Backwardness

The study assesseshowbackwardness impacts the quality of life at the block level in Purulia district
of West Bengal. Backwardness, directly or indirectly, is dependent on the disparity in human
poverty as well as socio-economic development of a region. In order to get a clear picture of
regional socio-economic disparity and quality of life in Purulia, the level of development is assessed
separately in social, economical, educational, health, infrastructural categories. For bringing
about uniform regional development and improving the quality of life, the decadal change in
development in the backward blocks of Purulia from 2001 to 2011 have been made and identified.
Social and economic data has been analysed for computation of regional disparities in
development. The blocks have been ranked according to the aggregate score which has beenmade
on the basis of normalised values of various socio-economic parameters. Maps have been
prepared displaying the aggregate score and Human Poverty Index (HPI) for socio-economic
development using GIS system. The study indicates Kashipur having lower HPI is highly developed
in the years of 2001 and 2011 whereas Jhalda II having higher HPI remains one of the less
developed blocks in both the years. Therefore, as per the study, backwardness bears a direct
relation with HPI of a region. The study suggests that poorly developed blocks require
improvements inmost of the indicators for enhancing their levels of socio-economic development.

In this essay I define the _rule of European difference_ as the widespread practice of placing west European societies, cultures and politics above all others, including the rest of geographical Europe, and ask to what extent it is possible that the last few years’ shocks, from Brexit to the global coronavirus pandemic, might have made it easier to bring the European conversation to a more equal footing. Of special interest to me is the chatter about, and involving, the “other Europe,” the erstwhile state-socialist societies outside western Europe.

With this paper, we start a series of publications on the theoretical aspects of Teodor Shanin’s conception of Russia as a ‘developing society’ first published in 1986 in the book Russia as a ‘Developing Society’. The Roots of Otherness: Russia’s Turn of Century. Vol. 1. In the next issue of the journal, we will publish the second part of the fifth chapter of the book, as well as the refereed translation of the whole chapter. In this part, the author considers the key conceptual approaches to the notion of social and economic development on the global scale and in the historical framework. Thus, the variety of convergence theories assumed that whatever the rhetoric or the crudities of Russia’s socialist experiment, it was not much more than a gigantic exercise in ‘belated industrialization’ and in converging towards closing ‘the gap’ between Western Europe or the USA and the rest of the globe. The modernization theories divided the world into ‘three worlds’ - First, Second and Third - and assumed that the Second World would turn into First, while the Third World should go a much longer way. However, the author considers it much more important to specify what is meant by the category of societies defined as ‘developing’, ‘backward’, ‘underdeveloped’, ‘emerging’, etc. There are essentially two ways to delimit such entities structurally: the first treats ‘developing societies’ as backward and proceeding towards modernity along the necessary scale of social and economic advance, but for some reasons not yet ‘there’ or else moving ‘there’ too slowly; the second approach assumes different venues of ‘development’, with the ‘developing societies’ representing a category of this. Further, the article identifies possibilities and limits of different theoretical perspectives, in particular, regarding the Russian intellectual and social-economic history.