DESIGN GURU ASHOKE CHATTERJEE: A TRIBUTE ON HIS 90TH BIRTDHAY

August 12, 2025 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Ashoke Chatterjee (AC) does not like to be called ‘design guru’. But it is really not possible to come up with a better title for this piece on him. For though not a designer, his influence on design and design education in India has been immense. After all, he was Executive Director of India’s first and leading design school, the National Institute of Design (NID) from 1975 to 1985; a Senior Faculty Advisor for Design Management and Communication from 1985-1995, and Distinguished Fellow at NID from 1995 till his retirement in 2001.

AC played a critical role in conceptualizing the meaning of design in the Indian context. In 1977, he brought together UNIDO and International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) members, designers, design-educators and others from across the world to the NID campus at Ahmedabad for a 2-day symposium. The meeting ended with the historic Ahmedabad Declaration which embodies the value of humanism in design. The core of the statement affirms:

‘Its firm conviction that design can be a powerful force for the improvement of the quality of life in the developing world;
Its firm belief that designers must have a clear understanding of the values of their own societies and of what constitutes a standard of life for their own people;
That design in the developing world must be committed to a search for local answers to local needs, utilising indigenous skills, materials and traditions while absorbing the extraordinary power that science and technology can make available to it;
That designers in every part of the world must work to evolve a new value system which dissolves the disastrous divisions between the worlds of waste and want, preserves the identity of peoples and attends the priority areas of need for the vast majority of mankind’.

AC has lived this spirit and has helped designers and design-students across the country imbibe this spirit. He made it a fundamental principle of design education that students needed to understand that design is not restricted to contributing to business profits but also includes contribution made to the livelihoods of artisans, farmers, and the marginalized; and that designers must grapple with social issues. He was one of the early votaries of sustainability and brought this understanding to the education of designers.

As AC is always the first to aver, he is not a designer. He went to Woodstock School, after which he took an Economics degree at St Stephens College, New Delhi. Following this, he did his MBA at Miami University in Ohio, USA. He was with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, where he worked as a communications specialist, the Indian Tourism Development Corporation etc., before finding his home in NID and Ahmedabad. He has advised, and advises, several national and international agencies including INTACH, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (Geneva), the Gujarat Ecology Commission, the Government of Rajasthan Department of Health. He served for many years as honorary president of the Crafts Council of India.

We have had the good fortune to regularly interact with AC over the decades. He was a not-infrequent visitor to the Centre for Environment Education where we worked for many decades, and each occasion brought its laughter, learning and a warm sense of having a caring mentor. He has been on the Governing Council (GC) of CEE from the early years, and as a local GC member, was invited for brainstorming, meetings, events, certificate-distributions and what have you—and if he did not have any prior commitments, he would attend. He generously served on the advisory committee of several large projects that CEE was involved in, and brought his wisdom to bear not only on the content and design, but also on stakeholder management. As programme leaders, we would often be called into the GC meetings to make presentations on our projects; the butterflies in our tummies would settle when we met his twinkling eye, and he nodded ever-so-slightly to us. And after the presentation, he would sometimes pass us a little chit saying that we had done a good job. That truly made our day!

Ashoke Chatterjee played a key role in the National Drinking Water Mission, which in the late 1980s was tasked with ‘providing safe drinking water to all villages, assisting local communities to maintain sources of drinking water in good condition, and for specific attention for water supply to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities.’ AC prepared a road map on the communications aspect of this initiative, without which the gains could neither have been attained nor sustained. He worked closely with CEE in developing communication and education on fluorosis, a disease endemic to large parts of Gujarat.

With all his commitments, AC writes too. Dances of the Golden Hall on the art of Shanta Rao, and Rising, on empowerment efforts among deprived communities in rural Gujarat, are among his well-known books. His latest work (with Harji Malik), in English and Hindi, is titled Learning Together at Jawaja and chronicles the 50-year journey of the Jawaja project.

There is never a meeting with AC when we don’t come away feeling enriched—both as professionals and as human beings.

THE RURAL UNIVERSITY, JAWAJA

One of the criticisms against academic institutions is that they are far removed from every day realities and seldom contribute in solving real-life challenges. The Jawaja project undertaken by IIM Ahmedabad in partnership with the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad is an early exception. Ashoke Chatterjee was a key part of this.

It was in 1975 that Ravi Matthai, IIM-A’s legendary first fulltime director, set out on a journey to see how corporate management principles could be used to solve the major problem facing India–poverty. Ravi Matthai had stepped down as Director in 1972, and could now devote time to such a project.

The decision was taken to work in Jawaja, a drought-prone district of Rajasthan, consisting of about 200 villages and a population of 80,000. There seemed very little scope for development there, given the arid landscape and lack of water and other physical resources. But Prof Ravi Matthai had a different perspective, because he saw people as the biggest resource.

As the project team understood the area better, they found that the area had a 300-year tradition of leather-craft. The communities there were also skilled at weaving. And so the project decided to build on these skills to develop sustainable livelihoods for the communities there. Prof Matthai roped in NID to join hands with IIM-A, to work on livelihoods and empowerment of the communities in Jawaja. Thus along with Ashoke Chatterjee, his counterpart in NID, he started the journey which involved many faculty from both institutes.

