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CONSTRUCTIVE
PROGRAMMES AND THE CONGRESS
Ever since the advent of Gandhiji
and the transformation that had followed in the Congress, politics
had assumed a new meaning and content. Swaraj, according to Gandhiji
was not merely the transfer of power from the British to the
Indians, but a moral and material regeneration of the people.
The Congress now
followed a triple programme, ‘Direct Action’ on non-violent defiance
of particular laws; constructive work; and constitutional agitation
in the Legislatures.
The Constructive Work
was mainly concerned with reconstructing the villages, where the
people of India lived. In a country where poverty had assumed such
proportions as in India, the economic programme was the main work in
any scheme of uplift. “god for the masses is their bread”. In the
programme of economic reconstruction khadi was the pivotal item of
work. The chakha mixed up with the revolutionary doctrine of
non-co-operation looked like a fax. But it was a piece of the whole
set of the Gandhian idea and activity.
The Congress sessions
came to hold exhibitions which were a visual education in better
village life and work. These sessions were themselves an object
lesson in simple and clean living within the reach of the people,
and were later held in gigantic camps in the countryside.
Soon the work developed
to a stage when separate expert organizations had to be set up to
take charge of special items of work. These new organizations were
an integral part of the revolutionary machine of the Congress. The
years of crisis when a Satyagraha movement moved, this yet country
from end to end were few and far between. Only a few were occupied
in the Councils or local and central governments. The mass of the
selfless and more persistent workers, that had been the main
strength of the Congress, were all along busy in villages and towns
in what looked like small and insignificant activity, but was
building the sanctions behind the militant movements and were
transforming life of the people.
Khadi
The special session of
the Congress at Calcutta in 1907 had prescribed hand-spinning and
weaving of Khadi as a “measure of discipline and sacrifice for every
man, woman and child” and this resolution was later clarified at
Nagpur. Later, A.I.C.C.drew up a programme including 20 lakhs of
charkhas along with a crore of men and money. After Gandhiji’s
arrest in 1922. Working Committee laid great stress on constructive
work and a special department for khadi work was set u, as an expert
organization unaffected by politics.
Village Industries
Khadi was only the
central item of economic regeneration of the languishing villages.
There still remained all arts and crafts that make up the life of
the people in the villages. To this end the Congress set up the All
India Village Industries Association at Wardha in 1934, as a
self-acting independent and non-political organization, having for
its object – village reorganization and reconstruction, including
the revival of village industries and the moral and physical
development of the villagers of India. A Board was set up with Dr.
Kumarappa, as secretary, to work under the guidance of Gandhiji.
The Association started
with an immediate programme which aimed at improving village
sanitation diet and village industries. Its main success lay in the
expert research and direction that this body gave in these matters
generally for the benefit of even such efforts as were being made
outside its developing organization. Its headquarters at Wardha,
besides running various small industries imparted training to
village workers.
Hindustani Talimi Sangh
Another great problem in
India was of education. The literacy figures had been so low and
stagnant chiefly on account of lack of funds in the British Indian
budget for coping with this colossal work and also for the utter
unsuitability of the system of instruction for the mass of Indian
boys. It was once again the genius of Gandhiji which devised a new
system of education – the Basic National Education.
At the Haripura session,
the Congress passed a resolution on national education. It said: “It
is essential to build up national education on a new foundation and
on a nationwide scale. As the Congress is having new opportunities
of service and of influencing and controlling State education, it is
necessary to lay down the basic principles which should guide such
education and to take other necessary steps to give effect to them.
The Congress is of opinion that for the primary and secondary stages
a basic education should be imparted”.
The Hindustani Talimi
Sangh (All-India Education Board) came into existence in April,
1938. It made good progress. Two provinces, C. P. and U.P. accepted
it as their official policy of primary education. Training Centres
were set up by the Governments in Bihar, Orissa, Bombay, Madras,
Kashmir and other places, besides such private centres as the Jamia
Millia Islamia, Delhi and at Masulipatam and Gujarat, as well as
schools for the children.
A scheme of ‘Nai Talim’
was later inaugurated at Wardha, with the help of the leading
educationists for educating the people of all age groups, from
infancy to death. This was another name for training for a new way
of life. Adult education was its more important part, and it
progressed much further than the blue-print-stage.
Wardha was also the
centre for such organized activity as building up the common
Hindustani language, as India’s national language.
Removal of Untouchability
Removal of
untouchability had been taken up by the Congress as one of its main
work from the start of its new career. After the fast and Poona
Pact, Gandhiji devoted most of his time to this work. A separate
organization and fund was organized to specially look after Harijan
work, with widespread branches and some of our best social workers
were put in charge of mainly this activity.
Hindustani Seva Dal
In 1938, the Congress
entrusted the work of training and organizing volunteers to a
special body, the Hindustani Seva Dal with its headquarters in the
province of Karnataka. An Academy for physical culture and training
was set up and training camps were opened at various places
throughout the country. The Seva Dal under Dr. Hardikar played an
important part in the Civil disobedience movement, specially in
enrolment of Congress members, picketing and in providing the
Congress with a peaceful militia.
Mandatory Programme for
Congressmen
Besides the work done by
these bodies directly, there were various other activities that drew
its inspiration and guidance from Gandhiji and the Congress. Later
Gandhiji while making it obligatory on Congressmen to do one or
other of the Constructive work items expanded the scope and
formulated various new items that are given below in his own works
and with his comments.
Communal Unity:
Political unity will be the natural fruit of a social revolution
which will altogether eliminate communal feelings and ways of life.
