Human Organization, Vol. 48, No.

3, 1989
Copyright @ 1989 by the Society for Applied Anthropology
0018-7259/89/030206-08s 1.30/1

Cultural Crossroads of Community

Participation in Development:
A Case from Nepal
LINDA STONE

The approach of "community participation" now stands as an established development strategy to promote a more equitable
meeting of the basic needs of poor persons in developing countries. While the moral merits of this approach cannot be
discounted, questions remain about the cross-cultural viability of the concept of participatory development. This paper
suggests that the concept as promoted by international donor agencies is based on Western notions of self-reliance, equality,
and individualism. Development planners cannot assume that these value orientationsare shared by rural persons ofdeveloping
countries, or that these values can readily find expression within local social organization or social ideology in developing
areas. Based on a study undertaken for a watershed development project in Nepal, the paper points out how villagers of the
project area hold ideas very different from those of expatriate project staff concerning both the concepts of "development"
and "participation." These ideas must be taken into account before participatory development schemes can be realistically
attempted.
Key words: Nepal, development, community participation, cultural values

"CoMMuwry ~ A ~ I C W A T ~m O N DE~ v~m -
OPMENT is by now an established, even revered,
strategy in development programs around the world. It has
clearly dominated and outlasted many other development
"fads." Yet, as with other fads, the fervor with which it is
advocated has impeded critical examination and, in partic-
ular, the raising of questions about its cross-cultural viability.
This paper raises some of these questions and explores prob-
lems with the concept of community participation through
presentation of findings of studies undertaken in preparation
for a development project in Nepal.
The encouragement of community participation in devel-
opment has been a vital part of the increasing focus of in-
ternational development efforts on the masses, the "poorest
of the poor," who are to be the "targets" or "beneficiaries"
of development projects. Accordingly, development agencies
have placed more and more importance on understanding
the perspectives, priorities, constraints, and "felt needs" of
target populations in developing countries. Nevertheless, as
development agents attempt to reach out, or "down," to these
local persons, the history of international development efforts
Linda Stone is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Wash-
ington State University, Pullman, W A 99164. This paper is
based on her work as a consultant for the Swiss Association
for TechnicalAssistance (1979-1 981) whileservingas a Read-
er in Anthropology at the Centerfor Nepal and Asian Studies,
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. She would like to
thank Donald Messerschmidt for his comments on earlier
drafts of this paper.
has consistently reflected the specific cultural concerns of the
Western world and particularly the United States, long a
leader in the field of international aid. Development agencies
are certainly aware of the very real problems facing the poorer
segments of society in developing countries, and they are
genuinely trying to solve them. But the style or approach of
development, the rhetoric and the fads all bear the cultural
imprint of the West. It is as though the world of international
development, although ostensibly geared toward maximizing
its relevance to the poor of the Third World, has become
like a mirror in which the values, interests, and philosophies
of the West are reflected.
Some examples may illustrate this point. Nutrition is now
a major and growing focus in development programs. And
regardless of the scientific soundness of this focus, the fact
remains that nutrition loomed as a major thrust in inter-
national development circles at the same time that nutrition
became a subject of great popular fascination in the United
States. Nutrition programs multiplied in the Third World
around the time that Americans began to criticize their junk
food, measure their cholesterol, and perceive sound nutrition
as a solution to their problems.
Another perhaps more pointed case is "Women in De-
velopment" (WID), now a major concern within virtually
every development agency in the world. Again, regardless of
the value and soundness of WID programs, they did not arise
from the expressed interests and felt needs of the masses of
the Third World poor. Rather, a development focus on wom-
en grew from the fact that the status of women, and attendant
questions of sexual equality, became burning issues in the
West (Dahl 1985).

206 HUMAN ORGANIZATION

 Community participation may be another case. This de-
velopment principle as extended to Third World settings
reflects the Western values of individualism, self-reliance,
and equality, values which may not have universal cultural
applicability.
Community Participation as a Cultural Value
I define the approach of community participation as de-
signingdevelopment in such a way that intended beneficiaries
are encouraged to "take matters into their own hands," to
"participate" in their own development through mobilizing
their own resources, defining their own needs, and making
their own decisions about how to meet them. In international
development, this approach has emerged over and over again,
although it has been called by different terms and woven into
development programs in different ways. Although many
think of this idea as being recent (e.g., Cernea 1985:357) and
accuse previous development of being "top down," the idea
has in fact been around for about as long as international
development itself. In the 1950s it was called "community
development" (Foster 1982), and this concept was defined
by the United States International Cooperation Administra-
tion as:
a process of social action in which people of a community organize
themselves for planning and action; define their common individual
needs and problems; execute these plans with a maximum reliance
upon community resources; and supplement these resources when
necessary with services and materials from governmental and non-
governmental agencies outside the community (Miniclier in Foster
1982:184).
