Page 92 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

combination of the saint and the militant in Gandhi that could accomplish this.

His fast and whirlwind tour accomplished more than what anyone had achieved

in the past. He succeeded in breaking the hold of caste and untouchability on
the minds of the caste-Hindu. He transferred the onus and the feeling of guilt

to those who defended or practised untouchability. That was the death-knell of

untouchability, and thereafter, the end was only a matter of time and

persistence.

Gandhi's tour took him to towns and villages in every part of India. He was

overcome by the sight of persistent poverty. He realized that the problems of
the villages could never be solved without reforms in the ownership of land,

agricultural practices, and the revival of village industries. He knew that village

industries could hold their own only if the skills of the artisans were improved,

and their technology was improved. He was not against science or technology
or machinery. But to him, the test was not only what it did for the human

being, but also what it did to the human being. He was not against machinery.

He was only against the kind of machinery that allowed a man to ride on the

back of other human beings and exploit them. Gandhi realized the need for
finding an appropriate technology that would bring the craftsman or worker

into his own, and meet the demands made on him. With all these thoughts in

mind, he inspired the setting up of a Village Industries Association, similar to
the All India Spinners' Association and the Khadi institutions that he had set up

earlier.

Education was another subject that was uppermost in Gandhi's mind. He had
experimented with the kind and methods of education that a new society

needed, even in South Africa, — in the Phoenix Settlement and the Tolstoy

Farm. He had continued the effort in his Ashrams in India. He had come to the

conclusion that the problems and needs of primary education could be met only
by making education craft and community centred. The craft should become

the medium of education. He convened a conference of educationists in

Sevagram, and placed his ideas before them. They welcomed the proposal and
gave practical shape to the idea. An organization named Hindustani Talimi

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