Productivity and management of rice–wheat cropping systems: issues and challenges

Paradigm Shifts and the Practice of Participatory Research and Development

1. Participation and power

This is an essay in the sociology of knowledge. It aims to demonstrate, firstly, how development institutions construct rural society in terms of organizational imperatives, and secondly, how these ‘constructions’ come to be underpinned by social theory. The focus is on irrigation in south India and colonial and contemporary state policy initiatives to promote local institutions for the community management of decentralized resource systems. The essay presents the social and historical origin of an important and powerful set of contemporary policy ideas. The significance of this lies in the continuing misperception of local institutions of resource management, and in particular the systematic isolation of resource management from its particular social and historical context.

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Colonial and Contemporary Ideologies of ‘Community Management’: The Case of Tank Irrigation Development in South India

16. Non-governmental organizations and participatory development: the concept in theory versus the concept in practice

The decline of groundwater levels in India by 5–10 m is usually explained as a result of the increased number of tubewells and a decline in average annual rainfall. This article argues that the decline is the product of the destruction of indigenous systems for storing runoff water, which are essential because rainy days are very few and erratic. Futher, the disbanding of organizations concerned with indigenous systems for the management of natural resources, especially catchment areas, has weakened the ability to retain rainwater beyond the rainy season — another factor in the decline of India's groundwater levels.

S. T. Somashekhara Reddy

Papers

Declining groundwater levels in India