A roadmap for rural development in India: Relevance of tagore's philosophy

The planned development strategy that Indian planners have been following in since 1951 (with the inception of the First Five year Plan) put particular emphasis on rural development. It appears that constructive rural development strategy or initiative was almost absent in India during the pre-Independence period. However, this is not true altogether and this paper is a modest attempt to show that the approach of Rabindranath Tagore towards rural development or more specifically, rural transformation, that evolved during late 19^th century was appropriate for a complete transformation of a rural economy from its backward state in many less developed countries including India. His philosophy relating to rural upliftment was broad-based and multi-dimensional, and is still relevant for analyzing the problems of rural development in many less developed and developing countries of the world in the midst of economic globalization.