History and Ecological Problems of The Tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Isles The Great Andamanese: Their total population is only 28 souls. They have been settled on a small island called Strait island (off the eastern coast of South and Middle Andaman islands) since 1970. The settlement was built by the A&N administration. and is being maintained at government cost. Each small family has a wooden house and they get monthly their requirements of food, a cash allowance plus other periodical needs. Those members who work in specific jobs (like those of teacher, medical assistant, plantation worker) are paid for their work. The leader of the group gets an extra cash allowance. The government also meets the entire expenditure on their medical care, including special treatment in mainland hospitals. A plantation has also been established in Strait island. Efforts at having a piggery have not been very successful. The social worker who stays there permanently is required to take general care of the people and the settlement. Also the idea was to encourage the Great Andamanese to do useful work for their own benefit instead of idling away their time. Besides, the habits of opium addiction and drunkenness are discouraged and medically treated wherever necessary. It was also hoped that over a period the members of the community would develop a sense of belonging and greater social cohesion. This has happened, but to a partial degree. One has to remember, of course, that the present community has come into being by bringing together the surviving members of the disorganised original ten Great Andamanese tribes. These tribes had ceased to be viable communities due to the trauma of demographic destruction caused mainly by new diseases and the upheavals resulting from their uprooting by the British administration. In the last two decades opium addiction has been controlled to a large extent but drunkenness remains a problem not yet solved. Attention is also being paid to the serious question of outside people trying to exploit the tribals. Their young women have been physically exploited or have willingly developed liaisons with outside people, which has even led to the birth of children. There is also a case of a non-tribal woman marrying an Andamanese man and bearing him a child. The couple are now separated. But this woman’s sister is in love with another young Andamanese man and wants to marry him. All told, the 28 members of the Great Andamanese community have been pulled out of an abyss into which they had been driven due to total neglect by all concerned and their own loss of nerve and social will due to overwhelming destructive factors beyond their control. But for the intervention of anthropologists and the A&N administration since 1968, there would have been only a small fraction of this population living today, or they might have disappeared altogether. The Onge: Friendly contact with the Onge was made in 1885 (110 years ago). But prior to that there had been several violent and hostile encounters with British ships and their crews. Sometimes the latter got killed and on other occasions the Onge had to retreat, leaving heavy casualties. The population on the island of Little Andaman and the nearby smaller islands could have been around 1,000 in the mid-nineteenth century. But by 1931 the estimates had come down to 250, in 1951 it was 150 and in 1961 the census head count was 129. In the 1971 census they were 112, in 1980 they were 97, and today they are 98. The Onge were left more or less alone by the British administration except for occasional visits by the administrators and occasional visits by Onge groups to Port Blair (quite often in their own canoes). This situation continued till the late 1960s. In 1953 a coconut plantation was built by the Agricultural Department at the Dugang Creek Onge settlement, though coconut is not a traditional food item of the Onge or other Andaman tribes. In 1967 a big change occurred when the island of Little Andaman was opened for resettlement of outside people and with the starting of a red oil palm plantation by the Forest Development Corporation. Today the Onge share the island with several thousand settlers in several big villages. These include the Nicobarese (near the South Bay Onge settlement) and Bengali and South Indian migrants. A big jetty and breakwater have been built near Hut Bay (once an Onge settlement area). This has been a major new development, as for the first time the Onge have had to live face to face in their once exclusive habitat with an alien population (3000 or so) which is 30 times their own number and likely to increase. During the 1970s and 1980s the two major Onge settlements were redesigned with new huts of an altogether new design being built, with consequences which have not been too happy. This has gone on with parallel efforts to sedentarise them to enable the official agencies to take welfare aid to them more easily. A social worker, a doctor and a nurse, a plantation worker, etc., have been posted there. A teacher was also there for several years, but this did not lead to any literacy among them. Among the Great Andamanese only some adults and children can read and write a little Hindi. Several health surveys were done among the Onge, starting with an ICMR team which visited them in March 1969. Health records are brought to Port Blair whenever required or possible. But this kind of help during the last 20 years has not helped check the decline in their population, though it has remained steady at the level of about 97 to 49. The closer contact with the settlers and the supply of rice, flour, etc., has led to a change in food habits. Tea and tobacco