FORUM (Spotlight Weekly)

People CENTRED Development In Nepal
A Case For Popular Participation

By Dr. Bishwa Keshar Maskay

Introduction : The last four decades of the twentieth century had been, at global level, a period of accentuated governmental strategies towards alleviation of poverty. social experience has, however, been in the negative. The net consequence of the various models of development implemented in the developing countries is increased awareness of the conceptual inadequacy and operational limits of these models themselves. Development thinking treated the government bureaucracies as the omniscient definer of development goals, the legitimate architect of development models, the omnipotent mobilizer of means, resources and social energy, the competent implementers and monitor of development programmes and the most objective evaluator of development performance. In this overexerted role of the government in the development process what went amiss is the people themselves for whom development had been intended. So, despite the tremendous efforts, ingenuity and resources put by the governments into the development process, the global scenario of social violence in terms of poverty, inequalities and inequities has stayed on, and stayed on with increased prominence. Using economic reasoning, development itself has become a problem in the sense of failing to produce an increased well-being of the people as well as failing to cause redistribution of socio-economic opportunities, upliftment of the poor, the excluded, and others who live in "culture of silence." The state has remained somewhat a "remote controller" of the well-being of the people by denying opportunities to people to hold control over the very means of self-determination of their destiny.

These experiences have driven home the fact, though belatedly, that any development model that is not people-centred is doomed to fail, any development strategy that bypasses the concerns of the people backfires with total failure. It is people- centred development alone that can ensure better prospects of alleviating human suffering that poverty inflicts, it alone can give development human content. For development there can be no better philosophy than people-centred vision on matters of social well-being, no better economy than the one which can produce more through the contribution of more human resources, no better policy than the one that can involve the largest possible majority of population, no better state craft than one than can integrate the widest possible interest groups into the development process. Development has become an imperative to help solve several human problems that threaten to disrupt social integration, peace and values of civilised society.

Popular Participation for People-Centred Development : People-centred development, however, cannot be attained unless an environment of popular participation is created and sustained. The process of development itself must be propelled by collective will of the people and nothing should supersede it. People-centred development implies several imperatives, the centre of which is the geography of human relationships. This geography permeates from the family to the systems of production and distribution, to organisations and institutions, to polity and state craft, and to conventions. It can be located precisely at points of decision making on issues of what and how much to expect to bring in more well-being to the people, what to do to attain the expected and how to do it, to judge whether the entire logistics of planning has been on the proper track and what has gone amiss, to avoid likely pitfalls in the future. It can be located also on occasions of making value judgements, "the rules of the game," and at critical junctures of building up national consensus on issues of national concern. A new social map of human relationships must be drawn and followed religiously to guide all development activities in every sector of national life.

Nepal Context : Nepal presents itself on the lower end of the continuum of International development. Poverty is pervasive; social inequities, inequalities and exploitation are rampant. The socio-economic system has been subjected to a long history of fatalism and autocratic regime. Parliamentary democracy first established in 1951 was sabotaged in was 1961 and replaced by the Panchayat system which was called a partyless democracy was restored in 1991. Since then the people are exposed only three times elections -- two times in national elections and once in local elections. Elections during the Panchayat period, were for personalities than for parties with programmes were not really democracy. The installation of a political culture is very recent and it is too early to be countrywide.

Subjected to a philosophy of fatalism, which religious beliefs complied with and which provided a positive context for the vested interest groups in social and political power to perpetuate their internal colonisation of the people. Additionally, there is a low level of educational development and enlightenment as powerful forces to fight the manifold implications of superstitions and blind traditionalism. These three historical forces -- fatalistic philosophy, religious beliefs and ignorance -- are not as yet that much weakened as to anticipate that the people in general command objectivity in their outlooks and attitudes. The ruling bureaucracy itself is most likely to resist the idea of sharing power with the hitherto excluded sections of the society they have been ruling and also to circumvent ways of cutting down the exalted image the bottom-level the clamour for empowerment of the excluded and the demand for transparent policies on matters of public concern are confined within a limited circle of the more enlightened persons in the academics, among political leaders and in a fraction of the urban population. The vast majority of the population living in the 36,000 villages are living ignorance, superstitions. It is too early to expect that people-centred development through popular participation will take place in these villages at the call of a small number of zestful social. There are social, psychological and cultural barriers to handicap development undertakings couched in the modus operandi of people-centredness.

Reflection : Yet, there have sprung up several people's grassroots organisations and NGOs purporting to get the people and empowered through the participatory approach. An official estimate is that there are currently in Nepal about 15,000 NGOs and civil societies working in various fields for development. They vary greatly in orientation, organisational capacity, leadership role, resource mobilisation and innovativeness. There is no documented research being done on them as yet.

A few people's organisations have, however, captured the appreciation of development elites, social leaders and donor agencies for reason of their distinctive contribution to promote people-centred development with innovative and imaginative approaches. They have created their own mechanism of cadre training, program development and implementation. The spirit of self-reliance among these organisation is very high to the extent of not relying on the government. The formal governmental institution, the Social Welfare Council, has so far remained inactive to undertake measures to promote participatory approaches in NGO programs. Given this situation, it is idle to expect that the government would come forth with bold measures that boost popular participation. It is no wonder that these aforesaid organisations have preferred not to wait for encouraging measures from the government but go ahead without the governmental facilitation.