NCERT Book Class 11 Political Science Development

Development

Introduction

Suppose in a school each class brings out an annual class magazine as one of their extra-curricular activities. In one class, the teacher takes the last year’s magazine as a model, makes a plan of what this year’s magazine should contain in terms of topics, articles, poetry, etc. and then divides and assigns topics to different students. It is possible that as a result a student interested in cricket may find that she has been allotted a different topic and the one who has been allotted cricket is actually keen to write a play. It is also possible that in this scheme three students may want to get together to work out a series of cartoons but find that they have been placed in different groups. In another class, however, the content of the magazine is debated by the students. There are many disagreements but eventually a plan for a magazine emerges about which all are in agreement.

In your opinion, which class will come up with a magazine in which the students get to realise their particular interests in the best possible manner? The first may produce a good-looking magazine but will the content be engrossing? Will the person who wants to write on cricket, write with equal passion on her assigned topic? Which magazine will be seen as unique and which as standard? Which class will feel that working on the magazine was interesting and which class will do it as just routine homework?

For a society, deciding about what constitutes development is a bit like students deciding about what kind of school magazine they want and how they should work on it. We could mechanically follow a model which has been previously used in our own, or other countries, or we could plan keeping in mind the good of the society as a whole as well as the rights of those people whose lives may be directly affected by development projects. The leaders can either concentrate on implementing plans regardless of protests or they can proceed democratically, carrying the people with them.

Exercise

1. What do you understand by the term development? Would all sections of society benefit from such a definition of development?

2. Discuss some of the social and ecological costs of the kind of development which has been pursued in most countries.

3. What are some of the new claims for rights which the process of development has generated?

4. What would be the advantages of democracy over other forms of government for ensuring that decisions regarding development are made to promote the common good?

5. In your view how successful have popular struggles like been in making the state responsive to the social and environmental costs of development? Discuss with examples.

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 11 Political Science Development