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Transcript

Hello friends. In our last class, we have discussed about two developmental initiatives, which were planned and implemented in the province of Bengal. The effort done by Sir Daniel Hamilton, rural reconstruction scheme and Shantiniketan attempt by Rabindranath Tagoreji. In today’s class we will be discussing about the Gurgaon experiment and the Marthandam experiment. The Gurgaon experiment belongs to the Central province of India, the then Central province. The objectives of this program include. Number one increasing the farm yields, which was the need of the day at that point of time. Then curtailing the expenditure on the social and religious functions, and which was the need of the society at that point of time. And improving the health standards, and organizing the welfare programs for the benefit of rural communities. These were the objectives that were being set by the district collector of the Gurgaon district, known as Shri F. L. Bryne.

With his initiative he thought, so to introduce the change in then, this state, we need to address the issues what we discussed so far. And the modus-operandi, the methodology that he adopted was appointment of the village guide. It was for the first time in the history of these extension efforts, an professional was introduced to introduce the change, so that there will be some changes in the socioeconomic conditions of the rural people. With that objective the appointment of the village guide was made. And this village guide was expected to be the bridge between the development departments and the village communities. F.L. Bryne was himself a district collector, and he wanted to administer the program, the developmental programs through these village guides. So that he can understand the problems of the people. And he can send the appropriate message with the help of these village guides to the people.

The over a period of time the experiment could not sustain long, because he was a government officer. Routine transfers hampered his developmental activities. And it could not develop the appropriate leadership, what he was expecting but it left an impact on the communities that the concepts like village guide can be an instrument of introduction of change in the rural people. So that was the major take home message from these experiments. And that is why even today we are discussing about the concepts introduced by F.L. Bryne in the form of Gurgaon experiment. The next achievements of this Gurgaon experiments that we can discuss under the headings like, as far as sanitation is considered, construction of the latrines, urinals and providing the safe drinking water for the rural communities. From the point of view of agriculture development, there were development of the model farms, improved seeds and implements were supplied to the farmers. And farmers were motivated to take up the cooperative farming, which are the achievements from the agriculture sector.

Coming to the changes that were observed in the educational sector include. The school teacher as the center of activity. And he was the source of motivation for the entire village. And he motivated the people and because of that there were good number of changes that can be seen in the village. And that is how, even today we can see that particular tradition, the school teacher is center of the activities in the villages. So for this particular activity there was cooperation from the all the corners of the society. And in case of social reforms that was objective also, though there were prohibition of the child marriages. And the education of girls was taken up on war footing and that is how these some of the changes that we can see out of the experiments under Gurgaon scheme.

Coming to the next program implemented by Spencer Hatch in 1921, which is popularly known as the Marthandam attempt. Launched in Travancore of Kerala state with the support of the Young Men’s Christian Association. Being a religious organization, the emphasis was on development of spirit, mind and the body. Spirit, mind and the body. To achieve this they launched a five sided program, which is, they were emphasizing on the spiritual development, the mental development, the physical development, economic development and the social development. Basically through, to achieve this social and economic development. So they were having the concepts of the spiritual as well as mental development also. Put together the objective of the program was to introduce the change in the communities. The modus-operandi or the methodology that was adopted include the ‘self-help with intimate expert council’.

The communities in the rural areas need some support. What kind of support? That is counseling. That is nothing but the advisory service, wherein extension has its own expertise in it, for which we need the trained specialist. And what type of that counseling is there. That is intimate expert counseling. Wherever you need the support, yes people are there to provide you the support. To achieve the objectives of introduction of change from social, economic, spiritual, mental development. They organized people into groups. What type of groups that is based on their own profession that is egg selling club, honey club, bull club, weavers club etc, which were the major professions that were practiced by the village communities. The major change or the introduction of the elements in this program, if you look at, it is forcing or it is motivating the people to come together. Earlier the same farmer was selling his eggs, the same farmer was selling his honey individually. But with this model. He is coming together means all the honey producers are coming together of the same village or the cluster of villages. All the egg sellers are coming together. And then they are pooling their produce and selling it in the market for bargaining better prices. And ultimately it is achieving the social and economic development.

So even if you look at the today’s context. So now we have the concept of the commodity interest groups, the producer groups, self-help groups, farmer interest group. There are the, nomenclature has been changed but the core issue, the modus-operandi remains the same. What is that? You bring the people together. Then you ask them to pool their resources, pool their produces. Then bargain for better price in the market. Coming to the conclusion of these two programs. The extrinsic motivation is an important and essential input for the development. It is what is the motivational inputs provided by the agents maybe it is the village guides or the development agents, or the change agents who are going to motivate, motivate the primary producers. So that they become part of the process of change, and ultimately leading towards development.

And the take home message that I have been repeatedly telling you is. Coming together is the beginning and working together leads to the progress. Then group approach is inevitable for Indian conditions. This was the situation that existed a century back. And it is right now, the similar approaches that are being adopted by the existing governments to introduce the change. And in the days to come it is going to be more relevant because of the shrinking land resources. The States which adopted this group approach are yielding better results, wherein we can witness the agricultural growth rate more than 10%. The States like Maharashtra, the States like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, so on and so forth. Who are adopted this group approaches are giving the results of more than 10% growth rate in agriculture. This was an outcome of experiment that was conducted a century back. With this we are coming to the discussion on two important pre-independence extension programs, that is the Gurgaon experiment and the Marthandam experiment. And in the next class we will be discussing about the constructive programs implemented, planned and implemented by Mahatma Gandhiji.

Thank You.