Take Away from inaugural Workshop on Rubanisation on 24th Sept.2011 in New Delhi

#1. Facebook and such digital media are just like human beings - EPHEMERAL." Paani kera budbuda, Tyon maanush ki jaati." Just lost over 2- pages of the minutes of the workshop after faithfully pressing the "Save Drafts" button, so that I could retrieve it later. And lo behold it was no longer there so this is my best attempt to reproduce it.

#2.The workshop was organised by Ruban India Foundation. The showcase of the workshop was the Mechai Pattana school community model,as a case study for future  ruban settlements across Asia.The Mechai Pattana school is in the backdrop of one of the poorest disticts of Thailand in Lamplaimat ,300 km from Bangkok.Over just a few years it has emerged to be one of the best schools in Thailand along with a self sustaining community which has lots more to give to the world.

#3. Sunny Narang shared a key note about why such a thing was more likely to emerge out of Thailand,based on his rich experiences of working in the south east Asian countries with craftsmen and communities.He emphasized how Thais were so glued to their cultural roots.As one of the very few Asian countries which was never colonized Thais have been successful in preserving their cultural identity.Even at the times of powerful invasions they split into camps and regrouped when the threat withered away.Buddhism,as he points out has become a connecting thread for the transmission of  Asian values and knowledge.Buddhist monasteries also played a vital role in preserving the cultural ethos of Thailand.

#4. In the Indian context he shared his anxiety and frustration, stating that any talk on the primary cultural identity of India gets branded as saffron and communal without fair and deep dive analysis on the merits. He mentioned about Delhi School of Economics Prof JPS Uberoi who has written about western modernity and is a critic of the limitations and fallacy of the western model  from a western perspective.He also referred to the works of environment activist Mr Claude Alvares and sociologist  Ashish Nandi.

#5. Chandra Kumar Jain, industrialist and active member of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi Alumni Association, pointed out that urbanization was here to stay.The comforts and luxuries which urbanization has brought along with it are the key indicators of progress today.He lamented on why Indian minds could not think of how steam which displaces the lid from a boiling kettle could similarly be used to generate locomotive power.

#6.  Tantric academic Madhu Khanna talked about the 99 herbs/trees used in Durga Puja , and how the Ramayan is a treasure trove of botanical knowledge with mention of plants in Chitrakoot, Ashok Vatika etc. We were surprised to know about a million varieties of rice  in Asia which also act as cross defense  for various bugs and pests. She is the founder-president of the Tantra Foundation which is working in the Burdwan district to create 16 traditional groves.

#7. Prakash Dubey shared an interesting insight  on how the tribals of Bastar wouldn’t eat tomatoes because they thought it contained pouches of blood.He shared an anecdote about how a local administrator made sure that bicycles gifted to school girls weren’t sold off or taken away.To ensure that,he made the girls ride the bicycle one by one and those who couldn’t ride were asked to practice and meet him again after 6months. For them to identify their bicycles he also suggested that they should give them a calling name.

#8. On the whole, Shri Dubey held a healthy skepticism about new experiments and shared how various such experiments have floundered, so he had few words of advice and best wishes for the rubanisation initiative to which he took a fond liking.He also coined a new term for rubanisation in India which would appeal to the masses.Bringing together “DEHAT” (Hindi for rural and countryside) and “SHEHRIKARAN” (Hindi for Urbanization)  he coined “DEHRIKARAN”. Dehri also has an additional meaning of  threshold which he wished that rubanisation should attain in India.

#9. Ram Bahadur Rai emphasized that we should focus on two key areas of funding and policy intervention in the very early stages of the rubanisation journey. This resonates with ad guru and our friendly mentor Shubho Sengupta’s advice to the RIF team on shaping our efforts into a national campaign and as a movement. Rai ji shared anecdotes about how villagers initially rejected tube wells and roads and it took them a good few years to realize how it was useful to them.He also shared about 8 different crops which were sown in rotation on the same field while retaining soil fertility. With changing times there has been much greater awareness about the nutritional value of traditional grains and millets .

