Contenu du sommaire

Integrated Rural Development in India. Progress and Problems (1950-1985). Integrated rural development has been one of the first and constant preoccupations of indépendant India. Its objective is to associate economic growth and social justice based on a spatial integration on both a small and a large scale. India has experienced three stages in its rural development : 1) the institutional stage, marked by the setting up of community development and agrarian reform facilities ; 2) the technological-economic stage known by the name of «Green Revolution », which has aided in increasing food production, but aggravated, on the other hand, social and regional inequalities ; 3) the social stage where efforts are exerced towards the struggle against poverty. Inspite of the progress thus far accomplished, countless problems and obstacles remain to be overcome.

Biotic Factor and Landscape Dynamics : The Example of Coorg, in the Southern Part of the Indian peninsula. — Coorg, a tropical region where the mountains are of average height, subject to the monsoon cycle, possessing a very wet forest climate (1 500 to 7 000 mm), is a good example of the insidious penetration of man into a natural environment. The forest ecosystem has become an agro-ecosystem (coffee, cardamoms) that is more open, less stratified and where the vegetation has dwindled. At an altitude of about 1 200 meters, the tree formations give way to a herbaceous landscape that is subject to frequent fires. The summits, pasture lands during the sum¬ mer, are experiencing an intense degradation. The existence of this herbaceous formation («Grassy Blanks ») is often disputed.

Overpopulated Countrysides, Countrysides in a Developmental Stage. A Green Revolution on the dry Deccan plateaus of peninsular India ? The dry Deccan plateaus have been experiencing a new «Green Revolution » since the mid-Seventies. The landscape of this Green Revolution is varied and changing because there are regional differences in cropping patterns and also because the new high-yielding varieties show unequal performances. Irrigated rice and maize (in the wet parts of the precambrian regions), eleusine or ragi (Mysore Plateau), pearl millet or bajra (western Maharashtra) fare better than sorghum or jowar, which is grown extensively in other regions. The rainfall uncertainty is the main handicap to agricultural modernization in "millet" India. Irrigation (by wells, tanks or modern dams) can protect but a minor portion of the cultivated land. The regional case of Telangana shows a rapid growth of cereal production, following a period of stagnation. Up to now, the socio-economic effects of the Green Revolution have benefitted all the rural classes, as illustrated by a village study. Rural development has also been largely enhanced by public investments in infrastructural facilities and by industrial and urban growth. A likely success in the production of millet will lead to overproduction and possible shifts in the cropping systems and in the rural economy ; commercial crops (cotton, oil-seeds) may then be favoured.

The Agrarian Policy of Indian Communism and the Debate on Reformism : The Case of West Bengal. — In power in West Bengal since 1977, the CPI-M is the first Communist party in India to enjoy a rather long life span. Its agrarian policy must thus be considered as possessing some intrinsic value. Security for the sharecroppers, support to the landless, attempts at an integrated rural development program — all these dents on tradition are enacted with the grass root support of politicized panchayats and peasant organisations under party control, in a trying struggle against the multifaceted powers of the village landlords. Such an agrarian policy raises many fundamental questions relevant beyond the Bengal borders, such as the validity and efficacy of reformism, or the dilemma posed as regards stressing social justice rather than productivity. One echoes here the acute debate presently running in Bengal on these points. Here is a slow pace reform, which indeed cannot implement short term drastic changes. Nevertheless, it is a deep reform ; by beginning to modify the established relationships between man and land, it strikes out, in fact, through a political strategy, against the taboos which rule the traditional patterns of social domination.