HALF a century of unbroken social activism by a group of concerned citizens that became a movement in the name of science is no mean achievement in the context of a poor agrarian society in transition. The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, popularly known as KSSP,¹ with a membership exceeding 30,000 and an active presence in almost all the towns and villages of the state has just entered its 50th year of activism. It is arguably the country’s premier people’s science movement. It has played a significant role in popularizing science and propagating a scientific temper, spreading environmental awareness, making Kerala the first ‘totally literate’ state in the country, developing models of decentralized planning and moreover, providing a critique of the application of science and technology in developmental projects from a peoples’ perspective. For these reasons and more, especially in combining the so-called ‘natural’ science with ‘social’ science, thereby attempting to arm the ordinary people with knowledge as a weapon, it has had to face a fair amount of opposition.

When the KSSP was founded in 1962 with the modest objective of popularizing science literature in Malayalam, a condition for its membership was that the applicant should have written at least two science articles in Malayalam. True to this objective, it started its first magazine, Sastra-gathi, in 1966, as a quarterly. The enthusiasm generated by this activity led to two more magazines: Eureka for children at the upper primary level, and Sastra-keralam for high school students. Book publication started only in 1970, with the release of Science. The remarkable response of the literate parents and children, as well as the yearning of the young and old for knowledge about the world, resulted in an efflorescence of publications and other forms of dissemination activities.

Currently, more than 5,000 ‘science classes’ are held every year in celebration of events such as the Year of Physics, Year of Chemistry, Year of Science, Biodiversity Year, and so on. More than 100,000 children participate every year in Vijnanotsavam (Festivals of Knowledge) which has set new paradigms in participatory science fairs. Sastra-gathi and Sastra-keralam have stabilized as monthlies with a circulation of around 10,000 copies, while Eureka has become a fortnightly with a circulation of about 20,000. KSSP is now a major publisher in Malayalam, having released more than 800 titles, and with annual sales exceeding ten million rupees. Some of the books that fascinated children’s curiosity have sold in excess of a hundred thousand copies. One such publication is Enthukondu, Enthukondu, Enthukondu (Why? Why? Why?) that could be called a ‘curiospaedia’. The proceeds from these sales go into financing the activities of KSSP, which does not solicit funding or donation from any source whatsoever.

 

After the first decade, the character of the organization underwent a radical change. KSSP realized quite early that merely teaching science to a people suffering from poverty and exploitation was not only meaningless, but cruel. More often than not, science and technology are being used by a minority to further their own interests. This results in poverty as well as a widening gap between the poor and the rich. KSSP, therefore, decided that its role was to ‘arm’ the people with the ‘weapon of scientific knowledge’ to help them overcome their state of underdevelopment and thereby contribute to the transformation of society. Hence the motto, ‘Science for Social Revolution’.

 

Admittedly, this decision had political dimensions. It addressed the politics of power. It was about who benefited from the application of science and technology and at whose cost. With the new motto in full force, the membership of the organization was open to all those who believed in the power of science to contribute to social transformation. While a majority of the members belonged to the educated class, it was not uncommon to find workers, farmers, and some of the educated unemployed among the ranks. Some prominent members were also political activists, but mostly in leftist political parties.

The left orientation of the KSSP was both congenital and evolutionary, given the fact that some of its founders were progressive political activists while being men of letters and/or social activists. At the same time, there are many progressive persons who do not profess allegiance to any political party. Their common bond is the shared conviction that science ought to serve the ‘people’ and not some vested interests. KSSP recognizes that most of its members come from the middle class. However, its positions and views were formed on the basis of the larger social good rather than to serve the interests of any particular section. The organization constantly reviews and critiques its own stand on various issues in this light. That is how the epithet ‘Peoples’ Science Movement’ (PSM) came to be used by the organization to describe itself.

Within Kerala, however, there is a widespread perception that the KSSP acts more like a subsidiary of a particular political party. This could perhaps be due to the association of some members who are also political activists. However, an impartial analysis of the KSSP’s struggles and standpoints would reveal its independent character – be it in the case of the Save Silent Valley agitation, its positions and struggles against the sand mafia, pollution of rivers, the so-called educational reforms, nuclear energy, waste management, and so on.