Today, "community participation" permeates discussion
in development circles. It appears to be the natural comple-
ment to the other major focus of current development-
"meeting the basic needs of the majority poor." The goal of
meeting the needs of the poorest people and the strategies of
"self-help" and "participation" were explicitly set in U.S.
foreign aid policy with the 1973 New Directions Legislation
(U.S. Government 1973), and have also been the focus of
United Nations and European foreign aid agencies (Arnold
1982).
There have been some critical assessments of community
participation. Foster (1982: 190) pointed out that community
participation programs are sometimes based on the unreal-
istic assumption that Third World rural communities are a
homogeneous, unfactionalized mass of cooperative persons
who need only an outside motivator to initiate their com-
munal development activities. But others working in this
field have addressed the issue of competing interest groups,
or the potential take-over of project benefits by local elites.
In the health field, Uphoff (1985), Gish (1979), De Kadt
(1982), Navarro (1984), and others have charged that an
emphasis on local "self help" strategies bypasses the broader
national and international political and economic relation-
ships which are the real root of poverty and ill health in
developing areas. Also common is the charge that there often
exists a considerable gap between the ideals, or the rhetoric,
and the actual practice of so-called participatory programs
(Welsch 1986).
Here I wish to raise the additional problem of the cross-
cultural applicability of the concept of community partici-
pation through drawing attention to the cultural assumptions
embedded in it. With community participation, the accent
is clearly on the promotion of self-reliance (cf., Foster 1982),
which, in other contexts, is understood as a fundamental
aspect of the Western cultural value of individualism. Indeed,
Hsu (1983:4) sees the attitude of self-reliance as definitive of
American "rugged individualism":
The most basic ingredient of rugged individualism is self-reliance.
Most individuals in all societies around the world may be self-suf-
ficient. . . . But American rugged individualism means that one is
not only self-sufficient as a matter of fact but he must strive toward
it as a militant ideal. The individual should constantly tell himself
and others that he controls his own destiny. . . .
Of course it is possible to define a concept of "self-reliance"
which does not entail "individualism" in Hsu's sense. In-
deed, many community participation programs are encour-
aging a kind of collective "self-reliance" where the unit of
action is a group or a whole community and not the indi-
vidual as such. But however self-reliance is defined as a de-
velopment concept or strategy, it is also an attitude or frame
of mind, a value. In this sense, it appears as though the
Western world, convinced that the attitude of self-reliance
serves as a solution to its own problems, wishes to export it
as a solution to Third World poverty as well. Indeed, ac-
cording to Foster (1982:187), this fundamental change of
attitude, the adoption of self-reliance, was considered all along
by "community development" enthusiasts to be more im-
portant than any material achievements of development
projects. Conversely, anything which threatens to force poor
communities to rely on outside agencies is said to create ". . .
a psychology of dependency, which is the antithesis of de-
velopment" (Uphoff 1985:387).
Along with self-reliance, the concept of community par-
ticipation entails the value of human equality, as becomes
especially clear in discussions of local participation oriented
toward meeting basic needs of the poorest persons. Dumont
(1 970, 1977), although he remains a controversial writer, has
discussed the notion of equality in the Western World, con-
trasting it with alternative values in non-Western societies,
and tying it directly to Western individualism:
Our two cardinal values are called equality and liberty. They assume
as their common principle, and as a valorized representation, the
idea of the human individual', humanity is made up of men, and
each man is conceived as presenting, in spite of and over and above
his particularity, the essence of humanity. . . . This individual is quasi-
sacred, absolute: there is nothing over and above his legitimate de-
mands; his rights are limited only by the identical rights of other
individuals [italics his] (1970:4).
The development concept of community participation, re-
gardless of its humanitarian or even its practical merits, may
be creating an international arena for the expression of West-
em cultural values. And along with the idea that the adoption
of egalitarian self-reliance is the real key to successful de-
velopment goes the assumption that such adoption is cross-
culturally meaningful. There may be areas of the developing
world for which this assumption is valid; but here I discuss
one case from Nepal which suggests it is not. I illustrate this
VOL. 48, NO. 3 F A L L 1 9 8 9 207
contention through a case study of a development project in
Nepal, with a focus on a comparison between the project's
ideas and local villagers' ideas about both the concepts of
"development" and "community participation" in devel-
opment. As will be shown, the study found significant con-
trasts between villagers' views and the project's views on
both what "development" is or should be (the "ends") and
what "participatory" development (the "means") is all about.
