The modern educational system was designed to create a generation of faceless, mindless consumers who exhibit an apathy-laden disregard for the rapidly declining environment, growing social disparity and disharmony, and the violence that is prevalent in the world today. This is not by accident. In the words of John Taylor Gatto, (A Different Kind of Teacher, 2001) ‘Think of the economic tragedy that would occur if schools taught critical thinking. If they encouraged individuals to be strong and think original thoughts. If they taught the philosopher’s secret that nothing important can be bought . . . . If they nourished a love of quality. Who would crave the mountains of junk our mass-production economy distributes? Who would eat the processed food? Who would wear the plastic shoes? How could the mass economy survive without the “training” schools provide? The dominant education system fails to facilitate an individual’s journey of self-realisation, interconnectedness and enlightenment - which ultimately leads to freedom. It is designed to fill us with fear, institutionalized dependency, and fragmented thinking . . . a perfect combination for maintaining the global unjust economic-political order.’

Any serious movement towards self-reliance in the age of globalization must have a new vision of education which starts with self-reliance of the mind. . .

Inspired by India’s rich guru-shishya (guide-learner) traditions, Mahatma Gandhi’s naitaleem (basic education) and Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan, Swaraj University is a nurturing space for young people to self-design their learning process in becoming green entrepreneurs and social change-makers. It believes in reclaiming the right and responsibility towards an education that is uniquely shaped according to one’s passions and dreams, as well as the needs of one’s local community, personal life questions, and green livelihood options. Reva Dandage, co-founder of this innovative university, states, ‘Swaraj is India’s first university dedicated to strengthening our local cultures, local economies and local ecologies. Sustainability, social justice and healthy lifestyles are the core principles of our vision. Within this larger context, we are keen to support young people in putting their dreams into action and developing socially just and eco-friendly businesses that make a difference for the world.’

In the past, many movements for self-reliance have been somewhat isolationist. We believe that ‘alternatives’ today must also challenge the existing violent systems as well as inspire and continually learn from local communities. Like the metaphor of Gandhi’s charkha, they must both engage a politics of resistance and regeneration. The vision of self-reliance must be interwoven with a vision of interdependence. At Swaraj University, we are learning for ‘self-reliance in creative engagement’ in several new ways:

We must reclaim control over our own learning process. The pedagogy of Self Design Learning starts with asking each learner what are you excited about learning – something our schools and colleges never bothered to do. We have several sessions helping the learner identify what are their dreams are, what their talents are, what their networks are, what their community’s needs are, what is the challenge of our times.  Based on this, each person then designs their own personalized learning plan for the year. Says co-founder, Nitin Paranjape, ‘At Swaraj University, we don’t accept the humiliating labels that mainstream education sticks on students. We believe that everyone can learn and do something special in the world, despite their socio-economic, cultural or academic backgrounds. They just need a chance to identify their talents, find their inner passions and be within a community of support.’

In the spirit of the title of Gandhi’s autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, Khojis (seekers) are encouraged to take up their own personal unlearning experiments. Many of these have helped strengthen their vision of and confidence in self reliance. Jayesh, a khoji from Ahmedabad, for example took up the challenge of not buying any new clothing or shoes from the Market for an entire year. He decided to use whatever he had or could borrow from friends. Another khoji, Saud, has experimented with vows of silence. Other khojis have learned how to make their own herbal soap, tooth powder and natural juices so they don’t have to buy it from the Market.

Engaging our heads, hearts and hands gives greater meaning and depth to the learning process. It is important that we remove the culture of shame and selfishness that surrounds manual labor. According to Reva Dandage, ‘The very structure of formal universities is set up to produce a culture of parasites – people who “only study”. The students and faculty feel no responsibility for their food, waste, energy, media, water, clothes, etc.’ As a protest against such parasitical behaviour, we are trying to explore how to delink our dependence on the global economy. An essential part of our programme is taking up the collective trusteeship of our campus and other resources, and responsibility for their maintenance and growth. Everybody on campus, be they learner or facilitator, takes part in designing and developing community spaces like the kitchen, library, dorms, outdoor classrooms, compost toilets and the organic farm and shouldering community responsibilities like cooking, cleaning and maintenance. ‘Life on the campus has been exciting, challenging the comforts of some, confronting the deep personal issues of others, while we explore ways of living harmoniously with each other and with nature,’ says Anant, one of the learners from Mysore.

Co-learning between the khojis is also a critical component of the program. Students also learn by teaching each other. The khojis host seminars and workshops for each other to deepen their own learning and to cross-fertilize ideas and dreams. We invite each other to participate in our projects as we seek to deconstruct artificial disciplinary boundaries. There is no competition, examinations or ranking. Self, peer-to-peer, guide, mentor assessments are all used to channel feedback into the learning process.

The world is our classroom.  While there is a physical campus in Rajasthan where we meet from time to time to reflect, share and plan, khojis spend maximum time at sites of different mentors as well as in our own communities. One of the khojis, Vijay, took this very seriously and joined the Kisan Farmer Swaraj Yatra (journey) and traveled to 16 states of India in 2 months. During the mentorship period, the khojis learn practical skills and knowledge in fields they want to work in.  This helps give them more confidence, real world perspective and an option for their right livelihood. Swaraj has developed a wide pool of over 50 faculty-mentors throughout India, with experience and expertise in fields varying from organic farming to naturopathy and self-healing, community radio to filmmaking, women’s rights to working with street children, zero waste crafts to healthy cooking, and sustainable design to renewable technologies. There is no requirement for our faculty to have formal degrees in order to be a mentor. Many are local artisans, traditional healers, farmers, with no PhDs whatsoever but locally respected in their communities.

