Dualism in Indian Economy and Society
Introduction
Dualism mainly refers to economic and social divisions in an economy, such as differences in technology between sectors, differences in the degree of geographic development and differences in social customs and culture.
Dualism can be in shape of geographic, social technological and financial. It would be worth noting that all these types of dualism may occur together, reinforcing each other.
We shall consider here the fact of persistent dualism in the context of Indian economy. The first question is what development problems create the existence of social and economic dualism in India and how dualism retards Indian economic development? We may search the answers in term of the following points:
Social Dualism in India
As far as social dualism is concerned in Indian economy, it is a fact that the indigenous Subsistence sector is always reluctant to alter its traditional way of life and to respond to incentives introduced in the urban economy. In India, since the development process has an urban bias, the Social dualism is an inevitable consequence in Indian economy.
The Social dualism in India can be traced in the coexistence of advancement of science and Superstitions and cost system, brain drain and illiteracy etc. One part of Indian economy is ready to adopt the new international economic order while the other part is lagging far behind.
Technical Dualism
It generates from the gaps in technology between the rural and industrial sectors of the economy, In India on one hand, there is rural sector burdened with disgusted unemployment and using indigenous technology, suffering from lack of capital, on the other hand there is modern industrial sector characterized with capita intensive technology and high wage rate. Whatever foreign investment is attracted, they are also interested in establishing enterprises in modern sector, specifically in consumer goods (luxury cars, fast foods, electronics goods, cosmetics etc). This further aggravates technological dualism between modem and hand Sector.
It would be worth noting here that the mechanization of Indian agriculture, with the objective of rise in productivity, i.e., Green revolution of late 60’s has resulted in mounting disparities in the rural sector of the country. The benefits of green revolution remained concentrated in the hands of the top 10% of rural population whereas the poor peasants, who were lacking in finance, either went for farming in traditional ways or had to sale their lands to the rich farmers. Thus green revolution initiated dualism in India.
Geographical Dualism
It generates from the spatial differences in a wide variety of development indices including per capita income, rates of growth of industrialization and trade, employment, growth rates.
The geographic dualism in India has its roots in the pre-independence period when the foreign rulers concentrated their economic activities in the geographically move favored regions such as Gangetic plane, Deccan trap, Chota Nagpur plateau. It was followed by labor migration, capital movements and trade and retarded the development of the backward regions. Empirical evidences have shown that economic and social forces tend to strengthen the difference by leading to cumulative expression in the favored region at the expense of other regions which become comparatively worse off, retarding these feature development. The reason behind the capital, labor and entrepreneurship will tend to migrate together where the prospective returns is highest.
