Invited speech delivered by Shripad Dabholkar in the seminar on `Ideas That Have Worked' in New Delhi, 2001.

Introduction

The theme of my today's lecture is 'Prosperity with Equity'. I am sure each one here must be curious to know how it is possible, in the present poverty ridden world, this seemingly paradoxical perspective 'Prosperity with Equity' can be validated. I therefore request you to be kindly very critical and alert throughout the lecture to give your esteemed observations and judgements at the end of my exposition.

The whole thesis is however apparently very simple. The Wealth and Prosperity that abounds anywhere today is the creation of the progress of Modern Science. But till today, the best and the latest of the modern science and its work results have failed to reach the last person. Then why not take the very essence of the latest and the best of modern science straight to the average grass root people and hand it over to them. Then with that self earned science they can build their own techniracies (Technical Literacies) to create whatever type of Plenty and Prosperity they would prefer to establish on their own (and not through the Government or the World Bank) in their neighborhood (habitat). This whole new idea of sharing, the best and the latest of the modern, post- graduate & research level science with the last man has a long history reaching back to my early childhood. But before I proceed further I would like to quote two well-known lines

'Mai Akela Chalatha Apni Manzil Fir Log Ate Gaye Our Kaphila Ban Gaya'

[I was proceeding alone to my destination (goal), but people began to come & join and it grew into a big caravan]

To continue further, since my early childhood I had a zest for science and experimentation. This zest gradually matured, in what is now popularly known as, "Prayog Pariwar". So our "Manzil', our destination is that what is signified by the term "Prayog". The root meaning of word "Prayog" is, "Pra" means, 'Going ahead' and "Yog" is Yukti or Knack. . Thus, the knack of going ahead, in any situation and in any circumstance is "Prayog". While "Pariwar" is nothing but 'Fraternity' signifying " Sense of "Belonging and Togetherness". In the beginning I started alone to take the spirit of science through actual experimentation to the people. This went on gathering momentum from all sections of the society. Your invitation to me here today is just of the same spirit.

Naturally I have to narrate some relevant part of my life story today. I am however afraid my presentation will be of very mixed nature; a narration, a speech or a talk, some times real story telling. But mostly a lecture with new exposition & discourse. The emergence of 'Prayog Pariwar' is preceded and followed, and is still following, the emergence of very many new lateral ideas. All of these ever-emerging new lateral ideas are well worked out, verified, amalgamated, established and networked. To quote some of these ideas and results, I simply put a short list that I will have occasion to use in my exposition:

1. Natueco culture - Understanding how Nature has evolved this ecosystem and changing our entire agricultural practices and entire life style accordingly.
2. 2.Sagriculture - Agriculture based on four "S" - Sun, Science, Sharing & Sovereignty. S4 Agriculture.
3. Prayog Pariwar - A non-institutional network of sharing best of science till the success is achieved.
4. Venture - Calculated risk-taking capacity in real life situation.
5. Peer Venture Networks - Pioneers experimenting together and venturing together.
6. Gypsy Venture Networks - Second generation of venturers who come on their own to Interact and get involved in peer venture network.
7. Activity Bank - A new type of venture Trusteeship extending goodwill, credit, assurance, insurance etc. to venture.
8. De-mystification of science - Explaining science in local idioms and analogies
9. EUCES - 'Energy Unit Currency Exchange System' to replace present Government green notes and share markets virtual money system.
10. Prosumer Society - Producer & Consumer Society free of global market pressures

Along with these, many other terminologies as Equity Sharing, Rurbanization, Concept of Additive Regeneration, Concept of Eco-Humanhood, Concept of New Sociology of Science and Education, have emerged and are getting rooted. Naturally these new terminologies will come in my today's exposition. I hope you will excuse me for the time being and allow me to use them freely.

To begin with, each one of us as a child is gifted by nature, to be a "Mini Scientist". The child's constant prattle on 'Why', 'How', 'How much', 'Why not this way' etc., is it's inner urge to get well acquainted with the things, events and satisfy his/her curiosities. The spirit of enquiry is child's second nature. Luckily, my mother was very well read and a very considerate woman to share with me in such queries. She would encourage me by telling stories, how Edison succeeded in making first electrical bulb after countless repeated failures, how Jagdish Chandra Bose had shown plants can respond like us, how Ekalavya mastered the whole art of archery better than Arjun, even though guidance to him was rejected by Dronacharya and so forth. Leaving aside all this nostalgia of my young age, I still remember how at the age of 12 years or so I was able to grow red pumpkin vine fruit in only four liter size pot (an apparently impossible feat to experts even today) and get pumpkin of triple the size of the pot. Next, I succeeded in taking water melon fruits in a bamboo waste basket, by creating 'river conditions' under the basket, by keeping it in a water container and got assured tasty fruits on the hot galvanized iron sheets of the second floor of our house. I also succeeded to take a banana bunch on this gallery in an average size container.

My constant pursuit to achieve success in these ventures was through my self-learning process, the process of observations, recording, reasoning, questioning and finding the way out. I learnt somehow, that the banana bunch is initiated in the banana plant when it is only four or five months of age. So I wondered, why not have such plants lifted and repotted ? Likewise, upon reading in some popular science book, that pumpkins have two types of flowers and some tribals in Madagascar put powder from a part inside one type of flower to the other type of flower, having small fruit below the flower when that flower opens, I discovered my break through to get fruits! So although I was not aware of the real scientific principles of vegetative and reproductive growth patterns in banana nor about the process of pollination in vine crops, I was very near to hitting the cause and effect relations.

