The Issues of Development,

Growth, and Reforms

1947-65

1
 Inequalities – gender …
• Participating actively in the national movement for years
• Women’s groups and organisations were demanding revision of
laws regarding women’s rights in the family
• Ensured universal franchise and equal political rights
• Major step was the Hindu Code Bill, formulated in 1948, moved in
Parliament in 1951, passes in three steps after 1952 General
Elections
• Bill faced sharp opposition from conservative sectors of society,
especially from the Jan Sangh and other Hindu organisations
• Many sections within the Congress either opposed or silently
wanted the passage of the Bill to be postponed after the impending
1951 elections, fearing Hindu backlash
• It was made an issue in the elections of 1951–52
2
 Inequalities – gender ….
• Government passed the bill in four separate acts :
– Hindu Marriage Bill outlawed polygamy and contained provisions
dealing with inter caste marriages and divorce procedures, giving right
of divorce to both men and women, raised age of consent and
marriage, gave women the right to maintenance and to inherit family
property, enabled civil marriages and cross caste marriages, and gave
them full legal and inheritance rights;
– Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Bill had as its main thrust the
adoption of girls, which till then had been little practised;
– Hindu Succession Bill placed daughters on the same footing as widows
and sons where the inheritance of family property was concerned
• Important lacuna was that UCC was not enacted, mainly due to
opposition by Muslim orthodoxy to personal law regarding
monogamy and inheritance

3
 Inequalities – gender ….

• Given context of Muslim fears post-Partition, Nehru engaged with

muslim community to bring similar changes in muslim laws, but not
much headway
• Other religions were also skeptical of UCC – as were hindu
community leadership:
– Governance of Marriage
– Inheritance, divorce, maintenance
– Taxation and hindu undivided family provisions

4
 Establishment of Rule of Law

• The Constitution brought the law and the letter of law into
all spheres of life – justice, social, economic, political and
national
• Colonial rule had helped establish a common legal system
and the concept of rule of law and even rule by law
• Indians have had a peculiar relation with rule of law
– Suspicion of the enforcer
– Belief in law for all, yet a healthy disregard of it
– Law seen as a defender of status quo, and its
transgression as entry option for various benefits

5
 Establishment of Rule of Law

• Yet a sense of the rule of law was established

• Simultaneously, norms arose wherein impeaching the rule of
law became a rule of business, viable alternative and even
justice
• Rule of Law – is it supreme
– Supremacy over Law
– The nature of the leadership
– Supremacy over Law as evidence of power sharing

6
 The Bureaucracy
• Its legitimation was professionally valid
• In new India, this apparatus retained its colonial practise, attitude
and normative approach
• It became an ally of reactionary forces and elite establishments,
and except in exceptions, became a bulwark against radical
transformations, democratic values within the State and putting
people as the real rulers
• From tutors and hand holders of a new political dispensation, they
turned their position to one of command
• The deep state was continued within the context of a people's
democracy and supposedly a subservient State

7
 State Bureaucracy
• State administrative apparatus remained feudal and non-
democratic, a legacy of a colonial mindset
• The well-trained, versatile and experienced civil services gave a
good account in times of turmoil
• But failure in the inability to ‘rebuild and transform their character’
• Had no experience or normative or cultural space for functioning in
a democratic space, with democracy and people as rulers
• Unsuitable to serve the new economic and social welfarist policies
• In States and its spoke and wheel apparatus, the man at apex
became the symbol of State and administration and political system
became comfortable with centred power and performance
• To many, decentralisation and reform sounded discomforting,
especially the lower bureaucracy, without public push

8
 Outlook of Leadership …
• Nehru commented in 1951 that: ‘We rely more and more on
official agencies which are generally fairly good, but which are
completely different in outlook and execution from anything that
draws popular enthusiasm to it
• His suggestion was two remedies - ‘One, by educating the whole
machine. Secondly, by putting a new type of person where it is
needed’
• However, the entrenchment, the encroaching back in early years
and the settling down of Governments, did not give time, space or
continued priority towards such an enterprise
• Further, it was the bureaucracy itself that was to reform itself, and
it did not improve over the years

9
 Outlook of Leadership …
• Attitude of the bureaucracy, especially the police, towards the
people and their problems became increasingly unhelpful, and
corruption seeped in
• Leadership was acutely aware of what was happening. In May
1948, Nehru drew the attention of the Chief Ministers to
complaints from the public ‘about our inefficiency, inaccessibility,
delays and, above all, of corruption’, and added: ‘I fear that many
of these complaints are justified’

10
 Growth, Economy and Development
• Post-colonial development happened in a framework of non-
alignment and democracy. Combining rapid industrial development
with democracy was something none had tried before
• Nehruvian Socialism did not allow forced acquisition and
collectivisation of land or capital, meaning that the surplus for
industrialisation could not be forcibly attained
• Unlike US or UK, India did not force surplus out of labour through
slavery, or collecting tribune from colonies
• Dedication to nonalignment meant that India :
– could not accept foreign aid, foreign capital, or other types of
foreign intervention
– as India lacked a sufficient private sector, it was the state which
became the heart of Indian industry

11
 Growth, Economy and Development

– State did not dictate the private sector or confiscate its property
– Private sector was largely left to its own devices, and that only the
railways, the airlines, left-behind British firms, and the Imperial Bank
(later renamed as State Bank of India) were nationalised
– Where the state came into its own, was in pioneering new avenues of
growth and in taking risks the private sector could not afford to take

• 5-year plans would see India’s GDP growth increase from 0.72
percent in 1947 (hovering between 0.50 to 1.5 percent for five
decades), to over 4 percent
• During the first three 5-year plans (1951–1965), India’s industrial
sector would grow at 7.1 to 7.6 percent
• Consumer-goods industries would increase by 70 percent
12
 Growth, Economy and Development
• Production of intermediate goods quadrupled
• Output of capital goods increased tenfold
• India went from importing 90 percent of its industrial goods to
halving that in 1960, and having only 9 percent of its goods come
from abroad in 1974
• This economic autonomy freed India from the industrialised
countries and strengthened its position as a non-aligned country
• India also made sure it would not be dependent on a few
industrialised nations for its export
• India diversified its trade, increasing international independence. In
1947, 45 percent of India’s total trade was with the US and UK, by
1977, this reduced to only 20 percent, achieved by increasing trade
with the socialist bloc and other non-aligned countries
13
GDP growth in Manufacturing

14
 Economic policy changes
• Even before the five year plans were announced, some policy
changes were made
• Between 1947-50 many liberalisation measures took place, against
basic economic advice of freeing controls, especially prices of
essential commodities due to post war inflation
• August 1948, Industrial Policy resolution –
– Govt monopoly over arms ammunitions, railways and atomic
energy
– Govt reserved rights for new enterprises in coal, iron and steel,
minerals, ships, aircrafts, telephones etc.
– Business was assured that no nationalisation would happen
– Foreign firms assured that they can continue

