Navaratri.
Shailaja Paik is the Charles Phelps Taft Distinguished Research Professor of History and affiliate faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Asian Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Her books include: Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination; and The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India. Now, she is chosen as MacArthur Fellow, ‘genius’. She would receive USD 800,000 over five years for her research without strings, restrictions. She writes about unseen lives of dalit women. She is among the 22 Fellows of 2024.
Should we disallow the students using calculators, iPads, notebooks, laptops et al till the schooling? If we want our children to have sharper minds.
The Income Tax Department found “Oxfam, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), Environics Trust (ET), Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE) and Care India Solution for Sustainable Development (CISSD)” funded each other for anti-national activities. FCRA is violated. Illegal sub-granting was done. Sub-grants were made to mobilize communities to agitate. CBI filed an FIR a year ago that Oxfam India was working as a foreign agent on behalf of foreign powers. FIR says: XXX mobilizes foreign funds, and are routed through FCRA holding handpicked affiliates. A for-profit company would oversee the expenditure and project work of these affiliates. On paper, they are not connected; in actuality, XXX orchestrates all the things. XXX has planned to use foreign governments and institutions to pressurise the Indian government to renew its FCRA. What is wrong here? FCRA violation and sub-granting – this may need to be punished by FCRA registration suspension/ cancellation. Providing support to willing ‘entities’ in planning, supporting implementing the plan, supporting staffing – is it wrong? Are we missing something here?
With curtailed FCRA amounts, CSR funds for civil society organizations, NGOs, what is the way forward for ‘support’? Governments want to do ‘development’ directly as much as possible. Communities are collectivizing and are directly reaching out to Governments, Philanthropies, and CSRs. The middle space in implementation, reaching out is narrowing. Smaller support organizations are closing, collapsing. Hybrid social enterprises, contractor private organizations are emerging. Support is becoming ‘business’. Can it be humane? Can the brightest minds join in? Can the innings be longer? Can these be for the new paradigm shifts? Towards N-way. Inclusive. Participatory. Localized, customized, and communitized. With identity, solidarity, capacity, rights and entitlements, well-being, freedom the poor, vulnerable and marginalized. Traceable, accountable agency in their hands for their livelihoods, value-chains, lives, destinies, and NextGen.
What are the kinds of support that the new paradigm individuals, families, enterprises, and communities need? What can we do out of these? Beyond ‘livelihoods updates’; yogakshemams; networked LSIs, LSOs, and LSEs; Livelihoods-Management-Leadership programmes; apprenticed mentored champions, models; visioning-strategic planning; systems changes; notes, stories, conversations, cohorts, and journeys; schools, academies, universities; partnerships, forums, and platforms; movement(s) – global movement at local levels, customized, tailored to idiosyncrasies, communitized. Can we do it?
Yes, we can. If we coexist, flow with multiplying agency in hands. In N? navadishayoga for 7L.
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