For
a true seeker to seek knowledge, there's no barrier of caste and
status, no prohibition!!
'Ordinary'
& 'Extra-ordinary', 'Common' and 'Special'… let's eliminate
these discrimination!!
Date
- 13th March 2015
13
farmers ( 10 women, 3 men ).
- Education - 12th std to illiterate.
- Subject - Evolution & agricultural science.
- Points written on board - chromosomes -23, genes - 38000.
- Material on floor - photographs & pictures of paddy seeds, cells, DNA, wild cabbage & other varieties of cabbage, genetically modified organisms & two decks of cards.
Sounds
confusing? Yes, but THIS was the scenario of a meeting held by “Garib
Dongri Sanghatana" in Pune - Maharashtra.
Dhananjay,
an expert on evolution, was present at the meeting, and telling Tara
bai that the great scientist Einstein once said, “If you can't
explain a concept to your grandmother, that means you yourself
haven't got the concept.”
What
Dhananjay told Tara bai is needed to be told to so called
'scientists', 'experts' and politicians'!
Anyhow
we have labeled farmers as stupid, dumb, gawk etc, etc. So when in
agricultural workshop, Tara bai asks an expert that (1) if we grow
sugarcane instead of paddy, after some years there would be decrease
in the quality of soil texture, (2) if we grow genetically modified
crops, doesn't it make imbalance in nature? Then it won't be
surprising if so called experts silences her by replies such as,“
you'll not understand, this is new technology”, or “Nobody asked
such ( stupid ) questions before this. How dare you to doubt us.”
By
observing this experience of Tara bai we can clearly see how this
arrogant mentality of so called experts affecting in a bad way on
policy level . Farmers & consumers are totally excluded in
decision making, and in drafting agricultural policy. So called
experts, scientists & politicians for their crony interests
impose their decisions, policies on common consumers & farmers.
If
we want to make change in this situation, the we will have to set
free science, knowledge from the clutches of so called scholars and
scientists, and make it get to common, ordinary people. And today's
meeting with “ Garib Dongri Sanghatana " on evolution and
agricultural science is the first step towards making knowledge
available to commoner!
If
anybody doubts that illiterate farmer woman will never understand
scientific terminologies like,'evolution', 'chromosomes', 'genes',
'natural and artificial selection', etc,etc, they should meet Tara
bai & Rohini mavashi, who were present at that meeting. It's damn
sure that their doubts about illiterate farmers will be cleared up!
In
today's meeting, with the help of Dhanajay's technological
information and farmers' observations and experiences in their daily
life, we discussed on so many subjects such as, (1)how farming came
into existence, (2)how our ancestors domesticated wild animals &
plants, (3)from single wild cabbage, how so many types of cabbages
developed, (4)how from one single variety of paddy i.e. ‘deo bhaat'
developed millions of varieties of rice which we have in our daily
food...etc etc...
We
discussed these technical & scientific subjects as well as social
topics such as, (1)what importance this knowledge have in our daily
personal and social life, (2)should we conserve this diversity,
(3)after genetic modification, does that organism be safe for
environment & human beings? In this way we exchanged our ideas
and knowledge to each other.
Towards
the end of the meeting, everybody gained new and valuable
information. On the basis of this technical knowledge, farmers will
become more aware and cautious while farming. They'll be able to
doubt, to question the agro policy made & imposed by so called
intellectual policy makers.
We
all decided that this information, this knowledge gained by these 13
farmers should be reached out to their 13 villages. Dhananjay agreed
to write a booklet on this subject in easy language to help these
farmers spread this knowledge to villagers & other farmers.
We
all should take efforts to decentralize this knowledge & make it
available to everybody. Exchanging knowledge, information between
scholars and ordinary people will empower the people by knowledge
itself! Who knows, if this really comes true, tomorrow prime leader
of a nation will think hundred times before making statements such
as, “Environment is not changing, man is changing,” or “Karna'
s birth is the example of genetic science which existed thousands of
years back in India!”
No comments:
Post a Comment