Community Development Journal - current issue

Foreword

Miller, C. — 2009-06-24

Critical explorations of community organization in India

Andharia, J. — 2009-06-24

Democracy in India and the quest for equality

Alam, J. — 2009-06-24

During the course of the last two decades, there has been a pronounced expansion of democracy, seen as the enfranchisement of dalits, the empowerment of oppressed castes, and the assertion of women. This process has also witnessed the deepening of popular commitments for ideas and potentialities of democracy. However, at the same time, various infirmities have also crept into it, such as the denial of rights of individual persons who disregard community injunctions, retaliatory politics in relation to those lower in ritual status, the humiliation of dalits, and of women who defy community norms. Instead of looking at the evolution of Indian democracy, the paper would reveal more the manner in which the democratic universals are getting transcribed in their engagement with the Indian particularities. This paper argues a need to engage in a sustained democratic struggle within communities. While respecting the identity of the oppressed communities, one must remain suspect of the congealing of these identities. Deepening of democracy, apart from substantive content, requires that dalits and women have to become bearers of entrenched rights.

Community organization in split societies

Jha, M. — 2009-06-24

Contemporary discussion on inter-community relations in India can never be comprehensive without taking certain landmarks, seen through momentous ruptures in the forms and nature of dialogue between communities. While there is ample historical evidence that the barbaric episodes of violence are not new, the communal divides visible in contemporary Indian society have been able to fan the emotions of a large section of the people in specific moments, and the implications of the same travel down to the everyday life of people. The premeditated demarcation of borders and boundaries between communities that was coincidental with the rise of the right-wing forces in Indian politics received fresh allies and social constituencies, and they have all gone in unison to produce insulting boundaries for others. In the wave of hate-mongering and spitting of venom, this article locates the challenge for community organization practices in enhancing the tapestry of plural living and tolerance in a democratic society.

Unionization as a strategy in community organization in the context of privatization: the case of conservancy workers in Mumbai

Vyas, M. — 2009-06-24

With rapid privatization of solid waste management (SWM) across urban centers in India since the 1990s, the role of the state agencies is considerably diluted. The contract system in this sector is here to stay. This has implications for the large numbers of conservancy workers who are employees of the urban local bodies (ULBs) as well as those who perform the same functions as the ‘standard’ workers, but work on contractual basis. Through amendments in certain labour and environment related laws, SWM has been getting differently organized during the last seven to eight years in India. The labour question in the rapidly privatizing SWM sector in urban areas has several dimensions including that of job security, and conflicts between permanent and contractual workers and other groups who work with waste. All these categories of workers in urban India, whether within the formal or the informal sector, belong to socially and economically marginalized sections of society. Unionization of workers and struggles for their entitlements has been an important strategy. Several years of association with a trade union of conservancy workers in the city of Mumbai has enriched teaching of Community Organization (CO) through classroom-field interface with a focus on social action. This paper attempts to trace, through the lens of the interface between an academic institution (and its curriculum in CO) and a trade union, the struggles and success in assuring secure livelihood and entitlements for thousands of workers. Achievements of the union assume great significance as it gives others the confidence to continue with their own efforts at organizing the unorganized.

Subaltern strategies and autonomous community building: a critical analysis of the network organization of sustainable agriculture initiatives in Andhra Pradesh

Kumbamu, A. — 2009-06-24

This paper examines and analyses the organization and functioning of subaltern peasant sanghams (grassroot associations of the poor) and their place-based as well as network-based strategies in building autonomous local communities that challenge the consequences of neoliberal globalization in general and the commodification of agriculture and food in particular. The major objective of the counter-hegemonic organizational strategies is to build self-protective and subsistence communities, to mend the metabolic rift between nature and society, and to re-reconstruct social fabric within communities. The question remains is whether place-based autonomous communities can sustain in an increasingly globalizing world. To better understand these political dynamics, I use Karl Polanyi's concept of ‘double movement’ and examine the making of a double movement in Indian agriculture and its socio-political and ecological implications for the Indian peasantry. I use the organizational strategies and activities of the Deccan Development Society, a prominent non-governmental organization that has been working in Medak district for more than two decades, as an illustrative case study.

