R. C.

Tripathi · Yoganand Sinha Editors

Psychology,
Development
and Social Policy
in India
Psychology, Development
and Social Policy in India
R. C. Tripathi · Yoganand Sinha
Editors

Psychology, Development
and Social Policy in India

13
Editors
R. C. Tripathi
Yoganand Sinha
Department of Psychology
University of Allahabad
Allahabad
Uttar Pradesh
India

ISBN 978-81-322-1002-3 ISBN 978-81-322-1003-0  (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0
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Preface

Social policies generally reflect the commitment of the state to its people to build
a harmonious and free society with a view to ensuring a quality of life for all its
citizens that will be in consonance with their aspirations. Social policies are, there-
fore, necessarily driven by the vision people and leaders have of the kind of soci-
ety they want to build. It is another matter that such vision often falls victim to
political ideologies and political expediencies. There can be a worse scenario in
which there is not only an absence of a vision but the vision that gets accepted as
vision of the nation is a borrowed one or worse, imposed by global institutions or
some powerful nation.
The makers of modern India had envisioned India as a democracy and as an
egalitarian society in which cultural plurality would be at the core. Whether politi-
cal leaders today carry such a vision is a matter of serious debate. Some schol-
ars are of the view that soon after India gained its independence, Indian leaders
stopped having a vision. India may be moving forward today without having any
clear idea of where it wants to arrive. The major concern of political leaders as in
the case of most electoral democracies has been with winning elections anyhow
and not with nation building, notwithstanding the exceptions. It does not matter
whether what they espouse and practise goes against the foundational principles
of “secularism”, “socialism”, and “democracy”. There is no gainsaying the fact
that social policies in India have been largely symbolic and not translated on the
ground. India, according to recent surveys, is one of the highest ranked in terms
of malnutrition rates and also in terms of people living in conditions of extreme
poverty. Political leaders are unable to see any ideological discontinuity between
Gandhian ideas and invitation to multinationals to operate in various sectors.
While this is not the place to argue against the globalization of Indian economy,
social policies have not shown enough concern for the “local”.
The present social policy formulation framework in India takes into considera-
tion inputs mainly from the discipline of economics and rarely from other social
disciplines like anthropology, sociology and psychology. The understandings are,
therefore, seldom complete, especially, when they concern people and changing
mental and social structures. The National Economic Survey of 2011 acknowledges
the need for initiatives aimed at considering microprocesses in the development of
macroeconomic policies. Psychological research on microprocesses like fairness

v
vi Preface

and trustworthiness is considered important to ensure effective implementation of

all economic policies and delivery of benefits to the lowest levels. Hence, a need
for a psychological perspective in social policies is felt to fill those gaps which
existing domains of knowledge and expertise have not been able to fill. There is,
for example, an urgent need to work on bridging regional disparities and cultural
differences, to address internal conflicts that threaten the integrity of the nation,
besides problems relating to the social and economic exclusion of a large number
of people. The main focus of planners is on economic growth and integration of the
Indian economy with the world economy. Against such a backdrop in which pursuit
of wealth is sans “moral sentiments”, our push for a role of a science that focuses
on microlevel processes may appear out of place. We are, however, driven by the
belief that ideas have power and wait for the time to find fruition.
Our major purpose in putting together this book is to show that social policies
cannot possibly deliver their intended results if they do not consider microlevel
processes. One can create excellent structures, but the social values that underlie
them are critical. Such structures created by macro policies ultimately come into
place through microlevel social and psychological processes. Therefore, neither
the macro- nor the microlevel processes can be ignored. Macrolevel interventions
often fail because the choices that humans make are not necessarily driven by
rationality alone. Cognitive, motivational and social factors play a very important
role in how interventions are construed and choices are made. In this book, we dis-
cuss the interplay between micro- and macrolevel factors and indicate the possi-
bilities of exploring alternative development models. It is with this perspective that
the contributors of this volume focus on issues related to development, poverty,
education, health, social justice, environment, and communal harmony, and also
on individual level issues related to mental disorders, physical, and learning dis-
abilities. The contributors to this volume have engaged with issues related to social
policy based on what is available by way of knowledge generated by psychologi-
cal research, and also interventions that have been carried out in India and in other
countries.
The book is addressed as much to policy makers and implementers of policy as
it is to fellow psychologists and students of psychology. Various contributors have
pointed out gaps in psychological research that need to be filled so that appropriate
social policies may be formulated and implemented in more informed ways. Such
research, if undertaken in future, will also create new spaces where psychologists
and planners may come together.
The idea behind this book was conceived as early as 1986 when the
Department of Psychology at the University of Allahabad organized a seminar on
the topic of “Social Change and National Development”. The psychology depart-
ment at Allahabad was the first in the country to start engaging in such discus-
sions and introduced a unique course on the psychology of social change and
national development. This initiative was followed by the introduction of an inter-
national journal titled Psychology and Developing Societies. Over the years, the
Department of Psychology has continued to work on problems relating to social
change and development in India. This book may be seen as a culmination of
Preface vii

many years of efforts by the department on this focused theme. A large number of
contributors to this volume are either members of the faculty or have been closely
associated with it.
A large number of people helped us put together this volume. Our contributors
come first. They acceded to our request to write for us and also cheerfully accom-
modated our requests relating to timelines and revisions. Several scholars who
must remain anonymous served as reviewers of chapters and need to be thanked.
We are grateful to the Department of Psychology, particularly to its Chairman,
Professor A. K. Dalal, who asked us to prepare this volume on the occasion of the
Department’s Golden Jubilee and also provided office facilities. Dr. Rohit Dwivedi
of the Indian Institute of Management, Shillong, has been of great help in more
ways than one. Rushda Naqvi and Paul Ghosh helped copyedit some of the chap-
ters. Special thanks to Ms. Shinjini Chatterjee of Springer for helping us through
the publication of this book.
We also need to acknowledge the permission granted to us by the following in
relation to the use of copyrighted material:
The Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, for granting permis-
sion to include F. M. Moghaddam et al.’s paper, Psychology and national devel-
opment, from Psychology and Developing Societies, 11 ( 2), 1999, pp. 119–141.
© Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad. The paper has been repro-
duced with modifications as psychology and national development in this volume.
The Director, A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Science, Patna, for permission to
use a revised version of R. C. Tripathi’s paper, Education, development and happi-
ness in Indian villages, published in the Journal of Social and Economic Studies,
Journal of Social and Economic Studies, 21(1), 2011.© ANSISS. The paper has
been modified and reproduced here as Education: Path to development and happi-
ness in rural India?
Sunthar Vishualingam for granting permission to quote, in The Hindu–Muslim
divide: Building sustainable bridges, from the paper titled Between Mecca and
Benares, homepage at www.svAbhinava.org.
Since this is the first book in India that considers how psychologists and psy-
chological research can inform the formulation of social policy, there are bound to
be some gaps. We hope that this book will be seen as an invitation to psychologists
to engage with this theme and also to become proactive in various ways on issues
related to Indian society. We look forward to feedback from scholars, profession-
als, and policy makers.

2 May 2013 R. C. Tripathi

Yoganand Sinha
Contents

1 Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India . . . 1

R. C. Tripathi and Yoganand Sinha

2 Social Research and Public Policy: Some Cautionary Notes . . . . . . . . 31

Rajnarain

3 Psychology and National Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Fathali M. Moghaddam, Cynthia Bianchi, Katherine Daniels,
Michael J. Apter and Rom Harre

4 Human Development: Concept and Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Jai B. P. Sinha

5 Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India?. . . . 81

R. C. Tripathi

6 Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education. . . 103

Minati Panda and Ajit Mohanty

7 Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications

for Social Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Bhoomika R. Kar

8 Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Komilla Thapa

9 Psychology and Physical Disability Policies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Namita Pande and Shruti Tewari

10 Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health

Care Programmes in India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Ajit K. Dalal

ix
x Contents

11 Psychological Impact of Poverty and Sociocultural Disadvantage:

Some Problems of Policy and Intervention Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Durganand Sinha

12 Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy. . . . . 223

Lilavati Krishnan

13 The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges. . . . . . . . . . 257

R. C. Tripathi, E. S. K. Ghosh and R. Kumar

14 Gender-Role Socialization, Stereotypes, Government Policies

and Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Daya Pant

15 The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers. . . 297

Roomana N. Siddiqui
Abbreviations

ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder

AFSPA Armed Forces Special Powers Act
AHO Asian Health Organization
APA American Psychological Association

Āyurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy

ASHA Accredited Social Health Activist
AYUSH
CCIM Central Council of Indian Medicine
CCLD Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities
CDC Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
CEC Council for Exceptional Children
CHWs Community Health Workers
DNHO Developing Nations Health Organization
DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
DSM-III-R Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
Third Edition, Revised
EEG/ERP Electroencephalography/Event Related Potentials
FAE Fundamental Attribution Error
FRD Fraternal Relative Deprivation
HDI Human Development Index
H-M Hindu-Muslim
HR Human Resources
IEDC Integrated Education for Disabled Children
ISMH Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy
LD Learning Disability
MBD Minimal Brain Dysfunction
MI Principles Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness
MLE Multilingual Education
MOST Management of Social Transformation
NCDDR National Centre for Dissemination of Disability Research
NCHS National Centre for Health Statistics
NHIS National Health Interview Survey
NHRC National Human Rights Commission
NIC National Integration Council

xi
xii Abbreviations

NIMH National Institute of Mental Health, USA

NIMHANS National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences
NJCLD National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities
NMHP National Mental Health Programme
NVT Norm Violation Theory
OBC Other Backward Caste
PASS Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive Processing
SC Scheduled Caste
SPSSI Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
SSA Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
ST Scheduled Tribe
WHO World Health Organization
Figures

Chapter 2 Figure 1 Policy Research Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Chapter 4 Figure 1 Human Development Indices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Figure 2 GDP, HDI, and HPI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Chapter 6 Figure 1 The vicious circle of language
disadvantage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Chapter 10 Figure 1 Domains of health: restoration,
maintenance, and growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

xiii
Tables

Chapter 2 Table 1 Research Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 4 Table 1 Growth rate of per capita state domestic product
(SDP, percent per annum). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Table 2 HDI and IHDI estimates across Indian states. . . . . . . . 78
Chapter 5 Table 1
Unemployment status of population in 19–60
age group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Table 2 Caste-wise per capita income of sample
households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Table 3 Survival, place of birth, and gender of
children born in 5 years in sample households. . . . . . . 92
Table 4 Relative economic deprivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Table 5 Relative social deprivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Table 6 Perceived political deprivation relative to
other caste groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Table 7 Work participation by women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Table 8 Existence of polyandry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Table 9 Participation in open meeting of gram panchayat
held in the past year. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Table 10 Extent of the family’s happiness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

xv
Contributors

Michael J. Apter  is visiting research professor with the Department of Psychol-

ogy, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA, and is recognized for psycho-
logical reversal theory.
Cynthia Bianchi  is with the Department of Psychology, Georgetown University,
Washington D.C., USA.
Ajit K. Dalal  is Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology at the University
of Allahabad. He has published in the areas of information integration theory, causal
attribution, research methods, health beliefs, folk healing, disability attitudes, and
Indian psychology. His work has primarily focused on how cultural beliefs and at-
titudes have a role in shaping behaviour and recovery from the chronic diseases.
His present work focuses on traditional healing systems and their integration in the
health care programmes.
Katherine Daniels  is associated with the Department of Psychology, Georgetown
University, Washington D.C., USA.
E. S. K. Ghosh  is Retired Professor of Psychology, University of Allahabad. He was
a Nuffield Foundation Fellow at the University of Bristol and worked with Henri Ta-
jfel. He has worked extensively in the area of social identity and intergroup relations.
Rom Harre  is Adjunct Professor, Philosophy Department at Georgetown Universi-
ty, Washington D.C., USA. A prolific writer and profound thinker, he has published
extensively in diverse areas such as discursive psychology and cultural psychology
and is involved with issues relating to psychology and development.
Bhoomika R. Kar  is an Associate Professor with the Centre of Behavioural and
Cognitive Sciences at the University of Allahabad. Her main research interests are
in the area of developmental neuropsychology. She has developed and standardized
a neuropsychological test battery for children in the age range of 5–15 years.
Lilavati Krishnan  is a Professor of Psychology at the Department of Humanities and
Social Sciences in the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. Her areas of spe-
cialization are social psychology, personality, distributive justice; prosocial behaviour;
cross-cultural issues; indigenous concepts in psychology; socialization and parenting.

xvii
xviii Contributors

Rashmi Kumar  is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Allahabad. Her

major work has been in the area of relative deprivation and intergroup relations. She
is presently engaged in studies of prejudice and protest behaviour.
Fathali M. Moghaddam  Professor, Department of Psychology Director, George-
town University, Washington D.C., USA, and Conflict Resolution Program, Depart-
ment of Government. He has published extensively in the areas of cultural diversity
and international psychology. He has been deeply involved with issues relating to
psychology and development.
Ajit K. Mohanty  is a National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science
Research. He was earlier Professor of Psychology and Chairperson in the Zakir
Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
He has publications in the areas of psycholinguistics, multilingualism and multilin-
gual education, and on poverty and disadvantage among linguistic minorities.
Minati Panda  is an Associate Professor at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational
Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests include
culture, cognition, and mathematics (with focus on numeracy practices in tribal
communities in India and among the immigrant communities in UK), social theo-
ries of learning including cultural historical activity theory. She has published in the
area of multilingual education (MLE) for social justice, justice through multilingual
education, and social identities.
Namita Pande is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of
Allahabad. Her areas of research interests are indigenous psychology, cognitive psy-
chology, and health and rehabilitation. She has worked with the International Cen-
tre for the Advancement of Community Based Rehabilitation (ICACBR), Queens
University, Kingston, Canada. She has contributed to development of an evaluation
handbook of disability. She also set up a demonstration project on physical disabil-
ity and rehabilitation near Allahabad.
Daya Pant is Professor and Head, Department of Educational Psychology and
Foundation of Education at the National Council for Educational Research and
Training (NCERT), New Delhi, India. Her research interests are in the areas of
adolescent development and peace research.
Rajnarain  (Late), Psychology-Philosophy Department, Lucknow University,
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Roomana N. Siddiqui  is an Associate Professor of Psychology with Aligarh Mus-
lim University, Aligarh, India. Her research interests have focused on the relation-
ship between environment and behaviour and also on intergroup relations.
Durganand Sinha  (Late) was one of the foremost psychologists of the Indian con-
tinent and was internationally renowned for his contributions to the advancement of
cross-cultural psychology. He was a passionate advocate of indigenizing psycholo-
gy. His manifold contributions have been in the area of social psychology of change
and development; cognitive differentiation; poverty and human development to
Contributors xix

mention only a few. He was the Founding Chief Editor of the journal Psychology
and Developing Societies.
Jai B. P. Sinha is a Professor of Psychology and Management in ASSERT
Institute of Management, Patna. He has conducted research on the interface of
Indian culture and Western forms of work organizations ranging from small and
medium size enterprises to leading foreign multinationals in India. He has pub-
lished over 150 research articles in national and international journals, and has writ-
ten or co-authored over a dozen of books, the most recent of them are Culture and
Organizational Behaviour, Sage: New Delhi; Multinationals in India: Managing
the Interface of Cultures, Sage, New Delhi; and Managing Cultural Diversity for
Productivity: The Asian ways (Ed.), Asian Productivity Organization, Tokyo.
Yoganand Sinha  is Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Allahabad,
India and has been involved in the development and teaching of programmes of
the psychology of social change and national development; and also of Human Re-
source Development and Management. He is an HR consultant and serves on the
boards of HR firms. An avid bird photographer, he has recently published a book on
birds at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.
Shruti Tewari  is Research Director in an Indo–British collaborative project on
identity and collective participation at the Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sci-
ences, Allahabad University. Her doctoral work was on coping with distress due to
physical disabilities. She has worked with NGOs in the area of community based
rehabilitation. She has published in the areas of disability, identity, and well being.
Komilla Thapa  is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Allahabad. She
has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the National Institute of Mental Health and
Neurosciences, Bangalore and got trained at the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal hos-
pitals, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. Her research interests include
altered states of consciousness; quality of life in chronic mental patients; emotional
disorders; cultural explanations of mental illness; care-giver stress; childhood disor-
ders, and intimate relations. She is a practicing clinical psychologist.
R. C. Tripathi  is former Professor in Psychology, University of Allahabad, India
and former Director, G. B. Pant Social Science Institute, India. He has been on the
boards of many apex higher education bodies in India, including the University
Grants Commission and the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Among
his publications are Expanding horizons of mind science/s (with P. N. Tandon and
N. Srinivasan); Norm violation and intergroup relations (with R. DeRidder); and
Psychology in human and social development (with J. W. Berry and R. C. Mishra).
He is the Editor of Psychology and Developing Societies, an international journal
published by Sage.
Chapter 1
Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of
Social Policy in India

R. C. Tripathi and Yoganand Sinha

We the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute

India into a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic
and to secure to all its citizens
JUSTICE; social, economic and political,
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship.
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity and to promote among
all its citizens;
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the
unity and integrity of the nation.
In our Constituent Assembly this twenty-sixth day of November,
1949, do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this
Constitution.
Preamble to the Indian Constitution.

1 Introduction

In the classical Indian tradition, it is held “that which liberates is education”

(savidyaya vimuktaye). It follows that an education that does not free is false edu-
cation. This may be particularly true of psychology whose very nature requires it
to generate knowledge that will contribute to enhancement of human freedom and
dignity. It is a science that is deeply set in social and moral ethic and, therefore,
not value-neutral. It is also intimately connected with prevalent social practices
and also political practices and behaviour. One would have thought that it would
be natural for psychologists to be concerned with developing social and political

R. C. Tripathi (*) · Y. Sinha 
Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Y. Sinha
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 1
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_1, © Springer India 2014
2 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

structures that enhance freedom of both individuals and collectives. Strangely,

the role that psychological sciences can play in the development of public and
social policy structures is not even deliberated upon by various professional bod-
ies of psychology. The only exception, perhaps, are the American Psychological
Association (APA) and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
(SPSSI), which have consistently tried to provide inputs for policy making.
Psychologists, by and large, have failed to redeem the promise their discipline
holds. No wonder Baritz (1960) calls social scientists—a category that, of course,
includes psychologists—“servants of power”. Goodman et al. (2010), too, point
out that psychologists have been accused of working to perpetuate social injus-
tices by not working against oppressive social structures and indirectly support-
ing the maintenance of status quo. It may be for this reason that Levinas calls for
infusion of social justice in the role of psychologists (Hand 1996). He holds that
psychologists’ lack of interest or inability to play a role in societal matters is due
to the emphasis on self and identity in western philosophical traditions. This has
resulted in such societies becoming morally anaemic. What is encouraging is that
an increasing number of psychologists feel that the time has come for psycholo-
gists to engage with social issues in a more proactive manner.
Psychologists can help in social policy making in many ways. Firstly, psycho-
logical research can provide academic inputs that can help frame social policies.
Psychologists can also engage in advocacy and even play the role of social activ-
ists; at least, in cases where social issues are not complex, such as in issues related
to mental health and building of capabilities. Be that as it may, psychologists in
India have not done that. They have been generally content with psychology’s
status as an academic discipline and its emphasis on individual-level variables.
Their involvement with micro-variables that have macro-level consequences has
been minimal. More often than not, they have turned even economic and political
problems into individual (level) problems, which may be why policy makers see
them as less relevant than other social scientists. The recent emergence of criti-
cal psychology, which veers away from mainstream psychology and focuses on
power differences between social classes and groups and how they influence over-
all wellbeing of people, shows that a paradigm shift is in the offing (Prilleltensky
& Nelson 2002).
The essays included in this volume seek to deliberate on where and how psy-
chology can inform decisions related to social policies. If psychology is to play
a meaningful role in formulation of social policies, psychologists will first need
to come forward and accept the responsibility for disseminating such “objective”
information that can be acted upon and play a proactive role in the utilization of
psychological knowledge related to peoples’ concerns related to life and living.
The job of policy making, which concerns peoples’ lives, is too important and
cannot be left to lawmakers alone. The role of psychologists also comes in after
the policies have been formulated because policies are directed at bringing about
change in someone’s behaviour or maintaining it. One of the reasons that psychol-
ogy has not gained much in importance in policy circles is that governments all
over the world have accepted the philosophy of neo-liberalism that has resulted in
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 3

underscoring the supremacy of the economic man. It is the creation of wealth and
not welfare of the people, particularly of the weak, that has become their prior-
ity. Pepitone (1974) had struck the nail on the head a long time ago when he said:
“Political power is the handmaiden of economic interests. Is it not obvious that
legislative bodies, regulatory and other policy making and enforcing agencies at
all levels of government operate to protect corporate interests and resist protecting
the general public including especially the poor and politically powerless?” (p. 1)
This volume may be seen as the first step in the direction of making psychology
relevant in policy making in India as it seeks to examine and address social issues,
of equity and social justice, of wellbeing and health, of harmony and sustainable
development, all of which ought to be the concern of psychologists in India. We
also realize fully that social issues and problems raised here are complex and are
not amenable to easy solutions or “prescriptions”. Nevertheless, it is our belief that
psychological knowledge can undoubtedly help at the least in expanding choices
of the policy makers and in helping them make right decisions.

1.1 Policy and its Relationship with Psychology

Let us consider first what policy is and what is its relationship with psychol-
ogy. Policy consists of a set of measures, instruments or procedures for achiev-
ing specified goals. Social policies have a normative character and do not always
convert themselves in the form of laws. Social policy is a whole package that
requires its acceptance not only across systems, but also at all levels of the sys-
tems. A social policy becomes successful when it acquires the force of a cultural
norm. More often than not, social policies relate to creating structures and pro-
cesses that are directed at solving problems that cannot be solved using the estab-
lished structures and procedures. Mishra (2006) points out that solutions of social
problems lie outside the system and they come in the form of policies, which are
drawn by governments or other bodies, such as the United Nations. The methods,
instruments or procedures to achieving such specified goals that are sought to be
achieved by social policies are generally at the macro level, although other levels
are as important. Policies, hence, demand clearly spelt out goals or end-states to
be achieved and also clearly laid out methods and measures to reach them. They
need to be holistic and not partial. Policy formulation can hardly admit ambigu-
ity in either goals or methods to achieve them. This is not to suggest that goals,
once clearly spelt out, are necessarily attained or become easier to achieve; nor
that measures, clearly spelled out, always have only the stated and intended con-
sequences. Often, they have quite the opposite and messy consequences because
they do not take a systemic view and focus on providing immediate and localized
solutions without considering system-wide ramifications. Social policies need to
be distinguished from other kinds of policies, such as fiscal policies. Social policy
concerns itself with wellbeing and improving the life chances of people by build-
ing structures and functionalities, which unfold processes that make attaining such
4 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

goals possible. But structures and building of functionalities are not enough. The
term “wellbeing” is used here in a broad sense and connotes not only physical and
material wellbeing but also its political, social, psychological and spiritual facets.
This kind of wellbeing can come about only with the building of positive relation-
ships among people, communities and nations.
Social policy framing is a complex process. It is largely political, because it
involves a number of stakeholders. The most important among these are, of
course, people and organizations that are likely to be its beneficiary. But it also
brings in those who are going to be left out in some way; those who are going to
be affected by the policy; or for whom the policy is going to have negative social,
political or economic fallouts. As stakeholders, scientists figure low on priority,
if one can count them as stakeholders in the first place, although, most of them
would like to gain credibility and social recognition by having a voice in formula-
tion of social policies. It is, therefore, understood that policy makers, while mak-
ing policies, are driven more by social, political and economic considerations, and
not by science and empirical data (Shonkoff 2000). In case of nations that have a
history of colonization and have adopted western democratic structures, like India,
more often than not, the politics of identity overrides other factors. The knowl-
edge and data that the psychological sciences generate can, nevertheless, be used
as evidence to support the making of social policy and also in the manner in which
it is to be implemented. However, tension often arises due to equivocality in scien-
tific research findings and lack of clarity required in policy formulation. A certain
amount of ambiguity is, of course, inherent in all empirical research, more so, in
psychology that, as some assert, lacks ecological validity (Cole et al. 1978). The
mainstream paradigm, it is held by critical psychologists, has little concern with
human welfare. Fox and Prilleltensky (1997) say: “We believe that psychology’s
traditional practices and norms hinder social justice, to the detriment of individu-
als and communities in general and of oppressed groups in particular”. (p.1)
Our intention here is not to decry the dominant paradigm of psychological
research or praise the often-artificial clarity that is posed by social policies. We
want to point out that there is a possibility of contradictions arising between the
orientations of these two human endeavours. The contradictions between scientific
data generated by psychology and policy making are true for other social sciences
too, including economics, though many social scientists see economists as having
“made it” in terms of the credibility they have gained among public policy makers
or administrators. There are other reasons also for the influence that economists
have in policy making. Firstly, economists’ data are not called into question, at
least not as often as those of other social sciences. Their findings also help justify
policies based on economic and political considerations. It is, perhaps, for this rea-
son that they are regularly called upon to play a significant role in policy making,
in economic, and what many are unable to understand, non-economic domains
in India. Because of this, there is a sort of a sibling rivalry that seems to have
emerged between economists and psychologists, in which economists despite their
weaknesses and drawbacks are seen by psychologists as ruling the roost, whereas
psychologists are seen as always trying to catch up with them. Be that as it may, it
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 5

is conceded that micro processes are at the root of what emerges eventually at the
macro level. The recent shift from GDP and HDI to happiness also underscores
this (Helliwell et al. 2012). In fact, the case for this shift was built by Mehta, a
Gandhian economist, in his “theory of wantlessness” a long time back. He distin-
guished between what he called objectives of “life”, which consist in realization
of the “self”, and objectives of “living”, which consist in simple and austere living
and the practice of “non-violence” or “love” towards fellow beings (Mehta 1985).
Most societies have sought to find the right balance between moral and material
aspirations. The philosophy of neo-liberalism that drives the dominant develop-
ment paradigm today has sidelined the moral, resulting in exclusion of most social
science disciplines other than economics. All policies have to translate eventually
at the micro or individual level. We may lay down policies related to removal of
illiteracy, as, for example, is done by the UN in case of the millennium develop-
ment goals, but the fact remains that illiterates will have to be motivated to attend
and remain in schools. Mere provision of easy access to schools, as has now been
found in many studies, is not enough. Till there remains a gap between the for-
mulation of policy and its implementation in bringing about a desirable change in
the behaviour of people, the problem would remain. This role of bringing about a
desirable change in people’s behaviour that psychologists alone could have filled
has gone a begging.
A more important point that needs to be made is that social policies are not
only about physical and material aspects of life, such as housing, food security,
health and education, important and pre-eminent as they are. There is more to liv-
ing and life than fulfilment of basic needs. All alternative models of development
put a great deal of emphasis on living in harmonious and sustainable relationship
with others in society and emphasize people-centric approaches away from eco-
nomic development (Pieterse 1998; Shrivastava & Kothari 2012). We have seen
the world over, and indeed in India, how large development projects have led to
displacement of large sections of population and communities resulting in erosion
of their human, social, cultural and moral capitals. Social policies also need to be
about other life domains and about responding to natural disasters as well as situa-
tions created by wars and social conflicts. The agitations being carried out by the
Bhopal gas victims1 and the Narmada Bachao Andolan2 are enough to point out
the lack of foresight of our policy makers.

1  The Bhopal gas tragedy, considered to be one of the worst industrial accidents in the world,
occurred in December 1984 when MIC gas leaked out of the pesticide plant of the Union Carbide
factory located in Bhopal in central India, resulting in deaths of between 4,000 and 8,000 people
and permanently disabling over 40,000 people. More than 500,000 people were exposed. The
victims have been demanding rehabilitation and compensation but the government has provided
them only nominal compensation so far.
2  The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Agitation to Rescue Narmada) is a movement led by environ-

mentalists and human rights activists who have been fighting for locals who will be displaced
from their villages because of inundation of their villages by the river Narmada over which a big
dam is being constructed.
6 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

It is not that psychologists have not tried securing a place for themselves in policy
making. Often, psychologists who advocate a role for psychology in policy mak-
ing have been those who also have been involved in the struggle to make academic
psychology more “socially relevant” by asking their fellow psychologists to address
important social problems through their research (Pareek 1980; Sinha 1966, 1988).
The history of this struggle suggests that the social relevance of such studies can
be considered at three levels. At the first level, studies are considered relevant to the
extent they add to the theoretical understanding of social problems; at the second
level, it is asked how far they are relevant to the Indian cultural context and help in
better understanding of social processes; and thirdly, a study is considered relevant if
it points to a way of providing solutions to Indian social problems. The first concern,
because it is primarily academic, has resulted in studies that have a low probability
of becoming an input in social policy making. The second concern of psychologists
with relevance to cultural context and processes led them to undertake studies pri-
marily due to their concern with the generalization of psychological research find-
ings obtained in other cultural contexts, largely western. The problem with such
research studies is that they not only tend to ignore macro-level variables but also
lack historical perspectives, which any understanding of culture requires. Such
an approach, therefore, has remained, at best, evanescent. If the social relevance
approach had made some headway, it could have added to the understanding of the
policy makers and helped them fine-tune their social policies. The strongest support
for the notion of relevance, however, comes from efforts of psychologists who have
attempted to address social and individual problems through “problem-oriented”
research. Some of the more prominent areas that psychologists have addressed relate
to social disadvantage and deprivation, poverty, community and agriculture devel-
opment, education, health, inter-group conflicts, violence and national development
(Sinha et al. 1982; Mishra & Mohanty 2000; Dalal & Mishra 2001, 2011; DeRidder
& Tripathi 1992; Berry et al. 2003). In other countries, e.g., in the United States,
psychologists are involved in providing inputs for policy making in a number of
other areas, such as in decision making related to nuclear policy, affirmative action,
television violence, issues related to criminal justice system (Suedfeld & Tetlock
1991). Another major area that has found application in the West by psychologists
is related to environment and energy use. Somehow, such areas have attracted less
attention of psychologists in India except in isolated cases (Ruback & Pandey 2011).
Thus, the main concern of psychologists in India has remained with issues related
to economic, political and social inequalities, quite in line with the preamble to the
Constitution of India.

2 Why Psychologists Have No Voice in Policy Making

One may ask why is it that psychologists so far have not been able to play as promi-
nent a role as they desire in social policy making. Is it only because of the level at
which they address social problems or could there be other reasons? Policy making,
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 7

because it is a political process, involves the framing of rules and laws that underlie
governance. It requires that there be a degree of ideological similarity between the
makers of public policy and enlightened advocates of a certain policy. As pointed
out above, this comes easily to economists because most governments worldwide
have uncritically accepted the ideology of neo-liberalism supported by various inter-
national economic and political institutions with which governments work closely.
Korten’s (1995) book, When corporations rule the world, analyzes this most suc-
cinctly. Most economists of the world subscribe to the ideology of neo-liberalism
and, therefore, are seen as “soul mates” of politicians who are part of the nexus they
have formed with the corporate. Psychology, as a discipline, is colour blind to such
ideologies and has also been notoriously unaware of the politics of policy making
institutions. Psychologists have failed to evaluate critically the processes and institu-
tions of policy making. Hardly any mention is made of the processes by which plans
and policies are made in India in the psychological literature. They also display a
lack of understanding of the socio-political milieu within which social sciences are
called upon to play a role in policy making. There are, of course, other reasons also
for the non-involvement of psychologists and of other social scientists. Some of
these have to do with academic politics in the country. Most social science institutes
of the country have a disproportionately larger number of economists on their fac-
ulty with little cross-disciplinary interactions. This is also true of various important
bodies, where social scientists are represented and are involved with policy formu-
lation in India. On such bodies, the social scientists that find representations have,
more often than not, the same ideologies as the government of the day. These mem-
bers collect research findings and bring their collective wisdom of social sciences to
bear upon policy recommendations and formulations. For politically naive and non-
committed psychologists, the goings on of these institutions may be seen to be sober
and rational recommenders of policies carrying weight and respect. But for those
who know, it may be seen instead as pleading or engaging in advocacy for decisions
already made by powers that be.
A question often asked in the Indian context and in various forums is whether
policies are made in a deliberative manner or if the will of the few in the govern-
ment is peddled as policies. If it is the latter, social scientists will only be engaged
in providing lip service. Recent events give some hope to social scientists.
Political powers have woken up to the pressures of the Indian middle class and
also to various civil society groups. The Right to Information (RTI) Act,3 which
was enacted recently by the Parliament, and the ongoing debate relating to the
Lokpal Bill4 are some examples of governmental response. The opening up of
the debates around the Communal Violence Bill, the Sachar Committee Report,

3  The Act permits citizens of India to seek information from any public authority, which is to be

supplied to the seeker within 30 days. The Act has resulted in bringing to light many scams of
politicians and public servants.
4  The Lokpal Bill purports to enact a legislation to consider complaints of citizens against civil

servants and politicians involved in corruption.

8 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

the Land Acquisition Bill5 that are pending approval, provide new opportunities
for psychologists to play an important role in policy making, as do the bills related
to food security, the differently abled, and for ensuring physical and mental health
equality. In fact, the more important role of psychologists is also likely to come up
when such policies are actualized on the ground, since all policies assume behav-
ioural change at multiple levels. There are also other issues involved in public pol-
icy framing than those related to justice and development; although one concedes
that these issues will need to be addressed before others.

2.1 The Emerging Role of Psychologists in Policy Making

The above discussion may have made it clear that psychologists in India have
been late entrants in the arena of social policy making. It is not that psycholo-
gists did not consider doing research that was relevant for social policy. Initially,
in the 1960s, while trying to play a role in national development, psychologists
found themselves crowded in by economic goals. National development was then
defined almost exclusively in economic terms and applied psychology played
only an ancillary role in it. Psychologists largely played the role of facilitators of
economic plans. Their job was to help locate resistance to plans of change and
look for inhibitory factors in the psychological makeup in sections of the soci-
ety (Sinha 1973, 1983; Sinha 1990). However, what is to be noted is that during
this period there was an absence of effort on the part of psychologists to critically
evaluate the plans per se or the stated goals or in developing measures to assess
achievement of these goals. The situation is no different today. Psychologists still
continue to play a secondary role. They are not involved with defining what consti-
tutes development, with the development of plans and policies, or for that matter,
with their delivery. If there is a slight shift that has happened towards psychology,
it is because of the growing realization on the part of economists that develop-
ment has a human side and human behaviour and decisions are not always based
on rationality principles (see, for example, Sen 1999; Kahnemann 1999). Largely
due to this, quite a few psychological terms—happiness, for example—have found
entry into the lexicon of development discourses. Another reason for this is the
newly formed association of psychology and development economics in the form

5  The Communal Violence Bill seeks to make it mandatory on part of the state and Central gov-

ernments to exercise powers to control targeted violence against all vulnerable groups in society,
such as, minorities, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes in particular.  The Sachar Committee
Report focuses on the status of Muslim minorities in India, their educational status, economic
and employment status in urban and rural areas. Land Acquisition Bill 2012 provides for land
acquisition as well as rehabilitation and resettlement. It replaces the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
The process of land acquisition involves a social impact assessment survey, preliminary notifica-
tion stating the intent for acquisition, a declaration of acquisition, and compensation to be given
within a specific time. All acquisitions require rehabilitation and resettlement to be provided to
people affected by the acquisition.
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 9

of behavioural economics (Mulainathan 2005; Amir et al. 2005), which is seeking

to play a role in public policy formulations. But it holds true that the term “devel-
opment” is still largely viewed by policy makers through the lens of economics,
and, not through the lens of psychology or other social science disciplines, which
reduces the space for public policy making for psychologists, as also for other
social scientists in India. This is despite some interesting and worthwhile attempts
that have been made by psychologists to define the whole gamut of development:
its model, goals, and procedures. We may draw attention to two efforts that can
inform ongoing discourses on development in India. First, what may be called
efforts that call for an indigenous model of development; and second, those that
conceptualize development as a space jointly created by two coordinates, namely,
embeddedness and openness (Tripathi 1988).

3 Indigenous and Alternative Models of Development

3.1 Indigenous Models

In the last few decades the mainstream paradigm of development has come under
severe criticism. New terms have gained ground, like “post-development” (Nustad
2001; Pieterse 1998). Some criticize it on the ground that it sees the “third world”
or “developing societies” as homogeneous and having one kind of aspirations and
goals not very different from colonization (Escobar 1984) and an attempt to stop
the spread of Marxism in favour of Americanism (Pieterse 1991). Alternative mod-
els of post-development are participatory and people centred and are more rooted
in the “local” as opposed to the "global”. Culturally speaking, they derive more
from “neo-traditional” as opposed to “modern” (Pieterse 1998). Another opposi-
tion to mainstream model of development arises from twin concerns of oppo-
sition to colonial knowledge and also the dominant paradigm of science that
generates such knowledge. Such knowledge is seen as part of the agenda of the
politics of development. Here the attempt is to look for models that are indigenous.
Indigenous models of development and knowledge are based on the correspond-
ence between the internal characteristics, specific features, integrative qualities,
traditional values and authenticity of the culture of a society and the development
of this culture. This admittedly leads psychologists, who argue in favour of this
approach, to search for some essential characteristics of their society that have
served as its foundation all along. In such a situation, the risk of falling into the
trap of an essentialist position is there. The essentialist argumentation is as follows:
First, some quality or virtue or characteristic is self-posited as an essential and dis-
tinctive positive feature of a society, very similar to what Tajfel (1981) says would
arise from a desire for positive group distinctiveness. This is then traced back to
the past and antiquity, at most times supported by myths and sometimes supported
by archival material. The desirability and centrality of these values, life goals and
social life are derived from ancient scriptures and/or religious books. These are
10 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

shown to have existed all through the ages, as essentially the same, particularly
during the golden period of a nation. In effect, the posited characteristics are ren-
dered as ageless and timeless. They are divested of any relationship with society
and history. Hence, essentialists may posit concepts from any period or society and
put them up as the “hallmark” and distinctive characteristics of a society.
In this approach, there can be as many essential characteristics of a society as
one chooses to posit. Non-violent, stable, collectivistic, religious, tolerant, assimila-
tive and accommodating are among many such essential characteristics of Indian
society that often find mention in the writings of various scholars. These essential
characteristics of the Indian society are in turn invoked to explain the differences
between empirical data collected on different samples from two or more nations or
societies. One can see why psychologists may fall prey to essentialist arguments,
as the claim is to study many of the universal processes as ageless and ahistorical
phenomenon. Nevertheless, within the “indigenous” approach lies an explosive and
volatile combination of essentialist and the post-industrial criticism of economic
development and affluence. For the adherents of this approach, everything of the
West becomes infected in the embryonic form and is seen as artefacts of the eco-
nomic model. Pride in cultural and traditional mooring notwithstanding, one needs
to be cautious as the approach, if stretched to the limit, can create a danger of reviv-
alism. Social scientists generally agree that societies have cultural histories and that
there are differences in the way people belonging to different societies think and
also in their preferences for values around which they organize (McClelland 1961;
Hofstede 1980; Nisbett & Cohen 1996; Nisbett 2003; Schwartz 2006; Markus &
Kitayama 1991). Still, cultures evolve, much like biological entities, and are given
to processes of acculturation (Berry 1990; Mesoudi et al. 2006). They, therefore,
come to develop cores that they share with other cultures. It is also conceded that
imposition of values and ideas alien to a culture can come in the way of harmoni-
ous development of a society. Nevertheless, however thin a line between being sen-
sitive to one culture and being a revivalist, it still needs to be drawn carefully. The
danger in following an indigenous approach is that such an effort may be totally
wasteful because it is extremely difficult to reverse the course of cultural evolu-
tion. But what the approach does is to remind us that there is a need to review and
reflect, ever so often, by people within cultures, where they are coming from and
where they want to arrive in terms of development. This is seldom done and in rare
cases where it is done, the centrality of values and goals are decided, not by the
people of a nation, but by a few leaders, and often enough, by despots. This is more
often the case in nations which have recently emerged out of the colonial rule,
India being no exception. It may appear that several amendments to the constitution
of India have been done with a view to finding new paths to securing economic,
social and political justice for the Indian people and for setting a future agenda but
most of them are in line with what will find acceptance by the elites in so-called
modern societies and help them maintain their hegemonic position.
From where does the impetus for the indigenous model of development come?
Most of it results from the criticism of the western model, which is seen as per-
petuating injustice in social, political and social domains and is also culturally
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 11

inappropriate. The search for alternative models admittedly seems to have arisen
in decolonized nations as a reaction to colonization and cultural dominance of the
western nations. The argument put forward is that the prevalent notion of develop-
ment is largely western and is not consonant with the core cultural values of these
societies and if adopted will make a nation lose its cultural identity sooner or later.
The dominant model is seen by Levinas as based on greed, uninhibited pursuit of
material possessions, power and achievement (Hand 1996). The other criticism is its
focus on individual and not on the collectives or social relationships. It is argued that
happiness has to be given greater value than mere basic needs or wealth. This argu-
ment finds support from studies that show that an individual’s happiness (a psycho-
logical variable) saturates and does not increase with affluence after a point (Easterlin
1974; Easterlin et al. 2010). This may hold true. The problem faced in this connection
is in locating the point, or the degree, at which affluence may not lose its utility or
the threshold of affluence at which it may not become “bad” for happiness. Another
problem that may arise relates to who chooses these criteria. The legitimacy of
socially created inequalities within Indian culture, be it poverty or social discrimina-
tion, will make such choice even more complex. It will need an engagement of psy-
chology with philosophy, human rights, justice and ideology. Psychologists require
this kind of engagement if they have to become relevant in framing of the public poli-
cies. The point, however, is that in an effort to rediscover an appropriate alternative
model, psychologists should take care not to fall victim to committing the essential-
ist fallacies. Still, there is little doubt that a greater degree of sensitivity is needed
towards the historical and cultural contexts within which indigenous concepts are
embedded, while understanding at the same time that essences too undergo change.
Another problem that can be seen with the indigenous approach of development
(and indeed with other approaches) is in its conceptualization of India as econom-
ically, socially and culturally one nation. India is one country but it has within it
many little Indias as well as big Indias. In today’s India, the metropolitan India, the
“middle-class India”, the “genX India” and the “Net India” are far more like the
West in terms of their life preferences and values. But then, there are other Indias,
too. There is an India that is not so westernized, but still connected to modern India
through newer means of communications. There is yet another India which is big-
ger than all these, that is very distantly connected, if at all, to all the other Indias,
which is not heard, seen or discussed within psychology or most social sciences.
Most advocates of indigenous models ignore such distinctions of India. Psychology,
as also other social sciences, does not address the issue of many Indias and how a
single India concept relates to the many Indias through policy recommendations.
Whether or not there is a need to tweak policies to suit different Indias and, if
yes, how, actually remains the most vexatious issue for all social scientists who
want to play a role in policy making. After all, social policy making requires mak-
ing assumptions about the nature of society. Ideally, all policy makers or planners
assume social and cultural homogeneity, because it makes life less complicated
and more comfortable for everyone. They would not want cultural diversity, but
would never publicly admit it as it would be politically incorrect to do so in view
of the recent UN policy on cultural diversity.
12 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

Mankind is still groping in the dark to find the correct path. This concern for
the right path often shows up when the question relating to possibilities of “alter-
native models” is asked by social scientists, policy makers and others concerned
with the future of humanity. The following dialogue between Krishnamurti and
Bohm is illustrative of this yearning:
Krishnamurti: How shall we start? I would like to ask if humanity has taken a wrong turn.
David Bohm: A wrong turn? Well it must have been so, a long time ago, I think.
K: That is what I feel. A long time ago…. It appears that way—why? You see, as I look at
it mankind has always tried to become something.
DB: Well possibly. I was struck by something I once read about a man going wrong some
five or six thousand years ago, when he began to be able to plunder and take slaves. After
that, his main purpose of existence was just to exploit and plunder.
K: Yes, but there is the sense of inward becoming.
Krishnamurti and Bohm (1992), p. 9.

Psychologists can create a space for themselves if they can help policy makers
find a new turn that humanity can take by searching for new ways of “being” and
“becoming” human (Tripathi & Sinha 2009). Let us examine some possibilities.

3.2 Repositioning Human Development

The mainstream paradigm of development has primarily been criticized, as dis-

cussed above, on grounds of what should be developed and how it should be devel-
oped. Generally, discourses of development have centred on economic development,
human development, sustainable development and, in some cases, on territorial
development (Bellu 2011). The differences are found not so much in terms of the rel-
ative emphases of what should be developed but quite often in terms of how it should
be developed. We have already made reference to some critiques of the dominant
paradigm of development which point out that they are flawed because they fail to
deliver what they promise, viz., equality, justice and freedom and show a lack of con-
cern for cultural continuity. There are other problems. A major problem is pointed out
by Roy (2003). In his view, the dominant paradigm is flawed because it is based on
the wrong notion of who man is. He points out that there are two views of man. One
that man is a “self-complete entity and, therefore, autonomous and can and should
determine what he wants to be and do for whatever he wants to become” (p. 33). A
different way of looking is to “treat him as something more than a natural man, as
something more than a bundle of desires and appetites” (ibid.). He goes on to sug-
gest that it is the transcendence of his animal nature that makes man truly human.
Development in its current usage and practice focuses primarily in creating struc-
tures that take care of the lower order needs of the individual. Such structures focus
on controlling scarce resources of the environment in order to enhance one’s selfish
ends and to enhance an individual’s power base so that he may control additional
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 13

resources. The model does not focus on creating structures which take into consid-
eration the good of others, or which contribute to creative and purposeful living.
Development has to be about human needs and not about human wants and aspira-
tions that are limitless and keep rising. Wants invoke competition and obviate cooper-
ation. Development is not, only about the state of the nation, it is more about the state
of the people. Development has to resolve many dilemmas and dichotomies, of order
and chaos, of democracy and autocracy, of man and machine, of local and global.
It also should aim at resolving value dilemmas pointed out by Schwartz (2011) of
power holding and power sharing, of movement with stability, of individualism and
collectivism, of equality and elitism, of social and personal space. There are also
dilemmas that development poses for social systems. These are of effectiveness or
long-term survival with efficiency–immediate gains, of immediate gratification with
delayed gratification, of giving with receiving, of argument along with dialoguing,
and also of material achievements together with spiritual realization. Development
inheres in the resolution of these dilemmas and, in this sense, simultaneously involves
dialectical as well as dialogical processes. Policies succeed or fail depending upon
how successfully and creatively they help out in the resolution of such dilemmas and
whether or not they result from intensive dialogues involving the people.
Development and modernity are often used interchangeably and the above posi-
tion may be seen as a critique of modernity. There are both culturally conservative
and postmodern critiques of modernity. Interestingly, both focus on parameters
and coordinates that are not economic or material, but non-economic and human,
and foreground the relationship among humans. Humans are essentially seen here
as interdependent beings. All social systems are complex and their complexity
increases as a function of evolution and so does their interdependence with sys-
tems around them. These two attributes—complexity and interdependence—con-
tribute critically to what is called development, provided they serve the systemic
purpose or goals. Are there not some universal parameters that can be used to eval-
uate the state of social systems and also whether the change that is taking place in
the system is in the positive direction? One of the central characteristics of sys-
tems is order (Tannenbaum 1966). Order emerges if a system is able to deal with
dilemmas that it faces and the extent it is able to solve them in a creative fashion.
Human physical development is guided by two principles: a cephalo-caudal prin-
ciple that states that development proceeds from head to toe; and a proximo-distal
principle that states that it proceeds from the centre of the body outward. The two
principles operate in conjunction and do not come into conflict. The same is true
of social systems too. There is no development if what is at the top does not flow
down to the bottom and, similarly, what is at the centre does not reach the periph-
ery. A system needs differentiation as much as it requires integration to grow and
develop. Development must not uproot. It should not result in loss of social and
cultural identities. Both conditions will create conditions that will promote disin-
tegration and reduce the degree of order that may be present in a social system. It
is in this context that Tripathi (1988) suggests an alternative conceptualization of
development as the space that comes to be created when systems seek to simulta-
neously maximize embeddedness and openness.
14 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

Social systems as they come into contact with other evolving systems in their
environment need to learn from each other and for this one of the attributes they
require is openness to admit new ideas, new strategies, new values and ideologies.
But in so doing they open themselves to the possibility of losing their identity, or
the centre, which may disintegrate. Development occurs when a system, in its pro-
cess to adapt with the changing environments, does not compromise with its core
values and purposes. It does not reinforce tendencies that uproot or exclude peo-
ple, implicitly or explicitly, and create disjuncture between Man and Nature.
Exclusion of people and communities takes place due to political, economic and/
or social reasons. Both traditional and modern societies have invented ways and
ideologies to keep groups of people excluded on one count or another. Liberal
democracy is offered as a political system that will create facilitative conditions
for social inclusion. Dalits6 and tribals in India continue to be as socially excluded
as they were in ancient times, and sometimes even more. The political dynamics
of liberal democracy has created more fractures in the society than were there in
earlier times. So is the case with religious and racial groups in various countries.
Development finds expression in the form of a social system that is able to con-
structively resolve critical dilemmas of freedom and control and efficiency and
effectiveness. It is able to ensure its survival over time and is not concerned with
winning in the present. It is able to balance rights with obligations, equality with
elitism, and individual with collective, among others.
Development, we suggest, is as much about process as it is about its outcomes.
One may ask what “develops” and in what terms a society or a nation needs to
be assessed. Recently, a number of social scientists have suggested that develop-
ment needs a multi-dimensional approach. Alkire and Santos (2010) has further
expanded Sen’s (1999) view of development as freedom which focuses on devel-
opment of human capabilities and empowering people to participate in matters
related to their own futures. She has proposed a new Human Development Index
(HDI) that is adjusted for inequality. So do Ranis et al. (2005) who find the con-
cept of HDI too reductionist and propose a concept of human development that
goes beyond taking into account life expectancy, literacy, years of education, a
modified measure of income. They include within human development dimensions
like material wellbeing, bodily wellbeing, mental, work, security, social relations,
spiritual, empowerment and political freedom, and respect for other species.
Our view is that the added dimensions of development should not arise out of
a value base that privileges the individual over the collective, money over rela-
tionships and elitism over equality. What is required is a more holistic and mul-
tidimensional approach. We suggest that such an approach will seek to maximize
development of capitals other than economic, such as human (including knowl-
edge), social, ethical and spiritual (see Malloch 2003). A great number of scholars
agree that development has to go beyond GDP (Costanza et al. 2009; Environment

6  Dalitsconstitute the lowest castes who have been traditionally considered “untouchable” by
upper castes.
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 15

Commission 2007). Sen’s capability approach, which is at the centre of the HDI,
holds that human beings have to be the primary ends in the process of develop-
ment just as they also are the primary means of development (Sen 1999). But
this approach, as well as the UNDP’s approach in measuring HDI, focuses only
on three dimensions, namely, life expectancy, education and standard of living. It
leaves out other dimensions that impact on people’s lives and living. Some of the
scholars, therefore, have gone on to suggest measures related to subjective wellbe-
ing and happiness that deserve our attention (Diener & Oishi 2005; Kahnemann
1999; Layard 2005; Veenhoven 1984). Another such dimension is social capital
(Bourdieu 1972; Fukuyama 1995; Putnam 2000). A United Nations conference on
“Happiness and Wellbeing” held on April 2, 2012 in New York shows the clear
shift that is taking place in looking for non-economic and subjective measures.
The Bhutanese government’s initiative to measure Gross National Happiness
(GNH), instead of focussing on GDP, has found many takers around the world.
GNH Index is based on nine areas that include: (1) psychological wellbeing, (2)
time-use, (3) community vitality, (4) cultural diversity and resilience, (5) health,
(6) education, (7) ecological diversity and resilience, (8) living standards and (9)
governance. The main problem with the dominant paradigm of development is that
it is driven primarily by the philosophy of neo-liberalism and neo-liberal democ-
racy, which pits one man (and, also human groups) against another and leaves
out important questions related to human quest and morality. Because of this, the
dominant paradigm of development remains inadequate and underspecified.

3.3 Embeddedness

The “embeddedness and openness” approach to an alternative model of develop-

ment also tries to cut through the heart of longstanding debates between tradition
and modernity (Tripathi 1988). This false dichotomy (tradition versus modernity)
is seen as a gumption trap, which has consumed a lot of research energy. The
approach posits that social system in order to survive needs to change and in an
effort to do so it can hardly remain totally embedded in tradition or uprooted by
newness or modernity. Hence, the balance should be attempted by society between
meaningful self-sameness, continuity and the need to incorporate new experience
and ideas which can often lead to uprooting and meaninglessness. If such a bal-
ance is not possible, the opposites may co-exist till they get reconciled (Sinha &
Tripathi 1994). The approach, therefore, admits that social values and traditional
institution are to be used both in bringing about change and also in resisting
change. Theoretically, there is a possibility that embeddedness may not be compat-
ible with any change. Hence, there always will be a need to arbitrate between
embeddedness and change by creating new structures and/or new systems of
meaning. To achieve this, one would have to evolve criteria that may not, at first,
be meaningful to all sections of the society but over time as meaning comes to be
shared, the embeddedness will get restored. It is assumed that new experience and
16 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

plans will be wrapped within meaningful and embedded terms. However, the ques-
tion may be posed whether it is possible to wrap concepts alien to the system, like
the removal of poverty, inequality, casteless society, or the promotion of secular-
ism, using traditional meaningful systems. “Openness” allows for change and new
knowledge and values to come in, but many of the new values and practices come
from societies that have a different knowledge tradition. Thus, for example,
embedded persons in the Indian tradition who have imbibed the most enlightened
meaning of “dharma”, which allows for flexibility and contextualization (desh and
kaal7 in particular), could find it difficult to reconcile this idea with the universal
rationality of the West.
The Indian constitution, which is an outgrowth of such a universal rationality,
has not been able to accommodate changes in normative standards according to
stages in life, desh or kaal. Hence, often one hears that the Indian legal system of
treating everyone equally is traditionally unacceptable and unjust. But the fact also
remains that the Indian constitution also has shown resilience and law makers as
well as judges have sought reconciliation between the traditional and the modern
on a continuous basis. The middle path suggested by Lord Buddha remains the
preferred way of resolving conflicts and dilemmas in India. A judgment of the
Allahabad High Court relating to the dispute of Babri Masjid and Ram
Janmabhumi Temple8 amply demonstrates the balance that has been sought
between the secular and the religious. The two coordinates of embeddedness and
openness are taken as attributes of all social systems and are not peculiar to Indian
or western systems. It may be too early to judge whether this approach will serve
as an alternative model of development, but it certainly has the potential of enunci-
ating national development in psychological terms and carve out a role for psy-
chology in policy making.

4 Psychologists’ Role in Policy Making

It may be asked what role psychologists can play in making of social policies
and how distinctively unique these roles are. One of the major agendas of psy-
chologists is to create conditions that enable all humans to realize their full crea-
tive potential. In order to realize this goal, they concern themselves with studying

7  Desh and kaal refer to space and time, respectively. Indians seek to tailor their responses and
their appropriateness to social situations based on these two coordinates.
8  Hindus claim that Mir Baqui, a lieutenant of the Mughal emperor Babur, demolished a temple

built at Ayodhya in north India, where Lord Rama is supposed to have been born, and erected
a masjid (mosque) over the remains in 1528. Three different groups claimed title to the land of
the masjid, which was razed by a group of militant Hindus in 1992. The Allahabad High Court
in a judgment given on September 30, 2010, ruled that the land be divided equally among the
three litigants: The Sunni Wakf Board, Ram Lalla, represented by the Hindu Mahasabha, and the
Nirmohi Akhara.
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 17

conditions that make it possible to move towards such a society. They also attempt
to identify conditions that create obstacles in the realization of this goal. They par-
ticularly concern themselves with social conditions that lead to dehumanization
and loss of freedom for individuals and create conditions of anomie. Accordingly,
they can come in whenever questions related to unfairness or injustice are posed,
be they in economic, political or sociocultural domains. The major concern of psy-
chologists is with the creation of a holistic society based on relationships that is
free from any or all kinds of exploitation. Psychology sees conflicts, oppression,
violence, discrimination, subordination, and similar phenomena as unacceptable
and ugly, be they at the individual, group, community or national levels. Social
exclusion, whether of women, of dalits or tribals, ought to have been of as much
concern to psychologists as it has been to other social scientists. Psychologists
have, however, engaged with such issues in a superficial manner. When they have,
their efforts have been largely due to their academic concern and not due to their
concern with the oppression faced by such groups of people.
Education and employment are often suggested as twin strategies to create
social inclusion. It is with this in view that the Indian constitution provides for res-
ervation in educational institutions and in jobs in government-run institutions. A
pertinent question to ask here will be, how far has such a strategy enabled socially
disadvantaged people to secure social justice? While there is some evidence that
representation of the socially disadvantaged has gone up by about 5 % in govern-
ment jobs and educational institutions (Borooah et al. 2007), the social inequalities
and stigma faced by close to more than a million manual scavengers, despite man-
ual scavenging becoming outlawed in 1993, is just one example that underscores
the failure of our social policies (Narula & Macwan 2001). Education, which
Drèze and Sen (2002) consider to be a tool of empowerment, in many cases, has
turned out to be a tool of exploitation in rural areas (Tripathi et al. 2007). How is
this to be explained? Not by any of the economic or political theories but by psy-
chological studies that show that when caste is made salient, as is done through
reservation in educational and political institutions, old systems of social domi-
nance may become weak, but cultural belief systems persist in perpetuating ine-
qualities. Hoff and Pandey (2004) found that when social identity based on caste is
made salient, low caste people expect that their efforts will be poorly rewarded,
which eventually affects expectations and also their motivational levels. In another
study, Pandey and Tripathi (1982) had also found that studying in high caste
schools lowers the motivational levels of Scheduled Caste (SC)9 students much
more in comparison to when they studied in SC-run schools, in which caste sali-
ence was not that pronounced. Macro-level interventions alone do not deliver.
They need to be supported by large-scale interventions in cultural belief systems.
One of the major concerns that have emerged in developing societies relates to
the large-scale corruption that appears to have become the bane of these societies.

9  SCs are people belonging to those caste groups who have remained disadvantaged historically
and find a mention in the First Schedule of the Indian constitution. Such people are entitled to
receive benefits under various affirmative action programmes of the government.
18 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

China and India have the two fastest growing economies of the world. But India
ranks 95 and China 65 among the most corrupt nations according to the surveys of
Transparency International for the year 2011. The recent efforts of civil society to
have a strong Lokpal Bill10 passed by the Indian Parliament may be seen in this
light, but as we have seen in this country and elsewhere, laws alone are not enough.
On paper, India has more laws than most other nations but fails to get people to fol-
low them, and also to get law-enforcing agencies to implement them. It is here that
psychologists can make a unique contribution. The large scale behavioural aberra-
tions and unethical acts of people that are observed today are explained by
Bandura’s (1999) concept of moral disengagement of people, particularly of those at
the top. This concept has also been used to explain corruption at individual and
organizational levels. Moral disengagement may also explain the movements
recently witnessed against corrupt totalitarian regimes in the Arab countries.
Corruption is only one example. There are other social ills and issues that call
for critical inputs and interventions of psychologists in India, most of which involve
a complex mix of emotions and cognitions. Some of these are social change issues
arising due to the acceptance of new communication technologies. But these do not
pose so much of a challenge as does the spread of the ideology of neo-liberalism
and globalization that has engulfed not only the economic system of the country
but all spheres be it social, cultural or political. It is here that the Indian people and
people of other developing societies face the challenge to remain embedded while
remaining open to changes posed by their changing environments. Globalization
of the economy and telecommunication technologies that have made nations
more connected than ever have thrown up a number of other challenges. They are
believed to have increased the marginalization of people and increased economic,
social and political inequalities. In other words, it has impacted negatively on social
development (Fournier 2002). There are other problems which they create. On the
one hand, they create issues related to sustainable development and prudent use of
natural resources; and on the other hand, they raise issues related to human rights
and, therefore, of agency. Accordingly, leaders around the world have been forced
to reassess their approaches towards development and move in the direction of
development of human capabilities and their wellbeing.
The forte of psychology has been to measure individual wellbeing and func-
tioning. Hence, the evaluation of planned efforts at this facet of development, even
when such an effort is made without taking into consideration individual-level
variables, can be gainfully undertaken by psychologists (Singh & Tripathi 2010).
However, even today planners and policy makers do not readily accept the role
of an evaluator or of a social auditor from psychologists. More often than not
such people are either economists or political scientists, because there is a polit-
ico-economic side to all governmental plans. On the face of it, maximization of

10  A new political party called India Against Corruption, led by Arvind Kejriwal, and a group led

by Anna Hazare, have come up with a parallel Jan (People’s) Lokpal Bill that visualizes a totally
autonomous ombudsman with powers to investigate all functionaries of the government, includ-
ing even the prime minister of the country.
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 19

such outcomes may sound logical, but it is forgotten that economic planning has
individual consequences. The planned, unplanned and unintended consequences
of policies, therefore, need to be studied from psychological perspectives. The
role of the psychologist as an evaluator of planned efforts, we hold, should not be
restricted only to projects run by the government but also to projects and move-
ments run by NGOs. Psychologists, generally, have not felt the need to associate
themselves with such groups and have only occasionally helped them in evaluating
outcomes of their interventions. This has led to psychologists having lost out on
chances of being involved with grassroots changes. They also have not been able
to test findings and temper their theories with real-life situations. Psychologists,
because they do not associate themselves with such groups and movements, also
lose out when the government takes into account the learning from these move-
ments into policy making.
Psychologists need to pay more attention to voluntary groups and their efforts to
change society and forge a role for themselves within these efforts. They need to
commit themselves to ideologies of humanism and democracy and only then will
they be able to develop a critical perspective. This will not only enable them to gen-
erate knowledge that is socially useful and can be used by the policy makers, but
also help them to perform the role of advocates for social causes more effectively.
The kind of psychological research in which they need to involve themselves and
which is potentially useful to policy makers, as Ruback and Innes (1988) suggest,
will focus on a policy variable that can be changed by policy makers and/or on a
high-utility dependent variable that is associated with important societal outcomes.

5 Promises to Keep

Jawaharlal Nehru in his “Tryst with Destiny”11 speech on the eve of India’s inde-
pendence from the British on August 14, 1947 had said that time had come to
“redeem the promise” to the people of India. This promise later found reflection in
the Constitution of India, which the people of India gave themselves on January
26, 1950. Social policy makers will have to ask themselves how far they have been
able to redeem the promise of delivering social, economic and political justice to
people in post-independent India (Tripathi 2010). It may also be asked to what
degree we continue to be a “sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic”
as is envisaged in the Indian constitution. In spite of achievements on various
fronts, all does not appear to be well with the Indian nation, if one were to go by
what Naipaul (1990) calls a “million mutinies” that have been taking place in vari-
ous domains and regions in India, but more notably in the border regions. The
trauma of the partition of India and Pakistan has stayed and surfaces every now
and then, sometimes in the form of communal riots and generally in the lack of

11  The speech given by Jawaharlal Nehru on August 14, 1947 on the eve of India’s independence

to the Constituent Assembly.

20 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

trust that minority communities have in the dominant majority community. Hindu
India also has not been able to work out and accept at the emotional level, the par-
tition of the country, which it assiduously tried to resist. It feels betrayed by the
British but more so by its own leaders, who yielded to the two-nation theory by
accepting the partition of the nation, yet decided to keep a large Muslim popula-
tion as part of the “secular” India. Hindu India complains that while Pakistan has
all but “cleansed” itself of Hindus by squeezing them out (only one percent
remain, including Sikhs), India has gone out of its way to “appease” minorities
who got best of the both “countries”! The two-nation theory won Pakistan for the
Muslim, while those Muslims who stayed back in India became a “privileged
minority” because their interests are protected under the Indian constitution. This
perception of some Hindus surfaces every now and then in the form of riots when
one hears Hindutva slogans: “Bharatvarsha mein rahna hai toh Vande Mataram
kahna hoga” (If one wishes to stay in Bharatvarsha [India], one must sing Vande
Mataram [Ode to the Mother, in Sanskrit]) or “Muslims should be dumped in the
Bay of Bengal”. There are other fractures that are as perceptible. People living in
Indian states bordering Pakistan or China are a long way away from building a
national identity, be it in Kashmir, Manipur or Nagaland. To keep the peace in
these states, the government has enacted an Armed Forces Special Powers Act
(AFSPA),12 which has not helped much and has contributed to a great deal of
alienation of these people. The only way the Central government in Delhi has
attempted to integrate them is by offering them special economic packages, every
now and then, and that has not helped. Such altruism in situations where it threat-
ens the self-esteem of the group never helps. On the contrary, it invites reaction
from the recipients (Fisher et al. 1982). A long time ago, G. Murphy, after India
witnessed the horrendous killings at the time of partition, drew our attention to the
UNESCO constitutional principle that “wars begin in the minds of men; it is in the
minds of men that defences must be constructed”(http://portal.unesco.org); social
policies have remained far away from it.
There is very little that the Indian government has done towards nation build-
ing, although it has ever since Independence a National Integration Council whose
sole purpose appears to be to pass resolutions when communal harmony of the
nation is disturbed. There is no attempt to intervene in processes that lead to con-
structions of the other or of the enemy, or to deal with the traumas that are suffered
by children who live in such conflict-ridden areas, or by children who are victims
of communal riots. Psychologists can play a major role here. The major policy that
the government has adopted is to create legal structures so that those who are at
the receiving end feel secure. An example of this is the bill that is to be placed
before the Indian Parliament relating to “Prevention of Communal and Targeted
Violence”. The usual response of the Indian government to major riots that have

12  The Act empowers an Army officer in an area declared “disturbed” to arrest civilians without

a warrant, search their premises, to make arrests and even fire upon suspects even if it causes
death.
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 21

taken place in the country has been to get them investigated by commissions of
inquiry that have done very little to restore confidence of the victims of riots.
A major concern of policy makers in India has been with empowerment of
minority groups and socially disadvantaged groups. The Minority Commission,
created for ensuring the rights of the people of minority groups, is expected to
intervene in matters related to their welfare in India and on issues related to their
empowerment. But minorities are not the only groups that are sought to be
empowered. Dalits, tribals and backward classes, too, who have lived on the mar-
gins for many millennia, have their own commissions. Several policy initiatives
have been taken to bring them into the mainstream of the society. One major inter-
vention was by creating more opportunities for the STs, SCs and OBCs13 has been
through reservations in various political bodies and jobs, as also by creating quotas
for them in educational institutions. This is now sought to be extended to such
“caste” groups within Muslims too. How far the policy of reservation and quotas
has worked in achieving social inclusion of these groups remains an important but
largely unanswered question. Psychologists can play an important role in answer-
ing this question. The fact that reservation that was initially provided for 10 years
after the creation of the Indian constitution still exists and is now finding its way
even in constitutional positions after 60 years, tells its own story. The question that
needs to be raised is what factors have acted as barriers and have prevented it from
being an effective programme. Crosby and Clayton (2001) feel that psychological
research can importantly inform the need for affirmative action and also assess the
effectiveness of such policy. There are scholars who argue that such provisions,
instead of securing fairness for such groups of people, have only succeeded in cre-
ating feelings of relative deprivation among higher caste people. Leach et al.
(2007) found such feelings for aborigines among the structurally advantaged non-
aborigines in Australia. Caste and minority group politics also appears to have
become a convenient political tool for some in the name of “secularism”. India
today stands very much a “fractured nation”, divided along the lines of religion,
caste, regions, languages and cultures, if one were to go by the frequency of con-
flict among various groups and the prejudices they hold for each other.
People from the marginalized groups continue to have weak voices. Among
the many promises that we are required to keep is that of a nation that is fully
integrated and in which weak voices are heard as clearly as the loud voices. But
what about the voices of the millions of manual scavengers who Gandhi called
“Harijan”, of the bonded, of the street children, of the prostitutes and scores of
other groups which continue to fall on deaf ears. Can psychologists help in deliv-
ering on this promise? There is a fairly long history and pedigree of Psychological
research on inter-group relation in India. (Singh 1985; Hutnik 2004). However,
useful these works may have been to policy makers, there are related historical and
cultural issues related to victimization and collective humiliation of these groups

13  The Indian Constitution under Article 16 (3) provides for caste based reservation in educational

institutions and in government jobs. Under this provision 15 % seats/jobs are reserved for Scheduled
Caste (SC), 7.5 % for Scheduled Tribes (ST) and 27 % for the Other Backward Caste (OBC).
22 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

that still need to be looked into. The social repairing of inter-group relationship;
the need for “truth and closure” in order to recover from victim hood and/or guilt
are some tasks in which psychologists can render help in framing policies.
Another major area where psychologists can contribute uniquely relates to
conditions that lead to stigmatization, either because of reasons of “inheritance”
such as in case of dalits and tribal or physically or mentally challenged or ill or
those suffering from such contagious diseases as AIDS or leprosy. One of the most
important among these groups is of people suffering from various psychological
disorders or children with learning disabilities. The exclusion and the pain suffered
by these groups can be understood only by those who have lived such lives and
by their families and not by others. Social psychologists will need to suggest how
sufferings of these can be mitigated by changing cognitions and attitudes of people
around them as also of the caregivers and making them capable. They will also
need to suggest how social support networks can be created for them.
If we accept that modern life is going to become increasingly more compet-
itive, and will also be driven by meritocracy, then we have to expect that there
would be more failures. At present, social welfare ideology of the state provides
the protective shield for the weak and indigent, at least in the case of those who
belong to the socially disadvantaged class. However, sooner rather than later,
social development would have to be factored in at the policy level to handle
issues of “failure”. A policy for certain sections of society that must fail and yet
learn to live with such failures and contribute towards a healthy society will have
to be worked out. If this is not done, many people belonging to such groups would
feel “being wronged and aggrieved”, a sense which they carry today. Psychology
with its vast data and rich experience with recovering and working through failure
and victim hood can play a major role here.
Related, but not similar, to the sense of being aggrieved is the “victimhood”
resulting from communal conflicts involving religious, caste and ethnic groups.
With communal relations being what they are, and politics of identity being
closely associated with voting and democracy, one can see the need for policy
for dealing with feelings of victimhood. The sense of “closure” that the govern-
ment, perpetuators and the victims, and all “riot-affected people” need will have
to be addressed at the policy level. Social policies are also needed to ensure
that conditions that give rise to such situations are prevented from occurring in
the first place. Communities live and relate with each other after the evil has
happened. They need truth, justice reconciliation and closure to work through
the social traumas. Such repairing of relationships, after serious breach of rela-
tionships, needs inputs from psychology. Psychologists do cover some of these
efforts under the general rubric of procedural and distributive justice studies, but
not fully. Reconciling, forgiving and rebuilding community relations still need
to be addressed at the level of cultural policy. Here, the psychologist can play a
very crucial role along with other social scientists. Some of the works of Butalia
(1998), Nandy et al. (1997), Sonpar (2006) about memories of the victim hood,
do point towards the role that psychology could play in this connection. The cen-
tral issue in relationship repair—repair means change as well as bringing about a
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 23

sense of closure—is the rebuilding/re-establishing of trust. Trust between victim

and perpetrators, government and those it governs, trust between various institu-
tion and its clients, trust of individual in their relationships with others, all need
to be factored into concept of happiness, well being, and development. The often
cited “trust deficit” needs to be reduced. For this, we need policy that will enable
us to develop community structures. The 73rd and 74th amendments, if used imag-
inatively, can go a long way in the creation of these structures. By so doing, one
can focus on building the trust of people in communities and institutions and each
other so that the overall social capital of the community may get raised. Social
capital has been found related not only to economic development but it also plays
a significant role in levels of overall happiness of people (Bartolini et al. 2008;
Kroll 2008; Lin 2002). Poor people in villages lose their food security along with
a sense of wellbeing when their community has no food.
Psychologists, at present, may appear to be far from being in a position of play-
ing a decisive role in policy formulation. One is also aware of the pitfalls on the
way to playing such a role. Psychologists would remain sidelined so long as they
do not develop ideological clarity and are able to show their commitment to work
for improving the quality of living of the humankind, and also human dignity.
They have to stick their necks out and become more committed to changing soci-
ety by playing a role along with other social scientists risking both the comforts of
being a scientist and the innocence of the role they have played till now. Once they
do that, they would have turned the corner from being called “servants of power”
to “true servants of society” and will be able to take the place they deserve among
the makers of social policy in India.

6 The Present Volume

The present volume consists of a collection of articles by prominent psychologists

who have attempted to carve out a role for psychology in national development
and policy formations. The collection is not exhaustive nor is it a state-of-the-art
review. It may be seen as an attempt by psychologists to venture out of their zones
of comfort. This chapter provides the framework within which the discourse of
social policy framing and the possible role that psychologists can play is carried
out in the book.
In Chap. 2, Rajnarain sounds a warning saying that while there are undoubtedly
policy implications of psychological research, psychologists’ need to be cautious
and not to engage in overgeneralization of their findings. He also raises issues
relating to the dangers of participating in policy making processes. Policies, he
points out, are guided not only by scientific findings but also by political and eco-
nomic considerations.
F.M. Moghaddam, Cynthia Bianchi Katherine, Michael J. Apter and Rom
Harre in Chap. 3 assert that psychology has a role in national development more
so now that human development is viewed as central to national development.
24 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

The post-1990 period is seen as an “opportunities” era of development. Herein is

located the capability argument. Opportunities turn real only if people have the
ability to choose and capabilities to translate these opportunities into a better life.
Tracing the works of older psychologists like McClelland, Sinha and others, they
make out a case for a role of psychologists in planned interventions in national
development, particularly in identifying the barriers to change and carriers of
change at the individual as well as national level.
Sinha, in Chap. 4, carries forward the arguments of Moghaddam and others.
He suggests that there is a need for developing an inclusive strategy that can pro-
mote sustainable human development that encompasses not only economic but
also social and psychological wellbeing of people. Happiness too is seen as cen-
tral to development. He argues for endogenous development that would blend core
Indian characteristics with development. He locates core Indian orientations along
with their inherent paradoxes and seeks to align them with development efforts
and goals. He critiques various governmental efforts at development and argues
that they have nurtured dependency rather than agentic capabilities. He argues that
inclusive human development will be possible if organizations and institutions are
guided by continuous societal discourse on human development, particularly relat-
ing to social and economic development.
Tripathi, in Chap. 5, examines the relationship between education, development
and happiness. Education is generally seen as a major enabler of human devel-
opment. He presents data from certain villages of western Uttar Pradesh in north
India to question this “article of faith”. In these villages, educational develop-
ment was found to be associated with loss of income for the disadvantaged and an
increase in the income of the advantaged, reduction of interpersonal contact, com-
munity feelings, and hope for future improvement. Education, both in its present
form and content and the institutional system which supports it, seems to result
in a more iniquitous, competitive and unhappy society. He suggests that there is
a need to look closer and critically into the values that underlie today’s education
and prevalent educational institutions if education is to be used for human devel-
opment, and also for raising the levels of happiness of people.
In Chap. 6, Minati Panda and Ajit Mohanty, while sounding the alarm that
languages are dying all over the globe at ever-increasing rate, also point out that
in India the death of languages is caused mainly due to the present educational
system. In India, they find that there is a double divide wherein English stands
at the top, followed by the dominant regional languages, and at the very bottom
come the mother tongues, mainly those of the tribal people. The near absence of
these mother tongues as medium of instruction is causing high rate of drop outs
and results in lower cognitive skills of the tribal children and in their weak cultural
identity. Panda and Mohanty argue in support of multilingual education (MLE) to
delegitimize hegemonic positions of certain languages over the language of tribal
children. They further argue that the right to education needs to be linked to the
right to receive education in one’s preferred language because such linking would
not only go a long way to benefit the tribal child in school but would also help in
preserving the multilingual multiculturalism of India.
1  Introduction: Psychological Coordinates of Social Policy in India 25

Bhoomika R. Kar in Chap. 7, explores issues related to learning disabilities and

shows how interaction between the environment and the brain shapes language,
memory and motor abilities. Hence, tools for identifying, diagnostic procedures,
intervention and research on learning disabilities can help inform policy making.
In Chap. 8, Komilla Thapa raises some basic questions related to how clini-
cal psychology can possibly play a role in the formulation of social policy. She
reviews mental health policy in India against the backdrop of prevalence of men-
tal disorders in India. She points out how cultural diversity and cultural factors in
India complicate issues related to the formulation of mental health policies. She
states that there is an urgent need to build an asset base of mental health profes-
sionals and paraprofessionals and to develop effective and efficient mental health
services.
Chapter 9, by Namita Pande and Shruti Tewari, critiques social policies related
to physical disability in India and focuses on how psychology can help in creating
better policies for physically challenged persons. In particular, the Persons with
Disabilities Act 1995 could be made more comprehensive if informed by psycho-
logical research done on disabilities.
In Chap. 10, Dalal discusses and critically examines traditional healing prac-
tices and systems, such as ayurveda, yoga, Unani, Siddha and homeopathy, along
with the western medical practices, in order to support his argument for develop-
ing a more eclectic and integrative approach to the health delivery system in India.
Such a system, he advocates, will be in consonance with the health beliefs and
practices of the patients and will go a long way in improving the health status of
people.
In Chap. 11, Durganand Sinha, while underlining the effects of long-term dep-
rivation on the cognitive capabilities of children, shows how these deficiencies
turn into lifelong handicaps for the poor because of which they are not able to
avail of whatever meagre opportunities are available to them to improve their life
chances. He points out the role psychology can play in helping children develop
cognitive capabilities so that they utilize the opportunities if and when they are
provided by various government schemes. He also shows how by sticking to rig-
ours of basic research one can make contributions to policies, particularly with
regard to education and poverty alleviation.
In Chap. 12, Lilavati Krishnan makes a case for the inclusion of the social psy-
chological perspective in policy formulation pertaining to the domain of distribu-
tive justice, along with the economic, sociological and legal perspectives, which
already have a prominent place. Focusing on findings that show specific “justice
rule” preferences, and the effects of personal, situational and cultural variables
on these preferences and justice perceptions, she underlines the need to under-
stand how people conceptualize “justice”, and how this conceptualization varies
between different sections of Indian society, to distinguish between the allocator’s
(the policy makers) and recipient’s (the target group) perspectives, and to take due
cognizance of the role of resource and sociocultural variables.
The issue of communal conflicts involving Hindus and Muslims is addressed in
Chap. 13, by Tripathi, E.S.K. Ghosh and Rashmi Kumar. Based on studies carried
26 R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha

out in India, and on the history of such conflicts, they have attempted to understand
the social psychological roots of such conflicts. They also analyze the existing poli-
cies of the government for establishing communal harmony and argue that they have
failed because they have not addressed the problem at the source. Based on their
analysis of existing relations between the two groups and various social psychologi-
cal theories they present proposals to policy makers for improving relations between
these communities.
Daya Pant in Chap. 14 explores the differences between urban and rural women
particularly with regard to “learned helplessness” with a view to understanding the
issue of empowerment of women. Various attempts made in India to bring about
empowerment of women are critiqued and their differential effects upon the urban
and rural women are evaluated. The top-down approach is seen as less empow-
ering. The author advocates an approach in which women will get to participate
in community and social decision making, such as seen in the case of village
panchayats.
Over the past decades, environmental issues have become a major area of interest
for psychologists. Environmental problems are no longer seen as technological prob-
lems only but also behavioural problems involving humans. They are not only the
victims of environmental degradation but also the source of it. The solution to such
environmental degradation lies in controlling behaviour that degrades environment and
in developing attitudes that support protection of environment. In Chap. 15, Roomana
N. Siddiqui empirically examines these issues. Her focus is on crowding, noise, air
and water pollution. She also focuses on environmental disasters and on how changes
in the environment affect behaviour. She asks policy makers to consider the attitudinal
and behavioural aspects of practices which lead to degradation of the environment and
also of “pro-environmental practices” in order to develop a comprehensive environ-
mental policy.

