'Rural India not primitive'

By Our Staff Correspondent

MYSORE, NOV. 10. How valid is the categorisation that rural India is a primitive region in need of development? Answers to the questions were provided in a paper on ``Enterprise based on traditional skills'', presented at the technical sessions on the second day of the Rural Enterprise Summit in Mysore.

The theme paper, prepared by the Dastkar Andhra Trust, said ``primitivisation'' of rural areas had taken place and that enabled us to think of the ``urban'' and the ``Western'' as the owners and propagators of technologies while characterising rural areas as regions in need of development. But the paper said it would serve us better if we looked at the traditional industries rooted in rural areas as models of learning, just as the early Europeans, who benefited from such a perception.

It said those industries included iron and steel, paper, building and masonry, sugar, distillation, textiles of silk and cotton, leather, wood, metal, bamboo, stone, glass, ceramics, ship- building, adhesives and paints, food preservation, precious stones and metals.

As many as 43 varieties of textiles, forming 83 per cent of the East India Company's trade with India in the early 17th century, were exported to Europe. Compared with that, only three per cent of the world's trade in textiles was from ``modern'' India. But, that constituted nearly 35 per cent of India's exports.

The paper took a historical look of admiration of things Indian, and Europeans' gradual derogatory reference to the nation. It said: ``Things admired and eulogised as advanced by Europeans at the beginning of the 18th Century, could not be admitted to be so once the process of colonisation began... the process of depreciation of a sophisticated material culture is responsible for the colossal tragedy of the highly developed pre-industrial Indian production system being grounded systematically to the depths of marginalisation, something akin to the massive genocide in the American context, of the native people and their cultures''.

What is the lesson for modern India which runs down rural India with gizmos? The answer was provided in the paper by Uzaramma, Managing Trustee of Dastkar Andhra Trust. It said significant aspects of traditional technologies were that they were not capital-intensive, were suited to the environment, and used locally available materials and renewable energy to ensure a large output from many dispersed units. The technological skills involved large numbers of people, and the technologies were embedded in their social context with in-built systems for dissemination of knowledge, according to the paper.

These features characterised rural India's cottage industry which could be sustained for over one millennium without creating social upheavals or environmental degradation. The lesson for modern India - if India was to have equitable, large-scale re- industrialisation - was that it is only possible though large industrial cooperatives based on traditional, labour-intensive skills as practised in China, the paper said.

It said there was the belief that modern science and technologies, with their capacity for increased material production, would make for progress. Hence, urban India was witnessing an assimilation of technology and products of the industrial culture that had its origin in medieval Europe without any thought of vision as to whether the aims and objectives of these technologies were suited to our climate, social conditions or the culture and temperament of Indians. The next step being witnessed was the propagation of those technologies to rural areas without being aware of the costs implicit in these technologies, the paper warned.

The paper made recommendations based on the trust's experience in the handloom sector. It said that to ensure the viability of the handloom sector, credit facility should be extended to primary producers; cotton varieties most suitable for dispersed production developed; regional specificity of handloom products maintained; and, market research with thrust to the relatively localised home market conducted. The paper said that generating similar insights in other rural industries would be rewarding for India's technological development.

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