The idea was to connect traditional artisans with contemporary disciplines of management and design, and knowledge institutions which had this knowhow. There were some important basic principles underpinning the effort. The first and foremost was that the relationship was one of mutual respect and learning—after all, even as the communities learnt new skills, the faculty of the institutions were learning how their knowledge could be put to use in solving social problems. Another important aspect was to see how much of the value chain could be controlled by the artisans and communities themselves, so that their incomes could be enhanced. The idea was to innovate and design new products which would have new markets, so that the traditional value chains could be broken and the craftspeople could play a greater role in more areas. The focus was also on working in groups, to give greater resilience and strength to the efforts.

The process was, by design, a gradual one, moving from basic products which did not need very high quality craftsmanship, such as leather school bags and woven floor mats, to higher value ones like office supplies, trendier bags, and high-end furnishings.

The challenges were, of course, many. Apart from the need to design new products which would use the old skills, technologies and equipment, another major concern was quality control.

To quote Ashoke Chatterjee on the subject: The Jawaja project was one experiment which integrated many aspects of craft: heritage, culture, social structure, design vocabulary and NID’s design inheritance. But it was not a craft project; it was development defined as self-reliance for those who have been the most dependent in our society. Ravi Matthai explained self-reliance thus: Can people do something for themselves tomorrow that others are doing for them today and they should be released of that dependence? Ultimately, Jawaja taught us that the whole is about people and you have to attend to people first and last or else nothing you do will be sustained.

The depth of AC’s understanding of craft traditions in India, and his humanity are reflected when he says: Jawaja provided a benchmark in crafts: first focus on and understand the community before we intervene in crafts. Who are the people? What are their earnings? What are their aspirations? What is in it for them? Before we start giving people lectures about their ancient traditions, ask what’s in it for them to stay in the tradition? In the case of Jawaja, many of the heritage problems for leather workers were things they wanted to run away from. Their caste elders told them they must not be identified as leather workers; they must have some other identity. When they stopped flaying animals they were left stranded without an identity. We often look at tradition and heredity as some exquisite artefact, but for them it was centuries-old discrimination.

The Jawaja project was an educational experiment-in-action based on the idea that development activities must be a vehicle for learning. The enduring success of the bold experiment is seen even today at several levels.

The first was the creation of self-reliant institution of crafts people–the Artisans’ Alliance of Jawaja and its associations. These started to manage all links of the value chain in Jawaja, from raw material procurement, finances, bank dealings, design and technology know how, and marketing processes. These are active even today, and continue to innovate, produce and market products which are highly valued.

The second is the impact of the project on the larger development scene. It was the learning from running this grassroots education and empowerment project that the idea of setting up a specialized institution for education in rural management came up, and the Institute of Rural Management (IRMA), Anand, was born. This was given shape by Prof Ravi Matthai and two other professors who had been with IIM-A—Dr Kamla Chowdhry and Dr.Michael Halse.

The Jawaja experiment’s widespread legacy is that it influenced development sector thinking on how to approach community-based livelihood interventions in a spirit of mutual respect and learning.

–Meena

From: Inspirations: Individuals and Institutions That Defined India’s Sustainability Journey. Mamata Panday, Meena Raghunathan.Bookwell Publications. 2025.

Pic: NID site

Gracious, graceful, generous: Shobita Punja

July 4, 2023 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Those are my memories of Shobita Punja, who passed away last week. She joined the Governing Council of Centre for Environment Education (CEE) when I was a rookie-professional there. And from then on, for the decades that followed, we would have the privilege of meeting with her twice a year when she came for the meetings, and then again at workshops and seminars. And over the years, she went from advisor to friend.

And in every interaction, she was indeed gracious and generous—taking the time to talk to each one of us, enquiring about our projects, and giving her inputs gently and generously. Most conversations gave us a new perspective to the way we were looking at things.

And of course she was graceful. Her lovely cotton saries; her low, loose bun; her warm smile.

We all wished we could be half as erudite and elegant as her. Or even a quarter would do!

When we first met, she was heading the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT), and they were bringing out innovative teaching materials to ignite the love of our history and culture in school kids, and supporting that with teacher training to ensure that the material was used in the right way in the schools. There was much to learn and share, for she was doing for the cultural environment what we at CEE were doing mainly for the natural environment. Both CEE and CCRT were pioneers in introducing experiential learning pedagogies, in getting children to look up from textbooks at the real world, and in trying to question and contextualize their experiences; analyze and synthesize their learnings. And these were revolutionary thoughts for the ‘80s! (Today, the ideas are not new, but how effectively they are put into practice in their real spirit is still a question mark).

She was truly a pioneer! She did her BA in Art History when it was definitely not seen as a subject with any great career openings, at least not in our part of the world. This was followed by a Master’s in Ancient History from JNU and another Master’s in Art Education from Stanford. She was awarded a Ph.D. for her contribution to Art Education.

