Friday, November 13, 2009

Development Sociology

Purpose of the Course

The word development has been used very widely in an uncritical way. This course looks at the concept critically - its achievements and problems.

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Syllabus (Click to Download Syllabus)

UNIT I
Aims and Scope of Development Sociology – Changing Conceptions of Development – Socio-cultural Dimensions – Indications of Development – Indian Development Experience – Sociological Critique.
UNIT II
Social – Structural constraints in development – Development Disparities – caste, class, power and its relative influence. Models of development Planned and directed social change in India: an overview.
UNIT III
Social Policy – Social context of development, Social legislations for weaker segments – Social welfare programmes for SC/ST, women & children, small farmers, marginal farmers, agricultural labour, rural artisans – Social organizations – role of GOs and NGOs – bottlenecks of development programmes – Participatory social development – PRA – PRA.PLA.
UNIT IV
Population and Development – Relationship of Population with development – Population size and its growth rate – Demographic factors in development consequences of population growth.
UNIT V
Village Development in India – Role of Sociologists in National Development – Micro and Macro Linkages – Development Planning and Socio-cultural context – Social Planning – Imperatives of Sociology in Development Planning.
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Unit 1: Introduction
Development as Multiple Connotations: There are several connotations about development, such as development as growth, development as change or transformation and development as modernisation.

a) Growth: In economic terms, development as growth refers to an increased capacity to produce consumption goods and a concomitant increase in consumption patterns. (Little, cf Marglin and Marglin 1990: 1). As growth, development very simply may be defined with respect to an increased ability to fulfill basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and education. (Streeten and associates, cf Marglin and Marglin 1990: 2). In a third sense of growth, development has also been defined in terms of expansion of possibilities, an increase in individual choices, capabilities and functioning (Sen, cf Marglin and Marglin 1990: 2). Development in the above senses carries with it connotations of being positive, progressive, and natural beneficial and inevitable.

b) Change and Transformation: Development as change and transformation refers to the economic, social, political and cultural processes of change in human societies (Schrijvers 1993).

c) Modernisation: Development is also understood as modernisation, though some may disagree about them being one and the same thing. Often modernisation being seen as a means to development. In the economic realm it refers to the processes of industrialisation, urbanisation and technological transformation of agriculture. In the political realm, it requires a rationalisation of authority in general and a rationalising bureaucracy in particular. In the social realm it is marked by the weakening of ascriptive ties and the primacy of personal achievement in advancement, and in the cultural realm it is the growth of science and secularization, along with an expansion of the literate population that makes for what has been referred to as a “disenchantment” of the world (Marglin 1990). Development in this sense of modernity stands for what is understood as Westernisation, where the west stands as the model for the progress of the rest of the world. Development in this sense becomes a comparative adjective, which is based on the western centric assumption that there is a process of linear evolution of the world in which the West leads world history and evolution and that other nations must follow in their footsteps towards a homogenous world.

The term development has acquired a special meaning since the end of World War II when an era of development was launched by the American President, Harry S. Truman, who publicly expressed the need to embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of scientific advances and industrial progress of his country available for the improvement and growth of “underdeveloped” areas. Discounting old imperialism and exploitation for foreign profit, he announced a program of development based on concepts of democratic fair dealing
Approaches to Sustainable Development

(Esteva 1992). Development by this declaration came to connote as an escape from the undignified condition called “underdevelopment”.
I) Development and its Impact. As development was predominantly defined in terms of increase in productivity, economic prosperity and an expansion of the market economy; underdevelopment had been constructed as the phenomena of poverty, low productivity and backwardness. There was optimism that economic growth was the fastest road to development. From the 1950s onwards, therefore, there has been an obsessive focus on industrialisation and growth of GNP and it has been assumed that the natural consequence of a rapid growth in these will bring about positive changes in existing social conditions. However there were several adverse consequences due to this.

a) As development has meant industrial growth, profits and resources were diverted to feed industry at times ignoring the basic subsistence need of society. It obviously led to the expansion of the market at the cost of livelihoods for many. While it has generated utilities of consumption and luxury, it has also resulted in higher levels of pollution and erosion of natural resources that threaten mankind’s very existence.

b) The growth-oriented development was accompanied by an increase in inequalities and social disintegration. There was evidence everywhere to show how development itself either left behind or even created a new large area of poverty and stagnation, making for marginalisation and exclusion of sections of populations from the fruits of social and economic progress. Gunder Frank who perceived the injustices of the existing developmental processes, coined the phrase development of underdevelopment, for he held that the process of development that is underway makes some people and regions developed while others are underdeveloped as a result of this global dynamics of the world system.

