Sumit Pandey | Rajasthan Technical University (original) (raw)

Papers by Sumit Pandey

The field notes, on which this article is based, were collected by Snehlata Gupta and Malvika Rai... more The field notes, on which this article is based, were collected by Snehlata Gupta and Malvika Rai under the auspices of a study assisted by the UNICEF Regional Office, Kathmandu. As the world approaches the close of this century, many ideas practised and preached by Mahatma Gandhi are becoming increasingly relevant as guides to state policy. The most interesting, and understandably controversial, of his favourite ideas is that of local self-reliance. In a world said to have become interdependent, local self-reliance seems irrelevant, indeed heretical. Yet the fact remains that the world is not really interdependent. Many countries of the South are caught in a debt-trap which forces them to part with a substantial portion of their national income to pay the interest they owe the North. This ghastly compulsion impoverishes these countries further, rendering their labour force and natural resources steadily more vulnerable. In the so-called global village, the real village is dependent on the city for such essential needs of life as work and health care. Gandhi's insistence on local self-reliance was precisely in such basic aspects of life. The world is armed today with sophisticated technological solutions to every human problem, yet the majority of people suffer from malnutrition, unemployment and chronic illness. This obvious contradiction suggests that Gandhi's plea for local self-reliance in the matter of basic needs deserves to be heard again. A second salient feature of Gandhi's legacy is the importance of imaginative action. If there is such a thing as a Gandhian theory, surely it is a theory of action which emphasizes role-playing with earnestness and imagination. All Gandhi's major political and social battles, starting with his work in South Africa, illustrate this point. In retrospect, these battles look crafted to perfection as localized socio-dramas with a universal appeal. The salt satyagraha is probably the best known example of such a battle, but numerous smaller episodes occurred throughout Gandhi's life. For example, when the engine installed for running the press at Phoenix Farm in South Africa failed, Gandhi successfully mobilized his colleagues to run the press manually all night so that Indian Opinion would come out on time. This early event suggests two other aspects of Gandhi's theory of action, apart from commitment to one's role. One is his insistence on autonomy which translates into freedom from dependence on any single option. The other is persistence. If one looks at Gandhi's life from a pedagogical perspective, one can aptly describe it as a long lesson in the value of the freedom of initiative and tenacity to the cause at hand. Finally, Gandhi's legacy must remind us of the significance of the spatial community and the family. Child welfare-indeed, all human welfare-has its locus in these two units of collective life in Gandhi's picture of the world. Democracy, both as a system of governance and as a way of living, depends on the expression it finds in these two units. As Marjorie Sykes, probably the best commentator on Gandhi's educational thought reminded a symposium a few years back, Gandhi's idea of democratic living depends on the possibility of a face-to-face dialogue among the members of a community. This ideal is, of course, ancient, having been established by the Greek philosophers, but its meaning and potential are yet to be realised in our age even though our world seems to have espoused democracy as the only worthwhile form of government. In his last book, The Public and Its Problems (1927), John Dewey-whose educational theory meets Gandhi's proposal on many crucial counts, talked about the difficulties that the 20th century was facing in letting the spatial community stay alive and relevant to human life. During the last decade or so, many nation-states have woken up to the damage modern planning of societies has done to local communities and the family, leaving the child to be cared for by the faceless state. As we plan redress, we can find an important resource of ideas and inspiration in Gandhi's legacy. The model of children's education that flows from Gandhi's vision of a desirable society strikingly matches the most important implications that one might draw from modern child psychology for organizing or reforming the system of education. These implications can be listed in the following manner: * The child's immediate milieu must serve as a resource for the re-discovery of accepted knowledge; * Children must have the freedom to create their own models of knowledge about the world;

The field notes, on which this article is based, were collected by Snehlata Gupta and Malvika Rai... more The field notes, on which this article is based, were collected by Snehlata Gupta and Malvika Rai under the auspices of a study assisted by the UNICEF Regional Office, Kathmandu. As the world approaches the close of this century, many ideas practised and preached by Mahatma Gandhi are becoming increasingly relevant as guides to state policy. The most interesting, and understandably controversial, of his favourite ideas is that of local self-reliance. In a world said to have become interdependent, local self-reliance seems irrelevant, indeed heretical. Yet the fact remains that the world is not really interdependent. Many countries of the South are caught in a debt-trap which forces them to part with a substantial portion of their national income to pay the interest they owe the North. This ghastly compulsion impoverishes these countries further, rendering their labour force and natural resources steadily more vulnerable. In the so-called global village, the real village is dependent on the city for such essential needs of life as work and health care. Gandhi's insistence on local self-reliance was precisely in such basic aspects of life. The world is armed today with sophisticated technological solutions to every human problem, yet the majority of people suffer from malnutrition, unemployment and chronic illness. This obvious contradiction suggests that Gandhi's plea for local self-reliance in the matter of basic needs deserves to be heard again. A second salient feature of Gandhi's legacy is the importance of imaginative action. If there is such a thing as a Gandhian theory, surely it is a theory of action which emphasizes role-playing with earnestness and imagination. All Gandhi's major political and social battles, starting with his work in South Africa, illustrate this point. In retrospect, these battles look crafted to perfection as localized socio-dramas with a universal appeal. The salt satyagraha is probably the best known example of such a battle, but numerous smaller episodes occurred throughout Gandhi's life. For example, when the engine installed for running the press at Phoenix Farm in South Africa failed, Gandhi successfully mobilized his colleagues to run the press manually all night so that Indian Opinion would come out on time. This early event suggests two other aspects of Gandhi's theory of action, apart from commitment to one's role. One is his insistence on autonomy which translates into freedom from dependence on any single option. The other is persistence. If one looks at Gandhi's life from a pedagogical perspective, one can aptly describe it as a long lesson in the value of the freedom of initiative and tenacity to the cause at hand. Finally, Gandhi's legacy must remind us of the significance of the spatial community and the family. Child welfare-indeed, all human welfare-has its locus in these two units of collective life in Gandhi's picture of the world. Democracy, both as a system of governance and as a way of living, depends on the expression it finds in these two units. As Marjorie Sykes, probably the best commentator on Gandhi's educational thought reminded a symposium a few years back, Gandhi's idea of democratic living depends on the possibility of a face-to-face dialogue among the members of a community. This ideal is, of course, ancient, having been established by the Greek philosophers, but its meaning and potential are yet to be realised in our age even though our world seems to have espoused democracy as the only worthwhile form of government. In his last book, The Public and Its Problems (1927), John Dewey-whose educational theory meets Gandhi's proposal on many crucial counts, talked about the difficulties that the 20th century was facing in letting the spatial community stay alive and relevant to human life. During the last decade or so, many nation-states have woken up to the damage modern planning of societies has done to local communities and the family, leaving the child to be cared for by the faceless state. As we plan redress, we can find an important resource of ideas and inspiration in Gandhi's legacy. The model of children's education that flows from Gandhi's vision of a desirable society strikingly matches the most important implications that one might draw from modern child psychology for organizing or reforming the system of education. These implications can be listed in the following manner: * The child's immediate milieu must serve as a resource for the re-discovery of accepted knowledge; * Children must have the freedom to create their own models of knowledge about the world;