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 cleanliness campaigns, dug trenches to be used as toilets. Using shramadaan (voluntary labour) he got some roads constructed, albeit very rudimentary ones. He got villagers to clean up their wells, ran literacy classes. He made several appeals to the Panchayat to improve the school. He brought government officials to the village to explain various development schemes. He tried everything that was generally regarded as social development work but soon realized its limitations. He was convinced that the only remedy for ills of the village was eradication of poverty and for that to happen the villagers had to get higher prices for their farm produce.

Joshi told me,

‘During that initial period I did a lot of work to clean up our Ambethan village; but the nearby Bhose village was cleaner than ours. Their soil was not rocky and was more fertile. They grew a lot of fruit and vegetables but more importantly the onion they grew was of better quality and fetched better price. Villagers therefore used to have more money in hand and could save a little bit. When they start earning good money, people naturally feel like living better. But this urge cannot develop unless they start earning more money. Without economic development no other development was possible.’

One serious attempt Joshi made to improve village conditions should be mentioned here. Joshi himself has written in detail about this experiment which taught him a vital lesson for life.

There was a government land reforms scheme whereby every landless labourer was given about two acres of land. Many had got such plots of land around Ambethan. But they just remained fallow. A big plot of land owned by a landlord in Mhalunge village was taken over by the government and was 82 ■ Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage