Farzana is an illustrator based in Mumbai.

Influencing thought, provoking action

Koshy Mathew is publisher of Books for Change.

Humanscape magazine, 99 issues ago, was merely the dream of a handful of dedicated firebrands whose only motivation was to tell the stories of people who suffered under the weight of lopsided policies and practices. With this issue, that dream has become a reality to reckon with.
Over the years we have seen Humanscape take uncompromising positions on behalf of the landless, the agrarian poor, the dalits, women and others. Sometimes we are asked, as publishers of English-language books, why we publish in a foreign language, and what impact such books have. The answer always has been: “If one has to influence policy and advocate for change in them, then we need to reach those who make those decisions at the very top.” In this attempt, our allies are the academics, scholars, activists and professionals who empathise with the causes we represent. This is not to say that grass-roots action is of no concern to a publisher. It is, in fact, the very reason for our existence, for without mass action and agitation, no change is likely to happen in this country. Humanscape has played that role very effectively in the past several years – influencing thought and provoking discussion leading to action, both at the grass-roots level and at other fora.
To have a record of 100 issues without a break is a matter of pride for Humanscape team. Having done it, Humanscape has joined the firmament of serious and dedicated publishers. Now we are looking forward to the 200^th issue!

Humanscape should feature more currents issues

Bharat Dogra is a freelance journalist and author based in New Delhi.

Humanscape is one of those few journals which regularly covers highly relevant issues and provides useful information as well thought–provoking insights on these issues. Each issue of the magazine becomes more like a reference work on this particular subject. What is needed much more is a magazine which is devoted to current issues. It will be very useful to read comments on current issues from the Humanscape’s perspective. Thus in my opinion each issue of the magazine should be based primarily on the events of the last month, although some limited space can still be kept aside for other issues of lasting importance. The perspective to examine current issues should be Humanscape’s own special perspective, a perceptive which is based on peace, compassion, equality and environment protection.
However, if it is not possible to make these changes, I will like to emphasise that I also like Humanscape the way this journal comes out at present. It is a very good journal and performing a very relevant role. Humanscape should also appear in Hindi and other Indian languages such as Marathi, etc. to reach more people

On the road not taken

Humanscape has been a refuge to all those articles which would surely have been returned by those newspapers and magazines which are looking upon themselves as commodities that need to be sold like soap. Humanscape has fearlessly trod the 'road not taken, which has made all the difference'.

Humanscape has been a beacon of light guiding the country away from false gods of development towards genuine humanistic shores. Writing for Humanscape has given a great sense of fulfillment, because one became automatically a part of the process of redefining our country's development agenda.
At a personal level, writing for Humanscape has given me a great sense of freedom: freedom to be myself and to write on issues that I felt really mattered, knowing that I need not keep an eye all the time on wordage or be scared of the editors' pencil. It has also filled me with a deep sense of gratitude for the unconditional opportunity given to bring out the best in oneself.

Kathyayini Chamaraj is a Bangalore-based freelance journalist writing on development issues, mainly that of unorganised labour.

Congratulations

Jagdish Agarwal is the founder of Dinodia Photo Library, Mumbai.

A big congratulations to you on your 100th.issue.
When you first came to Dinodia Photo Library looking for pictures, I remember you were on a very tight budget, but had the desire to do something different. The fact that Humanscape has come so far shows the will and desire to be a success in what you do. What you are trying to do is not easy, but I wish you all the best and want you to know that our support will always be there for you.

In an age of new journalism where market determines what should be news, Humanscape continues to put people before the market, reflect the aspirations and hopes of a multilingual society, and strives to bring human endeavour and excellence to the fore. It is a magazine of the people and for the people.
I have enjoyed reading and writing for Humanscape. I have always felt that Humanscape is among the few dedicated publications that still cares about the lesser mortals, aims at showing the real face of the society and, unlike mainline media, is not ashamed of talking about downmarket subjects like poverty, hunger, child labour and the threats to the weaker sex.

