Gandhian vision ushers in rural prosperity

Endeavour of reaching out to the rural masses is in the true Gandhian spirit of uplifting the condition of the villages and generating employment at the grassroots level

In the land of Mahatma Gandhi, three out of every five families live a life of deprivation. This bitter truth, documented by the Union Rural Development Ministry, in its recent widely publicised report of State-wise and district breakup of Socio-economic Caste Census (SECC), craves for urgent correction. Will there be progress in terms of action and not mere words for India’s villages and its rural folk, is a nagging question this Gandhi Jayanthi Day.

According to the SECC, which had done away with the BPL concept, around 82 per cent households in rural Chhattisgarh do not meet any of the criteria on the 14-point exclusion list. The central Indian State is closely followed by Odisha which has 81 per cent rural households that don’t own any of the assets on the list or earn less than Rs 10,000 a month. Rural Bengal accounts for 79 per cent, Jharkhand 69 per cent and Assam 29 per cent.

Overall around 60 per cent of the rural households have been considered deprived as they failed to meet any of the 14 point criteria. The eastern States were found to be the most deprived with high poverty ratio, indicating that welfare schemes had either no or marginal effect in rural areas. Given these findings, it is clearly discernible that development has been lopsided and not reached the far corners of the country.

In this connection, it is pertinent to refer to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s observation that he needed just 50 months to accomplish what others could not do in 50 years, hinting at reaching out to the poor, which may be a little optimistic claim. Skill development to promote entrepreneurship and equip 500 million Indians with skills by the year 2022 is no doubt a key area which is rightly being emphasised to enable sophisticated training in rural crafts and various other technical jobs.

The National Policy for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship 2015 – part of the Skills India Mission – is aimed at empowering those left out of the mainstream education system by incentivising skill training through financial rewards to candidates who successfully complete approved training programmes. This has the potential of opening up avenues of employment on a large scale and partly tackling the problem of unemployment and underemployment existing mainly in rural areas.

While village level industries should be given impetus in all possible ways, marketing of specialised Indian products would also have to borne by the government. The ‘Make in India’ cry raised by Modi can only become a reality if there is aggressive marketing of our products in the global arena. Words alone will not lead anywhere. The endeavour of reaching out to the rural masses has been in the true Gandhian spirit of uplifting the condition of the villages and generating employment at the grassroots level.

“The revival of the village”, Mahatma Gandhi maintained, “is possible when it is no more exploited. Industrialisation on a mass scale will necessarily lead to passive or active exploitation of the villagers as the problems of competition come in. Therefore, we have to concentrate on the village being self-contained . . .” According to Gandhi, political and economic decentralization could really give power to the villages and allow their unfettered growth and development. The rejuvenation of the rural sector may not help in high GDP growth but would have a grassroots effect in boosting up incomes of the economically weaker sections and the poor.

By Dhurjati Mukherjee