Dynamics of Rural Development in India

Description

Rural development can be understood as the unfolding of capitalism in rural areas and as the package of policy and project interventions that aim to foster socio-economic change and human improvement in rural areas. Some writings on ‘rural development thus addresses general issues of agrarian change, peasant economy, and rural politics. Other writings, more applied in focus, addresses project impacts on rural people and environments, asking how these impacts might be improved and enhanced. Between these two bodies of work is that which focuses on interventions, but with a critical eye, inquiring into the ways in which projects themselves foster capitalist development, facilitate state and social control of rural populations, and constitute processes of rural modernization. Analytical frameworks have been drawn variously from Marxist political economy, neoclassical and institutional economics, institutional analysis, actor-oriented and Structuration Theory, post structuralism and pragmatism. The rural development literature is thus diverse. However, within this diversity certain patterns are apparent.