Mahatma Gandhi, though spread the message of non-violence, was never awarded with Nobel Peace Prize. The world understood his message only after he died. Especially now, when the whole world is living under the threat of terrorism, his message seems more meaningful to us. In 2007, United Nations Organization passed a resolution to celebrate his birth date as International Day of Non-Violence, in 2008, Barack Obama, President of United States referred him as being his inspiration. These are just two of the innumerable examples one can sight to prove that Gandhi's more than six decades old philosophy and ideas are far more applicable in today's insecure world.
But, in this writeup, i want to draw attention towards an another thought of this man, who played a pioneer role in Indian independence struggle. He believed "Real India lives in its villages", by this he wanted to say, until the problems of villages are addressed, the problems of India will not be addressed. I think, he was right. India has around 7,00,000 villages in which more than seventy percent of Indian population lives. Almost hundred percent of this seventy percent population living in villages depends for its livelihood on agriculture. Since independence, the contribution of agriculture in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has come down from more than fifty percent to nowadays less than eighteen percent.
Economic theories says decreasing share of agriculture in country's GDP is a sign of transition of a country from being underdeveloped to becoming a developed one. For example, agriculture contributes less than one percent in the GDP of United States, which is around eighteen percent in case of India and is further decreasing, as mentioned earlier. Therefore, it means India is heading towards becoming a developed nation. But, here is the problem lies. In United States, less than two percent human resource is engaged in agricultural activities, where as, in case of India more than seventy percent people are engaged in agricultural activities. Its a simple mathematics, in United States, the percentage of human resource engaged in agriculture and contribution of agriculture sector in its GDP is balanced, where as, in India the percentages of the two is not balanced and i think, this is a point of problem. I mean to say, with the decreasing share of agricultural sector in GDP, the population engaged in it should have also decreased with the same rate, but, this is not happening.
Don't you think, if all members of a group do not contribute in almost same proportion in the advancement of the group then, every member won't be able to get the dividends of the growth of the group in same proportion. This imbalance in distribution of dividends, if continues for a long time, will lead to dissatisfaction, especially among those who gain less. And, this dissatisfaction, will one day lead to breakdown of the group itself.
In my writeup, the group is a country called India and the sign of dissatisfaction is suicide by farmers in the places like vidharbha of Maharashtra, a state, which have India's economic capital called 'Mumbai', the first destination of the same President Barack Obama and his high profile business contingent comprising around 250 businessmen!
