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Meeting Padma Shri Babulal Dahiya ji

25/3/2019

This weekend, through EPCO's Gandhian Eco-philosophy Fellowship programme, I was fortunate to meet Padma Sri Babulal Dahiya ji. He is curating a native and indigenous 'Paddy Bank' to counter the multinationals selling us unsustainable seeds. Interestingly, he learnt about all these paddies through Bagheli folk-tales and idioms. Have a look at the amazing catalogue of 200 varieties by him.

PS: Every day, I realise decolonisation can lead to sustainability.

Learning from Ziro

1/3/2019

It’s my pleasure to report our Study Trip to Arunachal Pradesh and Asom, undertaken with 17 students of Master of Design students (Feb 17 to Mar 1, 2019). The tour focussed on the Apa Tani Cultural Landscape of Ziro Valley in Arunachal Pradesh which features itself in the Tentative list of World Heritage Site, bolstering the claims of the richness of indigenous knowledge systems at various scales. The continuum of its everyday life and belief systems including its agriculture, land use practices, natural resources management and conservation, festivals, material culture, objects and crafts, has been exemplarily sustainable and can be interpreted in the modern education and policy frameworks.

The studio was undertaken under the MDES203 Design Studies, with ‘Design Anthropology’ (Salvador et al., 1999; Gunn et al., 2013; Murphy, 2016) as the theoretical framework operating at four levels as:

Product Practices: The relevance of designed products in everyday life and traditions of the Apa Tani people including the furniture, craft, textile, jewellery etc.
Spatial Practices: The making of everyday space along with its cultural logics, meanings and technology
Communication Practices: The unique communication practices from the region as symbols, types, communicative artefacts etc. and its socio-cultural relevance along with the contemporary media like radio, newspapers and magazines
System and Services: How everything in part contributes to the broader cultural system which makes it socially and ecologically resilient, e.g., agriculture, healthcare, education, public mobility etc.

The seven days of field work involved enquiries at above levels with ethnography, visits to various institutions within, detailed interviews and a formal community interaction hosted at our stay. The students are expected to come up with a small exhibition on the documentation and reflection from the tour within the semester. They can also further derive ‘Design Projects’ to pursue their interests.

I would like to thank Prof Sridharan who accompanied us in the first leg of the trip to Naharlagun, where our institution signed an MoU with the Rajiv Gandhi Central University and further travelled to the Ziro Valley to assess the future academic possibilities. I want to express my sincere thanks to Prof Sarit Chaudhuri (Director IGRMS and Professor of Anthropology, RGU) and our local guide Mr Chobin Punyo (Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at RGU). Their insights on Apa Tani cultural practices in Ziro enriched us with an efficient orientation.

We are also thankful to the people in Arunachal Pradesh who helped us during the unexpected political turmoil during the last few days of our stay. I would also like to thank Prof Ravi Mokashi and Prof Udayakumar, Department of Design IIT Guwahati, who hosted us at IIT Guwahati along with presentations by Prof(s) Keyur Sorathia (HCI), Pradeep Yammiyavar (Usability), Sougata Karmakar (Ergonomics).

Saurabh Tewari

Meeting Padma Shri Babulal Dahiya ji

Learning from Ziro

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