India of My Dreams

Chapter 28: Village Exhibitions

If we want and believe that the village should not only survive but also become strong and flourishing, then the village perspective is the only correct view-point. If this is true then in our exhibitions there can be no place for the glamour and pomp for the cities. There should be no necessity for games and other entertainments that belong to the cities. There should be no necessity for games and other entertainments that belong to the cities. An exhibition should not become a "Tamasha", nor a source of income; it should never become the advertising medium for traders. No sales should be allowed there. Even Khadi and village industry products should not be sold. An exhibition should be a medium of education, should be attractive and it should be such as to infuse in the villager the impulse to take to some industry or the other. It should bring out the glaring defects and drawbacks in the present day village life, and show methods to be adopted to set them right. It should also be able to indicate the extent of achievement in that direction ever since the idea of village uplift was sponsored. It should also teach how to make village life artistic.
Now let us see what an exhibition will be life if it is to conform to the above conditions.

1. There should be two models of villages-one as is existing today and the other an improved one. The improved village will be clean all throughout. Its houses, its roads, its surroundings and its fields will be all clean. The condition of the cattle should also improve. Books, charts and pictures should be used to show what industries give increased income and how.
2. It must show how to conduct the various village industries, wherefrom to obtain the needed implements, how to make them. The actual working of each industry should be demonstrated. Along with these the following should also find place:
   (a) Ideal village diet.
   (b) Comparison between village industry and machine industry
   (c) Model lessons on rearing animals.
   (d) Art section.
   (e) Model of village latrine.
   (f) Farm-yard manure v. chemical manure.
   (g) Utilization of hides, bones, etc. of animals.
   (h) Village music, musical instruments, village dramas.
   (i) Village games, village akhadas and forms of exercise.
   (j) Nai Talim.
   (k) Village medicine.
   (l) Village maternity home.

Subject to the policy enunciated in the beginning, this list may be further expanded. What I have indicated is by way of example only; it should not be taken to be exhaustive. I have not made any mention of the Charkha and other village industries as they are taken for granted. Without them the exhibition will be absolutely useless.

Gram Udyog Patrika, July 1946