Educational Institutes, Khagaria (Bihar State)

The Saga

— The Solidarity

Around twelve years ago, I founded the Hindi journal "Nirman Samvad" jointly with a friend of mine; that friend introduced me to Dr Swami Vivekanand Yadav, MD, of Khagaria, Bihar. Dr Swami Vivekanand Yadav stayed with me in Delhi for a few days, sharing his old dream of establishing education institutes in Khagaria. I told him, building education institutes is a straightforward task, get some funds from somewhere, build the buildings, apply for government recognition, start taking on students; that's it. But, in contrast, creating educational institutions as community models is a different matter and requires time, energy, and creativity.

I suggested to him that governments get money from the common people. We could also get support from the common people. Although it is tough, it is certain to be successful. The topic of social ownership and local governance was one of the topics I discussed with him. Together, we started establishing educational institutions such as hospitals, medical colleges, nursing schools, teacher training schools, paramedical schools, livelihood training schools, and so on.

— The Inception

On 2nd October 2006, the first foundation stone for the medical college and the community hospital was done by my wife, a PhD in hydrology and catchment management evaluating rainwater harvesting with the University of Sydney, and a post-doctorate in agricultural extension policy with The International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI.

— The Dawn and the Headway

As a result of my ideas and proposals, we conducted mass meetings, foot marches, and public dialogues in order to gain support from the people. I wrote some handbooks for free distribution on the ideas of local governance and decentralised economy. There were thousands of copies of monthly open-dialogue booklets published, and volunteers went from village to village with these booklets.

— Mass Meetings

From street level spontaneous meetings to large-scale mass meetings of over one hundred thousand people, we organized many mass meetings at different levels.

— Foot Marches

We did many foot marches, ranging from one weekly foot march to one and a half months long foot march, covering thirty to fifty kilometres per day on average.

In the one-and-a-half month long march, we did not intend to make a route chart. Walking from village to village in unfamiliar communities was a challenge. We used to work long day-time, to cover more and more villages and villagers from early in the morning up to about 11:00 at night.

Upon entering a village, we walked around all residential areas in that village, then played street plays in a variety of places within the village and conducted spontaneous street-mass meetings with villagers. Following these meetings, we requested food for ourselves. At the start of the foot march, we decided not to purchase food or accommodations. Nobody except me had ever experienced begging for food and foot march. For the rest of the foot-marchers, it was not easy at first to ask for food from a stranger in a strange village, but after a few days, they overcame their egos and conditioned notions of individual ownership.

It was determined that if we did not obtain food or raw materials for self-cooking from villagers, we would not eat and continue to walk around with an empty stomach. We used the method of spiritual begging for food from strange villagers. Begging for a greater cause generates politeness and spiritual ties with the people. It used to be customary to ask for food from many households, mixing the food from all of the houses, and eating it together as a group. We were used to inviting villagers to eat with us. It was another opportunity to talk to them about educational institutes. There were times when we cooked our meals alongside the village mud-roads.

Dr Claire Glendenning also participated in one of the foot marches. For communication with local people, she learned Hindi. The video shows her speaking in Hindi.

— Open-dialogues by periodic-booklets

A booklet-journal was published periodically, providing updates on the works and asking for suggestions. We sent thousands of copies to the villagers through newspaper hawkers, and our volunteers were visiting the villages the following week to collect feedback.

— Public Contributions

— Construction of the educational institutes

— Educational Institutes after construction

— Free medical help for financially weak families on the ground

There are hundreds of villages without functional connectivity to the district headquarters. There are major percentages of villagers who cannot afford medical care. Medications are delivered to remote villages by physicians and volunteers.

The founders

Prof Swami Vivekanand Yadav MD
Dharmendra Kumar, Engineer
Vivek Umrao "Samajik Yayavar"

— Prof Swami Vivekanand Yadav MD

Dr Swami Vivekanand Yadav was born in Khagaria to a family that was financially humble. Being an MD in Radiology, he could have earned a lot of money and lived a luxurious lifestyle. However, he chose to serve financially poor villagers. He was a professor at a medical college, but he spent his time in the interior and remote villages of Farbisganj (Araria), Supaul, Saharsa, Purnia and Khagaria. For this, he traveled by general trains and buses to reach these areas to serve needy people, an unorganised and mismanaged public transportation system.

We visited many villages together. He sat in any available place in the villages to give free medical advice to the villagers. Starting his day early so that he could cover more villages in a single day was his goal.

— Dharmendra Kumar

In his childhood, Dharmendra Kumar, a mechanical engineering graduate, lived in poverty and sometimes slept empty stomach, but refused to join a few well-paid government jobs as an engineer in PSUs after graduation. Despite earning tens of thousands of dollars per month, he does not own a house despite being over forty years old. Dharmendra lives with his family in a very simple house. The majority of his income has been invested in social welfare and upliftment programs. He is an excellent mass-organiser. His network includes thousands of farmers and youth in Bihar.

It was in 2006 that he encouraged the economically weak youths of a village to start businesses. The youths were working as migrant labourers in Delhi. His guidance led them to begin making PEDA. Business started with one kilogram of PEDA/peda (a sugary dessert made with milk) in 2006 but quickly grew to an annual turnover of around ten million US dollars.

I've been encouraging him to work for a chain of residential schools and a chain of supermarkets and small-scale village industries in various villages. It took him a few years to accept these ideas, but now Dharmendra and I are implementing these ideas as a chain of agro-cottage industries and other.

— Vivek Umrao "Samajik Yayavar"

Prof Swami Vivekanand Yadav and Vivek Umrao