Page 180 - EducationWorld Oct. 2022

Indian National Congress health sector (anti-malaria appointed its first director. themselves. In turn this
was about the path to be research and cooperative The agenda of Sriniket- would contribute, albeit
adopted to arrest rural health societies), the “en- an-IRR reflected Tagore’s in the long run, to build
decline in India. While demic problem” of winning proposal to synthesise the a constructive sw adeshi
the Congress “decided to villagers’ trust, limited ideal (knowledge) with the programme of complete
pass on the work of village funds and so on. everyday life of villagers. mental and social progress
reform to the colonial gov- Therefore to give shape Accordingly, the students for all Indians.
ernment,” Tagore insisted to his ideas of rural reform, were based in villages and Finally, the remarkable
that “it was the absolute as early as 1906, Tagore worked on “agricultural feature of Tagore’s rural
duty of educated Indians sponsored the study of projects, animal husband- reconstruction approach as
to provide nation-building agriculture science of three ry, health, education, cot- also Gandhi’s, is that both
(rural reform) services to young men including his tage industries, and village in their distinctive ways,
the people”. son Rathindranath, at organisation”. The prime placed village communi-
In subsequent chapters the University of Illinois, objective of the Sriniketan- ties at the centre of the
the author briefly nar- Urbana-Champaign, USA. IRR was to ensure that economic development
rates the history of the By 1922, the students the peasant’s mind was discourse of post-colonial
Sriniketan-IRR initiative, completed their higher “awakened” to realise his India. In the circumstances
including challenges such studies and were back in atmashak ti and become one hopes Das Gupta redi-
as landlordism, “villagers’ India to begin work in self-reliant and attain hap- rects our attention towards
mentality”, problems en- Sriniketan-IRR which was piness. socio-economic reform in
countered by Tagore in es- inaugurated on February 6 Tagore believed that rural India, which is the
tablishing the project while the same year with Leon- India’s villages could be re- national priority obscured
outlining its aims and ard K. Elmhirst, an English suscitated only if cautious by peripheral issues.
objectives, organisational agri-economist trained in scientific experimentation NABANIPA BHATTACHA
structure and its role in the Cornell University (USA), was embraced by villagers RJEE (The Book R eview )

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