Study Toure

Deendayal Research Institute (DRI)

DRI is a well-known institution working with large number of people in the Chitrakootarea. The institution was founded by Nanaji Deshmukhin 1972 to validate the philosophy of Integral Humanism propounded by Pandit Deendayal. The mission statement of DRI is,“we are not for ourselves but for our kith and kins are those who are oppressed and neglected.” The aim of the institute is to evolve a social system fo

r the transformation of our age old Indian Society suited to the modern scientific era and based on eternal values of integral humanism.  With this aim DRI has undertaken following major programmes:-

To carry out research in social science with a view to reconstruct Indian Society.

To establish rural development and training centers for carrying out research with a view to motivate people in adopting new and improved technologies in the field of sustainable Agriculture, water conservation and Alternative Industrialization and promote self-employment.

Activities in the field of medical research, medical care, lifelong health and medical education.

To set up academic and technical vocational training centers in rural areas.

To eradicate social evils by propagating human values with the active cooperation and initiative of the people.

To establish tribal development.

To ensure people initiative and active participation in the efforts.

To organize intellectual activities.

To share the experience and intellectual property with other organizations.

A functional literacy campaign is being conducted for the villagers by the Samaj Shilpi Dampti. DRI’s Education Research Centre and the 4 schools operate within that project area.Illiteracy and social consciousness are the key areas covered by the campaign.

Social Reconstruction in Chitrakoot

Chitrakoot, it is a challenging summation of the experiments conducted and the experiences gained through the earlier ventures Gonda and Beed. Chitrakoot is a small township bordering UP and MP, 120 miles south of Allahabad. .The villages around are predominantly tribal and backward in spite of the availability of rich resources like forest wealth and agricultural products. Lord Ram started upliftment of the downtrodden from this historic place.

Nanaji to his credit has several firsts. The conception of Gramodaya Vishwavidhyalaya (Rural University) is one of them. It was established with the Objectives of overall development of the students to make them self-reliant and confident so that they can generate their livelihood through their acquired skills and more importantly to involve every member of the University- teaching, non-teaching and the students in the rural development programmes.

Chitrakoot Gramodaya was established on 12th February 1991 and Shri Nanaji provided his leadership and guidance for three and half years as chancellor. This is the first rural University in India with twenty faculties providing facilities for higher education. After some time some section of society grew jealous and the funding was stopped by the then government for unnecessary reasons, Nanaji graciously relinquished the office of chancellor and transferred all assets of the University to the state government in the larger interest of students and teaching and non-teaching staff.

List of Chitrakoot Projects

Arogyadham

Udyamita Vidyapeet

Watershed Management

Resource center

RamDarshan

Krishi vignan kendra Ganiva,Chitrakoot

Surrendrapaul gramoday vidyalaya

Gurukul Sankul

Nanhi Dhunia

Chitrakoot Ras Shala

Govans Vikash Evam Anusandhan

Krishi Farm

Krishi vignan kendra Majhgawan,Satna(MP)

Ramnath Ashram Shala

Krishna Devi Vanavasi Balika Vidyalaya

Paramananda Ashram Padhati Vidyalaya

JanShikshan sanstan

Construction Department

Education Research Center

The students of Gandhian Institute of Goupuri, Wardha decided to visit DRI and journey started on 2nd February 2016 in 7.30pm but train was late for 2 hours so we’ve leave from Sevagram station at 9.30 pm. After the night pass away next day in the morning at 10 o’clock reached the district of Satana station. After that we went to bus stand by auto then used bus to go Chitrakoot and got down nearby the Institute and again reserved one of auto to go inside the organization with our heavy luggage. Because of the organization campus also was little bit big. But no one of member of the institution came for us to help and picked up from the railway station. After reached the institution we directly went to lodge for fresh. After fresh had lunch and talked with members of the organization.

Educate the Nation

Dropout rates are showing the syndromes of failed education system

priorities should be all 

 
 There is a well-known saying that if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation. In the order of national priorities, educating India’s girl child figures right at the bottom to top and as well as extra help at home or domestic help in others’ homes.

If you see in reality, the begging of education system provided by government policy trapped directly on people of India. This result come shredder on day to day life. Digital India currently spending more campaigns to protect girl child and also pledging to educate her ‘Beti Bachchao and Beti Padhao’ with ringing endorsements from Bollywood celebrities. However, less than 160km from New Delhi, in a small village in Hathras Uttar Pradesh, parents don’t want their girls to go to a school that is less than two kilometers from their home.  

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2015 puts the proportion of dropouts in the age group of 6-14 at 3.9 percent. Of this, 22 percent boys and 24 percent girls dropped out before completing Class I. However, the difference in dropout rates between girls and boys increases among 11-14 year olds, as girls are eased out of school were from those lowest castes, tribal groups and Muslim communities. Same picture with others states like Bihar, Jharkahand, Madya Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and a few more from the North East. Mizoram reported a staggering 23.93 percent dropout rate among girls.

There are good reasons why these states rank low in terms of literacy indicators. First, when parents send their boys to private schools and girls to government schools. Second, when teachers reinforce the belief that boys learn faster than girls, thus discouraging the girls. Thirdly, teachers are not able to attract the child to come to school. Forth, system of education not able to break down classroom teaching or four wall (Class room) class system. Fifth, pressurize on child to go school and so on.

There are many reasons behind the causes of dropout children not only girl more priority as well boys. The nation want to reform on Education system which should form by own and systematic with compile subjects in a present scenario basis. Children or student of the nation never and ever fail in their examination on the basis of percentage. They fail because of the present education system is already fail, that’s all. The nation need to little pause for evaluate the education system. Otherwise, not only dropout and other cases also with many defaults and circumstances occurs non-going process by the results. That is why, in present the children are affected by this failing education system.

