A Man with a Mission

That is Suhas Tapaswi.  His looks are deceptive.  He looks very serious, almost intimidating at first glance.  But he is very affectionate and considerate.  He is an extremely thoughtful person, who is passionate about life, but is not obstinate about his views.  Certain names have an eternal youthfulness about them.  Suhas is one such name.  Though touching 70, Suhas is anything but old.

Suhas is a technocrat by training.  He worked with Petroleum companies, multinational, public sector and private sector.  He retired as a CEO of a big private sector company.  He is a senior citizen in the right sense of the term.  Citizens are supposed to be active in civic affairs.  Suhas has devoted his advanced years to writing, teaching and a civic movement.  He published a collection of essays, another collection of poems and a CD of lyrics written by him.  He has been teaching Management subjects for the past decade or so.

He wrote a book in 2005 on a unique NGO working in Konkan area of Maharashtra, called Matru Mandir.  The book is based on his extensive interviews, visits and observations about the various activities of this institution primarly working for the upliftment of women in the area.  What impressed him most was not so much the work itself, but the way secular, democratic and progressive values had been the driving force of this entire effort.  What was striking was that there was no religious, philanthropic or communal motivation behind these efforts.  They were founded on modern humanistic and rational values.

This appealed very much to the technocrat-poet in Suhas.  He then went on to meet 50 leaders of well known NGOs in Maharashtra.  He travelled the length and breadth of Maharashtra for this purpose.  Interviews with these 50 social entrepreneurs on the theme of Development were compiled painstakingly and published in another book written by Suhas.  The first one pointed out the path to Development while the second shows the directions of Development.

Writing these books was a monumental effort in itself.  Suhas then got inspired to bring these leaders together on one platform so that the distilled wisdom from their experiments and experience can be leveraged for bringing about fundamental changes.  Suhas saw in these varied efforts the common thread of democratic initiatives which led to strengthening of democratic foundations leading to empowerment of people.  Development in material terms such as schools, roads, hospitals and enterprises is of little consequence without the strengthening of democratic institutions.

Suhas has been untiring in his efforts to bring this central message across through various activities.  After the formation of Janasamwaad, he launched roundtables on Education reform.  More about it in the next post.