Gandhi is a virulent critic of all models of western industrialisation as though they produce

material goods but are alien to our moral values. The village panchayat system and the

village republic could create both a participatory model of democracy and would also allow

an escape route to avoid the perils of western industrialisation. Gram Swaraj will be the

essential framework of this alternative model with the promotion of self-sufficiency in

providing the material conditions essential for fulfilling the needs of the individual and

enhance the elements of self-respect and pride in oneself. Gandhi is conscious that the

present day conditions of the villages are far from the ideal that he desires and it is because

of this consciousness that he argues for a reformed rural setting where truth and nonviolence

would co-exist in a situation of harmony and promotion and practice of rural virtues

of cooperation and performance of duties. His close associate, J. C. Kumarappa coins the

term ‘villagism’, which Gandhi gladly accepts as an essential framework of realising rural

swaraj. Gandhi desires a complete economic revival of India with satya and ahimsa as

its foundation and the credit for preparing a blueprint along these lines goes to Kumarappa.

The framework for the village swaraj is provided in two books of Kumarappa: Why the

village movement: A plea for village centred economic order and Capitalism, socialism

and villagism. The first book is considered as the first normative statement of Gandhian

economics and could be regarded as