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Chapter 2
Social Research and Public Policy: Some
Cautionary Notes

Rajnarain

1 Introduction

It is tempting for a researcher to declare the policy implications of certain relation-

ships found by him in analyzing his data. But the declaration should be made with
caution. It should be remembered that the relationships have been obtained because
of his ability to exercise control on many phases of the research. But in real life,
activities and patterns cannot be held constant. It should also be remembered that the
results of research are true for the population studied and one has to make sure that
the results can be generalized to other populations. Further, it needs to be remem-
bered that the execution of policies may affect activities and behaviours not stud-
ied, generating effects that are unpredictable on the basis of research undertaken and
may even be undesirable. Therefore, while suggesting policy implications of one’s
research, one should emphasize the need for small-scale trials of the implications,
and outline strategies for the evaluation of the operations and results of such trials,
in the hope that the trials will uncover undesirable effects, and suggest further tri-
als designed to eliminate the undesirable effects, in light of which large-scale efforts
can be launched. The ethical responsibility of a researcher to maintain the wellbeing
of human beings involved in the extension of research findings cannot be avoided.
Head (2010) points out that social scientists need to be sensitive to these inherent
limitations of social research before they start to offer to the policy makers’ evi-
dence-based research findings as inputs for policy making. Stone (2002) states that
the relationship between the policy makers and researchers is problematic on sev-
eral counts. Besides issues related to validity of findings and relevance of research,
she points out that the divide between the researcher and policy makers may be
because researchers in the first place do not have access to data and research that
address directly the policy issues. The other major problems which researchers may
face involve understanding the nature of the process of policy formulation and their

Rajnarain (author deceased) 
Department of Psychology–Philosophy, Lucknow University, Lucknow, U.P, India

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 31
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_2, © Springer India 2014
32 Rajnarain

inability to communicate properly how and where the policy makers can make use
of the research findings. According to a study carried out in Canada, research ema-
nating from professional social science disciplines like industrial relations and social
work got utilized much more compared to disciplinary social sciences like econom-
ics, political science and sociology because they not only were able to communi-
cate better but directly addressed the issues confronted by the policy makers (Landry
et al. 2001). Similarly, the policy makers may suffer from problem of awareness of
research but more than that very often they are also victim of an attitude of what
Stone calls “anti-intellectualism”. Edwards (2005) considers how this kind of divide
between researchers and public policy makers can be narrowed.

2 Social Context of Social Research

Social research is one form of organized social activity. It is intimately related to

other forms of organized social activity. Interaction and feedback take place con-
tinuously between social research and other social activities. For example, social
research is becoming more and more dependent on the larger society for financial
support. At the same time, the larger society is making more and more demands
from social research for information for identifying and in general two types of
sources for financial support of research are available. The first type is interested in
developing scientific knowledge. The second is primarily interested in the genera-
tion of information that will have policy or applied implications. Such information
is expected to help either in transferring basic knowledge and techniques for use in
policy decisions or in evaluating current policies or proposed policies. Many sources
support both types of research. Funded social research must discharge its contrac-
tual obligation to the sponsoring agency as well as to the scientific community.
Another issue relating to the social context of social research is the organization
of social research. There are several reasons for and against gains from organized
social research. As social research becomes larger in scope and more expensive,
lone researchers are not able to provide all the equipment, personnel and material
needed for research from their own sources. One advantage of organized social
research is that it stimulates interaction between disciplines. Another is the provi-
sion of opportunity for pooling and sharing of resources. A research organization
allows division of labour in the conduct of research, and research produced by a
research organization carries more weight than one done by an individual.
The most serious problem facing university-affiliated research organizations
is that the universities and teachers thereof frown on applied research, consider-
ing it irrelevant to the primary function of university research, viz., production
and transmission of scientific knowledge. Teachers undertaking applied research
are considered to be second-class academicians by their colleagues. This attitude,
which is changing but slowly, has led to the establishment of independent research
organizations. Such organizations are a haven for policy researchers. The organi-
zations may be non-profit making or commercial. Funding agencies are interested
in supporting organizations that are efficient. And in this respect, research firms
2  Social Research and Public Policy: Some Cautionary Notes 33

are favoured by funding agencies. However, inasmuch as the research firm tries to
please funding agencies, its allegiance to the scientific community is weakened.
This, however, may not be true only of the research firms; Baritz (1960) calls
social scientists in the United States, in general, “servants of power”.

3 Policy Research Process

Social research contributes both to policy and theory. Policy research begins with
(a) identification of needs, (b) specification of policy goals or (c) both. It is the
need of the target population and the goal of the clientele system that guide the
formulation of the objectives of policy research. In many cases, the goals may be
formulated without primary consideration being given to the needs of the target
population, although policy research must always address itself to the correspond-
ence between the needs of the target population and the policies of the clientele.
Ideally, policy research should have the option of challenging the existence of
parts of/or the whole of the clientele system, should the research show a failure in
matching the organizational goals with the needs of the target population.
The translation or operationalization of policy goals needs of the target popu-
lation, or both, represents the initiation of scientific activities in policy research.
Terms relevant to the organization and to the population are operationalized into
variables. Policy research then goes on to the process of sampling, measurement,
data collection and data analysis as in any rigorous social research process. But
when the interpretation of data stage is reached, policy makers, in contrast to theo-
retical research in which interpretation is geared towards the advancement of theo-
retical knowledge, have their way and policy research then passes from scientific
activity to organizational activity, for the generalizations obtained in research have
to be applied to a specific (target) population.
The formulation of specific policies for the population is guided not only by sci-
entific findings but also by many other extra scientific considerations like political
and economic ideologies (Edwards 2005). Political expediencies besides interper-
sonal relations may also come into play in the deliberation and execution of poli-
cies. Policy planning and execution thus are usually made after there has been some
“give and take” among various interested parties in the clientele system. The result-
ing policy may deviate considerably from the recommendations based on data.
Following the guidelines of the formulated policy, organizational and admin-
istrative steps are taken for the implementation of policy. Ideally, new policies
must be examined in small-scale trials to discover its ill and side effects. The
final scrutiny of results of policy research is based on its financial implications.
Meanwhile, information has to be disseminated to the target population about the
forthcoming policy and its involvement in the implementation. Finally, the policy
is implemented. The implementation should be paralleled by efforts to investigate
the effects of the policies on the fulfilment of initial needs and goals. This evalu-
ation activity can be a part of the new policies. Any discrepancy between policy
effects and the needs and goals, as well as unexpected effects, must be carefully
34 Rajnarain

Policy Research Process

Organizational Activities Scientific Activities

Identification of Specification of policy Formulation of

needs goals research objectives

Policy implementation Sampling

Budgeting and resource allocation Measurement

Trial and dissemination Data Collection

Policy organization and administration Data Analysis

Policy
Policy formulation and planning recommendation

Fig. 1  Policy research process

evaluated. This may be the beginning of another policy research, thus complet-
ing the cycle of policy research process. Public policies get formulated and
implemented very often without completing the cyclic process. The process is dia-
grammatically presented in Fig. 1 (Lin 1976, p. 373).

4 Developmental and Evaluation Research

According to the intent of the researcher, social research policy implications are
of two types. In the first, research effort is based on a theoretical tradition and an
attempt is made to apply it to a specific policy problem. This is called “developmen-
tal research”. It is characterized by (1) implicitness of policy implications of the theo-
retical tradition and (2) adaptation of the theoretical tradition to derive policy-related
information for a given policy problem. For example, the “diffusion of innovations”
tradition (see Rogers 2003) has been the basis of policies about marketing of new
products, promotion of family planning, and incorporation of educational devices.
Development research presumes that certain characteristics of the social phenomenon
on problem for policy correspond to the concepts and variables in the tradition.
The second type, while based on general social theory and methods, aims spe-
cifically at providing information for policy decisions. This type is called “evalua-
tion research” (Weiss 1998). It is marked by explicitness of policy implications in
the formulation and execution of the research plan; and incorporation of variables
2  Social Research and Public Policy: Some Cautionary Notes 35

specifically relevant to the problem in hand. It is not bound by any research tradi-
tion, but is problem oriented.
While both the types attempt to provide information for policy decisions, they are
derived from different conceptual perspectives and therefore arrive at substantially
divergent results. Developmental research does not challenge the research tradi-
tion on which it is based and its primary aim therefore is to broaden the explanatory
power of that tradition so that it can be extended to the study of more and more phe-
nomena. Evaluation research being not bound to any research tradition utilizes the
concepts and methods of any discipline that promises implications for policy devel-
opment and variables seldom considered by previous researchers. The relevance of
a variable to an evaluation researcher is determined by two considerations: (1) the
meaningfulness of the variable for the policy makers and for target population and
(2) manipulability of the variable by the policy organization. Obviously for policy
makers, evaluation research is more meaningful than developmental research. Many
social researchers are either unaware of the difference between the two types of
research or are unwilling to sacrifice their scientific theories.

5 A Typology of Policy Research

A typology of policy research can be constructed on the basis of its two dimen-
sions: focus and nature. The research focus can be of two kinds: on means and
ends. The former, for example, in case of formal organizations, is guided by exist-
ing goals of ends of the clientele system and attempts to identify potential defects
in the organizational–managerial structure and process. In case of the latter, an
attempt may be made to assess the outcomes of existing organizational–manage-
rial structure and processes to ascertain the degree to which the actual outcomes
are consistent with the defined outcomes.
The nature of the policy can also be of two types: existing or new. For the for-
mer, research is guided by variables already specified and defined by the clientele
system; it is variable-specified research. The latter is not bound by specified vari-
ables; although some constraints on the variables may be set out by the clientele
system; it is variable-unspecified research.
Given these two dimensions and their subtypes, a fourfold typology of policy
research emerges, as shown in Table 1 (Lin 1976, p. 378). The typology has a
bearing on the current methodological issues in policy research.

Table 1  Research focus
Policy Means Ends
Existing Variable-specified Variable-specified
Organizational–managerial analysis Productive-performance analysis
Alternative Variable-unspecified Variable-unspecified
Organizational–managerial analysis Productive-performance analysis
36 Rajnarain

6 Methodological Issues

There are four methodological issues of specific relevance to policy research.

These are the following: selection of variables, selection of theoretical structure,
use of field experiment and standardization of data.

6.1 Social Action and Academic Orientation

Since policy research is oriented towards social action or problem–solution, it

behoves the researcher to take into account variables in research that can not only
be identified in the clientele system, but also are open to manipulation. In theoretical
research, the selection of variables is done on the basis of their explanatory value.
The possibility of manipulation of the selected variable is of secondary importance.
For example, according to social stratification theory, an individual’s ascribed social
status, along with his educational achievement, accounts for a large part of his even-
tual occupational status and level of income. In the framework of policy research,
the variable of social status presents a problem: one’s ascribed status can hardly be
manipulated, and, perhaps, his educational achievement as well. Hence, it is scien-
tifically worthy but pragmatically poor. A useful variable seems to be the hiring and
promotion policy of the clientele system. Therefore, the selection of a variable in
policy research should be based on its manipulability and accountability (e.g., cost).
This is especially crucial for independent variables. This is not to suggest that in pol-
icy research, all selected variables should be manipulable and accountable, and basic
(explanatory) variables are ruled out. What is suggested is that while maintaining the
basic variables, it is also important to incorporate as many organizational independ-
ent manipulable variables as is feasible and meaningful.

6.2 Limited Variables

There are three different theoretical structures: convergent (causal), divergent

(effectual) and causal-effectual. In the first, the focus of interest is a dependent
variable and the objective is to identify the important and relevant independent
(causal) variables.
The second identifies a single or limited number of independent variables and
enumerates the multiple consequent (effectual) variables. In the third, the varia-
ble or variables of focal interest are studied in terms of both the independent and
dependent variables; the selection of the theoretical structure is determined by the
nature of policy research. For policy research focusing on the means for exist-
ing or proposed policies, the convergent structure seems desirable. But for policy
research focusing on ends, the divergent structure seems to be the most appropri-
ate. The causal-effectual structure is useful when the researcher is given certain
2  Social Research and Public Policy: Some Cautionary Notes 37

predetermined or proposed organizational–managerial characteristics and asked

to explore other desirable characteristics to achieve certain optimal results for the
predetermined or proposed characteristics.
The selection of an appropriate theoretical structure for policy research enables
a researcher to locate the variables in appropriate positions in the structure and
apply appropriate analytical procedures to the data and to increase the likelihood
of the results of research being useful for possible policy recommendations and
execution.
The performance of a field experiment in policy research serves as a criti-
cal test of any potential changes and their effects before these changes are fully
implemented. In the field experiment, the proposed changes are administered to
selective and representative subgroups (individuals or units) of the target popu-
lation, and subgroups of subjects not exposed to proposed change serve as con-
trols. A field experiment, however, faces certain problems. It is less applicable
when research is concerned with ends rather than means, as the outcome is less
susceptible to manipulation. Further, it calls for variations in each variable to be
manipulated as well as in different variables. In reality, economic and adminis-
trative constraints seldom permit such massive, intensive and controlled design.
The constraints pose a serious problem for the evaluation of the results of the field
experiment. And in many cases, decision makers have eventually to make arbitrary
choices among the variables for purposes of implementation. Such choices are
more often determined by economic, personal, social, administrative or political
considerations rather than scientific assessment.
There are two ways of treating data in policy research: analyzing data in their
natural units (rupees/dollars, number of hours, number of people, etc.) or analyzing
data in standardized units. The proponents of natural units argue that these are highly
useful in calculating the cost-benefit analysis of a proposed change in policy. Cost-
benefit analysis may reveal differential costs in the implementation of the different
variables. The proponents of standardized units argue that such units are meaning-
ful because they eliminate possible bias in the different natural units for purposes
of explanation. It is essential to uncover the differential effects of the independent
variables on the dependent variable, and for discovering the differential effects, the
independent variables must be converted to similar (standardized) units. It is obvi-
ous that both the arguments are valid. The use of natural units is indicated when one
is sure that the variables involved are important as far as the outcome is concerned.
Standardized units are indicated where such assurance is not forthcoming.

7 Practice of Policy Research

The practices of policy research involve certain professional responsibilities,

because policy research has an impact on many people whose lives may be sub-
stantially affected. It can be significant or devastating in its effect. The responsibil-
ities are fourfold. First is the ethical responsibility of protecting the confidentiality
38 Rajnarain

of the sources of information, so that the informants or units are not subjected to
legalistic or political persecution. Policy researchers are pressed by political and
legal agencies to reveal. The researchers have to resist these pressures (SRA 2003).
Secondly, since the relationship between the policy researcher and the sponsor of
his research is contractual, he is obliged to perform the research as a service to the
sponsor. Usually, the sponsor has vested interests to protect and tends to dictate the
directions the research should take. To accept this dictation is to betray the research-
er’s allegiance to scientific principles and to scientific community of which he is a
member. But where large sums of money are involved in the contract, and there is
a competition among research organizations for obtaining the contract, there is a
likelihood of the research organization giving primary consideration to the sponsor’s
wishes, with the result that the research may be biased in favour of the organization
as against the target population. The temptation has to be resisted.
Thirdly, the quality of policy research has to be controlled. Presently, quality
control is exercised at the time of funding of the research. The sponsors use con-
sultants to evaluate the research proposal, when it is submitted. The consultants
are guided by scientific and methodological considerations in evaluation. But the
execution and use of policy research are usually under no specified professional
and academic control. Quality control should be extended to these stages also.
Fourthly, even if full quality control is achieved, policy research remains con-
fronted with a possible gap between data, advocacy and policy decision. In prin-
ciple, there is a consistency between data and advocacy. But in practice, a gap
occurs when a researcher advocates a policy not in conformity with data, or a
policy without data. Where he advocates a policy without data, he should make it
clear that the advocacy is based on his ideology, not empirical evidence.
There is also a discrepancy between data and policy decisions. While data are
continuous, decisions are discrete (to implement or not to implement). Policy mak-
ers like to have recommendations in discrete terms (yes–no) while data indicate only
“more” or “less”. In some instances, continuous data can be made discrete by sug-
gesting “cutting-off” points. But generally the gap remains. And the policy maker
interprets it as equivocation on the part of the researcher and becomes alienated from
the researcher. To escape alienation, the researcher may give unwarranted categorical
answers. The real remedy for the gap is to educate the policy maker about the nature
of social research, so that he has the right expectations from research.

References

Baritz, L. (1960). The servants of power: a history of the use of social science in American
Industry. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Edwards, M. (2005). Social science research and public policy: narrowing the divide. Australian
Journal of Public Administration., 64, 68–74.
Head, B. (2010). Evidence based policy: principles and requirements. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au.
Landry, R., Amara, N., & Laamary, M. (2001). Utilization of social science research knowledge
in Canada. Research Policy, 30, 333–349.
Lin, N. (1976). Foundations of social research. New York: McGraw-Hill.
2  Social Research and Public Policy: Some Cautionary Notes 39

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.
SRA (Social Research Association). (2003). Ethical guidelines. London: SRA. (www.the-sra.org.
uk/documents/pdfs/ethics03.pdf).
Stone, D. (2002). Getting research into policy. Paper presented at Global Development National
Conference, Rio de Janeiro, December 7–10. http://www.reut-institute.org.
Weiss, C. H. (1998). Evaluation—methods for studying programs and policies (2nd ed.). Upper
Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Chapter 3
Psychology and National Development

Fathali M. Moghaddam, Cynthia Bianchi, Katherine Daniels,

Michael J. Apter and Rom Harre

There is a virtual consensus among scholars in the field that the

study of the new nations has reached a state of acute crisis….
The hope such literature once contained for helping the World
slowly ebbed away.
Hermarri (1980), p. 16
The problem of access to food remains fundamental for
countless poor, even in areas that have benefited from new
technologies and production methods, even in the rich North.
As populations relentlessly grow, particularly in areas that are
already food deficient, the problem of food access is likely to
attain alarming proportions.
International Development Research Centre (1992)

For the last half-century, there has been considerable discussion on the part of both
practitioners and researchers, concerning the meaning and conditions of national
development. Although according to some criteria modest progress has been made
in the social, economic and political sectors, enormous challenges remain. For
example, population increases still threaten to outpace food supply. Despite seri-
ous attempts to control the size of populations, the number of human beings dou-
bled between 1950 and 1990. As many people as would constitute a city, the size
of New York was added to the human race each month (Brown et al. 1993). The
challenges facing developing societies in the domain of population are illustrative

Moghaddam has published extensively in the areas of cultural diversity and international psy-
chology. He has been deeply involved with issues relating to psychology and development.

F. M. Moghaddam (*) · C. Bianchi · K. Daniels · M. J. Apter · R. Harre 

Department of Psychology, Georgetown University, White Gravenor Building (3rd floor),
Washington, DC 20057, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
R. Harre
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 41
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_3, © Springer India 2014
42 F. M. Moghaddam et al.

of serious challenges in a variety of other sectors which, it seems, call for more
than just economic solutions (Griuj & Saivatore 1994).
The major models of development, which have traditionally been eco-
nomic, have been the focus of intense criticism since the 1960s (Bernstein 1973;
Roxborough 1979; Schuurman 1993; Seers & Joy 1971). Not only have econo-
mists debated the best economic policies (David 1986), but also there has been a
call for a broader conception of development, one that incorporates social and cul-
tural characteristics of human societies (Dube 1988; Hagen 1962; Hoselitz 1960;
van Nieuwenhuijze 1988). Our first objective in this article is to briefly but criti-
cally review changes in the conception of development itself over the latter half
of the twentieth century. In doing so, we identify certain assumptions inherent in
the current notions of human development that have psychological implications.
Second, we shall review the psychological literature that attempts to contribute
to the debate on national development. A major shortcoming of this literature, we
shall argue, is the lack of an adequate account of social change. In the third part,
we shall outline an account of national development based on social reduction the-
ory (Moghaddam & Harre 1996) in conjunction with an alternative, but comple-
mentary account of change based on reversal theory (Apter 1989).

1 Changing Views of Development

Changes in the way that development is viewed seem to be subject to fashions

local to industrial countries. In the post-World War II era, these fashions have
undergone considerable changes (Menon 1980):
1948–1955 Import-substituting industries are the key to development.
1960–1965 Import substitution is no good; export expansion is the answer.
1966–1967 Industrialization is an illusion; rapid agricultural growth is the only
answer.
1967–1968 Give top priority to population control policies as all other forms of
development are likely to be submerged by population explosion.
1971–1975 The poor masses have not gained much from development. GNP
growth is rejected; more equitable distribution of existing resources
must come ahead of growth.
The latest avant-garde fashion in development circles is the so-called human
development. This trend is to some extent reflected in the changed concept of
development adopted by the European Union (EU) (for example, see report of
LOME IV in The Courier). It is reflected much more strongly in the first human
development report (UNDP 1990). This report demonstrated the commitment
of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 1993), a major interna-
tional funding and planning channel for development, to the idea of development
as “enlarging peoples’ choices”, a broader cultural rather than purely economic
ideal. Associated with this trend is the replacement of purely economic indicators
3  Psychology and National Development 43

of change, such as gross national product (GNP), with the Human Development
Index, which incorporates three “human” measures indicative of choices avail-
able to individuals: of purchasing power, of quality of education, and of stand-
ard of health. But many questions remain to be addressed. For example, if there
is “increased purchasing power”, what goods does it make possible for people
to buy? And what exactly is meant by “quality of education” and “standards of
health”? Even in the West those criteria are not necessarily coherent.
The high level of attention now given to human development is also reflected
in the other major funding institutions as well as in those engaged in research
activities. As part of this trend, some in the World Bank have called for a radi-
cal reform of policies so that a central place is given to human development. For
example, Woods (1984) recognizes that the evolution of development theory has
divided government and assistance agencies into mutually exclusive “sectors”
(for example, “agriculture” and “education”), and this limits the effectiveness
of policy implemented by separate agencies responsible for each. However, like
most writers in this domain, Woods (1984) places considerable emphasis on the
formal “organizational structure”. He neglects the informal, and we would argue
the more important aspects of organizations and institutions. Often, formal organ-
izations and plans that seem constructive on paper have very different conse-
quences in practice from those envisaged by their proponents. This happens when
planners do not give sufficient consideration to what actually takes place in the
course of development. For example, the famous post-World War II debacle of
the British groundnuts scheme in East Africa was caused in part by inattention to
cultural factors.
Some development theorists have even suggested that economic policies that
are beneficial, at least in the short term, have harmful effects when implemented
in important domains such as education, health and employment (Haq & Kirdar
1987). During the process of economic adjustment, a soft sector such as edu-
cation (and the same may be true for other social services) faces “demands for
domestic austerity and competes with higher priority items such as export promo-
tion and military spending” (Lourie 1987, p. 170). Critics have argued that eco-
nomic growth and adjustment do not automatically lead to beneficial conditions
for all people. Economic indicators do not represent people, but they represent the
economy. Of course, this applies to rich and poor nations alike. In some respects,
“poor” nations may be “healthier” than rich ones who are to say that the problem
of “overweight” in the USA is any less serious than that of malnutrition in India
when considered as a factor in an assessment of quality of life.
Thus, on the surface, the distinction between development as economic growth
and human development seems to be becoming clearer. In response to calls for new
development policies, there is now greater awareness of a need for programmes
to improve primary health care, education, income distribution and nutrition (Gall
1992; Griffin & Knight 1992; Goulet & Wilber 1992). These elements, which most
directly have an impact on people, are taken as the focus of development with the
understanding that when people have certain basic needs cared for, they can more
effectively take part in the control of their own economic, political and social lives.
44 F. M. Moghaddam et al.

These basic needs are taken to be the foundations of expanding capabilities. At

a deeper level, however, the new emphasis on “human development” assumes that
western conceptions of health, education, nutrition and so on are universally valid.
This is a huge assumption which must not go unchallenged. First, we need to dif-
ferentiate between western ideals of health and western practices. For example,
what nutritional food is supposed to be part of a western diet and the actual prac-
tices of eating fast food. Ironically, it is often the latter rather than the former that
are exported to the Third World.

2 Development and Social Behaviour

Underlying the concept of “human development” is a concern for human behav-

iour generally (Moghaddam 1990, pp. 29–30; 1997, Chap. 5). However, once again
we find that researchers have assumed certain western values to be universal. This
is reflected, sometimes explicitly, in the writings of thinkers who pioneered the
new movement. For example, according to Sen (1992), economic growth is only
one narrow aspect of development. More broadly, development involves “entitle-
ments” and “capabilities”. The latter is “the ability to do this or that” (ibid., p. 15),
implying that the capacities of people to utilize resources and to take advantage of
“opportunities” are a key component of development. However, a critical question
is “opportunities to do what?” Surely, in some domains, such as family life, one
could argue that western societies have limited the opportunities individuals enjoy.
For example, the western model does not allow for those joining the middle-class
mainstream to participate in the personally enriching experience of life in extended
families, as enjoyed in Third World societies, as well as among some minorities
in the west. Surely, in the arena of family relations at least, westerners have less
rather than more capabilities.
Also, traditional societies may not approve of the very idea of “opportunities”,
implying a degree of choice among the younger generation that is offensive in the
eyes of the old. Furthermore, too great a range of opportunities may in practice
lead to anomie and despair rather than being a life-enhancing source of freedom.
Capabilities are closely tied with choices, in that increased capabilities make
available greater options to choose among possibilities in different domains, such as
economic, political, social and religious spheres. Choices are not made randomly,
but are guided by values. The very choice between trying to change and attempt-
ing to conserve the status quo is a value judgement (Bezanson 1994). Clearly,
values, alienation, attitudes, identity, motivation, participation, skills and other
“human” features of a population are central to the enlarged concept of develop-
ment. And these are psychological factors. Perhaps, this new orientation is best
captured by Donaldson’s (1973) description of development as, “… bringing about
basic changes in the underlying social fabric of attitudes and institutions” (p. 80).
Once again, however, this begs the question of why changes towards a western
model of society should be better for all humankind. This is put into question par-
ticularly because the western world involves greater specialization and entails the
3  Psychology and National Development 45

disappearance of satisfying craftwork (Moghaddam 1997). In many traditional soci-

eties, everyone has a part to play in the construction of houses, making clothing,
cooking, musical performances and so on.

2.1 Psychologists Enter the Debate on National Development

Parallel to the movement towards a people-centred concept of development, psy-

chologists have become increasingly aware of their potential contribution to devel-
opment taken in the enlarged sense with its obvious psychological aspects. This is
not a new idea (Klineberc 1956; McClelland & Winter 1969), but it is an idea for
which the time seems ripe because the new emphasis on “human development”
presents a historic opportunity for psychologists to have an important impact. The
psychological literature related to national development can be usefully conceived
as comprising the following broad categories.

2.2 The Call for “Appropriate” Psychology

The issue of “appropriateness” underlies discussions of the social sciences in the Third
World (UNESCO 1976, 1977, 1980), sometimes becoming explicit in considering of
psychology specifically (Connolly 1985; Moghaddam & Taylor 1986). In some ways,
the issues raised in discussions of “appropriate psychology” are also present in discus-
sions about “appropriate technology” transfer generally (see the journals Appropriate
Technology and Rain and Journal of Appropriate Technology). For example, central
to all such discussions are issues concerning the appropriateness of personnel (Ayman
1985; Moghaddam 1996; Moghaddam & Taylor 1986), as well as problems caused
by experts who are parachuted in (typically from western countries) without adequate
preparation enabling them to adapt to local conditions (Maruyama 1974).

3 Sensitivity to Power Inequalities

A second theme underlying the literature, and becoming far more explicit since the
1980s, is the power inequalities that characterize the abilities of nations to influ-
ence psychology and other knowledge domains internationally (Blackler 1983;
Gielen 1994; Moghaddam 1987; Sloan & Montero 1990). The United States has
been described as the only “Psychology Superpower” (Moghaddam 1987), and
Gielen (1994) has shown that North American psychology is exceptionally paro-
chial as compared to other knowledge domains such as linguistics. As a general
rule, North American psychologists only read the publications of other North
Americans (see also Lewicki 1982). American psychology presents the norms of
local middle-class US culture as if they were universal laws of human cognition,
emotion and social interaction.
46 F. M. Moghaddam et al.

In contrast, psychologists from the Second and Third Worlds do tend to read
North American publications, while Third World psychologists tend to read
the publications of the First and Second Worlds. Third World psychologists are
becoming more sensitive to this situation, and some have called for greater efforts
to build indigenous Third World psychologies and in this way to achieve control
over their own national psychology arena (see Adair 1992; Kim & Berry 1993;
Moghaddam 1990, 1998; Sinha & Holtzman 1984).

3.1 Direct Intervention in National Development

A third category of literature calls for direct intervention by psychologists in national

development (see Carr & Schumaker 1996) to help alleviate poverty (Connolly 1985)
and to tackle other important problems in Third World societies. It is probably in
India that psychologists have shown more interest in involvement in national planning
(Sinha 1990). For example, Sinha (ed) has outlined a tradition of social psychological
research in India, designed to contribute to a succession of five-year national plans.
Both supporters and critics agree that the impact of such psychological research has
remained minimal, and it is instructive for us to consider the reasons for this.
An array of possible reasons is mentioned in the literature. For example, psy-
chologists have had little influence on the broader “macro” processes of devel-
opment planning (Ayman 1985). Another criticism is that the historical role of
psychology has been to create underdevelopment and to strengthen the position
of colonial powers (see discussions in Sinha & Holtzman 1984; Sloan & Montero
1990). This may be in part because traditional psychology encourages the imita-
tion of western models of development.
In addition to these considerations, we believe that part of the reason why
psychologists have had minimal influence on national development is the lack of
effective psychological explanations of social change. This may become apparent
when we consider some of the main psychological models.
One of the major contributions in the area of national development was
McClelland and Winter’s Motivating Economic Achievement (1969). It is men-
tioned in nearly all the discussions on the subject of the potential contributions of
psychologists to national development programmes. McClelland and Winter devel-
oped a programme through which they believed they could alter people’s motiva-
tions for achieving economic growth. These programmes took the form of training
sessions for Indian businessmen, and they were aimed at reworking goals, skills
and approaches to work. One can see similarities between this agenda and that of a
rehabilitation programme: both attempts to change the participants’ motivations for
behaviour through external and causal reasoning. After the training sessions, follow-
up studies revealed that nearly all of the participants seemed to “have forgotten their
resolutions and are sliding back into their old ways” (McClelland & Winter 1969).
What made it possible for the participants, despite their good intentions, to revert
to their old behaviours? One likelihood is that the environment to which they returned
influenced them in such a way as to encourage their original patterns of conduct.
3  Psychology and National Development 47

While the model lacked the means to effect a significant change in behaviour, it did
recognize one underlying factor, namely the need for achievement as being a poten-
tial area where change might occur. McClelland and Winter’s isolation and manipula-
tion of this variable provided a new and seemingly logical approach to the study of
change, but unfortunately, the results of this idea in practice only strengthen the case
for viewing change from a normative, rather than a causal perspective.
Triandis (1984) approached the issue of development by considering certain char-
acteristics of societies which either foster or slow change. In particular, Triandis
made use of two dichotomies: predictability versus unpredictability and loose versus
tight societies. Predictable societies are those which have clearly developed norms.
The way a society will react to change, as Triandis suggests, can be foreseen by
observing the norms of that society. Predictability, according to Triandis, leads to sta-
bility, which is needed for economic growth (that is, through investments). However,
perhaps, it is that very stability which acts as a resistance to economic change. For
example, there could hardly be more clearly developed norms than among the camel
herders of Saharan Sudan, but their way of life has been static for a 1,000 years.
Triandis also distinguished between loose and tight societies. Tight societies
are those which encourage strict adherence to norms, which in turn foster social
cohesion. Triandis believed this cohesion to be beneficial for economic growth;
however, tight societies lack the openness necessary to adopt the new methods
proposed by development strategies, which leads to stability rather than change.
Loose societies might lack cohesion, but they tend to be more open to creative and
new strategies for social change.
In addition to these models, other discussions have identified specific areas of
contribution for psychologists in development programmes without questioning
the nature of social change itself. However, they suffer from three weaknesses: (a)
they are trained in causal metaphysics, leading to confusion between causal and nor-
mative explanations of social behaviour; (b) they give high priority to the process
sustaining formal organizations, rather than those involved in maintaining informal
social life; and (c) they assume change is actually being managed in the West (the
source of their original model of development). These weaknesses are well known
but have not been taken sufficiently seriously. The present discussion attempts to
address the nature of change in general and explore its application to national devel-
opment and, in so doing, try to move development programmes a step forward.

4 National Development and Psychology

In the most general term, there are two ways of attempting to understand social
change. One is to try to understand it at the level of the change itself, seeing such
change as following its own rules in relation to various organizational charac-
teristics. This is the level of sociology, political science, economics and so on.
Explanation of this kind can be regarded as structural, with Marxism serving as
the classic example. The other approach involves the level of the individuals who
make up the society or organization and attempting to understand social change
48 F. M. Moghaddam et al.

in terms of change or lack of change in their psychological characteristics. This

second approach necessarily involves two levels of analysis rather than one, that
is, structural and individual factors. It requires that some attempt be made to show
how these two levels interact with each other.
One way of pursuing the second approach has already been discussed in this
article. McClelland and his associates attempted to understand societal processes
in terms of individual motivation, emphasizing the deferential needs that individ-
ual people have for achievement, affiliation and power in different societies and in
the same society at different historical periods.
The point of departure for the social reduction theory (Moghaddam & Harre
1996) approach to national development, the second way in which psychological
factors can be brought into focus, is the insight that change at the “macro” soci-
etal level, involving political and economic transformations, can often come about
much quicker than change at the “micro” level of everyday social behaviour. This
becomes particularly apparent when one considers the outcomes of major politi-
cal revolutions, from those in the past (French Revolution) to the contemporary
(China and Iran). Whereas political and economic institutions can be brought
crashing down overnight (for example, the fall of the emperor and the collapse of
an economic system based on private property in China), the everyday social prac-
tices of people are much more stable, resilient and resistant to change.
From this insight, social reduction theory proposes a solution to the puzzling rela-
tionship between macro- and microprocesses. Social reductions are the elementary,
small-scale social forces by means of which the patterns of everyday life are sus-
tained, such as the ways of greeting and of organizing life in the family and home. We
shall elaborate on this solution in the following pages, but before that, it will be use-
ful to highlight an implication derived from social reduction theory that has consid-
erable applied significance: there are severe limitations to the traditional “top-down”
approach of attempting to achieve national development through manipulations in
economic and political structures just because of the resilience of everyday practices
to change. Those concerned with planning and implementing national development
programmes need to pay more attention to skills involved in everyday social practices.
The third way of trying to make sense of social change through an understand-
ing of individual psychological processes is that which is provided by reversal
theory (Apter 1982, 1989), which we shall now examine. As we shall see, this
approach is compatible with both social reduction theory and the theory of the
McClelland type and may even act as a bridge between them.

5 Reductions and Their Hierarchical Structures

5.1 Actions Performed and Acts Accomplished

To analyze social phenomena adequately, it is necessary to distinguish between the

actions that must be performed to convey certain social meaning and the acts, or
3  Psychology and National Development 49

the meanings so conveyed. Among the types of actions that can be used in social
interactions are speaking, gestures and so on. It is useful to extend the notion of
action to include patterns or sequences of gestures, speaking, etc., and even choice
of costume and the like. Actions are the intended behaviour of social actors. Acts
are what actions mean and, in particular, what they are taken to mean.
To develop that point we need to distinguish between individual actions, for
example the things a person says, from the joint acts accomplished when what that
person says is taken up as having a certain meaning by those to whom a speech or
gesture is addressed. For example, someone may wave to an acquaintance across
the campus, intending the action as a greeting, but it may be taken by the other
person as a summons. Only in the completed interpersonal act does the full social
meaning of an action or pattern of actions comes to be. This is because only thus
is the action significant for the further unfolding of the social relations and events
in which it has a part.

5.2 Correlations of Actions and Acts

At the local level and within one ethnicity and at one time, there may be quite
a strong correlation between type of action performed and act accomplished. For
example, invitations may be extended routinely by the use of the question format,
for example, “Why don’t we take in a movie?” Elsewhere, this correlation may
not be found. Gestures vary widely in the correlation between gesture type and act
conveyed. Notoriously, the forming of a circle with forefinger and thumb has one
meaning in Western Europe and another in the eastern Mediterranean.
The elementary “units” of social interaction, “reductions” have a hierarchical
structure. There are elementary actions, and elementary acts, differently completed
in different societies and even in different institutions within one society. A “dis-
missive” gesture may have one meaning in the classroom and quite another in a
meeting of the faculty called over some contentious issue and so on.

5.3 Change and Resistance to Change

To understand why some reductions are malleable and others are resistant to
change, we need to develop the action/act analysis further. There seem to be two
main reasons why some reductions are resistant to change, which are temporally
invariant. One, when a practice is unattended and habitual, it is resistant to change.
What was initially for an infant a form of behaviour that was inculcated and main-
tained by explicit rule-following or equivalent becomes habitual. It takes on the
outward character of the kind of pattern that has a causal explanation, though it
does not. Habitual wiping of the feet on entering a house can look as much like a
causal sequence triggered by the event of entering as a genuine causal sequence
50 F. M. Moghaddam et al.

such as the eyebrow flash emitted on encountering another human being. When
rule-following has become habitual or pseudo-causal, it is unattended, just some-
thing that happens. It is not even available as a topic for change and especially if it
is confused with genuine causal sequences.
Second, when a practice is biogenic, the running of a genetically programmed,
fixed action pattern, it is also resistant to change. For example, much that has been
redefined as “sexual harassment” may be biogenic, part of the inherited patterns of
interaction between the sexes and human ethology, though these action patterns are
usually heavily overlaid with cultural variations. The matter is complicated in that there
are many examples of action/act pairs in which one is biogenic and the other socio-
genic. Social patterns can be found exemplifying all possible combinations of the bio-
genic and sociogenic. For example, there are biogenic actions used to perform biogenic
acts, for instance frowning to warn. Then, there are sociogenic actions used to perform
biogenic acts, for instance, a victory cavalcade to signify triumph over an adversary or
the sending of a Valentine card, American style that is one that is signed to indicate an
interest in a member of the opposite sex. There are biogenic actions used to perform
sociogenic acts, for example handshaking to settle a bet. Finally, there are sociogenic
actions to perform sociogenic acts, such as signing a contract to get a mortgage.
It is tempting to identify the carrier of a reduction as the biogenic action, so that
in researching the field of persisting practices, one would concentrate on the fixed
action patterns, the ethology of social interaction, such as handshaking and eyebrow
flashing. These, it might be assumed, cannot be changed in less than hundreds of
generations, so the focus for a theory of national development as a theory of social
change ought to be on the local social meanings, the acts, that the ethological reper-
toire can be used to perform. The kiss, an ethological reduction, can be used to greet,
to initiate a sexual encounter, and, in the garden of Gethsemane, to betray.
However, this assumption does not seem to be supported by a casual glance
at the historical record. It is often the sociogenic reductions, be they behavioural
practices or socially meaningful acts, that seem to be found persisting through
macrochanges, be they political or economic or both. For example, the pay-offs
that are so characteristic of Italian life, and even now are seemingly resistant to
majority disapproval, have been a feature of that culture for hundreds of years,
regardless of Garibaldi’s unification, of becoming part of the EU, of notable eco-
nomic advancement and of the efforts of crusading magistrates. This suggests that
the very notions of a “carrier” and what is carried may be an unsuitable pair of
analytic concepts for applying reduction theory to the problem of deep resistance
to change. Since the point about reductions is that they are unmotivated patterns of
social interaction, it is not surprising that they seem to frustrate motivated change.
Carriers are integrated into complex dynamic social practice systems that often
survive fairly intact across generations in the same cultural group. They are “the
way things are done” in a particular domain of social life, for example the prepara-
tion and distribution of food in the family.
Carriers are formalized to different degrees. An example of a highly formal-
ized carrier is the Catholic mass. The mass consists of many different reductions,
integrated in a way that is meaningful, but also dynamic in the sense that the mass
3  Psychology and National Development 51

may change, but the entire body of action/acts itself could still be recognized over
generations. Ballet is another example of a fairly formalized carrier, of all sorts of
conventions and assumptions not only about deportment but also about social role.
An example of a less formalized carrier is the Christmas festival with the
exchange of presents, the formal dinner and so on. Of course, the less formalized
carriers do not have less of an influence on behaviour.
Carriers can be transported to other cultures, but their role and meaning will
change when this happens. For example, the Catholic mass can be transported to
Third World countries and Christmas dinner exported to the Australian summer.
So far, we used the term “carriers” to include reductions at various levels, for
example action reductions and act reductions. Reductions as structured sequences
of action/act patterns raise some further points about the hierarchical charac-
ter of the act/action patterns, of which such carriers as the mass consist. To keep
the terminology unambiguous, we shall use the term “complex carrier” for such
sequences as taking the bread or taking the wine.
There is a further level of complexity in this analysis, in that it frequently happens
that more than one action is needed for complex carriers individuated at a higher
level in the hierarchy by the social force of the performance. For example, the act
of greeting may involve a sequence of actions, including bodily gestures. A wave,
then a handshake, and, at the same time, “Well, how are you doing then”? One act is
accomplished through the medium of a stylized pattern of elementary actions.
Now criteria of identity become problematic. What is it about the mass that,
through all the changes that have occurred, makes it still “the mass”? In this
case, the answer is simple: it consists of the same indispensable arts in the same
sequence; however, much of the actions required to perform them have changed.
Perhaps, we do not know which acts are regarded as indispensable until reduction
change is in the air. It may also be the case that the repertoire of acts regarded as
indispensable may itself change. Though we doubt this is true of the mass, it is
certainly true of the ceremony of marriage in the Christian world.
We are now in a position to define more precisely the task of the psychologist
with respect to the management of social change. If the persistence of reductions
reproduces the old social order, then change in reductions is the necessary condi-
tion for real change, be it developmental or regressive. Reduction theory suggests
that the weak point in a social order is the correlation between actions and acts.
The most stable the social order, the most resistant to change will be one in which
the correlation between actions and their local meanings is so taken for granted
as to seem causally necessary. Obviously, acts and actions which are both bio-
genic are immune from managed change in the time span of a “development” pro-
gramme. Correlated pairs of this character must be tolerated as defining the human
form of life in general. But once we are aware of the difference in aetiology of
causal from habitual patterns of behaviour, and use our research techniques to seek
out the rules from which habits have evolved, we are in a position to change the
reduction conditions which carry a social order from one generation to the next.
While social reduction theory focuses more on stability and social relations, we
now turn to insights from a theory that highlights intra-personal change.
52 F. M. Moghaddam et al.

6 Personal Meanings in Relation to Social Change:

Reversal Theory

To put reversal theory in perspective, we need to make a distinction between

social and personal meaning. When we start to look at social phenomena at the
microlevel, we are dealing with individuals interacting with each other by means
of particular sequences of actions which go to make up acts of various kinds as
described by (Harre & Secord 1972). As these authors point out, such acts have
agreed social meanings, for example, paying a bill, having dinner with the family,
watching television, attending a mass. Some of these meanings are formal and rec-
ognized and even legitimated by higher level authorities and institutions—going to
mass, for example. Others are less formal and less structured, for example, watch-
ing television. But someone in that society watching that act would have little dif-
ficulty describing it in a way that others, including the actor, would agree with.
This kind of social meaning lies at the heart of discursive psychology and also of
reduction theory which is essentially discursive in this sense.
But this is not the whole picture. We also have to look at the personal mean-
ings of the actions and acts for the actors themselves if we are to fully understand
the significance of what is happening, since a given socially defined act can have
many different personal meanings. For example, watching television can be about
immediate enjoyment, sharing something with others, gaining information to use
at work and so on. Only the person who is doing the watching can say which of
these kinds of personal meaning apply in his or her case at a particular time.
This is where reversal theory becomes relevant, because it provides a system-
atic way of examining such personal meaning, arguing that all such meanings
relate to one or another basic psychological motives (or combinations of such
motives). In other words, acts in the sense of discursive psychology not only have
social meanings but personal meanings, and the latter relate to personal motiva-
tion. Putting things in this way emphasizes the manner in which reversal theory
has the potential of linking McClelland’s ideas and those of reduction theory.
What are these basic motives, according to reversal theory? Before listing them,
there are three points to be made. The first is that these are psychological rather
than biological motives. They are to do with mental health rather than physi-
cal health, the personality rather than the body. This does not mean that they are
not innate, but that they are to do with the individual person’s sense of identity,
wellbeing and happiness (the complex relationship between biological and psy-
chological needs will not be pursued further here). The second point is that these
psychological motives, according to reversal theory, come in pairs of opposites. As
one or another, within each pair, takes precedence, a reversal may be said to occur
and hence the name of the theory. One implication is that it is impossible for every
psychological need to be satisfied simultaneously, and indeed, it follows that the
more the need is satisfied over time, the less the opposite need will be. Third, each
need is associated with a state of mind (these states are called, for reasons which
we need not go into here, “metamotivational states”). While the basis of the state
3  Psychology and National Development 53

is a particular kind of psychological motive, it is also characterized by a certain

way of looking at the world (what one might, perhaps, call a “discursive style”)
and a unique range of emotions.
There are four pairs of such states. The first pair is made up of what reversal
theory calls the “telic” and “paratelic” states. The basic motive of the telic state
is to achieve something important, and pleasure comes from a feeling of progress
towards this. Here, ongoing actions are experienced as being important beyond
themselves, and the state can be characterized as serious-minded. In contrast, the
basic motive of the paratelic state is to have a good time, and pleasure comes from
having fun. In this case, the state can be characterized as playful, and the orienta-
tion is towards the present moment and its enjoyment.
The second pair is constituted by the “conformist” and “negativistic” states.
The basic motive of the conformist state is to belong, and rules, conventions and
the like are experienced as supportive and as providing desirable structure. The
basic motive of the negativistic state is, by contrast, that of freedom and inde-
pendence. Here, rules of every kind are experienced as essentially restrictive and
confining.
The third pair consists of the “mastery” and “sympathy” states. The basic
motive of the former is power and control and of the latter is intimacy and care.
The former sees the world in terms of struggle and the latter in terms of coopera-
tion and the desire for harmony.
The fourth pair is made up of the “autic” and the “alloic” states. In the autic
state, the basic motive is attention to the self, and it is what happens to the self
which matters. In the alloic state, the basic motive is to devote oneself to another.
These pairs can be combined in a variety of ways. For example, when the
autic state is combined with the mastery state, the outcome is a need for personal
power. But when it is combined with the sympathy state, the overall need is to be
cared for. When the alloic state is combined with the mastery state, the resulting
need is to help make some “other” (for example, the team one belongs to) strong.
And when it is combined with the sympathy state, it is to care for and look after
another (for example, one’s child).
Each of these pairs may be said to operate in terms of its own “domain of dis-
course”. Thus, the domain of discourse of the telic and paratelic states is that of
means and ends, that of the negativistic and conformist states that of rules, that of
the mastery and sympathy states is that of transactions and that of the autic and
alloic states is that of relationships. Each of these domains makes its own contri-
bution to the overall personal meaning of any given situation which an individual
finds himself in, and at any given time, they together make up the personal mean-
ing space of the individual. This personal meaning in turn interweaves with the
social meaning of the situation. Thus, at a wedding, it is the social meaning of the
acts involved, which constitutes “getting married”, that provide a route to the pos-
sible satisfaction of personal desires (for example, to care for someone and to be
cared for by them).
Now, if we are looking at how cultures differ from each other in terms of the
individual psychological level of society, we need to make reference to such
54 F. M. Moghaddam et al.

personal meaning states as those identified in reversal theory. These should be

manifest in the kinds of reductions in use. There are, in principle, two ways in
which societies and cultures may differ in this respect:
(a) The first is that they express the pursuit of different basic psychological
motives to different extents. For instance, the most cursory acquaintance with
Spanish culture will disclose that it is a culture imbued with an emphasis on
immediate enjoyment and joie de vivre, whereas the German culture is gener-
ally more serious and achievement-oriented. In reversal theory terms, Spanish
culture has a paratelic and German culture a telic bias. Whether it is an innate
tendency in the people who make up a culture which determines this, or
whether it is determined at the individual level by some overall determining
factor in the culture, is difficult to say; perhaps, both are involved.
(b) The second is that of the particular linkage of acts with basic psychological
motives. That is, in different societies, people will tend to pursue given goals
through different acts. This is an obvious point. In the paratelic state, people
in Spain may go to a bullfight, whereas in the same state, people in California
may go surfing. But there are also more general characteristics which seem
to emerge, that is, different generalized acts which go with different motiva-
tional states in different cultures. For example, it would be possible to argue
that French people pursue status (which is one version of the need for mas-
tery) through the look of things—wearing clothes which are chic, displaying
impeccable taste in home furnishings, etc. In contrast, it could be said that
Americans tend to pursue status more through quantity and size of house,
number of cars, etc.
When culture changes, then it may be according to reversal theory change in
any of these ways, or any combination of them. First, it may change in the empha-
sis it places on different basic psychological motives. For example, if we consider
English culture over the centuries, it is possible to discern periods when there
has been a strong paratelic bias in the culture, emphasizing the need for imme-
diate enjoyment and excitement. Such periods would include the Restoration, the
Edwardian era, the Gay Twenties and the Swinging Sixties. These would appear to
contrast with a more normal telic bias in English culture. To give another example,
any country which has undergone a revolution, such as France and Russia dur-
ing their respective revolutions, and China during the cultural revolution, will have
experienced a period during which the negativistic state has dominated. In these
periods of negativism, the need for freedom, and the desire to break away from
old rules and restrictions, becomes paramount. The second kind of change consists
of the kinds of acts which people perform to satisfy their basic motives. Here, we
see a complex picture of changing (and unchanging) habits, customs and skills.
But in a historical perspective, certain trends are obvious. For example, the way
in which people behave in pursuit of both paratelic entertainment and telic pro-
gress has been changed radically by information technology and particularly by
the advent of television and the personal computer; the ends have remained the
same, but the means have been transformed beyond all recognition. Third, changes
3  Psychology and National Development 55

can occur in a society in respect of which basic motives become subservient to

other motives. Thus, when a country goes onto a war footing for some purpose, all
motives become subservient in that country to the mastery motive. Even the para-
telic need for excitement is called into service to this end (Apter 1992).
A culture may also remain the same in any of these three ways, even while one
or both of the others undergo change. In particular, people in a given society may
continue to perform the same acts even though many other kinds of changes are
going on. This of course, as we have seen, is one of the arguments of reduction
theory. This is not at all inconsistent with reversal theory, except that reversal the-
ory would suggest that what tend to remain are not just acts, but links between
certain acts and certain psychological motives. To return to a previous example,
in French culture, dressing with style may be seen as a reduction—and certainly,
it has endured across regimes, republics and historical periods for all except the
peasant classes. Even some of the communist students in the streets of Paris in
1968 wore designer jeans and Gucci shoes (and did not seem to notice any contra-
diction in doing so). But wearing good clothes is not just a motiveless habit; it is
part of a self-conscious desire to maintain a certain standing.

7 Concluding Comment

As a theory of personality, reversal theory is unusual, in that it emphasizes change

rather than stability. As a cultural theory, reduction theory is unusual in that it
emphasizes stability rather than change. We have proposed that the two together
can provide new insights into the stabilities which underlie cultural change and
the changes which contribute to cultural stability. Most importantly, these theories
help to highlight key psychological issues involved in change at micro- and mac-
rolevels and in this way facilitate contributions that psychologists could make to
national development internationally.

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Chapter 4
Human Development: Concept and Strategy

Jai B. P. Sinha

1 Overview

The concept of human development has evolved over time. Initially, it was equated
to economic affluence that was measured in terms of per capita gross domestic prod-
uct (GDP). Subsequently, emphasis shifted to capability building for living the life
that human beings value. The capability is indeed built upon an economic base, but
life expectancy at birth and adult literacy rate too play a crucial role. The three taken
together, constituted the Human Development Index (HDI) for comparing countries
and entities within a country. Over time, new components were added, of which ine-
quality in income, education and health was considered to be the most crucial. They
led to develop the Human Development Index adjusted for inequality (IHDI). Human
development was also conceptualized as an individual’s experience in living a sus-
tainable, long and happy life without taking away resources meant for others and for
future generations. This yielded the Happiness Planet Index (HPI). There has been a
further shift that highlights conceptualizing human development at sociocultural and
personal value-based states of wellbeing. The evolving conceptualizations of human
development suggest the need for an inclusive strategy that can promote sustainable
human development encompassing economic, social and psychological wellbeing.

2 Evolving Conceptualization

2.1 Economic Approach

The mainstream economic approach equated human development with economic

growth that was measured in terms of increase in per capita GDP. The underlying

J. B. P. Sinha (*) 
ASSERT Institute of Management Studies, Patna, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 59
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_4, © Springer India 2014
60 J. B. P. Sinha

assumption was that human satisfaction and wellbeing are a direct function of the
consumption of amount and variety of goods and services. It was purely a mate-
rialistic western capitalist worldview that first competed with the socialist world-
view, but led to the unipolar economic worldview, particularly after the collapse
of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s. Creating
demand for material goods and services by manipulating market mechanisms,
thereby accumulating wealth often without scruples, thus allowing an opulent life-
style were the salient features of this approach. The approach has shown to have
many flaws, but still dominates the minds of the majority all over the world, partly
because the material affluence provides an explicit basis for satisfying a range of
needs, influencing others and proving superiority over others.

2.2 Access to Material Resources

Access to material resources, when restricted to the extreme, causes poverty,

which has a devastating impact on people:
Poverty involves much more than the restrictions imposed by lack of income. It also
entails lack of basic capabilities to lead full, creative lives—as when people suffer from
poor health, are excluded from participating in the decisions that affect their communities
or have no right to guide the course of their lives. Such deprivations distinguish human
poverty from income poverty (The Human Development Report 2003, p. 27).

It is this human poverty that, according to Pareek (1970), dehumanizes people, fur-
ther restricts their access to resources, diminishes their self-esteem and retards their
capability to cope with external exigencies causing a sense of helplessness and pow-
erlessness. Sinha (1975) pointed out the negative consequences of poverty for human
development ranging from retarded perceptual skills, through weak self-efficacy and
nutritional deficiency, to social pathology and poor mental health. It is not only eco-
nomic poverty, he argued, but a combination of adverse physical factors, social disad-
vantages, and institutional inadequacy that retards human development (Sinha 1982).

2.3 Poverty Syndrome

This is a fallout of the extreme and pervasive poverty in the minds of even those
who are not so poor (Sinha 2000). It gets into their subconscious causing a constel-
lation of beliefs, values and action orientations detrimental to human development.
Not-so-poor and even relatively affluent people perceive that societal resources such
are money, job, positions and material things are extremely limited while there are
many aspirants vying to grab them. The smartest among them grab disproportion-
ately larger share depriving others from what justifiably should go to them.
This compulsion to grab resources does not end with acquiring what one needs.
One has to keep accumulating, controlling, and protecting them from being usurped
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 61

by other competitors. The more resources a person acquires, the more he feels tem-
porarily secure and satisfied, but paradoxically soon starts fearing that he might lose
them. Hence, he acquires, hoards and monopolizes and continues doing so till the
very end. In order to acquire more and more, he needs power more than merit or
social norm that can delimit what he deserves. Power helps to acquire even undue
resource which in turn, further enhances power. Thus, power and resources mutu-
ally support each other to the extent that people start believing that they cannot have
one without the other. So, power, like resources, has to be continuously enhanced in
order to keep it effective and immune from being eroded. Power, like resources, has
to be conspicuous in order to maintain an increasingly larger gap from the less pow-
erful persons who have to live with the leftovers of the resources. In other words,
fewer and fewer individuals have the larger share of scarce resources.

2.4 Too Much Wealth

Too much wealth possessed by a few does not help people realize a higher level of
quality of life. The more one accumulates, the more conspicuously one spends on
showing off by proving one’s superiority and to cover up a sense of insecurity.
Such consumption-oriented lifestyle neither remains healthy nor does it promote
longer life or ensure greater happiness. The opulent lifestyle is associated with a
variety of mental and physical health problems (Kasser 2002). Studies from many
different nations, involving preschoolers to the elderly and both males and
females, show that when people of different income levels place high premium on
financial wealth and material goods, this is associated with higher levels of anxi-
ety, depression and low life satisfaction. Individuals with a strong, materialistic
orientation are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviour, have personality dis-
orders and experience difficulties in intimate relationships.1 Those trapped in han-
kering for materialistic values have also detracted themselves from other people.
They become less sensitive to the needs and feelings of others which in turn dam-
ages interpersonal relationships. Consequently, less empathy and intimacy are
experienced, adversely affecting others, including their own children.

2.5 Relative Deprivation

Those who are engaged in getting ahead of others by acquiring more suffer from rela-
tive deprivation as well. It is natural that economically disadvantaged persons compare
themselves with advantaged ones and suffer from relative deprivation (Sinha 1982),
which affects their development. Interestingly, however, all of those competing for
material gains find to their dismay that there are always persons ahead of them. Human

1  http://www.sustainablescale.org/AttractiveSolutions/UnderstandingHumanHappinessandWellB

eing.aspx on August 25, 2011.

62 J. B. P. Sinha

beings have an in-built need to compare with others (Festinger 1954). High-acquiring
persons tend to compare with those who are ahead of them, causing dissatisfaction with
what they have, which, in turn, puts pressure on them to keep acquiring. Studies (Sinha
1968; Sinha & Pandey 1970) have shown that such people acquire, hoard and monopo-
lize resources that they might not need, thereby depriving others’ access to resources.

2.6 Economic Disparity

The race for acquiring more results in fewer people acquiring more. This leads to
greater economic disparity in the society. It is noteworthy that the gains of economic
growth do not spread evenly either at global, national or subnational levels. As a
country develops economically, the disparity between the poor and the rich generally
increases. According to the Human Development Report (2002), the world’s richest
1 % of people have 57 % more income as 1 % of the poorest. The income of the
world’s richest 5 % is 114 times that of the poorest 5 %. A more recent report shows
that this gap is even wider because inequality estimates do not take into considera-
tion the offshore wealth of the rich (Shaxson et al. 2012). The bottom half of the
world’s population owns roughly 1 % of the world’s wealth compared to 84 % held
by the top 10 %. Year after year, the HDR reports have pointed out that member
countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
have increased their income… but most have seen rising income inequality most
consistently and dramatically in the UK and the USA. In the USA, for example,
according to a New York Times report (October 10, 2012), income inequality had
risen to the highest level after the great depression with the top 1 % earners making
93 % of income gains. OECD countries show similar trends except in the case of
Greece, Ireland and Turkey (OECD 2011). The case of China is a little different.
While there was steady rise in inequality with the Gini coefficient rising from 30 %
in the 1980s to about 45 % in 2005, and 51.1 % in 2011, the real income of people
in the lowest quintile also rose, according to a World Bank report (2012). India in
comparison to China reported a Gini coefficient of 39.9 relative to 36.8 in 2005
(Euromonitor International 2012). In the 10 years of liberalization (1992–1993 to
2001–2002) of the Indian economy, the climbers (income range Rs. 22,000–45,000
per annum) and the consuming class (income range Rs. 45,000–215,000 per annum)
had doubled themselves while the size of the very rich class (income above Rs.
215,000 per annum) increased by about four times (National Council of Applied
Economic Research Survey quoted in Business Today, January 20, 2002, p. 177). In
the course of 2010–2012, the number of Indian billionaires (in terms of US $) has
almost doubled from 27 to 48. According to one estimate, 0.00001 % super rich of
India’s population now account for around 25 % of its trillion-dollar GDP.2 The
media is replete with stories of displays of their money power. For example, of two

2  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/19/number-of-indian-billionaires-doubles,
retrieved on August 25, 2011.
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 63

billionaire brothers, one presented a yacht worth US$84million to his wife on her
birthday; another presented an Airbus 319 worth US$59million on his wife’s birth-
day, and then built a 27-storey sky palace at the estimated cost of US$1billion for
their family of four; the son of a billionaire casually gifted a handbag of Rs. 2.5 mil-
lion to his girlfriend in addition to similarly priced assorted items that he casually
gifted to her; and two top executives of an industrial development bank get over Rs.
60 million salary annually, besides perks. All this in a country where about 300 mil-
lion people survive on Rs. 20 a day! Noam Chomsky was cited commenting during
his visit to India in 1996, “The lifestyle of the Indian elite is amazing. I have never
seen such opulence even in America” (Varma 1999, p. 176).
A similar trend of disparity is observed among the major states of India
(Appendix Table 1). The growth rate in per capita GDP of India increased from the
1980s to the 1990s. But the increase was uneven for the major states. The five major
states (Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu) having the highest
per capita income reported increase in the growth rate of the state domestic product
(SDP); while in the lowest per capita income states [Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh
(UP), Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Orissa], the rate of economic growth in the 1990s
in fact decreased from that of the 1980s. There were only two exceptions—Punjab,
where the growth rate decreased and MP, where it marginally increased.
Thus, equating human development with economic affluence is flawed reason-
ing since it discounts factors such as disparity among individuals and collectives,
absolute and relative deprivation, insecurity and anxiety in the minds of even those
who are affluent, and their lack of sensitivity to others.

3 Capability Building

GDP, despite its vital role in providing tax revenues to the government and goods
and services to the people that might give them a sense of material wellbeing,
cannot be equated to human development. The United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) defined human development thus:
Human development is about people, about expanding their choices to lead lives they
value…. Fundamental to enlarging human choice is building human capabilities; the
range of things that people can do or be. The most basic capabilities for human develop-
ment are leading a long and healthy life, being educated, having access to the resources
needed for a decent standard of living and being able to participate in the life of one’s
community (The Human Development Report 2002, p. 13; italics added).

4 Human Development Index

The basic capabilities were first operationalized in 1990 in terms of life expec-
tancy at birth, adult literacy rate and per capita GDP that were combined to develop
the HDI for ranking countries. The founder of the Human Development Reports,
64 J. B. P. Sinha

Mahbub ul Haq, mentioned a number of other components such as greater access

to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure livelihoods, security
against crime and physical violence and satisfying leisure hours. Later, the capa-
bility to enjoy political and civil freedoms to participate in the life of the commu-
nity was added. Human development was considered to be based on three essential
conditions: environmental sustainability, equality particularly gender equality, and
enabling global economic environment by strengthening the partnership between
the developed and developing countries (The Human Development Report 2003, p.
28). However, for a while, HDI remained a composite of the GDP per capita, life
expectancy at birth and adult literacy rate. India has slowly improved its HDI from
0.407 in 1975 to 0.519 in the year 2010, but still stands at the 119th position out
of 169 countries (The Human Development Report 2003, 2010). According to The
Human Development Report (2010), India has just improved one rank between 2005
and 2010, though India was among the top 10 performers globally in terms of HDI
measured on income growth. There has been an obvious discrepancy between the
economic growth and improvement in India’s human development position.

5 Human Development Index Adjusted for Inequality

The United Nations General Assembly set in the year 2000 eight millen-
nium goals that were considered to promote human development globally (The
Human Development Report 2002, p. 17). They were to eradicate extreme pov-
erty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality
and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat
HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and
develop a global partnership for development. Except the last two, all other goals
pertained to income, education and health, which were considered to play a pivotal
role in human development.
However, the aggregate measures of the indices were found to be misleading
as they cover up inequalities within a nation or collectives. Further, the way the
indices of income, education and health were added allowed the deficiency in one
area to be compensated by the progress in another. Similarly, adult literacy and life
expectancy at birth were found to be inadequate in reflecting the essence of human
development. Hence, The Human Development Report (2010) made a number of
modifications in the measures and the way they were summated.
More specifically, the GDP per capita was replaced by gross national income
(GNI) per capita as a measure of the standard of living on the ground that differ-
ences between them are often large in a globalized world. Income may have many
sources and may not match with the domestic production. Many, for example,
receive international remittances or remit or spend their income abroad. Similarly,
adult literacy was considered to be inadequate and was replaced by mean years of
schooling and enrolment. Life expectancy was replaced with access to health care
facilities. Modifications were also made in the way the indices were summated to
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 65

derive the IHDI, which was now based on the geometric mean of the three indices.
Poor performance in any measure was now, instead of being substituted by others,
directly reflected in the IHDI. This captured a realistic position of a country across
the three dimensions. The IHDI also recognized health, education and income also
to be important and must be taken into account separately as well as aggregately to
get a better understanding of the state of human development in a country or col-
lectives within a country. As a result, The Human Development Report (2010) pro-
vided the IHDI within a country along with HDI, which allowed across countries’
comparison. The difference between the two revealed the loss in human develop-
ment as a result of the magnitude of inequality.
Figure 1 displays a comparative picture of India, China and the USA. The USA
not only had the highest Human Development Index (HDI = 0.902), but also the
lowest percentage of loss (11.40 %) due to inequality in per capita GNI, schooling
and health facilities. India stood third (HDI = 0.519) next to China (HDI = 0.663)
and also suffered the highest percentage of loss in its HDI (29.6 %), which was
lower than that of China (23.0 %).
India’s loss in the HDI was much more due to inequality in education (43 %)
than in health (34 %) than in income (16 %). As reported earlier, India has been
doing rather well in increasing its purchasing power parity (PPP) claiming fourth
rank in the world, next only to the USA, China and Japan (The World Bank 2011),
but still restrained to the category of medium-developed HDI countries, and in fact
fell into the low-developed IHDI ones (The Human Development Report 2010).
A recent attempt to profile Indian states in terms of the HDI and IHDI roughly
matched the national profile (Suryanarayana et al. 2011). Kerala topped (0.625)

1 35
0.9 HDI
30
0.8 LOSS IHDI

0.7 25
HDI LOSS
0.6
Indices

20
Loss

0.5 HDI IHDI

15
0.4
IHDI
0.3 LOSS 10
0.2
5
0.1
0 0
India China USA
Countries
HDI IHDI LOSS

Fig.  1  Human Development Indices. Note Human Development Index HDI, Human
Development Index adjusted for Inequality IHDI, Loss is percentage difference between HDI and
IHDI. Source Human Development Report (2010)
66 J. B. P. Sinha

followed by Punjab (0.569), whereas Orissa (0.442) and Bihar (0.447) were at the
bottom of the HDI. The most developed Kerala and Punjab suffered less loss in the
HDI (16.78 and 28.04 %, respectively) than Orissa (33.11 %) and Bihar (32.06 %)—
the losses which were the highest among the 19 major states. The average loss in the
HDI due to inequality in income was highest for Maharashtra (19 %) followed by
Tamil Nadu (17 %) but lowest for Bihar and Assam (9 %). Loss due to inequality
in education was the highest in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand (46 %) and
lowest in Kerala (23 %) and Assam (34 %). The loss due to inequality in health was
the highest in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh (43 %) and the lowest in Kerala
(11 %). In other words, Kerala, which was the best on the HDI, was the one that
also was able to reduce inequalities in income, education and health. Other states
had varying degrees of inequalities probably due to differential interventions in the
areas of health and education (Appendix Table 2).
Indices of human development apart, inequality is endemic in Indian life-
style. Income inequality is abominable; but inequalities in health and education
are not less appalling. World class heath care facilities are available, but only in
a selected few metropolis. The rest of the cities and towns, and more miserable
rural areas are left to poorly trained doctors, quacks and faith healers. Some of
the higher educational institutions are of reasonably high standard, but the rest of
them are either hardly functioning or are left to the educational entrepreneurs who
are like sharks in extracting the maximum not only from the neo rich but also from
the marginal middle class which bleeds to see their children share the “shining”
India’s future. Education, which is considered to be the most effective instrument
for development, has not always been found to deserve the adoration. Recent find-
ings of a survey in the villages of UP (Tripathi 2011) exploded the myth of educa-
tion as the most potent driver of human development as the levels of education
were associated with the increasing gap in the gender ratio, levels of infant mor-
tality rate for girls, decline in interpersonal contacts, loss in social cohesiveness,
prevalence in polyandry, “purdah” and fewer participation in gram panchayat. In
fact, and contrary to the expectations, educational levels were unrelated to villag-
ers’ happiness and wellbeing.
To conclude, it can be said that income, education and health indeed are essen-
tial ingredients of the capability to live the life that people want, though, in condi-
tions of gross inequality, people tend to want what might be detrimental to others’
as well as their own development. Income, health and education may be necessary,
but not sufficient for human development.

6 Human Happiness

A universally held assumption is that people want mostly happiness. Happiness

for a moment or a short period is not enough. They want it for an extended period.
The longer and healthier their life full of happiness, the greater will be their sense
of wellbeing, and hence development. Further, the happiness has to be experienced
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 67

collectively, by not infringing upon the opportunity of others’ happiness or the

happiness of future generations. Hence, people’s search for happiness should not
lead them to overexploit resources and degrade the natural environment, which are
common heritage to all human beings. Resources have to be utilized judiciously
to maximize the totality of happiness of the world, the nation and the collectives
within a nation.

7 Happy Planet Index

The New Economics Foundation, a British think-tank, developed the HPI in July
2006 for cross-cultural comparisons. The HPI is a measure of the environmental
efficiency of supporting people’s happiness as an indicator of their wellbeing in
a given country. Computation of HPI is a little complicated, but, in a simplified
form, the HPI is the product of life satisfaction multiplied by life expectancy and
divided by ecological footprint. Ecological footprint is measured in terms of the
natural resources exploited, the carbon emission, etc., by a country causing per-
manent damage to the planet earth, and thereby impacting the happiness of other
people and the people of future generations.
A comparative profile of the GDP per capita, HDI and HPI of India, China, Japan
and the USA was given in Fig. 2. It was interesting to note that the USA topped the
list in the GDP, but had the lowest happiness level. India had the lowest GDP per
capita and HDI, but much higher happiness score than the USA, better than Japan,
and only next to China, which had the second lowest GDP and HDI, but the highest
score of happiness. Obviously, GDP per capita plays a vital role in affecting the HDI
but not the happiness of people. The average income of an American in 50 years

60 1
HPI HPI HDI 0.9
50 HDI
0.8
GDP GDP
HPI 0.7
GDP & HPI

40
HDI 0.6
HDI

30 HDI HPI 0.5

0.4
20 0.3
10 0.2
GDP 0.1
GDP
0 0
India China Japan USA
Countries
GDP HPI HDI

Fig. 2  GDP, HDI and HPI. Note Gross Domestic Product GDP per capita (US $). Human
Development Index HDI. Happiness Planet Index HPI. Source The World Bank (2011), Human
Development Report (2010) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index
68 J. B. P. Sinha

(1955–2005) has more than doubled, but the percentage of the very happy people
remained below 40. Similarly, the fivefold increases in GDP in Japan over the twen-
tieth century did not increase in Japanese personal happiness (Myers 2000). There
are instances of people in the West suffering from a sense of insecurity, loneliness,
depression, high divorce rates and so on (Bellah et al. 1985; Cobb 1976; Naroll
1983). Bhutan is another exemplary case. In the year 2009, Bhutan was quite low on
the GDP, but reported the highest score (58.50) on the HPI compared to China
(57.50), India (53.00), Japan (43.30) and the USA (30.70).3
So it can be said that the concept of ecologically supporting happiness adds to
our understanding of human development that was previously based on income,
education and health. Ecological sustainability is well taken for lasting happiness,
but the source of human happiness is still left unexplored. Happiness is a cultural
construction. It means satisfaction in enjoying material comforts and luxuries in
the West but that is not considered to be the real measure of happiness in the spir-
itually oriented collectivist culture of India.

8 Psycho-Social Approach

There has been an improvement in the conceptualization of human development as it

shifted from economic affluence, through the capability to live a life that people value,
to their ecologically efficient sustainable happiness. All of them claimed to view human
development as people’s wellbeing and attempted to tap it through the measures that
were believed to be universally valid so that the countries can be compared meaning-
fully. The measures were indeed comparable, but not the meanings attached to the
constructs of wellbeing, values, or life satisfaction of people across cultures. Hence,
a doubt is raised about the adequacy of the measures in doing full justice to the con-
cept of human development. Further, they reflected what Rist and Sabelli (1986) called
western “developers” perspective that may not gel fully with the indigenous character-
istics of non-western countries. As back as the early 1980s, the UNESCO sponsored a
project that advocated for a culture-specific endogenous human development:
Endogenous development meant development that corresponds to the internal character-
istics of the society in question, that takes account of its specific features and its integra-
tive qualities. When a country develops endogenously, its way of life should be based on
respect for its traditional values, for the authenticity of its culture, and for the creative
aptitudes of its people (Alechina 1982, p. 19).

The concept of endogenous development is based on the premise that human behav-
iour, including those reflective of their levels of development, is determined to a large
extent by their cultural conditions and experiences. No doubt, there are indeed a set
of universal capacities of human beings that are neuro-biologically determined; but
they turn into capabilities only when tempered by a culture (Berry 2010). Freedom

3  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index on August 26, 2011.

4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 69

to choose a lifestyle, pursue what people value, experience of being deprived, life
­satisfaction, happiness and wellbeing may mean different things in different cultures.
If that is so, the discourse of human development needs to be contextualized in, apart
from ecological and economic reality, the cultural frame and the mindset of the people.

Box 1. Development in the West and the East

We have over a century been dragged by the prosperous West behind its chariot,
choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness
and overwhelmed by the speed. We agreed to acknowledge that this chariot-
drive was progress, and the progress was civilization. If we ever ventured to
ask, “progress towards what, and progress for whom”, it was considered to be
peculiarly and ridiculously oriental to entertain such ideas about the absolute-
ness of progress, Of late, a voice has come to us to take count not only of the
scientific perfection of the chariot but the depth of the ditches lying in its path
(Rabindranath Tagore, quoted in Human Development Report 1996, p. 45).

8.1 Indian Values

Indian culture, for example, is characterized by the paradox of collectivism with a

built-in individualistic orientations, spirituality that rises from materialistic indul-
gence, hierarchical orientation that recognizes exemplary merit and qualities, har-
mony that is vulnerable to frequent violence at even modest provocation, excessive
dependency that quickly transforms into competitive entrepreneurship as soon as an
opportunity arises, emotionality that blends with calculative orientation, hair-splitting
analytical mindset that seamlessly turns synthetic and intuitive and so on (Sinha in
press). Given such a cultural context of diversity, human development has to assume
corresponding contours of complexity that is likely to be somewhat different from
the western linear view of development. Tripathi (1988), for example, proposed to
align human development to the values of embeddedness and openness. Collectivist
Indians relish being embedded in their collectives so that they have a mutually sup-
portive, meaningful and gratifying social network and yet be open to others’ views
and new ideas that are floating around in a culture of diversity. Only such a seemingly
inconsistent but internally unifying approach can realize human potentials in India.

8.2 Western Values

In contrast, the people in the individualist culture of the West want to develop as
autonomous individuals who want to realize three core interrelated values: Success,
freedom, and justice (Bellah et al. 1985, p. 142). For Americans, for example,
70 J. B. P. Sinha

success means climbing the corporate ladder, making lots of money and owning
material objects of satisfaction. Freedom means “being left alone by others, not hav-
ing other people’s values, ideas, or styles of life forced upon, being free of arbitrary
authority at work, family, and political life” (p. 23). Justice means equity in social
transactions, that is, one must get what one pays for. Society is like a market place
where individuals are entitled to exchange success and freedom with the goods and
services that assure both distributive and procedural justice. People value getting a
fair amount of freedom and success by engaging in social transactions that too are
expected to be fair and transparent. Following such values, Triandis (1982) delin-
eated the following elements of human development: openness to new experience,
independence from parental authority, concern for time and planning, willingness
to defer gratification, mastery over nature, determination, cosmopolitan perspective,
having enlarged in-group and striving for excellence.
Some of these characteristics are obviously detrimental to human develop-
ment in the Indian perspective. For example, independence from parental author-
ity might signify the value of freedom but negates the value of embeddedness
and social integration; mastery over nature allows over exploitation of natural
resources but increases ecological footprint and hence sustainability of human
wellbeing, striving for excellence of individuals accentuates inequality that dents
human development.

8.3 Agentic Capabilities

Striving for individual’s excellence is indeed the core of agentic capabilities that
are crucial for human capabilities for whatever people want to achieve. Agentic
capabilities in the West, however, follow the cultural imperatives and gener-
ate highly competitive behaviour where individuals strive to be on their own and
achieve success by their own efforts without concern for others. Agentic capa-
bilities manifest in self-reflective, self-organizing and self-regulative mechanisms
(Bandura 1997) that human being employ enabling them to improve the conditions
in which they live and to create new opportunities for further development.
We all have the potential to cultivate agentic capabilities. Further, whoever, the
poor or the rich, the privileged or the deprived, the people of developing or devel-
oped countries, are engaged in the process of cultivating agentic capabilities to solve
problems, live quality of life, and transcend limitations, will improve their levels of
development. The major difference lies in whether people cultivate it individually (as
they do in the West) or collectively as advocated by Indian scholars (Mehta 1987;
Sinha 1968; Tripathi 1988). The developed countries, because of their thin popula-
tion density, sound infrastructure, efficient work organizations and the protestant
ethic, provide a favourable condition for individuals to enhance their agentic capabil-
ities with very little dependence on other individuals, groups or agencies or govern-
ment. There exists a strong value of self-reliance and sorting out problems on one’s
own. Seeking help or support in fact is taken for one’s weakness.
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 71

Not only are Indian values different from western values, but, opportunity
structure for Indians is also vastly discriminating the poor, the backward, the
low castes and variously challenged persons and groups. There are systemic bar-
riers to growth. Pervasive corruption, caste compulsions, rise of fundamentalism
and many others drain people’s energy and prevent its use for development. The
rich and privileged in India do shine as high achievers and successful in various
domains but they also accentuate inequalities, which, as stated earlier, are appall-
ing. The mass of Indians are left out being so deprived of and feeling so helpless
that they do not think of even making efforts for a change. They surrender to their
destiny. Agentic capabilities need to be kick-started in such conditions by planned
efforts of the State, international cooperation and grassroot agency.

8.4 Communitarian Agentic Capabilities

Agentic capabilities that are to be initiated have to be communitarian in nature.

Indians value “affective reciprocity” and “mutual caring” of others (Roland 1988).
People are emotionally connected to each other. Lapierre (1986) contended “Every
individual in India is always linked to the rest of the social body by a network of
incredibly diversified ties, with the result that no one in this gigantic country of seven
hundred and fifty million [now above one billion] inhabitants could ever be com-
pletely abandoned” (p. 56). “Indians seem to emphasize protection and caring [of
those below in hierarchy] in their social (and political) relations” (Kakar 1982, p. 272).
Achievement for Indians ideally means being good persons, thinking about the
wellbeing of in-group members, fulfilling their duties to friends and the family,
helping them, and being able to get affection and blessing from elders (Agarwal
& Misra 1989; Misra & Agarwal 1985). The scarcity of resources and weak infra-
structural facilities render Indians interdependent. Together, they can cope with
external exigencies more effectively and can help each other grow. It is not the
strong need for individual achievement, but a strong need for either social achieve-
ment (Mehta 1987) or cooperation (Sinha 1968) that can help people maximize
their collective gains.

8.5 Spirituality and Materialism

Indians’ communitarian values are inextricably blended with the core of their
spirituality, although the upper end of spirituality is a highly personalized in
nature. Spirituality, according to Kanungo and Mendonca (1996, p. 97), consists
of the profound consciousness of the eternal values of truth, goodness and beauty
(satyam, shivam, and sudaram), emotionally entrenched faith in these values, and
altruistic behaviour to keep others’ interest and concerns over one’s own inter-
est and concerns even at one’s personal risk and self-sacrifices. Roland (1988)
72 J. B. P. Sinha

believed that “the fundamental goal of all relationships and living [of Indians] is
the gradual self-transformation toward inner and subtle qualities and the refined
aspects of power in the quest for self-realization” (p. 294). Further, Roland con-
tended that spirituality is so deeply engraved in the Indian psyche; “it is virtually
impossible to comprehend Indian psychological make-up, society, and culture”
(p. 289) without taking into account of Indian’s striving for spiritual development.

Box 2. A Human Development Perspective

Individual’s growth and development comes about not when the individual
seeks his or her own interests, but rather when the individual strives, even
at a great pain, risk or inconvenience to the individual, to seek the good of
the other—whether that other be a friend or foe or stranger (Kanungo &
Mendonca 1996, p. 125).

There is a growing literature (Bhawuk 1999; Chakraborty 1987, 1993; Sharma

2007, among others) documenting the importance of seeking spiritual transforma-
tion and showing the effectiveness of the techniques of yoga, meditation, control
of breathing and stilling of turbulent mind. The techniques have the potential to
enable people to rise from animalistic impulses, through humanistic values and
spirituality, to a harmonious relationship with nature (OSHA model of Sharma
2007). They can develop an attitude of niskam-karm, cultivate sattva guna (purity
in thought and action) and adopt a drashtaa bhava (an observer’s stance) that
enable them to discharge their worldly duties in a detached spirit (Pande & Naidu
1992; Sinha 2003). Sthitpragya (totally composed) is the ultimate form of human
development that is ideal and at best can be approximated rather than realized.
Indian spirituality does not deny the presence of materialism in the mindset.
People need money and material resources to meet their basic need and to have a
reasonably decent life. We all have animal impulses and it is natural for us to seek
sensuous pleasure. There is nothing wrong about it. However, there is a deeply
ingrained cultural belief that by living a fully sensuous life, a person would get
disenchanted, and should aspire to refine his human qualities, relate with others
pro-socially, and connect with humanity at large. The underlying belief is that
lasting satisfaction in life emanates not from earthly pleasures but from contain-
ing one’s needs and rising on the spiritual level. The ideal Indian values, contrary
to the western, are humility, austerity, contentment and peace of mind that come
from inner self-transformation, and not from possession of wealth and material
things. Even in the West, questions are now raised about the validity of unlimited
linear material progress, disregarding austerity (Watkins & Shulman 2008).
The culture-specific endogenous human development in India has to be concep-
tualized in terms of the cultural values of embeddedness coexisting with openness
to diverse possibilities and influences, cultivating communitarian capabilities and
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 73

accepting the reality of material needs, but aspiring to transcend them in order to
live a spiritual life of contentment and care and consideration for others.

