Ditimoni Gogol

The Sarania hill located in Dakshin Sarania of Guwahati city away from the hullabaloo of the city life by virtue of its location amidst the enchanting beauty of the and the spectacular greenery of Gandhi Mandap gives a feeling of tranquility to the visitor visiting Sarania Ashram at Ashram Road of Guwahati. Sarania Ashram is indeed a name which needs no introduction-it is the name of the Assam Branch of the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust.

The Kasturba Gandhi Memorial Trust established in 1946, before Indian Independence celebrated its 60th year of existence. The trust was registered on April 7, 1945 and on November 22, 2004 entered in its 60th year. The 60-year-celebration came to an end on April 7, 2006. Established on Gandhian idealism the Trust, for the last 60 years, has been fighting for the cause of peace, nurturing mothers and children, spreading education, restoring modesty of woman-folk and paying efforts to develop the rural economy by producing khadi clothes and spreading small-scale industries.

Kusum Bora Mukasi, pratinidhi of Assam branch says that mainly three aspects viz restoration of peace and harmony, transparency and restoring modesty of women have been the focus of their activities as part of completion of 60 years of also says that restoration of peace and modesty of women is the as Assam along with other North-Eastern states are going through a restoring peace and harmony, while torture upon women is increasing day by day which affects in restoring the social values.

The condition of women I think is deteriorating day by day”, says Preetikona Das, ex-principal of Kasturba Gram Sevika Vidyalaya who retired in 1993. She adds, “The pages of newspapers are packed with earth-shattering news of crimes against women. We never experienced such days when we were young.” She says, “We are hopeful that we will be able to establish a society free from ills, and we have to work unitedly to restore the social values, especially mothers of our society have a lot of responsibility. Spiritual education is also the need of the hour.” Damayanti Devi, organizer of the Trust also expressed hope of becoming successful in their mission. She stressed on the need of restoring modesty of women and developing rural economy to provide employment to the rural folk.

Gram Swaraj is another aim the trust has been nurturing from the very beginning. It has been paying more stress on developing rural economy. They are .imparting their service towards the ruralareas through 20 Gram Seva Kendras in the entire North-East viz. in Arunachal Pradesh, Megnalaya (Jayantia hills, Khasi hills, Garo hills), Indo-Bhutan border, Indo-Bangladesh border, Harchura. Doimukhia, Teok, Dikam and Doomdooma. The trust believes that the development of the rural economy will provide more employment opportunities to the youths.

During the last 60 years, more than 2500 woman have undergone training in woman welfare, pre-primary education, adult education, health and hygiene, cottage industries, cotton spinning, weaving, tailoring, bee-keeping, farming and smokeless chulha. They had also conducted training camps to make soap with assistance of Rupees two lakh from North Eastern Council (NEC) recently.

The trust has been always among the people who faced huge devastation in the natural calamities. During the devastating earthquake of 1950, the Trust carried out relief measures under the guidance of Amol Prova Das. In 1954, erosion hit the Palasbari area and endangered the life of the denizens where the Trust imparted relief measures with painstaking efforts. In the same year, the Trust served more than two thousand flood victims in Jorhat district. Whether it is the natural calamity or the communal clash, war or famine, the Kasturba Trust is the first to reach among the strife-torn people. The Trust among other activities works hard to restore peace in the region where extremist groups are active. To keep vigil on various activities which cause instability,         it trains up a group of men and women whom they call Santi Sena   for restoring peace. The Santi Sena renders mental support, promotes the cause of peace, organize meetings and garners support for the victims. They also take action during any peace-breaking incident that takes place within the dimension of five kilometers from their living area. As part of their peacekeeping     activities, the Trust organized a peace march in Guwahati in 2002 after the Godhra incident to ensure peace and harmony.        |

Along with other activities, the Trust is also rendering various services towards the tea garden workers of the State. In 1951, late Omeo Kumar Das, ex minister of Assam Government greatly     inspired with the welfare activities of the Trust broached the idea that the Trust should broaden its activities to the tea garden areas. Accordingly, the Trust prepared a scheme and started working towards these people. With this, the Daimukhia, Dikom; Teok and Harchura.

Centres of the Trust started labour welfare centres and also took up schemes to build their houses. Since then the Trust is imparting service towards the labourers.

To inculcate self-reliance, the Trust imparts training in cottage industry skills. Under Gram Swaraj mantra, youths are imparted training of agriculture, pisciculture and poultry. Besides         all these, training is provided on mushroom cultivation with of SIRD. The Dikom Kasturba Labour Welfare Centre has also organized jute projects for local women and 30 women were imparted training in fabric painting in collaboration with Nehru Yuba Kendra. The gram seva Kendras render their service accordingly to uplift their economic status as well as to meet the need of the people of the region. For instance, the Gram Seva Kendra at Lakhimpur district implement their work­force in paddy cultivation as the region is congenial for its cultivation while the kendras at  the various hilly regions of Meghalaya are doing large-scale potato cultivation.

With financial grants from the Assam Science Society, the Trust had organized various environmental awareness camps in different parts of the state. The Trust has put in its untiring efforts to create awareness among people about the need of conserving natural resources. They also conduct plantation drives in various health awareness camps in different parts of the state from time to time. Besides organizing various health awareness camps in different parts of the state, the Trust also conducted AIDS awareness camps in collaboration with Assam AIDS Control Society. The Trust runs a pre-primary school in its campus at Sarania Hill. Also, in every Gram Seva Kendra there is one pre-primary school, and a full-fledged primary school at Lakhimpur district.

Two representatives’ meets and two trustee meets are held every year in the central office of the Trust at Indore in Madhya Pradesh. The representatives and trustees from the states participate in such meetings. In 1992, the executive meeting of All India Kasturba Trust was held at the Assam Branch. The Trust also launched a yearlong Gram Sevika training programme in 1999 with financial assistance. Among other activities the Trust had also been engaged in Bhoodan,   Gramdan-Gram Swaraj movement among others. Various organizations and institutions are helping the Trust financially from time to time. Every month they get financial aid from their central branch at Madhya Pradesh. But the love and care from the masses and financial grant from the organizations help the Trust a lot in taking up various other activities. In 1944, Kasturba Gandhi died under detention in Pune’s Aga Khan Palace. In Gandhiji’s words, “Kasturba was a simple illiterate village girl.” After her death leaders like Madan Mohan Malavya, Thakkar Bapa thought about a plan to commemorate the life of the rare individual and started a drive to collect funds and they also formed a Trust Board.

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