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THE MATRIX OF INSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATION IN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS:

A CASE STUDY OF THE BARISAL IRRIGATION PROJECT, BANGLADESH.

A. B. M. Shafiqur Rahman

B.A. Honours Sociology, Univ. of Dhaka, 1967

M.A. Sociology, Univ. of Dhaka, 1968

Diploma Journalism, Univ. of Dhaka, 1972

M.A. Journ. & Mass Communication, Univ. of Dhaka, 1973

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS)

in the Department

of

Communication

@ A. B. M. Shafiqur Rahman 1986

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

June 1986

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy *

or other means, without permission of the author.

A.B.M. Shafiqur Rahman

Degree : Doctor of Philosophy (Communication)(Special Arrangements)

Ti t le of Thesis: The Matrix of Inst i tut ional Communication i n lkvelopment Projects: A Case Study of the Barisal I rr igat ion Project, Bangladesh

Ekamining Conunittee :

Chairperson: Dr. ~ruce,Cla@n, Dean of C@aduate Studies

- r I , , - - - 1' ' Robert S. Anderson, Associate m f e s s o r

Senior Supervisor

D r . G . Marilyn Gates, Assistant ProfessoF Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Dr . Theodore H. Cohn, Professor Department of Pol i t ica l Science

- . . Dr. E. Walter Coward, Professor Asian Studies, International Agriculture and Rural Sociology, Cornell University External Examiner

Date Approved : 23 June 1986

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T i t l e o f fhes i s/Project/Extended Essay

The Matrix of Institutional Communication in Development

Projects: A Case Study of the Bapisal Irrigation Project,

Bangladesh

Author : -

(s ignature)

A.B.M. Shafiqur Rahman

( name

23 June 1986

(date)

I

ABSTRACT

The roots of development problems in Bangladesh actually lie in rural areas since 80%

of the economy and 90% of its people depend on agriculture. The World Bank and others

lent capital, technology and expertise, the state framed policies, rearranged bureaucracies, and

created local institutions. Still the country's plan of food self-sufficiency was unrealised. In

some cases, it even deteriorated.

This study attempts to explain this dilemma by analysing communication relations among

national parastatal development institutions and their local extensions. The ways these

institutions articulated their interests, controlled and used information to their advantage, and

the values and procedures they adopted, received special attention. The World Bank-funded

Barisal Irrigation F'roject, its four managing parastatal bureaucracies and its local institutions

were studied through long-term empirical field methods to understand the institutional matrix

and its consequences.

It was found that the military and the bureaucracy, developing a symbiotic relationship

in state power, communicated their domination over development policies. The international

institutions facilitated and/or interfered in this communication strategy. The competition among

the managing bureaucracies for autonomous power and legitimacy prevailed over the

agriculturists' practical needs. The result was an expansion of parastatal institutions and

increased conflicts among national and local implementing institutions affecting agricultural

underdevelopment

Although some success was achieved in this project by trapping tidal water through

sluice-structures, because of institutional complexities the water was unavailable in many fields.

Food production reached only 20% of the appraised target; 20,000 of the estimated 141,000

acres were irrigated; the profits of big farmers with generous technical support steadily

iii

declined. The majority of small farmers resisted or ignored the project and did not form

co-operatives. But the project's administrative and consultancy expenses increased by 200%.

This study observed a relatively autonomous role of state institutions in sustaining and

expanding its state structure to create strong central and weak local institutions. The

conservation of the strong-weak relationship has been identified in this thesis as a major

communication strategy of state power in Bangladesh. This fact is crucial for comprehending

the matrix and the success of development projects and programmes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My ideas and interests in development and communication which had their origin at

Dhaka University and Bangladesh Television, could only develop as a dissertation with

constant guidance and encouragement from my Senior Supervisor Dr. Robert Anderson His

knowledge and understanding of Asian societies, his empathy and patience as a guide made

him my mentor in my graduate studies at Simon Fraser University.

Thanks are also due to Professors William H. Melody, Paul Heyer, Marilyn Gates and

E. Walter Coward Jr. who took special interest in my dissertation and offered valuable

suggestions. Others who always remained sources of encouragement were Dr. Kathy Mezei,

Dr. Syed A. Rahim, Dr. Mahtabudin Ahmed, Dr. Rahina Mahtab, Dr. R.I. Choudhury, Mr.

A.Z. Khan, Professors M. Afsaruddin, A.Q.I.M. Nuruddin, Dr. M. Badmd Duza, Dr. Mizanur

Rahman Miah, Dr. Ekram Ahsan, George and Margarett Randall, Rev. Joseph and Mrs.

Frances Manioli. I also appreciate the support provided by B.P. Sanjay, Lynne Hissey,

Marlene Patterson, Regina Costa, Nurul Huda, Abdullah Noman and other friends from

British Columbia and Bangladesh.

My posthumous respect to Professor A.K. Nazmul Karim who taught me both in and

outside the classroom about society and its complexities.

I wish to acknowledge the support extended by the Ford Foundation, Simon Fraser

University, the Canadian Board of International of Education and the University of Chittagong

which allowed me to complete this dissertation.

My wife Rafida faced and tolerated many difficult situations during the program's long

duration, but was never short in her constant encouragement and love for me. For this and

much more, I am indebted to her.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Approval ...................................................................................................................................................................... ii

Abstract ...................................................................................................................................................................... iii

.............................. Acknowledgement ; ........................................................................................................................ v

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 1

The Thesis Problem ......................................................................................................................... 1

................................................................................................................. The Research Questions 3

Definition of Some Terms Used: .............................................................................................. 4

The Context of the Thesis .......................................................................................................... 6

Communication and Development ............................................................................................. 10

Selection of the Problem ............................................................................................................. 12

An Institutional Methodology ..................................................................................................... 15

Chapter Outlines .............................................................................................................................. 18

COMPETITIVE COMMUNICATION. OVERT AND COVERT TECHNIQUES. AND POINT OF VIEW ......................................................................................................................... 22

.............................................................. Overt and Covert Techniques in Communication 24

The Point of View in Communication .................................................................................. 29

THE STATE AS AN AUTONOMOUS COMMUNICATION AGENCY ............................ 32

......................................................................... The Communication Function of the State 33

The State and Integration: Instrumental and Autonomous Roles ............................... 35

The State and Conflict: Instrumental and Autonomus Roles ....................................... 40

............................................................................ Autonomous Communication by the State 42

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO THE RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL ............................................................................................................... DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS 51

The Setting: ...................................................................................................................................... 53

............................... The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA/WDB) 58

Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) ........................................... 64

1

V .

VI .

VII .

vI11 .

..................... The Department of Agriculture Extension and Management (DAEM) 67

The Integrated Rural Development Programmes (IRDP) ............................................... 71

........................................................................................... The Thana Upgrading Programme 76

IRRIGATION POLICY DEVELOPMENT IN BANGLADESH ............................................... 81

The Hydraulic Hypothesis: A summary of the debate .................................................. 83

Relevance of the Hydraulic Hypothesis to Bengal. Bangladesh and Barisal Irrigation .................................................................................................................................. 86

........................................................................................ THE BARISAL IRRIGATION PROJECT 89

The External Dynamics: Role of the World Bank ......................................................... 96

The Internal Dynamics: Politics of the Government .................................................... 100

Why the Project was in Barisal ............................................................................................ 101

BIP: A 'Most Successful' Model: .......................................................................................... 102

Did Barisal Need Irrigation? .................................................................................................. 106

DEFINITION AND DATA CREATION ROLES OF DEVELOPMENT .......................................................................................................................................... INSTITUTIONS 109

DEFINITION AND DEFINITIONAL PROBLEMS IN BIP ....................................... 109

The Definition of BIP: Irrigation or Agriculture? .......................................................... 110

Definition by the WDB ............................................................................................................. 111

.......................................................................................................... Definition by the DAEM 113

Definitions by the BADC and the IRDP ......................................................................... 116

Definition by the Integrated Rural Development Programme .................................... 117

.............................. Collection of Statistics in Development: A Bureaucratic Process 120

............................................................................... Nazirpur Thana Crop Failure Statistics 121

COMMUNICATION IN AND THROUGH THE BIP ............................................................. 125

The Pump-point Issue ................................................................................................................ 126

'Insiders and Outsiders'. and 'We and They' ................................................................... 133

We and They Issue: ................................................................................................................... 136

vii

Lack of the Leadership Issue: ................................................................................................ 139

BIP b d the Fanners Issue ...................................................................................................... 141

............................................................................................... -The Foreign Consultants Issue: 146

.......................................................................................... The Issue of a K.S.S. Formation 150

IX . COMPARISONS OF BIP-PROJECT AND NON-PROJECT THANAS ............................ 156

The Four Thanas .......................................................................................................................... 160

The Kotwali Thana ...................................................... .............................................................. 162

The Jhalakati Thana .................................................................................................................... 164

The Perojpur Thana .................................................................................................................... 171

.................................................................................................................... The Nazirpur Thana 173

An Alternative Sub-system ....................................................................................................... 175

The Nazirpur Market .................................................................................................................. 178

................................. X . CONCLUSIONS: THE EEFECTS OF COMMUNICATION IN BIP 180

Benefits and Beneficiaries ......................................................................................................... 180

Communication Implications of Institutional Communication: Is the BIP a .................................................................................................................................. Failure? 193

................................................................................................ Questions for Future Research 201

....................................................................................................... APPENDIX I . Glossary and Acronyms 204

APPENDIX I1 . Chronology .............................................................................................................................. 209

AF'PENDIX I11 . Tables ..................................................................................................................................... 212

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................................... 228

viii

Maps and F i q u r e s

.................. . 1 I n d i a n Sub-cont inent and Bangladesh 20

2. Loca t ions o f P r o j e c t Areas ........................... 21 .... 3 . I n s t i t u t i o n a l S t r u c t u r e i n Bangladesh A g r i c u l t u r e 63

4 . Loca t ions of Sample Thanas i n B a r i s a l D i s t r i c t ....... 92

................................. 5. Map of Kotwal i Thana 93

............................... 6 . Map o f J h a l a k a t i Thana 94

7 . O r g a n i z a t i o n a l S t r u c t u r e of The B a r i s a l .................... ~ r r i g a t i o n P r o j e c t 95

8 . Maps of t h e Four S t u d i e d Thanas

Kotwali .O........................... 167

J h a l a k a t i .......................... 168

Nazi rpur ................O....O.O... 1 7 0

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The Thesis 'Problem --

The study of the development problems of Bangladesh is actually an inquiry into the

country's agriculture and its rural population since 80 percent of its economy depends on

agriculture and 90 percent of its population live in rural areas. The management of

agriculture in the country has been complicated by the complex relationships among the

international, national and local institutions. One reason of the problems of underdevelopment

I in the country may be found in the nature of communication and relationships among these

three levels of institutions, as this thesis suggests.

Agriculture in Bangladesh is composed chiefly of food crops and jute production. With

the shrinking of international demand for jute due to the development of synthetic fibres,

food has become the centre of focus. Further, Bangladesh has changed in the last fifty years

from a rice surplus and exporting area, into a rice deficit country. The reasons commonly

given for this within the country are: the political partitions of the country, the inheritance

laws and the fragmentation of land, land ownership and land tenure patterns, increasing rates

of populatior, growth, illiteracy and lack of knowledge about modem fanning, inefficient or

unproductive technology, poor irrigation systems, lack of industrial resources, added by natural

disasters such as floods, cyclones and droughts, and man-made plights of wars and military

coups. At the micro level, most explanations concentrated on villages and emphasized their 1 production systems, social stratification patterns and the cohesions and conflicts among the

strata; that is, the rural social context of food production and distribution.

Endeavours were also made to find the causes of development problems among the

external factors, in the economic and political legacies of colonialism and their cosequential

social relations. The two centuries of foreign rule and the recent economic dependence on

foreign aid, particularly on the World Bank, in the post independence period, also led many

scholars to concentrate on these external factors. Although studies have been done on

different aspects of the country's problems, rarely any study has emphasized on the

communication and relation patterns among the different development institutions in order to

explain the country's development issues.

This dissertation is an attempt to explicate the development problems of Bangladesh in

, terms of the relationships among international, national and local institutions. The study of

these three levels of institutions are important since their communication exerts profound

influences, as we will see, on the development matrix of the country and communication in

and among development institutions has been defined as the process of articulation of their

interests and intentions. The study has analysed both the horizontal and vertical

communication patterns among these institutions; the national implementing parastatal

institutions were firmly situated in the middle of this matrix. Greatest emphasis was laid on

national parastatals and their local level extensions, and other local thana-level institutions. A

large irrigation project was analysed to capture the patterns of communication in and among

these institutions. A comparison among four thanas was made in order to understand the

differences in development between two more government supported thanas and two less

government supported thanas, in this case project and non-project thanas. This kind of

communicational study of development institutions is important because it provides a clearer

undestanding of institutional power relations and their implications for the success and failure

of the development process in the country. The project provides an ideal focus of these

implications.

The development programme planning and implementing institutions, and their

bureaucracies, sometimes become so powerful that they earn a capacity for themselves to

dominate the process and the outcome of development These institutions gain an immense

power to contest and even minimise the role of individual in society by asserting their own

images, values, procedures and mandates. They are supported by concrete organizational

structures and budgets. How this happened, and why and how institutions constantly attempt

to communicate and advance their interests competitively through development projects, is

examined in this thesis.

The communication among these institutions was studied in this thesis through an

investigation into a major irrigation project in Barisal, a less developed southern district of

Bangladesh. In this Barisal Irrigation Project (BIP), the participating representative institutions

are: the World Bank at the international level, the state (the Government of Bangladesh) and

its four major parastatal institutions at the national level, and the Thana (county) institutions

including the rural agricultural cooperatives at the local level. Between the national and local

levels, the district and Thana level government officials who actually maintain the

communication between the state and the rural people received special attention in this thesis.

Srnce the state holds major power among all development institutions through its policy

, formulation and execution functions, an attempt has been made to examine the role of the

state as a communication agency. Adopting an institutional communication approach, this thesis

argues that the state is a relatively independent actor, which communicates its own intentions

and interests through its continuously reorganized institutions and through its practical

undertakings like this project Attempts have been made to identify the development objectives

and the communication practices of each of the three levels of institutions: international,

national and local.

