Interview by Auroville Today

Auroville Today, a monthly publication on Aurovilles development, recently did an interview with SLI's director, Ramasubramanian. The interview includes a brief introduction to the institute's work and what sets this training institution apart from others. It later focusses on challenges like corruption and caste discrimination as many development schemes in India face and how SLI handles these. By giving many examples of the institute's work, Ram makes clear that the Sustainable Livelihood Institute has had - and continues too have - great impact on both government officials and members of rural comunities that participate in one the programmes.

This interview is not the first time Auroville Today published an article on the Sustainable Livelihood Institute. In February 2016 the publication introduced it in Issue No. 319.
If you are a subscriber of Auroville Today you can read the full interview here or the article from February 2016 here.

The full transcript of the interview below...

The Sustainable Livelihood Institute

The  Sustainable Livelihood Institute (SLI) initiative is a joint project of the Government of Tamil Nadu and Auroville to promote rural development based on the principles of sustainable development (see Auroville Today 319, Feb. 2016)

The SLI began running programmes three years ago. We talked to the Director, Ramasubramanian (Ram), for an update on its activities and its impact.

Auroville Today: The name suggests that the Sustainable Livelihood Institute represents a very different concept of development from the conventional one. What is that concept?

Ram: Our concept of development draws primarily on two sources. One is traditional models, the other is Auroville’s experience. I think Auroville has created a new form of economy where certain values are not compromised. You do not deplete resources, you replenish them, and you are trying to minimise the impact of inequality. So our idea of development could be articulated as not only being ecologically-sensitive but also ecologically-proactive, socially-responsible and, at the same time, economically-viable. This is what we are trying to bring together in our programmes here.

What we are doing here is continually transmitting alternatives into the mainstream but it will take a while before it changes. However, the driver of these changes is something that, increasingly, we cannot ignore.

What is this?

Climate change is already a huge reality if you live in Tamil Nadu. For the past three years we have experienced extreme weather conditions. In 2015 there were terrible floods in Chennai, in 2016 we experienced the worst drought in 140 years. Last year the state government released a report of the consequences of climate change. The signs are not good. If we continue on the present trajectory, most parts of the state will see an increase of 4 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2050. The consequences of this have not sunk in yet. A soil biologist told me that just a 1° rise means the end of staple food as we know it today as paddy will not grow.

Then again, 82% of our groundwater is in a critical state, the forests are depleting, and much of the coastline will be inundated by sea rises in the future.

In this situation, centralised planning is an oxymoron: policy and planning has to happen at a bioregional level in alignment with the larger reality of climate change. Today, for most parts of this state, we have the data to design a solution for each bioregion, but the effort has to be to do it through the people themselves, by empowering them with the required skills and knowledge. At the same time, in SLI we are raising the awareness levels of government rural development officials on the impact of climate change and showing them some of the responses from Auroville. As a consequence, government agencies in some parts are moving from looking at rural development primarily as ‘poverty alleviation’ to ‘sustainable growth’.

So in SLI you are working with both government officials and those who live in rural communities?

Yes, we work at all levels. Every head of the Rural Development Department of Tamil Nadu’s 32 districts has visited us for an orientation programme. The middle level managers, those who design local rural area initiatives, come more frequently for regular capacity-building programmes. We also train government rural community facilitators as well as community leaders, farmers, etc.

In contrast to Auroville Village Action, we work with the whole state and we are very closely linked to the state government. We do not make interventions but are primarily purveyors of knowledge.

What kinds of programmes do you run?

We tailor the programmes to the people with which we are working. The highest level – the heads of government departments – don’t need to acquire skills, they just need to know how to think differently: we call these ‘perspective building programmes’. For the middle level managers, we have ‘management programmes’ and at the village level the programmes are mainly about imparting skills and knowledge.

We have designed 24 different types of training programmes. During the first year, our programmes were aligned with the programmes of the government rural development departments. However, we introduced certain unique features. For example, in SLI the trainers are the practitioners, the ones who, like Krishna of Solitude Farm and Bernard at Pebble Garden, are doing the work.  This already challenges one of the underlying assumptions in conventional training institutions which is that theoretical knowledge is more important than practical knowledge.

