Representing village: Text and context of rural development programmes in India

Abstract

Rather than focusing on the impact of development on the village in substantive terms, this article critically explores the discursive implications of rural development. While taking note of the attendant changes in the wake of state-directed process of planned intervention and social reconstruction, it underscores the manner in which the rural development discourse reconfigures the meanings of village in our social imagination. Irrespective of whether rural development programmes fall short of accomplishing their goals, or succeed in meeting the desired targets, they lead to a certain transformation of the terms in which the village is talked about. The village becomes a marker of social difference in the overall context of development and modernization. It is employed as a term of social classification with connotations of the presence, absence or degrees of development. Yet, rural development is the medium in which village is placed in relation to national development. More often than not, village in contemporary times turns out to be a 'governmentalized locality'.