15
 First Five Year Plan : 51 to 56
• New approach to economic development
• Strategy for peaceful social change
• Bulk allotment went for industrial growth/ basic industries
– Emphasis on minerals, iron and steel, heavy electrical
equipment
– Regulations on private investments
– Reconciled goals of growth and equity
– Agriculture goals, apart from increasing incomes, related with
eliminating exploitative social and economic relations
– More efficient use of existing labour intensive production
• 1st FYP was somewhat conservative, limiting Government role
to creation of social capital and financial incentives, rural
regions, finishing post WW2 projects and focus on irrigation
16
 First Five Year Plan
• Tax was 7% of GDP, but no new taxation was added, as planners
believed increase in taxes would depress savings available for
investment and consumption focussing on social transformation
• First FYP also depended on private sector as the main sector for
industrial expansion, with a limited role for public sector
• Highest priority to agriculture, irrigation, rural development and
power (641 crores or 43%)
• In agriculture emphasis was on-
– Increasing efficiency and enable low income farmers to increase
returns
– Ultimate objective was to encourage co-operative village
management and later even co-operative farming (all land in the
village to be regarded as a single farm)
– Co-operative farming Societies
– Producers to be organised in Village production Councils 17
 First Five Year Plan
• Planners rejected nationalisation of land in favour of
tradition of free peasant ownership and currently didn’t
take up ceiling
• Emphasis shifted to increasing irrigation and application
of chemical fertiliser

18
 Broad patterns of economy
• Broad outlines of an attack on prerogatives and position of private
sector did begin to emerge
• Intention for increased central supervision and controls over
private sector
• Framework of the new Industries (Development and Regulation)
Act 1951
– No new industrial unit or substantial expansion investment can be
made without Government licensing
– Empowered Government to investigate operations of any industry
to regulate regarding quality and price of production
– Large role to public sector in four basic industries
• Plan also spoke on eliminating exploitative social and economic
relations in rural regions and in agriculture to unleash the
productive energies of people 19
 The Second Plan
• Socialistic pattern of society : The picture I have in mind is definitely
and absolutely a socialistic pattern of society. I am not using the
word in a dogmatic sense at all. I mean largely that the means of
production should be socially owned and controlled for the benefit
of society as a whole”
• Some basic principles of economy were established –
– Problems of poverty needs growth, and this cannot be done by
expansion of consumer goods industries based on imported
machinery
– An import substitution strategy, through a fundamental
transformation of the economy to strengthen domestic capacity
for capital formation
– Principle means of production are under social ownership or
control 20
 The Second Plan
– Rising rural demand must be satisfied by expansion of artisanal,
rural and small industries, for greater employment and creating
the foundations of a diversified and decentralised rural
economy
– Agriculture productivity was the “keystone of our planning” to
generate food, and generate surplus for industrial investments
– Co-operative farming to combine strengths and infrastructure
– Agriculture production to increase through more land,
fertilisers, irrigation

21
Changes in GDP Sectors
Share of Public CF in Total Cap Formation
GCF as share of GDP (04-05 prices)
Gross Savings as % of GDP
26
27
 Land Reforms and Agrarian
Reforms Committee
• Elimination of all intermediaries between the State and the tiller
• In agrarian economy, no place for intermediaries, land must belong
to the tiller
• Subletting prohibited except in the case of widows, minors and
disabled persons
• ARC recommended a set of rights for the actual tenant tillers
including options of full occupancy rights for those cultivating land
continuously for six years
• In case of others, owner may have the option, up to a certain
period, to resume the holdings for personal cultivation subject to
certain well-defined conditions

28
 Land Reforms and Agrarian
Reforms Committee
• Only those who put in a minimum amount of physical labour and
participate in actual agricultural operations would be deemed to
cultivate land personally
• Committee recommended that the tenant should have the right to
purchase the holding at a reasonable price to be determined by
regional Land Tribunal, and tenant should be assisted by a suitable
financial agency in purchasing the holding
• Committee laid emphasis on immediate prevention of all evictions
and the preparation of record of rights by local Land Tribunals with
which non-official opinion will be associated

29
 Agrarian Reforms Committee
• All tenants, to be protected from rack-renting and illegal exactions
• Some of the main principles which should govern the agrarian
policy of the country
– Agrarian economy should provide an opportunity for the
development of the farmer’s personality
– There should be no scope for exploitation of one class by
another
– There should be maximum efficiency of production
– The scheme of reforms should be within the realm of
practicability
– Committee has evolved three norms of sizes of holdings

30
 Agrarian Reforms Committee
• Optimum Holding : The Committee has also felt that there should
be a ceiling to the size of holdings which any one farmer should
own and cultivate
• Basic, Economic and Optimum Holdings
• The optimum size should be three times the size of the economic
holding. Certain exceptions; however, have been allowed in cases
of joint families and charitable institutions

31
 What were these Land Reforms
• Abolition of all types of State systems of intermediaries through
land revenue settlements – zamindaari/ jagirdaari/ maalguzari,
ryotwari, mahalwari
• Started with the abolition of intermediaries in Madras in 1948, and
others followed – faced serious challenges in Courts
• Large types of land tenancy, sub-tenancy, share cropping systems
were prevalent, and was one of the principal causes of mass
poverty
• Plan was to grant rights to tenants to enable security of tenure,
permit tenants to purchase lands under their till for long periods,
end usurious sharing agreements, ensure tenurial rights for
sharecroppers etc.

32
What were these Land Reforms
• This came through legislation, changes in LR codes,
administrative measures and implemented through the
revenue and police administration
• This was to be followed later by land ceiling legislation,
delayed to ensure that current agriculture production was
not disturbed
• To be followed by consolidation of land holdings (chak
bandi)

33
 Land Revenue Systems
• Zamindaari System – Permanent Settlement:
– A ‘Zamindaar’ was a tax collecting, non-cultivating intermediary
between state and tiller
– Estates were created and property rights over each estates were
conferred onto a zamindaar. Peasant proprietors and cultivators
were reduced to tenants
– This was the introduction of the institution of private property in
land in agriculture
– Revenue demands instituted on the landowners were exorbitant
and inability to keep up with the demands and resultant transfer of
land resulted in a replacement of the traditional land nobility with
money lenders as zamindaars (transformation from feudal to
capitalist land relations)

34
 Land Revenue Systems
• Ryotwari System
– After the drastic exploitation and failure of the zamindaari
system, a new system was devised whereby the state would
collect revenue directly from the Ryot (tiller) and hereditary
property rights were given to cultivators
– However, the oppressive revenue demands pauperized the ryots
and inability to pay resulted in the land being transferred from
the ryot to money lenders
– Although this was a more just system, the exercise of rent
setting and direct responsibility of the ryot created this

35
 Programmes for transformation
• There were a series of field level programmes planned
• Community Development Programme to involve communities in
their development, in a collective fashion, building ownership
towards common assets, build habit of decision making and
break earlier feudal and caste based boundaries of decision
making and leadership
• Build a series of co-operatives handling agriculture inputs,
helping in marketing produce, providing credit etc., to be owned
by members, to build institutions owned by and responsible to
hitherto excluded people and communities and build a network
of co-operatives to break barriers of scale and capital

