Palm | Kelapa Sawit

POLICIES FOR AGRO-INDUSTRIES

This paper has four sections. The first section traces the socio-economic environment of the pre-independence era, in which the Indian nationalist view on rural industries got crystallized. Traditionally, Indian agriculture, depended in the main upon input resources of its own.  

Agriculture provided raw materials to industry; industry's contribution to agriculture was, however, marginal. The agro-industry relationships were uni-directional. The British machine-made products, imported into India, offered a cheap substitute for the Indian cottage and rural industries and handicrafts; this in turn threatened employment opportunities in the countryside. Gandhi's call for Swadeshi was designed to undermine the market for machine made consumer goods imports, on the one hand, and mobilize rural support for the struggle for India's political independence, on the other.