At the present time, about 30,000 of India's 500,000 villages are under the program, and by 1961, at the end of the second Five Year Plan, every village is scheduled to be included in a project.

Community Development is only one part of India's Five Year Plan of economic development. As an experiment in democratic planning, the 84 billion program also affects irrigation, industrialization, schooling, food production, and health. If India meets the high goals of the plan, the achievement will rank as one of democracy's greatest.

One of the most serious problems, not met by the Five Year Plan, is land inequality. Everywhere, the land question is primary, for it is the true source of village wealth and life. It is estimated that in one district, for example, 75 percent of the people are landless, and three percent own half the irrigated land. Land reform is officially under the control of the various State governments, unlike Community Development, which is administered from New Delhi.

Petitions for Land

Former untouchables are in the most acute conditions. Gandhi called them harijans, or "children of God," but they are more accurately children of the land. It is common to see groups of harijans submitting petitions for land to Hyderabad's Development Commissioner, who also happens to be chief revenue and land reform officer. Always showing that he considers them equals by deliberately touching them, he would say, "You build a road from here to that land, and it will be yours.

Unfortunately, most administrators are not so progressive as Hyderabad's and other states are painfully slow in adopting even the most basic land reforms. Aside from official state government legislation, which comes slowly, the chief hope for land reform comes from a little old man with the simple formula of the Golden Rule. Vinoba Bhave, the man Gandhi chose to be his first example of civil disobedience against the British, is walking through villages asking the landed to volunteer one-fifth of their acreage for redistribution. "Bheodan," or landgift, is an idea that may spur state governments to needed reforms. For to date Vinoba has collected over three million acres in his saintly, Gandhian way, and he hopes to have 50 million by the end of 1956. Tremendous problems of redistribution, gifts of fallow land, and the lack of accompanying agricultural improvements plague the Bheodan workers. But the collectors--especially in Gandhi's own village of Sevagram--have a faith that may very well achieve peacefully the most needed revolution in Asia.

For Asia is definitely going through a revolution--whether violently in China or democratically in India. The central figure in India's revolution is Prime Minister Nehru. Most Indians, young and old, thick that Nehru will solve their problems, despite corruption and lethargy in the Congress Party.

This faith in Nehru carries over to his so-called "neutralist" foreign policy. Whether Nehru invites Chou En Lal to New Delhi or speaks out against U. S. arms to Pakistan, he has substantial support from the people. For Nehru and most Indians oppose Communism, believing that the best method to keep India democratic is to increase food production, education, and industrial and village development. If the government remains both nationalistic and economically progressive, the people will give it their support, and there is little danger of India's joining the Communist camp.

Nor is there, however, much chance of getting India to join an American-inspired area alliance. Hatred of Pakistan is strong, and the recent U. S. arms aid to that country increased distrust of American intentions. Furthermore, America is still tied to colonialism by its support of France in Indo China, and Indians do not like to admit that Red China is the new colonial power in Asia.

Of course, India has its own troops concentrated on the Northern border near China and Tibet, but India's main weapon against infiltration from Red China is not arms but internal stability.

To achieve stability, Indians realize that many years of peace are needed. Thus the internal problems evident to any visitor in India fundamentally affect India's foreign policy of "neutrality," more properly called "non-alignment." For it is by settling disputes between Russia and America that Indians hope to achieve time to make democracy secure at home. Only by recognizing the desire to relieve tensions and settle disputes can one understand the apparent inconsistencies in Nehru's foreign policy. Repeated attempts to admit Red China to the United Nations alongside stern warnings to Ho Chi Minh and Chou En Lal to observe the Indo-Chinese truce agreements are linked only by the single purpose of achieving some kind of a live-and-let-live settlement in Asia.

A temporary settlement, undertakes with full knowledge of the ultimate objectives of the Communists, could bring India and Asia new life and new hope. For if India fails in its democratic experiment, then Asia must fall to the technological totalitarians in the North. But if India succeeds, Asia could become democracy's strongest partner