From CCRT, Shobita moved to INTACH, and established a Heritage Education and Communication Service there. She was the moving force behind the restoration of the Chowmohalla Palace and Museum at Hyderabad. As an erstwhile resident of that historical city, I can aver to how authentically it was done and how proudly we used to be to show it off to our visitors. The restoration won the coveted UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award, apart from many other accolades. Chowmohallah after its restoration was the site for many beautiful music and dance performances, made even more beautiful by the settings. Shobita was also behind the restoration of the Jai Vilas Palace Museum, Jaipur and Reis Magos Fort, Goa.

She was a prolific writer, with over 20 books to her credit, ranging from one as recent as the 2023 co-authored ‘A New History of India: From Its Origins to the Twenty First Century’, through scholarly books on Khajuraho and Banaras, to children’s books including ‘Listen to the Animals’ A Fabulous Collection Of Takes For Children,Illustrated by Mario Miranda.

But maybe her most seminal work was her first book, ‘Illustrated Guide to Museums of India’. Nothing like this had been done before for our heritage collections, and it set a benchmark. What is wonderful is that it is available to all free online, thanks to the UNESCO archives. All you have to do is click on: https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.84193/page/n17/mode/2up.

Shobita, you have left us, but your contributions and the memories of your grace and presence will live on!

May your soul Rest in Peace.

–Meena

Focus on Citizen Science

April 25, 2023 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

April is marked as Citizen Science Month—not in India, but in the US. But it can only be to the good to take best practices from anywhere at all, and adapt them for our use, right? And an acceleration of the citizen science movement is something that is definitely a crying need in our country!

What is citizen science? The term probably appeared first in 1989, in an issue of the MIT Technology Review 1989, but till today, there is apparently no consensus on a single definition–one paper cites 34! But a working definition we could go by is the one given by the National Geographic Society: ‘Citizen science is the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge.’ The benefits of such initiatives are manifold: large public participation in scientific pursuits; raising scientific awareness and knowledge; democratization of science; ability to pull in indigenous and community knowledge, etc. In fact, without wide-spread involvement of a large number of people, many projects would be very difficult to do—nationwide bird counts, butterfly counts, monitoring water quality across large areas, weather monitoring, space watch, etc.

India has its share of action on this front. The Indian Biodiversity Portal launched in 2008 is a prime example. It ‘aims to aggregate data through public participation and provide open and free access to biodiversity information’ and invites the public to participate in gathering and documenting such knowledge. It currently has 1.54 million observations on 58.3 thousand species. It is an invaluable resource, which would have been difficult to put together without the participation from people across the country.

Another interesting initiative is by the CitSci (Citizen Science for Biodiversity) India–they organize an annual Citizen Science of Biodiversity Conference. Their site also shares useful information on on-going biodiversity and conservation related citizen science projects undertaken by a host of NGOs, like the Citizen Sparrow initiative, which is ‘a public participatory project to which all members of the public are invited to contribute. ‘

It is not just conservation. There are projects in various other scientific research areas as well. The Pune Knowledge Cluster develops research projects where citizens from all walks for life can participate to help analyse big data from various scientific streams including astronomy. Yet another organization in this area is the Centre for Citizen Science (a Pune based organization with the explicit objective of promoting citizen science) whose ‘Project Meghdoot’ aims to study the phenomenon for monsoon across the country.

*River Quality Monitoring, CEE* (Joy of Learning II)

Nor is this a recent phenomenon. I recall in the 1990s, when I was working at Centre for Environment Education (CEE), we had a project wherein school children, as part of the Ganga Pollution Awareness programme, were monitoring and reporting the water quality in the river in their stretch. Similarly, we had green-cover mapping and biodiversity census by college students in Karnataka, which was then correlated to remote sensing data.

The initiatives for spreading scientific knowledge, a necessary precursor of citizen science, have a hoary history in India, and several institutions have been committed to doing this for decades now. Two of the oldest are VASCSC and KSSP. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, in the ‘60s, created an institution, today called the Vikram A. Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC), one of whose objectives is to encourage scientific thinking. The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) is a People’s Science Movement of Kerala, India, founded in 1962 has over 1200 units spread all over Kerala.

In fact, the recognition of the importance of science for national development is enshrined in the Constitution as a Fundamental Duty of every citizen! This section explicitly states that ‘It shall be the duty of every citizen of India.. to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.’

From here to citizen science should not be too long a distance to traverse. But it questionable if we have even achieved the scientific temper, so earnestly endorsed by Pandit Nehru as ‘the scientific approach, the adventurous and yet critical temper of science, the search for truth and new knowledge, the refusal to accept anything without testing and trial, the capacity to change previous conclusions in the face of new evidence, the reliance on observed fact and not on pre-conceived theory, the hard discipline of the mind—all this is necessary, not merely for the application of science but for life itself and the solution of its many problems.’

Even with such strong foundations and a bunch of dedicated organizations, neither scientific temper nor citizen science is very widespread in India today. While there is much talk of the importance of STEM, it is yet a theoretical approach aimed at cracking exams, and not an effort to inculcate scientific thinking and the spirit of science as a part of how we live, think and take decisions.

Maybe we should pause to ponder on this now—because it is Citizen Science Month somewhere in the world!

–Meena

For anyone who wants to explore the subject more, ‘Citizen Science in India: Introduction, Challenges and Way Forward’, a paper by Suryesh Namdeo and Moumita Koley provides a contemporary overview of the subject.