To make a beginning of such a revolution every Congressman must feel
his identity with everyone of the millions of the inhabitants of
Hindustan.
The separate electorates
in India have created artificial incompatibles and living unity- an
unbreakable heart unity; can never come out of these artificial
entities being brought together on a common platform in the
legislatures. Nevertheless, Congress should put up candidates for
elective bodies in order to prevent reactionaries from entering
them.
Removal of
Untouchability is not merely a political necessity but something
indispensable, so far as Hindus are concerned, for the very
existence of Hindustism. In a spirit of non-violence Hindu
Congressmen should influence the so called “Sanatanists” far more
extensively than they have hitherto done. It is part of the task of
building the edifice of Swaraj.
Prohibition:
Medical men have to discover the ways of weaning the addicts from
intoxicants. Women and students by acts of loving service have a
special opportunity in advancing this reform. Congress committees
can open recreation booths for the tired labour. The Constructive
workers make legal prohibition easy and successful even if they do
not pave the way for it.
Khadi must be
taken with all its implications. It means a wholesale swadeshi
mentality, a determination to find all the necessaries of life in
India and that too through the labour and intellect of the
villagers.
This needs a
revolutionary change in the mentality and tastes of many.
Moreover khadi mentality
means decentralization of the production and distribution of the
necessaries of life. Heavy Industries will, of course, need be
centralized and nationalized. But they will occupy the least part of
the vast national activity which will mainly be in the villages.
Every family with a plot of ground can grow cotton at least for
family use. Every spinner would buy – if he has not his own – enough
cotton for ginning, which he can easily do with a board and an iron
rolling pin. For spinning Gandhiji strongly recommends the Dhanush
Takli.
Other village
industries: Village
economy cannot be complete without the essential village industries
such as hand-grinding, hand-pounding, soap making, paper making,
match making, tanning, oil pressing etc. Congressmen can interest
themselves in these.
Village Sanitation:
If the majority of Congressmen were derived from our villages, as
they should be, they should be able to make our villages models of
cleanliness in every sense of the word.
New or Basic
Education is a big field of work for many Congressmen. This
education is meant to transform village children into model
villagers. It develops both the body and the mind, and keeps the
child rooted to the soil with a glorious vision of the future in the
realization of which he or she begins to take his or her share from
the very commencement of his or her career in school. Let those who
wish, put themselves in tough with the Secretary of the Sangh at
Sewagram.
Adult Education
means primarily true political education of the adult by word of
month. Side by side with the education by the month will be the
literary education. Many methods are being tried to shorten the
period of education.
Education in Health
and Hygiene: The art of keeping one’s health and the knowledge
of hygiene is by itself a separate subject of study and
corresponding practice. In a well ordered society the citizens know
and observe the law of health and hygiene. No Congressman should
disregard this item of the Constructive Programme.
Women: Though
Satyagraha has automatically brought India’s women out from their
darkness, Congressmen have not felt the call to see that women
become equal partners in the fight for Swaraj. It is a privilege of
Congressmen to give the women of India a lifting hand, to help them
to realize their full status as honoured comrades in common service.
Provincial Languages:
It is inherent in Swaraj based on non-violence that every individual
makes his own direct contribution to the Independence movement. The
masses can do this only where every step is explained in their own
languages.
National Language:
Hindi is indisputably the language for all-India intercourse,
because the largest number of people already know and understand it
and which others can easily pick up. Unless our love of the masses
is skin-deep we should spend as many months to learn Hindustani as
the years we spend over learning English.
Economic Equality
is the master key to non-violent Independence. Working for economic
equality means abolishing the eternal conflict between capital and
labour. It means the leveling down of the few rich in shoes hands is
concentrated the bulk of the nation’s wealth on the one hand, and
the leveling up of the semi-starved naked millions on the other. A
violent and bloody revolution is a certainty one day unless there is
a voluntary abdication of riches and the power that riches give and
sharing them for the common good.
Kisans: When the
Kisans become conscious of their non-violent strength, no power on
earth can resist them. But on no account they should be used for
power politics. Those who would know Gandhiji’s method of organizing
Kisans may profitably study the movement in Champaran, in Kheda,
Bardoli and Barsad.
Labour: Ahmedabad
Labour Union is a model for all India to copy. Its basis is
non-violence pure and simple. It has its hospital, its schools for
the children of the mill hands, its classes for adults, its won
printing press and khadi depot and its won residential quarters. It
has to its credit very successful strikes which were wholly
non-violent. Mill owners and labour have governed their relations
largely through voluntary arbitration.
Adivasis: Service
of advasis though occurring as the 16th number in the
Constructive programme is not the least in point of importance.
Lepers: The only
institution run by an Indian, as a pure labour of love, is by
Manohar Dewan near Wardha. It is working under the inspiration and
guidance of Vinoba Bhabe.
Student:
1.
must not take part in
party politics
2.
may not resort to
political strikes.
3.
must all do
sacrificial spinning.
4.
will be users of khadi
and village products.
5.
may not impose Vande
Mataram or the National Flag on others.
6.
will cultivate command
unity.
7.
should give first aid
to neighbours.
8.
will learn the
national language, Hindusthani, in its present double dress.
9.
will translate into
their own mother tongue everything new they may learn and transmit
it in their weekly rounds to the surrounding villages.
10.
will do nothing in
secret and be always ready to quell riots by non-violent conduct at
the risk of their lives. And when the final heat of the struggle
comes they will leave their institutions and, if need be, sacrifice
themselves for the freedom of their country.
11.
will be scrupulously
correct and chivalrous in their behaviour towards their girl
fellow-students.
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