Secondly, we are emphasizing action-oriented learning, which means less classroom teaching and more hands-on experiential training. The other thing we insist upon with government officials is repeat training. One-time exposure is often not sufficient to motivate them to make changes, so they come back for a more advanced course. Also, we do follow-up visits to check which community initiatives are succeeding and which are not.

Another thing we do is we digitalise everything: from the moment a trainee arrives till the feedback, follow-up and impact stories, everything we do is entered online and is accessible. We maintain a very high level of transparency and this has given us a lot of credibility within the government.

By the second year, the villagers were calling us to say we have learned this from you and have implemented this and now we have this problem. Can we come to learn how to solve it? So now the community programmes are driven more by their needs. When somebody comes with a request, we look at the situation, we design a training for them and we send it to the authorities for approval because all these trainings are sponsored by the government.

In other words, we and the government have become facilitating agencies, linking an empowered rural community with the knowledge and skills that they need.

There are many components of sustainability, including sustainable construction, governance, economy. When you impart skills to the villages, are you trying to cover the whole range?

Yes. Our faculty consists of more than 42 Auroville units, including the Earth Institute, Sunlit Future, Village Action, Botanical Gardens, Pitchandikulam, and tailoring and food-processing units.

We have also been able to host as guest faculty thought leaders in their respective fields, from all over the state. When they come, they share this knowledge with government officials and community members. But obviously they also want to interact with Aurovilians, and this enables a cross-pollination of inspiration and ideas.

This is all very hopeful. But two big challenges that development schemes in India face are corruption and caste discrimination. How do you deal with this?

It cannot be denied that this state is probably one of the worst in respect of white-collar corruption: the rural people are exposed to a lot of corrupt practices by government officials and have to deal with it because they have no choice. However, while corruption is deeply embedded in the system, a government official has a choice to be a part of it or not.

One thing we do when officials come here is to create a space where they can honestly discuss all issues, including corruption. One participant said he resented the corruption when he joined his department fifteen years ago but he realised that he had succumbed to the system and he had become what he hated. When he left our programme, he said he realised he had a choice.

One thing that works well in getting them to reflect is we ask them to talk to a camera every day as if they were talking to themselves 20 years from now. We also ask them to write letters to themselves about the legacy they would like to leave behind.

These exercises are very powerful; for some of them it is the first time they have reflected upon themselves.

So we push them into situations that break down barriers. They do drumming circles, forest work, bodywork, clowning work and cycling. These are people who have not got out of their jeeps and cars in a long time; one of the things that we emphasise is that, “slowing down is the beginning of sustainability”.

Once, after a cycling session, a government official said, “Now that we are always travelling in jeeps and on motorbikes, we are completely isolated from the community which we are meant to be serving. What has become of us? The first thing I will do when I go back is buy a cycle for myself and start to cycle again.”

What about the influence of caste discrimination?

This is definitely an issue. For example, a government official, a community facilitator, came here for a training programme in food-processing. She was so impressed she went back to a Dalit community in her area and convinced some women to set-up a food processing enterprise.  However, they could not sell the products even in their own village because food from their community was not acceptable to other communities, castes, in the same village.

But that was not as as shocking as facing a similar response when they went to a government office to sell their products. This was humiliating for them.

We heard about this story when we went to that district for a follow-up visit. We went to the village and spoke to those women and you could see the anger and humiliation in their eyes as they described their experience of this caste-based discrimination. We told them we would ensure that the blockages would be removed and their products sold, but would they be willing first to attend a training programme with us to ensure that they make products of a quality that cannot be easily rejected in the market?

They agreed and received training. When they returned to their village, they were accompanied by two graduate students in rural development who were interning with us (we receive interns from six universities across India). The students market researched their products and presented their findings to the district authorities, who granted one lakh capital to set up the enterprise. The students then stayed on until the first cycle of production was completed and did test marketing.

The district authorities were very happy about the way we had handled this and they launched this project at a district level function.

So, through our continuous support (we continue to monitor this enterprise), we made the local problem of caste no longer economically relevant for the women because now they could sell their products elsewhere and so negotiate their space better.

But there is also a balancing act for us as facilitators of these interventions because while caste discrimination is terrible, caste is also an aspect of local identity and, as such, a means of preserving local values against the global economic onslaught on local identities.

