`We need a larger vision'

Interview with Dr. G.G. Parikh.

Dr. G. G. Parikh's schedule belies his age. At 84, he travels the 90 or so kilometres to Tara in Raigad district, near Mumbai, on a weekly, and sometimes bi-weekly, basis and continues his medical work at his clinic in Mumbai for the rest of the week. He remains undeterred by an accident he met with some years ago when he slipped in between a train and the railway platform. The only reminder of that experience is a walking stick he uses. The driving force of the Yusuf Meherally Centre, `G.G.', as he is familiarly known, spoke to Lyla Bavadam on the work of the centre and his hopes and vision for India's development.

What is the role you visualise for a voluntary organisation like the Yusuf Meherally Centre?

Ours is a many-sided search that is working towards a paradigm shift. Instead of an elite-based development model, it advocates a common people-based model where common people are the subject of change and not passive recipients of doles and where technology is usable by them. Such a model will not only generate employment but be conducive to an alternative economy. Hence our campaign to popularise khadi and village industries.

Khadi is being reinterpreted by the centre as a symbol of an alternative development model and gramodyog is being promoted for generating employment in rural areas and also for laying the foundation of an alternate economy. The latter is essential as past experience shows that whichever party comes to power at the Centre, the economic policies remain the same. The Yusuf Meherally Centre is creating infrastructure to train would-be entrepreneurs and to set up industries, is advocating a village industry fund in the voluntary sector, and is lobbying for credit at 6 per cent interest. If car loans and home loans are available at 7 per cent interest or so, why can't gramodyog, which allows a common person to earn a living and generate employment, too get low-interest loans?

The ideas, the commitment and the energy witnessed at the centre are extraordinary. What is it that is required for this to be successfully transplanted to an environment where the audience is large and likely to be less committed?

Everything we do is not replicable, but yes, it is true that our good ideas are easily accepted by society. I think there is a need for agitation. Constructive work is not enough. For example, during the freedom movement a large number of people changed their thoughts and lives and therefore change was possible. Now there is no Gandhi or J.P. [Jayaprakash Narayan] or anyone of that stature. What we need is a larger vision but when you are doing social work you are only thinking in a small concentrated focus. There are hundreds of issue-based struggles but they are not bound by a larger vision.

So how will that arise?

We have tried to develop a different thinking. For any struggle to develop there has to be a group that talks of it. There has to be a relevant critique of society and appropriate leadership. Therefore if rural youth start demanding potable water, jobs, communication and so on, then chances are that they will get it if it is correctly agitated for and articulated. That is why we have set up the Yusuf Meherally Yuva Biradari [youth organisation].

What has been your experience with governments?

It varies. R.R. Patil, who is now the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, was involved with our education project. He has an understanding of these matters. But during the rule of the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party regime we had a tough time even getting funds for our watershed projects. Maybe they had a problem with the centre's name! By and large, I feel that the government can do a lot but has not done it because of its elite-based, city- and industry-based model of development. And since the 1990s, all these have accentuated and the government has lost the capacity to change the situation even if it wanted to. The pressure from the International Monetary Fund-World Bank-World Trade Organisation trio and pressures of our own brainwashed elite will not permit that.

What are the changes you would like to see in society and in the government that would help the centre's ideas reach more people?

We have come to the conclusion that the constructive work of a million-plus voluntary organisations, which have two-crore workers and mobilise nearly Rs.1,800 crores annually, has not changed society; it has only applied some balm to the poor and to some extent done what the state should do. In a sense, this has only prevented the sensitive and idealistic youth from doing some basic work. Reflecting on this, the Meherally Centre came to realise that if sangharsh (struggle) is combined with rachna (creative thought), basic changes will occur.

During the freedom movement people accepted many new values much more easily and the same happened during the JP movement. Hence there is a need for sangharsh with rachna to effect basic changes in society. In view of this, the centre established the Yusuf Meherally Biradari to promote communal harmony and fight injustice.