Celebrating the Third Sector: World NGO Day

February 28, 2023February 28, 2023 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Ponder this…

Helpage India runs 152 Mobile Health Units which travel to 1920 community locations spread over 22 states, and has provided 3 million treatments to vulnerable seniors at their doorsteps.

The Association for the Mentally Challenged, Bangalore was founded in 1960, and since then has been supporting children, adolescents and adults with intellectual disabilities, with the aim to educate, train and rehabilitate them.

Association for Democratic Reform works to improve voter knowledge by disseminating information on candidates contesting local and national elections through all media across the country.

Akshaya Patra Foundation strives to eliminate classroom hunger by implementing the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in the government schools and government-aided schools. Today it is serving meals to 1.8 million children across India.

Pratham focuses on high-quality, low-cost and replicable interventions to address gaps in the education system. Working directly with children and youth as well as through large-scale collaborations with government systems, Pratham programs touch millions of lives every year.

Give India, itself an NGO, is the largest and the most trusted giving platform in India. It enables individuals and organizations to raise and donate funds conveniently to any cause they care about.

Goonj aims to build an equitable relationship of strength, sustenance and dignity between the cities and villages using the under-utilized urban material as a tool to trigger development with dignity, across the country.

Centre for Environment Education has been working across the country for the last 40 years, to increase awareness about the environment and sustainable development, working with schools, higher educational institutions, policy makers and reaching out to youth and the general community.

The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), a pan-India wildlife research organization, has been promoting the cause of nature conservation since 1883. Its mission is Conservation of nature, primarily biological diversity through action based on research, education and public awareness.

Sulabh International Social Service Organisation developed a two-pit pour-flush using ecological compost toilet technology. Sulabh flush is based on a simple design that is eco-friendly and uses just around 1.5 litres of water to flush. Over 1.5 million such toilets have been constructed across 492 districts of India.

All the organizations mentioned above belong to what is called the ‘third sector’. It is common to refer to three sectors of society, viz Government, Business, and the Non-Profit sectors. The academic Maciariello. J (2005) explains it thus: ‘First, there are public sector organizations through which the work of government is carried out. Then there are private organizations, organizations established to meet the economic needs and wants of society. And finally there are social sector organizations to care for those welfare needs of citizens that are not met fully either by public or private sector organizations.’

The relationships among these three are complex and dynamic. They may be complementary, supplementary or antagonistic. For instance, government looks to business to produce goods and services that people want, provide jobs and underpin the economic growth of the country. At the same time, it regulates how business functions. Similarly, governments and businesses look to NGOs to provide last-mile services to communities. At the same time, governments regulate NGOs; both the others sectors fund them; and both government and business are sometimes sceptical about them. There are also NGOs and activist organizations which bring to light the misdoings or shortcomings of governments and businesses, and speak up for the interests of society, especially those who do not have a voice—the under privileged, the environment, etc., and hence are on the opposite side to the other two. But what we need to understand and accept is that each of these has its own responsibilities and tasks in a well-functioning society.

As per the definition in India, NGOs are Non-Governmental Organizations working towards various causes or charitable purposes, i.e., activities which are carried out for ‘relief of the poor, education, yoga, medical relief, preservation of environment (including watersheds, forests and wildlife) and preservation of monuments or places or objects of artistic or historic interest, and the advancement of any other object of general public utility’. (Section 2(15) of the Income Tax Act, 1961). These organizations aim to do good for society, and not generate profits. Hence, NGOs are legally not allowed to distribute the income from their working to their members. According to some reports, there are over 30 lakh NGOs in India. However, it is difficult to be quite sure of the number of working, functional NGOs.

In terms of legal structure, NGOs can be registered as Societies under Societies Registration Act (1860); Trusts under Indian Trusts Act (1882); or Non-profit company (Section 8 Company) under Companies Act (2013). There is no difference in status among these forms (though there is a lot of difference in terms of disclosure, transparency and governance requirements, with Section 25 companies required the most stringent compliances), and it depends on the context of the organization as to how it chooses to constitute itself.

NGOs differ greatly in the scope of their work, the nature of their work, size, objectives, mission, thrust areas etc. Some may have only a few staff members, while others may have employees running into hundreds. Some may work in a single village, town or community, while others may work across geographies, even internationally. Some may work on a single theme like girl child education, while others may work on holistic rural development or variety of issues from health to environment to sanitation. Some may be involved in grassroots work and delivery of services, while others may be involved in capacity building, or advocacy, innovating and creating new models of delivery of public goods and services, or policy work or funding.

Often, NGOs are accused of financial mis-governance, programme mismanagement, or not making an impact. But there are as many bad apples in every basket! Who has not encountered a bribe-seeking babu or a governmental system which needs to be oiled? How many times a month do we wake up to headlines about the shenanigans of bad corporates which cost the nation in the hundreds of crores? There is no particular reason to point fingers at the Third Sector, who for the most part work with a great deal of commitment and passion, in difficult circumstances and with less rewards.

The need is for society to understand the important role that NGOs play, the value they add, the key role they play in social development and building a just and more equitable world, and not stereotype them—either as impractical do-gooders or a self-serving bunch.

