Von Princeton nach Andhermanik: Projektpartner Sujit Sinha im Interview
Sujit Sinha ist Gründer und
Leiter unserer Partnerorganisation Swanrivar, die von der Indienhilfe
seit 2004 unterstützt wird. Vor einem Jahr war Sujit in
Deutschland, im Rahmen unseres drei Jahre lang vom BMZ geförderten
Schulparterschaftsprojekts, dessen Koordinator er für uns auf
indischer Seite ist.
Er hat damals nur ungern diese Reise unternommen, weil er ein
vielbeschäftigter Mensch ist - aber der gegenseitige Austausch war
für ihn und für uns sehr wertvoll. Später hat
Indienhilfe-Mitarbeiterin Regine Linder ein längeres Interview
(per Email) mit ihm geführt.
Vorbemerkung:
Sujit ist ein sehr bescheidener Mensch, der nicht gerne über sich
selbst und seine Erfolge spricht. Ausserdem hat er sehr hohe Ansprüche
an seine Arbeit und ist mit dem Erreichten - das durchaus beträchtlich
ist! - nicht immer zufrieden. Besonders schwierig ist es für ihn, gute
Mitarbeiter zu finden, die ihn wirklich unterstützen und ihm Arbeit
abnehmen können. Daran verzweifelt er manchmal und träumt von einem
"Sabbat-Jahr". |
 |
|
Sujit
und Sudeshna Sinha mit Arbeitsausschussmitglied Regina Hass
(Foto: Regina Hass) |
1. Your year and place of birth,
family background; main steps of education (school, college etc)
I was born in Kolkata, India in
1956. My father was, for some years, a
faculty in Chemical Engineering department of Jadavpur University,
Kolkata and thereafter spent most of his career in the Indian petroleum industry. My mother was
a school teacher for many years. I did my
early schooling in Dehradun in the Himalayan foothills (North India) and
later finished High School in 1973 from Duliajan, Assam close to the Burmese
border (eastern extreme of India). I joined Presidency College,
Kolkata for Bachelors in Chemistry. This
was the period of energy crisis, the first stirrings of environment movement,
the declaration of Emergency in India.
Like many young people (I did not know any of these other young people at that
time), I started thinking and reading about Alternative Development (Gandhi, Huxley,
Schumacher, Ivan Illych etc.). I joined IIT Kanpur for Masters in Chemistry in 1977. It was here that I made up my
mind to become a rural development activist. At that time my idea was that high school students and
teachers, as an integral part of their curriculum, should be studying the local
social and natural environment. That way they will really “learn” all their subjects, both Science and Social Studies. But what is more
important – this will be action learning; they will understand the local
issues, problems, possibilities and will act on them. I had no idea about the existence of NGOs. In
fact there were not many in the 1970s. I
had this vision of High Schools doing a large part of what NGOs do today. After
finishing my Masters in Chemistry in
1979 I joined a high school meant only
for tribals in the remote forest and mountain covered Arunachal Pradesh on the
Indo-Burmese border. I did try to
introduce some action learning, but the school authorities felt very
threatened and I left after a year in 1980.
In 1980 I went to USA and completed Ph.D. in
Inorganic Chemistry from Princeton University in 1984 and did a two year
Post Doc at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the Solid State Chemistry Unit. In
1986 I returned to India to become a full time rural development
activist.
2. Was there anything remarkable
about your childhood? Did anything set you apart from other children/youth?
I was not so interested in my school books and courses. But
I read lots of all kinds of books much
more than most of my friends, both fiction and non fiction, and in
three languages – English, Bengali, Hindi (as my childhood was spent in
northern India and I was more adept at
Hindi in my youth). By standard measures
of academic success my school performance was excellent. I stood 2nd
in High School Board Exams in the whole state of Assam. I got a National Science Talent Search
Scholarship through an all India exam. These don’t mean much in life, but in India
these are given undue importance. In College I
was the only one who was really affected by 1974 petroleum price hike,
and
started talking about environment,
limits to growth, alternative development etc. I did not know a single
person
among my circle who knew or cared about these issues in the 1970s. I
started talking about “quitting” and settling in
village and my college class mates still talk about it. My class mates
at IIT Kanpur remember the talk
which I gave on “Iso- Upanishad” (philosophical and
spiritual ancient texts).
3. You studied chemistry in the USA – why
did you not stay there? What was your motivation to start a completely new life
in West-Bengal?
I went to study in USA not as a first choice; but because my attempts
at trying out experiments in high school failed and I did
not know what exactly to do. Had I known about NGOs at that time, I probably would
not have gone to USA. I
hugely enjoyed my scientific career in US and worked very hard. But coming back
to India was the first choice; not a new decision. The only thing which would
have induced me to stay back in US was if I had done something fairly
spectacular in Science, which did not happen.
4. Did you have any specific
expectations when you joined the field of social work and did these
expectations get fulfilled?
I had thought that the various “crisis” – ecological,
technological, economic, political, social, psychological for which we were looking for alternatives –
would increase at a faster pace thus
making the work of all those working for alternatives much more sought
after and that we would be playing a
more crucial role than what we are playing today. In
a sense, that the crisis did not become more severe is
good, because that would have meant uncontrollable upheavals.
