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An assignment on Ghandi,s Rural development...

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DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA

ASSIGNMENT ON

Gandhian Strategies/Approaches of Rural Development

Course Name: Rural Development Course Code: PA - 124

Submitted To: Mohammad Bashir Mia Khadem Assistant Professor Department Of Public Administration University Of Dhaka

Submitted By: Md Rafsan Ahmed 2nd Semester Roll: 041; Session: 2018-2019 Department Of Public Administration University Of Dhaka

Introduction: Rural Development is the betterment in the totality of life for rural people. Rural development is a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people-the rural poor.(World Bank, 2006). Rural development is the process of improving the people’s life and economic well-being of people living in fairly isolated and sparsely used areas. From many years, government of different countries tried to development of the rural area and rural people. The social scientist, the philosophers and the great thinkers opined and shared their ideas and views on rural development and many of them also worked for making succeed of their ideas and plans. Mahatma Gandhi is one of the remarkable person for his thoughts and views on rural development and rural reconstruction. He also implemented successfully of his thoughts on rural development and reconstruction in some rural areas of India. Gandhi’s thoughts on rural areas: Mahatma Gandhi was one of the greatest leader and thinker of India. He is also honored as the “Father of the Indian Nation”. He further believed that India will have to live in villages, not in towns, in huts not in palaces. He made an emphatic assertion that "India lives in her seven and half lakhs of villages'. (Dr.M.Madhumathi, 2011).Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer in South Africa. Gandhi became preoccupied with ‘the Indian village’ right from his days in South Africa and remained so until the end of his life. In 1915, he returned to the India. After returning from South Africa Gandhi developed his ideas on villages from his direct experiences. He was convinced that "If the villages perish, India will perish too. It will be no more India. Her own mission in the world will get lost." (Harijan,1936). Basic principles Gandhi’s model of rural development: Gandhi has been rightly known as the ideologue of the village. He celebrated the Indian village life as no one else did. Gandhi believed that for the development of India, rural development is very essential. He has stressed upon the ‘small industry small city model’. According to this model, the decentralized production system should be acceptable as such system creates opportunities of jobs for rural unemployed youths.(Bano,2016). The basic principle of village swarj as outlined by Gandhi are trusteeship, swadeshi, full employment, bread labor, self-sufficiency, decentralization, equality, NaiTalim etc. (Dr.M.Madhumathi, 2011). Gandhi has said to establish Panchayat, consisting of five members with certain qualifications. For rural development Gandhi proposed ‘Trusteeship theory’. The model village of Gandhi is self-dependent republic. The pre-requisites of the establishment of this village are well-lighted, well-ventilated house, clean roads, well for villagers’ purpose, schools etc. Gandhi opined that ideal village based upon panchayaty democracy and RamRajya are almost the same. 

Ideal rural area: Gandhi’s ideal rural area or villages belongs to the Pre-British period, when Indian villages were supposed to constitute the federation of self-governing autonomous republics. In a letter to Nehru, Gandhi admits that his proposed ideal village only existed

in his imagination. His description of the village and its lifestyle can be interpreted as an ideal and harmonious community, or as an autonomous neighborhood. An ideal Indian village will be so constructed as to lend itself to perfect sanitation. It will have cottages with sufficient light and ventilation built of a material obtainable within a radius of five miles of it. (Garg & Raut, 2015). "That village may be regarded as reformed, where everybody wears khadi, which produces all the khadi it needs, in which every inhabitant spends some of his time in one or more processes relating to cotton, which uses only oil produced in indigenous oilpresses, which consumes only jiggery manufactured in the village itself or in its neighborhood and only hand-milled flour and hand-pounded rice; the village, in other words, where the largest possible number of village industries are flourishing, in which nobody is illiterate, where the roads are clean, there is a fixed place for evacuation, the wells are clean, there is harmony among the different communities, and untouchability is completely absent, in which everybody gets cow's milk, ghee etc., in moderate quantities, in which nobody is without work, and which is free from quarrels and thefts, and in which the people abide by the sevak's advice in all matters. This is possible in the existing conditions. I cannot of course say about the time required." (Gandhi, 1944). My ideal village will contain intelligent human beings. They will not live in dirt and darkness as animals. Men and women will be free and able to hold their own against anyone in the world. (Gandhi, 1963). Gandhi opined that his ideal village would be independent, self governing and self sufficient. This villages should run by the Panchayat. The work of the central authority will only be to coordinate the work of different village republics and to supervise and manage things of common interest, as education, basic industries, health, currency, banking etc.The central authority will have no power to enforce its decisions on village republics except the moral pressure or power of persuasion. 

Khadi: Khadi mentality means decentralization of production and distnbution of the necessaries of life. Khadi has to play an important role in the village economy of India. It can give the poor at least three hgs: cloth, work and self-confidence to articulate themselves.

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Grama Swaraj: Gandhi used the term 'Swaraj" with a definite meaning and significance self rule and self restraint. He defined swaraj in terms of individual and nation. Swaraj of people means the sum total of the self-rule of the individuals. In terms of national swaraj, it is the sum total of all activities which go up to build an ideal state based on moral force. The people of such state are conscious of their moral strength in its collectivity. Gandhi tried to identify the concept of swaraj state with the Ramraj, the ideal state of Shri rama In Gandhi‘s opinion, the key to achieving swaraj lay in fulfilling three conditions alone, namely ‖ the spinning-wheel, Hindu-Muslim unity and in the removal of untouchability. (Brown, 1991) .

