Dr. Tyagi is the Executive Director of Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti (GRAVIS), an NGO dedicated to working in impoverished rural regions of India, including the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Bundelkhand. He is a physician and a public health professional by education, and at GRAVIS he oversees administration, coordinates various programs, develops new projects, and fosters new partnerships.

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Prakash Tyagi

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 DR. PRAKASH TYAGI
 is the Executive Director of Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti (GRAVIS), an NGO
 dedicated to working in impoverished rural regions of India, including the
 Thar Desert, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Bundelkhand. In part 2 of this
 interview with
 KASHISH KALWANI, he speaks about how things have
 changed due to the pandemic and the
 importance of passion and love for community.
</h4>

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 Q: Where does your passion and love for community come from?
 You mentioned
 last month that your family played a major role, but what was your personal
 need to get involved at a deeper level?



 PT: I can’t take
 credit for the founding philosophy of GRAVIS, because I was very young at the
 time. The founders believed that people are often not taken into account when
 programs are developed. That may still be the case today, but the situation
 has changed and it must keep changing. It is a dynamic process. People need to
 be consulted. People need to be given the confidence that they are equal and
 important partners in what is being done for them.



 There are always strong representatives in communities, who do not allow
 others to come forward, like women, the deprived, the lower caste groups, and
 those with disabilities. Therefore, it is important that inclusive
 community-based organizations are given training and capacity-building tools,
 so that everyone can contribute. Equality and solidarity are principles of the
 GRAVIS philosophy, and they are derived from Mahatma Gandhi’s approach to
 India’s development.


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 <img decoding="async" width="603" height="746" alt="Passion-Love-Community2" class="lazyload has-img-center"
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 Q: How has Covid-19 affected GRAVIS’s work, and how did you
 stay connected
 with people in the areas you work?



 PT:
 Covid-19 has been unprecedented, and it has affected almost all organizations,
 including GRAVIS. We had to reduce the number of programs significantly
 because of the lockdown and other public-health concerns. GRAVIS supplied
 150,000 people with food and hygiene products between April and July 2020,
 and, as things started to settle down our projects started reflowing. I would
 say that 70% to 80% of our activities are back in action.



 Every crisis comes with some learning, and we gave ourselves time to make
 long-term plans, think about strategies, and evaluate our partnerships. We
 were fortunate to receive good support from our funders, so we were never in a
 financial crunch. Hopefully, next year will be more stable.



 Q: What are the qualities and values you feel we must imbibe
 if we want to
 create an impact in society?



 PT: Be patient
 and take your time. It’s not a part-time job that can be done in a couple of
 months; it is a wholehearted effort, a 100% commitment with patience. These
 things take time.



 Also, be very open to what comes from the communities, as every feedback is
 important. Some ideas might be relevant today, some in the future, so there is
 always scope for storing all the information that comes through.



 Then, have self-belief that what you are doing is important. Believe that your
 vision and mission are making a change. When self-belief is there, you will
 make progress.


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<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 Have self-belief that what you are doing is important.
 Believe that
 your vision and mission are making a change. When self-belief is
 there, you will make progress.
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 Q: Thank you for sharing that. You mentioned that the younger
 generation is
 moving at such a fast pace that we lack patience for something to build. We
 want instant gratification the moment we invest our efforts. This increases
 the stress in our minds, and nowadays we see more mental health problems.
 What mental health challenges did you notice during the lockdown
 periods?



 PT: It was a time
 of trapped communities, of people in isolation, and loneliness. I believe that
 mental health problems are part of life – everyone goes through them.
 Depression and anxiety are common, they just manifest more visibly in some
 people than others. The Covid-19 pandemic, with its lockdowns and
 restrictions, has magnified mental health disorders, especially in groups like
 the elderly, who have been confined to their homes. Many of them are disabled
 and dependent on others. A lot of domestic abuse also came to our notice.



 It was important for people to get resources for their immediate survival, and
 organizations like ours worked on this. Food exchanges were important, because
 there was a serious cash crunch and lack of supplies in the local markets.
 Mental issues have taken a serious toll on people. They were trapped in their
 homes, and they didn’t have a life with regular in-person meetings and
 dialogue. Hence, we organized regular webinars with mental-health experts, so
 that people were given guidance, advice, and encouragement.