c) Economic growth has manifested itself in terms of an internationalisation of the economies of developing nations a boom in the financial capital at the disposal of nations; and increased mechanisation impacting processes and patterns of production and consumption. It has also meant increased concentration of wealth, wide disparities in distribution of wealth, the withdrawal of the welfare state and an increasing role of the military in the political and economic life of countries. Thus economic growth and economies of concentration cannot be a generator of development in the widest sense of the word.

d) The economic model is mechanistic and its assumption of economic rationality is not suited to poor Third World nations. A liberalised market, for instance, means an exclusion of the vast masses of the poor people from economy and that cannot be a way of removing poverty, the greatest developmental issue for the Third World.

e) Increased income levels, multiplied exports and raised economic growth of a few regions cannot take away from the urgency of the problems of increasing poverty of the masses, depleting resources, unemployment, underemployment, inadequate housing and mounting foreign debts that threaten national sovereignty, besides entailing a chain of reactions that can deplete national resources and capabilities to irreversible limits.

If this economic development causes anxiety, alienation, fragmentation, References cynicism and demobilisation, it would itself abort what it seeks to do, that is, progress of humanity. Yet we need development to address the powerlessness that people feel due to illiteracy, unemployment, lack of productive assets and lack of knowledge. We cannot deny the need to change the fact of substandard existence and poverty that dogs the vast masses of humanity. We must also work towards expanding possibilities for people to fulfill themselves, yet we must be cautious of “the binary, the mechanistic, the reductionist, the inhuman and the ultimately self-destructive approach to change” that development has meant, given its political anchoring (Rahnema 1997).

From the above discussions we can conclude that the balance sheet of development may not be very optimistic, yet it still carries the only possibility of ameliorating long standing human problems of poverty and backwardness. Now let's learn the different models of economic development.

Sociological Roots of Development Discourse
Comte, Morgan, Marx and Spencer on Development and Progress
One of the early concerns of anthropologists and sociologists was to examine the development and progress of human society from an evolutionary perspective. The grand ideas of Morgan, Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Weber and many others are still considered for examining the journey of human society through various stages of development and progress. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the philosophy of history, which helped to formulate the general idea of progress, became very important especially through the writings of Hegel and Saint-Simon who, later on, left their imprint References on the work of Auguste Comte and Karl Marx and others. Let us begin with the work of Comte who was a student of Saint-Simon.

a) Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
August Comte (1798-1857), the founding father of sociology focused his attention on the study of change, development and progress in human society. He divided the study of society into two parts: social statics (the study of major institutions or institutional complexes) and social dynamics (the study of development and change). Comte saw human society and history as a single entity. Moreover he regarded the history of Europe as synonymous with the history of the human race (Aron 1965: 65). Accordingly he made several generalisations.

Comte observed that certain types of societies were dying and others were being born. The dying types were the theological and military. Medieval society was united by transcendent faith as expounded by the Catholic Church. Theological thinking was contemporaneous with the predominance of military activity, which was expressed by the fact that the highest rank was granted to warriors. The type being born was scientific and industrial. In this society the scientists replaced the theologians; and the industrialists, businessmen, managers and financers replaced the warriors. Indeed from the moment man related thinking scientifically, the chief activity of collectivities ceases to be the war of man against man and becomes the struggle of man against nature, the systematic exploitation of natural resources (Ibid: 64).

Comte gave a universal scope and a deeper meaning to the idea of progress when he expounded the law of three stages of human evolution. To him, the human mind passes through three stages of progression — theological, metaphysical and positive. In the theological stage human beings explain phenomena by ascribing them to beings or forces comparable to humans themselves. In the metaphysical stage human beigns explain phenomena in terms of nature; in the positive scientific stage man examines the phenomena and their linkages are examined in terms of reasoning. “To Comte, the method that triumphed in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology must eventually prevail in politics and culminate in the founding of a positive science of society that is called sociology (Ibid: 66)”.

When Auguste Comte defined sociology as the science of order and progress, and divided it into social statics (order) and social dynamics (progress), he was in fact inferring that progress was possible through order. He tried to understand social changes that occurred in the early years of the industrial revolution as an evolutionary process. The theory of evolution explains that societies pass through a number of stages starting from a simple form and becoming more complex as the process of evolution progresses. In the same way, Auguste Comte put forward the idea of evolutionary change and also related the idea of progressive change to the development of intellect, in particular the development of scientific thought. This “law of three stages” postulates that intellectual progress is accompanied by moral development, with a number of changes in social institutions as well. Comte considered material as well as moral progress to be essential types of progress and social change as a product of internal forces, that too, in a linear form.

b Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Marx presents an interpretation of the structure, functioning and progression of the capitalist society from the previous stages. Marx however provides the idea of radical transformation of society by elucidating a comprehensive theory of human progress in terms of contradiction inherent in the material structure of society. To him the actual basis of society is its economic structure. To quote Marx: "In the social production which man carry on, they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, their relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitute the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which rise the legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social political and spiritual processes of life ….………………… At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production ……….. Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change in the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed to reference (Marx 1992)".

