Bahá’í World/Volume 18/Bahá’í Youth Academy of India
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THE BAHA’I’ WORLD
7. Bahá’í YOUTH ACADEMY OF INDIA
THE Bahá’í Youth Academy was established on 27 June 1982 in Panchgani, India. Its aim is to become a permanent institution for Bahá’í scholarship as well as to provide a national centre for the deepening and training of Bahá’ís from all parts of India who, armed with new-found knowledge and skills, may then return to their home States and set up similar programmes and training institutes for the local believers in their own languages.
Although the Academy plans eventually to hold study courses of from six months’ to two years’ duration, at its present stage of development and with its limited facilities it conducts courses of from one to seven weeks. Each course is tailored to the need of a specific group of believers such as State Teaching Committee members, State and Local Youth Committee members, assistants to Auxiliary Board members, pioneers, Bahá’í women, editors of State newsletters and graduates of the New Era and Rabbani Schools. The first year of the Academy’s experience indicated that this system of holding courses for specific groups instead of holding general deepening programmes open to all is more effective as it enables the instructors to concentrate on the specific needs of the particular group and to adjust the lessons to the level of understanding of the students.
Since its inception the Academy has held three successful courses, each with a different emphasis. The first course, of six weeks” duration, was a general one for youth and drew thirty-six participants. It was held simultaneously with a similar course in Persian for ninety-nine Persian pioneers from India and abroad.
The second course was lengthened to seven weeks to include a week-long ‘spiritualization’ element, and was designed specifically for the members of State Teaching Committees. The course focused on the functions and administration of these valuable teaching arms of the National Spiritual Assembly.
The third course, three weeks long, was for Bahá’í women and included special classes on the role and station of Bahá’í women in the community and the family as well as a class on famous women in Bahá’í history.
By March 1983, one hundred and sixty-two students from sixteen States in India, the Andaman Islands, and the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had completed courses at the Academy. Each of the courses, though having its own unique character and emphasis, follows the same basic outline: six classes per day, each class one hour in length, for six days each week. Each class has its own daily assignments and most of them require the students to sit for a final examination at the end of the course. The core subjects covered in every Academy course are: Bahá’í administration; laws and ordinances; Bahá’í history; the Covenant; protection of the Faith and meeting opposition; Bahá’í education and Bahá’í principles. Additional classes to date have included: teaching the Faith; a study of selected chapters from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Some Answered Questions; progressive revelation and the history of religions; the station of women in the Bahá’í dispensation and a study of some famous Bahá’í women; the role of women in Bahá’í administration; organizing Bahá’í activities; family life and a study of the spiritual implications of Bahá’u’lláh’s The Seven Valleys. In addition, an extracurricular course in black-and-white photography and darkroom techniques has been a regular and popular feature of each course. Students find that the courses are both rigorous and thrilling. Most teachers use the methods of discussion and question-and-answer, thus involving the students actively in the learning process rather than requiring them to listen passively to a lecture.
Secondary to their studies, but also an essential part of each student’s experience at the Academy, is the fellowship and contact he enjoys with his fellow believers, not only those who come from different parts of India and neighbouring countries but with the Bahá’í friends of Panchgani who are themselves from all parts of the world. In Panchgani the students may enjoy Bahá’í films and slide programmes and learn Bahá’í songs in both English and Hindi. They may visit the New Era School and the‘ Institute of Rural Technology. No less valuable for the students
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INTERNATIONAL SURVEY OF CURRENT BAHA‘I’ ACTIVITIES
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Members of the faculty, staff and students who participated in the second course of the Bahá’í Youth Academy oflndia; 17 October—5 December I 982.
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and ultimately for the entire Bahal community is the interaction with their Bahá’í brothers and sisters from different States, who are of different races and religious backgrounds and who speak different languages. In a country as varied and diverse as India, the experience of Bahá’í community life at the Academy is in itself the most powerful demonstration, to those within the Bahá’í community and those without, of the unifying power of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation.
A third component of the Academy programme is vocational training designed to equip students with a practical skill that will be useful and will enable them to be selfsupporting either at home or in pioneering posts abroad. Although necessarily limited in scope at present, it is visualized that this element will expand to include training in auto mechanics, electrical wiring, tailoring, cycle repair, radio and television repair ahd other skills.
