Indian villages between tradition and transformation. An empirical investigation into the effects of innovation on socio-economic, agricultural and socio-cultural change in two South Indian villages
Kohler, A.
Europaische Hochschulschriften, Reihe XXIX, Sozialokonomie 10: 332
1982
Document Number: 520363
The study examines the significant socioeconomic and cultural changes induced in traditional societies by technical innovations, particularly in agriculture, on the basis of detailed field research in Maharashtra in India. Differences in social, economic and cultural development are compared in two villages. The first is on the threshold of change from traditional rainfed subsistence agriculture to irrigated farming, and the other has had several years of adjustment to a system of intensive irrigated farming. The study shows that the implementation of innovation policies like irrigation tends to favour the existing institutional framemwork and power structure in villages. Land reform and land ceiling measures have not been effective, and small farmers have not been adequately reached by credit or extension services. The effect in the more advanced village was that although basic needs of most of the population had been met, and living standards improved, relative income disparities between rich and poor had widened. The use of irrigation water to grow a cash crop (sugar cane) was not an optimal use of a scarce resource. In the second village, where innovation was beginning, cooperation from below promised to show more successful results.