The story demonstrates that caste discrimination is also prevalent in government officials. Can you address this when they come here or is it too sensitive?

It is very much prevalent but we cannot address it directly. What we do is we put them in a very different environment. They soon realise that this is a place where there is no caste discrimination, a place where they are given care and respect by people, like youth from the local villages, who are complete strangers. This affects even high-ranking government officials.

In the government bureaucracy there is this huge hierarchy, so if you come from a background where you are already socially discriminated against because of your caste and you are confronted by this huge government hierarchy, it only reinforces the sense of inequality. We break this sometimes without even realizing. Often, we have Joss taking officers for a morning walk in his community to show them the afforestation work. They are very impressed. But they are even more awestruck when he serves them tea afterwards, because in terms of their hierarchy, Joss would be many levels above them and he should not be “serving” them. This breaks down a conventional barrier and they begin to understand there are other ways of interacting, knowing and learning. Higher officials often complain about the lack of honest feedback, but the lower officials in the department are rote taught into practicing hierarchy out of deference. Hence, they do not share their experience honestly.

What happens when they go back to their usual work environment?

Both in local communities as well as in government, the younger ones, in particular, want to change things in their work environment, but they also express frustration at not being able to make a difference. But we tell them it is possible, you have a choice, you do not have to perpetuate this. We provide them with examples of alternatives, so they know they can challenge it, and they know that there are people here who will support them in challenging it. Often they call us and tell us they have challenged or changed something.

Each one of them is personally impacted. When we go to state government offices, people come and telling us how in their personal choices they have changed because of coming here. A very senior officer came for a programme and made his own farm organic. In one village we went to, an official took us to his house because he wanted to show us how he was composting his garbage now.

Radical change is possible in individuals but in systems like the government it cannot be radical; it has to be gentle, like a whiff of fresh air. I think we are slowly working towards building a critical mass of people in the system who talk a different language, who hold certain values as important. When ten of them sit in a room to discuss rural development and at least eight of them are using terms, values, processes, practices, they have learned here, that for me is serious impact.

So you are optimistic about the impact of SLI?

There is one village, Chinnarampatti, in Vellore district where almost 65 people have come to us for different types of training. If you go to that village, you see evidence of Auroville knowledge everywhere. There is a beautiful tree nursery created and managed by about 20 women that is supplying saplings to the Forestry Department where the plants come from Auroville nurseries. There is organic farming, a cattle camp using ethno-veterinary practices, women creating herbal cosmetics, while another group is thinking of setting up a food-processing unit. And all this happened because one man, the panchayat secretary, came here for a training, saw the value of what we were doing in Auroville and convinced his people.

For me, the most promising thing is that new initiatives are coming up all over the state based upon ideas of sustainability. One of our faculty mentioned that there are 400 dedicated organic food shops in Chennai alone. Organic farm-related shops and millet bakeries are appearing in all parts of Tamil Nadu, farmers are exchanging seeds etc. When SLI organized a seed exchange programme among local farmers, more than 600 farmers from the area visited us that day and more than 350 varieties of traditional seeds were showcased and exchanged.

At every level you see these changes happening and SLI is being seen more and more as a facilitator for such changes. There are five other government training institutes in rural development across this state and now many of the practices we use in SLI, like practitioners being trainers, have been adopted by them.

Recently, a hundred million dollar government programme was launched by the Tamil Nadu Rural Development Department. The government is recruiting 600 officials for this project from all over Tamil Nadu, and we have been asked to provide orientation and induction for all of these newly-recruited staff. This is a very significant recognition of our work.  In fact, this new government ‘rural transformation’ project and how Auroville ideas and practices of ‘’transformation’ are providing inputs into it is another interesting story in itself.

Another recognition is the number of civil society players who have heard about us and want to see what is going on here. Many of them have visited us and now there are requests to do programmes for NGOs as well. I am often asked to share our ideas with governments in other states as well. For example, a few months ago we met the Chief Minister’s team in Maharashtra and gave a presentation about SLI because they were considering doing something similar in Nagpur.

So even without broadcasting what we do and just concentrating on doing it well, people are starting to recognise us. In the larger rural development space we are still very small in terms of the numbers that we are able to process, but our impact is already quite large.

From an interview by Alan

நீடித்த வளர்ச்சிக்கான இலக்குகள் மற்றும் குறியீடுகள்...

