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Change And Development In Rural Society

Question
CBSEENSO12045043

Briefly highlight transformations of rural society after independence.

Solution

Several profound transformations in the nature of social relations in rural areas took place in the post-Independence period, especially in those regions that underwent the Green Revolution. These included:
(i)  an increase in the use of agricultural labour as cultivation became more intensive;
(ii)  a shift from payment in kind (grain) to payment in cash;
(iii) a loosening of traditional bonds or hereditary relationships between farmers or landowners and agricultural workers (known as bonded labour);
(iv) and the rise of a class of ‘free’ wage laborers’.
Along with these changes in the class structure, the spread of higher education, especially private professional colleges, in rural and semi-urban areas, allowed the new rural elites to educate their children – many of whom then joined professional or white collar occupations or started businesses, feeding into the expansion of the urban middle classes.