Question

Explain the main arguments in the debate that ensured between industrialisation and agricultural development at the time of Second five year plan.

Answer 1

After the Second Five-Year Plan, there were various opinions regarding both plans. Also, many got involved in a debate about agriculture and industry and which of the two plans would be better.

Many thought that the Second Plan lacked an agrarian strategy. Emphasis on industry caused agriculture and rural India to suffer. Gandhian economists like J. C. Kumarappa proposed an alternative blueprint which put greater emphasis on rural industrialisation. Chaudhry Charan Singh, a Congress leader who later broke from the party to form Bharatiya Lok Dal, forcefully articulated the case for keeping agriculture at the centre of planning for India. He said that the planning was leading to creation of prosperity in the urban and industrial section at the expense of the farmers and rural population.

For industry, others thought that without a drastic increase in industrial production, there could be no escape from the cycle of poverty. They argued that Indian planning did have an agrarian strategy to boost the production of food grains. The state made laws for land reforms and distribution of resources among the poor in the villages. It also proposed programmes for community development and spent large sums on irrigation projects. The failure was not that of policy but that of its nonimplementation, because the landowning classes had a lot of social and political power. Besides, they argue that even if the government had spent more money on agriculture, it would not have solved the massive problem of rural poverty.