India: Background
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Investigating India
If you are interested in examining the following issues, on a future exchange visit to India, contact the WORLDwrite Centre.
India is the seventh largest country in the world and the second largest nation in Asia. Its population is expected to pass the one billion mark by the start of the twenty-first century. India is home to one of the world's oldest civilisations, certainly by European standards. It is a nuclear power and has recently tested nuclear weapons. It is the home to several major religions - Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Christians - and the world's largest secular democracy.
India is a modern country and a leader in the developing world. Since independence in 1947 the continent has made great strides in modernising both agriculture and industry, but for many people in the north, India is a country defined by extremes of poverty. Development is high on the Indian agenda, but what sort of development? After the world's worst industrial accident in Bhopal in 1984 many asked at what price is industrial development acceptable? Nearly half the industrial output of India draws on raw materials such as cotton, wood, rubber and jute.
As Indian industry expands many people are concerned at the environmental impact on land use and traditional patterns of life. India is a dynamic country and the pace of change is fast. Change generates questions and problems that need to be understood if solutions are to be found. The developmental issues confronting India at the start of the new millennium will affect all of our lives. In today's global world we must be able to discuss and debate development issues in the light of the facts and how they impact on the people they directly effect. All too often in the north these issues are dominated by prejudice.
On the India exchange pants will explore many of the issues at the heart of the development debate and to find out what people at the centre of them think and want. We will be visiting some of India's major cities such as Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Chandigarh. We will spend time in the rural areas of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and the Punjab. We will talk to NGOs, landless people, farmers, scientists, engineers, schools students and politicians.
The India exchange was initiated to explore and challenge northern perceptions of India. It is not for tourists or the faint-hearted but for young people who want to discover for themselves the truth about Indian life and are prepared to come home and tell people what they have learned. These are some of the issues we will be researching when we are India.
Children's rights
Child labour is a key issue in India and for consumers in the north. Children can have to work long hours in poor conditions for wages that would not even be equivalent to pocket money for children in the UK. Campaigns and organisations have been set up to tackle this problem, from the Indian Bonded Labour Liberation Front to northern consumer campaigns like Rugmark. In Rajhastan children's parliaments have been set up to give children a voice and say in the affairs that affect their lives. WORLDwrite will be investigating how campaigns and organisations work to improve children's lives. Some of the issues we will be looking at: Are Indian perceptions of childhood different to those in the wealthy north? How important is children's labour to the Indian economy and family income? Can the rights of children ever be in conflict with the rights of others? What kind of solutions are offered by empowering children?
Development impact
The Green Revolution transformed agriculture in a country where hunger is still an issue today. New hybrid high-yield crops, chemical fertilisers, machinery and irrigation schemes revolutionised land use and led to massive increases in the production of wheat and rice. These developments enabled India to survive a national drought in 1988 and even to donate grain to Africa during the famines of the eighties. But this development has had a dramatic impact: traditional patterns of land use have been superseded with an real affects on traditional communities and ways of life; increased productivity has led to the rise of large scale farming and a widening gap between rich and poor farmers contributing to rural migration into urban areas; extensive fertiliser and irrigation use can have an environmental impact on the land itself; single crop production means that traditional diversity is lost.
Were the gains of the Green Revolution worth the problems many think it has created? Are traditional land use patterns the best? Should the question of who benefits - rich farmers, the rural poor, northern trans-national companies - from development be a major factor in deciding what kind of development should go ahead? With introduction of GM crops into India this area of research will of particular topical importance.
Like the Green Revolution, large dams can be said to have brought many benefits to the Indian economy both in terms of providing water for drinking and irrigation as well as a cheap source of Hydro-electric power. But today, major dam projects are at a standstill because of the environmental issues that they raise; displacement of tribal and rural people, their impact on bio-diversity, and the question of who gains from their construction. Large-scale development has an impact, it can generate problems, and certainly raises key questions that society must address. WORLDwrite will be visiting areas where concerns about environmental impact are helping to set the development agenda of the future. And talking to those behind these schemes and those affected by them.
Sustainable development
Many of the issues raised by change and large-scale development have given rise to new practices and solutions that are seen as being more appropriate for the south. From micro-credit to micro-hydro projects the proponents of sustainable development argue that they have a vision that allows India to develop at a pace and in a manner appropriate to its environment and traditional patterns of life. But can a pre-occupation with the impact of development blind us to the benefits that development can bring?
Would sustainable development just leave hundreds of millions of Indian people locked into the struggle for survival that has been the pattern for generations? WORLDwrite will be visiting many of these projects all over India and evaluating them both in terms of the issues facing India today and the aspirations of Indian people.