Understanding Power dynamics should be must for development workers

Understanding Power dynamics should be must for development workers

As per my understanding and experience I find from Govt administration to Panchayat system there have been a growing culture of bureaucracy. Every where the leaders or officers are after getting sanctioned rights or funds. People have to understand that there has been lot of things does not require administrative interference. Only people's force can change the future pace of development and bring prosperity. People have inherent fear towards loosing land, money, dignity and facing poverty and related difficulties. Even in one who lives in poverty, having nothing to loose also fears to face loosing dignity and face physical harassments. Ignorance and fear are the major reasons of poverty. When I say ignorance I do not mean lack of education or presence of literacy.



Today's education is only information. It is not knowledge based. Therefore I do never emphasize on those so called education or increasing of literacy. Ignorance towards the people's nature, understanding selfishness of self and others, capacity of resource organization-managing and effectively harvesting those etc are the major areas which talks about knowledge. Knowledge is the power that expels fear. Knowledge about resources, rights over resources, responsibility of individual and group in managing that etc, has not reached people. Therefore many greedy selfish people are holding those in illegal manner. For example, I find many people neither know nor have the access to funeral ground and grazing land. At times it shocks when we understand the reasons of poverty that the poor landless could have utilized those lands for grazing of small domestic animals like, goats etc, that is grabbed by some one/two very powerful and/or families who is/ are lending money/seeds/machines to poor families and thereby exploiting continuously in ways for years. The powerful person is dictating the targets of development. He/she is influencing democratic process towards autocratic practices. I find people fear the powerful person for his/her access to local administration those who have great command over police and judicial system where people suffer a lot. Those are the places where people have very reasons to fear. Those are really he places where people face death and uncertainty at each moment. I find these people also act as slow poisons in the development process. They understand and have the information base about the resources and power they wish to play. For years our leaders in many form and many appearances exploited common man’s dream. There sick mind restrict common mans peace to get established. Therefore not only people should have the information about their entitlements, but also they should be aware of leaders (elected and opinion) , their capabilities, responsibilities, knowledge, skill etc.



Knowing of resources, there use, patterns of development , use of science and technology etc will not work until people make a way to UNDERSTAND, MANAGE and CHALLENGE these human bottlenecks whom they consider as big men. Therefore there is a need for development workers and philosophers to make an appraisal of existing power dynamics which influence the entire development objectives or national agenda. This appraisal can be done by analyzing data from wealth ranking, looking at list of existing influential people in the society or community, ability and attitude of each influential person or family, their living style, income source etc. Their network or access or reach to local administration influence on local politics and district or state politics can also be studied by discussing with people of that area. Efficient system should be developed to find who (individual/family/group/community) has got maximum stake over land, forest, water sources, common property and natural resources, administration, local governance system, police and judicial. All those should be documented and properly understood by the professionals so that they can be able to derive right kind of strategies, methods or approaches or all together to carry forward their activity to achieve a greater stage of happiness and fulfillment. Of course it appears complex but by collecting data on cases, anecdotes or observing village/community events for some time (say for 6 months to one year) these power dynamics will be very much clear before us. Accordingly sam, dand Niti and Bhed can be applied as per the requirement. Therefore the appraisal will have following operational components such as

• wealth ranking,

• collection of anecdotes where individuals or groups influenced the development process or decisions of village (positive and negative)

• Collection of data on factor conditions influenced by individuals or groups or communities through informal interviews, discussions and observations etc

• Transect walk within the village

• Analysing livelihood portfolio of village, community and individual households



I impress here very strongly that there should be clear and strong component in all the studies or appraisals that gives data based support to development workers in analyzing the power dynamics in the process designs or decision making processes for development, which intend peace and prosperity.

Food and livelihood security issues- PRA in Gram Vikas operational area

Recently few days back I was with a group of students from KIIT University studying in School of Rural Management (SRM). Being a visiting faculty to this institute, I was involved in teaching them on Patrticipatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) along with other regualr faculties suc as Dr. Jyotirmayee Acharaya, Dr. Braja Sundar Mishra, Dr. Kalika Mohapatra, Dr Ravindra Vimla, Dr. Achari, Dr. Soumya and other.

As per the schedule I tried to orient the students on PRA tools and practice in class room and then arrangement was made by SRM all tha 47 students and some faculties went to a field of Gram Vikas a famous NGO having office at Mahuda in Ganjam District. The villages where the practical tools testing and practices were in hilly terrains and road connectivity was very poor. It was observed that maximum land under cropping are under indigenous rice or maize. Only a few number of high yield varieties could reach these villages. Very rarely Govt. extension workers reach these places. The frequency of their reaching in these type of villages is counted on years. But their abscence has made Gram Vikas to serve the underserved tribes for last so many decades.

