A possible future of Hill Education

The importance of education has been acknowledged and emphasized by each and every leader and thinker of our society. Education is one of the core source of quality knowledge that not only helps an individual attain his true potential but also makes him a capable contributor of the society he lives in. It gives him power to recognize his rights and responsibilities. Education empowers one to dream big and also achieve them.

The hills in the district of Darjeeling are famous for their educational institutions where students from all over India and many foreign countries come to get this empowerment. They come to the hills with the hope of getting a quality education and at the same time grow up in the lap of mother nature, the way it should always be.

However, if one closely observes the current situation in the hills, it would not be too hard to realize that though education is definitely good at the primary and secondary levels, things are not too rosy in higher levels with average levels of higher secondary education and almost negligible college education. Most students leave the hills after class 10, which is not very difficult for students who come to study from outside. But the local students are largely affected by the lack of good higher educational institutes. The economically well to do students generally move to the plains for higher education and then move further away for jobs and opportunities.

Those who cannot afford to go away remain. Few remain out of choice. But is the quality of education imparted in the current colleges comparable to those that are in the rest of the country? Are the local children getting an opportunity to empower themselves with the latest knowledge? Is the education preparing them for the future? Is it preparing them to take responsible roles in the society? Or is it just the bare minimum with a useless degree at the end?

Following are a few things that need to be verified and addressed urgently,

General

• A district level committee (DLC) should be formed comprising of all the educational institutions that would
• oversee that regular teacher training sessions are held.
• help the member institutes hire good teachers from all across the country.
• see that the schools have minimum required infrastructure.
• ensure that students don't drop-out of school.
• organize scholarships for exceptional students who are economically poor.
• make sure that all subjects are offered at the district level, so that students interested in a particular subject will not have to move out of the district due to unavailability of courses.
• hold career guidance seminars that would expose new career paths and all the career choices that are available currently and where they can pursue them.
• Education and related infrastructure should not be affected by politics.
• Educational institutes that offer alternative forms of education should be started.
  

Primary & Secondary Education

• Are all the newly added subjects included?
• Is multimedia being used in teaching subjects that are difficult to comprehend?
• Are the teachers being trained on the latest technology and techniques?
• Computer education is no longer a high end facility. It is a basic facility and must be taught from an early age.
• Career guidance cell to guide the student based on his interests and strengths.

Higher Secondary Education

• All schools that have been operating for 8 years or more should offer class 11 and class 12.
• At least the basic streams should be offered, science, arts and commerce.
• Career guidance cell that would guide students to more specific career paths based on their selected stream.

College and Technical Education

• The government must start at least one Engineering and one Medical college in the hills of the district.
• College for Hospitality and Hotel Management must be started to prepare quality work force for promoting Tourism in the area.
• At least one institute that offers courses on water management, agriculture, forest and animal husbandry. Research must be done in these institutes and all successful outcomes must be implemented in the hills.
• IT education must be encouraged either through colleges or as private courses.

A permanent solution to a problem can come only through proper planning and investment. Education is an investment that needs to be made now, so that we can get regular benefits in the future, 5 to 10 years down the line. Our leaders must take this decision today so that our children are empowered to achieve all their dreams, so that they won't be forced to leave their homes in search of a way to survive. And it is our duty to explain this to everyone who fails to see beyond 6 months.

We Need To Be/Think Out Of The Box Now

Today the hills of Darjeeling along with its districts are in a poor state. The sad part of the hills is its complete concretisation. The very site of the concrete buildings mushrooming everywhere in a haphazard manner makes us anxious. Sadly, the story is the same in every hill station in India.

 

Today, our hills suffer from over development, under planning and concrete box-architecture which in turn has ruined the landscape. The British and Scottish cottages are a far-fetched story. Its also high time that we put a ban on these high rises, control the influx of tourists and restrict the rampant buying of land in the hills by the outsiders. It’s vital that the locals be made more responsible in taking decisions.

Ill-planned hydro projects, encroachments of the river beds and blasting of mountains to build roads are making our hills more vulnerable and susceptible to disaster. The need of the hour is a regular check on the upcoming projects and regulating the construction of houses. The topography as well as the material used in building the houses should also be factored in. The entire construction should blend in with the landscape.

