Prakash Kumar notes

Agricultural Modernization article- 1912-1952

Specific American visions: family farm where peasant both owned his land and simple tools +
progressive farmer = self-help - these ideas at times discontinuous with colonial and poco ideas of
agricultural development

Modernizations attends to historical constitution of institutions or the process of institutionalization;

Modernity on the other hand brings attention to self-reflexivity of historical actors - both of them
are both subject of analysis as well as conceptual tool to look for specific trends

There are problems in taking a global approach vis-a-vis a regional and national approach in studying
the shared experience of transnational agrarian modernization that was Americanist in inspiration

American missionaries considered limitless possibilities of evangelism in India amongst thousands of

outcastes- H thus advised

H: The Gospel and the Plow - missionary farmer - with bachelor's degree in agriculture from Ohio
1911 and Masters from Princeton based on thesis in U.P. agriculture - AAI founded in 1912 and led
by H till 1944

AAI taught learning by doing - self-help, a philosophy imbued with Victorian moral values, laissez-
faire, Smiles's call for self-help for factory workers - and eventually cultivators to take responsibility -
project thus involved both modernization and modernity

Rockefeller's early programmes in American south inspired Higginbottom - and RF did award one
time grant for AAI - H was influenced by US Education Board's decennial report containing Knapp's
'learning by farm demonstration' account - he thought agrarian problems in deep south and in india
were similar

Cultivator self-help propagated by Higginbottom was contrary to state help - shared ground with
Smile's self-help directed at factory workers - clothing conformist ideas like as a matter a character -
this went against Indian liberalism that made demands upon the colonial state

H: had many collaborators within the colonial order like Howard; One fault of colonial improvement
machine he found was that lab results not taken to farmers - practiced 'demonstration method' at
AAI - this interested colonial administrators

H: America's agri system better comparable to India than Britain - Britain also did not have
Rockefeller or Tuskegee or Hamilton to take experimental knowledge to farmers and educate them -
British agri courses in colony more concerned with science than its application

Change in colonial paradigm of agri science since 18th c: society not target of new improvement
policies, rather the elevation of economic life - executed by new institutionalization of crop research
+ improving cattle + soil conservation, manuring + irrigation- Howards represented the new colonial
science whose logic lay in this new "economism" - binding scientific knowledge to economic and
utilitarian ends - the world that H praised -Economic history perspective to understanding coming of
economistic colonial agri science: due to stagnation in agri leading up to WWI; situation came after
decades of growth by expanding cultivable area - therefore in the years preceding WW1 time was
ripe for technological infusion

But for H, new science was also lacking - and needed infusion of American ideas to eradicate India's
endemic poverty and food problem - leading to ‘minor scuffle’ between two kinds of modernization
H.M.Leake - principal of Cawnpore Agricultural College and then director of Agriculture - his book,
first serious contribution to study of Indian agriculture in its economic bearings

Leake: Liberal Imperialism - urging distinct role of state in agri development in colony - for L,
different scales existed at which individual, landlord or state could carry out changes according to
the gradient of their means - he then suggested that with the largest wherewithal, state should be
agent of change - this attribution of responsibility to state, not visible before 20th c

L: agri with economic ends: to have a plant that yields higher money return to cultivator than at
present

By the end of his tenure Leake picked up on vision for developing wells in U.P.: proposing use of
mechanical power and provision of capital to progressive landowners to deploy small engines to lift
water for growing valuable crops - Leake 1922; Leake 1923 - also improving cattle 'as a corollary' -
both articles from Agri J of India

Colonial state went for richer farmers with cattle shows and practice of maintaining bulls at
government farms to make rich farmers emulate practice - missionaries went for individual poorer
farmers - Haig said AAI induces in students 'a readiness to do things' - PK says this was critique of
the technocratic and bureaucratically implemented approach of state - but this also put burden of
improvement on indigents themselves - no large scale change in land structure suggested or drastic
state initiatives or any other means of "real improvement" (PK’s term)

AAI made small farmer the crux of its modernization project in distinction from colonial
preference for big farmers - akin to 19th c Jeffersonian advocacy and support of free 'yeomanry'
around family firms, the 'progressive farmer' embracing innovation - these notions were committed
to land-ownership and independent family farms and this "very much within a capitalist orientation
and thus in alignment with colonial capitalist programe" (?)

