rural areas. This economic and moral deterioration can only be checked
by the re-establishment of a healthy _and interesting_ village life, and
this depends upon the re-establishment of the Panchayat as the unit of
Government, a question which I deal with presently. Village industries
would then revive and an intercommunicating network would be formed by
Co-operative Societies. Mr. C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar says in his pamphlet,
_Co-operative Societies and Panchayats_:

The one method by which this evil [emigration to towns] can be
arrested and the economic and social standards of life of the
rural people elevated is by the inauguration of healthy
Panchayats in conjunction with the foundation of Co-operative
institutions, which will have the effect of resuscitating
village industries, and of creating organised social forces.
The Indian village, when rightly reconstructed, would be an
excellent foundation for well-developed co-operative industrial
organisation.

Again:

The resuscitation of the village system has other bearings, not
usually considered in connection with the general subject of
the inauguration of the Panchayat system. One of the most
important of these is the regeneration of the small industries
of the land. Both in Europe and in India the decline of small
industries has gone on _pari passu_ with the decline of farming
on a small scale. In countries like France agriculture has
largely supported village industries, and small cultivators in
that country have turned their attention to industry as a
supplementary source of livelihood. The decline of village life