FIELD VISIT REPORT

Submitted by

NARENDRA KUMAR DIWAKAR

DR. ALKA

BALBIR SINGH

CHOZIN WANGMO

CHETAN J. PAWAR

PARTICIPANTS OF ICSSR WORKSHOP

MGAHV, WARDHA                                                                                                                Submitted to

CO-ORDINATOR

ICSSR WORKSHOP

MGAHV, WARDHA

BACKGROUND

Wardha gets its name from the Wardha River which flows at the North, West and South boundaries of district. Founded in 1866, the town is now an important centre for the cotton trade. It was an important part of Gandhian Era. Wardha was one of the pre-planned cities of British India. The town-planners were Sir Crowdock and Bachelor. Population of Wardha city constitutes Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists with little percentage of Christians, Jains and Sikhs. Main spoken languages are Marathi and Hindi. Other languages viz. Marwari, Gujarati, Sindhi and Punjabi are spoken by people of respective communities. There are many temples, mosques, viharas, gurudwaras, jain temples and churches of which Laxminarayan temple (Bachchhraj road), Lingi Mandir (Mahadeo Mandir)near Dr. Raosaheb Gade Bhavan, Vitthal mandir (hawaldwarpura), Ganesh Mandir (Main Road), Gajanan Maharaj Mandir, Sai mandir (M.G. Road), Digambar and Shwetambar Jain temples (mahadeopura),Jama Masjid (Itwara), Shanti Stupa (Gopuri), Gurudwara (Samtanagar) are important.

One of the jewels of Wardha is Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya which is World's only international Hindi University. Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya(Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University) is established by the Parliament of India and run directly by the Government of India. 

A ten days “Workshop on Research Methodology Course in Social Sciences” for Ph.D. Scholars from 10th to 19th January, 2015 was planned by Mahatma Gandhi Fuji Guruji Centre for Peace Studies, Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha in collaboration with the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi workhop was designed to impart knowledge on Research Methodology in the context of qualitative and quantitative research along-with training in advanced Statistical packages across the various fields of Social Sciences.

During this workshop one day field visit had been planned on 13^th January 2014, for the participants to visit to some historical places of wardha district. Visit was planned to learn the participants how to apply the research methodology techniques that they are learning in the workshop.

All the participants have been divided in to groups. Each group was having 5 members. Our group planned the visit with the following objective.

OBJECTIVE

          To know Gandhian ideology in Wardha district through various aspects.

METHODOLOGY

STUDY TYPE- Field survey

STUDY DESIGN- Cross sectional study

STUDY SITE- 5 historical places of district Wardha were visited named as Gitai temple,Shanti stoop, Pavnar Ashram, Sewagram and Magan Sanghralaya.

DATA COLLECTION-.Data has been collected by primary as well as secondary sources. In primary data collection we have used observation method as well as unstructured interview schedule and in secondary we have collected data by pamphlets provided, books purchased from there.

STUDY TOOL– observational and unstructured interview

DATA ANALYSIS- content analysis and narrative analysis

OBSERVATIONS

1. GITAI MANDIR (GITAI TEMPLE)

Gitai temple is situated in Gopuri .This temple has a unique feature that it has no deity and roof. It has just walls made of granite slabs on which 18 chapters of Gitai (Shrimad-bhagwad-gita in marathi) are written. Acharya Vinoba Bhave inaugurated this temple in 1980. Beside this there are two exhibitions about life of Acharya Vinoba Bhave and Jamnalal Bajaj.

The temple gives us the message of spirituality and karam .It is the message that has been highlighted in the Shrimad-bhagwad gita that we should always focus on our karam and not on the fruits we gain in future. Gandhi ji always used to guide everyone to be self-dependant and work for themselves and earn their own livelihood.

2. VISHWA SHANTI STUPA

Vishwa shanty stupa was a dream of Fujii guruji. It is situated beside Gitai Mandir. It is a large stupa of white color. Statues of Buddha are mounted on stupa in four directions. On the entrance we observed a small Japanese Buddhist temple with a large park. There is a temple near the stupa where prayers are done for universal peace. This stupa is also a symbol of nonviolence.