9 Intervention Strategy

Intervention strategy for promoting human development in India has to be inclu-

sive with the aim to (a) create a sound economic base that enables people to meet
their basic needs and live a reasonably decent life, (b) build economic, social,
educational, religious and political institutions to provide enabling milieu to the
people for communitarian capabilities and (c) cultivate culture-specific values,
attitudes and practices that are functional for promoting human development.
Sinha (1982) has contended that human development is the result of a very com-
plicated interaction of a number of variables such as economic, social and psycho-
logical that have to be examined in an ecological framework incorporating a range
of micro-psychological process of acquiring perceptual skills during the childhood
to the general modernization of social structure, institutions, families, attitudes and
value systems—in fact, a large-scale programme of social change and transforma-
tion for entire society (Sinha 1984, p. 19). Some of the ways of interventions that
have been or can be tried out are the following:

9.1 Economic Inputs and Relief

9.1.1 Change Agents

Initially, the Government of India assumed full responsibility for addressing all
problems of development. It created at central-, state-, district- and block-level
organizations designed for planning and implementing development schemes.
However, the failure of some of its prestigious schemes such as the one directed
at the community development (Mehta 1957) and limited success of many oth-
ers made it realize that the bureaucratic nature of the government organizations
rendered them handicapped in effectively implementing the schemes. The govern-
ment officers remained distant, impersonal, rules and procedures bound, insensi-
tive towards the needs of (particularly poor) people, elitist, power oriented and in
fact politicized (Mehta 1989). Consequently, the government slowly moved to get
non-government organizations (NGOs) involved in the process of development.
The Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980–1981 to 1984–1985) allowed NGOs to supple-
ment government efforts for providing distress relief and social services to dis-
advantaged groups such as women, scheduled castes and tribes. By the Eighth
Five-Year-Plan period, the government realized the potential of NGOs to go
beyond providing distress relief and “make tremendous contributions in bring-
ing about people’s participation both in financial terms and through beneficiary
74 J. B. P. Sinha

support” (The Eighth Five Years Plan 1992–1993 to 1996–1997, p. 39). They
were called upon to get involved in almost all development-related activities.
Simultaneously, the government also invited or attracted international organiza-
tions such as UNICEF, Oxfam, UNDP, World Bank, WHO and others to extend,
through bi-lateral agreements, a helping hand in development efforts. Now the
public–private partnership is called upon in most of the areas of development.
Even smaller international agencies are allowed to approach NGOs directly to
share development-related responsibilities.

9.1.2 Design for Development

While the strategy of the government to address to development challenges evolved

from being solely responsible to seeking partnership with varied development agen-
cies, the design for developing people has not changed radically. It remains largely
externally determined and supply driven. All development agencies—governmental,
non-governmental, private sector and international—most often tend to offer mate-
rial assistance and relief to people, trying particularly to reach out the poorest of the
poor. The approach is to identify the targeted poor, estimate the cost of giving help
and deliver the help in an efficient way, mostly in the areas of health, education,
environment and poverty alleviation, as per the millennium goals of the UNO.
Although they all employ the rhetoric of instilling self-reliance, people’s par-
ticipation, capability building, sustainable development and so on, their concerns
remain how to allocate more and more resources and deliver them efficiently to
the needy. The volume of investment, not necessarily the impact that the invest-
ment has created on either improving conditions for development or building
recipients’ capabilities, has been the basis for estimating the extent of their suc-
cess. The underlying assumptions are that once (a) resources are allocated, (b)
required services and products are provided and (c) regulatory and monitoring
mechanisms are put in place, the people will automatically become developed.
It does not so happen always. Contrary to their understanding, dumping
resources without requiring the people to make efforts to develop their capabilities
inculcates excessive dependency in them (Sinha 1992). People attribute a moral
responsibility to development agencies to keep them providing the goods and ser-
vices, the magnitude of which depends on how miserable they are or present them-
selves, but not necessarily on how much efforts they are making on their own. As
a result, the people fail to acquire agenetic capabilities. The only skills that they
cultivate are how to display off their miseries in magnified forms in order to create
a pressing sense of moral imperative for the agencies to bestow maximum benefits
on them. Such a skill obviously is self-defeating in long run. As soon as the inflow
of resources dries up people reverse back to even worse conditions. There are also
reports that foreign aid has detrimental effects in other developing counties, for
example, African people became accustomed to the aid, and lost their cultural
identities, motivation and sense of common purpose rendering them depend-
ent, corrupt, and even poorer (Maathai 2009; Moyo 2009). Similarly, foreign aid
trapped Mexicans into a self-abnegating process (Diaz-Guerrero 2000).
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 75

At times it may be indispensable to give distress relief, allot protective quota

in allocation of jobs and access to education and health facilities, reserve avenues
of opportunities for the deprived sections of population and subsidize the costs of
essential goods and services that are primarily meant for those who cannot afford
to procure them at market rates. To continue indulging in them helps neither the
recipients nor the change agents. Initial help may be useful as a kick-start to the
helpless and weak to take initiative, but must soon shift to stimulating self-help
and building their capabilities. Long back, Sinha (1984) highlighted the need to
shift from dumping resources to preparing the needy to avail of the opportunities:
It is tacitly assumed that given equal opportunity, financial incentives, and resources, all
persons and communities will respond similarly in their productive efforts and economic
achievement. The fact of the matter is that it does not happen that way. Further, Change in
economic and political environment must first provide opportunity, if the individual is to
change and benefit from it. But the ability to exploit the opportunity is determined by the
cognitive and motivational characteristics of the individual (p. 21).

10 Use of Psychological Knowledge

Knowledge from psychology can be fruitfully utilized to shape their cognitive and
motivational structures in order to enable them to have the capabilities to avail of
opportunities (Kagitcibasi 2002). Psychologists till recently have conducted evalu-
ative studies on the impact of development schemes, showed ways and means to
smooth the impact or to facilitate the implementation of schemes and made interven-
tions for making micro-level improvements in the areas of health, education, skills
acquisitions and wellbeing of people. There are other areas that have supportive—
positive or negative—relevance to development. They are, for example, religious
and caste prejudice and discrimination, social conflicts, cultural contacts, interper-
sonal and intergroup tolerance, national identity, communication, social stratifica-
tion, national cohesion where psychological concepts, methods of interventions and
training skills can be effectively utilized (Berry 1984, p. 1). Kagitcibasi (2002) fur-
ther identified the relevance of psychology to the domains such as early childhood
education and health, role of family in empowering and training of mothers, and
improving the quality of social, cultural and economic life of people. The descrip-
tion of the psychosocial approach to development in the preceding section suggests
that psychology can now participate with other social sciences in conceptualizing the
upper ends of human development that goes far beyond human achievement equity
in income, health, education and political empowerment.

10.1 Institutional Frame

Psychological knowledge can be best utilized in the institutional frame. People

live and function mostly through organizations and institutions. In the family,
they acquire values, norms, beliefs and practices, learn how to relate with others,
76 J. B. P. Sinha

obey superiors, take care of younger ones, compete with siblings and so on. They
carry this mindset to schools and colleges and subsequently to work organizations
and to the society at large where they participate in religious, community, social,
political and other organizations. Organizations and institutions have their own
systems, practices, rituals and demands. People modify their mindset and yield to
them even by suppressing their early acquired beliefs, values, norms and practices,
particularly if an organization is fair in dealing with its members and committed to
larger societal objectives.
There exists substantive evidence that the organizational characteristics are
reflected in employees’ perceptions and performance (Sinha 2008). In one of the
studies, for example, Sinha and Pandey (2007) indicated that Indians were per-
ceived to manifest a materialistic mindset in multinational organizations; but were
likely to turn holistic in combining excellence in work, personalized relation-
ships, abstract thinking, emotionality, rationality and spirituality in those organi-
zations that valued both performance and people. Studies by Krishnan and Mulla
(Krishnan 2001, 2008; Mulla & Krishnan 2008, 2009) revealed that spirituality
and karm-yoga of organizational leadership have impact on employees’ duty ori-
entation and beliefs in Indian philosophy. They substantiated Chakraborty’s (1995)
thesis that ethics in management can change how the members of the organization
view their work and relationship with others.
Evidence regarding the impact of work organizations on employees’ beliefs, val-
ues, norms and practices are more unequivocal than that of the social organizations
on the thought and behaviour of their members. The latter are less structured and
less demanding with scantly defined routines and weak control over their members
who are more open to a variety of extraneous and conflicting influences. Global
influences of largely western origin often overwhelm indigenous thoughts and aspi-
rations and market forces run over traditional Indian values and social norms.
It is here that the society at large, its civil society, media and thought leaders
have to intervene in the discourse on the nature of human development that the
people of India need. Once a broad understanding is articulated, it can serve as a
guideline to people and organizations and institutions to develop their road map
to realize the full potential of their members’ economic, social and psychological
wellbeing. Education, for example, provides thinking capability. Whether it leads
to human development or exploitation of others and self-injury, as Tripathi (2011)
recently found, depends on the contents of education that would reflect the val-
ues that would guide our education policy. Similarly, greater income and better
health facilities, fair and transparent procedural justice can create an opportunity
structure to which Indians as individuals and groups would respond readily and
responsibly. As indicated earlier, Indians in their repertoire have variety of seem-
ingly discrepant values, beliefs and skills that they are prone to use selectively to
respond to opportunities.
So the strategy for interventions has to be calibrated to an inclusive conceptu-
alization of human development by encompassing economic, social, psychologi-
cal, ecological inputs through building up organizations and institutions that are
guided by continuous societal discourse on the nature of human development.
4  Human Development: Concept and Strategy 77

11 Conclusions

Human development is the state of wellbeing of human beings. It is characterized by

having income to meet the basic needs of life and access to material resources to have
a reasonably decent life. It also means having a long healthy life and the education
that lead to the capabilities to live a life that people value. More crucial than capabili-
ties, which can take people in a right direction, is the right kind of valuing. If people
value having unlimited income, they cause inequality that hampers other’s access to
material resources, health care and education sapping their capabilities, and hence
depriving them of their development. One legitimate value is happiness which, how-
ever, should not encroach upon other’s happiness by over exploiting natural resources.
However, what happiness means is a cultural construction. In the capitalist
individualistic context, it means having unlimited amount and variety of material
objects and services. On the other hand, in the collectivist spiritually oriented cul-
ture of India, the real and lasting happiness ideally emanates from being integrated
with collectives, open to the diversity of thoughts and practices, and pro-social in
caring and being cared by others. Human development in such a cultural context is
only partly external in its form; partly, and more importantly, it is internal in real-
izing oneself having peace and contentment. Strategy to promote human develop-
ment hence has to be calibrated accordingly.

Appendix

Table 1  Growth rate of per capita state domestic product (SDP, percent per annum)
States 1980–1990 1990–2000 Difference in Growth Rate
Andhra Pradesh 2.56 3.62 1.06
Assam 1.74 0.65 −1.09
Bihar 2.97 1.86 −1.11
Gujarat 3.62 6.38 2.76
Haryana 4.12 4.42 .30
Karnataka 4.00 5.27 1.27
Kerala 3.04 4.78 1.74
Madhya Pradesh 2.74 3.22 .48
Maharashtra 3.60 5.04 1.44
Orissa 3.96 2.12 −1.84
Punjab 3.19 2.71 −.48
Rajasthan 4.41 4.09 −.32
Tamil Nadu 4.79 5.40 .61
Uttar Pradesh 3.46 1.98 −1.48
West Bengal 2.93 5.41 2.48
All-India 3.36 4.07 .71
Source Bhattacharya and Sakthivel (2007)
78 J. B. P. Sinha

Table 2  HDI and IHDI estimates across Indian states

State HDI IHDI Loss (%) Rank
HDI IHDI
AP 0.485 0.332 31.55 11 12
Assam 0.474 0.341 28.17 12 11
Bihar 0.447 0.303 32.06 18 16
Chhattisgarh 0.449 0.291 35.14 17 18
Gujarat 0.514 0.363 29.50 8 7
Haryana 0.545 0.375 31.18 5 6
HP 0.558 0.403 27.81 3 3
Jharkhand 0.464 0.308 33.67 15 14
Karnataka 0.508 0.353 30.44 10 9
Kerala 0.625 0.520 16.78 1 1
MP 0.451 0.290 35.74 16 19
Maharashtra 0.549 0.397 27.75 4 4
Orissa 0.442 0.296 33.11 19 17
Punjab 0.569 0.410 28.04 2 2
Rajasthan 0.468 0.308 34.02 14 13
Tamil Nadu 0.544 0.396 27.28 6 5
UP 0.468 0.307 34.47 13 15
Uttarakhand 0.515 0.345 33.03 7 10
West Bengal 0.509 0.360 29.30 9 8
Source Suryanarayana et al. (2011)

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Chapter 5
Education: Path to Development
and Happiness in Rural India?

R. C. Tripathi

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been

educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne.
Education is a process which makes one rogue cleverer than
another.
Oscar Wilde (1856–1900).

1 Introduction

This chapter examines the relationship between education and development in rural
India in the context of ongoing discourses on human development. The discourses
on development have made a considerable shift in the last few decades, largely due
to the contributions of two South Asians, Amartya Sen and Mahbub-ul-Haq, which
have helped the United Nations in developing their approach of human develop-
ment. Traditional approaches of development were not only linear and unidimen-
sional; they focused primarily on economic development which was measured in
terms of GDP, forgetting the sage advice of Aristotle that “wealth is merely use-
ful for something else”. Human development paradigm holds that development is
about increasing human choices which is not achieved in societies in which wealth
is distributed unequally. Education is considered that instrument through which
human choices can be increased by capacity building. Raised levels of education
lead to raised income levels and overall quality of life of individuals. The ques-
tion which, however, needs to be asked is whether educational development of a

R. C. Tripathi (*) 
Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 81
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_5, © Springer India 2014
82 R. C. Tripathi

community, and not of individuals, will also result in an increment of choices for
the oppressed and the disadvantaged within a feudal society? Policy makers gen-
erally assume that what happens at the micro- or individual level will also reflect
at the macro-level, that is, at the level of community, which may or may not be
true. They consider social and cultural diversities of little or small consequence
while implementing social policies. Just as planners and policy makers ignore
sociocultural factors, they too ignore psychological factors which feed into not
only the motivational structures of people and the choices that people make for
their “capacity development”. Sinha (1969, 1974) was among the first psycholo-
gists to show that macro-level programmes, like community development failed
to give the expected results because they ignored psychological factors. He found
that development was not a simple matter of creating or providing resources in
scarce resource environment situations. Development was possible only by bring-
ing about a change in the motivational structures of rural people. Working with
rural communities, he found that level of aspiration of villagers was central to the
success of development initiatives and for the removal of poverty (D. Sinha, op
cit). Appadurai (2004) later developed this finding into the concept of “capacity to
aspire”. Rural poverty has remained one of the foremost concerns of our policy
makers all throughout but there has been only marginal improvement in the reduc-
tion of the number of absolute poor, except, of course, what is some times claimed
by jugglers of statistics. Most planners and policy makers, in line with the thinking
of the World Bank, believe education has played a role in poverty alleviation and
in raising the quality of life of people. Education is considered by them a panacea
which cures all human and social ills. This chapter looks at the developmental out-
comes which educational development of communities brings about in the context
of questions we have raised above.

2 Meaning and Concept of Development

Development, for a long time, has been understood in terms of economic growth.
However, the concept of development has become quite broad to include other
facets which are included under human development. This concept is now con-
sidered multidimensional and includes factors like education, health, gender par-
ity, political participation, etc (Alkire & Santos 2010). Development is now also
prefixed with words like social or human, to show the inclusion of these new fac-
ets of development. This is not to suggest that economic development has been
relegated to the background. There is no denying the fact that economic growth
is an essential prerequisite for social and human development. But an equally
important condition is whether such economic advantages are distributed in an
equitable manner and whether they percolate down to the neediest. The approach
of free market economy subscribes to the view that economic development trick-
les down to the bottom-most rung of a society. Most studies show that income
inequalities in rural India have either remained the same or increased over the
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 83

years (Vannemann & Dube 2010). This is supported by the oft-cited report of the
Arjun SenGupta Commission which suggested in 2007 that 836 million Indians
(roughly 77 % Indians) lived on less than Rs. 20 a day and the proposal of the
Planning Commission to treat only such people as eligible for the BPL status. The
economists differ with respect to actual poverty estimates. Tendulkar Committee
came up with an estimate of 33 % for people based on 2004–2005 figures. The
World Bank had a higher figure of 42 % based on 2005 figures. UNDP uses mul-
tiple poverty indicators (MPI) in its HDR of 2010 and puts the head count of
poor people in India at 55.4 %. By whatever count one goes, it is without doubt
that India continues to have unacceptable number of the poor compared to other
nations, particularly those who are categorized as chronically poor. A study by
Hulme et al. (2001) reports that almost one-third of the chronically poor of the
world live in India who remain disadvantaged in terms of not only income but
also education and health.
In the years that have gone by, the concept of development has become synony-
mous with human development, a paradigm proposed by Mahbub-ul Haque and
Amartya Sen. This paradigm has found acceptance all over the world and has been
adopted by the UNDP to put together its HDR reports on quality of life and over-
all wellbeing of people around the world. Human development approach views
poverty as “capability deprivation” and development as an “expansion of human
capabilities” (Sen 1999) which largely comes about as a result of governmental
interventions and initiatives taken by civil society organizations. Human devel-
opment, according to Sen (1999), essentially means making available to people
the right or freedom to lead the kinds of lives they choose and enabling them (in
terms of instruments and opportunities) to make these choices. But how does one
enable people? Economic growth can be seen as only one aspect of development
which is instrumental in enhancing human and social development. Aristotle too
viewed economic development as “merely useful and for the sake of something
else”. Drèze and Sen (2002) see this “something else” as enablement and freedom.
Freedom is postulated by them as an essential means as well as the most impor-
tant end for development. Freedoms are of various kinds, and it is believed that
they consolidate each other. Two important instruments of enabling people and
providing them greater freedom and choice, according to Drèze and Sen (2002),
are health and education. Many analysts and human rights activists have argued to
make these as fundamental rights. The Right to Education (RTE) Act can be seen
as a culmination of these efforts. Education and health can play an important role
in enhancing freedoms and expanding choices. Freedoms of different types com-
plement each other and help in building various capabilities which in important
ways contribute to enhancing quality of life. We will return to the issue of how
education is associated with development and happiness a little later.
Development is important for improving quality of life of people, but other
aspects of life have also been acknowledged as essential for a fulfilling life. The
concept and paradigm of human development focus more on economic aspects of
life and leave out social and psychological aspects. An increase in income or afflu-
ence, in general, does not necessarily lead to greater feelings of wellbeing even in
84 R. C. Tripathi

US or Britain. Offer (2006) points out that 2 million people, one in fifty, are in US
jails. He points out that Britain has overtaken the US in most other types of disor-
ders, such as family breakdown, addictions, mental disorders, poverty, economic
fraud, violence, stress, besides a general decline in security and interpersonal trust.
Enablement or freedom to exercise personal choice, according to him, has resulted
in people making choices that are not “prudent” and lack “self control”. They are
fallible and myopic with focus on the immediate and the present. The focus on
development, therefore, has started veering towards more holistic approaches, par-
ticularly those which are concerned with the quest for happiness. Thus, after GDP
and the HDI, there is a new index, Gross National Happiness (GNH), first proposed
by the king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wanchuk, on which countries are getting
evaluated and ranked (Veenhoven 2007). This new paradigm which is often seen
as complementary to the paradigm of human development has found support of
Nobel Laureate Kahneman (1999) who constructed the concept of “objective hap-
piness”, psychologists Diener and Seligman (2004) and Kramer (2010), and econo-
mist Layard (2005). In the happiness index, e­ conomic and social development is
just one of the four constitutive elements of happiness, the others being preserva-
tion and promotion of cultural values, c­ onservation of the natural environment, and
establishment of good governance (www.grossnationalhappiness.com). Looking at
the dimensions of what makes people happy, one realizes that various things other
than just economic wellbeing are important for a life that humans find fulfilling and
meaningful. The concept of happiness goes beyond the domain of economic well-
being and lies in actualization of the human potential. The latter tradition found
both in the East and West is referred to as Eudaimonism. The underlying values
which govern the concept of good life under these two approaches are different.
The hedonistic approach is at the root of free market paradigm of economic devel-
opment which measures happiness in terms of measurable material achievements,
whereas eudaimonistic approach is guided by “moral sentiments” or “dharmic prin-
ciples”. As is pointed out by McDonald (2003, p. 1): “The underlying development
philosophy of globalization seeks to maximize happiness through the cultivation of
a narrow materialist self-interest and competitiveness, both at the level of the indi-
vidual and at the level of the nation-state”. Development and happiness at the level
of the individual are reflected in the state of subjective wellbeing of the individual.
The feelings of wellbeing are connected with both.

2.1 Cultural Ways of Understanding Development

One major problem with development paradigms is that they have directly evolved
out of the discourses on modernity which subscribe largely to Euro-centric beliefs
and practices (Tucker 1999). They, therefore, emphasize the “objective”, “technol-
ogy and science”, “rational”, “material” and “present” and have no use for alterna-
tive visions offered by non-western cultures. In fact, local cultures and their values
are seen as impediments in the path of human development, to put it more bluntly,
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 85

as nuisance. Development, particularly for agencies like the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, is a value-free enterprise, although there is a per-
sistent veiled attempt made to impose western values and norms in the name of
modernity and “global culture”. More and more nations in the developing world
are becoming increasingly wary of the values of neoliberalism that underlie the
development discourses which threaten the moorings of local cultures and create
conditions which are antithetical to existing social and cultural realities and pre-
cipitate contradictions and conflicts. One of the fallouts of ignoring cultural reali-
ties has been that development in these culturally diverse societies has generally
bypassed the socially excluded and those living at the margins. Economic inequal-
ities have only increased and have deepened the divide between the rich and the
poor. The dominant paradigm of development also has reduced cultural diversi-
ties. It strongly supports individualistic values over collectivist and community
values, democracy over other political forms, and English as the lingua franca.
But of late, the dominant paradigm of development has been called into question.
Development is now seen as a “cultural discourse” which has implications for the
way social reality is understood and constructed, particularly in developing socie-
ties (Escobar 2000). Tucker (1999) suggests development is not a natural process
as is often made out by supporters of the paradigm of modernity which see it in
opposition to traditional cultures. It has at its core western values and beliefs. It is
driven wholly by technical interventions.

2.2 Education, Development and Happiness

Education has long been seen as the cure for all problems that detract a nation from
its path towards progress or development. Education is seen as central to elimina-
tion of poverty in various discourses that focus either on education and/or on pov-
erty. Sayed (2008) discusses four kinds of frameworks that link education with
poverty. These are the human capital approach, which holds that education is asso-
ciated with development of skills and knowledge that are required for efficient func-
tioning of organizations and enhanced productivity resulting in economic growth;
the human rights approach, which views education as an end in itself because it
adds value to living as a human; the social inclusion perspective, which holds that
education makes it possible for individuals to prevent from getting marginalized
and socially excluded from the main stream of society; and the capability perspec-
tive put forward by Amartya Sen, which sees education as an entitlement and an
opportunity to improve one’s quality of life. This last perspective has become the
corner stone of all developmental efforts of major funding agencies of the world
and also of the United Nations and is an important constituent of its Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). Drèze and Sen (2002) posit five kinds of roles that
education has for the freedom of the individual. According to them, education has
an intrinsic value because learning provides an opportunity for self-improvement
and growth. It also has an instrumental value to the extent it is connected with
86 R. C. Tripathi

finding gainful employments and going up the rungs of socioeconomic ladder.

Education creates another kind of freedom by contributing positively to health sta-
tus of children as well as adults. The third role of education is seen as a social role
in which the educated people are seen as demanding accountability of public serv-
ants as also from their political leaders. Education is also a process which frees and
empowers individuals, particularly those at the social margins through formation
of attitudes and values which liberate them from various oppressive conditions and
equips them to oppose their oppressors. It supports processes of social inclusion.
Education thus enables a person. It enables him/her to become unfettered of the
restrictive effects of illiteracy, ill health, ignorance, exploitation and denial of rights.
Another argument put forward is that it enables persons to increase their levels of
communication which makes it possible for them to exercise choice and control
over their environment. It increases their agency beliefs. The human capital theo-
rists argue that education leads people to develop skills and competencies which
enable them to lead productive lives. Education is seen as a major determinant of
poverty alleviation (Education here is conceptualized as years spent in school, that
is, in terms of formal schooling which ignores education received from informal
sources and from critical life experiences). Much evidence is there to show that with
increased levels of schooling the wages and salaries also go up. In fact, they peak
faster for the more educated than for the less educated as they are able to acquire
new skills faster that are required by them to be more productive. This also is true
for those working in the informal sectors and for the self-employed. Education is
expected to contribute not only to the wellbeing of the individuals but also of com-
munities and nations. There is a positive relationship found between level of school
enrolment and GNP. Education relates positively not only to economic indicators
but also to various other indicators of development, such as health. For example, an
increase of 1 % in schooling level, it is pointed out, brings about an increase in life
expectancy by 0.0553 %. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that increasing the
schooling of women brings beneficial effects for their own control of fertility, for
their own health, and that of their families.
Education also appears to be correlated to psychological wellbeing as it is
conceptualized in Veenhoven’s happiness scale and his world database which
includes studies related to education and happiness (Veenhoven 2003). In Cantril’s
(1965) study, a significant relationship was found between happiness and levels of
education for adult sample. However, World Database on the relationship between
education and happiness shows that the correlations between the two variables
vary from non-significant correlations to medium and high correlations for differ-
ent samples within the same country and also across countries (Veenhoven 2007).
No meta-analytic studies are available to our knowledge which can give us ideas
about the effect size of relationship between education and happiness.
But one may ask if education is connected with improving quality of lives at
the individual level, does it also relate to creation of societies which are egali-
tarian and human centric. A recent study by Gomez (2009) examines the role of
education for eradicating poverty as a panacea in Mexico. She points out that the
emphasis on education comes from the belief that it is related to prosperity. But
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 87

the non-economic and humanistic sides of education are often not understood, nor
emphasized, particularly in bringing about social change and in creating a soci-
ety based on equity and equality. Education for prosperity or affluence approach
is unrelated to social transformation. Educational institutions created with this
approach create minds and organizations which train people into making myopic
choices which maximize individual interests and are self-defeating in the long run.
This is pointed out by Gomez (2009) and Oxaal (1997). The relationship of educa-
tion and various development indicators, they show, is not simple, as education is
offered within a context. The gender disparity found in educational levels, accord-
ing to Oxall (ibid.), underscores the role which cultural factors play in keeping
the females marginalized. Gomez (2009) argues that education besides develop-
ing cognitive skills also develops non-cognitive skills. These skills are respon-
sible for creation, as well as, perpetuation of social hierarchies and classes and,
therefore, contribute towards an increase in the level of social inequalities. In this
context, we are led to ask to what extent education which is imparted frees an indi-
vidual. Or does it only equip the educated with skills which enable him to exploit
the weak only more efficiently in his desire to become prosperous? There is an
urgent need to look at this question critically and to separate rhetoric from reality.
Most educational policies in developing countries have been thrust upon them by
the international funding agencies, such as the World Bank and others, and devel-
opment aid is linked to the implementation of these policies. Education in these
countries is driven by the values which have the underpinnings of the neoliberal
economies and not the local set of values. They seek prosperity and affluence at
the cost of true happiness and “wellbeing”.
It is in the above context that I would like to discuss some findings from a
recent study (Tripathi et al. 2007). This study looked at the relationship between
educational development and various indicators of human development in 12 vil-
lages of Mawana, a subdivision of western Uttar Pradesh (UP) in northern India,
and educational development’s unintended consequences.

3 The Mawana Study

Western UP is way ahead of all other regions in Uttar Pradesh in terms of agri-
cultural production (22 quintals/acre compared to 18 and 12 for east UP and
Bundelkhand, respectively). This is also reflected in higher levels of fertilizer use
and mechanized farming. The region has a much higher population density and
also shows a greater degree of urbanization. However, this relative affluence of
farmers does not reflect in similar ways in various social indicators, be it female
literacy levels, the sex ratio, gender development index, employment of farm
labour or the health status of women and children. This region happens to be quite
high, when compared to other regions in UP, with respect to the rate of crime. The
rural society here continues to be organized hierarchically and along traditional
lines based on caste. Dominant social values support patriarchy and feudalism.
88 R. C. Tripathi

Caste panchayats continue to be very strong in governing social relationships and

in maintaining them, particularly relating to marriages. Marriages within the same
gotra (patrilineage), and within the same village, are still unacceptable. The cul-
ture of honour is the characteristic feature of these villages. The dominant caste
of the region is Jat, and the culture of the region has largely evolved around their
values. Jats are a group of very proud people and trace their ancestry to the ancient
kings who ruled the Gangetic belt for a very long time. We were surprised by the
paradoxical relationship between economic development and human development
indicators. This naturally led us to the question of the relationship between educa-
tional development and various human development indicators. Consequently, we
decided to collect micro- and also macro-level data from 2,114 members, which
included males as well as females and children representing 873 households of 12
villages of the subdivision. The villages were sampled on the basis of their geo-
graphical location as well as their levels of overall development on a set of indica-
tors of social–human development. For each village, a HDI was computed based
on a set of measures of educational development, economic development, health
development, gender parity, social development and political development. A brief
description of these indices is given here:

1. Educational development: The index was computed based on monthly expendi-

ture on education, average education level, and the highest education level in
the household, educational and career aspirations for boys as well as girls.
2. Economic development: Agricultural and other domestic assets, gap between
annual income and loans, expenditure on household, per capita income, size of
land holding, number of children who have migrated, income from migrated
members of the family, percentage contribution to the agriculture income, per-
centage contribution to wage and other incomes, quality of housing, and avail-
ability of drinking water.
3. Health development: The index included expenditure incurred on health, num-
ber of members of the family who were sick in the last one month, and number
of persons suffering from major illnesses.
4. Social capital: The index developed was seen as a measure of social capital and
included the perceived status of households in comparison with other households
on economic, social and power dimensions and expectations about the future status
with respect to these dimensions, presence of disputes with other families, expecta-
tion of help forthcoming from other families in times of need, social contacts with
other families, and manner in which conflicts and disputes were resolved.
5. Gender parity: The index covered answers to the questions about the freedom
given to girls compared to boys in various life domains, such as studies, friend-
ship formation and decisions related to how to spend free time.
6. Political development: The index included the number of gram panchayat
(local self-government at village level) meetings in the past year, number of
members participating in the meetings, and number of households participating
in these meetings.
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 89

7. Happiness and wellbeing measures: Four indicators were used to create an

index of happiness following Csikszentmihalyi’s (1998) flow approach. These
were as follows: extent of family happiness; engagement in creative work;
social capital which included expectations of help from others in time of need,
absence of conflict with other families and constructive conflict resolution
methods; and optimism about future.

3.1 Relationship of Educational Development

and Development Indicators

Although we have carried out complex multivariate analyses to understand how

and to what extent educational development is associated with various indicators
of development, we will present some results based on univariate analyses relating
to educational development’s relationship with various indicators of development
and happiness. In our study, education was not found to be associated in the pre-
dicted manner with various indices of human development. Although educational
development was positively associated with economic wellbeing (beta =  +0.29)
and with the health index it was negatively associated (beta = −0.23). Educational
development had only a small correlation with social capital but only in the
case of respondents from the high Educational Development Index (EDI) group
(r = 0.13). Similarly, educational development did not correlate with gender par-
ity index but some interesting and paradoxical findings emerged. Educational
development correlated positively with career and life aspiration for boys but neg-
atively with career and life aspirations for girls irrespective of the level of educa-
tional development. In fact, in case of the girls, the relationship between these was
found to be much stronger in case of villages that were high on education develop-
ment (r = −0.36) in comparison with villages where education development was
low (r =  −0.26) which clearly indicated that educational development actually
increased the gender disparity rather than reducing it. We also examined whether
there is increased participation in village governance with educational develop-
ment, as it should, if education empowers people. The relationship between edu-
cational development and village governance index, which was taken as a measure
of political development, did show a low positive but significant relationship
within high (r = 0.14) and medium (r = 0.11) educationally developed villages.
The data which we present here can be better understood against this frame.
Educational development and economic wellbeing: One of the central argu-
ments, which proponents of “education as freedom” advance, is that it is related to
capability development which results in people finding gainful employment. We
looked at the unemployment status of our respondents between the ages of 19 to
60 years in the low, medium and high educationally developed villages based on
gender. Table 1 presents the percentage of unemployed males and females in these
villages.
90 R. C. Tripathi

Table 1  Unemployment status of population in 19–60 age group

Level Village name EDI Percentage Number
Male Female Total Male Female Total
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 17.2 78.1 46.0 163 146 309
Maqboolpur 45.1 14.3 58.0 34.9 56 50 106
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 8.2 62.5 32.6 49 40 89
Assa 47.7 15.7 72.6 41.0 197 157 354
Mean 45.4 13.9 67.8 38.6 465 393 853
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 14.9 74.9 43.8 246 231 479
Alipur Moma 50.8 16.8 74.5 42.5 137 110 247
Kohla 51.2 15.2 80.4 47.0 112 107 219
Makhan Nagar 51.7 13.3 77.0 42.4 150 126 276
Mean 51.1 15.1 76.7 43.9 465 574 1,221
High Bhandaura 53.1 17.8 68.0 39.2 101 75 176
Jhunjunee 54.1 16.7 79.5 46.1 216 190 406
Pali 56.1 14.2 78.6 44.4 148 131 279
Mean 54.4 16.2 75.4 43.2 465 396 861
Total Average 50.3 15.4 75.2 43.1 1,577 1,363 2,940
Note Percentages denote gender-wise row percentages

Contrary to our expectation, we found that as villages rose in educational devel-

opment, the percentage of both the male and female unemployed rose. In case of
the males, it went up from 13.9 % in the low-developed villages to 16.2 and for
the high educationally developed villages. The increase in case of the females
was even sharper—from 67.8 % for low educationally developed villages to about
75.4 % in case of the high educationally developed villages. But the most dramatic
findings appeared when we looked at the per capita income of the households for
different caste groups. Table 2 presents average household income of different
caste groups.
Capability development theorists argue that education brings about an increase
in the household income. While this is true at the aggregate level, that is, for the
entire population, if one disaggregates the data based for the socially excluded
groups, a very different picture emerges. We found that in our sample, the average
household income of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) in low educationally developed
villages steadily went down with educational development. In the low education-
ally developed villages, the average household income for SC families was found
to be Rs. 10,139 which went down to Rs. 7,011 for the medium-developed vil-
lages and in case of the high educationally developed to a low of Rs. 5,889. People
belonging to the minority groups (Muslims) fared even worse. From an aver-
age per capita income of Rs. 9,982 in the low educationally developed villages,
the average household income in the medium educationally developed villages
dropped to Rs. 4,447 and Rs. 3,976 in the high educationally developed house-
holds, whereas in case of the other backward classes (OBCs), who are the domi-
nant caste in the region, it rose from Rs. 8,644 in the low educationally developed
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 91

Table 2  Caste-wise per capita income of sample households

Level Village Name EDI SCa OBCb Minorities General Total
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 15,812 – 13,209 – 13,332
Maqboolpur 45.1 7,081 6,019 – 19,800 7,581
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 12,329 8,191 4,738 3,668 8,274
Assa 47.7 5,334 11,721 12,000 14,133 9,638
Mean 45.4 10,139 8,644 9,982 12,534 9,706
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 5,870 21,764 5,518 24,563 12,912
Alipur Moma 50.8 7,458 14,922 4,447 18,811 10,693
Kohla 51.2 4,181 17,443 4,800 14,667 12,370
Makhan Nagar 51.7 10,536 10,252 6,600 16,356 11,188
Mean 51.1 7,011 16,095 5,341 18,599 11,791
High Bhandaura 53.1 4,364 17,099 – – 16,667
Jhunjunee 54.1 4,763 12,932 4,181 14,091 10,688
Pali 56.1 8,539 27,098 3,771 – 23,093
Mean 54.4 5,889 19,043 3,976 14,091 16,816
Total Average 50.3 7,133 16,902 9,914 15,789 12,596
a SC = scheduled caste, or one of the historically disadvantaged caste groups given express

recognition by the Government of India

b OBC = Other Backward Class, or a socially and educationally backward class identified for

empowerment by the Government of India. Groups may be added to or removed from this list
depending on their current socioeconomic position

villages to Rs. 19,043, an increase of over 100 %. Education, thus, appeared to

help the powerful but not the weak.
Educational Development and Health: Among the several indices that are
used to assess health status at the macro-level is the infant mortality rate. We com-
pared the number of children living and dead born in the 5 years before the survey
by gender in the villages, categorized in terms of educational development. The
results appear in Table 3.
As may be seen, the infant mortality rate for the male child shows improve-
ment with educational development, but in case of the girl child with educa-
tional development infant mortality rate goes up. While the low educationally
developed villages had 42.3 % girl children compared to 51.3 % boys, the num-
ber came down to only 34.6 % girls in case of the high educationally devel-
oped villages compared to 61.2 % for the male child, a staggering difference of
about 26 %.
We also asked our female respondents to report on how healthy they perceived
themselves to be, on the whole. While there were only small differences found
between those who reported themselves to be completely healthy in the low and
high educationally developed villages, only an average of 36.2 % respondents
reported to have some illness compared to 43.2 % from the educationally devel-
oped villages. For the medium educationally developed villages, this number was
35 %. We also looked at the percentage of people falling ill in the last one month
and found that there was little difference in the number of people falling ill in
Table 3  Survival, place of birth and gender of children born in 5 years in sample households
Level Village name EDI Alive Dead Place of birth
Boy Girl Total Boy Girl Total Home Pvt nursing Government Other Total
(%) (%) numbers (%) (%) numbers (%) home (%) hospital (%) (%) numbers
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 62.5 30.7 82 2.3 4.5 6 62.5 37.5 0 0 88
Maqboolpur 45.1 48.6 48.6 36 2.7 0 1 94.6 5.4 0 0 37
Dudhi 45.6 42.9 42.9 18 4.8 9.5 3 61.9 28.6 4.8 4.8 21
Khadar
Assa 47.7 51 46.9 94 0 2.1 2 76 20.8 3.1 0 96
Mean 45.4 51.3 42.3 230 2.5 4 12 73.8 23.1 2 1.2 242
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 47.9 45.2 68 5.5 1.4 5 64.4 32.9 2.7 0 73
Alipur Moma 50.8 63.1 33.8 63 0 3.1 2 84.6 15.4 0 0 65
Kohla 51.2 65 30.0 57 3.3 1.7 3 63.3 33.3 3.3 0 60
Makhan 51.7 45 45.0 36 5.0 5.0 4 82.5 15.0 2.5 0 40
Nagar
Mean 51.1 55.3 38.5 224 3.5 2.8 14 73.7 24.2 2.1 0 238
High Bhandaura 53.1 59.1 40.9 22 0 0 0 22.7 72.7 0 4.5 22
Jhunjunee 54.1 58.9 35.6 69 2.7 2.7 4 67.1 31.5 1.4 0 73
Pali 56.1 65.5 27.3 51 0 7.3 4 60.0 36.4 1.8 1.8 55
Mean 54.4 61.2 34.6 142 0.9 3.3 8 49.9 46.9 1.1 2.1 150
Total Average 50.3 56.5 38.1 596 2.2 3.2 34 69.2 28.6 1.7 0.5 630
Note Percentages denote row percentage. The percentages of live and dead children (boys and girls) are calculated from the total number of children in the
village
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 93

the low, medium and high educationally developed villages. However, when it
came to persons affected by severe diseases during the last month, fewer peo-
ple from the low educationally developed villages (5.3 %) reported falling sick
compared to 7.7 % in the medium educationally developed villages and 7 % in
the high educationally developed villages. An interesting finding relating to pre-
ferred treatment for children was found. Almost 77 % in the educationally devel-
oped consulted “jhola chhap doctors” when their children fell ill, compared to
only 52 % in the low educationally developed villages. Thus, in case of health
too, educational development was not seen as contributing to health status in any
way. In fact, educational development was associated negatively with a number
of measures related to incidence of illness and also health modernity beliefs.
Educational development and social capital: Social capital is taken here as a
marker of social development and refers to the degree of binding and bonding of
the members of the community who can be trusted to support other group mem-
bers when the need arises. As mentioned above, we measured it in terms of felt
deprivations in economic, social and political domains. The assumption made here
was that greater was the felt deprivation vis-à-vis other members in the community
less will be the trust which people would be able to repose in each other. The ques-
tion we asked here was whether these felt relative deprivations in these areas were
associated with educational development. Tables 4, 5 and 6 give responses of the
sampled respondents relating to how they felt they were doing in comparison with
others in their village on economic, social and political domains, respectively.
An interesting phenomenon that we came across was that roughly half of the
respondents in the low educationally developed villages said that they do not

Table 4  Relative economic deprivation

Level Village name EDI Very Good Same Bad Very Does not No Total
good bad compare response numbers
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 11.5 6.9 5.7 5.7 1.1 69.0 0.0 87
Maqboolpur 45.1 0.0 2.5 10.0 15.0 0.0 72.5 0.0 40
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 0.0 0.0 30.3 33.3 3.0 33.3 0.0 33
Assa 47.7 4.3 9.6 17.4 32.2 13.0 22.6 0.9 115
Mean 45.4 4.0 4.7 15.9 21.6 4.3 49.4 0.2 275
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 3.6 13.6 18.6 30.0 16.4 17.9 0.0 140
Alipur Moma 50.8 2.5 7.6 16.5 25.3 2.5 45.6 0.0 79
Kohla 51.2 6.7 25.0 21.7 15.0 3.3 28.3 0.0 60
Makhan Nagar 51.7 1.3 3.8 31.6 29.1 0.0 34.2 0.0 79
Mean 51.1 3.5 12.5 22.1 24.9 5.6 32.5 0.0 358
High Bhandaura 53.1 2.2 17.8 2.2 6.7 0.0 71.1 0.0 45
Jhunjunee 54.1 7.0 14.8 30.4 14.8 8.7 23.5 0.9 115
Pali 56.1 3.8 17.5 37.5 25.0 6.3 10.0 0.0 80
Mean 54.4 4.3 16.7 23.4 15.5 5.0 34.9 0.3 240
Total Average 50.3 4.5 11.5 20.8 22.1 6.8 34.1 0.2 873
Note Percentages denote row percentages
94 R. C. Tripathi

Table 5  Relative social deprivation

Level Village name EDI Very Good Same Bad Very Do not No Total
good bad compare response numbers
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 16.1 5.7 5.7 1.1 1.1 69.0 1.1 87
Maqboolpur 45.1 0.0 2.5 20.0 5.0 0.0 72.5 0.0 79
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 0.0 12.1 45.5 6.1 0.0 33.3 0.0 80
Assa 47.7 6.1 18.3 24.3 17.4 0.9 22.6 0.9 79
Mean 45.4 5.5 9.7 23.9 7.4 0.0 49.4 0.5 325
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 7.1 12.1 33.6 17.1 0.0 17.9 0.0 45
Alipur Moma 50.8 5.1 12.7 22.8 11.4 0.0 45.6 0.0 140
Kohla 51.2 21.7 28.3 13.3 6.7 0.0 28.3 0.0 40
Makhan Nagar 51.7 2.2 12.7 39.2 11.4 0.0 34.2 0.0 115
Mean 51.1 9.1 16.4 27.2 11.6 0.0 31.5 0.0 340
High Bhandaura 53.1 2.2 4.4 17.8 4.4 0.0 68.9 0.0 60
Jhunjunee 54.1 1.7 16.5 33.0 20.9 0.9 23.5 0.9 115
Pali 56.1 5.0 22.5 53.8 7.5 0.0 10.0 0.0 33
Mean 54.4 3.0 14.5 34.9 10.9 0.3 34.1 0.3 208
Total Average 50.3 6.5 14.2 28.5 11.8 0.3 34.0 0.3 873
Note Percentages denote row percentages

Table 6  Perceived political deprivation relative to other caste groups

Level Village name EDI Very Good Same Bad Very No No Total
good bad comparison response numbers
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 17.2 4.6 5.7 1.1 1.1 69.0 1.1 87
Maqboolpur 45.1 7.6 12.7 10.1 22.8 1.3 45. 0.0 40
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 13.8 20.0 30.0 23.8 2.5 10.0 0.0 33
Assa 47.7 3.8 11.4 32.9 16.5 1.3 34.2 0.0 115
Mean 45.4 10.6 12.2 19.7 16.0 1.5 39.7 0.3 275
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 11.1 8.9 2.2 6.7 0.0 71.1 0.0 140
Alipur Moma 50.8 14.3 11.4 15.7 26.4 14.3 17.9 0.0 79
Kohla 51.2 2.5 5.0 12.5 7.5 0.0 72.5 0.0 60
Makhan Nagar 51.7 10.4 13.9 16.5 22.6 13.0 22.6 0.9 79
Mean 51.1 9.6 9.8 11.7 15.8 6.8 46.0 0.2 358
High Bhandaura 53.1 21.7 10.0 16.7 20.0 3.3 28.3 0.0 45
Jhunjunee 54.1 19.1 18.3 11.3 20.9 6.1 23.5 0.9 115
Pali 56.1 0.0 24.2 21.2 18.2 3.0 33.3 0.0 80
Mean 54.4 13.6 17.5 16.4 19.7 4.2 28.4 0.3 240.0
Total Average 50.3 12.4 12.8 16.0 18.6 5.7 34.1 0.3 873

Note Percentages denote row percentages

compare themselves with others compared to about 31.5 % in case of medium

and 34.9 % in case of the high educationally developed villages. Could it be that
it is education that raises capacity to aspire and results in making comparisons,
although there is a possibility that respondents may have been also reluctant to
make such comparisons because others in the community belonged to their own
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 95

caste groups and, therefore, were seen as “brothers” who had similar or common
fate. Nonetheless, it was found that fewer respondents from high educationally
developed villages felt less economically deprived relative to others. Those who
really felt worse off compared to others actually came from the low educationally
developed villages.
Educational development did not appear to be associated with feelings of social
relative deprivation, future relative deprivation or political relative deprivation in a
significant manner.
A significant finding of this study was that with educational development, the
degree of interpersonal contacts reduced considerably. In high educationally devel-
oped villages, 59 % respondents said that they do not visit other families even on
the occasion of marriages. In case of medium-developed villages, this number
was approximately 50 % and 38.7 % for the low educationally developed vil-
lages indicating much closer social contacts. Educational development appeared to
reduce the size of the social networks. On the other hand, a much smaller number
of people in the low educationally developed villages expected that help will be
forthcoming in times of need compared to respondents in the medium and high
educationally developed villages.
Educational development and gender parity: Gender parity and the status of
women are considered critical for rural transformation. Education is expected to
empower them to take decisions related to various aspects of their lives as it is
in case of others who are in socially and economically disadvantageous positions.
We used several indicators to compute gender parity index as mentioned above.
In Table 7, we show the percentage of women who desired to be wage earners.
This number went down with educational development from a total of 37.6 % who

Table 7  Work participation by women

Level Village name EDI SCa OBCa Minorities General Total
numbers
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 33.3 – 29.8 – 37.9
Maqboolpur 45.1 37.8 50.0 – 0.0 37.5
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 33.3 25.0 27.3 50.0 33.3
Assa 47.7 42.9 33.3 35.7 54.5 39.1
Mean 45.4 39.4 46.3 30.3 50.0 37.8
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 39.2 40.3 22.7 0.0 35.7
Alipur Moma 50.8 44.1 22.2 20.0 50.0 34.2
Kohla 51.2 45.5 8.8 66.7 100. 26.7
Makhan Nagar 51.7 64.0 32.5 0.0 7.7 38.0
Mean 51.1 46.2 28.8 25.0 22.2 34.4
High Bhandaura 53.1 100. 27.9 – – 34.4
Jhunjunee 54.1 30.8 34.2 18.2 0.0 29.6
Pali 56.1 5.0 16.9 0.0 – 13.8
Mean 54.4 20.0 27.0 17.4 0.0 24.6
Total Average 50.3 40.2 29.1 30.0 30.6 32.8
aSee Table 2 note
96 R. C. Tripathi

sought work participation in low educationally developed villages to about 22.9 %

in the high educationally developed villages, a clear indication of what obtains
in a patriarchic society. Although a clear preference for male child was found in
case of all groups, in the high educationally developed villages, woman showed
equal preference for male and female child. Though, this was not supported by
data which we got from respondents relating to and use of sonography. In low edu-
cationally developed villages, only 21.7 % reported the use of sonography in com-
parison with 40.8 % in the high educationally developed villages and 36.7 % for
the medium developed (Table 7).
Another finding related to practising purdah. We were surprised to find that
more (96.8 %) women in the high educationally developed villages practised pur-
dah compared to 90 % in the medium developed and 78 % in the low education-
ally developed villages. Another indicator of gender parity which we looked at
was the existence of polyandry. Only 9.3 % in the low educationally developed
villages reported prevalence of polyandry in their communities compared to 45 %
in the medium and 70.6 % in the high educationally developed villages (Table 8).
Although the number of women who cast votes in elections appeared to go up
with educational development, more women in the low educationally developed
villages cast votes of their own free will (71 %) than those in the high educationally
developed villages (66 %). Further, across educational levels, we found correlations
between aspirations for girls and the Educational Development Index (high = 0.36;
medium = 0.38; low = 0.26). On the whole, educational development did not seem
to contribute towards gender parity.
Educational development and political development: There are several indi-
cators of political development, the most important being political efficacy. This

Table 8  Existence of polyandry
Level Village name EDI Yes No Do not No Total
know response numbers
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 3.4 92.0 4.6 0.0 87
Maqboolpur 45.1 0.0 100. 0.0 0.0 40
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 0.0 97.0 0.0 3.0 33
Assa 47.7 3.5 61.7 3.5 0.9 115
Mean 45.4 2.0 87.7 2.0 1.0 275
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 35.7 61.4 2.9 0.0 140
Alipur Moma 50.8 59.5 36.7 2.5 1.3 79
Kohla 51.2 38.3 61.7 0.0 0.0 60
Makhan Nagar 51.7 46.8 49.4 2.5 1.3 79
Mean 51.1 45.1 52.3 2.0 0.7 358
High Bhandaura 53.1 73.3 26.7 0.0 0.0 45
Jhunjunee 54.1 69.6 27.0 1.7 1.7 115
Pali 56.1 68.8 27.5 2.5 1.3 80
Mean 54.4 70.6 27.1 1.4 1.0 240
Total Average 50.3 42.0 54.9 2.3 0.8 873
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 97

generally translates into participation in various democratic structures of govern-

ance. We, therefore, expected that educational development would lead people to
participate in matters related to village governance. Though, in the high education-
ally developed villages, almost everyone cast votes in local elections, this did not
reflect in increased participation in open meetings of the gram panchayat (Table 9).
Only 7.2 % participated in the open meetings of the panchayat in the high edu-
cationally developed villages.
Educational development and happiness: It is only recently that social scien-
tists have started making a distinction between life and good life. Economists have
shown that an increase in income is not associated with increase in happiness levels
after a certain point. Happiness surveys carried out in various countries show that
certain countries found to be quite low on HDI actually do much better on the hap-
piness index. The case of Ghana, may be cited in this context. We did find that
educational development and happiness index for the families had a positive cor-
relation. However, the correlation was somewhat low in the case of high education-
ally developed villages (r = 0.27) in comparison with medium (r = 0.42) and low
educationally developed villages (r = 0.34). We also enquired from the respondents
about the extent of family’s happiness. The results appear in Table 10.
There are only small differences in the percentage of respondents who report
the extent of family’s happiness as very high. But the number of respondents who
report the state of family’s happiness as “less” or “not at all happy” is found to be
30 % for high educationally developed villages compared to 21.7 % for the low
educationally developed. One reason for this could be that respondents in the high
educationally developed villages do not feel very optimistic about their economic
wellbeing in the next 10 years.

Table 9  Participation in open meeting of gram panchayat held in the last year

Level Village name EDI Yes No No meet No Total
held response numbers
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 18.4 42.5 35.6 3.4 87
Maqboolpur 45.1 7.5 5.0 85.0 2.5 40
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 6.1 15.2 78.8 0.0 33
Assa 47.7 26.1 34.8 35.7 3.5 115
Mean 45.4 14.5 24.4 58.8 2.4 275
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 2.9 39.3 54.3 3.6 140
Alipur Moma 50.8 5.1 25.3 63.3 6.3 79
Kohla 51.2 40.0 38.3 20.0 1.7 60
Makhan Nagar 51.7 16.5 7.6 72.2 3.8 79
Mean 51.1 16.1 27.6 52.5 3.9 358
High Bhandaura 53.1 8.9 24.4 64.4 2.2 45
Jhunjunee 54.1 5.2 27.0 66.1 1.7 115
Pali 56.1 7.5 26.3 62.5 3.8 80
Mean 54.4 7.2 25.9 64.3 2.6 240
Total Average 50.3 12.8 28.8 55.2 3.2 873
Note Percentages denote row percentages
98 R. C. Tripathi

Table 10  Extent of the family’s happiness

Level Village name EDI Very Neither Less Not No Total
happy very nor happy happy response numbers
less happy
Low Bahuroopur 43.4 28.7 56.3 13.8 1.1 0.0 87
Maqboolpur 45.1 26.6 46.8 15.2 11.4 0.0 40
Dudhi Khadar 45.6 32.5 47.5 17.5 2.5 0.0 33
Assa 47.7 27.8 46.8 20.3 5.1 0.0 115
Mean 45.4 28.9 49.4 16.7 5.0 0.0 275
Medium Mubarikpur 50.5 33.3 42.2 20.0 2.2 2.2 140
Alipur Moma 50.8 22.9 47.9 20.7 7.9 0.7 79
Kohla 51.2 20.0 45.0 22.5 12.5 0.0 60
Makhan Nagar 51.7 25.2 42.6 15.7 15.7 0.9 79
Mean 51.1 25.4 44.4 19.7 9.6 1.0 358
High Bhandaura 53.1 26.7 53.3 10.0 10.0 0.0 45
Jhunjunee 54.1 24.3 41.7 23.5 9.6 0.9 115
Pali 56.1 24.2 36.4 27.3 9.1 3.0 80
Mean 54.4 25.1 43.8 20.3 9.6 1.3 240
Total Average 50.3 26.3 46.5 18.4 8.1 0.5 873

4 Conclusions

I am aware that the findings that I have presented here will not be easily accepted by
those who have believed and argued for long that education is the panacea for solv-
ing all kinds of social problems and for enhancing human development. They will
still need to answer how for certain groups of marginalized people, for the excluded
and the indigent, educational development at the macro- or community-level results
in lowering down their average incomes and also reduces their life chances. How
would they explain the increasing gap in the gender ratio and raised levels of IMR
for girls with educational development? How, and why, does the frequency of inter-
personal contacts between the villagers show a decline and social networks lose
their strength in educationally developed villages? Why should polyandry and
“purdah” be more prevalent in the high educationally developed villages than in
the low educationally developed villages? Why does educational development not
translate into “voice” as very few in the educationally developed villages take part
in the meetings of the gram panchayat and seek to influence their decisions? And
finally, how is it that educational development does not result in raising the levels
of happiness or subjective wellbeing of the people? These are questions which call
for in-depth studies of villages in their sociocultural and political contexts and also
of the psychological make-up of the rural people. Apart from this, I feel, there is an
urgent need to examine the approach we have adopted which governs our and poli-
cies of education. Could it be that the values which underlie educational institutions
and, therefore, the education that is delivered, are the same which drive the neo-
liberalism and free market economy. Education more than ever has converted itself
5  Education: Path to Development and Happiness in Rural India? 99

into a business with most universities trying to link up with industry and looking
for places where they can open new campuses. Education is no longer about creat-
ing minds which are “free” but it is about creating such human resource which can
serve the various organized sectors. Such education and educational institutions end
up creating minds which believe in competing and exploitation rather than in col-
laborating and in forming interdependent and synergistic relationships?
It appears to us that the dominant approach of development which focuses
on enablement and capability development is individual centric and ignores the
larger matrix within which social systems function. We recall that many years
back, McClelland (1961) had argued that achievement motivation was at the root
of economic development of societies, and societies like India had not developed
as fast as societies in the West because they were low on need for achievement
and high on need for affiliation. He went on to show that if through training need
for achievement could be increased, such individuals will take up entrepreneur-
ial activities. But in an ingenious experiment, Sinha (1968) showed that need for
achievement released motivational processes which were not supportive of the sys-
tem’s growth and development. Higher need for achievement in scarce resource
environments led individuals to engage in hoarding behaviour which was against
the public good. It is our hunch that education when it is approached as capability
development equips the individuals with skills that set them apart from the illiter-
ate and poor and puts them in a different social class. It builds walls more than
opening up the windows. It also rewires them in terms of their motivational struc-
tures where they seek their future in gold, like Columbus. Zinn (2003) recounts
that when Columbus landed in America, he was greeted by the Indians with a great
deal of affection who came to meet him with all kinds of offerings because in the
worldview of “Indians”, there were no enemies and no others. Today’s education
is for prosperity, which has competition and greed as the central values. It is not
driven by what Offer (2006) calls “prudence”. For people with such mindsets, it
is easy to exploit illiterate villagers who trust others easily as they follow a world
view based on relationships. They come to the educated to seek help whether it
is in matters involving law or matters related to dealing with various bureaucratic
organizations and get exploited. How else can we explain that in high education-
ally developed villages the marginalized earn much less than their counterparts in
low educationally developed villages? Education frees but the nature of education
that is imparted also equips individuals with skills to take slaves. The history of
colonization stands in testimony to it. How else one can explain the ever increas-
ing disparity between the rich and the poor around the world with rise in the levels
of literacy and levels of education? The world may have grown prosperous many
times over in the past 50–60 years; it has certainly not become a safer place to
live. It has not deepened human bonds and increased trust in each other, but has
made people more paranoid than ever. Ambedkar had, perhaps, realized this when
he said that an educated man without character and humility was more danger-
ous than a beast. If his education was detrimental to the poor, he was a curse to
society (Keer 1990/1954, p. 305). And so it became. Kamble, an illiterate dalit
woman writer in a remarkable book titled The prisons we broke (2008), recounts
100 R. C. Tripathi

her oppressive life as a dalit woman of the Mahar community in western India
and shares her deep agony about the educated Mahars whose cravings for power
and self-aggrandizement have not helped in bringing about any change in the lot
of the dalits. One cannot expect other, educated “do-gooders” to transform socie-
ties unless there is a paradigm shift in development that departs from focusing on
affluence and self-interest and, instead, focuses on the development of communi-
ties and of social and ethical capitals.

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Chapter 6
Language Policy and Education: Towards
Multilingual Education

Minati Panda and Ajit Mohanty

1 Introduction

The constitutional discourse on language policy in education in independent India

has employed almost all colonial concepts and categories, like language, dialect,
mother tongue, vernacular language and tribal dialect, to categorize Indian lan-
guages. Corresponding discourses in the disciplines of psychology, education, lin-
guistics and for that matter in educational institutions like the National Council
of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)—a nodal central body for school
education—use these categories along with terms like medium of instruction,
regional language, national language, international language, first, second and
third language without unpackaging the colonial historical roots and meanings of
these conceptual categories. But does not the meaning change if the category “dia-
lect” or “tongue” is applied in place of “language” when, for example, we call
the language of the Saora tribe the “Saora dialect” and not the “Saora language”?
Further, what kind of political power and legitimacy get attached to each of these
categories when the term “vernacular” is prefixed to a language? Odia, Telugu,
Bengali, Punjabi—all Indian languages—are called vernacular languages, whereas
English is not, which accords English a higher status. So, even when the term
language is applied to regional languages like Odia, Telugu, Bengali and Punjabi
and to English, the term vernacular distinguishes the former from the latter and
places them in a hierarchical order in which English occupies a higher position.
Other languages like Saora, Desia, Kondh, Sambalpuri, Bhojpuri have the tag of

M. Panda (*) 
Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, India
e-mail: [email protected]
A. Mohanty 
NMRC, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Bhubaneswar, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 103
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_6, © Springer India 2014
104 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

“dialect” attached to them that places them at the bottom of the language hierar-
chy. These three terms had specific meanings in the colonial period, but were used
regularly in constitutional debates and found their place in the Indian Constitution.
Their meaning never got sufficiently unpackaged. It could be that the Indian
Constitution uses these terms, because it accepted the language hierarchy created
by the colonial rulers. But, as a consequence, hundreds of Indian languages have
not found recognition as “languages”. They are treated as “dialects” or “tongues”.
Such practices have social consequences. Illich (1980) shows how the codifica-
tion of local languages has led up to their commodification. Languages are no longer
learnt from the environment, but have to be taught. Commodification of local lan-
guages has turned them into valued goods to be marketed. Such categorization has
had another consequence. After local languages became part of the language hier-
archy, created by the colonizers and the powerful elite, they were used as political
tools to make hundreds of local languages invisible. Further, it also created a market
for the language(s) of higher prestige, namely English in the local and traditionally
non-English areas. Some new functional terms, like first language, second language
and third language, were then invented and used in educational planning and dis-
course. This provided a politically acceptable hierarchical template for placing these
languages in the school system and also for developing a pedagogical approach to
teach these languages. The shift also legitimized the need to teach English along
with the vernacular languages in almost all non-English areas of India.
In this new political environment of the colonial India, another shift followed.
The term “mother tongue” was coined to accord an emotional priority with cer-
tain vernacular languages. This invisibilized other vernacular languages and many
so-called dialects. But this was nevertheless mooted by the powerful majority
communities partly because it did not change the existing language hierarchy in
the society and the neoliberal economic design of the world communities. What
this did was to allow certain languages to be used as the medium of instruction
on emotional and moral grounds for the first few years of school education. The
British Indian Government could therefore selectively work with people’s lan-
guages. The decision to offer mother tongue-based education to one community
on emotional grounds did not require the Government to apply the same criterion
to other minority languages in the country.
The Indian Constitution, as stated above, employed all these colonial terms. The
education policies were formulated using a three-language formula where English
and the vernacular languages occupied a higher position. These policies survived
because of their compatibility with the neoliberal economic philosophy. The
recently formulated National Curriculum Framework (NCERT 2005), the National
Knowledge Commission Report (2009) and the Right to Free and Compulsory
Education Act, 2009, remain less informed by these historical facts and have con-
tinued to employ these terms uncritically. Instead of deconstructing these terms and
replacing them by more egalitarian terms, these three documents provided legiti-
macy to the commodification of languages. There is a fear that these policies may
work against the interests of the less powerful minority language communities.
The world today is getting poorer in terms of its linguistic and cultural diver-
sity. It is estimated that by the end of this century, we will be left with only 10 %
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 105

of the approximately 7,600 languages that are spoken today. UNESCO’s Atlas of
the World’s Languages in Danger (UNESCO 2009) lists 196 languages of India
that are in different degrees of endangerment. This is paradoxical for a country
like India, which is the fourth most diverse country in the world and has 300–400
major languages and a larger number of mother tongues: also for a country that
takes a great deal of pride in its cultural diversity. The Census of India of 2001
received 6,661 mother tongue declarations, which were rationalized into 3,592
mother tongues. Out of these, 1,635 mother tongues were listed and the remaining
1957, each with less than 10,000 speakers, were grouped under a single, “other
mother tongues” category. A large number of indigenous and tribal languages
have already been lost, and many more remain endangered. Loss of linguistic
diversity in India, as well as in the world, cannot simply be dismissed as a process
of “natural” organic decay of languages, with their speakers voluntarily shifting
to the use of dominant languages. The loss or disappearance of languages must
be seen as a process of linguistic genocide or language murder, and as expos-
ing power inequalities of languages and their speakers. State policies of neglect
and discrimination trigger a set of processes responsible for the loss of languages
(Skutnabb-Kangas 2000). Unjust and inequitable distribution of power across lan-
guages, socially constructed inequalities leading to stigmatization and marginali-
zation of some languages and state policies of discrimination among languages
and linguistic communities together facilitate the process of loss of languages.
Endangerment of languages is, therefore, a consequence of specific agencies of
state policies and social practices of discrimination and denial of linguistic human
rights in important socio-political spaces, such as in educational institutions,
media, official and bureaucratic communications and work organizations.
Since the use of languages in education is held to be one of the most power-
ful forces in enhancing the vitality of languages (Fishman 1991; Skuttnabb-Kangas
2000), this chapter focuses on examining the language policy and language prac-
tices in India, particularly with respect to the education of tribal and other minority
communities. We also ask how these policies and practices are informed by the
research done within the discipline of psychology, linguistics, sociology and edu-
cation and also how the latter help in developing an informed critique of the lan-
guage policy and practices in India. Towards the end of the chapter, we consider
a possible way forward in terms of multilingual education. The chapter analyzes
the nature of Indian multilingualism and the place of languages and their relation-
ship in the multilingual structure of the country. It argues that the hierarchy and
gross inequalities in languages can be seen as a linguistic double divide, both at
the level of policy and at the level of practice. We show that this double divide has
serious implications for education of the tribal children as it leads to educational
failure, capability deprivation and increased poverty among the tribal communities.
Some theoretically informed programmes of multilingual education based on tribal
children’s home language are discussed as attempts to deal with the problems of
language disadvantage encountered by tribal children. Although these programmes
have shown positive effects on education of the tribal children, we conclude that a
clear language policy in education retards the process of attaining a discrimination-
free inclusive Indian society.
106 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

2 Indian Multilingualism: Discrimination

and Disadvantage

2.1 Features of Indian Multilingualism

Indian multilingualism is characterized by complementary use of multiple lan-

guages in the routine daily life activities of people (Mohanty 2006). Many
languages are used in different domains of social activity, such as in familial com-
munication, marketplace use, religious activities, entertainment, intergroup com-
munication and formal workplaces. These languages are functionally allocated to
different domains with some regularity, consistency and without much conflict.
Languages are also characterized by fluidity of boundaries (Khubchandani 1983).
Speakers freely and effortlessly move between languages, such as Urdu, Hindi,
Punjabi or Haryanavi, as well as many between varieties of Hindi in and around
Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. Such multilinguality is found almost everywhere in
India. This kind of fluidity of linguistic boundaries goes with multiplicity of lin-
guistic identities, which are developed through complex processes of multilin-
gual socialization. These features of multilingualism also support the processes
of language maintenance in situations of language contact. Thus, as people move
between domains of language use, they often code-switch and code-mix, which
is another indication of multiplicity of identities or development of a multilin-
gual identity. No single language is sufficient for communicative requirements in
different situations and occasions in India. Bhatia and Ritchie (2004) also hold
that multiple languages and multiple language identities are defining features of
Indian and South Asian societies. Linguists also point out that despite the diver-
sity of languages, regional communication links in India show a natural and
unimpaired flow (Khubchandani 1978; Pattanayak 1981, 1984).
In many respects, Indian multilingualism is a positive force in the society and
is accepted as a necessary part of daily lives of people. Psycholinguistic and social
psychological studies in India (see Mohanty 2003 for details) show that multi-
lingualism is associated with positive cognitive and social consequences. But the
manner in which Indian multilingualism is practised in official and institutional
spaces, like schools and colleges, has resulted in gross inequalities and creation of
a power hierarchy of languages.

2.2 Hierarchical Multilingualism and the Vicious

Circle of Language Disadvantage

Languages in official spaces in India can be seen to be located at different levels

of a power hierarchy. Some languages, such as English, are privileged and endow
their speakers with greater power and access to resources. Speakers of English
have clear advantages associated with their language in significant and resourceful
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 107

areas of use, such as in trade and commerce, in employment, in education and

in many others. Indigenous tribal minority (ITM) languages, on the other hand,
are associated with disadvantage, marginalization and discrimination. These lan-
guages are deprived of opportunities in domains of socioeconomic and political
significance and gradually lose their instrumental vitality and get progressively
weakened. ITM languages in India do not provide privileged access to jobs, trade
and commerce, education, formal and statutory domains of activity. As a result,
they are perceived by their users as having little instrumental value. With pro-
longed neglect and powerlessness, languages have become marginalized and their
use has been confined to limited domains. They are mostly used in homes and for
in-group communication. With progressive domain shrinkage, these languages
have been cumulatively weakened. The weakness of such languages, which, of
course, is due to their long-term neglect, is used to justify their further neglect.
Exclusion of ITM languages in education is justified on grounds of inadequacy
of these languages for educational and scientific use. The absence of indigenous
or exclusive scripts or writing system for most tribal languages in India is used as
another argument to consign them to the status of “dialects”. This view ignores
the fact that a writing system is not a defining feature of a language and that many
major languages of the world do not have their “own” script, but use some com-
mon script. Thus, as shown in Fig. 1, indigenous tribal and other minority lan-
guages are largely weakened due to socioeconomic and educational neglect and
such weakness is used to justify their further neglect, catching them into a vicious
circle of language disadvantage (Mohanty et al. 2009).

INDIGENOUS/MINORITY
LANGUAGES

EDUCATIONAL
JUSTIFICATION &
OF SOCIAL
FURTHER THE VICIOUS CIRCLE NEGLECT
NEGLECT

WEAKENING OF
LANGUAGES

Fig. 1  The vicious circle of language disadvantage

108 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

The relationship between language and power in the hierarchical context of

multilingualism leads to relative weakness of languages and to marginalization
and language shift in the case of languages at the lower rungs of the power hier-
archy. This process has resulted in layers of power and dominance hierarchy of
languages in India with divisions between clusters of languages positioned at dif-
ferent levels of the hierarchy. Analysis of power gaps in the hierarchy of languages
shows two major cleavages that we have termed the “double divide” in the three-
tiered hierarchy of languages in India (Mohanty et al. 2010).

3 Double Divide in Indian Multilingualism

Languages in India can be seen as constituting a hierarchical power structure with

multiple layers within a pyramidal system. In post-colonial India, English contin-
ues to occupy the most dominant position in the power hierarchy, with the major
regional languages or the “vernaculars” coming in the middle and indigenous
tribal minority languages and other so-called local dialects figuring at the lowest
level. The maximum number of languages is found at the lowest level of the hier-
archy. The system of organization of the relationship between languages in India
is, thus, characterized by a double divide, one between English and major regional
languages/vernaculars and the other between the major regional languages and
indigenous tribal minority languages. In fact, all South Asian countries show a
common pattern of this kind of linguistic double divide (Mohanty 2010a) with
English figuring at the apex of the hierarchy. One or a few major language(s) in
the country may have a symbolic status, as language(s) of national identity, but
English is the language of effective power. Each country in South Asia also has
several minor and minority languages positioned at the lowest level in the lin-
guistic hierarchy. In Pakistan, for example, there are three official languages, that
is, Urdu, English and Sindhi. But in the power hierarchy, English is at the top.
Urdu, Sindhi and Punjabi come next, and nearly 72 other languages languish at
the bottom (Rahman 1998). In Nepal, English again is the language of power and
Nepali, the major national language, comes next at the second level, with nearly
100 other languages figuring at the bottom. Bangladesh came to be founded on
Bengali nationalism and rejection of the undue dominance of Urdu. Bengali was
declared as the only official language of the new nation. But here too, English is
the real elite language and has greater power compared with Bengali, although it
is not a language that contributes to Bengali identity in any way. Nearly 39 other
languages in Bangladesh remain neglected and marginalized.
In India, the linguistic divide is reflected in the dominant and hegemonic sta-
tus of English over Hindi and other major regional languages, which have been
constantly struggling to withstand its pressure. The major regional languages too,
in turn, keep the ITM languages marginalized. As a result, the ITM languages,
which figure at the bottom of the hierarchy, are subjected to maximum social,
economic and educational neglect and discrimination. Hindi is recognized as the
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 109

official language of the Union of India along with 21 other languages for pur-
poses of interstate communication and also communication between the states
and the Union (see Articles 343, 344 and 346 and the Eighth Schedule of the
Constitution of India). This assignment of “official” status to some languages
can be construed as a first step in the discrimination against all other non-offi-
cial languages. The Eighth Schedule is a reflection of recognition and domi-
nance that has come to some languages on the basis of organized political power
of the respective linguistic groups. When the constitution was framed in 1950,
the Eighth Schedule included only 14 languages, and none among them was a
tribal language. With political and organized movements by specific linguis-
tic communities, more languages came to be added through subsequent amend-
ments to the Constitution, which increased the number of “official” languages
to 18. The last amendment to the Constitution took place in December 2003. As
a result, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali were added in the schedule, increas-
ing the number of official languages to 22. This amendment, for the first time
since promulgation of the constitution, gave recognition to two tribal languages,
namely Bodo and Santali, as official language. This change happened due to
intense political lobbying and prolonged language movements which were car-
ried out by these two tribal communities. As noted in the People of India project
of the Anthropological Survey of India (Singh 2002), there are 159 tribal lan-
guages. Most of them have remained neglected, marginalized and stigmatized as
“dialects”. Multiple levels of discrimination and inequalities including statutory,
economic neglect and social stigmatization have caused progressive domain loss
to these languages. Institutionalized linguistic inequalities also are quite conspic-
uous. Besides the 22 “official” languages, very few languages are used in educa-
tion. Tribal languages, in particular, are subjected to gross neglect in education at
all levels.

3.1 Education and Language Policy

We have argued above that education in India today amply reflects the dou-
ble divide and the hierarchical positioning of languages with a clear exclusion
of most of ITM languages from school and higher education. Only three to four
tribal languages are used as medium of instruction (MoI), and less than 1 % of the
tribal children have any option for education in their home language. As a result,
most of the tribal children are pushed into submersion education in a dominant
language. This adversely affects their chances of academic success. Early learn-
ing through a second and less familiar language has a subtractive effect on their
home language. As they acquire some competence in the school language, their
competence in home language goes down and becomes limited. While all of the
22 official languages are used as MoI and as school subjects, the use of other lan-
guages in schools has declined over the years (Mohanty 2008). The number of lan-
guages taught as subjects in schools used to be 81 in 1970. But the number had
110 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

declined to 41 in 1998. The number of languages used as language of teaching or

MoI in the primary grades (grades 1–5) declined from 43 in 1990 to 33 in 1998.
The position today is that only 11 of the languages, not listed as official languages
of India, are used as MoI in primary grades, despite the rhetorical support that has
been provided for mother tongue education in several policy documents of the
Government. Article 350A of the Constitution of India (http://www.india.gov.in/
govt/constitutions_of_india.php) (see Mohanty 2008 for a discussion) clearly pro-
vides for instruction in the mother tongue of the minority children. It says that “it
shall be the endeavour of every State and every local authority within the State to
provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at primary stage
of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups”. But the Indian
policy in respect of languages in education has never categorically stated this. For
this reason, the ITM languages continue to be neglected at all levels of education.
In 1957, the Government of India came up with a three-language formula1
(TLF) that recommended the use of regional language or mother tongue as the first
language of teaching to be followed by teaching of Hindi or regional languages
and English, as school subjects. The distinction between regional languages and
mother tongues, though, was not made clear. This, in effect, formalized the impo-
sition of the state majority languages as MoI on tribal children who were forced
into education in a language that was not their mother tongue. Under pressure
from the southern states, where Hindi is not preferred, the TLF was modified in
1967, making the teaching of Hindi optional. It recommended the use of tribal lan-
guages as MoI in early school years for tribal children. However, this recommen-
dation in the TLF, as in several other policy documents, “remained untranslated
into practice” (Mohanty 2006, p. 274). The TLF was subsequently modified on
several other occasions with divergent interpretations and applications in various
states and school systems. Amid such confusion, English became the most com-
mon second-language subject in all the states, followed either by Hindi or by
Sanskrit, as the third-language subject (ibid.). Clearly, the TLF was not a language
policy that was developed keeping education in view. It was a formula that sought
to provide a balance between English, Hindi and other regional languages/vernac-
ulars and mother tongues of the tribal and minority groups. Unfortunately, it failed
to achieve that also despite several modifications.
The absence of a clear language policy for education and the growing impact of
private English medium schools have resulted in a hegemonic position of English
in school education. This has undermined the role of Hindi and other vernacular
languages and nullified possibilities of putting emphasis on tribal languages. One
reason for the divergent state- and regional-level practices in respect of languages
in education is that education is a concurrent subject. So, both the central and the

1  The three language formula was not a policy but a suggestive framework proposed by a lan-

guage committee in 1957 and was adhered to by the school education experts for deciding the
use of languages including medium of instruction in school education in India. So far, India does
not have any language-in-education policy.
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 111

state governments have joint jurisdiction over education. There is another reason.
At all levels of educational planning, while the policy rhetoric is guided by the
political compulsions to assert national and indigenous identities, the ground-level
decisions in respect of languages in education are influenced by the market forces
in favour of English (Illich 1980). In most of the states in India, English is now
taught as a school subject as early as in grade 1. Some states, like Andhra Pradesh
in South India, have gone one step forward and decided to introduce English
medium sections in government schools.
The National Knowledge Commission (2009) of India has also recommended
teaching of English from the first year of schooling in all government schools
in order to “democratize” English and make it available to children of all social
classes. Such proposals of early introduction of teaching of English in schools
belie unfamiliarity with the principles of teaching languages in a multilingual
framework and the well-established pedagogic grounds. As English has moved to
the most preferred position in education in India, pushing Hindi and other state
majority languages and “vernaculars” into secondary position, the constitutional
provision mandating mother tongue teaching (Article 350A) too not only has
been bypassed but violated. The ITM languages, too, as a result have remained
neglected and marginalized, caught as they are in the underside of the vernacular–
other language divide (Mohanty 2010b, p. 168).

3.1.1 National Curriculum Framework 2005 and the Right to Free

and Compulsory Education Act, 2009

The National Curriculum Framework (NCERT 2005) was seen as a landmark

document on school education in India as it raised hopes for restoration of the pri-
macy of use of mother tongues in early education. It acknowledged the research
evidence showing cognitive, scholastic and social advantages of bi/multilingual-
ism and reiterated the constitutional commitment for education in the mother
tongue for linguistic minority children. It recommended that “children will
receive multilingual education from the outset” and that “home language(s) of
children… should be the medium of learning in schools” (p. 37). However, when
it is read closely, the other aspects of NCF 2005 and the position papers by the
national focus groups reveal the built-in contradictions in the framework. Having
espoused the principles and advantages of mother tongue or home language as the
medium of schooling, the NCF 2005 failed to take a critical view of rapid expan-
sion of English medium school systems, not only in the urban areas but also in
the rural tribal areas. More importantly, “second-language acquisition” in Sect.
3.1.3, Chap. 3, of NCF 2005 focused on teaching of English with utter disregard
to the social reality that for millions of minority language children as well as for
most of the majority regional language children, English cannot be treated as a
“second” language. The National Focus Group—Position Papers (NCERT 2006)
on Curricular Areas on teaching of Indian languages and English proclaimed that
mother tongue(s) should be the medium of instruction all through the school, but
112 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

certainly in the primary school. It, on the other hand, also mentioned explicitly
the position of late introduction of English, which was supported on the rationale
of cross-linguistic transfer (see, Cummins 1984, 2009). At the same time, instead
of rejecting the current practices of teaching in English from the beginning of
schooling in English medium schools, it suggested that this practice also could
continue. The NCF 2005, when read along with its position papers, remains a
bundle of contradictions. Despite the initial wave of excitement that it generated,
the NCF 2005 has not been able to trigger substantive changes in the nature of
school education and in the positioning of languages in the school systems across
the country, because the framework itself lacked a clear direction on languages in
education. It failed to project a clear vision in respect of the role of home
language(s) vis-à-vis other dominant languages including English. In fact, in our
view, English has turned out to be the Achilles’ heel for NCF 2005. In 2009, the
Indian Parliament passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education Act (RTE) providing for education of 6- to 14-year-old children as a
right. But the RTE Act fails to guarantee education in mother tongues or in the
home language as a right. Article 29 (2) (f) of the RTE Act (Chapter V) says,
“medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in the child’s mother
tongue”2 (emphasis added).
Panda (2009a) has critiqued the RTE based on evidence that education in
early years needs to be imparted in the child’s mother tongue (MT) or in her
first/strongest language (e.g. Thomas & Collier 2002; Mohanty 2003; Panda &
Mohanty 2009; Skutnabb-Kangas 2000). She also argues that the length of mother
tongue medium education has proven to be more important than any other fac-
tor in predicting educational success of students from minority and disadvantaged
communities (Heugh & Skutnabb-Kangas 2010). However, RTE has not been able
to get out of the national obsession with English medium schooling in order to
reject the dual system of private (and English medium) schools for the privileged
and public schools for the disadvantaged others. The denial of a common school
system (CSS), non-inclusion of early childhood care and education (ECCE) and
the absence of a multilingual perspective advocated by the NCF 2005 raise ques-
tions about the viability of RTE’s vision for a right-based inclusive society. The
complex dynamics of politics of language and identity in India has resulted in
vacuous policy statements and emotionally loaded rhetoric of ostensible support
for mother tongues or indigenous languages of identity, on the one hand, and the
actual practices acquiescent to dominance of and popular demand for English, on
the other.

