The Relevance of the Green thought of Gandhi

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. This thought can come only in a person who could feel the pain and helplessness of many in the lowest strata of society who do not have anything to eat and drink. What is needed is to give a morsel of food and a few drops of water to quench the thirst.  This  humanitarian thinking and feeling for the unfortunate hungry poor millions found its clear expressions from Mahatma Gandhi, who had a clear vision and mission on food security.

The humanity is progressing and prospering all round with better living conditions, luxuries, opportunities and accomplishments.  These sparkling spots are overshadowing the important concern on the very existence of mankind, food to feed the hungry in the first instance and for the masses at a later stage.

Money can never be a substitute for food. Money can buy food but cannot generate and produce food. This fact is conveniently not understood or realized. Across the country, there is shortage of food now.   Prices shoot up many fold on rumors of scarcity. Independent India has been witnessing these shortages in the case of onion, potatoes, chillies, sugar and what not. The production, supply and availability of the main staple food are important criteria for international accreditation.

For ensuring uninterrupted production and supply of food, the primary sector agriculture needs to be recognized.   “To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves”, Gandhi remarked and wished to bring back home the vital role of agriculture. Forgetting ourselves meant self declared anarchy. Non availability will harbor  supply shortages leading to price rise and hunger situations.

Leaving exceptions to one or two progressing countries in Africa, the rest of the world continue to be starving. The accumulation of this sorrow leads to malnutrition and deteriorating health of the people.  Coming back from the Dark Continent of Africa, the traditional food producing tracts in many countries are changing the stature to accommodate modern trends of development. Requirements of raw and processed food in the country are rapidly addressed through the means of imports. This is the only easy prescription even the Governments in power can do. Likewise, from being a merchandise, food is turning tables of international politics and diplomacy.

This has its total relevance in the modern day situations when many people who are not seen in open are still fighting for one meal a day.  As the society revels under progress and development with sufficient food to eat and variety of drinks and beverages to drink and rejoice, far away in the shanties  and huts in the hills, in the valleys plains and on the shores ,

Agriculture as a main stream in the country’s economy and the farmer in the central place would bring prosperity to the people and the nation.  Mahatma Gandhi’s thought about agriculture went beyond just ordinary expectations. What India needs in its agricultural sector are millions of lok sevaks selflessly committing to the singular tasks of tapping the vast expanse of human resource to produce crops and produces to feed the nation.   As Mahatma Gandhi said To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.

Bapu, as all in India fondly calls Mahatma Gandhi, in his untiring travels and struggle to free the nations from the Western supremacy had been basically addressing from the very basics. From poverty to hunger, from discrimination to deprivation and from agriculture to small agri enterprises and from small industries to cottage industries. Every segment has its direct linkage from supply of raw materials to the ultimate production front.  Yes in all its complexities, farmer was in the central place.

Gandhi had right from his basic thoughts considered the problems in  agriculture as the  issues of the peasants and farmers.  There is a core link to the very basic existence of human being, his family and children and their future. When he proclaimed that India lives in its villages, he meant that Villages are the souls of the country which further brought the two players to the fore - The farmer and the farm labourer, the two electrifying forces of the agriculture economy. 

Gandhiji was never against mechanization but advocated use to a limited extent.  As agriculture lost its preferential choice, vast expanse of cultivable lands went unutilized and is remaining fallow. Farmer and the farm labour, the two main actors, have stopped their role plays. The many centuries old script of these two actors also got erased.  The inactivity is contributing to the phasing out of the two species.  Farm labour as a vocation is not very popular now. New generation is not attracted or amused in accepting farming as a way of life.  The result heavy pressure on service and other allied sectors on account of excessive presence of manpower.

For Gandhiji, agriculture was a way of life and the path for rural development.  In fact his experiments with different strategies to win over his arguments for his fight for social, economic and political freedom had its beginnings in farm related activities engulfing the entire gamut of agriculture including animal husbandry. What he said and practiced many decades ago in the Tolstoy and Phoenix farms are finding its true applications universally now. The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) by the United Nations aims to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas. Family farming includes all family-based agricultural activities, and it is linked to several areas of rural development. Family farming is a means of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production which is managed and operated by a family and predominantly reliant on family labour, including both women’s and men’s.

Family farming has an important socio-economic, environmental and cultural role.

Prior to his tirade against the British rule in India, South Africa was Mahatma Gandhi’s testing ground. His outcry against the racial discrimination in South Africa paved the foundation for this conviction of non violence. The Gandhian Constructive Programmes had its early structuring during the African days as we go by learning the genesis and working of the Tolstoy and Phoenix farms.

