BLOCK-1 : Regional Geography of India INTRODUCTION : Planning Concerns itself with decisions about the general direction, order and progress in economic development relating to human welfare. For instance in the case of a Spatial or a regional plan, the emphasis on viewing the position of resource development with a scheme of bases of regionalization does not ignore the other aspects. There are 4-Units in this block Unit-1 Introduces our planning process has mostly been centralised and a single level sectoral planning has been going on for a long time. Unit-2 Discusses the meaning and power of Geo- political changes. Unit-3 Deals with Agro climate and its sub regions in India. Unit-4 Introduces various physiographic divisions and their sub divisions of India. We hope that the Units will help you in enhancing your knowledge about the areas. Unit-1 : Bases of Regionalization Unit-2 : Geo Political Change Unit-3 : Agro Climate. Unit-4 : Physiographic 1 UNIT 1 BASES OF REGIONALIZATION STRUCTURE 1.0 Objective 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Bases of Regionalization 1.3 Previous Consideration in Indian Regionalization 1.4 Regional Approach 1.5 The Regional Scheme 1.6 Summary 1.7 Activity 1.8 Questions 1.9 References 1.0 OBJECTIVE To know basis of regionalization. To understand Present and Past Consideration of Regionalization. To understand Regionalization approach. To understand Regional scheme. 1.1 INTRODUCTION Planning Concerns itself with decision about the general direction order and progress in economic development relating to human welfare .In India our planning process has mostly been centralized and a single level sectoral planning has been going on for a long time. On other hand in the multilevel planning process, the national territory is divided into small territorial units their number depending upon the size of a country. Its administrative geographical and regional structure. It integrates the physical, economic and social goals within each such region and between different sets of regions from local to national level. 1.2 BASIS OF REGIONALIZATION (Brock, Jan, Om 1965) Regional approach in geographic studies has been longs regarded as ‗inherently geographic‘ or rather the focal concept of all geographic work . It focuses on a particular area of the earth and studies it through the whole gamut of geographical factors-physical, biotic and human (both visible and invisible) which working in unison and intersecting among themselves and 2 with other areas over a long period of time provide relative homogeneity or a distinctive character to it rom the neighboring areas. The central theme is not what Hart shorn decries as the phenon enology of the landscape nor is it much concerned with the distribution of the various individual phenomena its main concern is with the systematic study of the synthetic results and expressions of the various phenomena a really or spatially related and interconnected in a particular region and leading to its homogeneity, although it is quite possible that some of the factors may not be causally related. (Dickinson 1969) Regional geography has regarded by its most devoted protagonists to be concerned with the derivation or determination and analysis of ―the Co-variants of a real distributions on the surface of the earth.‖ Regions are determined and further divided into individual units according to the degree of correspondence or homogeneity of the various geographical phenomena or ―a real variables‖ Many German regional geographers define ‗region‘ in terms of a distinctive physiognomic (formal) and physiological (functional) similarity or homogeneity which results from a distinctive assembly of ―spectrally arranged things‖. Min shell 1967 the term ― region‖ is nebulous in character: the very concept, purpose and method of study and the size and shape of the region etc. vary To that extent also, then the ―delimitation of a region is always based on a mental judgment‖ it has been regarded indeed as a subjectively conceived idea screened through either subjectively or even instinctively chosen defining criteria or through objective analysis of the variables or, more often, by a combination of the two sets of factors. The chief criticism leveled against the concept of region arises out of its incapability of being defined through a standard definition and stand to objective ―the concept of region floats away when one tries to grasp it, and disappears when one loks directly at it, and tries to focus‖. Two views have been brought forth so far in terms of the regional concept: (i) first is that the regional method is a means to an end, which strangely contrasts with, (ii) second, that is rather the older regional concept, that ―regions actually exist ―in nature as objective fact-one could, as it where, discern them. The first view is more purposive and prevalent these days. In fact, the method provides a device for selecting and studying areal groupings of the complex phenomena found on the earth‖ The former concept has, however, prevailed, and has served to fill-in the gap of dualism that was widening between the ‗topical‘ (general or systematic) on the one hand and the regional studies, on the other. Whittles has emphasized the mutually benefiting role of the two fields: ―the study of topical field in geography involves the identification of areas of homogeneity, which is the regional approach; the study of regions that are homogeneous in terms in terms of specific criteria makes use of the topical approach because the defining criteria are ‗topical‘. 3 Systematic geography is more exact, logical, exhaustive and comprehensible, and its regions can be more objectively and technically defined, and criteria comparatively easily standardized and applied elsewhere. Regional geography, in contrast, is not prone to that level of objectivity, standardization and precision, but all the same it has own field, own methods and own approaches. In fact to most geographers, the two branches of geography are complementary, and could be ―even more complementary, even more useful as two different tools which will do different parts of one job, if the differences between their aims and capabilities are further emphasized and clearly defined. The procedures and approach of the regional method, however, are different from those of the systematic geography. This method discover and analyzes the various geographical components and factors and their association and interactions in a discrete area, judges its homogeneity, delineates boundary and discovers its individuality and personality. This result in to a synthesis of the region as a result of the complex association of feature. Such area is then a ‗formal‘ or ‗uniform‘ region as distinct from the ‗nodal‘ or functional region or even a- priori region . For Wooldridge and East, ―the purpose of Regional geography is simply the better understanding for a complex whole by the study of its constituent parts‖. As such, the study of the distinguishable parts and their associated environments is the best toll for the understanding of the wholeness of a country or a region. When C.C. Carter is calling the regions as ―good servants (and) bad masters‖ , he perhaps means that they are not ends in themselves, but can serve well as tools for comprehensive study. (Spate 1957) Likewise, the regions offer good ‗isolates‘ for study. Even if the earth‘s surface, as according to some, is a continuum as perhaps ‗nature‘ abhors lines and boundaries‘, which humans, and most certainly geographers, seem ‗to adore‘ and make all-out attempts to find, it is the human interactions with the physical factors, and more among themselves, which add distinctive traits and characters to the natural continuum, and it is these superimposed characters which offer boundaries, recognized instinctively or objectively by geographers. It is because of this that even thought the region is not capable of easy or standard definition, the concept of region is ‗capable of growth and adaptation‘ for various human objectives. (Mathieson 1968) The frontiers of regional geography have now ―moved from a nature- dominated regional geography to one dominated by Man‖. What we have come to refer to as the probabilistic regional geography, depending now on a multi-variate analysis of factors, relates Nature to stochastic human processes. From a mere description of regions dominated by ‗what‘ and ‗when‘, the study has moved to a systematic analysis to ‗why‘ and ‗how‘ stage. The aim is now to analysis the region in terms of the optimum use of regional resources, physical, biotic, and human including institutional, based on a political and socio-economic rationale within a general stochastic framework. Rather on a different plane and based on a highly revolutionary political idealogy, the 4 dialectic materialists have moved the frontier of regional geography to he voluntarist approach, which has led to the delineation and formation of regional complexes as in Russia and China by envisaging man-in-society complete ―charge of Nature‖. Descriptive regional studies have produced some fascinating works where the auth have chosen, according to their own purpose and ‗mental judgment‘, various criteria to mark and delineate the regional boundaries. Description has now been replaced by explanatory regional studies which are now taking more and more variables with a view to approaching more concrete and precise result and are also bringing in new hierachies for fuller comprehension of the personality of the region. Co- variance analyses of various