 #10. Surya Prakash Loonker was quite excited about the prospects of rubanisation. He however cautioned that this should not end up as another fad but should grow to its full size and becomes a riveting movement.

#11. Shubho Sengupta shared some precious advice for us. ” If you want to build a movement don’t get trapped into old debates on economic and social ideologies.”, he says. He also advised us to steer clear of the East vs. West debate, while pointing out that the Western model did deliver significant benefits till the 1950s.

#12. There will be millions of people, he believes, who will agree to the idea but our challenge is to convert their interest into active participation. Our communication should focus on the sustainability of the movement, strategies and action objectives.

#13. What’s Rubanisation? This was a recurring question as various participants saw it from their own limited and larger perspectives.  If I were to attempt an overall synthesis, Rubanisation is recognition of the multi-dimensionality of how diverse human communities and societies progress and set their own yardsticks with a common denominator of happiness and blissfulness. 

#14. In response to the queries from Shri Dubey on a more precise understanding and objectives of Rubanisation in India, RIF Outreach Director Katyayini Kabir Kakar put it succinctly. Rubanisation, she believes will create counter-magnets of environment-friendly and self-sustaining development in the presently depleted smaller towns and rural areas. This will ease off the migration pressure on the ever expanding cities. Over time, as the population burden on the city reduces, more space can be carved out for the much needed playgrounds for children and youth and green cover and water bodies as lung space and arteries. This will also refurbish the local and peri-urban food growing capacity of our cities but would also generate cooler winds to withstand the double onslaught of global warming and diminishing fuel available for electric air-conditioning. 

References:

i.  http://mechaifoundation.org/school.asp

ii. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yws9eZn9PJU&feature=player_embedded

iii.http://www.globalasia.org/pdf/issue7/v3n3_Soon.pdf

iv.http://site.whenabillionchinesejump.com/ / http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011448.html OR the impact of reckless urbanization
v.http://www.tantrafoundation.org/home.htm

The Mechai Patana School-centred Community Model presentation will be available on demand. Kindly mail to ruban.indiafoundation@gmail.com for your copy along with your brief profile, your interest in Rubanisation and how you may like to contribute. 

Rubanising India – Communication Plan for National Campaign

Message:

RUBANISATION is the counter image of excesses of greedy and reckless urbanization that will restore sanity, order and harmony between people and their habitat.

Supporting Analysis: Why should I listen to you?

What’s missing today :

1. Average health and fitness going down due to frenzied city life and pollution
2. Time for hobbies and passions is limited and of diminishing quality
3. Lack of social harmony and trust leading to distress and high transaction cost
4. Lack of time for upbringing and education for children and youth (including cultural and value education)
5. People spending more time chasing objects than relationships

How will it be in future:

1. Eating local and organic food along with more time for self and relationships keeps us fit
2. People who share hobbies can interact as they pass each other by foot or on bicycle rather than a car better and cohesive group of likeminded people
3. Social and communal harmony needs empathy and sharing of celebrations and good times
4. Better upbringing and care of children at an early stage of their life creates a virtuous cycle creates a healthy relationship between children and parents
5. Investing in social capital makes people truly healthy and wealthy

  Target Audience:

1) Youth

2) Children

3) Women

4) Media- reality show Youth and Ruban

5) Rural opinion leaders and NGOs

Is the city frenzy getting on your nerves and turning you sick and unhealthy?

Don’t get mad (with city life)…get RUBAN!!!

Roadmap/Objectives:

1) First 6 months:  October 2011 to March 2012:

2) Next 6 months:April 2012 to Sept 2012

RUBAN SETTLEMENT PILOT PROJECTS

ü  Uttarakhand land acquisition of 2 acres near Dehradun for a traditional Indian school as the nucleus for a ruban settlement

o    Class 1 to class 5- 30 children in each batch.

o    Residential facilities for children,parents and teachers

ü  Braj triangle-three ruban settlements in each of the three districts in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana

o    Work closely with Braj foundation in creating Ruban settlement and community around it,building upon current projects and relationships with the local community

RUBANISATION NATIONAL CAMPAIGN

ü  For Youth:

o    Start with metro cities. Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata.

