Introduction:
Training is always a good thing. But what you call orientation training involves in mental change in the context of changing time, and it is not easy to understand the new world, which is the world of science. The real purpose of training is to understand the world, and that is a complex problem; this purpose cannot be achieved by mere advice, though advice perhaps benefit a few. India is changing and changing fast. Thousands of factories are being set up. People have to be trained for this new world rising before them. Take agriculture. There are many things like the use of fertilizers and different types of ploughs. Merely listening to a lecture cannot bring about this new world, though the lecture may be helpful to an extent. Some people are planning to reach the moon, some got to even farther. And nowhere man's intellectual perspective kept pace with scientific achievement. It has always lagged behind. What I mean is that we should give orientation training, but real orientation means understanding the new world. This training is possible through instruction, but is more effective through a direct view of the changing world.
Job training or technical training:
I agree that job training or technical training being given is all right, so there is no question about that. In spite of that, however, the spirit is lacking. For instance, in Germany or Japan a persons woks with greater enthusiasm because he feels he is working for the country. In fact, when work is being done on a very big scale and at a very great speed, its quality deteriorates naturally and then it has to be improved. There is no magic about it. Better work is possible, firstly, if we choose people with greater care, secondly, if we them well, and thirdly, if we supervise their work carefully.
Orientation training in village work:
On the basis of the experience of village work in general and development work in particular and in spite of the fact that we should gave them complete co-operation that I say about the development officials that their work suffers from some serious defects which cannot be removed without direct supervision by experienced social workers. As the fifty are not educated, experienced and fearless at least for the present, development officers will remain their masters instead of becoming their servants. Under such circumstances I suggest that a veteran patriot (social worker) may be appointed guide for every village, or at least for every block.
Factors to be taken for orientation training:
I do not know the standard to be applied to an old patriot. Mere age cannot be the standard. It should be considered for implementation but there are other factors to be taken into consideration. Generally speaking all such capable persons are already engaged in good work. And we keep some people on the strength of their being veterans, they prove more useless than the others. All they do the whole day long is to debate and discuss without doing any useful work. If they themselves do not understand the new work, what supervision can they undertake? They may lecture day and night till the listeners get fed up. So it all depends upon the quality of the persons. I mean there can be two types of supervisors. Firstly, those who are there in connection with the work. Secondly, there may be people like political commissars of the armies of communist countries. But that method did not prove successful and had to be abandoned.
Special qualities will prove beneficial to the work:
In India there are very few among them who are capable of controlling such work. They should become the fifth wheel of the cart. I can understand if they are entrusted with the responsibility for some actual work, but if they are engaged to supervise the work of some responsible workers, it would amount to employing a spy, then another spy to spy on the first spy and get a third spy to spy on the second one. If a man is capable himself, he creates such a position that the officers and the others consult him and take his assistance and advice. That is another matter.