RAM GIDOOMAL: A NEW ERA IN INDIA ASHOK AGARWAL ON SCHOOLS VOL. 1 NO. 10 JUNE 2004 Rs. 50 SCHOOL WITH A CONSCIENCE IT’S EASY TO ABSORB POOR CHILDREN Page 5 TURBAN, KIRPAN & EARTHWORMS FRENCH SIKH SHOWS THE WAY IN PUNJAB Page 6 WINDOW ON VILLAGES WIDOWS WEAR RED IN NOVEL AN AGENDA FOR THE CAMPAIGN Page 13 NEW GOVERNMENT MAHJONG AT Mahasweta Devi, Sunita Narain, Anupam Mishra, Anil Wilson, Rajendra Singh, Suman THREE GORGES Sahai, Jayaprakash Narayan, Ashish Kothari, CHINA’S MEGA Darshan Shankar, Arvind Kejriwal, Shabnam DAM CAUSES Hashmi, Ashish Sen, Ravichander, Maya GRIEF Page 14 Menon, Kalpana Jain, Himanshu Thakkar VIEWS PEOPLE CAMPAIGNS NGOs SLOGANS CONTROVERSIES IDEAS VOLUNTEERS TRAINING BOOKS FILMS INTERVIEWS RESEARCH June 2004 CIVIL SOCIETY 3 COVER STORY Only people matter VERY election comes with its quota of surprises. But this last general election ranks as an outright thriller. No one would have imagined that a limp and Eapparently directionless Congress would be swept to power. If there is one message that comes through it is not to take people lightly. The undoing of the BJP and its allies was their arrogance and poor governance. Having achieved some cosmetic changes for the middle class and partial economic reforms, the NDA government proceeded to behave like it had done the whole nation a favour. Its obscene India Shining advertisements had finally to be withdrawn. An NDTV pre-election show remains etched in my mind. A clip showed Venkiah Naidu saying about Rahul Gandhi: "Politics is not a game for children". A BJP leader on the show tried to defend the statement and the spunky Nikhil Wagle, editor of Mahanagar, retorted: "If it isn't a game for children, is it then a game for old men?" Somewhere along the line the BJP had lost its connection with reality. REAL REFORMS PLEASE The new government will do well to remember that it governs a very different The new government’s challenge is to keep up the pace of India. For one, it is a younger India impatient for real change. It is an India reforms and make sure they improve the life of common connected with the rest of the world through telecom and IT like never before. It is people in a lasting manner. also an India faced with mammoth inequities. There are mounting environmental 8 problems to contend with and any party which wants to rule the country for the next decade must above all have a solution to water shortages. We thought it would be a good idea to ask a cross section of NGO leaders and social activists to come up with three suggestions each for a new government. You A Gandhian revival gets will find what they have to say in our cover story. Perhaps liberalisation should going: PV Rajgopal on now move to the more important stage of facilitating local effort through which his plans . 4 simpler and enduring solutions can be found to apparently intractable problems. Among our other stories we have the Supreme Court order asking the Delhi government to regulate the fees of unaided private schools and ensure that With a conscience: A school schools, which have got land free or very cheap, keep their promise of admitting in Panchkula shows how children from poor families. We spoke to Ashok Agarwal, a lawyer from Social to absorb poor children . 5 Jurist who fought the case. Agarwal has also documented the issue for us in an article in our Perspectives section. Interestingly, while Delhi schools quibble about these orders, we have a story from Panchkula about a school which has been quietly admitting poorer children and giving them a quality education. We interviewed PV Rajgopal of the Ekta Parishad. He is now back in Delhi as vice- president of the Gandhi Peace Foundation. We asked him about his plans to Turban, kirpan and some energise the GPF and as usual he had more ideas than we could put into print for earthworms: Meet French you. Sikh Darshan Singh . 6 Our collaboration with Charkha goes a step further. We once again offer two pages of Rural Reporter. In our Offtrack section, our music correspondent, Neelkantha Gupta, talks about Shujaat Khan's brilliant album, The Rain, which was Jupiter, Sun, maths and fun: nominated for a Grammy, has sold more than one million copies in the West , but Navnirmiti tells you how can't be found in India. Nor for that can Shujaat be found in India, but his wife was to watch Jupiter in June . 