"ONLY A GENIUS CAN KEEP INDIA POOR!"
-A talk by Dr. B. V. Parameswara Rao

22nd April 1999
Thomas Building, PSU Campus, State College

Dr. Parameswara Rao, a renowned social worker who has spent over 30 years in Indian villages, addressed a gathering of Penn State students, faculty and members of the State College community. Through an inspiring and thought provoking talk titled, "Only a Genius Can Keep India Poor" he addressed the reasons for poverty in India and challenged the audience to initiate a second freedom movement to rediscover the genius that was India several centuries ago. On several occasions during his talk, Dr. Rao, provided anecdotal evidence on how the genius that was present in the self-contained village societies of folklore has now monstrously transformed itself into one that works to subvert today's India.

BCT Projects Slide Show

He narrated his experience of founding the Bhagvatula Charitable Trust (BCT) and, using a slide show, discussed projects that BCT initiated. The partial list of BCT projects that he described included starting of village schools, a salt-manufacturing cooperative, women's saving programs, shrimp farming, afforestation, adult literacy and health care. He said that the single most important lesson that he learned from these projects was that the village folk have to learn to help themselves. Thus, the key to success is to get their involvement and participation. According to Dr. Rao, applying money externally without the ownership and internalization of the concept of development by the villagers would be harmful.

Types of poverty afflicting India

Dr. Rao summarized India's poverty as having several faces.

Bodily Poverty -- the poverty of health;
Mental Poverty -- the poverty of education ... illiteracy;
Economical Poverty -- we all know what this is;
Social Poverty -- breakdown of social systems and the extended family unit, lack of responsible citizenship;
Cultural Poverty -- the forgotten culture, history, living in harmony with nature;
Political Poverty -- the poverty of good, clean leadership; and Spiritual Poverty.

He further ventured that these 7 types of poverty feed on each other and form a vicious cycle that is difficult to break.

How to bring about a *real* change?

In his opinion, to bring about a change one has to break the "poverty cycle" and attack it on all fronts. With great humility, Dr. Rao submitted that although organizations such as the BCT have had limited successes, they alone working in isolation, may not be able to bring about a change that will rescue India from the disastrous path that it is currently on. He reiterated that monetary contributions are again not the most important thing. Instead he said that he is now of the belief that a mass movement -- a sort of second "freedom movement" -- is needed to affect a positive change in India. This needs a common purpose, a large number of people to take a step further and beyond what they may be currently doing *and* to take this step *together*. He asked the audience to visualize how Mahatma Gandhi rallied together the whole nation around such a simple concept as that of making their own salt and challenging the Salt Tax that kindled the freedom movement. He challenged the intellectuals and the youth to make a commitment towards bringing about such change. He said that by committing 24 minutes a day or 2 hours a week or 15 days a year toward this end, and by participating and initiating a movement in India such a change may become a reality. An audience of between 70-80 persons attended the talk. The audience interacted with the speaker through a question and answer session following the talk. A group of about 30 persons also made a personal commitment to participate in this movement and met on Friday the 23rd of April for a followup discussion.

About the Speaker:

Dr. B.V. Parameswara Rao is a renowned social activist who has spent over 30 years working in the villages of Andhra Pradesh in India. He has spent this time initiating and facilitating socio-economic development in about 40 villages through an organization that he founded called the Bhagvatula Charitable Trust (BCT). His work with the villagers has earned him recognition as the Week magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1988. A Ph.D in Mineral Preparation and a Penn State alumnus, Dr. Rao left for India in 1967 to work in the villages. He is currently visiting and addressing people of Indian origin and their friends in about 25 different locations in the US. His present visit is sponsored by various chapters of the Association for India's Development (AID) and the India Literacy Project (ILP). His visit to the Penn State University campus was sponsored through the Student Activity Fee.

Report by: Aniruddha S Vaidya -- ANIRUDDHA S VAIDYA, Computer Sc. & Engg., Penn State U. (vaidya@cse.psu.edu)