Tolstoy farm founded in 1910 by Gandhi proved to be an ideal laboratory his experiments with education and agriculture. "Tolstoy Farm was a family in which I occupied the place of the father," wrote Gandhi, and that I should so far as possible shoulder the responsibility for the training of the young". The routine of the children on the farm was divided between attending classes and contributing to the maintenance of the farm. As at the Phoenix settlement manual work was combined with instruction on a daily basis, but Gandhi took this concept one step further at Tolstoy by introducing vocational training to give "all-round development to the boys and girls". Although at this stage there was no attempt to educate the children through the medium of a specific handicraft, Gandhi enabled each child to become self-supporting by supplementing their education with vocational training. Their ages ranging from six to sixteen, the children had on an average eight hours of manual training per day, and one or, at the most two hours of book learning".

The activities at Tolstoy Farm included general laboring in the farms, cooking, scavenging, sandal- making, simple carpentry and messenger work. But Gandhi did not recommend manual activities merely because they were materially productive or remunerative. In addition to productive crafts, manual work of a purely constructive nature was also essential for the maintenance and development of community life. The contribution of work such as sweeping, scavenging and water fetching was seen to be invaluable to the psychological, social and moral well-being of an integrated community. Gandhi's objective in this context was to inculcate the ideals of manual work, social service and citizenship through all the activities of children from the earlier formative years.

As he returned to India to the din and bustle of political activities, Gandhiji had set his foot in two major activities in agriculture sector - His first Satyagraha in Champaran district of Bihar in 1916 and the struggle in Kheda district of Gujarat in 1918.

In  Jabir in Champaran of Bihar, British landlords forced many thousands of landless labourers and poor farmers to grow indigo and other cash crops instead of the food crops which were necessary for their survival. The ruthless militias of the British landlords silenced the people and offered only measly compensation. In the aftermath of a devastating famine, the British levied an oppressive tax which was raised in due course. Without food and without money, the situation was growing progressively unlivable and the peasants in Champaran revolted against conditions in indigo plant cultivation in 1914 at Pipra and in 1916 at Turkaulia. Raj Kumar Shukla, an indigo cultivator, persuaded Mahatma Gandhi to go to Champaran and the Champaran Satyagraha began. Gandhi arrived in Champaran 10 April 1917. He visited many villages and interacted with over 8,000 cultivators and recorded their statements to gain an understanding of their grievances.  Gandhiji could realize that the ignorance of the cultivators was one of the main reasons why it was possible for the European planters to repress them. He set up voluntary organizations to improve the economic and educational conditions of the people and opened schools and also taught the people how to improve sanitation. The government realized Gandhi’s strength and his devotion to causes. They themselves then set upon a committee to enquire into the grievances of the cultivators. They invited Gandhi to serve on that committee, and he agreed. The result was that within a few months the Champaran Agrarian Bill was passed. It gave great relief to the cultivators and land tenants.

In Gujarat, again Gandhi toured the countryside, organized the villagers and gave them political leadership and direction. Many aroused Gujaratis from the cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara joined the organizers of the revolt, but Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhai Patel resisted the involvement of Indians from other provinces, seeking to keep it a purely Gujarati struggle.

A major tax revolt was organized with the result all the different ethnic and caste communities of Kheda rallied around it. The peasants of Kheda signed a petition calling for the tax for this year to be scrapped in wake of the famine. The government in Bombay rejected the charter. They warned that if the peasants did not pay, the lands and property would be confiscated and many arrested. And once confiscated, they would not be returned even if most complied. None of the villages flinch.

The tax withheld, the government's collectors and inspectors sent in thugs to seize property and cattle, while the police forfeited the lands and all agrarian property. The farmers did not resist arrest, nor retaliate to the force employed with violence. Instead, they used their cash and valuables to donate to the Gujarat Sabha which was officially organizing the protest.

The revolt was astounding in terms of discipline and unity. Even when all their personal property, land and livelihood were seized, a vast majority of Kheda's farmers remained firmly united. Gujaratis sympathetic to the revolt in other parts resisted the government machinery, and helped to shelter the relatives and property of the protesting peasants.

And today after over 65 years of the passing away of Mahatma Gandhi who authored Hind Swaraj, the country is now calling back home the forgotten tips of Mahatma Gandhi. More sensibly the country has found its impacting strength in the Gandhian model as an alternative development model which has the moral values illustrated in community oriented experiments in agriculture to address the current day crisis in agriculture.  Gandhian ideas in agriculture are finding its total acceptance when there is a great mass movement towards organic agriculture, decentralization at the local government and cooperative level to bring in the benefits of development to the farmer and the farm labourer.  *