India´s New Agricultural Development. The case of a conflict between agricultural growth and social equity

Abstract It is a difficult task to get a true picture of the recent overall agricultural development in India and of its political and social implications. Quite often it is overlooked in European countries that India is an immensely large country with a land area twelve times as large as that of the Federal Republic of Germany, with a population nine times as large as that of the Federal Republic (namely 547 mill, in 1971), and with the greatest imaginable variety of agro-ecological conditions. The multiplicity of cultural, social, economic, and political conditions renders a judgement on past performance and on chances of future development difficult. Very rarely do individual achievements or special problems, as significant they may be as such, have a major impact on the whole or even on the greater part, of the country.