2  See Dr. Giridhar Rao’s blog “MTM education in RtE Bill” at http://bolii.blogspot.com/2009/0
1/mtm-education-in-rte-bill.html; see also “Education Bill—three critiques by Anil Sadgopal” at
http://bolii.blogspot.com/2009/01/education-bill-three-critiques-by-anil.html.
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 113

4 The Language Barrier in Education and Capability

Deprivation of Tribal Children

Tribal children face a language barrier as they enter school where their mother
tongue is not the language of teaching or MoI. They also face a second barrier in
the form of learning a third language like English, which is not part of their lan-
guage environment and language socialization. The language disadvantage of
these children which they encounter in forced submersion schools with a ver-
nacular language MoI, has been shown to be a major factor in poor school learn-
ing, high push-out3 rates, high rates of school failure, capability deprivation and
poverty among the tribal mother tongue speakers in India (see, Mohanty 2008).
As shown in the report of the Task Force on Issues in Education of Tribal
Children (Panda 2012a) for the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, the literacy rate (the
percentage of literates in the total population) for the tribal population in India
is 47.10 %, compared with 65 % for the total population, showing a literacy gap
of 17.90 %. The percentage of children enrolled in schools (GER) in 6- to
11-year age group (grades I to V) are 140.76, 130.12 and 114.37 and for grades
VI to VIII (11 to 14 years) 77.52, 85.28 and 76.23 for the STs, the SCs and the
total population, respectively (MHRD 2010). The percentage of students joining
grade I, who are pushed out of school by grade V, are 31.26 for the STs, 26.71
for the SCs and 24.93 for the total population. By grade X, the “push-out” rate
rises to 76.16, 66.56 and 55.88 for the STs, the SCs and for the total population,
respectively. Thus, for every 100 tribal children joining school (in grade I), less
than 24 actually appear in the high school (grade X) examination, and only 9 out
of them pass. As Panda (2012a) notes, there is wastage of 91 % in the existing
system of school education for tribal children, which points to “both the wastage
of the national resources and the magnitude of failures in providing universal
quality education to tribal children”. As revealed in many studies, including in a
large-scale NCERT Survey (Singh et al. 2004), academic achievement of the
tribal children is also noted to be the poorest among the different demographic
categories in India. Again, a maximum of 50 % of the successful high school
graduates from the tribal communities are able to join higher and technical edu-
cation; the rest, with very low level of achievement in the high school examina-
tion, cannot enter higher and technical education. The forced submersion
education for tribal children in a dominant language, which is not their mother
tongue, thus, fails to develop capability for upward mobility and move such peo-
ple out of the web of poverty.
In the hierarchical power structure of languages in India, with a double divide
between English and regional majority languages and between the regional

3  The term “push-out” (Mohanty 2000; Skutnabb-Kangas 2000) is more appropriate (than the

usual term “dropout”) as it captures the essence of the phenomenon; children are pushed out by
inappropriate organization of schools, here mainly because of the wrong medium of education.
114 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

majority languages and languages of the indigenous tribal minorities, language in

education can be seen as a basis of power, control, discrimination and perpetua-
tion of inequalities through schools which, unfortunately, have become the institu-
tionalized instruments for exclusion. Monolingual school practice in a multilingual
society is the first step in this process of exclusion. Indian multilingualism is both
a resource and a challenge. Given the inequalities across languages, tribal lan-
guages suffer gross neglect and exclusion from significant social, political, eco-
nomic and educational domains leading to serious language disadvantage of tribal
children and large-scale failure in dominant-language classrooms, where their
home languages have little space. Spending more than ten years in school and not
getting the advantage of the literacy activities or education are a major reason for
capability deprivation (Panda & Mohanty 2009).
Education in the dominant language fails to empower since it fails to affirm
children’s cultural identity, which helps children develop a positive self-concept
and also is a fundamental requirement for promotion of diversity. Furthermore,
almost all studies on language and education show that if education is carried
out in children’s strongest language in early years for six to eight years, switch-
ing to another language takes only three to four years or less. If children are
taught in the second or third language from class 1, and their mother tongue is
not used as a classroom resource, they not only grow as weak multilinguals they
also perform poorly. Language policy for education in India, as reflected in the
Indian Constitution, seems to recognize the essential multilingual character of
the society, but it has failed to transform the Indian education system and pre-
pare it to face the challenges of India’s multilingual ethos (Mohanty 2008; Panda
2012b). Subsequent policy pronouncements, as we have discussed above, have
not been effective in shaping education to ensure an egalitarian positioning of
languages, particularly in case of the disadvantaged tribal and minority com-
munities vis-à-vis the dominant presence of English which has ensured that the
tribal people remain capability deprived and disadvantaged because the language
policy on which present educational system is based tilts the balance in favour of
a selected few.
Policy provisions at a national level, which we have been discussing, are reflec-
tions of the complicated socio-political dynamics of the society and also of a
complex multilingual and multicultural society. Unfortunately, policies and prac-
tices are driven by political compulsions rather than by research evidence–based
analyses. They tend to be covertly uniform and homogenizing despite claiming to
follow a “bottom-up” approach. As Shohamy (2010) points out, very often writ-
ten and top-down policies can be resisted when presented as innovative language
policies. In India, experimental programmes of multilingual education (MLE) in
government schools for tribal children in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, seeking to
provide quality education for tribal children (see, Mohanty et al. 2009; Panda &
Mohanty 2009), can be seen as local or bottom-up initiatives with the capacity for
influencing changes in the centralized language in education policy and as efforts
to contribute to capability development. We will briefly discuss the MLE initia-
tives in the next section and show how applications of psychological and linguistic
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 115

principles underlying development of multilingual proficiency in education can

influence macro-level policies in respect of education of the minority groups, par-
ticularly the tribal people.

5 Experiments in Multilingual Education of Tribal

Children: Regional Responses to National Policy

It is our view that education in India needs to foster proficiency in languages of func-
tional significance for routine daily life activities and formal workplace use- MT/
home language, languages for regional- and national-level communication and an
international language for wider communication. This involves development of com-
petence in two to three languages including English, for children of the regional
majority or dominant-language communities. For the tribal children, on the other
hand, education must target development of at least four languages—home language,
major regional- and national-level languages (e.g. Odia and Hindi) and English.
Studies show that it is immensely possible to teach more languages and also effec-
tively if learning is built on children’s home language and if the home language is
allowed to stay for longer time in the classroom either as MoI or as a subject. School
education in India involves multiple languages, usually one language as the MoI and
the other as language subjects. This system, however, does not promote multilingual
competence and can, at best, be characterized as a nominal form of multilingual edu-
cation (Mohanty 2008; Panda 2012b). MLE involves two or more languages of teach-
ing or MoI in subjects other than the languages themselves. It seeks to develop high
levels of multilingualism and multiliteracy (Mohanty et al. 2009). Psycholinguistic
principles of bi- or multilingual education (Cummins 2009) and international experi-
ence with MLE (Heugh & Skutnabb-Kangas 2010; Mohanty et al. 2009) show that
the process of education for development of multilingual proficiency must begin with
the development of proficiency in the home language, which is used as the language
of teaching (MoI) for at least six to eight years of schooling. It is only thereafter that
the students should be made to learn other languages through their systematic use as
language subjects and language of teaching (Mohanty et al. 2009). MLE is a system
of quality education for all children in any society where multilingual proficiency is a
valued objective of education. This is particularly true for the tribal, as well as other
linguistic minority group children, who are denied the choice of learning in their
home language and, therefore, development of multilingual proficiency in the avail-
able system of education which forces them to go through subtractive forms of sub-
mersion education in a second or third language. MLE, for these children, is not only
beneficial; it is an educational imperative. The critical role which MLE can play in
dealing with the problem of language disadvantage of tribal children facing the for-
midable double divide and in their capability development has led us to develop some
pilot intervention programmes of MLE in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha in recent years.
In the section below, we discuss these programmes and significant learnings that we
have been able to draw from them.
116 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

5.1 MLE in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha

Experimental programmes of MLE based on tribal children’s home language were

launched in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha in the years 2004 and 2006, respectively.
Andhra Pradesh started MLE in 240 schools for 8 tribal languages and Odisha in
195 schools for 10 tribal languages (see Mohanty et al. 2009, for details). Home
language of the tribal children, in most cases, written in the script4 of the major
state language (Telugu or Odia) is used as language of teaching and literacy
instruction for three to five years of primary education in these MLE programmes.
The second language in MLE, the state majority language (L2), Telugu in Andhra
Pradesh and Odia in Odisha, is introduced as a language subject for development
of oral communication skills in grade 2 and for reading and writing skills from
grade 3 onwards. The second language (L2) is used as a language of teaching,
along with L1, in grades 4 and 5 of primary schools. L1 (home language) is pro-
posed to be continued as a language subject from grade 6 onwards. Teachers in the
MLE programmes are drawn from the concerned tribal language communities and
speak the tribal mother tongue (L1) and the state majority language (L2). MLE
programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha follow the common school curriculum
of the state and make special efforts to make use of the indigenous cultural knowl-
edge systems in developing the textbooks and curricular materials.
Evaluations of the MLE programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha have shown
positive effects on classroom achievement, school attendance and participation, and
parental and community attitude (see Mohanty et al. 2009). The National Multilingual
Education Resource Consortium (NMRC) set up in India by the authors (see NMRC
website www.nmrc-jnu.org for details) to facilitate and augment MLE activities, par-
ticularly in the states with substantial tribal populations, and to take up formative
evaluation of the programmes, has conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate the
educational outcomes of MLE programmes. The study (Panda et al. 2011) shows that
compared with the primary school (grades 1–5) children in non-MLE schools, the
children in MLE programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha performed significantly
better in classroom achievement measures (language, mathematics and environmen-
tal studies) at all the grade levels. The difference between the two groups, that is,
between the MLE school children and non-MLE school children widened over time
as children moved to higher grades in these subjects. MLE children in higher grades
also had better metalinguistic skills than their non-MLE counterparts. Qualitative
indicators revealed positive impact of the MLE programmes on children’s classroom
attendance and participation, as also on the attitude of tribal communities and teachers
towards tribal children’s capabilities, language and the knowledge systems.

4  Tribal languages in India do not have any exclusive script system; they are usually written in

the script of either the dominant regional language or another major language. However, in recent
years, some tribal languages, such as Santali, have developed their own writing system. Santali
writing system called OlChiki is now used in the MLE programme for Santali mother tongue
children in Odisha.
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 117

Classroom performance and participation of tribal children in the MLE programmes

in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha have been positively affected by the MLE programme
based on children’s languages, which helps them circumvent the language barrier of
the dominant-language schooling. However, several questions can be raised about the
broad plans and the structure of the early MLE programmes in India as well as about
transactional methods in the programmes (Mohanty 2010a, b; Panda 2012b). We will
return to the broad structural issues, particularly those concerning the plans of transition
from MT to other languages and their implications later in this discussion. In our earlier
writing (Panda & Mohanty 2009), we have raised some basic questions on the cultural–
philosophical underpinnings, the pedagogic assumptions and the transactional processes
of MLE in Odisha, which are also equally valid for the programme in Andhra Pradesh.
We have made the following observation:
If children’s everyday activities are used as critical cultural resources to teach in the class-
room, how are the relationships between everyday (empirical) and school (theoretical/
academic) concepts viewed? The processes of acquisition of an everyday concept and a
mathematical concept are very different as both are part of two very different epistemic
practices—home and school (Bernstein 1996; Panda & Cole 2007). The use of many
examples of everyday concepts does not necessarily lead to an understanding of a cor-
responding theoretical concept. It requires the use of carefully planned intervention by the
teacher where the children are assisted to perceive, for instance, a quantity in relation to
another quantity and move gradually from the notion of sharing to the theoretical concept
of ratio. In terms of discourse, the child’s discourse moves qualitatively from the everyday
(empirical) discourse to scientific (theoretical) discourse (see Karpov 2003 for detailed
discussion on everyday and scientific concepts). Even though everyday examples and dis-
courses are vital to start with, the use of everyday examples and discourses in the class-
rooms may not in itself be sufficient to ensure children’s access to academic mathematics
and science discourse (p. 298).

We also question the “packaged” training process for MLE teachers which, in
effect, reduces the classroom transactions to almost ritualistic routines and practices
of continued emphasis on only repetitions and rote memorization as a strategy. It was
obvious that in such pedagogic practices, the rules and the grammar of the package
were transferred and not the theory or the principles underlying such approach. It
may be noted that these questions are more in the form of concerns for qualitative
improvements in MLE and its philosophical, theoretical and pedagogic bases while,
at the same time, accepting the fundamental rationale of MLE and its possible posi-
tive impact on education of the tribal and other children. Our observations on the gov-
ernment-run MLE programme in Odisha and in other parts of India are as follows:
The current MLE programmes are still an improvement over the earlier programmes,
which almost completely excluded children’s language as well as culture. For a change,
the children in MLE classrooms looked happy and confident and they seemed to be relat-
ing to the classroom themes transacted in their mother tongue. The children found the
materials such as big and small books, activity charts, storybooks and a small book on
mathematics familiar. However, the approach was still very much materials- and teacher-
centered…. The programmes looked quite structured, as the same model is used every-
where and teaching–learning activities are often performed as a routine using methods,
which are, at the most, close to the Initiation-Response-Evaluation format (see Mehan
1979) (Panda & Mohanty 2009, p. 300).
118 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

The questions we raised in respect of the pedagogic processes in MLE and the
philosophical bases of the approach we sought to address in a special intervention
programme in Odisha called MLE Plus which is being implemented since April
2007 in some of the government MLE schools in Odisha.

5.2 The MLE Plus Programme in Odisha:

A Cultural–Psychological Approach to MLE

A special intervention in Odisha called MLE Plus (MLE+) is being simultane-

ously implemented by the authors in eight of the government MLE schools for the
children of Saora and Kondh tribal communities speaking Saora and Kui lan-
guages, respectively. The project aims at strengthening the MLE practices in these
schools through special activities to link tribal children’s everyday discourse5 to
the scientific/academic discourse of the school. The MLE+ intervention in this
project envisages good MLE practices to be holistic, culturally situated and histor-
ically informed of culturally embedded social, mathematical, literacy/oracy and
science practices. The MLE+ approach takes off from exhaustive ethnographic
survey of the everyday practices and the knowledge of the communities with a
view to using the cultural practices to evolve a set of classroom activities to scaf-
fold children’s learning of academic mathematics and science concepts (Panda &
Mohanty 2009). MLE+ programme, with a focus on making classroom learning a
culturally shared collaborative activity, emphasizes both school- and community-
level strategies including motivating parents to send their children to school and
close monitoring of the academic history and development of these children, pro-
moting literacy engagement both in the community and in the school through a
synergistic “Read Together” approach, providing authorship to the tribal villagers
in the bilingual (Saora/Kui and Odia) books published on the basis of oral narra-
tives provided by them on the local history, ecology, stories, songs, etc., and mak-
ing these books part of the Read Together programmes. MLE+ also seeks to
foster community interest in children’s schooling by developing reading and learn-
ing resource centres (libraries and activity sites) in which the oral tradition (story-
telling, songs and rhymes in the community) is linked to written texts6 (Panda &
Mohanty 2009). Each MLE+ school has a community MLE worker (CMW) taken
from the local community, who functions as a vital link between the school (and
teachers) and the community. The CMWs organize all the community activities

5 Here, discourse means knowledge. Therefore, everyday discourse means everyday knowledge.
6  The idea here is to develop a sense of continuity between oral and written practices by col-
lecting folk tales, stories and songs from individual community members and transcribing them
into written texts with authorship and photographs. These and other reading resource materi-
als go into community resource centres as well as school libraries. The International Reading
Association has implemented similar programmes in African countries.
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 119

and facilitate a close interaction between the children, parents, community mem-
bers, teachers and the MLE+ project team. Specific classroom interventions are
based on ethnographic data that are used to develop activities using a cultural his-
torical activity theory (CHAT)7 approach. These activities are designed to facili-
tate critical dialectic exchanges and movements from culture to classroom,
making the linkages from language to mathematics and to science easy, smooth
and culturally meaningful for children (see Panda 2007 for details).
Several internal and independent evaluations of MLE+ programme using
classroom achievement measures for language, mathematics and environmen-
tal studies and qualitative indicators such as classroom participation, teacher and
community attitudes show that the programme has had many positive effects. The
internal evaluations of the programme (Panda & Mohanty 2011) compared class-
room achievement scores (in grades 1, 2 and 3) of all the children in eight MLE+
schools (both Saora and Kui MT groups) with samples from MLE and non-MLE
schools in the same block at the end of the school year over a period of three years
from 2008 to 2010. All the children were tested in the language of school instruc-
tion (i.e. in Saora/Kui for MLE+ and MLE children and in Odia for non-MLE
children) for their classroom achievements in language, mathematics and EVS.
The children in MLE+ programme performed significantly better than their MLE
and non-MLE counterparts. MLE children also performed better than the non-
MLE ones (Panda & Mohanty 2011). External evaluation studies of the MLE+
and MLE programmes, undertaken by the Department of Psychology, Utkal
University (Rath & Sahoo 2011), found that MLE+ children in the primary grades
(grades 1–3) performed better than their MLE counterparts in classroom achieve-
ment measures of mathematics, language and environmental studies. The MLE
children, in turn, also performed better than the non-MLE children. The same pat-
tern of results was also obtained in qualitative indicators of classroom participa-
tion, teacher and community feedback. Another study by Manocha (2010) showed
positive effects of MLE+ programme on children’s classroom participation, com-
munity response to children’s MT-based education and a significant reduction
in fear among children for school education, teachers and textbooks. Although
MLE+ children showed significant gains compared with their MLE and non-MLE
counterparts, their overall classroom achievement scores were found to be in the
average range (50–60 %). MLE+ programme schools are government schools
in the tribal areas where classroom achievement scores of children in primary
grades tend to be generally very low. MLE+ did improve children’s performance

7  We have chosen to use the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) as a general theoretical

framework as it captures the paradigmatic essences of Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev (for the
latest developments, see Engeström 2001 and Cole & Engeström 2007). We use those aspects
of CHAT that recognize the role of action, labour and activity settings in the co-construction of
mind. The CHAT framework is particularly instrumental because any reform would require a
good historical analysis of socio-political conditions that result in certain kinds of arrangement of
human life. It privileges children’s everyday knowledge without undermining the power for for-
mal literacy and academic practices. More than anything else, it has a clear theory of pedagogy
based on a theory of action.
120 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

significantly compared with their MLE and non-MLE counterparts whose scores
were even lower in the range of 30–40 %. MLE+ operated in the structure of the
government MLE schools, which had several problems in implementation, moni-
toring and evaluation. Further, boosting children’s classroom achievement scores
as such was not the primary concern of the cultural psychological intervention;
it primarily aimed at building a sustained culture–community–classroom inter-
face as a basic foundation for critical literacy engagement and school learning. It
is our view that an intensive programme like MLE+ could have achieved better
results if the implementers were allowed to adopt these schools for a period of
5 years, at least. But, our decision to implement MLE+ intervention in the exist-
ing structure of the government schools was deliberate. We believe that interven-
tions of such kinds need to be grounded, sustainable and replicable in the existing
government school system. For any such programme to have policy implications,
it is necessary to demonstrate its impact under the prevailing ground-level condi-
tions rather than creating a non-replicable set of ideal conditions. Thus, the MLE+
programme can claim at least a moderate degree of success in showing that a pro-
gramme of MLE based on children’s home language can improve the quality of
education for tribal children. However, as pointed out earlier, the pedagogic prac-
tices in MLE and its implementation strategies need to be more carefully looked
at, planned and executed than what seems to have been the case. Moreover, the
broad structure of MLE programmes in India and the positioning of the languages
in the programme in relation to children’s home language will need to do some
rethinking in the light of what was achieved by us and also in the light of what is
already known about the best practices and policies in respect of MLE in different
parts of the world.

5.3 Significant Learnings from MLE Initiatives in India

The experimental MLE programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha are in the pro-
cess of being extended to a substantially larger number of schools. It is expected
that nearly 3,000 primary schools in both the states will be covered under
the existing pilot project. However, MLE is not yet a mainstream programme
for the Government. It is treated as a form of “innovation” in education for all
(Sarva Siksha Abhiyan or SSA) at both the central and state government levels,
also supported as a special initiative in tribal education. In the absence of a lan-
guage policy for education in India, this has led to some tentativeness evident in
the fluctuations in positioning of languages (MT, state majority language, Hindi
and English) in the programme. Particularly, the point of introduction of English
in MLE as well as in general education in the states has changed quite often over
the last few years. It has moved to earlier grades in most states including Andhra
Pradesh, but in some states (such as in West Bengal and Odisha), English has
moved in both directions in primary grades. The status of Hindi has also remained
quite uncertain. It has not been brought to the primary level in the two MLE states.
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 121

The tribal mother tongues in the MLE programmes in the two states have also
been treated only as a necessary step towards quality education in English and the
major state language. This has often resulted in the display of impatience with pro-
longed use of the tribal MT. The approach seems to be that MT/home language
can be supported only to a minimum necessary point in education, so that one can
get on with the business of education in the major languages and English. While
also problematizing the sudden loss of children’s cultural capital as a result of
disappearance of their mother tongue, the text and other classroom materials in
MT, Panda and Mohanty (2009) question this kind of minimalist agenda and such
early exit from the MT. Our view is that this system of transition with an early-
exit programme could be a trap, as it would cater to a minimalist agenda of the
Government, and also at the same time address the concerns of a few optimistic
reformists.
Thus, the positioning of and transition between languages are major problems for
MLE in India linked to the early-exit character of MLE in both the states. Analyses
of the status and nature of state MLE programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha
(Nag & Manoharan 2009) also bring into focus the problems in transition from L1
(home language) to L2 (state language) and the points of introduction of English and
Hindi in the early-exit MLE in India. While MT gets less time for adequate develop-
ment of cognitive–academic proficiency than what is ideally required, development
of proficiency in other languages also remains limited. The children in MLE schools
are to join the regular majority language (Telugu/Odia) medium school programmes
in their respective states from grade 6 onwards, and the continuation of MT as a
school subject is uncertain. Thus, the experimental MLE programmes in India are
early-exit programmes in which home language is used as a language medium of
teaching for three to four years and as a language subject up to the five years of pri-
mary-level education. It is evident from various evaluations of the MLE programmes
in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha that they lead to better educational outcomes for
tribal children compared with the programmes of non-MT education in the regular
government schools. However, since the MLE programmes have not been evalu-
ated on a long-term basis, it may be too early to be optimistic about the current pro-
grammes despite their early-exit character.
International research findings (Heugh & Skutnabb-Kangas 2010) show that early
transition from home language to L2 and English may be somewhat better than the
forced submersion in a second language; but late-exit programmes of MLE, which use
home language as a language of teaching for at least 6 to 8 years, are more effective in
helping children get the conceptual machinery of different non-language subjects like
mathematics and EVS than the early-exit programmes. Thus, there is a need to review
the current schedule of transition from the home language to other languages in the
MLE programmes for tribal children in India. The problem of transition in the MLE
programmes stems from the fact that development of children’s home language is not
unequivocally accepted as a legitimate goal in itself. MLE is supported because it facili-
tates learning of and in more “important” languages. In other words, as Panda (2011)
points out, the home language is seen in the current MLE programmes in India only
as “a bridge” to the more significant languages. Bridging, according to her, becomes a
122 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

dominant metaphor among the tribal education experts including leading language ped-
agogues in India dictating the manner in which MLE discourses and models get framed
and tried out (Panda 2012a).
Clearly, the burden of the linguistic double divide weighs heavily on the initial
MLE programmes in India, which are under pressure to accommodate all the
“major” languages in the hierarchical multilingualism—the major state language,
English and Hindi—within the primary-level programme of education, even at the
expense of the children’s learning of languages and academic understanding. The
early-exit approach to transition from children’s home language to vernaculars and
English goes against the established research findings showing that a second lan-
guage or a foreign8 language like English is learnt much better, and faster, when
such learning follows a strong development of the children’s home language. In
fact, the longer the home language is continued as the language of teaching, the
better is the development of proficiency in other languages including English
(Heugh & Skutnabb-Kangas 2010). Unfortunately, as Panda (2012b) observes, the
new transition model of MLE does not question the societal language hierarchy as
it operates through the use of identified tribal language as the MoI in the class.
Different languages appeared sequentially and not in one class as multilingual
resources for teaching the structure of language or for teaching a concept. The
sequencing of the languages in the “early-exit” model in the MLE classrooms
more or less matched their hierarchical positions in our society. Panda (2011, p. 1)
has observed that “The major pedagogic achievement rests in the act of individual
child crossing the bridge between two languages to a certain level of success.
Success here was defined in terms of scholastic achievement and not in terms of
development of positive social identities and motivation”.
This raises a basic question of the nature of MLE in India: can MLE in India
be modified to a late-exit programme? In view of the complex dynamics of power
relations among languages, the dominant status of the regional majority lan-
guages over the tribal mother tongues and the absence of a clear language pol-
icy for education in India, it seems unlikely that the present MLE programmes in
India can be modified to late-exit varieties in the near future. Several factors seem
to negate such a possibility: the cost and complexity of accommodating a large
number of tribal languages into the MLE structure, the post-colonial binding to
the hierarchical positioning of languages and the resultant denial of an egalitarian

8  The status of English as a foreign or Indian language is often debated. Many consider it an

Indian language rooted in Indian culture, having permeated into the local communicative vari-
eties and with its own distinctive features. Indian English is considered one of many world
Englishes. The presence of a large number of English words and expressions in different lan-
guages and local varieties in India is cited as evidence of the “Indianness” of English. Some
other scholars, on the contrary, are of the view that “Indian English” will always be considered a
degenerate variety of Anglo-American English (Dasgupta 1993). However, the characterization
of English as a foreign language is based on a view that foreignness of a language is not just a
question of its origin, but one of the extent to which it is rooted in the cultural experiences of the
language users. In this sense, English as a language is quite alien to the average Indian life and
culture, more so for rural and tribal India.
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 123

multilingualism and the compulsions of pushing English (as a targeted language

of education and economic benefits in a globalized world) to earlier grades while
retaining the regional majority language as a marker of the popular identity. Thus,
the odds are stacked against prolonged use of the tribal languages as MoI in late-
exit forms of MLE.
Schools, including those in tribal areas where children from different ethnic
communities with different mother tongues or home language study, need a dif-
ferent kind of multilingual education programme where the linguistic and cultural
resources of all the children are used in the classroom. A different kind of MLE
pedagogy along with MLE teaching-learning materials needs to be developed and
used in these schools. Since majority of schools in this country belong to this cat-
egory, such a paradigm needs to be developed and used in most schools in India
including tribal area school. This paradigm will:
1. use of every child’s linguistic repertoire as classroom resource;
2. develop of multilingual awareness and reflective skills;
3. promote of cross-linguistic communicative classroom activities (for example,
translation of one child’s storey/narration by other children into different lan-
guages and using translation as a pedagogic tool);
4. use children’s funds of knowledge in the classroom; and
5. strengthen children’s cultural identity and promotion of multiple identities by
egalitarian positioning of languages and writing systems.
Since every child understands and uses at least one language fully for commu-
nication, with little help from the teacher, she will be able reflect on languages
spoken by her and by other children in the class. Children can be helped to engage
with simple linguistic activities like how plurals are formed and how sentences
are structured in different languages including the regional language of the state.
Complex language activities like describing or narrating an activity or a story,
explaining to the whole class with the help of speakers of other languages, reflect-
ing on the central ideas or motives of that narration can be undertaken in the class.
Activities demonstrating that different languages can be written using one script
will have significant pedagogic and social implications for the children. It removes
the hegemony of a script or a language and creates an egalitarian environment in
the classroom. Translation can be used as a pedagogic tool among children, which,
we believe, will allow the real funds of children’s everyday world enter the class-
room. These resources can also be used for mathematizing everyday activities by
the students with the help of teachers, analyzing scientific ideas and knowledge
embedded in everyday activities and cultural artefacts, using oral literature for lin-
guistic analyses, etc. With the help of local stories and children’s narration of those
stories, teachers can help them develop a sense of time and chronology of events.
These approaches provide some of the most powerful pedagogic tools for develop-
ment of scientific reasoning, logical thinking and metacognitive skills among tribal
children (Agnihotri 1997). This, according to Agnihotri, will reduce ethnic, racial,
gender and caste hegemony and authoritarianism that characterize the relationships
in the schools as well as in the Indian society. Currently, the NMRC at Jawaharlal
124 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

Nehru University in Delhi is trying this approach in linguistically complex urban

schools including madrasas and slum schools in Delhi and in Bhopal in collabora-
tion with the Eklavya Foundation, a non-governmental organization.

6 Conclusion

The problem of language policy for education in India is its very absence. The
constitutional and statutory provisions as well as various other official documents
purportedly relating to language policy in education do not project a unified and
unequivocal position on languages in education. Taken together, they clearly lack
a position of coherence and consistency, and hence, it is difficult to brand them as
“language policy”. Of course, language policy is not just the set of written or codi-
fied documents; “language practices, beliefs and management of a community or
polity” also constitute integral aspects of such policy (Spolsky 2004). What is cod-
ified can always be subverted by what is socially practised. In the modern states
today, the policy documents, at least at the surface level, tend to be ideological,
progressive and, in most cases, value based and egalitarian, seeking to derive their
rationale from democratic ideals. The real ground-level practices, however, tend to
be more divergent and unpredictable since the experienced policies are outcomes
of complex social and political dynamics. Social practices, beliefs and intergroup
norms and the underlying tensions play critical role in negotiation of the policies.
Thus, policies in operation and what happens at the ground level—in schools, for
example—are socially constructed. A distinction must be made between overt and
covert language policies or between what Shohamy (2010) calls declared and de
facto language policies. This distinction is necessary to understand why and how
the constitutional provisions in India, such as those in respect of mother tongues
in education, are ignored in practice and also why the national efforts to document
the place of languages in education in multilingual India, such as the NCF 2005,
are drowned in their own contradictions and euphemism.
The declared languages-in-education policies in India, in our view, are actually
trapped in the gap that exists between ideologies and implementations. A critical
view of the sociolinguistic hierarchy and the double divide between English, the
major regional languages and the ITM languages at a macro-structural-level and
the micro-level social dynamics is necessary to understand the de facto policies
of discrimination against the languages at the bottom of the hierarchy (Shohamy
2010). In fact, a critical approach to language policy in education explores how
such policies have perpetuated inequalities (e.g. Corson 1999; Phillipson 1992,
2009; Skutnabb-Kangas 2000). In a way, MLE is a form of negotiation to meet
the discriminatory fallouts of the de facto language policy in education, but as we
have shown, it does not contest the double divide. The current form of MLE in
India, therefore, remains a weak model; it helps tribal children to circumvent the
language barrier and to negotiate the double divide, but it does not challenge the
double divide. MLE in India is a local response. It is not a resistance programme
6  Language Policy and Education: Towards Multilingual Education 125

to the unjust hierarchy of languages. We suggest that it is necessary to rethink

MLE in India in order to develop it as a strong model to contest, resist and subvert
the language-based discrimination faced by tribal children in the society.
Discrimination against communities and children on the basis of their language,
subjecting them to poor education, deprivation and poverty because they do not
speak the language of the privileged, is a form of linguicism and social injustice.
Cultural and linguistic assimilations do not just happen to groups by their own
choice although the dominant discourse often celebrates this as a “free” choice in
a democratic society; loss of languages and cultures along with loss of identity
is forced upon groups by social and state practices of discrimination and depri-
vation. Loss of cultural and linguistic diversity is a result of hegemonic practices
by several agencies—the state and its legal and statutory bindings, the economic
forces seeking to benefit from homogenization, schools and educational institu-
tions reproducing the social hierarchy and injustice and global imperialistic forces
subtly exercising control over human minds, cultures and languages. MLE as a
model of education promoting the use of home languages as a medium of edu-
cation and based on the philosophy of equal opportunities for all languages can
be an instrument for social justice (Skutnabb-Kangas 2009; Skutnabb-Kangas et
al. 2009) both by ensuring more effective education and by fostering linguistic
diversity. Educational use of languages is held to be a major factor in language
maintenance and development. However, the use of a language as a medium of
instruction in MLE in itself is not a panacea. MLE must also promote critical
awareness of the forces of socioeconomic injustice, a will to resist such forces and
to actively engage in the process of changing the unjust social practices. As Panda
(2009b, p. 1) points out elsewhere:
MLE is not only about children’s mother tongue or the use of multiple languages in edu-
cation; it is a philosophy, a theory of education of all children where every child’s lan-
guage, identity and culture has a space. It is about a classroom where children are free
of fears, dogmas and stereotypes, where they respect differences and acquire necessary
cognitive and psychological tools that enable them to participate in the democratic pro-
cesses of the country and live a dignified life. All these are possible only if the children
develop critical consciousness; learn to question the wrong practices in the society and
protest against discrimination, wastage and unequal economic practices.

The current model of MLE in India, promoted as an educational model only

for the disadvantaged tribal children, because their languages are neglected
in the hierarchical order, is an implicit submission to this unjust hierarchy.
Unfortunately, the de facto language policy in India, seen as a totality of statutory
provisions and declared policy along with the social practices, beliefs and norms,
has failed to change this unjust order. MLE as a special model for tribal educa-
tion develops its rationale from the hesitant support for mother tongue or home
language education in our language policy. But the tribal children are not the
only ones who have mother tongues or home language. All children have mother
tongues/home language. It is possible that these mother tongue-based MLE model
may not work in nearly two-third of tribal area schools which have children not
belonging to one tribe but from different tribal and other non-tribal communities
126 M. Panda and A. Mohanty

who speak different languages. In these schools, children who do not speak the
regional language or Hindi and English are forced into a submersion programme
in second or third language. As discussed above, we probably need a multilingual
education programme based on children’s mother tongues or home languages for
these schools. Such a model can be a model for all schools in the country that
respects every child’s right to language and identity.
Therefore, if language policy purportedly endorses MLE for the tribal children
in India because MT education is desirable and beneficial, it should actually go all
the way to promote MLE as a model for all. It is our considered view that MLE
should not be run only as a special programme for certain groups who are socially
disadvantaged on various counts. It is possible that within such an environment,
MLE too may produce dominant structures. Also, if such programmes settle down
to routine and standardized structures, they may lose their potential to challenge
the monocultural and monolingual educational practices of the state. As Panda
(2010, p. 1) observes, “instead of changing the core of the educational practices,
these provisions may end up preserving the very structures of domination within
the society”. MLE, therefore, must be seen as a model of education for ALL in a
multilingual society, like India. It is based on the principles of equality and pro-
motion of diversity of languages, cultures and worldviews. The lessons from the
experiments in MLE for tribal children and the positive impact of MLE based
in children’s languages will hopefully be used to influence our language policy
to support and enrich multilingualism in the society and promote multilingual
education for ALL.

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Chapter 7
Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns
with Implications for Social Policy

Bhoomika R. Kar

1 Introduction

Dynamic interaction between brain and environment shapes behaviour including

sensory and motor skills, language, memory, and executive function. Learning
language is an early “test” of our brain’s learning system. It requires core learning/
thinking skills that we will use throughout our lives. It develops the main learning
tool that students need—oral language. Conditions in the brain are dynamic. They
change and “rewire” at any age. Research in the field of cognitive neuroscience
has shown that brain’s ability to change, or be trained, is known as brain plasticity.
The brain can change and learn at any age, and certain conditions encourage learn-
ing. Neural circuits are continuously refined through experience and learning.
This chapter will focus on the issues related to definition, identification,
­diagnostic procedures, intervention and research on learning disabilities and the
information that such issues bring about for policy making. All children learn in
highly individual ways. Despite having average or above-average intelligence,
some children perform poorly in academics. Such children are generally described
as, slow learners, dyslexics, learning disabled, etc. Children with learning disabil-
ities simply process information differently, but they are generally of normal or
above-average intelligence. Having a learning disability (LD) can affect a child’s
ability to read, write, speak, do math, and build social relationships (CCLD 2003).
LD has become an increasing personal and public concern. Among the spectrum
of issues of concern in learning disabilities, the inability to read and comprehend is
a major obstacle to learning and may have long-term educational, social, and eco-
nomic implications. Family concern for the welfare of children with dyslexia and
learning disabilities has led to a proliferation of diagnostic and remedial t­reatment

B. R. Kar (*) 
Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad,
Allahabad 211002, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 131
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_7, © Springer India 2014
132 B. R. Kar

procedures, many of which are controversial or without clear scientific evidence

of efficacy (American Academy of Pediatrics 1998). Learning disabilities are a
chronic condition of neurological origin and are associated with problems in pro-
cessing information, organizing information, and applying information.
Defining LD in operational terms has been difficult. The early definitions
emphasized the medical framework in terms of minimal brain damage, gradually
shifting to the educational framework, focusing on visuomotor processing and
discrepancy between scholastic ability and IQ (John et al. 2002). Debates about
definition and identification of LD arise from a range of factors causing it, which
could range from biological factors, that is, soft neurological signs, lack of asym-
metry in temporal and frontal lobes to environmental factors, that is, poverty and
illiteracy, lack of access to preschool instruction, medium of instruction, and over-
crowded classes, particularly relevant in the Indian context.
Kirk coined the term “LD” (Kirk 1963), and it was under his leadership the
National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children submitted the first defini-
tion. Since then, a number of definitions have been produced, but none of them
was totally acceptable. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM) IV (1994) defines LD as follows: “Learning disorders are diagnosed when
the individual’s achievement on individually administered, standardized tests in
reading, mathematics or written expression is substantially below that expected for
age, schooling and level of intelligence. The learning problems significantly inter-
fere with academic achievement or activities of daily living”. In other words, LD
is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by
significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading,
writing, or mathematical abilities. Problems in self-regulatory behaviour, social
perceptions, and social interactions may exist with learning disabilities but do not
by themselves constitute a LD (Wong 1996).
In India, LD has attracted widespread attention only during the last decade or
so (Karanth 2003a). There has been an increase in the identification of individual
children with LD and a consequent demand for services. So far, this process is
largely confined to children enrolled in urban schools with English as the medium
of instruction. However, the identification of large numbers of children with learn-
ing disabilities even in rural areas in ongoing epidemiological studies in states such
as Kerala lends support to the larger viewpoint of LD as widely prevalent, lifespan
disorder contributed to by more than difficulties in sound to script matching.

2 Epidemiological Data on Learning Disability

The worldwide incidence of learning disabilities (dyslexia, dysgraphia, and

dyscalculia) is about 5–17 % of the school-going population. In India, the
population of children between 0 and 14 years is nearly 350 million, implying
35 million children with LD, based on a calculation of 10 % incidence. Learning
disabilities are often not easily recognized, accepted, or considered serious
7  Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications for Social Policy 133

once detected. Learning disabilities affect one in seven people according to the
National Institute of Health. Epidemiological studies of learning disabilities
in India are fraught with difficulties ranging from the very definition of learn-
ing disabilities, identification, and assessment to sociocultural factors unique
to India. In India, learning difficulties are compounded by factors like parental
illiteracy and lack of exposure to literacy-related skills in the home environment
(Suresh & Sebastian 2003). Learning disabilities are common in India as well but
with a different context. Specific LD is observed in 7–8 % of the general popula-
tion in the age range of 0 to 18 years (Suresh & Sebastian 2003).
The most common LD is difficulty with language and reading. A recent National
Institute of Health study showed that 67 % of young students identified as being
at risk for reading difficulties were able to achieve average or above-average read-
ing ability when they received help early (CCLD 2003). Being aware of the warn-
ing signs and getting children the earliest possible help will increase the chance of
meeting this goal and will greatly improve the chances of those with learning dis-
abilities for greater academic achievement and self-esteem.
Although learning disabilities may occur concomitantly with other handicapping
conditions (for example, sensory impairment, mental retardation, serious emotional
disturbance), they are not the results of those conditions or influences [National
Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD) Memorandum 1994]. About
5 % of the school-aged population has been classified as having some form of LD;
approximately 28–64 % of the students receiving a special education in recent
years were identified as learning disabled (Ysseldyke & Algozzine 1990). Many
children with LD may also have attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD).
In the context of the complexities associated with the definition and identification of
LD, there is some evidence with respect to the characteristics of LD that aids in further
understanding the nature of LD and the basis for identification of children with LD.

2.1 Characteristics of Learning Disabilities

The characteristics of learning disabilities show up as follows (John et al. 2002):

academic problems exist in the area of reading, writing, spelling, and mathemat-
ics; perceptual disorder problems include inability to recognize, discriminate, and
interpret sensation. It can be the area of auditory channel or/and visual channel;
meta-cognitive abilities involve the ability to use self-regulatory mechanisms such
as planning moves, evaluating effectiveness of ongoing activities, checking the out-
come, and remediating the errors; memory problems. Learning-disabled students
fail to use strategies that non-learning-disabled students readily use. In addition,
learning-disabled students may have difficulty because of their poor language skills.
Some exhibit fine motor difficulties, such as in cutting with scissors, short attention
span, distractibility, and impulsivity. Prevalence rate of psychological disturbance is
high among learning-disabled children compared with normal population. A contin-
uous failure in academics also results in poor self-concept and self-esteem.
134 B. R. Kar

In the 1960s, a shift in terminology occurred with the introduction of the term
“minimal brain dysfunction (MBD)”. The term brought in the concept of minor
brain injury and linked it with learning problems. MBD was popularized by
Clements, the project director of Task Force 1 (ibid.). The following ten markers of
MBD were identified: hyperactivity, perceptual motor impairments, emotional disor-
ders, general orientation deficits, disorders of attention and impulsivity, disorders of
memory and thinking, disorders of speech and hearing and soft neurological signs.

3 Learning Disability in the Early Years

The study of learning disabilities from a developmental perspective holds promise

for new insights and improved practices. Recognition of the importance of early
identification and intervention with young learning-disabled children has resulted
in the implementation of numerous screening, diagnostic and intervention pro-
grammes and the publications of a plethora of early identification tests and proce-
dures (Mastropieri 1988). Applying a development framework to LD raises some
interesting but troublesome questions. How much teachers are aware of LD? What
is the diagnostic significance of particular behavioural signs or “symptoms” in the
early years? Whether teachers have knowledge or understanding of these signs or
they are sensitive to these symptoms. Whether teachers in overcrowded classrooms
have the time for individual attention. How valid are early indicators for predicting
subsequent problems? In India, very few epidemiological studies have been reported
and very few have addressed this issue so far. Our study with 102 primary school
teachers in Allahabad city in northern India highlighted the need for educating the
teachers about the different aspects of learning disorders in children and how it is
different from other conditions such as attention deficit, conduct problems, scholas-
tic backwardness, and mental retardation. Most often, teachers look at it as a mani-
festation of low IQ or behavioural disturbance (Tripathi & Kar 2008).

4 Teachers’ Perception of Classroom Behaviour

of Children with LD

By and large, the results of classroom observation studies indicate that compared
with normal-achieving classmates, learning-disabled children are more likely to be
off-task (Feagans & McKinney 1981; McKinney & Speece 1983). McKinney and
Feagans (1984) classified students into subtypes on the basis of teacher ratings,
measures of intelligence, and achievement on the basis of teachers’ rating of first-
and second-grade students:
1. Behaviour deficits independently and in task orientation, but socially well
adjusted, with average verbal skills and mildly deficient in achievement;
7  Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications for Social Policy 135

2. Deficits in behaviour, uneven cognitive abilities, and severely deficient in

achievement;
3. Deficits in task orientation, high on extroversion and hostility, and average cog-
nitive ability but mildly deficient in achievement;
4. No behavioural problems and deficient only in academic achievement. These
findings suggest that the scholastic problems are many and complex.
In one of our studies on teacher’s perception of children (studying in grades
2–8 in an English medium school) with learning-related problems on Indian popu-
lation, we found that a high prevalence of language-related problems particularly
in expression and grammar was perceived across all classes. Writing-related prob-
lems were perceived as most prevalent across all classes. Problems related to read-
ing were observed to be higher in lower classes and gradually decreased across the
higher classes. Problems related to mathematics and behaviour showed a decreas-
ing trend across classes II–VIII. Identification of children with learning-related
problems by teachers appeared to be based on poor achievement and behavioural
problems (Tripathi & Kar 2008).
There could be various manifestations of learning-related problems. A majority
of students who receive services for LD have severe writing problems that per-
sist over time (Graham & Harries 1989). Writing-related problems include errors
in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and handwriting. The essential feature of
reading disorder is reading achievement (i.e. reading accuracy, speed, or compre-
hension as measured by individually administered standardized tests) that falls
substantially below the expected standard given the individual’s chronological age,
measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education. Individuals who have LD
in reading have difficulties decoding or recognizing words (i.e. letter/sound omis-
sion, insertions, substitutions, reversals) or comprehending them (i.e. recalling or
discerning basic facts, main ideas, sequence, or themes). They may also display
other difficulties such as losing their places while reading or reading in a choppy
manner (Torgesen & Wagner 1998). Poor mathematics achievement may be due to
a variety of reasons. Difficulties in abstract thinking, language, reading, motiva-
tion, and memory can impede the ability to learn mathematical skills and concepts
(Hammill & Bartel 1986; Mercer & Mercer 1985; Bley & Thornton 1989).

5 Issues and Concerns Related to Screening

and Diagnostic Procedures

The NJCLD believes that inappropriate diagnostic practices and procedures have con-
tributed to misclassification of individuals and questionable incidence rates of learning
disabilities. Such practices and procedures result in erroneously including individuals
whose learning and behavioural problems are not attributable to learning disabilities
and excluding individuals whose deficits are manifestations of specific learning dis-
abilities. The following issues are important to an understanding of current concerns:
136 B. R. Kar

• Lack of adherence to a consistent definition of learning disabilities that emphasizes

the intrinsic and lifelong nature of the condition.
• Lack of understanding, acceptance, and willingness to accommodate normal
variations in learning and behaviour.
• Lack of sufficient competent personnel and appropriate programmes to support
the efforts of teachers to accommodate the needs of children who do not have
learning disabilities but who require alternative instructional methods.
• Insufficient prepared professionals to diagnose and manage exceptional individuals.
• False belief that underachievement is synonymous with LD.
• Incorrect assumption that quantitative formulas alone can be used to diagnose
learning disabilities.
• Failure of multidisciplinary teams to consider and integrate findings related to
the presenting problem(s).
• Lack of comprehensive assessment practices, procedures, and instruments neces-
sary to differentiate learning disabilities from other types of learning problems.
• General preference for the label “LD” over “mental retardation” or “emotional
disturbance”, which leads to the misclassification of some individuals.
Policy makers, educational administrators, regular and special educators, related
services personnel, parents, advocates, and others who identify, assess, diagnose,
and provide services to people with learning disabilities should keep in mind the
following issues:
• Learning disabilities vary in their manifestations and could range from mild to
severe.
• Diagnostic procedures are different for different age groups from children to adults.
• Problems associated with LD (do we keep LD or learning disabilities?) may be
observed in academic and non-academic settings.
• Differential diagnosis is necessary between and among other disorders, syn-
dromes, and factors that can interfere with the acquisition and the use of listen-
ing, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities.
• A comprehensive assessment is needed for diagnosis and for planning an appro-
priate intervention programme including assessment-related reading, writing,
arithmetic, spelling, visuospatial abilities, perceptual motor skills, working
memory, attention span, and intelligence. All aspects including sensory, motor,
cognitive communication, and behaviour should be assessed. Data from case
histories, interviews, direct observations, and assessments should be integrated.
Curriculum-based assessment, task and error analysis, diagnostic teaching, and
other non-standardized approaches are as follows:

1. Viable sources of additional information.

2. Intervention and services should be based on the individual’s present level of
performance and functional needs.
3. A multidisciplinary team is necessary for assessing, diagnosing, and determin-
ing provision of services. A clear distinction must be made between “diagnosis
of LD” and “eligibility for specific services”.
7  Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications for Social Policy 137

6 Intervention for LD and Policy-Related Concerns

at School and Professional Level

Learning-disabled individuals can be helped in different ways through inclusive

education with customized curricula at school and college level as well as with
specific remediation programmes addressing the specific psychological, cognitive,
and educational needs of the individual.

6.1 Inclusive Education

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), a large, international organization of

special educators, parents, and other advocates for the disabled, issued a policy state-
ment on inclusion at their annual convention in 1993. This statement begins with a
strong endorsement for a continuum of services to be available to children, youth, and
young adults with disabilities. It is only after making the point quite clear that ser-
vices to the disabled, including various placement options besides the regular class-
room, are to be tailored to individual student need that the policy actually addresses
inclusion. Lieberman (1992) points out that many advocates (primarily parents) for
those with learning disabilities also have significant concerns about the wholesale
move towards inclusion. They recognize that students with learning disabilities do
not progress academically without individualized attention to their educational needs.
These services have evolved primarily through a specialized teacher working with
these students individually or in small groups, usually in a resource room setting.
Special education professionals and parents alike are concerned that regular education
teachers have neither the time nor the expertise to meet their children’s needs.
The issue of inclusion is also passionately debated in one other area of excep-
tionality students who are gifted/talented. It is discussed under the concept of
“heterogeneous grouping” rather than “inclusion”. However, the issue is still one
of the providing appropriate services in an integrated versus a segregated setting.
Some advocate, with research support, that gifted students are better served when
they are able to work with other gifted students. Others promote the position that
gifted students benefit more from being heterogeneously grouped with other stu-
dents of various levels of ability (Tompkins & Deloney 1994).
Successful individuals with learning disabilities tend to be goal-oriented, deter-
mined, persistent, and creative (Reiff et al. 1993). Many students with learning
disabilities are aware of their disabilities before matriculation. Once diagnosed,
it is the student’s responsibility to disclose his/her LD and the extent to which it
affects academic access (Lynch & Gussel 1996). Witte et al. (1998) in their study
at a major university found that students with learning disabilities were competi-
tive academically with their peers and graduated with grade point averages not
significantly below the control group. This study also found that students with
learning disabilities on average took only one semester longer to graduate.
138 B. R. Kar

It is essential to have written policies that ensure that students with learning
disabilities receive the same high-quality education as their peers. These policies
should address the issues of admission, documentation of an LD, accommodations,
and curriculum modifications. It is important that students be made aware of the
existence of an appeal process that is set forth in writing. Students should have easy
access to all written policies and procedures including the appeal process. Such
documents should be available in a variety of formats, in all appropriate campus
literature, and through available technology, which all students can access. Most
students with learning disabilities meet the standard admission criteria and will
not be readily identifiable during the admission process. However, some students
with learning disabilities may appeal the standard entry requirements because of the
effects of their disability on their academic performance or test scores. Within the
appeal process for admission, available to all students, a mechanism is needed to
consider the impact of a student’s LD on his/her academic record. The federal laws
and subsequent court decisions make it clear that colleges are not expected to make
changes in the curriculum that compromise essential components of a programme.

6.2 Remediation Programmes

Intervention programmes in learning disabilities include manual- and computer-

based programmes to address the specific learning-related problems such as dys-
lexia or dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Two kinds of approaches could be followed for
intervention: one focusing on the central cognitive processes that underlie learn-
ing-related problems, for example, phonological awareness that underlies read-
ing (Snowling & Nation 1997), or simultaneous and successive processing that
mediates reading and writing skills (Kar 2012). Remediation in dyslexia aims at
inducing normalizing and compensatory effects in brain function and language
processing and reading skills. Remediation in dyslexia is mostly based on the use
of intact areas of higher cortical functioning in the development of remedial strat-
egies while minimizing the emphasis placed upon dysfunctional cortical areas.
A remedial programme that helps dyslexic children read better also improves
activity in the part of the brain linked to the learning disorder, bringing the region
closer to that of normal children. It is the method of improving the process or pro-
cesses in which the child has deficits. Many children with reading disability are
deficient in successive processing (for review, see Kar & Shukla 2010). In one
of our case studies on the effects of remediation on phonological skills as well
as electrophysiological correlates of remediation in dyslexia, we found improve-
ment in phonological skills in terms of better accuracy and reduced reaction
times after remediation (Kar 2012) Electroencephalography-/event-related poten-
tials (EEG/ERP) showed reduced amplitudes of the early sensory component N1
(first largest negatively going waveform at 100 ms) and increased amplitudes
of P3 component (positively going waveform at about 300 ms) on the temporal
order judgement paradigm after remediation. These findings suggested that early
7  Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications for Social Policy 139

stages of sensory processing may require lesser recruitment of neuronal resources,

whereas the late-stage processing involving decisions about temporal sequence
of sounds or discrimination may require auditory attention and hence show an
increase in amplitudes after remediation. We also found improvement in simul-
taneous and successive processing as core processes underlying reading skills.
A recent neuroimaging study on reading taking Indian languages such as Hindi
has shown different neural circuits mediating reading a complex orthography like
Devanagari. This study has found greater involvement of the dorsal route mediat-
ing the visuospatial processes (Kumar et al. 2009), as the Devanagari script poses
greater demands on visuospatial analysis. These findings indicate that reading
acquisition in different orthographies may depend on certain central cognitive pro-
cesses and also require different strategies and have implications for the develop-
ment of remediation programmes specific to the Indian context.

7 Learning Disabilities in Indian Context

Three significant changes can be identified in the area of LD in India in the recent
past. First, the definition of LD has shifted from the traditional approach, arrived
at through a negation of all possible identifiable biological and environmental
factors that might contribute to the learning difficulties of a typically developing
child, to a newer dimensional approach of individual differences. Second, LD is
no longer seen as an early childhood disorder but as a disorder that changes but
persists over the lifespan. Thirdly, there is a recognition that the communication
deficits seen in children with LD are not restricted to those related to reading and
writing alone, but also encompass the more basic communicative/linguistic func-
tions of speaking and listening too (Karanth 2003a, 2008; Thapa 2008). There is
in particular a focus on phonological awareness and phonological processing dif-
ficulties leading to theories of LD as a linguistic/metalinguistic problem stemming
from empirical evidence of phonological processing difficulty in children with LD,
stimulating language-based research and theories of LD (Karanth 2012).
Given the neglect that LD has faced in India compounded by the c­ omplexity
of the definition and identification procedure, we do not as yet have clear-cut
­figures for the incidence and prevalence of language learning and learning disor-
ders in India. However, an extrapolation of available statistics from the western
world would suggest a prevalence figure of over 18 million of school-aged chil-
dren [source: Learning Disabilities National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH),
USA: National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 1999, National Centre for Health
Statistics (NCHS), Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)]. It is imper-
ative that we recognize the magnitude of this problem which is found in both sexes
and affects children of all socioeconomic classes, creed, race, or religion. It is
about time that their needs be taken into account in framing our education policies
and implementation. In the recent past, a lot of work on literacy, language learn-
ing, and LD in various Indian languages such as Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Odia
140 B. R. Kar

has been initiated to address the specific needs while learning letters and read-
ing/writing in Indian orthographies (Agarwal & Kar 2007; Gupta & Jamal 2007;
Karanth 2003b; Kar & Tripathi 2008; Nag & Snowling 2010; Pal & Kar 2011;
Tripathi & Kar 2008, 2009).
Issues and concerns related to LD in Indian multilingual context have been put
forth in a very comprehensive manner by Karanth (2012) as follows:
Our multilingual context gives rise to many challenges in the identification and manage-
ment of children with learning disabilities. For instance, at times it could be difficult for
the teacher to tell whether a given child has a LD or whether his difficulties are because
of the bi/multilingual background and lack of proficiency in the medium of instruction.
Our solutions, limited as they have been, have also been trigger happy, instant recipes and
short sighted in nature. For instance, the one achievement that is claimed by LD activists
in India is the exemption for the child with LD, from having to learn more than one lan-
guage at school that is now granted by some state governments in India. While this may
provide some immediate relief to the overburdened LD child at school, the other related
aspects such as the choice of the medium of instruction, in terms of its appropriateness
for the specific nature of the child’s learning difficulties, the environmental supports avail-
able for the same, and its eventual impact on the child’s overall well being are seldom
considered.

Tests for identification of children with LD have been developed in different

languages such as Hindi and English (Gupta 2004; Pal & Kar 2011), Kannada
(Prakash & Rekha 1992; Nag & Snowling 2010).

8 Issues Related to Biliteracy and Diagnostic Procedures

for Children with Reading Disability

Reading involves visual and semantic decoding, temporal processing, phonologi-

cal processing, orthographic, syntactic, and contextual analysis, and comprehen-
sion. An inefficient synchrony of these underlying mechanisms results in reading
disability (Lachmann 2002). Dyslexia is the most common of the learning disor-
ders that interferes with a child’s ability to acquire speech reading despite average
intellectual functions (Karanth 2003a). Manifestation of dyslexia in bilingual popu-
lation is not very clear even in western literature with respect to the incidence as
well as explanations for the same. Children with reading difficulty in one language
could also have difficulties with another language. There have been rare instances
of differential dyslexia where one of the two languages is affected (Veii 2005;
Wydell and Butterworth 1999). However, the interaction between first language
(L1) and second language (L2) during the process of reading acquisition is deter-
mined by factors such as orthography, phonological systems, phonemic, or syllabic
sensitivity. (Nag 2007).
Transparent orthographies may demand different strategies when, as in Hindi,
the basic unit is a syllable and not a phoneme (Gupta 2004). However, if both
languages are acquired simultaneously, the possibility of cross-linguistic interac-
tion in terms of psycholinguistic aspects of the two languages cannot be ruled out.
7  Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications for Social Policy 141

The process of acquisition of literacy skills becomes complicated when there is a

need to acquire languages following different writing systems, particularly when
one is an alphasyllabary like Hindi with shallow orthography and the other is an
alphabetic script with deep orthography as in English.
Nag and Snowling (2013) have raised issues related to the different needs of
learning of sounds, symbols, and cross-modal mapping in the context of diversity
across scripts as follows:
… there are both language-specific and language-universal cognitive demands of learning
to read, and that, different scripts pose differing challenges to the learner. Two key issues
which remain under-studied are, how do children acquire knowledge of the symbols of the
language and what places constraints on this process? More generally, models of reading
and its development need to take account of the diversity across writing systems if they
are to inform not only theory but also practice in the field of reading and its disorders.…

Bi/tri/multilingualism is a sociocultural condition and cannot be ignored in

India. There are many languages which are spoken, written, and read in India,
but all the four different orthographic families of modern India—Indo-Aryan,
Dravidian, Astro-Asiatic (Munda, Santali), and Tibeto-Burman—have a com-
mon source in Brahmi and therefore share the same salient features. An Indian
child’s first language could be one of the Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi,
Marathi, Gujarati or Punjabi, or Dravidian languages like Kannada, Tamil, Telugu,
Malayalam, which form the two major groups (Indo-Aryan and Dravidian lan-
guages), and the second language is mostly English. English being the second lan-
guage is acquired once the child starts school at 4 years of age when he or she has
already acquired considerable skill in their first language. Cross-linguistic studies
suggest that reading skill develops at a different pace in different orthographies
(Karanth 2003b).
The nature of orthography, its transparency, and form of representation could
influence the pattern of reading development. English follows an alphabetic script
and depends heavily on grapheme–phoneme correspondence, whereas languages
with transparent orthographies like Italian, Spanish, German, and Indian lan-
guages are considered as alphasyllabaries (Gupta 2004). It has been demonstrated
that grapheme–phoneme recoding skills take longer to develop in less transpar-
ent orthographies as compared to more transparent orthographies like Spanish
and Finnish (Seymour et al. 2003). Phonological awareness is crucial for reading
alphabetic scripts. It is neither crucial nor necessary for successful reading acquisi-
tion in transparent writing systems. In a study on Indian population with monolit-
erates, non-literates, and biliterates (Hindi and English or Kannada and English)
on tasks like rhyme recognition, syllable deletion, and phoneme deletion, it was
observed that only biliterates performed well on phoneme awareness tasks, and
others performed well on syllable deletion and rhyme recognition tasks (Karanth
1998; Prakash & Rekha 1992). There are several studies on biliterates with respect
to English and more regular scripts like German, Spanish, or English and non-
alphabetic scripts like Chinese/Japanese. However, research on reading difficul-
ties with respect to English and semi/alphasyllabic scripts such as Indic scripts has
gained attention recently.
142 B. R. Kar

Alphasyllabic scripts inform about the interaction between the structural proper-
ties of alphabetic scripts and those associated with syllabic scripts. Reading acqui-
sition in biliterates with an alphabetic and an alphasyllabic script may pose unique
demands for the acquisition of phonological skills and visual–phonetic decoding
and their relative involvement in two different orthographies. Alphasyllabaries
involve different reading strategies with respect to lexical (English) versus sub-
lexical (Hindi) strategies (Gupta & Jamal 2007). Such issues related to biliteracy
raise important concerns about the development of diagnostic procedures which are
comparable across languages. In our studies on such issues, we have found that
word and non-word reading accuracy is the best possible comparable procedure for
reading assessment if one has to know whether reading difficulty exists in all the
languages known by the individual with a possible diagnosis of reading disability.
Nag and Snowling (2010) examined differences between good and poor readers of
the Indian orthography, Kannada. Kannada is a relatively transparent alphasylla-
bary that contains alphabetic elements organized visually and phonologically into
alphasyllabic units called akshara. They observed differences between good and
poor readers of Kannada in the domains of phonological processing, naming speed,
and oral language skills as observed by another study on Hindi–English biliterate
children with an alphasyllabic and an alphabetic orthography. The main causes of
reading difficulty may be similar for alphabetic and alphasyllabic writing systems.
Moreover, much less is known about the mechanisms of reading difficulties among
biliterates, particularly when one is an alphabetic script and another is an alphasyl-
labary. Alphasyllabaries like Hindi are known to depend less on phonological aware-
ness (Padakannaya et al. 2002) Transfer of phonological representations based on
learning of an alphabetic script like English to develop internal representations of
sounds in Hindi could pose unique demands. Visual decoding is more demanding in
Hindi due to the spatial linear and nonlinear placements of “mantras”, whereas pho-
nological decoding is more demanding in English. It is difficult to build up internal
representations of sounds in Hindi despite being primarily a shallow orthography.
Such difficulties would be more detrimental in children with reading difficulties
who have a weak phonological system. It is possible that if a child is not exposed
to two different writing systems from the time the child starts formal schooling, it
may inform about script-dependent effects on reading acquisition. Future studies are
needed to look at normative reading development and nature of difficulties in slow
progressing readers comparing children exposed to simultaneous versus sequential
reading instruction in their first L1 and L2. Children with reading difficulties may
experience difficulties in both L1 and L2 irrespective of the nature of orthography.
It is interesting to note that even though the writing systems for Hindi versus English
are different, the central processes seem to be more critical for reading acquisition
in both the languages. On a speculative level, this could be due to the simultaneous
acquisition of literacy skills in both L1 and L2 though the familiarity with phono-
logical aspects is better with Hindi being the first language, which the child learns to
speak and understand. A comparison with sequential biliterates will address this issue.
As a policy, a sequential rather than simultaneous instruction for two different writing
systems could prove to be a better strategy for the development of reading skills.
7  Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications for Social Policy 143

9 Research on Educational Neuroscience

and Its Implications for Policy Making

In recent years, a new scientific field called educational neuroscience that brings
together researchers in developmental cognitive neuroscience, educational psy-
chology, educational technology, education theory, and other related disciplines
has emerged to link findings from cognitive and biological research to education.
Researchers in educational neuroscience investigate the neural mechanisms of
reading, writing, numerical cognition, and attention deficit in order to link basic
findings in cognitive neuroscience with educational technology. Important aspects
of LD that need immediate attention, particularly in the Indian context, are as
follows:
1. Identification and incidence: This would include development of age-appropriate
assessment batteries, which may potentially emerge as early screening batteries
that could be used by schools and administered by teachers. This will help iden-
tify children struggling at school and generate data on incidence. It will also help
create nationwide awareness for conditions that are best corrected at an early
stage.
2. Remediation: Remediation is the biggest challenge, but cognitive and neuro-
imaging research suggests that the findings of neuroplasticity show specific
changes in the neural circuitry as an effect of remediation. Given that early
identification is the key, remediation strategies need to be quickly developed,
validated, and adapted so that they can be applied. There are some remediation
programmes such as planning attention simultaneous and successive processing
(PASS) reading enhancement programme (Das et al. 1995), which has shown
beneficial effects of remediation on neural and cognitive processes underlying
reading and phonological skills (Kar 2012). However, such remediation pro-
grammes need to be implemented on a larger scale. A computer-based training
programme called Fast For Word is also based on core processes such as audi-
tory attention, phonological awareness, sound discrimination, memory, and
attention involved in reading. Though many such programmes exist, their effi-
cacy needs to be empirically tested on children with different kinds of learning
disabilities. A double-blind approach is required for evaluation.
3. Education: Most children with learning disabilities have skills/talents such as
art, music, technical drawing, visuospatial abilities which could be enhanced
if integrated in their curriculum. Strategies for teacher education programmes
could be used to advise teachers and parents on inculcating and emphasizing
skills in early education. This is an important component to include in curricula
for teacher training programmes. In addition, our research on reading and read-
ing disability, in particular, suggests the following:

• Sequential and not simultaneous introduction to literacy skills in two differ-

ent writing systems.
• Oral proficiency in a language should precede literacy skills.
144 B. R. Kar

• Development of measures for screening and identification of LD, grounded

in theory and applicable to Indian languages and context, to be used at school
level as well as professional level. Training in core processes such as pho-
nological skills and visuospatial analysis would be needed to develop script-
specific strategies for children with reading disability.

10 Conclusion

This chapter has focused on relevant issues and concerns related to learning dis-
abilities with implications for social policies regarding the definition, diagnosis,
remediation, and education of learning-disabled children and adults. The chapter
has also highlighted complex issues of concern in the Indian context related to the
identification of LD itself and the lack of organized services addressing the educa-
tional, cognitive, psychological, and social needs of individuals with LD.
The following steps could be taken in order to influence policy making, particu-
larly in the Indian context:
• Research-based knowledge about learning Indian languages to acquire reading
writing skills needs to be disseminated among school professionals.
• Development of short standardized tools for screening children with learning
difficulties pertaining to language, reading, writing, calculation, and behaviour
is the first step to ensure early and timely identification of learning difficul-
ties. Such screening tools could be used by the schools and administered by the
teachers. This will help identify children having problems in learning at school
and to understand the child’s specific difficulty rather than attributing it to intel-
ligence or attention deficit. It will also help create awareness for conditions that
are best corrected at an early stage.
• Sequential and not simultaneous introduction to literacy skills in two different
writing systems would be better.
• Oral proficiency in a language should precede literacy skills.
• Most children with learning disabilities have certain skills and strengths, which
include art, music, technical drawing, visuospatial abilities, and these abilities
could be enhanced and channelized for better learning.
• Regular interactive workshops could be held to encourage teachers and parents
to stress such skills in early education, and this could be included as an impor-
tant component in the curricula for teacher training programmes.
The gap between the service providers such as school professionals, edu-
cational psychologists, psychiatrists, special educators on the one hand and
researchers in the field of cognitive science of learning, developmental cognitive
neuroscience, and educational neuroscience on the other hand needs to be reduced.
A coordinated effort of such professionals could certainly bring about a substantial
change by influencing the policies that would understand the concerns and benefit
the individuals with LD.
7  Learning Disability: Issues and Concerns with Implications for Social Policy 145

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Chapter 8
Social Policy and Mental Health:
The Case of India

Komilla Thapa

1 Introduction

Psychology is both a knowledge discipline and a scientific-professional endeavor,

and psychologists provide important human services in the form of personal and
social interventions. The onus is on psychologists and they owe it to their discipline
to be socially responsible and ethically accountable, addressing not only individual
concerns but also societal issues and problems. Their domain of influence should
rightfully extend beyond the personal-private world of their clients, to the social
world we all inhabit and to other myriad settings. However, with a few notable
exceptions, psychologists in India have seldom ventured into what still remains the
largely uncharted territory of social and public policy.
While compiling a status report on psychology in India, Misra and Kumar (2011)
have stated “Psychology continues to be beset with staggering plurality, but in the
absence of a sound critical understanding and application, the rich multi-vocality
often ends up as a noisy cacophony” (p. 341). Unfortunately, this dire prediction
seems to have come true. Psychology at the crossroads is an oft-quoted cliché, but at
times, clichés also contain a kernel of truth. It is time to introspect, to interrogate our
professional identities and roles and to ask some patently uncomfortable questions.
These are the following:
1. Have we as a body of professionals upheld the tenets of our own profession
including the implicit values of ensuring human dignity and freedom?
2. Does psychological knowledge and research inform the discourse on social pol-
icy, in particular in the context of this paper, does research in the area of clini-
cal psychology and mental health in India impact on policy formulation?

K. Thapa (*) 
Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 149
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_8, © Springer India 2014
150 K. Thapa

3. And in a curious almost Carrollian inversion theme, do we as psychologists

ever consider issues of social and public policy in academic psychology or in
our professional avatars?

2 Social Policy

At the outset, for the purpose of conceptual clarity, it seems important to under-
stand the varying connotations of the term social policy. Not surprisingly, the term
has been variously defined and conceptualized. Popular definitions state that social
policy primarily refers to guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that
affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare. It has been described as
“public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal
justice, inequality, education and labor”.
Taking a different stance, Dean (2006) has stated that social policy entails the
study of the social relations necessary for human wellbeing and the systems by
which wellbeing may be promoted. Social policy as an academic subject adopts
different approaches. It brings in ideas and analytical methods from sociology,
political science and economics; it employs insights into social anthropology,
demography, socio-legal studies, social psychology, social history, human geogra-
phy and development studies; it frequently draws upon philosophy; in fact, it will
go wherever it needs to find the best way to study issues relevant to the achieve-
ment of human wellbeing. What is more, social policy is not just multidisciplinary,
it is also interdisciplinary. In other words, it combines approaches from the differ-
ent social sciences. Social policy is concerned with hard evidence, technical theo-
ries and logical analysis, but it must also be creative. It often calls for imagination
and insight. He unequivocally states that social policy is as much about feelings as
about facts.
Thus, Dean (ibid.) believes that the study of social policy necessitates commit-
ment, empathy with others and the need to interpret the world around. One of the
foremost philosophers of our present era, Sen, has developed the concept of capabil-
ities. Sen (1985, 1999) uses the term “capabilities” to refer not simply to what peo-
ple are able to do, but to their freedom to choose and to lead the kind of lives they
value—and have reason to value. Sen has employed this concept in a way that is
important for social policy because it cuts through the debate about whether our
human needs are absolute or culturally relative; whether, that is, all humans have cer-
tain irreducible needs, or whether we tend merely to want the things that others have
in the society in which we happen to live. Sen’s argument is that our need for com-
modities is relative: it depends entirely on the social and economic context in which
we find ourselves, but our need for capabilities—for the freedom properly to func-
tion as members of human society—is absolute. Poverty, for Sen, should be defined
in terms of “capability deprivation”. Sen’s approach has influenced the develop-
ment of a particular theory of human need, espoused by Doyal and Gough (1991).
In opposition to those who argue that it is impossible to define basic human needs, they
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 151

insist there are universal preconditions for participation in a good life that are applica-
ble to all human beings. These are defined as physical health and personal autonomy.
Social policy involves the study of human wellbeing, the social relations nec-
essary for wellbeing and the systems by which wellbeing may be promoted.
It is concerned, in part, with the social policies that governments have in relation
to such things as social security, health, education, housing and the personal social
services. It is both multi- and interdisciplinary. It is not, however, a subject for but-
terflies—who flit aimlessly from idea to idea—but for magpies, who purposefully,
but imaginatively, pick what they need from across the social sciences in a way
that is both pragmatic and creative (Dean 2006). It focuses on the nature of human
interdependency; on the way in which people care for and about each other; on the
part, the “welfare state” plays in shaping the nature of caring—and, for example,
the gender implications; on ethical questions about principles of care and justice.
Its goal is to maximize people’s chances of a good life. Its substance, therefore,
lies in the theoretical debate and practical definition of what constitutes the good
life and the fundamental nature of human need.
Ghosh (2002) has pointed out that social policy is not just the outcome of simple
welfare considerations, but rather a key instrument in the process of development,
which works in association with economic policy as part of a broader strategy, and
is an important step toward working out mechanisms for its greater spread and
effectiveness. However, in order to ground social policy more firmly within devel-
opment strategy and work out the links between it and more straightforward mac-
roeconomic policy, it is necessary to be aware of the political economy contexts
within which both sets of policy are developed and evolve.
It has been argued that social policy in India, while achieving some limited
successes in terms of management of the contradictions and instabilities emerg-
ing from the development process, has nevertheless been inadequate in terms of
the basic functions. Furthermore, the recent changes in social policy and public
intervention that have been associated in India with the “globalization” phase of
neoliberal economic reform may have actually undermined some of the gains that
were achieved earlier. This is because recent macroeconomic tendencies have been
associated with greater inequality and fragility of incomes, which has in turn cer-
tain important social implications.

3 Clinical Psychology and Social Policy

It has been observed that the link between social science research and social policy
seems to be a natural one. In a significant paper entitled “Psychology, psychologists,
and public policy”, McKnight, et al. (2005) have pointed out that psychological sci-
ence itself can be relevant and applicable to informing public policy, while clinical
psychologists can play a role in generating, disseminating and implementing infor-
mation. Clinical psychology is not unique in relation to other psychology disciplines,
or to other social sciences, and does not require any special standing with respect to
152 K. Thapa

social policy making. Social psychologists, cognitive psychologists and scientists from
disciplines outside of psychology certainly could perform just about any of the roles
that clinical psychology might fill in relation to social policy. In some situations, how-
ever, clinical psychologists might appear better positioned for a particular role by vir-
tue of their training. McKnight et al. (2005) advocate the use of the framework of the
knowledge cycle from the knowledge utilization field. The knowledge cycle is charac-
terized as the creation, dissemination and utilization of information (NCDDR 1996).

3.1 Knowledge Creation

The most obvious way in which clinical psychology can contribute to public policy
is in knowledge creation. Public policy is largely aimed at generating large-scale
behaviour change to address social problems. A large body of clinical research
focuses on social problems and on interventions that produce behavioural change.
With respect to informing public policy, they begin by clarifying what is meant
by “psychological research”. Psychological research is research related to funda-
mental psychological constructs and processes. The findings from such research
are part of an incremental body that advances our general understanding. Within
psychological research, Sechrest and Bootzin (1996) differentiate between basic
psychological science and the use of psychological science to address public pol-
icy problems. Basic science focuses on the study of specific psychological theories
that generally are not oriented toward policy making in any direct sort of way. For
example, the question, “Does threat of punishment deter people from undesirable
behavior?” is one for which policy makers might look to the basic psychological
literature for information, whereas the question, “Does this programme for divert-
ing first offenders reduce the likelihood of later criminality?” requires a specific
answer from evaluation research (Sechrest & Bootzin 1996). Basic psychological
science can contribute to policy making via substantive theory or principles that
can be applied to improve understanding of the social problems at which public
policy is directed, for example, drug addiction or criminal behaviour.
The application of psychological science to public policy ought, in general, to
be based more on basic principles derived from psychological research than on
specific “findings” of one or more studies. Psychological principles reflect an
accumulation of knowledge over the course of multiple studies, and they are more
general and stable than specific study findings.

3.2 Knowledge Dissemination and Utilization

Weiss (1998) has outlined a model for knowledge dissemination and utilization,
and it can apply to the use of science of policy making as well. According to
Darley (2002), psychologists can serve the role of idea brokers: they can forge a
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 153

connection with policy makers and can be relied upon to provide reliable and cred-
ible information by which to generate workable solutions.
An emerging area of focus within the clinical sciences (e.g., medicine, psychol-
ogy) consistent with this notion of scientists as “idea brokers” is the area of transla-
tional research: translating basic research into its practical use for improving social
policy. Effective translational research requires an understanding of the basic research
as well as its relevance to social policy. Clinical psychologists should be positioned
well to translate the clinical literature to guide and develop social policy. To serve the
role well, one should be able to discern the quality of the evidence, its relation to pol-
icy issues (including adoption and implementation), and how to present the evidence
in a persuasive manner. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, any scientist in this
role should be keenly aware of the pressure to rush to judgment about policy solu-
tions that might not have the evidence required to back them up. Therefore, Darley
(2002) recommends that idea brokers inform themselves about policy-relevant litera-
ture long before they are called upon to provide their recommendations.
The role of psychologists in bridging the disciplines of psychological science
and policy making also entails a consideration of the science that serves as the
basis for making policy recommendations. The main issues here concern the qual-
ity of the science, what psychologists do with that science, and how those actions
might affect public policy. A key concern regarding evidence-based policy is the
type of evidence that is needed. Scientists and policy makers consider (a) the qual-
ity of evidence and (b) the relevance of the science to policy making. With respect
to quality, even scientists cannot agree on the status of evidence within their field
or its value as a basis for policy making. Black (2001) notes that complexity of the
evidence, scientific controversy (incomplete or inconsistent evidence) and differ-
ent interpretations of research studies affect scientists’ assessment of the eviden-
tiary status of research results.

3.3 Policy-Relevant Science

Another part of the problem in determining the type of evidence required for
informed policy making is the gap between what public policy makers need to
know and what social scientists study. The authors of the 2001 MOST Annual
Report state that “policy questions are not, as such, research questions, and
research questions are usually related in very indirect ways to the concerns of pol-
icy-makers” (MOST 2001, p. 52). Therefore, the policy relevance of psychological
research is an issue not to be overlooked. Research may be relevant to policy even
if the research does not suggest specific directions or interventions.
Darley (2002) states that one of the most useful functions psychologists can
have in the public policy arena is the creation of critical thinking about proposed
innovations that are touted as “perfect solutions” to a particular policy issue.
As he observes, psychologists are particularly concerned with individual motiva-
tions and are aware that behaviour can have unintended consequences. Because
154 K. Thapa

policy makers are under immense pressure to provide immediate fixes to public
demand for a quick response, policy recommendations are often hastily adopted
and implemented without sufficient consideration of the potential consequences.
Psychologists ought to provide caution and critical feedback to policy makers
about the potential harmful effects of their policies. As Darley (2002) contends,
as scientists who study human behaviour and behaviour change, psychologists
are all too aware that changes might not only fail to improve a situation, but they
could undermine it as well. Bringing this knowledge to bear on policy making
is a way in which psychology could have a positive impact on evidence-based
policy.

4 Mental Health Policy in India

This section will focus on the current statutory provisions for mental health care in
India. The National Health Policy–2002 includes mental health. However, there is
no separate policy on mental health. The National Mental Health Programme for
India (NMHP) was adopted in 1982 by the Central Council of Health which is the
country’s highest health policy making body (NMHP 1983).