That’s a resolve for World NGO Day, marked on the 27^th of February every year!

–Meena

Zoos and the Sense of Wonder

November 29, 2022 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

*Cheetahs at Oakland Zoo*. *Picture: Oakland Zoo site*

Oakland Zoo is celebrating its annual Glowfari Festival through November, December and January. This year, the highlights include ‘a walkabout through the land down under with kangaroos and koalas, icons of the California coastline including whales, otters, and jellies, exotic animals of the tropical rainforest, and a trip to the past with a towering T-Rex and a megalodon shark tunnel!’ Ok, apart from the t-rex and megalodon shark, that’s not very usual for a zoo, right? Well, not till you learn that these are not real animals that the visitors will see but hundreds of huge hand-painted animal lanterns placed throughout the zoo’s campus, making for a totally unique tour of the zoo by night. The spectacular lanterns are arranged throughout a mile-long pathway. They glow in the dark, turning the zoo into a fairyland. The tag line of the fest is ‘A Wildly Illuminating Lantern Festival’.

Some years ago, a New York based artist Sean Kenney toured several zoos and botanical gardens in the US with over 150 life size and larger-than-life size sculptures of animals and plants made with, hold your breath, Lego blocks! Lego blocks are this artist’s chosen medium. who turned his The largest sculptures took up to nine months to construct. The pieces are set in place as per a master-plan, and glued tother. A lion, for example, took 474 construction hours and Lego 48,248 bricks to build.

Brevard Zoo currently has an exhibition called ‘Life Beneath our Sea’ which displays a dozen giant sand sculptures hand-crafted by world-class artists using over 500 tonnes of sand, which is bringing the beauty of underwater scenes to the viewers.

These are just a few examples of innovative programmes being done by zoos to attract visitors, bring the beauty of wonder of nature to them, and educate them.

It is well recognized that experiences with animals and educational elements can increase zoo visitors’ motivation to take conservation action, and this is why zoos place so much emphasis on educational initiatives.

San Diego Zoo, probably the top-rated zoo in the world, has developed curricula on a number of topics that can be taught through a combination of classroom activities, along with activities to be done during a visit to the zoo. The topics range from the Panda curriculum to the Wildcats curriculum to Animal Adaptations to the Australian Outback curriculum. They also organize field trips with guides for schools, opportunities to get close to small animals, safari park guided field trips, special early morning trips and even sleepovers at the safari park!

The Singapore Zoo has specific programmes for various levels, from pre-school to primary school to secondary school. They also have professional development programmes for teachers. These are very structured experiences. For instance, one of the education programmes offered to secondary students ‘Fragile Forest’ helps them get a multi-dimensional experience of life in a rainforest ecosystem. It includes a walk amidst fascinating flora and coming face to face with lemurs, bats, butterflies, birds, tarantulas, snails, millipedes, etc. This tour also demonstrates the importance of rainforests to our lives, and ways individuals can help to save them.

And it is not just children that zoo education caters to. Many zoos like the Smithsonian offer internships for adults and senior students, and encourage volunteering.

A number of zoos pivoted during COVID to offer virtual zoo experiences, including pre-recorded virtual Zoo tours, online classes allowing children to personally interact with Zoo educators and virtually meet several animal ambassadors up close. Some Zoos like the Taronga Zoo, run an educational TV channel, with new videos releasing every week. Other zoos offer virtual guided tours through the Zoo Commissary, Vet Hospital, and behind the scenes Aquarium.

Yet other zoos offer educational kits like exhibit design kits, , biological artefacts (i.e. skulls, feathers, shells, etc), and materials to conduct conservation learning games.

India too places emphasis on zoo education. The Central Zoo Authority got Centre for Environment Education to develop a Zoo Education Masterplan—a 330 page document which provides zoos in India a detailed way-forward on the why, what and how of education at such facilities.

Lets hope zoos across the world are able to effectively use education to support conservation.

–Meena

The Storyteller Who Saved Silent Valley: A Tribute to Prof MK Prasad

January 25, 2022January 26, 2022 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

For those of us who started working on environment-related issues in the ‘80s, ‘Silent Valley’ was one of the success stories which was held up to us as an example of how arguments based on good science, people’s power, and unrelenting campaigning could save the world. Or some part of it.

For those who have forgotten what this was about, hydroelectric dams were proposed on the River Kunthipuzha, which would have involved the submergence of the forests of Silent Valley, a biodiversity rich habitat, home to many, many unique species of flora and fauna, including the rare and unique lion-tailed macaque which is endemic to the Western Ghats.

Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP), a people’s science movement, led the campaign against the project under the leadership of Prof. MK Prasad. They published well researched techno-economic and socio-political assessment reports of the proposed project. The campaign by KSSP evoked a huge response from citizens at large, as well as eminent scientists and environmentalists like Romulus Whitaker of the Madras Snake Park, Dr. Salim Ali (who was probably the first to flag the issue), Dr. MS Swaminathan etc. The renowned poet Sugathakumari was at the forefront of the movement, and her poem “Marathinu Stuthi” (“Ode to a Tree”), was a rallying call for the people.

