The Bharat Gyan Vigyan Jatha 1990 was the result. The Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samithi comprising of science communicators educationists, academicians, officers from the ministries of HRD and DST, etc. was formed in December 1989. Dr. Malcolm S. Adiseshiah well known educationist is the chairperson of the Samithi. Since then the BGVS has been functioning as a field arm of the NLMA, in close co-operation with it.
Today India is witnessing a movement, unprecedented in its history both in character and in magnitude. What during forty years of independence could not be achieved is now being achieved. Today we can hope that illiteracy can be eradicated from this country. The problem is not small. But the effort too is not small. Nearly four million volunteers, without being paid a single pie, are now helping to make nearly 40 million illiterates literate and even beyond. In a country, where increasingly everything is being measured in terms rupees and paisa, the emergence of patriotism and humanism as can be witnessed from the tireless efforts of these volunteers is a silver line, a ray of hope. Interestingly enough, science popularization groups, generally known as people’s science movements, have played a cardinal role in this. They knew that the matrix of science can be woven only on a fabric of literacy.
The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishat, initiated this chain reaction with the Total Literacy Campaign in Ernakulam district and subsequently in the entire state of Kerala. The Pondicherry Science Forum, the Tamil Nadu Science Forum, the Andhra Pradesh Jana Vignana Vedika, the Madhya Pradesh Vigyan Sabha…. All these organizations followed suit.
They provided the initial core of activists for the BGVS, which has since grown several times.
Today literacy has become a people’s movement which is characterized by:
A massive and total area approach Involvement of the entire community in some form or other Predominantly voluntary nature Clear objectives and sense of excitement Close cooperation of bureaucracy with voluntary workers Very high commitment Changes in the social out look of participants Shift from cynicism to optimism And shared joy
And this optimism is contagious. BGVS, it can be said, is mainly responsible for this new turn of events.
However, some members of this body and many outside have indirectly expressed serious reservations about BGVS. Many feel that BGVS is only one voluntary organization, just like any other and that NLMA is unduly favoring it. Some others feel that BGVS is a political organization, looking at its spread and activists.
Firstly BGVS is not just “a voluntary organization.” It is an informal arm of the NLMA. It was created with the mandate.
To interlink all the literacy efforts in the country. To instill in field activists enthusiasm and excitement and To reach to every corner of India a call to stamp out illiteracy from India.
With the success of the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Jatha and the emergence of Total Literacy Campaigns in Kerala and elsewhere this mandate was enlarged to assist in planning and conduct of all aspects of the total literacy campaign – environment building, training and monitoring – in such a way as to ensure that the spirit of a people’s movement is preserved and strengthened and also to identify, orient and network committed individuals and organizations so as to build a people’s network to provide grass roots support to total literacy campaigns.
Total literacy campaigns are successful because of the fruitful union of the governmental machinery on the one side and committed people’s network on the other side. The BGVS helps to build up the people’s network.
Secondly, many Zilla Saksharatha Samithies have registered themselves as district BGVS, because of the goodwill the name enjoys – but they are not the branches of the national BGVS. In most cases the district Collector is the chairperson of this Samithi. The name of BGVS and the association with activists possessed with the zeal to eradicate illiteracy, imparts to it a real missionary character.
Thirdly, BGVS is not a political outfit. Its ranks come from various convictions. But this does not pose a problem so long as they have the conviction that we have to and that we will eradicate illiteracy from the soil of India. Only those who have been exploiting the illiteracy of the people, only those to whom illiteracy provided employment and a permanent source of income, only they will feel threatened by the spread of literacy. Any attempt to politicize literacy work, any attempt to reap electoral-political dividends from literacy work will kill the spirit of a people’s movement for literacy.
True, spread of literacy will have its impact on the society – but that is what we welcome. The poor and the down trodden should be able to improve their plight, should be able to live as human beings. In a situation when the society is rent with caste and communal tensions, when its economy is stressed to the limits, the positive and optimistic environment created by the sheer magnitude of the cooperative endeavors, offers us a ray of hope. Reports from districts, traditionally notorious for caste conflicts indicate substantial relaxation in tension, mainly because of the intensity of cooperation demanded by literacy work and the joy they derive out of such work. Any act which will hamper the growth of this movement will be an unpatriotic act.
May I entreat the members of this board, to visit villages in Madhepura or Madhubani in Bihar, Ratlam or Bilaspur in Madhya Pradesh, Pasumpon or Pdukkottai in Tamilnadu or in any other district where literacy campaign is going on and experience for themselves, the changing face of the rural India. I request every one of you to become active partners in this crusade against illiteracy, to see that we enter the twenty first century as a fully literate nation.
BEYOND - 1992
The above paper was presented 14 years ago, when BGVS was only three years old. Since then its spread, both geographic and activity areas, has increased several fold. The total number of people who underwent literacy programme rose to about 120 million, the number of volunteers to 12 million. Literacy Campaign covered all districts in India. The BGVS played important roles in more than half of them. Today we have registered state BGVS organizations in all most all states, committees in nearly 250 districts, presence in tens of thousands of panchayats.
As years went by, those officers in the NLM like Anil Bordia, Laxmidhar Mishra, Anita Kaul, Anil Sinha who had emotional rapport with the leaders of BGVS like M.P. Parameswaran, K.K. Krishnakumar, Vinod Raina etc. were either retired or transferred. The succeeding secretaries for educations and Director Generals of NLM, though still friendly with BGVS, could not own it as theirs. BGVS was become for them, just another NGO. However, in the meanwhile emotional rapport was building up between Rural Development Department and National Drinking Water Mission on the one side and BGVS on the other side. At the behest of officers like P.K. Sivanandan and B.N. Yuganthar BGVS took up a variety of activities related to watershed development and drinking water. Their tenure too, was not long lived, as could be expected. One can say that from 1995 onwards BGVS -NLM partnership began weakening . The only political leader who knows BGVS well and maintained warm friendship with it for the past 15 years is Shri Arjun Singh. However rapport between NLM officials and the BGVS could not be re-established yet. The BGVS has already expanded the scope of its activities, from Literacy to Continuing Education, Basic Education, Health, Watershed based development, Local Area Planning, Self Help Groups of Women etc. etc. And it is receiving financial support from Sri Dorabji Tata Trust and a few others. Rapports get built when people start ‘dreaming’ (conspiring!) together.