36
 Programmes for transformation
• Co-operatives would have democratically elected leadership bodies
These together would create local leadership, bring excluded people into
realm of leadership and decision making, transforming rural society
through democratisation and of power, and government, and on the one
hand break traditional caste, class and land based hierarchies and on the
other hand enable people to preserve, protect and promote their
livelihoods and community assets
• Through panchayati raj, bring democratisation amongst people,
enhancing a sense of their own democracy and bringing everyone
into the realm of governing themselves
This would energise our old systems of village governments, making
people responsible for their own lives, in spheres important to them, and
practically possible at such a level of decentralisation. This would also lead
to more dynamism in local economy
37
 Reforms on Ground
• Not all the recommendations of the ARC were put into Policy, due
to:
– Dual pulls of increasing production, hence not upsetting the
system much and commitment to egalitarian and just changes
– Character of the ruling community and policy making and
implementing staff in States
– Nexus between landed and the administration, and local power
and economic elites
• The actual plans stopped short of the generalised attacks on
private ownership rights on land
• Planers recommended a land ceiling at 3 times an economic
holding

38
 Reforms on Ground

• For landless and non-farm workers, re-distribution of land and

“basic restructuring of the village economy” would be crucial,
but its local effect through CDP, panchayati raj and other
instruments were compromised
• Small and marginal farmers were to be organised into
cooperative farming societies, but there was lack of any
effective ground support and political mobilisation

39
 Impact of Land Revenue Systems
• Both systems resulted in cultivators caught in a cycle of perpetual
debt.
• Supreme power over land and revenue collection remained with
the colonial state. Extortionate revenue demands, failure to meet
the demands would lead to auction of estates.
• Major problems:
– Proprietors of land were a small group of non-cultivating
rentiers. Units of cultivation were small pieces of land cultivated
for subsistence by poor tenants. Landlords set extortionate
rents which they did not invest in the improvement of
agriculture
– Peasants were alienated from their land due to the introduction
of private property in land, the handicrafts industry was
destroyed
40
Impact of Land Revenue Systems
– Many were rendered jobless. Some were absorbed in
industries, some worked as tenants-at-will, sharecroppers
and farm servants
– The dispossessed farmers had to submit to landlords
exploitative terms of employment for lack of other avenues
of employment and income
– Traditional caste formations were reinforced in the new land
systems with the upper castes dominating as the owners of
property
– New exploitative classes in relation to land emerged such as
intermediaries, rent providers, large scale land revenue
related lending machinery, etc.

41
 Impact ….
• Daniel Thornier- This agrarian structure had been a “built in
depressor” responsible for stagnation of the rural economy.
• Between 1900-1945, population increased by 37.9%, acreage
under cultivation increased by 18.4%, food output was
stationary, and output of commercial crops went up by 59.3%
which led to an increased of 12% in agricultural output
• Manilal Nanavati assessment
– 1880- surplus of foodstuffs was up to 5 million tonnes. By
1945 food surplus was in a deficit of 10 million tonnes
– By 1945, nearly 30% of India’s population was suffering from
chronic malnutrition

42
 Impact ….

– The dependency of the population on agriculture

increased from 56% in 1872 to 73% in 1945, especially
with decline in artisanal and crafts works and rural
industry
– Result of destruction of industries: while in 1880, they
absorbed 12.3% of the population, in 1945 they
absorbed only 9%

• Major impact was stagnation of agriculture, indebtedness,

destruction of village subsistence and handicrafts economy,
reinforcement of traditional caste formations

43
 Abolition of Zamindaari
• However in land reforms the first step was towards abolishing
Zamindaari and all such land endowments that were usurious and
exploitative
• Zamindari abolition: it entailed the state acquiring around 173
million acres of land and brought nearly 70 million tenants into
direct contact with the state, preparing ground for modern
commercial farming
• While zamindaari was abolished, large lacunae remained.
– the reform did not accompany tenancy reform and fixing of
ceiling on agrarian property
– exclusion of sir, khudkasht and khas lands (as they were
considered personal property of the intermediaries under
cultivation )

44
 Abolition of Zamindaari
– ultimately, the zamindars were allowed to evict tenants and
resume their lands in order to enable them to become modern
self cultivating farmers. Concessions were made to zamindars to
give impetus to agrarian activities and production
– while zamindari abolition did not confer ownership rights on the
tenants, the existence of the land owner as an intermediary in
the ryotwari areas between the state and the tiller of the soil,
remained
– sharecropping and share-tenancy with high rents and no
security of tenure discouraged intensity of cultivation and
maximization of agricultural production.
– tenant and landowner both were concerned only with
maximizing their respective profits, hence neither invested in
soil fertility

45
 Reforms undertaken in Tenancy
• Three forms of Tenancy legislations
• To protect tenants from being ejected and grant them
permanent rights on lands, laws were enacted in most of the
states. They have three essential features :
– Tenants cannot be evicted without any reason, and evicted only
in accordance with law
– Land can be resumed by the landlord only on the ground of
personal cultivation. But the landlord can resume the land only
up to a maximum limit.
– The landlord should leave some area to the tenant for his own
cultivation. The tenant in no case should be made landless
• Pre-Independence tenancy rents were very high - 50-70%. In
1952, GoI insisted on regulation of high rent to be no more than
20 - 25 %, and many States legislated accordingly
46
 Tenancy Reform
• States enacted laws to ensure rents will not exceed one-fifth to
one-fourth of the gross produce of land. There have been large
variations in fixation of land rent rates
• Acts failed to regulate rent - lack of proper tenancy records;
informal, unwritten and verbal agreements; dependence of tenants
on land owners; political power of landlords etc.
• Evidence shows - weak position of tenants; un-co-operative
administration; prohibitive costs and unsympathetic legal
environments; events of ejectment, as threats to tenants – all
contributed
• By 2000, only around 124.2 lakh tenants operating no more than 4
percent of the cultivated area have benefited from this ownership
rights or their rights have been protected on 63.2 lakh hectares of
land
47
 Tenancy Reform
• On the eve of tenancy reforms, the area under tenancy was
around 50 percent. As a result of this action, this area has been
reduced to 15 percent of the operated area by 2000
• The First Plan 1952, recommended conferment of right of
occupancy on all tenants subject to the owner’s right to resume
a limited area for personal cultivation
• Insisted that the extent of land to be resumed for personal
cultivation by the owner should not be more than three family
holdings
• It disapproved of resumption of tenanted land
• It also said that in respect of land not resumed by the owner
within five years the tenants should have the right of purchase

48
 Tenancy Reforms
• The price of land should be fixed in multiples of rent and should be
made payable in installments. The rental value should not exceed
one-fourth or one-fifth of the produce
• By end of the First Plan, Planning Commission found that because
of defective land records, absence of pressure from the
beneficiaries, the social power of the land owners and the
loopholes in the laws, especially in regard to personal cultivation
the tenancy reforms undertaken in several states had failed to
provide security of tenure to the tenants, prevent evictions and
confer occupancy rights on tenants