Research Questions

The research question in this thesis are addressed to three levels of evidence collected

through a longterm field investigation for this study. The three levels are: (1) the project

and its implementation; (2) the thana unit development; and (3) the national bureaucratic

smcture of the state. These three levels when considered together constitute the matrix which

is the subject of this thesis.

1. Proiect Imalementation: How did the parastatal institutions participating in the

Barisal Irrigation Project articulate their interests under the competitive conditions in the

, project? How did these different institutions develop definitions of the project, and how were

such definitions used ir, their interpretation of project issues? Did these differences have mji

discernible effects in the outcomes of the project? What role did the World Bank play in

project implementation? In what way could or did the success or failure of this specific

project affect the interests of these institutions?

2. Thana Unit Development and Proiect Relations: Has the development of project

areas taken a course discernibly different from non-project areas? Who have been the

beneficiaries of the project, if any? Have non-project thanas had a different relation with the

state apparatus and state power than project areas? Where local government officials

implemented the project as an extension of the influence of their respective parastatal

institutions, what communication occured between them and the farmers who were expected to

be key participants in the project? How did selected elements of the public view the

performance of such local officials? Did this type of communication between government

officials and the public have discernible effects in the outcome of the project?

3. The National Bureaucratic Structure of m: The focus of the thesis is on the

national bureaucracies chosen to implement a major World Bank project, but the complete

analysis of communication in the project requires study of project relations with the public

(#2) and of these bureaucracies at the national level. How did they evolve as institutional

responses to the type of rural and agricultural development followed in Bangladesh since

1947? How have they controlled and utilized national and international material, financial and

communication resources to produce a particular type of influence in the competitive

I conditions characteristic of Bangladesh? Is there any truth to the proposition that the national 1 bureaucratic structure of the state has, along with the military, formed the base of the state

power which has interests relatively independent from other forms of power in Bangladesh,

such as class power? Is this the reason why the national bureaucratic institutions are powerful

while local institutions are weak? Can this question be answered with reference to evidence

from the BIP? Is the BIP and projects like it one means through which the state power

communicates its interests to the public?

At each level of evidence (project, thana, and national) the focus of questions was the

way in which communication was the process of articulation in a situation of on-going

competition, both within the project and between it and the surrounding society. This focus

1 on comrnunication provides a window through which to view the movement of influence,

I' information and power in development, albeit in one project in one district of one country.

Definition of Some Terms Used:

Communication in this dissertation, as stated earlier, has been defined as the techniques

and processes of articulation of interests and intentions by individuals and institutions.' In the

study of the Barisal Irrigation Project, competition has been found to dominate the form of

communication among the institutions. To identify the articulation of the back-stage of this

competition, the term competitive communication has been employed. This include the

organization of ideas, control and use of information and creation of definitions, in the

process of manueovring in order to compete. In other words, competitive communication is

the articulation aspect, that is the systematically organized efforts, prior to and during the

engagement in the act of competition.

Institutions are treated as organizations with specific images, values functions, procedures,

legal and social codes, and political mandates; and institutional communication is the

Chapter I1 explains the communication perspective used in this thesis in more detail. '

articulation of these organizations' interests and intentions. Although the definition of

development is approached through many perspectives, for this thesis we adopt the view that

' develo~ment is a process of expressing the natural and human potentials of a community to

its fullest extent for the maximum benefits of most of the members of that community. It is

also the pracess of acquiring an understanding about, an access to, and control of information

and other resources by a community in order to decide its own economic, political and social

goals. And as such, develmment institutions are organizations which should attempt to

mobilize all available resources for improving and strengthening the bargaining power of a

community, state or a region, against the forces which surround and dominate them. In this

thesis, these institutions have been classified into three major groups: international, national

and local.

International develmment institutions are institutions common to or affecting two or

more nations. These institutions are created through the cooperation and support of several

nations for enhancing further cooperation and development for member nations. The World

Bank is the major international development institution considered in this study. The national

parastatal institutions are organizations parallel to the government ministries, created by those

ministries to perform specific development functions at the national or federal level. Although

the responsiblities of framing general policy guidelines remain with the ministries, these

1 institutions such as the state corporations, commissions, boards, etc. are provided with

autonomy in designing and implementing policies and budgetary decision-making powers. The '

examples of national parastatal institutions referred to in this thesis are the Water

Development Board (WDB), Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC),

Department of Agricultural Extension and Management (DAEM) and Interated Rural

Development Program (IRDP).*

The definition of 1- institutions includes three categories of organizations and units

that work at the local village level. First, the personal extension of the national parastatal

institutions at the local thana level, is represented by the term local officials in this study.

The roles of these local officials are very important since they maintain direct linkage

between the national and local institutions; these officials' roles can be characterized from two

different angles. On the one hand, as the extension of the national bureaucracies, they are

responsible to communicate the national institutional values, programmes and interests to the

Although DAEM is not a parastatal institution in its truest sense, it has been included in this category for the reason that DAEM has remained one of most important national institutions in the communication and development matrix of Bangladesh, and in this project was asked to participate along with other equivalent parastatals.

rural peole; on the other hand, since they work closely with the rural people, and many of

the officials themselves come from a rural background, they identify themselves on many

occasions with the interests of the rural people. In spite of the rural peoples' stake in the

decisions of the local officials, the system is built in such a way that the rural people can

not effectively participate in the decisions of the local officials. As a vital linkage, the local

officials thus can, and in fact do, facilitate or control the communication between state power

and the rural people.

Secondly, the term local institutions is used in the thesis as the formal organizations of

the rural people, introduced by the government at thana and village levels in expectation of

being participated in by the people. The examples of local institutions in Bangladesh are the

Thana3, the Union Councils (UC), Thana Central Cooperative Association (TCCA), Krishi

(agriculture) Cooperative Societies (KSS) etc. Although most of these local institutions are

composed of the elected representatives of village people and the farmers, the controi of the

local officials over these local institutions is paramount, as we will see in Chapter IV.

Finally, the local level also includes the informal village social institutions such as (&&i

(lineage), Para (community), or J& (religious group). Each of these is termed as rural social

institution in order to distinguish it from other local institutions which are operated partly by

and for the state. The acute differences between these rural social institutions and the local

institutions can be seen in the BIP.

Context of Thesis

Historically Bangladesh was East Bengal in the Indian subcontinent which was under

the British colonial rule between 1757 and 1947. The Muslim-dominated East Bengal became

the eastern part of Pakistan at the partition of India in 1947. With the evolution of the

political system, the country's agrarian structure also changed. Fundamental changes in the

pattern of land ownership in Bengal mured with the introduction of the Permanent

Settlement Act of 1793 which gave absolute right of ownership of land to the Zamindars,

the revenue collecting agents of the British authorities. The Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 gave

a few rights to other hierarchies, but nothing to the tillers sf land, the farmers, who were

only the tenants of the zarnindars. In 1950, after the independence of the Sub-continent, with

the enactment of the East Bengal Land Acquisition and Tenancy Act, the tilling farmers

earned the right to own land. Although the land ownership pattern is not the major focus

Recently thanas have beenrenamed as 'Upa-zila' meaning Subdistrict by upgrading the power and status of the Upa-Zila Executive Officer.

of interest in this communication thesis, this thesis accepts its critical role in the agriculture I

and rural development in Bangladesh.

Just after the partition of Bengal in 1947, a mass exchange of migrants, of Hindus

from East Pakistan and Muslims from Indian West Bengal, left a tremendous vacuum in East

Pakistan's agricultural economy, in education and administration. Before democracy could

properly evolve in the new country, which was busy in organizing necessary manpower and

institutions for development, the military acquired political power through a coup in 1958. To

legitimize its rule, this military government (and others which followed) introduced a series of

reforms and created several institutions to implement these reforms. A decade of the

militarily-controlled democratic rule and the domination of West Pakistan over East Pakistan

created serious economic, political and cultural differences between the two provinces. The

differences caused a mass upsurge against West Pakistan in 1969, which soon became a

freedom-struggle for East Pakistan and resulted in the birth of the new state of Bangladesh

in December, 1971. So in this thesis all activities described from the beginning of 1972

onward refer to the post-independence period.

Except for the first three years following independence, the country remained largely

under different military regimes. After independence, then the most popular political party, the

Awami League, under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, formed the government. But

within three years this government, inspired by the socialist forces both within and outside

the country, abolished the multi-party political system, introduced 'one party rule' and banned

all opposition newspapers except four government-party publications. This initiative faced

challege from the military through a bloody coup. In this coup, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and

most of his family members were killed. But after a counter coup and a series of clashes

within the military, General Ziaur Rahman emerged as an accepted ruler by both the

military and the people. Soon, General Zia introduced his political group, the Bangladesh

Nationalist Party (BNP), which ruled the country for six years before he was overthrown and

killed by another coup in 1981.

This time the military Chief of Staff being neutral to any political group allowed an

electioa in which, large and small, about 60 political parties participated. In this election the

incumbent Vice-president from BNP was elected as the country's President. But within nine

months, on March 23rd 1982, he was peacefully removed through another declaration of

martial law by the current President General Hussain M. Ershad. Since then General Ershad

has favoured a "democratic" government incorporating the military, either in parliament or in

some other form, to share both legislative and executive power; but the political parties

strongly opposed the idea. Only recently, after long maneouvre by both the government and

the opposition parties, May 7, 1986 was decided as election day, in which a prominent

opposition group, BNP, supported by several other political parties refused to participate,

anticipating possible riggings by the military-supported political forces. In this election the

Awami League, as a major party, agreed to contest the Presidential Bangladesh Jatio

(National) Party. What this election would provide to the military government and to the

Awami League, or how much influence the election-boycotting parties will have on the

political matrix of Bangladesh, are questions for future investigation.

However, each of the military rulers introduced ostensibly different but more or less

similar economic, political and local administrative changes. Since the country remained deficit

in food, achieving self-sufficiency in food became central to most governments' development

policies and politics. This politics of food production has been considered as an important

area of research in Bangladesh development Why and how the national government, and

international development agencies and the local institutions communicated their institutional I interests through the strategies of food production in the seventies and eighties, have been

analysed in this thesis.

The association of Bangladesh with the intemational development endeavours remained

very close because nearly 80 percent of the coun@yYs new money in national development

resources was and still is being provided by the international aid community, chiefly through

, the World Bank. Since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, till June 30, 1985, the

World Bank alone has invested more than 3.2 billion dollars through 101 different credit

agreements. The World Bank funded a total number of 45 major and 68 sub-technical

assistance projects in Bangladesh in the last 14 years. For 1986-87 all foreign donors together

have pledged $1.85 billion for Banglade~h.~

The role of the Word Bank in development in general and in Bangladesh in particular,

has created a great deal of interesting debate. Since the establishment of the World Bank

(International Bank for Reconstruction and Development: IBRD) in 1945, it has emphasized its

I economic development role; but it could not avoid the institution's equally political character. I - It is true that its offer of lending to the new states encouraged the decolonization process,

but at the same time, it helped to perpetuate the colonial rule by lending capital to the

In this dissertation, unless otherwise stated, dollars refer to US currency; in 1972 One US dollar was officially equivalent to 4.50 Bangladesh Taka, in 1974 it was 14 Taka, in 1980 it changed to 16.35, and in 1986 the rate is 31 Taka. There is an unofficial open market rate which is 15% to 20% higher than the official rate.

colonial powers to invest in their controlled territories. Later on, the decision not to provide

loans to Chile under Allende, to Brazil from 1958 till the military coup of 1964 or to

Indonesia under Suekerno, or to lend to Mobutu's Zaire and Marcos' Philippines even after

their economic mis-management clearly reflects the Bank's political and ideological bias.5 The

(/ World Bank borrows funds from the world's major financial markets, and invests through the

International Finance Corporation (PC) to the private borrowers in enhancing capitalist

development all over the world. But recognising the current international political realities, it

has started to finance the mixed and even pro-socialist economies such as Poland and

Czechoslovakia. Recently Hungary and China have become important socialist members nations

of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The International Development Association (IDA), the long-term soft-credit agency of

the IBRD was created in 1960 to provide lower-cost capital and development financing for

the developing c~untxies.~ But it was also not free from paradoxical policy formulations.

Mason and Asher saw the creation of IDA as a necessary attempt to guarantee IBRD's

survival in the face of a threating crisis of irrelevance in the sixties. "IDA, in short, had to

be invented to keep the Bank preeminent, or at least eminent, in the growing complex of

multilateral development agencies attempting to facilitate international development "7 Although

IDA seems to be an autonomous entity with power to make most credit decisions for itself,

in reality, it does not happen to be so. All the members of IDA are required to become

members of IBRD. The IDA'S policy of lending to governments only provides immense power I

to IDA to influence profoundly the governments of the recipient countries. Further, the same

officers and staff of the Bank make most lending decisions for IDA and supervise the IDA

projects at the field level.8 IDA simply maintains a separate account of its investment and

expenditure within the World Bank. But even with its limited autonomy, IDA has changed

the banking character of the World Bank into a development institution, particularly from the

beginning of Robert McNarnaraYs presidential tenure.

' Cheryl Payer, The World Bank: A Critical Analvsis , NY: Monthly Review Press. 1982 pp. 24-44.

IDA lendings are termed as "credit" and IBRD and IFC lending are called "loans" for convenient identifications.

Edward S.Mason and Robert E. Asher, The World Bank Since Bretton Woods, Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 1973. p. 380.

For Bangladesh's case, see Just Faaland (ed.) Influence: of Bangladesh, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1981. Also, Rehman Sobhan, The Crisis of External De~endence: The Political Fxonomv of Foreign &i Bangladesh , Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1982.

During McNamara's period (1968-801, the BankADA lending grew approximately fivefold

in real terms. Investment in agriculture, irrigation and rural development alone increased from

$633 million in 1961-70 to $6,978 million between 1977-80.9 The organization itself expanded

so much that its administrative expenditure increased from $441 million in 1981 to $667

million in 1985.1•‹ The World Bank lent $14.4 billion to 83 developing countries in 1985.

