P. D. Chitlangia – As I Knew Him
Amar
Nath Maheshwari
As I am writing my tribute to Shri P. D. Chitlangia,
who was initially my Purshottam Chachaji and subsequently Chachaji, my last conversation
with him vividly flashes before me. He told me with happiness, “Amar
Nath, after undergoing my last course of chemotherapy and treatment by
Kaviraj of Patna I have fully come out of my colon cancer. I
have regained my normal weight and hair loss has been fully reversed. I now can
live my normal life.” He
expressed his anguish at the discontinuance of the grant-in-aid for the Friends
of Tribals Society (FTS) by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).
A week later I went to the US.
Therefore, on 10th June
2005 when I received email informing me his death I felt cheated by fate
and even today my mind refuses to accept that I will not hear his loving voice
and will not see his smiling face.
Another picture that comes to my mind was his
sartorial transformation from that of an Englishman to that of indigenous
paijama-kurta and the Jai Shri Ram salutation. He did concede that though he
had discarded his imported clothes he continued to use imported briefs and
shoes.
My contact with him became close when he contacted me
to draft a theme paper on non-formal primary education
based on the work of the FTS, of which he was the president, for presentation
at the All India Conference of the State Education Ministers scheduled to be
held at the Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi
on 22nd October 1998. He sent me reports and documents on the work
carried out by the FTS on education of the tribal children. He felt concerned
at disproportionately large apportioning by the State of limited funds with it
for the higher education sector, especially when the target of achieving
universal elementary education had not been achieved in spite of the
constitutional commitment made 50 years ago. He felt that continuation with the
costly formal system of schooling based on the colonial model of elementary
schools introduced in India by the British, reluctance of teachers to work in
rural areas, and following curriculum not relevant to the life of community
from which the children came to school were the main stumbling blocks to
universal elementary education. His principal concern was education of tribal
children, as teachers appointed by the state were reluctant to work in tribal
habitations because of remoteness and unfamiliar living conditions. He
explained to me with supportive research findings effectiveness of the Ekal
Vidyalaya system of education, which was based on appointing an educated youth
from the community as the teacher for its children. The FTS system of education
was participative with the tribal community as they provided place for running
their school and also identified persons who at least had studied up to class
10 and were interested in teaching. The induction training and periodic
inservice training of teachers, development of appropriate teaching-learning
material and funds for running the village school were the responsibility of
the FTS. In the FTS schools in
addition to teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic the school time was
spent on physical education and imparting of Hindu values. Funds for
running the FTS schools were raised from donations from within the country and
abroad. I was convinced of the effectiveness of the FTS experiment and
therefore readily agreed to draft the paper for the MHRD Conference.
The paper for
presentation in the Conference of the State Education Ministers was finalised
in consultation with other experts associated with the FTS and with some
educationists from the formal system whom I knew. The paper was worth sharing
with the state education ministers as it described an alternative model of
school education in remote habitations and was not a Trojan horse for saffronisation
of education in a secular country. I had some misgivings when Chitlangiaji
shared with me that a prominent MP from West Bengal on his flight from Kolkata
to New Delhi
had sarcastically made a remark, “Chitlangiaji, aap businessman
se kab se educationist bangaya.”
Chitlangiaji was not allowed to present his paper at the Conference. He
was advised not to enter the venue of the State Education Ministers as some of
the Education Ministers were vehemently opposed to his participation in that
elite meeting of the ‘educationists’. Pandemonium broke out in that
ill fated meeting even before the scheduled agenda of the conference could be
taken up. Singing of saraswati vandana as an invocation for the success
of the conference was considered as a belligerent act of hindutava
by the ruling BJP alliance government in a secular country. Newspapers and
magazines throughout the country were outraged by the act of audacity of then
Minister for Human Resource Development in having invited a so-called
uneducated businessman with hindutava leanings to address the conference
of the education ministers. As a fall out of this incident Chitlangiaji became
a well known figure in the country. His picture made cover page of some of the
national magazines.
However, there were some sane voices as well in the media. I
quote from the article of M. V. Kamath appeared in the Organiser of 22nd
November 1998. “Most shocking is the decision of some of the State education ministers who
assembled in Delhi
at a Government-sponsored conference not to entertain a paper on education
policy allegedly submitted by an RSS sympathiser, one Shri P.D. Chitlangia. It betrays a fear of ideas that speaks poorly
of the education ministers. But let us presume that Shri Chitlangia is a hard
core RSS man. Surely even an RSS man is entitled to be heard by educationists?
Are our State ministers so frightened of ideas and is their secularism so fragile
that a mere study paper sends them into apoplexy? … What intellectual arrogance is it to insist
that only secularists have the right to lay down the law?”
A few months after the above mentioned
incident Chitlangiaji invited me to Ranchi
to join him on a vanyatra for seeing myself the functioning ekal
vidyalayas. I wrote an account of that visit in the form of a travelogue. I
reproduce some excerpts from it as they reveal the sincerity of Chitlangiaji to
his work of the FTS.
“…Starting
from 1991 the FTS has started more than 1100 one - teacher schools in Bihar. I came to know of this novel system of non-formal
education from Shri P. D. Chitlangia, who is the President of the FTS. To me
from its description the FTS model appeared similar to the gurukul system. I
saw in it a glimmer of hope. I was keen to observe the FTS experiment by
visiting their one - teacher schools and find what children are able to learn,
meet the parents and obtain first-hand feedback on the relevance of the FTS school
for their children…
….They (children)
invoked Om three times and sang the Saraswathi
Vandana. Children were alert and could recite stories they had learnt from
their teacher. What the teacher was able to achieve in a short period of one
month was impressive. Shri Chitlangia expressed interest in meeting the father
of Karmu Mehati, the teacher of the school. Shri Chitlangia paid obeisance to
the father of the teacher by taking the dust off his feet with his hands. The
father was deeply moved by this gesture especially when Shri Chitlangia
expressed his appreciation to him for having brought up such a fine son. This
incident made it clear to me the difference between the impersonal approach of
the State toward its schools and its teachers and those run by persons like
Shri Chitlangia, whose actions are driven by the cause they believe in and
their commitment to it….”
Chitlangiaji was not only a successful businessman but also
a leader of the plywood industry in India. He was associated with
leading national institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology,
Kharagpur, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, as a member of their Board
of Governors. In spite of his societal and state recognitions he would point
out to even persons whom he did not know well that he was neither a good
student nor a scholar but had come up in life by dint of his hard work and
entrepreneurship.
I conclude my tribute to Chitlangiaji, my Chachaji, by
sharing one other aspect of his life which has left imprint on me. He once
mentioned to me that initially he felt appalled at the thought of asking
persons to donate Rs. 10,000 or its equivalent amount in foreign currency for
running a FTS school for a year. But he overcame his inhibitions as he realised
that the cause for which he was asking donations was worthy of support and he,
therefore, readily accepted a “no” without negative feelings.
In writing this tribute to Shri Chitlangiaji I have focussed
on aspects of his multifaceted personality I am familiar with. I expect that
other contributions to the Memoriam Book will bring out fully the life of this
exceptional person who had the humility of touching feet in public of a tribal
man for raising a worthy son.
.