they had taken to since British days, but now they eat and cook like other Indians, using salt, sugar, oil and condiments and similar cooking techniques (as against the traditional boiling and roasting methods). Some Onge speak Hindi quite well. They have access to money paid as wages for work done in various welfare projects in their own community, some of which seem hardly relevant to their urgent daily or long-term needs (e.g. collecting resin for the contractor, working in their gardens under supervision, working on the electric generator, etc.) as per their own perceptions. The Onge life-style has undergone certain important changes but these have not necessarily or always improved the quality of their life. It has actually led to a certain confusion in their minds regarding the direction of their own life, as they are unable to take their own decisions about what and how to do whatever they may like to do. Most of the time decisions, however good they may be (but that is not the case always), are imposed on them. Because of demographic problems some boys and men are unable to have marriage mates. Further, the ill effects of the inbreeding of a small population of less than 100 are not yet visible, but sooner or later they will appear. However, socially the Onge society is still viable and well-knit in spite of the changes that have taken place during the twentieth century. There is hope yet that it will be able to cope with the unwise and presumptuous interference with its functioning. The Jarawa: During the nineteenth century, while the British succeeded in bringing around the ten Great Andamanese after several years’ efforts (involving the use of force and blandishment), the eleventh tribe in the Great Andaman area (South Andaman to be precise) continued to remain highly suspicious of the settlement and the settlers. They were what are known as the Jarawa. There were numerous hostile contacts and encounters with them during the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. In fact during the 1920s and 1930s the British were obliged to send many armed punitive expeditions to the Jarawa areas in the deep forests on the western coast of South Andaman. The Jarawa themselves found it expedient to spread out to the western coast of Middle Andaman under these pressures. A special Bush police force was also created to deal with the Jarawa. After 1947 this policy underwent a basic change as the new Indian government, influenced by Nehru’s philosophy, (Pandit 1989:83-92) did not subscribe to the principle of punitive expeditions against tribes except under conditions of overt and conscious violent political rebellions against the legally established government. The situation here is altogether different, as the Jarawa are still not consciously aware of being citizens of the Indian Republic. However various ‘Jarawa incidents’ continued from the 1950s to the 1970s, and they occur even today though to a much lesser extent. These incidents are mostly caused by the fact that the Jarawa feel disturbed by movements and certain activities of outside people in their territory and wish to discourage these by attacking the ‘culprits’ if very much provoked. Since 1968 much thought has been given to this matter by anthropologists and the A&N administration and certain useful measures have been taken to remove prejudice on either side. In early 1974 we succeeded in establishing friendly contact with the Jarawa in Middle Andaman. The author was among the first people and the first anthropologist to spend some time with the Jarawa in their own settlement. Since then (over 21 years) many visits have been paid to the Jarawa by official contact parties and friendship has been extended to various groups in South Andaman as well. These visits are made about once a month. Being under considerable pressure from politically vocal sections of the people, the A&N administration appointed an Expert Committee under Dr S.C. Sinha (anthropologist) to make recommendations regarding the extension of the Andaman Trunk Road alongside Jarawa territory in the South and Middle Andaman. The committee gave conditional approval for constructing the road. But while the road has been made the conditions important for safeguarding Jarawa interests remain mostly unfulfilled due to difficulties faced by the administration and lack of will. This road remains a big hazard for the survival of the Jarawa. Their population of about 200 has an area of 600 sq km of reserved forest and tribal area. But they are surrounded by more than 105,000 (1981 census figures) settlers. Their territory could be overrun in the coming decades unless very sensible and effective measures are taken to avoid such an eventuality. The Sentinelese: They are estimated to be about 80 to 100 and are the sole inhabitants of North Sentinel island (area about 50 sq km). They are the most isolated of all the tribal communities in India and perhaps in the world. Except for occasional visits by official parties since the British days (and perhaps poachers) nobody goes there nobody else lives there. Because of the sea, where they can get turtles and a whole variety of fish and molluscs as food, they can live comfortably even as hunter-gatherers (Pandit 1990). However, their suspicion of outsiders did not encourage them till January 1991 to have any face-to-face or handshaking contacts with us. But they do not mind gifts of coconuts, bananas, some simple iron implements or iron pieces. They let us put these things ashore while they watch from a distance. What they do not like they throw into the sea. They also come out in their dugout canoes to pick up coconuts thrown into the sea close to the beach. Since January-February 