Among the major sectoss, Agriculture and Rural Development received 2691, Energy 25% and

Transportation 15%. Among individual recipient countries, India received the highest percentage.

approximately 21% of the total, followed by Brazil 1396, between 1978 and 1985. In this

period Bangladesh received 1.1% including $266 million in 1985 from IDA only. The

I Government of Bangladesh prefers soft-IDA credit over commercial IFC loans, because the

Government can exert full control over IDA funds but not over private IFC loans. Thus,

Bangladesh received only one loan from the International Finance Corporation for local

shipbuilding in the last 14 years, preferring the low interest rates of IDA. The IFC does

not perceive Bangladesh as a good commercial proposition.

Communication & Develo~ment

The World Bank's development efforts supplemented by the United Nations

"Development Decades", dominated the volume of development literature produced during the

period: rationalisation of the World Bank's efforts to help develop poor countries, and their

consequent effects emerged as the central theme. A major portion of this literature

concentrated on the economic characterization of these countries in order to show that their

historical development process, passing through definite stages, would be similar to the

industrialized countries of the West. Thus, it was felt that a second Marshall Plan of capital

and technology transfer to Asia, Africa and South America, with focus on increased

agricultural and industrial raw materials only, would be sufficient to achieve their development

goals. Walt Rostow, Wilbur Schramrn, Daniel Lerner, David MacLelland and others largely

subscribed to these ideas. Other scholars soon joined the endeavour, so that their stance

1 become known as a "paradigm" which dominated the intellectual arena of development until

about 1980. This paradigm was effective in the 1970s when the project described in this

dissertation was planned and initiated.

The World Bank, IDA Retrospect, Washington DC: The World Bank, 1982. p. 37.

lo Cheryl Payer, p. 15, and The World Bank, Annual Report 1985 p. 11.

In this stance most scholars assumed that development was a quantifiable phenomenon,

that the profit motive among individuals alone was sufficient to motivate all people toward

development, because all humans would respond rationally to economic incentives. They also

expected that the introduction of capital-intensive technology would naturally raise production

to bring widespread benefits to the less developed countries. What the scholars forgot to

include in their paradigm was the critical question of equity in distribution of wealth and

the effect of new wealth on the power relations in these already highly stratified societies.

A more specialized approach in this branch of scholarship was the diffusion theory.

Diffusionists added the assumption that an integration of communication, information and

technology would be adequate to bring about development by changing the existing

socio-economic, political and cultural structures.ll The essence of development for them was

also higher production, but included consumption of goods and services at the societal level.

The key to high production was technological innovation on which the patrons of these

scholars had a monopolistic control.12 Their perspective was also identified as the

"Administrative Theories" since their major purpose was to defend the controlling

establishment and administration, and to maintain the status quo in the power relations both

within classes in North America and their relation to the developing world.13

In practice, although 'the dominant paradigm' was effective in some cases, for most

others, it produced disastrous consequences. The effect of the paradigm was largely to

strengthen the American-dominated "free" economic relations with the less developed countries.

According to Peter Golding the whole process of development during this period was

" ahistorical" , "ethnocentric" and "western" .I4 The perspective did not recognize the autonomous

character of different countries, their societies and cultures, and the perceptions of the people

of these countries towards both their own and the "outside-helpers" needs. Besides, there was

no attempt in this perspective to include institutional factors that constrain the development

" Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, NY: Free Press, 1962. and Modernization Among Peasants: 'J& Imoact of Communications, NY: Holt, Renehart & Winston. 1969. See also, Wilbur Scramm and Daniel Lerner (eds.), Communication Change = Ten Years 2 and Next. Honolulu: East West Center, The University of Hawaii Press, 1976.

l2 Robin Mansell, "Telecommunications Subsidy Policy in North-West Canada and Alaska: A Comparison", M.A.Thesis in Communication, Simon Fraser University, 1979. pp. 13-20.

l3 For an extended bebate on "Administrative Theories", see Journal of Communication, Special Issue: Ferment in the Field. 1984.

l4 Peter Golding, Orthodoxy", J, of

"Media Role in National Development: Critique of a Theoretical Communication, Summer, 1974. p. 52.

1

11

process. The relevance of the notion of power in development seldom came under public

consideration even in the peripheral formulations of concepts in the "paradigm", although

power, for it, was a primary consideration "off stage". The development scholars adopting this

perspective rarely did any study on the relationships and communication among the different

development institutions in order to explain the development problems of Bangladesh. This

thesis is an attempt to extend that line of thought to explicate the the development problems

of Bangladesh in terms of the communication relations among the national and local

institutions in the context of an internationally-organized and funded project

Selection of Problem

Before going to Bangladesh for field research I was unclear which institutions I should

select for my study, although I decided to investigate "problems" in the relation of

communication and rural development I searched for a "situation" where I would be able to

observe the interplay of relationships, or in other words, the communication between the

different levels of institutions. Thus this study was, at the beginning, exploratory in nature

rather than a testing of particular preconceived hypotheses. The detailed research questions of

the study actually emerged as the field-data were gathered.

Since I defined the country's development problems as rooted in its agriculture and

rural people, my interest was directed to agriculture and farmer-related research "situations".

After exploring this for some time, I was about to decide on one of the three World Sank

supported medium-size agricultural development projects. Then a Deputy Secretary of the

Bangladesh Government, responsible for the coordination of the World Bank projects within

the country, suggested that I study an urban water supply project. This urban project was

one of the poorly managed projects in the country from the government's point of view.

When I expressed my interest in agriculture, the Deputy Secretary said that the rural sector

projects were being managed comparatively well. He suggested that if I was studying

agricultural projects I should look at the Barisal Irrigation Project since it was working

exceedingly well and was turning into an ideal model for many other projects in the country.

It was, he said, a model for how the different parastatal development institutions successfully

participate together with the farmers to help develop agriculture.

These comments of the Deputy Secretary provoked my interest in studying the Barisal

Irrigation Project. Furthermore, since I myself come from Barisal district, my enthusiasm and

access to study an institution in Barisal was obvious. I decided to investigate the patterns of

communication among the three levels of institutions involved in this "ideal" irrigation project,

through the project itself, in order to understand the country's development problems.

The major emphasis of the country's agriculture has shifted from the rain-fed monsoon

agriculture to the dry winter season irrigated-agriculture in the last two decades. The reason

was to overcome the vulnerability of the land from untimely rainfall, flood and drought

Water being the blood of agriculture, its regular and optimum availibility through irrigation

received central focus in the governmental agricultural policies. This emphasis on irrigation

and the use of high yielding seed varities was congruent with the international strategy of

the Green Revolution. The interaction between the international and the country institutions

became extensive since the early sixties, particularly through the World Bank, with the Bank's

expansion of the irrigated agriculture and rural development programmes, as stated before.

Within Bangladesh, in its two national Five-year Plans (1975-80, 80-85) irrigation as a

subsector alone received nearly 50% of the agricultural sectoral allocation. Moreover, most of

the government development institutions, including the four major institutions studied in this

thesis, became irrigation and rural development oriented. A sudden increase in yield in a few

experimental irrigated agricultural farms in the sixties lured farmers to compete for

state-subsidized and controlled irrigation pumps. This kind of irrigated rice agriculture, as

1. distinct from rain-fed, increased the dependency relationship of the farmers on the

government Irrigation pumps became an additional instrument of political communication

between the government agencies of the state and the rural population. Irrigated agriculture

thus became a factor and a key instrument of power relations in Bangladesh. Thus it is

necessary to study and understand irrigation - its context, its institutions, their roles and

relationships, and their consequences - to explain the problems of development in Bangladesh.

The absence of any single dominant landed or commercial class, or strong democratic

political institution, led the military and the bureaucracies to become oligarchies in Bangladesh.

The bureaucracies assumed the responsibilities of formulating centralized national planning and

structured the implementing institutions according to the needs of the most military

governments. The national development institutions in irrigation and agriculture became political

agencies of communication and control for the state rulers. To maintain the status quo in the

communicational structures, most governments introduced similar kind of motivational

programmes to turn this deficit country into a food self-sufficient one. The "self-sufficency in

food" through irrigated agriculture has remained the focal point of development politics in

the country since 1972.

One of these irrigation endeavours is the Barisal Irrigation Project (BIP). It is located

in a southern deltaic district of Barisal, some 70 miles from the capital city of Dhaka (see

map 2 and 3).15 This project was expected to create irrigation facilities for nearly one million

people in the 141,000 acres in four thanas at a cost of USS46 million dollars, of which

USS27 million was provided by the World Bank through an IDA-credit (contract No.

542-BD). Another USS3.12 million came from a grant by the European Economic Community.

The remaining USS15 million was contributed by the Government of Bangladesh.

The project was "jointly-managed" by the four leading parastatal institutions: the Water

Development Board (BWDR) the Agricultual Development Corporation (BADC), the

Department of Agricultural Extension and Management (DAEM) and the Integrated Rural

Development Programme (IRDP), and was "participated" in by farmers' cooperatives at the

village level.16 All the four national government institutions had their corresponding local level

officials through whom they "transferred" the national resources which they controlled, and

communicated their politics and motives to the farmers. The role of the local level officials

was crucial in the communication between the national and local levels since they were able

1, to influence the process by providing or restricting the national resource and information flow,

and by adding their own local interpretations and definitions in the communication.

The BIP officials asked the farmers to form irrigation pump-based cooperatives and

prepare field-channels to be eligible for the state-subsidized irrigated agricultural inputs. The

, formation of pump-based cooperatives was in contradiction to the existing local cultural norms,

as the thesis will explain. But when some farmers actually formed the cooperatives, the

officials created further bureaucratic constraints or even failed to provide the inputs. The

national and local officials were motivated towards their institutional values and objectives in

which their own interests were inscribed, rather than increasing production or improving the

farmers' condition. The preservation and enhancement of the institutional interests by the

national bureaucracies emerges as a major communication of the state in the national

development scene; and at the international level, the World Bank through providing ideas,

capital and expertise, became the complementing force in this communication among the

institutions. Thus scholarly inquiries into the problems of development remain inadequate and

IS Although not far 'as the crow flies', it is 14 hours by water and 10 hours by road. Barisal is therefore relatively isolated from the capital, and some thanas in which I worked are truly difficult to reach and travel in.

l6 Integrated Rural Development Programme changed its name to Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB) in 1983. But for convenient identification particularly in relation to the Barisal Irrigation Project, we would continue to identify BRDB as IRDP in this thesis.

superficial without understanding the matrixes of institutional relationships. This thesis has

attempted such an understanding.

Institutional Methodolony

Since this thesis is not an attempt to test any single hypothesis or theory, but is an

exploration into institutional behaviour and performance, "an institutional analysis" is deemed

to be an appropriate expression to identify its methodology. An institutional analysis is the

study of structural relationships among the government and local institutions to understand

how asyrnetrical power relations in these institutions are maintained and changed. The intrinsic

behaviours of the institutions include the intentions, values, codes, procedures, and conflicts,

and the consequences produced by their relationships. The unit of analysis in this

methodology remained the "relationships" themselves among institutions which, in other words,

means the communication patterns of the different institutions: how the institutions, in

practice, work for their survival and expansion.17

This perspective helps to explore the causes of a problem by integrating both the past

and the present roots and relationships of the problem. At the design level, this perspective,

l and particularly this thesis, has drawn considerable support from the long-term field research

method of social anthropology and sociology.

Anthropologists and sociologists define long term research as minimum of ten years

continuous or repeat-visit investigation into one specific area or problem. Although a longer

period of time would allow both greater depth and wider areas of inquiry, for dissertation

research the long term perspective consider an "annual cycle plus two months" as sufficient

length of time for a field study.18

Here, it is important to recognise the local pecularities of this society such as low

literacy (26%, 10-12 % in the rural areas) and a general evasiveness among the people,

which help to understand the development problems of Bangladesh. One explanation for this

evasiveness could be in the Buddhist and Islamic religious beliefs, practiced by the people in

this land, which highlight austerity in and withdrawal from worldly affairs. This may have

l7 Robin Mansell, "Industrial Strategy and the Communication/Information Sector:An Analysis of Contradictions in Canadian Policy and Performance". Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Communication, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, 1984, p. 9

l8 George M. Foster, etal. Lona-Term Field Research Social Anthrowolony, NY: Academic Press. 1979. p. 304.

restricted them, in general, in pursuing worldly interests in precise and definite terms. These

people have a cautious way of attaching meaning to their communication; thus their

communication regarding the conflicts in development issues are important aspects of this

complex society.

Based on extensive studies of the social and religious institutions of Bangladesh,

Professor Karim observed that due to the unreliability of statistics in the country, it is

difficult to study societal mechanisms and social policies from a statistical view point.

Alternatively, he found "social anthropological techniques of direct participation and observation

and knowledge of the language (even of the dialect) of the people under study," as more

appropriate.lg The reliability of the official data also poses a challenge to social researchers;

data used by development institutions, themselves become instnunents of the maintenance of

bureaucratic hierarchies in development projects. Examples have been included in Chapter VII

which demonstrate how, in the process of their creation and use, data mostly become tools

of communicational manipulation.

For this study 1 spent two years in the field though I took sometime off for teaching

assignments in Bangladesh. I returned for a month's follow-up research in March 1986. The

major technique followed in the field was, first, to identify one or more major issues and

then to follow them through their threads of relationships to comprehend the total web of

the problem. Most of these issues have their own structure as evidence to produce a form

of explanation at the micro level, and when they are seen comprehensively, they together

form an explanation of the major problems of BIP and the development problems of

Bangladesh. The technique was kind of a "detective" approach following links in the study of

institutional relations; repeat interviews of respondents proved to be a necessary and

productive technique; checking and rechecking of information and opinions became the major

role for the investigation.*O The process was tedious and was never totally free from

problems. Many of the tid-bits of information, I would confess, could not be integrated

because of an incomplete understanding of Barisal village society. On occasion, indefinite

responses by the interviewees did cost more time than we expected. It became necessary to

check and counter-check such information. This is one possible reason why research in

development projects with so many conflicts is difficult to undertake and also perhaps an

l9 A.K. Nazmul Karim, "The Methodology for a Sociology in East Pakistan" in M. Afsaruddin et al. (eds.) A.K. Nazmul Karim Commemorative Volume. ( Dhaka: Dhaka University Press, 1984. pp.45-49).

