Modernisation
Topic: Politics of Planned Development · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Politics of Planned Development"
Meaning
Modernisation is the idea, popular after the Second World War, that development means becoming like the industrialised West. In this view, old social structures break down. Capitalism, liberalism, economic growth and scientific thinking take their place. This idea gave rise to labels such as "developed", "developing" and "underdeveloped" countries. NCERT asks a key question: must a country become Western to be modern?
Example
Beyond NCERT, W.W. Rostow's The Stages of Economic Growth (1960) is the classic statement of this idea. Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (1909) is the best-known Indian critique. It rejected Western industrial civilisation as the model for India.
Don't confuse with
- Liberal-capitalist model of development: this is one actual path to growth, based on markets. Modernisation is the wider belief that every society must move from "traditional" to "modern" along Western lines.