American Modernization in India: Reinventing Development

• In Event: The Politics of Science and Technology in International Development 1

Abstract

The early postcolonial moment on the Indian subcontinent reflected an admixture of thoughts and practices in an era of experiments towards "development." This paper focuses on the reimagining of instruments of development for agricultural and rural experiments of uplift in the 1950s and '60s that pursued determinate ends through planning. In collusion with American Point Four experts, agricultural economists, and communitarians, India's postcolonial elites sought to apply "technic" to raise productivity and to instill a groundswell of "a will to improve." Even as the tides of "modernization" swept the newly independent nation, starting with the entry of America's Point Four experts, a counter movement arose that challenged the latter's basic tenets. Specifically, the Gandhians in India fell back to defining the future nation in terms of the principle of Sarvodaya, literally meaning "uplift of all," - in a quest for building "democracy" against the claims of "development." Their moral critique was laden with an effort to unhinge technology from development and modernization. I analyze these competing narratives as contests to govern representations of colonial and post-independence history, and as attempts to determine the possibility and necessity of specific futures. The consultation of non-canonical vernaculars allows me to tap into the ideas of equality and social justice of subaltern groups that runs afoul of extractive strategies. The rise of economic reasoning in planning, the proclaiming of a public purpose, and the claim that economic knowledge spoke for all and could harmonize diverse social interests was resisted by those seeking new political imaginaries around "dignity." These groups used the lens of a "social" and pursued ideals outside the ambit of economic ends that both modernization and development promised to deliver.

Author

• Prakash Kumar, Pennsylvania State University