It's easy to write praise about Humanscape. I can't think of too many other magazines in India that offer space for the kinds of issues it takes on, the questions it specialises in raising. From questioning what "development" has meant to examining the situation of tribals; from the state of education to issues in health care; from sanitation to injustice to poverty and everything in between: Humanscape has made room for all these themes in its pages.
To me, that's praiseworthy, not least because those are the issues that I believe are crucial in India, that I choose to write about. Humanscape's great success, for writers like me and in general, is that it has been this kind of medium over the years.
But having said that, the criticism is more difficult. After all, what is Humanscape's impact in the end? It reaches several thousand people, many of whom already ask the questions it brings to their doorsteps, who agree with the answers Humanscape offers. Fine. Yet it should be taking these themes to Indians by the tens and hundreds of thousands, let alone millions. It is then that it will be the instrument for change that it must be, that so many of us hope it will be.
Now this is not so much Humanscape's fault as it is the inability of any serious magazine, like this one, to find a wide audience. Others have foundered on this essential dilemma. Yet surely that really is, in the end again, Humanscape's failing. Covering the issues is, like the praise, easy. Doing it in a way that makes them matter enough to a large enough number of people, so that Humanscape becomes the quoted, influential, change-producing vehicle it can be: that's the hard part.
It seems to me that must be Humanscape's next big challenge as it sprints pass the 100 issues mark: To beat that problem that has defeated so many other magazines, left them marginal at best. To reach out to a vast new audience. To make the impact that, for all its admirable perseverance, it never has. That it must.
I wish Humanscape the best in that effort. I hope I can continue to be a small part of it.

At a time when Media, both in its broadcast and print forms, has become market-driven, guided by what is interesting rather than what is important, Humanscape through its sensitive handling of diverse issues has indeed done a commendable job. Congratulations.
I strongly believe that it is one's work alone that can speak for oneself. I also realise that when an idea succeeds people must be made aware of it so that others can replicate it or learn some lessons.
The power of pen is indelible; the words you choose; the matter you print must propel thinking. The social tensions, violence and all round turmoil that we face in our everyday lives call for sensitising ourselves on many issues and even advocate strongly for them. In this respect, it is all the more necessary that a committed journal like Humanscape should highlight more and more the problems of the poor and the attempts being made in the country for their empowerment. It is equally necessary that Humanscape make efforts to bring the silent achievers to the fore and also provide a linkage between micro and macro happenings.
I wish you all the best for the future.

Humanscape happened at a time when all of us had begun to feel the need for a journal where we could write without being fettered in any way. There was a great need to share the literature of many languages and raise issues which needed not random but continuing attention. As a Tamil writer and as a person in Women’s Studies, I felt the need for a forum where I could write what I felt. Humanscape gave me the freedom to write the way I wanted. Initially, I was sceptical about any journal being able to raise so many different issues and also being able to offer one this kind of freedom of expression. But after I saw the care with which each issue was brought out and the areas they tried to cover, I began to carry the journal wherever I travelled, to distribute it to friends and organisations. Since then Humanscape has come a long way and I am sure it now has the strength and the wherewithal to go even further.

CS Lakshmi is a Tamil writer, a researcher in Women's Studies and the founder trustee of Sound & Picture Archives for Research on Women.

Writing one’s fundamental thoughts about a magazine in the magazine itself has never been an easy task for an old-school journalist, unless of course the goal is self-aggrandisement. Still, the need for the real exercise always existed, because Humanscape was always intended to be different. In my opinion, journals have always either targeted niche markets or become apolitical, and, as a result, have correctly or otherwise pleased all or none. Precisely, it is these journals and magazines that require introspection. So when I was asked to partake in this labour; I wondered why it should have happened in the first place. Radical as this may appear, I think this is why.
Where else, would I have the opportunity of writing about Marxist activists being bumped off by the police as happened in Andhra Pradesh or about the chief minister’s IT dream not reconciling with the expectancy of a poor illiterate farmer. Humanscape is purely and simply a platform with no strings attached. Either you read it or you don’t, but you don’t browse through it.
Ideally, I would like to see some real angst in its pages. This must come from its contributors and readers. Humanscape is after all about the human as the central value.

