a single person’s health. He understood that our health is rooted in our choices about lifestyle, attitudes towards the environment, our thoughts and values. One group in the Conference turned the given statement round to say, “Others’ well-being is the well-being of us.” Different groups came up with a range of definitions for well-being such as “feeling alive”. “being creative” , “ having a joyful spirit” , “possessing a sense of purpose in life” and “sharing a sense of responsibility for each other”.
The Conference brought out a Gandhian perspective on the pandemic by a deeper awareness of how relationships are significant and how they grow through dialogue, openness ,and considered action. There was also an aacknowledgment that well-being is not a vague, sentimental idea but calls for our attention and being awake to the needs of those around us.
The idea of reflecting critically on the action, whereby theory and practice are seen as a whole, continued. Again Gandhiji was the inspiration who said that theory without practice was without meaning. Empty words that are comparable to the noise created by banging pots and pans! The idea of praxis where action and reflection are inseparable and one supports and informs the other has been an undercurrent throughout the three Conferences.
The ‘field for study’ focused on immediate, local and actual challenges. In this year participants were asked to share ‘the story’ or the event that prompted their interest and shaped their questions. Most of all it made everyone attentive to the present. The emphasis was on the people and situations in front of you and not looking at abstract or vague generalized statements.
Gandhiji said, “Real education is drawing the best out of yourself. What better book can there be than humanity itself.”
Over the three years of the Conference’s events, both public and behind the scenes through the lens of Gandhi’s life there has been a growth in understanding and commitment to Truth. It began on a personal level but quickly was extended to include the complexities of what it means to live in a globalized, industrialized, urbanized world.
Gandhi’s continual reminder is that change happens not through words but action was evident in the refreshing element of each one’s trying to work out in practice the solution to particular challenges. Gandhiji writes, “It has been my practice since childhood to begin with myself and my immediate environment in however humble a way.”[2] Gandhi thought that what happens at the small and particular level is significant at the larger level.
I think Gandhi would have taken very seriously our citizenship at this present time which means caring for all across differences of class, caste and religious community and also for the natural resources of our planet which are under such threat. In this way being truly patriotic is giving expression to the feeling of belonging, feeling responsible, and wanting to care for our fragile world. We are citizens of our country but also of the world. In other words, “My well-being is contained in the well-being of others.”
[1] Mahatma Vol. V , p.116
[2] Harijan 29th August 1940