Bunker Roy, who founded Barefoot College, dies at 81 in Tilonia

Sanjit "Bunker" Roy, one of the foundational figures of modern civil society in India, has died. He was 81.

Roy founded Barefoot College, a rural development organisation that trained villagers, including grandmothers, to become solar engineers.

What happened?

Roy died on Tuesday, 10 November, at his home in Tilonia, in Rajasthan's Ajmer district. A statement from the Social Work and Research Centre (SWRC), the formal name of Barefoot College, said he "went peacefully as he wanted to in his own home".

He was surrounded by his wife, the activist Aruna Roy, and some of the many people who loved him.

The man who turned down the easy road

Roy studied at the Doon School alongside the future Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, then at St. Stephen's College in Delhi. He won the national squash championship in 1965 and played for India at three world championships.

Then came the 1966 famine in Bihar. He was 21. Seeing people die of starvation after successive failed monsoons changed his life, and he chose not to follow the career path that was open to him.

In 1972 he set up the Social Work and Research Centre in Tilonia. He once called it "a place for cop-outs, drop-outs and wash-outs", not for people chasing certificates. Its approach was bottom-up: villagers identify their own problems, build local solutions and manage their own resources, from water to renewable energy.

How is he being remembered?

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said Roy's idea of training rural grandmothers as "Barefoot Solar Engineers" brought electricity to thousands of off-grid homes in India and other developing countries.

Jairam Ramesh, the Congress general secretary (communications), recalled a cheerful man who loved chocolates. He said Roy believed civil society must "cooperate where they can, collaborate where they should, and confront where they must". Sam Pitroda called him an "institution-builder". Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and CPI general secretary D. Raja also paid tribute, and writer Amitav Ghosh called him "a true hero".

Roy's honours included the Padma Shri in 1986, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2004, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2005 and the Blue Planet Prize in 2011. TIME magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2010.