The key to equitable national development lies in empowering the villages and making them self-sufficient. This is what the RSS aims, through its Gram Sankul Yojana by encouraging local industries and sustainable farming
The country may be awaiting a change in the economic pattern. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is making an effort to transform the Indian economy by junking ‘Manmohanomics’, the economic vision propounded by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and taking it back to the basics. The RSS’s focus is on villages and kisans. The new economy will be based on self-reliant villages, which will hold the key to national self-reliance.
The farmland has to be protected and farming has to be based on organic methods. The new economy has to re-focus on protecting farmland and stop commercialisation of land that benefits land sharks and large business houses. Without protecting land resources and developing the village economy, the country’s progress will be lopsided. The RSS’s view of the new economy also promotes cattle rearing, particularly of cows, to increase milk production and reduce dependence on imported milk powders.
The new economy plan has been given the name of Gram Sankul Yojana. It was launched at Farah, Mathura, the birthplace of RSS ideologue and former Bharatiya Jan Sangh president Deen Dayal Upadhyay. The Bharatiya Jan Sangh was the precursor to the Bharatiya Janata Party and it was Upadhyay who had given the concept of integral humanism. The concept paper quotes Upadhyay as saying that a “decentralised agro-industrial society be the backbone of our economy”.
The new system has the support of like-minded organisations such as the Ramakrishna Mission, Patanjali Yogpeeth, All World Gayatri Pariwar and Sarvodaya Samaj. Experts from different fields, including foreign universities, the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management, are associated with the programme. In fact, the national coordinator of the Gram Sankul Yojana, Mr Mahesh Sharma, is an IIT alumni.
A massive capital-intensive economy, like the one that had been envisioned under ‘Manmohanomics’, would never have been able to provide jobs to all. The propounders of Gram Sankul are not opposed to liberalisation. On the contrary, liberalisation is the bedrock of Upadhyay’s concept.
But the way in which liberalisation is carried out is crucial. The reforms process must empower not only the big operators but also the poorest of the poor. ‘Manmohanomics’ has harmed the Indian economy, devastated its rural base, damaged its water resources and only helped create a cheap labour pool for the industry.
Interestingly, the RSS, under the Gram Sankul Yojana, does not accept the official agriculture GDP figure. In villages, lots of services and goods are still not monetised. Much work is done on the basis of personal cooperation in an exchangeable economy. This cannot be represented in terms of GDP figures.
Notably, the India Rural Development Report 2013 supports many of the contentions made by the RSS. It says that commercialisation of agriculture has helped some big farmers but ignored small holders. The report also notes that small farmers, who move away from their farms, only get casual jobs.
Rural development is more on paper and the people in the villages have not gained due to the state’s prolonged negligence of the farm sector, the report concludes.
The RSS also believes that ‘Manmohanomics’ has ignored rural development, agriculture and the needs of over 75 crore people who are dependent on agriculture and make up for about 54 to 58 per cent of population. ‘Manmohanomics’ is not concerned about the penury of the villagers.
According to the thinker and innovator behind the Gram Sankul Yojana, economist Bajranglal Gupta, the massive rural-to-urban migration that is taking place, also needs to be constrained. The lack of opportunities in the villages is pushing people to the cities, where they live in urban ghettos and have a poor quality of life.
The Gram Sankul Yojana aims to create an economy that will be sustainable and provide gainful employment. Each sankul is to be a cluster of eight to 10 self-sufficient villages, which will be almost self-reliant. RSS sahkaryavah Bhaiyyaji Joshi said that, for long, villages meant dilapidated structures with little facility. But the villages should be as smart as the cities.
Rural development is key to decentralisation. The Gram Sankul Yojana will cater to all needs in the villages. “Why do you need to have a soap manufactured by large producersIJ You would have to ensure that production cost remains in check. That is possible with local manufacturing”, Mr Joshi said.
The Gram Sankul Yojana also aims to harness alternative energy sources in a massive way, to end the dependence of villages on power grids that give low quality electricity at high prices. The health system, under the Gram Sankul Yojana, will also stress on preventive and quality healthcare at the local level.