It rarely happens in the present political climate in the country.
Kapil Sibal inaugurates a teachers’ camp that begins with the chanting of Vedic hymns and a havan performed by trained pundits in village Pransala, located some 25 km away from Upleta, which itself is 122 km away from Rajkot on NH-8.
Narendra Modi arrives on the third day and addresses the same group.
The person who could manage this near-impossible jugalbandi, young Swami Dharmabandhu, is obviously pleased: “Children must be the concern of everyone.” Political considerations must not hinder interactions and exchange of ideas. He has earlier conducted 12 annual camps for 10,000-12,000 students each year.
To assemble such large numbers for 10 days requires huge inputs of resources and management skills. They all stay in tents, attend lectures together and join in activities like yoga, horse riding, rifle shooting and many more. The list of resource persons includes top scientists, defence chiefs, former Supreme Court chief justices and judges, eminent scholars, Bollywood luminaries and many more.
Politicians of all hues have addressed these camps in past years and everyone who comes once is keen to come again. Dharmabandhu insists that children must be nurtured to give the best out of, as Gandhiji had desired, “body, mind and spirit”.
The Dharmabandhu model of discharging social responsibility focuses on the future of the young and, more importantly, on their role in serving the nation. Even though the Pransala Trust needs huge resources for conducting camps, it insists on the donors making their contribution in kind. Someone takes charge and arranges for milk; another for ration, tent, electricity, kitchen and this is how every requirement is looked after. Thus, the donor participation is direct and transparent.
Volunteers pour in not only from the nearby villages but from all over Gujarat and from outside. The site is a quiet village that has created an Ashram-like setting.
After his education in Vedic scriptures and visits to religious places throughout the country on foot, Dharmabandhu decided the objective of his life: to prepare good people who, as Aristotle once desired, would be good citizens also and create a vibrant society. He just came and stayed in a thatched hut and took up the social cause, initially focusing on poverty alleviation in the nearby villages. Local folks extended all support and derived the benefits emerging out of well-guided initiatives.
The success stories spread fast and today, people have full faith in Pransala Trust for its laudable work in social sectors like small dams for irrigation, schools, empowering the poor through community efforts and most prominently, for the relief and rehabilitation works that were done during the Kutch earthquake.
The idea of organising teachers’ camp germinated out of these children camps. Some 48 hours before the camp, untimely rains and hail storm resulted in slightly depleted attendance in the camp but the enthusiasm was infectious. In this summer heat, teachers did not mind the discomfort of staying in tents that only provide mattresses; they were keen to ‘know more’. Practically, it was business from 5.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. No central government or any of the state governments have ever achieved it.
It meant huge amount of effort to persuade eminent people to come to ‘such a remote place’ and that too for a camp being organised by a swami, as Dharmabandhu, who like his designer shoes, rides horses and drives cars, is known. Not only this, his organisation is “Vedic Mission Trust” and that inflicts serious discomfort to the politically conscious secularists.
Dharmabandhu’s achievement is his success in dispelling apprehensions and in that light Sibal and Modi recognising his effort and participating in it could be a path-breaking event.
Sadly enough, the media, particularly at the ‘national’ level, prefers to focus only on the convenient locations for breaking news.
The Pransala camps create a living model of social cohesion and religious harmony, and prepares teachers and students to create a society that would be truly secular, and values education and learning. Now it could very rightfully claim to have created the road map for achieving political cohesion on issues concerning the future generations. It has immense possibilities for creating a climate in which national interests take priority over political considerations.
The writer is former director of the NCERT