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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.

Pune’s changing political guard

After an eight-year hiatus, the municipal elections promise to usher in a new cohort of politicians and reset the city’s political rhythms

Pune: The long-delayed civic polls herald a generational shift in Pune, arguably Maharashtra’s most politically vibrant city. When voters return to the booths in December, they will be resetting the circuitry of local power.


The last municipal elections were held in 2017. Since then, the city’s politics have drifted into a liminal space. The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) term expired in May 2022, but the state dithered, leaving India’s seventh-largest city without elected urban governance for almost three years. With the prospect of polls repeatedly deferred, many former corporators had since quietly receded from the daily grind of politics, returning to business interests or simply losing relevance.


When the long-pending reservation lottery for civic wards was finally conducted recently, it delivered another shock: dozens of established male aspirants discovered that their seats had vanished from under them.


New guard

All this has created an unusual political vacuum that younger leaders are eager to fill. Parties across the spectrum, from the BJP to the Congress to the NCP factions, are preparing to field fresher faces. Regardless of who wins, Pune seems destined to witness the rise of a new political class.


The churn is already visible. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, both the BJP’s Murlidhar Mohol and the Congress’s then-candidate Ravindra Dhangekar were relative newcomers to national politics. The city’s Assembly seats have also produced new faces in recent years, including Hemant Rasne and Sunil Kamble. Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party elevated Subhash Jagtap and Sunil Tingre to leadership roles, giving them a platform to shape the party’s urban strategy. Even the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a peripheral entity in Pune’s political landscape, is preparing to contest the civic polls with a wholly new leadership slate.


The party most uneasy about this transition may be the Congress. Despite routinely polling between 550,000 and 600,000 votes in the city, it has struggled to convert electoral presence into organisational revival. As the Bihar election results were being announced recently, one Pune resident summed up a sentiment widely shared among Congress sympathisers: the party has votes, but not enough dynamic young leaders to carry them. The question, as he put it, is not whether the youth can help the Congress, but whether the Congress will let them.


Rewind to the early 2000s, and Pune’s political landscape looked very different. The Congress then had a formidable bench which included Suresh Kalmadi, Chandrakant Shivarkar, Mohan Joshi, Ramesh Bagwe and Abhay Chhajed. The BJP had Pradeep Rawat, Anil Shirole, Girish Bapat, Vijay Kale, Vishwas Gangurde and Dilip Kamble. Sharad Pawar’s NCP, then ascendant, rested on leaders like Ajit Pawar, Ankush Kakade, Vandana Chavan and Ravi Malvadkar. But the 2014 BJP wave flattened the hierarchy. The Congress crumbled; Kalmadi and Rawat faded from view; Gangurde exited the stage. The BJP replaced its old guard with Medha Kulkarni, and then Mukta Tilak, Chandrakant Patil, Bhimrao Tapkir, Madhuri Misal and Jagdish Mulik. Now, as Pune approaches the end of 2025, even Mohol - the BJP’s rising star - risks appearing ‘senior’ in a political landscape tilting toward younger contenders.


Demographics are accelerating the shift. Given that Pune’s last civic polls took place eight years ago, an entire cohort of voters since then has reached adulthood. They cast their first ballots in the recent Lok Sabha and Assembly elections; now they will vote in municipal elections for the first time. Their concerns include urban mobility, climate resilience, digital governance, employment differ sharply from the older generation’s priorities. Their political loyalties, still fluid, are likely to crystallise around leaders who can speak to these new anxieties.


The coming election promises a radical change in Pune’s political ecosystem. Long dominated by legacy figures, that ecosystem is set for nothing less than a generational reset. The departure of veteran leaders, the decennial rebalancing of parties, and the impatience of a newly enfranchised urban youth all point towards a younger, more competitive, and possibly more unpredictable political order.


Whether this transition will deliver better governance remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the next generation seems determined not to wait another eight years to make itself heard.

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