Why & How of Village Happiness

Jerome Gue, a French young man who, after his engineering training in Paris opted to work in India, was with us for one-and-a-half-years and only last week left for tome. He learnt Hindi, was quite, fluent in it, and spent most of his time in villages: He learnt from artisans many things and taught them many things. Low cost village housing, specially mud-houses, was his subject and he made good contribution towards the same. But what is more important is the spirit which he imbibed. In his farewell speech (of course in Hindi), he said that he was fortunate that he could see real India (or Bharat as he called it to differentiate from urban India) which lives in the villages, where the amenities of life are at an abysmally low level.

As per European way of thinking the life here, he thought, should be very dry, drab and sickening. He, however, found things different. From his village experiences he felt that the basic human needs of food, cloth and shelter must be fulfilled and other necessary amenities also made available to the people but there seems to be no direct relationship between the multiplicity of wants and the zest for life, the people enjoy. His discovery was that despite the difficulties of living, the village people had great conviviality and expressed themselves through their laborious activities in joyfulness disproportionate to the amenities they possessed. This looks strange to the Western materialistic thought which says that the more possessions you have the more happy your life becomes and vice versa. Our villages have better natural surroundings than cities, The Sun, rain, trees and animals are closer to the villagers and so also are the people closer to each other. His conclusion was that if basic necessities could be assured to the people therefore which assurance is not there today-human beings would be happier under the rural than in urban circumstances. This looks quite valid.

Now does it mean that we leave the villages they are by only improving their needs of water. sanitation, read electricity, communications, housing, school, hospital and entertainment etc. or does the new technology have to change the economy of the people too. The present economy of the villages is such that on the whole the degree of development is very slow. The village produces raw materials and imports finished goods. The gap between the per capita income of the urban and rural populations goes on increasing and this leads to constant erosion of the talents from the village and part of the male, population's, exodus to urban slums. To stop this, it is necessary that the village economy is made more remunerative by having such industries added to agriculture which lead to production of finished goods bringing a greater employment potential there. Efforts of rural technology and industry should lead towards the fulfilment of a dream where man happily lives a life of sharing with Nature and fellow human beings, in way that develops the individual, the community and natural environment to their full potential.

        Devendra Kumar