Marx outlines the asiatic, the ancient, the feudal and the capitalist as the References major modes of production or epochs in the progress of human society. The asiatic mode of production does not constitute a stage in the Western society. Primitive communities are charecterised by community ownership and their subordination by the State. In the ancient mode of production, slavery and in the feudal mode of production, serfdom provide the foundation of the productive system. The capitalist mode of production is characterised by large-scale commodity production, emergence of free labour markets and rapid growth of technology. Marx forecasts that capitalism would be replaced by socialism through violent revolution.

Marx argues that new developments of productive forces of society come in conflict with existing relations of production. For Marx, it is the growth of new productive forces and the contradiction built into them outline the course of human history. Class struggles have been recognised as the driving force of social change and development. To him “the history of the hitherto existing society is a history of class struggles”. The dichotomous class-based societies would be replaced through a vehement class struggle to usher in an epoch of classless, stateless society whereby each would contribute according to one’s capacity and would receive according to one’s need.

c) Durkheim (1858-1917)
Durkheim also conceived society in terms of an evolutionary scheme. He talked about social solidarity by which he meant the moral beliefs and ideas, which defined the “common sense” underlying social life. Like a social evolutionist, he was of the view that mechanical solidarity (characteristics of pre-industrial societies) was based on agreement and identity between people, while organic solidarity in industrial societies was derived from agreement to tolerate a range of differences, conflicts being moderated through a variety of institutional arrangements such as courts, trade unions and political parties.

In the pre-industrial societies there is little or no division of labour, every one works in similar ways and consumes in similar ways; there is little division of opinion, little individuality. In organic solidarity, on the other hand, there are specialisation of activities and advanced division of labour whose production, distribution and consumption are carried out in specialised ways (Durkheim 1965: 133).

Durkheim tried to explain social change as the result of changes in the bonds of morality, which he called social solidarity. Societies based on mechanical solidarity are transferred to organic solidarity by the growth of industrialisation, heterogeneity, differentiation, specialisation of activity and individualism. The problem of the growth of population, shrinking of natural resources and growing individualism (growth of material and moral density), according to him, is resolved by division of labour in the industrial society, i.e., in the organic solidarity. As each individual is specialised and also individualism is respected they are socially integrated with bondage of division of labour. Indeed division of labour in the organic solidarity ensures the integration of individual References specialisation in the system. However, abnormal division of labour, according the Durkheim, may lead to normlessness (anomie)

Material and Moral Density
To Durkheim, material density means sheer increase in the number of population in a gives space. Which moral density indicates the increased interaction among individuals caused by their increase in numbers.

Durkheim considers the development of the division of labour in the society to be associated with the increasing contact among people (moral density) since the greater density of contact lead to the specialisation of people. But, he argues, the moral relationship can only produce its effect only if the real distance between individuals diminish, which means increase in material density. What Durkheim refers here is that moral density cannot grow unless material density grows at the same time.
d) Max Weber (1864-1920)
Weber has examined the question of development of human society in the context of his study on capitalism. He pointed out that capitalism, as a symbol of progress, emerged out of rationalisation of work ethics, savings, frugal life style beliefs, values, and attitudes. Weber pointed out that capitalist industrialisation emerged in selected countries of Western Europe and not in other places because Calvinist Protestants of these countries developed a lifestyle of this worldly asceticism by way of rationalising their thoughts, religious beliefs and values to reduce consumption and to promote investment in industry with a view to glorifying the world as desired by god. Turning to India, Max Weber pointed out that the predominance of traditional values of Hindustan in terms of Dharma, Karma, Moksha and Sansar, traditional caste values, etc., were the major hindrance to the development of rational capitalism in India. In brief, Weber observed the development of human society from traditional pre-industrial to rational capitalist which was mediated by a process of rationalization of religious beliefs.

David McClelland, like Max Weber, emphasised those internal factors like the values and motives of the persons to provide opportunities to shape their own destiny. Therefore, the problems of backwardness, poverty, malnutrition, etc., are vitally linked to traditional and non-traditional thought. He was of the view that educational programmes and technical aid aimed at increasing the “need for achievement” of the people of backward areas are needed to solve these problems. McClelland concluded that modernisation and development can be achieved through a process of diffusion of culture, ideas and technology.
Development: Social and Human Dimensions


As discussed in the previous section, in classical term development is always deliberated with economic connotations and it is referred to as an increase in the gross national product or in per capita income. In this understanding, development is equated with growth and it is envisioned that a quantum increase in the production of goods and services would bring development. It was also assumed that the trickle-down effect of growth would lead to an References equitable sharing of benefits, resources and opportunities in society. This process of development, however, has not been able to yield the desired result to humanity, especially in the developing countries. Development pattern of the past few decades have shown the following trends:

  • The high Gross National Product (GNP) growth of the fast growing developing countries has failed to reduce the socio-economic deprivation of substantial sections of their population.

