Essay
This essay “our changing villages” is for the school and college students to get an idea about this topic.
The best results and the richest values of freedom do not lie only in such things as elections, panchayats and parliaments, but in a new and growing mass-consciousness. Our newly-own has freedom given a new soul of India. Slowly but surely a new social self-knowledge is being born in the new Indian villagers.
The old Indian villager was like dumb driven cattle. His soul and body were not his own. His field and labor were not his own. He was at the mercy of the landlord, the Patwari or Lekhapal, the moneylender and many others. He knew no happiness. From birth to death he knew no carefree laughter. He was deprived of the joy of living. He had only wrongs and no rights. About the teeming millions of old Indian villagers it could truly be said that:
Chill penury repressed their noble rage
And froze the genial current of the soul.
In the case of the new Indian villager, the deadening effect and the stupor of the dark past have begun to disappear. The quickening effects of freedom and franchise are creating a new type of Indian villager. The new Indian villager is becoming more spirited, more mentally alert; he is becoming progressively conscious of his rights and of his place in society. He has begun to feel that his land and labor truly belong to him. He is becoming India-conscious and somewhat world-conscious. This mental and moral awakening has untold possibilities. The pathetic contentment of old Indian villager has given a place new Indian villager to a healthy discontent. The shock of the new life has in many cases proved too much for him and along with promising qualities he has begun to show criminal trends. New checks and balances are needed for his forward moving life.
For the first time the Indian villagers are becoming aware of a mass renaissance. The new Indian villager is not a headline in the newspapers.