49
 Legal & Policy Framework &
Reforms
• In the legal battle of Zamindari abolition and Tenancy laws, Courts
interpreted Article 19 (1) f and Article 15 in supremacy to other
provisions
• Courts read right to property as turning property into an inalienable
asset, to be removed with “adequate compensation”, the last
provision turning the battlefield into a litany of cases and legal
entanglements
• Had to bring in special provisions into the Constitution to safeguard
these egalitarian and transformative provisions of law, inserting an
entire Schedule, placing Acts outside Judicial review

50
 Legal & Policy Framework &
Reforms
• State Governments also weakened these laws through many
protections, the cases in which certain lands could be retained
and other issues, similar to what was done in case of tenancy
rights granting rights of ownership and tilling
• A commission found that bigger zamindaars exercised political
pulls and pressures, and the concessions made to the
zamindaars were neither accidental lapses nor vicious designs of
the law-makers

51
 Tenancy Reform - continued
• Third Plan admitted that impact of the tenancy reform on tenants
was only marginal, and recommended conferment of ownership
rights on the tenants in respect of non-resumable land
• Also favoured direct payment of rents to the government rather
than to the owners
• Fourth Plan admitted the persistence of tenancy-at-will
• Fifth Plan lamented that while zamindaari abolition had helped
superior and privileged tenants acquire more land, the actual
cultivators had remained tenants.
• It reiterated the institutional changes the Planning Commission had
so often recommended, the need for adequate revenue records for
a precise definition of personal cultivation and for the
administrative organisation to be made more effective and efficient
• Today, with smaller land holdings, peripatetic labour force,
agriculture capitalism, this entire focus has disappeared 52
 Tenancy reform
• Overall impact of tenancy reforms has been somewhat limited
• Tenancy laws in different states contained provision for the
resumption of land by the landowners for ‘personal cultivation’,
favouring rights of landlords against interests of landowners
• Due to loose definitions of the term personal cultivation,
landowners continued to resume land for self-cultivation. Laws also
permitted voluntary surrender of tenancies
• This right of resumption of land for self-cultivation rendered all
tenancies insecure
• No legal provision for conferring ownership rights in tenancy laws
of some states :
– many tenants were incapable of buying land from the landowners
– many were unwilling to do so
– very weak arrangements were made to provide financial support to
tenants for this 53
 Agriculture Changes
Agri Total in
Pop Workers Labourers Cultivators Agri,

1951 356.86 139.42 27.5 69.74 97.24

1961 439.24 188.68 31.52 99.62 131.14

1971 548.16 180.48 47.49 78.27 125.76

Ag Lab as % Ag Lab as %age of Agri
WPR of Workers Workers

1951 390.685 19.7% 28.3%

1961 429.560 16.7% 24.0%

1971 329.247 26.3% 37.8%

 Land Ownership
Share of Area Owned in Rural India HH and Land Owned
1953-54 1961-62 1971-72 1953-54 1961-62 1971-72

40% 0.36 0.85 1.15 HH with no Land 23.09 11.69 9.64

Sub
Share of Marginal
Bottom 50% 2.08 3.31 3.86 Holdings H 24.18 32.56 35.24
40-80 % 22.26 25.37 26.02 A 1.36 1.59 2.07
Share of Marginal
Middle 50-80 % 20.54 22.91 23.31 Holdings H 13.98 15.86 17.74
20% 77.38 73.78 72.83 A 4.86 6 7.69
Small
10% 58.80 54.60 53.75 Holdings H 13.49 15.09 15.49
5% 42.71 38.56 37.66 A 10.09 12.4 14.67
Share of Medium
Top 1% 18.41 16.51 14.20 Holdings H 17.54 17.96 16.56
A 31.18 34.51 36.49
Large
Holdings H 7.72 6.84 5.33
A 52.51 45.5 39.08
 Land Reforms – Public Politics
• Congress kept cadres and leadership out of roles in tenancy
reforms, zamindaari abolition and CDP, and there were no other
community political organisations
• Non violent social transformation cannot be undertaken without
– adequate political mobilisation
– trained political cadres who ensure identification of tenants, work
on tenancy variations, act as powerful bulwarks against
intimidating land owners, ensure documentation and bureaucratic
bias towards the poor, and organise collective and individual
conferment of new rights and their continuation
– politically trained and mobilised cadres also educate, and build
awareness and a sense of rights and entitlements amongst the
benefitted, contrasting with their psychological inability to stand
upto erstwhile and current feudal domination
56
Land Reforms – Public Politics
• Legal and educational illiteracy, lack of cross caste
alliances, vertical political caste alliance and a battling
legal system weakened the effort and ultimately the
exigencies of needs took over, especially food security
and economic growth
• The intricacies in land settlements and land relations
were too many for substantive legislation and a just
judicial review and system

57
 Abolition of Intermediaries
• About 2.5 crore farmers were brought into direct relationship with
the State, with distribution of about 61 lakh hectares of land to
landless farmers
• Large areas of privately-owned forests and wasteland were vested
in the State, and there has been a slew of issues with regard to
revenue and forest take over of community and forest lands
• While landlordism was abolished, absentee landlordism and land
retainership using lacune in law continued and became a standard
practise
• Legislation conferred ownership rights not upon the actual
cultivator, but on the statutory tenant, who himself was an
intermediary with a chain of sub-tenants under him

58
 Abolition of Intermediaries

• Abolition of intermediary rights on land has not been an unmixed

blessing. Zamindari abolition has paved the way for a remarkable
shift in the balance of power
• These moves did lead to opening up the land based power
system, rise of new politically aspirational communities, a caste
cum class consolidation, and a middle level economic
democratization, an enabling environment for subsequent equity,
dignity and participative surges, and new leadership from
dominated communities – both social and economic

59
 Other Measures
• Land ceilings – these came later in two phases, imposing ceiling on
maximum land possessed. Economically smaller land holdings are
more efficient and socially, it relates to justice and massive impact
on poverty
• First phase of ceiling was upto 1972. The important provisions of
ceiling legislations constitute (a) unit of application; (b) upper limit
for land holdings; (c) exemption and (d) availability of surplus land
and its distribution
• Prior to 1972, basis of ceiling fixation was an individual as a unit
instead of a family, and since 1972, family is the unit
• In Phase 1, there were wide variations in the ceilings on land
holdings. Later this changed, to 10 to 18 acres irrigated, single
irrigation at 27, and rest at 54
60
 Other Measures
• Certain types of land were exempted from ceiling laws. Among the
types of land exempted were orchards, grazing lands, sugar-cane
fields of sugar” factories, cooperative farms etc.
• Progress in surplus land and its distribution has been mixed - many
voluntary and just ceiling applications; many cases of record
manipulation, benami records, multiple land transfers, resumption
of distributed land etc.
• Other measure was consolidation of land holdings bringing
together various small plots of land either through purchase or
exchange of land with others
• Attempts have been made in India for consolidation of holdings
long before independence in some areas. It formed an integral part
of our land reforms policy since the inception of on the Planning in
1951
61
 Other Measures
• As yet 15 of the 25 states have passed laws, and within States, this
reform has taken one or maximum two phases
• There are various obstacles to the speedy implementation of the
consolidation programme-
– poor response from cultivators
– wide variation in the quality of land
– complicated process of land consolidation
– lack of enforcing machinery
– lack of political will

