Mahavira Jain Vidyalaya Rajat Jayanti Mahotsava

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

Page 184

SILVER JUBILEE }
THE WARDHA SCHEME
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successful. In spite of this fact, ignorant critics have attacked spinning and weaving in the belief that it will either fatigue the pupil, or it will destroy the factories engaged in these operations. To my mind it will do neither.
HELPFUL TO MASSES.
That the output of work directed by the state and produced under these conditions would be phenomenally cheap, is also true. Is there any Indian, who would not welcome this cheapness, which will place within the range of the capacity of the ordinary citizen many things, which are at present mere names to him? Our anxiety to increase the standard of life of the masses must lead us to support the programme, which will ultimately lead to this improvement of standard. It has been suggested that the work of boy pupils will kill the artisans, who are engaged in the operations at present. This conclusion is, unfortunately, at the hands of those who are not familiar either with boy pupils or with artisans or with industry. If there is a very large number of people in a country, who can do a particular job well, it does not mean that those, who are engaged in the job, will starve. Nobody will engage in a job in which he is not getting adequately, and everyone will try to go on to work which is paid better than the work in which he is at present engaged. The selective faculty exercised by even workmen getting the smallest return is something real, and any suggestion that this will bring about an economic revolution, harmful to the masses, is something ridiculous, as this will, in my opinion, bring about a revolution not harmful, but very helpful to the masses. And I speak after twenty-five years of close study of the economic life of this country.
JUST USE OF POWER.
It is possible to work out the details of this scheme, in which state servants and state pensioners may have to contribute, in which jails may have to be turned into workshops, and in which many officials in every district may have a little more work added to their existing task; but it is not possible to do so in the scope of a small article. I may, however, indicate that this is the scheme, in the organization of which in every province five to ten thousand unemployed persons could be immediately absorbed. In many provinces, more than a hundred thousand pupils could be put to work, which will develop their skill. In many provinces, from five to ten thousand artisans, whose employment is gradually dropping, could be given renewed life. A hopeful outlook for the masses could be very much improved, and the economic pulse