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Unit 14: Social Change in Contemporary India

development in India an context are caste, pattern of land tenure, population growth, and property Notes
laws (which lead to fragmentation of landholdings).
The basic obstacles pointed out by A.R. Desai (1959:130) are: (a) the social and institutional framework
and values inherited from the past (i.e., caste system); and (b) persistence of backward types of loyalties.
The caste system though has been theoretically and juridicaly abolished by the Constitution of India,
yet its significance in real life, its influence on the economic development, its effect upon the patterns
of property relations and patterns of consumption, and its impress upon the configurations of power
structure in the economic, political, social and cultural fields are still not properly comprehended
and hence gravely underestimated. Caste prevents mobility of people so essential for dynamic
economic development. It prevents certain groups from taking to certain vocations, certain patterns
of economic behaviour, and certain forms of consumption. It has been found that most of the controlling
positions in economy, administration and cultural pursuits are monopolised by a few castes all over
India. In fact, a few castes control the destiny of most people of the country, leading to caste and
regional tensions and social unrest. This unrest becomes the cause of and keeps alive a bitter
competitive struggle among the privileged groups themselves as well as between them and the
underprivileged groups. This has a detrimental effect on the development of a healthy national
economy.
Besides caste (which inhibits occupational and social mobility), some important barriers in economic
development of India have been identified as joint family system, communalism, regionalism and
linguism. It has also come to be accepted that changes in the caste system have made development
possible. Since Gunnar Myrdal had not given importance to changes in social institutions like caste,
family, etc., as also to their functional aspects in the analysis of development, his analysis of economic
development has been described as negative, patchy and disjointed.
Another sociological implication is the persistence of backward types of loyalties resulting into
factionalism and division of the Indian people into groups with petty egos, to the detriment of the
growth of a highly developed national consciousness. Some types of loyalties that very much persist
(besides the caste loyalty) in India are kinship loyalties, regional identifications and religious
attachment. These divisions tend to inhibit the development of a feeling of unity in the society and of
identify among its members. The normative pressure rooted in such an environment profoundly
affects the conduct of the individual in external situations and relations.
A. R. Desai (1959: 131-32) further holds that this parochial mentality, together with the old outmoded
institutions, obstructs the proper economic development in a number of ways: (i) it leads to nepotism;
(ii) it results into the growth of the harmful practices of unproductive investment patterns and wrong
consumption patterns; (iii) it generates distorted attitudes to work, efficiency, vocations and allocation
of resources; and (iv) it obstructs the growth of those mores and sanctions which are basic to a
developing economy in modern times, namely, mores and sanctions founded on law, respect for
personality, concept of equal citizenship, etc.
The barriers to economic development in India as given by Yogendra Singh (1973) are: (i) transcendence
(according to which legitimation of traditional values cannot be challenged); (ii) holism (according to
which the relation between individual and society (or group) is such that individual subordinates his
rights and aspirations to that of society’s welfare; it also means precedence to collectivity over the
individual); (iii) hierarchy (stratification in caste occupation and social status); and (iv) continuity
(belief in rebirth and karma, etc.).
Stages in Economic Development

Rostow (1960:4) has referred to five stages in the economic development. These are: (i) traditional
society, (ii) preconditions for take off, (iii) the take off, (iv) the drive to technological maturity, and (v)
age of high mass consumption.
Traditional (peasant) communities are not self-sufficient but dependent on towns for markets, and
for religion, philosophy and even government, as leadership is poorly developed within the
communities. The decisions for the peasants are made from the outside. Often they do not even know
how or why these decisions are made. Try though they might, they can have no part in the making of

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