ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the social and institutional context of the process of development in Gujarat and Orissa. It aims to provide the background for the link between the central issue of the ‘room for manoeuvre in the middle’ and the field data on attitudes and behaviour of the gaon ka netas. The chapter examines the linkages between the geographic context of development and the attitudes and behaviour of individuals placed within a specific context; it is useful at the outset to explain why such a relationship exists in the first place. The geographic location of a village, its natural resource base and its institutional linkage to the regional and national political arenas are important factors that affect the pace of social and economic change. Putatively, regional governments functioned under the authority of an omnipotent central government, constitutionally endowed with extraordinary powers of lawmaking that could, in principle, drastically compromise the federal character of the polity.
