In 1947, after suffering the brunt of partition, losing everything and made refugees, it made efforts for the Bengali families, who, through their own hard work turned the sand dunes into lush green farm fields. On the birth anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, after seeing Ravindranagar, the all facility rich village, the imagination of an ideal village seems to come true. There is no drain or mud in this village of Mohammadi tehsil of Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh. Water harvesting technology is being used throughout the village for water conservation for years. There are soaking pits near the houses, toilets in each house, fruit and medicinal trees like pomegranate, guava, jackfruit, neem, mango, jamun, amla, tulsi are planted in the whole village while the youth of the village are voluntarily teaching in government school. After seeing paintings on walls of each house and lush green schools, 100% literacy in this village looks like a dream.
The Sangh branch, which has been running for 50 years, showed a new path of development to these hard-working Bengali families and today Ravindranagar is one of the most developed villages in the country. Earlier this village, known as Miyanpur, was known for witchcraft done by snake charmers and people were scared to visit there. Swayamsewaks like Bhairavchandra Rai and Prem Shankar Awasthi won the trust of the people and opened the doors of development for the village. Who can understand the pain of partition better than the people of Ravindranagar? For years, in the name of rehabilitation, after losing loved ones in starvation, diarrhea, black fever, cholera, in the refugee camps, in the name of rehabilitation, filled in trucks, they were left in the Aranyak forest on the banks of Gomti river at midnight. Tapan Kumar Vishwas, a swayamsewak and village development head of the district, says that these families who settled here in 1964, suffered extreme hardships for 8 years. It was difficult to grow anything on the barren land and villagers had to spend days eating boiled grass seeds (like rice) with fish. Initially, the villagers worked hard to make the land cultivable. The first branch of Sangh was started in 1969 by Bhairavchandra Rai, a volunteer of the Sangh. And since then, a regular branch is being established here.
The first school was started by the volunteers on the land given by the villagers, which later got the recognition of primary school from the government. Even today, many youths like Sanjay Vishwas, Malika Mandal, Milan, Shambhu teach children free of cost in government schools in the village. Perhaps that’s the reason Ravindranagar is 100% literate. Even today, as per the ancient tradition, cow dung is applied in the houses every day in families and the morning starts with the sound of a conch. It’s astonishing that for employment, in most of the households, women make beedi from tendu leaves, yet nobody smokes beedi in the village. In the village, four self-help groups of women, with their savings, are giving training in sewing and embroidery for employment.
Whether the government school, panchayat house, street, temple or playground; the swayamsewaks along with the villagers have made the village so clean that it is difficult to find such a beautiful government school in the whole of Uttar Pradesh. The playground has been converted to a stadium while dirt roads have been converted to paved roads with their voluntary service. In 2009, the then village development head of Awadh, who initiated development process of village through Sangh, also known as the patron of village, a swayamsewak, Premshankar Awasthi Ji says there is no unemployment in this village. Ravindranagar, which is famous for the construction of large chimneys installed in the industrial area, also has a variety of other commercial activities, ranging from building idols, building houses to motor bindings and electrician work. He says that many youths from the village, including Dr. Chittaranjan Viswas, the medical advisor to Chief Minister Yogiji, have reached great heights.
Contact- Tapan Ji
Contact: – +916394671084
Source: VSK Bharat
