Our Story : A Brief History of the Badu Collective

After much persuasion, we finally have a guest post by one of the founding members of the Badu Collective, Anuradha Talwar ( affectionately known to all of us as Bomma or 'Big Mother').
Bomma gives us a brief account of the history of our collective; the germinal ideas that culminated in its formation, the way it evolved to its present structure and her vision for its future. As she herself writes, the members of the collective never felt the need to share the story of this idea and experiment with the public but now, we realize that it is worth telling people "why we chose to set up this collective, about all our trials and tribulations and all about our joys and achievements."

We never thought it was important to write down and publicize what we are doing. We were doubtful in the early years about our success, so we never wrote. In the later years, we were too busy with other things to write. It also at times seemed unimportant – who wants to hear about our lives anyway?

Whoever thought we would need to justify the way we chose to live our lives to the world? However, today, our way of living seems an anachronism- a fossil of togetherness in a world where only the “I” is important. Yet it gives us much joy and many who visit us find much in it worth admiring. So now we feel we must tell others about it too- about why we chose to set up this collective, about all our trials and tribulations and all about our joys and achievements.

Our way of life is to practice collectivism and not just preach it. It is difficult, we are far from perfect and we go through many ups and downs. We hope, however, that our cumulative experience will benefit those who come after us.

The Seeds in the 1980s

The oldest amongst us, who are now part of this Collective, came to know each other in the 1980s, while working together and organizing in Kolkata and rural areas. We were all working for social change- for a society which was free of discrimination and injustice and where all would be equal. We believed that the individualism being promoted by capitalism must be opposed. We felt it was not just enough to talk about collectivism. We needed to practice the same in our life. 

Those of us who later built up the Collective started off as a group that would meet during this period once in a month or sometimes once in two months to discuss work, life, and all problems associated with the two. Two days of intense discussions would occur where we oriented ourselves to becoming better human beings, better activists and also better organizers. In those early years, a number of young people who are now Collective members left home to become activists. They needed a place to stay since many of them faced a lot of family hostility on their decisions to take on activism, which was considered dangerous and insecure work and definitely not a “profession" in the accepted sense. The women had it worse because their families literally threw them out for refusing a traditional, arranged marriage with dowry. We lived together in a rented house centrally, as well as in places given to us by villagers in our work areas. A few of us – four families – also had their own homes.

The Collective Starts

In 1990, a new phase in our lives began. From the “group”, we became the Collective. Six of us bought land in Badu (which was very cheap then), wanting to permanently live together. We began building houses. We agreed through discussions that this land was not for speculation- we would live here, but if any day any of us left we would sell the land and house back to the Collective. One of us did in fact do that a year later, and despite there being no written agreement, he kept his word.

Not only were our work lives discussed and decided in group meetings, we also began to share and setup collective systems for other parts of our lives. We began a single kitchen in Badu. All of us ate there.

Many of our comrades fell in love with fellow comrades and got married. There were love marriages, inter-caste, inter religion marriages- many against their family’s wishes. Homes began to be set up, children were born. Badu became a place for joint child care, so that women were free to work. All that we earned was put into a pool fund from where our health needs, our children’s care and education, our food and travel costs were met. After that each of us took a pocket allowance. We also saved money and used our collective savings to buy land. Land was bought in the joint names of individuals, as the Collective had no legal entity. We made sure that no one individual had control over all the land. The understanding was that if any of us left, the land would remain with the Collective to support the work of Collective members who were working to build mass organizations. We also used our savings to start businesses- a dairy farm, a poultry farm and even a vehicle to give out on hire. Some of these ventures failed but the agricultural land proved sustainable and we manage till today to generate a large part of the food for the Badu collective from this land.

The New Century: Additions and Depletion

The Collective also saw deletions and then new additions- five Collective members left to form Jana Sanskriti. They did not, however, raise major questions about the Collective and, in keeping with our earlier agreement, left the land and property bought in their names with the Collective. In fact , two of them actually returned after a few months. Three others decided to go back to individual family life, though they kept in touch with the Collective.

In the meantime, the rest of the Collective members after some discussion and debate decided to invite key and senior whole timers of mass organizations we were working with to join the Collective. The Collective, now, had about 15 new members.

Relations within the Collective were also more varied. One couple decided to continue to be Collective members, but made their residence away from Badu at the husband’s work place in Kulpi. Many Collective members were no longer organizers alone. Two were housewives at the Badu Collective with minimal involvement in the work of organizing. Some were providing support to the organizing work – looking after accounts, publishing a magazine, providing legal aid, looking after the Collective‘s farm. One member- a doctor- preferred to start his private practice outside though he still helped the Collective in his free time and continued to stay at Badu.

The Collective’s income remained varied- from the salaries some of us drew from different NGOs and from earnings that we made by doing studies, consultancies etc. and also from the farm that we had at Badu. There were many Collective members who did not have a fixed income, but who did very important organizing work. The earnings of others supported them. All of us got facilities such as child care, health, transport and food according to what each of us needed. This was our way of putting into practice the Marxian idea of “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need.”

A very important step that we took, at this time, was that Collective members decided to donate a large amount of their income to some mass organizations every month. On the other hand, when the Collective went through a severe financial crisis in 1997, members of these very mass organizations sustained many of them by providing them with food in their village centers.

The Present: Our Assets and Our Management

The Collective had used its collective savings and its good will to acquire some amount of property including agricultural land, life insurance policies, a vehicle and some amount of savings in joint bank accounts held by collective members. Agricultural land of about 2.5 acres owned by a family member of a Collective member has been given to us for use.

The income from all this property, along with our individual incomes, goes to the Collective fund. It has been the mutual understanding between the Collective members that these assets would stay for the use of the Collective members and for the benefit of those who continued to work with the mass organizations or for any social cause.

The Collective is presently managed by 5 committees:-

1.      Finance committee that manages the Collective fund and gives accounts every month to all the adult members of the Collective. It also gives money to each of the other committees for their work every month on the basis of a commonly agreed upon budget.

2.      Agriculture Committee to manage the farm at Badu

3.      Kitchen committee to manage the Badu kitchen(The agriculture and kitchen committee work together to ensure that the Badu farm produces things needed by the kitchen.)

4.      Children’s committee to see that the education needs of all the Collective’s children are met

5.      Entertainment committee to ensure that the Collective members save some money every month together that is then used for a holiday and other recreational activities.

Many Collective members take on responsibility in one or the other of the committees. All Committees are elected in the General Body meeting of the Collective.

The Future

The Collective is a magnificent utopian idea. It is the daily practice of the socialistic society that we preach. Many of us who are still Collective members believe strongly that we have the strength to continue and build our collective life. This is despite our knowing that ours is a very small collective island in the midst of a world where only individualism wins.

Much to our delight, many of the second generation of the Collective who are now adults and who were born and brought up within the Collective also support our Utopian ideas. They are our future and proof that islands of beauty can exist even in the midst of stormy seas.