நீடித்த வாழுமைக்கான நிறுவனத்தின் அடுத்த படைப்பாக நீடித்த வளர்ச்சிக்கான இலக்குகள் மற்றும் குறியீடுகள் குறித்த கையேட்டை வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.

நீடித்த வளர்ச்சிக்கான இலக்குகளை சென்ற வருடம் உலகத்தின் 192 நாடுகள் ஒப்புக்கொண்டன. இவற்றை இன்னமும் நமது ஊருக்கும், வளர்ச்சிக்கும் எவ்வாறு நடைமுறைப்படுத்துவது என்று பலரும் சிந்திக்க ஆரம்பிக்கும் காலம் முதல், இந்த இலக்குகளை தமிழில் முதலில் மொழிபெயர்த்து இது நமக்கு எந்த அளவிற்கு உகந்தது என்பதனை உணரவேண்டும் என்ற நோக்கத்தில் இந்த படைப்பு வெளியிடப்பட்டுள்ளது.

நமது நிறுவனத்தில் திரு. ராஜகணேஷ் அவர்கள் இந்த மொழிபெயர்ப்பை செய்துள்ளார். திரு. சத்யராஜ் அவர்கள் இதனை அழகாக வடிவமைத்துள்ளார்.

Auroville and Tamil Nadu: an enlarged cooperation

The following article was first written in French for the Auroville French magazine by Alain Bernard. We are thankful to Christine for translating and making this article available for us.

Auroville and Tamil Nadu: an enlarged cooperation

The Sustainable Livelihood Institute

A new adventure has started in Auroville: a cooperation on a large scale between the state of Tamil Nadu and Auroville for promoting a rural development based on the principles of sustainable development. Indeed this being a domain in which Auroville can contribute a lot as many researches and experimentations are taking place in many corners of Auroville.

Pitchandikulam Forest, for instance, has already realized several projects in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere. And it is Joss, founder and manager of Pitchandikulam Forest who has been at the origin of this project. The new institute located close to Auroville will be created jointly by Auroville and by the government of Tamil Nadu. Many units of Auroville had led researches in the domain of sustainable development. That is why a solid base for a fruitful cooperation does exist already. 

What is quoted below is a description at once brief and complete of the ambition behind the creation of this organization. 

The SLI is being set up as an autonomously managed institute, jointly formed and emerging out of an ongoing dialogue between the Tamilnadu Rural Livelihood Mission and Auroville, in response to the urgent need for new approaches and thinking in rural development based on the principles of sustainability.

Tamilnadu’s advanced standards of technology in urban areas are in stark contrast to its rural poverty, malnutrition and increasing unemployment, shrinking natural resources, loss of agricultural land and a steady decline in farming, tendencies made worse by globalisation and climate change.

Sustainable livelihoods are able to provide, without further destroying the fragile environment, the means for a healthy way of life, a holistic development, and overall happiness for individuals and communities. SLI believes that to create such livelihoods is not a utopia, but a necessity and a realisable aim.

The SLI aspires to be a bridge between Auroville and rural South Asia, confronting the challenges of globalisation through dynamic localisation, evolving solutions for a humanity in a rapidly changing world by drawing from the wealth of traditional sustainable knowledge as well as the inspirations of the future.

With Auroville as its wider campus, SLI aims to provide a place of learning, growing, teaching, research, experimentation and exchange in all aspects of sustainable livelihood. It will offer regular training programmes for government servants and communities, and platforms where new and pioneering approaches can be conceived and shared between practitioners, policy makers, community resource persons, and all those interested in solutions for a sustainable tomorrow.

The background

As one can see, the ambition is huge. Needless to say that problems too are huge: India is going to have the dubious privilege of becoming the most populous country of the earth. Its population will overtake China’s around 2030 and would stabilize probably in the second half of this century at about one billion six hundred millions -- adding about four hundred millions to its present population in the next fifty years. The present government has a tendency to count a lot on industrial development and foreign investment. Of course the latter is probably indispensable in view of the huge needs for development. Nevertheless it might be illusory to bank mainly on big corporations to provide the millions of jobs that are necessary, for these enterprises depend a lot on developing automation. A recent report showed that during the same specific period the organized sector created only a few millions employments whereas the unorganized sector created more than hundred millions. This sector includes many precarious jobs in small towns and villages. There is a lot of scope there for studying, organizing, improving and inventing. It would be a catastrophe to let the exodus towards cities amplify. Many of these cities are already collapsing under the weight of uncontrolled growth. Therefore what is necessary is to revitalize the rural milieu and first of all give a new life to agricultural development. 