 

Having adopted the new motto, KSSP extended its activities to areas which were far beyond its traditional scope as a science popularizer. The three thousand science classes (on nature, society and science) it conducted in January 1976, were more oriented towards imparting a scientific view of society and generating a scientific temper than merely spreading science knowledge. Following the precepts of grassroot level planning, it organized Grama Sastra Samithies, with the objective of assessing local level resources and to evolve resource based local development plans. A magazine devoted to promote this cause called Grama Sastram (Village Science) was started 1977. The handbook, Kerala’s Wealth, published in 1976, was a milestone in Kerala’s developmental discourse. Thirty thousand classes were held using it as a source book. A programme called School for Technicians and Artisans (START) for their continued education and skill upgradation was initiated in 1976.

Health and education have come to occupy a prominent place among the main concerns of Keralaites for quite some time now. KSSP intervened in health issues and campaigned against excessive and wrong use of drugs and for banning harmful drugs which had been declared illegal in other countries. It carried out a number of awareness camps and, in order to obtain a firm empirical picture of the prevalence of morbidity, a comprehensive health survey was done in 1987 by enlisting the voluntary services of its expert members, an exercise that was repeated in 1996. In the meantime, the KSSP also began to network with like-minded health activist groups across the country, helping give rise to what may be called a people’s health movement.

Consumer activism was another area that emerged later when the KSSP published a book titled Vanchikkappedunna upabhokthavu (The cheated consumer) that became the magna carta of the consumer movements in Kerala. The organization intervened in school curriculum and experimented with child-centred and activity-oriented pedagogy at the micro level. In fact, a large number of school teachers who were activists of the KSSP played a significant role in its interventions to improve the educational system as well as in rekindling a spirit of inquiry among the young children through its school as well as out-of-school activities. In 1984, it conducted public hearings to expose the corruption and degradation on the education front. In 1995, it sponsored a People’s Commission, headed by Ashok Mitra, to study the problems of education in Kerala and to suggest remedies. This report became the basis for formulating the organization’s positions and policies on education. In 2003, KSSP took up a vast study titled, ‘How Kerala Lives and How Kerala Thinks.’ It involved a survey covering 6000 households, which was undertaken by trained activists of the organization. The report of this study, which was brought out in 2006, provided valuable first hand information on several aspects of Kerala life and society.

 

The Silent Valley Campaign was a high-water mark in the history of KSSP, drawing attention of the media and social activist groups, not only from other parts of the country but also from across the world. The struggle to save one of the last pristine rain fed tropical forests continued for a number of years, giving birth to considerable environmental activism as well as literature. The first public protest against the destruction of the Silent Valley rainforests came in an article published in Sastra-gathi, the flagship publication of KSSP, in its October 1977 issue. It was written by M.K. Prasad, a professor of botany and a senior activist of KSSP. The organization mulled over the issues raised by Prasad and then commissioned a report by a team of scholars from different disciplines who were also activists of the KSSP.

 

A signature campaign was started in January 1977, followed by a public education programme on the need to consider alternative sources to meet the increasing energy requirements. Following this, KSSP called for the abandonment of the Silent Valley Hydroelectric Project, which became a public demand as several national and international groups and organizations came out in support. In this struggle, the KSSP was not alone and there were many other groups, big and small, both in Kerala and outside. Public debate and discussion with officials and trade union leaders of the Kerala State Electricity Board were organized. Curiously, the trade unions, including those affiliated to left political parties, unleashed a smear campaign against KSSP activists dubbing them as ‘CIA agents’, exposing the congruence of the vision and understanding of both officialdom and the ‘organized working classes on the meaning and content of development. This tendency continues to date despite ritualistic preaching on ‘sustainable development’ for public consumption.

