By Ananya S Guha
Chuchuyimlang is a small village in the Mokokchung District of Nagaland bordering Amguri and Jorhat in Assam. It is nestled in between beautiful idyllic surroundings of hills bluish green and bountiful nature. I first undertook my journey to that hamlet three years back in 2009. From Guwahati to Mokokchung the road was laced with breathtaking beauty as one crossed Assam and entered Nagaland. The purpose of my visit was for official reasons and although the journey was arduous it was simply a bewildering experience of crossing one state to another with all its cross cultural dimensions. The idea was to meet Natwar Thakkar a social worker who has made Nagaland his home for over the last fifty years or more and who is a professed Gandhian. I first met him in Shillong in the year 2009 in a Community Radio Workshop and he asked me if my university could help him to set up a programme in MSW which would have a rural base. He wanted our university to collaborate with his NGO which is quite well known, the Nagaland Gandhi Ashram. My interaction with him started then and culminated perhaps in my first visit to Chuchuyimlang with a population of a few thousands and containing the historic traditional institution of the Naga Council which is a testimony to an ancient civilization having its own traditional freedom and institutions. The church there stands serenely but imposingly in the heart of Chuchuyimlang. I had to go there not only to interact with him but also meet the Village Council Members as well as some of the denizens of that place like teachers, government employees etc. Two days went in a rush. There was a meeting with the Village Council which unanimously said that they would like a social work programme at the Masters Level there as well as a centre for research, teacher training and vocational training. Visiting the Regional Institute For E-learning and Information Technology was not only an eye opener but also a discovery of how IT could and has spread to rural areas. The RIELIT as it is called is a partnership between DOEACC Government of India and the Nagaland Gandhi Ashram. I was amazed to see how students were taught through e-learning modules as well as by means of face to face interaction. Students from different parts of Nagaland came there for various IT courses, and the Institute also hosts a very decent library which is a repository of books and magazines. Interacting with the public there was an experience which I cannot forget. I spoke in English and Natwar Thakkar was translating what I said in the Ao language of Nagaland. My interaction with the villagers was similar and at every point I made they nodded assent and unequivocally said that they would donate a campus of over 100 acres to our university for an Institute which would house to begin with a programme on Social Work at the Masters Level.
Very importantly however, after that was my continuous flow of association with Natwar Thakkar which continues till today. Natwar Thakkar is a social worker dedicated to the Gandhian cause in the best spirit of volunteerism. He came to Nagaland over five decades back to settle in this village to dedicate his cause to the society and work for it. Within no time he assimilated in himself the culture of the people and comminngled with them to work for them and with them. At a time when the Naga insurgency was at its peak Mr. Thakkar thought of ways to enlighten the society on issues such as vocational training, when hardly anyone in the country gave to it a serious thought. Moreover, he thought of not only the socially and economically disadvantaged people but also people who were physically disabled. He conducted trainings on things like food processing with the help of KVIC. Surely, his vision was that of love for an alienated people but who soon began to look up to him. He married a local lady and established his own family there. But not being content with social work only Mr. Thakkar took to writing and started editing a magazine by the name of Ishani for which he had to go to Guwahati for its printing and logistical reasons. He still has a base in Guwahati and Ishani continues to prosper. Natwar Thakkar speaks Assamese fluently. For me my association with him has been a continuous learning experience, his meticulous approach to life, his punctuality, his commitment to work and his work ethic has been a revelation for me. His patience and his scrupulous ways of editing his journal struck me with a force, something which leaves me at times dumbfounded. Mind you now he is four score years old! He is a diabetic and religiously takes his insulin everyday himself.
Needless to say our university has established in collaboration with his NGO the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education and Development (MGIED) and the first batch of MSW students will be out this June. But what I personally cherish and will always remember is my deep seated association with this great Gandhian.