1991 the Sentinelese have relented and have had closer and more friendly contacts with us. It was then that they accepted gifts of coconuts, bananas, etc., from the hands of the members of the gift party (Pandit 1989: 92). A number of visits have been paid since and lots of gifts have been passed on to them. It is our observation and opinion that the Sentinelese population appears to have reduced since 1974, when many more people were encountered on the shore and even photographed. The situation cannot be corrected by any means at our disposal. In any case the administration does not seem to have much idea about what might be done next. There are cases of the Jarawa and the Onge with whom friendly contacts were made in 1974 and 1885 respectively. Where have we come since then? The Shompen: Contact of the Shompen with the outside world, directly and through the coastal Nicobarese of Great Nicobar, has existed since the early nineteenth century. It has become closer since the first half of the twentieth century. One saving grace for the Shompen has been the vast forest area that has been at their disposal. In the late 1960s and 1970s it was decided to open the Great Nicobar island for development and rehabilitation of ex-servicemen. Circular and diagonal roads were built to join the east and west coasts in the southern part of the island (403 sq miles in area). This causes very serious disturbances for the Shompen. It also seems that probably disease and intra-group hostilities among the Shompen had earlier caused the dwindling of their population. Their camps are very small and scattered over vast areas. Hence any welfare measures are difficult to take to them. In 1983-84 a Shompen complex was built to attract them so that medical aid, food supplies and some elementary educational facilities could be extended to them through a social worker and medical staff. Besides, on many occasions clothes, utensils, rice, etc., have been distributed among them. But the Shompen complex has not proved as efficacious as was expected in the absence of truly dedicated social workers and proper supervision. The welfare programme remains mostly on paper. Welfare and Development Work on the measures described is governed on these islands by popular notions of their meaning. The ultimate objective is understood to be to bring such communities into the ‘mainstream’ as they can find meaning only in merging with it. In the popular mind this means the broad merging of cultural and social identities of the smaller or weaker communities with that of the dominant culture, society or people. Quite often it starts with copying the use of externals, material objects such as clothes, domestic articles, food materials and the visible life-style. Learning of the dominant language helps greatly in achieving the goal set by the dominant people. They are satisfied if this process is effected, but neither they nor the official agencies show any sensitivity to the thought processes, the mental tensions, the humiliations and the deprivations that a relatively small ‘primitive’ community might undergo in the process. There are also the popular but very subjective and unscientific notions of what is ‘civilised’. Joining the mainstream also means that the smaller community is hopeful of getting the benefits of modern science and civilisation. In actual practice this may not happen. By these ideas the down-and-out Great Andamanese could qualify as a more civilised mainstream community, but the Jarawa would not. Left to themselves, the Jarawa life-style is qualitatively far superior to that of the Great Andamanese and the Onge. What a travesty of perceptions! Anthropologists (like some environmentalists) have often been blamed for advocating ‘protectionist’, ‘human zoo’ concepts for tribals. There is no doubt that the five small tribes of the A&N islands are among the beleaguered human communities. They need to be protected and looked after by responsible official agencies under proper scientific supervision and guidance so that they not only survive but live as self-respecting communities. Also, they must not be hustled into getting hopelessly embroiled in the ‘mainstream’ conceptual monstrosity. They have to change, but the change must not be forced and thoughtlessly harsh in its implications or its speed nor entirely imposed by half-baked social workers or ignorant and unsympathetic administrators or politicians voicing the concerns and extreme selfishness of the dominant groups. In 1986 the Government of India appointed a high-powered committee of experts to recommend special measures for these small tribes. The committee, headed by Dr S.C. Sinha, met several times, visited these tribes and made several recommendations to prepare them for change while giving them sufficient time. The idea was to appoint a team of well-chosen specialists which would actually involve itself in researching, planning and monitoring all new measures involving the people at all stages and treating their values, views and opinion with respect so that highly sensitive programmes could be evolved and implemented over a period of 10 or 15 years. But these recommendation are now in cold storage both at Port Blair and in New Delhi. And we are back at square one! Herders and Horticulturists The Nicobarese have followed their traditional occupations of keeping large herds of pigs and cultivating large plantations of coconut, areca nut, yams, bananas, pandanus, etc. The pigs are reared with loving care and piglets are paid special attention till they grow strong enough to take care of themselves. And adult pig, besides its normal food, may be given 5 or 6 fresh coconuts a day. The Nicobarese live in settled