Politics of Planned Development NCERT Political science CBSE class 12 Notes Humanitas

CBSE Class 12 Political science NCERT Chapter Notes for Politics of Planned Development

24 April 2025 by

Humanitas

Planning and Development NCERT Political science CBSE class 12 Notes Humanitas

CBSE Class 12 Political Science NCERT Chapter Notes for Planning and Development Humanitas

Nation building was one of the challenges that India faced in the post independence era. This chapter provides an insight into India's development efforts, while laying equal importance to maintaining democratic values, economic ideologies and social justice aspirations. India's development trajectory ensured a delicate balance between unity and diversity. The government made some big decisions like a five year plan, to boost farming and industry. Initiatives like the Green and white revolution were like game changers for India's economy. However debates surrounding the role of public and private sector, urban bias and land reform highlighted the complexity of the journey.

Political contestation

Making tough decisions often means balancing what's best for one group of people versus the another, or thinking about how our choices today will affect future generations.

In a democracy, it's crucial that people have a say in these major decisions. Most people agree that India's development should be about more than just economic growth- it should also prioritise economic and social justice. But there are debates and disagreements among people regarding the extent to which the governments should be allowed to interfere.

Ideas of development

The concept of development is subjective and multifaceted with people having varying interpretations.

The modernization paradigm has become the dominant framework for understanding development, which is associated with growth, material progress and scientific rationality. This paradigm has resulted into categorisation of nations as developed, developing and under-developed.
Two prominent models of development have come up, these include liberal-capitalist model prevalent in Europe and the US, and the Socialist model exemplified by the USSR.
In India, several leaders including those from Communist Party of India, socialist party and Nehru were drawn to the Soviet model of development, while supporters of the Capitalist model of development were relatively scarce.
India's Nationalist leaders knew that their economic goals had to be different from that of the commercial interests of the colonial government.
It was believed among the leaders that poverty alleviation and economic redistribution should be the fundamental responsibility of the government.

Planning

One thing that everyone agreed on was the fact that there was a need for government-led development planning as it was realised that private actors alone could not drive development.
The concept of planning as a strategic process for economic rebuilding garnered significant public support globalling in the 1940s and 50s.
Some big industrialists came together in 1944 to craft a Bombay plan, a blueprint for a planned economy. This plan advocated for state intervention in economic activities and investments.
Planning was seen as the most obvious way of leading development of the country. Soon after independence, the Prime Minister laid the foundation of the Planning Commision, which became an influential machinery to decide the country's development path. Prime minister acted as chairman of this commision.

The Planning Commission of India opted for five-year plans.

Through the planning commission, every five years the Indian government formulates a comprehensive document outlining the financial projections for the next five years.
The budgetary allocation of both the central and state government is divided into two parts, which includes a ‘non plan’ budget that caters to routine expenditure, and a ‘plan budget’ which is for specific development priorities over the five year period.
The draft of the first five year plan was made public in December 1951, which sparked widespread enthusiasm among the Indians. People of the country engaged in extensive debates and discussions of the document.
This excitement and enthusiasm peaked with the second five year plan in 1956 and continued until the third plan in 1961.
But when the Fourth five year plan was about to be released in 1966, India was facing a severe economic crisis. So the government decided to go on a break and called it ‘plan holiday’.

The First Five Year Plan (1951–1956)

K.N Raj’s advocated for a cautious approach to India's economic development suggesting that the country should ‘hasten slowly towards development in the earlier two decades of development as the fast rate of development might become a threat to democracy.
Raj believed that the country should focus on agriculture and should make investments in dams and irrigation in the initial years because he believed that the agricultural sector required immediate attention.
Moreover, it was also realised that big projects like Bhakra Nangal Dam should also be a priority.
India's planner realised that the way land was distributed was a big obstacle to agricultural growth. So they focussed on land reform as a key to development.
The main goal was to increase the country's income, which meant that people had to save more than they spent. Since the spending was already very low during the 1950s, planners tried to encourage saving.
However, plannings didn't go up until the end of the third five year plan, but not as much as expected. Later from the 1960s to the 1970s, the saving rate of the country actually dropped considerably.

The Second Five Year Plan (1956 – 1961)

The second five year plan, drafted under the leadership of P.C Mahalanobis, had a strong emphasis on heavy industrial growth.
Before the implementation of this plan, the congress party had a meeting at Avadi, where they decided that their goal was to create a ‘socialist pattern of society’. This idea was then included in the Second five year plan.
To help Indian industries grow, the government imposed high taxes on imported goods. This helped both, the government owned and private companies thrive. With more people saving and investing money, the government was able to develop important industries like electricity, railway and steel.
However, one problem that India faced was its technological backwardness. This problem made India spend its foreign exchange into purchasing technology from the global market.
With the focus on industrial development, the investment in industries increased. This resulted in neglect of agriculture thereby increasing the possibility of food shortage.
The second five year plan showed that the Indian planners were finding it difficult to strike a balance between industry and agriculture.
Many critics criticised this plan for ‘urban bias’. Moreover they also believed that this plan wrongly gave priority to industry over agriculture.

Key Controversies

Agriculture versus industry

These two plans were not without any controversies. Various questions were raised. Like, In a country like India, which is still developing, which sector should attract more public resources?

