Creative margins of India: Tapping art and innovation in Gadchiroli

Having walked through every state of the county once, Shodhyatras in every state once, we have started walking second time. Purpose is to touch ground every six months at least once to reduce the gao between the way we live and the way common people live. Voluntary suffering may trigger samevdana.  The word empathy, is not exact translation though, since it is a feeling we have towards others.  Samvedana is felt inside. It is our internal pain triggered by internalising by feeling pain of others as our own. A society without samvedana becomes a cultural desert, gets dehumanised, and karuna erodes. When we see tribal ladies cracking mahua seeds manually by using a stone on a vertically held seed, one by one, we realise that it was not a very tough problem. But then why has it remained unaddressed for so long.

Problems so identified are posed to  young students every year during two summer schools on inclusive innovations organized by SRISTI (ss.sristi.org) and GIAN.  During the recent summer school, some of the participants from polytechnic students mobilised by GIAN, designed wooden nut crackers for mahua seeds.  These nut crackers will be sent to these tribal ladies to ascertain their feedback. Similarly, a team of students led by Hitarth in Sristi summer school redesigned the long arm bamboo broom. Instead of moving both arms, with a ‘U’ joint, one can move only one arm and the other shoulder doesn’t get tired.

In every Shodhyatra we come across numerous instances of technological, institutional and educational inertia which remain to be addressed. But during the Gadchiroli, we came across creativity and innovative spirit of children and youth, as always. Ankush and Gaurav saw anew road being built on the edge of  the village. They assumed that whenever a new road  is constructed, watering is essential. They did not see anybody doing so.  They designed three models of road watering devices having a small wheel under the tube end, so that it can be moved easily. So much attention to detail, so much variation. Not onky they observed a problem, they analysed it, sourced scrap material from here and there, fabricated not one but three functional models. Will be able to give wings to their imaginative wings under new education policy?

Piyush Rajiv Chichagare, Piyush Ashok Thakre and Om Yadav Chichakre had built a fan from salvaged materials. Shruti and Rameshwari had painted so many variations of handmade paper butterflies that everybody was spell bound. Aditya Tofa saw his father struggling with weed removal and puddling in paddy farm. He designed two models of puddler and weed remover.

What are these kids saying to the nation: they are second to none in identifying unmet social needs and designing solutions to address them within their limited exposure and access to tools and resources. I can not forget Harsihil, a less than 4 year old who made a huge sketch (5’x5’) on ground with her finger. Will she get a canvas to make her dreams come true.

GIAN team is going to follow up in coordination with SRISTI and have a special creativity workshop for children.  They will also engage CM rural fellows and NIRMAN volunteers in addressing social inertia. The aspirations and imagination of young kids in marginal regions need new models of mobile, distributed and inclusive design and fabrication facilities.  We need to plan an  engagement that will challenge these children without alienated them from their cultural roots and socio-ecological context.

Would love to hear from those artists, designers, fabricators who will like to extend themselves to these margins having  rich  nursery of imagination and aspiration.

Anil Gupta
The author is founder of Honey Bee Network & visiting faculty at IIM-A
anilgb@gmail.com