The continuous deforestation in the name of development and unregulated urbanization in the name of growth have triggered a lot of problems.Every monsoon houses get washed away. India’s northern state Uttarakhand is one of the alarming examples. Of course, we have taken nature for granted. Floods which caused massive destruction to life and property in Uttarakhand... was eventually a man made disaster. Isn’t this enough? Aren’t we going to learn from this gruesome incident? Its high time that we buck up.

The leaves and roots of Darjeeling tea

Darjeeling tea has always held a special place for tea connoisseurs all over India and the world. Since the days of Dr A. Campbell in 1841, when the idea of the first experimental tea garden came to the then government, the tea industry has flourished in the hills of Darjeeling. There are more than 87 gardens employing 70,000 workers and producing more than 8 million kgs of  tea annually. The tea is mostly exported to countries like US, UK, Germany and Japan.

The Darjeeling Tea Industry still follows the original tea producing methodology unlike the current "CTC" type adopted in many tea gardens. They produce a wide variety of teas such as black, oolong, white, green and different blended and flavored tea.

But things are not well in the hills and the people are suffering. The region has been neglected and development has been a far cry. The local people living in the hills have been going through an identity crisis for time immemorial and the lack of growth and development have pushed their patience to a breaking point. The people are in a dilemma. They belong to West Bengal and yet they are not Bengalis. They have nothing common with the Bengalis. They speak Nepali and yet they are not Nepalese. They are patriotic Indians who are proud to be Indians, as is evident by the 15th August celebrations in the hills. They are by far the most extensive celebration that one can imagine. And yet when they move down to the plains, people often mistake them for foreigners. They are often confused as Nepalese.

All this has led them to come out on to the streets and demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland. They are India's ethnic Gurkhas and they want to be known as that. The demand for a different state is not in our hands and it is a decision that must be taken by the government after due consideration. However we can definitely recognize them as Indian Gurkhas and give them the same respect that each Indian receives. We can take a step forward and try to understand their culture and heritage.

The local political parties' call for indefinite strikes are crippling the area. Even though the tea industry has been kept out of the strikes, production continues but the processed tea remains in the factories as there is no way to get them to the market. There is no way to get coal and other raw materials required in the factories. The workers there cannot be paid as the banks are closed, rations cannot be brought in and soon a time will come when the tea estates must be shut down.

In the fight for an identity, the people are sacrificing their economy, peace, health and education. Can we not acknowledge them and treat them as brothers? Can the Bengalis for once not behave as colonists and instead treat them as equals? Can we not let them for once feel that it is their land and it is their life? Can they not be empowered to take the work of development in their own hands?

The hills are the most beautiful place one can imagine and the people their complement this beauty. They are the ones who take care of the hills and make them more beautiful. They work hard so that people all over the world can enjoy their morning cuppa. They welcome with arms wide open so that people all over India and the world can have a holiday that they cherish all their lives. Respect and acknowledgement is all they want and the freedom to grow and develop is something they deserve.

So next time you see someone with Mongolian features, before you categorize him as a foreigner, ask him where he is from. He could be a Gurkha. Ask him about the hills and you may learn about a land that is still not polluted, a place where the mighty Kanchenjunga wishes you a good morning, a place where people can still trust each other.

Find out where your morning cup of tea comes from. Take a trip to the tea gardens of Darjeeling and meet those men and women who toil hard to give you the perfect flavored leaves for your perfect cup of tea every morning.

Rain Water Harvesting - A green solution to the water crisis

Water has always been one of Kalimpong's most precious resources and has always been in shortage in spite of abundant sources. The town area has always been affected the most with serious shortage of drinking water. With the increase in population, the problem seems to be aggravating faster than a solution can be thought of. There have been plans to address this issue but these plans have been more reactive than proactive. Ideally the water planning should be done along with the town planning but is there such a thing as town planning in Kalimpong? Well till the time we do have a planning team, something has to be done by the people themselves.

In the past five years, the district of Darjeeling has received an average rainfall of 3234 mm with 2012 receiving the least (2970 mm). For the sake of our discussion, even if we assume that Kalimpong receives 65% of the average rainfall in the whole district, it till comes to a very decent amount of 2100 mm. Let us try and understand what exactly this means and why this is good news for us.

Rainfall Distribution chart

Rainfall Distribution for the last five years in Darjeeling District

We are interested in knowing how much rain water we can collect in an year. Let us for the sake of easy calculation assume that the area of the roof of a house is 100 square meters. Now, if the average rainfall is 2100 mm which is nothing but 2.1 meters of rain per year,

the total volume of rain = total surface area of roof  X average rainfall.