The final success of the Silent Valley campaign came, ironically, not as a result of people’s action, but through the thoughtful intervention of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. But it had a far reaching impact, creating confidence among nature lovers that even huge development projects could be stalled by popular protest. Until that point, development had appeared to be a juggernaut which could not be halted or diverted. The Silent Valley campaign smashed this myth and created an awareness that forests and biodiversity are important, and environment matters. The struggle spawned innumerable small and isolated activist groups which took up local environmental issues, making life difficult for ‘developmental fundamentalists’ who wanted to implement developmental projects without any regard to their environmental impact. The alarm had been sounded.

The Chipko Movement in the Himalaya, as well as many other campaigns, made a similar impact in other parts of the country. There followed a stream of legislations, both at Centre and state level, to protect the environment against wanton destruction, although one may now question the utility of these legislations in the face of the renewed destruction of natural resources and the displacement of the poor in many parts of the country under the current neo-liberal dispensation.

 

One of the distinctive features of a science-based movement is that it cannot restrict itself to one issue, but has to extend the scientific approach to similar issues and problems facing society. The question of energy for people’s welfare and development was much too important a subject to be ignored. This point is laboured here to highlight the difference between the approach of KSSP and other environmental groups which were active in the Silent Valley campaign. While all of them took a reflexive stand against the project from the very beginning, KSSP took its own time to articulate the role played by energy in the process of societal development. It explored various measures to meet the growing energy demand and suggested suitable alternatives. This was to become a typical modus operandi on many future occasions also.

However, KSSP had to pay a price for this policy. It has often been accused of dilly-dallying on some crucial issues, because while other environmental groups are quick to jump to conclusions and take extreme positions, KSSP is found dragging its feet, waiting for its studies and internal discussions to be completed. And even then it has often shied away from taking categorical positions on some issues. For example, when a nuclear power plant was sought to be established in Kerala in 1990, most environmentalists opposed the very concept of nuclear energy, and took extreme positions, caricaturing nuclear power plants as the devil incarnate.

KSSP also opposed the setting up of a nuclear power plant in Kerala, arguing that given the high population density and ecological fragility of Kerala, no suitable location could be identified in the state if IAEA guidelines were strictly followed. It was not prepared, at that time, to denounce nuclear power plants altogether. However, once the full impact of the Chernobyl disaster became known and the prospects of renewable energy became brighter, KSSP too veered round to the position that nuclear energy was undesirable and unnecessary for a sustainable energy scenario. But in the meantime, it was accused of indecision and vacillation by the environmentalists.

 

As pointed out earlier, the involvement in energy studies revealed that the major energy use in the domestic sector was for cooking, and about 85 per cent of the households in Kerala (in the late eighties) were dependent on firewood for cooking. The traditional stoves in use were so inefficient (energy efficiency of less than 10 percent) that a household which had to purchase firewood from the market was compelled to spend more on cooking fuel, compared to one which cooked with LPG, which was heavily subsidized by the government! KSSP worked on this challenge and came out with an efficient firewood based smokeless chulha that was deemed appropriate to local conditions. It has now gained currency as the ‘Parishad Stove’.

 

Tens of thousands of chulhas were installed and KSSP soon became synonymous with the smokeless chulha in Kerala. Later, the Parishad Chulha was adopted as an ‘approved model’ by the Department of Nonconventional Energy Sources (DNES) of the GOI, and was propagated as part of the official programme of ANERT (the Agency for Nonconventional Energy and Rural Technology, Govt. of Kerala), with handsome subsidies. This transformation gives another insight into the working of a Peoples’ Science Movement. After this became an official programme, ANERT started training self-employed workers (SEW) for installing smokeless chulhas. They were paid decently for their services. But this spoilt the voluntary spirit in which KSSP activists had installed chulhas, combining it with other KSSP programmes. So they gradually withdrew.

Of course, KSSP still propagates smokeless chulhas, and extends all necessary infrastructural support to the chulha workers, but the old campaign spirit and excitement are gone! At the same time, KSSP realized that the transition from voluntarism to a ‘business model’ was inevitable, if the use of such essential alternative products has to go beyond a critical limit, and become universal.