4.1 Mental Health Act (1987)

The country also has a Mental Health Act (1987), which simplified admis-
sion and discharge procedures, provided for separate facilities for children and
drug abusers and promoted human rights of the mentally ill. Other acts relevant
to the mental health field are the following: the Juvenile Justice Act, the Persons
with Disabilities Act and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act
(amended in 2001).
The Mental Health Act was drafted in 1987 but was implemented in all states
and union territories in India only in 1993. Undoubtedly, considerable changes
have taken place in mental health legislation and policies over the last two dec-
ades with the introduction of the NMHP which encouraged the development of
a community-based model of care. This programme was further modified as the
District Mental Health Programme and aimed to improve mental health care by
training government health professionals in diagnosis, treatment and health pro-
motion activities. It also sought to upgrade government psychiatric wards and hos-
pitals and introduced psychiatry in the medical curriculum.
In a review of this Act, Doshi (2011) has pointed out that there is much to
commend in the new Act, though some of the changes are merely cosmetic and
may not lead to tangible changes in the services provided to people with mental
disorders. According to Rastogi (2005), most of the act is similar to the Mental
Health Act 1959, the Mental Health (amendment) Act 1982, both of England and
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 155

Mental Health Act 1960 of Scotland with minor changes. Further, the Act fails
to address the removal of social stigma attached to mental disorders and educat-
ing society. Failure to mandate medical opinion to licensing authorities of service
organizations, emphasis on institutionalization, lack of after care and rehabilita-
tion measures, lack of measures to restrict unnecessary detention by families or
law agencies and adopting a different view of government and private hospitals are
some of the serious limitations of the Act. As pointed out by Dhanda (2000), the
Act is only concerned with regulating admissions to institutions.
In a more detailed analysis, Sheshadri and Sheshadri (2005) have critiqued the
Act as having fundamental flaws. According to them, the Act is predicated on the
assumptions that persons with mental disorders are violent and dangerous, that
mental illness is incurable and the subject loses his/her reasoning and judgment
and subsequently the fundamental rights under the Indian Constitution. According
to Dutta (2007) approximately 20 % of the population of India suffers from some
kind of mental health problem. Yet, in a country of more than a billion people,
there are only 36 state-run mental hospitals and only 500 qualified psychiatrists
to serve them. Due to excessive red tape, private institutes have to face following
the Erwadi incident and lack of jobs in government-run mental health institutions,
most fresh graduates of psychiatry either emigrate or work as private practitioners.
Moreover, less than one percent of India’s total health budget is spent on men-
tal health. Implementation of the provisions of the Mental Health Act has been
affected by a greater focus on illness rather than on comprehensive mental well-
being. Additionally, according to Pathare (2003), treatment is based on a purely
medical model focusing on the provision of drugs and ECT. There is a dearth of
psychosocial therapies, counseling and psychotherapy services and rehabilitation
facilities.
Kumar (2001) in his paper reports on the national human rights commission
(NHRC), which in 1999 made a resounding condemnation of the state of mental
health in the country. Following an empirical study on the status of mental health
in India, the commission documented serious human rights abuses in many mental
institutions across the country. The Mental Health Act itself is quite narrow in its
definition of human rights and the chapter dealing with it contains only one sec-
tion on research on persons with mental disorders, showing little understanding of
the need to protect the rights of persons with mental disorders when treatment is
administered without their consent. Furthermore, the situation of women and pris-
oners with mental illness is even grimmer with illegal detention and poor stand-
ards of safety and hygiene and unlawful detention orders.
Contrary to some of the positive developments on paper, sufficient research
exists to suggest that the provisions of the Mental Health Act have not been imple-
mented and that the current practice pertaining to persons with mental illness does
not adequately protect their human rights. In some instances, it actually permits
violation of the right of individual choice. Further, the Act is found lacking on the
right to treatment and care for both simple as well as complex mental disorders,
does not exercise equal control on treatment, discharge and quality of care issues
in government versus private institutes.
156 K. Thapa

4.2 The Mental Health Care Act (Draft, 2010)

The Mental Health Care Act (2010) has been recently proposed. The Act aims to
provide access to mental health care for persons with mental illness while ensuring
that their rights and dignity are protected during the delivery of mental health care.
The new Act is based on the premise that persons with mental illness are both vul-
nerable and face discrimination, the burden of their care often falls on their fami-
lies and efforts should be made to facilitate recovery and rehabilitation. The new
Act also acknowledges that the Mental Health Act of 1987 has failed to ensure the
rights of persons with mental illness.

5 Prevalence of Mental Disorders in India:

The Magnitude of the Problem

It is essential that policy and planning be based on reliable information about

available mental health resources and an epidemiological profile of the mental
health problems in the country. The information base to guide planning, how-
ever, is lacking in many countries, and often expert synthesis and interpretation
is required of the best available data from local, national, regional and interna-
tional levels. Currently, around a third of countries have no system for the annual
reporting of mental health data, and often data, when available, are not sufficient
to guide planning (World Health Organization 2001).
It is important to understand the prevalence of mental disorders as this would
be essential in policy planning. Epidemiological studies have provided stark evi-
dence of how large segments of the population have been totally deprived of men-
tal health services. Further, mental health concerns also get low priority in the
overall national health policy in India (Math et al. 2007). This section will first
focus on the enormity of the problem and then attempt to examine how psychol-
ogy both as an academic discipline and in its practitioner avatar has interrogated
these issues.
Mental disorders constitute a wide spectrum. They can attain the disorder/dis-
ease/syndrome levels which are usually considered easy to recognize, define,
diagnose and treat. These are referred to as “visible mental health problems” in a
community and can be classified further as “major and minor mental disorders.”
Another group of mental health problems remains at the sub-clinical/non-clinical/
sub-syndromal level and are usually related to the behaviour of the individual. They
are difficult to recognize and are referred to as “invisible mental health problems”.
They have often been ignored in epidemiological studies because of the difficulty
in defining and identifying the “case”.
Popular approaches to measure the disease frequency in a given population are
the following: (1) hospital catchment population approach and (2) community sur-
vey (Silman & Mcfarlane 2002). The generalizability of the findings of hospital
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 157

studies is very difficult especially in developing countries. In developing countries,

the pathways to mental health care pyramid shows that patients often first access
religious and faith-healers and alternative medicine options and then move on to
a family or primary care physician before reaching a general or psychiatric hospi-
tal. At the bottom of the pyramid, there remains a huge population of mentally ill
patients who may not receive any treatment at all.

5.1 Epidemiological Studies

Epidemiological studies have provided data about the prevalence of mental dis-
orders in the community (Math & Srinivasaraju 2010). Varying prevalence rates
have been reported even in international studies. Above all, psychiatric disorders
are known to vary across time within the same population and also vary across
populations at the same time. This dynamic nature of the psychiatric illnesses will
impact planning, funding and health care delivery.
A meta-analysis of 13 psychiatric epidemiological studies (n = 33, 572) yielded
an estimated prevalence rate of 5.8 %, organic psychosis (0.04 %), alcohol/drug
dependency (0.69 %), schizophrenia (0.27 %), affective disorders (1.23 %), neu-
rotic disorders (2.07 %), mental retardation (0.69 %) epilepsy (0.44 %) (Reddy &
Chandrashekhar 1998).
Psychiatric morbidity was associated with urban residence, gender, age
group (35–44 years), marital status (married/widowed/divorced), low socioeco-
nomic status and a nuclear family type. Epilepsy and hysteria were significantly
more common in rural communities. Nandi et al. (2000) reported that psychiat-
ric morbidity decreased from 11.7 to 10.5 % over 20 years in a rural setting. Rao
(1993) reported that mental morbidity was present in 8.9 % of the elderly (above
60 years); with depression being the most common disorder (6 %). Psychiatric
morbidity was associated with physical diseases. Many studies (e.g., Vas et al.
2001) have evaluated large samples (n = 2,077–24,488) of persons above the age
of 55 years with standardized instruments (e.g., Mini Mental State Examination,
Clinical Dementia Rating Scale) and diagnostic criteria using a two-/three-stage
procedure. The rate of dementia was reported to be in the range of 0.8–3.4 %
and that of Alzheimer’s disease in the range of 0.6–1.5 %. Mohan et al. (2002)
assessed 10,312 urban people with an instrument based on DSM-III-R criteria at
two points of time 1 year apart. The prevalence of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and
opioids use among males was 27.6, 12.6, 0.3 and 0.4 %, respectively. The annual
incidence rates among males for any drug use and use of alcohol, tobacco, canna-
bis and opioids were 5.9, 4.2, 4.9, 0.02 and 0.04 %, respectively.
Among females, the incidence of any drug use was 1.2 %. Kartikeyan et al.
(1992) assessed 9,863 people from an urban slum. The prevalence of drug
dependence was 11 % (83.7 % for heroin, 10.7 % for cannabis and 5.8 % for
opium). Chandran et al. (2002) assessed 359 women in the last trimester of preg-
nancy and 6–12 weeks after delivery. The incidence of post-partum depression
158 K. Thapa

was 11 %. Rate of post-partum depression was associated with low income, birth
of a daughter, relationship difficulties, and adverse life events during pregnancy
and lack of practical help.
Lester et al. (1999) reported that in 1991, the national suicide rate was 9.2 per
100,000 per year (males: 10.6 and females: 7.9). The most common methods for
suicide were poisoning and hanging. Mayer and Ziaian (2002) reported that there
was an increase in the rate of suicide over 6 years. The incidence of suicides was
highest in the 30–44-year-old category. Suicide rates were nearly equal for young
women and men.
Community-based epidemiological studies conducted in India on mental and
behavioural disorders have reported varying prevalence rates ranging from 9.5
(Surya 1964) to 102 (Nandi et al. 1975). Various explanations have been posited to
explain these variations. They include among others, the inherent nature of psychi-
atric disorders, diagnostic methods, definition used to identify a “case”, systematic
under-reporting as mental disorders are highly stigmatizing conditions that many
people want to keep private because of embarrassment and fear of discrimina-
tion (Jorm 2000). The discrepancies in prevalence rates have often plagued policy
makers. Efforts have been made to overcome these discrepancies through meta-
analysis and adding prevalence of individual disorders. Meta-analyses by Reddy &
Chandrashekhar (1998) reported a total morbidity of 58.2 per 1,000 while Ganguli
(2000) found a total morbidity of 73 per 1,000. The macroeconomic commission
report of 2005 (Gururaj et al. 2005) considered the prevalence rate of 65 per 1,000
and projected the prevalence rate for the next two decades. Math and Srinivasaraju
(2010) have proposed an overall prevalence rate of approximately 190–200 per
1,000. In simple words, at least 20 % of the population does have one or the other
mental health problem which requires intervention from a mental health profes-
sional. This prevalence rate is a lower estimate rather than an accurate reflection of
the true prevalence in the population.

5.2 High-Risk Groups

High-risk groups include children and adolescents. A review by Bhola and

Kapur (2003) has summarized the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the
child and adolescent population using both community- and school-based stud-
ies. Methodologically robust studies have reported a prevalence rate of 94 per
1,000 in a sample of rural children (Verghese & Beig 1974) while another study
by Srinath et al. (2005) found a prevalence rate of 12.5 % among children aged
0–16 years. Since children and adolescents form 40 % of the total population
of India (Census 2001), approximately four crores of the population requires
professional help. Senior citizens are also at risk for the development of mental
disorders. Other high-risk groups include urban slum dwellers, uprooted commu-
nities, urbanized tribal communities as well as women. Davar (1999) has pointed
out that women underutilize most of the mental services in India, including
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 159

hospital services, so hospital-based studies cannot form the basis of estimating

the occurrence of mental distress in women. She has presented the disaggregated
rates of the prevalence of mental disorders for men and women in India, based
on community surveys. Prevalence among men was found to be around 11 % and
among women 15 %.

5.3 Human Resources

In a speech at the 16th Convocation of the National Institute of Mental Health and
Neurosciences (NIMHANS), on January 20, 2012, the vice-president of India, Mr
Ansari (2012) presented a review of human resources in the area of mental health in
India. He pointed out that there are 20 psychiatrists, 6 neurosurgeons, 5 psychiatric
nurses, 3 social workers and 3 clinical psychologists per 10 million populations.
There are 25 psychiatric beds per 1 million people. Over two-thirds of those suf-
fering from mental illness do not get the treatment they need. He stressed on the
importance of improving both infrastructure and human resources in this area as
well as to reduce stigma and discrimination through public awareness.

6 Policy Implications and Imperatives for Action

National policy makers broadly agree on the core objectives that their health care
systems should pursue. The list is straightforward: universal access for all citizens,
effective care for better health outcomes, efficient use of resources, high-quality
services and responsiveness to patient concerns. It is a formula that resonates
across the political spectrum. Yet, this clear consensus can only be observed at
the abstract policy level. Once decision-makers seek to translate their objectives
into the nuts and bolts of health system organization, common principles rapidly
devolve into divergent, occasionally contradictory, approaches. This is, of course,
not a new phenomenon in the health sector. Different nations, with different histo-
ries, cultures and political experiences, have long since constructed quite different
institutional arrangements for funding and delivering health care services, but in
essence, they should reflect notions of equity, uphold human rights standards and
ultimately be reflected in all actions and interventions adopted.
Mental health disorders represent a major public health problem that is often
neglected by clinicians and policy makers. Despite being responsible for a high
level of disability, mental health disorders are often under-recognized and under-
treated in high-, middle- and low-income countries (Ormel et al. 2008). Mental
and behavioural disorders are present in 10 % of the adult population at any one
point in time, and mental health disorders contribute more than 12 % of global
disease burden (WHO 2001). Mental health disorders account for 31 % years lived
with disability worldwide (Thornicroft & Maingay 2002).
160 K. Thapa

Providing quality services for people afflicted with mental disorders has
always been a challenge. In India with its diverse range of cultures, ethnicities,
religions and languages, many complexities, priorities and compulsions, these
problems have multiplied manifold. The interconnections between sociocultural
factors and health need to be better acknowledged and warrant exploration in the
hope of making it easier to achieve best practice and improve patient outcome
(Worthington & Gogne 2011). India is a multicultural, multiethnic, pluralistic
society with enormous socioeconomic disparities. This variety on the one hand is
exciting, stimulating much research into behaviour and mental health; on the other
hand, it is a daunting task to provide affordable and effective mental health care,
especially to the remote rural corners of the country. The low budget accorded to
health and the unenviably low priority of mental health does not make this task
any easier.
Epidemiological research has demonstrated the considerable and previously
underestimated burden that mental disorders impose on individuals, communities
and mental health services globally (Murray & Lopez 1996). Alongside efforts to
raise political will and public awareness (Jenkins 1997), there is a need to invest
resources into cost-effective care and prevention strategies. Chisholm et al. (2000)
have pointed out that governments of countries such as India are fundamentally
constrained by lack of resources. Harnessing existing local resources must be
given consideration, not only in terms of integrating mental health care into the
primary care system but also in terms of engaging other professionals and commu-
nity leaders. Several studies have documented that the first person to be consulted
is the traditional healer or general practitioner. Simple mental health training for
these local private providers might be an effective means of improving the detec-
tion, referral and management of common mental disorders.

6.1 Human Rights and Mental Health Policy

Another important issue, which sets mental health problems apart from other
health issues, is the need in specific circumstances to restrict individual liberty
and/or use compulsory treatment. The importance of protecting and respect-
ing human rights so that such powers are not abused cannot be stressed enough.
The economic costs to society of poor mental health are also high; they are not
restricted to the health and social care systems alone; the highest of costs are often
due to the lost employment opportunities for both people with mental health prob-
lems and sometimes also family members who provide care and support.
Parker (2007) has argued for the development of mental health policy from a
human rights perspective. Her contention is that such an approach not only rein-
forces the arguments for moving from institutional care to the provision of good
quality community-based care for people with mental health problems, as advo-
cated by the World Health Organization (WHO 2001), but also demonstrates that
the essential goal of mental health policy must be to ensure that such individuals
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 161

can participate in society as equal citizens. Crucially, it also places the individuals
receiving mental health services at the heart of the planning, development and
implementation of such policies.
The shift to a human rights perspective has been authoritatively endorsed by
the UN, the best example being the UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of
Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (“the Standard Rules”). The Standard
Rules seek to ensure that all disabled people, “as members of their societies, may
exercise the same rights and obligations as others”. The Standard Rules make clear
that the term “disability” includes mental health problems (United Nations 2003,
para. 17). The Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness (“the
MI Principles”), adopted by the UN in 1991, play a particularly important role in
raising awareness about the human rights of people with mental health problems
(ibid., para. 13).
Parker (2007) has included a number of principles which can be used as a basis
for the development of mental health policy. These include protection against dis-
crimination, equality and social inclusion and promoting personal autonomy and
independence. Individuals with a mental illness have the right to live and work in
the community (MI Principle 3) and to be treated and cared for in the community
in which they live (MI Principle 7) so far as possible. They also “have the right
to be treated in the least restrictive environment and with the least restrictive or
intrusive treatment appropriate” to their health needs and the need to protect others
(MI Principle 9[1]). Other considerations include provision of care on the basis of
individual needs and participation in policy development.

6.2 Stigma

Wahlbeck and Huber (2009) have identified the most common access barriers for
people with mental disorders. These include stigma which is a widespread and
well-documented major access barrier for people with mental health disorders.
Mental disorders are often associated with widespread stigma, ignorance and dis-
crimination, impacting on all aspects of life. Such stigma can be deeply ingrained.
Stigma associated with mental health disorders has many consequences. Perhaps
most importantly, health care for people with mental health disorders tends to be
underfunded all over the world, which is partly due to stigma and discriminatory
attitudes. Evidence also suggests that stigma lessens the responsiveness of the
health services, and that the fear of being labeled as having a mental health prob-
lem may cause individuals to delay or avoid seeking treatment altogether. It can
influence public attitudes, not only about people with mental health problems, but
also about whether or not mental health should be seen as a priority issue for pub-
lic investment.
Stigma distinguishes mental health disorders from most other health prob-
lems and is the major reason for discrimination and social exclusion. Tackling
this discrimination remains a key policy challenge (Thornicroft 2006). Fear of
162 K. Thapa

stigmatization reduces an individual’s willingness to seek treatment (Corrigan &

Calabrese 2005). There are no easy solutions for policy makers, but long-term
actions such as intervention in schools to raise awareness of mental health (Pinfold
et al. 2005), and constructive engagement with the media (which can reinforce
negative social attitudes by sensationalist and inaccurate portrayals of mental ill-
ness) appear to be effective if concerted and prolonged.

6.3 Family Care: Interventions and Support for Caregivers

Globally, family care is a topic of immense contemporary significance because of

the increasing number of families with chronically ill, disabled or elderly mem-
bers who are cared for by others in the family. This trend is due to the profound
changes in the way these individuals are served. While in the past, long-term
institutionalization was the option for families, in recent times, community care
is being promoted as the preferred alternative. To some extent, it is the policies
of mainstreaming and integration which suggest that care receivers benefit from
living in a family setting. As a result, individuals in need of care live in the com-
munity and are supported by their families. The family therefore has an expanded
set of responsibilities as the interface between the affected individual and the
larger society. The net result of these trends is that the family plays a considerably
more pivotal role in the care of individuals, than it did in the past (Seltzer & Heller
1997).
Several studies have focused on the lived experience of caregivers, and the
burden of caregiving in both objective and emotional terms has been well docu-
mented. The family has always been a vital part of the care system for persons
with mental illness in India. Families are responsible for caring due to cultural
norms and inadequate resources of the mental health system (Thara and Srinivasan
1997). Studies on caregiver stress in India, Malhotra (2005). Malhotra and Thapa
(2011) have shown that families are burdened by their largely unsupported roles
as caregivers for their mentally ill relatives. The transfer of responsibility of care
to the family has an adverse impact on the microenvironment of the household
(Qadeer 2000) and has led to severe financial strain. Studies have shown that fam-
ilies looking after a mentally ill relative experience altered dynamics, economic
pressures and deteriorating quality of life as well as caregiving burden (Prabhu
2000; Malhotra 2005).
Caring is not a free resource. Moreover, a high level of burden on caregiv-
ers not only impacts on their own health and economic productivity but also
adversely affects the outcomes for the person with mental health problems
(Falloon 1985; Perlick et al. 2004). From a policy perspective, therefore, a key
issue must be to ensure that there is an appropriate assessment of careers’ needs,
followed by access to appropriate support to help families enjoy the rewards of
caregiving while minimizing the challenges that they face. These experiences are
very much influenced by access to information, as well as professional support.
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 163

Psycho-educational interventions targeted at family members may also be help-

ful in reducing family burden (Magliano et al. 2007). Despite the vital contribu-
tion made by family careers, their relationship with local mental health services
has often been described as problematic and tense. Relatives may feel hostil-
ity, resentment and dissatisfaction toward professionals who fail to understand
their needs. Moreover, families report that they lack information about mental
illness, are ignored by mental health professionals and are not consulted about
treatment.
Families are often in need of practical advice, information and education on psy-
chiatric symptoms, use of medications, and management of disturbing behaviour
and disabilities (Kuipers 1993; Reid et al. 1993; Angermeyer et al. 2000). Although
information by itself has only a limited impact on families and does not change
long-term outcomes, it improves relatives’ hopes and confidence in professionals
and can have great value in facilitating coping with the emotional impact of mental
disorders. Emotional support is particularly important in the first episodes of illness
(Tennakoon et al. 2000; Lenior et al. 2002; Wolthaus et al. 2002). At this time, rela-
tives must simultaneously cope with their own emotional reactions while providing
support to their loved one.
Effective family support interventions have been developed in the last 25 years
(Falloon 1985; Leff et al. 1990). These psycho-educational interventions share a
number of objectives: (a) to provide the family with information on the disorder
and treatment; (b) to improve communication patterns within the family; (c) to
enhance family problem-solving skills; (d) to improve family coping strategies;
and (e) to encourage their involvement in social activities.

6.4 Cultural Factors

A discussion on social policy and mental health would be incomplete without

considering the role of cultural factors. Marriott (1990) has suggested that the
dominant Indian and western concepts of the person are quite different, if not
antithetical. Kakar (1982) has pointed out that the majority of Indian approaches
to mental health differ from the dominant western view, in their emphasis on the
relational. The ideals of mental health involve “a restoration of the lost harmony
between the person and his group” (Kakar 1982, p. 274). According to Lewis-
Fernandez and Kleinman (1994), personality and psychopathology take form in
distinct local worlds and are constructed in relation to other individuals and the
whole community and its institutions. Indigenous views and concepts of distress
are considered fundamental to understanding the cultural context of illness
(Angel & Thoits 1987). As far as interventions are concerned, Carstairs and
Kapur (1976, p. 59) in their study located in the coastal village of Kota observed
that the people of Kota not discriminating between physical illness, mental illness
and suffering of other kinds, have taken their troubles to the temple priests or to
164 K. Thapa

itinerant holy men, but most of all to three kinds of professional healers: Vaids,
Mantarwadis and Patris.1
They also recommended a coexistence of traditional and modern forms of
therapy.
While exploring the cultural construction of mental illness, Ghildyal (2004)
observed that the construction of mental illness involves identifying “anomalous”
behaviour for which no rule or set of instructions can be found. Based on these
and assorted findings, she formulated the basic principles and philosophy of an
informational programme. These include a framework for re-orienting the dis-
course on mental illness by focusing on the experienced realities of patients’ lives.
The aim is to initiate a dialog between patients, their family members and oth-
ers in the community. An interesting proposition is rapprochement between the
vocabulary of the ill by bridging the gap between the language of mental illness
used by relatives, professionals and lay persons. Other significant points include
the acknowledgment that faith-healing is therapeutic and is “not to be denounced
as archaic, superstitious and meant for uneducated people” (ibid., p. 262). In fact,
as mentioned by Carstairs and Kapur (1976), most faith-healers have undergone
rigorous training and charge a fee for their services.
This brief sampler of viewpoints necessitates a consideration and inclusion of
these concepts in the formulation of policy, its implementation and its eventual
effectiveness. Tanaka-Matsumi and Draguns (1997) have also advocated the inte-
gration of the cultural context in the delivery of mental health services.

7 Human Resources Planning and Training

Several issues and concerns about the paucity of trained mental health profes-
sionals and the use of para-professionals and non-professionals have been artic-
ulated (Prabhu 1983, 1997; Rao & Mehrotra 1998; Thapa & Rowland 1986;
Thapa 2000). Human resources (HR) are the most valuable assets of a mental

1 The Vaids are practitioners of Ayurveda, an indigenous system of empirical medicine with a
vast pharmacopoeia. This system is believed to have originated in India more than 3,000 years
ago and is described in one of the Vedas. An illness according to this system is due to an imbal-
ance between the natural elements leading to an excess of heat, cold, bile, wind or fluid secre-
tions in the body. These bodily disturbances can give rise to symptoms which can be physical or
mental.
The term “healer” does not sufficiently describe the role of the Mantarwadis and the Patris
whose work extends beyond the treatment of the sick to include such things as improving business
prospects, finding lost cattle and propitiating the rain gods. Both Mantarwadis and Patris work on
the principle that all troubles are the result of past misdeeds, individual or collective, committed
by the suffering person or persons themselves or their near kin, either in their present life or in a
previous existence. The misdeed is usually a breach of the community’s customs or taboos.
Source Carstairs and Kapur (1976).
8  Social Policy and Mental Health: The Case of India 165

health service (Thornicroft & Tansella 1999). Mental health service relies on
the skill and motivation of its personnel to promote mental health, prevent dis-
orders and provide care for people with mental disorders. Yet, there are fre-
quently major difficulties encountered in the planning and training of HR for
mental health care. In many countries, there are too few trained and available
personnel, there are distribution difficulties within a country or region (e.g., too
few staff in rural settings or too many staff in large institutional settings), the
available personnel are not used appropriately and many staff are unproductive
or demoralized.
There are several reasons why HR planning has been so poor, including the
lack of an appropriate body responsible for HR planning, long training periods
for staff (which mean that decisions to train more staff take time to filter into
services), training institutions that are out of touch with service and popula-
tion needs, the lack of accurate or usable data, the perception by general health
authorities that mental health is not a priority, the presence of a significant pri-
vate sector which can draw professionals away from public sector services, the
migration of skilled mental health workers to developed countries (i.e., “brain
drain”) and professional attitudes which may hinder some aspects of HR devel-
opment (Green 1999).
Several courses of action can be taken by countries to address these difficulties.
There is a need to develop appropriate policy for HR in mental health to ensure
a harmonious fit between the nature and level of knowledge and skills required
of mental health workers at different levels of service delivery and service needs.
Planning needs to address practical details about the numbers of mental health
professionals required at different levels of service delivery and the skill mix and
competencies required. Continuing education, training and supervision are fun-
damental to providing evidence-based care and need to be reviewed periodically
and improved, in keeping with the mental health needs of the population. Ongoing
education and opportunities for skills development, along with the provision of
specialist training, can also act as an incentive to retain individuals who may oth-
erwise be tempted to seek training and employment opportunities abroad. Finally,
management strategies need to enhance leadership, motivation, recruitment and
the deployment of often scarce personnel.

8 Conclusions

Mental disorders contribute significantly to the global burden of disease and are
associated with economic and social costs to individuals, families and countries.
In developing countries, the gross under-provision of resources, personnel and ser-
vices needs urgent attention. The gap needs to be closed by continued advocacy
efforts to raise mental health on the agenda of governments, by continued dissemi-
nation of information on effective policies, service development and clinical prac-
tice and the dissemination of international human right standards.
166 K. Thapa

Mental health policy, when well conceptualized, can define a vision for improving
mental health and reducing the burden of mental disorders in a population. It allows
the expression of an organized and coherent set of values, principles and objectives
to achieve the vision and to establish a model for action. Without policy direction,
lack of coordination, fragmentation and inefficiencies in the system will weaken the
impact of any mental health intervention.

Acknowledgments  The writing of this chapter was facilitated by the exhaustive Internet search
done by Shalini Choudhary, D.Phil scholar. Her contribution is gratefully acknowledged.

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Chapter 9
Psychology and Physical Disability Policies

Namita Pande and Shruti Tewari

It is generally believed that psychology, with its individual-level focus, is ill-equipped

to inform disability issues because such issues are enmeshed in power structures and
social dynamics of a given community. It is, however, our contention that psycho-
logical research has contributed significantly to our understanding of such important
issues as rehabilitation and mainstreaming of the physically disabled. In this paper,
we will critique some of the social policies related to physical disability and show
how psychology can occupy a centre stage in the disability discourse which influ-
ences formulation of social policies.

1 Disability Demographics and Definitions

The World Health Organization estimates that 10 % of the population of the world
is disabled in one way or the other. More than 600 million people, about one in
ten, live with some form of significant disability. Out of these, more than 400 mil-
lion live in developing countries including India (Sen 2004). According to the sur-
veys carried out by different governmental agencies in India, a general estimate of
the percentage of the disabled population ranges from 1.8 % (18.49 million) by the
National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), 2003, to 2.13 % (21.9 million) as
per the Census of India 2001.
Such differences in the estimation about the prevalence of disability appear due to
the different criteria that are used by these agencies to define disability. For example,
Mitra and Sambamoorthi (2006) point out that a person with locomotor disability,

N. Pande (*) 
Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Tewari 
Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 171
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_9, © Springer India 2014
172 N. Pande and S. Tewari

according to the Census of India (2001), is defined as a “…person, who, lacks limbs
or unable to use them, absence of all fingers, deformed body, cannot move with-
out aid, unable to move/lift an article, unable to move because of problems of joints
like arthritis”. For the NSSO (2003), a person with locomotor disability is charac-
terized by “… loss or absence or inactivity of whole or part of hand or leg or both
due to amputation, paralysis, deformity, or dysfunction of joints; those with physical
deformity in the body such as hunch back, deformed spine etc.”. Dwarfs and per-
sons with stiff neck of permanent nature who generally do not have difficulty in the
normal movements of body and limbs are also treated as disabled according to this
definition. Accordingly, the Census of India (2001) estimated that 27.87 % of the
total disabled population had locomotor disability, whereas NSSO (2003) estimated
them to be around 57.51 % of the total disabled population. The estimates of NSSO
were approximately 1.74 times more compared to the estimates made by the Census
because it included persons who had suffered from paralysis, amputation and dwarf-
ism along with the loss of limbs and deformed bodies. Whatever definitions one may
use, it is a fact that despite the ambiguity in statistics, disability figures in India have
gone up in recent times.
It is only partially true that lack of consensus on definitions of disability in
India has influenced disability estimates. Such confusion prevails at the interna-
tional level too. The International Classification of Impairment, Disability and
Handicap (ICIDH) of the World Health Organization, for example, defines dis-
ability by contrasting it with such related terms as handicap and impairment.
It defines impairment as “any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological
or anatomical structure or function”, disability as “any restriction or lack (result-
ing from impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the
range considered normal for a human being” and handicap as “a disadvantage for
an individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that limits or prevents
the fulfilment of a role that is normal for the individual” (WHO 1980, p. 14).
These definitions were criticized by Hamonet (1990) and Nagi (1991). Disabled
Peoples’ International (DPI) has adopted definitions that ensued from social model
of disability (Enns 1989; Oliver 1996) and sees impairment as “a functional limita-
tion of the individual which is caused by physical, mental or sensory impairment”
and disability as “the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in the normal
life of the community on an equal level with others due to physical and social bar-
riers” (DPI 1982, p. 31). Thus, disability is seen by DPI as caused by the presence
of barriers within the environment because the environment does very little to adapt
to the needs of people who have impairment (Hurst 1993). In the light of criti-
cisms of the ICIDH, the World Health Organization (2001) developed International
Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health-2 (ICIDH-2), also known as
the International Classification of Functioning (ICF). In the ICF model, disability
is viewed as an outcome of interactions between health conditions (diseases, disor-
ders and injuries) and contextual factors. Among contextual factors, there are envi-
ronmental factors (for example, social attitudes, architectural characteristics, legal
and social structures, as well as climate ) and personal factors (for example, gender,
age, coping styles, social background, education, profession, past and current expe-
rience, overall behaviour patterns ) that influence how disability is experienced by
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 173

the individual. From this perspective, Ustun et al. (2001) suggested that “disability
may be manifested as restrictions in major areas of human life—for example, par-
enting, employment, education, social interaction and citizenship” (pp. 7–8).

2 Psychological Research on Physical Disabilities

The research literature in psychology relating to physical disability is voluminous.

Its span is vast as it looks into various psychological characteristics of persons with
disabilities at one end and to the roles that the family and society can play in erasing
the disability scars at the other. In order to make our readers appreciate the issues
with which psychologists have engaged themselves and how research in this area
has evolved, a brief and selective account of researches will be presented here.

2.1 Disability Research: Salient Features

Research literature on disability has followed two models, namely the medical
model and the social model. The medical model considers disability as deviance
from what is seen as normal and treats individuals as victims of personal trage-
dies with which they are required to adjust and come to terms with (Oliver 1996).
It thrives on the notion of curing rather than caring. The social model, on the other
hand, views disability as a product of social structure and the processes and con-
siders disabling social environment as the major impediment to full inclusion of
persons with physical disabilities into the societal mainstream. It considers hostile
social attitudes (Barnes 1996) as responsible for segregating the disabled as belong-
ing to the category of the “other” and not as “one of us”. As against the medical
model that has pathological underpinnings, the social model considers persons with
physical disabilities as representing a certain range of human diversity and treats
disability as a part of the continuum of humanity (Charlton 1998).
Disability discourse has slowly but surely moved away from enumerating defi-
cits, impairment and cure to recognizing capacities of disabled persons which can
blossom if optimal conditions exist in the environment. Earlier researchers found
that the disabled were relatively more introverted, pessimistic, emotionally unsta-
ble, self-centred, hostile and prone to dependence (Bhargava 1984). The tendency
to consider disability as an attribute of the person who is in need of help and assis-
tance continues to exist. For instance, Jyothi and Reddy (2000) compared the per-
sonality profiles of hearing-impaired children and normal children and concluded
that hearing-impaired children had poor personality development. The problem
with such researches is that they equate disability with functional limitations and
impairments that require medical attention from health professionals.
Measuring attitude towards disability has remained a favourite research topic
among psychologists and rehabilitation professionals. The review of literature
shows that persons with disabilities are subjected to negative attitudes (Findler
et al. 2007; Miles 2000; Vilchinsky et al. 2010), which impede their rehabilitation.
174 N. Pande and S. Tewari

In a survey carried out by Dalal and Pande (1999), attitudes of members of com-
munity and family of the disabled were measured in five villages of Allahabad dis-
trict of Uttar Pradesh, India which, in general, were found to be negative. Further,
it was found that the family members of the disabled believed that the disabled
member was incapable of becoming economically self-reliant.
Goodman et al. (1963) noted that the process of acquiring attitudes towards
physical disabilities occurs as a part of the developmental and socialization pro-
cess. A number of studies have investigated children’s attitudes towards disabil-
ity (Barg et al. 2010; Harper 1995; Richardson 1983). It was found that children
preferred non-disabled children more than disabled children and this preference
was found universal across different cultures (Harper 1997; Harper et al. 1994;
Sanchez and Harper 1994). Persons with disabilities are seen as objects of pity
(Weiserbs & Gottlieb 2000), and very often their disabilities are interpreted as
markers of a certain category of people with whom distance ought to be main-
tained (Green 2007). It was also found that non-disabled persons avoided con-
tact with the disabled persons. The disabled were also socially devalued to face
stigmatizing attitude that eventually resulted in discrimination and segregation
(Snyder et al. 1979).
The stigma that is attached to being disabled is partly due to a belief in divine
punishment (Groce & Zola 1993) given for sinful acts done in previous births, the
intensity of which can be attenuated by engaging in the morally right behaviours.
Dalal (2002) discusses cultural beliefs related to disability in India and shows how
divine retribution is seen as causing physical disability. In a study conducted in
rural areas, Dalal et al. (2000) also found that people with disabilities, their fami-
lies and also the community members attributed physical disability to cosmic fac-
tors (fate, God’s will and karma).
When disability becomes the basis for categorization of who the disabled is,
then an individual is subjected to a negative “halo phenomenon” where evaluation
spreads from characteristics actually affected by disability to other characteristics
which are not necessarily affected (Ladieu-Leviton et al. 1977). The worst is that
this devaluing spread is internalized by persons with disabilities (McArthur 1982).
Goffman (1963) calls this as “undeserved differentness”. Persons with disabili-
ties incorporate society’s perceptions of disabilities in structuring their personal
identity, which in turn influences their psychological wellbeing (Smart 2001).
Importantly, negative attitudes towards the disabled present invisible barriers,
which lead to their marginalization and isolation (McMahon et al. 2004).
Attempts have also been made to explore the relationship between gender
and disability where gender was seen as a key factor in determining the social
meaning of disability. Studies have indicated that compared to men, women
with disability are at greater risk of depression and stress (Nosek et al. 2006;
Nosek & Hughes 2003; Fine & Asch 1988), and of lower self-esteem (Barnwell
& Kavanagh 1997; Brooks & Matson 1982). Women with disabilities experi-
ence unemployment, social isolation and limited opportunities to establish sat-
isfying relationships and are likely to face emotional, physical and sexual abuse
(McFarlane et al., 2001).
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 175

2.2 Disability Research: Coping with Physical Disability

How do disabled persons learn to negotiate with an environment that is essen-

tially indifferent and at times unfriendly and hostile? Psychologists have
attempted to answer this question while analyzing psychosocial resources which
assist the person in this difficult task and enhance health, wellbeing and resist-
ance to stress due to physical disabilities (Lazarus 2000; Livneh 2001; Martz
et al. 2000). Research studies show that when faced with discriminatory atti-
tudes and demeaning stigma, a person with disability looks for instrumental and
emotional support in his/her immediate social environments (Greenglass 2002).
Instrumental social support consists of actual transactions that occur between
care providers and care recipients (Thoits 1995). Instrumental support also sub-
sumes “cognitive guidance” (Fiore et al. 1983) which refers to providing ade-
quate information about one’s health status, medical care and treatment options.
For the disabled, who need routine assistance to meet their daily living needs,
instrumental social support is of paramount importance. Emotional support, on
the other hand, refers to close and confiding relationships where a person feels
free to discuss his/her problems with another person. In case of disability, it may
lead to rebuilding one’s self-image and receiving assurance or self-validation
(Morgan 1989).
The literature also shows that greater personal control over health care and
treatment (Martz et al. 2000) and problem-oriented coping strategies (Goldberger
& Brenznitz 1993; Livneh & Wilson 2003) result in better adjustments with dis-
abilities and lead to effective coping with the state of disablement (Martz et al.
(2000). Tewari and Pande (2010) investigated various psychological and social
factors affecting coping with physical disability and examined the mediating role
of coping in the relationship between distress due to disability and life satisfaction.
They found that perceived social support and perceived societal attitude towards
disability shaped stress appraisal of the disabled, and the use of problem-focused
coping reduced distress due to disability and resulted in higher levels of life satis-
faction and personal achievement.

2.3 Disability Research: Changing Negative Attitudes

Psychologists have also attempted to answer the question how negative attitudes
towards disability can be changed. Research suggests that intervention strategies
that provide information (Golin 1970), direct and extended contact with disabled
(Brown & Hewstone 2005; Cameron et al. 2007; Keller & Siegrist 2010) and
opportunities for the disabled to emphasize their abilities (Dalal 2006; Harpur
2012) show significant reduction in the negative attitudes towards disability.
Daruwalla and Darcy (2005) focused on information integration and cognitive
dissonance as factors that can lead to attitude change and found that the use of
176 N. Pande and S. Tewari

contact is more efficacious in changing negative attitudes compared to only infor-

mation provision. In particular, they examined the impact of disability awareness
on attitude change. Hughes et al. (2004) showed improvements in self-esteem and
reduction in symptoms of depression in women with disability after participation
in a six-week structured psycho-educational self-esteem enhancement workshop
which focussed on disseminating disability-related information. Interestingly,
either participating in a physical activity (direct) or else seeing such physical activ-
ities is one strategy that has proved to be effective in changing attitude towards
disability. In an experimental intervention by Krahe and Altwasser (2006), ninth
graders who were exposed to a disability awareness session and a hands-on sport
session led by athletes with a physical disability showed more positive attitudes
towards people with disability than students in a no-intervention control group and
students who received the disability awareness training only. The cognitive-behav-
ioural intervention led to significant reduction in the intensity of negative attitude
towards the disabled. Such salutary effects could sustain even after three months
of experimental treatment. Thus, an effective attitude change intervention shows
that behavioural interactions can reduce the negative stereotypes and uncomfort-
able feelings that occur between persons with and without disability.
Another example of attitude change among rural community comes from an
intervention programme carried out in five North Indian villages over a period of
3 years by Dalal (2006). He organized three disability certificate camps, followed
it up with focus-group discussions of community members on highlighting abil-
ities of the disabled, which eventually led to starting of an integrated school to
bring about change in disability attitudes. Increased visibility of persons with disa-
bilities in village community meetings and increased rate of immunization against
polio in the primary health-care centre were seen as indicators of attitude change
after 3 years of intervention.
So far, psychologists have demonstrated their competency in addressing disability-
related concerns and attitudes, which affect the disabled and aspects of congenial-
ity of the environment in allowing the disabled survive with dignity. In other words,
in case of disability, psychologists have tried to understand the important intersect
of the person and the environment. The discipline of psychology has a long tradi-
tion of conceptualizing disability as some kind of deviance from the able-bodied
norms and has addressed some specific disability-related needs. But this is not to
say that compared to discipline like sociology, politics or medical anthropology,
psychology has less to offer. In order to overcome this limitation, it has joined hands
with disability studies which “is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to legitimize the
study of disability as a universal human condition” (Olkin & Pledger 2003, p. 296).
This interdisciplinary field has attempted to combine and organize wealth of knowl-
edge spread across disciplines such as sociology, history, medical anthropology, poli-
tics and law. Psychology by joining in this coalition (ibid.) has broad-based the social
model of disability in which the disability studies are grounded. It has raised its voice
along with other players in asking questions related to civil rights, self-determination,
social stigma and marginalization which deeply affect the disabled.
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 177

2.4 Disability Research: Significant Observations

Some of the significant observations that emanate from psychological studies on

physical disability are as follows:
• Early psychological studies were concerned with identifying personality traits
and attributes of the disabled.
• Recently, the research scenario has changed somewhat because the term “dis-
ability process” has entered the lexicon of disability discourse.
• A favourite research topic for psychologists has been measuring family’s and
community’s attitude towards the disabled and the manner in which they either
facilitate or impede integration of the disabled in societal mainstream.
• Physical disability is now seen as a stressor within Lazarus and Folkman’s
(1984) transactional model of stress and coping. The distress due to physi-
cal disability is dependent upon the extent to which resources such as social
support, self-esteem, positive attitude and economic independence are
available.
• The psychological literature relating to intervention for change in attitude towards
disability is rich and growing. It has been shown that information related to dis-
ability coupled with actual contact with the disabled decreases the negative atti-
tude towards disability. Although, there are not many longitudinal field studies
which can ascertain the impact of intervention on attitude change in community,
yet some important steps are being taken in this direction.

3 Policies for Persons with Physical Disabilities

The Government of India has formulated policies and has enacted laws to ensure
equal participation of the disabled in national development. In particular, the
Ministries of Social Welfare at the centre and states have played major roles in
framing policies for the benefit of the disabled. It was in the Decade of Disabled
Persons (1983–1992) when the emphasis shifted from welfare to mainstreaming of
persons with disability. During this period, three legislations were enacted. These
are the Rehabilitation Council of India Act 1992, which deals with the develop-
ment of manpower for providing rehabilitation services; Persons with Disabilities
Act 1995 (also known as PWD Act 1995), which was intended to ensure full par-
ticipation and equality of persons with disability in the Asian and Pacific regions;
and National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental
Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act 1999, which emphasized creating ena-
bling environments for as much independent living as possible. In this section of
the paper, we would consider the salient features of the PWD Act 1995 and of the
National Policy for Disabled, which was inspired by all the three Acts and was put
into action in the year 2006.
178 N. Pande and S. Tewari

3.1 The Persons with Disabilities Act 1995

The most important initiative of the Government of India for the benefit of the
disabled shows up in the form of the PWD Act 1995. The Act defines disability
as blindness, low vision, hearing impairment, locomotor disability, mental retarda-
tion, mental illness and leprosy-cured. According to the Act, a person with disabil-
ity is one who is, “suffering from not less than forty percentage of any disability as
certified by a medical authority” (p. 4 of the PWD Act 1995). The salient features
of the Act are as follows:
1. It puts emphasis on prevention and early detection of disabilities. It provides for
surveys and other researches to identify causes of disability, to promote prevention
of disabilities and to identify “cases at risk” by screening school-going children at
least once in a year. Creating awareness related to occurrence and prevention of
disabilities with the help of Aganwadi1 workers was also given due consideration.
2. It calls for providing access to free education for every child with disabilities
till the age of 18 years and development of assistive devices, teaching aids and
special teaching material.
3. It seeks for building a barrier-free environment which can be created by remov-
ing architectural barriers in educational institutions and by providing special
transport facilities to children with disabilities.
4. The Act asks appropriate governments to identify posts that can be reserved for
persons with disabilities and review the list of posts so identified. It also focuses
on training and welfare of persons with disabilities, giving relaxation for upper age
limit, regulating employment, health and safety measures and creating a non-handi-
capping environment in places where persons with disabilities are employed.
5. The Act also provides for affirmative actions such as preferential allotment of
land at concessional rates for house, business, recreational centres, establish-
ment of special schools, establishment of research centres and factories by
entrepreneurs with disabilities.
6. In order to ensure equal opportunities and full participation of the disabled, the
Act provides for non-discrimination in terms of adapting the means of transport
to cater to the needs of the disabled such as easy access to buses and rail com-
partments, installation of auditory signals at red light, redesigning pavements,
providing ramps in public buildings, hospitals, health centres and other reha-
bilitation institutions.
7. The PWD Act 1995 defines rehabilitation as, “a process aimed at enabling per-
sons with disabilities to reach and maintain their optimal, physical, sensory,
intellectual, psychiatric or social functional levels” (p. 4 of the PWD Act 1995).

1 Anganwadi is a government sponsored programme for child and mother care in India. It caters
to children in the 0–6 age group. The word means "courtyard shelter" in Hindi. The Anganwadi
programme was started by the Indian Government in 1975 as part of the Integrated Child
Development Services Programme to combat child hunger and malnutrition. For details, visit
www.aanganwadi.org.
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 179

3.2 National Policy for Persons with Disabilities

In order to ensure full participation of persons with disabilities, Ministry of

Social Justice and Empowerment announced a National Policy for Persons with
Disabilities in February, 2006. The policy focuses on issues related to prevention
of disabilities, rehabilitation measures, children and women with disabilities, bar-
rier-free environment, disability certification, social security, research, sport, cul-
tural activities and amendments in the existing laws.
The strength of the National Policy lies in rehabilitation measures, which can
be classified in three distinct groups, namely (1) physical rehabilitation, (2) educa-
tional rehabilitation and (3) economic rehabilitation.
1. Physical rehabilitation: The measures include physiotherapy, surgical correc-
tions, vision assessments and stimulation, occupational therapy, speech therapy,
which can cover all districts in the country through involvement and participa-
tion of state governments, local-level institutions, NGOs, parents of the disa-
bled and also persons with disabilities.
2. Educational rehabilitation: In keeping with the spirit of the Constitution guar-
anteeing education as a fundamental right, the policy states that free and com-
pulsory education be provided to all children up to a minimum age of 18 years.
The policy recognizes the need for mainstreaming of the persons with disabili-
ties in the general education system through inclusive education programmes
and through government schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan2 (SSA) and
Integrated Education for Disabled Children3 (IEDC).
3. Economic rehabilitation: It consists of wage employment in both organized
sector and self-employment. It suggests that supporting structures of services
by way of vocational rehabilitation centres and vocational training centres
are developed to ensure that disabled persons in urban and rural areas have
increased opportunities for productive and gainful employment.
One of the distinct features of the National Policy is the focus on children and
women with disabilities. According to the Census (2001), there are 93.01 lakh
(9,301,000) women with disabilities, which constitute 42.46 % of the total disabled
population. Women with disabilities require protection against exploitation and
abuse. For such purposes, special programmes are developed for education, employ-
ment and other rehabilitation services to women with disabilities, keeping in view
their special needs. The National Policy for Disabled not only talks about the provi-
sions but also describes the means to implement these provisions. It suggests that the

2  SSA is the Government of India's flagship programme for achievement of the universalization
of elementary education (UEE) in a time-bound manner, as mandated by the 86th Amendment
to the Constitution of India. The Amendment makes free and compulsory education for children
aged 6–14 years a fundamental right. For details, visit ssa.nic.in.
3  IEDC is a central government scheme that provides educational opportunities to disabled chil-

dren in common schools to facilitate their retention in the school system and also to place them
in common schools. For details, visit www.ncpedp.org.
180 N. Pande and S. Tewari

committees at state level, panchayati raj 4 institutions, urban local bodies and all the
relevant ministries are required to play a crucial role in the implementation of the
Policy to address local-level issues. It also recognizes the need to replace the earlier
emphasis on medical rehabilitation with an emphasis on social rehabilitation. In this
context, community-based rehabilitation (CBR) has been suggested as an effective
way of rehabilitation. This is discussed in the next section.

3.3 Community-Based Rehabilitation Initiatives

A community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programme was developed in India as a

consequence of the Alma Ata Declaration of the World Health Organization (1978)
and from the realization that for rehabilitation to be successful, communities need
to recognize the abilities of the disabled and take major responsibilities relating to
integrating them within the mainstream. CBR is not just a concept but an ideology
that assumes that the community in which disabled are located is willing and is
able to mobilize local resources for mainstreaming them. Although various forms
of rehabilitation services have existed prior to CBR, it gained worldwide recogni-
tion and acceptance when WHO and other UN agencies promoted it as a viable
rehabilitation solution in the developing countries during the early 1980s. Since it
was not possible to provide costly rehabilitation services to all those who needed
them, CBR was projected as a means to reach the needy at low cost. With CBR,
it was claimed that rehabilitation tasks would be taken up by the members of the
families and communities of the disabled, who can be trained for such tasks with
minimum costs.
During the 1980s and 1990s, CBR projects were established in the developing
countries, mainly through international collaborations. As they grew and met with
various local-level forces, the emphasis of CBR changed from medical focus to
a more comprehensive approach and various issues such as education, vocational
training and social rehabilitation entered in its folds. One of the major shifts that
took place was in emphasizing community’s attitude towards the disabled, which
was not considered in its earlier versions. Later, it advocated for equal opportuni-
ties in education and employment of the disabled, a task which was entrusted to
their families and communities. The policy of CBR has had many achievements to
its credit but also met with equal number of failures. It also led to resentment for
entrusting the community with an additional burden of rehabilitating and integrat-
ing persons with disabilities.

4  Panchayati raj is a system of governance in which gram  panchayats (assemblies of five vil-

lagers) are the basic units of administration. It has three levels: village, block and district. This
system was adopted by state governments during the 1950s and 1960s, as laws were passed to
establish panchayats in various states. The Amendment Act of 1992 provides for giving greater
powers and responsibilities to the panchayats for the preparation of economic development plans
and social justice. For details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchayati_raj.
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 181

What we now have in the name of CBR is a mixed bag which has many success
and failure stories with no insights as to why any project failed or succeeded. The
reasons for its equivocal success will be discussed below. CBR, however, has not
vanished from the rehabilitation scene. Despite stiff opposition to CBR by disa-
bled people’s movement, the UN Convention still makes room for CBR in article
26 where it states that support, participation and inclusion in the community and
all aspects of society are voluntary and are available to persons with disabilities as
close as possible to their own communities, including in rural areas.

4 Disability Policies and Practices: The Real Scene

In creating public policies, it is required that policy makers and recipients reach a
consensus about what must be addressed, how it should be addressed and what can
wait. Also, equally necessary is arriving at an agreement about how any particu-
lar policy will be implemented. Cornielje and Zulu (2009) suggest that in order to
develop policies that are acceptable, the following conditions must be kept in mind:

• Policy makers and politicians should always remain accountable to people.

• The policy makers do not have any right to pursue their own interest which can
lead to compromising their legitimacy.
• The decision-making process should be open, accessible and transparent.
• Individuals and communities must be given the right to information regarding
policy proposal, right to challenge the need and design of projects and the right
to be involved in decision-making process.

Unfortunately, policy making processes either do not fulfil any of these four con-
ditions or fulfil them only partially. The authors correctly point out that such pro-
cesses seem to be a matter of “muddling through” without a clear idea about what
goals have to be achieved and what are the measures which can help in achieving
these goals. We are indeed fortunate to have a PWD Act which could have rem-
edied most problems which persons with disabilities face, but as Pal (2002, p. 36)
states, “this act remained a declaration of pious intent rather than a basis for a
programme of action”. The Act outlines the direction for interventions and a list
of responsible authorities for rehabilitation with no clear strategic plans and road
maps of implementation.
Several reasons account for poor implementation of the Act and the National
Policy such as unavailability of accurate estimate about prevalence of disabilities,
lack of general awareness of the policies, complex bureaucracy, lack of transpar-
ency, loose infrastructure. The poor reach of the health-care system in rural areas
puts another serious constraint on addressing disability problems. Physical and
social rehabilitation programmes suffer on account of inadequate resources, lack of
integration of the Act provisions in pre-existing health schemes and social insensi-
tivity. It is possible that some important issues have been overlooked and the strate-
gies used were not appropriate enough to turn the policy vision into reality.
182 N. Pande and S. Tewari

The annual reports of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and
the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities highlight their
achievements. These reports do not mention the vision, the yearly targets or any
analysis of success or failure in achieving the goals and utilization of the budgets.
It is rare to find a governmental report that mentions problems encountered dur-
ing implementation and acceptance of failure are even rarer. Most of the reports
available on government websites give a mere description of policies that are in
operation (see Chapter 6 of the annual report of Ministry of Social Justice and
Empowerment, 2009). Despite clear provisions in the PWD Act 1995, most of
the governments do not meet the 3 % job reservations for persons with disabili-
ties. Integrated schools do not have facilities for children with disabilities, thereby
excluding them from the first level of social interaction. Very few organizations
and public places are penalized for not providing barrier-free environments for
persons with disabilities. Also, awareness of disability policies does not meet the
expected level. In a survey, Vijaykumar and Singh (2004) found that 83 % of per-
sons with disabilities who participated in a survey did not know that there is an
Act of Parliament for the protection of their rights. There are official reports which
narrate success stories, but the newspaper reports and day-to-day experiences
with the disabled and their families who continue to suffer in abject poverty and
are denied even the basic human rights, seems to convey a very different picture.
Policies are drafted, implemented half-heartedly and fade away, leaving the prob-
lem of disability half-attended.
The scene of programme–performance based on CBR ideology is not very
bright either. Pande and Dalal (2004), while reflecting on the success and failure
of a CBR project which was set up at Sirathu (a village district in Allahabad, Uttar
Pradesh, India), reported that most CBR projects do not recognize the significance
of the needs and aspirations of the communities. They impose a CBR programme
on a community which may already be struggling to settle more urgent prob-
lems like access to safe drinking water. Awareness, they said, increases needs and
expectation, and once they grow beyond what the programme promises to fulfil,
it becomes difficult to sustain people’s motivations. Similarly, participatory evalu-
ation of CBR programme in India which was carried out by Dalal et al. (2001)
also lists many reasons why CBR projects run into difficulties. They point out that
for these programmes, communities’ support was nominal as CBR NGOs were
seen as mere service providers and the communities were not willing to take the
responsibility of rehabilitation.

4.1 Protection of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2011

Since the prevailing laws have not yielded the desired results for which they were
introduced, the Protection of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill (2011) has
been framed. This bill is under review, and various agencies are working on the
drafts to introduce a powerful rights–based law.
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 183

The Protection of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill (2011) asserts that
“India has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(UNCRPD) and has undertaken the obligation to ensure and promote the full
realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all Persons with
Disabilities without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability” (p. 5 of
the Protection of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2011). The bill is aimed
to guarantee equality and non-discrimination to all persons with disabilities, and it
recognizes discriminations faced by women and children with disabilities and peo-
ple with severe disabilities. It also aims to establish National and State Disability
Rights Authorities, which may facilitate the formulation of disability policy and
law with active participation of persons with disabilities.
The bill asserts that people with disabilities have a right to dignity and respect
with full participation and inclusion; to live a life free of shame, ridicule or any
form of disempowerment and stereotyping. The bill specifically provides for all
possible rights needed to lead a dignified life. What makes it different from the
existing laws is that it also defines an action plan for awareness raising, acces-
sibility, human resource development, establishment of disability cells and effec-
tive disability audit. The bill also includes within its scope learning disabilities
and other similar impairments. It offers a rare opportunity to psychologist to
effectively intervene and demonstrate that incorporating psychological knowledge
can bring a quality change in the bill. In what ways psychological knowledge can
inform the bill is discussed below.

5 Creating Space for Psychology in Disability Discourse

and Interventions

In order that any knowledge can be put into effective use, it is required that it
unambiguously connects with problems and issues of contemporary social rel-
evance. The path from psychological knowledge to influencing social policies is
seldom straight forward. To inform social policies, it is required that psychologists
reposition their discipline in a way that answers emanating from their researches
may feed into policy planning, smoothly without any unnecessary intermediar-
ies. Having said that, let us evaluate and assess in what ways and at what stages
psychology can inform disability policy planning and interventions.
The interface of psychology and disability policies can be created at two levels.
The first level is when the policies are being framed. It is important that a certain
degree of preparedness of a community must be in place before any programme
for change is launched. Here, psychological knowledge can be of immense use.
The second level is that of actual intervention, where psychological skills related
to process documentation can be put to use for programme monitoring and course
correction. Psychological knowledge can also enhance learning ­capabilities
of a community so that the community may work autonomously and sustain a
­programme even after it is formally withdrawn.
184 N. Pande and S. Tewari

5.1 Building Communities’ Preparedness

In order to build communities’ preparedness to receive a disability intervention

programme, psychology can help in taking the following steps.

5.1.1 Modifying Negative Attitudes

Psychological research on attitude towards physical disability presents a very

robust finding that in general, peoples’ attitudes towards the disabled are extremely
negative. This finding has been totally ignored while formulating policy for
intervention in this area. How can community accept and execute any policy for
change when its attitude towards disability itself is so negative? On the contrary,
any change initiative can make the community even more hostile because it might
perceive the disabled as “undesirable beneficiaries”.
In particular, psychological research literature on attitude and attitude change
can inform the policy planning in developing attitude-related action modules in the
following ways.
1. Developing indicators of positive attitude: A module within the policy can
ascertain what is meant by positive attitude. In case of physical disability,
what is understood as positive attitude differs for people with and without
disabilities. While persons without disabilities may understand as being nice
and helpful to the disabled as positive attitude, persons with disabilities may
take offence to this because for them it means dispensing with the category
of disability altogether (Makas et al. 1988). In order to bring about a positive
change in the stigmatized image of disability, it is necessary that aspects of
culture are considered and brought to the fore.
2. Raising contact between person with disability and the community: Allport
(1954) in his classic work, The nature of prejudice, advanced the contact hypoth-
esis for bringing about attitude change. Creating situations where contact between
the disabled and the community is likely to increase can lead to some shift in the
nature of attitude. Hewstone (2003) has outlined five key conditions under which
persons with disability and the community should be brought together. The con-
tact between the two groups should take place under condition of equal status; in
situations where stereotypes are likely to be disproved; where intergroup coop-
eration is required; where participants can get to know each other properly; and
where wider social norms support equality. Contact on equal terms can also be
achieved through training, as effects of such training are sustained over time
(Massie 2006).
3. Disability Awareness, Training and Education: Psychological researches have
demonstrated that negative attitudes towards disability are deep rooted in the
cultural and social beliefs of the community and are consequences of unfa-
miliarity with disability.
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 185

Recently, Lindsay and Edwards (2012) have emphasized the key role of
disability awareness interventions to improve children’s knowledge about
and attitudes towards peers with disability through social contact, simulation
and development of curriculum. In order to dispel myths about what disability
stands for and what the disabled can or cannot do, disability awareness training
and education can bring about a significant change in attitude at school level.
Selected teachers can be trained for disability awareness who can then ensure
that disabled children get integrated and learn in the same way as their peers.
Once disability-related policy commits itself to promoting integration of the dis-
abled in schools, appropriate training modules can be developed. Research has
shown that family shoulders major responsibility of looking after the disabled.
Ironically, it is the family that considers its disabled member as someone who is
doomed to remain dependent on others. As has been rightly suggested by Ghai
(2010) for the disabled people, the real world offers a crash course in coming
to term with harsh realities, but there is no training to people in the family and
community as to how to relate to the disabled in a way that they do not feel as
being discriminated against and are allowed to lead a normal life. Therefore, an
awareness training and sensitizing families and communities towards disability-
related issues must become an important aspect of disability policy planning and
implementation.

5.1.2 Community’s Asset Mapping

Community’s asset mapping is an activity which can reveal important assets

a given community may already have. Generally, it happens that if the strength
and resources of a community go unrecognized, dependence for help from out-
side agencies increases. These assets can provide resources which can be utilized
for rehabilitation and integration of the disabled in community’s mainstream.
This, in turn, may increase a community’s readiness to receive a change initiative.
It involves documenting the tangible and intangible resources of the community.
Assets may be persons, physical structures, natural resources, institutions, vol-
unteers’ motivations and informal organizations. It involves that kind of citizen
engagements where communities focus on their strength and resources rather than
on their problems and deficiencies. Once resources and strengths are inventoried,
one can depend upon the community to take up the task of rehabilitation of the
disabled. Asset mapping is an expertise which social sciences (including psychol-
ogy) can provide to policy planners. It also requires creating an asset map that can
visually present the strength of any given community. The literature on the sub-
ject suggests that there can be three approaches to asset mapping. The whole asset
approach takes into consideration all those assets which are part of people’s views
of their immediate community, storytelling approach that can produce social his-
tory that may reveal dormant assets and the heritage approach that produces pic-
tures of those physical features, natural or built, that make community a special
place (Guy et al. 2002).
186 N. Pande and S. Tewari

5.2 Process Documentation

Process documentation is an expertise that can be provided by social scientists,

while any change initiative is under progress. Sometimes it so happens that the
aims and objectives with which disability intervention programme begins with get
lost in the real-time activities. Process documentation, therefore, helps in aligning
the programme back to its aims and objectives. It is, in a way, an exercise in reflec-
tion that provides concurrent insights. It also helps in modifying the aims and
objectives depending upon field experiences of programmes initiators. The meth-
ods that process documentation requires are the same that are taught and discussed
in psychology classrooms. Some of these methods are structured interviews, case
studies, field diaries, participant observation etc. Process documentation is more
than a simple evaluation strategy. It is an exercise in gathering data from continu-
ous reflections, analysis and examining the appropriateness of strategies during
the process of intervention. It is imperative that process documentation is made to
understand how disability policies are implemented at the ground levels.

5.3 Creating Learning Communities

No-intervention programme can sustain itself unless the community’s response

comes from within. Therefore, the most difficult stage of any intervention pro-
gramme is when outside agency withdraws after ensuring that the community can
and will sustain the services, independently. Most governmental programmes have
been found to lose steam sooner or later. In this context, the concept of learning
communities is being proposed, a concept which seems to have tremendous import
for sustaining disability intervention programmes.
Learning communities are those where people learn how to learn together
about important issues in order to start their own journey towards autonomy and
self-reliance and discover their capabilities to create results that they so desper-
ately desire. To the extent that the concept of a learning community is still strug-
gling to free itself from idealizing “what a community ought to be”, it is a dream,
but at the same time, the extent to which it has been able to enter the realm of
what possibly can be and is not (Lele 1995), it merits serious engagements of the
policy planners and change agents. Learning communities are not things out there
waiting to be discovered. The term is a linguistic expression which stands for a
process that is set into motion for creating communities which are willing to work
from within and thrive by creating a world of increasing interdependence and
togetherness.
Without entering into debate about how many different meanings the term com-
munity might evoke or decide whether a community is given or gets created (Lele
1995), we would like to restrict the term to a group of persons who share geo-
graphically marked territory, who interact for a period of time that is long enough
9  Psychology and Physical Disability Policies 187

to form a set of habit and conventions and who depend on each other for fulfilment
of certain goals. Learning, on the other hand, is a feature of being alive as we learn
everyday. Learning community, therefore, is a social entity contrived to support
each other in the process of acquiring knowledge and skills where everyone expects
to learn. It appears to be a generic term; therefore, no single design is applicable
in all circumstances. Every such community will have its own design and its own
agenda, depending upon the problems it faces or resources it has or can create.
Very often, communities are either seen as prepared or else instructed to
prepare themselves for shouldering the rehabilitation tasks. We suggest that creat-
ing learning communities is also a means of creating this very state of readiness.
It is about building shared meanings and insights for meaningful collective
actions. It is about opening up of opportunities and choices from within. For indi-
viduals to create learning communities, a sense of personal mastery, building
shared visions, team building and systems thinking (Senge 1990) is essential pre-
requisites. We visualize that programme initiators would slowly and gently create
“community identity” by connecting past, present and future of a community’s life
and encourage the members to paint a wholesome picture of their community by
simple exercises in storytelling and visioning in which the disabled people will be
able to play meaningful roles.
It has been very aptly pointed out by Miles (2002) that disabled persons have
lived their lives and have learnt to cope with the state of disablement before any
CBR and will continue to do so even after such programmes fizzle out. What is
important to realize is that such knowledge needs to be brought to the fore, col-
lated and communicated to inform policy planning. Contrary to this, what is gen-
erally done by most rehabilitation initiatives is to spew forth knowledge about
disability and information about technique for meeting disablement that rarely,
if ever, moderates the recipients’ inclinations to think or act differently. A learn-
ing community can engage in creating a corpus of social memory recalling how
in the past, disabled persons and their families confronted problems associated
with their conditions without any expert help and assistance. Such storytelling
can produce valuable pieces of social history that may reveal hidden insights and
dormant assets which may get aligned to rehabilitation. Besides achieving all
these, the process of storytelling within a learning community can foster a sense
of “we-ness” which is of utmost importance in initiating the community towards
meeting challenges of organizing a purposeful and sustained action towards
rehabilitation. In this case, the community is not learning knowledge, skills and
techniques imported from outside but rather learning to discover itself and put its
learning to better use.
While walking down the memory lane to reclaim native expertise of people in
handling disability without formal training and assessing opportunities lying in
present, a learning community may also envision the possibility of realizing its
hopes and aspirations in future. It may have to learn to visualize and connect the
present with the future through forging interactions. Positive visualizations are not
day dreams: they are, in fact, attempts at bringing closer that which is at a dis-
tance and is yet to be achieved. It is about nurturing a goal imagery. We believe
188 N. Pande and S. Tewari

that positive visualization has tremendous value for learning because as one learns
about one’s images, one learns about oneself. In concrete terms, a learning com-
munity can engage in visioning because unlike problem solving which is a process
to move away from something, a vision is a process to move towards, with pas-
sion. To envision, a learning community may dwell on questions such as “what
would my community be like if I get a chance to make it any way I want” or “how
would I like my community to respond to members who so far have remained on
the margins?” or else people can be asked to visualize moving hundreds of miles
from their current community and then revisiting after say twenty years and as
they wander what changes they are likely to notice. The discrepancies between
the participant members’ visions can be looked into, and a shared vision can be
evolved. This may sound somewhat far-fetched at this moment, but it is an experi-
ment which modern organizations have put to use with a great deal of success.
To conclude, psychology may not have directly influenced policy making on
disability so far, but it has meaningful concepts, research findings and interven-
tion plans to offer that can be of great value not only in policy formulation for the
disabled but also in policy implementation. What is required is that policy makers
should be made aware of psychological researches on disability issues, and psy-
chologists should cast their research in a way that better informs the process of
policy planning, implementation and evaluation.

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Chapter 10
Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices
for Health Care Programmes in India

Ajit K. Dalal

In the long history of mankind, all societies have evolved their indigenous health
care practices to deal with the challenges of mental and physical illnesses. These
indigenous health practices are mostly compatible with the social beliefs, values and
expectations shared by the people in a particular culture. In traditional societies, such
health practices have survived over the ages and are widely valued in present times as
well. There are a large number of socioreligious institutions in these societies which
support, sustain and promote these health care practices. In the long history, these
health care practices have gone through major changes, transmutations and distor-
tions. But the fact remains that despite the great strides made by the modern medi-
cines in the present times, popularity of these indigenous health care practices has not
declined. People from all sections of the society engage in these practices for their
varied health problems in indigenous societies. Our knowledge of associated healers
and holy places is still very rudimentary, wrapped in suspicion, mistrust and igno-
rance. These are considered to be the remnants of the pre-scientific era and looked
down upon by the rationalists and the medical fraternity. It is only in recent times that
there has been a resurgence of interest in our own heritage, as many scientific studies
have attempted to unravel the way these indigenous healing practices are effective.
In India, as in many other developing countries, there is a wide variety of indige-
nous healing practices which have been in existence for centuries. Depending on spe-
cific faith and beliefs and availability, patients seek these different modes of treatment.
The whole range of alternative healing systems includes herbal treatment, tantric meth-
ods,1 naturopathy, shamanic therapies, acupressure, homeopathy, yogic practices and
Ayurvedic treatment. A listing of such indigenous practices can never be exhaustive.

1 An ancient Indian school of thought and practice that involves systematically bringing about

changes in oneself and one’s body.

A. K. Dalal (*) 
Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 193
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_10, © Springer India 2014
194 A. K. Dalal

Given India’s diversity and rich cultural heritage, we are still fumbling to fathom the
salience and contribution of these healing practices in managing health care at the local
level. In fact, a lot of their contribution in health sector goes unnoticed. The thrust of
this chapter is that there is a need to acknowledge and integrate this rich indigenous
knowledge and practices into India’s national health schemes. It is hoped that such an
endeavor would augment reach and efficacy of public health care programmes in India.

1 Indigenous Healing Practices

India is a country of a wide variety of healers and healing institutions. The Planning
Commission document (1992) stated that there are about half million traditional
healers in India. By traditional healers, the Planning Commission primarily referred
to the practitioners of alternative medicines (AMs)—Ayurvedic, Unani,2 homeopa-
thy, herbal and other similar practitioners. If we add to this the shamans, swamis,
mystics, gurus, tantric, faith healers, etc., who are engaged in dealing with health
problems, the number may swell to a few millions. There are healing centers, be the
temples, mosques, local deities or shrines are found in all the nooks and corners of
the country. Both in villages and in cities, these centers have proliferated and are
thronged for treatment and solace by people of all castes, creeds and socioeconomic
backgrounds. The fact is that about 90 % of the population resort to one or the other
healing practices, cutting across all cross-sections of society—educated or unedu-
cated; rich or poor; men or women. Nanda (2009) has presented this evidence in her
book, The God Market, that for 30 % of the population faith in divine, and spiritual-
ity, on the whole, has increased in the last 5 years. She has further reported that there
are about 2.5 lakh places of worship in India, a large number of which double up as
healing centers. The range and the variety of healing centers is amazing, dealing
with all kinds of physical and mental health problems. Whereas modern medicine
and hospitals are promoted and financed by the government, indigenous healing
centers have thrived on popular support.
The term “healing” means more than recovery from illness; more than alle-
viation of physical pain. It also refers to relief from stress, anxiety, fear, guilt,
loneliness and depression. Healing is a holistic term which implies a state of psy-
chophysical wellbeing. Unlike modern medicine, healing primarily focuses on the
people who suffer, not on the problem they suffer from. The scientific community
and modern medicine are often critical and skeptical of the efficacy of such heal-
ing practices. Science rejects the supernatural. Indigenous healers are often alleged
to be quacks, cheats who engage in dubious activities. Consequently, belief in such
practices is attributed to ignorance, illiteracy and superstition. Despite all these
allegations, there is a proliferation of healing practices which cover the whole
range from AM to yoga therapy to faith healing.

2  Medical science derived from Greek thought and practices that have been adapted to Indian
conditions. The main emphasis is on balanced chemical composition of the body and the lifestyle
which keeps this balance.
10  Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health Care Programmes in India 195

One of the reasons for an unremitting popularity of healers and healing institu-
tions is that they subscribe to a worldview which resonates with that of their visitors.
People have a need and necessity to make sense of the symptoms of diseases they
suffer from. This is important for them to help them decide about the further course
of action and treatment. What people believe in is reinforced or modified, depending
on how consistent it is with the existing social beliefs and their usefulness in arriv-
ing at a convincing and coherent view of their health crisis (Dalal 2010). People seek
this understanding to deal with the threatening aspects of their illness. It should be

beliefs and folk practices. Āyurveda is a fine example of this. The healing properties
noted that indigenous therapies generally combine medicinal treatment with cultural

of many Ayurvedic medicines are well acknowledged in the pharmaceutical research

and so is the remedial efficacy of many herbal prescriptions. What is worth noting
is that these indigenous medicinal treatments are rooted in the faith and beliefs of
the local communities. The plausible explanations for the ailments focus not only on
the bodily conditions but also on the mental state of the patient and a shared belief
system. Many socio-spiritual beliefs, rituals and practices create the necessary con-
ditions for fostering a positive mental state of hope, optimism and initiative. They
serve as important inner resources to combat illness and other related adversities and
thereby enhance the efficacy of indigenous medicine (Kleinman 1980).
A large number of these healing practices subscribe to sacred, mystical ritu-
als to invoke good spirits, ancestors and deities. These are presumed to ward off
evil spirits which may be considered to be the cause of health problems. It is
not relevant to debate here whether spirits exist or not. What is important is that
faith and beliefs create conducive mental state to facilitate bodily recovery of
patients. There is now a substantial body of research evidence to argue that what
we consider as ignorance and superstitions are, in fact, significant psychological
resources for patients. Research substantiates that faith cures.
All indigenous therapies accept the unity of the mind and the body. The mind and
body are presumed to be intertwined in a close symbiotic relationship. The healers
know intuitively that mental afflictions are the cause of many physical health prob-
lems. Thus, it is important for a healer to know what meaning people derive of their
illness, its symptoms and causality. It is commonly held in indigenous healing that
physical and mental health problems may be the outcome of economic, social and
moral crises a person is undergoing; and that merely medicinal treatment will not
bring the person back to a sound state of health. This is why people go to the same
healer for their health problems, as well as for other wide-ranging problems they
face in their personal lives, including those of business loss or marital discord (Kakar
1982). This holistic view of health is deeply embedded in the indigenous belief sys-
tem and health practices of the Indian society and has been corroborated by many
western studies also. O’Hara (2000), for example, concluded on the basis of an
extensive review that psychotherapies are effective only when they are compatible
with the value system of the society. Anthropological evidence suggests that beliefs
and expectations contribute to sickness and death but, just as importantly, beliefs and
expectations also heal (Hahn & Kleinman 1987). Research has now begun to focus
on those nonmedical factors which help people resist illness and live longer.
196 A. K. Dalal

Indigenous health beliefs in India are characterized by hope and ­positivism.

This positivism is evident in the way people construe the meaning of their health
and wellbeing and deal with illness incidences. Religious beliefs play an impor-
tant role in deriving positive meaning from experiences of pain and suffering and
in healing interventions. Belief in the theory of karma seems to facilitate accept-
ance of tragic life events and retaining hope that things will improve if people
engage in positive deeds. These adversities are considered to be learning and
growth experiences, in the same manner as gold is known to get its glitter by
going through fire.
An important aspect of these indigenous healing practices is that they are both
sacred and secular. It is a common sight to see that shrines, mazars3 and other holy
places are frequented by people of all faiths and religions. These healing places
thrive on their secular credentials and actually promote social harmony and inte-
gration. These centers have their history, and there are legends and myths associ-
ated with them which reinforce the faith of the visitors in their healing efficacy
(Kakar 2003; Khare 1996).
A disease is a social event in indigenous societies. It affects not only the person
but also the family and the community, and all others associated with that person.
All of them are likewise stakeholders and have a role in bringing the person back
to better health. A major illness uproots a person from his/her social moorings,
creating confusion, uncertainty and disorientation. The sick person is vulnerable
and in need of social and emotional support. Chronic illnesses redefine one’s posi-
tion and role in the family and community. What people believe about their health
and illness plays an important function of reconnecting them within their social
fold and in retaining a sense of belonging. In general, indigenous health beliefs
encompass ways to deal with health and sickness in the community. There are
beliefs about sick-role behaviour, about healers and their efficacy, and about pre-
vention and protection from diseases in the community.

2 Modern Medicine

On the contrary, the modern medicine explains illness in terms of some bodily
malfunctioning, neuro-chemical imbalance or mental deficiencies. The modern
medicine is based on the premise of mind–body dualism, in which psychological
and social processes are considered independent of the disease process. The emo-
tional state of the patient is ignored as efforts are primarily focused on physical
symptoms and their alleviation.
Clearly, the proponents of modern medicine seem to be more interested
in the disease than the patient. As Siegel (1986, p. 2) observed “… (medical)

3  Placeof worship where the seekers pray and sing for divine assistance generally associated
with Sufi saints and their traditions.
10  Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health Care Programmes in India 197

practitioners still act as though disease catches people, rather than understand-
ing that people catch disease by becoming susceptible to the seeds of illness to
which we are constantly exposed”. Thus, when the curative aspect is taken up,
the emphasis is on the nature of disease, its various symptoms and on the ways to
mitigate them. In this process, the patient is merely a recipient of certain medica-
tion; quite often taking no cognizance of the psychological state of the patient, nor
does it envisage any role for patients and their support group in deciding about the
course of treatment. The interest in the patient as a person is just incidental.
Historically, modern medicine is a by-product of significant discoveries made
in biological sciences in nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The discoveries of
microbes, viruses and bacteria significantly changed our thinking about diseases
and their treatment. The medical theory of disease grew around the conviction
that most diseases are caused by invaders from the outside, “micro-organisms or
germs”. The discovery of antibiotics in the 1930s and 1940s gave impetus to mod-
ern medicine; the “miracle drugs” seized public imagination. There were great
hopes that medical science would eventually discover an effective drug therapy to
eradicate every known disease, that there will be “a pill for every ill”. This belief
was so strong that even emotional and mental disorders were treated with various
drugs, ignoring their psychological basis.
Modern medicine has not fulfilled the expectations as far as reaching out the
general population is concerned. Adherence to this model has helped in reduc-
ing mortality and enhancing life expectancy, though at the cost of poor quality of
physical health, with an increasingly large population suffering from chronic dis-
eases. As Lown (2007) has observed,
At a time when doctors are performing the near miracles, the profession’s reputation is
increasingly discredited. More and more, patients complain about not being listened to
and being abandoned. As medicine has conquered acute illness, it increasingly fails in
coping with the growing toll of chronic disease—arthritis, cardiovascular ailments, cancer,
diabetes, pulmonary impairments and neurological derangements. Lacking a cure, these
illnesses require the art of healing for which the contemporary physician is poorly trained
(p. 12).

Medical model breaks down when it comes to preventive health care, where
there are no cooperative-captive patients; where people are under no compulsion
to comply with health procedures. People may not even pay heed when told about
the adverse health consequences of their certain habits, like smoking. There may
be differences in the phenomenological meanings of illness and health. In brief,
unless people are willing to cooperate, no preventive health care is possible.
The health care system based on biomedical model is incompatible with the
existing social, religious, political and economic institutions. Patient’s own inter-
pretation of the disease and its causes is much influences by the culture to which
he or she belongs. Patient’s own initiatives to recover are not given much cogni-
zance in planning treatment course. Rather patient is treated as a passive recipient
of the prescribed treatment regimen. The focus of the health schemes is thus on
providing better health facilities rather than involving patients toward a common
goal of dealing with the disease.
198 A. K. Dalal

3 Meaning of Health in the Indian Context

Health is not merely a state of being. It is a process of striving and behaving which
helps gaining stability through persistent effort and maintain equilibrium in the
midst of continuous change. One’s nature and circumstances are crucial in this
journey and only through a creative process of self renovation and seeking har-
mony that one may move forward on this unending path of self discovery.
The Indian perspective informs that health is a distributed phenomenon linked
with harmonious operation of man-environment unit. This inclusive view recog-
nizes the continuity of the body and the universe. The continuity of microcosm
and macrocosm and sharing in terms of five basic elements (pancha mahabhutas)
demands a new vision to approach health in an inclusive manner. The intercon-
nectedness and complementarity inherent in nature is the key to unlock the princi-
ples of health and wellbeing. Thus, appropriate conduct (samyakachara) can only
solve the problem. This includes a regulated lifestyle covering thoughts, actions

As Kakar (1982) has stated, Āyurveda is a principal architect of the Indian

and food (vichar, achar and aahar).

concepts of person and the body. For Āyurveda, spirit and matter, soul and body,
although different, are not alien, insofar as they can be brought together in a
healthy relationship with consequences that are mutually beneficial. Its prime con-
cern is not with “healing” in the narrow sense of curing illness, but in the broader

According to Āyurveda, any disturbance, physical or mental, manifests itself

sense of promoting health and wellbeing and prolonging life.

of the vitiation of the “humors”. Āyurvedic therapy aims at correcting the doshas
both in the somatic and in the psychic spheres, through the intermediary process

or the imbalances and derangements of the bodily humors (namely, vāta or bodily
air, pitta or bile, and kapha or phlegm) and restoring equilibrium. It does so by
coordinating all material, mental and spiritual resources of the person, recognizing
that the essence of these potencies are manifestations of cosmic forces. Medical
intervention at the physical level is of four types: diet, activity, purification and
palliation (Svoboda 1995). In essence, the maintenance of equilibrium is health
and, conversely, the disturbance of the equilibrium of tissue elements characterizes

Though Āyurveda is the most prominent and popular alternative system of medi-
the state of disease.

cine in India, there are many other indigenous systems which are practiced. Some
such systems, as mentioned earlier, are Unani, homeopathy, naturopathy, herbal.
These alternative systems of medicine differ from biomedical medicine in many
important ways. AM greatly relies on healing powers of nature. It assumes that all of
us have natural ability to heal ourselves. For example, a hakim4 practising the Unani
system will instead of using antibiotics to suppress the infection would medicate to
improve immune system of the patient. Such medication would bolster and allow
body’s natural healing mechanism to take over. Second, AMs are patient-centered

4  This generally refers to a wise man who has knowledge of medicine and practises it.
10  Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health Care Programmes in India 199

rather than physician or profession-centered. They take into consideration patient’s

beliefs and personality in the treatment decision making. They treat patient as a person
rather than as a body which medical treatment does. Third, AM generally resort to
holistic treatment, taking into consideration, mental, social and moral conditions of the
person. AM treats the whole person, not just her/his physical condition. Fourth, many
of these AMs use natural substances, such as herbs, nutritional supplements, botanical
plants, for the treatment, not synthesized medicines or concentrates. Fifth, AMs more
often deals with prevention and improvement of health, rather than merely on treat-
ment of the diseases. It takes into consideration other factors, such as patient care, diet
and anxieties while dealing with the patients. Lastly, AM practitioner involves family
and community in the treatment procedure. Disease is considered to be a social event
rather that an individual’s pathology. Consequently, family and community are
actively engaged in the treatment procedure.