 Mental health is an ongoing public health issue; during the pandemic, it
 became more visible. Hopefully, the worst is over, and our mindset will be
 more positive in the coming year.


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<h4 class="has-text-align-center">Photography by RAJESH MENON</h4>

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Passion and love for community

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 DR. PRAKASH TYAGI
 is the Executive Director of Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti (GRAVIS), an NGO
 dedicated to working in impoverished rural regions of India, including the
 Thar Desert, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Bundelkhand. In part 1 of this
 interview with
 KASHISH KALWANI, he speaks about applying the Gandhian
 principles of love, non-violence,
 and truth to support communities in need.
</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: Thank you sir, for having this conversation with us. You have
 been on a
 long and inspiring journey with GRAVIS. Could you tell us more about
 it?



 PT: GRAVIS is a
 pioneering organization that was founded in 1983 in the Thar Desert. The
 vision was for constructive rural development on the Gandhian lines of
 philosophy, and at the time there were no organizations working on integrated
 rural development in a holistic way in that area. Since then, GRAVIS has grown
 extensively. It’s currently one of the leading organizations in the region and
 nationally, with some global recognition.



 The Thar Desert is the driest part of India, with severe water scarcity, food
 shortages, and poverty. Since the beginning, GRAVIS has been involved in
 drought mitigation, finding common feasible solutions in consultation with the
 local people. We took up various projects and formed multiple partnerships to
 mitigate the effects of drought. Later, GRAVIS expanded into other areas of
 human development, including healthcare, education, and rural livelihood.



 The core of GRAVIS’ work has been active community involvement, and that
 includes consulting with the community to find solutions, taking their advice,
 and developing future projects and programs. We ensure that they are fully
 involved in many ways. GRAVIS has led to the formation of more than 3000
 community-based organizations (CBOs), and many of them are sustainable,
 self-reliant, confident, working on their own, leveraging government
 resources, and developing their own agenda and priorities. That helps in
 sustaining the initiatives we have taken up.



 We have been extending our work regularly every year, and currently we reach
 about 1.5 million people.


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 GRAVIS has three defining aspects. The first is our technical expertise in two
 core areas:


<ol type="1">
 <li>
 Drought mitigation, at the ground level as well as in documenting and
 research. We share this information to facilitate learning and exchange
 across the whole of South Asia. The Thar Desert is the largest desert in the
 world in terms of population and housing, so that makes GRAVIS a leading
 drought mitigation organization.
 </li>
 <li>
 Healthcare: We provide medical services, as well as an integrated public
 health approach, including education, training, and capacity building of
 health workers and communities on general health, nutrition, hygiene and
 sanitation, sexually transmitted diseases, and non-communicable diseases.
 Tuberculosis has been a challenge in many communities and GRAVIS was one of
 the first organizations to highlight the threat of occupational lung
 diseases and mining diseases like silicosis.
 </li>
</ol>


 The second aspect is our philosophy. We work in areas where the need is the
 greatest. We don’t really go to areas where programs are being implemented by
 other organizations, as we want to ensure that our resources are taken to the
 people most in need. So, most of our projects are in very remote
 underdeveloped areas.



 Also at the philosophical level, linking it with the Gandhian model of rural
 development, it is important to work for societies and communities that are
 inclusive, favoring gender equality and harmony at all levels. This is needed
 for decision-making in the distribution of resources, and for making sure that
 there are no disputes and no divisions within the communities.



 The third aspect is community participation. We make sure that people are with
 us. Oftentimes we call community-based organizations, because they are the
 real power, they are the stakeholders of everything we do. That is how I would
 want GRAVIS to be known.



 Q: Thank you, Sir. When I volunteered with GRAVIS, I noticed how
 the
 buildings at the field site were named after the Gandhian values of
 prema (love), ahimsa (non-violence), and
 satya (truth). That really stood out for me. Do you have any
 particular memories that stand out for you in the years spent with
 GRAVIS?



