| Farmers who depend only on rain for growing crops. | |
| A rural woman from a land owning family | |
| Urban unemployed youth | |
| A boy from a rich urban family | |
| A girl from a rich urban family |
She gets as much freedom as her brother and is able to decide what she wants to do in life. She would like to be able to pursue her studies abroad. |
| An Adivasi from mining fields | |
| A person from the fishing community in the coastal area |
Having filled Table 1, let us now examine it. Do all these
persons have the same notion of development or progress? Most likely not. Each
one of them seeks different things. They seek things that are most important for
them, i.e., which can fulfil their aspirations or desires. In fact, at times,
two persons or groups of persons may seek things which are conflicting. A
girl expects as much freedom and opportunity as her brother and that he also
shares the responsibilities in the household work. Her brother may not like this.
Similarly, to get more electricity, industrialists may want construction of
more dams. But this may submerge the land and disrupt the lives of people who
are displaced such as the tribals and farmers. They might resent this and may
just want small check dams or tanks to irrigate their land.
Fig 2.2 : How do we understand development if we think of human history on a
time scale? Who is developed? Number as hunter gatherers (about 200,000 years).
Number of years since we began agriculture (12,000 years ago). Number of
years since modern Industries started (from about 400 years ago)