Mumbai: While many view the controversial AI data centre site in Maharashtra as a neo-colonial intrusion that will deplete the land, just 100 km away lies its antithesis–a 14 acre serene green campus that nurtures a Gandhian model of sustainable rural development. The Yusuf Meherally Centre, named after Mumbai’s youngest mayor, is hosting its first ‘Festival of Alternatives’ that seeks to bring together nature lovers, students, social entrepreneurs and anyone drawn to the idea that relentless consumption may not be the only—or even the most rewarding—measure of progress.
The festival marks the first death anniversary of the Centre’s Gandhian founder, Dr G G Parikh, who passed away peacefully at 101 years, miraculously on his mentor’s birthday, Oct 2. When Dr Parikh started the Centre in 1961, in the largely tribal area of Tara, Panvel, he sought to promote sustainable living, communal harmony, and ideas that nourished simple living, high thinking. He was advised by the then Vice President Zakir Hussain to name the Centre after Yusuf Meherally, who served as mayor of Mumbai in 1942. A girls’ hostel (with 117 students) has contributed to raising the marriage age of tribal girls in surrounding villages. Yusuf Meherally was born in Bombay in 1903, studied at the Bharda High School and at Elphinstone College, where he acquired a formidable reputation as a debater, according to historian Ramachandra Guha. He was elected mayor of Bombay in 1942.
Because he became active in the freedom struggle, especially in the protests against the all-White Simon Commission in 1928, he had a law degree, but was denied a licence to practise.
Says Guha, “Meherally’s lifelong quest for mitigating human suffering went alongside a keen interest in art and literature, as well as a precocious environmentalism.” Over the years, the Centre developed various arms. Forty years ago, Dr Parikh’s late wife and fellow socialist Mangalaben Parikh envisaged a school for village children in the style of Shantiniketan, where she had studied. Classes take place inside Mangalore-tiled villas replicating the charm of Gandhian architect Lauri Baker — a stark contrast from the block-ish and often crumbling school buildings in rural tribal villages that have currently been brought to the nation’s attention. A primary healthcare centre features visiting doctors from neighbouring medical colleges and specialists from Mumbai; and a skill centre trains youth in plumbing, fashion design, electrical work, basic and advanced computer training. His participation in the Salt Satyagraha landed him in jail. Folklore has it that Meherally came up with the slogan ‘Quit India’. He did indeed come up with that other resonant slogan, ‘Simon Go Back!