Angelina Francis, IIIyr

BA (Prog) PSY-SOCIO

Q. What is Development? Discuss the emergence of the development discourse in the post-
world war period.

Ans) The idea and practice of development emerged during the colonial era. Colonialism
disorganized the non-Western societies by not just reconstructing thier economies, cultures and
values but also by thrusting adjustments that they deemed fit for these countries.

A commonsensical view of 'Development' is generally perceived as associated with

technological progress alongside material and psychological improvements. Although hard to
argue with the fleeting sense of material improvement, there must always be an evaluation of
‘costs’ versus gains. Evaluation of development, should not be limited to just outcomes and
gains. It is crucial to evaluate who is left out or what is lost.

Instead of a unilateral directional change in development, there should be an account of people's

choices to make development more democratic and participatory. Development is identified with
a Western lifestyle and holds a 'universal appeal'. Therefore, it seems 'natural' to abide to the
Western style of consumption. But what may seem natural is not necessary universally shared or
permanent. The most fruitful way to look at development's appeal and evolution is through
looking at it in a historical context.

History shows that development has had a specific direction which was naturalized as a
universal process and it started with colonization.

It is the subjugation by physical and psychological force of one culture by another, a colonizing
power- through military conquest of territory, industry as apparatus, missionary and stereotyping
the relation between the two culture as superior or inferior. For instance, the era of European
expansion and most recently, Chinese colonization of Tibet.

This takes place in two main forms- Colonies of settlement and Colonies of rule. As the
outcome, there’s cultural genocide/ marginalization of indigenous people, new tensions around
class, gender, race, and caste that continue to disrupt postcolonial societies, extraction of labor,
cultural treasures and resources to enrich the colonial power. the elaboration of notions of
racism, and backwardness, internalization of inferiority and misinterpretation of European
cultural superiority.

The assumption that colonial subjects were “backward” resulted from comparing non-Europeans
to European standards of progress. They devalued these indigenous cultures, ruptured their
harmony and viewed themselves as bearers of civilization to the darker races. This self- imposed
responsibility is the ‘White Man’s Burden’.

The essence of development is captured in the post-colonial African saying: “When the white
man came, he had the Bible and we had the land. When the white man left, we had the Bible and
he had the land”.

Development came to be seen as destiny of mankind. This had two paradoxes; Europeans
misunderstood the integrity of non-Europeans and they ignored the paradox of bringing progress
to colonize people whose sovereignty they denied. This fuel the anti-colonial movements that
sort independence from Western occupation. But the post-colonial countries were irrevocably
changed. To attain political legitimacy, they had to walk ok on the paths of international
frameworks laid on the foundation of European model of development. The adoption of
European model of development across the formerly colonial world in the post-World war II era
is ‘the development project’.

From 16th Century on, European colonial powers – Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and Britain
and their merchant companies, exchanged manufactured goods for slaves, raw materials and
primary products, and in the process, reorganized the world. Colonies were forced to specialize
in production and extraction of raw materials of commodity unavailable in Europe. These
products fueled European manufacturing. On a world scale, this specialization between European
economies and their colonies came to be termed as the colonial division of labor or the
Internation Division of Labor.

Non-European cultures and ecologies were exposed to profound disorganization in the-

i) agrarian system: mixed framing system were converted into specialized export mechanisms of
a single crop.
ii) the local handcrafts were deliberately destroyed. For example: Through tariffs of 70 to 80 %
against Indian finished goods, the British traders used industrial technology like textile
machinery and steam engines to produce same goods. They hollowed India’s export of luxury
cotton cloth and with political power they made India export only raw cotton to the Manchester’s
mills. In turn, British traders flooded India with cheap cloth manufactured in Manchester,
undermining a time-honored craft. Gradually this led to impoverishment/ underdevelopment of
the 'other' world.

Socially, issues of new gender inequalities with men’s entry into cash cropping and the
displacement of women’s customary land user rights, food security was destroyed, more subjects
were forced to work in cash-cropping through enslavement, taxation, land grabbing, etc.
Therefore, unless we see this division of world labor, it is easy to take the unequal world at face
value and view it as a natural continuum. But, viewing world inequality as relational
(interdependent) rather than as sequential (catch-up), calls the conventional modern
understanding of “development” into question. Development historically depended on unequal
division of labor and unequal ecological exchanges, both of which produced a concept of
“underdevelopment” in the postcolonial worlds.

Decolonialization happened when colonial subjects engaged in the European paradox (a gap in
rights and sovereignty) up against their own subjugation. Resistance evolved from the early 19 th
century independence of Latin American republics to the dismantling of South African apartheid
in the early 1990s. Decolonization peaked as World War II sapped the power of the French,
Dutch, British, and Belgian states to withstand anticolonial struggles. The nation-state offered
formal political independence, although the sovereignty of independent states was shaped by
cultural and economic legacies of colonialism.

