The joint family system, by which all brothers bring their wives to live in the home of the father or mother, is also under attack by students with modern ideas of establishing their own homes. Castes, too, are breaking down among students, who show little evidence of discrimination. More and more girls also are going to college, although many families still strongly disapprove.

Some students are doing social work, but traditional aversion to manual labor among the "middle class," as well as the students' own economic conditions, keep most from going out to the villages or to city slum areas. A few notable exceptions exist, such as the college boys who have "adopted" a nearby village and are helping to build a new road. A girls' college, too, distributes milk to village children. But on the whole, voluntary constructive work, despite the role it played in Gandhi's philosophy, is not a part of the attitude of India's students.

This lack of contact between the students in the cities and the people of the villages is perhaps the single most discouraging fact in today's India. For the students talk about immediate reforms, when the villages actually need a far different solution. The danger is that these city students, who barely understand the villages, will eventually take over the government civil service. Then they will need to learn quickly about the non-urban 85 percent of India and to plan bold but realistic programs of village development.

The Indian college student is proud of his country's culture and traditions, and yet highly critical of the present government. He is sensitive to the poverty all about him, but frustrated by his inability to help mold his own life or his country's future.

In short, most Indian college students have not yet found their place on India's road. The going is tough now, and the road ahead seems even bleaker. In the words of one Indian professor: "India is not using its greatest resource, its young intellectuals."

The "Real" India

Seven weeks in Indian cities would present a barren picture. But the heart of India is in the villages. There, Community Development, the most powerful answer to revolutionaries in Asia, is itself achieving a revolution of rising hopes.

In the Telingana district of Hyderabad State, where the Communists four years ago got control of many villages by the promise of land and the threat of violence, Community Development is now at its best. Before, Communist terrorists bad aroused the villagers to murder landlords and take the land; now, with the Communists apparently gone, an inspired team of an Indian administrator, a U. S. technical adviser, and village level workers, are achieving not only increased rice production, new wells, sanitation, and malaria control, but more important, a new way of thinking.

Villagers who might have watched the twentieth century pass by are now eagerly changing their feudal conditions. Farmers learn to plant rice in rows, rather than scatter it with no plan. Some villages begin cooperative stores and libraries.

Caste Walls Breaking

Companion to the spreading idea of economic progress, of course, is a feeling of social unrest. For when people begin to move, caste barriers must crack. In one village, a high caste Brahman protested against a former untouchable's building a mud but on the adjacent plot of land. But the Development Commissioner, with a certain toughness in his voice, reminded the Brahman that untouchability was now unconstitutional.

Not only is social equality one of the people's desires; a new social consciousness is also evident. There is nothing quite so levelling and unifying as having all villagers--from high caste to no caste--begin to clear a path for a new road. For by joining hands, villagers also join spirits.

The technique of Community Development is the key to its success, for it does not hand the villagers anything for nothing: the villagers themselves must be the chief part of any effort. "Give and Require" is the basic formula. "If you will put a good tile roof-on your hut," said the Development Commissioner to one farmer, "we will give you an extra acre of land."

The village level worker, or "gram sevak," has the all-important job of securing the support and confidence of the village. Generally he is a young boy just out of high school, who has completed six months at a special training center. Sincerely dedicated, these young Indians know that the future of village India is largely in their hands.

Community Development, financed and planned primarily by the Indian Government itself, is aided both by the Ford Foundation and the U. S. Government. The foundation helped to set up the training centers for the village workers, while the U. S. has contributed about $12 million to community projects--partly in the form of technical advisers--since the beginning of the program in 1952. The amount of U. S. aid is small--only about 10 per cent of the Indian contribution--but the results have so far been spectacular.