On Monday, Dr Sheela Taori and Mr Kamal Taori visited the offices of Asian Voice during their month long visit of the UK. Dr Sheela sat down to speak with us about the Prithvi Foundation, a public private panchayat partnership based in Delhi for the past 10 years.
Dr Taori has been a teacher for most of her life and conducted teacher training who strongly believes education changes people. She took up teacher eduction as a mission and a passion. Her owes her strong background of science and Sanskrit to her teachers and parents, especially her father. Due to this she has a strong faith in the traditions of India and its ancient history. The ancient Sanathan Dharma, as it is not bound by any national boundaries, nor does it bind or divide people into groups. The vedas don't teach to take anything for free.
Until 2010 she was in regular service, moving between different cities due to her husband’s transferable job. She used to train people in Human Resource Development areas for example, on how to communicate well, how to develop one’s personality, how the mindset should be changed, how attitudes are important.
While she admits she isn’t a great scholar of the vedas, she is trying to understand the message go vedas. She wonders why is India going through such turmoil like the incident in JNU and other incidents. India and Bharat are 2 different things she feels, she adds Bharat is the real India based on agriculture and the agricultural produce, its value addition and the equitable distribution to all. This made India happy. The benefits of the cow and bull are obvious to see, they provide transport, provide milk to keep us healthy, they produce dung which is helpful to the soil and help plants grow, and for those who drink its urine, its has disinfecting qualities.
Our forefathers took care of everything but now she says as a country we have gone against nature by importing western ideas as it is. Using chemicals and fertilisers in the soil. This contamination of ground water with extra chemicals has become a vicious cycle which has lead to affecting our health.
As a country we have abandoned the traditional methods of farming. 80% of Indian farmers are small land owners who have less than 2 hectares of land who have nationwide abandoned traditional methods of farming. Instead relying on tractors which are made in factories, which in turn is polluting the air, the vehicles run on diesel which is again polluting the air and they cannot be used effectively in the small land held by farmers.
Dr Taori and her husband are in the UK for a month spreading awareness, meeting the cream of UK asian society seeking guidance and also educating on the economics, ecology and sociology. Mr Toari says that we all have a role if we all go a little beyond. Those who are performers must think of how can they further the cause of marketing the un-marketed not on emotion but on ecology and holistic economics.
