Development and Developmentwalahs
It is time to say ‘Sorry’
Taking a hard look at the capitalist concept of development. Farida Akhter suggests a way out of what she sees as a vicious cycle.
The developmentwalahs love to point to people as poor and areas as underdeveloped. These terminologies are created to suit the needs of those who continuously create poverty and underdevelopment. The history of development, and particularly rural development, shows that development has very little to do with enhancing people’s power. The trick is rather to keep them in an underdeveloped situation. The discourse of development reflects this fact by the absence of a real object of analysis: accumulation and concentration of wealth in the hands of the few and their role as the initiator and actor of the global process. To understand poverty one needs to analyse the process of accumulation, since poverty is the dynamics by which few people become rich to make the rest poor.
In practice, 'development' has turned into a private industry and a distribution mechanism of foreign funds to the city elite. In Bangladesh, a number of studies have proved that development has hardly had any contribution to poverty reduction. Even the miracle solutions of poverty eradication such as micro-credit failed to eradicate of poverty of the 15% of the population in the category of highest poverty. In Bangla, development, an imported word and concept, is translated as unnayan; this is a Sanskritised connotation reflecting the culture of the elite or the high caste of the developmentwalahs. For the common people the word has relevance to NGOs or to higher caste professional people moving around in Pajeros and owning high rise apartment buildings in the city. However, there is a beautiful word in Bangla, unnati. It means not to bow down to anyone, the courage of empowering oneself in order to climb the ladder of prosperity. The word unnati means to go up, to transcend the nati, that power to transcend slavery, doing away with blind allegiance to any external authority. The word unnati is full of philosophical nuances. It covers instantly economic, social, spiritual and political aspirations, while unnayan mainly implies economic development, development in terms of growth, not political empowerment. Observed from such an angle, the development discourse has been an alien concept to the people, for whom it was supposedly meant. Despite such misgivings or reservations, however, it is important to dwell on the three important aspects that the development discourse has created.
The poor
One of the easiest ways to describe the people of Bangladesh is to call them “poor”. To be a Bangladeshi or to be poor is almost the same thing to anybody in the outside world. Our ministers and the prime minister are the leaders of the poor. The word “garib” or “doridra” is not necessarily meant for economic poverty. All humble Bangladeshis, even if they are millionaires, may call themselves ‘garib” and invite guests to the “gariber bari”. In the development discourse, though the income groups are distinctly made, the 120 million people of Bangladesh are seen as “poor”. Of course, a considerable segment of the 120 million is in the category of the world’s 1.5 billion poorest people who live on less than one dollar a day. Another small portion is also very rich. But they are not accounted for here in the discussion of development. Billions of dollars are spent on poverty alleviation programmes. Many of these poor people do not even know what has been going on in the 'development' field. In fact, ‘poor’ is used as the catchword to zero in on development funds from the North for the rich in the South. And indeed the idea has worked very well. Although we see hardly any improvement in the lives of the poor, we seem to have successfully created a class of rich elite through implementing the plans and policies of multilateral and bilateral development organisations.
Population or jonoshankha
Bangladeshi people are also termed as 'population', which means they are nothing but a number. Whatever you want to discuss, whether it is about food production, environment, pollution, health, road accidents, or name anything, it is the number of people that is important and that is seen as the cause behind all miseries of Bangladesh. “There are too many people in Bangladesh, that is the problem.” This is the attitude of most educated people, and that includes the enlightened and conscious 'buddhijibis'. The forests are made to go through a sustained process of denudation by the big programs supported by the Asian Development Bank, and yet the population is seen as a cause of deforestation. Food production and diversity in food have been severely affected by the introduction of chemical agriculture and the so-called “improved” seeds. So what? The population is blamed for the scarcity of food and therefore the sufferings of the people, even if there is food stored in the food go-downs and warehouses. What about natural disaster? That is even more possible because Malthus has already predicted the occurrence of natural remedies. There is no way to resist the introduction of hybrid seeds or even genetically modified seeds because they are supposed to produce more and Bangladesh has a “very large population”. So even if those seeds are harmful for human health, for the environment and for people, they must be accepted —- and all because we are nothing but population. Any development assault could be justified through holding number of people responsible for the misfortunes it comes up against.