Nepal and The Tinau Watershed Project
The Government of Nepal now endorses participatory ap-
proaches in development, and many projects under way now
encourage participation as a move away from earlier "top
down" strategies.' But how is this style of self-reliant, egal-
itarian, participatory development to work in a region like
Nepal, where principles of social hierarchy and human in-
terdependence are so culturally pervasive?
Although well known for its cultural diversity, many re-
gions of the country can be characterized by the predomi-
nance of hierarchical principles which underlie local caste
and kinship systems and which permeate virtually all inter-
personal relationships. In the context of rural Nepalese vil-
lage life, an important feature of hierarchy is that it entails
and expresses an interdependence between persons and groups
(Sharma 1978). This interdependence is expressed not only
in a number of ideological and ritual ways (Stone 1983), but
also in economic terms. Caste and kinship hierarchies, for
example, prescribe patterns for the distribution and exchange
of many goods and services. In several contexts, including
those outside the realms of caste and kinship, one's access
to desired goods and services very much depends on one's
ability to establish, maintain, or manipulate one's position
within a larger social hierarchy. Thus, in contrast to a per-
spective in which values of personal autonomy, independent
action, and self-reliance are seen as means to secure access
to resources, commodities and opportunities, there is a wide-
spread cultural recognition of and value on mutual depen-
dencies, human linkages, and regulated exchanges between
persons and groups.
This cluster of values, at any rate, characterizes the middle
hill region of Nepal covered by the Tinau Watershed Project
(TWP), for which I conducted a village study in 1979-1 980.
At the time of my study, this was a pilot project seeking to
develop strategies to promote conservation of natural re-
sources and offset the trends toward severe ecological im-
balances in the Nepalese hills.2 The project selected one wa-
tershed area in Nepal's central hill region (within the District
of Palpa) for pilot activities in agriculture, animal husbandry,
forest and water conservation. During my study, the project
largely remained in the planning stages, but it has since im-
plemented a number of activities and has been expanded to
the whole of Palpa District.
This project followed a number of policy guidelines, such
as "integration" of activities with different Nepalese govem-
ment departments and agencies and "repeatability" of the
approach in other regions of Nepal. Heading the list ofofficial
guidelines was what the project termed "People's Partici-
pation":
208 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
More often than not, development projects in the last decades have
been planned and executed "for" but not "with" the people con-
cerned. Consequently these projects often become failures. . . . De-
velopment projects in general and an integrated conservation project
in particular can only succeed if the people in the target area par-
ticipate in the planning, decision-making, implementation and eval-
uation of the project. It is therefore crucial to gain the active co-
operation of the local people in all these aspects (HMG/ SATA 1980:
6).
My assignment on the project was to design and direct a
one-year socioeconomic study of five selected villages in the
project area. Working under my supervision were four Nepa-
lese university students, each assigned to one village; I con-
ducted research in the fifth. No sampling procedures were
used to select these villages; rather they were selected on the
basis of project interest in specific ecological issues. But the
five areas were also chosen to reflect both the ecological and
ethnic or caste diversity of the project area.
Over half of Nepal's fifteen million people live in the hills,
where they practice agriculture and animal husbandry. All
the villages selected for study in the project area are farming
communities where virtually all households own and farm
some land in rugged, hilly terrain.
People in all communities (to varying degrees and in vary-
ing ways) practice the Hindu religion, and in all areas the
Nepalese variant of the Hindu caste system is an important
feature of social and ritual life. Although caste discrimination
is now officially illegal in Nepal, Hindu villagers continue to
perceive caste divisions along the model of the earlier Nepa-
lese Legal Code of 1854. This Code ranked caste groups into
the following major categories (from high to low): wearers of
the sacred thread (tagadhari, or "twice born" Hindus); al-
cohol drinkers (matwali, a lower but still "clean" category3);
impure but touchable castes (from whom water cannot be
accepted by higher groups); and impure untouchable castes
(Hofer 1979).
The major groups in the villages of the project area are the
high Hindu castes (such as the Brahman, Chetri, and Jaisi4)
and the Magars, traditionally a Tibeto-Burman speaking
group, classed in the Hindu hierarchy as matwali. Magars
account for 43% of the population of the five villages com-
bined. Members of the untouchable castes account for 12%.