villages, mostly near the coast. The plantations are grown not far from their homesteads. In fact the impression one gets in Nicobar is that houses are built amidst coconut groves. Coconut trees and fruit are of great economic importance. The nut is eaten, its water drunk, its oil used for cooking, etc. The tree is used for the construction of houses, its branches as fuel and leaves for sundry purposes. The pandanus fruit and yams are important sources of food. Fishing is a most enjoyable activity and is carried out by day and by night using various techniques. The daily catch is an important source of protein. These days the Nicobarese keep some poultry also. While the coastal areas are used for settlement and plantations, the core areas of the islands are maintained as forest land. Here pigs are taken for pasturing and to provide shady areas for rest. The forest area also provides privacy and for romantic interludes to young boys and girls. The forest serves many other needs also in day-to-day life. The Nicobarese are seafaring people and have been travelling from one island to another in their dugout canoes for barter, trade and social visits. The Nicobarese keep their own calendar by reading the movements of the moon, the stars and the sun. They also have deep faith in various kinds of benign and evil spirits and the souls of dead ancestors. All these have to be propitiated periodically according to customary rites, rituals and sacrifices. Pigs are eaten mainly on festive occasions. Their herds are not looked upon primarily as a source of food but as wealth bringing prestige, as precious items of barter, as symbols of general well-being and celebration of life. The blood of a pig is also a medicine and is rubbed on the body to relieve pain. The Nicobarese enjoy sports like canoe racing and man-pig wrestling, and are very fond of dancing and singing. The coconut tree also provides them with freshly brewed toddy, which is a very popular drink among them. Grated coconut provides coconut milk in which rice is cooked. It is a delicacy. There is no provision for individual and private ownership of land among them. All land belongs to the kin group and the produce is shared among the members. Each kin group has a head and the village has a council and head (also called captain). There is also an island council and chief captain on each island. Until 1945 the Nicobarese followed their own traditional religion and customs. But from then onwards there have been large-scale conversions to Christianity mainly through the efforts of their own Bishop Richardson, a resident and early convert to this faith in Car Nicobar. The entry of traders and the growth of the cooperative movement under government patronage has helped the Nicobarese to sell their surplus produce of coconut and arecanut. The traders also introduced new consumer items of all kinds. This has led to some degree of consumerism. Over the decades this has also helped develop, in the midst of a traditional egalitarian economic system, an incipient class system. Some Nicobarese have acquired a lot of wealth in money terms, which has given them access to new goods and services. These have become the new symbols of status and social prestige. There are others who can only watch and envy. However, even today no member of Nicobarese society can die of starvation. The community takes care of all those who are unable to take care of themselves for reasons of health, physical disability or lack of work. As per the 1981 census the literacy rate among the Nicobarese was about 31 per cent. In 1992 it was reported to have risen to 39 per cent (informal sources). The people are making fair use of the facilities provided by the government. Quite a few boys and girls have passed out from secondary and senior secondary schools or acquired university degrees in arts, sciences, medicine and engineering. Nicobarese youth have thus been able to occupy white-collar and technical posts, including the administrative services, to some extent. This trend will continue and more and more Nicobarese are likely to move away from their traditional moorings in terms of occupation. But as yet there are no signs of any serious conflict within their society between ordinary people and ‘modernists’. The church and the adaptive processes within their cultural tradition are helping to mediate the situation of potential conflict! Agriculturists Agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing and a whole lot of sundry urban-oriented trades and occupations are followed by the settlers from mainland India who were brought here by the British (1858-1945) and later under various schemes of the Government of India. But hundreds and thousands have been coming here on their own, especially from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Bengal, Bihar, etc. This composite group goes in for jobs of all kinds both in the public and private sectors. These include thousands of jobs provided by various state and central government departments and related institutions. In 1961 their population was about 45,000 but in 1991 they numbered about 250,000, which is an almost sixfold increase in three decades. The bulk of this population lives in the Andaman islands and some in the Nicobars. The ecological conditions of the Bay islands are rather fragile. The topography is uneven and hilly and the soil rocky and porous with a very thin topsoil. The heavy rains that two monsoons bring simply flow down to the sea. The soil has little capacity for retaining water. In cleared spaces thousands of tons of topsoil are washed down to the sea every year. Only in two islands, North Andaman and Great Nicobar, are there perennial sources of