Missionaries thought of land distribution w/o complicated questions of rights governing land
relations - thinking then of an "ideal farm size" corresponding with yeoman farm sizes in America

Missionaries also unlike colonials placed greater reliance on individual ability of cultivators - coming
partly out of religious conviction they sought to train cultivators rather than teaching them

Experiments with rain fed agri at AAi in 1944 - to enable small farmer w/o irrigation to improve
cultivation - older tradition of developing smaller inexpensive implements + animal-driven
machinery for use by small farmers at AAI - the latter was so successful that colonial bureaucrats
assigned AAI contract to make them available throughout province - also establishment of HOME
SCIENCE DEPT at AAI to make households productive

AAI did not face any tumult during independence - H had close relationship to Gandhi and Nehru - he
retired in 1944 - there was however some programme change in AAI after independence

Mosher takes over in 1948 stays till 1952 – as 3rd principal of AAI – bringing change in programme -
mirroring divides in key processes India's agrarian modernization - new phase of engagement with
America's agri ideas in India

Mosher - farming conditions quite different in Allahabad than Illinois a region he was familiar with -
so he sought to learn agri anew and immersively in India - no solutions offered from the top - thus
spent a year farming 8 acre land in U.P. - also learned new approaches from emerging field of
agricultural economics
Mosher offered critique of top down technocratic knowledge at AAI - sought to learn from local
knowledge like Albert Howard

Mosher and RF saw H's cattle breeding work and dairy development in a negative light - thought
elitist in light of agri economics because cows would in any case be expensice for most of India's
poor - a reorientation was needed to shift base from elitism to small farmer - critiques did not realyy
have problem with breeding for darught power but rather iwth dairy development

As AAI got closer to RF perspective of small farmers owning 3-4 acres of land being important - or as
presumed by new agri econ perspective

RF preferred lens of new agri econ - question of small scale farmers thus prime since 1931 -32 since
Taylor criticised H’s methods - AAI's earlier H approach now thought to be closer to USA large farms
than Indian conditions - Henry C. Taylor agri economist - also advised Mosher - though after Taylor's
visit in 1931-32, H had started reorienting programme already towards small farmer needs\

Infleunce of TAYLOR and Schultz in India through Mosher

After 1952, Mosher's departure, new changes further activated as favoured by RF - Influence of
TAYLOR and Schultz in India through Mosher - from self-help and self-development shift to agri
economist's emphasis on "human capital" - focus of economists on attitudinal changes of famring
classes to bring them in alignment with market forces - new focus now on creating opportunities and
structures around cultivator in which appropriate attitudinal changes would come about - target
now not the 'self' but rather the circumstances in which the 'self' would seek to modify itself. this
translated in creating infrastructure, incentives and exploiting market forces (Schultz)

Mosher went to LatAmerica as FF representative afteR iNDIA - ALSo worked with RF's Asian Agrarian
Modernization - Kissinger made Mosher write paper on his thoughts changing since leaving AAI -
paper was supposed to be centrepiece in US foreign policy regarding agriculture

Mosher went to LatAmerica as FF representative afteR iNDIA - ALSo worked with RF's Asian Agrarian
Modernization - Kissinger made Mosher write paper on his thoughts changing since leaving AAI -
paper was supposed to be centrepiece in US foreign policy regarding agriculture

Mosher's paper: focussing on 2 types of agri resources - 1. land labour and capital that had to be
economized - brought into market content of exchange for agri to be truly profitable + 2. attitudinal
changes that however followed on 'development' rather than being a precursor to it

Mosher went to LatAmerica as FF representative afteR iNDIA - ALSo worked with RF's Asian Agrarian
Modernization - Kissinger made Mosher write paper on his thoughts changing since leaving AAI -
paper was supposed to be centrepiece in US foreign policy regarding agriculture

Mosher's paper: focussing on 2 types of agri resources - 1. land labour and capital that had to be
economized - brought into market content of exchange for agri to be truly profitable + 2. attitudinal
changes that however followed on 'development' rather than being a precursor to it

India woudl experiment with both these tracks - C.D. launched in 1952 + yield improvement through
focussed deployment of inputs - second track eventually won out to form green revoln.

