Nutrition Security To Solidarity In Advocacy: It’s All Here At INHERE

In 2022, deep in the heart of Uttarakhand, Bharat Singh Bisht suffered a stroke that rendered him unconscious. His wife, Sonali, was with him. Frantic calls made to the children in Delhi had them set out for Haldwani, even as Bisht was bundled into a car that would speed him towards a hospital. 

The road from Chinoni in the Almora district, in the heart of Uttarakhand twists and turns its way towards the plains. Sonali Bisht sat by her husband watching the window of hope slip away as the car navigated the hours that it took to reach Haldwani. By the time doctors could examine and offer help, Bharat Bisht had lost most of his mental faculties. There was nothing much to be done. He would have to live with the hope that some medical miracle would ease him out of the yoke of dependence that life had cruelly thrust on him.

Six months earlier, the Bisht couple had been light of heart and full of hope. The project that had started as a seed almost 30 years ago was now not just a flowering tree, but had spawned a veritable forest that offered a better means of life to communities in the region and beyond. They had decided to leave city life behind, and spend the rest of their years in the cool, shaded, verdant environs of Chinoni, where he had returned from JNU to give back to the homeland of his ancestors, the learnings he had gained in sustainable living. 

The Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research and Education that he set up had grown from a small four room ‘office’ tucked away in the jungle into a thriving centre that helped countless villages improve their agriculture practices, conserve rain water, manage waste, and find myriad means of sustenance and independence from want and poverty.

The villagers knew the organisation as INHERE. It was an umbrella that protected them from the harshness of life in the mountains.

And now, it seemed as if, with the calamity that had befallen Bharat Bisht, the umbrella’s shelter would no longer be available. Sonali was in shock, unable to accept the catastrophe. Her son and daughters, busy with their own lives, had but a passing acquaintance with the work in Chinoni. For over a year, it was left to the team Bisht had groomed to carry on as best as they could.

Three years later, a visit to Chinoni proves how one man’s spirit to help a region can inspire thousands to help themselves.

Cultivation, poultry and fish rearing, food and nutrition security, basic infrastructure and services, human resource development and solidarity in advocacy are the spokes of the wheel that keeps INHERE rolling.

"Whether it is afforestation, or sanitation, education or getting better yields from their crops,my father believed in listening to the villagers, knowing what they needed and teaching them to help themselves," Ishna Bisht, a NIFT alumna who has taken on some of the project’s goals now. "My father believed there is no skill that cannot be learnt, and he applied his problem solving mind to teaching, and solving," she adds. She shares an example, "We had gone for a wedding, and when the girls bent to touch the elders feet, he noticed they had thinning hair at the crown. Realising it was due to carrying water on their heads, he approached a centre under the Ministry of Rural Development for appropriate  technology to lift water to the villages. The head of the centre was an engineer and he gave my father a book on pumps, saying, 'Read. Come back if you understand and answer my questions.' My father did not understand the book. So he went to a wholesale market in Delhi, and looked at various pumps, understood how hydraulics work, then read the book. He was able to answer the engineer’s questions, and thus get help from the centre. Today from underground reservoirs the water flows up into the mountain villages through a system of three different pumps that he set up."

In this way, every problem was addressed and solved. 

Working with Rs 7000 given by the Ministry of Environment in the 1980s, Bisht got a village community to start a small nursery. He collaborated with Tim Rees, an engineer from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and villagers with traditional knowledge of building the Noaulas or water reservoirs over natural springs, and fitted them with handpumps to ensure clean  water and more efficient use. Rain water harvesting and revitalisation of natural springs was also taken up.

He built stalls with windows for cows to look out from and stall grazing replaced field grazing so the children could go to school instead of tending cows. It helped in dung collection, and the creation of compost pits. The sloping floor helped collect the cow urine for fertilizer and pesticide use.

Using local knowledge of medicinal plants, and through inter village sharing of medicinal skills, he ensured that a number of medicinal plants were registered with the Herbal Research and Dev Institute, so they could be cultivated for commercial use.

"Today, the villagers grow the plants, and supply it for the making of chyavanaparash, sold commercially," Ishna says.

INHERE’s  seed bank with the variety of millets and grains grown in the high altitude region helps farmers get access to seeds indigenous to the region. Sonali Bisht explains that the seeds sourced from here help grow plants with natural protection against pests that seeds from the cities don't provide. "We help farmers invest in what’s naturally grown to suit the needs of the region. And INHERE gives them a market by buying their excess yields to create jams, pickles and other products. ‘Fab India' is a regular customer for our organic pickles , and our turmeric and chilli powders," she adds.

Perhaps the most important contribution of INHERE has been the training of villagers. Geeta Bisht is an example, as are the others who continue the work at the office headquarters in Chinoni.

A double M.A. in Hindi, Geeta manages not just the seed bank, but is a senior field worker who travels across the mountains to far flung villages to share the message of self reliance. Carrying seeds, and stories of the immense possibilities that INHERE can open up by providing a helping hand, she has motivated over 300 villages with her very eloquent mixture of talk and action. Geeta is also in charge of the ‘Sahyoginis, who in far off villages work as the one-point, last-mile liaison between government schemes and villagers; solving problems of communication, filling forms, getting aadhar cards and certificates as needed. 

"My husband stopped at nothing," Sonali says. When the Indian market had no threshing machine to sort millet, he got one made in China. Bio toilets, portable honey processors, portable poly tunnels, a vertical waste bio-digestor are other innovations that farmers now use to keep their villages cleaner and functioning better. 

It’s a simple formula put to practice with revolutionary results. INHERE provides seed money, expertise, and guides rural communities towards living their life better; not exchanging it for top down advice or the urban way of life. ‘Our farmers tell those who tell them to stop growing miniscule amounts of millet, mustard and grain to turn all of it over to one crop, that they grow the crop according to the lay of the land they own, and which direction each piece faces. And they grow for their own needs. They do not want to sell one crop to buy another.

Bharat Bhisht may not be striding through the steps of his beloved INHERE  Chinoni any more, but his lawyer son, Ishan has quit a high level job to add his people skills to INHERE’s effort. His sister, Ishna, manages the marketing and Sonali oversees the meetings with the now well-trained staff that run the organisation like clockwork. The Bisht trio often make the road trip, starting out late at night, to spend a week or so, to orchestrate and oversee, before returning to Delhi. 

Often they get linkups with other organisations, trusts and foundations, to extend a project to new places, ensuring a new way of life for the villages they work with.

Nothing speaks louder about the recognition of their contribution and the acceptance of the villagers than what occurred one evening when quite without fuss or fanfare Sonali and Ishna went with Geeta Bisht to watch a Pandav Leela show. 

A villager recognising them, sent whispers undulating through the gathering, and they were forced to sit in the front row, and cheered, and feted. 

Real leaders, being recognised for their pioneering work. 

If the fact that Bharat Bhisht cannot see how INHERE is ploughing new furrows to fulfill his dream is a constant ache in the hearts of his family and for those his life touched, the fact that they can carry on is a balm that eases the pain.

INHERE is indeed a symbol of how man can do anything if he puts his mind and soul selflessly, to it.

Sathya Saran is a journalist and an author