sweet water in the shape of big streams. All over the settlement areas there is a terrible shortage of drinking water and water for daily needs and agricultural purposes. The only saving grace is that large areas are still covered by forest and vegetation. But it is not so in the large settlement areas, where there are constant demands on forest resources. With the influx of increasing numbers of people from the mainland there are heavy encroachments on forest land and a demand for other natural resources. Because of this, and in absence of effective regulatory and corrective measures, even the vast mangrove forests and coral reefs are getting damaged. This demographically, socially, politically and economically dominant population is all-pervasive in its hunger for resources, without a thought for the immediate or distant future. The people who have come here to settle either as individuals or as fragmentary groups are culturally uprooted entities. Hence their minds, their psyches and their cultural visions and world-views remain mutilated and blind. Their experience and wisdom made sense in their native environment. Here they do not recognise even by name most of the fauna and flora. There is no idea nor any anxiety on their part to relate in any significant way to the local environment. There is, therefore, no sense of restraint or doubt in their interaction with it. The outlook is: take what you need or want and do not worry unduly about anything that comes in the way, including human beings such as the indigenous tribal populations. Ecology is becoming a more and more important subject today because it scientifically studies the relation of nature and living organisms with each other as well as with their surroundings. Further, this subject investigates the unique interactions in our environment. Compared with the past it is becoming a subject much referred to due to the destruction of the natural resource base through deforestation, destroying fauna and flora, and disturbing the natural environment for various development activities. Air pollution has an adverse effect on the ozone layer. These factors need very serious attention today. If not solved they may lead us towards various unending questions. Will man senselessly destroy the ecosystems that support life on this planet? Will he be able to maintain a sustainable earth and eventually build a new humanity? The Sarvodaya model of ‘Moral education for environmental protection’ is based on traditional Asian cultural values and differs from isolated, unilineal, material-oriented development models. It is unique, since it is developed through people-centred activities and for people-centred activities. Thus this model is directly associated with both an individual morality and a social morality within the central value system of society. It is imperative that the development process in a community is compatible with its environment as well as with the particular culture of that community. Human beings define their natural environment in terms of its own endowments and natural resources, and in accordance with their perceptions and interrelationships. This pattern suggests that man is a cultural animal. This research covers activities in more than 5,000 villages (out of 25,000 villages in Sri Lanka) where the Sarvodaya model has been applied to achieve environmental protection through moral education. Sarvodaya is defined as the awakening or liberation of one and all, and it follows the Gandhian concept of human advancement. The pioneer of the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka is Dr A.T. Ariyarathna. He says that the Sanskrit word ‘sarva’ means all-embracing, integrating everything pertaining to man, society and nature. ‘Vdaya’ means awakening, unfolding or well-being. Thus the literal meaning of ‘Sarvodaya’ is the awakening of one and all in the society in every respect. Mahatma Gandhi had coined the two words to signify the kind of society he desired for Independent India. The Sri Lankan Sarvodaya movement was inspired and strengthened by Gandhian thoughts as well as the teachings of Lord Buddha. In the Sarvodaya movement moral education is totally focused on individuals’ personality development to ultimate accomplish universal personality development. It is not merely an ideological model. It is certainly pragmatic in addition to being a practical model applicable through village-level educational programmes. Individual Morality, Social Morality and Culture In Sri Lanka society the majority (70 per cent) are Buddhists and their central value system comprises Buddhist values, norms, beliefs and morals. This value system and its chain of thought can be represented through appropriate codes of conduct. Foreign invasions and colonial occupation and accompanying influences had a negative impact and paved the way for the various conflicts, deviations and undesirable consequences that exist at present. Even in this disturbed and unsettled situation, Sarvodaya forges ahead, its moral education system expecting to achieve a society governed by Buddhist ethics. Buddhism and the Central Value System This doctrine is in perfect harmony with the Buddhist central value system. Prince Siddhartha (later Lord Buddha) was born under a sal tree in full bloom; he attained enlightenment under a Bo-tree and his parinibbana took place in a grove of sal trees in full bloom. This suggests that even the supreme events take place in a natural setting. Furthermore, Lord Buddha had once said: A tree is unique. It has unlimited tolerance, patience, and generosity. It provides a congenial atmosphere for many living organisms to survive. It also keeps on providing shade (as long as it stands) even