Political Science 5 Marks Question

The new claims for rights that have been generated by the process of development are as follows:

• The protection of people affected by development from the state and the society as a whole.
• The right of people to be consulted about decisions that affect their lives.
• The right to livelihood of people when their regular livelihood activities are threatened by developmental activities.
• Rights of communities, particularly tribal and aboriginal, to the use of natural resources.
• Rights of future generations to the resources that are common to the entire humanity.

Development is a process that ensures good quality of life to all the people in terms of happiness, harmony and satisfaction of essential needs. It is related to improvement, progress and aspirations of people. This definition of development would benefit all the sections of society as it shows the basic need approach. It allows more people to make meaningful choices and the pre-condition for this is the fulfillment of basic needs like food, education, health and shelter.
The previous concepts of development that were based on only economic growth have not been beneficial for poor people and environment and have resulted in a wide gap between rich and poor and imbalanced ecology. Therefore, a definition that aims towards improving the quality of people’s life would justify the essence of development.

The advantages of democracy over other forms of government for ensuring common good as the aims of development are as follows:

• A democratic government ensures that the decisions regarding development are taken while keeping the common interest of people in concern and respecting the rights of all.
• Conflicts over resources and different versions of the good life are resolved through debate in a democracy and these cannot be imposed from the higher authorities.
• The developmental priorities, strategies and way of implementations are decided by higher level of political leaders and bureaucrats.
• Democratic structure also makes it possible to include the views of common people in the strategy and priorities of development to prevent discrimination and adverse effects.
• Democracy allows every citizen to have a stake and participate in deciding their future and nation’s priorities.
• Other forms of governments like authoritarian, monarchical and dictatorship do not involve people in decision making process of development.

1. Social cost of Development:

1. Displacement resulted in the loss of livelihood and increased impoverishment.
2. Many have been displaced from their homes and localities due to urbanization and industrialization, etc.
3. If rural agricultural communities are displaced to end up at the margins of society.
4. It results in a loss of culture due to loss of community life because traditional skills acquired over a long period are also lost.
5. Displacement has led to struggles in many countries like Narmada Bachao Andolan against Sardar Sarovar Dam on the river Narmada.
6. The supporters of this dam claimed to generate electricity, irrigate large areas of land and to provide drinking water to the desert areas of Kutch and Saurashtra whereas the opponents of the dam claim to lose the land through construction by almost one million people.

2. Ecological costs of development:

1. Environmental degradation took place, i.e. Tsunami created damage to a greater extent on South and South East Asia coasts in 2005.
2. Global warming is also taking place due to emissions of greenhouse gases into the environment, i.e. ice melting in Arctic and Antarctic regions has the potential to cause floods and submerge low lying areas like Bangladesh and Maldives.
3. The ecological crisis will adversely affect us, like air pollution.
4. Deforestations also affect the forest resources, i.e. medical herbs, firewood or timber, etc.

People affected by the government policies have not always accepted their fate passively. They have raised their concerns. This has led to some of the popular struggles we have heard. Popular struggles have got a great success in making state responsible to the social and environmental cost of development.

1. The concept of ‘development’ gained importance after the second half of 20th century when a large number of countries in Asia and Africa got political freedom from colonialism.
2. In the beginning years, the focus was on catching up with west in terms of economic growth and modernization of societies.
3. Earlier the state was the only agency capable of initiating that type of social and economic change and several nations embarked upon ambitious projects of development, generally with the assistance of loans and aid from the developed countries, i.e. five years plans in India since 1950s.
4. The model of development adopted by India and other countries has come under a great deal of criticism over the years.
5. This led to some re-thinking about the objectives and processes of development today.
6. Construction of Sardar Sarovar project was challenged on the ground that it will displace the tribal people and local inhabitants living near the areas of this dam and initiatives were taken by by Medha Patekar under the banner of Narmada Bachao Andolan.
7. Some well-known environmental groups include Green Peace and World Wildlife Fund, etc.
8. In India, Chipko Movement was initiated under the leadership of Sunder Lal Bahuguna to protect the Himalayan forests to pressurize the government to modify industrial and development policies of government.