Abstract
This chapter discusses the initiatives of an NGO (that the author shall call Gram Vikas Manch) in the field of natural resource development. The NGO is based in Udaipur district of south Rajasthan and has been active since the last four decades. What is its main agenda and how does it operate in its ‘field of action’ (Udaipur villages)? How do its developmental interventions change existing relations of power and patronage in rural communities, and create new relations of patronage? What is its relationship with other elements of the watershed development regime? These are the main analytical questions that are addressed in this chapter in order to highlight the interplay between the various actors involved in governance and control of local natural resources; to illustrate the dynamism of institutional forms and practices and to demonstrate complex processes of negotiation, cooperation and conflict in ‘community based natural resource management’ programmes led by non-governmental development organisations. The chapter presents the in-depth case study of the NGO using an organisational ‘life history’ approach. It evaluates the changing role of the NGO from demanding development to delivering development since the early 1990s, and presents narratives from some villages to highlight the micro-politics of resource management. Finally, it explains the relationship of the NGO with the wider development regime.
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Notes
- 1.
GVM helped in forming groups of villagers (called Forest Protection Committees) for tree plantation on forestlands and for harvesting fodder grass from the plantation site.
- 2.
The idea of contribution by the so-called beneficiaries has become popular within international development circles since the late 1980s due to increasing dominance of neo-liberal thinking, which relates project failures and lack of people’s participation in development projects to ‘full subsidy’.
- 3.
Weisgrau (1997: 204) argues that non-governmental development organisations operate as new patrons in rural Udaipur. The old patrons (rulers and jagirdars) have been stripped of some of their lands and assets in post-independence India, and local thakurs have lost much of their land because of a variety of factors, such as the land reform policies, and the increasing profitability potential of industrial and other entrepreneurial activities rather than dryland farming (ibid).
- 4.
Weisgrau (1997: 205) suggests that from the perspective of the Bhils, the continued long-term reliance on new patrons (non-governmental development organisations) does not represent a sound development strategy but for the present, until literacy and better economic opportunities can be created in Udaipur villages, ‘this survival strategy of dependency-based relationships remains a viable alternative as a route towards the goal of economic stability and a fuller political voice’ (emphasis added).
- 5.
Informal conversation with Bhairon Singh on 06/04/04.
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Gupta, S. (2016). Development Specialists and Grassroots Workers. In: Politics of Water Conservation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21392-7_5
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