AAI and missionaries' history shows how switch was made from a 'self-help' paradigm to a market
paradigm both of which was deeply political
Prakash Kumar Community Development_1952-58

C.D Projects: technology was to be the common denominator to improve life and figured at the
center of a vision for improved life in the countryside - so technology important even before G.R.?

Development depoliticises by the act of 'rendering politics technical' - this article however points t/w
development's lack of success in depoliticizing what was at stake

C.D. projects - pilot launched in 1948 - properly operationalised in 1952 and then totally revamped in
1959 after some criticism

Ludden: development regime in the last quarter of the 19th c - technocratic core - containing both
technical expertise as well as managerial and administrative expertise

'Politics of negotiation' being mapped onto the flows of expertise between US State Dept and
Nehru's emissaries of development - between policies and the development apparatus - between
institutions, foreign experts and agrarian subalterns

Chatterjee: planned development as a modality in state formation misses the internal debates and
rifts that marked the trajectory of development - difference in approach over time collapse into a
singular analysis of the politics of planning

1953: shift of US funding priority from C.D. to Major Irrigation Projects even though such changes
would 'not affect the basic nature or approach of the TC programme in India'

1948 - Etawah - Mayer - pvt capacity

1951-52 - FF + ICAR addtnl 15 pilot projects - one in each state

1952- U.S. State Dept also joins C.D. with FF

1953 - GOI- National Extension Scheme to take C.D. to various parts of India - substantial
commitment

1957 - dISTINCTION BETWEEN PROJECT AREAS AND BLOCKS REMOVED

A sustainable programme of high pdn in the countryside could only develop on the backs of an
ENERGIZED village workforce that grasped technology well, was healthy aware and enthused to
work for community betterment

Recommendation to give GMF (launched in 1942-1951) broader dimensions was explicitly put forth
by committee assessing the programme

Several wells were built, improved and water-pumping sets installed

Taylor (rural sociologist) - was everything includable under the rubric 'Community Development'?

De: 2 sets of activities as C.D.: agricultural extension proper + corporate activities like building
schools etc

NES - a pilot project for the world - C.D. a question of stirring of minds and nourishing the bodies of
the rural populace - presumption of organic unity of the social problem - improvement not a matter
of the application of higher technology alone

'second sight' of the nationalist elite - less-than-radical appropriation of globalist scientific

programme
Krishnamachari - low agri production in India - a human problem

1957 - K emphasized that C.D. was strictly geared to produce a social change in the outlook t/w
technology

tensions between notion of welfare state as provider and the expectation of a social movement from
bottom up were writ large in the C.D. program

C.D.based on sound principles - but if tech not spreading and rural populace not becoming enthused
it must have smth to do with administrative or procedural lapses- was CD and NES networks
spreading too fast and spreading resources thin

Increasing food production always at the heart of C.D. programmes even if it was at times in cross
purpose with other goals like creating 'welfare state' or building 'social democracy from bottom up'

Optimism of planners based on the assumption that once technology was available, cultivators
would readily embrace it - whether this happened or not is an open question

Failure of resistance should be differentiated from the failure to resist

Shuman's specialization was SOIL

Absence of self-representations of non-Brahmin and Dalit castes - but texts like Shulman's can be
approached with a sensitivity that requires first not assuming the text's representation of the
subaltern's voice as pre-political

1956-57- Estimates Committee of the Indian Parliament - Report on C.D. projects in 4 parts - 181
suggestions for change made

1958-59 - Mehta Report on C.D. -Resultantly C.D. projects re-launched by shifting focus from
Community to VILLAGE and emphasis on local self-representative institutions at the level of the
village - rather than over-emphasis on bureaucracy (as earlier - Nehru)

Indian state left space for negotiation and these spaces would continue to define the nature of
Indian developmentalism going fwd