In an early and unique victory for the environmental movement in India, the then-PM, Mrs. Indira Gandhi finally weighed in, and the project was halted. Subsequently, the area was declared a National Park.

The story is one of the amazing dedication and hard work of a large number of people. But Prof. MK Prasad’s was a symbol of the movement. Prof MKP as he was fondly referred to, was a botanist who spent his life in academics. He taught botany, was Principal of Maharaja’s College, Eranakulam, and Pro-Vice Chancellor, Calicut University.

But he was not confined to classrooms, and believed passionately in taking science to the people. He was an environmental and science activist all his life, and a founding member of KSSP. His distinction as a scientist supported his environmental activism, which no one could dismiss as woolly-headed.

He was a member of the Governing Council of Centre for Environment Education for many decades and we at CEE were fortunate to have him as a teacher, guide, and mentor. Never for him the exalted distance of a Board Member. He was always interested in the minutest details of our projects and lives, and was happy to spend any length of time chatting with us. Prof Prasad passed away last week due to COVID. Here are a few poignant memories which bring him to life.

Prof Prasad, my mentor and a dear friend. It seems a little presumptuous to call this stalwart my friend, but as unassuming as he was, he truly was that. I’d scold him when he sat next to me during the Governing Board meetings, when lesser mortals like us were let in, because he would chatter away irreverently while serious matters were being discussed. He guided me through the challenge of trying to break into the ivory towers of higher education, and when things didn’t work, he’d say our efforts were “before their time”. That, always accompanied by his naughty smile, had become his code word. He also treated me as his unofficial research assistant, which I enjoyed. He would call to ask me to find out about things that often I knew nothing about, and it was always great learning. Will miss you, Sir!

Kiran Chhokar.

When I think of Prof Prasad, I can see him walking down the corridors of ASCI where we held our Steering Committee meetings in Hyderabad. As always, he is dressed in a half-sleeved shirt, has no smile on his face – but his kind, sharp eyes are twinkling! I am immensely grateful for all his advice and guidance to the school environmental education project. But more importantly, I feel blessed to have spent some time with such a stalwart. His greatness and his humble demeanour co-existed so well!

Something I found remarkable in him and so distinct from my generation is that he always gave a considered, detailed response to every request for advice. He never rushed to give an immediate response. Sometimes, he would respond the next day – probably after mulling over the issue.

On one of his first visits to ASCI, I told him that there was a National Park (the KBR National Park) close by and he could probably take a stroll there in the evening. When I met him the next morning, he gave me a gentle, but proper scolding about my recommendation. I learnt my lesson – one does not present KBR as a ‘National Park’ to the person who saved the Silent Valley National Park!

Kalyani Kandula

While I was working at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Ahmedabad, I had the good fortune of knowing Professor Prasad. I have known him for many years now. At Governing Council meetings held at CEE often I would sit next to him and would be very inspired by his valuable suggestions, critical comments and review of many projects CEE was handling. He would not mince his words. A gentle soul, very down to earth and a great inspiration to many. Professor Prasad in fact attended my sister’s wedding in Kerala. My father Dr.S.M.Nair and Professor Prasad shared a great professional and personal bond.

Meena Nair

Some weeks after CEE’s office in Pune was started, Prof MKP dropped by. He was in Pune for some other work. Though it was a single person office and I a relatively junior staff member, Prof MKP was interested to see how I was settling in and getting on. When I told him that Amma (my mother in law) would have been happy to meet him, considering his association with KSSP, he just said that he would be happy to come over for coffee. So we did that, and Amma (and I) was very touched by the gesture. Later Prof Prasad and I went to meet Prof Pisharoty and I just felt blessed to listen to their conversation.

Sanskriti Menon

For me, he was the quintessential story teller. We would invite him to come and speak in various training programmes we organized—those for Forest Officers, for Environmental Educators from around South and Southeast Asia, for NGOs, for school and college teachers. Of course his sessions had to be around the Silent Valley Campaign. I must have sat through his sessions a dozen times if not more. But the passion, involvement and detail with which he told the story of the campaign inspired not only every new batch of trainees who had never heard it before, but equally, us the organizers who had heard it and read about it and discussed it ad-infinite. Such was the power of his passionate storytelling! And not just the Silent Valley–he had done so many interesting things, met so many interesting people, been so many interesting places–he could keep an audience engaged for hours!

Thank you Sir, for inspiring us. We are comforted by the knowledge that you are looking down at us with a twinkle in your eye!

–Meena

Another old piece on Dr. Pisharoty at : https://wordpress.com/post/millennialmatriarchs.com/43

A Shout-out for the Environment: NEAC

November 11, 2021November 11, 2021 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

India has always been a little ahead of the curve in its thinking about environmental issues. Four decades ago, it recognized that raising public awareness and educating key target groups as well the future generations on environmental issues, were key to a sustainable future. It designated a Centre of Excellence in this area way back in 1985–viz the Centre for Environment Education.

In 1986, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (as it was then) launched another unique initiative called the National Environmental Awareness Campaign (NEAC). The unique feature of this was that it called upon various types of organizations to plan their own Environmental Awareness programmes for their own local communities or other target groups, and implement them with the support of small grants from the Ministry.

