November 5, 2011
I have to admit a gap in my blog posts because I have been having a hard time deciding how to share some of my thoughts on my experience. I know that what I have to say is not the most positive reflection on the Navdanya organization, but feel without sharing my recent discussions I am not sharing my experience as a whole. While daily work is still happening and the organization is functioning, I do have some disappointments I feel also must be shared. The amount of biodiversity not only in what is grown here, but the animals and people that are attracted to this farm has really made the experience absolutely amazing! The amount of knowledge and the work Navdanya does with organic farmers is still very much present, but the execution of some projects and actions by some of the office staff have also taken my energy here in new directions. Other interns along with myself have been spending some time for the past couple of weeks to discuss what we feel is missing from the organization and how best we can approach this.
One main principle we feel missing from Navdanya are the Gandhian principles of living the founders stress so highly in their work. In short these principles include living simply, accepting all religions as equal, self-reliance, truth, and work without any desire of reward. And while the beauty and life of the farm is still very much apparent, after two months of day in and day out farm life I have realized that many of these principles are not so apparent within the staff of Navdanya. This, in turn reflects on the organization... at least to me. For, unfortunately, the caste-system, although illegal, seems to very much still be alive here in rural India. The caste-system involves being born into a certain social class into which you will live and be judged by for the rest of your life. Hindus believe that if they are born into a lower class they had done something to deserve it in their previous life. A caste determines your career path and also who you can marry later in life. And while the farm is a very accepting abode, over the course of time, inequality within the staff seems to be apparent.
In the first couple of weeks I was here, many interns along with myself were invited to tea and family birthday parties of many of the farm workers. This invaluable experience to not only practice our Hindi but to also participate in the Indian culture was something we all enjoyed very much. However, after many of these visits, a staff manager approached the interns and explained to us that it is not encouraged to visit with the farm workers outside of the farm. In fact, this staff member made it seem as if it was looked down upon. During the recent celebration of Diwali (a holiday as important to Hindus (the majority religion in India) as Christmas is to Christians), we also asked if we could eat lunch with the farm workers. Strangely enough, we hadn't thought of it until then that we hadn't been sharing meals with them. Unfortunately, we had to wait until the evening time when the office staff had left to ask the farm staff to come in and join us for a much more modest meal. That it is not encouraged for us or even the office staff to mix with the farm workers has come as a huge disappointment to me and many of the other interns. And, this is just one example, I could go on and on about how the Internet promised to us students is in fact non-existent, and the lack of a structured internship program. And while we have learned, and appreciated not being distracted by the Internet, and many of us are self-sufficient enough to discover our own programs and necessities, the efficiency of our projects could be improved 10-fold if we had any cooperation from the staff. We have discovered, two months into our projects that there have been previous interns here doing the exact same thing... yet, there is no record of their progress or their contacts.
Therefore, along with my study of the food system here in India and my ultimate goal of learning how to create more sustainable food systems, a few other interns and myself have taken on the project of clarifying and organizing the intern program. This involves helping to establish more efficient practices within the Bija Vidyapeeth campus, as well. Over time, we have also found out that previous interns have gone to these lengths to meet with the staff and change the program, as well, which has also been discouraging. However, it is our mission to leave a paper trail for previous interns to follow. For, one of the main obstacles here seems to be that there is no one in the office staff willing to oversee the intern program resulting in a serious disconnect between projects and valuable information that could be shared. And, we have also taken turns sitting in the kitchen to eat lunch with the farm staff.
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