  • High income for the industralised countries has not been able to provide protection against the rapid spread of social concerns like drug addiction and alcoholism, AIDS, homelessness, violence and the breakdown of family relations.
Significantly, some low-income countries have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve a high level of human development if they skillfully use the available means to expand basic human capabilities (UNDP 1990: 10).

Against this backdrop, there has been a perceptive shift in conceptualising development. The realisation is that economic growth is essential for humanity but it should be seen only as a means to improve human choices. The Human Development Report, 1990 states clearly: "We are rediscovering the essential truth that people must be at the center of all development. The purpose of development is to offer people more options. One of their options is access to income – not as an end in itself but as a means of acquiring human well being. But there are other options as well, including long life, knowledge, political freedom, personal security, community participation and guaranteed human rights. People cannot be reduced to a single dimension as an economic creature. What makes them and the study of development process fascinating is the entire spectrum through which human capacities are expanded and utilised. It is now realised that people are the real wealth of a nation, that the basic objective of development is to create an enabling environment for the people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives and that the statistical aggregates to measure national income and its growth have at times obscured the fact that the primary objective of development is to benefit people" (UNDP 1990).
In this background let us discuss the concept of human development.
a) Human Development
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), human development is a process of analysing people's choices. In principle, these choices can be infinite and change over time. But at all levels of development, the three essential ones are there for people (a) to lead a long and healthy life, (b) to acquire knowledge and (c) to have access to resources needed for a decent standard of living. If these essential choices are not available many other opportunities remain inaccessible. Human development, however, does not end there. Additional choices, ranging from political, economic and social freedom to opportunities for being creative and productive and enjoying personal self-respect and guaranteed human rights are also inseparable parts of human rights.

UNDP depicts two sides of human development (a) the formation of human capabilities – such as improved health, knowledge and access to resources; and (b) the people making use of these capabilities for productive purposes— being active in cultural, social and political affairs.

Approaches to Sustainable Development

If the scales of human development do not finely balance the two sides, considerable human frustration may result. According to this concept of human development, “income is merely one option that people would like to have, albeit an important one. But it is not the sum total of their lives. Development must, therefore, be more than just the expansion of income and wealth. Its focus must be people” (Ibid:10).

Human Approach to Development
The Human Development Approach to development is different from the conventional approaches to development, i.e., the economic growth, human capital formation, human resources development, human welfare or the basic human needs approaches. As stated earlier, economic growth, that is, the increase in production (GDP) is necessary but not sufficient for human development. The theories of human capital formation and human resources development consider the human being as a means and not as an end. They are concerned with the supply side. The human welfare approach visualises people only as passive recipients of benefits of development and not as its participants. The basic needs approach aims to satisfy the basic minimum needs, i.e., food, shelter, clothing, etc., of the deprived sections of the population rather than on the issue of human choices (UNDP 1990: 11).

The human development approach puts equal emphasis on the production and distribution of resources, expansion and use of human capabilities, scope of choice, livelihood security, participatory process, social, economic and political freedom. All these indeed emphasise a paradigm shift in the social development strategy of the State.

b) Concern Against Ruthless, Rootless, etc. Growth
Following the conventional path of growth, the world has become more polarised and the gulf between the poor and the rich has widened further. The UNDP, in its Human Development Report (1996), points that the poorest 20% of the world’s population has experienced a decline in its share of global income from 2.3% to 1.4% in the last 30 years, whereas the share of the richest 20% rose from 70% to 85% during the same period. The gap in per capita income between the industrial and developing worlds trebled. There have been regional imbalances. The UNDP has voiced its concern against the jobless, ruthless, voiceless, rootless and fortuneless growth in the late 1990s.

It was jobless growth, since the economy grew but did not expand the opportunities for employment for large sections of the population. For the developing countries, jobless growth has meant long hours and very low incomes for hundreds of millions of people in low productivity work in agriculture and in other informal sectors. This developmental process has been rendered ruthless by the fact that the fruits of economic growth have mostly benefited the rich; while millions of people stagnate in poverty. Ruthless growth causes people’s cultural identity to wither. At places the dominant majority culture amplifies at the cost of marginalisation of the minority cultures. It has also been a voiceless growth as in many places it has not ensured the process of democratic participation of the people in decision making processes. The voiceless growth process also provides women a marginal role in economic development. Again, fast economic growth is also achieved in some countries at the cost of destruction of forests, polluting rivers, destroying bio-diversity and depleting natural resources. In this futureless growth, the present generation squanders resources needed by the future generation. At times the futureless growth benefits the industrialized countries at the cost of increased pressure on the poor people of the developing countries. As against this backdrop, the UNDP says development that perpetuates today’s inequalities is neither sustainable nor worth sustaining (HDR 1996: 4).