                                                               i.      Opportunities to learn and earn: short term projects

                                                             ii.      Youth carnival :zindagi milegi na dobara/rang de basanti

                                                           iii.      Seminars and discussions in colleges and learning centres

ü  For Children:

                                                               i.      Art exhibitions and painting/story and poem writing competitions for different age groups

                                                             ii.      Summer camps and carnivals (family)

ü  For Women:

                                                               i.      Play / TV serials on the Ruban Way of  life

                                                             ii.      Handicraft mela (sunny and meeta)

                                                           iii.      Summer camps and carnivals (family)

ü  For Media:

                                                               i.      TV talk shows

                                                             ii.      Reality TV show- Young and Ruban

                                                           iii.      Panel discussion on key policy issues

Young and Ruban - The NEW Movement That's Going To Sweep You Off Your Feet

“You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.”

- Pearl S. Buck (American author, 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature)

Rubanisation is a conceptual and architectural model developed by Tay Kheng Soon, distinguished architect and thinker. It's borne out of his deep insights into the nature of the beast called Urbanisation.

Mr. Kheng Soon reconceives the current Western Developmental Model and destructive lifestyle of over production and consumption and recounts the horrors that it has unleashed in much of Asia. Without a Rubanisation concept, he believes, the existing non-urban life in Asia is characterized by marginal existence in the form of ribbon settlements that can be found everywhere in Asia along roads leading out of the urban conurbations. These create road congestion and compound marginal living.

A practicing architect he is also an adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore's School of Architecture. He was formerly president of the Singapore Institute of Architects and founding member and Chairman of SPUR, the Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group. A creative, out-of-the-box ideas person, he meticulously sees through to reality via his architectural practice, Akitek Tenggara, which he founded in 1976.

It's a way forward for both urban and rural development that doesn’t see the two as distinct divides but only as degrees of differences in how they reflect the needs and aspirations of people in different areas.

In another way, Rubanisation is also a redressal to the excesses of urbanization as well as a response to the depleted rural areas. It blends and carries forward ideas of PURA (Provision of Urban amenities in Rural Areas) as envisaged by Abul Kalam Azad, former President of India and Mahatma Gandhi’ vision of Gram Swaraj.

Young & Ruban

For some reason, I didn't feel any pain when I was first introduced to the concept of Rubanisation by the master himself, who also helped me think Asia, beyond the artificially contrived boundaries of modern day India. With my own research in development models for integrated transport and land use planning, I had a fair idea that the unabated growth of cities, some gorging into unending megapolis, is counter-productive. Yet, there could be such a simple and elegant solution to this hydra-headed problem skipped my imagination. Rubanisation hit me like an idea that I was long waiting for. All its newness embraced with a warm hug and a smile.

The secret to not feeling the pain, when stuck by this new idea is also an art of how to born again and again every morning. That later.

In the meeting with Mr. Kheng Soon, we struck a chord within a few minutes of our meeting. I followed up studying his architectural renditions of how Ruban settlements would look like and more in the form of a masterly article here. By the end of our meeting, I was quite sure that this is what I was looking for.

The crux of his Rubanisation construct, as I would like to put it, is that however good urbanisation might have been for the west, this is the wrong, dead horse that Asia has been flogging hard, thinking that we were riding it. Rubanisation is the new horse that's lots more likely to take to the right places.

There is a new opportunity, he says, to shift the developmental agenda to include the rural and the urban as a single space — not two spaces, as is now the case. This is the opportune moment for Asia to take center stage in the field of ideas.

Younger and Ruban at heart

Katyayini Kabir Kakar is a fresh engineering graduate who joined in the same organisation, where I met with Mr. Kheng Soon. I hardly knew her. Yet, when I walked upstairs after meeting him in the basement meeting hall, I sent in Katyayini and another colleague as I intuitively felt that if this idea were ever to fly, it needed such young and fresh wings.

She lapped up and within two days, setting aside her career as an engineer, she committed herself to work on promoting and nurturing Rubanisation. She has deep insights into the nature of people and is herself a person of nature. She identifies 3 nodes where the idea of Rubanisation resonates with her as : environment sustainability, cultural preservation and livelihood generation.