There are no persons in the "impure but touchable" category.
In very general terms, the high Hindu castes are wealthier,
more educated, and are socially and politically dominant
over the Magars and untouchables (Stone 1980a).
One village in the study, Bandi Pokhara, is a Chetri set-
tlement close to Tansen, the district headquarters of Palpa
District. It is a relatively poor community, largely chosen for
study because of serious erosion problems caused by live-
stock grazing. A second village, Madan Pokhara, lies slightly
south of Bandi Pokhara and is in many ways the antithesis
of this first village. It is located above a fertile plain, and
many residents own and cultivate valuable rice land in the
plain. In the project area, Madan Pokhara is renowned for
its relatively greater adoption of modern farming methods
and its comparatively rapid economic development. It was
selected for study for this reason but also on account of its
problems with deforestation. Madan Pokhara is a largely
Brahman community, but settled above the Brahmans is a
small community of Magars and untouchables. A third vil-
lage, Jhadewa, is much like Madan Pokhara, but geograph-
ically smaller. Its farmers are also settled above a plain of
valuable rice land which they own and cultivate. And like
Madan Pokhara, Jhadewa is a largely Brahman community
with a smaller Magar settlement at a higher elevation. The
fourth village, Koldada, is a highland Magar community that
also contains a few untouchables. The Magars own some rice
land but most of their land consists of unirrigated upland
fields used for growing wheat, millet, and vegetables. The
fifth village, Phek, is the one in which I conducted research.
It is a community of Magars in the far west of the project
area. It is relatively remote and poor.
Before the TWP got far under way, a baseline survey of
the region had been conducted to gather information on de-
mographic patterns, land and livestock ownership, etc. The
purpose of the five-village study was to provide the project
with basic village ethnographies along with in-depth and de-
tailed information on farming practices, livestock manage-
ment, and the use of forest and water resources. Another task
assigned the research team was to explore the world of "de-
velopment" as experienced and perceived by villagers them-
selves. In particular, the study was to assess the potential for
"community participation" in resource conservation and
other development activities.
This aspect of the research was incorporated into the over-
all methodology of the larger study. Following a census in
all villages, a third of the households in each village was
randomly selected for more intensive questionnaire survey.
The samples were stratified to show differences in caste and
economic status. The total number of households in the com-
bined village sample was 299. The questionnaires largely
covered topics of farm management and natural resource use,
but a final section included questions about knowledge of
development projects in the region, use of new facilities such
as government health posts, and familiarity with and atti-
tudes toward the work of government development workers,
such as Junior Technical Assistants (JTAs), who are to give
modern farming and animal husbandry advice. In addition,
each researcher selected four households from the sample for
special case studies. These households were selected on the
basis of their willingness to cooperate with the study, al-
though an effort was made to vary the caste and economic
status of the selected households. In addition to studying the
farm management practices of these households, researchers
were instructed to conduct lengthy informal interviews with
members of these households so as to elicit their ideas and
attitudes toward development and "community participa-
tion." In all cases, each researcher was living with one of the
four case study families for the year of the study. Finally, for
purposes of comparison, I conducted separate informal but
lengthy interviews with the expatriate project staff (three per-
sons, all Swiss5) stationed in the town of Tansen, to elicit
what "development" and "community participation" meant
to them.
DEFINITIONS
OF DEVELOPMENT.
On the concept of "de-
velopment," there was some variation among villagers and
among project staff, but more striking was the wide gap be-
tween the ideas expressed by these two groups. All project
staff emphasized behavioral change on the part of villagers
in their definition of "development" -adoption of new farm-
ing practices, modern health service, family planning, etc.
Two also mentioned that development is, more fundamen-
tally. an attitude. As one of them put it: "'development' really
occurs when people see that they can take matters into their
own hands, take initiative and make changes to better their
own lives." In other words, "development" was defined in
terms of the spirit of "community participation" itself, so
that the "ends" and the "means" of the project were con-
ceptually joined.
By contrast, when villagers were asked to define "devel-
opment" (Nepali, bikas) and to discuss development in their
village, they overridingly and consistently referred to con-
crete, visible structures-schools, a health post, a water sys-
tem. Many development projects in rural Nepal largely con-
sist of the dissemination of public education "messages"
(concerning sanitation, nutrition, farming, family planning,
and so on). These messages are delivered by trained rural
development workers, depicted in posters covering all gov-
ernment buildings, and heard over the radio; but these mes-
sages were not counted as bikas by the villagers of this study.