62
Community Development Programme
• Major programme for rural upliftment – initiated in phases from
1952 (Etawah)
• These laid the foundations of the welfare state
• Initially designed for agricultural development to work through the
class and feudal character of rural powers and inequality, it had
more of a welfare content, as the basic purpose was to change the
face of rural India, to improve the quality of life of the people by
empowering them
• Strategy to cut caste and class structures by organising people for
their own development, in the environment of a ‘development
bureaucracy’, which would empower people, break feudal and
power dependencies and show benefit of organisation on basis of
common interest and equality, rather than hierarchical social and
economic ties
63
Community Development Programme
• Emphasis was on self-reliance and self-help by the people, popular
participation and responsibility - a people’s movement for their
own welfare
• Role of field bureaucracy was crucial as they were to partner with
people and conspire with the State to bring in this peaceful, albeit
long ranging changes in social and political attitudes and relations
• Organisationally CDP was to be implemented in formations of
community Blocks
• By mid-1960s, country covered by Community Development
Blocks, employing more than 6,000 Block Development Officers
(BDOs) and over 600,000 Village Level Workers (VLWs or Gram
Sewaks) – the last development bureaucrat
• CDP started in 1952 with 55 development blocks, each block
consisting about 100 villages with a population of 60,000 to 70,000
64
Community Development Programme
• Programme covered all aspects of rural life from improvement in
agricultural methods to improvement in communications, health
and education
• Considerable results in extension work: better seeds, fertilisers,
and so on, resulting in agricultural development, including increase
in food production
• Construction of roads, tanks and wells, school and primary health
centre buildings, and extension of educational and health facilities
was also undertaken
• Initially, a great deal of popular enthusiasm, which petered out
with time, with lack of popular enthusiasm, bureaucratic attitude of
delivery, and lack of popular political and social mobilisation

65
 Aims of CDP
• Short – term objectives:
– To increase agricultural production both quantitatively and qualitatively
– To solve the problem of rural unemployment
– To develop the means of transport and communication in the villages through
repairing old roads and constructing new pucca roads.
– To bring about development in the sphere of primary education, public health and
recreation
– To assist the villagers to build good and cheap houses with the help of modern
plans and new building methods
– To set up and encourage cottage industries and indigenous handicrafts
• Long-term objectives:
– The long – term objective of community development projects refers to holistic
development of rural life through optimum utilisation of physical and human
resources
– Oriented to provide all sorts of facilities available in a Welfare State to the rural
dwellers
– Taking care of the social, moral and financial progress of the villagers also comes
within the purview of the long-term objectives of community development projects
Community Development Programme
• Did CDP achieved its objectives –physical goals of development and
the organisational, and empowering goals of participation and
democratisation, and mobilisation
• Substantial local achievements were made, especially in village
level infrastructure, concerned with buildings, irrigation, schools
etc.
• CDP initiatives were the first move in an entrenched Indian feudal
and caste based structure
• It became apparent that CDP had only partial success in one basic
objectives—that of involving the people as participants in
developmental activity:
– Did not substantially stimulate self-help, as the programme
implementation became a technical affair without the mobilisation,
and educational inputs
67
Community Development Programme
– Increased expectations from and reliance on Government, as it was
delivered as a raham
– Gradually acquired an official orientation, became part of the
bureaucratic framework and came to be administered from above as
a routine activity with the BDOs becoming replicas of the traditional
sub-divisional officers and the Village Level Workers becoming
administrative underlings
– Nehru himself said in 1963, while the entire programme was
designed to get the peasant ‘out of the rut in which he has been
living since ages past’, the programme itself ‘has fallen into a rut’

• There was bureaucratic apathy and disinterest in the

empowerment and organisation issues, and there was little
support from local political environment and lack of any political
interest turned the programme into a non-people programme,
setting a format for future

68
 Critique of CDP
• The strategy of community development programme was global,
aiming at a uniform pattern of staffing and planning all over the
country, and spatial aspect of the rural development plan was
ignored
• Political observers observed that democracy did not bring social
and rural transformation in crucial aspects, due to caste, and
inherent power alliances, the former dominating
• With schism amongst caste growing, and no radical political
mobilisation along class or common interest lines, schism among
castes grew, and the exploitative pressure of the higher caste
continued, which damaged transformative goals of CDP

69
 Critique of CDP
• The next serious stumbling block was bureaucratic temper.
Bureaucracy was proverbially negative in attitude and impervious
to any innovation
• Imprisoned in red tape they rendered all endeavour’s of
community development ineffective through inordinate delay,
negative permissions, excessive controls, and prominence to their
own decisions
• This unfortunate attitude of the bureaucrats came under severe
criticism. The PM severely chastised development workers to shed
this despicable superiority complex which he cynically called the
‘jeep mentality

70
 Problems in CDP
• The complementary political vehicle of local self government was
not in place till 1956, due to other national priorities
• Even after 1956, the new PRIs never transformed into ‘self-
governing” and quasi-sovereign bodies, due to lack of adequate
construction and distribution of powers, duties, funds and
functionaries in required measure
• Government decided to bring more regions under CDP, spreading
finances thinly, which may also have led to reduced interest in its
utility and the anticipated community contributions as labour, land,
and even capital was not forthcoming
• Lack of trust in State and its authority was too fresh for people to
trust officers and Government lacked both transparency and
democratic spirit to become partners and fellow travellers
71
 The National Extension Service
• A programme termed the National extension Service was designed
and implemented from November 1953 to cover areas not under
CDP, but it was not as intensive
• In districts, DCs chaired the programme, with development
responsibilities with BDOs
• In Blocks, BDO’s were assisted by team of experts in agriculture,
cooperation, animal husbandry, cottage industries, etc.
• At Village, VLW or Gram Sevak were recruited as a multipurpose
person. Each Gram Sevak was incharge of about 7 or 10 villages,
and looked after both village and family development
• VLWs were guided, aided and assisted by technical specialists from
the blocks, and was the first on field-Government personnel to
implement this nationwide programme

72
 The National Extension Service
• States were being persuaded to bring primary schools with
modern education
• Nehru described Panchayat, cooperative and school as three
essentials for an Indian village
– Panchayats deal with political affairs
– Cooperatives with the economic affairs
– Schools with education
• Since CDP and NES had same basic ideas, they were integrated
both at the centre and state, and from April, 1958 there was no
distinction between CD blocks and NES. All NES blocks became
CD blocks by October 1963

73
 Panchayati Raj
• The weaknesses of the CDP had come to be known as early as 1957
when the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, asked to evaluate it, had
strongly criticised its bureaucratisation and its lack of popular
involvement
• Committee recommended the democratic decentralisation of the
rural and district development administration, and on its
recommendation, an integral system of democratic self-
government with the village panchayat at its base was introduced
• Panchayati Raj was implemented in various states from 1959, in a
three-tier, directly elected village or gram panchayats, and
indirectly elected block-level panchayat samitis and district-level
Zilla parishads