Actually India has a great agricultural potential. One remarkable fact is that India, although three times smaller, has as many arable lands as China (due to the latter’s mountains and deserts). The famous green revolution of the sixties made India self sufficient but at the cost of a considerable degradation of the soils impacted by chemical fertilizers. The time has come for a reorientation of the objectives. There have been already many experiments of organic agriculture which have given back life to the soil. But agriculture authorities, functionaries and teachers in agricultural universities are still promoting the chemical agriculture. So it is a difficult battle that has to be waged. SLI wants to be at the forefront of this battle and here, the experiments in Auroville are very important. Notably, one of the experimental farms of Auroville, Pebble Garden, has been a major source of inspiration for the ecological Indian movement for years.

If agriculture is central to the rural world, nevertheless for a harmonious and sustainable development it needs the addition of various activities and services in order to create a dynamic milieu in which personal and collective fulfillment can take place. In this context SLI wants to become a center where those who have already achieved significant realizations can meet and share their experience of holistic development in a rural area. Solutions exist but all too often they are ignored or unrecognized. They need a forum in order to trigger other initiatives and in return to receive support and a larger audience. Of course these contacts and relations are not limited by the borders of India. All contributions especially those from our close neighbours in South Asia will be sought for and welcome.

Beginnings

SLI has started to function from temporary premises rented from a local proprietor. It so happens that this building is not far from the site chosen for the campus at the periphery of Auroville. A team, recently recruited for the most part, prepares and executes the programmes, under the direction of Ram Subramaniam, a recognized expert, who is director of SLI during this transitional period.

Since March 2015, programmes have been organized with more than 400 women belonging to some Women Self Help groups (a type of women organizations in villages which has become quite popular, with various results) coming from 25 districts of Tamil Nadu. Some 80 civil servants from the department of Rural development have also attended the programmes. Another Indian state, Odisha, has shown interest and has already sent about a hundred officials here. The State of Puducherry have expressed their interest for the agricultural programmes. It is quite remarkable to note that after participating in seminars seven officials of different districts not only asked SLI to organize programmes for the groups entrusted to them, but also themselves financed these programmes. 

The list of the units of Auroville which participated in one way or the other in the activities of SLI (see box above) gives an idea of the variety of the domains to be studied but this is only the beginning and this list is going to get longer in future, as Auroville has much more to offer. Some individuals from Auroville have also contributed to these workshops and here too it is going to grow.

An example

The programmes are as little theoretical as possible and are largely based on direct contact with practitioners. Most of the women who come for these learning sessions want to add some income to their family budget. Too many of them have been the beneficiaries, or rather the victims, of various programmes proposed by local authorities : they push them to undertake this or that activity (growing of mushrooms, making of jewels, making of sanitary napkins, etc.)  and later abandon the whole scheme — either because the official whose pet idea it was has been transferred, or because it has been belatedly discovered that there is no market for these items. 

For a whole morning, I followed a group of about 20 women who had come from the region of Tiruvanamalai. They had come to Auroville for 2 days. We visited Solitude which is an organic farm of about eight acres close to the Visitors’ Center. The founder of the farm, a strong Englishman called Krishna, passionate about nature and about music, received the group and had them walk through the vegetable/fruit garden under a very hot sun. Even at noon, the interest did not falter, so convincing were the demonstrations and explanations of Krishna. He was taking in his hands several samples of soil to show the differences according to the treatmentgiven. The women were nodding their heads in approval. Krishna explained to them that here was the key: a patient elaboration and reconstruction of the soil. He taught them how they could associate several plants in a natural synergy. His passion was very contagious and those hours spent under a very hot sun were remarkably pedagogical. It ended with a meal in the Solitude restaurant where food consists only of what has just been harvested in the garden. And the local products are cooked in such an imaginative, original and tasty way that these dishes are indeed worthy of a great restaurant. The next day the women would work with Krishna in his farm. 