to the man who attempts to destroy the tree with his axe. This statement signifies the paramount importance and value of trees, and the environment so necessary to sustain life including that of man. The trees and nature assume so great an importance that even the noblest had illustrated their value. Lord Buddha has stated that man possesses nama, rupa (form and mind), energy and a consciousness unified within a physical and social environment. Although one physical object of the external world stimulates his senses and generates mental activity and provides motivation to his behaviour, it does not necessarily determine his behaviour. A person has an element of freedom or sense of choice that can be exercised with understanding. Furthermore, from a careful study of Lord Buddha’s concept of ‘Sath Sathi’ (seven weeks) it is evident that he spent the fifth week after enlightenment under a tree with the snake Muchalinda. To visualise a tree, a snake and a human being at the same location is imagining a mutual or reciprocal relationship. The relationship between man, tree and animal is an interesting link between nature and culture. Therefore we can assume that in Sri Lankan society, environmental protection is a part of the central value system of the culture. Almost all Buddhists in Sri Lanka after religious observances in the morning and before going to bed recite an interesting poem. This poem amply illustrates a Buddhist’s value system in relation to his environment and its components. All living entities on this world and above it (meaning the earth and space above) such as humans, non-humans, who live far and near, ants, animals, trees, acquaintances, friends, teachers, kinsman and parents should receive these merits that I offer. This discloses the moral values related to Sri Lankan Buddhist culture and also the relationship between man and the environment. A Sarvodaya member pledges to maintain this close and friendly relationship with nature and also recognises the hierarchical social order to be observed. Moral Education Programme and Environment Protection Systems The Sarvodaya moral education programme has five steps: (i) Pre-school group (ii) Children’s group (iii) Youth group (iv) Mothers’ group (v) Farmers’ group PRE-SCHOOL GROUP These children may belong to different socio-economic strata but come together during the first stage of the socialisation process. The rural Sarvodaya centres try to care for these children and duly consider their nutritional state, health, education and mental well-being as well as sociability. The children have opportunities to recognise and perceive the relationship among them and between them and the environment and culture. This is achieved through structured fancy stories, legends, small dramas and other activities. They observe the streams, sky, soil, trees, sun, moon and the clouds. Their nutrition is met by a meal of porridge prepared by village mothers and the pre-school teacher using nutritious green leaves gathered from the neighbourhood. The children are assisted in personality development and in becoming environment conscious. The programme may differ from one region to another due to ecological variations. CHILDREN'S GROUP Members of these groups are schooling children receiving formal education. They initiate and engage in tree planting, maintaining small home gardens, soil conservation, prevention of water pollution, repair of small irrigation systems and group savings. They are encouraged to interact with other groups (youth, mothers’ and farmers’). Sometimes they join or organise shramadana activities. These enhance their environmental awareness. They are trained to acquire practical skills, the development of organizations, and to participate in community development programmes. Sarvodaya headquarters assist such efforts. They are encouraged to engage in self-help activities and group activities depending on the circumstances. YOUTH GROUP This group is relatively mature, knowledgeable and responsible. It may be more active in environment protection than previously mentioned groups. The majority of the group members have either completed their formal education (G.C.E. ordinary level), or they may integrate school subjects with Sarvodaya cultural value-related environmental protection programmes. Some of their activities may include collecting planting materials, tree planting, participatory environmental protection programmes, etc. Some of them may receive organic farming training at the Tanamalvila Centre. There they learn natural pest control methods, ecological farming techniques, sustainable farming technology, reforestation and watersheds management, etc. MOTHERS' GROUP At the village level the mothers’ groups are dynamic and the most powerful of all Sarvodaya groups. They are trained in child care, tree planting, moral and spiritual development, family nutrition, home economics, home crafts, sustainable farming practices, post-harvest technology of food commodities, natural resource management, etc. Such training helps them to integrate newly gained knowledge with traditional knowledge and pass on their experiences to their children. They also undertake religious programmes and attend ritual functions. Usually mothers’ groups actively engage in running the pre-school groups. The children’s socialisation and health problems are looked after. Mothers’ groups often maintain a garden to provide raw material to produce porridge for pre-school children. FARMERS' GROUP The elders of the village are in these groups. They organise all Sarvodaya activities in the village and are active members of the shramadana society. They enhance cooperation, unity, freedom and are interested in the