“It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves… such Swaraj
has to be experienced, by each one for himself…Slaves ourselves, it would be
mere pretension to think of saving others.
But I would warn against thinking that I am today aiming at Swaraj…I
know that India is not ripe for it…I am individually working for self-rule…but
today my corporate activity is undoubtedly dedicated to the attainment of
Parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India. I am not aiming at destroying railways and
hospitals, though I would certainly welcome their natural destruction…Neither
adds one inch to the moral stature of a nation. Nor am I aiming at a permanent destruction of the courts…still
less am I trying to destroy all machinery and mills. It requires a higher simplicity and renunciation that the people
are today prepared for. The only part
of the programme that is now being carried out is that of non-violence.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Pioneers of Change and Shikshantar are together
creating a Learning Journey to explore experiments in self-rule
that have been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of Swaraj and his
ideas on freedom and discipline, the Self and community, the modern and
traditional. We will bring together a
group of 30-40 people from around the world to visit and interact with a series
of local projects, initiatives and practices in northern India,
for ten days from February 1st to February 11th, 2003. These participants will predominantly be
young people, aged 25-35, who are thinking deeply about, and experimenting
with, self-learning, self-governance and self-organisation in their own
lives and work. Through participating
in this Learning Journey - and interacting with the projects and other
participants - these individuals will develop and deepen their own
understanding of self-rule and return home to embody this in their own
practices.
“We are all of us descended from slaves,
or almost slaves. Legally, of course,
slavery has been abolished, but slavery also has a metaphorical, broader
meaning: it is possible to be a slave of the passions, or of one’s work, or of
one’s habits. The world is still full
of people who, though they have no recognised slave masters, see themselves as
having little freedom, as being at the mercy of uncontrollable, anonymous
economic and social forces. It is
important to remember that it is tiring and trying being free; and in times of
exhaustion, affection for freedom has always waned.”
Theodore Zeldin
Gandhi’s conception of individual freedom embodies
Swaraj (self-rule or rule over the Self) at its core. In his booklet Hind Swaraj, Gandhi raises profound questions
around the nature of modern civilisation and its institutions and core
assumptions. He argues that the predominant European social systems - of
healthcare, education, parliamentary democracy, technology and production of
goods - that had been exported to India under British rule, were a critical tool
for the oppression endured by the majority of Indians, and that genuine
‘independence’ and ‘inter-dependence’ could only be attained through their
abolition. He suggested creating
alternative social, economic and political systems, which allow people to serve
their own needs without becoming dependent.
In the age of Globalisation, and the resulting
discontents, the search - and need - for such alternatives is greater than
ever. In today’s India, there exist
several projects and movements that are actively experimenting to create
alternative social systems that embody practices of self-rule. These experiments are inspired by the
divergent thinking of some of India’s leading intellectuals, including poet
Rabindranath Tagore, eco-feminist Vandana Shiva, psycho-analyst Ashis Nandy,
historian Dharampal, spiritual-activist Vinoba Bhave, etc.
This Learning Journey will include field visits to a
number of these experiments in self-rule, with a focus on five areas:
political governance; economics and modes of production; media and education;
healthcare; and spiritual identity.
Among the questions for investigation are:
·
What does it mean for individuals to take ownership
of their own learning?
·
What role should technology play in
‘development’? What benefits and
dangers does technology bring? What are the limits to technology?
·
How should we understand and make use of
‘self-organisation’?
·
How do we build connections between the individual
and the collective? In what ways can we move towards more direct and participatory
modes of democracy, without paralysing decision-making?
·
What is the importance of self-discipline amongst
individuals, in the self-governance of communities?
·
What does it mean to decolonize our minds? How can
communities and nations unlearn their legacies of colonialism?
·
How do we link changes with the Self and changes in
the System?
These field visits will be complemented by: group
discussions between the participants; spaces for personal reflection,
action-planning and sharing of participants’ work and projects;
and interactions with local business and government representatives. The agenda will be shaped in collaboration
with all the participants, through online dialogues prior to the Learning
Journey, and with adjustments made during the programme itself.
A web-space and online discussion group has been set-up to enable interaction and sharing between the participants from November 2002. This will also be the place for discussion of the flow for the Learning Journey, and aspects of its organisation, with all participants invited to be involved in its creation.
The range of literature of relevance to this Learning
Journey is extensive; a small selection of suggested readings, which will help
to stimulate questions, is given below:
·
Hind Swaraj by
M.K.Gandhi
·
The story of my experiments with truth - an
autobiography by M.K.Gandhi
·
Decolonisation and development: Hind Swaraj revisited
by Makarand Paranjape
·
The cult of the charkha by
Rabindranath Tagore
·
Bhagavad-Gita (The
song celestial by Edwin Arnold is a good translation in English)
·
Monocultures of the mind by Vandana
Shiva
·
Our word is our weapon: selected writings of
Subcomandante Insurgent Marcos edited by Juana Ponce de
Leon
·
The road to serfdom by
Friedrich Hayek
·
Seeing like a state by James
Scott
·
Tools for conviviality by Ivan
Illich
The cost of participating in the Learning Journey is
280USD, which includes all accommodation, meals and transportation during the
course of the learning programme, and excludes travel costs to and from New
Delhi, India, where the programme will start and finish. We do not want finances to be a barrier to
participation for those who are unable to meet these costs, and scholarships
will be made available, as will assistance with local fundraising.
If you would like to participate in this Learning
Journey, please complete and return the attached Application Form by November
22nd, 2002. If you would
like to apply for a scholarship and assistance with local fundraising, please
complete the ‘Scholarship’ section of the Application Form. We will respond to applications as they come
in. The intention with this application
process is not to limit participation, but to clarify the intentions, interests
and needs of those wishing to participate, and create the conditions for
self-selection. If we find ourselves in
a situation where the Learning Journey is over-subscribed, we will initiate a
dialogue for the applicants to collectively decide who participates.
Pioneers of Change (www.pioneersofchange.net) is a
global learning community of committed individuals, mainly in their mid-20s to
early-30s, and coming from a wide range of social, cultural and professional
backgrounds. The global network
consists of over 1000 people in 60 countries.
Our activities are comprised of a series of formal and informal learning
processes, channelled through three modes of delivery: local networks; online
communities of practice; and global learning programmes.
Our Learning Journeys emphasise South-South and
South-North exchange. They are physical
journeys of place and context that are also real journeys into other
mindsets. They expose participants to a
different practice, methodology, or perspective through an immersion
experience, followed by critical evaluation of what has been observed and
workshops on how the learning will translate into practice in their own home
context. Our most recent Learning
Journey was a 10-day “Learning for Action” programme, held in collaboration
with the Common Futures Forum, exploring eight different "art and critical
education" projects in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, attended by
35 participants from 20 countries, primarily from Africa, Latin America, and
Asia.
Shikshantar (www.swaraj.org/shikshantar) is an
applied research institute, dedicated to catalysing radical systemic
transformation of education in order to facilitate Swaraj-development
throughout India. Based in Udaipur,
Shikshantar was founded to challenge the monopoly of factory-schooling and to
help individuals and communities to reclaim control over their own learning
processes. We are committed to creating
spaces where individuals and organisation can together engage in dialogue to:
generate meaningful critiques to expose and transform existing models of
education and development; and elaborate complex shared visions and practices
of life-long societal learning for South Asia.
For
further information on this Learning Journey, and to register your interest in
participating, please contact Alok Singh via email address alok@pioneersofchange.net.