This comes to 2.1 x 100 = 210 cubic meters of rain. Do you recall how many liters of water is equal to 1 cubic meter? Yes! It's a whopping 1000 liters! So, in a year a single house can collect 2,10,000 liters of water.

Let us not get ahead of ourselves and let us for the time being assume that we can harvest 60% of the water. (This could be higher given the fact that the hills have a much less polluted environment and hence we would waste lesser amount of water in clearing the whole system before we start collecting the water.) That would mean we would be able to collect approximately 1,26,000 liters of water. That comes to around 345 liters of water per day. Don't you think for an average household, 345 liters of water is enough for the basic needs?

However, this rainfall does not fall evenly throughout the year but is concentrated mostly during the months between May to September, while the rest of the year receives low or very less rainfall. The dry summer seasons are the most difficult times when many of the smaller streams dry up too.

The idea would be to utilize as much rain water as required during the rainy season and store the rest for the rest of the year. But that is where the difficulty arises. One of the best ways of doing this is ground water recharging, which is basically making an arrangement by which the rain water is allowed to seep into the ground rather than flow along the surface in to the streams.

In the plains, ground water charging helps in increasing the underground water level which can then be extracted during the summers from wells. In the mountains, the ground water usually comes out as springs or "jhora". So if the ground water level is maintained, these jhoras will not dry up in the dry seasons. A number of water reservoirs could be built along the mountain all interconnected such that once the reservoir is full, it's overflowing water would be directed to those below. In populated areas water towers could be built which would automatically fill up without the need of pumps, just by the force of gravity. The only requirement would be to collect the water at a higher area and then transfer it to the towers.

The aim would be to minimize water losses through surface runaway and evaporation. This would also help in decreasing landslides, as one of the reasons for landslides is the removal of the top soil due to flowing water.

Rain water harvesting is a very viable and possible option for the people to solve their water problems and if we move forward in a planned way this is not difficult to achieve. Even now many houses use rain water for daily needs, we just need to make these systems more optimized and efficient.

Join us in our wiki to discuss and analyze optimum ways to harvest rain water in our Water Infrastructure section.

Don't deny the Right to Work. Don't Strike

One of the most important factors for growth is work. Not just work, but hard and smart work. You cannot expect to get any results if you do not put in any effort. Japan has improved leaps and bounds in spite of the fact that during the second world war, it faced defeat against the Americans. Their economy was in shambles but their spirit wasn't. A disaster like Hiroshima-Nagasaki could not destroy them. They rose up and took control. If you look at any successful economy, you will notice the element of hard work always present in it.

You don't need to go so far to see the effects of hard work. Look at Indian cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad. People work very hard in these cities and they are rewarded with growth and success. Why is it that people from different parts of the country come to these cities in the hope of growth? How is it that these people who come to the cities suddenly begin to work so hard? Is it that there is some tonic that is administered to them as soon as they enter the city? The spirit of work is an essential part of the human nature. Not working is basically suppressing this basic human nature. And it only results in stunted human growth and an economic slowdown.

Strikes lead to a lot of losses and is a supposed weapon against injustice. But before you strike, sit for a while and think about what the strike is all about. Who would it affect the most, specially in the long run? Look at what it has done to the state. Look at what it has done to Kolkata. No one wants to invest in a state that spends half the days in a year striking. The worst part is that the people are irreversibly damaged. After years and years of not working, hard work becomes just a myth. Why would you want to repeat the same story in the hills?

In the past one month, there has been less than a week of work. Think of all the losses that the businesses have incurred. Think of all the common people who have not been paid, who have no food left in the house. Fortunately it's not a tourist season during the rains and as a result the losses may have been lesser. People are affected the most when their primary earnings are restricted to a few months of the year. Any strike at this point not only affects them then but through the rest of the year. The leaders must understand this.

At this point, one may want to consider the fact that what if half the population has no work and this is used as a tool to propagate other issues through the medium of strikes. Firstly, what about the remaining percentage of people who do have work? Secondly, isn't it very important that steps be taken to ensure that everyone has work? I understand that the government is not doing much but one of the questions I have is are we fully utilizing what we have currently? Is there a way of non-cooperation without affecting work?