Similarly, the practices of forest protection and rotational
grazing, so crucial to the interests of the TWP Project, were
not seen as bikas. In the community of Phek, when asked
about "development" in their village, everyone mentioned
the recently built school; no one mentioned the work ofJTAs
or family planning motivators or even a recent vaccination
camp.
There is another idea embedded in many villagers' notion
of "development" that is reflected in the following tape-
recorded statements made by Phek villagers:
"Development has not reached here."
"There is the school. That is all that has happened."
"A doctor came from the District Office. But he only stayed in
Batase [a neighboring village] to have tea and play cards and rarely
went to the villages. Most people didn't know that he ever came.
But when he came, everyone around of course did hajur [showed
deference]."
"No one has come for development, they have only come to
measure the land."
"Sometimes we are supposed to give lists to the District Office to
say what we want. Then sometimes they tell us to do this and that,
but nothing ever happens."
"It's like this: even when the government wants to do good things,
the lower level government workers are just after money and don't
do anything."
There is a pessimistic tone to these remarks, a tone which
was somewhat more pronounced in Phek, probably because
of its relative poverty and remoteness. But like statements
made by villagers from other areas in the study, an underlying
idea of the remarks from Phek is that development is some-
thing that comes from outside. It does not spring out of re-
sources and initiative mobilized within the community. Of
course this idea reflects the history of development in Nepal
and villagers' experiences with it. Thus this idea about de-
velopment is a recent and pragmatic one and does not reflect
any deep-rooted cultural orientations. In some later village-
level discussions, project personnel found that by substituting
the word "improvement" (sudhaar) for "development," vil-
lagers were more likely to talk about their own resources and
their own involvement in project activities (Suelzer and Shar-
ma 1986:2 1). Thus the fact that villagers have formed certain
attitudes and expectations about "development" based on
their experience with an older style of development does not
V O L . 48. NO. 3 F A L L 1 9 8 9 209
preclude the possibility that new ideas about the process of
development could not be introduced.
THEPROCESSOF DEVELOPMENT.
What about the "means"
by which "development" can be achieved? How d o villagers
perceive that development (as they define it) works? The
contrast here between village perspectives and the "partici-
patory" ideals encouraged by the project in part rests on the
different definitions of "development" noted above. When
thinking about how to achieve "development," villagers are
not concerned with how to achieve new behaviors and at-
titudes, but with how to bring schools, electricity, etc. to their
villages. Also their perspectives are in part based on their
past observations of "development" in the region, as will be
discussed below. But in addition to these factors I would
suggest that villagers' perspectives on the process of devel-
opment also reflect their own social organization and ide-
ology, within which the principles of hierarchy and human
interdependence are emphasized. As villagers perceive that
access to resources within their rural communities has tra-
ditionally depended on personal relationships and positions
within social hierarchies, so they perceive that "develop-
ment" is going to work this way too. Thus development,
which comes from outside, "happens" when the community
contains high status members who have important social
links with the external world of resources and the power over
resources.
The idea that this is the only valid model for development
has been reinforced in the project area by the example of
Madan Pokhara. Madan Pokhara is not only a relatively
wealthy area but in this region of Nepal it is well known for
the fact that it has always been politically active. In the proj-
ect area, Madan Pokhara was envied for its development
success. It stood out among other villages, especially at night,
since at the time of this study it was the only village that had
acquired electricity. The student residing in Madan Pokhara
reported how this came about: "According to . . . [the vil-
lagers] they succeeded in bringing electricity to their village
not because of the government policy of rural electrification
but because of the personal relationship of the school head-
master with a high official in the electricity department . . ."
(H. Acharaya 1980:160). Similarly, it is well known that
Madan Pokhara obtained government aid for its new school
building through a former resident who later became a high
ranking official in the Education Department.
Rural peoples of the project area know that the history of
successful "development" in Madan Pokhara proceeded
through wealthy Brahman leaders who manipulated their
connections in the external world of government power. The
Madan Pokhara example is perhaps the villagers' idea of what
it means to "take initiative." But it is not initiative in a spirit
of self-reliance or egalitarian "community participation." It
is initiative that requires a social status high enough to secure
a personal connection with someone or some group on the
'outside." Whereas virtually all villagers have multiple links
and connections to secure access to resources within their
communities, most perceive that they lack the status to secure
the necessary connections with the outside world, the world
in real control of "development."
