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By:

Shoumojit Banerjee

27 August 2024 at 9:57:52 am

Classroom of Courage

In drought-scarred Maharashtra, a couple’s experiment in democratic schooling is turning child beggars into model citizens In the parched stretches of Maharashtra, from Solapur to the drought-hit villages of Marathwada, a modest social experiment has quietly unfolded for nearly two decades. It is neither a grand government scheme nor a corporate-backed charity. Since 2007, the Ajit Foundation, founded by Mahesh and Vinaya Nimbalkar, has worked with children living at the sharpest edges of...

Classroom of Courage

In drought-scarred Maharashtra, a couple’s experiment in democratic schooling is turning child beggars into model citizens In the parched stretches of Maharashtra, from Solapur to the drought-hit villages of Marathwada, a modest social experiment has quietly unfolded for nearly two decades. It is neither a grand government scheme nor a corporate-backed charity. Since 2007, the Ajit Foundation, founded by Mahesh and Vinaya Nimbalkar, has worked with children living at the sharpest edges of society in Maharashtra. The foundation has become a home for out-of-school children, those who have never enrolled, the children of migrant labourers and single parents, and those who scavenge at garbage dumps or drift between odd jobs. To call their foundation an “NGO” is to miss the point. Vinaya Nimbalkar describes it as a “democratic laboratory”, where education is not merely instruction but an initiation into citizenship. The couple were once government schoolteachers with the Solapur Zilla Parishad, leading stable lives. Yet what they witnessed unsettled them: children who had never held a pencil, begging at traffic signals or sorting refuse for a living. Prompted by this reality, the Nimbalkars resigned their jobs to work full-time for the education of such children. Leap of Faith They began modestly, teaching children in migrant settlements in Solapur and using their own salaries to pay small honorariums to activists. Funds soon ran dry, and volunteers drifted away. Forced out of their home because of their commitment to the cause, they started a one-room school where Vinaya, Mahesh, their infant son Srijan and forty children aged six to fourteen lived together as an unlikely family. The experiment later moved to Barshi in the Solapur district with support from Anandvan. Rural hardship, financial uncertainty and the pandemic repeatedly tested their resolve. At one stage, they assumed educational guardianship of nearly 200 children from families that survived by collecting scrap on the village outskirts. Eventually, the foundation relocated to Talegaon Dabhade near Pune, where it now runs a residential hostel. Twenty-five children currently live and study there. The numbers may seem modest, but the ambition is not. Democracy in Practice What distinguishes the Ajit Foundation is not only who it serves but also how it operates. Within its walls, democracy is practised through a Children’s Gram Panchayat and a miniature Municipal Council elected by the children themselves. Young candidates canvass, hold meetings and present their budgets. Children maintain accounts and share decisions about chores, activities and certain disciplinary matters. In a country where democratic culture is often reduced to voting, the foundation’s approach is quietly radical. It treats children from marginalised backgrounds as citizens in formation. The right to choose — whether to focus on sport, cooking, mathematics or cultural activities — is respected. “We try never to take away what is their own,” says Vinaya Nimbalkar. Rather than forcing every child into a uniform academic mould, individual abilities are encouraged. A boy skilled in daily calculations may not be pushed into hours of bookish study; a girl who excels in cooking may lead the kitchen team. For children who have known only precarity, standing for election, managing a budget or speaking at a meeting can be transformative. On International Women’s Day, the foundation seeks visibility not just for praise but for partnership. If you are inspired by their mission, consider supporting or collaborating—your involvement can help extend opportunities to more children in need.

Ayodhya and the Politics of Reawakening

The Ram temple is a bold statement about India’s past, present and the future its rulers wish to shape.

The recent consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was staged not merely as a religious milestone but as a civilisational declaration. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his 31-minute address beneath the saffron canopy of ceremony, it was clear that the event was intended to transcend ritual. The message was political, cultural and aspirational all at once - a call to reframe India’s national story through the idiom of faith, memory and development.


For many Indians, especially among the temple’s most ardent supporters, the moment was framed as the closing of a historical wound. The temple’s completion was described as the end of “centuries of pain” and the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream. Ayodhya, once a byword for political dispute and communal rupture, was recast as the cradle of moral regeneration and national unity.


Modi’s speech carefully recoded Ram not only as a deity but as a national archetype. Ram, he argued, is a symbol of governance, discipline, compassion and modern nationhood. This is a familiar articulation of the Prime Minister’s political method which is to merge cultural symbolism with developmental ambition. ‘Ram Rajya,’ the ancient ideal of righteous rule, has been softly aligned with India’s contemporary goals of economic acceleration, social discipline and geopolitical confidence.


The temple has thus become an instrument of narrative engineering. It offers a bridge between spiritual heritage and the government’s promise that India will become a $30–34 trillion economy by 2047, the centenary of independence.


Timeless University

Ayodhya’s symbolic power is carefully curated. It is portrayed not only as Ram’s birthplace, but as a timeless university of Indian values, home to sages such as Vashishtha, Vishwamitra, Valmiki and Agastya; sanctified by Sabari’s devotion; echoed by Tulsidas’s verse; and eternally guarded by Hanuman’s strength. These references knit together astronomy, asceticism, devotion and poetry into a single mythic continuum that modern India is urged to inherit and extend.


The temple has been celebrated as a product of mass participation by its donations from millions, labour by artisans, expertise from engineers and planners. This emphasis on shared ownership serves a political purpose in reframing a deeply polarising project as a national undertaking, smoothing over the conflicts that preceded it.


Ayodhya is not being presented merely as a relic of the past but is being remodelled as a laboratory of the future. In the vision sketched by the prime minister’s supporters, the city will become a global centre of education and research, possibly home to a ‘Shri Ram International University,’ symbolising the fusion of ancient ethics with modern science.


The ideological thrust is unmistakable. Ram is defined not as a historical person but as a value system embodying discipline, compassion, knowledge, restraint and courage. Citizens are invited to “awaken the Ram within.” Democracy, it is argued, can function properly only when rooted in these civilisational virtues.


This merging of statecraft and spirituality is not new to Indian politics, but it has rarely been executed with such scale or confidence. The Ram temple marks the maturation of a political project that has sought, for decades, to reposition Hindu symbolism from the margins of cultural assertion to the centre of national identity.


Critics, however, worry about what is left unsaid. The language of universal harmony, of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (‘the world as one family’), sits uneasily beside the memory of exclusion and violence that also shaped Ayodhya’s recent history.


Still, politically, the symbolism is potent. The temple offers the ruling party a narrative of cultural vindication, historical continuity and future-oriented nationalism, wrapped in devotional legitimacy. It supplies a moral vocabulary for governance at a time when economic growth alone no longer satisfies the electorate’s hunger for meaning.


India, as PM Modi often reminds audiences, is a living, changing civilisation. The message of Ayodhya is that this change must now proceed along lines drawn from sacred memory. Whether this fusion of faith and statecraft deepens social cohesion or sharpens existing fault lines will shape the moral architecture of the republic for decades to come.


In 2047, when India marks a hundred years of independence, today’s leaders hope the Ram temple will be remembered as a cornerstone of national renaissance. For future generations to see it as an emblem of unity will depend on how faithfully the lofty ideals invoked at Ayodhya are translated into justice, inclusion and prosperity on the ground by the government.


(The writer is a political commentator. Views personal.)


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