Every year, NEAC started on Nov. 19^th. Nov 19 to Dec 18 was marked as Environment Month in the old days in India—Nov 19 being Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s birthday, and she certainly had a big role in setting the environmental agenda for the country, and was a voice for developing countries on these issues at global forums.

NEAC was unique that it was conceived as a pan-national programme, at a time when there were not very many such. Even in the first year of its launch, it already touched almost every state and union territory. And it was unique in its proactive involvement of a variety of agencies as implementers. NGOs, educational institutions, professional associations, scientific bodies, community-based organizations—all were welcome to put in proposals, which were scrutinized and passed. There was a degree of trust which is not often seen.

And there were few constraints on media and methods for outreach—from street plays, to seminars to drawing competitions to films to essay-writing to teacher training to door-to-door campaigns to wall-painting to bringing out booklets and posters to….. The NEAC probably saw a flowering of outreach methods which was unique. And it reached every nook and corner of the country—from women in remote forest villages, to students in the Andamans; from famers in Assam to small industries in Gujarat.

The numbers were mind-boggling. From the involvement of 120 NGOs in the first year, it went to 9784 implementing agencies in 2006-2007. A total of 13,336 campaigns are reported to have been conducted in 2014-15. And each of these reached hundreds of people.

And the administrative backbone also evolved with the growing numbers. To begin with, there was one central Committee set up by the Ministry to scrutinize and pass the proposals. Slowly, the concept of Regional Resource Agencies (RRA) took root—reputed NGOs or academic institutions which were well networked in specific areas were given the responsibility to set up their own expert-committees and pass the proposals. Within 10 years of the programme starting, there were 27 such RRAs, making for very decentralized operations.

The amount of money involved was not high. Each implementing NGO got about Rs. 30,000 to implement the programme. But the energy, creativity and outreach it gave rise to were truly remarkable.

The NEAC has been more or less been given up in the last few years. Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave in a written reply to Parliament said that the NEAC could not be conducted during 2015-16 and 2016-17 due to lack of funds.

Nov 19 is almost here. It does not seem that there is much action on this front this year either.

There were a lot of problems with NEAC, with the key ones being: Were the funds being utilized properly? Did the kind of awareness programmes being done make a difference?

Many evaluations of NEAC were done, the latest one being in around 2017. But the report of the evaluation is not exactly locatable. So has NEAC been dropped due to lack of funds? Because it was not making a difference? Because something else has taken its place? It is not clear.

The one thing that is clear is that with environmental crises looming, the need for environmental awareness and education have never been greater. OK, if the NEAC was not effective, let’s revamp it. Surely the evaluation report should tell us how to do it. But let’s not forget that building public opinion is critical to saving the world!

–Meena

RIP Dr. SM Nair: Father of Natural History Museums

October 19, 2021 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ 1 Comment

There are the pioneers, and he was among them. Museology is not a widely-known or popular field of study even today. Way back in the 1950s, it was even less so. This is the time at which a young boy from Kerala, after finishing his B.Sc in Trivandrum, travelled all the way to Baroda to pursue his M.Sc in the subject, at the M.S. University. He went on to do research on the Bio-deterioration of Museum Materials, and was awarded the first Doctorate in Museology from M.S. University for this work.

Dr. Nair started his career as an academic, first teaching at his alma mater in Baroda, and then moving on to Department of Museum Studies, BITS Pilani.

Mrs. Indira Gandhi, then-PM, and a leader who took great interest in the environment, had been very impressed by the Natural History Museums she saw during her visits to Europe. She wanted to create similar ones in India. She conceived of a plan for one in New Delhi and one in Bhopal. She put together an eminent team of museum professionals and scientists to take this idea forward. One thing led to another, and Dr. SM Nair, only 37 years old at that time, was chosen as the Project Director for this initiative in 1974.

Four hectic years followed, when the conceptualization, planning and execution was done by a dedicated core team including Shri D.P.Singh, S.K. Saraswat, B. Venugopal and several others. Dr. Nair visited the best Natural History Museums around the world. He got several artists and model-makers trained at the best centres in the world. And the National Museum of Natural History opened its doors to the public on June 5, 1978 (Environment Day). Subsequently, Regional Museums of Natural History came up in Mysore, Bhopal and Bhubaneswar under Dr. Nair’s guidance.

The stuffed rhino that greeted one on the ground floor of the FICCI building where NMNH was housed, will surely be in the memories of many a Delhi school child. The rhino had died a natural death at the Delhi Zoo, and was stuffed and kept here.

The effort in NMNH was always to make the experience interactive for children. For those times, when most museums were static displays, this focus was unusual. The Museum also had a major thrust on outreach and extension. It had an active teacher training and orientation programme, which reached out to thousands of educators in its time.

Dr. Nair had a personal connect with every exhibit and activity at NMNH, and continued to take an interest in it even after his retirement in the late ‘90s. What he must have gone through on 26^th April 2016, when the news of a fire breaking out in the museum and destroying the entire collection, can only be imagined.

Dr. Nair continued to be active in his mission of Environmental Education long after his retirement, working at WWF-India and Centre for Environment Education.

Not just at a national level, he was extremely respected internationally, serving as Chairman of Natural History Museum Committee of ICOM (international Council of Museums) and as

a Member of the Joint Museum Committee of the lndo-US Subcommission on Education and Culture.