This local view of the development process helps to ac-
count for the negative statements about development made
210 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
by Phek villagers and for the fact that Magars in the project
area claim they have seen little "development" as they define
it. In Madan Pokhara, for example, both the electricity and
the new drinking water systems stop at the boundary between
the Brahman and the Magar settlements. Throughout the
project area, the Magars' own explanation for their relative
lack of development was consistent from village to village:
development has not "come" because most Magars are poor
and have no important social links in the external world of
power and resources. Of the Magars in Madan Pokhara it
was reported: "By contrast [with Brahmans] the people of
Kokal [Magar settlement] have never approached govern-
ment officials for any kind of help. They say that there is no
one to help the poor and uneducated people. They also say
that they d o not know the proper manners to use to talk to
the officials and thus fear approaching them" (H. Acharya
1980:161).
In many cases, Magars said that not only were they un-
connected and therefore left out of development, but they
were, in fact, intimidated by outside officials. Fear of intim-
idation by outsiders was repeatedly expressed to me by Phek
Magars, who recounted a history of exploitation by tax col-
lectors, land surveyers, and other agents (Stone 1980b). The
student in the nearly all-Magar village of Koldada also re-
ported: "When any government employees come to Koldada,
the local people have to arrange all kinds of things for them,
such as their food, which, it is understood, must include meat
and alcoholic drink, and their lodging. People say that if a
land survey team comes or if a forest department person
arrives, they have to give very special food and money (bribes)
to please them. Otherwise these people will pick an argument
with the villagers for any reason and start to intimidate them"
(Rajbanshi 1980: 123).
But the idea of being powerless to initiate "development"
because of a lack of status and connections is not at all re-
stricted to the Magars or untouchables in the project area.
The same idea was expressed by high caste, though poor,
Chetri farmers of Bandi Pokhara: "People . . . [of Bandi Pok-
hara] see themselves as uneducated and uncultured and thus
fear approaching government officials. . . . They think that
as they are poor and not very influential, they will never be
given priority by the government. Many times the former
ward chairman and a school teacher asked me to 'convey
their voice' to the higher authorities. I once took them to the
Tinau Watershed Project office where they hesitatingly put
forth their problems, but they did not go to the office again
on their own. However they always requested me to be the
link to this office on their behalf" (R. Acharya 1980:114).
IDEAS ON "COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION." This study for
the TWP also asked villagers what they understood by the
term "community participation" in development, in order
to draw comparisons with the ideas ofexpatriate project staff.
All project staff emphasized that "participation" entailed an
attitude of self-help or self-reliance. One went so far as to
say that "peoples' participation is the realization of personal
freedom." Village people also refer to a concept of "partic-
ipation" (Nepali, bhag linne) in development. But when asked
what it meant, virtually all of the respondents said that par-
ticipation in development was obeying a panchayat (village
council) order to contribute land, money, labor, or some
other resource to a specific development project. By this
definition, participation is quite high in the area; over 80%
of the sample households had made these kinds of contri-
butions to development projects, although not always will-
ingl y .
In some villages there were reports of very negative ex-
periences with bhag Iinne development. In Bandi Pokhara,
people were ordered by the panchayat to contribute labor for
the construction of a road linking Tansen to Bhairawathan.
Many of these people owned land near the road, which they
then lost due to landslides caused by road construction. As
a result of this experience, many Bandi Pokhara villagers
refused to cooperate with the TWP when engineers came to
conduct a survey of water sources, since those with land near
the sources feared for its loss (R. Acharya 1980). In the village
of Phek, each household was ordered by the panchayat to
make a financial contribution to the school, but this was seen
as an unfair hardship for poorer families who have no chil-
dren in school, or for old couples who have no children at
all. In addition, each household was ordered to contribute
thirty days of labor to construction on the road linking Tan-
sen to Batase. Villagers reported that the road has brought
them little benefit, and now they see that it is crumbling
away.
The five-village study report submitted to the TWP rec-
ommended caution in the introduction of "participatory"
development activities, and warned against the project form-
ing high expectations about the ability of villagers to respond
quickly and enthusiastically to this strategy. Certainly no
suggestion was made that the project revert to "top down'.
development policies, or that efforts not be made to involve
farmers in development planning and implementation. It was
pointed out, however, that the project personnel cannot as-
sume that their ideas about either "development" or "par-
ticipation" are shared by villagers. Here I would go further
to suggest that both the rhetoric of and the plans for "par-
ticipation" in development be approached through a more
informed cross-cultural perspective. The strategy of "partic-
ipation" may in some cases be sound, and certainly the more
cautious and thoughtful guidelines provided by Uphoff (1985)
are a step in the right direction. But the insistence on the
part of outside developers that all development activities be
embedded in ideas of "self-reliance" and "taking initiative"
strikes me as a clear case of using development as an arena
for the advertisement and transfer of Western cultural values.