With all my other liabilities, I would otherwise be weighed down to start a new venture right away (after about an year long of stuck in the deep political activism as one of the early flag bearers of the anti-corruption movement). As a partner in this new venture with a cherubic smile and a spirit to-die-for, she did fit the bill perfectly to give Ruban India Foundation a rock solid start that it has got.

Within a few days of our setting up, we have got a rich network of patrons and experts in place. Mr. Gokul Patnaik, Chairman - Global Agri Systems has offered us office space in a key location with all the administrative and other support. Mr. JS Rajput, educationist and former Director of NCERT and Mr. Ram Bahadur Rai, eminent journalist and former Editor of Jansatta have been very helpful with their advice.

With Mr. Suresh Chugh as a sponsor with his keen interest in the education and upliftment of the girl child in India, we are scouting for a site in Uttarakhand for a pilot settlement and will be meeting with the Chief Minister in coming weeks. Social media such as Facebook and blogs and our prior networking experience there is helping us reach far and wide. Mr. Arvind Singhal, Chairman - Technopak has expressed his interest to join the Advisory Board from mid of next year.

Yesterday, we had a soulful meeting with Vineet Narain ji, legendary journalist and Founder-Chairman of Braj Foundation. We will soon start working together on Ruban pilots in the Braj Area that spans across three States of modern India; Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, portions of Bharatpur district of Rajasthan and Palwal district of Haryana.

This is just the beginning though. There is a long way ahead...

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have many promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.

Welcome to the Rubanic Era. An idea whose time has finally come...with the stars smiling and the sun rising in the East.

Ruban India Foundation - Concept Note

“Cities are symbols of economic power, the arts, military prowess, politics, civic culture, intellectual ferment, creativity and so on. Moreover, urbanity itself is seen as the up-market styling of manners. And so over the past 500 years, first through the Renaissance and the enlightenment, then through the Industrial Revolution, the ascendance of the West became the very definition of progress and power.

..The drive to catch up with the West propels Asian development. This is also reflected in the global dynamics of style, which are reflected locally as the partially digested styles of the globalized upper-classes. These are emulated by the middle-classes and then downwards until the bottom end of the affordability ladder is reached. And so, similarly, “catch-up nations” emulate the styles of their previous colonizing masters as an international pecking order comes about. Not only is style spread this way, but ideas also." (1)

How well has India been at playing catch-up on the URbanisation game?

With a ‘stark warning’, a recent Mckinsey report (2) suggests that "if India continues with its current unplanned urbanisation, it will result in a significant deterioration in the quality of life in cities and will put even today’s economic growth rate at risk. Statistics show the current performance of Indian cities in water supply quantity, sewage treatment, healthcare and public transport is quite poor."

Without getting into the problems of URbanisation in Asia and in India, as can fill up gigabytes of digital space, the thrust of this note is to emphasise how URbanisation is the wrong horse that Asia and India have hopped on to. RUbanisation is presented, in turn, as the right horse that will propel true and meaningful progress in Asia and in India.

Rubanisation: An Introduction

Rubanisation is an integrated land-use planning model developed by distinguished architect and thinker Tay Kheng Soon (3) - a practicing architect and adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore's School of Architecture. He was formerly president of the Singapore Institute of Architects and founding member and Chairman of SPUR, the Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group. A creative, out-of-the-box ideas person, he meticulously sees through to reality via his architectural practice, Akitek Tenggara, which he founded in 1976.

It's a way forward for both urban andrural development that doesn’t see the two as distinct divides but only as degrees of differences in how they reflect the needs and aspirations of people in different areas.

In another way, Rubanisation is also a redressal to the excesses of urbanization as well as a response to the depleted rural areas. It blends and carries forward ideas of PURA (Provision of Urban amenities in Rural Areas) as envisaged by Abul Kalam Azad, former President of India and Mahatma Gandhi’ vision of Gram Swaraj.

