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Friday. February l7, ms

SCARLET AND BLACK‘

Couririghi: Village Builds ‘New Sense of Digniiy'

Ed. Note: This is the sec-
ond and final part of a report
from Paul Courtright, ’64,
who is serving as a Grinnell
Travel-Service Scholar at Ah-
mednagar College in India
this year.

In the village itself, new homes
are being constructed of sturdy
rock, relatively spacious and hav-
ing windows, replacing the hap-
hazard, windowless structures of
plastered cow dung and grass
roofs, filled with smoke from the
family cooking fire.

The labor is provided by the vil-
lage people themselves, some ma-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

is losing out because of this trend?"

“1 don't mind so much that our
young are leaving the villages. I
know that these boys who are go-
ing to colleges and later settling
in the cities will use their educa-
thin to help us, either directly as
Government officers, or indirectly
in business or professional work
These young men who migrate to
the city in search of jobs many
times have left their wives and
children, or brothers and sisters
behind and send money home to
support them. Our family ties are
very deep; they will not forget us”

One of the women brought some
tea. Indian tea is a mixture of

as '

AN INDIAN WOMAN hands a pan oi gravel to a
act—worker on the Kolhewadi Road Froiecl'.

terials such as sheet metal roofing
is supplied by the government. By
this kind of activity, the village
people with their new houses put
together a new sense of dignity.

I talked with the Patil of the Vilv
logo of Kolhewadiu His name is
Bapuji Shanker Shelke, a man of
about 4550, a Maratha by caste,
and farmer by profession. The
lines in his face, his long mus~
tache, beginning or grey at the
edges, his white turban casual-
ly tied on his head and having a
slight coat of red dust from the
fields, all showed him to be a man
used to hard work and concerned
about the betterment of the people
of his village. As he sat on his
haunches against the wall of an
ancient Hindu temple in honor of
Lord Shiva where we had escaped
the hot afternoon sun, he lit up a
cigarette and smiled. His teeth
showed the red stains of chewing
‘pan,’ or concoction of spices and
betel nut which leaves a mild nar-
cotic effect.

First I asked him, "DO you be
lieve the Government is trying to
improve your way of life?" He
thought for a moment, took arr
other drag on his cigarette, and
answered, "I think the Govern-
ment is there to help our villages
to increase production and raise
the living standard. Sometimes we
are disturbed when we hear of cor-
ruption and waste. Certainly some
of the rural development officers
are more interested in drawing
their salary and advancing them-
selves than in helping us to im-
prove things here. But generally I
believe the people in Delhi and the
local executives are trying to help
us. These things take time."

Then i asked, “Many young men
are leaving the villages to attend
college and later settling in the
cities. Others move to urban areas
in search of more profitable em-
ployment. Do you think the Village

 

strong tea with milk and sugar
boiled together. He poured the tea
into the saucer and balancing it on
his finger tips, blowing on the
surface of the liquid to cool it,
sucked it noisily into his mouth
and swallowed.

“What do you think about the
population 'expiosion’ in India to-
day?"

“I am not worried about popula-
tion expansions To my mind, me
most urgent problem is increasing
food production. When we can
raise our yield by better farming
methods and irrigation, then we
can feed and support many more
people, even than we have now.
All this talk about family planning
is not the answer. What we must
do is grow more food and im»
prove our land.”

in a couple of more months the
road connecting Kolhewadi with
the main road will be finished. The
villagers have worked long hours
in the hot sun, earning 30c per
day during this slack season while
they wait for the harvest of their
grains. These are hard times. The
food prices because of shortages
have risen 100% in three years. To
those people on subsistence in-
comes, the pressure is intense. By
building the road they can earn
enough money to carry on until
harvest. The students have do-
nated their labor as a gesture of
faith in the villages growth.

The story of Koihewadi is not a
dramatic one, bllt it is typical
enough of the job that has to be
done. No crash program from Delhi
can bring rural India out of its
backwardness. It Will be a slow
process, a village by village awak»
ening. it will take a great many
people willing to work at this
level, where there is no glory to be
gained.

And what does the experience at
Kolhewadi say about lndian high
er education?

One of the many institutions in-
dia inherited from the British was
their educational systems The or-
ganization of education in India to-
day is still primarily academically
and theoretically oriented. The
curriculum. textbooks, syllibi, and
examinations are prescribed by a
committee of the university to
which a particular college is af—
filiated. The individual professor
is obliged to follow these require
ments and prepare the student to
pass the midyear and final ex«
aminations which Will determine
his academic standing with the
university.

The advantage of this system is,
of course, uniformity. What is
taught and required across the
country is standardized. But this
uniformity is purchased at a high
price. There is little imagination,
creativity, and resourcefulness re
quired on the part or the professors
and less from the students. Re-
search work, individual inquiry on
unassigned topics and intellectual
curiosity is rare.

The development of the Indian
economy requires minds and

based on sound intellectual think-
ing and personal experience in
specific situations. The Rural Life
Development and Research Pro-
ject of Ahmendnagar College is at-
tempting to bring these two neces»
sities together for its students.

If a student is studying the or-
ganization and management of
rural cooperatives, he can work
with a cooperative being formed
among several villages for the
processing and marketing of pea-
nut oil. If another student is work-
ing on the dynamics of conflict be-
tween traditional and progressive
elements in village India, he can
take a nearby tribal village in the
midst of decisive economic and so—
cial change as a case study.

Page F' o

It is this activity of applying eco-
nomics and sociology into an actual
situation involving real people,
their aspirations, frustrations, suc-
cesses and failures, which makes
the Rural Life Project work stimu-
lating.

This article has been an attempt
to give a glimpse into one small

facet of an Indian experience of the
phenomenon known as “economic
development." There are no
graphs, no statistics, no grand gen-
eralizations instead there are peo-
ple whose lives are being changed,
people who are trying to adjust
from an ancient way of life to n
more prosperous, and inevitably
more uncertain one.

 

 

imaginations with practical ideas

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