But this also means that I (and possibly others like
me) have reached some kind of stalemate. The feeling is that lot of
incremental things are happening in certain areas. But it is not adding
up to
a sufficient volume to affect things in significant ways and so
when the crisis comes, we may not have
all the necessary solutions and tactics ready. What I had not
thought of and not planned for was that I would be saddled with “running” an
organization of 100+ persons. In a sense I am disappointed at myself that I did
not “manage” everything well and am
stuck with a large volume of “clerical”
work of constantly trying to get funds and trying to satisfy the dictates of
funders. That has prevented me from concentrating on what I am really good at
– absorbing ideas, “processing” them, thinking about them, conveying them
to others, piloting them, and also playing a crucial networking (NGOs, Government, Academia, Media, Corporate sector and hopefully
NRIs) and advocacy role. I am considered to be one of the more
competent persons to write complicated
things in simple Bengali for large number of rural staff in the NGO and govt
circles, maybe because I never studied
Bengali formally. Unfortunately, I have no time to do this very crucial task.
Overall – what I am doing today, I feel, is in some sense a wastage of my potential and also socially not optimum. And I am not happy.
On
the other hand, my organization SWANIRVAR has done excellent work
with alternative
education and agriculture and we can potentially become an
important “resource” centre. But this also requires
all
kinds of resources (financial and human) which I am not able to gather.
Overall : partially satisfied. The base is ready for
moving forward. But I might collapse by
getting stuck in the dreary sand of the routine.
5. Please give a short insight
into the range of your national and international activities
I have hardly played a role outside of West Bengal. Today I and Swanirvar are part of some national level
education networks. Many people know about us. But I am very reluctant to either travel or get involved at anything of the scale
larger than the state of West
Bengal. India is just too big – and there are people who are much more
competent and happy to do national and international "activities” which is also
very crucial. Its just that I don’t have the aptitude. And West Bengal itself is huge in terms of population and has enough
geographical and cultural diversity. I would rather play a significant role in
the state and go for intensive collaborations with Bangladesh.
6. Sudeshna is also engaged in the
educational field – please tell us something about her and generally about your
family
Born in 1961 in Kolkata, Sudeshna studied Psychology in
College; did a Montessori training course, and then a Diploma
in Education of Physically Handicapped in
Mumbai which she finished in 1987. For four years till 1991 she was teaching
and counseling children and adults of mixed disabilities. Between 1992-94, she
was a Remedial Teacher in St.George’s Free School for underprivileged children – a school run by Christian Brothers in Kolkata. Then she was asked to start and run Ashirvad Vidyalaya – an afternoon Hindi
medium school for older underprivileged children (8-16 years) of migrant
labourers who are either school dropouts or have never been to school, which she did till 2004. From 2005 she has
been running SHIKSHAMITRA. She has visited various innovative schools in other
parts of India. Over the years she has given training inputs to many teachers within
and outside the state. She is happy teaching adolescents; language and social
studies teaching is her forte; she loves to write and design materials. But
sadly the “running” of Shikshamitra has sapped her energy in the last few
years. And she is also not quite happy with what she is doing and feels her potential
is being wasted.
Now
we live with
Sudeshna’s aging parents and take care of them. We have a
son born in 1991 who has been lucky to have grown up with his
grandparents. He has gone
through a horrible schooling – the worst things that we keep on trying to
change. But we were so busy with our projects that we could not give him much
time and thought. He has another two years of school left and is trying bravely to handle the
situation.
7. Sudeshna and you – your professional vision, your everyday
(field) work, your private life, your family – there must be incompatibilities…
Our respective parents were never happy about our marriage
as both of us had and still have very “uncertain” careers and income. Most
middle class third world families dread this (middle class being such a small
% of the population in the 3rd world) as all their dreams are of
“upward mobility” and “stability”. Sudeshna is a very “urban-cosmopolitan”
person and had made it very clear before marriage that she will never settle in
a village. She likes going to films, art
shows, music concerts, occasional restaurants (so do I); but this is quite
infrequent because of her hectic “running” of institutions. She
often manages to do these things without me. Our social life with friends and
relatives and with our neighbors also has been very poor. Sudeshna is an
excellent cook, but for many years that is taken care of by her mother
and so she does not even do that except
occasionally. She would also love to take two-three breaks in a year to go
someplace and relax. But we don’t seem to have the time and resources to do
that. Generally she is more apprehensive than me about our own “vulnerable”
situation. I tend to be more philosophical and see our predicament as the
situation of India’s (and world’s) majority of people. But this
attitude is often not very conducive for
a person like Sudeshna to happily do
hard productive creative work. And as I
slow down with age, these apprehensions are also becoming mine.
Nowadays we often feel that we need a total break from
running our respective institutions and maybe also get away from West Bengal for some years!! Maybe if there is a “Green Party” formed
in India, I will join! Or I will teach development at the University level. Or run a
“development club” where various kinds
of politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, activists, media persons can come
together and gossip and argue and together evolve something new, while
listening to some good music! And I have collected reviews of more than 200 books which I would like to read!!
Kolkata, im März 2009
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