Bunker Roy

“The man behind “Barefoot College”, a place where illiterate grandmothers and mothers are trained to become engineers!!”

To be or not to be is a choice that lay within us. Most of us are not even aware that we can practice them. We follow a roadmap of life that has already been laid by those who drove the same car before us.

Only “those few good men” realize that the equilibrium of the planet will only be maintained if we progress in totality and for that to happen the poorest of the countries have to be elevated to a level where they can make their lives self-sufficient and transform their human power into human resource.

One such phenomenal man lives by the name of Sanjeet “bunker” Roy. He was an archetypal case of an upper middle class boy, fed the best and clothed the best. He was raised to become a diplomat or a technocrat after finishing his expensive and elitist education at Doon school and then at St Stephens college, New Delhi. He was a national level squash champion and represented India many times. He had excellent job offers from the top Multinational companies, he indeed was ready for a very lucrative future.

However his plan and outlook towards life completely changed after he provided his services in Bihar flood, in the year 1965. He came back to declare to his family that he wants to live and work in a village. His mother nearly had a heart attack from the news and to make things worse he told them about his plan of manually digging a well in the village. He left his home to live a life in austerity, only this time this man’s aim was not to find truth of life and mediate but to get his hands dirty to “build a nation”

And after forty five years of hard work and perseverance this man has made unimaginable a reality. As a 65 five year old illiterate grandmother from Sierra leone, Africa is now a solar engineer heading the work of establishing a solar power grid in Africa and teaching the “educated men” a thing or two about solar energy. Gul Bahar, age 55, with her three companions were the first women who solar electrified a village in Afghanistan and now look after two hundred solar units since 2005, and guess what they haven’t collapsed!

This same woman went to an engineering department of Afghanistan and told the head of the department the difference between AC AND DC! These women further trained 27 more women who have solar electrified hundred villages in Afghanistan.

What’s the story behind these extraordinary stories?

It was the vision of this man and his conviction in the skills and wisdom that rural India possessed that was not taught in the classrooms of expensive schools and universities. He simply wanted to push these skills into mainstream professions. The idea was a quite simple one but had the strength to revolutionize our nation and our world. Little did he know that this was exactly going to happen.

He began by starting a college that was purposely kept rudimentary in nature for the villagers to feel comfortable. It is called “Barefoot College”. It is probably the only college where phd’s and Msc’s are not allowed, in bunker Roy’s words “you have to be a cop out, a wash out or a drop out to enrol yourself in the college”. The idea was to redefine a “professional”, According to him a professional is the one who has some competence, confidence and beliefs. A traditional midwife is a professional, a bone setter is a professional, and a water diviner is professional. This knowledge and expertise which these villagers had were universal had to be developed and brought to mainstream. Anyone with some level of competence could come to the college and teach their skills and learn something else in return. Dignity of labour is what is valued here.

The college follows the ideas and style of Mahatma Gandhi. They sleep on the floor, eat on the floor and work on the floor. The concept evolved from focusing on water and irrigation to empowerment and sustainability. The college itself was designed and built by twelve barefoot architects who could not read or write. It was built on $1.50/sq.ft, the college later got the Aga Khan prize for architecture. Barefoot college portrays the mind blowing traditional knowledge and the wonders that it could do. He recalls that he had gone to a qualified forester for irrigating and cultivating the lands he told him that forestation on this rocky and salty land was impossible. An old man of the same village told him the recipe for the same! And the land now could not be greener.

There exists a water proofing technique that the women of the village would not share it with men. It involves mixing of some jaggery, urine and few other secret ingredients. The roof of the college has not leaked since 1986, when it was built. Barefoot college is the only college in the world that is fully electrified by solar energy but that’s not even the best part. It was installed by a priest who had received only first eight years of his primary education. According to Roy he knows more about solar energy than any solar engineer in the world. The food in the village is solar cooked and the solar cooker used are the most sophisticated parabolic scheffler solar cooker, and the people who fabricate them are the illiterate and uneducated women of the village. Roy jokes and says that these women are half German because they are so precise with their work. The village has its own very efficient dentist, an old grandmother who looks after the teeth of seven hundred kids.

The wonders of this college doesn’t end here. When no engineer and scientist had thought of rain water harvesting this village had secured itself. All the roofs are connected with underground tanks and collect rain water, if there was be a drought as long as four years the village would not be affected.

The concept of night schools was also brought too considering the kids in the morning have to do household chores, look after livestock etc. the schools were designed for the convenience of these kids and as a result seventy five thousand children have studied in these schools which are lit by solar lanterns. The syllabus of this school is fantastic. They are taught concepts like democracy, citizenship, what to do if one gets arrested, what to do if your cow gets sick. There is more! Every year there are elections held in the village for children from 6 to 14 years of age. They go on to become the prime minister of the village who have cabinet ministers of education, health and welfare and this prototype of democratic functioning is working just fine with them. They take care of seventy thousand schools around their village.

Roy narrates a small anecdote, a girl from this village, who was also the prime minister was awarded “world’s children prize” and was invited to Sweden to be facilitated by the queen. The girl who was stepping out from her village for the first time, was absolutely confident and not dazzled at all by the queen and all the formal protocols. The queen was surprised and asked Roy about the girl’s non-dazzled attitude. The girl told him to tell the queen that she was the Prime Minister! Such was her confidence that her small village had developed in her.

This village is building leaders for tomorrow. All because of this one man who wanted to try out a simple idea. This one man who believed that all the solutions are lying in our own traditional societies, we only need to nurture them. The saying of Mahatma Gandhi holds true for this genius