A Passage to Ahmedabad

Today, we flew to Ahmedabad and settled in at DSK, a vocational center aimed at helping economically and socially disadvantaged young adults establish careers outside of their traditional caste-based job opportunities (including manual scavenging and severely underpaid agricultural laborers. They receive intensive training in such areas as tailoring, beauty school, and furniture making over the course of an intensive 45 day period and afterwards, are trained in their field to join factories or establish their own businesses. It is one of the initiatives of the Navsarjan Trust, which works for the Dalit movement in the state of Gujarat, and Camila, Ehi and I have the opportunity to be here for the next five days. When we’re living at the center, we will be following its rigorous daily routine just like the rest of the students, and will have the opportunity to observe classes, visit primary boarding schools in the villages (which is also an initiative of the Navsarjan Trust), and most importantly, talk and interact with the students to get first-hand accounts of their lives, their schooling, their beliefs, and their plans for the future.

It has only been one day, and I am already impressed by the center and its hard-working staff and students. Simply being at the center is an inspiring experience. Yesterday, Professors Harris and Crenshaw were to speak for forty minutes on social movements, and their remarks were translated in Gujarati as they spoke, for the benefit of the audience. The talk ended up lasting over two hours! However, not one person stopped paying attention; even though they could not understand the speakers, everyone paid attention to the professors while they were talking, without being distracted by anything, and no one fidgeted or even appeared as if they were bored. They were respectful and engaged, asked intelligent questions at the conclusion of the presentation, and were a model audience- all considerations that a group of well-educated Muslim men could not manage to accomplish at one of our lectures in Delhi a few days ago.

The intensity of the students is astonishing. Camila and I visited classes with one of the directors of the institute, and in every classroom, everyone was hard at work; some of them did not even stop to look at us while they continued their mobile repair course, their steel fabrication, their machinist training. They are here for 45 days, and spend nine hours in class every day, learning their trade! The rest of their days are spent performing calisthenics, chores and clean-up around the campus- everyone does everything, so often, this is the first time that boys have had to clean bathrooms and do laundry- participating in an empowerment session in the evening that consists of a combination of meditation and intellectual discourses on a variety of topics related to Dalit activism, finishing homework, and engaging in daily diary entries about the day’s events. Additionally after every meal, every person washes their own plates and cutlery, and so the dishes are ready (albeit a little damp) for the next meal. This combination of training, empowerment and self-reliance promotes the center’s goals in teaching and training Dalit activism to young adults who have the ability to leave here and effect these kinds of changes in their own villages.

I love that in many ways, the women in particular are so empowered here, and it is reflected in their behavior and actions. If any girl wants to take a non-traditional course, such as electrical wiring or security training, her tuition fee is waived, in order to better encourage her to learn new vocational skills- and girls have absolutely taken advantage of this opportunity. Additionally, Martin Macwan, the director of the Navsarjan Trust, strongly advocates the idea that women are the true catalyst for change in many social movements. The women are told that they may argue with their instructors if they feel that the instructor is not quite correct, a revolutionary concept for most women who are raised with the traditional notions of deference to all elders. The effects can be seen in how they interact with us as foreigners and newcomers to their environment. When I sat down at dinner last night in a group of women, I expected shy smiles and very little conversation from the girls, as that is what happened when I approached women in Delhi in similar situations. However, the girls took turns peppering me with questions, and telling me all about their backgrounds and lives- even when they couldn’t speak Hindi or English, they figured out how to make me understand them anyway, and pressed me for details on a variety of topics until they were satisfied that they had learned all that they wanted to know. This morning, our door was flung open at 6 am by a group of girls who came and attacked our faces with color (kindly avoiding my white pants, although they had every right not to) to celebrate Holi, followed by demands to know where we were at morning calisthenics and teasing me when I explained that I didn’t come because I was so inept as to be unable to figure out how to open the door to our room- it jams and there is a special way to fix it that I have not quite yet learned how to do. They express the notions of being immediately comfortable with me and treating me as an equal, two very rare concepts in general for women, and astonishing in particular as they are members of a downtrodden caste and from rural villages, but absolutely the norm in this supportive progressive environment. I am excited to continue our experience here; I expect that it will continue to be rewarding and also a great deal of fun.