India of My Dreams

Chapter 25
PANCHAYAT RAJ
Independence must begin at the bottom. Thus, every village will be a Republic or
Panchayat having full powers. It follows, therefore, that every village has to be selfsustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of defending itself
against the whole world. It will be trained and prepared to perish in its attempt to
defend itself against any onslaught from without. Thus, ultimately, it is the individual
who is the unit. This does not exclude dependence on and willing help from neighbors
or from the world. It will be free and voluntary play of mutual forces. Such a society is
necessarily highly cultured, in which every man and woman knows what he or she
wants and, what is more, knows that no one should want anything that others cannot
have with equal labor.
This society must naturally be based on Truth and Non-Violence which, in my opinion,
are not possible without a living belief in God, meaning a self-existent, all-knowing
living force which inheres every other force known to the world but which depends on
none and which will live when all other forces may conceivably perish or cease to act. I
am unable to account for my life without belief in this all-embracing living light.
In this structure composed of innumerable villages there will be ever widening, never
ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom.
But it will be the individual always ready to perish for the village, the letter ready to
perish for the village, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are
integral units.
Therefore, the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle
but give strength to all within and derive its own from the centre. I may be taunted
with the retort that this is all Utopian and therefore not worth a single thought. If
Euclids point, though incapable of being drawn by human agency, has an imperishable
value, my picture has its own for mankind to live. Let India Live for this true picture,
though never realizable in its completeness. We must have a proper picture of what we
want before we can have something approaching it. If there ever is to be a republic of
every village in India, then I claim verity for my picture in which the last is equal to
the first, or in other words, none is to be the first and none the last.

www.mkgandhi.org

Page 86

India of My Dreams

In this picture every religion has its full and equal place. We are all leaves of a
majestic tree whose trunk cannot be shaken off its roots which are deep down in the
bowels of the earth. The mightiest of wind cannot move it.
In this there is no room for machines that would displace human labor and that would
concentrate power in a few hands. Labor has its unique in a cultural human family.
Every machine that helps every individual has a place. But I must confess that I have
never sat down to think out what that machine can be. I have thought of singers
sewing machine. But even that is perfunctory. I do not need it to fill in my picture.
Harijan, 28-746

When panchayat raj is established, public opinion will do what violence can never do.
The present power of the zamindars, the capitalist and the rajas can hold sway so long
as the common people do not realize their own strength. If the people non co
operate with the evil of zamindari or capitalism, it must die of inanition. In panchayat
Raj only the panchayat will be obeyed and the panchayat can only work through the
law of their making.
Harijan 1-7-47

www.mkgandhi.org

Page 87

India of My Dreams

Chapter 26
VILLAGE INDUSTRIES
Extinction of village industries would complete the ruin of the 7, 00,000 villages of
India.
I have seen in the daily press criticism of the proposals I have adumbrated. Advice has
been given to me that I must look for salvation in the direction of using the powers of
nature that the inventive brain of man has brought under subjection .The critics say
that water, oil and electricity should be fully utilized as they are being under
subjection. The critics say that water, air, oil, and electricity should be fully utilized
as they are being utilized in the go-ahead West. They say that control over these
hidden powers of nature enables every American to have thirty-three slaves. They say
that control over these hidden powers of nature enables every American to have thirty
three slaves.
Repeat the process in India and I dare say that it will thirty- three times enslave every
inhabitant of this land, instead of giving every one thirtythree slaves.
Mechanization is good when the hands are too few for the work intended to be
accomplished. It is an evil when there are more hands then required for the work, as is
the case in India. I may not use a plough for digging a square yard of a plot of land.
The problem with us is not how to find leisure for the teeming millions inhabiting our
villages. The problem is how to utilize their idle hours, which are equal to the working
days of six months in the year. Strange as it may appear, every mill generally is a
menace to the villagers. I have not worked out the figures, but I am quite safe in
saying that every mill-hand does the work of at least ten laborers doing the same work
in their villages. In other words, he earns more than he did in his village at the expense
of ten fellow-villagers. Thus spinning and weaving mills have deprived the villagers of
substantial means of livelihood. It is no answer in reply to say that they turn out
cheaper, better cloth, if they do so at all. For, if they have displaced thousands of
workers, the cheapest mill cloth is dearer than the dearest Khadi woven in the villages.
Coal is not dear for the coal miner who can use it there and then, nor is Khadi dear for
the villager who manufactures his own Khadi. But if the cloth manufactured in mills
displace thousand of poor women workers, but damage the health of the whole
population in the bargain. Where people have no objection to taking flesh diet and can

