Chapter – 4

Change and Development in Rural Society

In this post we have given the detailed notes of class 12 Sociology Chapter 4 (Change and Development in Rural Society) in English. These notes are useful for the students who are going to appear in class 12 board exams.

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Development and Change in Rural Society

• India has been a rural country since the beginning. Even at present a large part of the Indian population lives in rural areas. According to the 2011 census, about 67% of India’s population lives in rural areas
• Because a large part of the population in the rural area is based on agriculture, a large part of the Indian economy is also based on agriculture, that is why India is also called an agricultural country.
• Agriculture in India is not just an employment but a way of life
• For this reason, many festivals related to agriculture are also celebrated in many regions of India, for example, Pongal, Makar Sankranti, Baisakhi etc.
• There is a deep connection between Indian culture and agriculture

Agricultural structure

• Farming structure deals with the division of land in the country
• In our country, the distribution of land among different people is uneven, some people have excessive land while in many areas people have almost no land.
• On the basis of the amount of land, the cultivators are mainly divided into five parts

Large landowners

• Large landowners are those landowners who have a large amount of land, earlier they were also called landlords.
• They earn a good profit from their land.

Medium landowner

• They have a moderate amount of land from which they earn their living and earn some profit

Marginal landowner

• This is the landowner who has very little land, by cultivating this land, he fulfills his needs but can not grow the crop to sell in the market.

Landless labourers

• These are people who do not own land, earn wages and earn their living by working in others’ fields.
• Their employment is insecure.
• Most of the landless labourers are daily wage earners and get wages on a daily basis

Tenant or lessee

• This is the farmer who borrows land from the landowner and cultivates it
• Their income is less than that of the landowners because they have to pay 50% to 70% of their income as rent to the land owners.
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Status of women

The condition of women on the basis of rights over land has been bad from the beginning because due to being a patriarchal society, women never got rights over the land

Caste and Class in Rural Society

• The influence of the caste system in Indian rural society has been there since the beginning, even the modern systems of today have not been able to reduce this effect.
• Looking at the structure of agriculture in India, it can be clearly said that the dominant castes in India have more land
• Dominant castes are those castes or groups that are economically and politically more powerful than other castes
• For example:-
  • Lingayats in Karnataka
  • Kammas and Reddys in Andhra Pradesh
  • Jats of Punjab
  • Jats and Rajputs etc. in Uttar Pradesh
• In most areas of the country, all types of resources are owned by a few people and others in the area work with those people as laborers.

Colonial India and Rural Society

The economy of Indian rural society has been dependent on agriculture since the beginning. During the colonial period, many new tax systems related to agriculture were implemented by the British which had a profound impact on Indian agriculture.

• During the British era, there were mainly three types of tax system.
  • Istamarari settlement (zamindari system, permanent settlement)
  • Ryotwadi system
  • Mahalwadi system

Permanent settlement

• Istamarari settlement is also known as zamindari settlement or permanent settlement.
• This arrangement was implemented by Charles Cornwallis in 1793.
• At that time Bengal included the present-day area of Bihar, Bengal and Orissa. In this area, the system of industrial settlement was implemented.
• Landlords were appointed under this system.
• All those people who were powerful before the British rule (Nawabs, old kings, moneylenders, etc.), were made landlords by the British.
• Each landlord was given some villages from where he could collect taxes.
• A certain amount of tax was taken from every landlord by the East India Company.
• The landlords could collect any tax they wanted from the farmers
• This arrangement was called permanent settlement because in this landlords had to pay a fixed amount to the East India Company.
• It was called the zamindari system because landlords were important in this system.

Ryotwadi system

• This system was implemented by Thomas Munro in 1820.
• This arrangement was implemented in the Deccan region of India.
• In this system, the farmer himself used to go and deposit his tax.
• This system was called the Ryotwadi system because ryot means farmer.

Mahalwadi system

• This system was implemented by the British in 1833.
• In this system, the tax of the entire village was collected by one person and then deposited to the British rule.
• It was implemented in the north-western region of India.
• This system was called Mahalwadi because mahal means village.

Land Reforms in Independent India

End of zamindari system

• Under the land reforms, the zamindari system was abolished, which reduced the exploitation of the farmers and increased the productivity of agriculture

Construction of dams for irrigation.

