From the train station at Wardha, I catch a bus that delivers me right at the gate of Mahatma Gandhi’s Sevagram Ashram. Consciously and alertly, I enter the peaceful “place of service” through a pathway lined with tall lush shady trees. Pausing for a moment, I take in the scene: a half dozen thatched huts surround a large dirt yard, which is totally cleared of any grass or leaves—a snake prevention practice. Small white cottages, shaded by shrubs and trees, line the front row with their backs to the road. After a few minutes of silence, I am approached by a friendly young man, dressed in the white color of a brahmachari, who speaks mediocre English. First, he gives me a short tour of the key places, including Gandhi’s hut, a tiny shop selling Gandhi’s books, and the small dining hall attached to the kitchen. Then we walk across the yard where he shows me to a clean spacious guest room, which will be my living quarters for the next week.

In the early 1930’s, after his famous salt march, Gandhi moved to the Wardha area through the graces of a wealthy landowner, Jamnalal Bajaj. At the time he had left the Ahmedabad ashram for that defiant act against the British Government's decree to tax even salt, Gandhi declared he would not return home to it until India had its Independence: He never returned. His European disciple Mirabehn had preceded him to this area to search for a suitable village in which they could do service to try out and develop Gandhi’s social ideas. So in the mid-1930’s, Gandhi’s ashram was built here, along side a village of some 600 inhabitants, about half of whom were outcaste Harijans.

After lunch, the brahmachari introduces me to Jaswant Rai, who turns out to be my best guide to the world of Gandhi. He invites me into his small white cottage, right by the entrance gate. After his wife and I exchange some small talk, I mention that I am surprised that the ashram is so small and so empty.

“Oh, you must understand that the ashram was intended for training workers. It was never meant for living quarters. We are only here on a short vacation. We live and work in a village in the state of Madya Pradesh where we teach and train people in all kinds of practical skills.

“This was the case even when Gandhi was alive. Mirabehn did not live here, except when she was ill. She lived over in the Sevagram village and taught weaving over there.”

“So you knew Mirabehn?”

“Oh, yes, we all knew her. She was such a dedicated hard worker. After Gandhi died she went up to Rishikesh and established a shelter for old and sick animals. When she became elderly, she left India to live in a country with a lot of mountains, I don’t remember which one [Austria]. Anyway, she did write us from there several times, but we have not heard from her in many years now.”

“You must have been quite young when you first met Gandhi.”

Mr. Rai’s face lights up with his memories, “Yes, there were a lot of us who were students at that time. We were very dedicated to his ideas of service to the backward villagers.”

“The self-sufficient village economy?”

“Yes, it is not just an ideal; it is necessary in many of our isolated villages. You can visit the village next door, you will see for yourself.”

After I am all settled in the spacious guest room, I go to sit out on the verandah and wait until the sun moves a little lower to cast some long shadows before I set out to explore. Contented to just relax, I am brought out of my reverie when an attractive, chipper young woman about twenty years old approaches me.

“You are the American?” she inquires.

“Well, yes, I am an American.”

“It is all your fault.”

“My fault?” I am visibly taken aback. “What is my fault?”

“This terrible materialism that is ruining India; it is all the fault of America. Indians are crazy for American products. We were just discussing it in our seminar.”

“I see, but I haven’t seen a single American here telling Indians what to do or what to buy.”

“Well, no, but the Indians are imitating them—what they see in the news.”

Frankly, I am quite aware of this phenomena and have attempted to comprehend its roots. No doubt, the Empire was run on the fuel of superiority of the white/Christian race; a concept that was effectively backed by superior weapons. Where would the white Christians, with all our elite theories, be today without our barbaric guns and bombs? However, at the moment, I do not feel that anything would be gained by bringing the subject of the Indian inferiority complex into the current conversation. So I take a different tact.

“If the Indians want to imitate the Americans, why don’t they pick some of their positive qualities?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“For example, the Americans are very hard working. They have worked hard to achieve their life-style. Also the majority are very honest. In U.S. you don’t have to pay bribes to get electricity, to have your telephone connected, or to get a building permit.”

The girl looks at me with a blank stare. It appears what I am saying is not sinking in. After a long pause, I politely change the subject. “You are here for a seminar?”

“Yes, the Gandhi Foundation offered a one-month seminar on his ideas. I am studying to be a journalist, so I felt that such a course would be worthwhile to me. But it has not really been what I expected.”

“In what way?”

“You know the residents there in the village hate the ashramites,” she explains.

“No, I wasn’t aware of that. Why do you suppose that is?”

“Because the ashram is fenced and private. The buildings here are so much better than what they have there.”

“I don’t get a feeling of the ashram being so private. The gate is open. I’m sure anyone would be welcome here—even to the daily prayer service.”

“Oh, they come here all right. The boys—teenagers—come over here to use the public outhouses and smear shit all over them, so we have to clean them up.”

“Yes, I would call that an hostile act. I wonder who cleans them when students are not here.” Then I chuckle.

