Mahatma Gandhi Views on Rural Regeneration!
For Gandhi, the state of the villages in India was the true index of the state of the country – if the state of the country was to be satisfactory, the state of its villages had to improve. Gandhi’s solution was the regeneration of villages through a comprehensive programme of rural uplift covering all areas such as health, education and employment. Village based industries had to be revived and a taste for their goods had to be created in urban areas.
In his programme of rural uplift, volunteers like himself had a key role to play. They should go to a selected village and live among the peasants there in the simplest way possible without any fuss and teach them through precept and practice to live a healthy life. Gandhi propagated his views through his journals, Navajivan, Young India and Harijan. These were copied or translated into other languages in various parts of India and became common knowledge.
Gandhi was of the opinion that the village worker should expect no more than a living wage from the All India Spinners Association or the new national provincial scheme that was being organized because India was a poor country and its service excluded a living beyond its means. Gandhi also expressed his opinion about the “village-worker ratio” that would make his scheme of rural regeneration effective. Villages, he wrote, should be grouped into blocks, each with a radius of ten miles and covering around ten villages. In such a scheme, there would be one worker for every block and 70,000 men and women volunteers would be required to cover the more than seven lakh villages in the country.
He outlined in meticulous detail the schedule of work for the village worker. Firstly, he should undertake a census of all the cattle to find out the average yield of milk; a census of the untouchables and a report of their conditions; a detailed survey of the village, including its area, crops, land revenue, crafts, industries, wells, fruits, and types of trees. All this information needed to be recorded carefully because it would be of invaluable help not only to the worker, but also for chalking out uplift programmes. The local volunteers would prove most valuable in this task.
In response to Gandhi’s call, dedicated volunteers opened centres for village service in different parts of the country and, fortunately, some records of their progress are available. In Tamil Nadu, a Gandhi ashram was set up by C. Rajagopalachari near Trinchengodu. In Comilla, in Bengal, the Abhoy Ashramwas run by Drs S.C. Banerji and P.C. Ghosh. In Meerut, the Gandhi Ashram managed by Acharya Kripalani was a big organization with branches in several places. Among the activities at these ashrams were spinning, medical relief, national education, dairy, agriculture, rural sanitation, removal of untouchability and fighting liquor addiction.
An important development in the programme for improving the state of villages was, the setting up of the All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA) in October 1934. AIVIA was constituted under the advice and guidance of Gandhi by J.C. Kumarrappa as an autonomous body, independent of the political activities of the Congress, but nevertheless a part of it.
Gandhi outlined the work of AIVIA as follows:
1. To encourage and improve the known industries, that are likely to perish for want of support;
2. To take charge and sell the products of these industries;
3. To carry on the survey of such village industries as need to be revived and supported; and
4. To attend to village sanitation and hygiene.
He perceived the role of AIVIA thus: Village services as conceived by AIVIA had a unique mission. Town parties would go out to villages to clean, instruct and purchase. Parties of villagers would be organized to go to towns to sell articles made in their villages and demonstrate their usefulness. This village movement was to be one of decentralization and restoration of health and comfort and the skill of the artisan to villagers.
Genuine service in the villages by those living in the towns epitomized for Gandhi his concept of bread labour, which denoted that each person should do adequate manual labour either for a living or to undo the unfair division of labour in society. By following it in society, Gandhi believed, there would be enough food and leisure for all and the common problems of overpopulation, disease and poverty could be alleviated.
To create popular awareness about the village uplift programme, Gandhi conceived of the scheme of holding khadi exhibitions to synchronize with the annual sessions of the Congress. It was decided that AIVIA and AISA would jointly organize these exhibitions. The first such exhibition was held in March 1936 and it, as Gandhi says, “is not a spectacular show like its predecessors …. You will find here craftsmen and crafts- women from Kashmir and South India, from Sindh and Assam, and learn how they earn their scanty living. You will find that it is within your power to add a little to their income and to enable them to have a square meal, if only you will make up your mind to pay for their wares enough to ensure them a living wage.”
Gandhi was aware that the work of rural reconstruction on the scale that was needed in India was impossible without the active support of the government, which was the only body that could command the vast resources and manpower that was needed. Hence, when Congress governments were formed in seven provinces in 1937, he gave them guidelines on how they could further the work of AIVIA. He gave suggestions for the rapid promotion of select village based industries and for finding markets for their products outside the villages of production.
Though, in the ultimate analysis, Gandhi’s efforts for the revitalization of the villages of India did not achieve very much in concrete terms, they undoubtedly did bring into sharp focus the basic issues of social and economic change in India.