authors
Siddeswara N

abstract
India lives in villages where most of the inhabitants are small, marginal, landless farmers and artisans. After independence, agriculture was identified as one of the thrust areas for rural development. Even at that time, the policy makers had visualized the fact that without people’s participation and institutional support, the rural development programmes could not be pushed through. India has a long history of cooperation, with a variety of cooperative activities being conducted in numerous facets of society. Here is a timeline of the Indian cooperative movement. Cooperative behaviours can be traced back to ancient Indian society during the ancient and medieval periods. Communities frequently collaborated in agriculture to complete chores like irrigation and land preparation. In the past, the "Bhoomi Sena" (land army) served as an example of group agricultural activities. Similar to today's mutual-aid societies, indigenous trading groups like the Marwaris and Chettiars supported and provided credit to their members.