Work is a must and not just by a few but by everyone. Dedicate a part of your daily life to community work, help it grow and make it part of who you are. Make work a part of your identity.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.
- Benjamin Franklin

WUTH and Gorkhaland

WUTH is basically about the development of the hills within the existing governing body with the help of local people and volunteers. The demand for Gorkhaland is not a topic that WUTH would be involving itself in. We will continue to focus on the growth of the people and the region with a holistic view. We would like WUTH to be a sort of a consultancy which is interested in the people, rather than the political state of the region. Our focus would be to interface with the governing body and the people, so that no matter what, the development plans continue without any hindrance.

In India today, political parties are all transient and keep changing and with them changes the policies and plans. People are generally tired of corruption, mud-slinging, poverty, and denial of basic rights. The WUTH team believes that every human should have their basic rights and necessities, a stable source of earning, freedom to contribute to the growth of the society and at the same time save the environment, go green.

Demand for Gorkhaland is more of a fight for identity and WUTH is not involved in it. WUTH however may from time to time suggest ideas that could be a part of the identity of the people from the hills, if they choose to accept it. The country may start to look at the hills if they can become a role model for the rest of the country. But all of that depends on the people and the people alone.

We at WUTH believe that nothing is more convincing than success stories. Look at the successful countries, the successful states. Everyone wants to be like them, everyone knows them. The hills could be that success story. The hills could be the black horse that wins the race and sets new benchmarks. Educate India that the people from the hills are very much a part of India and that they should come visit the hills to learn what a good life should be like.

An introduction to the wake up call

There has been an urgency for a change in the hills. People are tired of waiting for someone to come and save them and they have decided to take matters in their own hands. They have been fighting for an identity, for growth and for prosperity but either too little action has been taken or in some cases none at all. The state center has been too involved in its own problems to pay any attention to those in the hills.

Could West Bengal have averted this situation? Did the state learn nothing from 1988? So what if it was a different party in power back then? Everyone knew what had happened. The demands, the desperation, the reasons, the losses, the deaths. So what happened to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council? Has anything improved since its formation? Were all the resources and funds under the DGHC utilized efficiently? Could something else have been done? Or did everything get distributed among a selected few and the rest that trickled down to the common was too less, too late?

The Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA) recently formed doesn't seem to be functioning too well either. May be it is so because it hasn't had enough time to start something concrete or maybe those in the administration didn't really know where to start from given the mammoth task that lay ahead. Would the formation of a state be anything different? Would it suddenly solve all the problems? Until and unless, every person is involved in the growth story, the task will continue to be daunting, no matter how much fund is available. It however may increase some corruption here and there.

What I would love to understand is how would it help if a new state was to be formed? I have heard about the identity crisis and I feel that it is true that people from the West Bengal hills are usually put under the category "Nepali" owing to the spoken language. But truth be told, having lived in many cities in India, I have come to the conclusion that people are usually unaware of what's happening beyond their day to day vicinity. Just forming a state may not give the people an identity. They would probably still be called Nepali and not Gorkhali. Instead an identity must be formed first. People must know how Gorkhali is different from others and what makes them who they are.

I would like to emphasize on the fact that development and change must come from within. There has to be a plan of development which each and every one must be aware of and must be accountable for. They must be responsible for attaining it. If the base of the building has not been made strong, no matter how much money you put in to make a fancy house or how hard you try to make it stable, it will always fall eventually. And that is what I ask the people of the hills to do. Make your base stronger.

I put forth the idea of RAIFOR to make a growth story out of  the hills. A model that not only creates the Gorkha identity but becomes a benchmark for the rest of India to follow. RAIFOR stands for Recognize, Analyze, Improvise, Finalize, Organize and Realize. We recognize what the problems are and then analyze them. We prioritize them according to their importance and how they fit into our plan 3 years from now. We list down what are the things that we already have and whether there are anyways to make them more efficient. We improvise with the available resources and figure out all the options that we have and what are the extra resources we may require. Next we finalize on the option that is the most suitable under the given circumstances and also in the long run. Once we have the plan all we need to do is organize the man power and resources. If we are short of something, we ask the government. If they don't help us then we ask from the rest of India. Either way we get the job done. And if the state government doesn't help us then they will have no part in our success and that will make the demand for a new state stronger and more reasonable. If they do, then we grow and continue to have our autonomy. With proper planning and organization, no one can deny our right to grow and realize our dreams. It's a win-win situation. All we must do now is focus our energy in a more constructive direction, one that has a future.