The village people are constantly moving to the cities, 75% -80% of the Indian population still live in village. If a larger number of people eared living by growing crops there would be more food grown in the country. Our cities would not be so crowded either. Unfortunately the life of a farmer in India is very uncertain. They produce so little food that one bad harvest or a drought can lead to starvation. On average the monsoons fail once every five years, causing drought. At such times the peasants have to borrow money from the local money-lender in order to stay alive until the next harvest. Between 1860 and 1901 there were ten major famines in India which led to the death of about 15 millions people. In 1943 one and half million people died of famine in Bengal.

Besides, the poor farmers cannot afford to buy the necessary seeds, fertilizers and pesticides or arrange for irrigation water. Thus the life of farmers in villagers is very hard. So, people move into towns in the hope of finding work. However, India still remains largely a land of villages.

There are many villages in India which are very small with just a few hundreds of people living in them. Life is very hard in these remote villages. There is no electricity and the water supply is erratic as the surrounding lakes, tanks and rivers often dry up when the monsoons fail, or during summer. Communication is difficult-even buses do not go right up to these villages. Schools and hospital are so far away that they be reached easily. Thus it is easy see why progress is so slow in these a small villages. Can you think of other reasons too?

The larger villages however have more facilities. These have electricity and cement houses for the well-to- do. Pumps are used to tap after. But the poor have a hard life. They live in thatched huts with mud walls which often get washed away in flash floods or heavy rains. The largest villages have shops where some `Luxury’ items such as soap and powder may be sold along with the daily necessities. Shop selling cloth and hardware may be found too.

Houses in Indian villages vary in size, shape and building materials, from one part of the country to another. People also dress differently as you can see in the pictures below.

Children living in villages and cities appear completely different from each other. A rural child may know a great deal a bout the land and animals. An urban child may have more `General knowledge’ about the world.

The main aim of the government’s five years plan is to bring some of the villages’ advantages of town life- schools, hospitals, electrification, sanitation, water- to villages, in order to make rural life better for people and to prevent them moving from the villages to the towns on a large scale.