The nation knows that Purna Swaraj as an uncompromising goal was declared by the National Congress in 1930 when the pledge was taken. That Sri Aurobindo, the freedom fighter-turned Yogi gave Mother India that call for complete Independence as far back as 1904 and he sought the power of yoga to realise that goal, is a little known fact outside the community of his devotees. The Mother, who headed his Ashram later, saw in HER subtle vision in 1914 that India was a free nation. Having satisfied himself that his part in freeing Mother India was over, Sri Aurobindo took to the yoga that would liberate mankind from falsehood.
The Mother's Service Society was founded in 1969 to pursue the aims of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in life, particularly in national life. Since its inception the Society has addressed itself to the problems of India from a spiritual point of view. The activities of The Society centred them-selves around their rural development project MOTHER ESTATES at Ramapuram near Cuddalore. The Society has interested itself in the life of the village and applied its ideas to its upliftment. As a result, Ramapuram where in 1965 wages were 65 np. income, farm land was Rs. 200 an acre and the value of land was a few thousand rupees, now wages are Rs. 18, income from land is Rs. 20,000 an acre and the value of land is twice that much an acre. In our project Mother estates as well as in the village Ramapuram we tested all our development principles extensively and found them very true in life as in theory. Ideas for national development based on our experience and the principles of Sri Aurobindo's yoga were developed in almost all fields. Mr. Garry Jacobs Assis-tant Secretary of the Society has, over the last several years presented these ideas to all levels of leaders of thought in the country and abroad. In 1980 the Union Planning Commission invited us to submit concrete proposals to be included at the end of this book.
Beginning from 1975 The Hindu of Madras has published scores of articles on development reflecting the views of the Society. They were all written by Garry Jacobs and the first 9 out of the 10 articles in Part II and Chapters III & IV of Part III were originally published in The Hindu. I take this occasion to express my gratitude for their kindness in according us permission to include those articles in this publication.
During the Golden Jubilee of Annamalai University we suggested that a new course in Development Education at M.A. level could be started there. They accepted our idea and introduced that course. Later the University invited Garry Jacobs to deliver 3 special lectures on Development Education at the University. Those 3 lectures are here included as part of this book. I acknowledge with thanks the generous gesture of the University in permitting us to publish those lectures as part of this publication.
The Mother's Service Society is recognised by ICSSR as a a Social Science Research Institute since 1981. The Society has applied the principles of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga to many fields of knowledge and has come out with fresh thoughts in the fields of Literatare, Management, Psychology, Inter-national development and a few others. N. Krishnamurthy is the Project-Director of our rural development project at Ramapuram. N. Ramakrishnan is a leading student in Pondicherry who was once the President of his college union. Ramapuram where prosperity is overflowing has all the potentials of becoming a national model for development. The Society is seriously considering the idea of enlisting the energies of the educated youth in the villages aroud Pondicherry to usher in a mini-movement of moving the entire population above the poverty line thus creating another national model in total eradication of poverty.
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