In an era of difficult journalistic cricket, Humanscape has just reached the coveted triple figures. And the straight bat of Humanscape’s team is well-set to stay at the crease. Well done, the ‘Scape and the Foundation for Humanization!
Vijay Merchant, the doyen of Indian cricket, sported on his letterhead the motto of playing with the straight bat – an urge to excel but never at the cost of fair play. Humanscape has come of age, creating for itself an image of deep and abiding concern for the common person regardless of any caste, creed, or colour. To me, it compares well with Bhoomiputra, and alas the now defunct, Manas from California. This trio and the like are a far cry from the ad-maniacal gloss that drops at your doorstep every day. Clean, appealing journalism has remained Humanscape’s forte.
A periodical has to catch the eye, entertain the mind, and nourish the spirit. The layout, the language, Farzana’s lines, and the impeccable Human Index have plateaued to an acceptable standard. A time has arrived for an enlightened and able body to foster the continuation and the growth of this magnificent humane effort. Humanscape has sown a sapling that must mature into a perennial tree.

Dr Manu Kothari teaches at GS Medical College, Mumbai and is member of the editorial council of Humanscape.

When I left The Times of India in May, 1995, for a job in a TV company, the focus of journalism had become space-selling and it was perfectly okay to omit reality. Often, getting through the paper involved suspension of disbelief! You were branded a leftist or an activist if you wanted to write on anything concerning environment, health, gender or poverty. There were too many articles that shouldn’t be written, too many issues that should not be covered.
After a few months, when Jayesh asked me to edit Humanscape, it was more than a job. The Times had left me disillusioned with the media, its new-found appeal for glitter and showbiz and anorexic women winning beauty contests. At Humanscape, our appeal was different. And what really surprised me was how many people had heard about the magazine and wanted to write for it. I was never short of articles because people wrote on their own initiative on issues they were concerned with, from all parts of the country. They felt their voices would be heard here.
There was hope, I felt, if so many people wanted to read what mainstream media classified as “dull and boring”! We covered environment, health, gender, what people were doing to uplift the lives of the rural poor, about whom we rarely read about in the cities. And it can’t have been all wrong! Here’s wishing Humanscape another hundred years!

Many people and lots of NGOs with huge amounts of energy, effort and money are attempting to create a better society. And it is ideas that make a difference. The ideas of social innovators as well as practitioners. It is ideas that will create the solutions we areall looking for, and which are the lifeblood of social change. Humanscape has been a leading force in India in helping ideas circulate.
I was on an aeroplane about four years ago, flying to attend a strategic planning session for PLAN International’s Asia regions. One of the themes of the session was sustainability and local resource mobilisation. An issue of Humanscape was being passed around. It contained a feature on Deepalaya, a Delhi-based NGO supported by PLAN. The reporter had interviewed a slum community after PLAN had withdrawn funding and Deepalaya had withdrawn its own support from the local community and the self-help institutions it had helped set up. But the reporter found that the community institutions which had been set up and nurtured over the years had begun to collapse once support was withdrawn. Now this may not be the universal response to NGO withdrawal. But the experience does challenge NGOs and development experts to think again when dealing with difficult issues such as sustainability. The answers are never easy, and it requires journals such as Humanscape to question the orthodoxies and assumptions, if development is to make progress and we are to achieve the better, fairer society we are all working for.

Thank you for inviting my opinion about Humanscape on the joyous occasion of its 100th issue. I would like to congratulate the team for the marvelous work that it is doing to produce and disseminate relevant knowledge for social change in contemporary times. I find Humanscape most useful to teach my course on history and philosophy of social work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. It also helps in the process of developing a perspective for social work in comtemporary times. I cite from it extensively in my writings on these topics. It is definitely meeting its objectives of spreading timely and thought provoking analyses.