3. PARAMDHAM ASHRAM

As told by one of the member of the ashram, it was established by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 1934 at Pawnar on bank of river Dham with spiritual purpose. He also established Brahma Vidya mandir in it. He started Bhoodan Movement from here. During Bhonsle reign Pawnar was vidarbha's most important military station. During excavation for construction of ashram, many sculptures and idols were found which are kept at ashram and open to visitors.

The ashram signifies itself as an example of social model. Ashram gave the message of being self-sufficient. We came to know that they work for themselves and don’t depend on others for their routine activities. We could observe the ashram from various perspectives like spirituality, economic sufficiency and agrarian culture. But one thing that needs to be projected for the future is utilization of this social model to be a role model for others to learn. This can be included in curriculum to develop good thinking about the social role in a community as well as being self-sufficient too. Persons living in the ashram follow need based theory and not greed based theory. They work as much is required for their needs that is to live healthy and not to collect utilities for saving, which signifies that they are more concentrated towards spirituality and not materialist world.

 4. SEVAGRAM ASHRAM  

As told by one of the member of the ashram, It was the residence of Mahatma Gandhi from 1936 to 1948. After his 1930 Dandi salt march, Gandhi decided not to return to his ashram at Sabarmati. After spending two years in jail, he travelled around India and, at the invitation of the Gandhian industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj., stayed for some time in Wardha City at Jamnalal's bungalow. In 1936, at the age of 67, Gandhiji moved to a village (which he subsequently called Sewagram - Hindi for village of service) at the outskirts of Wardha and started to live here in a group of huts with his wife Kasturba and other disciples. This slowly grew into an ashram, where Gandhi lived with his followers for the next twelve years, till his death. The premises are very calming. Many personal items used by Gandhi and his contemporaries are preserved here including his spectacles, telephone, notebook, tables, mats, etc.

This ashram lets us know the values of being practical. Students get to know things practically as we observed the bowl of grains lying there in a classroom to tell the nursery students for learning. The people living there are an example of simplicity. They work for their livelihood themselves and live a simple life. They have made traditionality along with incorporation of modern techniques as we observed various things present there e.g. they are doing agriculture with hands as well as tractors. Charkha has also been used advanced with increased speed and more productivity. But this advancement in the techniques has not replaced human hands. Both methods go along simultaneously. They work at their own level as small scale industry by utilizing the various things variable there for goods productions.

As told by one of the respondent in a interview they use cow dung, cow urine, cow milk, paper, bamboo and various other things for preparing goods. He said for them nothing is waste. It is the art and courage to deal with the things and get something p5roductive out of it that Gandhi ji used to tell.

5. MAGAN SANGRAHALAYA,

It is a museum showing collection of various rural innovations; technologies. It was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1938. It is situated in Maganwadi near the village's Centre of Science. The purpose of construction of this museum is to spread awareness about research and development of rural industries, agriculture, dairy, various types of charkhas, khadi, hadicrafts by rural artisans, methods to promote Swadeshi movement, etc.

Museum has good collection of traditional things that were used earlier as well as their advanced models. We could observe new models of charkha, sanitation methods, use of electricity, agriculture techniques represented by the models placed in the sangrahalaya.  This indicated that Gandhi ji was not against modernization or the advanced techniques they just wanted to be self-dependent and work for you. Mechanization should not replace manpower.

In the lecture given by one of the staff member, it was told that techniques are not bad but it should be used in such a manner to not to harm others. She cited an example of honeybees and said that technique used to get honey from honey bee should be such so as not to harm them. (Smoke method) we could see the dress and other things used to get honey displayed there. Beside this we saw various beautiful materials prepared from jute and bamboo available there. We were fascinated by the various beautiful items prepared by jute, bamboo, silk, cotton etc.

CONCLUSION

We could justify our objective of visiting the selected places with a perspective to know Gandhiyan ideology through various perspectives e.g. economic, socio-demographic, cultural, as well being a good example of social model.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to thank Prof. Manoj Kumar (course director), Dr. Mithilesh Tiwari (course coordinator) for providing us the opportunity to attend the workshop. Attending the workshop and learning the various tools for research is really going to be helpful for all of us in future. we would also like to say a special thanks for the field visit that have been planned for us during this workshop that gave us the chance to see the beauty of Wardha, to know about the ideology of mahatma Gandhi in depth and along with this it let us to apply the tools which we learned in the workshop.