The future of India lies in its villages.

A village is a unit of settlement of people, which is a characteristic of rural India. India has over 6 Lakh villages with more than 70% of the population residing in it. The progress and future of our nation lies in the empowerment of villages. They also provide solutions to the challenges we face in moving towards the future.
Historically, India has had a rich culture of villages, which flourished since Ancient and medieval times. Villages have been known for a variety of craftsmanship like pottery, blacksmith, and indigenous industries like textiles and khadi. This changed due to British colonialism and led to the ruin of our healthy village ecosystem.
Because of ruthless exploitation by the colonial forces, today our villages have a variety of issues. The social structure got fractured due to the divisive forces. Practices like untouchability, casteism are still prevalent today. This manifests into crimes like honor killing, whose eradication is a must for our future.
Perhaps the biggest victims of such practices and crimes are the backward classes and women. They are often left at the mercy of khap panchayats. The position of women is very low in rural India. Their socio-economic choices are controlled by their patriarchal family. While not allowed to practice in economic activities, they are forced to wear purdah. Such patriarchal villages have to change for our future.
The social backwardness reflects in the economy as the village economy is predominantly Agrarian. Despite Ground 50% of the population involved in it, the contribution to GDP is mere 14%.
While on one hand, they’re economically marginalized, on the other hand, they lack political empowerment to bring reforms, The 73rd Amendment brought democratic decentralization but without functions, functionaries and finances. Robust self-governing villages are important for India’s future.
Due to lack of political empowerment, the social infrastructure of villages has been ignored. Absence or the lack of quality health infrastructure creates a rural-urban divide in health and Nutrition. While people in cities go to expensive gyms to lose weight, people in villages suffer from hunger.
It is not just the people in villages that lack access to health and nutrition, but animals too. Low access to veterinarians means the livestock like cattle succumb to diseases like Foot and Mouth disease. Despite having the largest livestock population, we have to increase productivity for the future of India.
What kind of future will we have if the majority of our population living in villages are educationally backward? ASER survey points out disturbing inequality between rural and urban children in education. This inequality has to be addressed so as to create a better future for India.
Despite so many problems, villages also provide us with lessons to learn from to create a better future. Due to less congestion, and more open nature of villages, the COVID-19 pandemic was handled much better than in big cities like Pune.
The image of trees and vast greenery comes to your mind when you think of a village. This has been made possible due to the close relation village communities share with the environment. To create cities, we cut down forests around villages and turned them into concrete jungles. It has resulted into a phenomena of ‘Urban Heat Island’.
Floods do more damage in urban areas compared to villages due to concrete structures with low permeability. Learning from villages, the idea of ‘sponge cities’ is being promoted for future of Indian cities. Just like sponge, they will absorb excess water as it happens in villages.
While taking lessons of urban planning from villages, we can also model our behavior for future India as per villages. Houses in urban society surround themselves with walls and fences leading to isolation. Villages teach us how to share brotherhood and fraternize with each other to develop a closely-knit community for the future.
The way forward lies in taking lessons from villages and empowering them in areas where they need work. We can start by improving healthcare services via Ayushman Bharat scheme. Nutritional requirements can be fulfilled via ICDS at Anganwadi centers.
A healthy body needs a healthy mind. Increasing thrust on providing quality education via Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Improving access to digital learning by increasing broadband connectivity via Bharatnet and common service centers. This will ensure the future of village children is bright.
The social empowerment of villages should be combined with political empowerment. Capacity building of Gram Sabha, conducting social audits of welfare schemes and devolving funds, finances and functionaries to panchayat. The measurement of states to be done on Panchayat Development Index.
Economically, programmer like. Fasal Bima Yojana, irrigation facilities should be implemented. Food processing and value addition can raise income of rural India. Mega Food Parks are a step in the right direction to build financially strong villages for future India.
Villages have made up a majority of India’s past. their flourishment in history gave us the name “Golden bird” or “Sone ki Chiriya”. Our future also relies on the flourishment of our villages. Cultivating the democratic values of our villages and in their empowerment, lies our future, which Gandhiji once envisaged as ‘Gram raj’