For the "pump-point" issue alone I checked with 14 major sources through 31 single and repeat visits.

explanation of the fact why people prefer use of already developed models and statistics in

I development research.

Another critical problem in the field was how to draw boundaries and impose

limitations: when and where to stop the inquiry into a specific event or of a respondent?

With the increase of time in investigation, the unfolding of relationships and the volume and

the quality of the data were becoming larger and greater. The total population of the study

area was huge, nearly a million people. It was difficult, therefore, to avoid arbitrariness in

making decisions in this area. It again confirmed that the time and resources of the

1 investigators of social research happened to be the strongest force against the objectives of

the work.

Institutions such as the World Bank and the Ministries of Finance and Agriculture of

the Government of Bangladesh also imposed restrictions on my access to their information.

This was less on documents or reports than it was on staff interviews. Although I was

successful in interviewing 3 of the key World Bank officials at their Bangladesh Mission and

14 senior officials of the government's Planning, Agriculture, Irrigation and Rural Development

Ministries, I could not interview the Head and the Deputy Head of the World Bank in

Bangladesh. Also my resources stopped me from a visit to the World Bank's Washington

headquarters in order to interview some of the international decision-making officials

associated with irrigation and Bangladesh development. In general, in their interviews, the

, national level Bangladesh government officials were more evasive than the local officials.

Recognizing the hierarchical structure and the control over the local institutions, I carried a

letter of introduction from higher authorities of each institution before talking to their local

level officials. Nevertheless, the local level officials were usually highly cooperative and were

eager to forward an opinion at all times. They seldom hesitated to describe problems in

development from their point of view.

In spite of the restrictions and problems I had some advantages too. It was a fortunate

co-incidence that my field study in the Barisal Irrigation Project started in late 1981, the

time when the Project was about to be completed. The two year investigation in the

post-completion period provided us with information on the project's achievements and

beneficiaries. Further, since I myself come from Barisal, as an investigator I had an added

advantage in this study. I knew many of the places and personalities and their histories and

stories in relation to Barisal. My ability to communicate in local dialects helped me in

comprehending the deep and unique meanings attached to their expressions. This proved to

be effective at the local officials' and farmers' levels, particularly in the four

thana-comparative data collection. I realized just how enthusi@kally people would open up in

order to communicate through their own and commonly shared language and frames of

reference.

Chapter Outlines

Some theoretical stances on communication and the state in relation to development,

employed in this thesis have been considered in chapter I1 and 111. Arguments were

developed in order to assess the state as a

and/or autonomous roles in development. A

was established. This was important because

bureaucracies as state power became evident

Bangladesh. The communication role of the

conflicting perspectives.

communication agency with its instrumental

distinction between state power and class power

a distinct autonomous role of the military and

in analysing the development problems of

state was analysed from both the integrating and

The context and the rationale for agriculture, irrigation and rural development

institution-building as a response to the state's needs are analysed in chapters IV and V as

a prologue to the Barisal Irrigation Project case study. Irrigation as a force of centralizing

political power (essentially by the Hydraulic hypothesis) is critically discussed with reference to

the development of irrigation and the Bangladesh state.

The analysis of the institutional power games as reflected in the issues of the BIP

runs through chapters VI to IX. Chapter VII is directed towards a key communicational

problem: the definition and statistics-creating roles of the institutions and their implications

for the Project.

The nature of communication in and through the BIP: the actors, the sources and the

cultural bases of cohesion and coercion, are integrated in chapter VIII. Examples of some of

the competitive communications are cited in the form of short illustrations such as the

Pumppoint issue, the dichotomous relations of the Outsiders and the Insiders, the We and

They issue , the Leadership Issue, and the Foreign Consultants' issue. These examples help

to explain the regressive trend of the project as opposed to the "most successful", "ideal"

attributions attached earlier to the project by its sponsors and administrators.

The four thana comparisons confirm that the state's discriminatory communication

strategy against some social institutions, particularly if they are in a minority, is inscribed in

the official development policies. This tends to perpetuate the state's relative autonomy. But

how these same local social institutions find their alternatives in competitive communication is

the emphasis in the later part of Chapter IX.

The concluding chapter analyses the project's benefits and beneficiaries, summarises the

major arguments, and raises future research questions, in the light of the experience of the

Barisal Irrigation Project and the lessons drawn by various participating institutions.

There are dozens of acronyms used by development planners and researchers in

Bangladesh. Thus for the convenience of the readers a list of acronyms, a glossary and a

chronology of the major events in the development history of Bangladesh have been included

in the appendix.

CHAPTER I1

COMPETITIVE COMMUNICATION, OVERT AND COVERT TECHNIQUES, AND POINT

OF VIEW

Communication is construed in this thesis as the articulation of all social relations

among people and institutions because communication is contained in the foundation of all

social processes. In the major theories of social change and development, whether they are

'positivist', 'radical' or 'mar~ist';~~, or 'evolutionary' 'system-modernization', 'political-economic'

or an 'innovation in the search of security',22 the notion of communication is omnipresent.

Communication is an interactive process in and through which both cooperative and

competitive relationships flow. This interactive process presumes a definite purpose: that is to

capture attention and create influence. Communication is thus not limited to the "sharing [of]

an orientation toward a set of informational signs",13 Nor is it just a "process by which

messages are transferred from a source to a receiver".24 The first definition by Wilbur

Schramrn limits the purpose of communication to the reduction of 'uncertainities' and

'alternative possibilities', in social decisions. In the second definition Everett Rogers sees

communication as an adoption technique in a diffusion process. In the first definition,

Schramrn accepts that people or entities "coming to a given piece of information, each with

his own needs and intentions, and comprehending and using the information in their own

way", perform their communicating role.15 But instead of pursuing why the actors comprehehd

a piece of information in t'leir own way, what articulations occur in the back of this

comprehending process, or what are the bases of their needs and intentions, Wilbur Schramm

turns his line of argument to affirm that communication is a neutral process.26

l1 P.W. Preston, Theories of Develo~ment, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982. Preseton discusses the roots and contributions of these three perspectives of development

l2 Szymon Chodak, Societal Development, NY: Oxford University Press, 1973. The author emphasizes the system-modernization approach in societal development.

l3 Wilbur Schramm, "Nature of Communication between Humans", in Schramm & Roberts (eds.) Process Effects of Mass Communication, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971. p. 13.

l4 Everett M. Rogers, et al. Communication of Innovations: A Cross Cultural Amraoch, NY: The Free Press, 1971 p. 11.

Schramm, op cit. p. 13

l6 Ibid. p. 14.

This study provides empirical evidence challenging the assumption of communicational

neutrality and posits that it is an organization and articulation of the influencing process

which exists both in cooperative and competitive relationships. In the course of social change

and development competition tends to overshadow cooperation. The basis of the communication

relationship between the ends is not just a matter of cooperation, diffusion and exchange as

the above definitions have explicated, but a conscious act of articulation in the competition,

and a potential source of conflict The "win-win" or "lose-lose" models of conflict, where all

parties either win or lose, are insufficient to explain the communication in and through the

case studied for this thesis. In a "win-lose" model, when communication occurs the source

attempts to influence the receiver, and the receiver by changing his role into a source in

every response, competes with his counterpart to create a new and stronger influence. In

other words, in communication, sources want to sway receivers to their side to gain advantage

and power over them. The extent and intensity of communication -in this model remain

unique in each situation depending on the name of source, content, channel and receiver.

The competence of actors in order to articulate and assert control over these components

remains key in this communicational competition. Examples abound of interest-oriented actors

manipulating the best available informational techniques, and continuously competing with each

other to turn situations to their advantage.

In this competitive communication, that is the back-stage articulation of competition,

there could be occasions when the act of communication seems to stop; in reality, it never

ends. Since it is a continuous process, it is often difficult to know when communication starts

and when it ends. In an apparent halt of communication, or according to some

communication scholars, when a "breakdown in communication" occurs, the actors only reduce

the pace of competition temporarily in order to invent new techniques and areas of more

influence. What occurs is a meaningful silence. In such a situation both the participants may

claim a "win" over the other, but in fact, each time one "wins" in order to influence and

control the other.

In an international communication system, competing parties each may claim a success

to prove a "win-win" model, but in practice, an evident relationship of dominance and

dependence prevails among the parties and countries. The concepts of "trade deficit",

. "unfavourable balance of payment", "cultural imperialism", "sovereignty at stake" etc. are only

a few examples of this dominance-dependence relationship. At the national level, in order to

resolve conflicts, people vote to express their rights and opinions and protect their interests.

However in reality, people in democratic societies, either as citizens or as consumers, rarely

win in the competitive communication with the dominant interest groups; though there are

occasions on which they think that they have won on certain issues. As another example of

competitive communication, at the local level, the withdrawal of the Agricultural Extension

representative from the Barisal Irrigation Project in the villages of Bangladesh, was perceived

as a "winning" move by the Directorate of Extension and Management over the Water

Development Board. But it did not help farmers to get rid of bureaucratic and technocratic

influences. Nor did it achieve the country's food self-sufficiency. But it protected DAEM's

interests, which seemed to be suffering in the BIP.

The techniques and strategies used in competitive communication are numerous, and they

vary in physical and psychological factors depending on their economic, political and cultural

context. But at each stage of social development there is a corresponding pattern of

communication. Furthermore, not all the techniques of competitive communication are explicitly

manifested, although in most cases control over the means and techniques remain central to

all strategies of influence.

The techniques of competitive communication in the modem international social milieu

are becoming more complex than in the past Today's supposedly competent communicators

tend to adopt many non traditional techniques, which include systems of influence such as

development programmes, financial policies, market structure, the Green Revolution and

irrigation systems in agriculture. These are intended as channels of communication to establish

relations with others. All of these are involved in the project under study in Bangiadesh.

Institutions and organisations are created as mediating techniques, and they are structured and

restructured accordingly. These institutions favour creation and introduction of new ideologies,

categories, and definitions as effective content of communication. A control over these means

and contents remains an objective of most actors in competitive communication. The following

chapters will examine why and how a number of these means have become integrated in the

"irrigated-agricultural strategy," which has served as a basis of competitive communication

between the international, national and local institutions in the development of Bangladesh.

Overt Covert Techniaues Communication

To achieve a definite influence in competitive communication a source selects particular

channels and contents to assure that whatever flows through the channels is for the best

benefit of the receiver, concealing the interest of the source. This reveals the difference

between overt and covert, between perceived and real, between subjective and objective roles

of the communicating actors.

For this thesis, overt communication is the openly manifested and expressed public

aspect of communication It is an explicit technique in which a receiver such as a farmer is

expected to perceive the message according to the intentionality of the source. Here the

receiver is expected to decode a similar meaning the source attaches in hislher

communication. A misunderstanding in communication is a consequential "noise" produced by

either communicators or by the process, which may also have a covert character. Conversely,

covert communication is the mode in which a source, being clear about the real intention

and its own interest, adopts devices to conceal them from the receiver. It is a strategem

designed not to communicate the sources' "real" and "objective" intention which he

overshadows by rhetoric. Here the receiving end is not expected to understand the

communicator's real intentions. The source may or may not recognise his own "covert" role

in the communicational process; as well, the receiver may not perceive i t However, from an

analyst's point of view, the covert technique plays a very important part in social

communicational process.

In this overt-covert communicational dichotomy, the question of point of view provides

important insight which is discussed in the following section. The dichotomous nature of

actors is possibly present in all communicators in society, whether they are individuals or

institutions. However, this thesis will limit its inquiry to the international, national, and local

institutions in the development of Bangladesh.

When the international, national and local institutions communicate their intentions

through policies and programs or structures, they formulate their messages in such a way as

to reflect their interpretation of the serious problems of their receivers. It is crucial for the

source that the receiver recognises the source as the only one capable of helping and that

the source is indeed essential to the solving of their problems.27 The dominating actors

communicate their intentions in such a persuasive rhetorical mode that their receivers seem

compelled to accept them. By definition, rhetorics are highly motivated acts intended to

maximize the receiver's acceptance of the source's goals.28 In the dichotomy of overt and

covert communication the notion of rhetoric performs a vital role. Three illustrations from

international, national and local level institutions will support this view.

27 Robert S. Anderson et al. Science, Politics A~ricultural Revolution & , Colorado: W estview Press, 1982 p. 377.

Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives, Cleveland: World Pub. Co., 1955 pp. 160-162.

International level

When the World Bank defined ma1 development for Bangladesh in terms of physical,

infrastructural, irrigation based agriculture, and in terms of creating new types of institutions

to mobilize development resources, the Bank and its associated international development

institutions were prepared to invest in new nual development ventures.29 The Bank helped

Bangladesh to design rural infrastructural programs, irrigated-agricultural projects, and

restructure the principal agricultural and financial development institutions. The World Bank

proposed the definition of rural development in such a way that all these efforts were seen

as vitally necessary for the benefit of Bangladesh. This strategy was articulated in such a

rhetorical fashion that Bangladesh and a good number of the least developed members were

caught in a trap of the Bank's rhetorics; rhetorical visions provide the impressive "composite

dramas which catch up large groups of people in a symbolic reality".30 The sector policy

paper of the Governement of Bangladesh bears significant analytic similarities to the World

Bank's position?l The overt communication of the Bank was not consistent with its underlying

development interests. The World Bank was never explicit (in these definitions) about its own

gain during this communication flow. It never said that the international rural development

strategy would also increase its investment in the less developed states, which would in turn

bring huge economic and political benefits to the Bank and its developed member countries.

Although the Bank was not the sole generator of these benefits, it was a leading institution

in the articulation of the problem.

National level

At the national level, states and governments both adopt the same dichotomous strategy

in competitive communication, according to the necessity of preserving their own main

interest: which has been the sustenance and expansion of the state structure and control over

the people.

2 9 The World Bank, Rural Development: Sector Policv Paper, Washington, DC: WB, 1975 p. 2

30 Ernest G. Bormann, "Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticismof Social Reality", AOJ of Speech, No. 58, 1972, p.7

3' Compare reports: (a) Bangladesh Planning Commission, Stratenv for Rural Development Proiects: Sector Policv Paper, Dhaka: GOB, 1984 and (b) the World Bank Rural Development Sector Policy Paper.

