• GANDHI READ a poem describing the farmer as the father of the world. It is said that God was the provider and the cultivator was His hand. He asserted that freedom of India lay in peasant’s freedom from poverty and ignorance. “Over 75 per cent of the population is agriculturists. The kisan is the salt of the earth which should belong to him and not to the absentee landlord—sabhi bhumi gopal ki. There cannot be much self-government about us, if we take away from the peasants almost the whole of the results of their labour. Our salvation can come only through the farmer. Neither the lawyers nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are going to secure it.” Twenty-five per cent of the state revenue was collected from the peasantry. The pressure of land tax was very heavy. Whenever he heard of or saw a palatial building being constructed in any city in India, he sadly remarked: “Oh, it is the money that comes from agriculturists.” Any such symbol of urban prosperity reminded him of the peasantry burdened with taxation, illegal exactions, debts which could never be paid, illiteracy, superstition and diseases. . . . BAHUROOPE GANDHI By ANU BANDYOPADHYAYA
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 08:39:34 +0000
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