My first article for Humanscape was published in the April 1995 issue. Shortly thereafter I was co-opted on its Editorial Board and continued on it till 2001. I guest edited two special issues and I have fond memories of that experience. Humanscape offers something no other contemporary magazine does. It is a unique vehicle for change-oriented activism. The Humanscape team needs to be applauded for conceiving such a “child”, delivering it faithfully to its enlightened readership and nursing it lovingly through all its teething troubles. The role of this magazine in organising and building networks of activists cannot be underestimated. It has been the kindergarden of many journalists who later graduated to mainstream media.
When everyone else was hopelessly trodding the beaten path, Humanscape dared to “take the road not taken” full of hope. And that has made all the difference.

I remember my first encounter with Jayesh Shah. Humanscape was about to be launched. He was full of plans, schemes and exuded quiet ebullience. What he had to say was interesting, but I was somewhat skeptical. He seemed to be full of good intentions, but I expected the magazine to start with a flourish and peter out soon afterwards. He revealed that he had been a successful businessman in the past before he joined the humanist movement. I was not impressed. He may not have the credentials for the launch of a magazine like Humanscape, I secretly thought.
As Humanscape goes into its 100^th issue I must confess that I was wrong. In my skepticism both about the magazine and its publisher, I am glad that I was wrong. The Humanscape team has gone about its task with such perseverance and tenacity. It is not just a grand vision that explains the birth of such a magazine, it was the result of hard work and organizational skills that they have assembled. Humanscape has been able to inspire its readership with thoughtful and inspiring work that has retained the loyalty and admiration of its readership and attracted a number of serious writers to participate in its vision of journalism with a difference. The expression is not a cliché in this case. Humanscape may be a little magazine, but it has been receptive to good ideas and has pursued its tasks with seriousness and with utter disregard for what is euphemistically referred to as the market.
Magazines, like people are known by the company they keep. Humanscape has always been in good company- they may be social activists, feminists, environmentalists, health activists, artists, tribal activists, pacifists and others. At a time when many of us are tired of the jingoism and triteness of dominant journalism and are bored with its reportage of our narcisstic elites, Humanscape remains a breath of fresh air. If I were prone to optimism I would wish it immortality. But short of that I hope it sees another 100 issues at least.

A journey of hope

Humanscape has been an exercise in courage and vision. All around us we see the degeneration of the print and electronic media with the peddling of information largely for profit. The media is now a business proposition and social and ecological responsibility has slid to the background. In this context the Humanscape team has consistently, and against many odds, striven to bring out a quality journal that has nurtured and inspired thousands of minds all over the world.
Humanscape celebrates its 100 issue at a time when, more than ever, we need to articulate insights and experiences that may give us an alternate sense of fulfilment; one that is very different from the inane fizz of consumerism. I strongly believe that an alternative is as much a personal experience of meaning and fulfilment as it is a political intervention. Politics without fulfilment is an arid experience; and fulfilment without social and ecological responsibility is a selfish affair.
I must admit that I have to get used to the new format of Humanscape. The older version embraced a broader range of interests; but then, changes must happen to meet new needs. Perhaps the new approach has the advantage of being more focused. I sincerely look forward to accompany Humanscape in its journey of Hope.

Siddhartha is a Bangalore-based writer. He is member of the editorial council of Humanscape.

Looking forward to more meaningful debate

Practitioners in the field can look forward to a wide coverage of the subject of their choice in Humanscape. The magazine has also given me a chance to widen my horizons, within the specific subject areas of interest. The magazine would be able to contribute a lot more if there were more articles highlighting the nature of problems being faced with respect to the subjects being taken up. I look forward to more meaningful debate and discussion stimulated by the magazine.