Humanitarianism has become a side show to war

Aleppo has entered tragedy

       

           The long battle for Syria’s second city of Aleppo has entered tragedy for entire humanism.  Whatever the causes behind, but biggest losses are Humanitarian. Result showing more then 4 lakh killed (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/staffan-de-mistura-400000-killed-syria-civil-war-160423055735629.html) and an estimated 2,50,000- 3,00,000 civilians have been trapped (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37008100) in rebel-held parts of Aleppo since early July. Indian has the ideology of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam that means “the World is one family”. But the situation says to India is keeping silence. Why is it that no one in India is responding? Don’t lives matter?” Humanitarianism has become a side show to war, a cubbyhole next to it rather than an ethical challenge to war. While war is getting to be technocratically lethal, ethics has taken a deeper downturn. If ethics has not been able to cope with the technocratic and political logic of war then some more valuable duties not being followed by us. A lone voice like Pope Francis is not enough. Humanitarianism has become a side show to war, a cubbyhole next to it rather than an ethical challenge to war. The work that groups like Médecins Sans Frontières did in challenging the passive nature of humanitarianism needs to be deepened and thickened. The logic of war sometimes paints a situation with broad brushes. To paint an entire city as terrorist allows for mass violence, permits one to ignore the innocent living helplessly within it. Even the poignancy of Facebook messages falls on deaf ears, disappearing into the silences of the global world.

Today as Indians read the newspapers celebrating Virat Kohli’s cricketing exploits or discuss the wisdom of demonetisation, I hope they spare a moment for Aleppo and I hope they will act on it. For too long, we have been a passive society, deaf to Rwanda, Somalia, Syria. Our foreign policy is a piece of empty piety. It is time the little creativities of compassion and ethics enter our lives. Maybe Aleppo can be a first step to a more humane India.

Annually Report Published by Institute of Gandhian Studies 2015-2016

IGS Annual Report 2015-2016

It was great experience to spend one year  as a Gandhian way in Gandhian Institute at Wardha. Please read the whole report. Thank you.

Gandhi experiment with Phoenix Settlement

Educational experiment in Phoenix settlement, south Africa

Phoenix Settlement was finally started in 1904 with a small group of lndian and European idealists. In course of time Phoenix Settlement became a little village. The basic idea was to experiment as to what extent simplicity of life, harmonious living of people together can be successfully and joyfully practised.

The Phoenix Settlement, established by Mahatma Gandhi in 1904, is situated on the north-western edge of Inanda, some 20 kilometers north of Durban.

The basic idea was to experiment as to what extent simplicity of life, harmonious living of people together can be successfully and joyfully practised. The settlement, devoted to Gandhi’s principles of Satyagraha (Passive resistance) has played an important spiritual and political rope throughout its long history, promotion justice, peace and equality. Gandhi established the settlement as a communal experimental farm with the view of giving each family two acres of land which they could develop. He believed that communities like Phoenix which advocated communal living would form a sound basis for the struggle against social injustice. Everybody on the settlement had to participate in communal activities such as the daily prayers and singing of hymns which Gandhi himself had instituted. The Phoenix Settlement: Sarvodaya - ‘The welfare of all’. Phoenix Settlement is an integral part of our history and our present, it is yours to preserve. Cherish it and thrive on this land. It is yours, it is mine, it belongs to all our children and grandchildren and those who have yet to enter the world. Eight years after this visit, Gandhiji started printing his own newspaper, Indian Opinion, in Durban. In 1904 he took the decision to remove the printing press from the centre of town to the countryside. Albert West provides a firsthand account of how and why Phoenix was purchased by Gandhiji.

While mobilising the Indians living in South Africa for the struggle for self-dignity, Gandhiji had gone through various experiences and had conducted experiments to find an alternative approach to conflict resolution and re-structuring social relationships through non-violence. Among these experiments those on education are the most important for us here. After reading Unto This Last he said “I believe that I discovered some of my deepest convictions reflected in this great book of Ruskin that is why it so captured me and made me transform my life.”

The teachings of the book as he grasped them where

(1) That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all.

(2) That a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's in as much as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work.

(3) That a life of labour, i.e. the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman, is the life worth living.

Gandhiji was also editing and publishing Indian Opinion from Durban, which he thought should be moved to a farm, on which everyone should labour, drawing the same living wage, and attending to press work in their spare time. After a discussion with his colleagues about his ideas, with which they all agreed, Indian Opinion was moved to Phoenix Settlement was started in 1904. It became a well-knit family of committed people trying to live their lives under the guidance of Gandhiji.

          He was very conscious about the need for the education of the members of the Phoenix Farm, especially of children. He wrote in his autobiography. “As the Farm grew, it was found necessary to make some provision for the education of its boys and girls. There were among these, Hindu, Musalman, Parsi and Christian boys and some Hindu girls. It was not possible, and I did not think necessary, to engage a special teacher for them. It was not possible, for qualified Indian teachers were scarce, and even when available, none would be ready to go to a place 21 miles distant from Johannesburg on a small salary… I did not believe in the existing system of education, and I had a mind to by experience and experiment the true system.” Gandhiji’s struggle continued. On the one hand he totally rejected the existing system of education, but on the other he did not have clear alternative to replace it. He had no idea of how to go about the task of education the children of his extended family. However, he was deeply convinced that only that education desirable which develops a healthy self-image and inculcates certain values in the individual.

The basic idea was to experiment as to what extent simplicity of life, harmonious living of people together can be successfully and joyfully practised. His concept of self-supporting education for rural India received ground for development from Phoenix itself.