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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.

BJP in Pune: From margins to mainstream

From Anna Joshi’s grassroots charm to Murlidhar Mohol’s ascendancy, the BJP has long treated Pune as a laboratory for grooming leaders. With another municipal election looming, the experiment is about to be tested again

Murlidhar Mohol
Murlidhar Mohol

Pune: When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was founded in 1980, Pune was hardly a bastion. The party’s presence was scattered; its cadre was spread thin and its symbol (a flickering oil lamp inherited from the Jana Sangh) was known more for token representation than serious power. Today, the story could not be more different. The BJP is preparing to contest the city’s municipal polls with the ambition of capturing more than 100 of the 165-odd seats. That confidence has been built not by accident but by a deliberate and decades-long strategy of continuously cultivating new leadership.


It is a method the party has deployed elsewhere in Maharashtra, most recently in Mumbai, where Ameet Satam, a three-term legislator from Andheri West, was recently appointed president of the city unit. But in Pune, the practice has been almost laboratory-like in its consistency. From the 1980s onward, the party has elevated figures, encouraged experimentation, and relied on collective leadership when necessary. Each generation of leaders was carefully given space to grow, and sometimes even allowed to fail.


The first crop of BJP leaders in Pune - Rambhau Mhalgi, Anna Joshi, Arvind Lele, Prem Advani and Shankarrao Yadav - were men of organisation more than mass. Of them, Anna Joshi and Arvind Lele formed the most potent duo. Joshi was personable and affable, able to converse with workers and voters across the social spectrum. Lele, by contrast, was the party’s ideological anchor, a meticulous organiser who supplied the structure Joshi’s charisma needed. The combination proved effective as Joshi bested seasoned Congress leaders in the Assembly and Lok Sabha contests. Whispers at the time suggested that Sharad Pawar’s loyalists quietly aided Joshi’s rise, though the BJP’s success was also a testament to its growing roots.


In 1984, the party fielded Jagannathrao Joshi, a scholar-politician of formidable intellect and oratory, though he lost the election. Yet his candidacy marked a turning point. He appealed to the city’s educated middle classes and, more importantly, legitimised the BJP’s ideological seriousness. In effect, he tilled the ground for the next generation of Pune’s BJP leaders to flourish.


Generation next

That next generation emerged rapidly. The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of Girish Bapat, Yogesh Gogawale, Vishwas Gangurde, Vijay Kale, Pradeep Rawat, Anil Shirole, Dilip Kamble and Ashok Salunke. National heavyweights like Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde were quick to spot the promise of Pune’s emerging cadre, ensuring they were nurtured and rewarded. Bapat, who contested the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, established city-wide networks that propelled him into the ranks of state and national politics. Rawat became an MP in 1999; Shirole was elevated to both city president and parliamentarian. By the end of the 1990s, the BJP in Pune had gone from fringe to fixture.

This was not merely a story of individual elevation but of systematic opportunity. Those who demonstrated loyalty and competence were given their turn. Bapat became both cabinet minister and MP. Prakash Javadekar rose to the Union cabinet. Dilip Kamble held ministerial rank. Vijay Kale and Vishwas Gangurde became legislators, later chairing the municipal corporation. Ujwal Keskar became leader of the opposition in the same body. Even those who did not scale dizzying heights like Gogawale and Vikas Mathkari were trusted with corporator and city president roles.


The strategy was not limited to men. When Sharad Pawar, then Chief Minister, introduced the 33 percent reservation for women in local self-government bodies, the BJP capitalised on it. It fielded and promoted women leaders, who would go on to reshape its Pune story. Mukta Tilak became the city’s first BJP mayor in 2017 and later an MLA. Medha Kulkarni secured both legislative and parliamentary berths. Madhuri Misal, thrice elected corporator, rose to become a minister of state. These successes were built on the path first trodden by Maltibai Paranjape of the Jana Sangh, the lone woman corporator of an earlier era. Her symbolic presence became substantive reality.


Collective leadership

By the 2010s, the BJP’s Pune bench was so deep that collective leadership again became the order of the day. Today, Union Minister of State Murlidhar Mohol, higher education minister Chandrakant Patil, city president Dheeraj Ghate, MLAs Siddharth Shirole, Sunil Kamble, Hemant Rasne, Ganesh Bidkar, Srinath Bhimale and Jagdish Mulik all represent the city’s multiple strands of BJP power. Of these, Mohol is being entrusted with particular responsibility. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, long attentive to Pune’s strategic importance, has ensured that this generation is tested early and often.


Whether this strategy will deliver another sweep in the municipal elections remains uncertain. The BJP today faces a crowded political landscape, with rivals eager to exploit anti-incumbency and discontent over local governance. Yet history suggests that the BJP’s ‘Pune model’ which has constantly fed new leaders into the machine is built for endurance. The party does not merely win elections but creates a cadre capable of contesting and consolidating power across generations.


If the BJP secures more than 100 seats in the upcoming municipal polls, as it hopes, it will confirm not just a city-wide dominance but the efficacy of a political experiment that has been running quietly since 1980. From Anna Joshi’s charisma to Jagannathrao Joshi’s intellect, from Girish Bapat’s organisational heft to Mukta Tilak’s pioneering mayoralty, Pune has been both crucible and showcase. The party has repeatedly reinvented itself here. The BJP may well be the most disciplined practitioner of a simple political truth which is, in Pune, leaders are not born - they are made.

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