He is recompensed by mutual
services from his fellow villagers. The potter supplies him
with pots, the weaver with cloth, and the oilman with oil. From
the cultivator each of these artisans receives his traditional
share of grain. Thus almost all the economic transactions are
carried on without the use of money. To the villagers money is
only a store of value, not a medium of exchange. When they
happen to be rich in money, they hoard it either in coins or
make ornaments made of gold and silver.
These conditions are changing in consequence of the pressure of poverty
driving the villagers to the city, where they learn to substitute the
competition of the town for the mutual helpfulness of the village. The
difference of feeling, the change from trustfulness to suspicion, may be
seen by visiting villages which are in the vicinity of a town and
comparing their villagers with those who inhabit villages in purely
rural areas. This economic and moral deterioration can only be checked
by the re-establishment of a healthy _and interesting_ village life, and
this depends upon the re-establishment of the Panchayat as the unit of
Government, a question which I deal with presently.
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