Some people felt that the second five year plan focussed too much on industry, neglecting agriculture and rural areas.
On the other hand, Gandhian economist- J.C Kumarappa suggested a different approach, which was to prioritize rural industrialisation.
A Congress leader, Chaudhary Charan Singh, was a supporter of agriculture and farmers rights. Therefore he believed that the focus of the centre should be development of agriculture rather than the industrial sector, which will accumulate prosperity only in urban areas, at the expense of farmers and rural population.
However, others believed that without the focus on industrial production, the country could never come out from the grip of poverty. Even though the state made efforts with the formation of land reforms and resource distribution policies, they failed not because of on-implementation.

Public versus private sector

The Indian Economy is a mixed economy. We didn't outrightly follow any one path, but rather tried to maintain the balance between capitalist and socialist models of development. However this approach is criticised by both the rightist and the leftist.

criticism from right –

Rightists believed that the state was not providing any space to the private sector, thereby preventing them from growing.
The dominance of the public sector in India's economy led the powerful groups with vested interest to create barriers for private businesses.
Moreover, the government policy of limiting imports didn't help, as it meant that private companies had no motivation to improve their products or lower the prices.

criticism from left –

The leftist criticised the state by saying that no efforts were taken by the state to improve the education and healthcare sectors.
They believed that the state interfered only in those sectors where the private sector hesitated to indulge.
Moreover they believed that the state was not helping the poor but was rather creating a new section of people called the new ‘middle class’ who were enjoying the privileges of high salaries.

Major Outcomes

the major Outcome of such developments were as follows:-

The implementation of land reforms was inadequate.
The political power remained in the hands of landowning classes.
Consequently, the large industrialist continued to reap benefits.
Those who benefitted from the unfair system eventually became powerful politicians.

Foundations - infrastructure

During this period, some great investments were made for the development of infrastructure.

Large developmental projects began in India like construction of dams like Bhakra-Nangal and Hirakud, for the purpose of generating power and for irrigation.
Some heavy industries in the public sector were also established which included steel plants, oil refineries, manufacturing units, defense production etc.

Land reforms

Around 1950s, india introduced land reforms, which resulted into,

It abolished the zamindari system.
Land reforms were able to reduce the landlord's grip on politics to some extent.
Consolidating small plots of land into larger ones was fairly successful.
However when it came to the land ceilings- the laws limiting the amount of agricultural land one person could hold- wealthy owners found ways to evade them.
Landowners had some political power and influence. Therefore most of the land reform proposals were not translated into laws.

Food Crisis

India suffered its worst food crises during the 1960s. The condition of agriculture deteriorated to such an extent that there were food shortages.

The food grain production in the 1940s and 1950s was already not adequate, which worsened during the 1960s.
Moreover, the country suffered from some severe droughts between 1965 and 67. This resulted in food shortages in Bihar.
Nearly around 9 districts were producing less than their capacity. And 5 of these districts produced less than one third of their normal production.
Because of food shortages, the population suffered from malnutrition. The calorie intake of the population dropped from 2200 per capita per day to as low as 1200 In various regions.
The other state couldn't help Bihar during this time because of governments' Zoning policy. This policy prohibited the trade of food across states.
The poorest section of the state suffered the worst. This forced the country to accept the foreign aid mainly from the US.

The Green Revolution

severe food crises and the consequent droughts forced India to be dependent on foreign aid from the United States.
The US encouraged India to change its economic approach, especially when it came to agriculture, so that the country could achieve self-sufficiency.
A new strategy was devised, shifting focus from marginal farmers, to allocating resources to the farmers in those areas which had existing irrigation infrastructure.
The government provided special deals on seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation and also promised to buy farmers crops at a set price. This came to be called the Green Revolution.
The major beneficiaries of the Green Revolution were the rich peasants and large landholders.
Though the green revolution was a success and ensured availability of food grain in the country, it created polarisation between classes and regions. Some states like Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh benefited more from the green revolution.
As the difference between the struggling peasants and wealthy landlords became wider, discontent among the peasants increased which made it easy for left wing groups to mobilize the peasants.
At the same time, the Green Revolution helped create a new group of middle class peasants who were better off than before.

The White Revolution

Verghese Kurien, affectionately known as ‘milkman of India’ played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk and Marketing Federation Ltd, which pioneered the Amul brand.
Headquartered in Anand, amul has blossomed into a revolutionary dairy cooperative movement, empowering around 2.5 million mil producers across Gujarat.
It became a shining example of how to develop rural areas and reduce poverty.
This effort of Verghese Kurein is today dubbed as White revolution.
Operation flood, a rural development program began in 1970. It brought together milk producers into cooperatives creating a nationwide milk network. The goal was simple: to increase milk production, cut out middlemen and ensure that farmers are paid regularly. By focussing on dairy, Operation Flood aimed to drive growth and improve lives in rural India.

Later developments

India's development story took a new turn by the end of the 1960s.
From 1967, the government started putting more restrictions on private businesses. It even took control of fourteen private banks.
At the same time, the government introduced a lot of pro poor policies. These changes marked a shift towards socialism which sparked a lot of debates and discussions among the experts and politicians.
Although planning continued, its significance diminished substantially. India's economy experienced a modest annual growth rate of 3 to 3.5 percent between 1950 and 1980.
The erosion of public confidence led policy makers to reevaluate the role of the state in the economy. This re-evaluation ultimately reduced its importance from the 1980s onwards.