7 kind enough to give us some pictures of him.Watch Offtrack for more on music. We are quite thrilled to begin a regular column by Ram Gidoomal, a businessman and a politician in Britain. Ram will offer an NRI perspective every month. He is a serious contender for the post of Mayor of London. Ashok Khosla of Development Alternatives analyses how development can be Rural Reporter: Dhari good business, a topical subject. Every political party and economist talks about village men learn to unemployment. Hopefully in the years ahead the government will ensure that sober up . .12 India Shines through mini and small scale employment as Ashok rightly suggests. Perspectives: Schools should not be businesses, says Ashok Agarwal . .19 . Offtrack: The Rain is a big global hit. Say hello to Shujaat Khan . 24. Printed and published by Umesh Anand on behalf of Rita Anand of C-1, Main Shopping Centre, Vasant Vihar New Delhi 110057. Printed at Maximus Packers, Essay: Ashok Khosla on 49, DSIDC Sheds, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-1, New Delhi. creative ways of Write to Civil Society at E-2144 Palam Vihar, Gurgaon, Haryana 122017 generating more jobs . .26 Ph: 9811787772, E-mail: [email protected] Editor: Rita Anand RNI No.: DELENG/03/11607 Cover photograph: SAAB PICTURES 4 CIVIL SOCIETY INDIA June 2004 CAUSE & EFFECT Schools A Gandhian revival Civil Society News that the country is divided between the the successes of Sarvodaya and the New Delhi gun and trishul, the Left and the Right. Gandhian way. We are forever crying about the want of Gandhi's concern for the poor, jal, lose, will T is 4.30 in the afternoon on a hot space for people who think differently jangal and jameen, his emphasis on the and dusty Sunday in Delhi. PV and don't belong to either of these two last man and sustainable livelihoods IRajgopal is in his new office room at ideological positions. Well you can remains relevant today. the Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF) ful- keep on crying or you can go out and We also need a group which can filling his new role as the vice-presi- create that space for yourself. I believe intervene in regional conflicts and ask they pay? dent of this long somnolent organisa- that the GPF has aole in achieving this the question: Hey what is going on tion. Rajgopal is clearly not the here? From Sri Lanka to Nepal to Civil Society News sleepy type and is happy to set- Nagaland, there is the need for New Delhi tle down to a chat over coffee. such intervention. Getting him to that is in itself an INCE 1997, Ashok Agarwal of Social Jurist achievement. Civil Society has So does this mean an end to the has been waging legal battles to get deprived invariably spoken to him on the campaign mode and a shift to Schildren the right to a decent education. On move, the last time being at quieter lobbying? April 27, another major victory was won. Borivili in Mumbai where we No, not at all. I will continue The Supreme Court passed orders which clear- spent an hour together amid the with the National Campaign ly state that the government has the authority to pandemonium of the Land First Committee on Land and the regulate the fees of unaided private schools. Mela. He was a member of the People's Commission on Land. The court also directed the Directorate of GPF's governing body and has We will seek to provide leader- Education, New Delhi, to ensure that schools served as its general secretary. ship to the young and travel that received cheap land from the government, But recent years have seen him from state to state for cadre must comply with the terms of land allotment. preoccupied with the Ekta building. Wherever we have This means schools cannot hike their fees Parishad, spending time out in gone with our yatras, so many without permission from the Directorate of the field, stirring up grassroots young people come to us. These Education and about 25% of their seats must be causes. He flirted with politics in young people are a huge asset. for students from lower income groups. the Madhya Pradesh assembly There will also be the Jan Adesh "Profit has no place in education," says elections five months ago, sup- 2007 through which the Ekta Agarwal. "Its guiding spirit should be communi- porting Digvijay Singh and the PV Rajgopal Parishad and others will serve ty service. This principle flows from our Congress. But so rough was the notice on the government to Constitution and various rulings of the court." ride, that this time around the Ekta redesign its policies so that they The Delhi government has ordered the private Parishad kept a safe distance from ‘We also need a group include the poor. Twenty-five thousand schools to admit children from poorer homes, politicians of all hues. people will set out from Gwalior and but most schools are in no mood to comply and Land First and the Ekta Parishad's which can intervene in walk to Delhi.