Gram Vikash has done tremendous water and sanitation work where water is 24hours supply under gravity irrigation. People have unique practices of forest conservation although they mostly depend on sale of fuel wood. Unfortunately in past some wood mafia had been the major players who cut down many trees. Due to awareness raised by Gram Vikas there has been tremendous support to forest conservation. Lantena camera and other alien plant secies are the menace for the forest growth. Forest is maintained and harvested produces are managed in a very harmonious manner without affecting the growth of forest. The livelihood practices from forest is usually round the year activity for the house hold. They have very less arable land on which the population cannot depend. They have no land entitlement too. That causes a major bottleneck in improving the livelihood condition too. Students of SRM could identify that in this tribal dominated region gender disparity is less. Men also support here in cooking and household jobs. But liquor addiction among men is the major bottleneck towards food security at household level. Secondly attempt by Gram Vikas towards literacy among children could not go long because of non availability of teachers and support of Govt and donors. Major bottleneck is the poor road connectivity. Lack of good road has resulted with no or low connectivity with educational institutions, health services, market and so on. Usually these people have some dryland farming practices . But the land under cropping is also very much low. They usually go for Bajara and Maize for the dryland farming under sifting cultivation. Under this practice the land occupied is very low. Therefore it does not affect forest cover and its growth too. The major problem of lack of owand no cost agri- science awareness, skill and use of primitive skill and practices for agriculture need more attnetion. Although the attention of people went for irrigated cropping pattern the study shows that the irrigation led agriculture will not be economical for them. They should concentrate on dry land farming with gravity irrigation, watershed area maintenance on the hills, more forest coverage and horticultural activities along with alternative energy programmes.Accoding road connectivity, programmes, finance absorption ability and social security measures should be enhanced and looked in.

 

Other major problems are related to diseases in this region. Malaria is the major problem here. It shows that there is a need of intensified intervention which can eradicate this problem. Anopheles breeds on slow flowing streams. If the stream remains clean and more water flows on this the breeding place for this particular mosquito will be very much low. Therefore that will minimise the occurrences of malaria. In addition to this a drive to cure the patients and make them parasite free human beings there has to be a drive made in a sincere manner. The streams can be charged with scientific and technological measures which will ensure 24X7 water supplies for drinking, cattle and irrigation. It can also ensure drinking water for animals in the forest. Therefore a major project may be designed by Gram Vikas to strengthen the streams and recharge those with more quantity of water through soil conservation, plantation, staggered pits in forest, water conservation measures and so on.

There has been skin diseases, a menance which spreadsfor several months which also affects the labor and economy in adverse manner. There should be some attention to this. Women and children  severly suffer from this. Solar water heaters in winter season may solve this problem to some extent. But there should be good awareness practices on this. Usually after labour work in winter season people avoid washing and cleaning for low degree temperature in this hilly region and that leads to skin infections. Solar heaters can solve the problem to a great extent. Similarly better technological addition to existing food processing activities can also lead to minimising the food waste in the region, that will add to food security in major way.

Many of the social and govermental social security measures are not reaching the people in this type of locations in Orissa. They are not aware of the entitlements. Related to entitlements there should be wall paintings in public places. They are neither aware of Forest Act 2006 nor they have been communicated by Govt employees. Forest Department anticipates troubles of communicating the Act to people because it will make people to demand permanent land settlement for their family.

Tools used by students were social map, resource maps, matrix, ven diagram, chapati diagram, gender clock, seasonal maps, historical transect, focus group discussion, structured questionnaires etc. In the study it was found that the power dynamics studied first time through PRA brought so many features of rural development and mainstreaming of different population in the location. It is needless to say here that without the understanding of existing power dynamics strategy or projects for the development of the communities will not result with a successful implementation of different envisioned activities. Therefore all the students were trained efficiently to look into existing power dynamics in the community that binds them with some kind stressful or burdening obligations which mars the development efforts.

Bibhu Prasad Mohanty, 20th Dec 2009

Food insecurity has been the looming problem in the present world. Decrease of agriculture land , increasing land use for urbanisation, industrialisation and mining erupted several complex food and livelihood issues. Depletion of genetic pool that had been supporting traditional food security measures raised serious concern for future food production, consumption and distribution practices. Food has been always remained as a political and ethical concern for all the nations and religions as well. Therefore the time demands multi-prong approach to solve the issue and bring happiness in every body's face. Food security can only be possible when use right genetic material for our agriculture at right time at right place. We should also demystify science and downsize the technology for our poor families. We must make credit easily, timely and in appropriative way available for enterprising individuals and groups. We must stop war and hatred , the cruel animosity in human character. We have to stop wasting money, resources, time and mind in inhuman activities that goes against Mother Nature.

Bibhu Prasad