All the governments in Bangladesh since 1960 designated the strategy of "food

self-sufficiency in three years" to alleviate the food and poverty problem of the country.

Following the strategy, the governments have created numerous top-heavy national and local

development 'institutions. In overt communicational terms governments announced a crucial role

for local institutions in the country's rural development But following a covert

communicational strategy governments provided power and capacity only to the national

institutions. Despite governments' rhetorical promises these local institutions for rural

development remained the weakest among all all levels of formal institutions of the

Such a paradox deserves more explanation.

In contrast to the weak local institutions for development, the protective and

administrative institutions of the state, such as the military, police and bureaucracy, remained

strong. In some cases they became even more powerful and pervasive.33 The structure and

influence of national agricultural development institutions such as the Water Development

Board, Agricultural Development Corporation, and Integrated Rural Development Programme,

expanded greatly, while at the village level, the villagers' organization such as the Village

Cooperatives, the Union Councils, etc. which I called local institutions, which actually realize

the development policies in the field, failed to increase in their effectiveness. Thus the

achievement of self-sufficiency in food became difficult. The Governments used the food

self-sufficiency as a technique of their political communication.

No government ever acknowledged that within the manoeuvre sf "seif-sufficiency", there

lay another dissembled strategy helping the government to strengthen and expand the state

structure and exert more control over the rural masses. The concealed but objective purpose

of the government was to watch over the rural people so that they did not gain power and

capacity through strong local institutions, because strong local institutions would cause

competition with the national institutions. In a later chapter, this argument will be elaborated

in relation to the role of the state as an autonomous communicating agency in the process

of development.

- -

32 Elliot L. Tepper, "The Administration of Rural Reform: Structural Constraints and Political Dilemmas", in Stevens, Alavi and Bertocci (eds.) Develo~ment Bangladesh and Pakistan, Honolulu: East West Center, University of Hawaii, 1976. p. 42. See also, Robert Anderson, "Impression of Bangladesh: The Rule of Arms and the Politics of Exhortation", Pacific Affairs Vol. 49, No. 3, (Fall, 1976), pp. 443-475.

33 See T. Manimzaman, "Future of South Asia, London: C.Hurst & Co.

Bangladesh", in Wilson and Dalton (ed.) The States of 1982. pp. 265-294.

Local level

The argument about the overt and covert comunicational role of the actors can also

be extended. to the local level relationships. Two appropriate illustrations are cited from the

Barisal Irrigation Project.

First, in the Barisal Irrigation Project (BIP), when the supervising irrigation engineers of

the Water Development Board (WDB) defined this project as only an "irrigation project",

they looked at it solely from their point of view; it is their interests which exert influence

and control over the project. For if they agreed with the definition of another participating

institution: the Department of Agricultural Extension and Management (DAEM), who saw it

as an "agricultural project", the WDB-engineers would have to release some financial and

management control of the project to the Deputy Director of Agriculture. This the engineers

would never do, because they would thus lose ground in competition with their counterpart,

The WDB had jurisdiction only over the water and irrigation projects in the country. "Barisal

is an irrigation project" was the rhetorical public definition of the Water Board. An objective

but covert definition which they never expressed explicitly, was that they derived advantage

out of this project, to preserve their interest they will hold control over it. Therefore, it is

an irrigation project.

For the second illustration, the agricultural cooperative movement in Bangladesh, in the

last two decades, came under the strong control of the government. The Thana Central

Cooperative Association (TCCA), the federating body of the Krishi Samabaye Samities (KSS:

Village Agri-coop Societies) was to be managed by an elected committee of members. During

the 1960's when the experimental cooperative programs were expanding, the government

proposed to design the TCCA's as an "autonomous, self-managed and viable institution" of

the village cooperator^.^^ But that was rhetoric. In reality, following its covert plan, it

appointed its bureaucratic agent: Thana Project Officer (TPO) as the chief executive of the

TCCAs to manage and control over them on behalf of the government. Later on, in a

power struggle between the appointed TPOs and the elected Chairmen of the

TCCA-committees, some of the authority of the bureaucrat over the committees was curtailed,

yet the TPOs remained as the powerful member-secretary of the TCCAs. Today, the success

of the cooperative movement is limited due to the competitive communication between the

elected local public representatives and the appointed goverment TPOs. Presently these

an, of Twentv Thanas, Cornilla: BARD, 1971, pp. 24-25. Also, Joint Review Report of Integrated Rural Development Programme, by the World Bank the Government of Bangladesh, 1981, p. 131.

28

cooperatives have become government controlled organizations to promote the sale

governmental irrigated agricultural inputs.35 The covert interest of the government,

influence over the village people through these cooperatives, is being achieved by

local institutions weak and ideologically confused,J6 and checked by administrative power.

of

to gain

keeping the

These illustrations show the contradiction between the overt and covert techniques in

competitive communications adopted by actors at various levels. A later chapter on institutional

response will illustrate a more critical role of competitive communication in the development

of Bangladesh. At this point an explanation on the question of the role of "point of view"

in competitive communication is needed.

P& of Communication

The "point of view" of an actor has profound bearing on the outcome of

communication because it shapes the nature and extent of overt-covert relationships in

communication flow. The point of view may be defined as the position or stance through

which a subject matter or relationship is mentally viewed. It is the basis of judging the

relative importance of a subject or relationship. In communication, "a performer tends to

conceal or underplay those activities, facts and motives which are incompatible with an

idealized version of Achievement of one's interests is the real purpose of the

idealized self of an actor. Which activity, fact, and motive will be under or over-played to

achieve an actor's interest depends on his point of view. It is an analyst who must combine

points of view, using both "experience-near" and "experience-distant1', "phenomenological" and

"objectivist", "etic" and "emic", approaches to study cornm~nication.~~

The meaning attached to a message is to be understood from the point of view of

the actor. A source may provide a message with a meaning-attached from his point of view,

3' Joint Review Rewort of IRDP, 1981, p. 7.

36 Jan P. Ernmert, Breakdown & Ideolo~v: Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1980.

'' Erving Goffman, Presentation of Self & Evervday Life, NY: Doubleday & Co Inc. 1976 p. 48.

j8 These are some of the concepts used by social anthropologists to identify the dichotomous relationships between the researchers and their subjects. Clifford Geertz, "From the Native Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding", Keith Basso (ed.) Meaning ef Anthrowolow, 1976. pp. 222-223.

but the receiver may get a message which is unintentionally "given-off" by the source. This

could result in an 'un-communicational' situation from the source's point of view. But in fact,

there is no 'un-communicational' status in a social process. It is impossible for an actor,

whether an individual or institution, not to communicate. "The act of not-communicating also

says something about the intention of the actors involved".39 What recipients will accept is

not necessarily determined by what sources have offered, but by their own estimates of what

their need is. In communication, "what they [recipients] want from the authority [source] is

as important as what the authority has to offer."40 The recipients construct meanings out of

messages depending on their own influencing needs and communication competence. Failure to

recognise the recipients' point of view, i.e. recipients' perception of their needs, often produces

dysfunctional communication effects, which sometimes may even be counter-productive. The

communicational context of the independence of Bangladesh is an appropriate example.

In the 19603, the military President Ayub Khan introduced a series of socio-political

reforms under the definition of 'development and national integration' in Pakistan, which has

been called a "Double C~untry ."~~ This 'development and national integration' strategy was his

rhetorical communication. One of the military ruler's primary intentions of the reforms was,

first, to penetrate the rural power-base to expand and consolidate his political authority in

Bangladesh and turn Bangladesh into a consuming partner of Pakistani products. Second, he

wanted to make it an active member of the 'world market system'. It is true that he was

successful in the early years, when he had massive foreign support. But eventually his

intentions and communication became counter-productive with the effect that his government

was overthrown and the country di~integrated.~~ Failing to understand the recipients' point of

view was a major reason for this: also the recipients began to understand what he was

"giving off" during his final years.

The strategies of reforms of President Ayub Khan, which included Basic Democracy in

politics, the Green Revolution for economic development, and 'Islamization' for cultural

3 9 George Gordon, Persuasion: Theorv p& Practice of Manipulative Communication, NY: Hastings House Pub., 1971. p. 39.

40 Richard Sinnet, AuthoritV. NY: Alfred Knopf, 1980, p. 25.

41 Richard Weeks, Pakistan: p& Growth of a Muslim Nation, Princeton: Princeton U. ^ Press, 1972.

4 2 See, Rounaq Jahan, "East Pakistan During the Decade of Ayub: Prelude to Crisis", Bertocci (ed.) Bennal p& Bennal Studies 1970, Michigan: Michigan State University: Asia Study Center, 1971, pp. 1-28; also, her, Pakistan: Failure of National Integration, Dhaka: Oxford University Press, 1973.

integration, were targeted towards the rural people, in whom, from Ayub's point of view, the

country's power base prevailed. In advancing his point of view, Ayub superseded the existing

power bases of semi-urban, bureaucratic, business and political elites of East Pakistan. He

failed to rebgnise the semi-urban Bengali middle-class recipients' estimation of their own

need, which was not only the economic development of East Pakistan but also to have a

fair share in the political, economic and military-bureaucratic decision making in the whole

country. So the intention of his rhetoric and his real covert communication proved to be

incompatible. His strategy to integrate the competing forces of a double country into one,

through forced Islamization of culture became th:: explicit pretext for Pakistani domination

over Bengali culture. Eventually his government was challenged and overthrown by dreadful

political upheaval.

The competitive communication between the Pakistani military as a source, and the

Bengali elites as a recipient, and the source's failure to understand the recipients' perceived

needs - to earn the capacity to compete and dominate the country's affairs - resulted in the

disintegration of the country. This disintegration was counter-productive from the military

ruler's point of view; but the violent arms-struggle itself and the independent state of

Bangladesh were highly productive from the point of view of the later ruling

military-bureaucratic oligarchies of the new-born state. This is an example that illustrates that

point of view is an important idea for this analysis of the interplay between international,

national and local institutions. It plays a key role in the analysis of the Barisal Imgation

Project and helps to explain its chronic difficulties.

CHAPTER m THE STATE AS AN AUTONOMOUS COMMUNICATION AGENCY

In order to interpret the problems of development, the second notion employed in this

thesis is the role of the state as a relatively autonomous communicating institution. It is the

most powerful institution in society which articulates its interests very strongly. The rationale

for employing this concept lies in the fact that the development in Bangladesh is in total

state control, and that the state perceives the development of the people as a responsibility

assigned to the state. If we accept this notion, then it is surely a futile attempt to

understand the problem of development in Bangladesh without studying the role of the state:

its intentions, communication, and their consequences.

From its inception, the state as a communication institution has played a dynamic role

in the transformation of society. In its own development process the state has acquired so

much power that today it may literally "move mountains and redirect rivers, and has on

occasions sent untold thousands even millions, to their deaths".43 The functions of the state

are so complex and diverse that scholars find it dff~cult to agree upon its exact role; still,

most recognise the profound role it plays in competing with and intervening into other

institutions of societal development. This thesis notes an additional dimension to the traditional

functions of the state - the communicative function.

The literature on the functions of the state may be approached from two broad

positions of integration and conflict.44 The integration position posits that the state and

government through their enormously increased capabilities to manage and provide benefits to

their huge divers population, reach into a contract with the non-ruling groups to receive

widespread recognition and support from them. On the other hand, the conflict position states

that the centralization of power is the major function of the state which arises due to the

competition among the ranks and classes for greater access to a society's scarce resources.

Although the two positions remain contradictory, they do not completely disregard each other's

stance. Differing on the basis of both association and ranks, the two positions, however,

4? Ronald Cohen, Origins of the m, Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978. p. 1.

44 Jonathan Hass, Evolution of the Prehistoric &i&, NY: Columbia University Press, 1982. Also Cohen, "Introduction",Oriains of the State. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978. pp. 1-20. Cohen adds a third dimension, the Diagnostic Trait, in addition to the conflict and integration functions, which include, stratification, authority Structure and information processing roles of the state.

recognise that the state is a relationship in which resources, allegiance, and authority flow

between groups, which is central to the communication function of the state as will be seen

in the case of BIP and in the BIP's comparison with the non-project area in Chapters Six

through en in this thesis.

Communication Function of &&

An enlarged definition of the origin and function of the state is necessary to

comprehend the communication role of this influential institution of society. According to

Cohen:

The forpation of the state does result from competition over scarce resources when bfferent grou s have unequal access to the available supplies. States do clearly create bme& for their citiz,enry, who are in turn oblized to !uppprt. a, rulin class. People. do also resent inequality and ma even rebel agillnst inw&ous privikffs that depnve them of access to resources wiile granting access to others.

In this definition the terms "competition", "different groups", "access", "create",

"benefit", "obliged", "support", "result", "drive", "grant" etc. all assume the connotations of

the process and techniques of communication. Each of these terms and their combinations

have the implication of establishing a complete or partial relationship between two or more

, ends with a definite intention. At the same time the definition itself describes a

communicational function which presupposes either competitive or cooperative, or in some

cases both relationships. In its communication, the state has been performing in one or more

roles as a source, medium, message or a receiver. Resources, ideology, allegiance, power and

authority, all , sometime or other, were the software of this communication.

The state as a source in a communication process creates and communicates ideologies,

laws, policies and thus competes with other so&-political institutions, both within and out of

the state structure. Its role as a medium is limited in its instrumental function of control on

behalf of the competing classes in society. For being a "medium", to draw a McLuhanesque

45 R. Cohen, 1978, Op cit., pp. 7-8

analogy, it by itself "is the message".46 The message-character of the state is dependent on

each of the state's location in the historical and political-economic development context. The

message is embedded in the characterization of the state, such as, city-state, kingdom, divine

state, democratic, soft, socialist etc. As a receiver, it commands power and allegiance from the

people. Since the inception of the state, its primary intention and incessant communicating

function has been the sustenance and enhancement of its structure through continuous exercise

of authority and control over its subjects. For this purpose it has adopted both overt and

covert techniques, which are explit in the state's definition and data creation roles and in its

function of asymetric resource distribution among different areas (in this case BIP and

Non-BIP thanas) analysed in Chapters VII and IX respectively.

