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Indian Social Institute, Bengaluru (ISI-B) celebrated its Golden Jubilee in December 2013, a celebration of a journey that began in 1963, with the mission of ‘accompanying the marginalized’ as an Extension centre of Indian Social Institute, New Delhi (ISI-D).
In 1961, Fr. Jim Berna SJ and Mr. Ryan had started the work of the Extension Service of ISI-Delhi, with a view to support the Diocesan Developmental activities which had just taken off, in a big way in most of the dioceses. Lack of trained personnel in the development sector persuaded them to initiate a Training Centre as well. It was in 1963, with the arrival of Fr. Henry Volken SJ, the training centre took off in its full swing. The Extension Service was shifted to Delhi in 1966. With this change, ISI-B began its journey as a Training centre responding to the massive changes/challenges in the developmental sector. Initial focus of the Training Centre was on ‘Community building among the poor, skill –courses on agriculture, kitchen gardens, poultry, nutrition and accountancy’. The Community Development approach of the Government of India added fervour to the efforts of ISI-B. Constant study of the changing environment and reflection on the changes made the team alert to creative ways of conceiving programmes and training activists. In the 70s, the Freirean philosophy and methodology dominated the training of ISI-B.
Soon after the Emergency, in 1975, and in the context of the Asian Seminar on ‘Structure Analysis’ organized by Houtart and others, there was a radical shift in understanding of development work. The economic crisis and the political developments had brought home the fact that the massive poverty of the Indian people had deep roots in the politics of the country, and that the solution had to be of a political nature. Fr. Stan Lourdusamy SJ took charge of the Institute, as Fr. Volken moved out, and began an intense period of training social activists for political intervention through courses, ranging from three months to shorter periods. The participants were activists with grassroots contact, deeply conscious of the political dimension of poverty and the need for a structural change. Meanwhile, the Documentation Centre of Indian Social Institute also had started functioning from Bengaluru giving a massive intellectual input to the activists all over India. In 1993, ISI-B became an independent institute. Since then, it has geared its activities/programmes based on three interrelated objectives:
The vision of empowering the powerless towards sustainable development in the context of the market-ushered economic order, premised on privatization, liberalization and globalization adversely impacting with dire consequences the working classes, the poor and weaker section, causing destruction to the eco-systems, became the dominant view of ISI-B in the 1990s. The emergence of ultra-right-wing fundamentalist forces with a communal agenda, operating covertly and overtly, co-opting the marginalized sections has been posing a great threat to the secular and inclusive social fabric of the nation. ISI-B has been trying to develop a critical awareness of these realities among the trainees and staff and thus enabling them to strengthen the Constitutional goals of Socialism, Secularism and Democracy.
In 2000, the Institute introduced the Human Rights Unit focusing on awareness on rights, campaign and advocacy at national and international levels. As the NGOs and activists preferred field-based training, especially in vernacular languages, in 2001, the Outreach Unit was initiated to strengthen peoples’ organizations and movements of marginalized groups. Training and capacity building programmes organized in collaboration with field-based organizations and networks became the core activities of the Outreach unit. In 2004, Women’s Unit came into being with a desire to integrate gender sensitivity into all the engagements of the institute. In the same year, a Research Unit was introduced, focusing on knowledge generation through action-research and to feed the outcomes into training programmes to promote advocacy efforts.
In the post-neoliberal era, as South India became the destination point for the distress of labour migrants from the northern states, the institute in 2013, conducted a study on “The Status of Unorganized Labourers in Bangalore City”. The outcomes of the study led to the dawn of “Labour and Migration Unit” in 2015.
In 2015, an ‘external evaluation’ was conducted. Based on the recommendations of the evaluation, the institute revisited its vision and mission and thrust areas. It worked on Perspective Strategic Planning (PSP) which clearly gave an orientation towards the future. “Cadre Formation and Capacity Building” introduced in 2017, became a flagship programme for the outreach units. The institute brought together about 75 NGOs and peoples’ organizations under an umbrella of cadre formation, preparing Training of Trainers (ToT) at the grassroots who could be at the service of the village communities.
In 2019, mandated by the General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, a set of Universal and Conference Apostolic Preferences were developed globally and in South Asia with bottom-up discernment processes. Responding to this development, in March 2020, the erstwhile Research, Human Rights and Training, Labour and Migration, Women and Outreach units gave way to new thematic areas:
Thus, ISI-B has been continuously engaged in search for relevance in its social engagement responding to the signs of the times. This process will go on as long as our priority communities are part and parcel of the mainstream society with rights, dignity and improved quality of life.