Among his books are ‘Endangered Animals of India and their Conservation’, brought out by the National Book Trust, and ‘Bio-deterioration of Museum Materials’ by Agam Kala Prakashan.

We knew Dr. Nair since the mid-eighties, as one of the fathers of the Environmental Education movement an India.

He mentored us first as a member of the Governing Council of CEE, and then as a senior colleague. Even today, old-timers in CEE-VIKSAT recall his contribution to these institutions with great respect—when it was a struggling NGO, he spotted the potential of the team and gave them a project to develop labels and take-away materials for the NMNH exhibits. This not only paid salaries for a couple of months, but gave them their first project from a national-level, government institution. This project was a critical stepping-stone.

We have also known him as the father of a colleague, Meena, who was inspired by him to follow in his footsteps in a career in Environmental Education.

NMNH and other natural history museums excited the imagination and curiosity of generations of children. NMNH may no longer exist, but Dr. Nair’s legacy lives on.

Dr. Nair passed away last week. May his soul rest in peace.

Dr. SM Nair (1937-2021).

–Meena

Close Encounters with Al-Seshan: Tribute to the Man Who made Elections Free and Fair

November 19, 2019 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ 2 Comments

TN-seshan-_16e58b8495a_large We who worked at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) were lucky. The list of luminaries with whom we had the opportunity to interact was beyond belief.

Mr. TN Seshan was one of them. During his stint as Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, he was on our Governing Board, as CEE was a Centre of Excellence under the Ministry. Apart from that, since CEE was part of Nehru Foundation for Development founded by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai (whom Mr. Seshan counted as a guru), he took interest in the institution beyond his term also.

When he was on the Board, he made it a point to visit CEE whenever he was in Ahmedabad. And review the programs. He could pick holes in any presentation in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, and ask the most unanswerable questions. And his questions were certainly not put gently! While it was traumatic, when we dried our tears and reflected back on the experience, what he pointed out were indeed basic shortcomings in the program design or implementation.

All of us at CEE used to get all primed in the weeks preceding The Visit. We tried to ensure that everything was in order, but sure enough his perfectionist eye would catch just that smallest detail that we had overlooked. And someone had better have had a convincing answer for that! As Mamata remembers: “My personal Encounter with Mr Seshan was when I had to present some parts of a compilation of what was, in future, to become a publication titled ‘Essential Learnings in Environmental Education’. As someone who was still very new and untutored in the subject, this was an absolute trial by fire. Mr Seshan ruthlessly ripped apart every sentence, and reduced me to tears in front of the entire gathering of CEE! In the many years that followed, the Day that Mr Seshan Made Mamata Cry, became one of the memorable milestones in the institutional, and my personal history! As I grew older, and perhaps a little bit wiser, and Mr Seshan became a national icon, every time he was in the news, I remembered with greatest respect how he ingrained in me the importance of working towards ‘excellence’ in whatever one did”.

During his tenure as Secretary Environment, he gave CEE the task of doing a review of the state of Environment Education in the country. And a ridiculous deadline. In those unimaginable days before internet and Google and emails, we set about physically gathering reports, syllabi, textbooks from each state and UT. Almost 30 people worked day and night for about 20 days trying to make sense of the mounds of material. And then the day of the first presentation was upon us! Our director, Kartikeya Sarabhai and a small team of us were to take the 8 a.m. flight to Delhi. We were in the office till 4.30 a.m. putting the report together. While we went home for a quick shower, a team continued work printing and photocopying the report. We and the reports just made it onto the flight!

The meeting was set for 11 or 11.30 in the morning. It was a large Board room where about a dozen officials and our team were gathered. We had about 3-4 copies of the report. We put one at the head of the table where Mr. Seshan would sit. And waited, with butterflies in our tummies. He walked in almost on time; gave us barely a look of acknowledgement, picked up the report and rifled through it. For exactly about 7 minutes. And then tore us and the report to shreds! He started with the shortcomings in the framework that we had created for the analysis, the data gaps, the facets we had not even tried to look at, etc. etc. The meeting lasted about 15 minutes. He spoke in a flow for the latter 8 minutes, tossed the report back on the table, and told his office to fix another date for the next presentation the following week.

It was a learning like no other! We had worked on the report for days, but he was able to get a better perspective in 7 minutes!

The story had a fairly happy ending in that we completely re-thought our approach, and worked on the report over the next month, with interim presentations. The report became a baseline for our work on Environmental Education, and definitely impacted subsequent policy directions.

I had the chance to interact with Mr. Seshan on many occasions, including teaching him how to use the new Apple Computers, a big novelty at that time! He would often call us home for meetings early in the mornings, and his gracious wife would give us wonderful coffee. After the official work, over the coffee, he was not averse to chatting about this and that, including Mamata Kulkarni and Shilpa Shetty!

It is indeed a privilege to have seen Mr. Seshan in action, and worked with him in a small way. When media referred to him as Al-Seshan, he would joke that Bulldog might be more appropriate than Alsatian! Well, from my memory of him, his bark and his bite were both scary. But they did set India’s democracy on a solid footing!

–Meena