I first met Dilip Surkar at the whirlwind of the AIF Banyan Impact Fellowship orientation week before our cohort shipped out to our Host Organizations across India. Throughout the 10 months in Ahmedabad, Dilip Ji was my Senior Fellow, giving guidance and gentle support, in addition to balancing roles as Executive Director of Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC) and Director of VIKSAT (Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction). He happened to sit in the domed offices just a 5-minute walk through the greenery from my office at Centre for Environment Education and we near the end of my Fellowship to talk about his career in the development sector for this collaborative blog post and to satisfy my curiosity about his story.
Dilip’s Career Start
Dilip: So I’ll go back in time a little bit, even before CEE, how I came here.
I’m a civil engineering graduate, and when I completed my engineering, I did not have much idea about the NGO sector as such. I mean, I was intending to become a typical engineer.
Soon after I completed my exam, I happened to attend one program in Nagpur, [Maharashtra] that was organised by an NGO there working in slums. After the program, when I met the director, he just asked me, “What are you doing?” and all that. You know, I just completed my engineering. So he said, “Would you like to work with us?”
So that was a pleasant surprise or shock, whatever you call it. So then I said, fine, when would you like me to join? He said, “You can join tomorrow.”
Welcome to the Centre for Environment Education
Dilip: I was quite happy with the work I was doing [in Nagpur]. And I think after a year and a half, I saw this advertisement from CEE in one newspaper there in the Times of India that they’re offering a year-long training program in environment education, but it is, I mean, it’s not a university or something.
I started wondering what this program must be, I never had heard about CEE. So I just applied out of curiosity, and I got a call and got selected, the rest is history. And then I joined this program at CEE. So I came here as a trainee. First time I was travelling to Ahmedabad, the first time I came to CEE.
And then I found that it’s a very different experience as compared to the schooling and university education I had, [which] was very formal, formal education. The kind of learning experience that CEE took us through, it was a very unique program. And it was all based on experiential learning, project based. I would rate that experience as much better as compared to any formal postgraduate or university degree program offers.
That actually transformed my, not just life, but way of looking at things. That gave me a new perspective about the world, how to deal with development issues in general and environmental issues in particular.
See, environmental issues are not very different from development issues. They are all connected. But, all along, the assumption was it was environment versus development, but we started looking at how we can do ‘Environment and Development’.
Work-Life Balance
Dilip: You know, luckily or whatever you call it, since the day I finished my engineering final exams, from that day till [now], I never had a break in my career.
Not a single day between two jobs.
And you [Sydney] mentioned something about work life balance. So, I think work was life. In those days, we were all charged up, very passionate, and fresh out of that CEE training, energized. It was more about passion and emotional attachment and a zeal to save our environment. We thought at that point it was very urgent. Today, it is even more urgent. But even in those days, we were discussing the same issues. And we were more like warriors, that we want to achieve, you know, in young age you want to do something, you want to change the world, you think that you are capable of changing a lot of things.”
Dilip joined CEE as a Project Associate in 1991 and quickly moved up to work as a Project Coordinator. He was posted in Jasdan until 1995, working on an Eco Development Program around national parks and sanctuaries. He coordinated trainings for State Forest Service Officers, worked on drinking water and sanitation in Bhavnagar district with funding from the Netherlands Embassy. Many times when Dilip was in the field, it was too hot to work during the day, so that became the time of rest, and early morning and late evening were when he worked with the communities.
I was really struck by what he said about this time — I resonate with this in relation to my work at CEE about how close to my heart it is.
Dilip: I had no other interest other than work, actually. If you ask me, hobbies and all that, well, reading and, and in those days there was not much on the television. We did not have mobile phones. Okay, so there was no distraction. So work was the only distraction. [laughs] And, and I think the most important one is the passion and, you know, it was close to our heart.
And I think we had wonderful people to work with. Our colleagues. My colleagues, team members, my peers, my immediate team members, even my supervisors. We were all working as a team, more as friends than, you know, boss or supervisor or teammate. And, everybody had a common vision, common purpose, common goal.
Science Express
Later on, Dilip was identified and interviewed to be the National Coordinator for the UNDP Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Program, later went on to become the Executive Director of the Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC) — temporarily until it became permanently. A few years after this, Dilip stepped in for the Director of VIKSAT when the then director took a temporary sabbatical and which then became a long-term break, thrusting Dilip into a second directorship.
One of the standout projects from Dilip’s career in this period was the success of the Science Express, a train which moved from city to city, inviting students and curious citizens to learn from its 16 coaches filled with exhibits about science.
Dilip: These were all new brand air conditioned rail coaches, in which the exhibition was fitted. And then… it was launched by the then Prime Minister of India and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
So Angela Merkel came here to inaugurate. And our Prime Minister was there. And so many ministers. It was a very high profile program. So for us, as a science centre, we were a small team. It was a big, huge opportunity. You cannot imagine how, and we were much smaller in those days.
But we lived up to that expectation. …And nobody knew what will happen after seven months.
They had estimated that they would be happy if it is visited by 500,000 people across India. Over a one month period, we recruited 40 people who were posted on the train: the science communicators, who took the students through and answered questions. … We trained them, put them on the train. They travelled with the train for seven months and had respective cities. For them also, it was like a, you know, gypsy life.
And against the target of 500,000 people, it was visited by 2.2 million people. So it exceeded everybody’s expectations. More than four times, four and a half times. So it became such a big success that everybody said, you know, normally when there is a great song, everybody says, “Once more!”
Being a Senior Fellow
Dilip: The best part of being a Senior Fellow is getting an opportunity to interact with youngsters like you and discuss things. Because that gives additional energy and conviction to play this catalytic role.
As Senior Fellows, we are more in an advisory role. … Continuously I am learning new things, or even discussing ideas, and sometimes also giving ideas. It’s a two-way process. I am advising and mentoring someone but in that process, I am also learning many new things because the Fellows come from today’s context.
And the best part is I also get to interact with applicants. I get to interact with potential host organisations because I am also part of the process where we interview the host organisations who have applied.
See, you are the future leaders, so maybe in a few years, you will be in some influential positions, you know, in a position where you are making a difference to the society. … So, it makes me feel good and proud that, yes, I have known this person. I’ve interacted with this person. I think that that keeps me going. It is a good feeling: to be able to share experiences and thoughts. Even if I make a small difference to the way you look at things, I think that’s worth it.
It was wonderful to talk with Dilip about so much more than what was able to fit in this interview, career pivots, future changes, and comparing past to present among those topics. Thank you to Dilip Ji for agreeing to be interviewed and for sharing his life with me!
