Whoever said one person can’t make a difference has not met Allada Ramakrishna of Nallajarla mandal in West Godavari district.
A hard-core Gandhian, Mr. Ramakrishna’s strong desire to make Gandhian thought relevant to the present generation enabled him to achieve a rare feat—he designed and conducted a unique test paper on Gandhiji’s life and philosophy and mobilised 2 lakh students in his district to take the test, thus spreading the Mahatma’s message far and wide.
He even announced a Rs. 1 lakh prize to those achieving 100 per cent marks. “But nobody could do it and that makes it all the more necessary for us to fill the widening gap,” says Mr. Ramakrishna.
The District Education Officer Indukuri Prasad, who is also the secretary of the district unit of Sarvodaya mandal and member Gattim Manikyala Rao assisted him in the task.
Impressed by his feat, none other than Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter Usha Gokani came all the way to give certificates to the participants. Referring to Gandhi’s contribution to peace, Albert Einstein had said: “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”Mr. Ramakrishna says if nobody makes effort to revive Gandhian principles, Einstein’s predictions may come true. “We cannot let that happen,” he emphasises.
Inspired by the encouraging result of Mr. Ramakrishna’s attempt, the Sevagram Ashram Pratisthan at Sevagram in Warda district of Maharshtra, has decided to replicate the pattern across the country with the support of respective State Governments.
Though only 2 lakh students took the test in West Godavari, the Gandhi message reached nearly 5 lakh people. This is the uniqueness of the Gandhi contest. An objective-type question paper is given to students who are asked to fill the answers and submit it after two day. The participants are allowed to consult their parents, teachers, friends, browse internet or other sources. The objective is to set them on the task of knowing more about the Father of the Nation.
Spreading the word
“We are already in the process of designing a question bank of around 1,000 objective-type questions based on Gandhiji’s life, his principles and his philosophy. We will adopt a random technique to select 100 questions each year. To begin with, question papers are being set in Hindi, English, Telugu Marathi and a few other languages. To make it State-specific, we’ll supply question papers in all languages. We are keen on introducing this in the coming academic year,” explains G.V.D.S. Prasad, secretary of All-India Sarvodaya Mandal and convenor of Sevagram Ashram Pratisthan.
“Gandhi is contagious; Gandhi is intoxication. Great personalities surrendered to his disarming personality. When foreigners are concluding that Gandhi is the way, we debate if Gandhi is relevant today. We should instead ask ourselves: “Are we relevant to Gandhi?” says Mr. Prasad.
