9 Changing Life : 1
So far, we have studied the period
from the year 1961 to 2000. The speed of
change in the twentieth and the twentyfirst centuries has been tremendous. Human
life is changing rapidly. Things which we
could not have even
imagined earlier, are
now a part of reality.
In ancient and
medieval periods,
religion was an
important part of a
person’s identity.
Now, modernisation
has posed some
challenges before all
religions, be it
Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism,
Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism or
Judaism. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar brought
about a sea change in our traditional
mindset. He brought it about through the
medium of the Indian Constitution.
According to our Constitution, all
Indians are equal before the law, and
they cannot be discriminated against on
the basis of religion, race, caste, gender
or place of birth. All citizens have the
right to freedom of speech and expression,
freedom to assemble peacefully without
arms, freedom to form associations,
freedom to move, to live and settle down
anywhere on Indian territory and to
practice any occupation. Indian citizens
living anywhere in India enjoy the right
to nurture their language, script and
culture.
These provisions in the Constitution
shook the foundations of the caste system.
It helped to make the practice of vocations
running in the family obsolete. Change
Thus began a series of minor and
major changes in the society. Now,
anyone can go into a restaurant irrespective
of his religion, race, caste or gender. In
fact, we see boards outside the restaurants
welcoming all.
Another very significant change
during the post-independence period is the
right to express opinions against the
government. Earlier, there were limits on
expressing any opinion against political
rulers. Now Indian citizens can register
their protest against the policies of the
government through newspapers, speeches
or other media.
The Institution of the family :
During the pre-independence period, the
institution of the family was an important
identifying feature of Indian society. India
was known all over the world as the
country of joint families. However, the wave of globalisation has now given an
impetus to the system of nuclear families.
Social welfare : The objective to
establish the welfare state has been
incorporated in the Constitution itself.
India is the first country in the world to
do so. The social welfare programmes
aim to make opportunities for full-time
employment, health care, education and
development available to all Indian
citizens. Indian society is riddled with
large scale economic, social, educational
and cultural inequalities. However, it is
necessary that opportunities for
development reach women, children, the
differently abled, the scheduled castes and
tribes as well as other minorities. This
was the greatest challenge facing the
government during the post-independence
period. That is why, on 14th June 1964,
the government of India constituted the
Ministry of Social Welfare. Under this
ministry various programmes are
implemented for nutrition and childdevelopment, social security and social
protection, women’s welfare and
development. A similar arrangement exists
at the state level too.
Scheduled Castes and Tribes :
According to the 1971 Census, 22% people
in India belonged to scheduled castes and
tribes. Laws were enacted so that they got
educational scholarships, and
representation in Parliament as well State
Assemblies. Some seats are also reserved
for them in Government services.
Public health : The Constitution of
India states that the primary duty of the
government is to raise the people’s
standard of living, to ensure proper
nutrition and to improve public health.
The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare
at the Centre helps the state governments
in this regard. To make primary health
services as well as medical care available
to rural people, the tribals and the poor
was an objective of the Sixth Five Year
plan. Efforts were made towards helping
people maintain good health by giving
recognition to Unani, Homoeopathy,
Ayurveda and Naturopathy in addition to
Allopathy.
Progress in the medical field has
made the life of Indians relatively free of
health concerns. In 1962, the first
successful open heart surgery was
performed under the leadership of Dr N.
Gopinath at Christian Medical College
Hospital at Vellore in Tamil Nadu. Hence,
it is no longer necessary to go abroad for
such treatment.
Similarly, the invention of the ‘Jaipur
Foot’ has transformed the lives of the
disabled in India. Before 1968, if a person
lost a leg in an accident, he had to suffer
for the rest of his life. In order to remedy
the situation, Dr Pramod Sethi designed
and manufactured artificial limbs, noses
and ears, with the help of the skilled
craftsman Ramchandra Sharma.
The artificial body parts manufactured
with the help of the Jaipur foot technology
have made it easy for the differently
abled to walk bare-foot on rough surfaces,
run, go cycling, work in the fields, climb
trees, and even climb mountains, etc.
They save on the expenses on shoes as
there is no need for footwear on these
artificial limbs. They can bend their legs
at the knees and sit cross-legged. These
feet are also convenient while working in
water or wet conditions.
Kidney transplant : Since this
surgery can now be performed in India,
doctors have succeeded in saving patients’
lives. Such surgeries were not so common
in India till 1971. But in 1971, it was
successfully performed at the Christian Medical College hospital at Vellore in
Tamil Nadu. Dr Johny and Dr Mohan
Rao transplanted the kidney donated by
a living person into the patient’s body.
Nowadays, patients from underdeveloped
countries come to India for such surgeries.
Test-tube baby : Right from early
times, having a baby is considered to be of
utmost importance in the Indian family
system. The support of ‘test-tube baby’
technology has been available to childless
couples since 1978. It was under the
supervision of Dr Subhash Mukhopadhyaya
that the experiment of the test-tube baby
was successfully carried out at Kolkata.
This was the first successful attempt at
artificial conception. A girl named Durga
was born. This technology helped to solve
the problem of childless couples who
wanted children.
Immunisation : Before 1978, every
year, six Indian infants out of every 10
who were born faced fatal health problems
in the very first year of their birth. The
immunisation programme was taken up
to overcome the threat of polio, measles,
tetanus, TB, diphtheria, and whooping
cough. The ‘pulse polio’ immunisation
programme started in 1995 has
controlled polio.
