I have just been given the Ramon Magsaysay Award. I take it as a mark of recognition of our program which draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and his concern for the rural poor. Thus it is indeed a day of great joy for me. May I be permitted to express my deep sense of gratitude to you.

Why is India poor? Mahatma Gandhi answered that query, saying that India is poor because her rural man is poor. He analyzed the cause of rural poverty. He said that rural man is poor because he is largely unemployed or underemployed during the major part of the year. He said provision of remunerative year-round employment would enable rural India to get rid of its age-old burden of poverty.

Whatever the common belief, rural man is a wise man. He has acquired wisdom over centuries of experience of living a difficult life. It is this wisdom that has enabled him to survive all oppression, exploitation and difficulties. His experience, moreover, has made him look at anything new with suspicion because everything new to him has so far been used against him. He is also very possessive in regard to his land and livestock, and is not prepared to part with either even if neither is remunerative; he cannot forget that these have been the only instruments which have enabled him to survive against all odds.

However, the villager is no different from other people. He too wants to be prosperous. For that he is willing to experiment with whatever he has, however little it may be, but such an experiment must offer to satisfy at least some of his own needs as he sees them. Besides, he must have faith in the abilities of his counselor, and no doubt whatever about his motives.

We have been working among the rural poor in order to provide them with means of gainful employment. The instruments we have provided have come out of whatever little the poor themselves possessed. We have also seen to it that the abundantly available and yet underemployed manpower in rural India is utilized to the maximum possible extent. Besides, we have ensured that the rural poor find the new instruments as something culturally acceptable to them.

Agriculture and animal husbandry are two major fields that we have chosen for developing and providing new means of gainful employment. To make ours an integrated effort we are side by side working on health, education and cottage industry. Among our activities are: 1) upgrading indigenous cattle with the use of deep frozen semen of excellent exotic sires through artificial insemination; 2) developing and producing veterinary biomedicals to provide adequate health-cover to farm animals, and 3) propagating Leucaena leucocephala as a means of generating employment and providing fodder, fuel and timber, using schools as an important channel of diffusion.

These activities have shown us that technical competence, managerial expertise and involvement of local leadership are essential prerequisites for making relevant technologies generally acceptable to the rural poor. We have, therefore, built up a unique organizational model. It includes technical competence for proper selection, development and adoption of relevant technology. It incorporates managerial expertise to design and operate suitable delivery systems, and it involves a specific role for local leadership as demonstrators of the utility of such a technology, and paving the way for its further diffusion. This model is nongovernmental and voluntary in nature. It operates on a non-profit basis and keeps scrupulously away from any involvement in political issues.

I believe that this approach is the most appropriate for operating programs of rural development. It is an approach which can be adopted by all developing countries around the world.