The communication role of the state in the development of a nation presents new

questions to both communication and development scholars: is the state simply a medium, or

is it an actor with an independent role in the development of its people? Does it in fact

have a double role? Since the state plays a dominant role in all affairs of the South-Asian

post-colonial societies, md since this stxc!y ccotlcenD~tes on that area, the questiom are mcre

pertinent for this thesis. If the state enjoys an actor's role, then does it have any autonomy

of its own in its communicating function: Does it communicate being independent of the

dominant classes? If it plays an instrumental role, whose messages does it carry in the

pretext of national development? Furthermore, in the post-colonial situations in the absence of

a very strong or a single well developed dominating class, what instrumental role does the

state play? These are important communication questions which need to be raised in order to

understand the state's role in the development of Bangladesh. In the following pages, the two

key positions: integration and conflict, will be compared with respect to the instrumental and

autonomous functions of the state. These ideas are employed to interpret the problems of

46 Marshall McLuhan, American Library Inc.

"The Medium is the Message", Understanding Media, NY: New 1964. pp. 27-35.

development in the post-colonial South Asian societies, particularly of Bangladesh.

Integration: Instmental Autonomous Roles

The integration position focusses on the structures of society and the state, and assumes

a 'social contract' among their parts. Society, in this view, is a biological organism, a system

of specialized and inter-related components all operating together for the survival of the

~hole .4~ Ibn Khaldun, a 14th century sociologist-geographer, was perhaps the first to present

this perspective through his conception of "As~abiyah".~~ Then in the later part of the 19th

century Herbert Spencer very slsillfuly gave the position a concrete manife~tation.4~ Although

the position considers cooperation and unity as the major function of society and the state, it

recognises the presence of countless 'minor' conflicts that occur at both individual and

institutional levels, which society and the state incorporate in the changing process.s0 Ludwig

Gwnplo~ icz~~ , Franz OpenheimerS2 Sumner and KellerJ3 and many others have advanced the

position through empirical evidence.

47 Hass, op cit, p. 59

48 "Assabiyah" means integration. See, Charles Issawi, Prolegma of Zbn Khaldun, London: Murray, 1950. Nathoniel Schmidt, Ibn Khaldun, NY: AMS Press, 1967. Also Rollin Chambliss, Social Thought: Chapter on Khaldun, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Woinsster, 1954; A. Shafiqur - Rahman, "Ibn Khaldun: Contribution to Sociology", Dhaka:Bangladesh Observer, April 29, 30 and May 3, 1983

49 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociolow, NY: D.Appleton & Co., 18967-97.

Elman Service, "Classical and Modem Theories of the Origins of Government", in Cohen (ed.) Op. cit, pp. 21-34

Sociolo&il Eassavs, Innsbruck: Wagner (reprint). 1928. and Outlines of Socioloay, Innsbruck: Wagner (reprint) 1963.

s 2 1914.

s3, Sumner and Keller, 'Folkwavs: of socio1oe;ical importance of usage, manners, customs, mores and morals, Boston: Ginn. 194.

In the sociological literature the integration position has been used to explain the

functions of society and the state by Durkheim, Weber and Parsons. In recent times, Samuel

Huntington, Shmuel Eisentadt, Gabriel Almond, Lucian Pye and others, extended it in the

literature of sociology of development; and Elrnan Service has become the leading advocate of

this viewpoint in political anthropology. Explaining the functional origin of the state Service

asserts that a strong central government i.e the state gradually evolved as an adaptive reponse

to the needs of an enlarged integrative mechanism in a wider and a more complex cultural

system, called society.54 Service defined the state as a centralized hierarchical system of

authority relations in which local political units voluntarily submit their independence to the

centre in consideration of their own interest. Projecting evidence from all six of the archaic

~ivilizations~~, he argues that there are major interactive benefits found by most groups in a

strong centralized government:

Centralized government offers protection and security, machinery for settling disputes, and access to sustenance and exchange for loyal acceptance of a overlordship that satisfies new needs in a changing situation.s6

Service does not recognise the economic basis of social stratification in the origin of the .

state. For him, the base of power lay in the politid and religie~s syheres,

economiestratification followed only with the state's emergence: "It is conterminous with state

origin". The factors that produced centralized leadership brought with them the organization of

a ruling group or class. This view is dialectically opposed to the conflict position which will

be examined later. For the integration position the emergence of class is a result of state

formation, and not a cause of it. 57

5 4 Hass, Opcit., p. 73

55 The six archaic civilizations referred were: Mesoamerica, Peru, Mesopotemia, Egypt, Indus, and China. Service, Op.cit., p. 7.

Cohen, Op.ciL, p. 7.

5 7 Ibid. p. 7.

Throughout the literature of the integration position, the instrumental role prevailed over

the autonomous role in the function of the state. Durkheim, a sociologist of conservatism and

consensus, formulated an integrative evolutionary conception to argue that the state is a

funtional instrument of society, necessitated by its division of labour. Through its instrumental

function the state protects its individual members from the repression of the elementary

societies by exerting pressure on these societies of which it itself is made Although

Durkheim did not engage himself in a deep inquiry into the state's instrumental or

autonomous role as Marx and Max Weber did, he argued that the state evolved in a

'normal' social development demanded by society's higher division of labour.

In the Weberian analysis of society, the state remained at the centre. But Weber did

not follow either the evolutionary conception of Durkheim and Marx, or their contrasting

deterministic models of division of labour and the relations of production. Rather, Weber's

construction of society and state was based on the facts of political managerial dynamics:

"change in social system is influenced not only by the means of production but equally by

the means of administrati~n."~~ Weber considered the state as a

political enterprise of institutional character in which, and to the extent that, administrative agency successfully claims, in enforcing its regulations, a monopoly of legitimate physical force.60

He argued that the political power and the pattern of leadership, that is, the state, are

independent of the economic stages of society. He employed a typological classification as his

analytical method and distinguished three major types of 'legitimate domination': the

charismatic, the traditional, and the rational. According to his stance, only the rational type of

domination runs through the political structure of the state; only emergence of rational

5 8 Bertrand Badie & Pierre Birnham, Socioloay of w, Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 1983 pp. 14-15.

5 9 Ibid. p. 17.

60 Max Weber, Wrischaft y& Gesellschaft, Chapter 1, Sec 17, p. 29, quoted in Badie, Op. cit, p. 20.

bureaucracy characterizes the existence of a modem state. Weber expected an 'ideal type' of

behaviour from the rule-governed state bureaucracy, which would be the "only possible

defender of- the public good".61 For the maintenance of high moral standards among

bureaucrats, he frowned upon their participation in the politics of the state. He saw them as

an instrument: a 'spore of the modem Western State'.62 Weber found an instrumental role of

the state, whose operation was only possible through a rule-governed, ideal-typed bureaucratic

structure.

Influenced by the Weberian perspective Talcott Parsons63 and Samuel H~ntington~~ have

developed the System and Modernization theories respectively, which accept thzt the

rule-governed bureaucracy contributes heavily to the reduction of social cohesion. As

supporting evidence, they illustrated the relatively peaceful character of western societies. In

these theories, the state and bureacracy have been explicitly assessed as instrumental to social

integration, to a 'centralizing process', or as an instrument of stability. The state and

bureaucracy have been considered as institutions with immense capabilities to initiate and

pursue programs of development for the benefits of the whole society. All these integrating

functional theorists and many more, such as, Gabriel Almond65 and Shmuel Ei~enstadt~~

emphasized the instrumental rather than autonomous role of the state. Only Max Weber

61 Ibid. p. 22.

b2 Ibid. p. 20.

63 Talcott Parsons, "Evolutionary Universals in Society", American Journal of Sociolonv,( June, 1964); also his, Svstem o_f Modem & aci Englewood, Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971.

64 Samuel Huntington, "Political Modernization: America Vs Europe", in Reinhard Bendix (ed.) && Societv. (Boston: Brown, 1968) pp. 170-199

65 Gabriel Almond and J.S.Coleman (eds.)m Politics of Developing Areas, Chapter on "Introduction: A Functional Approach to Contemporary Politics", Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1960.

66 Shmuel Eisenstadt, "Some New Looks at the Problems of Relations between Traditional Societies and Modernization", Economic Development Cultural Change, 16, No.3, 1968. pp. 436-450; also his book, Tradition, Change and Modernitv, NY: Wiley, 1973.

38 1

mentioned the independence of the charismatic typology of authority which implies a necessity

of autonomy of the states' leaders; but it is not necessarily a universal characteristic of the

modem state. Talcott Parsons did not pursue the question of autonomy to a great extent,

although he recognised its important role: the state through becoming increasingly specialized,

to fulfill its goal attainment function, requires an independent role to guide the social action.

These theorists have argued that their system-modernization model, which is an outcome

of the instrumental-integrative perspective, inscribes a certain path of development, and that

all developing systems must strive for i t In practice this has taken place in recent decades:

The instrumental notion has become the basis of most administrative theories and strategies of

state development in the post-colonial developing nations, sponsored by the Western capitalist

societies. The strategy has helped the capitalist societies to integrate many developing nations

as supporting partners into their neo-colonial world system.67 Following this strategy, the state

has acquired almost an unlimited power and control over the resources and people of the

post-colonial societies. To sustain this power and control, these societies enhanced their

statestructure through reorganizing the old and creating numerous new development

' institutions. Research for this thesis has found that the people of a post-colonial developing

society like Bangladesh, perceive the state's role to an extent that they expect a development

agent of the state to clean even a field-channel for irrigation in or between private

agricultural plots.

In contrast to the integration position, both the instnunental and autonomous roles of

the state are conspicuously noticeable in the conflict position, particularly in the marxist

literature of the state. In recent years, the notion of autonomy and its derivative: the concept

of relative autonomy have become important tools to interpret the state's role in

devel~pment.~~

67 Immanuel Wallerstein, World Svstem, NY: Academic Press, 1976.

68 see the debate between Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas on 'Autonomy' and 'Relative

& Conflict: Instrumental Autonomus R&

The conflict position in approaching the functions of the state had been enunciated by

Lewis Henry Morgan, Henry Maine and others, and was most forcefully championed by Karl

Marx and Frederick Engels in the last century. This position is based on an analysis that

probed stratification and argued that the state originated and evolved in response to the

conflicts between unequal social classes. Stratification divides population so that the control

over the resources of society are differently enjoyed. The people who capture the means of

production in society, become powerful and enjoy more resources than those who do not own

the producing means.

The marxist instrumental presumption affirms that with the passage of time, the

economic surpluses brought about by a change in subsistence technology have produced

multiple divisions of labour in society. This has increased centralized control over the means

of production, and concentration of the means and produced wealth in the hands of few.69

The extent of ownership in the means of production has determined the basis of class

power. An unequal access to the produced wealth by these divisions has created 'classes' in

society. The extent of ownership in the means of production detekned the basis of class

power. Imbalance in the access to resources and power resulted in antagonism among the

classes. With the sharpening of class-antagonism, and to organize, legitimize and sustain the

dominating relationship between the ruler and the ruled, the state emanated. The state

continued to be the instrumental structure of class exploitation.

68(~ont'd) Autonomy' of the State, in New Left Review, No.58, 1969, No.82, 1973, No.138, 1983. Also Hamza Alavi, "The State in Post-Colonial Sociey: Pakistan and Bangladesh", New _Left Review, No.74, 1972. An eliiborate discussion on the debate follows in a later part of this chapter.

6 9 The analysis of irrigation system as a means of centralizing political control had been dealt by Karl Wittfogel, Edmund Leach and others. A critical discussion on "Hydraulic Hypothesis" in relation to Bangladesh development has been included in Chapter V.

The primary 'instrumental' view of the state within the conflict position finds its most

categorical dictum in the Communist Manifesto, where Marx and Engels have written that:

"The executive of modem state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the

whole bourgeoise". They consider political power as "merely the organized power of one class

for oppressing another" .'O

In the late sixties Lawrence Krader and Morton Fried upheld this conflict position and

popularized the state's instrumental role in the literature of political anthr~pology.~~ Following

Marx and Engels, they argued that the state's major function is to extract and appropriate

the ingredients of power in favour of the ruling classes, the function in which, this thesis

assumes, immense articulation are sure to occur. The process and techniques of articulation in

its power appropriation is the state's communication function. The state acts as an instnunent

to protect and maintain the privileges of the powerful, and allows control and domination

over the powerless.72 For them, the state is a "centralized governmental system that emerges

inevitably from any system of institutionalized inequity in which the leaders, or ruling group,

have special access to those resources that sustain and enhance life"?3

The primary view in the conflict thesis, which describes the state as the basic

insaunent of the ruling class, has dominated the intellectual arena for a long time. A

secondary view, which considers the state as an autonomous and superior institution to all

social classes, rather than only an instrument of the dominant class, is an important recent

derivation from the earlier view. The latter view argues that the state is an independent

actor in society, communicating its intentions in a discrete way, overcoming competition from

70 Marx and Engels, "Communist Manifesto", in Lewis S. Feurer (ed.) Basic Writinns on Politics Philosophy, NY: Doubleday, 1959. p. 9.

71 Lawrence Krader, Formation of m, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1968; Morton Fried, Evolution of Political Society, NY: Randon House, 1967.

7 2 Krader, Opcit, p. 25.

l 3 Cohen, Op.cit, p. 3.

other potential ruling compatriots. But most of all, in this thesis, in its communicational

process, the state has been sustaining and enhancing its own institutional This

autonomous xole of the state power is a key argument to understand the competitive

communication which was the hallmark of the irrigation project.

Autonomous Communication & the &&

Marx, in contrast to his Communist Manifesto, where he had contended that the State

serves as an instnunent of an oppressing class, had another view which sees the state as an

autonomous institution of society independent from and superior to all social classes. The later

view of Marx can be traced in his 'The 18th Bnunaire of Louis BonaparteY(l851) and

'Critique of the Gotha Program' (1875). Although Marx was very explicit about his position

in the Communist Manifesto, he was aware that states do take different forms in different

societies, even within the same mode of production. His argument for autonomy was quite

clear in these writings.

