When Gandhi meets Ambedkar: How higher education institutions can change our villages

Indian Express

5 days ago

Also written by Virendra Kumar Vijay and Vivek Kumar
'True India lies in its seven lakh villages,' Mahatma Gandhi once declared, envisioning Gram Swaraj — self-reliant, self-governed village republics — as the foundation of Indian democracy. In sharp contrast, B R Ambedkar, speaking in the Constituent Assembly, fiercely rejected such idealisation: 'What is the village,' he remarked, 'but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism?'
For Gandhi, the village was the crucible of true independence; for Ambedkar, it was a site of deeply entrenched caste oppression. These two conflicting yet coexisting truths have long shaped India's rural imagination. It is within this contested terrain that the idea of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) took root, not as a top-down policy directive, but as a determined initiative by the faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), committed to sustainable rural development and the use of appropriate technology.
A shared vision
What began as a campus conversation gradually evolved into a national movement — shaped by higher education institutions, grassroots organisations, educators, practitioners, policymakers, and Union ministries of education and rural development, among others.
The objective was to empower rural India through meaningful partnerships between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and villages. It also offered academia an opportunity to learn from the lived wisdom, resilience, and practices of rural communities — a symbiotic relationship nurturing both the village and the university.
The Unnat Bharat Abhiyan was officially launched in November 2014 by the Ministry of Education. Coordinated by IIT Delhi, it encourages HEIs, designated as Participating Institutes (PIs), to engage with at least five villages each. To support this, a national ecosystem of 14 Subject Expert Groups and 50 Regional Coordinating Institutes provides technical guidance, mentorship, and capacity-building for impactful, sustainable, and context-specific interventions.
In its early years, UBA selectively invited HEIs to join the initiative. By 2014–15, 170 PIs were working with 800 villages. The network grew rapidly. By 2017–18, 1,771 institutions engaged 7,893 villages. In April 2018, the programme was opened to all HEIs, significantly expanding its scale, reach, and impact. As of May 2025, 4,183 institutions are working with 19,783 villages across 35 states and union territories.
To deepen impact, UBA has forged 18 strategic partnerships with key ministries — such as Panchayati Raj, Rural Development, and Tribal Affairs — and institutions including the National Cooperative Union of India, the Tribal Co-operative Marketing Development Federation of India, the North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Rural Technology Action Group, among others.
Transforming villages
The HEIs are working closely with gram sabhas, elected representatives, district officials, and governments. The goal is to partner actively in shaping Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP) and driving meaningful change from the ground up.
Their work spans a wide spectrum — from promoting sustainable agriculture and clean energy to enhancing rural livelihoods, improving water and waste management, and facilitating effective implementation of government schemes, and more. The HEIs also help build skills, foster entrepreneurship, support startups, and expand digital literacy across villages.
A quiet transformation is unfolding across India, delivering real, measurable change at the grassroots. For instance, in Haridwar's Gaindikhata cluster, IIT Delhi introduced lemongrass cultivation and set up an oil extraction unit, helping farmers earn Rs 8,000–10,000 per month during harvest. In Manipur, the NIT developed a low-cost water purifier providing clean drinking water to over 2,000 villagers previously reliant on a contaminated pond. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand's Chene village, a quiet revival is underway. With support from Jharkhand Rai University, the community has returned to millet farming and established a seed bank to preserve indigenous varieties and ensure long-term food security.
Such collaborative, community-driven initiatives blend scientific innovation with local wisdom, proving that real change grows from the ground up. What sets the UBA apart is its emphasis on Village Adhyayan (village study) through Participatory Learning and Action, a people-first, bottom-up way to understand and engage communities.
The UBA envisions a shift in how development is practised: Not by imposing top-down solutions, but by listening to and building on the needs and aspirations of rural people themselves. Its core belief is simple yet powerful. Development must serve the people, not sideline or marginalise them.
Transforming higher education
Through sustained, meaningful engagement, the UBA is redefining higher education's role in India. The programme urges academia to move beyond classrooms and labs, engaging directly with rural life through grounded, empathetic, and socially relevant research.
The UBA aims to foster stronger, self-reliant communities while nurturing scholars attuned to rural realities and aspirations. Here, the village is not merely a site for fieldwork or theoretical inquiry; it becomes a dynamic space for collaborative, action-oriented research, where knowledge and solutions are co-created through active community participation. Rural knowledge, lived experiences, and community priorities are no longer peripheral; they actively shape learning, research, and knowledge production within institutions.
In its first decade, the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan has made important strides. But much more remains to harness India's vast academic network — over 1,000 universities and more than 42,000 colleges — to engage meaningfully with rural India, where two-thirds of the population lives across more than six lakh villages. Bridging the rural–urban divide demands sustained, equal partnerships between universities and communities. In its second decade, the UBA aims to rapidly expand its reach, especially in remote areas. Only then can we build rural futures rooted in Gandhian self-reliance and Ambedkar's vision of justice and dignity for all.
The writers teach at the Centre for Rural Development and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, and coordinate the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan