Question

State the main arguments in the debate that ensued between industrialisation and agricultural development at the time of the Second Five Year Plan.

Answer 1

At the time of the Second Five-Year Plan, some controversial issues arose in reference to the relevancy of agriculture over industry.

1. The Second Five-Year Plan emphasised industry in place of agriculture in rural India.
2. J.C. Kumarappa, a Gandhian Economist proposed an alternative blueprint to emphasise rural industrialisation.
3. Bharatiya Lok Dal leader Chaudhary Charan Singh also commented that the planning led to the creation of prosperity in Urban and industrial sections at the cost of rural welfare. Others debated that without an increase in the industrial sector, poverty could not be alleviated:

1. 1. India's planning did not have an agrarian strategy to boost the production of food grains.
   2. It also proposed programmes of community development and spent large sums on irrigation projects, and failure was not that of policy but of its non-implementation because of the politics of land-owning classes.
      (in) Besides, they also argued that even if the government had spent more money on agriculture, it would not have solved the massive problem of rural poverty.