ARUN JAIN'S DIARY

During Mission Samriddhi’s Summit 6 at Wardha, I met Shubha from Banwasi Sewa Ashram at Sonbhadra district, UP. They are working in that tribal area among 400 villages since 1967.

I learnt

1. That for several years, there have been no legal cases from these villages being filed in the court. In case a few cases do reach the court, they are withdrawn and settled within the village.
2. Since legal cases are a major ‘time, money and energy’ wasters of our society. Their response was very innocent and wise.
   A. Most of the conflicts in the villages start from very small differences.
   B. Villages need a few trustable, selfless people with the ability to listen.
   C. Most of the time ‘the person who is wrong, knows it in his heart’ about his wrong. He can’t hide that wrong within his own set of people. What he needs is a ‘listening’.
   D. Banwasi Sewa Ashram’s experience says that once the ‘Panch’ – respected group of villagers within or outside the village (different from elected representatives) listens to both sides, the conflict resolution becomes much simpler. Both parties can select their Panch who they believe will be fair like the arbitrator system.

To solve large cases in the legal system, shall we start a dialogue on building competency of conflict resolution at the source?

I visited the Brihadeeswarar Temple or the Tanjore Temple near Trichy. Normally, we go on a temple from temple visit but this temple was more of an architectural marvel. In my perspective, it can match the architectural creation of the Taj Mahal since it was created six hundred years before the Taj Mahal.

A few observations

1. The largest Siva Temple with integrated Brahma and Vishnu structures. The lingam is a monolithic and 29 ft. tall.
2. Fully constructed without any binding material like cement or its equivalent.
3. 1000 year structure built by granite slabs, cut and interlocked to create this masterpiece.
4. The nearest quarry of granite stones is over 80 kms. Thus, all granite was transported 1000 years back at that time with the available transportation technologies.
5. The structure is vertically aligned i.e. the center of the Lingam is perfectly aligned to the center of the top stone, a perfect zero degree. The stone at the very top at 200 ft. weighs 80 tons.
6. This structure was created in just 6 years in 1010 by Raja Raja Cholan.
7. Tanjore is famous for its unique gold leaf paintings, music and dance and bronze sculptures.

Yesterday, I visited Varanasi for the inauguration of Utkarsh Small Finance Bank. We are their complete digital core banking technology partner.

Few observations about Varanasi and around

1. One of the oldest cities with a somewhat recorded history from 1100 BC
2. Birthplace of the Indian scriptures
3. Birthplace of Jainism and Buddhism
4. Very talented craftsmanship
5. Very old architecture of large temples
6. It’s on the bank of the Ganga river with lots of water and fertile land for agriculture giving 3 crops per year.
7. Even in the modern era, Banaras Hindu University and Allahabad University are much earlier universities in the State, including IIT Kanpur nearby.

This translates into the

1. Rich intellectual capacity of the city
2. Rich culture of learning as a society
3. Rich natural resources

This combination is the ultimate recipe for a highly developed city as well as the ‘world’s greatest tourism spot’ in line with Paris or Rome.

My question to this group is – what is holding back this city of Varanasi to flower and fruition?

The purpose of this curious question is not to blame anyone but to try and understand the

1. Elements of social and economic development
2. Elements of individual and social thinking
3. Role of vision vs. contentment