I celebrate with the staff and supporters of Humanscape the publication of their 100^th issue. For me, Humanscape has been a magazine I turn to, to find out the kind of activities and issues in which NGOs across the country are involved. More than this though, it is a publication I value for printing positive news and stories, for bringing into print, efforts which are contributing towards positive change in our society. This is good and much needed work. By providing this crucial database, the Foundation has laid the way for an effective network for collaboration. Our Institute has received a number of contacts from persons and groups drawing upon this database to find organisations like ours who are engaged in building communal harmony and resolving conflicts. The effort of compiling and updating this vital information is deeply appreciated by us and, I’m sure, by other organisations which make use of this rich resource. Congratulations to all the staff and supporters of Humanscape for making a positive contribution towards improving our human community.

Diane D’Souza is the Associate Director of the Henry Martyn Institute: International Centre for Research, Interfaith Relations and Reconciliation in Hyderabad.

Uncommon and offbeat

A privilege enjoyed by Humanscape is that writers who contribute articles are drawn from various fields – professional journalists as well as people working at the grassroot level, consultants, and research scholars. One finds that the articles, apart from being informative, discuss the issue from various angles and present a wider perspective. Clearly steered away from mainstream journalism that tends to centre around politics, fashion, business and consumerist cultures, Humanscape takes pride in the fact that it covers uncommon and offbeat topics. 
However, a major lacunae is that there is a dearth of reportage on development in the North-Eastern states of the country. Humanscape should make a conscious effort to get reports from those far-flung areas.

A forum for change and meaningful analysis

Working with Humanscape was not easy for it meant handling two full time jobs both equally demanding and requiring a great deal of interaction with people and ideas. I was a lecturer in KC College and was also handling the monthly production and commissioning of the magazine. But if you ask me how the experience was, it was something that I could not have done without. The approach to work, the non hierarchical set-up, the freedom to experiment, the ability to make innovations and the tremendous support that was given makes it even today the greatest working place.
A great amount of networking had been done by the Humanscape team and the previous editors, but on a month to month basis it was amazing how the articles came in written by journalists, NGO workers, trade unionists, lawyers and academics for a small honorarium. The magazine was started at a time when journalism was changing its approach, becoming more information-based and loosing its analytical edge that had been the hallmark of Indian journalism for so long.
I left when I felt that I could no longer give my best to the magazine as the pressures of my own work had increased. I look upon Humanscape as one of the best forums for change and meaningful analysis.

Theme oriented special numbers of Humanscape on women, health, self-help groups, environment, education, rural development, drought, earthquake, electoral reforms so on and so forth have provided useful material for public education. Feature introducing voluntary organizations spread throughout the country has facilitated the process of networking. Sensitive handling of all nationally important problems by the writers of Humanscape motivates the reader to be a change agent. Humanscape generates hope in the midst of all adversity and calamity because it does not project people as passive victims but as active agents of social change.

Only those who are in the field of social welfare and those who have tried to publish something meaningful sometime, can really appreciate the excellence and the competence that has gone into such an invaluable effort towards Humanscape. You have commanded hearty admiration from social activists, voluntary organisations and all citizens concerned for creating better human beings and a better society.
I do believe that Humanscape has dedicated itself to high quality journalism – it has displayed the generosity of including diversities of issues and angles; it has rightly and ruthlessly questioned our priorities and effectiveness of our social welfare actions; it has brought a lot of voluntary organisations together under its umbrella by acting as a bridge.

Sanjiv Shah is the facilitator of Oasis Self-leadership Education for Community Development

The work I do is sourced from my own creations with comprehensive suggestions from the editor before I put it on paper. But writers, photographers and illustrators seek more than expression. They expect that production complements their work. In Humanscape, copy and visuals are treated with respect. Design celebrates content.
The magazine is a pleasure to read in the specific subject areas of interest. It stimulates our senses, exposes us to new ideas, encourages participation and most of all gives us access to the perceptions of the writer, so that we can look back at our world through their eyes and gain valuable perspective food for thought about the future of humanity. Humanscape offers this in abundance.

Ramkrishna Salvi is a graphic designer based in Mumbai. He has been the art consultant for Humanscape since April 1995.

