nadirafromkannur's blog

Sometimes , without any prior planning or pattern , life brings you face to face with people whose positivity, instantly gives you a feeling of being enriched.

I met Radha Behin as she is fondly addressed by those who know her, at the meeting of the Jal Biradari of which I had recently written about. She is presently the Chairperson of the Gandhi Peace Foundation.

        Three of us others, shared a room with her at the Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram. She was there because of her decades long involvement with environmental activism including the  'Save the rivers' campaign in Uttarakhand . As she was travelling back to Delhi , she was kind enough to give me a lift . Sweet natured and extremely down to earth , she was willing to answer the steady stream of questions I kept bothering her with on the way back. Reflecting back on her life, one gets to understand the awesome impact of a person like Gandhiji and what he stood for and how inspiring it must have been to have been to the younger generation of those times.  

        She has a mature kind of beauty  even at her seventy plus years.  One can guess how pretty she must have been at the age of fifteen  when suitors came asking for her hand . She had different ideas though. She wanted to continue with her studies . There was one particular proposal which was highly recommended to her by her brother. A strapping young handsome man ,  intelligent , good on the sports field, good personality, well liked , the works. 'If you don't want to get married, that is another thing. But if you want to , you can't ask for more', he told her. She was adamant . 'I don't want to get married. I want to study', she was quite firm.

        There was no school around though, which would allow girls  beyond the VIII th standard. The young Radha Bhatt and her group of friends went to meet the Swamiji( I forget the name) who was running one of the schools,  to petition their case. They stood around timidly at the gate and the chowkidar tried to shoo them away. Fortunately for them, the Swamiji heard their voices and asked the chowkidar to let them in. 'We were tongue tied and  kept fidgeting , even ruing our recklessness.  Finally I decided to speak up  and told the Swamiji that we were determined to study and should be allowed to at his school as there was no way our parents were going to send us to a distant place where we could continue with our schooling. Most of us came from ordinary middle class homes and we didn't have the kind of financial background that could support hostel charges along with the regular fees etc'. May be he was impressed with their determination that had brought them there and he agreed to consider their case. Approval came with conditions though. They had to have their dupattas covering their head  and no girl could come to the school singly .  As a result, if her friend living close by,  with whom she walked to school  was absent for some reason, she had to excuse herself as well and vice versa. It didn't matter really because they were hardworking and did well at studies.

         That too came to an end after a year. Radha's father had retired from the army . He had seen a bit of the world and was not completely closed in his thinking. He gauged his daughter's attitude and perceived that it was not just adoloscent whimsicalness that she was indulging in.  What does one do with a young girl of her age who refused to settle down in matrimony like other lasses her age in a remote hilly hamlet ? He spoke to one of his friends who told him that Gandhiji's disciple Sarla Bahin had established the Laxmi Ashram in Kasauni and the institution was working for the education and upliftment of women. May be Radha could be sent there. But life there would be very austere, would she be okay with that.?

        ' I was fond of clothes and good things . My parents were actually relieved to have this bail out as they thought that I would soon get bored and be exorcised of my stubbornness'. Back home for a break after a year or so, they were surprised to see that she hadn't returned with all of her stuff , but just enough clothes for a temporary stay. 'That's when they took me seriously.'

        Since then, Radha Bahin has been working assiduously  on the path of  social justice  motivated by Gandhian ideals. She has been involved in a whole range of movements, anti-alchohol campaigns in Uttarakhand, the Sarvodaya movement, the Chipko movement . She strongly believes that power and the decision making process has to be decentralised . People have to become actively involved and start doing things for themselves and  work towards the interests of the community instead of waiting for the Government to do everything  for them. She believes strongly in non-violent methods , the strong Gandhian that she is. 'Haven't  you heard of  Hiware Bazaar'? 'No', I said sheepishly. She told me the tale of how a village notorious for its wayward drunkenness and backwardness had been transformed when a few  men led on by  the passionate young Popat Rao Pawar decided to change things. It is an amazing story of how a village became self-reliant.  These are two  of the many links to stories about Hiware Bazaar:

http://www.nextindia.org/index.php/2009/07/04/swaraj-story-of-hiware-bazar/comment-page-1/

http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/node/40661

  The first one has a video. You'll have to be  a little patient  till it gets uploaded , but I assure you it is worth the watch . The video begins with these words from Mahatma Gandhi

    'True democracy cannot be run by twenty people sitting in the centre. It should be run by the villagers at the grassroot level. Today, the power is centralized to cities like Delhi, Calcutta and Bomabay. I'd like to decentralize it to seven lakh villages.' -Mahatma Gandhi

    ' Now wherever I go , I urge people to become involved and work together in the same manner for their own good. Local self governance is the only effective way against exploitation', said Radha Bahin.

          I would hardly be able to do justice to her lifelong  saga of public service . Just google for the name Radha Bhatt and you would begin to get an idea of what she represents.  I just wanted to share with you friends on this day , a glimpse  into the life of a true Gandhian and use this opportunity to pay my heartfelt respects to her. I consider myself extremely lucky to have met her.