Immerse yourselves in the ocean of My words, is Bahá’u’lláh’s exhortation, that ye may unravel its secrets, and discover all the pearls of wisdom that lie hid in its depths. Within the first day or two of a course
students at the Academy find themselves fully immersed in a study of the vast ocean of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Within the first week they catch glimmerings of the immensity, majesty and transforming power of the Holy Writings, while their teachers observe in them a more fully awakened sense of belonging to a Cause that is mightier than they had realized previously. Usually, about halfway through a course, the students begin to feel ‘drowned’ in a sea of assignments, wondering whether it is really necessary to cover so much material in so short a time; but by the last week most of them request that the Academy extend the course for at least another week, having come to realize that despite their arduous labours they have merely skimmed the surface of the vast and limitless ocean of Bahá’u’lláh’s Words. And when their examinations are over the students’ normal sense of relief is tempered by a desire to know more, to delve even more deeply. It will be apparent that such an intensive study experience has the potential to transform the Bahá’í communities of India and surrounding countries where there are many Bahá’ís with the desire and capacity to study deeply the
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Holy Writings but who are hindered in their efforts through lack of opportunity, lack of access to Bahá’í books or the need of assistance to study in English, there being only a limited number of works as yet translated into languages indigenous to India and these being of varying quality.
Teachers at the Academy are drawn from the highly qualified cadre of professional educators in the Panchgani Bahá’í community, including the Principal and counsellor and staff members of the New Era School. Assistance is also given by Bahá’ís from other parts of India who are distinguished for their knowledge of the Faith and their ability to teach. This group of visiting teachers has included members of the Continental Board of Counsellors, Auxiliary Board members and members of national committees in India, and will in future include outstanding Bahá’í teachers from abroad.
In the Spring of 1982 the National Bahá’í Youth Committee of India, in consultation with Counsellor Burhéni’d-Din Afshin, conceived the idea of establishing the Academy. Its rapid growth and progress during its first year inspired the National Spiritual Assembly to designate it an independent institution to function directly under the aegis of the National Assembly. From the beginning the Continental Board of Counsellors gave the nascent institution its wholehearted support, contributing both guidance and funds. When planning was begun for the first course, the Academy had only one full-time staff member, the Director. An Assistant-Director was needed and was promptly engaged. After completion of the second course the staff grew to five.
In addition to the general organizing of the different courses and the correspondence and report-writing that is involved, the Academy has four separate departments with their own duties. The Department of Library and _Correspondence Courses organizes the Academy Library (which is already, perhaps, the largest Bahá’í library in India), prepares and distri THE BAHA'I’ WORLD
butes to Academy students and pioneers deepening materials in both Persian and English, supervises the English correspondence course, stores and files all materials used in Academy courses and operates a book-selling service in Panchgani. The Audio-Visual Department is in charge of showing films and slide programmes during Academy courses, makes cassette tapes of deepening material and music with Bahá’í themes, prepares photographs and other materials for sale and has in hand plans for preparing films and video tapes on different Bahá’í subjects for use both in the villages and in the Academy classroom. In addition there is a Department of Finance and a Department of Organization. Each department is managed by one person with various assistants as necessary.
Before the completion of its first year the Academy will hold three more courses: a fiveweek course for students at the New Era School to help prepare them for their pioneering services to all parts of the world; a course for graduating students at the Rabbani Bahá’í School; and a course for youth, especially those who are members of State and Local Youth Committees.
There has long been a crying need for such an institution in India, a vast country whbse population has demonstrated great receptivity to the Bahá’í teachings. Through the everpresent and keenly felt confirmations of the Ancient Beauty, Bahá’u’lláh; through the encouragement and prayers of the Universal House of J ustice and the International Teaching Centre; through the vision of the National Youth Committee and the support and cooperation of the Continental Board of Counsellors and the National Spiritual Assembly, the Academy has triumphed over the difficulties of birth to emerge as a viable institution which promises to be an increasingly effective instrument for service to the Cause of God in India and beyond its borders.
(Based on an article in Bahá’í News, India, March 1983.)