4 A Comprehensive Model of Health and Wellbeing

Keeping in view that health and wellbeing are wider concerns of all human beings
in which many social, political and spiritual institutions are formally or informally
engaged, a rather more comprehensive view of health is desirable. Such a compre-
hensive view is not only an ideal to be achieved but should also serve as a guide
for policy planning and resource allocation in the area of health. This model takes
health in a much larger perspective, taking into consideration the WHO vision
of health and wellbeing. The proposed model (Dalal & Misra 2006) includes the
whole gamut of psychological conditions which are linked with health, as causes,
concomitants and consequences of the quality of health.
This model takes into consideration three main domains of health: restoration,
maintenance and growth. The first domain relates to illness condition where the
primary focus is on bringing the person back from the state of illness (incongruity/
disjunction) to the state of health or reestablishing the congruence and conjunc-
tion. Here, health practically implies the process of recovery from the disease.
Thus, it involves curative and healing interventions that can free the patient from
the bodily suffering and pain. Patients, health practitioners, caregivers and hos-
pitals are immediately concerned with this domain. Disability rehabilitation also
falls within it (Fig. 1).
The second domain of health is that of maintenance, which rarely catches atten-
tion of the masses and health professionals. The major concern in this domain is to
engage in the activities to maintain good health and protect oneself from diseases
and disabilities. Health is not static or fixed. It is a dynamic process and one’s pre-
sent health status never guarantees that it will remain the same in future. People
who primarily belong to this domain are caretakers of their own health. They
are sometimes motivated to act proactively to enhance their immunity or power
of resistance to diseases, resilience, physical and mental vitality and active par-
ticipation in family and communal lives. In other words, this domain involves the
200 A. K. Dalal

Fig. 1  Domains of health: restoration, maintenance and growth

personal as well as social or relational space. On the one hand, the person has to
perform exercise, yoga, work and take proper diet, and on the other hand, he or
she has to be active in continuing and nourishing the social relations with family,
co-workers and environment.
The third domain of health is growth-related, where the concern is to improve the
quality of health and wellbeing. It can also be referred as psycho-spiritual health.
In this domain, health is seen from a much wider perspective in which it encom-
passes the total existence (physical, social and spiritual) of a person. The awareness
or consciousness of a person is to be established in both the physical as well as moral
or ethical spaces. The person strives to achieve a level of functioning that ensures
personal efficiency to further interpersonal harmony with others. The blossoming of
inherent potential takes place, and with energy, creativity and efficiency, the person
maintains equilibrium. The journey with restoration from disease moves toward the
state of self realization, equanimity and calmness leading to the state of bliss.
There is, in fact, a great deal of overlap and permeability in these three domains
of health, though they are hierarchically organized. The salience of these domains
in one’s life space keeps on shifting (shrinking or expanding). The relative space
occupied by the growth domain would determine the quality of physical and men-
tal health one has. Second, the antecedents and consequents are linearly arrayed in
the case of restorative health, where the main interest is in identifying the factors
which cause the disease and lead to recovery.
10  Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health Care Programmes in India 201

As posited, in the maintenance domain, the causality is bidirectional. In that,

emotions, beliefs, expectations play a balancing role and are both the causes and the
consequences. In the growth domain, an individual can create and control these psy-
chological factors so as to deploy them for performing efficiently. Third, the interac-
tion of mind, body and self is a crucial condition in all the three domains. However,
whereas in the restoration domain, the emphasis is more on the mental states affect-
ing the body condition; in the maintenance domain, it is the harmonious relation
between the two which is of prime importance; in the growth domain, the focus is on
psychological factors and a harmonious relation among mind–body–soul (self).

5 Health Care Scenario in India

India’s present health care planning is primarily based on the medical model. Medical
and mental health care practices are cast in western theories and therapeutic practices.
Medical model has dictated health care planning, policies and programmes, even are
the independence of India. About 97.3 % of India’s health care budget is allocated to
modern medicine, in the rest all other alternative system of medicine are covered.
One must view India’s health care scenario keeping in mind the fact that India’s
42 % of the population (456 million people) lives below the revised poverty line
(income below $1.25 a day) (The World Bank 2008). A majority of this popula-
tion lives in rural areas where medical care is scarce and inaccessible. With limited
men and monetary resources and crumbling infrastructure, it seems impossible for
the government to provide even minimum health care to all citizens of the country.
The health care scenario for the common men is dismal. The India Health
Report, released by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in 2010 has pointed
out that there is a critical gap in the need and availability of infrastructure in terms
of sheer health care sub-centers and trained staff even if the quality is not consid-
ered. This inadequate access to quality health care is particularly deleterious for the
poor, lower caste, rural people and women. According to the report, about 7–8 %
of households are pushed below the poverty line every year because of expenses
incurred on health care. National data reveal that 50 % of the bottom quintile sold
assets or took loans to access private hospital care. In fact, nationwide survey of
medical expenditure conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic
Research revealed that, among the poor, expenditure incurred to meet the medi-
cal needs is the second most important cause of rural indebtedness after daugh-
ter’s marriage (Banerji 2003). Another study showed that in India, 80 % of the
health care expenses are borne by the users, 90 % of which are by the poor people
(Krishnakumar 2004). This scenario is corroborated by many recent health surveys.
An extensive primary health care infrastructure is inadequate in terms of coverage
of the population, especially in rural areas, and grossly underutilized because of the
dismal quality of health care (Bajpayee & Goyal 2004).
Over the decades, a major shift in the health care is toward privatization. The
India Health Report (CII 2010) states that the contribution of the private sector in
202 A. K. Dalal

terms of the availability of hospital beds has gradually increased from about 28 %
in 1973 to about 61 % in 1996. The Report estimates this number should be 78 %
in 2009. Health is increasingly reduced to an industry than a service sector. Health
care profession is in deep trouble in India. A public service has been transformed
into a for-profit enterprise in which physicians are “health care providers” serving
the interest of big corporate and patients are reduced to consumers. A service sec-
tor that it was, medicine is now converted into a business with de-professionalized
doctors and far worse, depersonalize patients. This radical change about in medi-
cine in past 25–30 years has transformed a healing profession increasingly into
an industry run by technicians. The health care scene is dotted by super specialty,
cutting edge technology and tertiary care, where the patients are simply reduced to
consumers. We forget the basic fact that a sick and suffering patient lacks bargain-
ing power and cannot be a market savvy customer.

6 Doctor-Patient Communication

Doctor-patient communication is an important aspect of patient’s recovery from a

disease. Quite often medical practitioners learn from their personal experiences that
diagnosis would be more accurate and treatment would be more beneficial if patient’s
socioeconomic background, beliefs, needs and anxieties are taken into consideration,
along with the biological status. Nevertheless, it is presumed that the patient would
be receptive, willing to supply all necessary information and conform to the treat-
ment regimen. This may be so, in the case of hospitalized patients. In cases of chronic
diseases particularly, patients and their families do not always accept the passive role
and frequently engage in “secret forms of curing” depending on their appraisal of the
disease and its course (Engel 1977). This is universally true, more so in the case of
traditional societies. It is thus important to view doctor-patient communication in the
Indian context, particularly in the context of biomedical treatment.
In the crowded Indian hospitals where the ratio of doctor to patients is dis-
mally high, no ideal of doctor-patient communication can be achieved. Due to the
acute shortage of medical doctors in the government hospitals, there are always
unending stream of patients which a doctor has to attend. The doctor cannot spare
much time for the individual patients, and as a consequence, the communication
is largely confined to patient symptoms and writing medical prescription for some
diagnostic tests or medication. The doctor has no time to hear about the patient’s
problems, and as a consequence, patients by and large are dissatisfied with their
communication with the doctor.
In India, medical doctors and patients come from a different socioeconomic back-
ground. Doctors are mostly from higher castes and from economically well-off back-
ground, who can afford expensive medical education. The few who come from lower
castes are those whose families have already moved upward economically. On the
contrary, most of the patients in government dispensaries are those who belong to
lower strata of the society. More than 86 % of the patients in India are poor and
10  Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health Care Programmes in India 203

cannot afford expensive treatment in private hospitals and specialty centers. They get
raw deal as treatment facilities at primary health centers are almost nonexistent.
Doctors and patients in India not only belong to different social class but also
have different interpretation of the disease, particularly about its causality. Doctors
trained in biomedicine often explain diseases in term of viruses and bacteria, defi-
ciency of necessary chemicals and bodily malfunctioning. Dealing with these
aspects then becomes the major goal of any treatment. On the contrary, Indian
patients often subscribe to nonmedical causation, such as God’s will, karma, spirits,
fate, for their health problem (Dalal & Misra 2006). Bodily conditions are consid-
ered to be secondary causes of their health problems. This variation in the causal
beliefs of doctors and patients lead to different course of treatment. As Joshi (1988)
found in his study in Himalayan region that patients seek medical treatment for the
secondary (bodily) causes of the problems, whereas for primary causes they visit
indigenous healers.

7 Early Effort Toward Integrated Approaches in Health

Care

To understand the real challenge of integration of diverse in systems, let us briefly

review genesis of the issue. In 1938, largely as a result of the freedom struggle
and emphasis on swadeshi (of one’s own land), the National Planning Committee

ers of Āyurveda and Unani systems into the formal health set up of independent
(NPC) set up by the Indian National Congress took a decision to absorb practition-

India. In 1946, the Health Minister’s Conference adopted the NPC proposals and
resolved to make appropriate financial allocations for:
1. research, based on the application of scientific methods, in Āyurveda and Unani;
2. establishment of colleges and schools for training in diploma degree courses in
indigenous systems;
3. establishment of postgraduate courses in Indian medicine;
4. absorption of vaids and hakims (practitioners of other systems) as doctors,
health workers, etc.; and
5. inclusion of departments and practitioners of Indian medicine on national health
committees.
As a result of the conference resolutions, the government set up the Chopra
Committee in 1948 on the Indigenous Systems of Medicine (ISM) to work out
guidelines for the implementation of the above proposals. The Chopra Committee
eventually came out in support of a synthesis of the Indian and western systems
through integrated teaching and research. It recommended that the curriculum
be designed to strengthen and supplement one system with the other, with each

removing useless accretions to Āyurveda and making it intelligible to modern

making up for the other’s deficiencies, while research should be concentrated on

minds since a large portion of the texts were in Sanskrit. The ultimate objective
204 A. K. Dalal

of the research ought to be a synthesis of Indian and western medicine which was
suited to Indian conditions.
The Chopra Committee was followed by the Dave Committee which went into
the issue of establishing standards in respect of education and regulation of prac-
tice in ISM. The Committee recommended an integrated course of teaching and

both modern medicine and Āyurveda. In other states, however, pure Āyurveda
some states in the Indian Union in fact started integrated colleges which taught

colleges were also established. Indeed, the political and market forces were not
favorable for any integrated approach. The medical practitioners who dominated
health care services were not ready to dilute their education and practices to
accommodate indigenous practices.
As a consequence, the support for integrated medical colleges declined while pres-

Āyurveda generally pointed to the popularity of indigenous practitioners due to higher

sure for pure Ayurvedic colleges increased. Ayurvedic practitioners and supporters of

cost of integrated colleges due to the expensive equipment required to teach western
medicine; the tendency to spend too much time on teaching medicine; the unavailabil-
ity of graduates trained in indigenous medicine and inherent incompatibility of modern
and traditional systems became major bottlenecks in their integration and developing a

and training for Āyurveda, homeopathy and Unani system gained political support in
common training programme. Eventually, the supporters of a pure system of education

the country’s political circles. This led to the formation of several independent councils
for looking after the research, development, training and regulatory aspects relating to
ISM. However, if we look in terms of funding support, ISM always got ridiculously
low funding out of the total health allocation. In the First Five-Year Plan (1952–1957),
the total allocation for ISM was about one percentage of the total health budget.

8 Integrating Indigenous Practices into Health Care

Programmes

Many of the existing indigenous practices are decaying and dying, there are others
which are gaining in popularity. This phenomenon can be observed all across the
country. These alternative practices are holistic in nature and keep patient’s hopes
alive even under very adverse circumstances. They help in creating a psychological
environment necessary for any recovery to be enduring. The efficacy of indigenous
therapies is widely acknowledged and there is mounting empirical evidence that many
of these work, even if we do not comprehend how and why? Surveys conducted in
India show that more than 90 % of urban respondents believed that the indigenous
therapies are effective in the treatment of physical and mental illnesses (Purohit 2002).
The important question is how to integrate indigenous healing practices with
modern medicine? There are two schools of thoughts in this regard. The first
school views indigenous systems as based on fundamentally different assumptions
about human life, health and illness, which, in no way can reconcile with the theo-
ries of biomedicine. The indigenous medicines attempt to restore the balance of
10  Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health Care Programmes in India 205

mind–body–soul and treat patients holistically. The medical approach, on the con-
trary, treats a patient as a passive organism and focuses only on bodily aspects of
the health problem. These fundamental differences in these two approaches are
reflected in the differences in the formulation of the theories pertaining to causa-
tion of diseases, pharmacology and drug action, dietetics and nutrition, diagnostics,
etc. (Shankar 1992). Thus, those who subscribe to the first school consider west-
ern and indigenous medicines irreconcilable and prefer them being practised rather
independently.
Many critiques of this school consider indigenous healing practices as unsci-
entific and of very limited efficacy. The skeptics of alternative practices argue that
the symptomatic relief to an otherwise ineffective therapy can be attributed to pla-
cebo effect, or to the natural recovery from or the cyclical nature of an illness, or
to the possibility that the person never originally had a real illness. However, stud-
ies show that mainstream medications may also show the placebo effect. An analy-
sis of the six most widely prescribed antidepressants submitted to the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration showed that approximately 80 % of the response to medication
was duplicated in placebo control groups and improvement at the highest doses of
medication was not different from improvement at the lowest doses (as reported in
Papakostas & Christodoulou 2010). In fact, many of these AMs are found to have a
transformational experience that changed their worldview, relationship and self-con-
cept and identify the remedy with commitment to a social cause and personal growth.
The second school of thought though acknowledges the differences in the two
treatment approaches; it sees many possibilities of developing a unified health care
delivery system. Their emphasis is on a creative synthesis between these two systems
to develop a new Indian model of health care. The vast local resources of indigenous
healers need to be mobilized to bolster the crumbling public health services where
different medicinal systems can work under one roof. There are many possibilities
and we need to learn from the experiences and experiments going on in the field.
India’s rich health care traditions and well-developed indigenous practices have
not been seriously incorporated in the health planning. The public health care pro-
grammes need to be more responsive to aspirations and practices of the common
people. Apart from providing curative services, rural health centers should also
be the nucleus of all-round socioeconomic spiritual development. To achieve this
dream, it is important that social workers, school teachers, religious leaders and
even faith healers are closely associated with the activities of the health centers.
Indonesian health services have shown the way, where indigenous healers are trained
to refer serious cases to medical professionals, but these patients come back to the
indigenous healer for holy water, once they were cured (Sinha 1990). Such practices
not only relieves pressure on the medical practitioners, but also takes care of both
curing and healing aspects of the disease.
Plural health care practices have always been India’s strength. The Ayurvedic
practitioners, tantrics, yoga teachers, priests, hakims and godmen have always
offered a range of services, sometimes complementing each other, other times
working independently. It was for the patients and their families to decide whose
services they would seek. The indigenous health practitioners have thrived not on
206 A. K. Dalal

official patronage but on public support and faith. The same thing cannot be said
about modern medicine which is promoted by the Government, even at the cost of
indigenous systems. This scenario is changing now in the last two–three decades
as more and more people all over the world are seeking indigenous medicines for
the ailments modern medicine has no treatment for. Indian indigenous medicines
have much to offer to alleviate human pain and suffering.
There are some indications that the Government in India is responding to this need
of the hour. In the national budget, there is now substantial increase in the allocation
of funds for alternative therapies. In 2004, the central government increased allocation
for AM from 35 million to 100 million, though it was still 2.5 % of the total health
budget. It remained the same till Eighth Five-Year Plan. In 2003, the Department of

of Āyurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH). In Eleventh Five-Year

Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy (ISMH) was renamed as Department

Plan (2007–2012), there is a quantum jump in the allocation of funds for AYUSH to
Rupees 39.88 billion, which is about 18 % of the total health budget of the central gov-
ernment. This funding can be gainfully utilized for the treatment of chronic diseases
and preventive health, in which case traditional systems have much to contribute. The
efficacy of AM in dealing with a wide range of chronic diseases is well acknowledged
though it has yet to get reflected in government policies and programmes. In 2004,
the National Rural Health Mission was launched to rectify the gross neglect of the
health of rural masses. The plan was also drawn to improve health infrastructure and
revive health worker scheme, ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist). No signifi-
cant improvement in the health status of the rural poor was reported in later evaluation
studies (The World Bank 2008). India’s National Health Policy needs to be thoroughly
reviewed to make it more compatible with the needs of the present times.
India has the largest primary health care network after China. The advantage which
many developing countries, like India, have is long tradition of eclectic approach to
health care. Numerous alternative medicinal systems provide a wide range of choices
to the health care seekers. There is much to learn from the experiences of different
developing nations in terms of existing preventive and curative practices. Way back in
1970s, Sri Lanka proposed an Asian Health Organization (AHO), keeping in view the
rich health traditions of Asian countries. India was one of the countries that opposed
it. There are now renewed efforts for establishing a Developing Nations Health
Organization (DNHO). We need to learn from the rich indigenous health systems of
these countries and think in terms of alternative health care systems compatible with
the needs and ethos of these countries. We need to develop cost-effective, viable and
humanitarian public health system and work together to plan for the future. India can
definitely take a lead role in taking such an initiative.
WHO which primarily relied on the medical model of health care blatantly pro-
moted western medicine in developing countries, at least for first two decades of its
existence. In the Alma-Ata Conference in 1977, to achieve the goal of “Health for
All” by 2000, it recommended that governments give high priority to the utilization
of indigenous medicine practitioners and indigenous birth attendants and incorporate
proven indigenous remedies into national drug policies and regulations. Of course,
most of the countries, including WHO, only paid lip service to this stated goal. The
10  Salience of Indigenous Healing Practices for Health Care Programmes in India 207

present resurgence of indigenous medicines is outside the aegis of WHO and other
international agencies, including national governments. It seems to be a logical con-

To patronize and promote Āyurveda and other systems of indigenous medi-

sequence of the failure of modern medicine (Banerji 2003).

cine, the Government of India, in 1995, established a separate Department for

AYUSH. Among all the systems in AYUSH, presently Āyurveda holds a prominent
Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy (DISMH), which is now known as

position and a major share in the infrastructural facilities in terms of the number
of hospitals, dispensaries, educational institutions and registered medical prac-
titioners (Patwardhan 2010). The Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM),
which was established through Indian Medicine Central Council Act of 1970, is
the governing body that monitors the colleges and offers a graduate level degree—
“Āyurvedacharya” (Bachelor of ISM) every year. It is estimated that India has
about 240,000 registered Ayurvedic practitioners, 12,000 Ayurvedic dispensaries,
1,452 hospitals and 100 postgraduate colleges. Besides this, there are one million
homeopathic practitioners. As for research into ISM, the government first set up the
Central Council for Research in Indian Medicine and Homeopathy in 1969. The
Council guided and supervised research through its five technical advisory boards.
Sri Lanka has a health care policy that is a good example of possible integra-
tion at the level of service delivery. All health systems in Sri Lanka are allowed to
practice freely but an enquiry is mandatory if there is any casualty of suspicious
nature. This enquiry is conducted by a group of respectable local people. Because
of this practice, many folk practitioners refer serious cases to medical doctors, as
cases of psychogenic illnesses are referred by medical practitioners to local heal-
ers. Such formal collaboration between modern and indigenous medical sectors
can grow to meet all health eventualities. Sri Lanka has well-developed legislative

cine. It has had a separate Ministry of Āyurveda for the last four decades, some-
and policy frameworks for the promotion and development of indigenous medi-

thing India did much later. Sri Lanka, with its meager resources, has evolved one
of the best health care systems in Asia and has achieved health targets almost on
par with western standards (World Health Report 1998).
The health care system needs to be made more broad-based, so that it can
handle all the facets of the problem, including public education about health and
hygiene. Apart from providing curative services, rural health centers should have
been the nucleus of all-round development. To achieve this dream, it is important
that social workers, school teachers, religious leaders and even faith healers are
closely associated with the activities of the health centers. Indonesian health ser-
vices have shown the way, where indigenous healers are trained to refer serious
cases to medical professionals, but these patients come back to the indigenous
healer for holy water, once they were cured (Sinha 1990). This system, thus, not
only relieves pressure on the medical practitioners, but also takes care of both cur-
ing and healing aspects of the disease.
A modest beginning in the direction of integration can be made at the level of
community health workers (CHWs). These health workers can be trained to be
an important link between various schools of health care providers. The CHWs
208 A. K. Dalal

can be suitably trained to map and utilize local health resources. If the local heal-
ers who are respected and trusted by the villagers can be identified and trained
in holistic health practices, they can provide the first-level services. He/she may
assist the panchayat in meeting basic health needs and act as a strong link between
health agencies and local people. In addition, there should be a massive effort in
health education in the entire country, through school teachers, panchayat mem-
bers, youth clubs, Mahila Mandals and community development workers to help
people inculcate a more rational and scientific understanding of both indigenous
medicine and public health issues. In this, national networks of voluntary organi-
zations can play an important role.
While discussing the possibilities of integration of ISM at the level of pri-
mary health care, we need to be wary of some new trends emerging in the global
market. The market requirement of standardization, commercialization and phar-
maceuticalization of the medicine is substantially changing profile and practices
of the ISM in the arena of health. There is an apparent paradox. While these
processes have conferred a new legitimacy on indigenous systems, their radical
transformation has meant that even as their face value has appreciated, their innate
importance as systems of healing has declined. Indigenous medicine are in danger
of falling prey to pharmaceuticalization, that is, using the pharmacology of these
systems to create new pharmaceuticals, or medicinal commodities, that could be
sold independently of the original line of treatment (Bode 2002). Such commodi-
fication of indigenous systems may give a false impression that its popularity is
on increase, but in essence it could be allopathization of the Indian systems. Thus,
while getting integrated within the primary health care, it is equally important that
Indian systems of medicine preserve their—humanistic-holistic character.
Clearly, the integration of indigenous medicines within health care programmes
does not imply that their inherent contradictions can be ignored or resolved. In fact,
without taking cognizance of the differences, any attempt at integration may be
counterproductive. It is important that medical education and public awareness
programmes take into account the limitations and strengths of different health systems.
At times, this is not an easy task when claims and counterclaims are made to promote
one system over the other. There is, indeed, a lot to learn from the practical ­experience
of patients and practitioners in the process of integrating diverse systems.

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Chapter 11
Psychological Impact of Poverty
and Sociocultural Disadvantage: Some
Problems of Policy and Intervention
Research

Durganand Sinha

1 Introduction

Researches on psychological impact of poverty and its attendant circumstances

have as their main concern to make available such data that can be maximally
useful in providing guidelines for the development of social policies and pro-
grammes aimed at promoting the wellbeing of children and families living under
conditions of economic and sociocultural disadvantages. There is a widespread
belief that a child who grows under unfavourable socioeconomic circumstances
tends to display certain impairments in psychological development which prove
as impediments in successfully coping with problems encountered in school and
life setting in general. Such impairments hamper him in his effort to grow out
of poverty. As such, the research goal is to generate precise data on these effects
and have scientific understanding of the adverse psychological influences ema-
nating from the conditions of poverty. Therefore, the focus of these researches is
to identify specific components of child’s early social and family experiences and
learning environments, particularly at home, and relate them to specific devel-
opment outcomes (Lewis & Wilson 1972). The findings are expected to help
develop strategies of intervention that enable the individual to successfully grow
out of poverty.

Previously unpublished paper written in 1998, used with permission.

D. Sinha (author deceased)
Allahabad, U.P, India

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 211
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_11, © Springer India 2014
212 D. Sinha

2 Problems Posed for Social Policy by Psychological

Research

In drawing inferences regarding appropriate programmes of action in this direc-

tion, the very nature of researches and their findings pose certain problems, some
of which are outlined here.
The first issue concerns the measurement of poverty itself which is the inde-
pendent variable in these investigations. Psychologists have frequently used
poverty as a nominal or “categorical” variable (Tripathi 1982), and different condi-
tions associated with it like malnutrition, low-class or caste status, unemployment,
residence in areas lacking in basic amenities, illiteracy or low level of formal edu-
cation, rural background and other kinds of environmental and experiential defi-
cits are used singly or in various combinations as the indicators of poverty and
their impact on psychological functioning are analyzed. Scales have also been
devised, for example, the Cumulative Deficit Scale (Whiteman & Deutsch 1968)
or Prolonged Deprivation Scale (Misra & Tripathi 1977; 1980), to assess the indi-
vidual’s standing on a combination of these factors. In many investigations, pov-
erty is also taken in an overall “global” sense, rather than as distinct categories or
constituents. As we know, a plethora of terms indicative of poor status has been
used. These are distinct though often interrelated and overlapping aspects of pov-
erty. What causes confusion is that the findings of the investigations into “effects”
of poverty are often difficult to interpret because the factors considered responsi-
ble in different investigations are not always comparable. This constitutes a serious
limitation of psychological studies of poverty. It restricts their utility in application
and in designing interventions for combating the effects of poverty.
Assessment of any large-scale programme of poverty alleviation poses many prob-
lems. The efforts towards evaluation of the Head Start Programmes in the United States
or the impact of ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) programmes currently
in progress in India have shown that there is always the problem of getting proper
“control groups” for making comparisons with the “treatment” groups. Moreover, dif-
ferent interventions made in different parts of the country, though a part of the same
programme is not identical and the outcomes not comparable because of possible dif-
ferences in the target groups, the personnel involved in effecting the change, and the
content of the programmes themselves. These are neither matched nor is it possible to
have strict matching in real-life situations. In real life, manipulation of variables and
controls of the kind desired in ideal scientific evaluation is not always available or pos-
sible, and the studies made cannot be put in the mould of neat experimental design. The
alternative is always the “quasi-experimental” design, which though suited better for
studies conducted in real-life settings leaves many difficult problems of interpretation
unanswered. As we know, differences or gains observed in such studies are attributed
to the intervention. But it is difficult to be sure that other independent influences are not
operating significantly.
It is not surprising that most of the large-scale intervention programmes
for counteracting the impact of adverse socioeconomic circumstances on
11  Psychological Impact of Poverty and Sociocultural Disadvantage 213

development, like the Head Start Programmes in the USA, Integrated Child
Development Services in India, Machado’s programme of development of national
intelligence in Venezuela, or other interventions in different parts of the world
have not been designed on any particular theoretical basis or grown directly out of
researches on deprivation. They are largely the results of hunches, common sense
and experiences of some administrators or individuals who have been engaged in
poverty alleviation schemes and have deep appreciation of the prevailing problems
faced by the country. The reasons that research has at best played only a minor
role in this direction are not far to seek. It is not simply a question of communica-
tion gap between the researchers, and the policy makers and administrators. The
very nature of research findings is responsible for the fact that academic inputs in
formulation and execution of these programmes have been neglected. They seem
to help somewhat our general understanding of the phenomenon but rarely suggest
definite policies or programmes of action. It appears that two opposite character-
istics of the data cater to the objectives of science and praxis. The scientific value
of a finding seems to be in inverse relation with its specificity. Scientific utility
of any data hinges on their generalizability, while application depends upon their
specificity. These goals being irreconcilable, findings from scientific investigations
of psychological impact of poverty, which are tuned to the development of princi-
ples and theories, have not generally been very useful in suggesting specific poli-
cies and interventions. What the policy makers and administrators want is a kind
of cookbook recipe which the psychological researches in their present state are
largely incapable of providing. Examination of the findings of cross-cultural psy-
chology towards applications in the area of health has brought out this limitation
of psychological researches in very clear terms (Dasen et al. 1988).
Most psychological studies on poverty have been designed simply to demon-
strate the effects on intellective functioning and psychological development. Such
studies are plentiful, and little is to be gained by multiplying them. On the other
hand, there is need to identify and trace the operation of the intervening processes
that mediate the effects. It is not within the domain of the psychologist to alter
very much the conditions of poverty, as such. All that can be expected of him is
to help develop action programmes that are calculated to prevent the ill effects
from occurring or counteract and attenuate the adverse effects through appropri-
ate interventions. For this, there is need to understand the mechanisms and chan-
nels through which the effects of disadvantaged circumstances are produced. As
has been observed, adverse conditions in case of malnutrition may exert its major
influence on behaviour competencies through dysfunctional changes in atten-
tion, responsiveness, motivation and emotionality, rather than through more direct
impairment of basic ability to learn (Ricciuti 1981). These mediating changes have
to be carefully identified, so that appropriate measures are undertaken to remove
or at least minimize their influence on behaviour.
There is the question of relative influence of different constituents of poverty.
Influences differ with age of the child and the kind of psychological processes
that are involved. It has been observed that the effect of cumulative social experi-
ence does not appear to be so great in early years of development, but it is very
214 D. Sinha

much so in later years (Klein et al. 1972; Richardson 1976). It is further observed
that while physical growth and composite social factors correlated almost equally
with tests of language and memory, nutritional background played a somewhat
greater role than social experience in motor development and in perceptual com-
petence (Klein et al. 1972). Developmental quotients were substantially more
highly correlated with physical growth than with composite socioeconomic
index. Such findings indicate that it is not only essential to know the relative
strengths of the influence of various factors on different psychological processes
and the critical age of their influence, but also their interactions. The need for
going beyond a strictly correlational analysis of the relative contributions of dif-
ferent influences is also indicated. Vital interactions between biological and social
factors influencing development occur at more functional and behavioural level.
This is obvious from the studies in which infant toddlers have been found to
influence the behaviour of adult caregivers as much as pattern of child care influ-
enced the behaviour of the toddlers (Lewis & Rosenblum 1973). Malnourished
low birth weight infants have been found to elicit quite different patterns of
maternal caretaker behaviour than normal children because of their altered physi-
cal and behavioural characteristics (Scarr-Salapatek & Williams 1973). The study
conducted in Mexico (Chavez et al. 1974) revealed that infants who had received
supplementary nutrition not only displayed improved physical and general devel-
opment when compared to controls, but they also received quite different mater-
nal handling in their homes, with less over-protection and more opportunities for
exploration and independence.

3 Psychological Interventions for Poverty Alleviation

Two main kinds of strategies have been usually employed in designing

interventions: specific and general. Since disadvantage is associated with deficiency
of particular skills, obvious emphasis of many interventions is on teaching of spe-
cific skills, especially those that are relevant to academic performance (Bereiloer
1972). On the other hand, in designing many interventions, an ecological perspec-
tive has been employed. Along with specific skills, there is focus on removing the
deficiencies of the environment of the disadvantaged child. The Operation Follow
Through programmes in schools in which specific skills went along with inter-
ventions carried on in homes, especially in the form of involvement and training
of parents (Bronfenbrenner 1974), exemplify the second approach. In fact, as the
Head Start and other programmes have indicated, specific and short-term benefits
are very much enhanced by the nature of the enduring environment to which the
child returns. Similarly, studies have demonstrated that nutritional supplementation
accompanied by social intervention is most effective as a strategy for combating
the adverse effects of malnutrition. The frequent findings that parental education,
training and improvement in learning environment along with teaching of specific
skills in which the child is deficient also suggest the same kind of programme.
11  Psychological Impact of Poverty and Sociocultural Disadvantage 215

4 Ecological Context of Poverty

Children and families in low socioeconomic level characterized as poor are con-
fronted with many adverse environmental circumstances. They are manifested
particularly in “near” environment of home and the family. Insight into the opera-
tion of this layer of ecology is important. But for the full understanding of the psy-
chological problems of poverty, a broader ecological perspective is essential. Four
ecosystems so well delineated by Bronfenbrenner (1977) or the two layers as con-
ceptualized by Sinha (1977, 1982) provide a useful framework for analyzing and
understanding the influences exerted by factors of poverty. The perspective greatly
enhances our basic knowledge of the factors of poverty that influence the psycho-
logical development and facilitates more realistic planning of intervention strate-
gies for bringing about both short-term and long-term social and economic changes
essential for benefitting those confronted with adverse circumstances. Lack of
appreciation of the complex ecological context often leads to overestimating one
factor associated with poverty (as has sometimes happened in the case with nutri-
tion) and underestimating the degree to which development may be influenced by
adverse social and learning experiences prevalent in the environment.
Adverse circumstances characterizing the poor consist not only of inadequate
economic resources but are also reflected in part in unemployment or partial
employment, lack of civic and other amenities, overcrowding, absence of edu-
cational opportunities, ineffective agricultural practices, low food production,
poor marketing, inadequacies in diet, poor food habits, unsatisfactory sanitation
and health care, and a whole host of other factors like high infant mortality and
morbidity associated with the condition. To these may be added the limitations
suffered because of particular caste or class status, unstimulating physical environ-
ment and peer group influence. These constitute parts of the “micro” and “macro”
environments and are conveniently put into an ecological perspective constituting
two concentric systems of more visible or proximate, and surrounding outer or
distal layers (Sinha 1977, 1982) that facilitates our understanding and is helpful
in designing strategies of intervention. One advantage of the examination of the
broader ecological context in which the child grows is that it suggests possibilities
of intervention at various points and levels of the systems involved and indicates
possible interactions, which often get ignored.
Analysis of the problem in an ecological context would indicate the limitations
of studies that have emphasized mainly the cognitive and, to some extent, moti-
vational and mental health domains. It is implicit in these studies that if one has
to grow out of poverty, all that one requires is to develop certain competencies
of which cognitive and motivational aspects are the main constituents. Therefore,
most interventions have been appropriately designed to effect changes in these two
spheres only. If in certain ecological contexts, competencies other than intellectual
and motivational, for example, interpersonal skills, are more relevant, the focus of
intervention will have to be on the development of abilities to manage and deal
with people (Mishra 1987). In this context, the point made by Sternberg (1984)
216 D. Sinha

and Berry (1984) with respect to the concept of intelligence is pertinent. Societies
in which intelligence is conceptualized as possession of certain social skills
because such skills rather than analytic capacities which most tests of intelligence
measure, are more vital for coping with life situations. Developing intellective
capacities as is done in most countries would not be of much use. It is, however,
to be noted that there is very little research on how poverty affects social skills and
interpersonal behaviour, and the relevant coping abilities that are required in this
sphere.
There is some controversy over interpreting differences observed due to social
class and economic differentials. The danger of unfair labelling of the envi-
ronment of the lower class and the disadvantaged as “inferior” per se has been
pointed out. As Ricciuti (1977) observes, we have failed to examine sufficiently
the strengths and adaptive capacities of many lower-class families. On the other
hand, it would also be a mistake to dismiss the observed differences in children’s
behaviour and development associated with social class and economic differentials
as simply a myth attributable primarily to culturally biased tests and stereotypes of
middle-class investigators. The evidence of impairments caused by adverse socio-
economic conditions is overwhelming. However, it has to be admitted that psy-
chological studies so far have mainly focused on the “negative” aspects and have
not taken much cognizance of the adaptive capacities of the poor. It is a matter
of common observation that there are many cases, though rare, of what may be
called “the lotus in the mud” phenomenon. Many children attain heights of excel-
lence despite an adverse environment that is not supportive of normal develop-
ment. We need to know more about why some children cope better than others
with conditions of marked socioeconomic adversity under which the poor popu-
lation live. Some studies, like that of DeLicardie and Cravioto (1974) in Mexico
and Richardson (1976) in Jamaica, have provided suggestions as to specific fac-
tors that distinguish vulnerable and non-vulnerable families. We need to know
more about these differences. A scientific analysis of the phenomenon is vital for
developing strategies for rendering children’s early environment more fully growth
facilitating. As Ricciuti (1977) puts it, further systematic studies of the differen-
tiating natures of these families in relation to the ecological systems with which
they interact should provide more effective guidelines for strategies of intervention
which are likely to bring about meaningful and long-lasting social and economic
changes necessary to support the welfare of children and families.

5 Dilemmas Faced by Psychologists

Being engaged in research, whose avowed aim is the application of findings for
the welfare of the poor and helping in the development of policies and action
programmes for ameliorating their lot, the researcher is confronted with many
problems. His role as a scientist and an advocate of policies often pulls him in dif-
ferent directions. Ricciuti (1981) in his paper entitled “Early intervention studies:
11  Psychological Impact of Poverty and Sociocultural Disadvantage 217

Problems of linking research and policy objectives” has raised many pertinent
issues. In what follows, some of these have been summarized.
Requirements of scientific objectivity and the involvement in the success of a
policy create many problems. The roles as an objective researcher, interpreter and
evaluator and that of social advocate of a policy do not easily go together and pre-
sent a dilemma to the researcher. The need for urgency of application of the findings
and commitment with the programme create a kind of socio-political climate that is
not conducive to maintenance of objective detachment, attitude of critical examina-
tion, scepticism and openness to record negative results. Moreover, interventions in
a real-life situation do not provide the ideal conditions for making strict evaluations,
and their outcomes are often ambiguous and inconsistent. Confronted with such a
“conflict”, researchers have to be extremely careful in performing their role. They
do not have to be over-enthusiastic promoters of a programme nor hypercritical
sceptics who doubt the very utility of the entire programme if the evaluation does
not yield a clear-cut evidence. It is contended that real-life situations are not condu-
cive to yielding outcomes that are uncontaminated by negative pointers.
By and large, psychological research in the area of poverty and disadvantage
has not been very influential in social policies and programmes. A frequent prob-
lem is that of conflicting findings and conclusions from the same set of data. As
has been obvious in the case of the Head Start Programmes, different and often
conflicting conclusions could be drawn about the effectiveness of early childhood
interventions. Some evaluator might interpret the data as suggestive of positive
effects which to others may appear indicative of only modest gains. Such a posi-
tion leaves the policy maker in a state of fix. What they want is a clear-cut answer
and concrete suggestions for action and not mere indications that are made with
many conditions and cautions. Faced with doubts, the administrator and the policy
maker often fall back upon common sense and their own hunches, or play safe
about the actions suggested by the research findings. They can ill afford to wait
for long-term research to get unambiguous guidelines from the scientist. In this
context, the applied scientist would do well to draw out from the data all possi-
ble lines of action, make a general evaluation of the possibilities of each and then
leave the final choice of the programme to the administrator and policy maker.
There is considerable pressure, often quite implicit, on the researcher to
produce quick results and document the effectiveness of the intervention, espe-
cially if it is a costly and a large-scale one and there is national commitment
behind it, as in the case of ICDS programme in India, and the like in many devel-
oping countries. In such cases, negative results indicative of serious limitations of
the programme are taken not as guidelines for improvements and modifications,
but as a failure of the evaluation itself. Ambiguity in findings is often cited as the
evidence of poor evaluations rather than as indicative of certain limitations of the
programme. Therefore, there is pressure on the researcher to provide positive out-
comes and tone down the negative indicators of evaluation. The wide publicity
that is given to negative or even ambiguous outcomes of the intervention may seri-
ously threaten the continued support for important social programme, and poses a
dilemma to the researcher whether to report findings in full with both positive and
218 D. Sinha

negative implications stated, or to provide only the brighter picture. Since funds
for research as well as evaluation are provided by the government or private agen-
cies engaged in implementing the programme, there is a feeling—however, uncon-
scious and implicit—to provide evidence of the effectiveness, or at least to avoid
possible embarrassment to the agency that has granted the research fund.
In this context, there are three tendencies, as Ricciuti (1981) points out, that the
researcher has to guard against

(1) To overstate the positive findings even if tenuous and inconsistent, and to
over—emphasize their generalizability and practical significance.
(2) To attribute gains uncritically to the intervention itself without considering
alternative explanations.
(3) To develop an unusual degree of personal and emotional involvement in
research often accompanied by heightened sensitivity to normal scientific
criticism and questioning of positive outcomes attributed to intervention. Such
criticisms are not to be taken as systematic opposition to the kind of social
programmes represented in research. In many developing countries, scientists
and members of the academia are often accused of being unsympathetic critics
rather than constructive evaluators of government policies and programmes.

6 In Sum

Taking all these into consideration, maintaining at the same time the role of the
scientist and that of a person interested and involved in various welfare pro-
grammes of the government and non-governmental agencies, and not to be swayed
too greatly by anyone of these roles, is a difficult but important point for the sci-
entist concerned with policy research and evaluation of intervention. Difficulties
arise because as Ricciuti (1981) observes, we often fail to maintain the necessary
distinction between our roles as intervention research investigators or reviewers
and interpreters of intervention research, on the one hand, and our roles as social
or political advocates wanting to have a major impact on shaping public policy. As
a consequence, we often find ourselves in a position trying to justify support for
clearly desirable and important social programmes or policies on the basis of quite
limited and ambiguous data. For anyone engaged in research in policy and evalu-
ation, the problems and dangers indicated are real and have to be guarded against.
Findings in the area of impact of malnutrition on mental development are illus-
trative of the point. In India, the USA and many developing countries, the hypoth-
esized link between malnutrition and increase in IQ levels and enhanced mental
development has been the major research and theoretical support for extensive
programmes in providing nutritional supplementation to both children and expect-
ant mothers from poor families. But, as we know, there is questionable research
support for a direct link between nutritional status and enhanced intellectual levels
of the child (Pollitt & Thomson 1977). Despite ambiguities in the findings, there
11  Psychological Impact of Poverty and Sociocultural Disadvantage 219

are good humanitarian, social and health reasons for advocating a programme
that would ensure adequate nutrition to pregnant women and young children. The
point, however, is that the socio-political atmosphere makes it difficult for policy
makers and the people in general to seriously accept the negative research evi-
dence that nutrition by itself has little to do with intellectual development relative
to the role of social environmental influences.
The case of “early bonding” between the mother and the infant is another
instance of advocating a change in policy and action programme by placing undue
reliance on minimal research evidence. The idea that post-partum skin-to-skin con-
tact is of critical importance to ensure adequate “bonding” and a healthy attach-
ment relationship between mother and child seems to have received remarkably
widespread and uncritical acceptance by many paediatric and nursing profession-
als, even though this view is based on research findings which, while provocative,
are still preliminary and need to be replicated on larger samples (Ricciuti 1981).1
One can make a strong case for change in nursery practices or on nutrition on
theoretical, practical and humane considerations without relying so heavily on
arguments derived from very limited research data. For providing clear-cut guide-
lines on social action and programme, the data provided by investigations into the
psychological impact of adverse socioeconomic circumstances are still inadequate.
They help to understand the phenomenon or at best suggest only general lines of
action. But as aids for policy formulation and interventions, so far they have been
of very limited assistance.

References

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uation studies. In J. C. Stanley (Ed.), Preschool programs for the disadvantaged. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press.
Berry, J. W. (1984). Towards a universal psychology of cognitive competence. International
Journal of Psychology, 19(4/5), 335–361.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Is early intervention effective? Teachers College Record, 76,
279–303.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Towards an experimental ecology of human development. American
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Chavez, A., Martinez, C., & Yaschine, T. (1974). The importance of nutrition and stimuli on child
mental and social development. In J. Cravioto, L. Hambraeus, & B. Vahlquist (Eds.), Early
nutrition and mental development (pp. 211–225). Sweden: Almquist & Wiksell.

1  Since this chapter was written, new research evidence has accumulated in favour of skin-to-
skin contact, which shows that separation of the newborn and mother at the time of birth has
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such as reduced neuromaturation, weight-loss, reduced and unsuccessful breast feeding and
increased crying on part of the child (Moore et al. 2009). See also Anderson (1991), Feldman
(2004), for studies on benefits for preterm infants (called kangaroo care). For full-term infants,
similar benefits are reported by Anderson, Moore, Hepworth, and Bergman (2003); Ferber and
Makhoul (2004).
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Dasen, P. R., Berry, J. W., & Sartorius, (1988). Health and cross-cultural psychology: Towards
applications. Calif.: Sage Publications.
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ment in psychologically disadvantaged children (Vol. II, pp. 293–304). Baltimore: University
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children with differing life histories. Pediatric Research, 1O, 57–61.
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weight infants. Child Development, 44, 94–101.
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Interpolated reference

Anderson, G. C. (1991). Current knowledge about skin-to-skin (Kangaroo) care for preterm
infants. Journal of Perinatology. 11, 216–226.
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Anderson, G. C., Moore ER, Hepworth, J. & Bergman, N. (2003). Early skin-to-skin contact for
mothers and their healthy new born infants in: The Cochrane space library. Issue to. Oxford:
Update software.
Feldman, R. (2004). Mother-infant skin-to-skin contact: Theoretical, clinical and empirical
aspects. Infants Young Children, 17, 145–161
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neuro-behavioral responses of the term newborn: A randomized control trial. Pediatrics.
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Moore, E. R., Anderson, G. C., Bergman, N. (2009). Early skin-to-skin contact for mothers and
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anelibrary.com.
Chapter 12
Research on Distributive Justice:
Implications for Social Policy

Lilavati Krishnan

Justice is ultimately connected with the way people’s lives go,

and not merely with the nature of institutions surrounding them.
Amartya Sen

1 Introduction: Distributive Justice

in the Social-psychological Perspective

“Justice” has several connotations—moral, legal, economic, philosophical, politi-

cal and psychological—and it exists in more than one form. Distinctions have
been made between distributive justice (dealing with the fairness of allocation or
division of rewards or resources), procedural justice (dealing with the fairness of
the method or procedure adopted in order to arrive at a particular decision) and
retributive justice (referring to fairness related to what is deserved—positive out-
comes or rewards for good deeds, and negative outcomes or punishment for bad
deeds). The common element in all forms of justice seems to be the idea of “fair-
ness”, or getting what one deserves, both in a positive and in a negative sense.
Further distinctions have also been made with regard to the sphere in which any
of these forms of justice might become relevant, such as legal, organizational,
interpersonal and interactional justice. Often all forms of justice are integrated
into the over-arching concept of “social justice”, a form of justice that is said
to prevail at the broad societal level rather than at an interpersonal or personal
level. Emphasizing the social component of any form of justice, Baldwin (1966)
describes “social justice” as “a quality of the behaviour of one man to another, that
is, of man in society, so that all justice is social justice” (p. 1).

L. Krishnan (*) 
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,
Kanpur 208016, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 223
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_12, © Springer India 2014
224 L. Krishnan

Social justice as a theme and mission is very frequently referred to by policy

makers and usually encompasses a wide range of arenas that pose questions related
to justice. The most commonly understood meaning of the word “policy” is “a
course of action prescribed and eventually adopted by the state or administration”.
The term “social policy” refers to a policy that is meant to make specific provisions
for society, pertaining to a demarcated aspect of social life—in this case, the distri-
bution of rewards or resources among members of society with the aim of benefit-
ting or empowering them, or restoring their rights, especially those of the exploited
or vulnerable sections of society. Examples of some domains of social policy are
access to education, health, legal facilities and employment opportunities, empower-
ment, human rights, poverty alleviation and the like. The target groups are mainly
those who, because of their vulnerability to exploitation, do not get their due (in the
widest sense of the phrase) and do not have the power or resources to fight for their
rights. Such groups would include children, women, the elderly, the disabled, the
poor, and generally, the socially and economically disadvantaged sections. The link
between justice research and social policy is further highlighted by authors drawing
attention to the fact that even if distributive justice is examined at the interpersonal
or personal level, it invariably has implications for the group, in addition to the indi-
vidual (Hegtvedt 2005).
There are several reasons for taking up the issue of social and distributive jus-
tice in social policy formulation. First, any aspect of justice in its broadest sense
is so close to human lives that it cannot be ignored. Like a clock that is usually
noticed only when it stops ticking, justice is attended to typically only when it is
violated. At the same time, it is also meaningful to see what, when and how justice
principles are upheld. Second, “social justice policy” should be more than a mere
slogan: a serious undertaking, with promotive goals and remedial concerns, touch-
ing various social issues such as poverty, social exclusion, social disadvantage
and marginalization of certain sections of society, human rights, access to legal
facilities and empowerment. In this direction, research on behaviour related to dis-
tributive justice is undoubtedly valuable and applicable. Third, there is very often
a divergence between the academic perspective of those carrying out research on
justice, the pragmatic and applied perspective of policy makers, and the imple-
mentation goal of administrators. The divergence as well as the shared zones
between the three perspectives has been very aptly discussed by Shonkoff (2000)
through the metaphor of the three “cultures” of science, policy and practice, in the
context of child development. By arguing strongly in favour of a “cross-cultural”
stance, Shonkoff focuses on the great potential for convergence between the three
perspectives, in spite of differences. Something similar may be said about social
justice, in general, and distributive justice, in particular.
While the importance of social justice in social policy rarely gets challenged,
the question of how scientific research in the area of distributive justice should be
given a place in social policy is more difficult to answer. Both distributive justice
and social policy are now treated as academic specializations, but the two have
very different approaches. Academic research on distributive justice has been car-
ried out in the philosophical perspective (Rawls 1971, 2001; Nozick 1974; Sandel
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 225

2009) and economic perspective (Jasso 1983; Jasso & Guillermina 2007; Sen
2009), along with sociological and legal perspectives. Much of this research has
inquired into the relevant issues at the societal or “macro”-level of analysis. A few
examples of such an approach pertinent to Indian society can be found in Menon’s
(1988) treatment of the social process in justice with regard to the legal system,
Bhatt’s (1989) elaborate description of “micro-action” against social injustice by
tribal youth groups in Gujarat, Pandey’s (1991) investigation of NGOs (grass-roots
organizations) working for the goal of social justice, and the report produced by
the Calcutta Research Group (CRG) (2009). A human rights analysis of distribu-
tive justice in India dealing with poverty and economic development, in the light
of the constitution, has been presented by Elizabeth (2010). Yet another example is
that of the work by Pandit (2005) on the impact of the reservation policy in India
in reducing marginalization and attaining the goal of social equality. Pandit has
analyzed the reservation issue in a socio-legal perspective, adopting the framework
of Rawls’ theory.
By contrast, academic research with a social-psychological approach typically
examines justice issues at the “micro”-level, involving interpersonal and small group
interactions in specific situations that involve different variables. Research in the
social-psychological perspective has also provided many incisive analyses of the
issue of justice. Because of the difference in the methods and perspective, the former
research rather than the latter lends itself more readily to inclusion in social policy.
If the compatibility between academic research carried out at the “macro”-level, on
one hand, and the “policy” and “mplementation” perspectives, on the other, has been
debated; one sees even more questioning with regard to the “macro”-level academic
research that characterizes the social-psychological perspective. Several books,
reviews, critical essays and empirical reports have been published on distributive
justice in the social-psychological perspective, demonstrating variations even within
this perspective, and drawing attention to a multitude of issues that touch social life
closely (Braham 1981; Greenberg & Cohen 1982; Cook & Hegdvedt 1983; Deutsch
1985; Cohen 1986, 1987; Ross & Miller 2002; Törnblom & Vermunt 2007). Many
of these issues demand a place in social policy.
The present essay takes the following stand. social-psychological research on
justice issues that have close links with social policy is very meaningful in its
own right, because it generates theoretically rich insights, opens up unexplored
avenues and facilitates the comprehension of justice-related behaviour, so that this
understanding can be incorporated into an implementable social policy. Therefore,
whether such research findings can find a place in social policy per se should not
be used as a necessary criterion for assessing the relevance or importance of this
research. Instead, every attempt should be made to actually weave social-psycho-
logical research into social policy pertaining to distributive justice, and to make
such policy broader and more inclusive.
In this vein, the essay commences with a description of the major features of
social-psychological research on distributive justice, followed by a discussion of
the implications of distributive justice research for social policy, based on a review
of the essential findings.
226 L. Krishnan

2 The Social Psychology of Distributive Justice:

A Brief Review

Views about distributive justice have varied down the ages, as delineated in texts
such as the Dharmashastras, Manusmriti (600–300 BC), Aristotle’s Nichomachean
ethics (384–322 BC), Ross (1999) and the teachings of Confucius (551–479 BC),
to the present time. The Aristotelian notion of justice is based on the idea of merit,
which in turn is defined by more than one criterion. Justice has also been defined
in the context of keeping agreements or “covenants” (Hobbes 1651), the correc-
tion of wrongs (Mill 1861), “giving to each his due” and being impartial (Baldwin
1966), providing basic liberties and equal opportunities (Rawls 1971), and in the
framework of “entitlement” (Nozick 1974). In contemporary social-psychological
literature, the concepts of “distributive justice” (Homans 1961), the “meeting of
comparative expectations” (Blau 1964), “equity” and “inequity” (Adams 1965)
and “distributive fairness” (Leventhal 1980) have received some attention. More
recently, Sen (2009) has proposed the view that justice could be construed by peo-
ple in terms of a combination of multiple concepts, including equal opportunities,
entitlement, merit and need. This position argues in favour of viewing “justice” in
a global rather than local perspective, and integrating the conceptual facet of “jus-
tice” (nyaya) with the implemented or applied facet (niti).
From a social psychologist’s point of view, behaviours pertaining to all of
the concepts mentioned above are collectively referred to as justice behaviour,
and the rules on which distributive justice is based are referred to as justice rules
(Greenberg & Cohen 1982). Other theoretical conceptualizations that emerge out
of distributive justice research in social psychology are related to (a) entitlement
and deservingness (Feather 1999, 2003); (b) the “just world” belief (Lerner &
Miller 1978); and (c) relative deprivation (Runciman 1966; Crosby 1976; Walker
& Smith 2002) and social disadvantage. A few other process-related as well as
structural approaches, and studies adopting an approach integrating several views,
have also been mentioned in the literature. Underlining the common ground in
these diverse views, Baldwin (1966) succinctly states that “justice”, however it is
conceptualized, unequivocally has a social referent.
This feature, namely the social referent of justice, may be taken as an appropri-
ate starting point for the exploration of distributive justice in the social-psycho-
logical perspective. In contemporary mainstream social-psychological research on
justice, active interest was shown by researchers in both theoretical and empirical
research for about three decades, beginning in the 1960s. Leading this research
was Homans’ (1961) proposition of “distributive justice”. This concept was part of
a postulate of Homans’ exchange theory, and referred to the idea the people expect
their rewards to be proportional to their costs. Adams (1965) extended the notion
of individual reward/cost proportionality to include the concept of equity: people
expect their reward/cost ratio to be equal to the reward/cost ratio of others. Any
inequality between the two reward/cost ratios leads to the experience of inequity.
Adams’ work focused more on inequity than equity. However, other researchers
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 227

examined both equity and inequity not only in allocation settings but also in the
context of interpersonal relationships (Walster et al. 1978).
In the decades that followed, several attempts were made to examine, explain
and interpret the role of diverse variables as determinants of distributive justice.
A number of theoretical frameworks were proposed for interpreting the empirical
research findings pertaining to how resources and rewards are allocated, and how
people perceive and react to fairness or unfairness of such allocation. The large
volume of research on distributive justice carried out in the last five decades has
been critically and comprehensively reviewed by many authors, yielding a great
deal of information on perceived justice and injustice, and allocation rule prefer-
ences (Walster et al. 1978; Mikula 1980; Braham 1981; Greenberg & Cohen 1982;
Cook & Hegdvedt 1983; Deutsch 1985; Bierhoff et al. 1986; Cohen 1986, 1987;
Vermunt & Steensma 1991; Colquitt et al. 2001; Cropanzano 2001; Ross & Miller
2002; Törnblom & Vermunt 2007; Kazemi & Törnblom 2008).
Interest in distributive justice in mainstream social psychology started waning
around the 1990s, and questions related to procedural justice, as well as other forms
of justice, became more prominent. In addition, organizational justice was empha-
sized. Still, some valuable research was carried out in the latter phase that provided
insight into the criteria used by individuals in reward allocation, and attribution
aspects (Cohen 1982; Wagstaff 1994) that guide micro-level allocation decisions.

2.1 The Notable Features of Research on Distributive Justice

Contemporary social-psychological research on distributive justice has largely

been concerned with distributive justice as it is demonstrated in reward alloca-
tion settings. Such settings typically consist of an allocator (who decides how the
reward will be distributed or allocated), recipients (the persons between whom the
reward has to be distributed), the resource (whatever is to be distributed or allo-
cated) and the situation (the context in which reward allocation is to be decided).
After the initial focus on the allocator’s view of distributive justice, attention
began to be paid to the recipient’s view and reactions to distributive injustice, or
violations of distributive justice. Since the 1990s, interest has also been evinced in
the allocation of punishment rather than reward, sometimes referred to as “nega-
tive justice”. (Although the findings related to punishment are enlightening in their
own right, research on this aspect will not be included in the present discussion,
because punishment allocation entails questions that go beyond resource distribu-
tion and enter the territory of retributive justice).
Interest has revolved largely around the “justice rules” or “allocation rules” that
are preferred and/or adopted in diverse situations, and also around the variables that
influence or determine justice rule preferences. These variables have been classified,
for convenience, as allocator, recipient, resource, situational and cultural variables.
This broad classification allows for overlap. For example, cultural variables, when
explored in specific contexts, would work as situational variables. Allocator–recipient
228 L. Krishnan

relationship, a variable that would be considered both an allocator and a recipient vari-
able, is also included in many justice investigations as a culturally relevant variable.
Cultural factors as possible determinants came into the picture only after about
a decade of research on distributive justice. The inclusion of cultural aspects was
probably the result of two trends in the field of social psychology. First, social psy-
chologists in general seemed to have called attention to the need for examining
social behaviour at large in a broader perspective, going beyond the all-too-famil-
iar Euro-American context. Second, some experts in the field of distributive justice
specifically pointed out that “justice” seemed to be treated as synonymous with
equity (merit-based justice) as the defining characteristic. This might be appro-
priate for western thinking about distributive justice, but in many other cultures,
criteria such as equality and need might be treated as more important bases of
“justice” (Deutsch 1975; Sampson 1975; Lerner & Lerner 1981).
Allocator and recipient variables include demographic factors such as allocator
and recipient gender, age, social class, social disadvantage and personality charac-
teristics such as personal control, Machiavellianism, beliefs or worldviews such as
belief in the Protestant ethic and “Just World”. Some of these variables (namely,
gender, age and social class) are more closely involved in social policy. For example,
women, children, the elderly, the poor, the physically and mentally challenged, and
the socially disadvantaged sections are considered to be vulnerable groups in most
societies. Therefore, it is not surprising to find social policy being directed towards
the welfare of these groups.
Resource variables include characteristics such as the magnitude of resources
(large or small amount), resource scarcity and the nature of the resource (concrete
or abstract, universalistic or particularistic). Resource characteristics take on spe-
cial importance in the conceptualization of distributive justice in an economic
framework, taking into account the various kinds and amounts of resources avail-
able (Jasso 1983; Konow 2001; Ng & Allen 2005). They are also given prominence
in a social-psychological perspective (Lerner & Lerner 1981; Skitka & Tetlock
1992). Mainstream research on distributive justice has dealt mainly with a concrete,
divisible and universalistic resource (namely money) with very little information
regarding any other resource. Seminal contributions in this regard have been made
by Törnblom and his collaborators, applying the resource theory proposed by Foa
and Foa (1974) (Törnblom & Foa 1983; Foa et al. 1993). Some Indian studies have
examined distributive justice in contexts involving non-monetary resources, in addi-
tion to monetary resources, that are meaningful to Indians. Both resource scarcity
and the nature of the resource would have close implications for social policy.
Situational (contextual) variables include all those variables that influence justice
perceptions and behaviour within any distributive or allocation setting, other than
allocator, recipient and resource characteristics. A wide range of situational variables
have been investigated. Closeness of the allocator–recipient relationship, expectation
of future interaction between the allocator and the recipient, public or private alloca-
tion, the specific allocation criteria available in the context and whether the allocator
is also a recipient or only a “third party” are a few examples of the situational vari-
ables that have been examined in the existing research on distributive justice.
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 229

Finally, cultural variables include those that may be special features of certain
cultures (for example, a large socially or economically disadvantaged section,
caste stratification, or specific beliefs or worldviews). They may also consist of
cultural dimensions that are used as common denominators for comparing cul-
tures. Two instances of the “common denominator” kind of cultural dimensions
are Hofstede’s (1980, 2001) dimensions (individualism, masculinity, uncertainty
avoidance, power distance and long-term orientation), and Schwartz’s values
(1994)—ten values represented on two bipolar dimensions, namely (a) Openness
to change-Conservation, and (b) Self-enhancement–Self-transcendence. These cul-
tural dimensions have been incorporated in several cross-cultural investigations of
distributive justice (Fischer & Smith 2003).
The bulk of empirical research on distributive justice in the social-psycholog-
ical perspective deals with the allocator’s perception of what is fair, the recipi-
ent’s perception of what is fair, and the determinants of allocators’ and recipients’
perceptions. In the last-mentioned category, both differences and similarities are
expected in the factors that influence the allocator’s and recipient’s perceptions.
Both the allocator’s and recipient’s perceptions may be assessed through justice
rule preferences or choices out of a given set of alternative justice rules (such as
equity or merit, equality and need), perceived fairness of a given allocation (based
on one or more of the given justice rules) and perceived unfairness under viola-
tions of allocation rules.
At a more conceptual (and perhaps rudimentary) level, what people mean by “jus-
tice” is an extremely important piece of information that is necessary for a complete
understanding of justice conceptualization and justice behaviour. Theoretically, a
broad distinction has been made between justice as preservation of rights, justice as
desert and justice as equality (Irani 1981). Surveys of the meaning of justice have, in
fact, brought out these aspects as themes emerging in open-ended responses. Knowing
more about this component would enable us to know which form of “justice” comes
most readily to people’s minds—distributive, or other forms of justice. Besides, both
intercultural and intracultural variations would be expected in people’s conceptualiza-
tion of “justice”. Sadly, there is less than adequate empirical evidence on this aspect.
With regard to distributive justice rules, by and large, three rules have domi-
nated the scene, namely equity, equality and need. Other rules have been men-
tioned, such as norms and legality, agreement and promise, reciprocity, and
generosity (Leventhal 1976, 1980), but these have rarely been examined empiri-
cally. Although there has been a strong tendency for equity, equality and need to
be treated as separate justice rules, some authors propose that these three crite-
ria may actually represent a single, core criterion of “desert” or deservingness
(Wagstaff 1994). Equality as a justice rule is apparently self-explanatory, but dis-
tinctions can be made between equality of opportunities, equality of treatment and
equality of outcomes (Levin 1981). Similarly, need as a justice criterion is easily
understood, yet need may not be uniformly interpreted. As mentioned above, the
concept of equity began with Homans’ (1961) notion of “distributive justice”: indi-
viduals experience justice when the rewards they get are proportional to the costs
they incur in a particular context. This idea was extended further as “equity” by
230 L. Krishnan

Adams (1965), which refers to a similarity or equality between one’s own reward/
cost ratio and another’s reward/cost ratio, within the same context.
According to Adams, inequity is experienced when
Reward/Cost Ratio of Person �= Reward/Cost Ratio of Other
This generates a sense of injustice or unfairness, which is cognitively and emo-
tionally uncomfortable. Thus, if the reward/cost ratio of Person is less than the
reward/cost ratio of Other, then Person feels impelled to reduce or remove inequity.
This can be done in more than one way. If Person cannot increase the reward in such
a situation, he/she may reduce his/her own cost component (for example, by reduc-
ing the amount of work done), or increase Other’s cost component (by demanding
or ensuring that the other person do more work). Alternatively, Person may justify
the inequity cognitively, or may decide to leave the situation (Adams 1965).
Often, when a recipient expects and finds an equal distribution of the reward,
there is a tendency to compare only the outcomes, disregarding cost or input.
However, when rewards are unequal, the recipient pays attention to the input. If
the recipient finds or perceives that inputs are equal, and yet outcomes or rewards
are unequal, the situation would be an instance of inequity, especially from the
point of view of that recipient who receives a smaller share of the reward. This
case should be distinguished from that of unequal reward/cost ratios (in which
both rewards and costs vary). Ultimately, however, all cases of inequity may elicit
similar reactions on the part of the recipient, namely dissatisfaction, hostility, or
reduced inputs to reduce inequity. On a subsequent occasion, if the same recipient
has an opportunity to be in an allocator role, there might be biased reward distribu-
tion, in order to “avenge” unfairness. Some investigators (Staw 1984) pointed out
that Adams’ analysis does not present a complete picture of inequity. An important
determinant of how much inequity is perceived by the individual is the experience
of relative deprivation (Runciman 1966; Crosby 1976; Walker & Smith 2002),
and whom the recipient compares himself/herself with. Staw further suggested
that, for explaining reactions to inequity in organizational settings, equity theory
should be merged with the theory of relative deprivation.
One cannot help noticing that, in the initial research on distributive justice,
there was an emphasis on equity as the main criterion of distributive justice.
Equity was treated almost as synonymous with “justice” and compared with equal-
ity in investigations into distributive justice. With growing sensitivity to the role of
cultural factors in the conceptualization of distributive justice, attention was drawn
to the role of need as another significant criterion for judging or perceiving justice
(Deutsch 1975; Sampson 1975).
Comparing equity (merit), equality and need, most of the earlier studies of distribu-
tive justice indicated greater preference for one rule over another. In cross-cultural
comparisons, preferences varied between different cultures. Complementing the results
of these studies, later findings suggested that more than one justice rule may be used
simultaneously in the same situation. For example, the principles of equality, account-
ability, efficiency and need may be used together, with their relative weightages differ-
ing in response to contextual demands (Konow 2001; Scott et al. 2001).
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 231

With regard to the methodological approach, the earlier empirical research on

distributive justice adopted an experimental approach, with measures of actual allo-
cation behaviour. In a typical laboratory experiment, subjects would be placed in a
reward allocation setting involving task performance and would be given informa-
tion regarding inputs of the participants. The allocator would be asked to make an
actual allocation of the reward. The measure of interest was whether the allocation
was based on equity (merit, input or contribution), equality or need. The earlier
studies involved a comparison between equity and equality only. In the empirical
research that followed, actual-behaviour laboratory studies were rapidly replaced by
stated-behaviour scenario studies. Subjects responded to descriptions of hypotheti-
cal allocation situations and indicated how they would make allocations. This shift
might have reduced realism, but it allowed greater versatility and flexibility with
respect to the variables that could be incorporated. Yet, the experimental approach
was largely retained. As research advanced in this area, more investigators began
to use multivariate approaches and to use both experimental and correlational tech-
niques. The focus was still on “micro”-level and bounded contexts rather than soci-
ety-level settings, and more on quantitative rather than qualitative analysis.
While research on issues of distributive justice is still being carried out because of
its academic significance, findings of this research do not seem to have been incorpo-
rated into social policy, as stated earlier. If one looks into why social policy has not
taken serious cognizance of social-psychological research on distributive justice, sev-
eral reasons come to the fore, such as methodological problems that make the inves-
tigations distant from “real” life, samples that allow for only limited generalization of
findings, too much context specificity of the studies, either too much quantification of
the dependent variables or too much subjectivity in qualitative analysis, and in some
cases, the absence of replication of findings that defies easy explanation. It must be
mentioned that these difficulties are not necessarily present in all of distributive justice
research, and we do have sufficient examples of consistent and meaningful findings
related to some variables that are also socially relevant. Moreover, similar methodolog-
ical and other problems exist also in justice research carried out in other perspectives.
Considering this scenario, the place of social-psychological research on dis-
tributive justice in social policy can be meaningfully discussed by examining the
major findings. The social policy implications of any social-scientific research
need to be interpreted in their appropriate sociocultural background. The present
discussion will now comment on social-psychological research on distributive
research in India. Empirical contributions by Indian researchers have facili-
tated somewhat the understanding of the dynamics underlying justice behaviour.
Justice-related research in India includes a study of (a) the meaning of the word
“justice” to Indians, (b) justice rule preferences, (c) variables that influence these
preferences, (d) perceived fairness of given allocations, (e) perceived unfairness
under violations of specific justice rules, (f) and the ratings of importance of vari-
ous criteria of reward and resource allocation. The volume of Indian research on
distributive justice is relatively small and so is the number of researchers in this
area. Many of the findings have revealed aspects of justice conceptualizations and
perceptions among Indians that are at variance with what would be predicted on
232 L. Krishnan

the basis of assumed cultural characteristics—a feature that is both informative

and challenging. In other words, several questions in the Indian sociocultural con-
text remain both unexamined and unanswered.
Attention is now turned to certain findings of social-psychological research on
distributive justice that should be given a place in social policy.

3 Implications of Distributive Justice Research

for Social Policy

For any justice-related social policy to be ultimately effective, it should take into
account the following aspects:
• Justice conceptualization of those affected by social policy
• Justice perceptions between different sections of society
• Distinction between the allocator’s and recipient’s perspectives
• The role of resource variables and sociocultural characteristics

3.1 Justice Conceptualization of Those Affected

by Social Policy

Overall, there would be no disagreement with the view that justice-related social
policy should be in accordance with the fairness or justice conceptualization of
those affected by such a policy. That is, those who are to be benefitted or otherwise
affected by social policy must also feel that they will receive what they consider
“just” treatment. In most cultural contexts, it is assumed that the basic conceptual-
ization of justice among individuals would match what is expressed through justice
rule preferences, perceived fairness of given allocations, and reactions to violations
of preferred justice rules. However, evidence from Indian samples (Krishnan 2011)
shows that the basic justice conceptualization may be much broader than what is
expressed through the context-specific indicators just mentioned.
One informative set of empirical findings in Indian research on justice pertains
to what the word ‘“justice’” means to Indian respondents. A survey of this aspect
among Indian subjects (including both urban and rural respondents, comprising
college students, employed persons, and mothers) revealed a variety of themes,
related to distributive justice as well as other forms of justice. Equality of various
kinds (equal resources, equal opportunities, impartiality and lack of discrimina-
tion) was the most frequently mentioned meaning of justice, followed by deserving-
ness, entitlement, and merit (giving people their due, or their rights, giving rewards
according to contributions). Legality (action and behaviour in accordance with the
law) was also a theme that figured prominently. In addition, general ethical behav-
iour and humanitarianism (honesty, truthfulness, charity, and doing good to others)
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 233

also got mentioned as a meaning of justice. By contrast, sensitivity to a potential

recipient’s need, fulfilling one’s promises, and following reciprocity were among
the least commonly mentioned meanings of justice. A similar pattern of responses
indicating the “meaning of justice” has been reported by some other investigators
as well, although there are variations in the frequencies of different categories of
responses between different samples (Pandey, “personal communication”). In one
of these studies, responses from a sample of Canadian university students exhibited
essentially similar themes, again with varying frequencies in the different categories
of responses (Krishnan & Carment 2006). Some other investigators have gathered
similar evidence from other cultures [for example, Hochschild’s (1982) study of
American beliefs about justice]. Allowing for variations in the denominators under-
lying people’s justice conceptualizations in diverse cultures, one may nevertheless
attempt a comparison between these conceptualizations, with some caution. Such a
comparison shows that the basic conceptualization of justice, conveyed in a context-
free form, might provide a good foundation for justice-related social policy and may
give useful leads into what people consider “fair” or “just”, in general.
Adding to what “justice” means to people, the importance assigned to various
meanings, definitions and criteria of distributive justice may also strengthen our
comprehension of justice conceptualizations. Some evidence on these lines has been
reported in an Indian sample (Krishnan 2011). The greatest importance was assigned
to ability and effort as criteria of reward or resource allocation, and to following
legal codes, keeping promises and retribution as definitions of “justice”. Equality,
need, getting one’s own rights, reciprocity and helping were assigned less impor-
tance. The recipient’s disadvantage, group achievement, individual achievement, and
seniority as criteria of reward or resource allocation were assigned the least impor-
tance. These differences in assigned importance to various criteria did not exactly
match the frequencies of mention of these criteria as the “meaning of justice”. Nor
was there a systematic correspondence between the assigned importance, and Indian
findings related to justice rule preferences in scenario studies.
Considering justice rule preferences, and the perceived fairness of given allo-
cations based on particular justice rules as additional expressions of justice con-
ceptualization, the existing research showed both consistencies and inconsistencies
between these two commonly examined dependent variables. Lack of correspond-
ence is also observed between these two expressions of justice conceptualization
and the frequency of mention of “meaning of justice” themes (referred to above),
as well as the importance assigned to various meanings and criteria of justice.
In Indian studies of reward allocation, earlier findings showed a stronger prefer-
ence for need as a justice rule than merit or equality (Murphy-Berman et al. 1984;
Berman et al. 1985; Aruna et al. 1994). However, many other studies have shown
a strong equality preference, or merit preference, or non-significant differences
between the likelihood of preference for need and merit (Krishnan 1998, 2000,
2001; Krishnan et al. 2009; Pandey & Singh 1997; Singh 1994). These apparent
inconsistencies seem to be associated with the presence of specific contextual and
resource variables in the allocation setting, such as allocator–recipient relation-
ship, self–other versus other-only allocation, resource scarcity and the like.
234 L. Krishnan

Finally, perceived unfairness under violations of specific justice rules may also
be an expression of justice conceptualization. How people react to perceived injus-
tice has been investigated by some experts independently of perceived justice (Kahn
1972; Schmitt & Marwell 1972; Mikula et al. 1990). Logically, it would be expected
that when a particular justice rule is preferred most, is judged to be most fair, or an
allocation based on that rule is perceived to be most fair, then a violation of that rule
would also be perceived to be most unfair. The opposite can be said for a justice rule
that is preferred least, is judged to be least fair, or an allocation based on that rule is
perceived to be least fair. However, empirical investigations involving Indian sam-
ples that throw light on this form of justice conceptualization do not always bring
out the expected symmetry. Some Indian studies showed that perceived unfairness
was greatest under ability or effort violation, and under equality violation. In the
same studies, perceived unfairness ratings corresponded, respectively, to strong merit
preference or strong equality preference in hypothetical allocation settings, but the
perceived unfairness ratings did not systematically match ratings of perceived fair-
ness of merit-based and equal allocation, respectively. Legality violation was also
perceived to be highly unfair. In the same investigations, perceived unfairness was
rated significantly lower under need violation. This finding was matched by the
weak need preference reported in some of these studies, but was inconsistent with
the strong need preference reported in many others. Perceived unfairness was low-
est under promise violation and reciprocity violation (Krishnan 2011). An interesting
observation was that in an investigation that compared Indian and Canadian college
students (cited above), the pattern of perceived unfairness under violations of spe-
cific justice rules was extremely similar in the two samples.
In other words, there may be several ways of examining how individuals in a
particular society or culture conceptualize “justice”, in context-free or context-
bound ways. The lack of congruence between the various expressions of justice
conceptualizations poses a challenge to social scientists. Given that some incom-
patibility between these diverse expressions of justice conceptualization is only to
be expected, a clash of interests among those affected by a particular policy should
not be surprising. Thus, people who define justice as equality are likely to perceive
as “unfair” a policy that goes against equality and favours a particular criterion
such as merit, need or legality. Likewise, they are likely to perceive as “fair” a pol-
icy that upholds equality. This state of affairs underlines the need to pay attention
to the dissimilarities that may exist between different sections of a society, with
respect to what is “most fair” in distributive justice—a matter of great concern to
policy makers, and one that certainly complicates policy formulation.

3.2 Justice Perceptions Between Different Sections of Society

Probably, it is this aspect that poses the biggest challenge to policy makers. Apart
from the overall diversity in justice conceptualizations that are found in every soci-
ety, different sections of any society may show variations in justice preferences
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 235

that are context bound, or pertain to specific resources. “Different sections of soci-
ety” may be identified on the basis of age, gender, socioeconomic class and social
disadvantage. All of these variables may be placed in the category of allocator and
recipient characteristics, and the existing research in the area does provide evi-
dence pertinent to these variables.

3.2.1 Age

Both young and very old individuals in any society are considered to be vulner-
able to various forms of injustice, and it is common to find social welfare policy
being addressed to children and senior citizens. However, social-psychological
studies have not yielded information on age variations in justice rule preferences
from a lifespan point of view. Nor have they examined reactions among the elderly
as recipients of special welfare programmes and the like. Instead, much of the
research on distributive justice has looked into developmental variations in alloca-
tion preferences shown by children placed in the allocator role.
In the developmental perspective, evidence comes from some studies that
adopt a cognitive developmental approach and/or moral developmental approach.
In a cognitive developmental framework, Hook and Cook (1979) found that with
age, children tended to move from self-interest to equality and from equality to
equity in their allocation pattern, and within equity, from ordinal to proportional
equity. Adopting Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, Damon’s (1980) stud-
ies indicated that very young children in the allocator role adopted allocation cri-
teria such as the recipient being older or younger, or self-interest of the allocator
who was also a recipient. Slightly older children adopted equality, and still older
children followed equity as the criterion of reward allocation. Damon interpreted
these findings as conforming to Kohlberg’s moral developmental stages. Similar
developmental patterns among children were reported by Enright et al. (1980a, b,
1981). However, other investigators have found situational variables modifying,
or interacting with, the age of the subject. For example, self-interest and equality
have been found to be dominant criteria among very young and older children,
respectively, but the explanations for adopting these criteria varied between the
children (Simons & Klaasen 1979). A more recent cross-cultural comparison of
very young children from different cultures has also shown self-interest as a basis
of reward allocation (Rochat et al. 2009).
Other investigators have observed equality preference among younger children,
but different criteria being used by older children (Sigelman & Weitzman 1991).
Zinser et al. (1991) reported that younger children used both equality and need
as allocation criteria, whereas older children used equity. Similarly, deviations
from the developmental pattern found in western studies have been reported by
Singh and his collaborators among Asian subjects (Sin & Singh 2005; Singh et al.
2002; Singh & Huang 1995). In these investigations, perceived input by the recipi-
ent was assessed and the outcome (allocation) was measured. The findings indi-
cated that perceived input differences mediated allocations, with variations in the
236 L. Krishnan

correspondence between perceived input differences and outcome (allocation) dif-

ferences. Moreover, the developmental trend was not linear, in contrast to the pat-
tern reported in American studies. The absence of a linear developmental pattern
was ascribed to cognitive as well as social considerations among Asian subjects
(Singh et al. 2002). Situational variables such as motivation and competence have
also been found to colour justice rule preference among both younger and older
children (Nelson & Dweck 1977). Yet another study revealed that the nature of
the allocation setting (kibbutz or urban) influenced what criteria would be adopted,
because of the social norms prevalent in these settings (Nisan 1984). Some other
investigators have also found the effect of situational characteristics making a dif-
ference in the developmental pattern reported by Damon (Moore et al. 1993).
Indian studies that have investigated age or developmental differences in jus-
tice rule preferences have generally not found support for the trends reported in
western investigations, or for Kohlberg’s moral developmental stages. For exam-
ple, Sinha (1985) found that both younger and older children adopted equity as an
allocation criterion, with proportional equity appearing in younger children, and
ordinal equity, in older children. Similarly, Misra (1991) found deviations from
the developmental patterns reported in other studies. At all age levels, equality and
reciprocity were exhibited by children.
Although age or developmental differences in the adoption of specific justice
rules have been interpreted in the light of moral cognitive developmental stages
that are alleged to be culturally universal, the cross-cultural universalism of the
proposed moral cognitive developmental stages has been debated by some experts
(Gibbs & Schnell 1985; Snarey 1985; Darley & Schultz 1990), and the role of
socialization in shaping the moral reasoning underlying justice rule preferences
has been highlighted. Considering the sparse research on the effects of socializa-
tion, child rearing or parenting on moral reasoning, and thereby on justice-related
behaviour, it is not possible to make a definite statement on the relative influence
of moral cognitive development and socialization, or on their interactive effects,
on justice rule preferences.
The translation of age-related findings on distributive justice rule preferences
into social policy in the case of children in the allocator role may really not be a
meaningful exercise. However, research that takes into consideration children as
recipients shows clearly that children are extremely vulnerable to exploitation (for
instance, in terms of being denied proper education, or child labourers being paid
inappropriate wages). This state of affairs does necessitate inquiry into the ques-
tion of distributive justice from the recipient’s point of view—in this case, recipi-
ents who are probably too young to understand that they may be the victims of
distributive (and other forms of) injustice, let alone protest against it or react to
injustice in any other way. Yet, these young individuals seem capable of respond-
ing to the idea of fairness and unfairness, in both allocator and recipient roles, as
revealed in the evidence described above. If one takes into account socialization as
a significant set of variables that modify moral cognitive developmental trends in a
particular sociocultural context, then, possibly, it is easier to see the role of social
policy.
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 237

3.2.2 Gender

With regard to the allocator’s gender, differences in justice rule preference have
been reported in several studies (Major & Deaux 1982). Between equity and equal-
ity, males prefer equity over equality, whereas females show the opposite trend.
This general finding has been explained in terms of the exploitative-accommodative
attitude framework: Males prefer equity because it fits in with their self-favouring
(exploitative) attitude, whereas females adopt equality because it is consistent with
their other-favouring (accommodative) attitude (Boldizar et al. 1988). Extending
this explanation to broader dispositional characteristics, it has been suggested that
men are more agentic and status assertive, whereas women are more communal
and status neutralizing (Kahn et al. 1977, 1980a, b; Major & Adams 1983). Males
have been found to react more negatively than females to injustice in reward allo-
cation and to an unjust partner (Kahn 1972). However, findings that indicate inter-
active effects between personality variables and contextual variables suggest that
dispositional or personal variables such as gender may not be acting in isolation.
For example, expected interaction between the allocator and the recipient (Shapiro
1975), whether the allocation is public or private (Kidder et al. 1977; Asdigian
et al. 1994), whether self-presentation is an underlying motive (Reis & Gruzen
1976) and whether the task characteristics in the situation favour males or females
(Reis & Jackson 1981) are some of the variables that may modify the overall gender
differences reported in many studies. Gender role type (Bem 1974) as a personality
variable has also shown some effects. In one study, androgynous allocators exhib-
ited greater generosity in allocation and discriminated less between recipients than
masculine, feminine and undifferentiated types (Jackson 1987). Possibly, a gender
role stereotype that allows for a combination or integration of accommodative and
exploitative approaches to reward allocation would lead to a similar likelihood of
preference for equity and equality as allocation criteria.
Examining gender differences in terms of recipient characteristics, soci-
etal-level explorations of reactions to gender wage gap have shown differences
between males and females with respect to feeling underpaid. Overall, males have
been found to feel more underpaid, and more relatively deprived, than females,
even when the general income level of males is higher than that of females
(Jackson 1989). Husband–wife variations in salaries or wages were found to be
lower among couples who had more egalitarian attitudes that those lower on such
attitudes. In organizational contexts, gender differences have been found in the rel-
ative importance attached by males and females to distributive and procedural jus-
tice, and its relationship with employees’ commitment. Commitment was related
more to distributive justice among males, but more to procedural justice among
females (Sweeney & McFarlin 1997).
In the Indian context, it is notable that prescriptions in traditional Indian (Hindu)
texts consider gender as a recipient characteristic, and stipulate that men should get
more of a resource or reward, such as inherited property, than women. In contem-
porary Indian studies dealing with reward allocation and distributive justice, most
investigations report non-significant gender differences in justice rule preferences
238 L. Krishnan

from the allocator’s perspective. In a few studies, interactive effects have been
found between allocator gender and situational characteristics. Considering recipi-
ent gender, several surveys indicate that a clear gender wage gap exists that is unfair
to women (for example, Bhan 2001; Menon et al. 2009). But these surveys do not
assess the fairness perception of males and females, and present an economic rather
than a social-psychological analysis. While this leaves another gap in information
regarding recipient perceptions of fairness, social policy does demonstrate sensitivity
to recipient gender from the social welfare point of view and makes more allow-
ances for a fair share of resources as well as opportunities to females.

