What is development? Different people, different goals

Detail

1. Different people want different things

• Development here means what people hope for in their lives. It is not only what the economy produces.
• Class 10 NCERT, Table 1.1: each group's idea of "progress" comes from its own life situation.

Person	Developmental goals (NCERT)	What drives the goal
Landless rural labourers	More days of work and better wages; a local school that gives good education; no social discrimination; a chance to become village leaders	They have no land and no steady income, and they face caste and class exclusion
Prosperous Punjab farmers	High family income through higher support prices (the price at which the government promises to buy a crop) and hardworking, cheap labourers; settling their children abroad	They already have land and surplus, so they want more income and mobility
Girl from a rich urban family	As much freedom as her brother; deciding her own life; studying abroad	Her family has money, so what she lacks is gender equality
Rain-fed farmers, rural women, urban unemployed youth, Narmada adivasis	NCERT leaves these blank for students to fill in	The lesson is that goals depend on where a person stands

• Developmental goals are the things people seek for a better life. They include:
• material goals: more income, work and wages;

• non-material goals: equal treatment, freedom, security and respect.

• These goals change with a person's life situation, and they may conflict.

2. Different goals vs conflicting goals

• Different goals: people want different things, but one person's gain does not hurt another. Example: a Punjab farmer wants higher support prices while a city girl wants to study abroad.
• Conflicting goals: one person's gain is another person's loss.
• Exam trap (NCERT Ex. 2): every conflicting goal is also a different goal, but not every different goal is a conflicting one.

Conflict, example 1: inside the family

• A sister wants the same freedom as her brother, and she wants him to share the housework.
• The brother may not like this. Her gain in freedom costs him time and privilege.

Conflict, example 2: dams and displacement

• Industrialists want more dams because dams produce electricity.
• Dams also flood land and force people such as tribals to leave their homes. These people may prefer small check dams (small barriers across a stream that store water locally) or tanks.
• NCERT prints a photo of a protest against raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada.

Sardar Sarovar: the official facts

• The Narmada Control Authority (NCA) cleared the final raising of the dam. Water could now be stored up to the Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of EL 138.68 metres (2017). Construction finished in 2017 [4].
• 40,727 families were estimated to be affected by submergence: 33,014 in Madhya Pradesh, 4,600 in Gujarat and 3,113 in Maharashtra [5].

• Worked example: 33,014 ÷ 40,727 ≈ 81% of affected families were in Madhya Pradesh. The dam's water and power go mainly to Gujarat, while most of the displacement fell on another state. This is a clear case of conflicting goals.

• Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) means giving displaced people new land, houses and livelihoods.

• Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh each drew up their own R&R packages.

• Construction was meant to go alongside R&R, as the tribunal Award required [5].

• The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement), led notably by Medha Patkar, campaigned for the rights and proper rehabilitation of displaced people [6].

NCERT's two conclusions

1. Different persons have different developmental goals.
2. "What may be development for one may not be development for the other. It may even be destructive for the other."

3. Income matters to everyone, but it is not enough

• Income is the common goal. Almost everyone in Table 1.1 wants regular work, better wages and fair prices for crops. All of these come down to more income.
• Non-material goals matter too: equal treatment, freedom, security, respect and friendship. People resent discrimination. In some cases these matter more than income.
• Quality of life means well-being that depends on these non-material things as well as on money and goods.
• NCERT: "it will be wrong to conclude that what cannot be measured is not important."
• So GDP (the total value of goods and services an economy produces in a year) is an incomplete measure of development. This leads to the HDI in later sections.

Job-choice example

• Before taking a job far away, a person compares the pay with:
• facilities for the family;
• the working atmosphere;

• the chance to learn.

• A low-paid but secure job can raise a person's sense of security.

• A high-paid but insecure job that leaves no time for family reduces both security and freedom.
• So the job with more money is not always the job with more "development".

Women's work and dignity

• Chain of effects:
• Women do paid work → their dignity at home and in society rises.
• Respect for women grows → men share more housework, and society accepts women working outside the home.

• A safe environment follows → more women take jobs or run businesses.

• NFHS-5 data (National Family Health Survey, 2019-21):

• The share of married women who take part in three household decisions ranges from 80% in Ladakh to 99% in Nagaland and Mizoram. The three decisions are their own health care, major household purchases, and visiting their own family or relatives [3].
• The rural–urban gap is small: 77% rural vs 81% urban [3].
• Voice at home is one of the non-material goals that income numbers do not show.

4. National development

• If individuals have different goals, their ideas of national development will also differ, and they may conflict.
• National development asks three questions:
• Which path is fair and just for all?
• Is there a better way?

• Does this idea benefit many people, or only a small group?

• These choices are settled through a democratic political process: elections, legislatures, courts and people's movements (NCERT's opening).

Where India stands: the Human Development Report (HDR) 2025

• HDI (Human Development Index) is the UNDP's index. It combines three things:
• health (life expectancy);
• education (years of schooling);

• income (per-capita national income).

• India ranks 130 out of 193 countries in HDR 2025, released on 6 May 2025 [2].

• India's HDI value rose from 0.676 (2022) to 0.685 (2023). Its rank improved from 133 to 130 [2].
• India is still in the medium human development category. The high category starts at HDI ≥ 0.700 [2].
• The gains came mainly from higher mean years of schooling and higher national income per capita [2].
• Worked example: gap to "high" = 0.700 − 0.685 = 0.015. The gain in the last year was 0.685 − 0.676 = 0.009. At the same pace, India would cross 0.700 in about 0.015 ÷ 0.009 ≈ 1.7 years. This is only an illustration: HDI growth is not linear.

