Determinación de los Trabajadores a Muestrear

From the above discussion, as well as in previous chapters, political power is seen as the main factor in the perpetuation of social and economic inequality in Nepal, through the nexus between power and caste. Even after the establishment of the modern democratic system in 1990, not much effort was made to incorporate disadvantaged groups within the political process. Now, since 1990, 'politics of ethnicity' is seen as a way to gain political power, or to the assert the interests of particular ethnic groups. As a result, solidarity is growing along caste lines. With the relaxation of caste rules and the development of new ethnic boundaries for political reasons (Chapters 2 and 3), new strata in society are emerging, giving rise to a new social structure which is more equal in religious terms, but more impermeable on political and economic matters.

The main reason for the inability of Occupational Caste and other poor households to participate in politics (even though the new democratic constitution ensures that all have equal access to the political arena) is that they lack the critical resources of education, money, confidence and experience, needed for effective participation. These resources are concentrated in the hands of the relatively few families who continue to control

administrative and political power at the local or national levels. Today, the wealthiest or the landed people in the village and at the national level, are the descendants of those who controlled political and administrative power over the past several decades. At the local

level, before 1951. various functionaries ^ performed administrative, judicial and political functions. Most of them were Chettris and Brahmins. Members of the other ethnic groups (like Gurungs and Magars) were also selected for this purpose in their villages. This role was hereditary in most cases and members of the Occupational Caste were never given such roles. At the national as well as at regional levels, kinsfolk of Rana families were mostly appointed to direct various administrative and military work. These people became wealthier mainly by obtaining land grants from government, legalising common property as their private land, or by levying various taxes for their own private use. Even after the downfall of the Ranas in 1951, political and administrative power was controlled by absentee landlords residing mainly in Kathmandu. Their descendants^ perhaps mainly because of education, now occupy higher positions in the domestic bureaucracy or in international agencies. Because of the vested interests of these people, no radical changes in the distribution of power and resources have been introduced. For example, the

popularly elected (1960) government of the Nepali Congress was abolished when it began to introduce programs like land reform. Moreover, politics in Nepal has been a prerogative of the wealthy people with funds to invest at election time. This was the case in the

Lachok-Riban study area, where two landed families shared political power during the 30 years of the (partyless) Panchayat System (1960-1990). By and large, members of the Occupational Caste and poor households supported candidates who showed generosity and patronage to them. Even after four years of the multi-party democratic system in 1990, the class composition of the political structure in 1994 remained the same. Moreover, kinship structure cuts across the political parties in Nepal. Prominent leaders at the District or the national levels belonging to different parties are closely related by kinship. The

consequence is that in terms of their own benefit it does not much matter which party comes to power. This is amply illustrated from the following comments (in 1994) by a prominent local leader.

"we well-to-do people used to get benefits from the government even during the Panchayat period, even though we were opposed to it, because of our kinship or other connections with personnel working in government, or involved in politics. But poor people having no connections were deprived. Even after the restoration of democracy, nothing was changed” (Mr. S. B. Kunwar, Pokhara, 1994, pers. comm.).

C. Participation in development:

It is evident from the above discussion that the poor still cannot take a significant part in the political process in Nepal. They thus cannot influence policy-making, or exert pressure on governments for a greater share in the country’s resources. On the other hand, more and more developmental programs have been implemented, often in the name of poor. But as the poor have usually not shared in the benefits of these programs, the approach of development programs has also been changing, in looking for ways which will be more effective.

The development debate in Third World countries in the 1950s and 1960s was focussed on economic growth, with the assumption that benefits would 'trickle down’ to the poor as they participated in the production process as labourers. Decisions about the nature of programs and policies was left to the technocrats. This approach to development led to the

* The names o f these functionaries were different in different areas. There were hierarchies of village

functionaries to perform different official work like collecting taxes and general administration. At the village level in the hills, there were Thani, Mukhiya and Jimmawal. In tribal communities, there were Mijhars, Subbas and Rais. In Kathmandu valley Dware, Pradhans and Mohinaikes were the village functionaries. In the Terai, Munsiff, Chaudhary, Jamindars, Kanugoye. Mokaddams, Mandars and Patuwarus were the various functionaries. These functionaries had different authority in terms o f territorial or other power.

grossly disproportionate distribution of benefits, often putting major benefits in the hands of relatively few from the elite, who could then better indulge their inclinations towards conspicuous consumption. The growth of the economy suffered.