 PT: There are
 many memories, and so much has happened in the last thirty-seven years, but my
 family involvement is extremely important because that is how GRAVIS came into
 existence. My parents decided to do something in an area that was extremely
 underdeveloped at that point of time. It was the late 1970s and I remember
 coming to Jodhpur when I was six years old. The conditions were very
 difficult, and Jodhpur was a very insignificant place. It would have been very
 easy for my parents to live elsewhere, but they took the decision that life
 was going to be spent for a cause in an area where there was a significant
 need. That’s how GRAVIS was founded.



 Another memory I have is that the organization grew through limitations and
 hardship, and that think tanks don’t come overnight. GRAVIS didn’t have a
 vehicle for years, although now it is different. It took years for GRAVIS to
 build its capacity and resources, and to become expert enough to understand
 the community’s needs. I think it requires a lot of dedication. It also
 requires the patience to spend time with people.



 In this era of the Internet, everything seems to be so fast, but that’s not
 real life. In real life you need time, and time cannot be replaced by anything
 else. What you can do in X amount of time, you cannot do in Y amount of time
 by accelerating work horizons. My memories are the memories of those
 hardships, of the struggles I grew up seeing.


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 The core of GRAVIS’ work has been active community involvement, and that includes consulting with the community to find solutions, taking their advice, and developing future projects and programs.
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 For nearly ten years I traveled from a village to Jodhpur every day in a bus
 to attend school. It was a 12-hour-a-day process from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. All of
 this is important, because that’s how organizations become strong in their
 values and beliefs, and how they make connections to communities.



 GRAVIS faced very severe resistance in 1989-1990, when the whole country was
 burning. At that time, our centers were attacked and destroyed, because we
 worked with the lower castes, the so-called Dalits,
 and we were given a message that it was time to go home and not to spoil the
 community equations and dynamics. But we sustained and we fought back,
 literally from a point where nothing was left. Everything was destroyed,
 everyone was beaten, and then the organization reemerged. That’s a strong
 memory.



 A more recent memory is my own personal decision to stay with GRAVIS. I didn’t
 plan it that way, but with my father’s demise there was a vacuum of
 leadership, so I traveled back from the U.S. to India ten years ago.



 The most significant memories are meeting the social activists, the people who
 really believed in an India and a world free of discrimination, free of
 injustice. I remember meeting
 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayaprakash_Narayan" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jayaprakash
 Narayan</a>, I remember meeting
 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Kripalani" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kripalani</a>, I
 remember meeting
 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinoba_Bhave" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vinoba</a>. It was
 quite a thing to do because they are big names.



 Last and not least – the love of the people has always been visible. In the
 rural areas, we receive so much affection, so much love, and that’s what makes
 the difference.



 Q: Yes, indeed. What are some practical tools that we can
 incorporate into
 our lifestyle to be more conscious of the way we are living and more
 involved in community initiatives?



 PT: I wouldn’t
 know. I’m a very unorganized man, I must admit. Everyone has their own way of
 doing things. If you ask me, at a very personal level, being on time is
 extremely important and it helps me measure if what I’m doing is fruitful or
 not. At the end of every 24-hour cycle, I make a calculation of what I did
 today and how I spent my time. It’s important to be accountable to myself
 about how my time was spent. I don’t know if it’s practical or more
 philosophical, but to me it’s important.



 The second thing is to do something new every day. And that “new” could be
 anything. It could be writing about something new or singing a new song.



 Q: Doing something new is such a creative tool! Finally, is
 there anything
 you’d like to share with our readers?



 PT: Mahatma
 Gandhi said, “My life is my message.” Every life is a message, and every life
 is capable of leaving a message. It doesn’t have to be like Mahatma Gandhi’s
 life; it could be Kashish’s life or anyone else’s life. It’s up to you to make
 that message whatever you want it to look like. And your entire life works for
 that message, so it can’t be created overnight.



 Q: What is your life’s message?



 PT: I am still in
 the process of finding that out! I haven’t gone through much of my life – I
 still have a few years left. It doesn’t have to be gigantic, it doesn’t have
 to be global, and it doesn’t have to be noble. It can be anything, as long as
 you have a message. “My life is my message” is my advice to the younger
 generation, or any generation.



 Q: Thank you for taking the time to share your story and message
 with
 us.



 PT: Thank you.


To be continued

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<h4 class="has-text-align-center">Photos by RAJESH MENON</h4>

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