PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

This is part 1 of a series of 3 articles is based on the booklet titled 'Grama Vikas' (Village Development), authored by Ashish Kumar Gupta and Dilip Kelkar and published by Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan. Foreword The question of development in India has long been framed through a narrow and borrowed lens—one that equates progress with urban expansion and modernity with the erosion of tradition. In this framework, the Indian village has gradually been reduced from a vibrant civilizational unit to a symbol of deficiency, spoken of more as a problem to be solved than as a legacy to be understood. This shift in perception has not been accidental; it is the result of decades of intellectual distancing from indigenous knowledge systems and lived historical experience. This work seeks to challenge that prevailing narrative. It invites the reader to revisit the village not as a relic of the past, but as a foundational pillar of Indian civilization—one that sustained economic prosperity, ...