Shripad Dabholkar

Shripad A. Dabholkar (1924 – May 2001) was an Indian intellectual and social activist. He was the founder of a non-structured methodology of grassroot networking for nature-friendly neighbourhood development called Prayog Pariwar (Experimenting Communities). His contributions were recognized by many awards including the 1985 Jamnalal Bajaj Award.

Prayog Pariwar received considerable attention from some of the influential educational thinkers including Paolo Freire (author of `Pedagogy of the Oppressed’) and Ivan Illich (author of`Deschooling Society’). Illich invited Dabholkar to Centro Intercultural de Documentación in Cuernavaca in 1970. Kassel University in Germany organized in 1973 ‘‘Science for Rural Development: a workshop with Shripad Dabholkar and Paolo Freire’’. The theme of the workshop was to juxtapose the`Critical pedagogy’ of Freire for raising political awareness (conscientization) and the pedagogical methods of Prayog Pariwar to develop resource literacy.

Biography Shripad A. Dabholkar was an educationist who aimed to shape education as a tool for total change in the life situation of an average worker in rural areas. Dabholkar worked as a professor of mathematics for 25 years at a rural university Mauni Vidyapeeth which was founded by J. P. Naik as a pilot project with the motto “Development through Education” and with funding from the Central Government.

Dabholkar grew dissatisfied with the formal schooling which often did not connect with the real-life situations, and with the limitations of conventional academic system which tended to exclude many capable individuals with a stamp of failure. He left the university to undertake the task of educating farmers through demystification of science, adopting non-formal methods of knowledge communication.

Dabholkar started his work in Tasgaon, a village in Sangli district in Maharashtra, with a core group of farmers including Mhetre, Arve, Patil. The successes of this group with their innovative approach helped in creating mass awareness and interest in many other small farmers. They formed their own study groups and turned to grape cultivation against the advice of conventional agricultural experts and even though it was not a traditional crop in the region.

Dabholkar translated the classic monograph ‘’General Viticulture’’ by Winkler et al into Marathi for the farmers which was mastered and assimilated by their study groups. This network-building for using advanced science to address real-life situations resulted in a new sociology of science and education.

The productivity in the district rose to world standards and grape production became a highly productive activity, inducing more farmers to turn to it. These farmers in Maharashtra without formal agricultural education became India's leading grape cultivators with a turnover of over $100 million. Dabholkar then successfully extended the applied research to other crops as well. Adherents have shown that quarter of an acre of land and waste water can produce sufficient food to feed a family of five at a "middle-class" level.

This eco-friendly and grassroots approach to farming based on implementing latest science in the context of local neighborhoods is referred to "Natu-eco farming" to distinguish it from "natural farming" championed by Masanobu Fukuoka and Organic farming with which it shares some common traits.