XVIII. PENETRATING
THE VILLAGES
As far as was possible we placed each school in charge
of one man and one woman. These volunteers had to look
after medical relief and sanitation. The womenfolk had to
be approached through women.
Medical relief was a very simple affair. Castor oil,
quinine and sulphur ointment were the only drugs provided
to the volunteers. If the patient showed a furred tongue
or complained of constipation, castor oil was
administered, in case of fever quinine was given after an
opening dose of castor oil, and the sulphur ointment was
applied in case of boils and itch after thoroughly
washing the affected parts. No patient was permitted to
take home any medicine. Wherever there was some
complication Dr. Dev used to visit each centre on certain
fixed days in the week.
Quite a number of people availed themselves of this
simple relief. This plan of work will not seem strange
when it is remembered that the prevailing ailments were
few and amenable to simple treatment, by no means
requiring expert help. As for the people the arrangement
answered excellently.
Sanitation was a difficult affair. The people were not
prepared to do anything themselves. Even the field
labourers were not ready to do their own scavenging. But
Dr. Dev was not a man easily to lose heart. He and the
volunteers concentrated their energies on making a
village ideally clean. They swept the roads and the
courtyards, cleaned out the wells, filled up the pools
near by, and lovingly persuaded the villagers to raise
volunteers from amongest themselves. In some villages
they shamed people into taking up the work, and in others
the people were so enthusiastic that they even prepared
roads to enable my car to go from place to place. These
sweet experiences were not unmixed with bitter ones of
people's apathy. I remember some villagers frankly
expressing their dislike for this work.
It may not be out of place here to narrate an
experience that I have described before now at many
meetings. Bhitiharva was a small village in which was one
of our schools. I happened to visit a smaller village in
its vicinity and found some of the women dressed very
dirtly. So I told my wife to ask them why they did not
wash their clothes. She spoke to them. One of the women
took her into her hut and said: 'Look now, there is no
box or cupboard here containing other clothes. The #sari#
I am wearing is the only one I have. How am I to wash it?
Tell Mahatmaji to get me another #sari#, and I shall then
promise to bathe and put on clean clothes every day.'
This cottage was not an exception, but a type to be
found in many Indian villages. In countless cottages in
India people live without any furniture, and without a
change of clothes, merely with a rag to cover their
shame.
One more experience I will note. In Champaran there is
no lack of bamboo and grass. The school hut they had put
up at Bhitiharva was made of these materials. Someone
possibly some of the neighbouring planters' men set fire
to it one night. It was not thought advisable to build
another hut of bamboo and grass. The school was in charge
of Sjt. Soman and Kasturbai. Sjt. Soman decided to build
a #pukka# house, and thanks to his infectious labour,
many co-operated with him, and a brick house was soon
made ready. There was no fear now of this building being
burnt down.
Thus the volunteers with their schools, sanitation
work and medical relief gained the confidence and respect
of the village folk, and were able to bring good
influence to bear upon them.
But I must confess with regret that my hope of putting
this constructive work on a permanent footing was not
fulfilled. The volunteers had come for temporary periods,
I could not secure any more from outside, and permanent
honorary workers from Bihar were not available. As soon
as my work in Champaran was finished, work outside, which
had been preparing in the meantime, drew me away. The few
months' work in Champaran, however, took such deep root
that its influence in one form or another is to be
observed there even today.
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