1. Module IV: RURAL SOCIETY, ECONOMY AND DEVELOPMENT
INTERVENTIONS
Session11: Rural Society and Development Interventions
2. Rural Society and Development Interventions
• What happens to a development intervention in rural areas
which are essentially stratified, and may have many traditional
and pre-capitalist tendencies?
• Development interventions are schemes or projects brought to
change social and economic conditions for better
• Will a intervention make uniform and balanced impact on all
sections or make differentiated impact?
• It is necessary to understand how a stratified rural society
responds to rural development interventions (RDIs)
• Available theories and evidence suggest there is a strong
influence of village society on the working of the RDIs
• Unless the RDIs gets designed well; and become radical (change
status quo), the success is not assured in terms of growth,
efficiency, inclusion and equity.
• Hence the attempt to understand this relationship w.r.t Green
Revolution(HYV Programme)
Society
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8. Modernization Theory : Transforming Traditional Agriculture
• Modernisation is a liberal sociological theory of Social change
(Levy, Rostow; Schultz, etc)
• Traditional societies have dominance of personal attitudes, values, and
structures like ascriptions (caste) and particularism.
• Modernisation is a process where by rural areas would shift from traditional ways
and patterns to become modern and developed (poor-but-efficient)
• Modernisation is evolutionary mode (not-radical) of shift or transition from
traditional to modern society
• Modernisation is endogenously driven process to be localised within societies
• For example: In Agriculture, locally develop and introduce productive technology
to be adopted by farmers
• As per this theory, Social change towards modernity will take place in a linear and
uniform way; there will be trickle-down of benefits to all sections
9. • Modernisation theory is criticised for its linear approach
• It ignores stratifications like caste, class, and gender and their inter-
sectionality that exist creating barriers and differentiation in adoption
• The impact of interventions for modernisation will vary across different
sections.
• For example: The adoption of modern agriculture practices varies across
land-size, across regions, and crops. Indian agriculture even today remains
a mix of traditional and modern practices.
10. Some Rural Development Programmes in India:
A Variety of interventions made since Five-year Plans for RD.
• Community Development Programme (CDP)
• Co-operative Farming
• Green Revolution (GR) (HYV Programme)
• Operation Flood (OF) Programme
• Integrated Rural Development Programme(IRDP)
• National Watershed Development Programme
• Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojana(RKVY)
• National Rural Livelihood Mission(NRLM)
• Swachch Bharat Mission (SBM)
• Sarva Shiksha Abiyan (SSA)
• Doubling Farmers’ Income
11. Green Revolution (High Yield Variety Programmes)
• GR refers to introduction of modern high yielding varieties(HYV) of
seeds (>1965) accompanied by complementary inputs of package to
increase farm productivity significantly
• GR was initially confined mainly to wheat and paddy and was
introduced in resource-rich regions like Punjab, Haryana, and West UP
• Package Approach: Combines modern seeds, water, fertilizers,
mechanization, and pesticides in an intensive way
• The new technology was assumed to be scale-neutral capable of
adopted by small or big famers in equal measure
• The focus was on progressive farmers who are inclined to adopt
technology through agricultural extension, and can afford the
investment on own or through credit
• Credit & subsidies (on inputs & prices) were provided for adoption
including minimum support prices
12. - Assessment:
- Subsequently GR spread to other well-endowed farmers & regions ; But
traditional agriculture still pervades
- Food Yields and production increased (initially by 35%)
- Imports of food declined;
- Absolute Poverty declined, if not for the poorest
- But inequality increased even though small & marginal farmers managed to
adopt new technology partly
- Green Revolution was a technology driven reformist programme: It did not
want to disturb the status quo & stratification;
- Full-package was not affordable to all
- The official machinery and coops which played a major role focussed on
better-off farmers because of the target based nature of the programme
and biases of these intervening agencies.
- Land, Soil, ground water deteriorated (ecology) causing damage and
reversal (not mention the accidents due to mechanisation)
