365bet娱乐

The improvement and efficiency of rural areas is basic vital to the prosperity of any nation. Much more is it so in the case of India, which is a country of villages, its main industry being agriculture. But nowhere is the problem less understood, one is afraid, than in this country. As a matter of fact, only in recent years have the European countries too paid particular attention to this question and improved their villages. This improvement has been nowhere greater than in England.

In India, Mahatma Gandhi laid emphasis on it. Politicians and economists of an older generation, although they were pioneers in recognising that the science of Economics had no rigid laws universally applicable but was subject to national conditions, cried for urbanisation rather than for rural uplift. But the real problem of India cannot be solved by urbanisation.

The monster of the slough of despond into which rural India has fallen is so hydra-headed that it has to be attacked at its vital points. In the enthusiasm born of the opening of a new vista, workers are apt to forget the A. B. C. of the problem and run to waste not only their money but their energy too.

The root causes of the wardness of rural India are primarily economic, and secondarily, educational. Absence of literacy has stood in the way of the spread of knowledge, although means have now been made available, which lessen the rigidity of that handicap. Yet, unless the material condition of the masses improves, there can be but little advance in other directions. This and education move round in a vicious circle, so inter-dependent are they. Therefore the secondary cause has to be first removed by national effort.

Perhaps the greatest cause of the prevailing poverty is the criminal waste of raw materials in the country. No doubt customs and habits are responsible for it to a great extent. Yet the lesson, that there is wealth in wasted things, has to be learnt.

Waste occurs in two ways. One is preventable waste, such as is due to ward customs and negligence; and the other is what is due to want of knowledge to utilise the material to the fullest extent. Physical and chemical sciences have discovered several uses. The manure known as 鈥榗ompost鈥� is a useful example. It is made from rubbish which is thrown away, and it requires no machinery, as in the case of paper on a large scale, for producing this most valuable manure available in all rural areas. In the absence of the tackling of the rural problem on a wide, general scale, sporadic attempts made in small localities, however useful, will not even touch the fringe of the difficulty, and will only result in wasted effort, all such effort being a mere palliative.

Agriculture being the biggest industry of the land, the two principal handicaps concerning it, if removed, will alone make it a paying one, and thus bring prosperity to the countryside. One handicap is the unscientific way of levying the land tax, which is exclusively treated neither as rent nor as a tax, resulting in a fitful and terrible burden and in a rigidity in its collection, which necessarily follow from the want of principle in the levy of the land revenue. This has depressed the industry and ruined the people who are mainly dependent upon it. The prevention of the divisions of holdings beyond a fixed limit and their consolidation will prop it up. But the main thing is to apply the same rules and methods for the collection of land revenue as are the basis of the law of income-tax.

Another item is to utilise the time of the cultivators and landless labourers, which for want of occupation during a part of the year is wasted. Mahatma Gandhi鈥檚 insistence on the spinning and weaving of cotton, besides being almost of universal application and utility in India, is the most logical occupation. However, there are other subsidiary industries which, with a little guidance, can be easily introduced. A visit to weekly bazaars even in the remotest corners of the country will show how markets are flooded with things of luxury and even of daily use, made in foreign countries and brought over long distances by ship and rail. If a regional survey is made, and then small or big workshops are started in the country, there can be a supply of these 鈥榥ecessary luxuries鈥� by production of them locally or regionally, instead of by foreign commerce. The Wardha scheme of education is sure to create this mentality and benefit the industry of the country. For the prosperity of the country, the main thing is to utilise the raw materials, and turn them into manufactured goods. Similarly should we import raw materials that we can utilise in this manner and import only such manufactured articles as are absolutely necessary and as are not produceable in the country.

But such a policy need not mean discouraging big industrial concerns. The industrialisation of our country is quite consistent with the ruralisation of certain industries. In this connection attention is invited to the "Government-sponsered Trading Industries," which have been recently established in England. One such, The North-Eastern Trading Estates Ltd. under the Special Areas Reconstruction Association is the most prominent. The main idea at its base is that there should be no concentration of labour in factories. It should be possible for labourers to live in their homes and visit manufacturing concerns for week days only. The aim is to encourage small industries. The Association, which has been patronised by the Government, affords facilities by constructing homes for the small industries. England has been forced to take this step owing to the severe competition to its bigger industries, and owing to the realisation of the evil effects of its factory labour. An intensive study of these new methods must be exceedingly useful to India.

The opening up of the country by providing means of transport is bound to lift the cloud hanging over the countryside. But unless accompanied by rural uplift these means will prove disastrous to the prosperity of the people. The routes of transport have to be carefully studied. At a certain industrial centre, which is well served by roads in addition to a railway line, carts loaded with timber and grass come through the country-side below the ghats. They pass over a College colony. But neither the professors nor the students of this colony have ever cared to study the question as to what happens to the carts when they return their homes empty. If stores and marketing are resorted to, this transport can be utilised for the transport of the return-goods almost for no cost and at a profit to both parties. With a little interest in such problems, and with a little enthusiasm for public work, academicians can help the prosperity of the rural areas, by studying these not uncommon economic situations in rural India and by advising in the direction of progress.

It is one of the duties of the State to devise periodical plans for advance in every direction and to carry them out. They should be audited to test how far they have been successful; and if they have not been successful, the reason should be discovered and remedied. The State, or the people inhabiting a limited area, should finance these projects. The British Government in England has allotted over four crores of rupees to the Association already mentioned, almost as a grant.

The holidays of students should be spent in educating villagers and even town-folk.

Another sad feature about rural life is the consumption of intoxicants. Strict prohibition would do incalculable good, physically, morally and economically. At an industrial centre, the experience is that while a household of a labourer earns more than that of a clerk or a teacher, the condition of the former is several degrees worse than the latter鈥檚, the difference being almost entirely due to money wasted in intoxicants. It would be a joke to say, were it not so tragic in its consequences, that drinks are required by tired bodies. The joke is started by excise officials in order to increase the revenue. The complete stoppage of this evil will change the countryside as nothing else can.

Unless, therefore, the magnitude of the task is grasped, and comprehensive remedies applied, mere tinkering by sporadic attempts will fritter away money.

It is not always advisable to make a State economically or industrially self-sufficient, but where facilities exist or where such a policy would lead to the elimination of the import of manufactured articles from foreign producers, who carry away the bulk of the profits leaving only labour and other charges locally, a bold national or even regional policy is necessary. Round about the industrial centre already referred to, there are localities for establishing industries like the one contemplated by the Reconstruction Association in England, that is to say where the labourers of a factory can dwell in different villages without concentrating in the industrial centre and yet discharge the work of manufacture. One centre is suitable for such manufactures as thymol, glass and bone-meal; and another, where there is ample water-supply, for making paper and for leather works. There is no reason why even in our country in a local political unit or regional State the supply of shoes and other leather goods and paper cannot be made self-sufficient. Raw materials for these are exported in huge quantities. These localities which have in view are served by road and rail; and sufficient labour for such industries as have been referred is available within a radius of twelve miles. Just as school children visit schools, so daily labour can visit factories. So the home-life will be preserved, while the spare time of the cultivators will be made economically profitable to them. Enterprise and financial ing alone are wanting. Not only can the State help in developing these particular centres, but many other such centres can be discovered all over the Indian countryside.