c) Development as Freedom References
In this context it is important to examine how development is being viewed as freedom by Amartya Sen (1999). To him, development must be perceived as a vital process of expanding real freedom that people enjoy. To him, expansion of real income and economic growth are not necessarily characteristics of successful development as countries with high GDP and per capita income at times have low achievements in the quality of life. On the other hand countries with low GDP and low per capita incomes have higher human development indicators. Here the central purpose of development is to improve human lives, i.e., expanding the range of things that human beings can achieve and can do. To him, the objective of development is to remove obstacles such as illiteracy, illhealth, poverty, lack of access to resources or lack of civil and political freedom. He does not deny that economic prosperity should be the major goal of planning and policy making. This is, however, only an intermediate goal to contribute to the ultimate goal of development, i.e., the development of human lives. To Sen, both the primary end and the principal means of development is expansion of freedom as freedom in one type helps advancing freedom of other types. While access to economic opportunities is a major factor of economic growth, he also recognises the contribution of instrumental freedom (political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security) in enhancing economic growth and the contribution of economic growth to facilitate those freedoms that come into the way of full attainment of human potentials.


Development 
Indicators 



Most people would agree that development is a process and the process is multi-dimensional. When any process is conceived as multi-dimensional, it becomes difficult to adequately capture its character through any index. However, some attempts have been made to measure the level. We shall discuss four alternatives to measure the level of development: Per Capita Income, Physical Quality of Life Index, Human Development Index and Quality of Life Index.



Per Capita Income
Gross domestic product is supposed to measure the level of output produced by the economy during an accounting period. However, the command of people over goods is somewhat different than GDP. We have our property outside our own national economy and some of our nationals work in other countries. As a result, we earn wage income or property income outside the country. Similarly, foreigners have property in our economy and some foreigners do work here. Adjusting for these incomes, we get gross national product (GNP). In the case of large countries and countries having little interaction with other countries for factors of production, GDP and GNP are not very different. But, there are economies where GNP and GDP are quite different. In our case, GNP is somewhat less than GDP. It may be noted that GNP better represents the entitlement of the nationals of a country (individuals and their collectivities) while GDP actually shows the output of the activities carried out within the economic boundaries of the country.
Still further, we should take account of consumption of fixed capital in the process of production. We should ensure that the capital stock is kept intact during the year; otherwise, we shall, one day, eat away the whole of our fixed capital. So, we should subtract that amount of capital, which we think has been consumed in the process of production. Then, what we shall get is known as Net National Product (NNP). Net national product is also known as the national income. We shall use a particular version of net national product known as net national product at factor cost and designate as NNPFC.
Now, if we want to compare the welfare of people at two points of time or of two economies at the same point of time, it becomes necessary to find out the size of population. From the view point of welfare or well-being of the people, for which development is pursued, it is suggested that the NNPFC, valued at constant prices, should be divided by the size of the population. NNPFC divided by population is popularly known as per capita income. It helps us to compare the level of development of the country in 2001 when we are 100 crore with that in 1961 when we were 43 crore only. In order to render international comparisons meaningful, national incomes should be divided by sizes of their respective populations. Otherwise a country like Canada, which by all standards, is considered a rich country, could be found to be poorer than India. The population of India may be 30 times that of Canada.
Such a division (deflation/normali­sation) is needed even to assess the progress over time. For example, our NNPFC has grown a little more than eight fold over the last fifty years but the population has also almost trebled during this period. As a result, per capita income has grown less than three times. Our living conditions can be expected to have become better by a factor of three rather than by a factor eight. 


With this in view, per capita national income has come to be increasingly used. In short, it helps us to compare the development of India with that of the USA or with that of Pakistan for any given year as also our own development over time. We may further note that it is this indicator, which is often used to categorise countries as developed/ underdeveloped countries or high/ middle/low income countries. In the case of international comparison, per capita incomes of different countries have to be brought to a common currency.
However, it is very often pointed out that its scope is quite limited. Most of the limitations arise from the numerator whatever it may be, namely, GDP, GNP or NNP. These concepts do not account for the economic activities performed inside the household, which are non-marketed. Bulk of women’s household work gets ignored, while it is equally important from the point of view of well-being and welfare of people. It does not adequately capture activities performed even outside household. As production is valued in terms of market prices, activities for which there does not exist market do not adequately get accounted for. It is also pointed out that economic welfare, which it can measure, even though imperfectly, is not the total welfare that the people look for.
The following three suggestions have been made for correcting the weaknesses of the measure of per capita income:
1              Distribution of national income over individuals is an important dimension, which cannot be ignored. National income and its distribution, both, have to be considered together. It has been argued that the welfare of a society depends on what is the size of the cake and how it is distributed over people.
2              Over time, people have come to enjoy more leisure, which, according to many, may be the ultimate aim of all activities. It has, therefore, been argued that its value needs to be added to the national income in order to make it yield a better measure of welfare.
3              A suggestion was also made to deduct the social cost of harmful effects in terms of variety of pollutions that many economic activities entail.

Evolution of Alternative Measures
These corrections, however, did not leave many people satisfied and national income or its per capita variant as indicators of welfare have been in use for long though with reservations. However, in the last few decades, some attempts have been made to develop some alternative indicators of economic welfare and of social development. Search for better indicators of social development has continued.
 We often read in the newspaper that Sri Lanka has a fairly high life expectancy, low infant mortality and good literacy levels. The levels in Sri Lanka are comparable to their counterparts in developed countries. Our own state Kerala has done wonders on literacy front as well as on demography front. Tamil Nadu is also faring well. Therefore, it was natural for researchers to try to develop such indices as would capture these social dimensions.
There is an UN institution called United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). In this institute, people tried to develop such indices as would encompass social, political and economic variables 
(indicators) impinging upon industria­lisation, urbanisation and moderni­sation. They went on enlisting indicators, which they thought, reflected some or the other dimension of development. At one stage, they listed as many as 73 indicators though, finally, they selected only 16 as it was found that many of the indicators were reflected through others. 
While at your level, it is not necessary to go into the nitty-gritty of the ways the indices were developed, an idea of the variables that were included in such attempts could be of some interest. The variables included are per capita income, hospital beds and number of doctors per lakh of population. They also included enrolment rates, electricity consumption and steel consumption per head. Length of metalled roads, number of villages electrified and availability of post offices also got their way into it. So did the character of agricultural organisation. These are important indicators and are considered by many as the ends in themselves.

A question was, however, raised: whether inputs can be taken as development indicators. While enrolment rate indicates an input, literacy rate shows the output. While hospital facilities indicate inputs, life expectancy shows the output. If you have better sanitation, you have better health and you require less of hospital facilities. Even income is in a way an input. 
Researchers and policy-makers were not very happy with such alternatives to national income as welfare measures as they did not find the approach suitable to produce a meaningful social indicator. Attempts were, then, made to develop composite index of development, purportedly based on aims and objectives of development or outcomes of the development process rather on the means thereof.

Quality of Life Indices
We may recall the constituents of quality of life in the previous chapter. They were generally indicated as health, freedom, education, environment, etc., the things that you directly enjoy. Based on these parameters, attempts have been made in the recent past to construct indices, which may, broadly, be called indices of quality of life. In fact, longevity and

literacy have undisputedly been accepted as parameters of quality of life. We shall be studying two popular indices, viz., Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) and Human Development Index (HDI), which have both used longevity and literacy as basic constituents. There is, indeed, an attempt to measure quality of life and we will make reference to it towards the end.
It is important to remind at this stage that these indices were developed in the international context and were used for ranking different countries according to numerical value of achievement in descending order. The indices are simple arithmetic averages of normalised aggregates for society/groups.
Physical Quality of Life Index
Towards the end of the seventies of the past century, Morris David Morris perused the variables adopted by several UN Committees, the UNRISD, and the OECD development economists. He found that most of the indicators were inputs to development process rather than result of the development process. These indicators reflected the belief that there exists only one course of development. It implied that economically less developed countries are simply underdeveloped versions of industrialised countries. This view has certain biases and value-bias of Europe. It overlooks the diversity among the underdeveloped countries and the differences in social organisation in different economies. Moreover, such efforts seem to measure development as an activity rather than as an end. He, therefore, proposed a set of criteria for developing a composite index of development. He further proposed that indicators chosen should reflect results and social distribution of results and should not reflect values of specific (Euro-American) societies. Composite index should be simple to construct and easy to comprehend and should lead itself to international comparison.
Choice of Indicators
Morris, therefore, tried to look for those indicators, which were the results of the development efforts, were not the values of particular societies as there could be non-market, non-urban, non-industrial or non-plan ways to develop. They should create no problems in international comparison. Out of hundred and odd indicators, he could find only three which could have universal appeal as ends in themselves and meet the criteria laid down. These are:
1.    Life Expectancy (LE),
2.    Infant Mortality (IM), and
3.    Basic Literacy (BL).

