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About Sanjoy Ghose
Sanjoy Ghose is a person who has lived and
worked for the poor all his life, especially for
the rural poor. Well known in the development
and voluntary sector across the country, Sanjoy
Ghose made a mark with his pioneering work in
the villages of Western Rajasthan (India). With
a background in rural management (IRMA, Gujarat)
and agricultural economics (Oxford), he set up a
voluntary agency called URMUL TRUST and began
work in six villages of rural Bikaner.
Later, Sanjoy mov ed to North East India. He
strongly believed that the only cure to the ills
of the Northeast are the people themselves. If
young people could be helped to see an
alternative path, a path of constructive work
and development, much of the problems would be
finished. In order to demonstrate his idea and
vision, Sanjoy Ghose, heading a small team of
professionals, and under the banner of AVARD NE,
moved to Majuli, the largest riverine island in
the world, in April, 1996. Much neglected, on
the brink of survival, and faced with a serious
erosion problem, Majuli epitomised much of the
situation in the Northeast.
A major problem that the people of Majuli face
every year is the flooding of their island by
the Bramhaputra. Sanjoy and his team dealt with
this problem by involving the people in evolving
low-cost, community -managed solutions that
dealt with both flood control and soil erosion.
Over 20,000 people took part in these community
initiatives.
In the process, Sanjoy and his team made
enemies
of the contractors who till then were the people
who benefited the most from the annual ritual of
flood controls works. And he also became a
threat to ULFA: Sanjoy's effectiveness with the
people offered an unpalatable comparison to
ULFA's achievements.
For ULFA, it was simpler to abduct Sanjoy, then
to introspect on their relationship with the
people. In doing so, the ULFA stressed their
impotence in the face of people-led initiatives.
They also paid him their best compliment: they
have helped Sanjoy Ghose highlight his belief
that a path of constructive work and development
is a better path for people to follow.
The Rediff
Special/Sanjay
Ghose
What happened
that day
We
managed to get to the pulse of the local
community, and help work on few action
programmes together. The most memorable of these
has been the stand taken by the community to
prevent erosion of the island. More than 30,000
man-days of labour (mostly woman-days, in fact)
were contributed, and an experimental stretch of
1.7 km has been protected. There is little
guarantee of it surviving even the first flood
season, but it has demonstrated how communities
can be mobilised to take matters into their own
hands.
This has had other implications that we didn't
realise. It alienated us from the powerful
contractor lobby, which has been skimming the
fat off the government forever. They see us as a
serious threat. The second group is the ULFA,
who see a real threat in the creation of an
alternate mass base. They have been able to do
little over the last 15 years, except extortion,
which funds the revolution out of Bangkok and
Geneva.
Meanwhile, the arrival of the Indian army in
Majuli on the heels of AVARD starting work, led
to tongues wagging on the "intelligence links"
that AVARD had with the army.
Three months after they came, two of our women
members who witnessed drunk soldiers mercilessly
beat up residents of Citadarsuk village, filed
the report at the police station. That
established the fact that we were on the side of
the people, but circumstances were against us --
we were from outside, had an office in "Delhi",
could manage well in Hindi and these facts could
easily be distorted to give it sinister
overtones.
AVARD has been pushing the case of Majuli in
various national and international fora. We
approached the HRD ministry for processing an
application for listing Majuli as an endangered
world heritage site; and have had Majuli covered
on national television and in the local and
national press. This resulted in enhanced
awareness about the plight of Majuli, and will
ultimately result in resources being set aside
for Majuli's protection and development.
Meanwhile, we would keep bumping into ULFA
cadres all over the island, since our areas of
geographic focus were more or less the same,
though for different reasons. Once they caught
and interrogated Mallika and Jamini for over
three hours. Mallika and Jamini are Mising
tribal girls from Majuli, a community
under-represented in the ULFA.
Around the first of May, several posters
appeared all over the island, accusing us of
perpetrating a culture of dependence, being
impostors, and destroying the local culture of
Assam. From the style we knew that it was the
ULFA, but they were not signed, which left room
for doubt.
A week after that, they began systematically
interrogating people closely associated with us,
warning them to stay away.
Their methods were the same -- call people
individually, or in groups, to a "safe house",
and put them under pressure. Their foremost
argument was that we were agents of the Indian
State, and had come to spy. Faced with this kind
of an intense propaganda offensive, carried out
by half-educated, trigger-happy kids, naturally
made people scared.
We decided to take the issue to the people. We
gave an article to Janmabhoomi, (the
largest circulation Assamese newspaper in the
state). They carried it, with a front page
analytical piece by their correspondent,
entitled, "Will the people of Majuli lose this
opportunity as well?" Letters to the editor
began to come in, and more importantly, people
on Majuli felt that they could speak out. The
media seemed to be rising to the occasion.
We decided on June 1, the day after the
chairperson of the Assamese State Human Rights
Commission would be visiting Majuli. Many of our
supporters told us that they had been warned off
from attending the meeting -- they would come,
but not speak.