At the end of their stay an evaluation was conducted. In the particular case of this group, the results were very encouraging and some women even spoke of a “transforming experience”. Actually most of the evaluations made regularly after each workshop give very positive results.

The future campus

The setting up of such a big project in Auroville is not without its difficulties, although it can be said that up till now there has been a generous collaboration from many Aurovilians. Yet some people are against it as they don’t like the fact that some acres of the precious land of Auroville are given in lease to the Tamil Nadu government for the construction of the campus of the Institute. Other people are afraid that buildings without soul or beauty will be constructed, like too often in government superstructures. Actually this is a point upon which the Governing Board (which supports enthusiastically the project, believing that is in line with the deep vocation of Auroville in its relation with Tamil Nadu) has insisted strongly: “We don’t want the current type of administrative architecture,” said Dr Karan Singh. This is why the initiator of the project, Joss, asked several architects of Auroville to work together for imagining an ecological and novel type of campus. This process known in Auroville as “Dream weaving” has gone on for several months and the outcome of it is a plan which will be presented soon to the authorities of Tamil Nadu. Today 3 architects participate in this group: Fabian, Manu and Mona. At the end, after approval, one of them will take the responsibility of executing the plan.

The unknown factors

Of course an association with the government on such a project is fraught with risks and difficulties. Receiving the money on time is rare and trying to get it is like a race with obstacles. The support that one gets at the top is not necessarily reflected in zeal amongst lower level officials. Added to bureaucratic delays, there is also the frequent transfer of officials. Our interlocutors change and with them the level of interest and support. This is why we want to establish this institute on a basis of autonomy and with a guaranteed budget in order to ensure the duration of the activities. We recently entered a phase of discussions with the highest authorities in order to arrive at a point of final stabilization as soon as possible. Later, for the construction of the campus, which we want ecological and experimental, and which will probably not be compatible with the usual administrative norms, we will have to fight in order to obtain the necessary derogations.

In brief, this is an adventure into a kind of unknown. But the positive experience of these last months is promising and deserves our involvement and determination. It would be as much a contribution to a harmonious rural development as the offering to Auroville of a unique platform of interaction with India and beyond.  

Alain Bernard

What We Stand For

Statement of Purpose

 This statement, written in December 2014 during a series of workshops of the SLI preparatory curriculum team, expresses the basic vision and shared values inspiring us in our work.

We recognise that as human beings we are intimately inter-connected with everything else in the universe, as part of a great Oneness of all being, and that to ensure sustainability on the planet we inhabit, we need to respect and nurture the totality of all beings.

We recognise that humanity today has reached the end of a journey marked by competition, domination and exploitation, and that only a rapid and comprehensive change in our ways of living can avert a global catastrophe and ensure a peaceful and prosperous future for the planet.

We see the present crisis as a unique challenge and opportunity in our collective evolution, where all of humanity’s present systems - social, economic, cultural, educational, political - must be reviewed and transformed to allow the emergence of new and sustainable ways of living on planet Earth. This transformation is so profound that only a complete and pervasive change in human awareness can bring it about.

We learn from the importance of bio-diversity in Nature, to honour and foster diversity in every human sphere, collective and individual. We seek to promote a spirit of fraternity, equity and unity while celebrating diversity in every field of life. We invite in particular a process of continuous mutual learning and co-evolution with the people from the rural communities of Tamilnadu, while welcoming contributions and collaborations from every corner of the world.

We recognise in the age-old science of Yoga, India’s spiritual gift to humanity, the elements for a conscious evolution into a new and universal consciousness which will provide the basis for a sustainable future for all. Similarly, India and Tamilnadu in particular, have a wealth of traditions, knowledge and technologies, ancient but in good part still alive, that can provide the seeds and foundations for a perfectly sustainable, culturally rich and rooted, evolving and innovative, happy and thriving life for all in this part of the country.

As a team and in all our interactions, we commit to cultivating goodwill, sincerity, honesty, integrity, mutual respect, compassion and care, while encouraging spontaneity, creativity and flexibility, in a nurturing environment that provides space for sacredness, beauty, and Purpose for each one.








We aim to evolve projects that are inspirable, ecologically and locally relevant as well as solidly grounded, that will meaningfully contribute towards a transformed society and world as described above.