This insistence also implies that development cannot really
occur in any other way, or with any other cultural values.
The strong link that development planners draw between
"participation" and personal "independence" is a case in
point. During the interviews with the project staff, I asked
each person to describe for me the ideal TWP villager. The
results struck me as descriptions of "rugged individualists,"
persons with a strong sense of personal autonomy, indepen-
dence and freedom. Examples are that the ideal farmer would
"come up with his own ideas," ". . . go and get services from
the government as is his right to do," ". . . try to get project
help but not become dependent on us." I would question the
necessity for villagers to adopt this kind of assertive and
individualistic "self-reliance" in order for them to play im-
portant roles in development activities. On the contrary, vil-
lage society appears to recognize and value human interde-
pendence as a strategy for securing benefits. Rather than
seeking self-reliance and a sense of "mastery over their own
destiny," perhaps villagers would welcome a greater sense of
meaningful interdependence and exchange with outside de-
velopment agencies and institutions. The problem is not to
convince villagers of their potential "independence" from
the government or development agencies (a difficult task in
any case), but rather to convince development agencies and
institutions that they are in fact dependent upon villagers. It
is after all villagers who will determine whether or not project
"targets" are met, and in the larger sense it is villagers who
will determine the ecological future of the Nepalese hills. In
my view, villagers are quite eager to "link up" with persons
and institutions in the outside world in an effort to better
their lives. The problem is that, especially for poorer and
uneducated villagers, their experience has led them to believe
that they lack the social status to command the respect of
the outside world, or the ability to pursue meaningful inter-
action with it.
The Tinau Watershed Project was well under way by the
early 1980s and has continued for many years. It did proceed
with the caution recommended from this study and made
continual efforts to explore the opinions, perspectives. and
felt needs of the people of the project area (see Acharya et
al. 1982). Of particular importance was that between 1983
and 1986 the project began its "Panchayat Development
Programme Planning" (PDPP). This involved carrying out
village-level development "workshops." By 1986, 10-day
(later, 7-day) workshops had been conducted in 19panchayat
(village council units) with 13 follow-up workshops of two
days each. Attending the workshops were project staff, village
leaders, teachers, selected farmers, and village representa-
tives from other organizations such as agricultural extension
services, women's organizations, etc. The workshops dissem-
inated a great deal of information to villagers about the proj-
ect, the region's environmental problems, and the potentials
for village involvement; but most important they provided
an opportunity for exchange of ideas, interests, and expec-
tations among villagers and between villagers and project
staff. After the workshops, the village units were to come up
with their own development plans and make requests for
project assistance.
It appears that through these workshops, villagers and proj-
ect staff both began to change their perspectives, to shift and
adjust their views of "development" and "participation."
One report (Suelzer and Sharma 1986) says of these work-
shops that the project's initial idea of participation was naive
and too ambitious in view of some very real political, eco-
nomic, and bureaucratic constraints to participatory devel-
opment in the region. The report specifies that under current
conditions, certain kinds of village-level planning and deci-
sion-making are not real is ti^.^
In the PDPP experience, as the project became more re-
alistic, there is also evidence that village people began to
consider new ideas as well. As already described here, vil-
lagers began with a notion of "development" as something
which "happens" or does not happen to their communities,
and as something which comes from outside. Their interest
was then to manipulate as many direct "benefits" as possible
from a project (Suelzer and Sharma 1986:1). But in the course
of the PDPP, it was found that some villagers began to con-
VOL. 48, NO. 3 F A L L 1 9 8 9 21 1
sider that they could look to themselves and their own in-
dividual or communal resources as bases for action, rather
than merely blame the government or a project for their
area's lack of "development." In follow-up investigations,
some villagers explicitly claimed that they valued the work-
shops as a new kind of opportunity for villagers to come
together to assess their situation. And, perhaps most impor-
tant, the project saw some new kinds of requests from vil-
lagers-requests for programs for forest protection, fodder
propagation, etc. -rather than requests for the more tangible
and immediately beneficial kinds of direct aid that had been
requested before (Suelzer and Sharma 1986:3 1).
It is, of course, too soon to say how encouraging these signs
may be. But it is clear that with sustained communication
efforts and a greater awareness of village perspectives and
constraints, this project may have opened a door to a new
kind of participatory approach, one that allows for adjust-
ments on all sides, or allows for the redefinition of concepts
to fit sociocultural and cross-cultural realities.
