THE ASHA ASHRAM : TAKING ROOTS

The first health camp was organized in village Lalpur, the site of Asha
Ashram, in March with Professor Ramakant, a surgeon associated with
Lucknow’s Medical College. There was a big turnout. More than 125
patients, some coming from neighbouring villages, got themselves
examined. Water borne diseases and protein-vitamin deficiencies were the
most common things observed. According to Dr. Ramakant if the villagers
started using boiled water for drinking and introduced some green
vegetables and things like raddish and ‘sahjan’ in their diet they would
be cured of half of their problems. It is noteworthy that common diet of
the villagers include only potatoes so far as vegetables is concerned.
Worms, fungal, skin related and T.B. are other common diseases
afflicting the villagers. The state of health of the village is quite
poor and it is emerging as one of the priority areas of work for Asha.

Unfortunately, the villagers could not benefit from Dr. Ramakant’s
visit. The medicines he had prescribed were either not available in the
local markets or were too costly. Also, since the visit was made before
harvesting, those villagers who were advised to go to Medical College
for further treatment or surgery could not afford to go there. After
this it became clear that the villagers could afford only homeopathic
and ayurvedic medicines and whenever possible natural ways of treatment
should be resorted to. The modern medicine system is simply beyond the
reach of majority of Indians who live a life of poverty. A friend
homeopathic doctor Kusum Singh, also C.M.O. at a Lucknow charitable
hosiptal, decided to come along with us to the village to take a look
and was so moved by the lack of health services there that she committed
herself to come to this village second Sunday of every month. This is
how we have been trying to fire-fight the health care problem in the
village and until a health worker joins the team at the Ashram the
situation is not going to improve significantly. Homeopathic medicines
worth Rs. 800 have been bought and kept at the Ashram and they will take
care of the village needs for some time to come.

A village committee has been formed. Ideally we are trying to ensure
attendance of one member of each household in every meeting. However,
the women who exhibited interest in the beginning have stopped coming to
the meeting. It could also have to do with the fact the meetings are
being held after it gets dark, when the men are back from their fields
and work, a time when the women are probably busy preparing dinner or
involved with post dinner clean up process. The only solution seems to
be forming a separate group for women, preferably by a women activist.
It is already planned to begin a self-help group for the women. The
village committee has distributed some of the responsibilities, like
calling the meeting whenever required, taking down the minutes, etc.,
among themselves.

The Ashram rented 2.5 acres (one hectare) of land for doing agriculture
with the objective of starting production of food items to take care of
the needs of the inmates. Since, to begin with help would have to be
taken from the villagers in this activity, this was discussed in an open
village meeting. It was agreed upon that the most underprivileged should
be given this land on sharecropping arrangement. Two families were
identified by the villagers collectively, one family which was working
on this entire piece was land was also given a portion and another
family was accommodated to help out the underprivileged families in case
they needed help. One of the two underprivileged families just consists
of a widow and her two little kids. The village committee also decided
the location of hand-pump to be installed on the Ashram campus to suit
their and general public’s convenience. Valuable advice on water
management in a pond next to the Ashram land was also put forth by them.

A land dispute between two harijan families was brought to the notice
of the Ashram with an expectation for intervention. The two sides were
brought together, the matter was discussed and the two families were
advised to bury their dispute. It was decided to divide the land in
question, incidentally belonging to the gram sabha, to the agreement of
both parties. The two families were also advised to withdraw their case
from the court. Asha Ashram is making an attempt to solve the village
disputes within the village itself without having to go to the police or
the court, two extremely corrupt institutions which take advantage of
people’s disputes and make money from both parties involved.
Incidentally, the highest number of court cases in Indian courts pertain
to land disputes, often between close relatives. It is not very uncommon
in such cases for people to resort to violence, use lathis and firearms.
In the dispute mentioned above also two years back, what started of as
heated exchange between women of the two families became bloody in the
end with one man’s skull opened by a lathi.

The Ashram construction work is in progress, slowed down because of the
harvesting season and then rains. A platform which will ultimately take
the shape of a mandap is coming up right in the middle of the plot. A
bio-gas plant to be run both on gobar and human excreta is coming up
behind the ferro-cement unit of laterines and bathroom in one corner of
the Ashram premises.

The Ashram has also been approached by some people who have mortgaged
their land to others or taken loans which they are not able to pay back
and hence are forced to do bonded labour kind of work. It was expected
that problems of this nature, which the landless people face in any part
of the country were bound to come up. However, some general solution is
being sought after which will take care of any such case of
victimization. Creation of a revolving fund, which can be used by victim
families by turns, or villagers coming together themselves to create a
fund for this purpose, or having sympathetic slightly better-off
villagers help out their not so fortunate brethrens, are some of the
options being explored. This matter will be taken up soon in the village
meeting so that a solution may be found collectively.

On 14th and 15th June the first teachers’ training programme was held
at Lalpur. All teachers associated with Asha's education programmes in
the Lucknow area assembled here, spent the two days together, learning,
sharing, having fun. The objective of the training programme was to
reinforce Asha’s philosophy of education, explore various ways of making
the exercise of education an enjoyable experience for the children and
do some evaluation and introspection. Most of the teachers found this
training programme quite valuable. This was inspite the fact that the
female teachers of urban background had to face the problem of having to
do without a closed room toilet. The teachers suggested that they would
like this training programme to become a regular feature of their work.
Later on teachers from other Asha supported education programmes could
also be invited here for interaction.

And finally, the villagers were involved in the campaign to protest
against the government decision to ban common salt. It hurts these
villagers more than the city people to pay a higher price for iodised
salt. The villagers clearly voiced their sentiments against the big
companies who were out to make unscrupulous profits at their expense. If
the government was so concerned about their health why couldn’t it make
the iodised salt available at the same rate or a marginally higher rate
as compared with the common salt. Changa Lal went around
enthusiastically and collected signatures and thumb impressions of the
villagers on a signature campaign sheet asking the government to lift
the ban on common salt. This sheet was submitted along with other sheets
to the Prime Minister after a one-day fast cum demonstration progrmme in
Lucknow on 24th of June.

By Sandeep
Address: A-893 Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226016, U.P.
Phone: (0522) 347365; E-mail: ashain@l...