• Large dams were built to improve the irrigation system and canals were also built for irrigation

Efforts to reduce dependence on rainfall

• The irrigation system was improved to reduce the dependence of agriculture on rainfall so that the farmers could irrigate the crop according to their needs

Efforts to increase productivity

• To increase productivity in agriculture, good quality seeds and fertilizers were made available, due to which the yield of farmers increased.
  

Fragmented holdings were eliminated

• The farms divided into small pieces were eliminated and huge farms were formed by incorporating them all together

What is green revolution?

• Agriculture suffered due to excessive focus on industries in the second five-year plan
• There was a shortage of food grains in the country.
• Due to the China war in 1962, Indian agriculture suffered heavily because the government could not support the farmers.
• Due to the shortage of food grains, India had to import food grains from America, due to which America started putting pressure on India
• Due to all these problems, Indian leaders decided to increase the production of food grains in the country and from here the Green Revolution started.
• The Green Revolution is called the period when food grain production in India increased drastically. This was the period of 1964-67.

How did the Green Revolution come about?

In view of the growing problem of food grains in the country, the Government paid attention to the increase in food production. For this, the government

Provide good quality seeds

• Good quality seeds were made available to the farmers by the government so that the yield of the farmers could be increased

Land-wise production

• Farmers were advised to grow crops according to the land so that the nutrients of the land could be fully utilized

Provide more help.

• More help was provided to the farmers by the government and the farmers were helped in increasing the production.

Positive Effects of Green Revolution (Results)

Increase in food production.

• Due to the efforts of the government and the hard work of the farmers, there was an unprecedented increase in food grain production in the country.

Self-sufficiency in food production

• India becomes self-sufficient in food grain production
• There was such a huge production that India, which was importing food grains earlier, now started exporting

New Technology

• Due to the encouragement of the government, new technology started to be used in agriculture, which increased the productivity of agriculture.

Middle farming class emerged.

• A middle farming class emerged in the country which benefited from the Green Revolution

Commercialization in Agriculture

• Earlier all the farmers used to grow crops for their needs, but after the encouragement and help of the government, commercialization started in agriculture, that is, now the farmers started producing such crops which they could sell in the market

Negative effects of the Green Revolution.

• Production of only certain types of crops like rice, wheat etc. increased.
• The impact of green revolution was limited to some areas such as Uttar Pradesh, Punjab etc.
• The gap between rich and poor farmers increased further.
• The green revolution did not benefit the whole of India.

Globalization, liberalization, privatization and rural society

• The new economic policy was adopted by narasimha rao’s government in 1991
• At that time, the Finance Minister of India was Dr. Manmohan Singh, who went on to become the Prime Minister of the country
• This new economic policy was called LPG
• The main three aspects of the new economic policy were:
  • Liberalization,
  • Privatization,
  • Globalization

Liberalization

• Through liberalization, the government wanted to simplify the policies of doing business so that trade within the country could increase and the pace of development would accelerate.

Privatization

• Privatization means gradually handing over government companies to private hands so as to increase their productivity and efficiency.

Globalization

• Through globalization, the government made efforts to connect the Indian economy with the world economy, due to which the flow of goods and services in the country increased and the pace of development accelerated.

Contract farming

• The impact of contract farming is big due to globalization and liberalization.
• Contract farming is a type of agriculture under which multinational companies enter into an agreement with farmers to grow a certain crop and provide necessary information and facilities for growing the crop

 Benefits of contract farming

• Farmers get financial assistance
• Necessary information and guidance is obtained from multinational companies.
• Being available among good quality increases yields
• The price of the crop is determined in advance so that the price increase or decrease in the market does not affect the price increase or decrease

Shortcomings of contract farming

• Farmers become dependent on multinational companies
• Excessive use of pesticides causes damage to the environment
• Agricultural concessions are reduced by the government, due to which farmers suffer losses.
• Farmers’ issues do not make a place in politics
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The main causes of farmer suicides in India

• Reduction in agricultural concessions
• Marginal farmers do not have enough land
• The problem of excessive debt
• Not getting the right price for crops
• Loss of crops due to natural calamities

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