Re: [ox-en] The Kerala experience
- From: "V. Sasi Kumar" <sasi.fsfs gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:31:36 +0530
Thank you, Stefan, for the nice words. This time we had several
well-known speakers in the policy track, some of whom you have listed.
One of the important names you missed was that of Prof. Steven Harnad.
This was not the case last time, in 2005, though we had more
participation from Latin America, including Felipe Perez-Marti, former
Minister in Veneauela and Sen. Fiorello Cortiana from Italy.
Right now while we are struggling hard to find funding for our 4th
conference I came to a place where the best hotel in town has been
made not only the place for the conference but also gave a great
temporary home for some of the speakers.
Well, it was not really the best hotel in town, but certainly one of the
top ones. It is a government-run hotel, and, therefore, was rather cheap
for the government.
That's all possible because
the state of Kerala employs an impressingly firm and decided Free
Software strategy. Therefore obviously the government is ready to pay
for such a conference including lunch and tea breaks and dinners...
The state government has announced an ICT policy that specifically
promotes free software and free knowledge. It is decided that all the
contents of an encyclopedia that is being published by a government-run
institute will be contributed to Wikipedia. One area that has not been
touched is Open Access. We are putting efforts to mandate Open Access
for all publications arising from publicly funded research. PCs used by
government offices are being migrated to Free Software. This is bound to
take some time to complete. But all schools are already teaching Free
Software exclusively up to the tenth class.
And not only this. The Chief Minister of the State of Kerala were
present during the inaugural session and addressed the audience and
emphasized the necessity of Free Software and other Free knowledge
resources. During the final session the chief of the opposition were
present.
The Chief Minister is a person who started supporting Free Software from
the time of the previous government when he was in the opposition, even
resisting pressures from within his own party. We are simply lucky to
have him as our CM.
And if I then think of the press coverage this conference got in some
standard news papers. It is really amazing! But not only the
conference got news coverage. In the Sunday paper - i.e. before the
conference and not related to it - there were also an article about a
Free Dictionary for North-East Indian languages. They really mean it!
One of the reasons for the interest the press has shown is the interest
the Chief Minister shows. Five or ten articles and interviews will
appear in local magazines in a few weeks on various topics discussed at
the conference. This is partly because of the sensational nature of the
topics.
The conference itself was really two conferences in one. There were a
technology track and a policy/culture track - though culture were not
really there. I don't know for sure but I think the conference
participants also split between these two tracks. I for one attended
none of the technology presentations. There were also 450+ registered
participants - so it was really a rather big event.
There were more than 500 people all together, I understand. We had to
limit registration to around 400 because that was the capacity of the
auditorium where we held the plenary sessions. The participants split
into two when there were parallel sessions. I think more people
participated in the technology track because there were many youth who
were interested in technology. But I too was surprised by the number of
people who showed interest in things like Open Access, peer production
and Oekonux.
During personal conversations I learned that in Kerala many are
interested in not only the technology but also in the possible
philosophical / societal meeting.
You see, Kerala has a rather long history of leftist thinking. It was
one of the first regions in the world to democratically elect a
communist government. But rather radical social activists lived here
even earlier, many of them from forward communities, working for
uplifting lower caste people. And Kerala has always been willing to
study and evaluate new ideas. Almost every world literary classic in
most world languages have been translated into the local language,
Malayalam. And the quality of life here is very close to that of the
developed world rather than that of India. I have wondered at the
difference between this state and even the neighbouring states,
wondering what has led to such differences. For instances, this tiny
state has bagged more national (and probably global) film awards than
most other states, including much bigger ones. This is true in the case
of literature too. I think this background has helped the state to
welcome Free Software and related concepts with open arms.
But what really amazed me most that the things Oekonux started to talk
about nearly 10 years ago at least in Kerala slowly become an accepted
idea. The potential of peer production is seen by many - though I
still think what we do here is quite elaborated in this regard. In
fact the talk I gave (see
http://www.oekonux.org/texts/YesWeCanYesWeWill.html - which is heavily
revised compared to the version I sent here) was welcomed by a couple
of people afterwards.
I would really like to have an Oekonux conference here one day. There
are others also who are interested. I am not sure about who will fund
it, but I think it should be possible to find someone. I hope we can do
it one day.
I really would conclude that much of the potential of the whole peer
production movement meanwhile moved to places like Kerala. This
opinion I share for instance with Juan-Carlos (Hipatia) who also names
South America here. I even thought that Thiruvananthapuram could be a
place for the 5th Oekonux Conference. May be in the form of some
partnership...
Nice thought. Let us make an attempt.
What also surprised me that the conference was attended by a
relatively high share of women. I took a few samples and would guess
about 25%. And in sharp contrast to the majority of women I see on
German Free Software conferences these women were not the female part
of a couple. However, the gender distribution of the speakers was as
usual.
Again, Kerala is different from the rest of India in this respect. Most
of the younger women are employed, and in sectors like education, much
more than 50% of the teachers are women. But the status of women in
Kerala is not all that high. They generally are strongly dependent on
their fathers/husbands, and have to look after the families. Though
things are improving, they still have to be careful while travelling, on
foot or in public transport.
On the other hand, Kerala has the highest rate of alcoholism and a high
suicide rate, including family suicides. Divorce rate is increasing. All
these indicate some problem with the society.
Sorry for this rather long response.
Best
--
V. Sasi Kumar
Free Software Foundation of India
http://swatantryam.blogspot.com
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de