Urbanisation
Urbanisation is a process of the
concentration of population in a city or
urban area. Increasing population is one
major reason for urbanisation. A few
other factors affecting urbanisation are
air, water and the economic as well as
social organisations necessary for
community life.
In the context of post-independence
India, the increase in urban population is
also due to factors such as reduction in
the mortality rate, industrialisation,
unavailability of means of livelihood in rural areas, job opportunities in cities and
the resulting migration. To reduce the
strain on cities, it is necessary to make
jobs available in villages, achieve a
balance in economic development, control
the expansion of metros and provide
necessary services and facilities in both
the urban as well as rural areas.
Rural Area
A village is a permanent settlement
of farmers near the land they themselves
tilled, either individually or collectively.
Villages came into existence when farming
began. Villages in India are thinly
populated. A dense cluster of houses
surrounded by farmland is a unique
feature of the Indian village. A settlement
smaller than even a village is called a
hamlet. Compared to the urban community,
the village community is very small.
Villages are not uniform across India.
There are differences based on regional
and physical features.
Post-independence period : Keeping
in mind the goal of rural development,
the collective development scheme has
come into force. Plans were made for
improving farming technology, increasing
the area of irrigated land, extending
educational facilities, enacting the laws
for land reform under this scheme. It also
aimed at increasing agricultural produce
as well as expanding the means of
transport, health services and scope for
education in the rural areas. It was
decided to give priority to economic
development in villages. The government
undertook this work through the medium
of Gram Panchayats which included the
people from all castes and tribes. To
achieve this, the Gram Panchayats,
Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads
were empowered with more authorityChanging economic life : Earlier,
every village was economically selfsufficient. A majority of the villagers
were dependent on farming. Farm produce
used to be distributed among artisans as
payment for their work. Now this situation
has changed. Rural areas are engaged in
agriculture and occupations ancillary to
farming while urban society is engaged
in non-agricultural production and the
service sector.
Rural Development : In 1961, 82% of
India’s population resided in villages. In
1971, the percentage was 80.01%. So far,
the rural area has shouldered the
responsibility of providing food grains and
other raw material to urban areas, supplying
labour to the industrial sectors of the city,
and taking care of natural resources. There
are three major challenges with reference
to rural development, namely, bringing
about economic development, developing
facilities to meet social needs and finally
bringing about a change of attitude in
matters concerning society, culture and
ways of thinking. It is equally necessary to
expedite irrigation projects and bring about
land reforms.
Social needs and facilities : It is
necessary to give priority to facilities for
public hygiene and health-care. Even
today, the rural population faces problems
related to year round provision of drinking
water, toilets, open drainage, narrow
roads, inadequate electrification and lack
of facilities for medical treatment. There
is a lack of good quality educational
facilities from primary level to higher
education, centres for recreation and
libraries. That is why it is necessary to
give special attention to rural areas.
The collective development scheme
had an important place in all the first
four five year plans of the government of
India. The State of Maharashtra registered
remarkable achievements under this
scheme. For example, ‘Zilla Parishads’
were established in 1962. Nutritious diet
scheme was launched in 1970-1971. The
State also started ‘Rural Water Supply
Scheme’ for sinking wells and providing
piped water. By 1971, 1677 small dams
had also been built.
Rural electrification : Electricity is
essential for the development of rural
areas. Automatic pumps are needed to
water the fields. Electricity is needed to
preserve perishable food items such as
milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables, to run
fertiliser projects and for fans and TV and
for lights for studying at night. During the
first five year plan, electricity had been
Rural and Urban societies during
Pre-globalisation period
Rural Community Urban Community
Priority to farming
and ancilliary
vocations (jobs)
Priority to nonagricultural
production and
services
Small in size,
homogeneous in
terms of language,
culture and
tradition.
Large in size,
heterogeneous in
terms of languages,
cultures and
traditions
Elementary kinds
of vocations; trend
of sending
villagers to cities
rather than
accommodating
outsiders in rural
occupations.
Large industries,
production for
global
consumption,
accommodating
outsiders.
Larger proportion
of vocations
running in the
family.
Less proportion of
vocations running
in the family.
Priority to the
head of the
family and to the
family as an
institution. Joint
family system.
Family secondary,
priority to
individuals. Trend
towards-nuclear
families.provided to three thousand villages in
India. By 1973, it reached 1,38,646
villages. From 1966, it was decided to
supply more electricity for pumps and
borewells. ‘Rural Electrification
Corporation’ was established in 1969.
‘Rural Electrification Co-operative
Societies came into being in the States of
Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka,
Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
Industrial development : A
‘Village Industries Planning Committee’
was formed to help the development of
industry in rural areas. By 1972, 1,06,000
persons got employment under this scheme.
The government of Maharashtra has
also started residential highschools known
as ‘Vidya Niketan’ in Satara, Aurangabad,
Nasik and Chikhaldara. Their purpose is
to provide the best quality education to
intelligent and meritorious village students
living in unfavourable conditions. As per
the recommendations of the Kothari
Commission, Agriculture Universities were
also started at Rahuri, Akola, Parbhani
and Dapoli in Maharashtra. In recognition
of the work done in the field of education,
UNESCO awarded its international prize
for the spread of literacy to Maharashtra
in 1972.
In this way, overcoming the obstacles
at the beginning of post-independence
period, India began to develop and make
progress. In the next chapter, we shall
learn more about the developments in
other fields.
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