 

The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad’s tentative attempt at R&D was widely acclaimed and gave impetus to more such efforts. It was realized that continued efforts at R&D required an institutional support. After much deliberation, an Integrated Rural Technology Centre (IRTC) was established in Palakkad district in 1987.

The internal discussion had to do with an identity problem. Shouldn’t a Peoples’ Science Movement confine its activities to critiquing the establishment? Is it the mandate of a people’s organization to engage in developing alternative technologies? Can an organization do both? From the Silent Valley days, KSSP had taken a position that mere criticism was not enough; that it should conduct in-depth studies and suggest alternatives which the government can implement.

There were some activists who felt otherwise, fearing that getting entangled in ‘institutional activism’, especially with governmental support, might compromise the organization’s credibility and blunt its effectiveness. In deference to their misgivings, it was decided to separate these two strands, and IRTC was registered as a distinct organization with its own governing body and executive council, which included scientists and government nominees. However, due care was taken to ensure that it would continue to be an in-house facility for furthering the KSSP research agenda; and further, its accounts and administrative set-up would be scrupulously kept apart and no funds would be diverted from it to KSSP.

The IRTC has been carrying out R&D work as well as conducting training, consultancy and extension on rural technologies, especially with an emphasis on strengthening the functioning of panchayat raj institutions in the state. The focus areas are solid waste treatment, watershed planning, micro hydel projects, alternative sources of energy, energy-efficient products and so on. Some of the technologies and products developed by IRTC have been adopted by KSSP for propagation in campaign mode and also under a business model. These include the hot box, which is an energy conservation device for cooking rice, of which more than a million have been propagated in Kerala.

 

IRTC developed compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and electronic chokes conforming to ISI specifications, and popularized them through KSSP units; until the market was flooded by cheap Chinese imports. Similarly, handmade soaps have been known to Kerala ever since the Gandhian days though it was IRTC which did the applied research for standardizing production and ensuring quality control. IRTC prepares standard soap kits that are then distributed through the KSSP network. The same strategy is used to popularize mushroom cultivation. Mushroom spawn packets are prepared by IRTC and distributed through the KSSP network, ensuring the availability of good quality seeds. IRTC also offers training in soap making and mushroom cultivation that provides livelihood support to thousands of rural women.

IRTC’s intervention in the traditional pottery sector through the introduction of an electric wheel, improving the quality of raw material by means of pugging, product diversification through the introduction of decorated pottery ware (decoupage), and so on, have helped to modernize the sector and improve the living and working conditions of this neglected community. IRTC also houses a Rural Engineering Centre with a well-equipped workshop which, in addition to undertaking fabrication work connected with IRTC projects, offers its facilities to prospective rural inventors under a research grant from KSCSTE. Another feature of IRTC is the Women’s Technology Park (set up with DST support), which conducts training and extension programmes for employment generation among rural women.

This symbiotic relationship between KSSP and IRTC is the key to the success of the ‘proactive PSM model’ evolved by KSSP. It has been our experience that such a proactive role requires the development of appropriate technologies, products and services, for which institutionalized research support is critical. The approach has been acclaimed by other PSMs working in various states, which have come under an umbrella organization called All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN). The genesis of this group goes back to a three day national convention of like-minded organizations from all over the country, hosted by KSSP and held at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, in 1978. The first AIPSN conference was held in Kannur in 1986.

 

The activity which probably gave KSSP maximum national and international exposure was the Total Literacy Campaign undertaken in Ernakulam district during 1989-90, together with the Kerala Total Literacy Campaign of 1990-91. The first was a project granted to KSSP by the National Literacy Mission. Although Kerala had already reached 89 per cent literacy by 1989, the project helped develop a methodology of mass literacy campaign which could serve as a model for people’s action, inspiring a wide range of cultural, religious, political and trade organizations to participate. The declaration of Ernakulam as a ‘fully literate district’, the first in the country, by Prime Minister V.P. Singh on 4 February 1990 sent out a powerful message, ‘yes, we can’, to use a currently fashionable phrase a la President Obama.

