Political Science · Ch 10 — Politics of Planned Development
The First Five Year Plan
The First Five Year Plan
The First Five Year Plan (1951–1956) was designed to lift India's economy out of the cycle of poverty. The planners were acutely aware that democracy was new and fragile, so they chose a cautious, gradual approach.
K.N. Raj, a young economist who helped draft the plan, famously argued that India should 'hasten slowly' for the first two decades. A very fast rate of development, he believed, might endanger the democratic system itself. This principle shaped the plan's entire character.
The plan gave top priority to the agrarian sector, especially investment in dams and irrigation. Partition had hit agriculture the hardest — large tracts of fertile land had gone to Pakistan, and the refugee crisis disrupted rural economies. Urgent attention was needed.
Huge allocations were made for large-scale projects like the Bhakhra Nangal Dam. But the plan also identified a deeper obstacle: the pattern of land distribution in the country. It saw land reforms as the key to agricultural growth and, therefore, to the nation's overall development.
The First Plan focused on land reforms because it believed that unequal land ownership was the principal barrier to raising farm output.
A basic aim of the planners was to raise the level of national income. This could happen only if people saved more than they spent. But in the 1950s, the basic level of spending was already very low — it could not be reduced any further. So the planners tried to push savings up instead. …