FLOOD RELIEF

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

FLOOD RELIEF

 

 

It was impossible for me to visit Bengal and omit the flood area and the relief given there by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray’s committee. It was a place of pilgrimage for me first because of my association with the Acharya since 1901 and secondly because of the successful manner in which he demonstrated the efficacy of the Charkha as an instrument of relief and an insurance against future distress. If the villagers were well instructed in the methods of dealing with floods and famine and were also accustomed to an occupation besides agriculture which is impossible in times of flood or famines, much time, money and labour that are generally required on such occasions could be saved. When people are taught at such times to depend upon charity for their sustenance, they lose their self-respect and also the use of their limbs. Demoralization then sets in and at last such people are reduced to a state worse than that of mere lower animals. For the latter have at least pleasure in living. The former are dead to life. I, therefore, wanted to see as much as I could with my own eyes what the charkha-mad chemist had done in the relief area.

I was taken to Bogra and thence to Talora where I met the distinguished countryman in his element. “This hut is more precious to me than the palatial Science College. I got more peace and quiet of mind here than elsewhere. And the charkha is growing on me. It gives rest to a mind distracted by study of books!” Talora is a little village where the Relief Committee has one of its centres. The committee has bought a piece of land about 20 bighas and erected bamboo huts with thatched roofs amid surroundings of great natural beauty. There is malaria in East Bengal which is nature’s revenge for man’s neglect of her laws. But East Bengal has vegetation which gives it a beauty that is hard to excel. Man has succeeded in making it malarial but not yet in robbing the land of its natural beauty. Here in restful surroundings I learnt the whole story of the relief operations. The address presented to me would not adorn me with a single adjective. Its six typed foolscap sides are a recital of facts and figures which I propose to digest for the benefit of the reader. The great flood overwhelmed parts of Rajshahi and Bogra districts in the September of 1922, devastating nearly 4,000 square miles of Northern Bangal. The loss was estimated at one crore rupees. The first difficulty felt was that of organizing the Relief organization and co-ordinating the activities of Relief parties that sprang up like mushrooms. Everyone who knows anything of relief works knows that the mere will to serve for money are of no avail if the requisite knowledge and ability are wanting. By judicious handling overlapping and ignorant management were checked. The affected area was divided into fifty centres. The head of this vast organization was no other than Sjt. Subhas Chandra Bose, now His Majesty’s guest in the Mandalay fort. He was assisted by Dr. Indra Narayan Sen Gupta.

This agency distributed food stuff to the value of Rs. 25,606 and clothing worth Rs. 55,200 besides 80,000 pieces and 75,000 old jackets and shirts. It distributed also fodder of the value Rs. 1,274 and 52 wagonloads of straw received as gift. Ten thousand huts were constructed under its supervision. “Materials were brought to the doors of the villagers, labour charges were given to them in installments after the previous ones were properly utilized and inspection reports submitted.” Supervision was so strict that there were only three cases of defalcation of Rs. 1,500, Rs. 350 and Rs. 200 respectively. These were soon detected and money was duly realized. The construction of huts cost Rs. 1, 12,755. If at Kalikapur land was to be reclaimed, embankment was a necessity. It was strictly speaking the District Board’s work. But that body, being unable to shoulder the burden, the Committee built the embankment a mile long costing only Rs. 5,775 and reclaiming 6,000 bighas of land. Gradually, as the things settled, the Committee thought of engaging the villagers in some work if they gave them food and clothing. So they were given paddy to husk. A quantity was advanced to each distressed family which had to return husked rice to the centre appointed. Each family was entitled to retain the fixed quantity for its maintenance.

There were 14 such operating centres. 20,000 mouths were fed for 4 months from these centres. Out of 50,000 maunds of paddy 27,400 maunds of rice were realized. There were no defaulters. This operation cost Rs. 43,000. Side by side with this relief medical assistance was freely given. But this did not satisfy the Committee’s ambition. It wanted to deserve the generous aid it had received from the public by doing permanent work. It wanted to make the people self-supporting and self-reliant in times of trouble. I must give the details of the introduction of spinning in the language of the address:

Brilliant as the results are, they are nothing compared to what they are likely to be. A stage must be reached when it will be no longer necessary to take cotton to the doors of the villagers and receive yarn from them, but when they will get cotton and sell yarn in the ordinary course, as they are doing in the Feni District in Bengal today and in several villages in the Punjab, Rajputana and elsewhere. The organization of the charkha seems to me to be so complete that I do not anticipate any difficulty in the evolution of the movement in the direction indicated. This experiment marks, too, real progress in the Hindu-Muslim unity. A predominantly Hindu organization is helping a predominantly Mussalman population with the sole purpose of improving their economic status. It has Mussalman workers who are never made to feel that they are not as valuable as the Hindus. Indeed, by sheer ability two of them occupy the highest rank among spinners. I had the good fortune to watch 32 volunteers spinning. All spun at the rate of over 400 yards per hour but the Mussalman spinner spun 720 yards per hour. Let me note that these volunteers are paid the market wage. Satish Babu to whose genius the whole of this organization is due told me that he had found by experience that it was better to pay the whole time voluntary workers full wages if one is to expect exact discipline from them. The wages he pays the 62 volunteers average Rs. 25 per month.