74
 Panchayati Raj
• Considerable functions, resources and authority were to be
devolved upon the three-tiered samitis to carry out schemes of
development
• The establishment of panchayati raj institutions and co-operatives
on a rather large scale from 1957/ 59 onwards rekindled Nehrus
enthusiasm and hope, and he used them as another radical step for
change in society
• Planned to transfer responsibility for development and rural
administration to the people and accelerate rural development,
acting as instruments for empowerment, with greater self-reliance,
and act as an educative tool, for bringing about a change in the
outlook of the people

75
 Panchayati Raj System
• Panchayati Raj system never got real support in States, especially
with local bureaucracy. Nehru and a handful of Gandhians perhaps
its only real supporters
• While PR institutions were created, and with fairly intricate set up,
division of power, responsibilities, including even legal (eg. nyaya
panchayats in Uttar Pradesh), they contained fairly dangerous
potential for local structures
• Legislations were enacted, but they were not given any legal status,
with rights and powers, inalienable, justiciable or negotiable, and
no clear domains and sovereignty could not established. The
planners did not perhaps foresee the entrenched resistance -
– The full allocation of funds, functions and functionaries never took
place
– Elections became irregular, and panchayats often superseded
76
– Panchayats turned into last mile connections of an increasingly
contracting state
– The supposed metamorphisis of these institutions into agencies of
self rule never really happened (except in case of Kerala, to an
extent West Bengal and some other sundry cases)
– Though parties were kept out of panchayat elections, they did
encroach by indirect participation but did not mobilise cadres for
political awareness and mobilisation of people towards the spirit
and potential of panchayati raj

77
 Panchayati Raj System
• The PRI System –
– The supposed merging from Gram Panchayats into Block or
Panchayat Samitis or Taluka Panchayats to Zila Parishads did not
happen as effectively as envisaged
– With effective dominance of the DC led administration in Districts,
SDM led in Talukas, BDO led in blocks, and support staff in villages,
the process somehow got embroiled between emerging and
nascent panchayati raj, an embattled bureaucracy, elite concerns
and power alliances, and a helpless and even reluctant elected
executive and elected representatives
• Gram Sabhas, never could turn into effective peoples medium of
meeting, discussion, debate and decision, and it’s own
contradictions of class, caste, land and access, brought inequity
and built gatekeepers, new elites, and old and new interests and
lobbies
78
 Panchayati Raj System
• State Governments in due process effectively removed powers
from the domain of panchayats, starved them of funds, did not give
administrative or technical assistance and allowed these
organisations to whither away
• Panchayats did not become political, instead became politicised
and turned into participants in factional and political battles,
without its progressive potential
• Moreover, the benefits of community development, new
agricultural inputs and the extension services were mostly garnered
by the rich peasants and capitalist farmers, who also came to
dominate the Panchayati Raj institutions

79
 Local Self Government
• State Governments – administration and elected – have since then
looked at PRIs with suspicion and competition
• While then PM often spoke of PRI representatives as the last layer of
bureaucracy, elected and representative in character, with leadership
traits, but as implementers, other political and officials systems were
suspicious
• Sarvodaya groups being cut off from Government could neither put
pressure for panchayati raj nor did they work to make them effective
• Union has treated them as convenient last mile development
overseers and as symbols of decentralisation, but with no institutional
commitment
• Increasing personalisation in politics and bias towards Presidential/
Gubernatorial politics weakens the support to LSG – from politics,
from people
• It has become just an instrument of governing, not an instrument of
democracy, sustainable politics and empowering 80
 Food and Agriculture
• First FYP focussed on agriculture and irrigation by
– Large influx of funds, especially for Irrigation
– Initiatives to increase food production by increasing land under
cultivation, and plan to get better results due to land reforms
and assets from CDP, with emphasis on inputs
– In Second plan period financial allotments to agriculture
reduced to put push on industry
– By the Third plan, agriculture was under again, and emphasis on
new technical innovations

81
 Food and Agriculture
• To offset food deficit, multiple strategies were adopted –
– State started procuring foodgrains and distributing from surplus
to deficit zones. This remained a serious conflict between Union
and States, especially with surplus States
– Increasing food production, through more land under
cultivation, increasing multiple cropping, increasing area under
assured irrigation, promoting farm mechanisation, and some
support to new technology
– Constant resort to import of food, which along with petroleum
and some capital machinery constantly challenged forex
reserves

82
 Rural Economy in 1st FYP
• End in view is the development of the human and material
resources of the rural community
– enabling rural people to solve their own problems and organise
themselves for co-operative action with a view to adapting new
knowledge and new resources
– co-operation offers the basis of community action, it falls to the
administrative machinery of the government and, in particular, to
extension workers, to provide guidance and help to the villager
– rigid social structure and unutilised resources have always
characterised underdeveloped economies
– to change the social pattern built round the ownership of land and to
bring new resources and technology into everyday operations
become, therefore, central to the process of development
• Purpose of planning to bring rapid changes that economy moves
forward in a balanced, integrated manner, keeping in view major
objectives of community development, increased production and
83
equitable distribution
 Priorities in Rural Economy
• Land re-organisation changes the social structure, and invoke it to
strengthen the village community by reducing differences in status
and opportunity, and building the village into an organic unit in the
structure of national planning
• The Five Year Plan envisages substantial increases in agricultural
production for foodgrains as well as for commercial crops. The
targets to be realised through development programmes :
– major and minor irrigation works
– extension of cultivation
– reclamation and intensive farming based upon the application of the
results of research
– stress on conservation of existing resources, in particular, of forests
and the soil

84
 Priorities in Rural Economy
– diversification and expansion of rural economy through emphasis
on the development of dairying and horticulture, growth of village
industries, with aid of power and improved tools
– land resources supplemented by resources of sea and river,
extensive programme for the development of fisheries
– as the rural economy has been largely starved of financial
resources, a substantial programme for providing finance for
agriculture
• Measures envisaged in industry, communications, and social
services have bearing on growth of the rural economy
• Agricultural programmes lie at centre of the Five Year Plan, they
have to be seen in the perspective of a larger plan that
comprehends all aspects of national development