Conclusion
This study shows a wide gap in the thinking about "de-
velopment" and "participation" in development on the part
of T W P planners and personnel on the one hand and the
village farmers in the project area on the other. To both
groups development in the region is highly desirable; but the
former define it as the adoption of new (and, in terms of this
particular project, ecologically informed) behaviors on the
part of the village population, whereas the latter define it in
terms of the establishment of new, visible structures such as
schools, hospitals, electricity, and water systems. For the
project, "community participation" is to be the key to de-
velopment, and this is defined as the participation of local
villagers in the planning, decision-making, and implemen-
tation of project activities. In the view of project staff, fun-
damental to community participation is the villagers' adop-
tion of an attitude of self-reliance and a faith in their own
powers to better their lives through "self-help" and "taking
initiative." By contrast, given the experience the villagers
have had with previous development projects, their idea of
"participatory" development is to obey, willingly or other-
wise, a government order to make material or labor contri-
butions to specific projects.
More importantly, the study has raised some questions
about the cross-cultural applicability of community partic-
ipation as a development concept. Most descriptions of this
concept reflect cultural values of Western individualism and
equality. By contrast, rural Nepalese society operates through
principles of hierarchy, human interdependence, and action
through personal relationships and social networks. It is
through personal, hierarchical, interdependent linkages that
goods and services are negotiated and exchanged. In these
small-scale, face-to-face communities, where members are
linked together through kinship, caste and other institutions,
persons manipulate their multiple "connections" for access
to resources, goods, and services. In the context of their own
society and culture, villagers perceive that "development"
will also operate this way. The problem is that "develop-
212 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
ment" is perceived to stem from "outside"; it all begins in
an external world of power and resources within which they
have no meaningful personal connections. The vast majority
of villagers, and particularly those lower in caste, wealth and
education, perceive that they lack the ability to establish
meaningful connections with this external world. Their ob-
servation of "development" in the region has further rein-
forced this view.
In my view the concepts of "self-reliance" and "indepen-
dence" in community development have meaning primarily
to outside developers and reflect specific cultural values con-
cerning the place (and power) of the individual in society.
Rather than insisting on the widespread adoption of these
values, or this path to development, a more realistic alter-
native might be to accept and work within the local concepts
of hierarchy, interdependence, and exchange. Here the focus
would be on helping villagers to establish more meaningful
connections with persons and institutions from "the out-
side." Rather than encourage an attitude of "independence"
on the part of village communities, a development strategy
based on the idea of an interdependence between villagers
and their government development agencies and institutions,
or between villagers and "outsiders," generally would be more
realistic and appropriate. But here the onus is on the "out-
side" to realize that it is dependent on Nepalese villagers,
that the ecological and economic future of the Tinau region
and indeed the whole nation very much depends on the
activities and interests of this peasant population.
NOTES
I The Government of Nepal's acceptance of participatory ap-
proaches in development is not simply the result of Western influ-
ence, but also reflects the Government's awareness of the inadequacy
of previous development efforts that failed to communicate effec-
tively with local persons and consider their felt needs and potential
contributions.
* The Tinau Watershed Project was the result of a cooperative
agreement between the Swiss Federal Council, the Government of
the Federal Republic of Germany, and His Majesty's Government
of Nepal. In Nepal, implementation of the project is conducted
through the Department of Soil and Water Conservation of the Min-
istry of Forests, in cooperation with the Swiss Association for Tech-
nical Assistance.
This middle-rankingcategory roughly correspondsto the Vaish-
ya category of the classical Hindu varna system. At the time of the
1854 Code in Nepal, this category was further subdivided into "en-
slavable" and "non-enslavable" alcohol-drinkingcastes (Hofer 1979).
Slavery was later abolished and this distinction is no longer made.
Chetri is roughly equivalent to the Kshatriya (warrior) level of
the classical Hindu system. The Jaisi rank is formed from unsanc-
tioned marital unions between Brahmans. Thus if a divorced or
widowed Brahman woman becomes a social wife to a Brahman man,
she and her children lower to Jaisi rank. Some people consider Jaisi
to be a subdivision of the Brahman category.
Unfortunately I did not have an opportunity to interview the
Nepalese staff with whom the Swiss worked as counterparts on this
project.
One problem here was that, regardless of what villagers might
show an interest in, various government development offices (with
which the project was working) already had their departmental "tar-
gets" which had to be filled (Suelzer and Sharma 1986:14).
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