Chapter 3

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

FACTS THAT MATTER

•"Human development is a process of enlarging the range of people's choices, increasing. their opportunities for education, health care, income and empowerment and covering the full range of human choices from a sound physical environment to economic social and political freedom".

•Enlarging people's choices' is the most significant aspect of human development (H.D.)

•Some of the non-negotiable aspects of H.D, are

(a) Leading a long and healthy life

(b) To be educated and

(c) Have access to resources needed for a decent standard of living with personal self respect, political problem and guaranteed human rights.

•Western/Eurocentric view of development: Every government community or individual measures its performance (level of development) in relation to the availability and access to computerisation, industrialisation, transport and communication network, education and health care, safety and security etc. But this is partial or one sided view. Colonisation, marginalization, social discrimination, regional disparity are the other aspects as well.

•For India, development is a mixed bag' of opportunities as well as neglect and deprivation.

•The developed areas (metros) have all the opportunities available to a small section of population while there are large rural areas and slums in urban areas which do not have the basic amenities like water, health care, education, sanitation.

•The situation is alarming among the different sections of our society like the poor farmers, landless agricultural labourers, S.C., S.T., slum dwellers are deprived.

Females are the worst sufferers. Sadly their conditions have worsened over the years and these marginalized lot are formed to live under sub-human conditions.

•Development has direct bearings on the deteriorating human conditions leading to ecological crisis - Air, soil, land, noise pollutions have threatened the existence of our society.

•As a result the poorer people are subjected to declining capabilities, like: (a) Social capabilities - due to displacement

(b) Environmental capabilities due to pollution

•Thus, it is evident that development failed to address the issues of social justice, regional imbalances and environmental degradation. Rather it is taken as one of the main causes of social distributive injustice, deterioration in the quality of life and human development, ecological crisis and social unrest.

•The first H.D. report by United Nations Development Programme was published 1990. The 1993 report says that "development must be woven around people and io the people around development"

Human Development in India

•India with 1.21 billion people is ranked 131 among 188 countries (H.D.I value 0.624 (UNDP 2016) - with countries of medium H.D.

•Low scores is a matter of concern as lack of sensitivity to the historical factors like colonization, imperialism, socio cultural factors like human rights violation, social discrimination on the basis of race, gender, caste, religion, social problems like crimes, terrorism, war, forms of govt., are some factors which are crucial in determining the nature of H.D. -specially for India.

•Planning commission of India prepares the HD report using states and the UTs as the unit of analysis. State govt. prepare HD report based on districts as unit of analysis.

•Apart from the basic indicators to calculate HD, the Planning Commission also take into account aspects of economic attainments, social empowerment, social distributive justice, welfare measures undertaken, etc.

Indicators of Economic Attainments

•Access to resource by the poor, down trodden and marginalized sections is the key to productivity, well being and human development.

•Gross National Product (GNP) and its per capital availability are taken as measures to assess resource base endowment of any country. Economic attainment and the well-being of individuals depend on economic growth, employment opportunities and access to assets.

•Over the years the per capita income and consumption expenditure in India has increased. As a result these has been a consistent decline in the proportion of population living below the poverty line.

•The percentage of persons below the poverty line in 2011-12 has been estimated as 25.7% in rural areas, 13.7% in urban areas and 21.9% for the country as whole.

•The data of poverty for the states show that states and Union Territory like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Dadra and Nagar Haveli which have recorded more than 30% of their population living below the poverty line.

•Other states and Union Territory like Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir (In 2019, it is bifurcated into two Union Territories i.e., Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh), Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttarakhand and West Bengal have recorded between 10 to 20% of their population below poverty line.

•Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, kerala, Punjab, Sikkim, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Island, Daman & Diu, Lakshadweep have below 10% of their population living below poverty line.

•Poverty is a state of deprivation, which reflects the inability of an individual to satisfy certain basic needs for a sustained healthy and productive life. Jobless growth and unemployment are the main causes of poverty.