85
 Why land reforms?
• To remove impediments in agricultural production as arise from
the character of the agrarian structure
• Create conditions for evolving an agrarian economy with high
levels of efficiency and productivity
• Abolition of intermediaries and protection given to tenants give
the tiller a rightful place in the agrarian system and, by reducing or
eliminating burdens borne in the past. to provide tiller with fuller
incentives for increasing agricultural production
• Bring tenants into direct relation with the State, ending tenant-
landlord nexus are essential to establish a stable rural economy. In
the conditions of India large disparities in the distribution of wealth
and income are inconsistent with economic progress in any sector
• Towards building progressive rural economy, essential that
disparities in land should be greatly reduced
86
 Why land reforms?
• View of existing pattern of distribution and size of holdings,
redistribution of land in excess of a ceiling may yield relatively
limited results. Important that effective steps should be taken in
this direction to afford opportunities to landless sections of the
rural population to gain in social status and to feel a sense of
opportunity equally with other sections of the community
• Reduction of disparities in the ownership of land is also essential
for developing a co-operative rural economy, for, co-operation
thrives best in homogeneous groups in which there are no large
inequalities
• Thus, programmes for abolishing intermediary tenures, giving
security to tenants and bringing tenants into direct relationship
with the State with a view to conferring ownership upon them are
steps which lead to the establishment of an agrarian economy
based predominantly on peasant ownership 87
 2nd FYP and Rural Economy
• Increase in production from productivity increase. Main elements
in agricultural planning are:
– planning of land use;
– determination of targets, both long-term and short-term;
– linking up of development programmes and Government
assistance to production targets and the land use plan, including
allocation of fertilisers etc. according to plan; and
– an appropriate price policy.
• Each district and, in particular, each national extension and
community development project area should have a carefully
worked out agricultural plan

88
• Crop pattern envisaged by these local plans has in the main to be
influenced through such incentives as the provision of irrigation,
credit and marketing facilities, provision of fertilisers, and intimate
contact with the cultivator on the part of extension workers and
especially the village level workers
• Major emphasis of land reforms as means to increase equity, and
production with distributed prosperity
• Agricultural programmes to provide adequate food to support the
increased population and the raw materials needed for a growing
industrial economy and also to make available larger exportable
surpluses of agricultural commodities
• Goal be doubling, within about ten years, of agricultural
production, including food crops, oil-seeds, cotton, sugar cane,
plantation and other crops, animal husbandry products, etc.
89
 2nd FYP and Rural Economy

• Objectives :
– Cater to increase in population, esp. urban, need to improve
per capita consumption, and counter inflationary pressures
from the second five year plan, and effects on food
consumption of increase in national income and changes in its
distribution
– Food requirements in 1960-61 will be 70.5 MT, and rise to 75
MT
• Diversify agricultural production from dominance of cereals to
production of crops like arecanut, coconut, lac, black pepper,
cashewnut etc.
• Land reforms, and co-operation to overcome issues of efficiencies
due to inequality and poverty and economies of scale and small
fragmented landholdings 90
 Rural Economy in 3rd Plan
• Increase financial allocations to agriculture to ensure that
agricultural efforts should not be impeded for want of finances
• Supplies of fertilisers on a large scale
• Strengthen agricultural administration
• Supplies of credit through cooperative agencies was expanded, and
the need for linking credit with production and marketing was put
into greater focus. Finance from cooperative agencies was also
planned to increase substantially
• Target to increase short-term and medium-term loans from about
Rs. 200 crores and the amount outstanding on account of long-
term loans from about Rs. 34 crores in the last year of the Second
Plan to about Rs. 530 crores and Rs. 150 crores respectively by the
end of the Third Plan
91
 Rural Economy in 3rd Plan
• CDP organisation and extension workers to mobilise the rural
community for intensive agricultural development, to impart a
sense of urgency and direction to the work of all the agencies
operating on behalf of the Government
• Field staff to ensure that the requisite supplies, services and
technical assistance are available at the right time and place and in
the most effective manner possible

92
 Focus in 3rd Plan
• The principal technical programmes for increasing agricultural
production:
– irrigation
– soil conservation
– dry farming and land reclamation
– supply of fertilisers and manures
– seed multiplication and distribution
– plant protection
– better ploughs and improved agricultural implements
– adoption of scientific agricultural practices
• Work to be undertaken with “largest measure of participation on
the part of local communities and to reach as many families as
possible through the village production plans”

93
 Focus in 3rd Plan
• “In addition, in fifteen districts, in which conditions are specially
favourable on account of the availability of irrigation and assured
rainfall, and the co-operative movement is fairly established, it is
proposed to undertake agricultural programmes on a more
intensive scale than may be generally feasible. In all areas. and
more especially in these, a concentrated effort will be made to
reach all farmers and to promote the adoption by them of a
minimum combination of improved practices”
• This was the beginning of a consolidated inputs and technology
focussed approach to agriculture
• From Third Plan a more technology focussed policy to food security
was gradually adopted

94
Production of Foodgrains (MT)
96
Area under Foodgrains and GSA
Use of Fertilisers and Pesticides
Per Capita Net availability of foodgrains
 Economic Changes
• Economic Growth
– Improved over pre Independence years
– Industrial growth was impressive and substantial gains were
made
– A partnership between big and small industry and the State was
set up, which later on deteriorated into patronage and license
raj
– Agriculture growth permitted food production and diversity in
cropping pattern and set a base for technology based
interventions
– Land reforms brought greater opportunity and some equity in
rural India

100
 Economic Changes
• Poverty hovered around 50-65 percent
– Decrease in wide scale famines, and steps towards food
availability was ensured
– Employment increased in industry and urban zones, while land
reforms did bring sustainability to small and marginal farms and
labour
– Initial rise in poverty due to low agriculture growth and
immediate post reform impact and then begin to decline,
affected by droughts, wars and investment crisis
• Exports remained somewhat un encouraging for a long period, but
helped with rupee trade with soviet bloc nations, an adverse
balance of trade, large imports of food till end 1960’s, large fuel
import bill and low exports
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
 Agriculture
Agriculture Agriculture Labourers
Workers As Labourers % of
Population Workers (in Agriculture % of Total as % of Agriculture
(in crores) crores) Labourers Cultivators Total Workers Workers Workers

