Social Analysis and National Economic Development in India

A MONG THE MANY EXPLOSIVE PROBLEMS in today's world no one can overlook one of the most crucial and decisive issues: the drama of modern India, brimming with suspense and uncertainty, promise and pessimism. How can we tell, as of now, whether there is being built up a delayed civil explosion of vast extent and world-wide repercussions or whether the goals being set, the tempo of achievement, the degree of self-propulsion are such as to usher in a genuinely new era of great achievement and greater promise? Or at what point does the truth lie between these extremes? What the world sees-and this is largely true of the thinking of leaders in India also-is the bulk targets, the overall statistics, the tackling of large projects. While these are very important Indian projects, they are special peaks in a range of other tasks. There also is massive help in money, technical skill and direction from other countries. Along with these peaks-the big steel plants, the huge dams, the heavy machinery plants-there is also a vast aggregation or texture of small operations. What is much less widely known is the matrix of unspectacular factors that determine how effective these projects really are, how well they later operate. Nor is it easy to know how satisfactory are the single and group efforts and the network of activities which make up the totality of unspectacular movements and enterprises and attitudes, which constitute the reality of a nation's progress and well-being, and are the fabric of the future. It is at this level that India's destiny is really being forged. It is this obscure level, what may be called the molecular aspect (of which the super-projects are really composed) that will here be investigated. The contrast between the over-all apparent and the obscure, or neglected, aspects will be emphasized. Three major sets of factors need to be examined. First, consider some of the basic conditions and dilemmas facing India. Every newly emerging under-developed country faces multiple and soultesting tasks, both immediate and prolonged-sometimes needing to be sustained over generations. In India most of these tasks are almost unbear

Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Political science · Social change · Agricultural risk and resilience · Indian Economic and Social Development

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• India

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