Indicators of a Healthy life

•Living a long and healthy life - free from illness and diseases with a long life span are the indicators of healthy living

•Availability of pre and post natal care facilities in order to reduce infant mortality and post delivery deaths, old age health care, adequate nutrition and safety of individuals are some important measures of a healthy and reasonably long life.

•Some facts about Indian health care system:

1. Decline in death rate from 25.1 / 1000 in 1951 to 6.5/ 1000 in 2015.

2. Infant mortality rate from 148/1000 to 37/1000 during the same period.

3. Improved life expectancy from 37.1 years to 66.9 years (males) and 36.2 years to 70 years (females) between 1951-2015.

4. Birth Rate has come down from 40.8 to 20.8 in the same year.

5. Decline in sex ratio over the years except in Kerala, it has fallen to alarmino - specially in developed states of Haryana and Punjab where it has gone down to <850 females/1000 males.

Indicators of Social Empowerment

•Development is Freedom specially freedom from poverty, hunger, illiteracy, servitude and any other forms of domination.

•Freedom is only possible with the empowerment and participation of the people in the exercise of their choices and capabilities in society.

•Access to knowledge about society and environment is fundamental. Literacy opens up the gates to such access.

Some facts on literacy:

•Overall literacy in India is 74.04% (2011) (female-65.46%6)

•Literacy rate (along with that of the females) is higher than national average in most of the southern states.

•Wide variation among states-Bihar (63.02%) while Kerala's is 93.91%

•Literacy is very low in the rural areas as well as in the marginalized sections of our society-though they too have registered an improvement in the rate.

Human Development Index in India

•India has been placed in the 'medium' HDI group with Kerala (0.790) at the top among the Indian states- followed by Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Punjab. Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh are at bottom of HDI in India.

Factors affecting HDI in India

There are many reasons behind such differences among the states

(a)Socio political: Kerala has the highest value largely due to its high literacy rate compared to the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Assam etc.

(b) Economic: Economically developed states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu., Punjab, Haryana have higher HDI value, compared to the economically weaker states.

(c) Historical: The social disparities and regional distortions which developed during o the colonial period continue to play a significant role in the Indian society.

Govt. of India is trying to institutionalise the balanced development with its main focus on social distributive justice through planned development.

Population, Environment and Development

•Development is a complex concept. On the one hand it has brought improvement in the quality of life but at the same time led to an increase in social inequalities, discrimination, and ultimately leading to environmental degradation. The UNDP in its Human Development Report (1993) tried to amend some issues and emphasized on

(a) People's participation and security

(b) Progressive democratization

(d) Constructive role of Civil Societies

(e) Reduction in military expenditure

(f)Transition from defense production to production of basic goods and services.

(g) Reduction and Disarmament of nuclear warheads by the developed countries.

Neo-Malthusians Approach: (Environmentalist and radical ecologist):

•Sir Robert Malthus was the first to emphasise the growing scarcity of resources w growing population. Resources are being utilised more with increasing demand-bu they are unevenly distributed.

•Rich countries have more access while the poor ones are suffering.

•The pursuit for control of resources by the powerful to exhibit ones prowess is the main cause of conflict as well as the apparent contradictions between population, resource and development.

•In India, ancient scriptures always depleted the concerned about the balance among the Elements of Nature'.

•Mahatma Gandhi advocated the reinforcement of harmony and balance between the two.

•He was concerned about development leading to the loss of morality, spirituality, self reliance and non-violence and environment.

He emphasised that - austerity for individual, trusteeship of social wealth and non violence are the key to attend higher goals. His views were followed in Brundtland Commissions Report (1987) and finally in the Agenda 21 Report of Rio Conference' (1993).

We hope CBSE/MP Board Class 12th "Geography Part B " Chapter 3 "Human Development" will help you.

Written By - HIMANSHU SHARMA