The lack of participation of the poor in the economic process was then considered as the reason for their not appropriating the benefits of development. Their cultural

characteristics were often considered to be responsible (e.g., they were ‘lazy’ or indifferent to profit-making). This led to a concern for ‘modernisation’ in attitudes and institutions. But since the existing structures were left intact, exploitation, poverty and inequality

continued. The ‘trickle down effect’ was seen as a failure by the mid 1970s. This led to a different concept of development being preferred, calling for better 'access' of the poor to the allocation of goods and services through administrative channels (Griffin, 1979; Chambers, 1983; Frank, 1967). But this again has been seen as a too passive way of helping needy people.

The quest for a more active way of involving the rural poor in development led to a concern for their participation in the whole process of planning as actors and beneficiaries : in goal formation, program planning , implementation, monitoring and evaluation. It is argued that there are many advantages in this form of stronger participation. The target groups know their social and physical environment better. This knowledge contributes to the success of the program and it is thought that their involvement in planning and decision-making will motivate them to take a larger part in program implementation. Moreover, from a moral point of view, it is of course recognised that people have a right to take part in making decisions that may profoundly affect their own lives (Kent, 1981).

Their active participation now being seen as important for the benefit of the poor, UNRISD (1978:2) has made an attempt to distinguish between active and passive participation, the latter being for example, the employment of cheap or free labour in community development programs. But, no universal definition of participation has been proposed, because of its context-bound nature. From the viewpoint of the rural poor, however, participation requires a range of socio-political and economic changes. The popular participation approach adopted by UNRISD gives emphasis to this structural aspect of participation (Pearse and Stiefel, 1979). This approach considers "participation as a basic element in reversing the trend toward dependence and marginalisation of the masses, and so 'the central issue of popular participation has to do with power'" (Pearse and Stiefel,

1979:5).

Even though the more recent development plans in Nepal have given emphasis to people's participation, in order to achieve a better distribution of benefits, from the First Plan (1956- 61) to the Fourth Plan (1970-75) the central aim was to achieve economic growth by increasing agricultural production and infrastructure development. But when it was realised that such a growth-oriented policy was not conducive to the welfare of the masses, programs (mainly employment creation) aimed at meeting the basic needs of people were

implemented in the late 1970s and 1980s. For the poor, the participation in development meant to take part in such employment generation programs (mostly in exchange for food), as they had no resources to utilise other programs which were mainly related to agricultural production. Jobs were created mainly in the construction of roads and, sometimes, in building bridges and schools. Local political bodies supporting the then existing regime (Panchayat Political System) used to be given responsibility for organising people for such work. These political bodies were also responsible for distribution of the funds or food earmarked for such work. But usually, information about the total funds or food available was kept secret.

In recent years, the aim of achieving stronger participation of people in development programs has led to responsibility being given to users' groups for the development and management of resources, or infrastructure. The policy of the latest Plan (1992-97) is to

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involve users' groups in the development and management of irrigation and in forest and erosion control programs. But in reality the rural poor usually do not find much reward for their participation in users' groups. An example of user-group forest management, in the two-village study area, has already been described in Chapter 6. Even in irrigation programs, the poor and landless have no role to play. In the Lachok-Riban study area, when an irrigation project was approved in 1989 to be implemented by users, glandless and poor households were not included in the user group because they were not considered to be 'users', as they did not have land. And so the only benefits they could obtain were wage- labour opportunities. The project was riddled with conflicts between politicians and the farmers actually affected by the project. In principle, only the latter had to be involved in the committee responsible for the construction of the project, but politicians forced their way on to the committee for the sake of obtaining long-term and short-term benefits. Long-term benefits were irrigation facilities for followers and kinsfolk and short-term benefits were corruption in construction and assigning wage labour opportunities to favoured people. Moreover, it was also a practice in the early 1990s to implement community development programs through the local political body. Even at present (1994) the 'District Development Committee', a body comprising District level politicians and government officers, decides the community development programs for different villages. Funds are allocated in each instance to the village committee which initiates the work, but under the supervision of government officers. Many other development

programs are carried out directly by government agencies without users' groups, but usually through the village political leaders.