In Rubanisation, a reverse migration back to the village is encouraged and made possible through the availability of viable choice, prior to returning to repair the city devastated by unjust accumulation. Focusing on the problems of existing mega-cities is only a stop-gap solution. The argument is that in the present mode of development, the countryside has been largely neglected as cities become 'the exclusive locus of development,' compelling those in the rural areas to migrate to the city in search of better opportunities.

This has resulted in a massive population explosion in most cities in the developing world, which manifests itself in the growing presence of slums. In the case of developed societies, small towns and villages have been losing population to the lure of the big cities for the excitement that they offer. Rubanisation postulates that unless the problem of rural poverty, which 'still remains the main cause for mass rural-urban migration,' is solved, and people given a real choice in deciding between rural and urban living, the problems of urbanisation remain intractable.

***

As Karl Polanyi explained in 1944: “The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships. He does not act so as to safeguard his individual interest in the possession of material goods; he acts so as to safeguard his social standing, his social claims, his social assets.”

If URbanisation upset the applecart by submerging social relationships in an intricate web of economic expediencies, RUbanisation will help us will help us correct the anomaly and once again establish the primacy of social relationships in the affairs of mankind.

***

Important Notice:

Rubanisation has already been implemented in Lamplaimat in Thailand (4) and in Hue in Vietnam. We are currently working in the mentorship of Mr. Kheng Soon, towards India's pioneering Ruban settlement in the hill districts of Uttaranchal and in parallel in 4 other states. I will be conducting a workshop on Rubanisation in India: Challenges and Opportunities on Saturday 24th of September, 2011 from 1600-1900hrs. at K-13A, Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110016, INDIA.

Participation in the event is BY INVITATION ONLY. However, we shall be reserving a few seats for valuable contributors if you could share a 300 word note on your ideas and how you can contribute.

References:

1. http://globalasia.org/pdf/issue7/v3n3_Soon.pdf

2. http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/reports/freepass_pdfs/india_urbanization/MGI_india_urbanization_fullreport.pdf

3. www.rubanisation.org / http://www.akitektenggara.com/

4. http://www.mechaifoundation.org/school.asp

Steps in Implementing Rubanisation

by Tay Kheng Soon

1. Seldom will there be an empty piece of land to Rubanise. Most likely the land will be alongside a road with houses, shops and little factories strung along the road either tightly packed or spaced out.
2. Land ownership or other forms of entitlement, lease, right of use etc. have to be rationalised. A State level rationalisation of this has to take place.
3. The different tenures have to be integrated into the Ruban plan. This will result in a patchwork of situations. Priority is decided by democratic principle of majority interest; however minority rights have to also be catered for. Local referendum decides this. An overall land entitlement and right of use law has to be clearly resolved at the local level since it cannot be resolved at the remote national level. The principal of direct democracy on land use to guarantee the right of occupation has to be decided locally but backed by a National land code that sanctions it.
4. This is not an abstract issue. Successful examples of mutual benefits shared between land owners and land tenants has first to be demonstrated before there can be successful legislation at the National level. A suitable location has to be found.
5. A Ruban settlement is typically relatively self contained in a 1 km diameter settlement surrounded by vegetable and fruit farms with various crop plantations further away. Every Ruban settlement will be relatively energy autonomous using renewal energy technologies. Water, sewerage and waste recycling are essential components of the Ruban economy. The use of local building materials increases the recycling of capital within the Ruban economy thereby stimulating the evolution of local technology and entrepreneurship. ICT and road linkages allow for development of sustainable eco-regional economies at local levels eventually evolving into larger integrated regional economies.
6. Rubanisation is a reconceptualisation of the current Western Developmental Model and destructive lifestyle of over production and consumption.
7. Without a Rubanisation concept, the existing non-urban life in Asia is characterized by marginal existence in the form of ribbon settlements that can be found everywhere in Asia along roads leading out of the urban conurbations. These create road congestion and compound marginal living.
8. Usually then, the schools and health clinics are somewhat far way from most of the dwellings.
9. The houses and other buildings are usually made of wood and cement blocks with corrugated metal roofs. Drainage is usually poor and stagnant pools of polluted water can be seen everywhere.
10. Waste disposal is poor. Piles of rotting material and piles of polythene bags are everywhere.
11. Latrines are very dirty and smelly. Open defecation is common.
12. Goats, cows, dogs and chickens roam about.
13. Typically the houses are small, about 4m by 5m, with cement or earth floor.
14. One incandescent bulb or a dangling fluorescent light is usual if electricity is available. More often it is an oil lamp.
15. Wood smoke emanating from kitchen fires is common.
16. Small kitchen gardens, herbs, medicinal plants and luck plants can be seen. These grow in tin cans, in the gaps between footpaths and in make shift planters.
17. Further away, there are small farm plots of subsistence and cash crops.
18. Lorries, vans and motor cycles are parked in from of houses and along the roads and lanes causing congestion and exhaust gas pollution.