1951 35.686 13.942 2.75 6.974 9.724 69.7% 19.7% 28.3%

1961 43.924 18.868 3.152 9.962 13.114 69.5% 16.7% 24.0%

1971 54.816 18.048 4.749 7.827 12.576 69.7% 26.3% 37.8%

1981 66.529 22.252 5.55 9.252 14.802 66.5% 24.9% 37.5%

1991 83.859 28.593 7.46 11.07 18.53 64.8% 26.1% 40.3%

108
Development of Science & Technology
• A major achievement of the first decades was in the fields of
scientific research and technological education
• ‘It was science alone that could solve these problems of hunger
and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and
deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to
waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people.’ - Scientific
Policy Resolution passed by the Lok Sabha in March 1958
• The PM also became aware of the critical role that scientific
research and technology would play in India’s defence
• National Physical Laboratory, was laid on 4 January 1947, and a
network of seventeen national laboratories, specialising in different
areas of research were set up, and the PM headed the Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research
109
Development of Science & Technology
• Expanded on scientific establishments and ventured into new
priorities
• To fill paucity of trained personnel, first of the five institutes of
technology, patterned after the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, was set up at Kharagpur in 1952, followed by Madras,
Bombay, Kanpur and Delhi
• Logic, reason, and scientific evidence and research was made a
foundation and an attack on superstition and pure beliefs was
effectively brought into the domain of Government policy and
working, what was termed a ‘scientific temper’
• Expenditure on scientific research, and science-based activities
increased from Rs 1.10 crore in 1948–49 to Rs 85.06 crore in 1965–
66
• Scientific and technical personnel rose from 1,88,000 in 1950 to
7,31,500 in 1965 110
Development of Science & Technology
• Enrolment at the undergraduate stage in engineering and
technology went up from 13,000 in 1950 to 78,000 in 1965
• Number of undergraduate students studying agriculture increased
from about 2,600 in 1950 to 14,900 in 1965
• In August 1948, the Government of India set up the Atomic Energy
Commission with Homi J. Bhabha, India’s leading nuclear scientist,
as Chairman and India’s first nuclear reactor in Trombay
• India also took up space research. It set up the Indian National
Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) in 1962 and established
a Rocket Launching Facility at Thumba (TERLS)
• Steps to initiate defence research and development, to increase
India’s capacity in production of defence equipment so that India
gradually became self-sufficient in its defence needs
111
 Growth in Education
• Except a few pre-primary centres run by Christian missionaries and
some philanthropists in the metropolitan cities, pre-school
education was a non-entity
• Universalisation of primary education was absent. Estimates say
that total enrolment age group 6-11 was 141 lakhs, hardly 35%
• Literacy rate was below 18 percent, with wide regional social and
gender differentials (8.4 %), as also access to post school education
• Infrastructure –
– 5000 secondary schools with enrolment of 8,70,000 or 4% of
the children of the 14-17 age groups
– 19 universities and 400 colleges had an enrolment 2,50,000.
– The total expenditure on education was Rs 57 crores or 0.5% of
the total revenue of the government
 Constitutional Provisions
• Free and compulsory primary education in the country –
– Article 45 of the Indian Constitution explain that the State shall endeavour to provide
within a period of ten years from the commencement of this
– Constitution for free and compulsory education for all children till age 14
• Equality of Opportunity in Educational Institutions – Article 29 and 30 of
the Indian Constitution guarantees minorities certain cultural and
educational rights to establish and administer educational institutions of
their choice, whether based on religion or language
• Education of the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes of Citizens –
Article 15, 17 and 46 safeguard educational interest of weaker sections,
socially and educationally backward classes, and scheduled castes and
scheduled tribes
• Language and Educational Safeguard – Article 29(1) explains that any
section of the citizens, residing in the territory of India or any part thereof
having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right
to construe the same
 Growth in Education
• The immediate action taken by Government of India after
independence was the formation of University Education Commission
in 1948 under the chairmanship of Dr. S. Radha Krishnan which
submitted its report in 1949
• Total investment in education sector was 153 crores in first five year
plan, 7.9% of total, which went down to 5.8% in 2 nd and rose to 6.9%
for the third plan
• After establishment and implementation of University Commission’s
recommendation, India move toward the development of entire
education system
• Secondary Education Commission of 1952–53 focused mainly on
secondary and teacher education
• To construct the fresh and more effective system in the field of
education, the Education Commission (Kothari Commission) was
appointed in 1964-66 to advise the Government on national pattern of
education for the development of education at all stages and in all
aspects
 Growth in Education
GDP at
Current Exp. In Education % of GDP
1951 10080 64.46 0.64%
1961 16220 239.56 1.48%
1971 42222 892.36 2.11%
Recognised Education Institutions
Primary Upper Primary Secondary Total Colleges Universities
1950-51 578 27
1955-56 1819 45
1960-61 3277 82
1965-66

Increase from
1951 to 61 58% 265% 134% 215% 67%
Increase from
1951 to 71 95% 568% 401% 467% 204%
 Schooling Parametres
Enrolment (in
lakhs)

Primary Upper Primary Secondary Higher

Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls

1951 138 54 26 5 13 2 3.5 0.5

1961 236 114 51 16 27 7 8 2

1971 357 213 94 39 57 19 26 7

Increase
from 1951
to 61 71% 111% 96% 220% 108% 250% 129% 300%
Increase
from 1951
to 71 159% 294% 262% 680% 338% 850% 643% 1300%
 Schooling Parametres
Teachers by School (in '000)
Primary Upper Primary Secondary
Male Female Male Female Male Female
1951 456 82 73 13 107 20

1961 615 127 262 83 234 62

1971 835 225 463 175 474 155

Increase from
1951 to 61 35% 55% 259% 538% 119% 210%
Increase from
1951 to 71 83% 174% 534% 1246% 343% 675%

Enrolment Rate
Classes 1-5 Classes 6-8
Male Female All Male Female All
1951 60.6 24.8 42.6 20.6 4.6 12.7
1961 82.6 41.4 61.4 33.2 11.3 22.5
1971 95.5 60.5 78.6 46.5 20.8 33.4
 Health System
• Derived from Health Survey and Development Committee Report
1946, under the chairmanship of Sir Joseph Bhore, the Indian
Government resolved to concentrate services on rural people
• This committee report laid emphasis on social orientation of
medical practice and high level of public participation
• With beginning of health planning, and first five year plan
formulation (1951-1955) Community Development Programme was
launched in 1952. It was envisaged as a multipurpose program
covering health and sanitation through establishment of primary
health centers (PHCs) and sub-centers
• During the first two Five Year Plans the basic structural framework
of the public health care delivery system remained unchanged.
Urban areas continued to get over three-fourth of the medical care
resources whereas rural areas received "special attention" under
the Community Development Program (CDP). Within CDP the social
sectors received scant attention
 Health System
• Allocation patterns belie the stated objectives and goals of the
overall policy in the plans. The urban health structure continued to
grow and its sophisticated services and specialties continued to
multiply
• The 3rd plan gave a serious consideration for suggesting a realistic
solution to the problem of insufficient doctors for rural areas "that
a new short term course for the training of medical assistants
should be instituted and after these assistants had worked for 5
years at a PHC they could complete their education to become full
fledged doctors and continue in public service”
• The Medical council and the doctors lobby opposed this defeating
the initiative

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 Change in health
1950/51 1965/66 Change

Medical Colleges 28 87 210.7%

Hospital Beds 113000 240100 112.5%
Doctors (in '000s) 61.8 86.0 39.2%
Hospitals and
Dispensaries 9209 18000 95.5%
Nurses 16500 45000 172.7%
PHC etc. 725 4631 538.8%
Health Indicators
Life Expectancy 36.7 54.0 47.1%
CBR 45 40.7
CDR 25 19
IMR 146 130
 The Caste Issue
• Effort to ensure that Indian social organisation underwent change,
leading to the social liberation of the hitherto socially backward and
suppressed sections of society
• Implement the clauses of the Constitution regarding reservations in
educational institutions and government employment in favour of
SCs, STs and other weaker sections
• Provision of special facilities in form of scholarships, hostels
accommodation, grants, loans, housing, healthcare and legal aid
services
• Commissioner of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes appointed
to monitor the effective implementation of measures and
constitutional provisions

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 The Caste Issue

• These measures have yet been not fully substantial :

– SCs and STs continued to be backward, although in entirely
different contexts
– Caste oppression widely prevalent
– Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are a large part of the
landless agricultural labour
– They also suffer from class oppression
– Where Government and society did not succeed was in a radical
restructuring effort to eradicate the ideology of the caste
system or to remove caste inequality and caste oppression

122