Such success made me have a small organization with my friends called "Shastra Siddhi Sadhanalaya"(Devote your self to science and get all blessings of science). We collected more than 30 different types of bird nests, we studied raising silk worms and many other kinds of caterpillars and to raise butterflies from them. We used to put hen's eggs in sparrows nest or even in Kite's nest and see how it is incubated by sparrows for a few days. As sparrow's eggs hatch early, there is half grown chicken in the hen's eggshell; while the Kite protects the hen's egg and never takes it as its food once it is in her nest. At many times we incubated the eggs that we found in birds nests on kerosene lanterns and reared and hatched little ones by imitating their mother's beak by joining two matchsticks to feed them. We succeeded in growing them till they began to fly and sit on our shoulders. We also brought country honeybee hives as also reared houseflies, mosquito larvas, cockroaches and even bed bugs. (And that too feeding these bugs lovingly on my own blood and observing their interesting ways of sucking, escaping and hiding !)

The reason for narrating some of my early years experiments (you can call them sallies or even follies if you so choose) is to emphasize, that it is each one's birth right to be a scientist and grow like a scientist. But our present schooled system of education, through its systems of entrance, course studies, examinations, grades etc., polarizes the knowledge and creates tribes of illiterates and experts in all spheres of knowledge. Thus one may be an expert in one branch of knowledge but mostly an utter illiterate in the rest of the branches of knowledge. On the other hand, scientifically gained and used knowledge is so infectious that even today my above mentioned successes are loved, cherished, followed, grasped and used by Adivasi women and men as if those successes provide answers to their real life and living problems (of getting assured pumpkin fruits to their vines or get regular banana fruits by staggered plantation of different age group banana plants on their daily household waste water only). These experiments also trigger new ventures in similar hobby groups in city dwellers. More and more of such ventures will follow in our discussion later. So let me continue further.

Quit India movement in 1942 had to make a more significant impact on me. I was of college age in the period of Quit India movement. Barely seventeen years old, I returned from my college and had an urge to leave college and join the movement. My father, a well-known advocate, advocated as a father that it was his responsibility to see us finish our double graduation. I then reasoned out to myself, 'knowledge is also power that our country needs'. I argued to myself that in our country it is a sin to build up an academic career, and it is our duty to remove ignorance and poverty by taking knowledge of all types to the people.

In that mood and with this vague vision during the entire period of my college days, I took to study on my own, various graduate level studies. Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics were my course subjects. The subjects I particularly liked and studied were agricultural sciences, biology and especially botany. I also studied psychology, Freud especially. I studied and practiced and helped myself on Yoga and medicine, I studied different social sciences, sociology, political sciences, economics, philosophy and anthropology too. I also shared my readings and had critical discussions in these subjects with other college going members of my large family as well with many others.

By the time I got my double graduation our nation was a free sovereign state. I planned to run 'Open Study Courses', for school certificate courses and other external university graduate courses too. The fees were charged only once, till one got the final success.
These cannot be really termed as fees, but were clear sharings under four heads:

1. For the open courses, maintenance equally shared by all
2. My personal maintenance, that too equally shared by all. (Lower middle class level)
3. For subject learning, share as per subjects learning share.
4. Future development and risk covering share to be again shared equally by all.

Thus all money given by the student was taken as his share investment in the institution and not only as fees, for teaching the subject. (On reflection, I feel this was the genesis of my idea of development through equity sharing)

I have a very limited time to narrate here the outcome of this first experiment of mine in knowledge communication. I was teaching all these subjects for all school certificate and graduate level courses. I would make the students first to learn in their own idioms, the way knowledge is organized. Each topic had some basic concepts and terms related to those concepts, then catch words, then illustrations, and skills in writing, reading and interpreting tables and graphs. Moreover I found that knowledge once handed over to a group in a class rests with the class so that the students can tutor one another among themselves. This between tutoring creates confidence in knowing and presenting the subject in their words and sharing each other's information, understanding and grasping it. Thus my technique was simply to hand over their knowledge unit among them for once and allowing them to monitor and mature by their own participatory interactions and involvements. Soon, the fame of my courses spread like a fragrance amongst parents of the students and students from medical and engineering courses from far off cities used to come and join my courses in their vacation periods. Most of the students got their results with flying colors in external courses run by Nagpur and Ajmer universities. Many dropouts in primary standard two or three in one year or many repeaters earned their school certificates with more that 60 to 70 % marks. I earned more income than the income earned at that time by the principals of well-reputed colleges. And to start with my real investment was only a chalk and the blackboard. Please note that this was an entirely different training from the one given in our innumerable so-called classes. I had aptly named this venture "Swadhyay Mahavidyalay".

Thus these of my experiences and experiments confirmed my early vision that anyone can earn by self study one's graduate and post-graduate degrees like 'Ekalavya', and can also build a new technique of knowledge communication for its spread through participant's resources only. But the real potential of this vision was yet to be fully realized. This was realized some twenty years later in the 'Scientific Grape Revolution' by small farmers in our state - the State of Maharashtra.