These are often the conditions that Rubanisation has to address. How to begin?

The Rubanisation of the entire district has to be drawn up and the macroeconomics determined before Rubanisation of any local area is presented to the residents. The logic of Rubanisation has first to be communicated to the residents of the selected first Ruban settlement to be started. Success of the first one is crucial to the overall success.

A Ruban Bank that acts in a low cost manner, serving as the facilitating agency, has to be set up with access to sources of low interest loans from Philanthropic Organisations, CSR sources and Investors who want to do good while sustaining their capital. Interest rates of 1% to 2% with additional rates of returns based on crop sharing arrangement with the Ruban Co-operatives are to be formed.

A full presentation involving the entire community will communicate the advantages, in terms of enhanced livelihood potentials, education for the kids and health facilities to be provided. The logic of the establishment of cooperatives as basis for the local economics has to be shown. A majority of residents must then agree and sign a public contract to form by election a local leadership council to facilitate all the processes in implementing the Rubanisation proposal. A development loan is arranged to facilitate the building of the basic infrastructure. The concept of this is incremental quality to start minimal and to improve as the economics allows in tandem with stages of progress.

1. All resident families have to be accounted for by census survey and establishment of register. Only registered families have priority for resettlement. This is to discourage freeloaders.
2. These are classified in terms of owner occupiers, status of tenure, length of occupation, demographics, occupation, estimated household expenditure, debt obligations, household goods etc.
3. From this data, a financial plan has to be drawn up for each resident.
4. A range of accommodation has to be devised to suit each resident family based on family data and resource capability.
5. The basic principle in the design of the Ruban settlement is spatial efficiency. This means that the dwellings have to be high-density low-rise, interconnected by small pedestrian service lanes but which can be used by bicycles, motor cycles and small service vehicles as well.
6. Children must be able to walk to school. The minimum size of the school should be for 500 kids ranging from preschool, primary and secondary. The type of school must not only teach the basics they must also develop community spirit and develop character.
7. The school should also be a health clinic and microcredit bank. Thus children, parents and teachers are at the heart of the life of the settlement which is based on the Work, Live, learn, Play and Farm principles of the new values embodied in the Rubanisation concept.

Intelligence:

1. The critical factor in sustainability of a society is its continued ability to generate and sustain its institutions and cultures of problem solving.
2. Traditions of problem solving versus traditions against problem solving have to be addressed.
3. The politics of knowledge will emerge from the dynamics of success of the Ruban Council. This is the prime institution that will have earned the prestige in instituting the culture of problem solving. Only then will it have clout to change negative ideas for positive ones. The internet is a prime instrument to be used in this effort.
4. The fostering of direct democracy is another primary institution building challenge of the Ruban Council. Through this politics and evolved culture, the quest for greater and greater synergy in the application of the networks of knowledge will grow.
5. This is still not enough. Knowledge born out of need satisfies current issues but not long term systemic issues. For this, research is necessary. This can only come from collective stimulation among a community of curiosity. This is both place-based but also globalised through the internet. A network University system will link all Ruban settlements.
6. Ruban settlements have also to form local knowledge networks also and integrate these into the Network University. Surpluses from the co-operative makes this possible. The economics of Rubanisation will be efficient in that wastage is eliminated through active local supervision and knowledgeable allocation tempered by the free market. The eco-regional market economy ensures accurate pricing and allocation.