Social Service Conscription – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Social Service Conscription – Mahatma Gandhi

 

This valuable thesis does not mean that it contains the only scheme of conscription for social service. It shows the feasibility of conscription. It points the way to it. Usually, conscription has hitherto been used in modern individualist communities for purposes of national defence or imperialist aggression. In this country, we would adopt conscription universally, for men as well as women, not for destructive, but for productive purposes of national service and social reconstruction. In some countries they allow certain exemptions from such compulsory gratuitous public service, and offer certain compensatory advantages to those who have rendered such service. In this country, too, we may have to use a similar device. To make this new factor in our national economy function effectively and smoothly, we may have to introduce it by stages. But the foundation must be laid immediately.

This Social Service Conscription should commence with educated males of 18-25 years of age. Ancillary organizations of boy or girl volunteers comparable to the British Boy Scouts, or the Italian Ballila, might be set up to support the main force of conscript workers. The proportion of educated males in India is about 1 in every 5, and that of educated women 1 in 50. At the age, however, at which conscription should commence the proportion may be appreciably higher, say, 1 in every 3 males, and 1 in every 10 women. The term ‘educated’ is used in a very liberal, or even charitable sense, since it includes all those who fulfil the merest test of literacy in their own language. . . . It may be expedient to limit the number of conscripts to those of secondary school- leaving stage. Of the 15 lakhs of such young men available in a province like Bombay, barely 250,000 may be found to satisfy the minimum educational qualification, while less than 100,000 may be found to satisfy the higher qualification suggested above. We may well begin the experiment with this latter number. These educated young men of 18 and over must regard the service rendered by them as a sort of personal ten per cent tax, paid in kind, those paying only who have the means to do so, and their superior education being treated as evidence of their ability.

The 100,000 educated young men, with whom the experiment may be commenced in Bombay, for example, would be more than ample for our immediate objective, in the 21,484 villages of that province. Nearly 5 educated conscripts would be available for each village. There may be in addition about 25,000 young women who may supplement the effort later on. The most urgent and immediate task of social service consists in: (a) liquidation of illiteracy and ignorance; (b) spread of elementary knowledge of health and hygiene; (c) aiding and improving village productive organization and occupation. One of the most important sections in the Legislation for Conscription would have to define carefully the tasks to be allotted to the workers. No scheme of conscription should be put into effect, until a comprehensive plan of the work to be done has been prepared and approved for each Province.  The social service conscripts, mobilized in India on the plan here advocated, would have to be given special training even more than the military conscripts of Europe, since the latter, in their ordinary elementary schooling, generally receive some element of practical training, too, before they join the colours.

In India our educational system provides no such advantage for the average youth. This training organization must be developed in each province out of the existing schools and colleges. The instructors in these institutions, particularly of the higher grade, are by no means overworked, or underpaid. From the highest to the lowest, in every faculty and branch of knowledge, this profession should be indented upon at least to the extent of one hour per day. Such training should be given intensively for 6 months in the one year of the service. Work should be assigned, or distributed, among the conscripts in accordance with the aptitude and previous training of each individual. Those conscripted in this manner both during training and during the period actually at work will not be paid anything by way of salary. But they must be maintained at public expense, and must be taken from their place of work to their homes, and vice versa, at public expense. This ought not, however, to cost the State such an amount as to be an insupportable burden, nor be out of proportion to the value of the service rendered.

All those who willingly, and without any exemption, render such service, as and when it falls due, must at the time of seeking employment for life, be preferred by all public bodies, and even by private employers on pain of losing such patronage or countenance from the State as is now becoming increasingly common between the State and Industry. The basic legislation for such conscription must clearly provide for such compensation.  The advantages of conscription need not be detailed at any great length. In the first place, it would solve, in a great measure, the question of the cost of the indispensable and urgent social service we need in this country.

At the same time, it would help to inculcate those habits of disciplined work and of concerted action the so-called team-work which is indispensable in community intent upon making up the leeway that India is suffering from. Finally, thanks to such regimentation the phrase may be used without any fear of misinterpretation an increasing section of the community will automatically acquire those habits of personal cleanliness and healthful living which most people when left to themselves ignore, and consequently suffer in health, temper and efficiency.

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Harijan, 30-10-1937