Image source: Getty Images
His experiment, which started from a small village in Rajasthan, reached many countries of the world. But this extraordinary story began with a well, a policeman and a few English sentences.
There is an incident of 1967 in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. A young man was working inside a well. When he came out in his clothes stained with dust, a policeman was waiting for him.
The policeman told that he has to be presented before the District Collector. There was a case of not responding to four summons of the collector. He was accused of digging wells wherever he wanted without the permission of the government.
The young man was taken before the collector in the same condition. When the conversation started, he asked in English why he had been brought here. The collector was shocked. They asked where he had come from.
The reply was received from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. Incidentally, Collector Anil Bordia had also been a student of the same college. The dusty laborer standing in front of him now appeared completely different to him.
The name of that young man was Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy.
Image source: Tribhuvan
In a conversation held at Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur in the year 2022, Bunkar Roy had narrated many experiences of his early days to the author of these lines. The journey that started from the wells of Rajasthan was later to reach villages in many countries of the world.
Bunkar Roy died at his home in Tilonia village, Rajasthan on Tuesday, 10 November 2026. He was 81 years old.
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According to social activist Nikhil Dey, who was a close associate of Bunker and Aruna Roy for the last four decades, she breathed her last at 6.15 am. At that time his wife Aruna Roy and other close associates were present with him.
Nikhil Dey says that after Covid, Bunker's health was no longer the same as before. Due to his care, Aruna Roy's social activities also became relatively limited.
Bunker's life journey ended in the same village where he spent more than five decades of his life.
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Bunkar Roy was born on 30 June 1945 in an affluent family of Bengal.
He studied at the prestigious Doon School and St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He was also a national level squash player. Paths to a prestigious profession and a comfortable life were open to him.
But a trip to the famine-stricken areas of Bihar during 1966-67 changed the direction of his life.
On the appeal of Jaiprakash Narayan, he was involved in relief work. Seeing people struggling with hunger and deprivation, he realized that his higher education had not prepared him to understand India, where the majority of the country's population lived.
In a conversation held in Jaipur, he described this experience as extremely painful.
He started feeling that despite studying in the best educational institutions of the country, he was unable to solve the problems of the village people.
He chose a different path.
In the year 1967, he reached Rajasthan and got involved in the work of digging and deepening wells in Ajmer district. This project was related to Catholic Relief Services.
Here he found people who did not have major degrees, but who had deep practical knowledge of rocks, soil, groundwater, and machines.
It was from these people that he learned that there was a vast world of knowledge beyond books.
A village that shocked the world
While working on the wells, he met a local artisan named Meghraj. Meghraj taught him drilling and machine work. He took them to Tiloniya.
This was a small village in Ajmer district.
There was an old complex there, which was once used for the treatment of TB patients. Bunker tried to acquire it for his own use in rural development.
An officer doubted how long this young man, who had studied at St. Stephen's, would be able to survive in the village. But Bunker requested to give the premises on rent for a year. The fare was just one rupee.
In the year 1972, he established the Social Work and Research Center here. Later it became famous by the name of 'Barefoot College'.
University degree was not necessary for admission to this college. Farmers, labourers, artisans and illiterate women could become teachers as well as students here.
Bunker believed that not having a certificate of formal education is not a proof of lack of knowledge.
In Tilaenia, ordinary rural women were able to access everything from dentists to excellent treatment for various diseases. This was the meaning of education reaching the barefoot people. It became a successful model for making the world better.
Sunny Sebastian, former Rajasthan bureau chief of The Hindu, says, "Bunker made Tilonia a unique village of its kind in the world through Barefoot College."
According to him, the biggest feature of Tiloniya was that the development plans there were based on the rural people's own capabilities.
When grandmothers started becoming solar engineers
The most famous experiment of Barefoot College was to provide technical training in solar energy to rural women.
There were many women among them who had never seen the doors of a school. Some had spent a large part of their lives raising children and grandchildren.
But in Tiloniya he received training in installing solar panels, connecting and repairing electrical equipment.
Colours, symbols and practical exercises were used to overcome language and literacy barriers.
The world recognized these women as 'Solar Mamas'.
Women from 99 countries including Africa and Asia reached Rajasthan for training. After returning he made arrangements for solar energy in his villages.
Many of the women who previously did not receive adequate importance even in household decisions became technical experts in their communities.
In 2010, Bunker told Time magazine that 140 rural women in 100 villages in Africa had been trained as solar engineers. According to him, these women had provided electricity to about ten thousand houses.
His argument was that elderly village women work in their communities instead of migrating to cities after training.
Bhanwar Meghvanshi, a social activist who works for Dalit rights, says, "Ordinary people have extraordinary talent. Bunkar Roy made this maxim a reality. He surprised everyone by making illiterate women solar engineers."
According to Meghvanshi, Bunker's specialty was that he spoke less and gave more importance to work.
Barefoot College also worked in the fields of water conservation, health, education, handicrafts and livelihood. The use of night schools for working children was also one of its important initiatives.
Aruna Roy and two different paths
His wife Aruna Roy also played an important role in the life journey of Bunkar Roy.
Indian Administrative Service officer Aruna Roy resigned in 1974, which was accepted in 1975. After this she started working in Tiloniya.
Here the experiences of rural society, caste inequality, women's rights and democratic participation gave a new direction to his social and political understanding.
Later Aruna Roy chose a different path. She was one of the founding members of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan and became an important voice for the right to information and government accountability.
Bunker Roy kept Barefoot College and development based on local skills as his priority.
The fields of work of both were different, but one belief remained in common. Participation of ordinary people should be decisive in development and democracy.
The world recognized, but questions remained
Bunkar Roy was awarded Padma Shri in the year 1986.
In 2010, American magazine Time included him in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
In his introduction to the magazine, author Greg Mortenson said Bunker combined humanitarianism, entrepreneurship and education to help people build their own paths out of poverty.
Former editor of Jansatta and senior journalist Om Thanvi recalls his 1992 trip to Brazil with Bunker.
He says, "We traveled together for the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. His work of linking traditional skills with modernity was historic. The concept of Barefoot College astounded even the leading countries of the world."
But Tilonia's story was not just a story of successes.
From time to time the organization also faced administrative challenges, internal differences and questions related to its functioning. Many times many people felt that the protocol for meeting them here was the same as that of bureaucrats.
Bunker's model was also concerned with the question of how autonomous an institution can remain without the presence of its founder.
His insistence was that solutions to the problems of the villages should not be prepared from outside and imposed on them. The villagers themselves should be their most important partners.
A story that started from a well
There was a distance of almost six decades between the young man who emerged from the well and the social worker recognized throughout the world. During this, Bunkar Roy raised a fundamental question. After all, who is considered educated and who is an expert?
His answer was different from the traditional education system.
In Tiloniya, illiterate people managed water, repaired machines, taught children and learned solar energy technology.
Today, when rural unemployment, migration and climate change are major global challenges, the use of bunkers offers a different possibility for development.
His life's journey does not claim any final solution to these problems. But it does leave an important question: Who should have authority over technology and education?
The man whose story began from the depths of a well, spent most of his life uncovering the potential of those whom society often ignores by calling them illiterate and unskilled.
And the biggest achievement of Tilonia is that even after Bunker Roy, the people there can take their own decisions about their work and future.
Published by Collective Newsroom for the BBC.
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