The inspiration and lessons from the Ernakulam literacy experience proved valuable in the Kerala literacy campaign which followed in 1990-91. About 250,000 volunteer instructors gave their time and effort for the year long programme to convert more than 1.6 million illiterates into neo-literates. The KSSP played a key role in it, which earned it the UNEP Global 500 Roll of Honour and also the King Sejong Literacy Prize of the Unesco in 1990, and eventually the Right Livelihood Award, often called the Alternative Nobel Prize, in 1996. Thanks to the National Literacy Mission and its wholehearted support to the KSSP, the mass literacy campaign was adopted in several other parts of the country drawing thousands of volunteers. If such efforts are not being highlighted in the current context, it only reveals the paradigm shift in developmental concerns signalling a steady distancing of the state from people’s concerns to the protection and expansion of private corporate capital.

 

Right from the days of the Grama Sastra Samiti, KSSP had been conducting experiments in local level resource mapping and planning. A participatory resource survey had been conducted in Vazhayur panchayat in 1987, as a prelude to resource based local level developmental planning. The lessons learnt here came in handy in organizing the Panchayat Resource Mapping Programme, which was undertaken in 25 grama panchayats with technical support from the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) in 1991. This was followed by the preparation of the Kalliasseri Development Plan undertaken in a participatory mode. A detailed socio-economic survey was conducted and a panchayat development plan was drawn up. This experience, in turn, was crucial in inspiring KSSP into launching the Participatory Local Level Development Project, covering five panchayats.

The experience from these projects helped KSSP to play a vanguard role when the Peoples Planning Programme was launched by the newly elected LDF government in 1996. KSSP activists, who had gained valuable experience in resource mapping and local level planning, were in great demand as resource persons in the new dispensation. Another key initiative launched by the new government was a radical revision of the school curriculum, taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the World Bank assisted DPEP. Here again, KSSP personnel, who had gained considerable insight and experience through their school interventions, were assimilated into the implementation teams and consultative committees.

While some members of KSSP collaborated with the government in implementing some of the reforms which it had been advocating for a long time, the organization reserved for itself the right to criticize the lapses which surfaced in the implementation. Here, once again, KSSP found itself trying to fulfil the dual, and often conflicting, roles of criticizing wrong government policies and developing alternative models. This kind of balancing act has not been easy especially in a context where party-political polarization and consequent contestation of every issue are the order of every day politics in Kerala.

 

In essence, the entire agenda of KSSP can be best understood as a search for alternatives – to the existing paradigm of development which is driven by consumerism and unlimited exploitation of the environment; where science and technology are the private preserve of the privileged few, and an instrument of oppression and exploitation. It is a search for alternative technologies which can counter the present tendencies of centralization and gigantism by promoting technologies which can be owned and controlled by people instead of corporates, technologies which will generate employment where people live, in their neighbourhoods, in producing goods and services which are needed by their neighbours for making their lives better and more meaningful. We think it is possible. In fact our current campaign has the slogan: ‘Let us strive for Another Kerala.’

 

We are aware that Kerala has come a long way. We recognize the gains that have been made, but are disturbed by some of the tendencies which are evident. Kerala is fast becoming a consumer society with scant regard for production; ‘rent-seeking’ and not hard work has become an easy way to wealth; the cancerous growth of the construction industry has led to skyrocketing land prices, aiding the growth of land mafias and destroying the wetlands and paddy fields; the rivers are dying due to pollution and uncontrolled sand mining; coastal zones and other ecologically fragile areas are mindlessly exploited for tourism development; the greenery which made the coinage ‘God’s own country’ possible is being sacrificed in the very name of tourism for the sake of which it was coined!

KSSP believes that though people are in a stupor, lulled by the seeming affluence brought by this bubble of economic growth, a course correction can only be brought about by people’s intervention. Our aim is to enable them to take charge of their own destiny by equipping them with the tools of science and technology.

Yes, We Can.

 

Footnote:

1. A literal translation would be Kerala Association for Literature in Science.