Contrasts in rural development: China and India (1950 – 1980)

There have been many studies comparing China and India but only a few have compared the rural development of these two countries prior to their respective economic reform years. The existing comparative literature focuses mainly on the years after the 1980s. This thesis will examine and compare the rural development of China and India between 1950 and 1980. By comparing the selected basic human needs development indicators such as food grain production, education and healthcare, the study will aim to identify the growth factors and challenges for China and India in the thirty years after 1950. This has implications for development today as China and India have moved from being two of the poorest countries in 1950 to being ranked in the top ten largest economies in the world. The path of their rural development in their earlier years will help to provide some indications of their future development trajectories. The major focus of the thesis is to review the means and the end of agrarian development in the area of land reform, agricultural technology and infrastructure improvement, food grain self-sufficiency, rural education and healthcare development. It attempts to analyse, over the first three decades of inauguration of the PRC and independence in India, the rural growth factors and the challenges that impacted these selected rural development factors. How did the Chinese revolutionary land reform compare with India’s legislative land reform in the area of land redistribution, tenancy reform and economic output? As education and healthcare are crucial factors for human development and agriculture productivity improvement, how did China and India address the issue of massive illiterate rural populations and manage to improve healthcare conditions in this thirty year period?