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The Rediff Special/Rajni Bakshi

Past perfect, future tense

For most people the term 'traditional technology' evokes images of bullock carts, wooden charkhas and other devices that seem to have no place in the 21st century. Yet, a variety of people, all over India, are working to find ways of using such technologies to build a better future for the majority of people. Hundreds of such people met recently for the third Congress of Traditional Sciences and Technologies of India at Varanasi.

The first such event was held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in December 1993. Some scientists and media-persons went to that congress expecting to hear tall tales about mythical aircraft and Vedic formulas for weapons of mass destruction. Instead they found exhibits on traditional health practices, water-management techniques, organic farming, handloom textiles and numerous ways of enhancing the quality of daily life. Perhaps the most astounding display was the work of a few adivasis from Bastar who demonstrated their technique for extracting iron out of ore which modern factories reject as low-grade. Such adivasi techniques date back centuries and are still in practice in a few parts of India.

That first congress showed that people working on traditional sciences and technologies today are primarily concerned with living skills, not some long past glory. It demonstrated the need for policy makers and the scientific establishment to take the 'traditional sector' more seriously.

The traditional sector ranges from weavers, architects, boat-builders and healers to the more academic disciplines of mathematics and philosophy. For example, the vyakaran (grammar) tradition in Sanskrit lends itself to some amazing functions in the modern age of computers.

However, the congress is primarily devoted to improving the status and conditions of India's 'traditional technologists', otherwise known as artisans. According to one estimate there are approximately 25 million vishwakarma families in India today. The vishwakarma communities include artisans who work on textiles, leather, metals, wood, bamboo, stone and mud.

These people are descendants of the artisans who made pre-British India the second largest industrial nation in the world. In 1750 India produced 24.5 per cent of the world's manufactured goods, second only to China which produced 32.8 per cent. After the European industrial revolution and 150 years of colonial rule, in 1900, India's share fell to 1.7 per cent and China's to 6.2 per cent.

The modernising process since Independence failed to treat these communities as part of India's industrial base. So only the creators of decorative crafts continued to thrive. But as the artisan products, used in daily life, were replaced by modern factory-made goods, millions of artisans found themselves reduced to casual labourers living on the fetid fringes of urban centres.

A concern for these artisans, and their fast-vanishing skills, was the starting point of the Patriotic and People-oriented Science and Technology Foundation. This Madras-based group of modern professionals, many of them IIT engineers, was formed in the late 1970s. After 15 years of research and reflection it took the lead in organising the traditional science congress. However, the process has created a public platform involving a much wider range of groups and individuals. Here political activists mingle with people working in various technical areas.

For example, some people are successfully innovating on traditional knowledge to produce organic pest-control methods. The old panchangs (almanac) are once again being studied as an effective means of predicting rainfall. Traditional water-harvesting methods and storage tanks are being studied and revived. New ways are being explored to use draught animal power to run even modern devices.

The PPST has often taken pains to clarify that it does not have a revivalist agenda. C N Krishnan, a leading PPST activist, explains that their concern is with the limited reach of the goods and services of the modern sector. Even this limited spread has taken an enormous toll on the natural resource base and played havoc with the ecological balance. So perhaps it is time to consider if a more fruitful combination of traditional and modern methods can ensure roti-kapda-makan (food, clothing, shelter) for all.

In the field of health this is already a global trend. In cities many people now combine treatment from traditional disciplines like ayurveda, unani or homoeopathy, with modern allopathic medicines. But in most villages, traditional local healing systems have collapsed and the services offered by the modern State-run system of primary health centres are grossly inadequate.

In the health section of the traditional science congress, many activists are working with the surviving village health practitioners, in an effort to enhance and win greater legitimacy for their skills. The work of the dai, or traditional midwife, has got special attention.

Today many such traditional practitioners and artisans lack confidence in their own skills and products. For this is the day of the mass-produced goods. Some activists are helping craftsmen from all over India to build an all-India Karigar Panchayat. This is intended to be a body through which the crafts communities can themselves articulate their needs and fight their own battles -- for raw materials and their due place in the market.

