Rural Schooling That Breeds Contempt for Agriculture: The Need for Agrarian Education

Just open the textbooks of any rural primary school or inter college and see for yourself.

In them, it is taught: “Ram is a good boy; he studied hard and became an officer in the city. Shyam did not study, so he stayed back in the village and took to farming!”

Right from Class 1 in childhood, this poison is poured into the child’s subconscious mind—that farming is the destiny of a failed, backward, and illiterate man! Whosoever gets educated will put on a coat and trousers and flee to the city; and only the worthless will wield a khurpi (a small hand-hoe used for weeding) in the fields.

What has been the result?

The village youth acquires a BA, MA, BEd, or BTech degree. But after earning that degree, neither does he find a decent job in the city, nor does he remain fit to return to the village and plough alongside his father. He feels ashamed to set foot in the field.

By the age of 25, he turns into such a Trishanku (suspended in limbo between two worlds) that he belongs neither to the field nor to the office!

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The Division of Education and Labour: Macaulay’s Lasting Enslavement

In the twelfth and final chapter (epilogue) of their book ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaon’, the co-authors N. Singh and Vimla Singh launch a searing attack on this fatal estrangement between the Indian education system and agriculture.

They remind us that the English education system introduced in India by Lord Macaulay in 1835 had the explicit objective of producing ‘black Englishmen’ who would be Indian in blood and appearance, but English in thought and taste. Their sole job was to sign files and perform babugiri (clerical pen-pushing).

Even 78 years after Independence, we have not changed the fundamental spirit of that education policy.

• We never taught in the school curriculum how seeds are sown, how soil health is tested, or how plant grafting is done.
• We made the child memorise Shakespeare and Newton by rote, but never taught him how many months of scorching sun and sweat it takes to ripen the wheat of the roti (unleavened flatbread) he eats.

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The Bitter Truth from the Book

“If education cuts man off from the production of his own food, if education teaches that manual labour is base and contemptible, then that society cannot survive for long. Today’s educated rural youth carries the burden of degrees, but possesses no real productive skill. Unless agricultural science, environment, and village crafts are made compulsory practical subjects from Class 1 up to university, education will continue to churn out nothing but crowds of the unemployed.”
— ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaon’ (Chapter 12 and Epilogue)

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What Is the Real Solution?

1. Compulsory School Education in Agriculture and Environment: Every rural school must have a half-acre experimental school farm, where it is mandatory for every student to put in at least 4 hours a week of soil work and gardening.
2. Dignity of Labour: An awareness must be fostered in society that the farmer sweating in the field is no less honourable than a manager sitting in an air-conditioned office.
3. Training in Agri-Entrepreneurship (Agri-Business): Instead of meaningless BA and MA degrees, rural youth should be provided practical diplomas in modern polyhouse farming, food processing, dairy technology, and digital marketing.

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A Question Worth Pondering (The Book’s Message)

The day the youth of this country begins to say with pride, “Yes, I am an educated and modern farmer!”—will that not mark the dawn of India’s genuine freedom and self-reliance?

The book concludes with a profound sense of hope and a national call to action. To grasp this entire intellectual discourse in depth, you must read this final chapter of the book ‘Ujadti Kheti, Ujadte Gaon’.