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Some Political Implications of Community Development in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Adrian C. Mayer
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Extract

One of the major factors of change in rural India since Independence has been the programme of community development inaugurated in 1952 by the Government. Stemming from experimental schemes in pre-Independence times, the programme has been carried to a majority of the nation's villages. Its main aims are to raise the standards of living of the rural populace, and to aid in the establishment of democratic local government and in the stimulation of felt needs which villagers will themselves plan to meet.

Type
In quest of political participation
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , May 1963 , pp. 86 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1963

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References

(1) E.g. Nayyar, Baldeo Raj, ‘Community Development Programme: Its Political Impact’, Economic Weekly [Bombay], 09 17, 1960, pp. 1401–10.Google Scholar

(2) Fieldwork was carried out in four visits totalling two and a half years between 1954 and 1961. At first concerned with single Village Committee, it later covered the sub-district. I am grateful to the Australian National University, and to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for making the research possible. I also wish to thank warmly Drs F. G. Bailey, B. Benedict and Mr W. A. H. Gray for their comments on a draft of this article.

(3) Rural committees operate under the M. B. Panchayat Act of 1949. Legislation has been introduced for a decentralised ‘Panchayati Raj’ system, but this is not yet in operation.

(4) The sub-district was made a Community Development Block in 1955.

(5) An analysis of the headman's role will be found in Mayer, Adrian C., Caste and Kinship in Central India (London, 1960).Google Scholar

(6) Data are not available for the remaining six VCs.

(7) See Mayer, Adrian C., ‘Local Government Elections in a Malwa village’, Eastern Anthropologist, XI (1958), 189–202.Google Scholar

(8) See Mayer, , op. cit.Google Scholar, for an instance where a Brahman was supported by Rajput leaders for the VC chairmanship, in return for sending a Rajput to the CC.

(9) See Wood, Evelyn, ‘Representative (?) Government in Rural India’, Thought [Bombay], 01 30, 1960, pp. 12–13Google Scholar, for a discussion of political representation in such an electoral system.

(10) I deal with castes here, rather than with subcastes, because subcaste differences do not appear to be generally operative in inter-caste relations. For example, the Purviya Rajput subcaste unites with other Rajputs in the face of inter-caste opposition, and so do the other subcastes in my data. It is of course posences sible to think of a situation in which subcastes could carry their intra-caste rivalry into the political sphere.

(11) One of these was later elected DC chairman, with a Rajput from another CC as vice-chairman.

(12) I express my appreciation of the aid given me by officials of the Madhya Pradesh Government in allowing me access to these statistics. I am also extremely grateful to Mr Graham Kalton of the Department of Statistics, London School of Economics, for his generous help in tabulating these figures and discussing their implications.

(13) I do not need to consider whether the projects for which allocations were made were completed or not, since it is the decision to allocate which is at stake here.

(14) For an example of this difference, see Mayer, Adrian C., ‘Change in a Malwa Village’, Economic Weekly [Bombay], 09 24, 1955, p. 1149.Google Scholar

(15) The deviant voter was a Rajput. Unfortunately, I did not enquire into the reasons for his vote. But the defeated candidate told me that in the 1956 election, he ensured that this man was not elected to the CC again, having his own mother's brother sent instead.

(16) They are said to have intervened in the DC chairman's election, however, to stop a Hindu Mahasabha supporter from being elected.

(17) Mayer, Adrian C., ‘Rural Leaders and the Indian General Election’, Asian Survey I (1962), 23–29.Google Scholar

(18) Other factors working against bias would be pressure from development officials, and the present quantity of funds, which enables a large number of people to be given something, without close sup porters being deprived.