INDIAN VILLAGES BECOME MODELS OF RURAL ORDER

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6810, 14 January 1929, Page 3

INDIAN VILLAGES BECOME MODELS OF RURAL ORDER

WOODEN PLOWS DISPLACED BY IRON, SCOUTS ORGANISED, SCHOOLS OPENED. How a small band of enthusiastie officials and voluntary workers under the guidance of F. L. Brayne, Deputy Commissioner, and of Mrs. Brayne, has transformed a number of villages from dirty little hamlets, depicting misery, ignorance and want, into a smiling centre of rural bliss in the course of seven years, is sketched in an interesting brochure published by the director of the Punjab Information Bureau. Seven years ago Gurgaon district, purely a rural area, had all the defects common to backward territories. Thousands of the men of tho village who had learned better notions of hygiene and organised life in the army returned to their villages only to sink back into their former unenlightened ways. Seven years ago there was not a single iron plow in any field and the peasant plowed inadequate furrows with a twisted piece of wood; now there are nearly 200 iron plows. Co-opera-tive societies have rapidly multiplied, and their working capital has increased twcntyfold.

Five years ago there was not a single Boy Scout in the district; today there are 3000. Hill tracts have been reaffortested and thousands ol acres of land have been brought under wheat cultivation. Plow matches now take place in every tasil (subdivision) and palwal (plow) show has now become the principal agricultural fair in the whole country.

A school of rural economy was brought into existence a few years ago, and an entirely new educational, ideal, with scouting and co-opcration as two basic subjects, was introduced. Students arc taught a very wide range of subjects, including practical agricultural work, first aid, infant welfare, public health, domestic hygiene anti sanitation, along with the practical task of keeping a village clean; stockbreeding, and some simple veterinary work, forestry, play(all games), singing, lecturing, the use of magic lanterns and village propaganda. There were many other direct lessons. Mr. Brayne taught them how to dispose of the refuse of tho village so as to convert it into golden crops, how to improve their wells and their irrigation channels; how to co-operate among themselves; how to rid themselves of indebtedness a-nd how to use better agricultural implements.