Swadeshi
Written by Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema.
photo credit: purplejavatroll via Creative Commons license
Around the holiday season more and more people are thinking about trying some swadeshi. It sounds like a crazy-ass office party dance or maybe something spicy to eat. (“I’ll have the swadeshi and a mango lassi.”)
Swadeshi isn’t either of those things, though it might inspire a crazy-ass dance or two. Swadeshi means self-sufficiency. It was a key part of Gandhi’s strategy to free India from British rule. Today, there’s a new kind of swadeshi with online social activism.
London-based Vinay Gupta is hitting the nail on the head with his social action social networking site Global Swadeshi. He has a great proposal for saving the developing world. Cost: Only $60 million. That’s “only” because, as he points out, that’s just half what it cost to make the movie “Batman and Robin.”
Which would you rather do, make a forgettable comic book movie with Arnold Whatshisname, California’s Governator, as Mr. Freeze or would you rather save the developing world twice over?
While you’re thinking about that, let me tell you Mr. Gupta’s $60 million idea. He wants to make television programs for farmers and people who live in slums – 200 hours of “science telly” as he calls it. What topics does he have in mind? Not misbehaving housewives or Tiger Woods’ habit of texting about his carnal conquests or crashing White House parties. No, Mr. Gupta wants to do programs on how to grow more food and how to stay alive with better water, basic sanitation and basic medicine. I’m no television programmer, but f your viewers are at risk of starving to death, a show about how to grow more food might rate pretty well, ya think?
While I’m mulling over how Vinay Gupta might raise 60 mil, and how he might figure out how to give away laptops on which to play his science telly programs, I’d like to note some other forms of e-swadeshi. At changemakers.com you can learn about inspiring people who are re-imagining activism on the web. act.ly is an application that allows you to inspire people to get out the word out about your cause on Twitter. ForwardTrack is an online tool that lets you promote and track your message as it makes its way from person to person. You get cool interactive maps to see how far your message is spreading.
Charity Focus is an online forum for you to volunteer your skills to help non-profits (and if you run a non-profit, it’s a great way to find volunteers.) Be The Change, Inc. wants to inspire and promote the idea of social service. GOOD magazine has an online presence that is dedicated to social action. And get this, the guy who co-founded Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has launched a wiki site to provide user-driven information for homeless services in Tampa.
There are lots more, including the now-venerable MoveOn.org, but those few examples make it clear that e-activism is growing fast and relatively cheap to implement. Try some. And if you must do a crazy-ass dance at your office party, at least you’ll know not to call it a swadeshi.
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Great post and such a good TV idea. Thanks Lee
I know it’s trendy to say that Jimmy Wales “founded” Wikipedia, but that is a falsehood. If anybody deserves that credit, it is Dr. Larry Sanger.
He brought the wiki architecture to the encyclopedia project. He named it “Wikipedia”. And he set down most of the key policies and guidelines that govern it still.
Help out by not perpetuating the myth of Jimbo Wales.
Sanger’s entry on Wikipedia (I know, not a perfect source for this) has him as “co-founder”: Lawrence Mark “Larry” Sanger (born July 16, 1968[1]) is an American philosopher, co-founder of Wikipedia, and the creator of the encyclopedia Citizendium.. And Wales, of course has this entry: “In 2001, together with Larry Sanger and others, Wales helped launch Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia which enjoyed rapid growth and popularity.” Do you think it would be fair to say “co-founder?” Thanks for pointing this out.
Wow, thanks for picking up on this, Lee. Almost nobody’s really talking about Swadeshi or global swadeshi – it’s in a bit of a cultural blind spot.
Thank you for the light
Vinay
Totally fair to call Wales “co-founder”, and in fact, that is what makes it so ludicrous that Jimmy Wales would have privately pitched so many Wikipedians on the IRC chat channel to please start calling him “founder” or, even more ridiculously, “sole founder”. It’s really shameful that Wales isn’t big enough a man to settle for the title “co-founder”, that he feels a fabrication is more suitable for his stature.
I think we’re entering a time where more and more people are seeing the wisdom of being self-starters and self-sufficiency -because we see that nations and corporations are not going to move us along that path on their own.
Great post Lee. It really doesn’t take much time or effort to make an impact or teach by example. When I was in my late 20′s back in the late 80′s I discovered that Gandhi and I share the same birthdate, October 2nd, and as a result, I began to read about this amazing man and his life. Since then, in my own internal quest for self-identification with him, I’ve tried to make it my personal mission to simply do what I can to leave the world better than the way I found it. And although it’s not “moving mountains” little things like picking up trash I see while I’m out walking my dogs not only enhances the beauty of my neighborhood it truly makes me feel better.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Keep up the great work Lee!
Peace and Merry Krimble,
HMK
Thanks for commenting! Merry Krimble and happy solstice.