Humanscape’s highly readable content lives up to the blurb on its masthead “With the human being as the central value”. This is extremely significant and needs to be seen in the context of history. The philosophy of humanism arose in revolt against the theory of divine rights of kings. The feudal order thrived on an admixture of God, organised religion and political power concentrated in the autocratic state. Europe’s rising bourgeoisie first emphasised the centrality of the human being and the temporal world. The concepts of secularism and democracy, and the methodology of science as opposed to theology, were concomitants of humanism. In India, humanism made its appearance in the 19th century social reform movements with luminaries like Vidyasagar, Jotiba Phule and Dayanand in the forefront. The unfortunate divorce between socio-cultural and political currents in the Indian freedom struggle meant that humanism did not gain the pre-eminence that it did in Europe. Casteism, communalism and oppression of women therefore continue to thrive in India. Along with these old evils, a new one has emerged. The world over, capitalism has acquired a pronounced anti-humanist character. ‘Liberalisation’, ‘privatisation’, ‘globalisation’ and ‘reforms’, whether in the economy, or provision of education, of health or of drinking water, are essentially tailored to make human beings ‘adjust’ to the needs of capital. Capital and the market have taken on the dimensions of a supernatural force governing the lives of humanity. This is an irony of history. The proponents of capital still talk the language of humanism, but their message no longer is to change the external world for the benefit of mankind, but to distort humanity for the sake of capital. The singular contribution of Humanscape has been its focus on ordinary people and their views and experiences, which is a refreshing contrast to the increasingly abstract and unintelligible discourses emerging from the centres of economic and political power, and that includes the ‘mainstream’ media. Humanscape therefore keeps the possibility of a new and different world alive.

Rajesh R is a researcher in natural resource management.

I met Tabish Khair the other day, after a gap of nearly ten years. Tabish is a poet above all, but he is also a writer of fiction and criticism. I feel a special affinity with him because we were published together in Rupa’s new poetry series in 1991. Like many of us, who cannot live from our writing, he teaches English at the University of Denmark, Copenhagen. Tabish came to our Centre to read from his latest book of poems, Where Parallel Lines Meet. 
Tabish read from what at first seemed a variety but what I later discerned were essentially two kinds of poems. One kind was about India and things Indian. Most of these poems were not just set in India, but helped describe and therefore to understand it in ways that are perhaps possible only in poetry. These Indian poems, I thought, were enhanced by Tabish’s years away in the cold Northern country where he has settled down now. The other kind of poems were about Europe. Obviously, they were set abroad, but that is not what made them interesting. I thought that what was so unusual was that nearly all of these poems were not about people or even about places, but about the birds and animals, about the landscape and vegetation of his new home. This indirect manner of handling European exile and expatriation was, I thought, quite telling.
I particularly recall one poem, about birds. Its central point was that the birds of Europe never stray in doors. Here in India, we have all experienced the number of not just birds, but insects, and even small animals that wander in and out of our homes. But, as Tabish tells us, this doesn’t happen in Europe. Why? Perhaps, the birds have learned over long years and hundreds of generations that human beings will kill them if they thus trespass. The space inside the house is so sanitized by who knows how many chemicals that there is no possibility of any bugs, roaches, geckoes, or even ants to survive. What a luxury it is, therefore, to step out of the house and still breathe normally, as an earthling on earth, celebrating the great gift of life!
I felt sorry to part with Tabish. How little he has changed over the years, though he’s finished his PhD, written several books, gotten married, and is even a father now, not to mention a University don. Yet, there’s the same humility, the same touching modesty that suggests a person of great depths of thought and feeling.
I was sorry to part with Tabish also because I felt as if I had caught a glimpse of my own neglected Muse during his brief visit. As they say, poetry feeds not so much on life as on poetry. I thought that my own poetry looked so ragged and unkempt, like a small street child, begging at the crossroads. In her large eyes was both the mischief of childhood and the greater gnawing hunger of a relentless and fast-advancing adulthood.
How cruel I’d been to my poetry. In the last several years, how little time or energy had I given to it. Nearly all my writing had been of the academic or activist sort, a species of cold, hard analysis, occasionally leavened by some passionate or emotional outburst. I had, alas, lived, if not become, an almost exclusively mental being, working and conspiring to work at the level of ideas and thoughts, seeking clarities of the sort that poets have little use of. So many years, so many hundreds of thousands of precious months, weeks, days, hours, and moments given to the unbearable futility of words that were as dry as powered distemper.
From my emptiness I seek to write a word of congratulations and praise to Humanscape for its 100th issue. The magazine, a heroic effort of the human spirit to engage fruitfully with its moment in history, has changed over the years. It has done a lot for several causes but, over the years, I feel that somewhere the poetry has been lost and the politics has taken over. While I congratulate Humanscape and wish it many more years of successful protest, I would also like to ask if there needs to be a new aesthetics of protest. One that will not just be shrill and loud, not just sharp and accurate, not just factual and statistical, not just dry, critical, and politically correct, but one that is moving, deeply compassionate and kind.