These three indicators could be improved in a variety of ways. Whether a country should attain higher life expectancy through better medical facilities or better sanitation or better nutrition, is not really important. But it is universally accepted that a country should have high life expectancy. Whether a country should have a higher rate of basic literacy through formal channels or non-formal channels is not important. But a country should try to attempt for higher level of literacy is the point. This is also almost universally accepted. Whosoever is born will die, is accepted but those who have been born should not die as children in infancy. This is the point generally accepted.

Now, there is a technical issue. Normally, life expectancy at birth is the index used. Infant mortality refers to deaths before age one. Therefore, Morris suggested that life expectancy at age one should be used instead of life expectancy at birth. In case, the figure for life expec­tancy at age one was not available, it could be worked out by using a formula, which relates life expectancy at birth, infant mortality and the proportion of children.
Normalisation of Indicators
We know that life expectancy is measured in terms of years, infant mortality rate in terms of per thousand and basic literacy rate in terms of percentage. They cannot be simply added. Further, while basic literacy rate can have a natural zero for minimum and 100 for maximum, there exist no natural minimum or maximum values for other indicators. For the purpose of comparison, each of the levels should, therefore, be normalised. Morris chose the best and worst levels in each of the three cases. In the case of positive indicators of life expectancy and basic literacy, the best is denoted by the maximum and the worst by the minimum. But, in the case of negative indicator of infant morality, the best is represented by the minimum and the worst by the maximum. For converting the actual levels of a positive variable into normalised indicators, first the minimum values are subtracted from their respective actual values and then, the gap so obtained is divided by the range (between the maximum and the minimum). In other words, for positive indicators:
 Actual Value – Minimum Value
Achievement Level= –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
        Maximum Value–Minimum Value
For the negative indicator of infant mortality, first the actual value has to be subtracted from the maximum value and then the gap has to be divided by the range. In other words,
Maximum Value – Actual Value
Achievement Level=–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Maximum Value–Minimum Value 

Human Development Index
Only ten years passed since the PQLI was developed, another index came into being. Since 1990, an agency of the United Nations, viz. the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been publishing every year a report called Human Development Report. This report, besides discussing various aspects of human development, has been ranking various countries according to the level of human development index.
Before the human development index is described, it would be an interesting idea to look at the GDP/GNP from a fresh angle. It is pointed out that these measures are measures of activity and they concentrate on production of commodities -- goods and services. We should, it is suggested, instead focus on capabilities and measure improvement in capabilities of people. Living long and healthy life is a capability and so is to be able to read and write. With rising capabilities, we have wider choices and development is what if not widening of choices! The idea has an added dimension that these capabilities cannot be accumulated. In a way it is close to PQLI except that now the theoretical scaffolding is strong. But at the same time, a non-physical entity will enter in the making of index and it will create problem for international comparison.
The Index
Human Development Index is broadly an average of social aggregates/averages of longevity, knowledge and access to resources. To put it more concretely, it is an equi-weighted average of :
1.    Life Expectancy Index (LEI)
2.    Education Attainment Index (EAI)
3.    Standard of Living Index (SLI)

where the sub-indices were to be calculated by the same old method of the PQLI. In other words,
HDI=(1/3)(LEI+EAI+SLI)
Components
Life expectancy here refers to life expectancy at birth, not at age one, because infant mortality is not entering this index as a separate indicator. Educational attainment is literacy plus. To begin with, it was only adult literacy. Later on, it became a combination of adult literacy rate and mean years of schooling. In highly developed countries, adult literacy was complete but education level was still rising. This could be reflected through mean years of schooling or enrolment ratio. Now, mean years of schooling have been replaced by combined enrolment ratio. The weight assigned to adult literacy rate (ALR) is 2/3 while that for combined enrolment ratio (CER) is 1/3. Therefore, educational attainment index may be given as:
EAI = (2/3) ALR + (1/3) CER
Standard of living is represented here by a transformation of per capita income. Besides longevity and knowledge, it has been argued, there are many things which people desire. It is difficult to capture them. For living a decent life, people need resources. Per capita national income is the simplest measure of resources at the command of people. Since this exercise has basically been conducted for international comparison, per capita incomes of different nations have per force to be brought to some common denominator. Per capita incomes are first converted into purchasing power parity dollars (PPP$).
The second step concerns with the fact that the returns to a dollar of income is not the same throughout the whole range of income. The increase in returns should diminish as income increases and should eventually become zero. This idea was handled by the UNDP in a variety of ways. Presently, standard of living is being captured by the log-transform of per capita income (PCI) in PPP$. In other words,
Standard of living = log (PCI in PPP$)
You know very well that, at base 10, logarithms of 10, 100, 1000, and 10000 are 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively. Thus, returns to additions in income are diminishing as income goes on increasing. There could be many other ways to accomplish this feature. The UNDP has tried other formulae in past but thought it proper to change to simple logarithm conversion.
Normalisation
Since we are using only positive indicators in this index, we can write only one formula for computing the component indices (CI):
Actual Value of the Component–
Minimum Value of the ComponentCI = –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Maximum Value of the Component– Minimum Value of the Component
where CI stands for LEI, ALRI, CERI and SLI. It may be noted that ALRI and CERI are just ALR and CER respectively, each divided by 100.
Minimum and Maximum Values
After a lot of debate over years and following the norms for various components, the UNDP has finally fixed that the number of countries for which the following minimum and maximum exercise could be conducted varied from values for various components of Human year to year. Fluctuation in rank partly Development Index (see Table 2.2). owes to number of countries included.
HDI and India
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been compiling human development indices for different countries for which it had access to relevant data. These indices are published in Human Development Report, brought out annually by the UNDP.


