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Reference ID U271AQ9

Headline India: "Portrait of an Indian village" by Eric Schwab, 1960

Description Three quarters of India’s immense population (nearly 420 million) live on the land. Yet the output of the Indian cultivator is among the lowest in the world due to ill-health, antiquated methods and inadequate tools. In an effort to change the entire way of living and thinking of the Indian peasant, Village Community Schemes were started in 1955. The new approach was tried on 55 experimental “development blocks” each comprising roughly a hundred villages with about 55,000 people. An intensive effort was made in the field of education, in health improvement, agricultural modernization and in the organization of constructive group activities. Today, 400,000 of India’s 500,000 villages are covered by this scheme. India’s third Five Year Plan provides that, by 1963, community development work will extend over the entire country.

Hangala Pura, 60 miles south of Mysore, in southern India, is typical of India’s 500,000 villages. Its inhabitants who are of the Lingayat casts, total 500. The village possesses 1,000 areas of good land for growing cereals and cotton and for raising cattle. It has 300 cows, 80 pairs of oxen, 120 sheep and 50 buffaloes. There are no pigs, no goats and no poultry. The Lingayats are vegetarian.

Children's game played with colored sticks - a form of rythmic gymnastics. Miss Sabbamaa, social worker, and children play "find the leader".

Asset date 01/01/1960

Country, area, WHO office India

WHO Region SEARO

Consent No

File size 1.78 MB

Visibility class:

Public

Administered By HQ Records and Archives

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