Rural, Rurality and

Rural Development
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY AND PLANNING
“ If the facilities available in the cities are not made available to rural population, the
Governments will not have done their duties”
  Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Former President of India.
“Just as the whole universe is contained in the self, so is India contained in the villages.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
Introduction
Difference in Agriculture economics and rural economics
Agricultural economics has been principally concerned with the economics of agriculture as a
sector.
The elementary unit of analysis is the farm.
The major fields of analysis are farm production, the marketing of agricultural commodities and
the demand for food, the performance of product and factor markets, the linkages between
agriculture and other sectors of the economy and the rest of the world, sustainability in
resource use, and agricultural and food policy.
Rural economics and the design of rural policies to achieve rural development constitute a
broader subject than agricultural economics with a spatial as opposed to a sectoral definition.
The elementary unit of analysis is the household, with the farm as a typical subset of economic
activity.
The fields of application of rural economics include resource allocation by households and their
choices of income strategies, the emergence and performance of agrarian institutions, income
levels achieved by specific categories of rural inhabitants, poverty and inequality, income and
food security, the satisfaction of basic needs (in particular access to public goods and services
such as health and education), intergenerational equity, and the broad characterization of the
quality of life for rural households (which includes features such as individual freedoms, the
range of available opportunities and “capabilities” (Sen, 1985), community relations and
congeniality, the rule of law and respect of human rights, political rights, etc.).
Rural Rurality
Nearly, 70 percent of the India’s population lives in the rural areas.
Our country is more surrounded with the people who are facing poverty, illiteracy,
unemployment, exploitation, poor health condition, inequitable distribution of wealth and many
others.
Therefore, to develop their strata, the Rural Department and the Government have
implemented certain schemes and programmes.
Rural development is one of them. It is the process of increasing the value of life and economic
and social well-being of people living in relatively isolated and sparsely populated area.
Rural Development
Rural Development has been defined in different context by the different scholars, agencies,
organizations which includes
(a) eradication of poverty by means of regeneration of cottage industries, establishment of
cooperative societies, improvement of transport,
(b) spread of education,
(c) progress of health,
(d) abolition of social malpractices like casteism, untouchability and the like. The non-violent
Swaraj of Mahatma Gandhi was based on the idea of rural reconstruction.
Three Schools of Thought
Rural reconstruction has been advocated by three schools of thought who are known as
(i) The Philanthropic Group,
(ii) The Reformist Group, and
(iii) The Revolutionary Group.
The Philanthropic group
The Philanthropists offer a pragmatic approach. They plead for improving the condition of the
rural population within the purview of the existing rural institutions and structure of the rural
society.
They attach supreme importance to purely humanitarian Endeavour’s like
(i) establishment of schools and hospitals,
(ii) creation of charity funds to cater to the needs of the rural poor,
(iii) moral appeals to landlords or money-lenders to relax their pressures on the peasants and
labourers.
The Reformists
The Reformists assume that it is the malfunctioning of the existing social institutions that causes
economic misery and socio- cultural backwardness of the ruralites.
They, therefore, stress the need of reformation of the social institutions for the healthy
functioning of the social system in order to bring about holistic development of the rural
community.
The Revolutionary group
The Revolutionary group supports the programme of revolutionary transformation of the rural
matrix.
The thinkers belonging to this group are of the opinion that evils of the rural community are not
an outcome of the malfunctioning of the rural social institutions but are concomitant of the
social system.
These evils are the inevitable product of the normal functioning of the contemporary social
order. Therefore, they recommend radical transformation of the rural social institutions to bring
about a revolutionary change in the social system
Aspects of Rural Reconstruction:
Broadly speaking, rural reconstruction programme entails three aspects.
They are material, intellectual and moral.
Material aspect is concerned, rural reconstruction programme is oriented to improve the health
and raise the standard of living of the ruralites. The former is achieved by encouraging better
sanitation and by the provision of medical aid.
The moral and intellectual aspect, however, is the most fundamental. It aims at creating in him
the desire for self-improvement and self-discipline by individual and collective action so that he
may be freed of the inhibitions standing in the way of his self realisation.
It seeks to release his pent-up energies for removing defeatism, superstition, baseless fears
created by centuries of depression.