It can be seen that the gradual restructuring of village society and economy has been accompanied by the increased involvement of government and formal institutions, often in the name of helping the poor and local people through various programs. As a result of intervention of this kind, the power axis or the leadership system in villages has also changed. New forms of competition and conflict are now evident and, as a result, village society has become more fragmented. A sense of competition among new factions is evident within and between villages. When a service centre consisting of local level government offices was allocated, under a decentralisation scheme in 1989, to cover the Lachok and Ghachok villages, there was strong competition between various political factions (of landed people) in these villages, to locate the service centre in their communities.

Most of the government programs, even though participatory in recent times, are peripheral to the main economic interest of the poor. This has happened mainly because poor people lack resources to take part in these programs. Their survival in Nepal's rural society has been maintained by wages and by the opportunities for share cropping. There are no programs aimed at drastic improvements. Because of the increasing loss of land by the poor to landed households or merchants, their participation in production programs initiated by government has become insignificant. And the low economic status of the poor means that they cannot effectively participate in many social welfare programs, even schools.

To address the lack of resources in the hands of the poor, efforts to involve them, particularly in co-operativeSjare now emphasised by government agencies, banks and NGOs. The rationale for co-operatives is to increase bargaining power and efficiency by mobilising group resources. Various banks now give credit to the poor on a group basis. Similarly, co-operative marketing and co-operative savings are now being implemented by various NGOs. Experience from the implementation of various programs shows that obtaining co-operation among villagers has recently become difficult. Because of the multiplicity of groups in villages in Nepal, due to the caste system and disparities in the control of resources, the natural or harmonious community no longer exists. Perhaps it never did. Conflict of interest is certainly now ubiquitous in every village and it has intensified in recent times as communities have become more and more fragmented.

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The problems of fragmentation of society and conflicts of interest are not only found at village level, but also within communities of disadvantaged people. As a result, co­

operation is difficult to achieve. The author implemented a co-operative project near Pokhara in 1993-1994 to help 40 landless Occupational Caste households to generate cash income from vegetable production. Only half of these households had a small piece of land in one location and that had remained unutilized for a long time. To implement the project, the co-operation of all households was necessary for fencing the land, marketing, developing irrigation facilities and protecting crops. Co-operation was also needed to accommodate the households having no land. But some households were not inclined to work co-operatively because of differences in status, the perceived benefits of the project and the time available for work. These differences in the interest levels of households became intense as the community became more heterogeneous owing to diversification in their income-generating activities. This problem was partly solved by strong leadership from within their society.

As restructuring has been accompanied by the movement of more capable and

enterprising members of poor households away from their villages, it has left them less able to participate in decision-making activities. This form of ‘talent erosion’ has become a general problem in the Lachok-Riban study villages as more and more households have become 'semi-peasants', deriving a part of their income from 'outside' sources. Because of the low remuneration for the work undertaken by disadvantaged people, they work for longer hours and often have little time to take part in organisational work or for taking leadership positions. From the experience of various development programs aimed at fostering co-operation among disadvantaged people having no commonality of interest, it is evident that strong leadership from within their community is essential for success. But as discussed above, the existing socio-political structure is not conducive for the development of such leadership from a community of disadvantaged people. Consequently they lack a unified voice, further compounding their powerlessness. Because of these circumstances, empowering the poor has remained a utopian aim. On the other hand, the co-existence of economic power and other forms of power among key individuals means that the

decentralisation of power and resources in the name o f peoples' participation has helped the elites to get more benefits.

The growing economic inequality in access to the resources of land and forest for survival, as demonstrated in Chapters 3-6, was (and still is) linked to political and social inequalities. These inequalities have been seen to interact with one another to produce a composite and continuing inequality making it difficult for the poor to participate in the political and developmental processes. The economic restructuring process occurring in recent times in villages such as Lachok and Riban has further fragmented the communities of disadvantaged people, creating various obstacles which limit their active participation in developmental programs. They also lack a unified voice because of this fragmentation and so their powerlessness has been further enhanced. For these reasons, whatever efforts have been made to devolve power and resources at the local level have usually 'gone off the rails', adding to the wealth and power of relatively few and further increasing inequality.

CHAPTER EIGHT