The khojis go on a number of learning journeys in the first year: travelling to different parts of the country to gain fresh ideas, meet inspiring people, witness social entrepreneurship experiments and activist movements, and interact with other alternative learning communities. There are also Cycle Yatras, unlearning pilgrimages, into the heart of our villages without money, technology, food or first-aid. These yatras challenge our very perceptions of dependency, security and prosperity that have been imposed on us by modern development, build the khojis’ trust relationships as well as deepen our bonds with nature and non-urbanized peoples.

Swaraj University seeks to practice participatory democracy in its most grassroots form. Learners, facilitators and founders together engage in co-creating the policies as well as the day-to-day functioning on the University.  From daily community tasks to campus food policy to the entire planning of the two-year program, everything is decided by consensus in the spirit of co-creation. A decision is not reached until each person has given his/her consent. Thus, each person’s story, ideas and needs are given a safe space to be expressed. Since Swaraj consists of diverse youths from metro, urban/semi-urban and rural regions, they bring their radically different value systems, experiences, and stories into the community. These result in deep dialogues (sometimes controversial) where each group has much to learn from another to understand the challenges of our times.  It strengthens the group’s powers of listening and empathy-giving. We are exploring how to create more vibrant spaces for intercultural dialogue.

It is important to note that Swaraj University does not give out any degrees or certificates. It is not accredited by the University Grants Committee (UGC) or any other foreign body. We do not want to be dependent on degree-doling out institutionalized machines that have an exploitative, individualistic and money-centric idea of success.  We are ‘illegally’ using the word University today as a form of satyagraha and hope to eventually generate a national debate on its meaning and who controls the meaning of the word. While the UGC demands that only accredited bodies are allowed to call themselves ‘Universities’ and give degrees, we have raised the argument that a University can be any space that offers learning in various fields and through various approaches and levels. Swaraj University is essentially a people’s university, accredited by different leading thinker-doers, local communities and local organizations, and the practical achievements of its khojis.

We believe that the pursuit of wisdom, collaborative networks, leadership skills and practical knowledge is more important than any piece of paper that has been validated based only on an exam-centric mechanism. Instead, learners at Swaraj are encouraged to develop portfolios which document their work and learning, highlight mentor recommendations, and share reflections from their feedback committee, peer-group and facilitators. They are encouraged to develop a green livelihood practice and their own enterprises rather than getting into corporate or government jobs which only serve the agenda of the global economy. To graduate they must prepare a business plan or proposal which highlights how the enterprise they are starting will work for people, planet and profit. Some of the khojis are exploring how to start a naturopathy healing centre, others a consulting service for urban sustainability solutions and some others a community filmmaking production centre.

We are also developing the ‘Healing Ourselves from the Diploma Disease’ database, which enlists organizations and other educational spaces that are willing to hire and promote students without any formal degree but rather on the basis of their life-experiences, portfolios and interviews.  Around a hundred or so organizations have signed up to be a part of this database. Our target is 1000 organizations in the next three years.

The entire university is designed to function in the spirit of the gift culture. There is a strong commitment to de-commodifying knowledge and learning. We are committed to the copyleft (as opposed to copyright) and trusteeship movement. There are no fees for learning. Students are invited to contribute whatever they can to their costs of food, stay, travel. Faculty and resource persons also gift their time with the learners. There is no government funding or donor agency funding. This is important for our intellectual autonomy, flexibility and spirit of self-reliance. We are working with contributions from a network of friends and also resources raised from projects run by the khojis and facilitators.  Currently, for example, several khojis are working on a mobile e-waste recycling project.

There are many crises facing the modern university structure in the 21st century. Swaraj University is a small and humble attempt of re-imagining the very structure, roles, values, and economics that underlie the university. It seeks to re-store the power and responsibility of the learner, teacher and local communities as the starting point for self-reliance. Rather than scaling up this effort, we believe in ‘scaling across’ communities. We have started receiving offers from different groups – city jail, tribal communities, large NGOs – to start a Swaraj University campus in their spaces. The second batch is starting up with 16 new khojis. Much hard work and many more such efforts are required to realize the larger vision of ‘swaraj’ that ultimately leads to freedom and self-reliance, but at least a first step has been taken and people can now once again dare to dream beyond conventional models of university and degrees.

By SakhiNitin-Anita

SakhiNitin-Anita is a second year khoji at Swaraj University. She is interested in women’s issues, writing, designing and group facilitation.
Manish Jain is a co-founder of Swaraj University and Shikshantar Andolan. He has worked in the field of education for the past 20 years with organizations like UNESCO and UNICEF as well as many grassroots NGOs and social movements. He is passionate about filmmaking, healthy cooking, organic farming, gift culture and intercultural dialogue.

In 2010, as summer approached the hinterland of the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan,
nineteen diverse, but brave spirited young people together took their first step towards
a new ‘swaraj’… imagining a world governed by the community spirit and
sustained through ecologically harmonious and self-reliant livelihoods…
and co-creating it through a learning process that encompasses self-discovery, unlearning,
co-learning, community building and intrinsic motivation.

See www.swarajuniversity.org and www.shikshantar.in for more info.