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Decentralization & Panchayat system: Mahatma Gandhi advocated Panchayat Raj, It would have been a decentralized form of government where each village would be responsible for its own affairs. The term for such a vision was Gram Swaraj. In such a system decision-making power will be vested in the Village Panchayat rather than in the State and the national capital. Gandhi opined that the methods of rural development can be done by Panchayat. Gandhi has enlisted some other functions excluding the conventional functions, say, legislative, judiciary and executive functions for the Panchayats. (Bano, 2016). It would look after education, health and sanitation of the village. It also worked for the development of the poor people. According to Mahatma Gandhi, utilization of the local resources is quite fundamental to the development of the Panchayat Raj system. The Panchayats should be so organized as to identify the resources locally available for development in the agricultural and industrial sectors. The Gram Panchayat elected annually by the adult villagers, male and female, possessing minimum prescribed qualifications, will conduct the Government of the village.

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Trusteeship: Trusteeship is a socio-economic philosophy that was propounded by Mahatma Gandhi . It provides a means by which the wealthy people would be the trustees of trusts that looked after the welfare of the people in general. Under trusteeship, any rich man can use his extra wealth for his satisfaction. He also cannot use the wealth for promoting anti-social activities. The State should guide the rich how to utilize the wealth for the benefit of the State. He firmly believed that all social property should be held in trust. The trusteeship system should aim at social welfare. Under no circumstance, the welfare of the society will be hampered. The rich people should come voluntarily to join their hands with the common people and decide measures for the welfare of the society by the appropriation of the extra wealth possessed by the rich people. The poor workers, under trusteeship, would consider the capitalists as their benefactors; and would repose faith in their noble intentions.

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Self-sufficiency: Gandhi opined that the village should be self-sufficient as far as its basic needs – food, clothing, and other necessities – are concerned. He suggested that villages should be selfsufficient. they should produce their own food, clothing and other articles needed for meeting their basic needs. He insisted on the promotion of village or cottage industries and handicrafts because they can provide employment, necessary to meet the basic needs of the villagers and also facilitate village self-sufficiency. Gandhi told the people to work in a small group. According to him as far as possible, every activity in the village will be conducted on co-operative basis. According to him every activity in the village will be conducted on co-operative basis. Even in the field of agriculture, Gandhi recommended co-operative farming which would save labor, capital, tools and provide employment to all adult Villagers and increase production also. According to Gandhi, the main purpose of rural development should be

self-sufficiency. For this he has emphasized the development of Swadeshi Mentality among the villagers. (Bano, 2016). 

Bread Labor: Gandhi was greatly influenced by the writings of the thinkers like Ruskin and Tolstoy. He borrowed the idea of bread labor. He further argued that, God has given everyone the capacity to work and earn more than his daily bread and whatsoever is ready to use that capacity is sure to find work.

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Khadi cottage industry: Gandhi always wanted that the villagers must get jobs and they be self-sufficient. So he always emphasized on cottage industries. This new cottage industry is conducive to decentralization, compatible with the law of echo logy. (Schumacher, 1973) Two basic components of Gandhian development, self-sufficient villages and decentralization of economic and political powers, gave a very important place to development of Khadi and Village Industries. Gandhi‘s clear rationale behind the choice of Khadi was led by his anxiety of ―Work to all‖ . He believed that Khadi and Village Industries were the only alternative. Gandhi had anticipated a complimentary relationship between Khadi and Village Industries. He believed that these industries come in as handmade to Khadi. Industrialization leads to passive or active exploitation of the villages. It encourages competition. Large scale production requires marketing. Marketing means profit seeking through an exploitative mechanism. The core idea behind rural industrialization is to maintain a harmonies natural environment for elimination of poverty related basic problem of village life and provision of base needs of life.

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Nai Talim: The villagers are no so much educated. So they believe in superstation and also they are not popular with industrious society. So Gandhi opined that some urban educated people should come to the villages for short times and giving advice on how to lead healthy life and much more information to the villagers. Gandhi called this system Nai Talim.

In his ideal village Gandhi has been in favour of such a development approach which would be eco-friendly. He has said in the ideal village, nature would not be allowed to destroy at any cost. Such type of development has been encouraged not only in India but abroad too. Everyone is very anxious about the future of the globalization civilization. For the destruction of the environment the human beings would be endangered. Conclusion: Gandhi concept of development is oriented to the uplift of the common man. Gandhian approach to rural development strives to reconstruct village republics which would be non-violent, selfgoverned and self-sufficient so far as the basic necessities of village dwellers are concerned. Apart from creating a new socio- economic order, it Endeavour’s to transform man; otherwise the changes in the socio- economic order will be short-lived. To solve rural poverty, he emphasized not only agriculture but also cottage and small scale industries. He focused his

attention on non-agricultural aspect of the rural economy also. He wanted diversified economic activities in the villages and thus stood for all round development of rural India.

REFERENCES

World Bank. (2006). Dr.M.Madhumathi. (2011). The Gandhian Approach to Rural Development. International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT) , 1. Harijan. (1936, August 29). Bano, D. S. (2016). Gandhian Strategies of Rural Development -An Analytical Study. International Journal of Engineering Science and Computing, , 6 (5). Garg, B. S., & Raut, A. V. (2015). Adarsh Gram: A Gandhian Dream of Gram Swaraj. Indian Journal of Community Medicin . Gandhi, M. K. (1944, April 4). Gandhi, M. K. (1963). Village Swaraj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. Brown, J. M. (1991). Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope. Yale University Press. Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small Is Beautiful. Blond & Briggs....