In the later source, making comparison of the societies in the West, Marx remarks

that:

The present day state changes with a country's frontier ...[ it] is different in the Prusso-German Empires from what it is in the United States. The present day

l4 See Ralph Miliband, && Ca~italist Society, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969; Marxism Politics , Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1982 also his, "Poulantzas and the Capitalist State", New Left Review No.82, Nov-Dec, 1973, and "State Power and Class Interests", NLR, No.138, 1983; Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes,(England:New Left Books, Shed and Ward, 1973); Alan Gilbert, Marx's Politics: Communists Citizen, Burnswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ.Press, 1981; John M. Maguire, Marx's Theorv of Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978; Victor M. Perez Diaz, State, Bureaucracv Civil Societv A Critical Discussion of the Political Theory of Marx, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978; Bertrand Badie and Pierre Birnbaum, Sociolony of -Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 1983; Hamza Alavi, "The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh" New Left Review,No..74, 1972, also his, "State and Class under Peripheral Capitalism", in Alavi and Shanin (eds.) Introduction @ Sociolon~ of Develo~ing Societies, London: The Macmillan Press, 1982; Theda Skopol, States G ~ o c i a l Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979.

state is, therefore, a ficti0n.7~

But at the same 'time he maintains that,

Nevertheless, the different states of the different civilized countries, in spite of their many fold diversity of form, all have this in common, that they are based on modern bourgeois society only more or less capitalistically developed. They have therefore also certain essential features in

In the later writings Marx supports the autonomous role of the state more explicitly when

he visualizes a distinct role of the state bureaucracy (which also includes the military)

independent of the dominant class. This independence of bureaucracy 'soars above society as

an alienated expression of its perverted common Marx used the idea in 1851,

attempting to explicate the successful coup by Louis Napoleon, surprisingly supported by the

majority of the peasants, despite the rural radical currents in France.78 In his statement of

explanation Marx emphasized that, in France,

executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its ingenous state machinery ... with a host of officials numbering half a million, besides an army of another half million, this appalling parasitic body, ... enmeshes the body of French society like a net and chokes all its pores ... . The state machine has consolidated its position, ...[ and seems] to have made itself completely independent7

m e state's (in this case represented by t!!e bureaucracy and military) independent rde k its

extreme manifestation can be delineated from his concepts of 'Bonapartism' or in the

'Bonapartist state' which characterizes the state under the second Napoleon of France.

Victor Parez-Diaz in a recent book has unequivocally expounded the three major

characteristics of the 'Bonapartist' state. In these states, he writes:

75 Lewis S. Feuer, Marx Engles Basic Writings Politics a Philosophy quoted from Critiaue of Gotha Promamme, ( NY: Doublday, 1959) p. 127.

76 Ibid. p. 127.

77 Alan Gilbert, Marx's Politics: Communists Citizens, (New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1981) p. 233.

78 Ibid. p. 206.

79 Karl Marx, 'J& Eighteenth Brumaire of Bonaparte, NY: International Publisher, 1963, pp.12-13, quoted in Badie, Op. cit, pp. 7-8.

(a) the executive branch of government has a near monoply over political resources and over decisions concerning the fundamental public issues;

(b) civil and military bureaucracies (broadly defined as organizations with a developed hierarchical and functional internal differentiation) play a crucial role within that executive branch; and

(c) political liberties and democratic participation through political parties and the legislative branch of government have a minor importance.80

The role of civil and military bureaucracy as autonomous of a dominant social class,

has led to many lively academic debate among the theorists of the state. One such debates

was between Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband over Class Power and State Power in

modem capitalist societies. Poulantzas introduced the concept of relative autonomy8' a

derivation of the marxian 'autonomy' concept and argued that, including classical marxism, the

centre of all marxian political theory is based on the relative autonomy of the state.

Poulantzas makes the point clear: the state indeed has a substantial degree of autonomy, but

nevertheless, it remained for all political purposes, the state of the ruling class.82 Poulantzas's

stance regarding the state's autonomy can be summarized as follows:

The political realm is not, in classical marxism, the mere reflection of the economic seah, the notion of tlae latter's 'relative autonomy' is central, not ody regard to exceptional circumstances, but in all circumstances. In fact this notion can be taken as the starting point of marxian political theory.83

On the other hand, while Miliband sees both 'Econornism' (as instrumentality) and

'Bonapartism' (as autonomy) as alternative conceptions of the functions of the state in Marx's

work, he suggests that they are the two elements of a complex theory, and that they

Victor Perez-Diaz, State. Bureacucracv a d Civil Societv: A_ Critical Disccussion of the Political Theorv of &yJ Marx, London: The Mmillan Press Ltd. 1978. p. 36.

" See Ralph Miliband "State Power and Class Interest" , New Left Re~iew~No.138, (March-April,l983) p. 58.

8 2 Nicos Poulantzas, "'Capitalism and the State", New Left Review,No.58, (Nov-Dec,l969) pp. 73-74. See also, his, Political Power a& Social Class, London: NLR and Dhed & Ward, 1968.

83 R. Miliband, "Poulantzas and the Capitalist State", New Left Review, No.82, (Nov-Dec, 1973). P. 85.

combined to form the single Marxian theory of the state.84

Recently this debate has received considerable input from more and more theorists.

However, most theorists have limited their arguments to the western capitalist context Hamza

Alavi has attempted to extend this boundary and has employed the concept of relative

autonomy to explain the role of bureaucracy and military in the development of the states in

post-colonial societies.

Alavi finds the process of state development in the capitalist societies opposed to that

of the post-colonial societies. In the western capitalist societies, the nation states were created

by a country's dominant economic class (indigenous bourgeoisie) "in the wake of their

ascendant power to provide a framework of law and various institutions which are essential

for the development of capitalist relations of production", where military and bureaucracy are

a controlling (communicating) instrument of a single ruling class.85 On the other hand, the

nations in most of the colonial societies, at their independence, had one or more weak and

underdeveloped dominant economic classes of their own (i,e. indigenous bourgeoisie) "to

subordinate relatively highly deve!oped co!onid a~paratus,~~ thr~ugh which the MeDopolitar,

power had exercised domination over it".n7

Alavi through his intensive studiesn8 of post-colonial societies recognised an alignment of

Ralph Miliband, "Marx and the State", in R. Miliband and J. Register. London: Marlin Press, 1965. Also Miliband's "Poulantzas Op cit, pp.83-92.

" Hamza Alavi, "The State in Post-colonial Societies", New Left 61.

Saville (eds.) Socialist and the Capita;ist State",

Review, No.74, (1972). p.

The Civil and Military bureaucracies.

" Hamza Alavi, Op. cit, p. 60.

See Harnza Alavi, "The State in Post-colonial Societies",New Left Review, No.74, (1972; "Colonial transformation in India", Journal of Social Studies, Nos.7 & 8 (Dhaka: Dhaka University Center of Social Studies, January & April, 1980; "Structure of Peripheral Capitalism" (Chapterl3) and "State and Class Under Peripheral Capitalism" (Chapter 23), in Harnza Alavi and Tedor Shanin (eds.) Introduction Sociology of Developinn Societies,

three propertied exploiting classes in these societies, namely, the indigenous bourgeoisie, the

metropolitan bourgeoisie, and the landed class. Alavi argues that, the direct command of the

'foreign imperialist bourgeoisie' has ended in the post-colonial nations at their independence,

but the foreign influence has not ended since the metropolitan bourgeoisie has been joined

by other neo-colonialist bourgeoi~ie.~~ Since they provide a sizeable share in the national

development capital to many of the nations today, they constitute a significant element in the

country's class-structure. Thus the neo-colonial bourgeoisie hold immense influence in these

states on the development-organizing force; that is the bureaucracy and military. According to

Alavi, this makes the class-basis of the post-colonial states more complex. The state in

post-colonial societies:

is not entirely subordinate to the indigenous bourgeoisie, in view of the power and influence of the neo-colonial bourgeoisie. Nor it is simply an instrument of any of the latter, which would have the implication that independence is mere a sham. Neithei. bourgeoisie excludes the influence of the other; and their interests compete.90

The central argument Alavi wants to postulate here is that the state in the

post-'colonial society is 'not the instrument of a single class', nor is it completely autonomous:

it possesses a relatively autonomous power. In other words, the state has an independent

communicating role in society: it speaks for itself, being separated from the class interest or

class power. In practice, the potentials of holding this relative autonomy are profound.

Through the exercise of this power, the state performs a mediator's role in the conflicts and

competing interests between the three propertied classes mentioned above. While acting on

behalf of all three classes, the states "preserve the social order in which their interests are

embedded, namely, the instiltion of private property, and the capitalist mode as the

88(~ont'd) London: The Macmillan Press Ltd. 1982.

89 Alavi, Op. cit, p. 60.

Ibid. p. 62.

dominant mode of produ~tion."~~

The intention of introducing this debate is to make an attempt to draw a line between

the power of a class and the interest of the state (as power) and argue that the state has

a distinct and relatively autonomous role in serving its own interest. In other words, the state

is not only a medium, but also an actor in its communication functions. The state speaks on

its own about its own interests. The parastatal agencies in Bangladesh represent this

autonomous role of the state at the project level, as will be seen.

The executives of the state in addition to their instrumental role in serving their class

masters, maintain an autonomous character. Whether it is within the active presence of class

conflict as Miliband has argued, or in the alignments of national and international class

interests, as Alavi has stated, in the end decisions for action do have to be made; and it is

the executive power which makes them "on their own".92 This signifies that the independent

communicating role of the state is universally present both in capitalist and post-colonial

societies. At any level, the state is the only and by far the most important institution of

' society, 'which makes the exercise of this power possible'.93

Regarding the purpose of the autonomy of the state, both Miliband and Alavi agree

that the executives in capitalist or the military-bureaucratic oligarchy in post-colonial

statesg5 have developed and preserved autonomy for their own personal interest For Miliband,

it is the 'Impulse of Executive Power' in the 'State action' that lead the state to gain

autonomy. He writes:

9 i Ibid. p. 62.

92 Miliband, Op. cit. P. 60.

93 Miliband, Op. cit, p. 63.

94 Miliband, Op.cit p. 2.

95 Alavi, Op. cit., p. 60.

People in power wish for the most part to retain it. ...[ A111 politicians and people in power are only concerned to serve themselves by acquiring and clinging to the

A second 'Impulse of Executive Power', lies in the concept of 'national interest', which

overshadows and conceals executives' self-interest motives. Moreover, to provide a

double-coating on their concealed intention, the holders of state power interweave the national

interest in the very powerful rhetorical sentiment of nationalism:

Those who seek state power find it easy to persuade themselves that their achievement of it, and their continued hold on it, are synonymous with the 'national interest', whose service, they proclaim, is their overriding consideration. ...[ a t is nationalism and 'national interest' which everywhere form the main and even the exclusive frame of reference for state action today; and this is compatible with the pursuit of those who control state power.97

Alavi sees relative autonomy of the state identified with the military-bureaucratic

oligarchies who assume a new additional 'relatively autonomous economic role' in the state

development. They acquire this role through the projection of their expertise in designing and

implementing the national development programs. This gives them unprecedented opportunities

for their power and private gain at their disposal, and they appropriate it very effectively:

the more physical infrastructural development projects they design and implement, the more

power and control over resource and its flows, they gain. On the one hand, they effectively

and vigorously serve the interest of both international and national bourgeoisie by persuading

them to make large investments. On the other hand, they create their own autonomous

economic base accruing political support from the military, through pushing high the state's

expenditure for development, both militaristic and infrastructural, which ultimately they control.

The bureaucracies of the state, in this process acquire a critical entrepreneurs' role using the

capital of the state, the major benefit of which they themselves derive.

oligarchies as part of their communication create definitions of national

These bureaucratic

and local development

96 Miliband, Op. cit p. 62.

97 Ibid. pp. 63-64.

problems corresponding to the definitions provided by the international and national investors,

in which they have a prescribed role.

These postulations find their realization in the development strategies of the state of

Bangladesh since its partition from India in 1947. Bangladesh followed the development

strategy devised and communicated by the Western interests represented by the international

development institutions such as the World Bank, US-AID, Asian Development Bank etc. But

in the country's development scene, in its processes of structuring and restructuring the

national and local institutions manifested through its rural development and

imgated-agricultural policy, a distinct and relatively autonomous role for the state was evident

in the state's communication of 'self-interesty.

At this point an important question arises whether the members of the classes

mentioned above, or the state power, or for that reason, the members of any class, are

completely aware of their 'self-interesty. Whether they always make rational decisions in

pursuing collective self-interest, is another pertinent question. Although extensive analyses of

these questions are raQt within the limit of this thesis, this thesis maintzins that it is neither

possible for the members to always definitely be aware of their "true" collective self-interest,

nor to make always consistent and rational decisions to preserve and enhance it. It is for

this reason that membership in the various powerful socio-political institutions within the

societal structure is held on a rotational basis. The awareness of interest and the process of

decision-making depend on the intention and capacity of collective self-assessment, the

availibility of information and the ability to use such information in grasping the situation.

Since the inembers of various classes have unequal access to information and resources, the

consequence is that they receive differential benefits. This was evident in in Perojpur and

Nazirpur, the two non-project thanas studied for this thesis in assessing the relationships and

the patterns of communication between the project and non-project thanas with the state.

Further, the nature of interest of individual members vary, in corresponding to their

membership location from immediate to extended spheres. A more explicit knowledge of

interest and capacity to make rational choices remain as achieving goals for the performers in

playing both their instrumental and autonomous roles in the competitive communication

process. Thus the communication process goes on and on.

In the chapters which follow, an empirical case study has been presented in order to

understand the autonomous communicating role of the state through the creation and

reorganization of parastatal institutions. In the following chapter, an effort has been made to

draw the context of development in the country by delineating its major institutional

structures that were either created or already existent, and were reorganised in response to

the development strategy which emphasized agricultural and rwal development. An attempt has

been made to find their international communication linkages. The chapter has addressed three

key strategies adopted by the state namely, Community Development, the Green Revolution,

and the Integrated Rural Development Programme in order to communicate the state's

intention of domination and control. The purpose is to lay the basis for the detailed analysis

of one major state undertaking.

