Mahavira Jain Vidyalaya Rajat Jayanti Mahotsava

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 198

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the industries but are literally pushed back to the villages and the agriculture. Thus, to-day, in India there are no clashing interests between agriculture and industries. Rapid industrialisation apart from realising the benefits of the balanced economy will relieve the pressure on land and make the position of our national economy more comfortable.
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The per capita income taken with the low purchasing power of the Indians is the lowest in the world, to mention which every Indian must truly be ashamed. 2 to 2 1/2 annas a day is the per capita income of the people which is simply abominable. This is all the more so, because this is the statistical average of the incomes of a spinner, a beggar, a capitalist, a Governor and the Viceroy. Granted that people in India, especially the poor folk, do not fall sick, need no shelter, need no sanitary or hygienic facilities, need no education as they do not aspire for that high standard so common in the West, even then, it is humanly impossible in this paltry sum to feed and clothe oneself. The standard of life of such people, in such an unfortunate country, as can be well imagined, is shockingly low and the people appear to be mere ghosts walking upon earth. The growing population, grinding poverty of which Mr. Ramsey Macdonald, the Labour Premier, spoke as not an opinion but an established fact', vast unemployment and food-shortage bring in their train diseases too numerous to be mentioned. The average life of an Indian is about 25--the age at which he is the flower of youth' and when he is economically the most productive factor in a Nation's economy. Child mortality and female deaths are abnormally high. When it is said by eminent economists that the food supply is inadequate from the point of view of calorific contents, the talk about vitamins, proteins and fats must necessarily remain a dream. Our consumption of cloth, which is 14 yds. per head is indeed very very low and our living space per head is, to say the least inadequate.
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The stupendous problem of unemployment--rural, urban, educated and middle-class-is a problem in itself which yet remains to be solved. Not less than 4 to 5 crores of people are unemployed. This is in striking contrast with unemployment problem of the Western countries. The concept of the modern state is that they should either give food or give work to the unemployed. The doles given for this purpose in the United States of America and Great Britain are a case in point. Our Government may not be able to give these doles, but, is it not its duty to provide idle hands' with 'avenues' of work? If the able-bodied men, women and children are not given work, for