On May 31 Justice Bhargava visited the island.
As he was having lunch in the Circuit House in
Garamur, seven trucks and three busloads of
women and children, shouting slogans against
AVARD arrived. When several journalists present
went up to the crowd, they were astonished that
nobody seemed to know why they had come. Five
people came to present a memorandum to the SDO.
They started by talking about the problems of
Majuli and then switched to AVARD. Their
objections ranged from the Tatas funding AVARD,
(objective -- to exploit the resources and
people of Majuli), to the dress that AVARD women
workers wear.
Although I was present, they refused to listen
when I answered. The young lady who actually
stated the case against AVARD turned out to be a
former ULFA cadre. The trucks band buses were
all "requisitioned" by ULFA, and people were
herded into vehicles at gunpoint. Ranjit Bonya,
from one of the "home stay" extended families of
AVARD, also on the protest rally, said that he
had been forced.
June 1 dawned cloudy, and the island was lashed
by the first torrential downpour of the monsoon.
Still, a large crowd of about 300 came, walking
and on cycle, to save bus fare. As each one
entered the hall, he or she was given a complete
report of AVARD's activities in the past year,
an income expenditure statement and its history
and objectives in Assamese. For the first time
people experienced a public organisation opening
itself to public scrutiny.
Displaying courage and candour, one speaker
after another challenged the detractors of AVARD-NE
to reveal any evidence of its wrong-doings and
cautioned them not to make use of the gun to
muzzle truth. "Public opinions formed at the
point of a gun is not public opinion at all,"
decried an agitated Kishori Mohan Pal, school
teacher and journalist.
"These armed men (of militants) were threatening
my men and women colleagues with death for
helping an organisation which is working for the
development of Majuli," said Dilip Phukan from
Naya Bazar, who had recently written a daring
article in the local press against the
environment of terror which was being created by
the militants.
The people who had pressed charges in the
posters and those who presented the memorandum
did not attend the meeting. The five hour
mukoli sabha (open meeting) unanimously
adopted a resolution supporting the work done by
AVARD, and requested it to continue its work.
So is this the end of the story? Unfortunately
not. Even today, as I write, people are being
threatened and warned off, and it has become
difficult for us to work in this atmosphere of
tension and fear. Everywhere we go, people are
welcoming as before, but seem slightly distant.
They all want development and change, but are
scared. Three health workers didn't show up for
their training programme, pleading ill-health;
our landlord has given us notice ("for personal
reasons only, please"), one of our
Dweep-Alok editors has resigned, again for
"personal reasons".
It seems an uncanny coincidence, coming in the
wake of these events.
in.rediff.com/news/1998/jul/04ghose1.htm
SANJOY GHOSE I REMEMBER
S. Ananthanarayana Sarma
November 1997
The media in the last few months has reported
many events related to the unexpected demise of
Mr. Sanjoy Ghose at the hands of alleged ULFA
activists in Majuli island, Upper Assam. In the
uproar over the errors and omissions in handling
the Assam situation, the very human acts of
Sanjoy have been left unreported I hope to fill
in these details, for those like me who are
professionally trained, and seek a career in the
world of development.
My first encounter with Sanjoy Ghose was at a
residential inter-school Interact club meet in
Bombay in 1973. He was the President of the
Interact Club of Cathedral School. I distinctly
remember a small figure clad in white kurta
pyjamas, delivering speeches in a spotless BBC
(received pronunciation) English accent. His
school club won all the prizes that were to be
won at that meet.
I saw him again, at a Mathematics lecture class,
in Elphinstone college, Bombay in 1978 (which I
had joined for a degree course). He came into
our class, and delivered a short speech asking
us to vote for him as the Chairman of the
College Union, and his slate of candidates for
the various other posts. I immediately
recognized him - the same white kurta pyjama,
the same English accent. What had changed was a
small beard that now adorned his face, and the
voice which croaked a bit. He and his slate
incidentally lost all the elected posts. That
led him to get even, by organizing a sort of
"cultural revolution" in the college. He
organized dramas, readings of Shakespeare and
Milton, wrote and read his own poetry, appeared
on "Yuva Vani" of AIR, organized NSS camps into
the tribal villages in the forested outskirts of
Thana district (adjoining Bombay), and won all
the prizes that were to be won in inter-college
debates and quizzes. He also incidentally was a
University topper without attending a single
class.
I became one of his many followers in college.
He initiated me into the world of inter-college
debates, the world of tribal forest villages and
into the world of CPI(M) politics. As I got to
know him better, I recognized a curious
consistency of virtues and vice: he was an
excellent organizer, a great motivator of middle
class youth - but a hopelessly naive and
romantic figure in the world of politics. Both
the candidates we campaigned for, Mrs. Mrinal
Gore and Mrs. Ahilyatai Rangnekar, lost their
deposits. (?) in the 1980 parliamentary
elections after the splitup of the Janata party.