prosperity and socio-cultural identity of the village. They assist youth groups and act to satisfy the basic needs of the community, including environmental conservation, water supply, food production, housing, health, communication, energy, education and the satisfaction of the spirituals needs of their members. Group Formation, Moral Education and Environment Protection These five groups meet separately as well as collectively according to the needs of their own villages. Their collective group formation can be introduced as a pawul hamuwa (family gathering). It includes all the five groups meeting at the village Sarvodaya centre daily and weekly depending on necessity. Among their activities, moral education and unity maintenance are considered main subjects. This process can be described as a secondary level socialisation. At the pawul hamuwa, after normal practices in the schedule, meditation is a major item. In the educational process at every meeting discussions involve talk of the central value system, plays and other items. Among these speeches one will be on environmental protection. It is used to emphasise the main responsibilities of the younger generation in our society. Among pawul hamuwa speeches the researcher has observed the following topics: • Traditional medical treatment and environmental protection. • Chakkawarthi Seehanada Sutta and environment. • Traditional indicator plants in the environment. • Traditional post-harvest methods. • Natural pest control methods that ensure harmless control over the environment. In addition to delivering these speeches they perform traditional drama in modified forms. All these forms of education provide necessary moral discipline to the members. At the end of the pawul hamuwa sessions they give merit to the environment and leave the place. Practical Side of the Environmental Protection Mechanism in the Sarvodaya Model The Sarvodaya development model is totally compatible with the balanced development of society and the environment. On the one hand it is related to sustainable development and on the other it is associated with the development of the human mind or moral development. Particularly four positive Buddhist virtues of loving kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (muditha), and equanimity (upekkha) are stressed. They analyse not only human resources but also non-human resources that can be influenced by the four positive virtues. The Sarvodaya model precisely and certainly emphasises balanced sustainable agriculture based on eco-friendly farming practices; further, it promotes practices conducive to sustainable natural resource management. The following case studies depict the nature and effectiveness of the Sarvodaya model in the Sri Lankan context. CASE STUDY 1 MORAL EDUCATION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: THE PRE-SCHOOL GROUP (SINGITHI HAWULA, 0-6 YEARS) All Sarvodaya villages have a singithi hawula, which is a primary moral education group of children up to 6 years of age. The main purpose of this gathering is to enable children to acquire awareness about self-protection, self-confidence and self-reliance. Normally they are the pre-school children in the village. The pre-school teacher does the primary socialisation, providing understanding fancy tales, legends, jathaka stories and small dramas, and tries to introduce the relationship between nature and culture. Those are the first lessons about environmental protection and those devices are complementary to moral values from the central value system. At the same time the children try to internalise nature through observation. At the second stage the child himself has to bring a seed from home and plant it in the pre-school common home garden. He has to water the plants; he has to touch the soil with his fingers. Before the daily physical exercises the child goes to the common home garden and treats the small plants. This way he learns the interaction between humans and nature. Later on, small children prepare and plant a number of important vegetable plots collectively. At the third stage of environmental education the pre-school teacher and mother encourage children to think about trees and their importance to human beings. Everyday selected edible green leaves are collected from their home gardens used to prepare porridge. Sometimes they collect leafy vegetables from the surroundings to make porridge. After its preparation children are exposed to sharing behaviour. Each child serves a cup of porridge to another as a daily practice. It gives an equal opportunity to share as an activity that paves the way for collective consciousness. At the next step the pre-school children themselves organise malperehera (a flower parade) four times a month, particularly on poya days. The adult villagers have their own conflicts and problems with neighbours. But regardless of such things, every poya day one pre-school child carries a flower plate (malwattiya) to the neighbouring house. Then members of that family join the child with their own plate of flowers. This is repeated till each and every family gets together and walks, forming a perehare that moves towards the village temple. There they collectively make an offering. This sensitises villagers, establishes harmonious relationships among children, and leads to the development of a collective conscience among them. It paves the way for unity and solidarity. Trivial mistakes are forgotten and forgiven and harmonious relations among the participants are renewed. The next stage of the moral education process for the village pre-school group is organising a singithi pola (babies’ fair) at the village Sarvodaya centre. The children collect