Village Industries and 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

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Village Industries and Mahatma Gandhi 

 

The children should be paid at the rate of one anna and the adults four annas per day from the day they begin to work. As they acquire more skill, the wages of the children should be increased up to five annas and those of the adults up to eight annas per day. The manufacture in one village should be confined to one kind of goods only, so that in about two months’ time the workers will acquire skill and avoid making mistakes. The manufactured article should be such as can be utilized locally. The State should arrange to supply raw material and appoint two or three experts to train workers. The State should also undertake to popularize the manufactured goods and arrange for their transport and cheap distribution to the poor consumer. . . . This scheme will enable millions to add to their income and make the two ends meet without throwing them on the unemployment dole or loss of self-respect. The man who is engaged to keep stores, accounts etc should be made responsible for the education of the children as well. After two or three years, the education should be carried on by the monitor system, that is to say, the senior boys should teach the junior ones and the teacher should teach the senior boys only. This teacher should also keep about 50 commonly used drugs.

These drugs should be sold to the villagers at the cheapest rates. The following is a list of some of the household articles that can be manufactured in this way:  The letter is interesting and deserves consideration. One thing is apparent. The writer has given the first place to cloth. It is the only article in the list of universal importance. The various processes involved in khadi production can engage millions of adults and children and enable them to earn a fair amount. This includes the weavers. The weavers live in the cities today. The businessman exploits them and keeps them dependent on him. If the people’s Government could supply them with all the yarn they require it would simplify things for them and put their vocation on a stable basis. They would not then need to live in the cities. But this is beside the point. Much has been said and will be said about khadi. In regard to this letter I have two kinds of difficulties. One is whether it is possible to sell hand-made articles as cheaply as machine made ones. The second is that out of the articles that have been enumerated in the scheme, there is hardly any except khadi which can become universal. They will not, in a large measure, be consumed locally and so will have to be sold in the cities. This is as it should be. The villagers should develop such a high degree of skill that articles prepared by them will command a ready market outside. When our villages are fully developed there will be no dearth in them of men with a high degree of skill and artistic talent. There will be village poets, village artists, village architects, linguists and research workers. In short, there will be nothing in life worth having which will not be had in the villages.

Today the villages are barren and desolate and are like dung-heaps. Tomorrow they will be like beautiful gardens and it would be difficult to deceive the people there. The reconstruction of the villages along these lines should begin right now. That might necessitate some modifications in the foregoing scheme. The reconstruction of the villages should be organized not on a temporary but on a permanent basis. My second difficulty is that in the scheme under question training and education have been divorced from each other. In fact training is a judicious blending of craft, hygiene, education and art. According to Nai Talim, craft, literary instruction, hygiene and art are not separate things but blend together and cover education of the individual from the time of conception to the moment of death. Therefore, I would not divide village uplift work into water-tight compartments from the very beginning but undertake an activity which will combine all four. Instead of regarding craft and industry as different from education I will regard the former as the medium for the latter. Nai Talim therefore ought to be integrated into the scheme.   

 

Reference: 

 

Harijan, 10-11-1946