But we did wipe out scabies from two Palghar
villages. And Sanjoy paid the price for this
success - he contracted scabies and battled
constantly with amoebic dysentery, throughout
his life.
I would never have joined the Institute of Rural
Management, Anand (IRMA) if not for him. Being a
year senior to me, he organized a sneak preview
of the campus - and brought his classmates down
to college to convince us that IRMA too had
sensitive, intelligent human beings. After his
postgraduation from IRMA in 1982, he joined the
only NGO job available - with the Tribhuvandas
Foundation, at the lowest salary of his batch.
In two years, he converted a sleepy family held
trust into the largest rural health NGO in South
Asia. He integrated "equity" concerns, and
brought in economic programmes into what had
been a health education effort, run by doctors.
His success had predictable consequences. The
Young Farmer Clubs he started for Harijan youth,
raised wage labour price - as previously
unemployed labour now started tilling village
wasteland. This aroused the ire of the village
farmer leaders, and the jealousy of the
political activists who saw the Harijan cause as
their own He was censured for interfering in
areas unrelated to the development mandate of
Tribhuvandas Foundation.
Sanjoy married and won an INLAKS scholarship to
Oxford in 1984. He brought me into Tribhuvandas
Foundation, to take over his job. At Oxford, he
was the first INLAKS scholar to bring his wife
with him. They somehow survived Oxford, leading
a pauper's existence, to finish an M.Phil.
degree in Development Economics. Sanjoy could
have literally gone anywhere in the world with
that Oxford degree. He chose to come back to the
world of Indian villages. He wanted to refashion
another health cooperative, this time without
inquisitive political farmer leaders. He
collaborated with the Uttar Rajasthan Milk Union
Limited to start the URMUL Foundation, in 1986.
In six years, URMUL became the most famous NGO
in Rajasthan, eclipsing older established names.
A bunch of young enthusiastic professionals,
diversified URMUL into gender concerns, ecology,
exporting of handicrafts made by local weavers,
literacy and implementing of Government
programmes. He paid the price for this success -
he contracted tuberculosis for moving closely
but not too wisely with TB patients while
collecting sputum for testing.
Sanjoy received the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship
for a Masters in Public Health at the John
Hopkins University, USA. After finishing his
MPH, again the world was open to him. He could
have joined UN organizations, become an "expert
consultant," joined as faculty of public health
in well known universities. He chose again to
come back to the deserts of Bikaner. In a move
then unprecedented in the world of Indian NGOs
he chose and anointed a successor - and
completely left the organization, to ensure that
URMUL health Trust, did not become "the
elongated shadow of the founder." His interests
shifted to media - and he worked to make
mainstream papers more sensitive to development
matters. His columns in the Indian Express
"Village Voice" bear testimony to these efforts.
I last met him in Delhi in 1993. He seemed to
have finally settled - wet nursing a father
recovering from a bypass surgery, escorting his
children to school and debating how to storm the
world of Delhi academia. He was still convinced
that my future lay in Bikaner if not in Delhi -
with some difficulty I convinced him that my own
personal commitments to get to know my
motherland, overrode the larger commitments to
development of the cowbelt.
I don't know what tragic fate pushed him to
accept the assignment of AVARD Secretary General
for the North East. By any standards he seemed
to have done well. He mobilized twenty thousand
villagers in Majuli to build their own flood
embankments . He had organized and put in place
a network of young professionals throughout
upper Assam. By all accounts he would have
continued to larger successes. But he
underestimated the treacherous political
currents of Assam. He paid the price for being a
naive political romantic - believing that well
meaning efforts by decent middle class
professionally trained youth would solve all the
problems of development.
I definitely learnt a lot from Sanjoy. He
believed in living life intensely - he fiercely
defended his friends and fought with those who
did not share his vision for a better world. I
was privileged to be amongst those whom he
counted as a friend. It would be trite to
conclude that the world of development
professionalism would be never be the same
without him. Instead can we console ourselves
with this quote from the Bhagavad Gita?
Na jayate mriyate va kadacin,
Na' yam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah
Ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano
Na hanyate hanyamane sarire.
(Chapter II verse 20)
The atman (soul) is never born, not does it die
at any time,
Nor having once come to be will it again cease
to be
It is unborn, eternal permanant and primeval
It is not slain when the body is slain.
S. Ananthanarayana Sarma
Door No. 95 (Upstairs)
Double Street, Cholavandan Village
Vadipatti Taluka, Madurai District
Tamil Nadu 624 214
India
Phone : 91-4543-58513 (h),
91-452-875315 (w),
91-452-602-247 (fx)
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SANJOY'S
ASSAM
DIARIES AND WRITINGS OF SANJOY GHOSE
Edited and with an afterword by Sumita Ghose
Penguin India
Paperback, 253 pages
Rs 250
ISBN 0140278559
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