Food security in perspective: the significance of social action

Jha, M. K. — 2009-06-24

This article highlights the impact of food insecurity on the disadvantaged sections in India. While analysing the causes and consequences of food insecurity, this paper emphasizes distributional aspects and also examines the government schemes and provisions meant to secure food for the vulnerable sections of the society. Discussing the gross mismanagement and the serious loopholes in the implementation of these programmes, this paper highlights consequences which include growing number of malnourished children and recurring instances of hunger deaths. The government's initiatives of dealing with food insecurity reflect its failure to grasp the realities of exclusion faced by the marginalized communities. Paradoxically, while the food surplus statistics indicate an upward shift, so do starvation deaths in different parts of the country. The last section reiterates and illustrates the argument of this paper that the food security can be ensured through collective mobilization and sustained social action. The paper advocates the need to initiate public action through community mobilization. Some of the vibrant and robust civil society groups have taken the lead in enabling marginalized communities to assert their rights and entitlements in different parts of India. This has been substantiated through case illustration of grassroots mobilization and social action.

Shifting terrains of communities and community organization: reflections on organizing for housing rights in Mumbai

Bhide, A. — 2009-06-24

Mumbai has historically been a home to several struggles of urban underprivileged groups. The city assured spaces to slums in the past, albeit grudgingly. Cases of displacement were few and intensely contested. However, the last decade has witnessed a considerable expansion of the nature and scale of threats to the existence of slum-dwellers in the city. Attempts to organize slum communities began in the 1960s following a trajectory of locality development and then housing rights. The earlier vision of broad-based development and struggles of urban poor has given way to fragmented, issue-based and localized struggles. Intense politicization and competition for valuable resources and opportunities have fractured this potent constituency comprising about 60 percent of city dwellers. The paper traces the slippery and challenging terrain of organizing slum communities around their rights and raises questions about the location and nature of community practice.

Destroying the culture of secrecy: empowerment and dignity through right to information: a case study of MKSS in Rajasthan

Sihag, S., Sihag, S. — 2009-06-24

The article traces out the origins and analyses the movement that led to the enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005. It holds a mirror to the culture of secrecy pervading the bureaucratic machinery and demonstrates the utility of the Act to usher in an era of accountability with the aid of practical examples. The conceptual framework built by Kant and Shue has been borrowed to argue that right to information is a potent tool for the marginalized communities to secure invaluable democratic space and consequently, move up the social ladder.

A re-reading of Gandhi's Satyagraha in South Africa for contemporary community organizing

Goswami, P. — 2009-06-24

Mahatma Gandhi – one of the most prolific writers amongst the figures of world history – has left us details of his growth as a thinker and activist. ‘The Story of Satyagraha in South Africa’ documents the struggle of Gandhi, still in his twenties, who confronts racism in a foreign country and is able to negotiate substantial gains for his community through a long-drawn political struggle involving the new methods of Satyagraha. This book while speaking of the development of the various aspects of Satyagraha as a political as well as spiritual weapon, also documents the complex scenario in three countries – England, South Africa and India. The context defines the lives of the Indians in South Africa, their struggle and Gandhi's strategies as an organizer. The individual sacrifices, the efforts for fundraising, the intricacies of keeping together a community with members from different religions, the day-to-day concerns of Ashram life, the tough decisions at critical junctures of the movement – Gandhi offers a fascinating picture of the community organizer. The paper re-visits this tale and culls out the lessons that are important not only for the modern-day community organizer in India but are also perhaps timeless in their relevance and appeal.

Raising citizenship rights for women through microcredit programmes: an analysis of MASUM, Maharashtra, India

Chari-Wagh, A. — 2009-06-24

The microcredit programme initiated in the 1980s is celebrated by the Indian state and international development institutions as an ‘ideal’ poverty alleviation programme for women. It is based on the principle of activating self-help among women and is considered as being empowering. The period 1980–1990 defined a minimalist neo-liberal role of the state that allowed for the free working of the market and a belief that it will solve problems of poverty. Many have argued that the microcredit programme was influenced by this philosophy (Joseph, 2007; Swaminathan, 2007). In addition, that microcredit does not always have a positive impact on poverty alleviation because the official programme does not have the capacity to displace patriarchal structures that bind women (Goetz and Sengupta, 1996). By focusing only on ‘economic’ issues it fails to address the way deprivation of nutrition and health, increasing violence and insecurity are affecting women as economic actors. Without addressing these questions it is not possible for women to get empowered. In this paper I examine the inter-linkages between citizenship, gender and development by evaluating the design of a microcredit programme for women presented by a feminist rural women's organization called Mahila Sarvangeen Utkarsh Mandal (MASUM) in Maharashtra.

The Dragon and the Elephant: Agricultural and Rural Reforms in China and India

Ramakumar, R. — 2009-06-24

State, Markets and Inequalities - Human Development in Rural India

Natraj, V.K. — 2009-06-24

Breaking the Monolith: Essays, Articles and Columns on Islam, India, Terrorism and Other Things that Annoy Me

Sivaramakrishnan, A. — 2009-06-24

Politics and Policies - A Marxist Perspective

Athreya, V. — 2009-06-24