Ever since taking part in the freedom movement, Mahatma Gandhi was extremely concerned about the condition of the villages and emphasised the need of adopting a new view towards the villages. In fact, due to the economic policies of the British, unemployment was increasing among the people living in the villages, small industries and businesses were ruined. The tendency of the people of the cities to buy and use foreign things had increased, and the British Government and Britishers were benefiting directly from it.
The raw material from India would be exported to Britain and from there it was transformed into goods and sold to the Indian people at high prices. At this time Gandhi began to make efforts to bring awareness among the Indian public. Gandhi made the charkha as weapon of the Swadeshi movement. He urged the people to use indigenous products in their daily routine. He would insist the people to use a broom to clean the house instead of plastic brush. He urged people to use neem or acacia toothbrush instead of plastic brushes. Handmade rice may be used instead of factory polished rice, jaggery may be used instead of factory sugar.
Gandhi also wanted to remove social and economic inequality through economic progress of villages. There was also an economic aspect to his campaign for untouchability. He used to see social evils weakening by the economic progress of poor and deprived people. Gandhi used to say that we have to instill the habit of buying goods from the villages, which will strengthen the rural people and they will get both wages and profits.
Gandhi described the exploitation of villages by the cities as a form of violence. Gandhi wanted people from the city to come to the village and contribute to improving the economy of the village. For this he himself settled in Segaon, a small and backward village a little away from Wardha. People from India and abroad also came to stay with Gandhi in this village. These people lived entirely on the indigenous lifestyle and system. They would use maximum natural things.
Later Segaon came to be known as Sevagram. Gandhi described factories as fatal to human development and also characterized the environment of the factories as anti-non-violence. In Gandhi’s thoughts, India’s civilization and culture developed in the villages.
He used to say that non-violent society is strengthened by the self-reliance of the villages. That is why it is necessary to be village-oriented before being non-violence oriented.
To realize Gandhi’s dream of strengthening the rural economy, the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation of Panchayati Raj in the country. Later, Rajiv Gandhi, who was the youngest Prime Minister of the country, strengthened it and connected it with the interests and participation of the people. Madhya Pradesh got the distinction of connecting Panchayati Raj with the people first. The then Digvijay Singh government wrote a new chapter in rural development by implementing the 73rd Constitutional Amendment in Madhya Pradesh.
Madhya Pradesh is celebrating the 150 th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi.
Under the leadership of Chief Minister Kamal Nath, the Congress government is giving direction to rural development in the state as per the wishes of the Father of the Nation. Government is taking steps in the direction of development of cottage and village industries, taking food processing industries up to panchayat level, several well-planned efforts like Sushasan to Suraaj, right to water, establishment of large-scale cowsheds in the state and public participation in conservation of cows. I am confident that we would succeed in making necessary changes in the present conditions in the creation of the country and Madhya Pradesh of Mahatma Gandhi’s dreams.
(The author is Minister of Public Relations in Madhya Pradesh)