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Suggestions For Improvement

The PDS can play a better role in distributing essential commodities if:

1. interruptions in the supply line which create great hardships for the people can be prevented and supplies made adequate, regular and of standard quality;
2. it is revamped, strengthened and expanded further to cover all areas in the country, particularly the backward, remote and inaccessible areas;
3. it reaches the deprived social groups especially those living below the poverty line, such as landless rural labour;
4. buffer stocks with the government can be increased;
5. Storage and transport problems, which result in large losses, can be overcome;
6. management and distribution of ration cards and malpractices in the operation of the PDS at procurement, stocking, distribution etc. levels can be done away with; and
7. it is not used as an instrument of political patronage.

Besides, it would be necessary to revamp and strengthen the existing arrangements I n the states where a strong cooperative movement exists, the Apex Consumer Cooperative and Marketing Societies may take up the responsibility of procurement, storage, movement and distribution of essential commodities. Civil Supplies Corporations are being established by the State Governments to make the essential items available to the weaker sections of the community in remote areas. Further, efficient and socially oriented marketing techniques should be utilised to reduce the cost of distribution. Mobile fair price shops need be organized at centers where development of construction works are in progress. Under the plan projects, in tribal areas, arrangements may have to be made to supply goods to the tribals on barter.

As long as poverty persists and there are problems of scarcity, the PDS is bound to play a significant role in ensuring social and economic justice, especially of the weaker sections.

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The term ‘Renaissance’ literally means rebirth, and is, in a narrow sense, used to describe he revival of interest in the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. This deeply influenced Europeans. The Renaissance, however, was not a mere revival of ancient learning. It was marked by a series of new developments in the fields of art, literature, religion, philosophy, science and politics.

Renaissance claims to have made the greatest achievements in the realm of painting, sculpture and architecture. The humanism of the Renaissance found brilliant expression in these art forms. The Renaissance artists made use of biblical subject but interpreted in non-traditional attitude. Art as an independent activity assumed a status in their hands. The purpose of medieval art was to express moral values and impart religious teachings. The artists, had a low position in society. The Renaissance marked the rise of artists. The enjoyed great prestige in society. The wealthy merchants, the princes and the Church competed for their patronage. The artists feed at from religious or ritualistic overtones. The Renaissance had supreme achievement in painting. The Artists looked upon art as an imitation of life. Hence, they observed nature man, mountains, trees, and animals and the anatomy of man. The artists used their knowledge in optics and geometry to develop perspective in their paintings. They studied human anatomy to illustrate. Leonardo da Vinci, studied anatomical structure of the human body. Besides it, with a view to represent movement, he studied the way different a parts of the body shaped when in a state of movement.

It was with the Renaissance that modern science began. The first and foremost achievement was in astronomy. It was exposed by Copernicus that the earth rotated on its axis and revolved around the sun. For over a thousand years, it was believed that the earth was the center of the universe. Its refutation proved to be a set back to the theological conception of the universe. It Copernicus’s book, On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs was published in 1543, the year in which he dies. He had hesitated from publishing it for fear of the hostility of the Church. Galileo confirmed the idea of an open universe of which the earth was but a small part. This exposition shattered the theological view of a closed universe, created and maintained in motion by God. In 1606, Gioardano Bruno was burnt for heresy.

This period witnessed the invention of the telescope which has been called the greatest scientific instrument of the age. Galileo, used this instrument in his study of the heavenly bodies and the Copernicus theory was confirmed by Galileo’s observations.

Servetus, published a book explaining the circulation of blood. He was condemned to death for questioning the Church belief in Trinity. Harvey claims to have given a complete account of the constant process of circulation of blood, from the heart to all parts of the body and back again in about 1610 in h is Dissertation upon the ‘Movement of the Heart’. During the period great discoveries and inventions were made in science.

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The beginning of the 20th century witnessed the development of the Indian National Movement to a new, higher stage under a new militant nationalist leadership. This was in part the fruition of the earlier nationalist agitation, and in part the consequence of the reassertion of imperialism at the end of the 19th century,. The symbol f the new imperial assertion, of despotism and ‘efficiency’, was Lord Curzon, the Viceroy since 1899. Political Indians now despaired of getting political concessions from the rulers through political argument and methods of polite agitation. Indians must, they realized, depend on themselves and take recourse to mass politics and mass agitation around the goal of independence from Britain.

A new political leadership now emerged on the scene. The most prominent in it were Bal Gangadhar Tilak, known as the Lokmanya, Aurobindo Ghose, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai. The new leadership believed and preached that Indians must rely not their own efforts, on their own political activity and on their own sacrifices. Their political work and outlook encouraged self-reliance and self0confidence. Moreover, they possessed deep faith in the strength of the Indian people and mass action. Once the masses took up politics, they asserted, it would be impossible for the British to suppress the national movement. They therefore pressed for political work among the masses. They also denied that British rule could be reformed from within.

An organized form was given to the revolutionary movement with the formation of the Hindustan Republican Association in 1924. The Government responded with immediate repression. Consequently, a number of Hindustan Republic Army (HRA) activists were arrested and tried in the famous Kakori Conspiracy case in 1925, owing largely to the influence of socialist ideas the name was changed to Hindustan Socialist Repu8blican Association (HSRA). Chandra Shekhar Azad, whose name you all must be familiar with, was the leader of this organisation. Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru, Ramprasad Bismil, Sukhdev and Batukkeshwar Dutt were some of the leading revolutionary activists in the 1920s.

Although defeated and suppressed these revolutionaries contributed to the cause of nationalism in no small measure. They became a source of inspiration for the youth and the stories of their sacrifices helped in keeping the flames of nationalism alive and burning.

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(i) The Enclosure Movement

The Enclosure Movement: The Enclosure Movement in England peasants were evicted from the fields and land was enclosed. When the peasants had no work, they migrated to cities seeking work. These peasants belonged to the lower strata. Their agricultural employment had been taken away due to enclosure process. The two waves of the Enclosure Movement were as under_

1. The first wave came in the 16th and 17th centuries. During this period small peasants and tenants were evicted from land by landlords. The reason was that the latter had enclosed of fenced in large plots of land for breeding sheep to get wool for the expanding woolen textiles market.
2. The second wave came in the 18th and 19th centuries. The enclosure began to be made to improve and cultivate land as a business proposition.
3. In the latter development the land owner evicted the peasants by special license from the king or the private Acts of Parliament (there were 2700 such Acts in 1700-1844) and other methods. As a result in 1883 in England and Wales land was concentrated in a few hands: 1.4 per cent of private landowners owned 73.9 per cent of land. The process converted the peasants higher to working in fields into landless proletariat, a class of people who could get a living by selling labour power.

(ii) Sedentism

The crops were annual grasses. They were sown at one time of the year and were ready for harvest only three or four months later. While they were growing they had to b e protected, watered and weeded. The land became the object of human being’s labour in this way, they become attached to it. There was only one wheat or rice harvest every year. So, people had to store grain for eating during the rest of the year and also to use as seeds in the next sowing. This discouraged nomadism. Villages had immovable equipments like storage bins and grinding stones.