A VILLAGE-CENTRED PLAN
J.C. Kumarappa
The advent of popular ministries at a time when the country is facing famine and shortages in primary consumption goods may prove a blessing provided advantage is taken of the situation to launch a countrywide programme to increase the productivity of the people in selected sectors so as to make good the deficiencies. To be effective such a programme has to be uniform and well-coordinated in all the provinces throughout the land. Patchwork schemes and isolated, desultory attempts will not carry us far. In order to facilitate consultation and discussion between the cabinets of the various provinces a conference of ministers was held at Poona on 31st July and 1st August, 1946.
Gandhiji’s address: This conference opened with an address by Gandhiji who, in the course of his speech, pointed out that as the world is organized today, “the mighty alone can survive to the exclusion of and at the cost of the weak. True independence demands that there should be room even for the weakest. The base and foundation of economic activity was agriculture. Years ago I read a poem in which the peasant is described as the father of the world. If God is the provider, the cultivator is His hand. What are we going to do to discharge the debt we owe him? We have lived so long only by the sweat of his brow.
“There are people who say that no basic reform in agriculture is possible without political power. They dream in terms of industrialization of agriculture by large-scale application of steam or electricity. I warn them that trading on soil fertility for the sake of quick returns will prove to be a disastrous, short-sighted policy. It will result in virtual depletion of the soil. Good earth called for the sweat of one’s brow to yield the bread of life.
“People may criticize this approach as being slow and unprogressive. It does not hold out promise of dramatic results. Nevertheless it holds the key to the prosperity of both the soil and the inhabitants living on it. Healthy, nourishing food is the alpha and omega of rural economy. The bulk of a peasant’s family budget goes to feed him and his family. All other things come afterwards. Let the tiller of the soil be well-fed. Let him have a sufficiency of fresh, pure milk, ghee and oil, and fish, eggs and meat if he is a non-vegetarian. What would fine clothes, for instance, avail him if he is ill-nourished and underfed? The question of drinking water supply and other things would come next.
“A consideration of these questions would naturally involve such issues as the place of plough cattle in the economy of agriculture as against the tractor-plough and power-irrigation, etc. and thus, bit by bit, the whole picture of rural economy would emerge before them. In this picture cities would take their natural place and not appear as unnatural, congested spots or boils on the body politics as they are at present. We stand today in danger of forgetting the use of our hands. To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves. To think that your occupation of the ministerial chair will be vindicated if you serve the cities only, would be to forget that India really resides in her 7,00,000 villages. What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world but lost his soul in the bargain?
“If you feel in your hearts that you have taken office as custodians and representatives of the interests of the masses, everything that you do, your legislation, your executive orders, the instructions that you issue, will breathe concern for the villager. To protect his interests, you do not need the Viceroy’s sanction. Supposing you want to protect the hand-spinner and the hand-weaver against the competition of textile mills and solve the problem of cloth shortage for the masses, you will put aside red tape and send for the mill-owners and tell them that unless they want you to go out of office, they must make their production policy conform to the requirements of the masses whose custodian and representative you are. You will tell them not to send mill cloth to certain areas which are put under hand production and not to produce a certain range of textiles which comes within the handloom weaver’s domain. If you are in earnest your word will go home and they will willingly give their cooperation as they did recently when they provided the required textiles for export to Indonesia in return for Indonesian surplus rice for the relief of the Indian famine. But there must be that inner conviction first; everything else will then be all right.”
The Resolution: The Memorandum on Governmental Functions submitted by the All-India Village Industries Association was then discussed and the following resolution was passed:
“Having considered the policy that should govern the economic development to be initiated by popular ministries, this conference of ministers, assembled from various provinces at Poona, hereby resolves:
(1) That in view of the acute scarcity prevailing in the country with respect to the primary requirements of the people, especially food and clothing, plans for economic development should centre round the farmer and agriculture, and should be motivated with the object of providing a balanced diet, adequate clothing and other articles of primary human need for every citizen in the land; and that for this purpose steps be taken to ensure that the land available for cultivation is distributed by proper regulation, such as licensing, between various crops needed by the community and in the required proportion;
(2) That in order to achieve real democracy it is necessary to organise contiguous areas—villages or a group of villages—on a self-sufficient and self-governing basis, through multi-purpose cooperative societies and grain banks which will plan their economic life on a decentralized basis, reducing the need for money economy to a minimum and restricting external trade to proved surpluses.”
Now that the central government also will function under the direction of our national leaders, may we hope that this resolve to plan for the economic development, starting with an attempt to strengthen the body with a balanced diet and to provide all the primary needs of the people, will materialize in no distant future?
This approach to planning is both simple and inexpensive. Being broad-based it is calculated to bring relief to the masses in the shortest possible time. This can be the surest method of combating black-marketing, inflation and the ration muddle. The conditions in the country brook no delay. We trust the popular ministries will take immediate steps to implement their resolution and thus fulfil the promises made to their electorates.
(From the collection: “Swaraj for the Masses,” Akhil Bhartiya Sarva Seva Sangh, Kashi,1948)