Comparing Twelve South Indian Villages: in Search of Practical Theory

Abstract

Recent dissatisfaction with urban-biased macro-planning of rural development has called forth a variety of responses. Among them a common concern is to relate planning at national or regional levels more closely to village needs and conditions. It is not so much a question of adapting programmes and methods of implementation to local circumstances (important as that is) as of reformulating approaches to rural development planning on the basis of improved understanding of economic and social processes, in their interaction at village level. Some very detailed studies of one or two villages, mainly by anthropologists, have given profound and valuable insights, but they do not constitute the kind of general theory referred to by Adelman and Dalton, and which has been the concern of the village studies programme at the Institute of Development Studies (Lipton and Moore, 1972). One approach to the building of such a theory is through the questions: Why are villages so different? And what of it so far as policy is concerned? The possible absurdity of the first question is reduced by the practical significance of the second.

There are no theories generating models of change and development at village level which are theoretically persuasive and amenable to policy implementation. (Irma Adelman and George Dalton: Dalton 1971, p. 493)