She looks at me with a questioning glare, so I quickly explain. “I was thinking of a booklet that I just saw at the bookstore. It was written by a Japanese man, who visited here in the early 1940’s. Unfortunately, Gandhi was away when he arrived. However, he wrote to Gandhi, and received an immediate reply from him. That letter was published in the introduction of the booklet. Gandhi wrote that he supposed that the guest was having to empty all the latrine pails for the ashram residents because that’s what they always made the newcomers do. So here it is sixty years later, and there’s still no one to clean the toilets—except the visitors.”

That story does get a tiny smile out of the serious young face, but no conversation opens up, for she tells me she has to return to class. “Maybe you will come and talk to us one afternoon,” she remarks as she leaves.

“Sure, I’ll be glad to.” However, even though I walk through the area where the seminar is being held, almost daily, I never see her again. Nor am I invited to speak. Actually, the participants remained quite separate from the main section where I stay. I never saw any the teachers or students in this area.

Later, when I walk over to the village, I find that it probably looks about as it did when Gandhi was alive—with the exception of a large public school located on the entrance lane. I did not visit the school, for recent rains had made a huge pond in the road in front of it. I am not up to wading in mud when not absolutely necessary, but obviously the kids have to.

The Indians have always valued education. Educating the populace was one of the fundamental duties of the Brahman caste. In the 6th century BC, the university at Taxila had an international reputation as a center of advanced studies. From the 1st century BC, Indian scholars were invited to teach at academies and monasteries throughout Asia. In the 5th century AD, the universities of Nalanda and Valabhi supported the rise of Indian sciences, mathematics and astronomy. During this era, the original minds of the Indian scholars formulated the numerals we call “Arabic” and the concept of zero, which existed in their ancient texts. In the 10th century, when the Muslims arrived, nearly every village had its own school. If we compare this data with what was occurring in Great Britain in 1066 AD, I think we can get a glimpse of the waxing and waning of civilizations—and concepts of natural superiority.

In spite of the Muslim impact on the stability of the native Indian cultures, in the early 1800’s before the advent of the British domination, there were some 100,000 schools in India. The village schools were built with community effort; the teachers were furnished room and board by the villages. The students’ intense respect for their teachers is made apparent throughout the Mahabharta and other texts. There was no need for cash nor taxes. In the larger towns, the rulers usually supported the schools. The raja of Baroda had instated free and compulsory education to all his citizens in the 1920’s, long before it was practiced in Britain.

Then in the mid-1800’s, Lord Macaulay made it clear that mass education as practied in India was not to the benefit of the British. What the rulers needed was a class of clerks who would be interpreters between the government and the millions. They were to be “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” And they would forever remain as “clerks,” commonly referred to as niggers or peons by their overlords, who kept them out of any high positions in Government and the Military.

Thereafter, in the formal education throughout the Raj, all elements of anything pertaining to India—history, languages and culture—were annihilated. Its awesome texts of ethics and logic, its great literary epics, its world-renowned metal work, its extensive trade routes with China and the Roman empire—all were ignored. The textbooks were the ones used in England for English children—Christmas trees, St. Nicholas, English gardens and all. The repercussions were tenacious in destroying self-identity and self-value of the Indian people. Even today I find both Indians and Western scholars who comment that India had no written history. A completely assiduous idea that is a repercussion from the Western imposition of its education system.

However, the upper-caste Brahmans that the British chose for their education were not the ones Gandhi was targeting for his education program. He wanted a meaningful and useful education for the “dumb millions”—as he always called the peasants. He wanted to return to the cooperative system—in education, economics and politics—that had been traditional in the villages. Gandhi emphasized an education that would supply the real needs of the villagers, plus the use 0f Indian languages, as they were more authentic in expressing the Indian mindset and culture.

When Gandhi was ready to start a school at Sevagram, he was fortunate to have the educational model of Shantiniketam, a school operated by Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize winning poet [1913]. A married couple came from there to organize and run the school for Gandhi. They created a model for Basic Education all over the country. As the children progressed through seven grades, they would be learning different handicrafts and practical skills. While working with each particular handicraft, they would learn mathematics as the project required, the history of the craft, and understand each step of its development. Eventually, spinning would expand to weaving, and even growing and harvesting of the cotton. Gandhi envisioned that the various crafts would stimulate the children’s intellectual curiosity, so they would want to discover, research and improve the various traditional methods.

The older children would make tools and equipment for handcrafts and agriculture, as well as learn the basics of construction of homes. Also they would be in charge of the production of food for personal and local use, experimenting and expanding the range of crops and fodder grown in their region.

Everyone agreed on the importance of art and music as a basic course. Art could be mastered in the use of decorating of the various crafts. Although the children would be from different religious backgrounds of Hindu, Muslim and Christian, moral and ethical values would not be neglected. The training would be based on universal ideals, specially the practice of non-violence. The keystone of the plan was a relationship of love and respect between the teacher and the student. I could easily envision the manifestation of this concept because I had recently read the work of Sukhomlinsky, a Russian educator. My head was in a peak experience state from the encounter with his descriptions of his teaching practices. [Some wonderful people have put his wonderful book: To Children I Give my Heart. It has been a tragedy of our generation that our history books have not included the incredible story of the heroic Russians in World War II and other wars for that matter.]