Gender
The most important contribution of the developmentwalahs has been to convert women into gender. In the development discourse the improvement of the conditions of women is no more a subject of discussion, unless the women are referred to as “gender”. This shift happened in the eighties of the last century and drastically changed the language in the development discourse. It was done at a time when the feminist movement and women’s groups were gaining momentum in different countries. The shift to gender is nothing but the de-politicisation of the demands of women and their course of action. Although the term gender was supposed to incorporate both men and women, but in reality it came to be confined to women. Men have remained in their original patriarchal outfit hidden behind the patriarchal relation, all of it reinforced by capitalism. Gender sensitisation essentially implied the 'family breaking' programmes of the NGOs, which has in turn led to further vulnerabilities such as trafficking in women and children and other forms of non-domestic violence. Women have remained a strong target for family planning programmes with harmful contraceptives since the seventies, and are nowadays also the target of micro-credit programmes. The latter programme, originally planned to help the poor, is now hugely (ninety per cent) directed at women. The policy of export-oriented industrialisation leading to the use of cheap labour has meant nothing but 90% female workers in the garment industries both in and out of the export-processing zones. The reasons are very simple. It is not that these programmes are designed for women because women need them; it is because women are easy to control. So finally the poor, population and gender are transformed into a circle in which the developmentwalahs find their means of living, indeed of social mobility. This trio, a very visible and familiar shopping mall, neatly arranges the development market or shops in the interest of trade. If one of the trio in the circle break loose, they will go into unemployment. The links between poverty, population and finally with gender have been woven in such a way that they are now turned into the theology of development. Any opposition to these becomes impossible, the development fundamentalists will hardly tolerate any slip from their well constructed discourse. Nevertheless, the falsity, propaganda and the unsustainability of the elite project of development is falling rapidly into disrepute. The people of Bangladesh have suffered enough with false promises and wrong interventions. It is time for a rethink.
Nayakrishi: Eco-thinking for development
We happen to have entered a new era which is guided by eco-thinking. Even in the western world, this thinking is gaining popularity as people can observe the unsustainability of the development models practised so far. In this era of eco-thinking the growth oriented development discourse is considered to be faulty and outdated. While growth orientation takes people’s minds away from nature and reduces into industrialisation, the new eco-thinking is linked more closely to nature and centres around on the very nature of the relationship between human beings and the natural world. Consequently, environment, ecology and biodiversity take more prominent position in the post-development discourse. In Bangladesh, such thinking was always there but could not find its way into the mainstream. Nowadays it is reflected in many different forms. One such reflection is obvious in the farmers’ movement, called Nayakrishi Andolon, comprising over nearly 2 lakh farming families.
Nayakrishi Andolon literally means New Agricultural Movement. It is the movement of the farming communities to cultivate a happy relation of human beings and environment and new ways to build up communities. To put it simply, Nayakrishi is a lifestyle movement. It is a way to relate with Nature or 'Prakriti' creatively. It does not assume Nature or 'Prakriti' to be an external object outside living human beings, or beyond the periphery of life. Nor does Nayakrishi believe that a sharp dividing line can be drawn between people and the external world. We are all part of Nature and Nature or “Prakriti” exists through us. From this very basic perspective the unique nature of farming as a production system drastically differs from industrial production. Agriculture transforms the inorganic into the organic and unleashes the life forces of Nature and thus celebrates the unity of life and non-life. The word “Prakriti”, originally from Sanskrit, has acquired a different meaning and cultural history in the communities inhabiting the Bengal delta, which in itself is rich in diverse agricultural practices. Nayakrishi is grounded on this historical experience of the agrarian communities of Bengal, invoking the rich knowledge and practice of the communities stored in their agrarian practice, vocabularies and oral traditions.
While the development discourse was about ‘increasing’ food production by using chemicals, Nayakrishi Andolon, in very simple terms, is about enhancing prosperity and creationof wealth in terms of natural endowment, knowledge and products in order to make happy communities. So the objective of Nayakrishi Andolon is to produce and reproduce the community as a whole, and that includes the landscape that holds its place in natural scheme of things. In the course of production and reproduction the capacity of enhanced regeneration and creative evolution is ensured. Communities’ capacity to know and explore nature enhances the possibility of growing more food and also more fibre, construction materials, medicinal plants, energy, et cetera.