Makarand Paranjape is a poet, columnist and professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is on the editorial council of Humanscape.

In today's press-scape dominated by big corporate players Humanscape is a delightful source of alternative views. It looks at issues from a grassroots perspective and lets common people speak out. As a foreign correspondent I find it very useful to keep in touch with Indian reality of life. If only the quality of picture presentation could be set right!

Rainer Hoerig, based in Pune, works as freelance correspondent for German radio and press.

How Humanscape has survived 100 issues beats me

Normally, NGO publications start with a bang and then quietly disappear. Whether they survive in the long term is largely dependent on the amount of funds they acquire. When the funds dry up, inspiration, initiative and dedication to the idea of the magazine or journal also mysteriously evaporate. So there was never any deep commitment to the idea in the first place. How Humanscape has survived 100 issues beats me, as I know for certain that the magazine is not funded nor does it have a hot line to Bill Gates. It certainly does not command even a fragment of the infrastructure available to Aroon Poorie or Vinod Mehta. Yet it contains all the good things that India does or hopes for or dreams about. And unlike India Today or Outlook, which are eventually sold to the raddiwallah, past issues of Humanscape are zealously hoarded. There can be no better token of value.
The commitment and dedication of the members of the Humanscape team have remained undiminished, even though they must have encountered failure of nerve at several moments during the course of bringing out these 100 issues. They must have asked themselves, several times, if what they were doing was worth it; was it bringing about any change in a country that appears to be stubbornly unwelcome to change. Not change for the better in any material sense, but change in the sense of creating better human beings: more compassionate, more caring, more fearsome, more daring, more striking, more generous.
Unfortunately, there are never any answers available for such questions. It is has always been easier to count the number of new roads or houses that human beings or governments create. It is more difficult by far to say whether we have succeeded in stimulating the invention of a society of more compassionate people, which is the true business of Humanscape. As long as it survives, we can remain secretly pleased.

An enterprise of admirable moral commitment

In the few years that Humanscape has been around, the journal has already created a visible impression among those who work in the NGO sectors, as well as among a broader class of thoughtful readers and activists. It is no small achievement, particularly in an environment where other well-meaning enterprises fold within a couple of years of their inception, for Humanscape to have been published month after month, with dedication and seriousness of purpose, for over eight years. Recent issues on hunger, forests, and Dalits are not mere compendiums of harrowing stories of the despoliation of land, the exploitation of resources, and the brutal oppression of large numbers of Indians, but testimonials to the strength of ordinary people and their endeavours to prevail despite the immense difficulties that they encounter in the course of their lives. In this respect, Humanscape reflects an understanding, which more theoretically engaged, academic, and professional journals seldom display. Finally, at a time when even certain elements of the NGO sector have become not merely professionalised, but experts at racketeering in their own fashion, Humanscape remains an enterprise of admirable moral commitment and political awareness, a humble demonstration of the decency and ethical thinking of those who have not abandoned their lives to the injunctions of the marketplace.

Vinay Lal is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He writes widely on politics, history and a variety of other subjects. He is member of the editorial council of Humanscape.

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