Financing the schools also called for some innovation. The traditional cooperative system was out of the question since the villages were now already overburdened with taxes to the central Government. Moreover, in British India revenue for education came from taxes on alcohol sales; it was a contradiction of Gandhi’s values. He suggested that the children would create various handicrafts that could be sold to support the school. As for higher education, he proposed that the specialized training would be provided by the companies that required engineers, chemists, financiers, whereas Agricultural Colleges could be supported by their own produce.

One afternoon I have the privilege of speaking with Mr. Shankar Pandey, who had been the principal of the school here. Both he and Mr. Rai are perfect examples of the bright-eyed, soft-spoken, open-minded, dignified elderly Indian gentlemen. Certainly not a majority, but their type is abundant; I find them everywhere, in every caste, in every state. In their elder years, they seem to ripen into amateur philosophers. They are beautiful human beings. They make me think that every male should grow old in India. Perhaps, it has something to do with their developed feminine side. Certainly, the practice of the young to consult the elderly on major family decisions may influence both men and women to keep up their intellectual acuity and intuitive sharpness. The young do not need an injunction written in stone to respect the elderly; the elderly act in a manner that invites respect.

Mr. Pandey informs me that they had run the Basic Education school, founded here in the mid-1930’s, until just ten years ago. He goes on to comment, “Then the Government built a school right in the village. The day it opened, our school emptied.”

“The villagers preferred a Government school to Gandhi’s plan, a plan geared specially for them?” I express surprise.

“You see, we taught according to each child’s needs. There were never any examinations or diplomas. This meant that our students were not accepted at the state universities. Whereas, since they are Harijans, or the lower caste, they have preference at the universities,” he comments.

“So the parents in this small village want their children to go to universities?”

“Oh, yes. They want the high-paying Government jobs. They will get preference for those too,” he explains.

“I’m afraid I know about that. When I was in Karnataka last year, the Government had hired a Harijan as a Priest in a government-run temple there, although he did not know even one verse from the Vedas, nor a word of Sanskrit. It’s not like there is a shortage of poor priests who need work in south India.” Without waiting for him to comment, I conclude, “So this means the local villagers rejected Gandhi’s concept of ‘cultured simplicity’?”

“That’s true. One problem always was that the parents did not like the children doing the manuring of the crops. We produced all of our food. We made all of our clothes, starting right with the growing of the cotton crop. We would use all the manure from the cattle and the latrines, so everything grew so abundantly.

“You can’t imagine what wonderful days we’ve spent here in the gardens. At harvest time, it was a huge green paradise. Then gathering time was a big festival. Everyone participated—from the first graders to the principal. We would all go out together and spend a whole day cutting and picking and singing,” his face lights up as he describes his memories.”

“Now it’s all over,” he concludes as he looks me straight in the eyes.

One afternoon I stop at the local tea and snack shop at the road junction in the opposite direction of the village. I call it a shop, instead of a stall, because it actually has tables, chairs and a roof. As I sit waiting for my tea, I realize, I bet I have been in more tea stalls in India than any other person on the planet. Now that is quite a distinction, but, of course, extremely necessary for my search for the best cup of tea!

As I look around while I am sipping the tea, I am surprised to notice that the proprietor, a young man about 35 years old, speaks English. Since it is so rare to find an English-speaker running a tea shop in a small village, my curiosity prompts me to strike up a conversation with him. My interest is further peaked when I find out that he is a product of Gandhi’s ashram school.

He quite willingly opens up and tells me that the ashramites took him in when he was about three years of age. He assumes he was an orphan; there were no records. Not only did they provide him with a home and education, but, when he graduated, they arranged a job for him in Singapore. We will assume it was menial labor; however, he was able to save some money. When he had enough to start a decent tea shop, he returned here to the only home he knows.

“There are some people from the village that criticize the ashram,” I mention.

“It’s hard for me to understand why they do, since I know the effort the ashramites put forth to assist those villagers for so many years. I can find no reason to criticize them. Everything I have I owe to them,” he assures me.

One the way back to the ashram, I notice a hospital named for Gandhi’s wife, Kasturbai. Later, I take the opportunity to ask Mr. Pandey about it. “I was surprised to notice that the hospital by the ashram is allopathic. Gandhi was a Nature Cure person. I don’t recall him ever condoning the Western allopathic medicine.”

“He didn’t condone it; he condemned it. He used to go over to the village every morning to treat the sick. He always used the simplest of home remedies: bicarbonate of soda, caster oil, enemas, mud packs and special diets.”

“So how is it that there is a allopathic hospital, named for Kasturbai Gandhi, here beside the ashram?”

“Because that is the way to collect foreign dollars. It did not start like that, but the original director has died. So the new directors took the easy way, they use the name to make it easy to get donations.”

“And nobody cares that it teaches and practices the opposite of Gandhi’s ideas?”

“Nobody.”