3.2.3 Socioeconomic Class

Social philosophers such as Rawls (1971), sociologists, and economists have brought
out the implications of social class differences for understanding distributive justice
by highlighting aspects such as social inequality and the accompanying differences
in values (Tallman et al. 1979). A few studies in the social-psychological perspective
have also revealed social class differences in justice rule preferences. Some investi-
gators have reported that less distributive justice exists among lower class children
than among middle-class children (Enright et al. 1980, 1981). Such class differences
possibly reflect varying allocation experiences as recipients. Moreover, there is evi-
dence from other studies that people with higher incomes prefer merit, whereas those
with lower incomes prefer need or equality as justice rules. Considering that mem-
bers of different social classes also vary in income, this finding becomes significant
for understanding social class variations in justice rule preferences. This idea has
been supported by further empirical as well as theoretical analysis by some authors
(d’Anjou et al. 1995). It has also been suggested that different values are encouraged
and upheld by members of diverse socioeconomic classes.
Interpreting the findings related to socioeconomic class, it may be said that the
distributive justice norms adopted by different socioeconomic classes seem to be
influenced by the opportunities available to them for obtaining resources (of vari-
ous kinds), and the resource scarcity they face. Sections of society that face a rela-
tive shortage of economic resources are more likely to prefer equality or need as
criteria of reward and resource allocation, compared to those who face less severe
resource scarcity (Lerner & Lerner 1981). The latter are more likely to prefer
merit or equity. Availability or lack of availability of opportunities may also be
viewed as one form of “scarcity”, coupled with other problems such as social dis-
advantage and social exclusion.

3.2.4 Social Disadvantage

Possibly, social disadvantage is one determinant of justice perceptions and justice

rule preferences that is unquestionably connected to social policy. The concept of
“social disadvantage” has been defined in diverse ways, including disadvantage
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 239

stemming from low socioeconomic status, deprivation and relative deprivation,

poverty, membership of an ethnic minority, gender, physical disability and so on.
In the case of hierarchically stratified societies such as India, social disadvantage
is also defined in terms of membership of lower castes. As in the case of social
class, the socially disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged sections of a society
would probably define “justice” according to the values they develop based on
their experiences, and these values may ultimately translate into justice percep-
tions and justice behaviour.
In general, it would be expected that the socially disadvantaged sections of any
society would (a) perceive greater injustice to themselves than the rest of soci-
ety, and (b) with regard to justice rule preferences, show a greater preference for
need and equality as justice rules rather than merit: the socially non-disadvantaged
would be more likely to favour merit, or would favour all three justice rules with
the same likelihood. The existing studies on social disadvantage report findings
that do not show drastic differences between disadvantaged and non-disadvan-
taged subjects. Nor do they throw light clearly on similarities or differences in
justice rule preferences. Instead, many of these investigations deal with the extent
of justice perceived by the socially disadvantaged. Considering the sense of felt
deprivation in women, Crosby (1982) reported that contrary to expectations, work-
ing women stated that they felt less injustice than men, a phenomenon that she
referred to as a “denial of personal discrimination” or “personal disadvantage”.
Corroborative evidence has been provided by some other investigators (Foster &
Matheson 1995). Comparing the sense of justice or injustice between different
socioeconomic and ethnic groups in the United States, Jost et al. (2003) explained
the lack of felt injustice or unfairness among the disadvantaged in terms of the
concept of “system justification”. This idea essentially indicates that the disadvan-
taged view the existing system as justified and therefore “just”, and thereby avoid
or reduce ideological dissonance that might stem out of a sense of injustice. With a
changed perspective, Laurin et al. (2011) highlight a “self-regulatory” rather than
a debilitating role of social disadvantage. Based on the findings of five studies,
these authors reported that contrary to common belief and expectations, socially
disadvantaged groups, more than the advantaged ones, demonstrated a belief in
greater fairness in reward allocation, greater persistence in examinations in spite
of poor performance, greater motivation to work harder, and willingness to invest
time and effort in pursuing long-term goals.
In a somewhat similar vein, many Indian investigators dealing with justice
perceptions among the socially disadvantaged have observed greater action for
restoring social justice in the disadvantaged and “weaker” sections (Bhatt 1989;
Menon 1988; Pandey 1991). This may be ascribed to the greater need for such
action among the disadvantaged. What is possibly more surprising is that some
studies in the social-psychological perspective have shown non-significant dif-
ferences between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged groups. With regard to
the Indian context, defining social disadvantage on the basis of caste, no signifi-
cant difference was found between the socially disadvantaged groups (scheduled
castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes) and non-disadvantaged groups (the
240 L. Krishnan

“general” category), either in the extent of justice prevailing in society or in jus-

tice rule preferences (Krishnan 2001). Other studies that have taken into account
the recipient’s caste (but without including the idea of “disadvantage”) have also
found this variable to have a non-significant effect on allocation rule preferences
(Singh & Pandey 1994; Pandey & Singh 1997). Corroborating these results, more
recent evidence of non-significant differences between disadvantaged and non-
disadvantaged groups have been reported, even when “disadvantage” was rede-
fined in terms of opportunities available in key domains such as health, education
and economic growth, and in social status (Pandey, unpublished dissertation).
Particularly considering the social, political, identity-related, and interpersonal
importance of caste, and caste-based social disadvantage in Indian society, the
absence of significant differences between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged
groups is an unexpected finding. Possibly, this finding can be explained on the
basis of the reservation policy that constitutionally purports to safeguard the inter-
ests of the disadvantaged. Similar findings reported in the U.S., a culture that is
very different from the Indian culture, have been explained or interpreted in terms
of “denial of personal discrimination” (Crosby 1982), “system justification” (Jost
et al. 2003) and “self-regulation” (Laurin et al. 2011). These explanations are not
entirely ruled out in the Indian context.
It has to be admitted that a more definite explanation is needed for the lack
of significant differences between the disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged, in
the case of the Indian society. Until a better method and approach to analysis is
devised, the counter-intuitive findings of Indian studies related to social disad-
vantage may continue to pose a challenge to researchers. Everyday observations
suggest that the disadvantaged section of any society, by definition, is more vul-
nerable to injustice than the rest of society, and deserves priority in social policy.
In spite of the non-significant gender differences, and non-significant differences
reported in comparisons between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged sections in
Indian studies, the special considerations given through legislative (constitutional)
and other measures to women and the socially disadvantaged are justified because
they have the goal of social equality.
However, such policies may be met with some dissatisfaction in the other sec-
tions. It could be argued that the needy sections (low economic class and the dis-
advantaged) are also typically low input sections with regard to production, even
if this is for reasons beyond their control. By contrast, the high input sections who
get lower levels of rewards because their merit is treated as less important than
need or equality may justifiably feel unfairly treated in terms of outcomes, even
if this is done on grounds of their being less needy. In the long run, this kind of
circumstance may actually discourage high input or productivity in the non-dis-
advantaged section. In other words, instead of a lopsided distribution system that
caters only to the interests of one section, multiple justice rules may have to be
built into social policy related to distributive justice.
That is, depending on the nature of resources, and situational factors, a resource
or reward distribution policy that blends equality, need and merit may be what is
ultimately effective.
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 241

3.3 Distinction Between the Allocator’s and Recipient’s

Perspectives

Social-psychological studies of reward allocation have largely examined the alloca-

tor’s perspective. However, it is obvious that justice rule preferences and perceived
fairness of given allocations would differ between the allocator and the recipient.
The allocator–recipient distinction in fairness perceptions was underlined by van
Yperen et al. (2005). This variable has been looked at in Indian studies as well
(Krishnan 1998; Krishnan & Carment 2006; Krishnan et al. 2009). As expected,
perceived fairness of a given allocation in the recipient’s perspective shows an ele-
ment of self-interest. Thus, merit-based allocation is perceived to be more fair than
other allocations by a meritorious recipient, and need-based allocation is perceived
to be more fair than other allocations by a needy recipient. On the other hand, an
allocator who is not one of the recipients would make a disinterested, objective
judgment of fairness. To that extent, then, such an allocator’s justice rule preference,
or perceived fairness of a given allocation, could be taken as a more objective indi-
cator of “fairness”. However, if the allocator also happens to be one of the recipients
(as in “self–other” allocations), he/she is also likely to exhibit self-interest.
From the point of view of policy making, it becomes imperative to consider the
distinction between “self–other” allocation in which the allocator is also one of the
recipients, and “other-only” allocation, in which the allocator is not a recipient. This
boils down to a distinction between the allocator’s perspective and the recipient’s
perspective. More often than not, such distinctions are ignored, or at least not consid-
ered seriously in social policy formulation. The stance of the policy maker appears
to be that of allocators in an “other-only” allocation setting, but this may still involve
subtle forms of self-interest. It is an inescapable fact that every policy maker or allo-
cator in the societal or national context is an inseparable part of the same society.
Therefore, allocation policies essentially become cases of “self–other” allocation in
the final analysis. There is every possibility that those who make policies about the
distribution of resources often tacitly follow self-interest, adopting one set of alloca-
tion criteria for themselves as allocators, and a different set of criteria for the recipi-
ents “out there” who are the supposed beneficiaries of their policies. In other words,
if true social justice is the objective of social policy, then a careful evaluation of the
distinction between allocator–recipient roles is unavoidable. This is one feature that
has been brought to light in social-psychological research on distributive justice.

3.4 The Role of Resource Variables and Sociocultural

Characteristics

Resource availability, in a broad sense, is the starting point of distributive jus-

tice. The existing literature on distributive justice contains economic analyses (for
example, Jasso 1983, 2007; Konow 2001) as well as social-psychological analyses
242 L. Krishnan

(for example, Foa et al. 1993; Ng & Allen 2005). In general, a consideration of
resource variables necessitates a distinction between the micro-level analysis com-
mon in the social-psychological perspective and the macro-level analysis com-
mon in the economic and sociological perspectives. Combining the two analyses,
it should be recognized that ultimately, resource-related variables (that consti-
tute economic conditions), on one hand, and sociocultural characteristics, on the
other hand, influence each other. This interaction affects the values nurtured by
a cultural or society as a whole and also by different sections within a culture or
society. These values, in turn, get expressed in the form of justice perceptions and
justice behaviour.
Resource scarcity or availability may be considered both a resource character-
istic and a background variable with sociocultural implications. Much has been
written about the distributive justice of scarce resources (Lerner & Lerner 1981),
the role of self-interest or sensitivity to equality and need (Greenberg 1981) and
about the allocation of public resources such as health care and other resources
(Skitka & Tetlock 1992, 1993). One of the themes that emerge in this context is
that distributive justice issues arise mainly in scarce resource conditions (Lemberg
2010; Maiese 2003). At first, it would appear that when resources or rewards are
scarce, self-interest would be stronger than equality, equity or need. Yet, there
is evidence that group concerns rather than individual self-interest prevail under
reward scarcity, in a non-zero-sum situation, and make equality more salient.
Under reward sufficiency, self-interest and equitable distributions have been found
to be more likely (Hegtvedt 1987). It has also been proposed that under resource
scarcity, a “contingency model” is invoked, that involves a consideration of sev-
eral situational factors in making distributive decisions, namely the distributive
norms applicable to the situation, perceived attributes of the potential recipients,
resource constraints and attributes of judges or allocators (Skitka & Tetlock 1992).
Moreover, when resources are scarce, attribution of recipients’ claims become very
important, and allocators may use need or efficiency, depending on whether the
recipients’ need is internally or externally caused.
In the context of India which appears to qualify as a “scarcity culture”
(Williams 1973), specific investigations fail to bring out a significant effect of
resource scarcity on the choice of distributive justice rules (Pandey & Singh 1997;
Krishnan 2000). However, as in the case of many other variables, this does not
mean that Indians are impervious to resource scarcity. Instead, attention needs to
be paid to other factors that may be operating in the situation, especially cultural
variables and sociocultural characteristics in general.

3.4.1 Cultural Variables

The entry of cultural variables in the study of distributive justice can be considered
a landmark in the history of research in the area. Two well-known and commonly
used frameworks for cross-cultural comparisons of distributive justice are Hofstede’s
(1980) cultural dimensions and Schwartz’ value dimensions (Schwartz 1994, 1999),
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 243

referred to earlier in the present essay. Among the Hofstede dimensions, individual-
ism in particular became a favourite with researchers. Several cross-cultural com-
parisons revealed that equity (merit) was preferred most in individualistic cultures,
and equality or need was preferred most in collectivistic cultures (Weick et al. 1976;
Mahler et al. 1981; Marin 1981, 1985; Leung & Bond 1982, 1984). Other cultures,
such as India, were later included in cross-cultural comparisons. Moreover, after
the importance of including need as an allocation principle was highlighted, along
with equity and equality (Deutsch 1975; Sampson 1975), some intercultural com-
parisons revealed that need was also a salient justice rule particularly in some col-
lectivistic cultures (Murphy-Berman et al. 1984; Berman et al. 1985; Kashima et al.
1988). As research involving cultural variables progressed, the role of individual-
ism–collectivism in distributive justice started being questioned, partly because other
dynamics were seen to be more important (Hui et al. 1991), but also because indi-
vidualism as a cultural variable itself posed both conceptual and measurement prob-
lems (Oyserman et al. 2002). Considering Schwartz’ value dimensions, the number
of investigations using this framework in the context of distributive justice is much
smaller, and the few studies (Fischer & Smith 2004) that have examined the relation-
ship between these value dimensions and distributive justice perceptions in specific
cultures provide insight into the possibility of alternative cultural variables influenc-
ing distributive justice perceptions. A different perspective, combining economic,
sociological and political–ideological perspectives, and incorporating diverse meas-
ures of distributive justice, can be found in the work of Powell (2005) as part of the
cross-cultural variations in distributive justice perceptions (CVDJP) project.
It should be mentioned in this context that cultural variables have been incor-
porated into justice research from more than one point of view. In most studies,
selected cultural or national groups are assumed to be high, low or intermediate on
the Hofstede dimensions, Schwartz values, or on cultural characteristics proposed
within some other theoretical framework. Or, specific samples are measured on the
cultural variables of interest (for example, idiocentrism–allocentrism correspond-
ing to cultural individualism–collectivism). It may be argued that the cultural con-
text encourages the acquisition of personality characteristics and beliefs through
socialization (Triandis & Suh 2002). In addition, features associated with specific
cultural variables are included in several investigations as contextual variables that
have cultural relevance (for example, closeness of the allocator–recipient rela-
tionship or the concern for harmonious relationships as collectivistic variables).
Another way in which cultural variables are incorporated is by examining societal
features such as a large socioeconomically disadvantaged section, stratification or
hierarchy, as correlates or determinants of justice perceptions.
With regard to specific personality variables and beliefs that may function at
the individual level as equivalents of cultural variables, there is some evidence that
merits mention. For example, considering Machiavellianism, high Machs tend to
follow self-interested allocation principles, whereas low Mach individuals exhibit
a preference for equal distribution principles. Low self-esteem persons tend to
adopt equality, whereas those high on self-esteem adopt equity (Major & Deaux
1982). Some evidence of the role of Machiavellianism, and of need for approval,
244 L. Krishnan

in the redress of injustice has also been reported (Blumstein & Weinstein 1969).
Persons high on both personality characteristics were less likely to engage in
redress of distributive injustice to themselves, than persons low on these character-
istics. Another variable, namely the sense of personal control over their own out-
comes, was found to be related to justice rule preference. Grzelak (1985) found
that persons with a strong sense of personal control over their outcomes adopted
the equity rule in reward distribution in a game setting, to a significantly greater
extent than those with a weaker sense of control.
In addition, specific personal beliefs may be associated with justice rule prefer-
ences. For example, belief in the Protestant ethic was associated with a preference
for equity over equality or need (Greenberg 1978). Comparing samples from Jamaica
and New Zealand, Frey and Powell (2009) found correlations between belief in the
Protestant ethic and support for social justice measures such as welfare, redistribu-
tion of wealth, free enterprise and the like, collectively referred to as “social justice
values”. Similarly, there is evidence of associations between belief in a “just world”
(Rubin & Peplau 1975; Lerner & Miller 1978) and distributive justice perceptions,
across different cultures (Furnham 1991). The Preference for Merit Principle, or
PMP, Scale (Davey et al. 1999) was devised in order to assess the extent to which
individuals favour the merit principle in reward and resource allocation, as an indi-
vidual-difference variable. Preference for the merit principle was found to be a good
predictor of attitudes towards measures such as affirmative action.
A few Indian studies show the role of Machiavellianism as a personality vari-
able, in the context of reward allocation. In a series of reward allocation stud-
ies involving both college students and supervisors in organizations, Chatterjee
(1984) found the following. In actual distribution, high Machiavellians distrib-
uted rewards on the basis of bargaining, and exploitatively took as large a share
of the reward for themselves as possible. Low Machiavellians, on the other hand,
followed the equity or equality rule. In a scenario study of industrial supervi-
sors by the same investigator, a leader’s reward allocation that was accompa-
nied by an explanation was perceived to be fair when the explanation was based
on group need rather than on personal benefit to the leader. In other words,
Machiavellianism level as well as explanations for a given allocation seemed to
influence perceived fairness of a given allocation. Exploring the relationship
between justice perceptions, and emotional quotient, locus of control and equity
orientation as personality characteristics, Gulati and Bhal (2004) found that these
personality variables were significant predictors of procedural and interactional
justice perception, but not of distributive justice perception.
It is not difficult to see that the personality characteristics and beliefs men-
tioned here would be influenced by socialization and child-rearing or parenting
practices in different cultures. Thus, if contingent rewards and punishments are a
part of socialization, this would inculcate something akin to the Protestant ethic,
foster an internal rather than external locus of control in work settings, and merit
or equity would be affirmed as a more fair principle than equality. However, if
the reward–punishment patterns also take into account the origin or source of the
behaviour—that is, the attributional aspect—then other principles such as need
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 245

may also be perceived to be fair. Unfortunately, one of the noticeable missing links
in the study of distributive justice is the role played by socialization antecedents.
As stated earlier, cultural variables can also be examined by incorporating into
empirical studies, certain situational variables that are closely linked to cultural
characteristics. Taken independently as a category of variables, situational or con-
textual factors vary widely, and not all of them have cultural links. Many of these
have already been cited in connection with gender differences in justice percep-
tions and justice behaviour. Most of these situational variables are presented by
way of information regarding one or more components of the allocation setting.
For example, closeness of the allocator–recipient relationship (Leung & Bond
1982, 1984), expectation of interaction with the recipient (Shapiro 1975; Sagan
et al. 1981), and public or private setting of the allocation (Reis & Gruzen 1976;
Allen 1982; Wegner 1982) are variables that have their effects contextually, but
contain a social or relationship element. Equity is more likely to be adopted when
there is no expectation of future interaction with the recipient, whereas equality
is more likely to be adopted when interaction is anticipated. However, in the case
of expected future interaction, allocators in “self–other” allocation context prefer
to follow equity if the partner’s input is high, but prefer equality if the partner’s
input is low (Austin & McGinn 1977). In that sense, these situational variables
might encompass the cultural values of interpersonal harmony and social approval.
A similar comment may be made with regard to resource scarcity and disadvan-
tage as contextual variables. Although resource scarcity or sufficiency is otherwise
a resource variable, if information regarding this variable is woven into the con-
text, it may become salient as a sociocultural characteristic. Likewise, information
that the recipient is disadvantaged or non-disadvantaged may be a recipient char-
acteristic, but may have situational effects in ways that reflect reactions to a socio-
cultural characteristic. Yet another instance is that of seniority, or a rank-related
characteristic of the recipient. Information regarding this variable may evoke
responses as a contextual variable, a recipient characteristic, as linked to the cul-
tural characteristic called “power distance”, or the cultural value known as “defer-
ence”. Seniority may of course be treated as a separate criterion of allocation as
well (Rusbult et al. 1995; Fischer 2004; Fischer & Smith 2004; Hu et al. 2004).
Most investigations show that the significance of recipient seniority varies between
cultures, but there are also findings that demonstrate non-significant effects of sen-
iority in reward allocation (Krishnan & Carment 2006).
The question then is: In what ways do the interactive effects between cultural
variables, resource variables and situational variables have a place in social policy?
Blending cultural variables with resource and contextual variables in pol-
icy formulation is complicated business, and this is only too obvious in socie-
ties such as India. In the light of social stratification in Indian society along with
wide economic variations between different strata and sections, it is not surpris-
ing that preference for a particular justice rule in one section of society is often
pitted against preference for a different and incompatible rule in another sec-
tion. This incongruity is likely to be exacerbated by the perception of resource
or reward distribution as a “zero-sum game”, fostered by perceived or actual
246 L. Krishnan

resource scarcity. A “zero-sum game” perception is also likely to widen the chasm
between the “haves” and the “have-nots” because of the belief that the former pos-
sess resources at a cost to the latter, and thereby to generate felt injustice among
the “have-nots”. Such a belief may be stronger when the resource is concrete (for
example, money) rather than abstract (for example, information). Coexisting with
this possibility, resource allocation that is grossly unequal, or one that violates the
need principle, and yet appears to be consistent with cultural values (such as con-
formity to tradition, respect for power, and maintenance of hierarchy), may not
generate feelings of injustice or hostility. In such circumstances, specifying the
basis of resource allocation (for example, recognition of merit or providing for dis-
advantaged groups) might help to offset a sense of injustice. In short, allocation
policies have to be laid down in a way that minimizes or avoids ambiguity and
uncertainty, as well as possible interpersonal and intergroup frictions, in the light
of both resource variables and cultural factors.
Spontaneously one would ask: Is there any justice-related behaviour in India’s
sociocultural scenario that involves a social-psychological component, and that
has a place in social policy? The answer is in the affirmative. Many examples
of social justice issues can be cited for which some kind of social policy or law
exists, that show how basic distributive justice principles are being adhered to, or
being violated (more often the latter). In such cases, even though the social pro-
cess in the final analysis may be psychological, other social scientists, activists and
policy makers do not interpret it as such. Most of these cases involve a considera-
tion of deservingness and/or entitlement, in one or form or other.
First, all cases of strikes for pay enhancement, or similar demands, are based
on perceived inequity: violation of the fundamental distributive justice principle
based on rewards being proportional to input or cost, and a violation of deserv-
ingness. Procedural injustice is not ruled out in such cases, but the focus seems
to be on distributive aspects. Often, demands for increased salary or remuneration
are based on social comparisons of reward/cost ratios. Sometimes such demands
are based on economic factors (for example, increased cost of living leading to
an increase in need, but no corresponding increase in the salary provided by the
organization). Whether or not such perceptions are legitimate is of course a differ-
ent question.
Second, consider Indian farmers at large. It is a sad paradox that these provid-
ers of food for the country are also among the most hungry and the most malnour-
ished in the Indian population. Inequitable returns for what farmers produce are
frequently the cause of their poverty. Again, getting a return incommensurate with
input is an example of inequity. In addition, inadequate returns for farmers’ pro-
duce are also a violation of a basic need principle, something that does not entail
social comparison. In the same context (that is, the condition of farmers and others
engaged in agricultural occupations), the right to food is portrayed as a basic right
(and thus an entitlement), and the issue of food security and food justice is very
much a part of social policy. Mukherjee (2012), in her analysis of the issue of food
security, draws attention to what women farmers in Kerala are doing towards the
goal of “food justice”. Commenting on the issue, she says:
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 247

What can food justice practically mean? First, to prevent situations where grains rot while
people die—a very basic principle of distributive justice. But it has to mean a lot more:
people must have the right to produce food with dignity, have control over the parameters
of production, get just value for their labour and their produce. Mainstream notions of
food security ignore this dimension (Mukherjee 2012).

Similarly, in the name of land acquisition for development, farmers have had to give
up land that they owned, but the compensation given by the government was found to
be inadequate. The same thing can be said about other forms of displacement of com-
munities (for example, displaced communities in the regions of the Narmada dams)
(Manthan Adhyayan Kendra). In both of these cases, inequity was one of the rudi-
mentary causes of protest, but not the only one, as many other procedural injustices
and human rights violations were also in the picture. Protests in such cases, therefore,
should be understood first as psychological reactions to felt inequity and violations of
deservingness/entitlement, and only later, as an economic–legal–political issue.
Third, the well-known reservation policy in India that has engendered many
controversies because of its underlying justice dilemma has a social-psycholog-
ical root. The notion of reservation as an expression of “affirmative action” can
be encouraged, supported and defended on the basis of the need principle, which,
by itself, is rarely questioned. However, reservation in its present form is seen as
favouring the disadvantaged at the cost of the meritorious. Continuation of such
a policy, it is felt, will destroy the importance of merit and adversely affect pro-
ductivity in the long run. Moreover, a crucial criterion is the nature and extent of
“need” or disadvantage that is alleged to serve as the basis of the reservation pol-
icy. Many of the so-called needy or disadvantaged beneficiaries of the policy are
actually less “deserving” according to the need principle, than many of the truly
needy among the so-called non-disadvantaged sections. With the insertion of the
“creamy layer” restriction, there might have been some reduction in the perceived
injustice of the reservation policy. Yet the controversy continues.
Furthermore, from the social-psychological perspective, such reactions are only
to be expected. Research findings that indicate a divergence between recipient
perspectives consistently show self-serving perceptions in the expected direction.
A needy or disadvantaged recipient would perceive need- or disadvantage-based
allocation to be more fair than merit-based or equal allocation. Likewise, a meri-
torious recipient would perceive merit-based allocation to be more fair than need-
based, disadvantage-based or equal allocation. Both sections (the disadvantaged
and the non-disadvantaged) of Indian society might see the reservation policy as
being politically motivated, but it is only the section that is negatively affected that
would register a protest. An informative description of the social consequences
of the reservation policy has been provided by Singh (1988), throwing light on
aspects such as the heterogeneity among the “disadvantaged” section, deciding
between poverty and caste membership as a criterion of reservation, and the need
for bringing about institutional changes. Much has happened since Singh’s chapter
was written, but the essential dilemma remains.
Fourth, division of family property has a place in legal codes, is a part of social
policy and generates distributive justice questions that are social-psychological
248 L. Krishnan

in nature. The law requires that ancestral property be divided equally between the
offspring, regardless of age, gender, contribution and need. A distinction is made
between ancestral property (property that is inherited, and not earned through one’s
effort) and wealth that is earned by the parents. For the latter, the criteria of divi-
sion are the prerogative of the owner or allocator. In reality, numerous disputes arise
within family members with regard to unfair or unjust divisions of property, whether
inherited or earned by the allocator. Considering how the resource was acquired
in deciding the fairness of its distribution has been an inherent element in several
theories of justice (for example, Nozick 1974). Social-psychologically, this feature
represents an attributional or control aspect of the resource. That is, the laws seem
to make a distinction between claims of recipients over inherited resources and
earned resources, a distinction that is congruent with attributional considerations.
Yet, recipients are likely to focus more on the outcome (what share of the property
they receive), rather than on other aspects. Any unfairness or injustice experienced
with regard to outcome differences in property division thus leads to a weakening
of family ties, primarily because of the sense of inequity, and violation of entitle-
ment. Evidence of such reactions was obtained in a study (Krishnan, “unpublished
report”) conducted through individual interviews of married women in an urban set-
ting. One of the questions in the interview was related to personal experiences that
the respondent would consider “unjust” or “unfair” treatment. One of the responses
that emerged was a less-than-fair share of the family property to the respondent’s
family. Disputes between family members stemming from property division may be
a common phenomenon in Indian society, despite the family being a strong institu-
tion. If family welfare as a part of social policy, including harmonious relationships
within the family, is to be taken as an agenda in social justice, then both kinds of
concerns, namely fair distribution of ancestral family property, and harmonious fam-
ily relationships, should find a place in social policy.
Finally, if social justice policies are to be implemented effectively, there is
no doubt that individual-level as well as small group–level responses have to be
assessed. There are many instances of groups being formed among the target bene-
ficiaries of various social justice or welfare programmes, with the explicit purpose
of ensuring that they actually get what they have been promised. These groups
themselves are formed because individuals react to felt injustice, and some per-
sons take the initiative of demanding redress. From the policy maker’s side, the
effectiveness of a social policy and a social justice programme can be assessed
only by taking into account the social psychology of distributive justice.

4 Summing Up

All of the implications for social policy mentioned in this essay are meant to
emphasize the need for including the social-psychological research on distribu-
tive justice in the formulation of social policy. That the goal of social justice, and
attaining it through harmony, is a laudable one is unquestioned. That economic,
12  Research on Distributive Justice: Implications for Social Policy 249

political, ideological, sociological and psychological considerations will continue

to dictate social policy is acknowledged. Whether social justice measures come
from the government, or from a non-governmental organization, the response to
such measures comes from the individual or the small group. Ultimately, then, the
explanation of why a policy “works” or “does not work” comes from small-unit
analysis as is done in social psychology. Actively including the valuable contri-
butions made by the presently marginalized “micro-level” social-psychological
research on justice will only widen and enrich social policy, making it more inclu-
sive. It is acknowledged that even the most well-intended social policy is no magic
wand. This is especially true of societies like India that face multiple problems,
such as fluctuating economic conditions, soaring numbers, uncertain natural con-
ditions and pluralism, which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. Yet, the
blind attempt to “make one size fit all” on the part of social policy makers has to
be drastically modified. One way to bring about a change in the required direction
is to look more carefully at the ignored social-psychological aspects.
In the words of Shonkoff (2000, p. 187), “Knowledge is a moving target. When it
survives critical scrutiny, it affirms contemporary thinking and efforts. When it does
not stand up to honest challenge, the search for better understanding is intensified”.

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Chapter 13
The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building
Sustainable Bridges

R. C. Tripathi, E. S. K. Ghosh and R. Kumar

1 Introduction: The Context of Hindu-Muslim Relations

The Hindu-Muslim (H-M) equation has puzzled social scientists in modern India
considerably. While on the one hand India is committed to “unity in diversity” as
an ideal of a secular, democratic republic, in practice, linguistic, regional, ethnic
and religious diversities have posed numerous problems to its unity and integ-
rity and for national development. Of these, Hindu-Muslim inter-group relations
have been markedly in the foreground. H-M contact dates back to more than
1,000 years. Few people in India, or outside India, know that the first mosque in
India came up during the time of the prophet. In recent years, Hindu-Muslim rela-
tions have turned progressively negative and violent. A study of demographic data
would underline the problem. Muslims in India, according to the Census of India,
2001, constituted the largest single religious minority, about 13.4 % of the total
population or approximately 138 million people. Pew Forum (2011) estimated the
Muslim population in 2010 in India to be around 177.3 million, roughly 14.6 % of
the total population of India (http://www.pewforum.org/The-Future-of-the-Global-
Muslim-Population.aspx). After Indonesia and Pakistan, India has the largest con-
centration of Muslims. There are few free nations with such a large minority of
Muslims in relation to its total population. Approximately 29 % Muslims in India
live in urban areas, against 71 % in the rural areas. Nearly 50 % of the Muslim
population of India lives in three northern and eastern states, namely Uttar Pradesh

R. C. Tripathi (*) · E. S. K. Ghosh · R. Kumar 

Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
e-mail: [email protected]
E. S. K. Ghosh
e-mail: [email protected]
R. Kumar
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 257
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_13, © Springer India 2014
258 R. C. Tripathi et al.

(UP), Bihar and West Bengal. UP alone accounts for about a quarter of the Muslim
population of the country.
The confrontation between Hindus and Muslims has been largely in the urban
areas where the density of Muslims is higher than in the rural areas (D’Souza
1983). Varshney (2002) reports that only 4 % of the total deaths of Muslims in
communal riots have occurred in rural areas. The riots that took place in the rural
areas of Gujarat following the Godhra incident,1 therefore, may be seen as an
exception. It has also been found that an urban area with a Muslim minority popu-
lation ranging between 20 and 40 % of the total population is more disturbance-
prone than towns with a lower density of Muslims (Engineer 1984; Krishna 1985;
Saxena 1984). In fact, 70 % of Hindu-Muslim violence has been confined to about
30 major cities of India (Varshney 2002).
Historically speaking, the relationship between the two communities in India
has by and large been peaceful, except for what one has observed during the twen-
tieth century. During the Mughal period, especially during the time of Akbar in the
sixteenth century, the relations between Hindus and Muslims, according to most
texts of the time, were cordial. Hindus and Muslims came together to fight against
their colonial rulers in 1857 in what is called India’s first war of Independence.
There are numerous festivals and fairs in which members of the two communities
participate actively. Sabarimala fair,2 Amarnath pilgrimage,3 Urs4 celebrations of
Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer, Rajasthan in western India, and the
“Phoolwalon ki sair”5 (procession of the flower-sellers) in Delhi are some exam-
ples of these.

1  A train carrying Hindu activists who were returning from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh was alleg-

edly set on fire at Godhra station in Gujarat by some Muslims in 2002. This resulted in large-
scale communal violence in Gujarat.
2  The Sabarimala temple, devoted to Lord Ayyappa, is an important Hindu pilgrimage centre in

Kerala. The pilgrims begin their journey with a ritualistic stop at the Erumely mosque to seek
Vavar’s blessings. According to popular belief, Lord Ayyappa and Vavar, a Muslim king, were
great friends and Lord Ayyappa desired that all pilgrims coming to his temple should first seek
permission of Vavar before coming to the temple. People belonging to all religions, including
Muslims, take part in the Sabarimala festival.
3 The Amarnath trek is undertaken by Hindu pilgrims to pay homage to Lord Shiva. The

Amarnath cave is located in Jammu and Kashmir. Pilgrims undertake an arduous and long jour-
ney to reach the cave, which is situated at a height of more than 14,000 ft. According to popular
belief, the cave was discovered by a Muslim shepherd. Ever since, Muslims have taken care of
Hindus embarking on the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage trek has faced no problems in spite of com-
munal tension in J&K.
4 Urs refers to the death anniversaries of Sufi saints that take place at their places of burial,

called dargahs. The Urs celebrations of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer attract a very large
number of people, including a large number of Hindus.
5  Phoolwalon ki sair is an annual festival organized in Mehrauli in Delhi in which members of

all communities participate. One of its ostensible purposes is to promote communal harmony.
The festival was made popular by Bahadur Shah “Zafar”, the last Mughal king who made flower
offerings at the dargah of Khwaja Bakhtiar “Kaki” and also the goddess “Yogmaya”. The tradi-
tion continues to this day.
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 259

Modern conflictual relations between Hindus and Muslims in India are traced
back to the policy of divide and rule of the British. British policies succeeded in
creating rift and distrust between Hindus and Muslims. Colonial support for divid-
ing India on religious lines into two separate nations, India and Pakistan, deepened
the divide between Hindus and Muslims (Tambiah 1997). The creation of Pakistan
on religious grounds and the memory of the Partition riots of 1946–1947 continue
to affect relations between Hindus and Muslims in India. Historical events serve as
a “symbolic resource” for political activity (Sen & Wagner 2005; Liu et al. 2004).
There are, of course, other factors that influence these relations. After Partition,
Muslim status in India has been reduced to that of a minority, sociopolitically
as well as economically, in comparison with Hindus, while for over 500 years,
Muslims had been in power in India and were the last major rulers of pre-colo-
nial India. Hindus, on the other hand, perceive that they have been cheated by the
Muslim. In their view, the Muslim demand was for a separate homeland for them-
selves; yet, when they got it in the form of Pakistan, a large number of them stayed
back in India. What they find unacceptable is that the Muslims now lay claim to
political and economic benefits as a minority community over the legitimate
claims of the Hindus (Tripathi 2005). Some political parties, like the Bharatiya
Janata Party and the Shiv Sena, oppose extending special favours to Muslims,
which, they hold, are against the secular character of the nation. They also argue
that such benefits have not been accorded to their Hindu counterparts in Pakistan
and point out that a very large number of Hindus have actually been pushed out
of Pakistan. The statistics show that the proportion of Hindus in Pakistan has dra-
matically fallen post-1947 compared to the rise in the population of Muslims in
Pakistan, whereas the proportion of Muslims in India has been going up steadily.
The distrust between the two communities that led to the partition of India contin-
ues unabated in contemporary India. Hindu activists feel that with the rising popu-
lation of Muslims, India would soon face another partition (Tripathi 2005).

2 Hindu-Muslim Relations and Communal Riots in

Contemporary India

Islam has evolved differently in various parts of the country. Muslims are com-
posed of various subgroups carrying distinct social identities. Differences among
the subgroups, which can be distinctly observed, are on account of theology, rites,
regional cultures and history, language and ethnicity. Despite regional, linguistic,
ethnic, economic and other differences, Muslims are considered, not only by other
religious groups in India but also by the State, as a homogeneous community. In
the last 100 years or so, the communal identity of Muslims has been consistently
reinforced. British historians had laid the foundation for a communal interpreta-
tion of Indian history which had provided historical justification for the two-nation
theory (Thapar 1981). The partition of the country along religious lines, which
was marked by riots and bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims and frequent
260 R. C. Tripathi et al.

communal riots thereafter, has further reinforced this identity. Visuvalingam

(1994) makes a perceptive comment on Hindu-Muslim relations in this context
when he says:
Pre-colonial Hindu-Muslim interactions were defined by an “I-Thou” relationship that could
range from a harmony of minds, through dialog with a disconcerting challenger, to a heated
altercation resulting in (much worse than) blows against a hostile adversary. But (the evolu-
tion of) self-perceptions (and self-construction) were still mediated by the reflected image of
Self in the eyes of the rival other. When modernity usurped the place of the insistent inter-
locutor (“Thou”) for both Muslims and Hindus, each was relegated to “They” in the eyes of
the other, someone no longer worthy of talking to but only about—the ‘brokering’ between
the two traditions increasingly became the prerogative of a secular scholarship, with its own
agenda, that did not share their traditional self-perceptions. Increasing ‘Hindu-Muslim’
polarization, it may be argued, is largely the product of a modern mentality that drags the
dead-weight of both traditions into its reductionist wake. Ironically, the ultimately religious
legitimization of Pakistan has resulted in intra-Islamic sectarian strife and the disintegration
of Muslim polity; the ‘revival’ of Hinduism has only further reinforced its image, even and
especially within Asia, as the idiosyncratic product over several millennia of the geographi-
cal isolation of the sub-continent (Visuvalingam 1994).

The nature and origin of communal violence have marked differences between
communal riots before and after Partition (Engineer 1981). The cause of commu-
nal conflict before Partition was a struggle for greater share of political power and
control of economic resources. This cause ceased to exist after Partition. But with
the Jabalpur riots in Madhya Pradesh in 1961,6 a new phase of communal violence
has been witnessed in post-Partition India (Engineer 2008; NIC 2008). A variety
of local factors now play a major role in pushing conflict to violence. Targets of
communal riots seem to be specific properties and places marked out before hand
and riots appear pre-planned and goal oriented, pointing to local economic ine-
qualities and rivalry. Rustomji (1979) thus, observes:
… a riot does not occur in a sleepy little village of Uttar Pradesh where all suffer equally,
or in a tribal village of Madhya Pradesh where all live safely in their poverty. It occurs in
Moradabad, where the metal workers have built up good industry; it occurs in Aligarh,
where the lock makers have made good; it occurs in Bhivandi, where power loom rivalries
are poisonous; it occurs in Hatia and Ahmedabad and Hyderabad and Jamshedpur, where
there are jobs to get, contracts to secure, houses and shops to capture; it occurs in Agra,
at Ferozabad and all other towns where economic rivalries are serious and have been cov-
ered with the cloak of communalism (quoted in Wright 1981, p. 43).

The figures for communal violence showed sudden rise between 1964 and
1970, then a downward trend from 1972 to 1976, and thereafter, it has again been
on the rise. The annual figures from 1977 to 1981 were 230, 304, 427, 319 and
474 (Singh 1985). Krishna (1985) also has provided a detailed analysis of com-
munal violence involving Hindus and Muslims. He points out that during 1961–
1980, 10,436 incidents of communal violence took place, killing 655 Hindus and
3,163 Muslims and injuring 10,808 Hindus and 10,821 Muslims. Higher incidence

6  During the riots, it was alleged that the role of the police was blatantly partisan and it brutally
beat up a very large number of Muslims.
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 261

of communal violence was reported in urban (5,372) than in rural (2,592) areas.
According to a report in Times of India (September 25, 2010), compared to the
volatile 1990s which witnessed large-scale riots throughout the country, the first
decade of the twenty-first century may appear to be a little peaceful; the Home
Ministry still reported 6,541 communal clashes between 2001 and 2009 resulting
in the deaths of 2,234 people and 21,460 casualties. Statistics collated by the PRS
Legislative Research of Center for Policy Research (2011) clearly show that there
has not been any significant change in the incidence of communal clashes in the
years 2005–2009. The incidence of communal violence, in fact, has shown a slight
increase in each year. On an average, during 2005–2009, about 130 people died
every year and 2,200 were injured. Most (64 %) deaths took place in four states,
namely Maharashtra (77), Madhya Pradesh (107), UP (176) and Odisha (52).
But among these states, the highest number of communal incidents took place in
Maharashtra. During the year 2010, Karnataka also joined this group of states.
It reported more incidents of communal violence in comparison with Odisha.
Altogether, 24 out of 35 states and union territories of the country reported com-
munal incidents.
Hindu-Muslim relations display a sense of mutual distrust and are frequently
characterized by violence, although, it is also true that in many areas of the coun-
try, the two groups coexist in a peaceful manner. By and large, Muslims in India
tend to maintain exclusiveness from the majority community of Hindus. It is
sometimes argued that this is done by them in an attempt to preserve their past
traditions and religion (Hasan 1988). The change in their relative status, from an
earlier position of economic and social advantage, in post-Partition independent
India, has further contributed to their sense of alienation from the majority com-
munity. Ansari (2001) has identified the issues that have been used either to incite
clashes between the two communities or seeking political advantage. According to
him, issues that have led to conflicts between the groups relate to:
1. Approaches of the two groups in reading their histories during various periods
vary particularly for the medieval period. It is seen by Hindus as a period dur-
ing which a large number of Hindu temples were demolished and forced con-
versions of Hindus into Muslims took place. Muslims perceive it as a golden
period of their history in India.
2. Differential claims are made by the two groups over the Kashi, Mathura and
Ayodhya mosques.7
3. Negative stereotypes the two groups have developed about each other.
4. Both groups object to taking out of religious processions close to each other’s
places of worship.
5. Conversion of Hindus to Islam, which is sought to be revoked by Hindus
through a process of purification, or shuddhikaran.

7  Vishva Hindu Parishad and some Hindu right-wing political parties claim that Vishvanath tem-

ple at Kashi, Govind Dev temple at Mathura and Ram Janmabhumi Temple were demolished by
Muslim kings to erect mosques there.
262 R. C. Tripathi et al.

6. Muslims perceive a Hindu design in forcing Muslims to sing “Vande

Mataram” and banning “cow slaughter”.
7. Conflict over national heroes and Hindu cultural practices.
8. Downgrading of Urdu as a language in India.
9. Muslim perception of discrimination in economic, political and social
domains and Hindu perception of Muslim appeasement.
10. Muslim opposition to a uniform Civil Code of law for all.
11. Questioning of Muslim loyalty to India.
12. Blaming Muslims for any and all kinds of violent incidents and indiscriminate
arrests of Muslims for terrorist acts.
While there are a number of historical and sociological analyses of Hindu-
Muslim relations in recent years, there have been only a few systematic empiri-
cal studies that have explored Hindu-Muslim inter-group relations and differential
social identity of these groups.
We will briefly review these studies prior to drawing some implications for
sociopsychological perspective on Hindu-Muslim relations in order to enable us to
draw implications for framing of the social policy and also to review the initiatives
taken by the government in this direction.

3 Development of Religious Identity and Inter-Group

Attitudes

While a number of studies that have been conducted in the West show very early
development of ethnic attitudes, only a small number of developmental studies of
inter-group attitudes and social identity are available in India. A series of studies
by Singh (1985) and his associates on development of ethnic awareness is signifi-
cant in this context. The study covered school-going students in the age group of
4–15 who were drawn from four dominant religious groups: Hindu, Muslim, Sikh
and Christian. These students were tested for formation of religious identity. The
findings revealed that the development of religious identity showed similar pat-
tern in all four groups. Identity was seen to start crystallizing quite early in child-
hood. A majority of children learnt to prefer their own religion by the age of 4 or
5 years. By the age of 8–9 years, identity is fully crystallized and ethnocentrism
is well established. Similar findings were obtained by Mishra and Bano (2003)
who studied the development of social identity and prejudice among Hindu and
Muslim children of Varanasi. They took children from both religious groups rang-
ing from 3 to 12 years. To study the role of socialization, they also interviewed
mothers of Hindu and Muslim children. They found that both Hindu and Muslim
children became aware of their own religious identity and that of the other group
members at an early age of 3–4 years. Almost all Muslim children became aware
of their religious identity by this age, but this was true only in case of 60 % Hindu
children. Children developed a clear preference for their own religion between 4
and 5 years, and by the age of 8–9 years, a clear in-group bias got established. In
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 263

another study, (Bano & Mishra 2009) again found that both Hindu and Muslim
children were aware of their own as well as the other group at an early age (i.e.,
at 3–4 years). Both the Hindu and Muslim children by this age had learnt words
and concepts used to describe the members of other groups. A clear us–them dis-
tinction was present at this early age, marked by a clear preference for their own
group. The basis of awareness of difference between groups showed consider-
able variation according to the age. The young children (3–6 years) distinguished
the two groups based on external features, such as their dress, whereas slightly
older children (7–12 years) distinguished them on the basis of internal features,
such as religious beliefs and practices. To understand what factors lead to such
an early development of ethnocentrism and prejudice, Hassan (1983, 1984) exam-
ined the inter-relationship between parental behaviour, authoritarianism and preju-
dice. His sample consisted of 10th- and 11th-grade Hindu and Muslim students
and their parents. He too found that (a) ethnic identities and prejudice developed
in early childhood (b) minority status strengthened ethnic identities and (c) ethnic
identities and prejudice were importantly influenced by parental behaviours and
attitudes. The inter-group attitudes once formed continue to develop and get elabo-
rated with increasing age. Mohsin (1984), in an earlier study, found a high degree
of ethnocentrism and prejudice among the college-going students in Bihar and
Odisha. Majeed and Ghosh (1981) had also found significant differentials in evalu-
ations between “in-group” and “out-group”, both, in case of Hindus and Muslims.
Both groups evaluated their own groups more positively in comparison with their
“out-groups”.
Will minority status of a group influence whether the members viewed group
positively or negatively? This question was examined by Majeed and Ghosh
(1982). They studied social identity in three ethnic groups, namely high-caste
Hindus, Muslims and Hindu Scheduled Castes. The subjects ranged between the
ages 13–18 years from a rural district of Uttar Pradesh. A 24-adjective checklist
was used to collect data. The overall results indicated similarity in social identity
of high-caste Hindu and Muslim subjects. In both these groups, a strong sense of
positive social identity was found. Hindu Scheduled Castes, however, displayed a
marked negative social identity in relation to the other ethnic groups. The results
of both the studies were interpreted as indicating differential effects of relative
status positions on in-group and out-group evaluation in the matrix of inter-group
relations. It was argued that when the two groups were too dissimilar and non-
comparable in status, consensual inferiority would not occur. However, in the
case of Hindu Scheduled Caste, hierarchical positioning on the religious category
accounted for higher comparability and resultant negative in-group evaluation.
Ghosh and Huq (1985) found that Hindus and Muslims did not always
engage in negative inter-group differentiation. The study which was carried out
in Bangladesh showed that the cultural context plays a major role in inter-group
relations. The mean ages of respondents were 19.4 and 19.7 years for Hindus and
Muslims, respectively. A 22-adjective checklist was used to collect data. Overall
results indicated that Hindus showed higher self- and in-group evaluation than
Muslims (majority group in Bangladesh). Both Hindus and Muslims held mutually
264 R. C. Tripathi et al.

favourable out-group evaluation, which may have been due to high comparability
on linguistic, ethnic dimensions because of which religious categorization failed
to differentiate status in a sufficiently robust manner to affect the social identity
process. This, the researchers argue, was because Bangladesh’s largely cultural
syncretism obviated development of social identity based on religious differences.
The other explanation which is offered is that living in a composite culture facili-
tates developing of friendships across groups and leads to increased inter-group
contacts and spending time with them. This reduces negativity in inter-group atti-
tudes. Two meta-analytic studies support these findings (Pettigrew & Tropp 2006;
Davies et al. 2011).
It may be asked whether the inter-group differentiation noticed in case of the
above studies could have been due to schooling because the studies discussed
above were carried out on groups of students. Tripathi (2005) had found that
University students carried more positive attitudes towards the other group com-
pared to the lay people and were for peaceful resolution of inter-group conflicts.
Singh (1980) examined the effects of denominational and non-denominational
schooling on personality. Results of his study showed that while, in general,
denominational students had higher dogmatism, alienation, insecurity and mani-
fest anxiety, Muslim students in non-denominational institutions (as minori-
ties) were found to be more alienated, insecure and anxious in comparison with
denominational schools. These results, however, were not replicated in a study
carried out by Tripathi and Mishra (2006). They took Muslim students in madar-
sas and Hindu students studying in Sanskrit pathshalas and compared them with
their counterparts in “secular” schools. They found that schooling did not mark-
edly influence development of social identity in case of Muslims but did so in the
case of Hindus. Students studying in pathshalas considered themselves to be more
“Hindus” in comparison with those studying in the secular schools. Traditional
schooling, however, did tend to generate the tendencies of separation and mar-
ginalization in both Hindu and Muslim adolescents. The difference between the
orientation of traditional and modern school adolescents was particularly evident
among the Hindus, suggesting that attending Sanskrit school was linked to a rela-
tively weaker orientation towards integration, assimilation and coexistence, but a
relatively stronger orientation towards separation and marginalization.

4 The Reciprocal “Other” in Hindus and Muslims

One of the major findings which have emerged from research on inter-group rela-
tions is that once groups get locked up in conflict relationships, the resulting fall out
is engagement in reciprocal other. The process of othering is central to enemy con-
struction and involves differentiating “us” from “them” and representing the other in
terms of negative attributes. An essentialist fallacy is committed in which every out-
group member is similar to all others in the group and seen as possessing all the neg-
ative attributes assigned to the group. Quattrone and Jones (1980) call it “out-group
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 265

homogeneity effect”. The colonial discourses of “othering” have generally consid-

ered the indigenous and the native “subjects” as the “other” wherein the “other” is
considered less “civil” and “powerless”. The process of othering, though, is not con-
fined to groups which are in asymmetrical power relationships but also to groups
which have been involved in intractable conflicts, like the Jews and the Arabs, and in
our case between Hindus and Muslims. The other is not, as Simmel (1971) points
out, simply “outside” but is one who is in confrontation. It is not the differences
which make the other. Othering requires mutuality surrendering space to negative
inter-dependence. Hindus and Muslims, in this sense, form mutual others. Tripathi
et al. (2009) investigated the process of othering through representations made of the
out-group by Hindus and Muslims by assessing negative attitudes held for the other
group and also by assessing the degree to which groups differentiated their own
group from the other group in terms of negative attributes. It was found that in case
of Hindus, strong group identity was associated with othering but in case of
Muslims, the power of retaliation was associated with the perception of Hindus as
the other. Tripathi (2008) discusses in detail the modes and processes of othering
involving Hindus and Muslims, as well as motivations, which he points out are sev-
eral. At the level of the group, these could be seeking “purity” for the group by
throwing out “disharmonious elements”, restoring status and respect for the group
and establishing, social, legal or moral order. Groups may choose one or several
modes of othering, such as by overcoming the other, considering the other as morally
inferior, or through negative recognition. For establishing harmonious relationship
and a relationship of equals, it will be necessary to intervene in conditions that create
and unfold such processes of othering. India has a rich cultural tradition which
shows how it can be done. The kings and the poets of the medieval period showed
how it can be done through cultural and intellectual engagement. The poetry, birth of
Sufism, continuous dialoguing of the religious and cultural leaders led to the emer-
gence of a syncretism in culture which did not threaten any group and was accepted
by all. It came to be called in the Awadh region as “Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb”8
(Mohamed 2007). Several of our studies show that both Hindus and Muslims sub-
scribe to this culture and are appreciative of the way Hinduism and Islam have influ-
enced each other in India even in the post–Babri Masjid (see Chap. 1) scenario
(Tripathi 2005).

5 Structural and Contextual Factors in Hindu-Muslim

Relations

There are several contextual factors that play a critical role in the manner rela-
tionships among groups evolve within a society. Some of these are class, power
and social status that groups occupy in a society and social comparisons in which
they engage vis-à-vis other groups similar to them. Unfavourable comparisons

8  Refers to assimilation of Hindu–Muslim cultures over a period of time.

266 R. C. Tripathi et al.

result in feelings of relative deprivation (Runciman 1966), which have been found
to answer the question why people rebel. Gurr (1970) has explained the racial
riots which took place in USA in the 1960s in terms of relative deprivation felt by
African Americans. It was for similar reasons that Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his
associates were able to organize Muslims in support of creation of Pakistan. Later,
Pakistan too had to face bifurcation when the people in East Pakistan (currently,
Bangladesh) started feeling deprived relative to those in West Pakistan. A govern-
ment-appointed commission (The Sachar Committee) to look into the social, eco-
nomic and educational status of the Indian Muslim community submitted a report
that provides fresh grounds for Muslims to feel that their community is not doing
as well (socially, economically and educationally) as the majority community
(Sachar Committee 2006). The Committee has made several recommendations
to remove disparities, which are still to be implemented and have led to demands
of reservations in jobs and educational institutions as per the Sachar Committee
recommendations. Hindu groups have been opposing the implementation of these
recommendations on the ground that the Constitution of India does not permit any
special consideration on the basis of religion.
Tripathi and his associates (Ansari 1981; Naqvi 1980) studied the consequences
of relative deprivation for Hindu-Muslim relationship. Tripathi and Srivastava
(1981) studied how relative deprivation influenced inter-group attitudes held by
Muslims. The sample consisted of Muslim male undergraduate and postgradu-
ate students. The data were collected using adjective checklists. In the context
of Hindu-Muslim relationships, two hypotheses were examined: (1) Muslims
high on relative deprivation will have higher negative out-group attitudes; (2)
Muslims high on relative deprivation will have higher positive in-group attitudes.
It was found that felt economic relative deprivation, in particular, was associated
with negative out-group attitudes. Naqvi (1980) studied whether relative depriva-
tion felt by Muslims influenced their process of attribution of blame in incidents
involving communal riots. The moderating effects of social distance and locus of
control were also examined in a sample consisting of Muslims from riot-prone and
non-riot areas. The data demonstrated that relatively deprived Muslims attributed
maximum blame for riots on the Hindus. The findings could be attributed to fun-
damental attribution error (FAE). However, it was found that such attribution was
more significant for Muslims in the riot-prone areas. Relatively deprived Muslims
also maintained more social distance from Hindus and were found low on self-
agency beliefs. In addition, income analyses revealed that middle income groups
felt more relatively deprived than high-income and low-income groups. Ruback
and Singh (2007) also found that there was an in-group bias when it came to lev-
eling blame for communal riots in case of both Hindus and Muslims. What was
interesting to note was that Hindus who had contact with Muslims and lived in
mixed cultural settings blamed Muslims less for the riots. As pointed out above,
riot-prone areas in cities and metro towns generally have high concentration of
members belonging to the Muslim community. This results in people reinforcing
each other’s negative stereotypes of the other group and engaging in the construc-
tion of a common enemy. The process results in both groups living in constant fear
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 267

of the other group. Absence of contact between groups does not give an opportu-
nity for any kind of invalidation. Conflicts that take place between the groups only
serve to reinforce negative inter-group attitudes, leading to development of nega-
tive inter-dependencies. Ansari (1981) studied the relationship between fraternal
relative deprivation (FRD) and style of conflict resolution in Hindus and Muslims.
It was hypothesized that Hindus and Muslims would differ in FRD, which con-
sequently would influence their preferred style of conflict resolution. Results
indicated that (a) Muslims were higher on FRD than Hindus; (b) Muslims higher
on FRD preferred “force” as a conflict resolution style more than the low FRD
Muslims. However, in another major study, the reaction of Muslims to violation of
their norms by Hindus was studied. While the modal reaction of Muslims to these
norm violations by Hindus was found to be positive, what explained these reac-
tions most was their perception of their group’s relative power vis-à-vis Hindus.
A “forcing” or a retaliatory reaction was seen as possible if it was perceived that
their group possessed more relative power (Ghosh et al. 1992). Kumar (2005) has
carried out a number of studies with respect to relative deprivation of Muslims.
The major findings of her studies are that Muslims are generally higher on FRD
than Hindus. But Muslim women feel higher fraternalistic relative deprivation
(FRD) compared with Muslim men. This, however, is not true of Hindu women
who feel less FRD compared with Hindu men. Muslims, who are high on FRD,
are the ones who also support call for reservation in jobs and educational institu-
tions for Muslims. Feelings of FRD were found to be associated with the Muslim
perception of “voice” in the government in these studies. Muslims felt less FRD if
they perceived Muslims were heard when decisions that impacted their lives were
taken by the government.
The studies reviewed in the context of inter-group relations demonstrate very
clearly the complex nature of the H–M equation. While, status comparisons are
found associated with social identity, it is psychologically experienced depriva-
tion which accounts for attributions and attitudes in specific inter-group conflict
situations. The studies also demonstrate that religious distinctions do not neces-
sarily lead to ethnocentrism in certain contexts (Ghosh & Huq 1985). These stud-
ies, though few in number, do, however, succeed in demonstrating the critical
significance of the study of psychological variables in any relevant appraisal of
H–M inter-group relations. DeRidder et al. (1992) have proposed a model of inter-
group relations, called the norm violation theory (NVT), which integrates theories
of social identity, power, relative deprivation and inter-group attitudes. The theory
holds that inter-group conflict arises when members of one of the two groups that
already have a history of negative inter-dependencies is perceived to have violated
important social norms of the other group with a malevolent intent. The intensity
of reaction to norm violation by the out-group depends upon the strength of social
identity, feelings of relative deprivation, perception of relative power of the own
group and attitudes that the group members hold of the norm-violating group.
Results indicated considerable similarities in reactions of Hindus and Muslims to
norm violations suggesting a shared social reality by the two communities (Ghosh
et al. 1992). It was also found that norm violations of “strong” situations led to
268 R. C. Tripathi et al.

more frequent negative reactions in comparison with “weak” situations in both the
communities.
A more recent study by Tripathi et al. (2010) investigated how emotions of
anger and fear influence the nature of reaction to norm violations of different
intensities in case of both Hindus and Muslims. Following hypothetical norm
violations of different intensities, subjects were asked to choose from three pos-
sible reactions, which could be reconciliatory, retributive, or retaliatory. Both
Hindus and Muslims overwhelmingly chose reconciliatory reactions as the form
of redress, followed by retributive and retaliatory reactions, even though the modal
emotion that norm violations evoked was that of anger. The findings run against
what is commonly expected to be reaction from the two groups and shows that
the two groups, left to themselves, would like to live in peace with each other.
The general finding in case of this study and previous studies is that it is the antic-
ipated reaction of the other group, when expected to be more negative than the
preferred reaction of the owngroup that results in the escalation of conflict. This
is particularly true in case of Hindus (Ghosh et al. 1992). This finding received
support from another study of Kumar et al. (2010), which studied the probable
responses of Hindus and Muslims as they awaited the High Court verdict on the
dispute related to Ram Janmabhumi–Babri Masjid controversy (see Chap. 1). The
dispute has been responsible for redefining relations between Hindus and Muslims
in independent India. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 had resulted
in large-scale riots not only in India but also in neighbouring Bangladesh and
Pakistan. In the above study, members of both groups were asked how their groups
were likely to respond if the court verdict went against their group. The preferred
reaction of both groups was for approaching the higher court, that is, for adopt-
ing a legal course and avoiding confrontation with the other group. Although the
recent Allahabad High Court verdict was interpreted by both groups as against the
interest of their own groups, no violent reaction on the part of the two groups fol-
lowed. Both groups preferred to go for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

6 Social Identity Versus National Identity

The Partition saw migration of Hindus and Muslims on both sides of the border,
resulting in large-scale killing of people in both communities. Some estimate the
killings to be more than 500,000 (Khosla 1949). Butalia (1998) estimates that close
to about 75,000 women were the first victims of Partition as sufferers of rape. The
memories of Partition have remained with the Hindus who migrated to India from
Pakistan, most of them being unable to recover from the trauma of seeing their kith
and kin killed before their own eyes and their mothers and daughters raped. It has
been no solace to them that Muslims who migrated to Pakistan suffered a similar
fate. In the context of Partition, a major question that Muslims in India have to face
on almost a daily basis relates to their loyalty to the nation. Many a times, right-wing
groups have asked Muslims to “Indianize” themselves and to develop an “Indian”
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 269

identity, equating Hinduism with being Indian. The fact remains that the national
identity/patriotism of Muslims is often called into question.
It also needs to be understood that patriotism is not the same as nationalism.
Nationalism as a phenomenon is economic, political and cultural. However, while
a “nation” may denote just a geo-political and economic structure, nationalism
in essence denotes a sociocultural unity, a sense of identity. There are no social
policies to achieve this goal. Zangwill’s (1917) view about nationalism is most
appropriate to recall in this connection. According to her, nationalism is an indis-
pensable psychological phenomenon or a state of mind which has its regular laws
of origin, development and decay and should be considered a political fact.
The process of building a national identity is as complex as the process of
nation building itself or the process of social change. Are psychologists ready to
enter such an arena? Are they equipped with sufficient methodological, theoretical
and empirical data to exercise a decisive influence on policy making on such vital
issues that underlie the very existence of the nation? The answer to such questions
requires prior clarification of the issues involved. It is our considered view that
while the academic view is that communal identities are antithetical to national
unity—empirically, that has not been found to be true (Gaertner et al. 1993). It has
to be recognized that Muslims or for that matter Christians or Buddhists connect
with others of their community within the nation, which does not imply that their
loyalty to the nation and the land of their birth can be called into question. It is
difficult to conceive of a national situation where there are no distinct, subnational
identities. Creating complementarities of these identities to the national system
is crucial. In fact, Greely (1971) argues in relation to ethnic groups in the USA
that only when people can locate themselves in a smaller collectivity is it possible
for them to identify comfortably with a larger one that includes that collectivity.
The specific content of this process of super-ordinate loyalties would necessarily
reflect the uniqueness of cultural value systems, traditional political and economic
structures, the characteristics of the national system, etc.
Ghufran and Qadri (1988), who studied differences between Hindus and
Muslims on attitudes towards national integration, identified four dimensions of
national integration, namely (1) equality of opportunity, (2) composite versus
unitary culture, (3) secular versus sectional identification and (4) national versus
regional identification. The study was conducted on Hindu and Muslim respond-
ents from both low- and high-tension (riot-proneness) areas. Hindu and Muslim
respondents between ages 28–46 years, graduates or semi-literate people, were
taken from riot-sensitive and not-sensitive areas. Results indicated, first, that liv-
ing in a riot-prone area and low education adversely affected national integration
scores. Second, Muslim respondents scored higher on national integration than
their Hindu counterparts. Finally, both Hindus and Muslims had similar scores on
“secular versus sectional” and “national versus regional” identification, but they
differed on “composite versus unitary culture” and “equality of opportunity”.
Hindu respondents favoured a “unitary culture” more than Muslims did and also
showed lower preference for the value of “equality of opportunity”, irrespective of
ethnicity. Muslims appeared to favour diversity more than the Hindus.
270 R. C. Tripathi et al.

7 Religion, Secularist Ideology and Inter-Group Relations

Another contentious issue in the case of inter-group relations in India has been one
of secularism. The Indian nation as per the Constitution is secular and its people
continue to derive a strong sense of identity from it, as also their socio-political
bearing. An eminent poet of Hindi, Bharatendu Harishchandra, once observed that
in India, religion and society are “mixed like milk and water”. India’s first prime
minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, although, was of the view that secularism required
showing equal respect for all faiths and equal opportunity to all, irrespective of the
faith they professed, his approach to secularism was based on a trenchant critique
of religion (Joshi 2007). This appears to be the very antithesis of social realities as
they prevail in India today. The success in making a non-communal and non-eth-
nic national identity has not been possible even in countries where their educa-
tional and political systems have been rigorously secular, as in Turkey or the
erstwhile Soviet Union. In the West, secularism has historically signified a separa-
tion of the rights and duties of the State and religion. Madan (1998) and Nandy
(1998) see Indian secularism as a flawed project of modernity. In India, however,
secularism carries different meanings for different political parties. While Marxists
want the State to completely distance itself from religious matters, right-wing par-
ties desire that the state should seek “sarva dharma sambhava”. This is interpreted
as “all religions deserve equal respect” and “all religions profess the same truth”.
There is a long tradition in India where the State has tolerated all religions and has
gone out of its way to provide support to religions. Religion and ethnicity are,
therefore, integral parts of social identities of people in India. The Indian State
may be the only one that provides support for undertaking Haj travel by Muslims
and subsidizes the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage9 undertaken by Hindus. To
some, it may appear that the Indian State displays a lot of confusion in its secular-
ist approach to religious matters but Bhargava (2006) sees in this approach a
unique variant of secularism and terms it “contextual secularism”.
If a secularist ideology is expected to drive harmonious inter-group relations,
we may ask what role political ideologies play in Hindu-Muslim relationships.
Several studies have recently addressed this question. Tripathi et al. (2009) have
studied the extent to which ideological beliefs of multiculturalism, composite
culture and monoculturalism influence reactions of Hindu-Muslim groups when
members of the other groups violate their norms. It was found that belief in a mul-
ticulturalistic ideology (read “secularism” for India) was associated with choosing
retributive responses over reconciliatory responses.
In view of these results, we need to understand the role of political ideologies in
shaping inter-group relations. Political parties like Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv

9 Hindus consider Mount Kailash to be the abode of Lord Shiva. Mansarovar Lake, it is believed
by Hindus was created by Lord Brahma, in his mind before it appeared on the Earth and, there-
fore, is capable of washing all sins. Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar are located in China.
The Indian government organizes an annual pilgrimage for Hindus, Jains and Buddhists in col-
laboration with the Chinese government.
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 271

Sena allege that India’s national policies under the Congress party have been more
a reflection of the “appeasement” of minorities, with its weak slogans of “secular-
ism” and “unity in diversity”. These policies are characterized by an unwillingness
to operationalize positive steps for promotion of inter-group harmony. Some have
argued that the ideology of secularism comes in the way of Hindu-Muslim rela-
tionships. Mitra (1992) points out that Nehru’s belief that a secularist ideology or
Roy’s (1939) belief that Marxist ideology would foster unity between Hindus and
Muslims is not acceptable to Muslims either. In fact, it was strongly opposed by lib-
eral Muslims, many of whom believed that the philosophies of life held by the two
religious communities cannot be ignored. An eminent Gandhian, Singh (n.d.), also
feels that because Indians are deeply religious, it may not be possible for the state to
ignore their religious and cultural values. History also tells us that it was not secular-
ist ideology but dialogue and close interaction between these two religious traditions
during the medieval period that were responsible for harmonious inter-group rela-
tions (Tarachand 1946). These have in turn led to the evolution of a syncretic culture
that has survived to this day. The secularism that is needed to deal with communal
problems in India would be one that will leave space for religion, as religious activi-
ties are integral to the Indian way of life. Secularism of the western variety often
sees religion as a source of conflict between religious groups. This is contrary to
what has been the Indian experience. It is well documented in our history that the
culture of the subcontinent has been quite open and accepting of divergent ideolo-
gies and is truly pluralistic. Religion has served as a binding force. Unfortunately,
our democracy, styled as it is after the Westminster model, has allowed the politi-
cians to use religion as a strategy for garnishing votes. They fuel feelings of injustice
in a religious group which they choose to woo by making comparisons with other
religious groups. This is then followed by raising expectation levels of the group and
by offering themselves as the messiah to correct these injustices. Both Hindus and
Muslims have fallen victim to such designs. The handle of secularism is used by
these political parties to run down each other and to paint the other group as “fun-
damentalist” or “non-secular”. In the process, harmonious Hindu-Muslim relations
become a casualty.

8 Psychological Knowledge for Building Positive Inter-

Group Relations

We have attempted in the sections above to develop the problematic of negative

inter-group relations involving Hindus and Muslims in India and the studies that
elucidate and analyze the nature of these relations. Some of the major findings
may be recounted. Clearly, both Hindus and Muslims treat each other as out-group
and also their comparison groups. Both hold their own groups in high esteem
(resulting in in-group favouritism) and hold negative attitudes (leading to preju-
dice and out-group discrimination) towards members of the other group. Religious
identities develop quite early in life, perhaps due to the socialization that takes
272 R. C. Tripathi et al.

place in the family and the surrounding community. Muslims as a minority group
feel economically, politically and socially deprived compared with Hindus and,
therefore, feel quite resentful towards Hindus and also, the state. There does not
seem to be enough appreciation and respect of the religious norms of each other’s
group as violation of these norms leads to inter-group conflicts. Lastly, the so-
called secularist ideology has interfered with the composite culture of the country
which in the past underlay the Hindu-Muslim relations in the country. Thus, the
source of negative inter-group relations or conflict lies at three levels. First, it is
at the level of person who carries the prejudice and bias. There are studies which
show that certain personality factors, such as authoritarianism and closed-mind-
edness make people more prone to prejudice (Adorno et al. 1950; Allport 1954;
Altemayer 1998). Second source is at the situational level, where certain situations
with previous history of violence have a higher probability of triggering off nega-
tive inter-group relations (DeRidder et al. 1992). The third source of inter-group
conflicts lies at the level of society where members of groups feel that the present
society is so structured where there is an unfair distribution of resources, power
and prestige (Farley 1982; Fiske et al. 1999). Unfortunately, there are not many
studies focused on inter-group relations in India. But there are a large number of
such studies that have been carried out elsewhere. Such findings and knowledge
can be made use of to improve Hindu-Muslim relations in India and also for devel-
oping social policy.
We will summarize below some of the significant learning that have come out
of psychological research which we consider relevant for framing of social policy
relating to bridging the divide between Hindus and Muslims in India. These are as
follows:

1. Inter-group behaviour results from the interactions that involve members who
derive their social identity from the membership of a particular group which is
perceived high on positive attributes in contrast to another group. Inter-group
differentiation has a cognitive and motivational basis and, therefore, interven-
tions are required to change social schemas if inter-group conflicts are to be
minimized. One such theory advocate developing a “common in-group iden-
tity” so that the distinction between “us” and “them” is minimized. Here, an
attempt is made to change the cognitive representations of individuals from dif-
ferent groups to one common group. (Gaertner & Dovidio 2000).
2. Another strategy, which has been found effective in reducing prejudice, and
also in reduction in discriminatory behaviour, is when members of a particular
group are made to take on the perspective of an out-group member. The process
of adopting the perspective of the out-group leads to the development of empa-
thy which generalizes into positive attitudes towards the out-group (Dovidio
et al. 2004).
3. Membership of a certain group and identities that one derives from it produces
emotions (Mackie et al. 2008). Similarly, different out-groups evoke different
emotions. To the extent, an individual has multiple social identities, invoking
across category membership which arouses positive emotions can facilitate in
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 273

eroding negative feelings associated with an out-group. Thus, if gender identity

is invoked of women, the negative attitudes of Hindu and Muslim women are
likely to become less strong.
4. In scarce resource environments, like what we find in India, groups seek to
control resources in their favour and in the process of competing for these
resources inter-group conflicts ensue. The conflicting relationship between
groups can be transformed if the two groups are made to strive for goals that
are valued and sought by both the groups. (Sherif et al. 1954).
5. Prejudice results when there is lack of contact between groups which does not
permit individuals to invalidate beliefs that have been passed on by others to
them. Allport (1954) and Pettigrew (1998) argue for increasing inter-group con-
tacts. They suggest that learning about the other group leads to de-categoriza-
tion, changed behaviour in the light of making other categories more salient,
development of affective ties that come from re-categorization. The contacts
could be in the form of direct or indirect contact, such as, extended contacts;
knowing about the out-group from an in-group member who is a friend of an
out-group member: vicarious contact observing an in-group member interact
with an out-group member or imagined contact where one imagines oneself
interacting with an out-group member (Dovidio et al. 2011). However, mere
creating contexts that will permit interactions are not enough, although, it is
a necessary condition. Kelman (2010) has been trying for many years now to
resolve the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis and has this to say:

In all of these ways, conflict resolution moves beyond the interest-based settlement of the
conflict and its dependence on the balance of power. It represents a strategic change in the
relationship between the parties, expressed in terms of a pragmatic partnership, in which
each side is persuaded that stable peace and cooperation is both in its own best interest
and in the interest of the other. (p. 3)

Groups like individuals also seek justice. Groups from which individual members
derive their identity cannot accept inferior and iniquitous relationship compared with
other groups in society. Muslims, on the whole, have low trust in the governance
structures, particularly the police. They feel more relatively deprived and feel less
optimistic and secure about their future (Hasan 1988; Kumar 2005). Harmonious
relationship among groups are possible when there are no structural inequities expe-
rienced by members of a group in social, political and economic domains which cre-
ate conditions of feelings of relative deprivation (Walker & Pettigrew 1984).
Hindus and Muslims, as noted above, have lived together in India for almost
a millennium. Many of the Muslims are actually Hindu converts and quite a few
of them carry their caste identities along with them. While their religious beliefs
are different, there is a great deal of similarity in cultures of the two groups. Both
groups, therefore, expect that the other group will pay due respect to their reli-
gious beliefs and cultural norms. In the event, these norms are violated by mem-
bers of the rival group, retaliation follows. The intensity of reaction is a function
of anticipated reaction of the other group and an assessment of own group’s rel-
ative power vis-à-vis the group which engaged in norm violation. Developing a
274 R. C. Tripathi et al.

culture that allows for the respect of other group’s norm and removing structural
conditions that lead to exclusion and asymmetrical power relations will improve
Hindu-Muslim relations.
Collective remembering, which involves how past of own groups, communi-
ties and nations in relation to others psychologically present in one’s sociocul-
tural context, as reconstructed and represented plays a major role in inter-group
relations (Wertsch & Roediger 2008). Rester (1997) shows how contestations
based on collective memory have been behind the dispute relating to the Ram
Janmabhumi and Babri Masjid dispute (see Chap. 1). Such memories and contes-
tations resulting from them contribute to building of emotional climate that primes
collective emotions during inter-group conflicts (Bar-Tal et al. 2007), resulting in
collective protests (Sturmer & Simon 2009).

9 Developing Social Policy for Harmonious Hindu-Muslim

Relations

There have been very few attempts that have been made to frame social policies to
ensure that India indeed becomes a nation which has unity in diversity. We have
in the introductory section drawn attention to the fact that there does not seem
to be a significant drop in the number of communal incidents over the years. In
fact, the reported incidents are only about two religious groups and do not include
other groups in society. If they were to be included, the number of incidents will
increase in much greater number. The present situation about social policy that
governs inter-group relations is that state should not be seen as interfering in mat-
ters of religion or preferring one over the other. If there are conflicts between reli-
gious groups, or for that matter caste groups, they are seen as problems of law
and order. No attempt is made to address the problem at the source, and social
and psychological factors that are associated with negative inter-dependence and
conflicts between these groups are rarely taken into consideration. This becomes
amply clear from the “Guidelines on Communal harmony” issued by the Ministry
of Home Affairs of the GOI in 2008 (MHA 2008). The guidelines are about tak-
ing preventive and administrative measures to prevent communal riots. They talk
about involving stakeholders from the community and formation of “peace com-
mittees”, but recommend that the police station officers and district officials
maintain contact with them! In fact, such committees are formed by the District
Magistrate in most places and in effect act more like “sarkaari” committees. The
ministry also has established a “National Foundation of Communal Harmony”
with an objective of providing assistance to victims of communal and caste vio-
lence and to promote communal harmony. Its activities have been largely sym-
bolic as among its activities include celebration of a “communal harmony day”
and honouring of individuals who have contributed to communal harmony. The
foundation has not concerned itself with the development of community-level
programmes for establishing communal harmony. It also has not been proactive
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 275

in matters of developing of social policies. Neither of the bills, the Prevention of

Communal Violence Bill (2005) nor the Prevention of Communal and Targeted
Violence (2011), both of which still have to find clearance of the Parliament,
have received any inputs from the foundation. Like the National Foundation of
Communal Harmony, there is another body to ensure communal harmony called
the National Integration Council (NIC). It was set up by Jawaharlal Nehru in
1961 to review and find ways to combat communalism and other kinds of narrow-
mindedness and is headed by the prime minister himself. It is a large body and
has many union ministers and chief ministers of all the states as its members. The
seriousness with which it has dealt with the problem is shown by the fact that it
has met only 15 times in the last 50 years. More often than not, it has met only
to discuss problems involving conflicts which have political ramifications. Apart
from making some pious resolutions, it has not been able to come up with con-
crete policy measures that will promote national integration or prevent communal
violence. It is very clear that national integration and nation building which should
have been the first priority after independence have been lost sight of and do not
appear to be even on the back burner. After the Gujarat riots of 2002, the only ini-
tiative which has been taken by the Government is the bill we mentioned above,
namely Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill 2011. An analysis of
the bill will show how the Government continues to address the root causes of
communal conflicts and treats them as problems of law and order. We are not sug-
gesting that such problems do not need to be addressed but do believe that unless
an active effort is undertaken to build positive inter-group relations by address-
ing the sources that lead to communal conflicts, such an approach will in the long
run fail to serve any purpose. Let us examine what the proposed bill is about. The
Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence 2011 is intended to enhance State
accountability and correct discriminatory exercise of State powers in the context
of identity-based violence and thus restore equal access to the law for Scheduled
Castes, Scheduled Tribes and religious and linguistic minorities. There is no doubt
that communal violence takes place with the connivance of those who have been
entrusted with the responsibility of governance and a lot of violence can be con-
trolled by prompt and unbiased action of the state. But this approach is like run-
ning with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Who but the political parties fan
communal and caste identities to corner political benefits? Would it not be bet-
ter to consider the processes which promote the development of such identities,
which are to come into clash later, in the first place? The provisions of the bill
seek to punish those who engage in acts that are either criminal or lead to dis-
crimination of any kind and take place because of the hatred one group members
carry for the other group members. How do groups develop hatred and prejudice?
These are questions which can be answered by psychologists and other social sci-
entists. Mere enacting of laws cannot prevent people from engaging in acts that are
primarily driven by hatred for the other group or result from deep-seated feelings
of deprivation and injustices that result from perceptions of discrimination and
unfair treatment meted to their group members while another group members have
gone on to corner scarce resources. Thus, unless the root causes of the problem are
276 R. C. Tripathi et al.

addressed and policies made which secure economic, political and social justice
for all groups, majority as well as minority, there cannot be any solution to prob-
lems of violence. We believe that it is not possible to achieve a higher degree of
national integration through the means of legislation. Solutions of such problems
lie in making interventions at several levels and developing social policies that will
bring about structural reforms to remove conditions leading to discrimination and
deprivation. We also feel that appropriate agencies and civil society organizations
need to accept responsibility to create meaning systems through education, culture
and mass media. It is here that the social policy makers will need to turn to psy-
chologists for developing policies that will create conditions for the development
of harmonious inter-group relations.

