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Volume 33, Issue 1
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
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Special Issue
Bangladesh Rural Development Studies
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Yoshihiro Kaida, Saleha Begum1995 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 3-24
Published: June 30, 1995
Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2018
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSDownload PDF (1738K) -
A New Strategy for Bangladesh Rural DevelopmetKoichi Fujita1995 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 25-38
Published: June 30, 1995
Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2018
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe general weakness of the rural economy in Bangladesh is rooted mainly in weak rural infrastructural build-up rather than a weak cash economy. The “credit and training” program, which has been adopted as the mainstream rural development policy by most of the international, governmental and non-governmental organizations concerned with rural development, tends to stimulate self-centered incentives for economic uplift by individual villagers and may result in erosion of their efforts to build a sense of village “unity” or village public spiritedness. Matabbors, the traditional village leaders, and villagers willingly collect subscriptions amounting to several thousand takas, donate necessary lands and provide voluntary labor for renovating their mosque, building their madrasa, improving their hat ground and organizing festivals. But these same matabbors and villagers do not think of raising funds or contributing free labor to the building and repair of village infrastructures such as village roads, which are essential for activating their rural economy. Instead, they simply wait for the government to bring such public projects to the village. In turn, the government relies heavily on foreign assistance for building such public infrastructures, as it is not prepared to raise the necessary funds by levying local taxes.
To the author, rural development should involve the villagers' joint efforts to build the public economy, which in turn would help strengthen their private economy, and should not simply be a program by which the government provides direct assistance to the private economy of the villagers. When this alternative concept of rural development is accepted by the villagers, the matabbors will be able to play their proper role of leadership in Bangladesh rural development.View full abstractDownload PDF (1192K) -
An Account of Action Rsearch in Dakhsin Chamuria Village, BangladeshKazuo Ando, Haruo Uchida, Habibur Rahman, S.M.Altaf Hossain1995 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 39-65
Published: June 30, 1995
Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2018
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSA village development committee was established to look after rural development activities that were initiated by joint efforts of villagers of Dakhsin Chamuria village in Tangail and staff members of the JSRDE project team. The committee is formed of the so-called traditional village leaders, or matabbors, some of whom proved to be active in enhancing villagers' unity and devotion to village public affairs. Cases showing the active role of matabbors are also presented. At the same time, two-tier coordinating bodies of local government officers were formed on an experimental basis for the JSRDE, at Thana and Union levels respectively, to coordinate the activities of the line departments concerned in rural development. The Thana Rural Development Officer (TRDO) and the Assistant Rural Development Officer (ARDO) played pivotal roles in organizing the respective bodies.
An effort is being made to “link” the organizations of local governments and the village development committee, so that the governments’ rural development services are channeled into the village through the public, formal “door” of the village. Various trials so far implemented in the village indicate that successful linkage hinges upon the single facet of “openness” or “transparency” in information dissemination, which had been rather lacking in rural Bangladesh. All the important processes of formulating the village committee and the coordinating bodies of local governments and clues for successful communication and dissemination of related information are documented in detail in this paper.View full abstractDownload PDF (2160K) -
An Approach to Rural Infrastructure Build-up in Bangladesh Rural DevelopmentHaruo Uchida, Kazuo Ando, Muhammad Salim, S.M. Altaf Hossain1995 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 66-81
Published: June 30, 1995
Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2018
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe authors propose a “rural hydrology” approach for investigating and planning of rural infrastructure build-up in the floodplain zone of Bangladesh. The rural hydrology approach, a form of “alternative engineering,” requires the following minimal set of items : a motorcycle or bicycle, feet to walk around, an eye to see the real environmental conditions, an ear to listen to those who are informed of the local conditions, and a flexible mind to share with local people, in order to identify land and water conditions, constraints to development and the real needs of the locality and local people.
Here, a case study is documented. The dynamic hydrological environment of the floodplain of Tangail was analyzed at the level of the Union and the results were applied to formulate plans for building rural infrastructures including Union and village roads, bridges and culverts, low cost river-bank protection walls, and line-planting of African dhaincha (Sesbania sp.) to protect deep-water rice from water hyacinth.View full abstractDownload PDF (1168K) -
Keiko Yoshino, Muhammad Salim1995 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 82-97
Published: June 30, 1995
Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2018
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe bari-biti (home compound and garden) in rural Bangladesh is important for local people not only for producing fruit and vegetables but also for providing rural women, who are not allowed freely to step out the bari-biti, with prime living and working space. A detailed inventory was made of all plant resources of the bari-biti of Dakhsin Chamuria village. A “plant book” was edited and published in cooperation with the villagers, who have a thorough working knowledge of local plant resources. The authors learned, through a “home garden development program” advocated by an agricultural extension worker in the Thana, that the only kind of program likely to succeed would be one which enhances the indigenous “style and contrivance” developed by villagers through time-tested interaction with the environment.
Some closely-woven territorial societies of women were identified on the basis of living space, radius of daily life, daily interaction, and kinship and social relations. These territorial societies were used as the unit of communicating and disseminating information on rural development activities being undertaken by the JSRDE Project team.View full abstractDownload PDF (1485K) -
A Lesson Learned from Aborted Deep-Tubewell ProjectKichiji Yajima, Akinobu Kawai, Dasgupta Swapan Kumar, Islam Mazharul1995 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 98-114
Published: June 30, 1995
Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2018
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThis is an account of an action research for Austodona Village Development being undertaken under the JSRDE Project, which started several years ago by organizing a tiny village cooperative society. A key clue for village development identified by the villagers was double cropping of rice with a DTW (Deep-Tubewell) irrigation; but the feasibility of this was found to be very low because of the inferiority of water quality and depth of the aquifer. The authors tried to divert the villagers' interest to something else, including pond fish culture and irrigation of vegetables with use of low cost foot-pedal-pumps, before the villagers became disenchanted with the JSRDE project. Now, the Project team hopes to link the villagers' interest in modern vegetable growing techniques with formal extension services at the Thana and Union levels. This idea of establishing a linkage between village cooperative society and local government institutions will be widened to include other activities of rural development.View full abstractDownload PDF (1366K) -
Haruo Noma1995 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 115-140
Published: June 30, 1995
Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2018
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThis review examines the meanings and implications of the “village” in Bangladesh in its historical context and in relation to “rural” development.
First, the evolution of the concept of “village” and higher administrative units is traced by reviewing historical documents of British colonial officers, various surveys related to Permanent Settlement, Revenue Surveys, Cadastral Surveys and censuses. Second, some important village studies in the colonial period are reviewed in relation to the concept of rural development. The main features of the epoch-making V-AID and Comilla approach to rural development undertaken in the postwar period are summarized, then contemporary village and rural development studies are reviewed. It is noted that the huge accumulation of village and rural development studies conducted in Bengal and Bangladesh still leaves room for fresh studies that more clearly address the true meanings and implications of Bangladesh villages, beyond the concepts of elusiveness and power structure as described by notions of patron-client, the matabbor as a tout, water-lordism, etc. Deeper studies of rural-urban interaction and the broader regional networks of villagers that are commonly seen in Hindu India are just two examples of the expected area of Bangladesh village studies.View full abstractDownload PDF (2216K)
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