www.mkgandhi.org

Page 88

India of My Dreams

afford it, white flour and polished rice may do no harm, but in India, where millions
can get no flesh diet even where they have no objection to eating it if they can get it,
it is sinful to deprive them of nutritious and vital elements contained in whole wheat
meal and unpolished rice. It is time medical men and others combined to instruct the
people on the danger attendant upon the use of white lour and polished rice.
I have drawn attention to some broad, glaring facts to shown that they way to take
work to the villagers is not through mechanizations but that it lies through revival of
the industries they have hitherto followed.
Harijan, 16-11-34

The idea behind the village industries schemes its that we should look to the villages
for the supply of our daily need and that, when we find that some need are not so
supplied, we should see whether with a little trouble and organization they cannot be
profitably supplied by the villagers. In estimating the profit, we should think of the
villager, not of ourselves. It may be that in the initial stage we might have to pay a
little more than the ordinary price and get an inferior article in the bargain. Things
will improve, if we will interest ourselves in the supplier of our needs and insist on his
doing better and take the trouble of helping him to do better.
Haijan, 23-11-34

I would say that if the village perishes India will perish too. India will be no more India.
Her own mission in the world will get lost. The revival of the village is possible only
when it is no more exploited. Industrialization on a mass scale will necessarily lead to
passive or active exploitation and marketing come. Therefore we have to concentrate
on the village being self-contained, manufacturing mainly for use. Provided this
character of the village industry is maintained, there would be no objection to
villagers using even the modern machines and tools that they can make and can afford
to use. Only they should not be used as a means of exploitation of others.
Harijan, 29-8-36

We have to make a choice between India of the villages that are as ancient as her and
India of the cities which are a creation of foreign domination. To day the cities
www.mkgandhi.org

Page 89

India of My Dreams

dominate and drain the villages so that they are crumbling to ruin. My Khadi mentality
tells me that cities must sub serve villages when that domination goes. Exploiting of
villages is itself organized violence. If we want Swaraj to be built on non-violence, we
will have to give the villages their proper place.
Harijan, 20-1-40

Khadi
Khadi to me is the symbol of unity of Indian humanity, of its economic freedom and
equality and, therefore, ultimately, in the poetic expression of Jawaharlal Nehru, the
livery of Indias freedom.
Moreover, Khadi mentality means decentralization of the production and distribution
of the necessaries of life. There for, the formula so fare evolved is, every village to
produce all its necessaries and a certain percentage in addition for the requirements of
the cities.
Heavy industries will needs be centralized and nationalized. But they will occupy the
least part of the vast national activity which will mainly be in the villages.
Production of Khadi includes cotton growing, picking, ginning, cleaning, carding,
slivering, spinning, sizing, dyeing, preparing the warp and the woof, weaving, and
washing. These, with the exception of dyeing, are essential processes. Every on of
them can be effectively handled in the villages and is being so handle din many village
throughout India which the A.I.S.A. is covering.
Since the wanton destruction of this central village industry and the allied handicraft,
intelligence and brightness have fled from the villages, leaving them inane, lusterless,
and reduced almost to the state of their ill kept cattle.
Constructive Program me, P.12

Other village industries

These stand on a different footing from Khadi. There is not much scope for voluntary
labor in them. Each industry will take the labor of only a certain number of hands.
These industries come in as a handmaid to Khadi. They cannot exist without Khadi, and
Khadi will be robbed of its dignity without them. Village economy cannot be complete

www.mkgandhi.org

Page 90