The three congresses have made a concerted effort to be a forum of and for the artisans. Yet this remains essentially a platform of urban activists, many of them with degrees from premier institutions of modern education. In an effort to give greater voice and importance to the skills of ordinary villagers, the congress at Varanasi in October, was called a 'Lokvidya Mahadiveshan' -- celebration of people's knowledge.

The earlier two such events laid emphasis on impressing the science establishment and the political mainstream. The Varanasi congress gave more importance to internally strengthening the process by building links between different kinds of activist groups. For example, the activists in the textiles section worked to coordinate more efficient means of solving the crippling problems of handloom weavers.

The grinding poverty of most handloom weavers is due primarily to their dependence on the mill sector for yarn and the steady decline of their local markets. The basic objective of activists in this sector is to initiate innovative processes that help weavers become independent and successful entrepreneurs. This means that yarn will have to be generated in sufficient quantities outside the mill sector and the khadi and village industries network. For both of these are not able to supply yarn to all weavers at affordable rates. In order to do this a sufficient quantity of cotton will have to be left to the village-industry sector.

Most of the activists involved in such work belong to a generation that is equally sceptical of the role of the government and the 'market' as defined by modern stock exchanges. At present their energies are concentrated on making a success of various micro-level endeavours. But can these local endeavours effectively challenge the current global trends which favour sophisticated technologies controlled by international capital?

Some activists hope that in due course, mounting pressure from similar formations all over the world will change these trends. Others despair that without a powerful mobilisation of political will, in India and abroad, this will never be possible.

M V Murugappan, a noted industrialist from Madras, has keenly followed the congress process over the last five years and attended the Varanasi event. Murugappan suggests that there must be an on-going dialogue between activists, industrialists and policy makers to find workable solutions. The two obvious areas of shared interest are water and energy

Similarly, Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a veteran PPST activist and professor at the Madras IIT, argues that the status of artisans will never improve by merely emphasising humanitarian grounds. The challenge before activists now, argues Jhunjhunwala, is to show how the key to India's future prosperity lies in innovative use of the traditional technologies and skills. Jhunjhunwala is currently leading an ambitious project to build a telephone exchange at almost half the current cost.

Some of the PPST activists believe that if the economy is substantially restructured to tap the skills of artisans and indigenous methods, this will drastically reduce India's dependence on petrol and petroleum products. But such a claim must be backed up by convincing data and proof of workable models. To some extent this will mean drawing on the wealth of studies and successful experiments, going on all over India for the last several decades.

For example, a Bombay-based engineer K R Datye has written a book which shows how India can use a combination of traditional and modern innovations to maximise its bio-mass base and attain more than sufficiency for all by the year 2025. The book, titled Banking on Biomass: A New Strategy for Sustainable Prosperity Based on Renewable Energy and Dispersed Indusrialisation, is based on Datye's experiences in this field over the last two decades.

Meanwhile, the Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment has published a detailed documentation of traditional water-harvesting and storage systems. Titled Dying Wisdom: Rise and Fall and Potential of India's Traditional Water Harvesting Systems, it demonstrates how these systems are economically, ecologically and socially more effective than modern methods like big dams.

The Congress on Traditional Sciences and Technologies of India has also become a major meeting point for political activists engaged in struggles against projects and policies which displace people in the name of development. Most of them realise that the victory of such struggles depends on showing viable and effective alternatives to current policies. And this quest is part of a global process involving a wide variety of scientists, engineers and activists.

In India these varied efforts are more and more linked with a shared affinity to the worldview of Mahatma Gandhi. While this was only implicit in the first two congresses, the Varanasi event was hosted by the Gandhian Institute of Studies there. The organisation of this congress was headed by veteran Sarvodaya leader Narayan Desai and Samdong Rinpoche, director of the Tibetan Institute of Higher Studies at Sarnath. Both of them see the current phase of history as a time when the forces of life and creativity are struggling against the forces of destruction. The latter are depleting the earth's resources, poisoning the air and water, as well as increasing economic disparities.

Samdong Rinpoche, who is also a senior member of the Tibetan government in exile, was one of the few who stressed that it is futile to merely search for clever technological solutions -- either in the modern or traditional sector. The main problem of modern times, Rinpoche said, is that greed and selfishness are being legitimised as never before. All hope for the future rests on enough people allowing dharma (righteousness) to condition their pursuit of arth (wealth) and kaam (desires).

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