India Environment Portal Knowledge for change

Respect for rural issues lacking

• 30/12/1992

What made you join ASTRA?
By the early 1970s, I had reached a plateau in my career. I had been abroad, got my Ph.D. and published many papers in major international scientific journals. Despite having achieved all the normal academic accomplishments, I had no practical experience. A K N Reddy's arguments about alternative development paradigms and the need to develop low-cost rural housing placed a thrilling challenge before me. I got totally absorbed in the work. Moreover, it was very exciting going and talking to ordinary rural people, learning from them and trying to solve their problems.

Staying with villagers requires a certain level of humility. Because of your Western education, did you find this difficult?
More than humility, it is a cultural make-up within you, something that is entirely personal. I find it very fascinating when I have to deal with new people who are supposedly ignorant. At times, I have no answers to their questions, or I am forced to think how stupid I have been in designing a technology. Then, I have to begin all over again.

But with are more people like you, why has the ASTRA message not spread? Why aren't there more ASTRAs?
The IITs are a very tough nut to crack. Even the formation of ASTRA in IISc was an accident. Reddy is a very different kind of person, with very different concerns, compared to an ordinary scientist. He was able to get together a group of motivated young persons who were fascinated by his ideas and vision.

Are scientists in IITs not interested in rural science and technology?
IITs have a very strong Westward orientation. They were started off with Western aid and still receive far more aid from particular institutions in the West. But these institutions promote an ideology that is anti-people and pro-Western. Fortunately, a lot of this is changing and we now find many individuals in the IITs addressing themselves to rural issues.

What have been the major successes of ASTRA?
Apart from specific technologies like mud blocks or wood gasifiers, I would say that the most remarkable achievement of ASTRA has been to motivate many in the Indian scientific and voluntary sectors to think about applying science and technology to rural areas.

,font class=question>In the villages that you have been working in, how have you organised the community? What is ASTRA's model of community organisation?,/font>
This is still a grey area for us. Here we come up with the question of what makes a village community tick. We are confronted with problems that are not very familiar to us. But I can say that while community organisations are a must, we cannot have one single model.

Basically, if you demonstrate the clear benefits of a technology to the people, they get together to maintain it and also distribute the benefits equally.

If you withdrew from these villages, would the people continue?,/font>
I think they would. Organisationally, they are now strong enough. Our physical presence is not necessary. But the problem is that of subsidies. Rural energy needs subsidising, especially in terms of capital equipment, spares and so on. The people are not yet rich enough to do without it.

What would you say has been the major failing of ASTRA?
We have really failed to generate enough respect in the scientific and academic circles for rural issues. Although IISc is pretty open in this regard, even here we are just tolerated. By contrast, I was fascinated by my experience with a Nobel laureate. I can't remember his name but he discovered the Hepatitis-B virus. He came to Bangalore and I accompanied him to Ungra. I was showing off a toilet with double chamber pits when he stunned me by asking whether we had installed them in the neighbouring villages. Frankly, I had not thought of it that way; but a Western Nobel laureate was trying to find out whether the results of science were reaching the people.