5. Case study: toxic waste in Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire), 2006

NCERT version

• A ship dumped 500 tonnes of liquid toxic waste in open-air dumps and in the sea at Abidjan.
• A multinational company (MNC) dealing in petroleum and metals had hired a local company to get rid of the waste.
• Within a month: 7 dead, 20 in hospital, 26,000 treated for poisoning.

Official facts from UNEP (UN Environment Programme)

• Date and ship: on 19 August 2006, the ship Probo Koala, chartered by the trading firm Trafigura, unloaded 528 cubic metres of liquid waste at the port of Abidjan [7].
• How it was dumped: a local contractor's tanker trucks carried the waste and dumped it at 12 different locations around the city [7].
• Health toll:
• 17 people died and thousands were poisoned [8] (NCERT: 7 dead within a month).
• More than 1,00,000 people sought medical help in the weeks after the dumping [7] (NCERT: 26,000 treated).

• NCERT's figures cover only the first month. The UNEP figures cover a longer period.

• Follow-up: at the request of the Government of Côte d'Ivoire, UNEP later ran an independent environmental audit of the affected sites [7].

Global rules on hazardous waste

• The Basel Convention is the global treaty that controls how hazardous waste is shipped across borders and disposed of.
• The Bamako Convention is an African treaty, adopted in 1991 and in force from 1998. It was a response to Article 11 of the Basel Convention [8].
• It bans the import of hazardous waste into Africa, including radioactive waste.
• It also bans dumping or burning such waste in the ocean or inland waters [8].

NCERT's question: who gained and who paid?

• Gained: the MNC and its contractor, because disposal was cheap.
• Paid: local residents, through death, sickness and a poisoned environment.
• Lesson: profit for a few is not development for the country. This links to sustainability (meeting today's needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet theirs).

6. Working definition

• Economic development is a sustained (long-lasting, not one-time) rise in people's well-being.
• It combines higher income with better health, education, equity and freedom.

• It is broader than economic growth. Economic growth only means a rise in output (real GDP).

• Human capital vs human development (Class 11, keec104):

• Human capital treats education and health as a means to raise productivity and income.

• Human development treats education and health as ends in themselves, because they are part of well-being.

• GDP and welfare (Class 12, leec102): GDP can rise while welfare falls. Examples:

• unequal distribution of income;
• non-monetary activity that GDP misses, such as unpaid housework;

• externalities, i.e. costs or benefits that fall on people outside a transaction, such as pollution from a factory. Abidjan is an extreme case.

• Cross-reference: growth vs development theory is covered in growth-theories-business-cycles.

Prelims Hooks

• Different vs conflicting goals: every conflicting goal is a different goal, but not every different goal is conflicting. One person's gain being another's loss is the test for "conflicting".
• NCERT line: "What may be development for one may not be development for the other. It may even be destructive for the other."
• NCERT line: "It will be wrong to conclude that what cannot be measured is not important." This is the basis of the quality of life idea.
• HDR 2025 (released 6 May 2025): India is ranked 130/193. Its HDI was 0.685 (2023), up from 0.676 (2022). India is in the medium category; high starts at 0.700 [2].
• Sardar Sarovar Dam (Narmada, Gujarat): FRL 138.68 m, cleared by the Narmada Control Authority, completed in 2017 [4]. About 40,727 families were affected, most of them in Madhya Pradesh (33,014) [5].
• Narmada Bachao Andolan is linked with Medha Patkar [6].
• Probo Koala (2006, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire): the ship was chartered by Trafigura. Waste was dumped at 12 sites; 17 died [7][8]. Trap: NCERT's "7 dead" refers to the first month only.
• Bamako Convention (1991, in force 1998) bans hazardous-waste imports into Africa. It was made under Article 11 of the Basel Convention [8].
• NFHS-5 (2019-21): married women's participation in three household decisions ranges from 80% (Ladakh) to 99% (Nagaland, Mizoram) [3].

Mains Points

• Big projects and conflicting goals (GS-III, infrastructure / GS-I, tribals).
• Sardar Sarovar brings irrigation, drinking water and power to many people.
• The cost fell heavily on about 40,727 submerged families, 81% of them in MP [5].

• Argument: development must be judged by "who benefits and who pays". The answer lies in running R&R alongside construction, taking people's consent, and using smaller options like check dams where possible.

• GDP vs well-being (GS-III, growth and development).

• India's HDI rise (0.676 → 0.685) came mainly from schooling and income [2].
• Non-material goals such as dignity, safety and women's voice at home [3] are not captured by GDP.

• Use the NCERT line "what cannot be measured is not important — is wrong" to argue for multidimensional indicators alongside GDP.

• Profit for a few vs national development (GS-III, environment / GS-II, international treaties).

• The Abidjan case shows how cheap waste disposal by an MNC pushed the cost onto the poor [7].

• This supports stronger polluter-pays rules, the Basel and Bamako Conventions [8], and India's own hazardous-waste regulation.

• Democracy as the arbiter (GS-II).

• Development goals conflict, so choices must be made through a democratic process: elections, courts, people's movements such as NBA [6], and social impact assessments.
• Technocratic decree alone cannot decide what is "fair and just for all".