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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.

Pawars are losing the Pune plot

Municipal elections expose the identity crisis within both factions of the Nationalist Congress Party

Pune: Local elections are often treated as administrative skirmishes. But in Pune, they have become something akin to a philosophical debate about loyalty and legitimacy, ideology and expediency, and whether political parties can survive repeated acts of self-contradiction. The week-long turmoil surrounding the city’s municipal polls has laid bare the Nationalist Congress Party’s deepest malaise: a party split not merely by factions, but by incompatible ideas of what it stands for.


At the heart of the drama lie the two NCPs led respectively by Sharad Pawar, the patriarch who once gave the party its ideological spine, and the other by his nephew Ajit Pawar, now Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP-led Mahayuti. When the election schedule was announced, many that each faction would fight separately, and the Bharatiya Janata Party would keep its distance.


Instead, the BJP made clear it would not ally with Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction for the Pune civic polls. That refusal set off a chain reaction. A section within Sharad Pawar’s faction began exploring a local alliance with Ajit Pawar’s group, arguing insistently that municipal elections were about pragmatism and not ideological purity. The proposed move has startled even seasoned observers. More surprising still was the apparent openness of Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar’s daughter and the party’s most prominent national face, to facilitating talks between the two sides.


What followed was not just a tactical disagreement but a revolt of principle. Prashant Jagtap, the NCP’s Pune city president, publicly challenged the idea of any alliance with Ajit Pawar’s faction. His reasoning was that he had fought both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections on an explicit anti-BJP plank. To now partner with a group that formed part of the BJP government, he argued, would amount to a betrayal of voters.


Talking Point

Jagtap’s defiance quickly became a state-wide talking point. At 47, a former mayor and a policy-minded local leader with a reputation for mastering civic minutiae, he was hardly an insurgent outsider. Yet by questioning Sharad Pawar’s tactical instincts while remaining within the party, he punctured the aura of unquestioned authority that has long surrounded the Pawar name. Even more awkwardly, BJP leaders maintained an almost studied silence as one of their allies flirted with Sharad Pawar’s camp, highlighting the convenience that define coalition politics in Maharashtra.


Supriya Sule attempted damage control, stepping in to mollify Jagtap and to still the speculation about a grand NCP reunion, however temporary. It did not work as Jagtap refused to retreat and soon took a more decisive step by crossing over to the Congress.


His exit was an indictment on the nature of the breathtaking contortions that have come to define to Maharashtra’s politics in recent times. In Pune, many saw it as the migration of credibility from a party mired in equivocation to one desperate for organisational revival. Congress leaders privately admitted that Jagtap’s arrival was a windfall: a grounded urban politician with local appeal at a time when the party struggles to find both. For residents weary of endless factional manoeuvres, his stand seemed refreshingly legible.


Meanwhile, the much-discussed talks between the two NCP factions quietly collapsed. By Saturday evening, it was clear that the Sharadchandra Pawar-led NCP would contest the municipal elections as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, alongside Congress and the Shiv Sena (UBT). The attempted rapprochement had yielded only confusion, bruised authority and one prominent defection.


The episode has also cast a shadow over the BJP. In Pune, whispers are growing that dynastic considerations may dominate its candidate selection, potentially provoking internal dissent. The party’s aggressive induction of new entrants, often from rival camps, has generated unease among long-time workers who fear being sidelined.


For the NCP, however, the implications are more existential. Once conceived as a party that blended Maratha pragmatism with a secular, reformist outlook, it now risks becoming a vessel defined solely by surnames and split loyalties. The Pune episode suggests that local leaders and voters alike are increasingly impatient with ambiguity masquerading as strategy.


Municipal elections rarely rewrite political history. But they do reveal fault lines. In Pune, they have exposed a party struggling to reconcile legacy with coherence and a city electorate alert to the difference. 

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