None of this, however, means that increased food production is not the goal of Nayakrishi Andolon. In fact, only the Nayakrishi mode of agricultural practice is in a position to increase food production. The reason is very simple. The ecological agriculture, i.e. production of crops without any chemicals, practised by Nayakrishi not only enhances food production but also develops the conditions or environment for enhanced food production. In contrast, modern agriculture is today notorious for being unsustainable. Additionally, modern agriculture calculates productivity on the basis of a single staple crop: rice, for example. Increased rice production does not mean increased food production. Modern agriculture has rather destroyed the fundamental sources of food such as fish, uncultivated leafy vegetables, livestock, et cetera. As a movement, Nayakrishi is a message geared at regaining and reinterpreting the value, indeed the place of agriculture in order to transform the destructive and unsustainable industrial civilization. Farmers insist that agriculture is not a factory or industry. It is not merely a sector of food production. Agriculture is a way of life, a cultural practice in a very wide sense. This new thinking is very much in the minds of people and is in their lifestyle and livelihood.
Small-scale farmers comprising over 52% of the nation’s farming households are producing food and other agricultural crops as their livelihood. The small and the land-poor farmers own land up to 0.05 to 2.49 acres. In Bangladesh, interestingly the large and middle landowners do not dominate agricultural work. The actual percentage of the large land-owning farmers is only 2% and about 12% are middle farmers. More than 10% of the peasant households that are landless are also part of agriculture.
In this entire agricultural setting, the small farming households play a very important role. Many of them have adopted the so-called modern agriculture in the hope of coming by increased cash income and by the induced 'greed' of higher output. They have believed what ‘educated’ people have people told them. Modern agriculture was introduced in the mid-1960s in a package of HYV seeds, chemicals and poisons and machines to extract ground water. The immediate effect was a poisoning of both the surface and groundwater. It claimed that it has produced more ‘food' by calculating only the rice or wheat production. But on the contrary, pollution of the environment and monoculture has reduced food sources. For example, fish, which is the major source of food for the people of Bangladesh has declined drastically. The distribution and installation of deep tube-wells for irrigation purposes has caused the disaster we now know as the arsenic problem.
The marginalisation of the traditional farming systems by the so-called green revolution created a series of ecological, social and familial crises. Mechanisation has displaced much of the work women once did at home. In the farming households, women were particularly important because they preserved seeds. But commercial production of seeds for monoculture crops has reduced this role for women. Thus, women have become less relevant in farming operations. Pesticide use in farming has contributed to harmful effects on human health, particularly on the reproductive functions of both women and men.
Agriculture is not about cultivation of crops only. It is also about creating an atmosphere for the growth of plants, animals and all life forms, which are not cultivated. The livelihood of the poor, especially of women, means an integrated system of farming, livestock, poultry and fisheries. Poor children collect snails and other aquatic species for feeding the ducks raised by women. The mixed cropping fields provide much of the partner plants, which are nutrition sources for chickens and cows. Roadside plants are a source of feed for goats. A large majority of poor rural women survive on raising cows, goats, sheep, ducks, chicken, et cetera, for which they do not purchase any feed.
It is, therefore, essential that such places are kept “safe” from the use of chemicals and poisons so that animals and birds can survive. While they get the feed from the diversity in the landscape, animals and birds reciprocate in order to sustain the environment and to contribute to a qualitative improvement of biodiversity. For example, cow-dung is an essential component of manure, while chicken and duck excreta are good fish feed. This is an instance of the ecological way of living that Nayakrishi farmers practise. Rural families constitute 79% of the population in Bangladesh, and more than 10% households are absolutely landless. Most of these rural households, including the poor landless and land-poor families, depend largely on the harvesting of food from uncultivated sources for their daily meals. A large proportion of the ingredients for cooking of daily food come from uncultivated or natural sources. According to an UBINIG study conducted in 2000, at least 40 percent of the food by weight and most of the nutritional requirements for the rural population of Bangladesh are met from terrestrial or aquatic sources of food that are not cultivated. If environmental destruction is stopped, integrity of the ecosystems appreciated and biodiversity maintained, the government and development agencies will not need to worry about providing the 40 percent of food required for the rural population. At least 15 percent of the rural households, many of them matriarchal in nature, depend for their year-round daily survival on uncultivated sources of food collected for consumption and for sale in the market. These sections of the population are now recognised by developmentwalahs as ‘’hard-core poor”. They have been bypassed by the poverty programmes or micro-credit schemes for the poor.
A new perspective is needed
The failure of developmentwalahs is acknowledged through this seeking of alternative ways of development. It is hinted at through new terms like ‘sustainable development’. But the developmentwalahs have not said sorry for the damage their policies have caused to the people and to their environment. They have increased vulnerabilities and enhanced risks for survival. People have come up with their own ways of sustainable livelihood practices. These efforts must be supported and at the same time faulty development programmes, particularly in agriculture, must be discarded. It is time to say sorry. It is also time to see fresh ideas make their way into our policy discourses and practices.