A PROGRAMME FOR INDIA
SIR,—Reading Brigadier Brayne's article, A New Rural India, recalled to my mind the numerous A.B.C.A. discussions based on his books and pamphlets about rural uplift which I attended whilst serving in India as an Army echicational officer in 1944-45. Many a time have I heard Indian soldiers make the point that Brigadier Brayne allows for every- thing except the actual social and political structure of the Indian village. It is easy to write: "Returning soldiers must be encouraged to become pioneers of the new era. Village leaders and local officials must be prepared to-welcome and use them." But in practice, the landlord, the moneylender and the corrupt policeman form, all too often, a powerful trinity dominating the village, with their interests consciously based upon the continuing backwardness?'of the peasants. Just because ideas like Brigadier Brayne's are good for the peasants, these worthies know that they are bad for themselves, and they find ways to discourage would-be reformers who bring to the village dangerous thoughts about co-operatives and the like.
Without breaking this stranglehold of vested interests, no scheme of rural uplift can really succeed in India. The social groups _whose privileges depend on India's peasants remaining bogged down in the Middle Ages will fight to the death to frustrate every such scheme, Once the power of these parasites is destroyed, however, the path of economic and social progress will lie wide open. The present constitutional plan for India envisages elections, in which less than a quarter of the adult
population will be allowed to take part, to a copstitution-making body in which a quarter of the seats will be occupied anyway by nominees of the Princes, the most reactionary element in Indian society ; while the British Army is to remain in India until this select and carefully- weighted assembly has concluded its deliberations, standing ready to repress any revolt of the peasant masses. That the Indian peasant may get a chance to live like a human being, revolutionary measures are needed. The present project, put forward by the British Government and accepted by the leaders of the two main upper-class political organisations in India, seems to he designed so as to render such measures impossible of achieve- ment by peaceful means, and to keep Brigadier Brayne's dream of a happy, prosperous village in the realm of pious aspiration.—Yours faithfully, V. R.
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