distributed amongst landless tribal. While in college Joshi had read in several books written by experts that government should confiscate surplus land of the big landowners and distribute it amongst landless labourers. Then they would be able to till it, grow their crops, earn good money and that is the way to solve the problem of rural poverty. This was how most progressive intellectuals thought and as a student Joshi too had subscribed to that line of thinking. But what he was witnessing here was quite the opposite. Despite having had the land allotted, no one was lifting a finger. Just getting the land was not enough for them; everyone had some difficulty or the other. Some lacked implements, some needed bulls, some did not have seeds, while some wanted manure and fertilizers. Unless they had all these they could not do anything; or were not ready to do anything. One day Joshi had a long discussion with the government officer in charge of Khed taluka. Joshi suggested collective farming. The officer was a good person. He arranged a meeting between Joshi and eleven new landowners of a nearby village called Davadi. They all agreed to do collective farming. Everyone was pleased and they decided to call their collective farm as “Eleven Bhumiputra” (eleven sons of soil). As days passed, one by one, things became clear to Joshi. To start with, out of those eleven, only three were truly landless. Someone from their family worked in a city and on that income they could run their household. They were naturally delighted to have some land transferred to their name and for that they had even bribed some local politicians, but they did not have any enthusiasm to actually cultivate that land. All the enthusiasm they showed in front of the government officer and Joshi was fake. Joshi personally made several trips to Khed to meet the bank officials so that these persons could get some initial loan. Out of eleven farmers only one accompanied Joshi to the bank; Hands in Soil
Q
83