10 How Can Psychology Help?

We can now re-address ourselves to the question posed earlier. What role can psy-
chologists play in such a complex but vital national policy issue? Sinha (1987) had
observed 25 years back that “the State has been able to maintain a credible image
of non-involvement but has failed to evolve any strategy for effective national
integration, primarily because of the lack of psychological knowledge of how eth-
nocentrisms, prejudice, religious stereotypes, etc. are acquired, maintained and
manipulated for political and economic ends”. The last three decades have seen a
remarkable growth in studies that have been carried out around the world on inter-
group relations. Psychologists have advanced their understanding of the processes
and factors that create and cause inter-group conflicts and what can be done to
improve inter-group relations (Stephan & Stephan 2001; Wagner et al. 2008).
The knowledge generated by these studies can certainly inform policy makers on
how to frame such social policies which can help them to intervene effectively in
improving inter-group relations and also in considering ways and means that can
be used to develop a “collective” national identity for diverse groups that make
India. In the light of the discussion that has gone on above, the following spe-
cific proposals are offered for improving Hindu-Muslim relations in the country
wherein psychologists can play a meaningful role. These proposals are as follows:

10.1 Developing mixed neighbourhoods to encourage inter-

group contact

We know now that the conditions that help in the development of negative stereo-
types of the groups have to do with lack of first-hand information which members
of a group have about the members of the rival groups. In most places where com-
munal riots have broken out, Hindus and Muslims have been found living in sepa-
rate neighbourhoods and have little, if any, opportunity to interact with each other.
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 277

Even where they live in mixed neighbourhoods, there is little social contact between
them. In fact it has been found that after riots breakout, both Hindus and Muslims
try to move out to safe neighbourhoods that predominantly have inhabitants belong-
ing to their own community as was observed in case of the Gujarat riots (AlSayyad
& Massoumi 2011). We have discussed above researches which have shown that if
conditions were to be created for increased contact between the groups which are
in conflict, negative stereotypes of the groups will not sustain unless supported by
personal experiences of the people. This information has been made use of by some
governments which, as a matter of policy, encourage neighbourhoods of mixed cul-
tural groups and discourage communities of one class or creed to dominate it. The
communities provide space to come together socially and create and promote struc-
tures that encourage contacts in a variety of situations depending on the needs of
the inhabitants. Neighbourhood schools may provide such opportunities through
the Association of Parents or Clubs and encourage issues such as of maintenance of
security. It is possible to encourage schools and organizations to develop policies to
actively seek a diverse cultural mix of population that is representative of our nation.
This can be achieved without creating legal provisions. Once such neighbourhoods
come to be created members are likely to develop cross-religious category mem-
bership which will help in diluting the salience of social identity based on religion
and weaken negative inter-group attitudes. The major impediment in creating such
neighbourhoods, as already mentioned, is the anxiety that the minority community
carries in its mind related to security at the time of communal riots. It is here that
psychologists can play a role in developing plans and strategies for building mutual
trust between the groups by organizing inter-group dialogues which have been found
very effective in bridging differences between diverse groups (Zuniga et al. 2007).

10.2 Re-orienting education for building positive inter-group

attitudes

In the section above, we discussed the possibility of developing neighbourhood

schools which could serve as points of contact for parents from diverse religious
backgrounds. Education can play a major role towards developing communal har-
mony because it is largely in schools and colleges that children acquire meaning
systems which get used to build and interpret relationships in the larger community.
Such meaning systems could either contribute to developing negative stereotypes
and consolidate caste and religious identities or contribute in developing harmonious
inter-group relationships. The prevalent education system has not taken up building
inter-group relations as one of its responsibilities. There is nothing in it which pre-
vents children from acquiring negative stereotypes and information that is passed on
to them by communal-minded people within and outside the school. In fact, discuss-
ing matters related to religious groups is taboo in schools and is considered a very
sensitive issue. Even in the history classes, the nature of Hindu-Muslim relations dur-
ing the present or medieval times is not discussed lest they create problems outside
278 R. C. Tripathi et al.

the class room. Textbooks indeed can act as an instrument in “othering” but they
can also be sites for inclusion of those who have been “other-ed” by providing new
meaning systems. If students were to learn about the efforts of how some Mughal
kings and Maharajas worked towards building communal harmony which resulted in
what is called “composite culture”, it will possibly “inoculate” them against acquir-
ing negative stereotypes of the other groups. Stephan and Vogt (2004) discuss how
multicultural education programmes can be used for improving inter-group relations.
The authors have discussed programmes that have been tried out within school set-
tings. The need of the hour may be for our schools to organize programmes in diverse
cultural settings in which students are involved to interact, dialogue and provide help
to members of groups and communities other than their own. Kelman (1980) stud-
ies suggest that actions bring about change in the negative attitudes of individuals.
Educational policies can be so framed as to involve school and college students in
outreach programmes that focus on working across groups in diverse cultural settings.

10.3 Building cultural competence and cultural sensitivity

It is often seen that people belonging to various ethnic groups know very little
about the religious and cultural norms of the other groups and, in many cases, of
their own groups. Improving cultural competence requires knowledge of one’s
own cultural tradition and world view, awareness of cultural differences and an
attitude of acceptance of such differences, knowledge of cultural norms and prac-
tices of the other groups and skill to communicate and interact effectively with
members belonging to different cultures. Although Muslims have stayed with the
Hindus for over 1,000 year, only a small number of Hindus know anything about
their culture and festivals, not to talk about their familiarity with their Holy Book.
This is also true of Muslims. It is because of this that the members of the two
groups have not become appreciative or sensitive to each other’s social norms.
They engage in their violation, many times unknowingly and sometimes on pur-
pose. NVT suggests that groups react to their norm violation by members of the
other group/s by attributing malevolent intent to them which leads them to react
out of anger which often results in communal riots. Schools can play a major role
in building cultural competence of their students by exposing them to diverse cul-
tural experiences. Schools in India are asked to avoid discussing religion and cul-
tures. This is not encouraged even at college levels. This appears to be a mistake to
us. Educational policies need to be so framed which will make students, not only
learn about diverse cultures, but also experience them first hand, particularly, the
composite culture of India. There are examples which show that in towns where
composite culture prevails, communal riots either do not occur or if they occur
they die down very quickly. One recent example of this was seen when some mis-
chievous elements exploded a bomb in the Sankat Mochan premises in Varanasi
and Muslims came out in large numbers to express their solidarity with the Hindus
to condemn this incident.
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 279

10.4 Formation of community groups for developing multiple

social identities

Varshney (2002) was able to show that it was the breakdown of civil society
organizations which contributed to communal strife in Gujarat. Wherever the asso-
ciational forms of civic networks, for example, clubs, professional associations,
unions, etc., were present, riots did not take place. Such memberships permit indi-
viduals to develop multiple social identities. The day to day engagement of people
is not found to be as effective. One reason for this is that such associations permit
development of positive inter-dependence based on non-religious group category.
Wherever such civic networks are available, even strong norm violations do not
lead to communal conflicts. The government, perhaps, cannot take initiative to get
such networks formed but can certainly encourage them by providing recognition
to them. The policy makers can certainly think of creating situations other than
living in a common neighbourhood which will provide opportunities for meeting
and forming relationships. India has a plural culture which permits people to have
multiple identities. For historical as well as political reasons, Indians have allowed
themselves to get boxed by religious or caste identities, which have left the con-
cept of “Vasudhev Kutumbakam” vacuous.

10.5 Dealing with collective memories and riot trauma

A major policy that the government needs to consider taking up with psycholo-
gists is how to deal with collective memories of partition violence, of Babri Masjid
demolition, and riots that shook Gujarat and Mumbai recently. The narratives of
these keep surfacing in various forms and protagonists of both groups keep using
it to show themselves in better light and to prove the other group guilty. Attempts
to provide justice to the victims through the judicial system have achieved very lit-
tle. In any case, they cannot succeed in bridging the divide. One may have observed
how such attempts have only lead to rupturing of already existing bridges. There is
wide agreement among the scholars that it is the unresolved trauma of the partition
violence that underlies violence that involves Hindus and Muslims. That trauma
is deepened by recurring cycle of communal conflicts. The Hindu-Muslim divide
in India may not be as clear as it was in South Africa between the Black and the
White. Still, the task of repairing of relations which got fractured at the time of par-
tition between the two groups beckons the government and psychologists of India.
There is a need to look at structures like the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and to see how far they can be used to remove the hurt and trauma
caused by such incidents and to what extent it can help in mending relations at the
group, as well as at the individual level. Psychologists along with historians can help
in re-examining how such memories are represented and reconstructed by involving
themselves in constructive contestations with the ongoing public discourses.
280 R. C. Tripathi et al.

11 Epilogue

Nation building and emphasis on developing a composite national identity which

embraces all Indians appear mandatory. It is not an easy task to achieve this at the
policy level, because it has to be consensual. No serious thinking has gone into
doing this on part of either social psychologists, or other intellectuals or policy mak-
ers. An “ostrich-like” behaviour has characterized post-independence policies, and
short-term riot control or law and order procedures have dominated the policies.
A clear definition and understanding of the principles which unite, bind the sub-
continent shared by all, akin to a cultural revival of “phoenix” from the ashes of
divisiveness and rampant corruption driven by narrow sectarian or family interests
is needed. This is a responsibility that psychologists will have to accept along with
other social scientists. Denying the religious (ethical-moral) underpinnings of the
nation Hindu–Muslim by a phony “secularism” is not the answer. The very spiritual
aspirations of the people as guide posts to daily living cannot be denied or oblit-
erated by “stateways” (Anna’s movement did show some glimpses of the same). The
threat to the ethical way of life followed by diverse cultural groups has to be oblit-
erated to pave the way for harmony. The existence of a just and level playing ground
is also an essential prerequisite for developing a non-threatening composite national
ideology. Providing reservations in jobs only on caste or religious category leaves
out the majority disadvantaged poor in reverse discrimination and leaves the field
open for political fishing in troubled waters. A social security policy which includes
all regardless of caste, religion or other considerations may constitute a beginning
for creating an environment of trust in the system and society in general.
Let us also point to a shortcoming on the part of psychologists which has
not allowed them to play a more active and positive role in policy making relat-
ing to development of harmonious inter-group relations and which they need to
address. While there are some exhaustive analyses by political scientists, econo-
mists and sociologists addressing themselves to these national issues, psycholo-
gists have fought shy of involving themselves as advocates in addressing issues
related to inter-group relations and conflict and the changes they seek. Perhaps,
the challenges of development have been overlooked due to the onslaught and
importation of what has been termed as “United States-ian Psychology” (Sinha
1984) by psychologists in India. The abysmal paucity of researches indicated
by the review of relevant psychological studies indicates our knowledge over
the issue precludes many viable attempts at policy making unless we “enter the
dragon” in a more determined manner. There are a whole plethora of unsolved
questions which have been or can be raised by social scientists; but one can
conclude as Tajfel (1967) has stated in this context. “The political scientists
have passed the baby to psychology but the psychologist does not seem eager to
take it”. It is time that they rose up to accept this challenge.
13  The Hindu-Muslim Divide: Building Sustainable Bridges 281

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Chapter 14
Gender-Role Socialization, Stereotypes,
Government Policies and Development

Daya Pant

1 Introduction

Contemporary Indian society has taken a big leap with respect to the status of
women. The transformation set in motion by rapid industrialization and urbaniza-
tion from the 1990s got further fillip from the cultural deluge across continents and
affirmative policies of the Government of India. Implementation of these policies
has made available new roles, and new vistas have opened to women to express
themselves in ways different from those of their traditional roles as housewives
or mothers. These are, in turn, bringing about changes in the social ethos, permit-
ting privileges to women hitherto not conceivable. These privileges are generally
confined to urban, educated women in India, while women in the lower socioeco-
nomic strata and in rural areas are still grappling with inequity and inequality at
multiple levels. Nevertheless, urban women are none too happy with their situation
(cf. Rathod 2009). The new roles thrown open to women are in settings d­ ifferent
from the earlier ones, being less labour intensive, like agri- and home-based
industries, but these are confined to certain specified areas; even in these jobs, the
percentage of women who make it to the top is much smaller in comparison to
men. The reason probably lies in the kind of abilities and the skills women pos-
sess, which are different from those of men—believed to be the result of gendered
socialization practices prevailing in different cultures (cf. Elliot & Dweck 2005;
Thayer et al. 2008). Changes taking place in women’s roles as housekeepers and
workers outside the house have placed demands on their time and personal–social
resources, inviting changes in the cultural ethos and government policies. The
direction and magnitude of these changes has implication for the wellbeing of the

D. Pant (*) 
Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations of Education, National Council
of Educational Research and Training, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi 110016, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 285
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_14, © Springer India 2014
286 D. Pant

entire society. It is therefore important to examine how socialization and govern-

ment policies facilitate women in taking up their future roles.

2 Gendered Socialization

Socialization practices are highly discriminatory against girls, particularly in

­matters relating to education and household work. Gender appropriate behaviour or
adult ­gender-role learnt through socialization within the family is reinforced by the
school and society. Children are encouraged to learn gender-role appropriate behav-
iours: while boys are expected to acquire high educational qualifications and obtain
well-paid jobs in the organized sector; girls experience social and environmental
constraints and comply with the expectation of family members. They are closely
monitored in their environment and subjected to control by others, including by elders
and their mothers (Kanhere 1987). Thus, the process of socialization channelizes the
interests of girls exclusively to the home and domestic arenas. Implicit therein is the
suggestion that they lack the competence and skills required for roles other than as
wife and housekeeper. Walstead (1977) very eloquently puts it thus: “women have
structured their entire lives around pleasing and serving men because this was the pre-
dominant mode they learned as they were growing up. They experienced feelings of
being loved, normal, and safe when they did so and of being anxious and unlovable
when they did not” (p. 174). Any initiative shown by women is considered gender
inappropriate behaviour and likely to be met with disapproval. Even parental attitudes
towards male and female children reflect the latter’s culturally assigned roles. While
males receive more effective independence training and encouragement, dependence
and conformity is encouraged among females (Hoffman 1972). They are encouraged
to conform to the social standards laid out for them. Gender differences in research
studies have also shown that women have less self-confidence and they are found to
be more conformist than men (Maccoby & Jacklin 1974; Lenney 1977).
Gendered socialization influences role perception and identity as well as the
personality characteristics of women, particularly in the way they are taught to
express themselves: as affectionate, sympathetic and sensitive (Boldizar 1991).
Due to this lopsided gender-role development, women have become central to the
social institution of the family (Cauce & Domenech-Rodriguez 2002). Societal
evolution in terms of changing role structures, economic pressures and exposure
to alternative social realities of other cultures has challenged women’s traditional
roles. Conflicts created due to these changes need to be addressed adequately. In
this context, it is important to understand the social processes underpinning the
construction of gendered personalities and issues emerging from differential
socialization, which impact the development of self-esteem and wellbeing among
women. Personality characteristics (particularly, expressivity) of women not only
shape their role perception but are crucial for the wellbeing of society. In order
to make appropriate interventions in the economic, social and political arenas, the
processes influencing women’s self-perception and self-esteem must be analyzed.
14  Gender-Role Socialization, Stereotypes, Government Policies and Development 287

3 Role Stereotypes

The reason that women find it difficult to realize their potential in spite of their
ability and talent is probably due to women’s own lopsided perception of their
roles. Women tend to believe that intellectual achievement or success in male-
dominated fields can impair their prospect for marriage. They fear success lest it
may make them appear less feminine (Horner 1970). This fear of success is higher
among intelligent (as indicated by their level of achievement) women from homes
where high achievement is valued and for whom success in a career is possible
(Mark 2011). Boys become independent, aggressive and active while girls become
passive and docile, dependent on men for hard work and matters related to the
outside world. Gender differences in decisional control show that the boys control
more decisional outcomes than girls. Although the girls were less likely to per-
ceive themselves as decision controllers compared to male counterparts in the old-
est age groupings (Lind & Connole 1985) yet in the face of conflict, they have
been found to use indirect strategies (Ohbuchi & Yamamoto 1990).

3.1 Role of Culture and Media

The stereotypes portrayed in the literature and mass media reflect the values of the
society and advertently or inadvertently reinforce the existing stereotypes (Rathod
2009). The fact is made explicit by Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) in the following
lines, “The great power of the male to control his own destiny is part of the cul-
tural stereotypes of maleness and is inherent in the images of the two sexes por-
trayed on television and in print” (p. 157). The magazines that are supposed to
tender advice on marital harmony and adjustment portray roles for women where
they would be playing down their personality, curbing their urges and trying to
soothe the hurt male ego. The literature is full of such examples and role models.
These excessively feminine role models are the socially accepted and are success-
ful ones: these are the only models available to them. Two research studies dealing
with the influences on children’s especially girls’ occupational choices and prefer-
ences revealed that the role models influence their choice of occupation to a great
extent (Mehta et al. 1984, 1987). Absence of role models in the areas of science
and technology, engineering and other technical jobs could be responsible for their
lack of skills and presence in these areas rather than the absence of fundamental
ability to excel (Bussey & Bandura 1984).
The intelligent women tend to play down their abilities and sacrifice their
careers for affective ends. Horner (1968) emphasized that since achievement in
many areas is considered gender—inappropriate for women, a woman achieving
in one of these areas might feel she was losing her femininity. Continuation in her
profession or abandoning depends on whether her positive outcomes outweigh her
negative outcomes, whether she would like to sacrifice her affiliation and approval
needs for achieving excellence. The affiliation and approval needs are far greater
288 D. Pant

among women compared to men (Lips & Colwill 1978). Whenever there is a con-
flict between need for achievement and need for affiliation, the conflict tends to be
resolved in favour of affiliation. If they do succeed in making a career, extra effort
is made to demonstrate that they are feminine by demonstrating their capability as
good mothers and good wives, etc. When the negative consequences of success are
more they develop a fear of success.

3.2 Personal Power

Acceptance of the role accorded to them by society and the reality constructed
around it is not without its own privileges. Women, were not completely bereft of
power, even in the most traditional societies they used personal power by withhold-
ing love, affection and sex, to gain cooperation from men. However, this personal
power lead to the development of their interests in the separate channels from
men. It also restricted their areas of influence, while men are more influential in
areas outside home, women may enforce their wishes on their husbands or in fam-
ily. This inegalitarian status accepted and reinforced by society, including women
themselves may have been necessary among primitive cultures, but it is no more
relevant in present day situation.

4 Helplessness

Learned helplessness is apparent in the self-defeating behaviour of the women. After

experiencing loss of control in situations at home, they act helpless in other situa-
tions too. Loss of control over one’s situation caused by exposure to unavoidable
situations has been found to produce decreased motor activity, cognitive dysfunc-
tion and emotional disturbance; this kind of behaviour was designated helplessness
by Seligman (1975). Studies with human beings revealed that exposure to situations
where one does not have control produces emotional, cognitive and motivational
disturbances (Hiroto & Seligman 1975). Women learn helplessness right from early
childhood and this moderates their expectation from self and others. The feelings
of helplessness make their cognition about world different from men and their con-
struction of reality is different from men.
Glaring examples of helpless behaviour among women could be quoted. Women
rarely seek redressal of their grievances on facing harassment whether in the office,
home or anywhere else. Passive acceptance of the indignities and injustices meted
to them, and becoming disturbed is the helplessness syndrome prevalent among the
vast majority of women. The diffidence and self-effacing behaviour among women
is indicator of helplessness (Johnson & Goodchilds 1976). Suggestion has been
made by Johnson that because women are often in situations where they are not
regarded competent, helplessness as a mode of easy escape to avoid consequences
14  Gender-Role Socialization, Stereotypes, Government Policies and Development 289

in comparison with competence get rewarded. By acting in ways that show they are
helpless, they get men to do the hard heavy work around the house. The helplessness
behaviour in turn leads to separate areas of competence for men and women.
There are women although, in minority, (almost one percent of the total popula-
tion of women) who are at the top of their chosen field. This bipolar situation of the
women, “With a small section at the top of the politics, education, medicine, public
health, law, journalism, administration, fine arts, advertisement, writing, etc., are not
suffering any disability”. They do not behave as if they do not have any control over
their situation. According to Horner (1968), the women who do become successful
in male-dominated areas have been found to be more masculine than other women.
But these are the women who defied or escaped the normal socialization process and
have developed masculine personality characteristics. They are known to be more
aggressive and domineering. Females preferring science-related and non-traditional
type of careers had a positive role-specific self-concept and masculine perception of
themselves (Baker 1987). Research studies have revealed differences in ability asso-
ciated with feminine or masculine self-perception (cf. Pant & Sen 1993).

5 Gendered Competence

Gender differences have been noticed in different abilities by researchers exploring

whether women really are the weaker sex, and whether there are innate differences
in ability (cf. Elliot & Dweck 2005). Gender differences have been reported in a
number of abilities such as verbal, numerical and spatial. Evidence for superiority
of females to males in verbal skills, superiority of males in spatial and mathemat-
ical ability; and mechanical skills were found (Crain 1966; Debacker & Nelson
2000; Fredricks & Eccless 2002). The reason for these differences have been
given, while verbal ability definitely seems to be more among girls, there are still
some issues to be clarified. Until early adolescence age, there are no differences
in quantitative skills among men and women. However, later these differences
emerge, although these vary widely across populations (cf. Eccles 1994).
1. Studies on spatial ability also show data favouring men; however, these differ-
ences in spatial ability do not appear until after adolescence when boys start
excelling. There is evidence that sex differences in other abilities such as
creativity, analytical ability and reasoning, etc. have appeared in the psycho-
logical literature, (cf. Elliot & Dweck 2005) and a close scrutiny of these will
reveal that on verbal measures, there is no trend towards superiority of any sex.
Similarly, on verbal tasks involving analytical ability, girls are favoured but
when comparisons were made on non-verbal tasks, boys are favoured.
2. In the realm of social skills, women seem to fare better than men. They are supe-
rior to men in social sensitivity and empathy but this ability has helped them
land up in jobs as receptionists, social directors and hostesses but not as ambas-
sadors or politicians (Lips & Colwill 1978). However, in direct assertiveness,
290 D. Pant

women are not so well. Bieri (1968) suggested that socialization process puts
pressure on young girls and women to assume a passive and dependent role
which may be responsible for the observed lowering of their ability. The trend
in socialization of women indicates that the differences in ability found among
them could be the product of construction of the cultural reality rather than real
gender differences (Crawford & Gentry 1989). These gender differences in
abilities and competence are mediated by the cognitive and self-efficacy beliefs
which are brought about by the gendered social environment (Unger 1989), fur-
ther facilitated by the job segregation (Costello & Stone 2001).

6 Cross-Gender-Role Conformity

The gender-role stereotypes spell out expectations from the two genders, leaving
much less scope for women to deviate from the gender-role appropriate behaviour.
Those women who defy the process of socialization and develop somewhat mas-
culine personality traits have been found to be successful in the non-­traditional
careers (Sandberg et al. 1987). The fact that masculinity among women leads to
their breaking away from their traditional roles and facilitates venturing into the
non-traditional careers and male-dominated areas seems to indicate that it is not the
gender per se that leads to the helplessness among women, rather it is gender-role
identity that is responsible for their state of helplessness. There is plenty of evi-
dence in the literature that suggests that gender-role socialization may be respon-
sible for the helplessness among women (Radloff 1975; Radloff & Manroe 1978;
Walker 1977–78). Women having been frequently exposed to situations as part of
their role, experience uncontrollability of events and outcomes, which generates
widespread generalized beliefs about uncontrollability of situations resulting in
helplessness. Gender-role orientation has emerged as a very important factor pre-
disposing women to learned helplessness.
1. Gender-Role Continuum: Researches on gender-role stereotypes revealed
that the gender-role identity is not a bipolar concept of masculinity and femi-
ninity but these are two independent variables of masculinity and feminin-
ity. There are actually, four types of gender-role identities, those having high
same ­gender-typed attributes are either masculine or feminine; and those high
on both characteristics of masculinity and femininity called androgynous; and
those low on both characteristics of masculinity and femininity called undiffer-
entiated (Bem & Lenney 1975). There is yet another class of persons, although
rare who develop cross-gender-typed behaviour like masculine women and
feminine men somewhat comparable to the concept of Ardh Narisheswar in
Hindu scriptures.
2. Gender-Role and Helplessness: Research evidence reveals that persons with same
gender-typed attributes are more susceptible to helplessness manipulation in labo-
ratory setting (Baucom & Danker-Brown 1979). A research study in which 160
14  Gender-Role Socialization, Stereotypes, Government Policies and Development 291

college students of androgynous, masculine gender-typed, feminine gender-typed

and undifferentiated subjects participated, half of them were exposed to uncon-
trollable situations which involved unsolvable concept-learning problems, and the
other half were given solvable problems. The results showed that feminine gender-
typed and masculine gender-typed persons showed cognitive motivational deficits
as well as dysphoric mood in helpless or the unsolvable condition. Androgynous
only showed dysphoric mood and undifferentiated did not get affected in any
way. Stuart (1973) investigated the role of gender-role stereotypes in individual
women’s vulnerability to the helplessness effect. Using Bem’s Sex-Role Inventory
(1974), four groups were selected consisting of gender-typed males, gender-typed
females, androgynous females, androgynous males and exposed these groups to
discrimination learning task on which their outcomes were manipulated to create
helplessness situation. Data indicated that gender-role stereotype rather than gen-
der could be a factor in determining vulnerability to learned helplessness gender
(cf. Elliot & Dweck 2005).
Gender-role differences in learned helplessness have been reported to influence
formal operational thought (Overton & Mecham 1982) while feminine gender-role
typed did not differ from masculine gender-typed in the mixed group, androgynous
and helpless subjects performed poorly on several measures. Female undergraduates
from four gender-role groups after exposure to helplessness condition chose their
role in a team, subjects high in masculinity chose to be in control of team’s prob-
lem solving in both helpless and non-helpless conditions; while none of the feminine
sex-typed subjects, chose to control the team in helpless condition (Baucom 1983).
Women have been found to be particularly susceptible to learned helplessness symp-
toms in male appropriate contexts (Baucom & Danker-Brown 1984). Pre-exposure
to failure on masculine-stereotyped tasks produced helplessness among low-mas-
culine participants. Data from this and many such studies suggested that feminine
gender-role orientation might be a predisposing factor among women to learned
helplessness (cf. Pant 1993). Pant (1993) found that the feminine gender-role and
undifferentiated gender-role groups were highly susceptible to learned helplessness
in comparison with the androgynous and masculine sex-typed girls, and the latter
groups were found quite resistant to the learned helplessness.

7 Role Appropriateness Versus Career Aspirations

Research evidence presented here substantiates that generally most of the women
who are socialized in traditional ways are rendered helpless in the face of fail-
ure especially in the male appropriate contexts. A small percentage of successful
women who escape the socialization rigours, that is, develop cross-gender-typed
behaviour are better equipped to take up the challenges. This constitutes a small
insignificant minority and it is yet to be seen how they fare in terms of adjustment
at home or in their personal lives with family and friends. If the rising divorce
rates among the employed urban women are any indicator, the successful women
292 D. Pant

are becoming increasingly maladjusted in their personal and family lives. The
socialization practices adopted in the family ensure that women develop gender-
role appropriate attributes and any lacunae left by them are taken care of by the
school environment, teachers, mass media, social propaganda and other insti-
tutions that directly or indirectly reinforce the gender-role appropriate traits and
punish inappropriate gender-role. By and large, male-oriented competitive and
individualistic education system harms women, whereas acquisition of inappropri-
ate gender-role characteristics makes women successful and achievement oriented
in competitive contexts (Crawford 1989).
The contradiction becomes quite apparent, the women who adapt to the cross-
gendered role, although they may have achievement on their side but they loose
out on the expressive personality traits like, being affectionate, sympathetic and
sensitive to the needs of others (Boldizar 1991).These qualities are linked with
constructive conflict resolution and interpersonal effectiveness in the family, with
friends and in other social situations. The instrumental traits associated with mas-
culinity include independence, assertiveness and dominance which are associated
with control rather than conflict resolution. Gender-role-stereotyped behaviour
as the organizing feature of family life in many cultures (Cauce & Dominech-
Rodriguez 2002) is important for the society to facilitate development and
achievement of women who are gender-typed, equipped with personal qualities
that promote familial and cultural harmony.
Implicit in the empowerment of women lies the empowerment of men as well.
Women constitute more than half the population of the country and repression of
their self-expression renders them helpless as a result of which they take recourse
to personal power. This personal power women exercise by way of denial of
love, satisfaction and care to their female or male counterparts in vicarious rela-
tionships, cannot be healthy for anyone, men or women, families or society. The
emancipation of women is needed not only for themselves but for the entire soci-
ety. It is a struggle for peace and harmony of entire population that needs to be
taken forward by both men and women together.

8 Development of Women

The three important aspects of the development of women are related to the
empowerment of their Self exposure to outside world and the feeling of being in
control, and dealing with the conflict in their lives with regard to relationships or
economic matters or other resources. Three following components of women’s
position are critical:
• the extent of self-empowerment within the family settings;
• the development of personal–social and emotional competence to deal with the
outside world and emerging conflicts due to multiplicity of roles;
• the level of confidence in self to effectively deal with challenges of decision
making within and outside the household.
14  Gender-Role Socialization, Stereotypes, Government Policies and Development 293

In order to make them feel empowered, there is need to develop social conscious-
ness about the crucial contribution of women to the quality of life of both men and
women. Meaningful action has already been initiated indirectly through the adult edu-
cation, health care, social and legal justice–related programmes but direct statements
of policy to influence social consciousness like prohibiting telecast of programmes
and statements propagating gender-role bias and derogatory statements about women,
prohibiting portrayal of women as sex-objects, and their misuse in print and media
for publicity and advertising may help improve the social climate prevailing in the
country which vitiates environment for women’s emancipation. Although a number of
facilitative policies have already been framed with regard to settling disputes related
to divorce, domestic violence, dowry problems, etc. but the process of legal action is
very slow, and the culprits more often get away because of long delays or the harass-
ment of women who experience hostility from everyone even law enforcement agen-
cies while facing such situations. Television, radio and other communication media
such as print and even school textbooks have to be scrutinized carefully to analyze the
attitude towards women portrayed therein. Suitable policy has to be framed and imple-
mented so that programmes that inculcate gender bias among the viewers do not find
their way to the media.

9 Government Policies

The Constitution provides equal opportunities with regard to education or jobs for
women but it hardly creates any parity in the social situation of men and women.
The approach to women development has been piecemeal or crisis driven, unre-
lated to overall economic transformation taking place in the society. Declaration
of the UN Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace (1976–85)
acknowledged that although changes have taken place in the position of women,
improvements are only relative and marginal. There is need to understand their
role in holistic development of the economy and culture at the grassroot levels
particularly in the rural agricultural and cash-stripped economical niches. Gender
issues are closely linked with over all growth and development. The policies and
steps taken for their implementation have to be enforced in the proper spirit, and
the infrastructure required for the implementation of these policies has to keep up
with the ground realities (Pandey 2002).

1. Reservation for Women: The policy of job reservation for women is intended
to give them economic independence, but economic independence alone
becomes meaningless if physical security and personal protection is lacking.
The issues like residence for single in the urban areas, role conflict due to dual
responsibilities of home and family, health, relationships—marital and work-
ing, physical security, etc. need to be tackled. Legislations related to Dowry
Prohibition Act, 1961, Immoral Traffic Act, 1986, Hindu Succession Act, 1961,
Immoral Representations of Worker Act, etc. modified from time to time have
294 D. Pant

to be examined comprehensively to empower women. The issues that empower

women are less visible to the men legislators, wherever women participate in
legislative structures, they raise attention to issues concerning women; at the
same time, they contribute more compassionately and meaningfully to the
problems of poor and helpless. The central- and state-level policy making bod-
ies, like Planning Commission, Department of Women and Child Development,
Department of Family Welfare, Education and Rural Development, etc., have to
ensure special seats for reservation of women as members. It is important that
women equipped with personal qualities that promote familial and cultural har-
mony are included in legislative, judicial and administrative positions.
2. Integrative Policies: Supportive governmental policies like provisions of 73rd
and 74th Constitutional Amendment which provided one-third representation to
women in Chairperson positions in addition to Balwant Rai Mehta Committee
(1957) recommendation that two women should be co-opted members in addi-
tion to the regular strength of the Panchayat Samiti have helped the rural women
to become somewhat visible in governance but the road to be traversed is
long. The programme on Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas
(DWCRA) initiated during 1982–83 had its dual objectives to empower rural
women economically and socially so that they can contribute significantly in
the family (Dutta & Ghosh 2002). Saravia (2011) stresses on inclusion of more
women in public space due to the possession of expressivity and interpersonal
skills of conflict resolution, which they effectively bring to governance; women
have been known to focus on issues that are important to the development of
community right from grassroot level. Women participating in Panchyat in
states of Andhra, Karnataka and West Bengal focused on drinking water, wells,
schools, teachers appointment, closer of liquor shops, whereas men picked up
issues of community hall, bus shelter, roads, etc. (cf. Pandeya 2007).

Inclusion of women in powerful committees at political, economic, technical and

social levels will help drive away helplessness and empower them to view them-
selves positively and make use of the new opportunities thrown open to them. This
is not in favour of women and their quest for development rather it is about laying
the foundation of a healthy, prosperous and peaceful society by improving the lot of
the other half of the population. The issues cannot be dealt in a crisis aversion and
problem-solving paradigm; vision of society involving total transformation of wom-
en’s position and status as equal partners in the processes of governance, legal justice,
economy, grassroot local village administration is needed. Presence of women in these
bodies like panchayats (see explanation in Chapter X, n. XX), anganwadis (explana-
tion in Chapter X, n. XX), rural health schemes, entrepreneurial ventures, etc. needs
to be ensured to empower them. This would help arrest the process of denudation of
women’s expressive personal qualities instrumental in effective and compassion-
­
ate conflict resolution and management at different levels in the society. The result-
ing involvement and visibility of women in familial, interpersonal and societal levels
would add to cultural development and evolvement of society not only with justice and
equality but also moving towards a humane and peaceful global world order.
14  Gender-Role Socialization, Stereotypes, Government Policies and Development 295

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Chapter 15
The Environment–Behaviour Link:
Challenges for Policy Makers

Roomana N. Siddiqui

Over several decades, environmental issues have caught the attention of psychologists.
This is due to the realization that a wide variety of environmental stressors are the
consequence of ways in which humans have altered or exploited their environment.
Looking at the massiveness of the problem, it appears that human beings and the natu-
ral world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irrevers-
ible damage on the environment and on critical natural resources. On the other hand,
at intermittent stages, one witnesses devastating consequences due to environmental
backlash. Human curiosity and desire for self-sufficiency have been constantly chang-
ing the environment, and most ecological crises can be rightly attributed to human
behaviour.
Psychology as a science of human behaviour has not been oblivious to the
­significance of the impact of environment on behaviour. As early as in the 1950s,
Lewin’s (1951) equation B = f (P × E), that is, behaviour is a function of person
and environment, set the tone of research on the environment–behaviour link. It was
in the 1970s that the pioneer volume Environmental psychology was published by
Proshansky et al. (1970), followed by the two-volume Handbook of environmental
psychology (Stokols & Altman 1987). A new Journal of Environmental Psychology
came up in 1981 (Canter & Craik 1981). As the salience of the field increased, sev-
eral professional associations of psychology devoted entire divisions to this area.
The American Psychological Association included environmental psychology
as a separate division (34) with the aim to improve interactions between human
behaviour, environment and population. The International Association of Applied
Psychology (IAAP) dedicated division 4 to the environment, while the main objec-
tive of The International Association of People–Environment Studies (IAPS) was
to improve the physical environment and human wellbeing. The bulk of the initial
work in this area was confined to the USA. In India, too, interest in the environment

R. N. Siddiqui (*) 
Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India
e-mail: [email protected]

R. C. Tripathi and Y. Sinha (eds.), Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India, 297
DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1003-0_15, © Springer India 2014
298 R. N. Siddiqui

as a significant variable in explaining behaviour gets mention in the first survey of

the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) (Mitra 1972), but its focus
was on the physical environment. This was followed by the second ICSSR Survey
(Pareek 1981) that had an entire section on environmental psychology and social
issues. Again, in the fifth ICSSR Survey (Pandey 2004), an exhaustive review of
environment–behaviour link was presented (Jain & Palsane 2004).
Most of the initial work in India focused on crowding (Jain 1987; Pandey and
Nagar 1988; Ruback and Pandey 1991; Evans et al. 1989) and noise (Nagar &
Pandey 1987; Batra et al. 1990; Srivastava & Dwivedi 1990). The major thrust
was to study the impact of crowding and noise on cognitive functioning and
social adjustment. Some attempts were also made to incorporate a wide array of
environmental stressors (e.g. air, water noise, garbage, crowding and traffic) and
investigate their impact on health (Ruback & Pandey 2002; Siddqui 1997; Udas
1999). The moderating role of coping and control was investigated by Pandey
et al. (2009). Lepore et al. (1991) studied the role of individual factors in the
relationship between environmental conditions and psychological distress. They
reported interactive effects of an enduring environmental stressor with acute daily
social stressors on psychological distress. Thus, from focusing on direct effects,
researchers moved on to explore the mediators and moderators between environ-
mental conditions and its consequences.
More than two decades of environmental research have resulted in a ­multitude
of studies dedicated to discovering the impact of environment on various psycho-
logical processes, ranging from cognitive functioning to social adaptation and
health. But from the available literature, one gets a sense that though research-
ers conceptualize environmental psychology as a field that emphasizes the inter-
dependence of organism and the environment, most studies in this area adopt a
unidirectional perspective. The plethora of work has focused on the impact of
environment on humans, but there is a paucity of psychological research that
focuses on the effects of human behaviour on the environment. Winter and Koger
(2004) rightly argue that what is needed is a robust psychology that can help make
crucial changes in our behaviour, thought, feelings and values. We need to bet-
ter understand why we treat our environment in a particular way if we are to pre-
vent continuing degradation of the environment and alleviate human suffering
on account of it (Oskamp 2004). Personal relationships with nature may provide
some insight into the manner in which people treat and relate to the environment.
The disconnection from the natural world may be contributing to our planet’s
destruction (Howard 1997; Schultz et al. 2004).
The relationship that people share with nature is, to a large extent, governed by the
cultural ethos. Kluckholm (1953) identified three major orientations that people exhibit
towards nature in different cultures: (1) people as subordinate to nature; (2) people in
harmony with nature; and (3) people as above nature. It is these orientations that deter-
mine a person’s relationship and, to a large extent, their values towards nature.

1. People as subordinate to nature: Societies that are less technologically

­developed or those living in harsh and unpredictable environment feel that they
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 299

are under the control of nature. In this culture, nature is viewed as powerful,
uncontrollable and unpredictable and this implies that people can only act in a
subordinate and submissive manner. They believe that one should adapt to and
respect nature.
2. People in harmony with nature: Many societies before coming into contact with
western notions of man’s relationship with the environment believed that man
was an integral part of nature and there was a harmonious relationship between
man and nature. All things in nature were considered sacred and not to be
unduly exploited; the main idea being that people are not at the centre of the
natural universe that revolves around them, but they are part of nature and must
blend with it and be responsible for it. This orientation encouraged people to
balance consumption with available resources, often engaging in relocation and
enabling the environment to restore itself, which helped humans and the envi-
ronment to coexist and prosper for centuries.
3. People dominant over nature: This view fits with the western Judeo-Christian
worldview of the environment. It propagates that humans are separate from
nature, are superior and have the right to control the environment in accordance
with their needs. Nature exists to serve people and is to be consumed. These
values still predominate western culture, as reflected in the “multiple use man-
agement” of public lands, large-scale intensive farming with heavy dependence
on fertilizers and chemicals and genetically engineered plants and animals.
In the pursuit of development and progress, even traditional cultures vigorously
adopted the Cartesian model, which propagates that humans are the controllers
of nature. This has led to a major shift in the nature of relationship between peo-
ple and the environment: it has moved from harmony to dominance. It was this
belief in abundance, growth and prosperity with heavy reliance on technology that
resulted in an unethical exploitation of natural resources. This quest for develop-
ment and the desire for a comfortable lifestyle have resulted in short-term benefits
with long-term environmental costs. Kovel (2003) argues that the capitalist system
and its by-products (imperialism, globalization, poverty, etc.) play a key role in the
ecological crises. The ruthless pressure to expand degrades the environmental con-
dition, which in the long run threatens the future of civilizations and species. It is
now widely recognized that poor environmental conditions, inadequate sanitation,
air pollution, land degradation, climate change resulting in disasters and lack of
portable drinking water are major risks to health and economic productivity.

1 Environmental Stressors: The Contemporary Scene

1.1 Crowding

Due to unchecked population growth and depleting physical resources, crowding

is one of the most intense environmental stressors to which people all over the
300 R. N. Siddiqui

world are exposed on a daily basis. Be it residential units, marketplaces, shop-

ping malls, railway stations, airports or schools, the presence of a large number
of people in a given space has become inevitable and unavoidable. Psychologists
have been trying to unravel the phenomenon of crowding with special emphasis
on the impact of crowding on cognitive, social and health aspects. Crowding has
traditionally been linked to inside or outside density (Galle et al. 1972; Zlutnick &
Altman 1972). Inside density refers to the number of people per living unit (num-
ber of persons per room or per square feet). Outside density refers to density out of
the residential unit (e.g. people per square mile or building per acre). According to
Stokols (1972), crowding does not simply refer to high density, which is a physical
measure of the number of persons per unit of space. It is a psychological state that
occurs when the need for space exceeds the available supply. Crowding may be a
result of high density, but it is more than having too many people at one place. It
refers to a subjective experience and an affective response that may not be ade-
quately reflected by a population density measure (Baron et al. 1974). Jain (1987)
defines crowding as an emotional response experienced in a specific cultural
context. He (Jain 1991) identified four factors measuring the feeling of crowd-
ing. These are as follows: congestion, loss of control, negative affect and distur-
bance. Similarly, while exploring the subjective experience of crowding, Nagar
and Paulus (1997) came up with four dimensions of the crowding experience:
spaciousness, supportive relationship, disruptive relationship and uncontrolled dis-
turbances. The dimension of spaciousness relates to perceived feeling of cramped-
ness due to insufficient space, interference and lack of privacy. The second and
third dimension focused on the various types of interpersonal relationships, with
supportive relationship focusing on perception of emotional support, spend-
ing leisure time together and getting well with others, while disruptive relation-
ship mainly focused on perception of unwanted demands and feeling of hostility
by residents. The fourth dimension related to uncontrolled intrusion by others and
ignored requests. According to Nagar and Paulus (1997), each of these d­ imensions
was significant in understanding the subjective experience of crowding.
Rapid growth in population and urbanization has resulted in high density
in cities. It is estimated that by 2050, India will overtake China to become the
most populous country on Earth, hosting 17.2 % of the world’s population. Data
(Census of India 2001) reveal that the overall density of India was 324 per km2 in
2001 compared with 77 per km2 in 1901, an increase of almost 21.3 %. In Delhi
alone, the density in 2001 was 9,294 per km2 (Census 2001). As high-density liv-
ing is a major environmental stressor, whose visibility is quite high, it has been
a main thrust area for psychology researchers in India (Jain 1987; Pandey &
Nagar 1988; Ruback & Pandey 1991). Pandey and Nagar (1988) investigated the
impact of overcrowding on homes and reported that people in high-density homes
experienced more adjustment problems and perceived the interpersonal climate as
less supportive. However, Ruback and Pandey (1991) found that household den-
sity had no negative effects if socioeconomic and demographic variables were held
constant. Lepore et al. (1991) also noted that contextual factors must be taken into
account while exploring the impact of environmental stressors. They reported a
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 301

positive association between density and psychological distress but emphasized

an interactive effect of enduring environmental stressors with acute daily social
stressors on health. Tripathi (1990) took a range of locations (traffic, cinema halls,
markets, dormitories and neighbourhoods) to study the feeling of crowding. He
reported that the feeling of crowding was situation specific, and those situations
that were avoidable lessened the feeling of crowding compared with unavoidable
situations.

1.2 Noise

Noise has been defined as undesirable and unwanted sound. People normally do
well in adapting to ambient and sometimes disagreeable sounds. But there are cir-
cumstances in which noise can be stressful enough to produce adverse changes
in human behaviour. Exposure to noise levels beyond prescribed limits leads to
irreversible adverse effects. Raja and Ganguly (1983) reported that exposure to
110-db noise adversely affected the hearing of printing press workers. In several
experimental studies, Batra and his associates (Batra et al. 1990) tried to find
out the impact of noise on mental efficiency. They took physiological measures
such as galvanic skin response, blood pressure and pulse rate as indicators of the
amount of energy spent in performing a given task. They reported that unperiodic
noise was least conducive for mental work. Srivastava and Dwivedi (1990) have
also reported the adverse impact of noise on memory and learning.
Hockey (1979), after reviewing psychological literature on noise-induced
stress, reported that there are five primary effects of noise. First, stressful noise
activates a person to a level that exceeds the optimal level for the task at hand,
leading to an increase in the rate of work as well as of errors. Second, stressful
noise changes the performer’s policy for allocating attention capacity, resulting in
an apparent reduction in short-term or working memory. Third, attentional selec-
tivity is increased. Fourth, there is an increase in response selectivity. Finally,
stressful noise reduces the performer’s confidence in their ability to do the task
at hand. Later, Kjellberg (1990) also reviewed psychological literature on the
effects of noise in the work environment, focusing on moderate-intensity noise
(e.g. computers, printers and ventilation systems). He found reports of significant
distraction and sleep disturbance on individuals who worked under constant noise
conditions. He also reported the evidence of noise effects on reaction time (RT),
vigilance and verbal comprehension tasks. Using a different approach, Hygge
et al. (2002) were able to demonstrate significant cognitive losses attributable to
intense noise.
Damage caused by noise can range from hearing impairment and cardiac
and cardiovascular changes to lack of concentration, insomnia and deterioration
in motor and psychomotor functions. Unpredictable noise exposure increases
catecholamines and elevates blood pressure and skin conductance (Cohen &
Weinstein 1971). Physiological changes produced by noise consist of non-specific
302 R. N. Siddiqui

responses associated with stress reaction (Glorig 1971). Cohen et al. (1977)

revealed that exposure to consistent noisy conditions may result in the loss of per-
ceived control that may contribute to psychological disorders. Workers exposed
to high-density noise (above 110 db) report more nervous complaints, headaches,
change in general mood and anxiety (Miller 1974; Cohen 1969). There is evidence
showing that noise diminishes altruistic behaviour and sensitivity to others (Cohen
& Spacapan 1984).

1.3 Air and Water Pollution

Increasing trends of urbanization, along with change in lifestyle, have led to

­deterioration in environmental quality. Taking that fresh breath of air is an ardu-
ous challenge for millions living in the overcrowded cities of developing countries.
Some of the major pollutants in the air attributed to human activity include sul-
phur oxides resulting from industrial processes, nitrogen oxides from high-temper-
ature combustion, carbon monoxide from car exhaust and burning fuel, particulate
matter, organic volatile compounds, toxic metals, chlorofluorocarbons, ammonia
and radioactive pollutants. Many of these pollutants contribute to global warm-
ing and threaten the health of humans, plants, lakes and animals. According to a
report (Timmons & Vyawahare 2012), urban air in India is ranked the worse in
the world. Due to rapid population growth and speeded economic development,
energy consumption is increasing at a very fast rate. According to the Economic
Survey of India (Economic Survey of India 2007–2008), there were about 85,000
registered vehicles in India. This increased to 142 million in 2011 with the total
registered vehicles in the country growing at a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 9.9 % between 2001 and 2011 and with Delhi’s growth rate being
7.1 % CAGR (Road Transport Year Book, 2009–2010 & 2010–2011). Vehicular
emissions contain sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, lead, ozone,
etc. (Goyal et al. 2005).
A considerable degree of air pollution results from burning fossil fuel.
According to the National Family Health Survey-3 (cf. State of Environment
Report 2009), more than 60 % of Indian households depend on traditional
sources of energy like fuelwood, dung and crop residue for cooking and heating.
Change in traditional patterns of farming has also added to the crises. Excessive
and indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides, along with intensive farming
and practice of waste disposal, has resulted in increased emission of greenhouse
gases (GHG) like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which cause cli-
mate change. Burning of wheat and rice straw and other agriculture residues not
only contributes to lack of soil fertility but also raises the temperature of the soil.
Punjab alone produces 23 million tonnes of rice straw and 17 million tonnes of
wheat straw annually (State of Environment Report 2009). Instead of recycling
this back into the soil, it is burnt in the fields. This releases suspended particulates,
besides CH4, CO2, NO2, SO2, etc., causing serious health hazards like respiratory,
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 303

skin and eye diseases. The industrial sector (electronic, textiles, pharmaceuticals,
basic chemicals, etc.) and the construction and mining sectors also contribute to
air pollution. Acid rain is a direct result of air pollution, which damages freshwater
aquatic life, vegetation and buildings.
In cities, where air pollution is particularly excessive, such as New Delhi, there
is a low birth rate and high possibility of children developing asthma, pneumo-
nia and other respiratory infections. According to World Health Organization
(2011), 2.4 million people die annually from causes that can be directly attributed
to air pollution and a large number of these belong to India. The economic cost
of damage to public health due to air pollution is very high. Related closely to
air pollution is the problem of water pollution, which is also becoming a serious
concern and causes a drain on the economy. Almost 70 % of India’s surface water
resources and an increasing percentage of its groundwater reserves are contam-
inated by biological, toxic, organic and inorganic pollutants. Polluted water is a
major health concern. Diseases like gastroenteritis, cholera, tuberculosis, jaundice,
typhoid and diarrhoea are caused due to poor quality of water. Heavy metals, inor-
ganic and organic toxicants may cause death or pathology of the liver, kidneys,
reproductive system or the nervous system (Verma & Agarwal 1994).
The situation appears quite grim for air and water quality, but there is a paucity
of research in these areas by psychologists. As a considerable part of the prob-
lem is behavioural in nature, one needs to investigate the factors that contribute to
these social traps. One has to look at both individual-level and social- and context-
level factors that are responsible for such self-destructive behaviour.

1.4 Unhealthy Environments

The pace of industrialization accompanied by a parallel rise in urbanization has

led to mass exodus of people into the cities. The growth in urban population that
was 240 % from 1901 to 1951 jumped to 450 % from 1951 to 2001 (Census
2001). It is quite obvious that this process is skewed; people converge only
towards those cities that provide better opportunity for employment and educa-
tion. It is estimated that 60 % of the urban population lives in Class I cities. The
maximum growth rate noticed during 1941–1951 was highest for Delhi (90 %),
followed by Mumbai (76 %) and Chennai (66 %). Since resources are limited,
large-scale migration puts strain on infrastructure as well as on the ecology of the
city. Due to lack of residential space and improper planning, the unorganized and
marginalized sector of society finds itself in squatter settlements on discarded or
undeveloped lands. The total slum population in India constitutes 22.58 % of the
urban population (Census 2001). As slums are illegal constructions, they present a
very unhygienic picture. They lack basic civic amenities and are poorly equipped
with sanitation facilities. Open drains and garbage dumps, potholes, stray animals
and flies are a common sight in slums. These unsanitary conditions lead to high
prevalence of tuberculosis, hepatitis, pneumonia and other communicable diseases.
304 R. N. Siddiqui

Apart from the growing slum culture, cities are fast becoming throwaway soci-
eties. India alone generates 10,000 tonnes of plastic waste per day, which consti-
tutes a major portion of the total municipal waste (State of Environment Report
2009). With more and more people moving into cities, waste generation and its
disposal has become a major challenge for these cities. Either due to increas-
ing consumerism or due to inadequate civic services, today we earn more and
produce more garbage and then disassociate with it. It is an established fact that
household garbage compacted over a long period produces methane that causes
greenhouse effects. Today’s garbage problem is due to the crisis of maladaptive
behaviour (Maloney & Ward 1973). Untreated and uncollected garbage becomes
the breeding ground for bacteria, parasites, mosquitoes and numerous insects
that are instrumental in causing health risks. Much work in western countries has
focused on recycling behaviour (Hopper & Nielsen 1991; Vining & Ebreo 1990;
Werner & Makela 1998), but there is lack of any major research endeavour in
India. As the concept of cleanliness is culture specific, it would be interesting to
investigate Indian behavioural patterns and cultural concepts that underlie them
in order to get insight into how such behaviour fits in with notions of healthy
habits.

1.5 Environmental Disasters

Environmental disasters are extreme events that disrupt the normal functioning of
a community. They are environmental events of geographical and meteorological
origin that pose significant threats to property and social activities along with men-
tal and physical wellbeing. McCaughey (1984) defined disaster as an event that
occurs suddenly, unexpectedly and uncontrollably, which is catastrophic in nature
and involves threatened or actual loss of life or property, disrupts the sense of
community and often results in adverse psychological consequences for survivors.
The massiveness of such a disaster is such that it exceeds the tolerable magnitude
of humans and makes adjustment difficult. The 2011 tsunami in Japan wiped away
entire communities.
Disasters may be natural (cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc.),
or they may be man-made (industrial disasters, radiation contamination, terror-
ism, war, train disasters, etc.). Natural disasters are the consequences of a combi-
nation of physical events (volcanic eruptions, earthquakes) and human activities
(disappearance of rain forests, greenhouse effects and global warming). Man-made
disasters are the results of technological breakdowns. Natural disasters often out-
rank technological ones in terms of damage to and loss of human life (Schlager
1994), but Baum (1993) states that technological disasters are also increasing
and claiming their victims. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the USA and in 2011
the tsunami in Japan were reminders that the world’s most developed and techno-
logically advanced nations were not immune to climate disasters. Over a ten-year
period from 2000 to 2009, more than 2.2 billion people worldwide were affected
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 305

by 4,484 natural disasters, killing 840,000 people and costing US $ 891 billion in
economic damage. It is also estimated that from 2000 to 2010, nearly eight out of
every ten people affected by natural disaster have been either Indian or Chinese
(Kellell & Sparks 2012) These are grim reminders of the intricate and disturbed
relationship between man and environment.
Salcioglu et al. (2003) studied long-term psychological outcomes for earthquake
survivors in Turkey and reported that estimated rates of post-traumatic stress disor-
der (PTSD) and depression were 39 and 18 %, respectively. Kolaitis et al. (2003)
studied post-traumatic stress reaction among children exposed to the Athens
earthquake in 1999 and reported a high incidence of severe PTSD and depres-
sion. Mariam and Charumathi (2005) did a study on tsunami victims in India and
reported prevalence of depression, PTSD and anxiety among disaster-affected vic-
tims. Siddiqui (2005) investigated the subjective wellbeing of people exposed to
recurring floods and reported that resilience and optimism contributed significantly
in accounting for the subjective wellbeing of flood victims. Misra (1992) did a lon-
gitudinal study over a period of three years to explore the adverse effects of one of
the worst industrial disasters that occurred in Bhopal (India) in 1984. Due to leak-
age of methyl isocyanate gas from a pesticide factory, over 3,787 people lost their
life. The results clearly revealed negative impact on intellectual, social and behav-
ioural functions along with mental disorders. Asthana and Jain (1986) observed a
high degree of alienation among the victims, and they also reported helplessness,
powerlessness and self-estrangement. Studies show that psychological and men-
tal health problems among disaster victims persist even after six months and in
some cases even after one or more year after the disaster (Goto et al. 2002; Lai
et al. 2004; Misra 1992; Norrris et al. 2004) Natural disasters have long-term conse-
quences, particularly for those survivors who have intense trauma exposure. Thus, a
long-term mental healthcare policy is required for disaster survivors.
The devastating effects of disasters have aroused both government and public
interests in managing and mitigating its impact. In India, there was no official pol-
icy on disaster management till the effects of the December 2004 tsunami in the
Indian Ocean hit the Indian Government. The disaster compelled governing bodies
to take cognizance of the seriousness of the problem. During the 1980s, India had
an integrated poverty reduction programme for reducing adverse impact of natural
disasters, but it was only in the Tenth-Five Year Plan (2002–2007) that the Indian
Government outlined a multipronged strategy in relation to total risk management
for sustainable development and adopted a disaster management framework in
January 2005.

2 Risk Perception and Management

The frequency with which humans are exposed to disasters (in the form of oil
spills, radiation exposure, chemical leaks, tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes
and floods), along with its unpredictability and massiveness, increases the risk
306 R. N. Siddiqui

component of disasters, both in terms of appraisal and in terms of consequences.

Scientist, professionals, politicians and general public understand risk differ-
ently. For a behavioural scientist, risk is inherently subjective (Slovic 1992; Weber
2001), not being independent of our minds and culture. The way we understand
risk has implications for dealing with the dangers of these uncertainties of life, and
this cannot be quantified easily.
Generally, it is seen that experts and laypeople seem to differ widely in their
perception of environmental hazards. People tend to overestimate small-frequency
disasters and underestimate high-frequency disasters. Experimental studies of
human reactions to extreme and usually rare events reveal two inconsistent behav-
ioural tendencies. There is a tendency to overweigh rare events in terms of risks by
decision makers because the affective processing of events dominates over their
analytic processing (Rottenstreich & Hsee 2001). On the other hand, when people
learn about outcomes and their likelihood in a purely experiential way, they tend to
underweigh rare events (Barron & Erev 2003; Weber et al. 2001). Further, people
overestimate risk when it affects them directly and underestimate risk that does
not affect them directly (Slovic et al. 1979). Overestimation is also caused by cog-
nitive errors such as the availability heuristic, which causes people to emphasize
risks that are dramatic and sensational (Tversky & Kahneman 1973). Risks are
underestimated when the effects are slow to occur and less visible, and there is a
general tendency to ignore minor risks and deny danger to minimize disruption to
one’s life (Gardner & Stern 1996). According to the psychometric paradigm, peo-
ple’s emotional reactions to risky situations affect risk perception. Thus, a variety
of perceptual, emotional and cognitive processes influence risk perception.
The field of risk analysis is growing very rapidly. It involves risk assessment
and management along with public perception. Risk assessment mainly involves
identification, quantification and characterization of threats to human health and
environment, while risk management focuses on processes of communication,
mitigation and decision making. Policy makers and experts frequently refer to
probabilistic criteria in risk assessment to evaluate hazards, as they define risk in
terms of expected mortalities and destruction of resources. The general public on
the other hand focuses on potential threat, the extent to which it is under control
and its impact on future generations. Given this complex scenario, risk manage-
ment becomes a challenging field where the communication of risk assumes great
significance. Smith et al. (1995) noted that the amount and the format of risk infor-
mation affect risk perceptions, behavioural intentions and mitigation. The major
difficulties encountered in risk communication are complexity, uncertainty, frame
of reference, trust and credibility. Often, risk information is highly technical and
presented in scientific, legalistic and formal language that makes it quite compli-
cated for the layperson to understand. Government agencies, fearing emotional
reaction or panic, communicate limited information or withhold information, and
this severely damages public trust and credibility. Hence, risk communication has
to be very effective, and social psychologists can help in identifying those factors
that can contribute to better communication.
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 307

3 Changing Environment-Related Behaviour

Human activities have global effects as they can drastically change the ecosystem.
Psychologists can play a major role in changing human behaviour necessary to
forestall or slow down the processes of global change. The major challenge is to
convince policy makers and the public regarding the presence and seriousness of
the problem. The first step that behavioural scientist can take up is the communi-
cation of risks of global change and their uncertainties. Long-term consequences
of global change for countries and species are often given less weight in com-
parison with immediate and concrete consequences. The adoption of a wider per-
spective both by policy makers and by laypeople is a prerequisite for behavioural
change programmes.
Another area in which the behavioural scientist can help to intervene is to
­provide scientific evidence on how individual or community behaviour is linked to
environmental problems. Generally, people think that the present state of the envi-
ronment is caused by industries and by reckless policies of governments. The main
task is to identify those human behaviours that have the greatest impact on global
change. This will help in targeting the right behavioural practice that requires
modification, rather than targeting the wrong behaviour. A number of activities
have energy consequences like purchase and consumption behaviour, everyday use
and discarding of products, waste management, energy consumption and conser-
vation. Thus, pinning responsibility on individual lifestyle also helps in modifica-
tion of behaviour. Intervention in this area should not only be a top-down approach
with experts and government agencies delineating a uniform plan of action for the
public. It is essential to take into account the involvement of people, and it calls
for innovative policy making.
Research in the past has indicated that in order to increase the effectiveness of
behaviour modification programmes, one has to adopt a multitude of approaches.
Providing information and feedback is more successful if one adopts techniques
that rely on simple and lucid language with concrete, practical recommendations
and credible sources. Intensive, personalized community-based interventions
appear to be very effective. Aitken (1994) identified three concepts that appear
to be relevant in changing behaviour related to domestic water consumption:
attitudes, habits and values. But they reported that these factors are poor predic-
tors of water consumption, while situational factors played an important role in
changing environment-related behaviour. Katzev et al. (1993) also reported that
“user-friendliness” of the recycling system was the main determinant of recy-
cling behaviour, while psychological variables had a modest impact. Research in
related domains also indicates that attitudes are not often sufficient to induce envi-
ronment-friendly behaviours or reduce environment-destructive behaviours. The
factors that may play an important role are convenience, costs associated with the
behavioural alternatives and trust in the authorities recommending specific behav-
ioural practices. Kempton et al. (1992) describe five standard policy strategies
that are generally used to change specific environmental behaviour, like energy
308 R. N. Siddiqui

consumption. They are as follows: (1) information feedback, (2) persuasion, (3)
altering incentives, (4) commands or mandates and (5) developing new technolo-
gies. According to them, at the behavioural-level investment may be a one-time
investment, but management and curtailment in the long run require frequent feed-
back to make visible the effects of changed behaviour.
Global warming, pollution, species extinction and other environmental
problems do not just happen (Winter 2000). Human beings are at the centre of
this complex situation. They are both contributors to and sufferers of declin-
ing resources and environmental quality. Although many people are aware, and
care about environmental problems, this is not always reflected in their behav-
iour (Dunlap et al. 2000; Kaplan 2000; Kortenkamp & Moore 2001). In order
to explain why some people engage in environmentally responsible behaviour
(ERB), while others do not, psychologists have examined the mediating factors
between humans and nature. The focus has been on environmental attitudes, con-
cern, awareness, values, beliefs and emotions.

4 Environmental Attitudes

The importance of investigating attitudes towards the environment is evident as

there is a compelling evidence in the literature that relates attitudes to preferences
and behaviour (e.g. Ajzen & Fishbein 1977, 1980; Borgida & Campbell 1982;
Fazio & Zanna 1981; Snyder & Kendzierski 1982). Evidence clearly shows that
environmental attitudes help predict preferences for environmentally friendly
products (Ewing & Sarigöllü 2000; Mainieri et al. 1997). Fishbein and Ajzen
(1974) asserted that traditional measures of attitude that tap general attitudes
towards something may not correspond to a particular behaviour because a vari-
ety of specific behaviours could be linked to any one attitude. Hence, they recom-
mended that more immediate determinants of behaviour, such as “attitude towards
the behaviour”, be considered. Specifically, it was demonstrated that attitudes
predict pro-environmental behaviour to the degree that both attitude and behav-
iour are assessed at the same level of specificity. Heberlein and Black (1976) also
reported that when a specific behaviour was used as a criterion, a highly specific
belief was a much better predictor.
A sizeable amount of psychological research on environmental attitudes has
been focused on values, which are viewed as underlying determinants of more spe-
cific attitudes, behaviours and beliefs (Olson & Zanna 1993). Although there are
several traditions of values’ research, particularly applied to the study of environ-
mental issues, many studies in recent years have made use of Schwartz’s model
of human values. Schwartz (1992, 1994) developed a broad model for classifying
the dimensions of values and identified four value categories: openness to change,
conservatism, self-transcendence and self-enhancement. Openness to change is
described by values of self-direction, stimulation and hedonism. Conservatism
is defined by values of tradition, conformity and security. Self-transcendence is
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 309

characterized by values of universalism and benevolence. Finally, self-enhancement

is defined by values of power and achievement. Several studies have shown that
self-transcendence is positively correlated with both environmental attitude and
behaviour, whereas self-enhancement is negatively correlated with both environ-
mental attitude and behaviour (Milfont et al. 2003; Schultz & Zelezny 1998, 1999;
Stern et al. 1995).
Environmental attitudes, according to Ignatow (2006), are shaped by at least two
cultural models of nature–society relations. The first is the ecological model, and
the second is the spiritual model. The ecological model is a representation of nature
as an ecosystem physically integrated with human society (Bocking 1994). This
model does not envisage a conflict between modernity and the environment. On the
contrary, it believes that science and technology allows for the balancing and inte-
gration of modern society and its natural environment (Kempton et al. 1995). The
spiritual model tries to focus on various beliefs and attitudes. This model appears
similar to the new environmental paradigm (NEP; Dunlap & Van Liere 1978),
which espouses that the natural world is sacred and in harmony and gets threatened
by science and technology. Sarigollu (2009) found that environmental attitudes dif-
fer significantly across cultures. Results indicate differences between collectivist
and individualistic; externally and internally controlled; materialist and post-materi-
alist; and past- and future-oriented cultures. Pandey (1990) suggests that as culture
plays an important role, one needs to understand culturally determined attitudes
related to the environment for developing general pro-environmental as well as
specific pro-environmental attitudes among people so that their anti-environmental
behaviours may be changed.

5 Environmental Concerns

The 1990s saw a productive social science debate on social and economic factors
motivating concern for the natural environment. Environmental concern is defined
as “the affect (i.e. worry) associated with beliefs about environmental problems”
(Schultz et al. 2004, p. 31). The focus of environmental concern studies ranged
from specific attitudes towards pro-environmental behaviour to broader and more
encompassing value orientations (Fransson & Gärling 1999). Environmental con-
cerns relate directly to the degree with which individuals see themselves as part of
the natural world (Schultz 2000). As Schultz (2000), Howard (1997) and others
have argued, if we value and feel concern for nature, we will then want to protect
it. The understanding of our interconnectedness with the Earth and the sense of
inclusion with nature are often referred to as our ecological identity or ecological
self, a term coined by Naess (1973). An ecological identity includes the self, the
human and non-human community and the planet’s ecosystems (Conn 1998), so
that damage to the planet is seen as damage to the self.
Stern and Dietz (1994) developed a tripartite classification of values that
formed the basis of environmental concerns. Expanding on Schwartz’s (1977)
310 R. N. Siddiqui

norm-activation model of altruism, they argued that environmental moral norms

could be activated by socio-altruistic values as well as by egoistic or biospheric
values. Altruistic values predispose people to judge environmental issues on the
basis of costs or benefits for a human group (e.g. community, ethnic group or all
humanity). A person high on this value experiences a sense of moral obligation
and acts on it when they believe that adverse consequences are likely to occur to
others and they through appropriate action can prevent or ameliorate the conse-
quences. In contrast, people who apply egoistic values judge environmental issues
on personal basis. They are motivated to protect aspects of environment that affect
them personally or oppose protection of environment if the personal costs are
high. In the biospheric value orientation, people judge environmental issues on the
basis of costs or benefits to the ecosystems. Many environmentalists and ecologists
espouse this value. According to this theory, therefore, “three distinct value orien-
tations, towards self, other human beings and other species and the biosphere, can
be distinguished and that each can independently influence intentions to act politi-
cally to preserve the environment” (Stern et al. 1995, p. 1616). Research suggests
that biospheric concern seems to be consistently positively correlated with pro-
environmental behaviour (Schultz et al. 2004). Stern and Dietz’s (1994) value–
belief–norm theory of environmental concern also describes five types of variables
causally related to one another. These variables include personal values, a general
set of beliefs, awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility and personal
norms for pro-environmental action. Though environmentally protective attitudes
and concerns do not always translate into protective behaviours, it is generally
accepted that they predispose persons to perform such behaviours and thus remain
important distal predictors of them.
Kaplan (2000) believes that tapping into the human desire to explore and learn
is far more effective in inspiring concern for nature than dictating behaviour. This
may explain why people often are unmotivated to comply with government ini-
tiatives, but may be more responsive when their own personal relationship with
nature is involved. For example, a person may resent government pressure to
carpool or take public transit, but actively work to protect a local green space or
park they enjoy visiting. The emotional aspect of human–nature relationships may
partly explain some of these individual differences.

6 Pro-Environmental Behaviour

The search for a sustainable future for the Earth is rapidly shifting towards the
notion of “Think Global, Act Local” (Steel 1996). It is argued that global envi-
ronmental problems, such as global warming, can be effectively tackled by altera-
tions in day-to-day lives of individuals. Encouraging people to use their cars
less, switching off the electricity when not in use, closing the tap when brushing
their teeth and recycling waste have all been advocated by government organi-
zations. Researchers and policy makers have become increasingly aware that
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 311

individual behaviours can ameliorate or exacerbate environmental problems.

Environmentally responsible behaviours are said to occur when an individual or
group aims “to do what is right to help protect the environment in general daily
practice” (Cottrell 2003, p. 356). Such actions have also been referred to as pro-
environmental behaviour, environmentally friendly behaviour and conservation
behaviour. According to Stern (2000), there are several types of ERBs, which vary
according to their location and extent of visibility: environmental activism cen-
tred in the public realm; non-activist political behaviours occurring in the public
sphere, including support for certain policy initiatives; private environmentalism,
including purchasing decisions; and behaviours originating in organizations to
which an individual may belong.
Rohrschneider (1990) has demonstrated that the condition of the environment
has a clear impact on the development of attitudes towards environmental protec-
tion. He argues that when people become aware of environmental problems, they
become sensitized to national pollution issues, which, in turn, influence popular
support for environmental organizations (ibid., p. 23). Hungerford and Volk (1990)
talk about a multilevel model of environmental behaviour that incorporates three
levels of variables influencing environment-related behaviour in a sequential fash-
ion. First, they talk about environmental sensitivity and knowledge of ecology that
serve as prerequisites that would “enhance a person’s decision making, once an
action is undertaken”. Ownership variables, comprising the second level, create
a sense of accountability and ownership among individuals regarding a particular
environmental issue. Such feelings of ownership are enhanced through in-depth
knowledge and personal investment in an issue. At the third level are empower-
ment variables, which provide individuals with a sense that they can make a differ-
ence relating to a particular environmental issue.
How nature influences human emotions and why some people feel strongly and
positively about nature, while others are unmoved, are important questions in the
study of environmentally responsible behaviour (Kals & Maes 2004; Milton 2002;
Vining 1987). Kals et al. (1999) have investigated the emotional aspects of envi-
ronmental behaviour in their research on love of nature and interest in nature.
Along with affinity, interest and indignation, positive past and present nature expe-
riences are predictive of nature-protective behaviour. Allen and Ferrand (1999)
also found that sympathy, as a measure of caring for the environment, was an
important predictor of environmentally friendly behaviours. Including emotion
also makes environmental education more successful in fostering behavioural
changes (Pooley & O’Connor 2000).
Environmental and behavioural knowledge has been found to play a signifi-
cant part in shaping environmental behaviour. Environmental knowledge relates
to knowledge related to the state of the environment, awareness of environmen-
tal problems and about action (Schahn & Holzer 1990), while behavioural knowl-
edge refers to what Schahn and Holzer have termed concrete knowledge, which
is essentially knowledge for action, for example, knowing what and where to
recycle. Most evidence points to a stronger link between concrete knowledge
and behaviour (Schahn & Holzer 1990). This is in a sense self-evident because
312 R. N. Siddiqui

knowledge for action is a significant prerequisite for behaving in an appropriate

manner and is a significant barrier to action if levels are low.
The extent to which environmental problems are a tangible threat to personal
wellbeing, especially in the area of waste management, also influences pro-envi-
ronmental behaviour. Baldassare and Katz (1992) argued that the belief that
environmental problems can be perceived as a threat to wellbeing and health
will override many of the traditional predictors of environmental behaviour in
their importance. Steel (1996) and Segun et al. (1998) have supported this find-
ing in their studies of environmental activism (including recycling behaviour). It
seems logical to expect that there would be a tangible relationship between the
extent to which individuals perceive the waste problem to be serious and a con-
sequent behavioural response. In particular, it appears that personal experience or
location—for example, living near a landfill site or in an area where refuse provides
a public health risk—may provide the impetus to manage waste more carefully.
The importance of other recycling behaviour is also likely to be significant in
increasing individual recycling rates. It is likely that as Fishbein and Ajzen (1975)
have argued, behaviour will get modified when individuals are aware of a given
social norm and, more importantly, accept this norm. Oskamp et al. (1991) found
that the degree to which respondents acknowledged neighbours’ recycling behav-
iour was important in shaping their own recycling behaviour. Chan’s (1998) study
of recycling in Hong Kong also highlighted the importance of subjective norms in
encouraging others to participate. Personal experience of the behaviour in ques-
tion or a related behaviour has been found to have significance in the prediction
of waste management behaviour (Kallgren & Wood 1986). A strong link has been
established between behavioural experience in one domain and action in another.
For example, Daneshvary et al. (1998) found that those who took part in textile
recycling were more likely to be those who had previously taken part in curbside
recycling schemes. This is a significant finding as it implies that a sort of behav-
ioural snowball effect might occur whereby participation in one action leads to
more willing uptake of other actions.
It is a popular perception that individual actions can have little or no impact
towards a given problem. This can relate to any arena of social behaviour, but is
seen vividly in the environmental realm, where the seemingly gargantuan task
of stopping global warming is related to individual actions to reduce waste, con-
serve energy and curtail car use. Consequently, Hopper and Nielsen (1991) found
that those who believed that their actions would make a difference to the waste
problem were those who were more likely to act. This response efficacy is likely
to prove decisive in the promotion of environmentally sound behaviours from an
individualistic perspective (Roberts 1996). Finally, there is the issue of environ-
mental citizenship. This has been overlooked by researchers and may provide an
interesting additional variable to examine with regards to environmental behav-
iour. Selman (1996) has argued that those individuals who conform to certain
characteristics are more likely to behave in an appropriate manner because they
feel involved within society and most importantly have a notion of citizenship. In
essence, requirements for environmental citizenship include a balance between
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 313

rights and responsibilities, an active involvement within society, characterized by

a feeling of good community spirit and being part of local decision-making pro-
cesses regarding the environment (Selman & Parker 1997).

7 Conclusion and Policy Implications

Given the broad array of problems, the probability that individuals will be affected
by one or more of these environmental issues is very high. As people are becom-
ing more aware of the ramifications of the deteriorating environmental conditions,
their concern for quality of life has given way to concern about health issues and
life itself. This calls for an effective and comprehensive approach to address envi-
ronmental issues. Policy makers need to take cognizance of the various aspects of
environmental stressors, that is, physical, social and psychological while formulat-
ing laws. Regulation of industries, town planning, construction of neighbourhoods
and designing of living space in view of the findings related to various stressors
are essential for ensuring wellbeing and sustainability of societies. Corrective
measures, environmentally sound technology and specification and strict enforce-
ment of environmental obligations of industries and neighbourhoods are essential
for sustainable growth.
The scenario is so grim that it requires active collaboration between
policy making agencies and stakeholders. Government agencies have regularly
ignored cultural beliefs and local concerns while conceptualizing policies and pro-
jects. This often has resulted in confrontation with the public. In 1972, the Chipko
movement, a very popular grassroot movement started by locals, mainly females,
in the hills of Uttarakhand, India, was a result of this insensitivity. The women pre-
vented cutting of forest trees by embracing them. Many such popular environmen-
tal movements were undertaken against major government initiatives. Hence, both
at the level of policy formulation and at the implementation level, feedback must
be taken from various sectors. Major developmental projects should get clearance
not only from the government, but also from the community that is likely to be
affected by such activities. This type of collaboration ensures smooth implementa-
tion of policies. Further, the provision of environmental auditing by civil society
will not only establish transparency and accountability at the implementation level
but also instil a sense of responsibility in community-level actors.
Since the problems are diverse and complex, a multipronged approach needs
to be adopted. The issue has to be tackled at several levels starting from the grass-
roots. Providing basic environmental education has resulted in general awareness,
but awareness alone will not result in environment-friendly behaviour. People have
to be encouraged to relate to environmental issues in order to understand their
environmental obligations. Winter (2000) rightly pointed out that there is a gap
between how people feel and think about environmental problems and their own
actions. Psychologists need to find ways to shrink this gap and transform concern
for the environment into ERB. Important determinants of environmental behaviour
314 R. N. Siddiqui

may be more related to the perceived practical and political feasibility of these
behaviours than to what respondents know or how they feel about the environ-
ment. Future environmental education efforts might benefit from a closer consid-
eration of deterrents to facilitators of performing environmental behaviours. It is
clear that the attitudes, knowledge, behaviours and concerns that adolescents have
about the environment will directly or indirectly affect future decisions concerning
our natural resources and how they will be used and sustained.
One of the facilitators identified by psychologists is knowledge. The type and
amount of information people have about environmental issues are a prerequi-
site for the success of any programme in this area. Part of the national policy for
limiting climate change should make accurate, credible and actionable informa-
tion widely available. For widespread dissemination of environmental knowledge
and its ill effects, the media can play a major role. The amount and type of media
coverage of environmental disasters and issues have helped transform many spe-
cific problems into a major public issue. Journalistic preference for the negative
and the dramatic, combined with the conflictual nature of debate between environ-
mentalists and non-environmentalists, shapes the overall message delivered to the
public (Lowe & Morrison 1984; Hays 1987). Since the penetration of media has
increased manifold, it is a powerful tool in transforming public opinion as well as
in helping planners know the pulse of a situation. A major advantage, according
to Lowe and Morrison (1984), is that stories about environmental problems carry
with them powerful cultural symbols related to nature and a strong emotive and
moralistic appeal. It is this appeal accompanied by powerful visuals that strike an
empathizing cord with nature. Given the seriousness of the environmental prob-
lem, it becomes imperative that risk communication, media coverage and scientific
statements be presented in a manner that is validating and empowering to both the
individual and community in how they can address and contribute to mitigating
the problem.
It is now widely accepted that changes required to ameliorate the environmen-
tal crisis are to a large extent connected to behaviour modification. Hence, envi-
ronmental psychology should contribute to the understanding and promotion of
sustainable behaviour (Schmuck & Schultz 2002). This understanding is possible
only when we gather information about how people think about nature, the mecha-
nism through which attitudes towards the environment change and how we can
account for anti-environmental behaviour. Much needs to be done on the nature,
quality and importance of human–environment transactions. In order for psycholo-
gists to suggest any intervention strategy, they have to intensively investigate the
pathways through which individual- and system-level factors contribute to envi-
ronmental degradation on the one hand and identify those psychological factors
that motivate people to engage in environment-friendly behaviour.
As environmental problems have become very serious, and if neglected will
have survival implications for species, policy makers need to address the prob-
lem on a priority basis. Rather than focusing on the issue in a piecemeal fashion,
an integrated approach has to be adopted both at the research and at the imple-
mentation level. The urgency and complexity of the issue require collaboration
15  The Environment–Behaviour Link: Challenges for Policy Makers 315

and multidisciplinary ecological analysis and solution. Investment needs to be

increased in research and extension and in developing suitable and sustainable
technologies. There is a need for collaboration not only across natural and social
sciences but also between public and private groups on several fronts. Without a
concerted national policy, many of the intervention strategies adopted will have lit-
tle or no impact. Special attention has to be paid to cultural nuances and contexts
in which the issue unravels. Cultural understanding needs to be internalized in
the decision-making process. Exploring these intricate linkages can help not only
understand the problem, but facilitate its mitigation in a more cost-effective man-
ner. Policies have to focus at both the macro-level and micro-level with different
sets of planning in urban areas compared with rural ones. A sense of environmen-
tal relatedness has to be at the core of such planning. Hence, to improve the envi-
ronmental quality at the global-, national- and local-level environmental activism
typically entails political and community-based actions.

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