countries on uniform basis with same methodology by ensuring comparability across nations and over time, at an interval of five years since 1975 (See Table 2.4).
We should notice that our HDI is improving since the mid-seventies. Perhaps we are improving on all fronts, life expectancy (reflecting health to some extent), education (including literacy) and general standard of living (represented by per capita income). The UNDP has been categorising various countries as countries with high human development, with medium human development and with low human development, depending upon whether a country had HDI value above 0.8, between 0.5 and 0.8 or below 0.5. Prior to 2000, India was considered as low human development nation. In 2000, it has become a country with medium human development
It will not be out of place to inform that some scholars have done inter­state comparison for India while some state governments have come out with state-level exercises for human development index. These reports do contain more information on human development than are available in compilation of HDI. Since March 2002, our Planning commission has also come out with a report known as National Human Development Report.
Quality of Life Index
Some economists still feel that, though human development approach talks of many dimensions, the human development index encompasses only very few of them, though important ones. They feel that political and civic dimensions, if not environmental ones, need to be incorporated in any such exercise.
In one such contribution ‘On Measuring the Quality of Life’, Dasgupta and Weale have considered six parameters what they have called living standards’ indicators or constituents of well-being. These are: (i) per capita income in PPP$, (ii) life expectancy at birth in years, (iii) infant mortality rate in per thousand live births, (iv) adult literacy rate in per cent of adult population, (v) index of political rights in seven-point scale and (vi) index of civil rights in seven-point scale. We may note that civil rights are rights of individuals vis-a-vis the State, while political rights are citizens’ right to play a part in governance of their country. Governance will mean who will govern and under what laws. While the first four could be called ‘socio-economic’ indicators, the last two could be said to be ‘political and civil’ indicators.
These indicators are aggregated in a peculiar way. First, countries are ranked according to each of the indicators in ascending order from worst to best. Second, the ranks for different indicators of country are added and thus for each country a rank-score is obtained. Third, countries are again ranked according to their rank-scores.
Though, this work was done from late 1970s to early 1990s, using the data relating the results are interesting. Of 48 countries listed, Mauritius comes the best and Sri Lanka, the second best. China and India come 10th and 12th best from the top, while Bangladesh and Pakistan come 26th and 30th from the top. In both the pairs, scores in ‘socio-economic’ indicators are found to diverge from those in ‘political and civil’ indicators. In ‘socio-economic’ indicators, China scores better than India, Pakistan and Bangladesh but in ‘Political and Civil’ indicators, India scores better than China, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Though the story is a bit old, it may hold even today.
Concluding Remarks
Intellectuals and policy-makers were not very happy with the use of GDP or its per capita variant as an indicator of welfare or development. Some economists developed composite indices taking into consideration the distributional aspects. Others did try to modify the GDP by adding the values of those things that were left out in the idea of GDP or subtracting the cost of the items that do not contribute to the welfare.
Some other scholars and agencies thought that they should directly measure the development, particularly social development. They considered all possible variables that impinged upon modernisation, urbanisation and industrialisation. Most of the variables were all on the side of inputs. They combined inputs with output. The result was not a happy one.
Morris developed what he called the Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI). He thought that it represented the outcome of developments. He was conscious of the fact that many psychological aspects, which are no way less important, were not covered in this index. He did not deliberately cover the monetary aspects which pose problem for international comparison.
The PQLI had a great technical flaw. Infant mortality and life expectancy both referred to the same demographic ground. It was further found that the concept did not include many other aims and objectives of life except longevity and knowledge. So came HDI, the Human Development Index, which incorporated per capita income along with longevity and knowledge (redefined as educational attainment). There are objections to incorporation of income in HDI on many counts. Yet, the UNDP considers it prudent to include it as proxy to the uncovered aspects of well-being.
Many scholars are not completely happy and have chosen to indicate an alternative. Parthasarthy Dasgupta and Martin Weale suggested a way of combining some aspects of quality of life into an index, which is called Quality of Life Index.