Book Title: Mahavira Jain Vidyalaya Rajat Jayanti Mahotsava
Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay
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THE WARDHA SCHEME
By MANU SUBEDAR, M.L.A. (Central). B.A., B.SC. (Econ.) London, BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
SOLUTION OF INDIA'S POVERTY.
The appalling poverty of the masses in India (whatever its historical and other causes may be) has exercised the minds of everyone. It is the one topic on which there is no difference of party or community or locality. The poverty is everywhere in India. It affects all sections and communities. Every effort to bring about its cure must command universal support.
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ECONOMIC UPLIFT THROUGH EDUCATION. Poverty is the result of a lack of production arising largely out of lack of skill and of opportunities for work. In socialist circles, they glibly talk of the right to work, and yet when Mahatma Gandhi with his profound instinct for correct thought so far as it affects the masses, creates a scheme of things by which it is intended that every child of either sex would not grow up without training, as is the case now, some young socialists unwittingly attack this scheme, without realizing its implications. The masses, whose support they are convassing in this manner, may not understand, but all thoughtful persons will appreciate this misdirection of energy at the hands of those who are fond of slogans, but who would not create a constructive programme to put those slogans into effect. Millions of people in India are growing up today without the slightest opportunity of securing that regularity, cleanliness, concentration and attention, which attendance at a school would provide. Millions of them play in the mud in the street and grow up wild, i.e. without any attention to their training. This process must be stopped. Education must be spread everywhere. A foreign administration could say that, as there was no money, they could not extend it everywhere ; but no administration of her own people, whether it is in the Congress Provinces or in the other Provinces, could advance this excuse without being charged with gross dereliction of duty. The cost of schools on the orthodox plan is heavy and the result has not always been satisfactory. This is because, hitherto, the control over educational institutions and staff and curricula was not in Indian hands. The aim of education in the past
