Ten Decades of Rural Development: Lessons from India. MSU Rural Development Paper No. 1, 1978.

One hundred years of rural development in India is surveyed, tracing the impact of colonial administration up to and including the decades of independence--an administration built on elitism, centralism, and paternalism. Four major rural problems of famine, abuses of land tenure, peasant indebtedness, and rural disaffection and how political entities have attempted to overcome them are discussed. It is shown that colonial rulers dealt with scarcity, disparity, and disaffection in a variety of ways: agricultural "demonstration and propaganda" to counteract scarcity, cooperatives/tenancy reforms to check disparity, local government to redress disaffection, and techniques of rural reconstruction. The measure of success is addressed, and the shift from community development to agricultural extension as a means of rural development following World War II is chronicled. The fifties are described as a decade of community development and agriculture extension during which American influence intermingled with colonial traditions and the sixties as the culmination of American influence, with a return to older traditions. This decade is seen as one of consolidation, with comparisons drawn between development in India and China. Whether the new poverty and target groups orientation accomplishes overall rural development, so far elusive, or is merely a change in methods, remains to be seen. (RS)