vegetables, fruits, nuts and other materials and take them to this small fair; mothers come to the fair to buy things from their own kids. This gives them training to earn and save money. In some villages pre-school children engage in rice collection, sugar collection, etc. These practices provide experience in collectivity, united earning and saving as a moral obligation. At the end of the pre-school stage children participate in organising visits or trips, or educational contests about environmental protection or shramadana activities. The final outcome is that a small child learns about his role within the environmental system, and personality development is supported within this primary moral educational model. In addition, the pre-school teacher and the mothers of the village have to look after the nutrition, health, education and mental well-being and sociability of children. At the end of the pre-school stage they form a singithi hawula to assist other small formal organisations of Sarvodaya. CASE STUDY 2 ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE GRAVITY-BASED VILLAGE WATER SUPPLY SCHEME ORGANISED BY THE ELDERS' GROUP This case study aims to explain the secondary level socialisation process and how the implementation of a moral education programme through practical experience is attempted. The location of this included 10 communities, 36 schemes and their gravity-based water supply schemes in Kandy, Badulla, Matara and Nuwaraeliya districts. These programmes were completed in 1985 and evaluation was done in 1987. This second evaluation was done in 1995. The main objectives of the case study were • To identify whether the communities had achieved environmentally sustainable gravity-based village water supply schemes. • To examine how this construction had changed values and fulfilment of the water needs of the area. • To see whether they had achieved the moral values in the Sarvodaya value systemin practice through different hawulas such as youth hawula, mothers’ hawula, and farmers’ and elders’ hawulas. In the Sarvodaya model of moral education, activities are practically demonstrated to prove their value to youths, mothers and elders, so that they can all perform them in their everyday lives. For the water supply project, Sarvodaya provided technical cooperation from its Rural Technical Services (RTS) unit. In addition it provided the necessary materials which had to be purchased. In line with the Sarvodaya philosophy of normal education the following decisions were made. In the hilly areas water projects should be gravity-based ones and people should not pollute or destroy the environment. There is no use of chemicals or toxic substances. At the initial stage different groups in the village got together and collectively decided on the necessity of a water scheme, then they carefully searched for a water spring within the village. After getting consent they cleaned around the spring and dug properly to conduct further investigations, such as the quantity of water available. After gaining collective approval the selected place was taken over by the Sarvodaya village centre and converted legally into common property. Environment Protection and Naturalisation of the Process After these initial steps the Sarvodaya technical team visited and measured the water level, power of gravity, annual fluctuations in water availability and the capacity of the water spring. Following this the village shramadana society got together and started infrastructural work to develop the water spring without excessively disturbing the location. Further, they collected gravel, stones, sand and other necessary materials on a shramadana basis and constructed a protective tank, while taking remedial environmental measures. After having started the process the pawul hamuwa often got together at night to discuss developments or review the progress of the gravity-based water scheme. The management group of the Sarvodaya pawul hamuwa had given necessary guidelines in relation to resource management and environmental protection. After their common decision the shramadana society permitted the spring area protective scheme. First the land area was protected by a wire fence. Then trees were established around the catchment area and associated with the water spring. Attempts have been taken to protect the spring from soil degradation and contamination by human and non-human elements. After development of the water spring, the Sarvodaya society constructed a stock tank at the highest suitable location below the spring. The water collected by the tank was to be purified. The process of purification was completely managed by local experts. They used stones, gravel, sand and other suitable materials to filter the spring water. The collected water in the stock tank was distributed by gravity-based pump lines. This was done to avoid disturbing the natural soil. Natural purification methods were used. The researchers studied 36 gravity-based water projects providing water for thousands of people all over the hilly regions. In all of them the whole concept was found to be compatible with conservation of the natural environment, and the sustainability of the projects was high. The operations of the water project were done voluntarily by the villagers. Their collective consciences and internal peace and love had helped to smoothly conduct the activities. Basic values related to moral education had been internalised. The social and individual morality developed with team spirit from childhood enabled the individuals to establish and maintain harmonious relationships in later life. The Sarvodaya model of moral education was both socially effective and environmentally valuable.