Decolonization was expressed in mass political resistance movements, like the Swadeshi
movement in India. It also required colonists and colonized to overcome social-psychological
scars of colonialism, including racism. Development was a pragmatic effort to preserve colonies
by improving thier material conditions. A new world order emerged, which is the era of
development. Informed by the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Right- Fundamental
human rights of freedom, equality, life, liberty, security to all were extended alongside
citizenship rights.
 The US was eager to reconstruct and expand markets and flow of raw materials. It led an
international project that viewed development as a national enterprise. The U.S. development
model proposed an ideal division of labor between agricultural and industrial sectors
internalized. The model was understood to be "inner-directed" as opposed to the "outer-directed"
British model. The division of labor between these industries played a defining role in the global
exchange dynamics between colonial powers and their colonies.

After WW II and during the Cold War, the world was subdivided into three geopolitical
categories: The First World (Western capitalist countries), the Second World (the communist
Soviet bloc) and the Third World (the postcolonial bloc). There was considerable inequality
across and within these subdivisions, as well as within the nations. The inequality was in terms
of social and economic disparity between First and Third Worlds. Where the former had 65% of
world income with only 20% of world’s population and on the other hand the Third World had
67% of world population with only 18% of its income.

The vision of development energized political and business elites. In 1949, President Truman’s
speech proclaimed the ‘development program’ and it was in “helping the least fortunate”. There
was a sudden paradigm shift as the humanity was suddenly divided into ‘developed’ and
‘undeveloped’ regions. Emulating the development/ modernity became the discursive benchmark
to achieve.

Gustavo Esteva rightly put it, "On this day, two billion people became underdeveloped.”

For this objective to function smoothly, there was a requirement of restoring the capitalist world
markets to sustain First World wealth. This was done through access to strategic natural
resources and opportunity for Third World nations to emulate First World living standards. This
was the Development Project. The power of this new paradigm was in its ability to present itself
as universal and natural process. But, unlike the colonies the Third World states could not repeat
the European experience of development by exploiting labor and resources of other societies.
However, the inevitability of development, devalued non-European cultures and discounted
learnings from them.

The development project imposed an essential economic understanding on social life. Its two
universal ingredients were the nation state and economic change:
The Nation-State was the framework of the development project. They were territorially defined
political systems based on the government-citizen relationship that emerged in 19 th century
Europe. Colonialism exported this political model, framing the politics of the decolonization
movement.

Economic Growth was institutionalized through a universal quantifiable measure of national

development. The objective of UN Charter, 1945 was “rising standard of living,” was measured
by Gross National Product (GNP) or national average of per capita income. Other measures
include health, literacy, etc. The idea to move towards a "good society" was popularized.
Western economists believed development required “jump start” in the Third World to overcome
“traditional obstacles” and they introduced market system-based concepts private property and
accumulation of wealth. This included introduction to banking, accounting, education, stock
markets, legal systems, etc.

But, using economic growth as the measure of development is problematic. As average

indicators of per capita income are obscure to measure inequalities among social groups and
classes and doesn’t reflect improvement in quality of life. Rising consumption means
environmentally harmful activities.

Both Cold War blocs I.e. USSR and the USA understood development as destiny. USA
identified free-enterprise capitalism as the endpoint of development, based on Jeremy Bentham’s
utilitarian philosophy of common good arising from pursuit of individual self-interest. On the
other side, deriving from Karl Marx’s collectivist assertion “from each according to their ability,
and to each according to their needs.” the Communist bloc identified the abolition of private
property and central planning as the goal of social development. However, both blocs shared the
same modernist paradigm and saw ‘national industrialization’ as vehicle of development. On the
foundation of national economic growth, a new global economy was emerging based on cross
national intra-industry specialization.

There was an assumption on a linear direction for development I.e. to catch-up with the West. In
this sense, it is not just a goal but it is a method of rule.

There was encouragement for universal national upsurge across the third world. Just as political
nationalism sought to regain sovereignty for third world population, economic nationalism
sought to reverse the effects of colonial division of labor. Third word were interested in
correcting in what they perceive as underdevelopment. They encouraged protection of local
efforts to industrialize with tariff and public subsidies and reducing dependency on primary
exports. "Instead of the state being used as an instrument of development, development became
an instrument of the state's legitimacy"- Sugata Bose.

Import-Substitution Industrialization (ISI) was the framework for the initial economic
development strategies in the Third World as governments subsidized “infant industries”. The
goal was a cumulative process of domestic industrialization. But this resulted in encouraging
foreign Direct Investments. To secure an expanding industrial base, Third World governments
constructed political coalitions among different social groups to support rapid industrialization—
such as the Latin American development alliance.

Whichever path the free independent States chose, both followed a linear path to development.
Gradually this process led to a rapid increase in the interdependence between various countries.
This process of industrialization consequently led to globalization. Under which, strength of the
economy was equated with the strength of the nation. This was economic nationalism

In conclusion, the Idea of development emerged during the colonial era and disorganized the
non-European societies. Consequentially, exposure to European liberal discourse on rights,
fueled anti-colonial movements for independence which gave rise to the development project, a
plan for national political-economic development. In development, Westernization was promoted
in politics, economics and culture to be emulated. Ultimately, national industrialization became
the new parameter to measure the strength of the nation.

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