CHAPTER IV

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO THE RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

PROBLEMS

The institutions discussed below were either created or developed by Bangladesh or its

preceeding governments in order to satisfy its rural and agricultural development goals. In

describing the proliferation of these institutions, this chapter will show how the state drew up

strategies to maintain and advance its 'relative autonomy' through these institutions by

enhancing their communication and controlling functions. The decision of the governments to

play a dominant role in creating and managing various "development" institutions in

Bangladesh had an international dimension. As agricultural and rural development endeavours,

most of these institutions were economically, ideologically and academically, supported by the

western development institutions, such as the World Bank, the US-AU), the Ford Foundation

and some important American universities. 'To help Bangladesh develop' was a part of the

general western strategy to demonstrate its economic and political control over the

subcontinent In the early sixties, when most of the new states of South and South-East

Asia were unwilling to welcome the western ideology, "development" was a way to exercise

influence and control. But, at the same time, these states were suffering on the one hand,

from over-population and food shortage, and on the other, from lack of capital, technology

and skilled manpower. The leaders of these agrarian states were not enthusiastic over radical

agricultural reforms like those occurring in communist societies. To maintain their

independence the new nascent leadership was forced to "venture into the unknown terrain of

international rural developmentng8

After the partition of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947, Bangladesh as a post-colonial

society made only necessary piecemeal changes in order to follow the western growth model

9 8 Robert S. Anderson, et al(eds.) Science, Politics Agricultural Revolution & & AAAS, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982, pp. 1-12.

in its development strategy. The predominant tendency of this strategy was to maintain rather

than to destroy, the basic structures of statehood inherited from the colonial past. Following

this strategy the state remained at the centre of all development efforts. Thus in the new

state of Bangladesh, the agricultural and rural development remained "a process of

government, rather than a program or agency".99 Following the partition, all governments in

Bangladesh used development strategies to restructure their relationship with the country's rural

population. As part of this new relationship, government made the assumption that they knew

what was best for the rural population and thus brought most development activities entirely

under their own control.

One reason for this assumption by the government was "the absence of private

organizational capacity for innovation and change" on the part of the existing rural

institution^.'^^ However, this thesis would argue that it was the intention of the ruling power

to dominate that led the state to assume the responsibility of development None of the

existing or newly created local rural institutions were really tried to see if they had the

capacity to organize and manage innovative changes in the interest of the rural people. In

most cases these institutions only provided the necessary communication channels for the state

to gain control over opposing forces in society. These were the techniques through which the

state administrators attempted to fulfill their impulse of executive power, acquire a new

economic role, and cater to the interests of their class cumpatriots. In the whole exercise, the

autonomy of the state not only prevailed but the state gained more power over the rural

population.

The following pages will describe the political and economic rationale of the origins

some of these institutions, the matrixes of the institutions' competitive relationships and the

99 Elliot Tepper, "The Administration of Rural Reforms", in Steven, Alavi, et al(eds.) Development Bangladesh Pakistan, East-West Center, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1976. p. 52.

loo Elliot Tepper, Op cit. p.52.

responses both to their national and own institutional needs. Since the institutions of

development in Bangladesh are numerous and their interrelationships complex, this review is

limited to a - selected few, chosen because they are directly participating in the country's

agricultural and rural development

The Setting:

Bangladesh is predominantly an agricultural country. Its agriculture accounts for 56

percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 75 percent of employment and 90 percent of

exports. It has a population of 91 million.lol Of this population, more than 80 million live

in rural areas, of which 59 percent are farmers and 26 percent are agricultural labourers.

The country possesses a total of 35 million acres of land, of which little more than two

thirds is used for cultivation; the remaining one-third is covered by water, forests, homesteads

and urban centres. It is favoured by large areas of fertile soil and ideal temperatures for

year-round agriculture. As well, it has a large surplus of workers in the labour force. Rice

is the principal fwd caop and staple in the diet, jute fiber the aajor cash ccp.

However, since it is dependent on the unpredictable monsoon rains that occur between

May and September for water for agriculture, Bangladesh has remained as a food deficit area

for the last forty years. The 3 percent plus growth of population in last the two decades

exceeded the country's 1.9 percent food production increase rate. In the last twenty years to

meet its minimum domestic needs Bangladesh has imported between 0.8m. and 2.8m. tons of

foodgrain yearly.lo2

'01 Bangladesh Census, 1981. But The Population Reference Bureau of Washington estimated Bangladesh's population at nearly 95 million in 1984; and the World Bank recorded 95.5 million in 1985. The WB, Annual Report , 1985. p. 105.

lo2 GOB, Second Five-vear m, Dhaka: Planning Commission, pp. 1-2. 1982 p. 1 and 1982 p. 2.

In the last three decades, the primary objectives of all governments at least in their

rhetoric, was to improve the living standard of the people through stable and substantial

increase in food production to a level which would ensure both an adequate and balanced

nutrition, and food security for the country. Consequently, most political and economic

build-ups in this period occurred in and around agriculture and rural development The

country's "self-sufficiency in food in three years" became a centrifugal force of political

rhetoric for all governments. This was because the politicians recognised the two key

characters of this society: pride of an independent identity, and hosting good food as an

enriched cultural symbol, and they used them effectively in their political rhetoric. Food

remained at the centre of all political communication.

Following independence in 1971, Bangladesh inherited more than 50 agricultural and

rural development institutions and programs from the preceeding governments. Most of these

institutions were overlaid with either the British Bengal Administrative framework of pre-1947,

or with the framework of the Pakistan governments of the 1950's and 1960's.'03 In the late

Forties and throughout the Fifties, Community Development was the name given to a good

many of these institutions; in the Sixties, with some important m~d i f i~ t ions the cluster was

renamed as 'the Green Revolution'. In the Seventies the strategy turned into 'the Integrated

Rural Development Programme (IRDP)' and in the Eighties 'the Thana Upgrading

Programme'. The major thrust of all these programmes were on the creation, reorganization

of the national parastatal institutions and their local level extensions. The BIP, the irrigation

project studied for this thesis, is one of those organizations with complex picture of the

relationships among these institutions and their consequences.

The two major institutions the state power attempted to develop through Communty

Development approach were the VIllage Agricultural Industrial Development Programme

(V-AID) and the Basic Democracy. Although theoretically both the programmes were designed

'03 Joseph Stepaneck, Bangladesh: Eauitable Growth? NY: Pergamon Press, 1979, p. 157.

to fullfil the basic necessaties of rural people, in practice, they were impositions by the

governments on the farmers in the form of several institutional structures and bindings to

satisfy more - g o m e n t a l needs.

The apparent presumption and focus for launching the program was to determine the

farmer's needs, create a new institution, and acquire abilities for both the government agents

and the farmers to manage and improve agriculture. But in reality, the V-AID Program was

an efficient communicating vehicle for rigorous governmental influence upon the rural people.

The villagers and farmers, for whom the program was developed, and who were in theory

made ~esponsible for implementing it in the field, had no participatory role in the new

structure. Rahim argues that the V-AID as a communication program was an improvement

over the traditional bureaucratic pattern. As an organization, it also facilitated the extension of

governmental "services" to the village level.lo4 But, Joseph Stapeneck wrote:

In a few areas the approach made an impact, but it was neither sufficient nor comprehensive enough to prevent the stagnation of the agriculture sector in the 1950's and early 1960's. The bureaucracy censored the program, and the economic planners were disillusioned. The most vocal of the critics were the original agricultural extension advocates, who felt vindicated by the failure of the program and demanded a return to their prodttction focussed role.lo5

In addition, the participation of the villagers in the program was insignificant because they

were unclear about their self-interest vis-a-vis their role-expectations in it. Their needs were

defined by others on their behalf. The government may have extended the services to the

villagers, as Rahim has argued, but have those services benefited the villagers? Was it in any

way a two-way communicating program? For whom were the institutions built? What were

the unspecified purposes? The answers to these questions were lost in the wilderness of

government rhetoric.

lo4 S.A. Rahim, Communication Rural Development Bangladesh, East-West Communication Institute, Honolulu: East-West Center, 1976, p. 18.

'05 Joseph Stepeneck, Bangladesh: Eauitable Growth? NY: Pergamon Press, 1982, p.157.

Before the V-AID program could gain momentum and establish itself as an efficient

rural re-structuring institution, the program was replaced by a new set of ideas and with

more rigorous actions. This follows the postulation drawn by this thesis that the state creates

new or reorganizes old institutions to satisfy its politico-communicational exigencies.

The politically ambitious military ruler General Ayub Khan ruled the country for a

decade through 1958 to 1969, the fmt half by the military laws and the later half through

a kind of indirect democracy. In this period he introduced several reforms. But major

institutional change occured during this period was the introduction of the Green

Revolution.lo6

The ostensible objective of the Green Revolution was to increase agricultural production

particularly of cereals, such as rice, wheat and maize, in controlled irrigated situations,

through the use of research-based technical knowledge of land, water, seeds, fertilizers and

pesticides etc. Twelve international research institutions were eventually established in three

southern continents, and were financially and academically supported by either international

institutions, state agencies or private foundations of the West, or jointly by them. The Green

Revolution carried a bias toward technological change. But since new technology was beyond

the means of the majority of the poor of the rural areas, both the international institutions

and the state governments saw it necessary to organise the old institutions and create new

ones wherever necessary, and to help farmers to gain an ability to use new technology.lo7

The cornmunicational functions, which include the ways and techniques of articulations,

of most of these institutions could be seen at both the rhetorical and objective levels. At

lo6 For a review of the Rural Development programmes in Pakistan see, Viqar Ahrned, "Agriculture and Rural Development in Pakistan", in Richard Stanford @ & 1980.

lo' For a detailed analysis on The Green Revolution, see, Keith Griffin, Political Economv of Agrarian Change, London: Oxford., Univ. Press, 1979; also his, Green Revolution: Economic Anavsis, Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development. 1972; and Dharam Ghai and A.R.Khan(eds.) Agrarian Svstem Rural Development, NY: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1979.

their rhetorical level they were responsible for defining the "problems" in development and

for suggesting action designs to "resolve" those problems. At the objective level the

institutions gave the military government and their international sponsors a strong hold over

the country's economy and culture. The underwriters of these institutions, both at international

and national levels, adopted the green revolution in their strategy and defined the

"problem-needs" of Bangladesh in such a way that the underwriters' own capabilities sprang

up naturally as the solution to the prsblem.lo8 An examination of some of these institutions

will explain how the problem definition and its action-oriented solutions provided the state

rulers a communicative competence to assert control over the people.lo9

It is beyond the scope of this thesis to include extensive review of Community

dvelopment and the Green Revolution. Thus the following sections of this chapter will be

devoted in evaluating the different institution-building strategies adopted by the Pakistan and

Bangladesh governments in the last two decades. This will be done through analysing the

role of the relevant institutions in agricultural and rural development, namely, the Water and

Power Development Authority (later on the Bangladesh Water Development Board), the

Agricultural Development Corporation, the Department of Agricultural Extension and

Management, the Integrated Rural Development Programme and the Thana Upgrading

Programme. The first four are the national parastatal institutions directly supervising the

country's agricultural and rural development and are jointly responsible for implementing and

operating the Barisal Irrigation Project, the case study used in this thesis. The Thana

Upgrading Programme is the latest endeavour by the state in reforming locd institution to

communicate the state's authority. This upgrading of thanas was in progress during the

completion of BIP.

lo8 Robcrt Anderson, Op cit, p. 377.

log For a detail description of the changes in the political institutions in Banglsdesh, see, Marcus Franda, Bangladesh: First Decade, New Delhi: South Asian Publications,l981. Also, T. Manimzaman, "The Future of Bangaldesh", in A.J. Wilson & D. Dalton (eds.) Skites of South Asia, London: C. Hurst & Co. 1982. pp. 265-294.

Water and Power Develovment Authority [WAPDA/WDB)

A first institution of the Green Revolution strategy in agrarian Bangladesh was the

country's Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). Although no new independent

institutional plan for water and power development was recorded in the First Five-year Plan

(1955-60) document, in JanuaryJ959, just after the military takeover of the government, two

semi-governmental organizations were created to organize and manage the flood and erosion

control, drainage and irrigation, and to generate hydro-electric power in the two wings of the

country. Before their creation, the responsibility for development of the water and power

sector in Fast Pakistan was with the Department of Irrigation. The newly created body,

WAPDA turned into one of the government's major influence-communicating institutions over

the rural people. In performing its dominating role, it developed symbiotically with the local

'self-government' institutions in the country.

The creation of WAPDA reduced the power and capacity of the Government Irrigation

Department which had historically developed a "fine body of knowledge and techniques" in

managing the water and power resources of the country.110

WAPDA was managed by a high-powered four-man Board (Chairman and three

Members) appointed by the government The Board was provided with a large amount of

financial resources and the freedom to make autonomous decisions in terms of its budget and

resource management. At this time the development and overhead budget of the water sector

increased by 400% from Rs. 830m. rupees in 1955 to Rs. 3890m. rupees in 1969-70,

doubling the cost every five years. In all the four Five-year Plans, the amount of allocation

in water development spent or planned, was higher than the agriculture sector. In regional

comparison, East Pakistan received less than the West in water sector in all four Five-year

'lo Abdul Hamid Chowdhury, "Organization, Planning and Design, Construction and Operation of River Valley Projects in Pakistan", Proceedings of the Conference on Water Resources Development & &r a. Bangkok: UNECAFE, 1960. p. 149.

58

Plans (see Table 1). In terms of autonomy WAPDA was given power to receive government

and non-government funds unlike other semi-government institutions. It was also free to

initiate its own action prograrn.ll1

By exercising its autonomous financial and management power, the WAPDA immediately,

on the one hand, took over all the on-going water development and irrigation projects, and

on the other hand planned numerous new large scale land-claiming embankment, and water

and irrigation projects. It did this through its expensive and highly criticized Master Plan,

jointly designed by the International Engineering Company of San Francisco and the

US-Army Engineering Corps.ll*

The first Chairman of East Pakistan WAPDA, Khan Mohammad Azam, a professional

engineer, characterized the institution as a more technical organization oriented towards

physical development. He provided comparatively higher personal benefits to his officers and

staff than other similar institutions of the government. WAPDA's middle-ranking engineers

received imported 'Citroen' cars and newly built apartments. Such benefits were nonexistent

for the same ranking officers in oth_er governmental departme~ts. Within five years the

numbers of employees in WAPDA exceeded 20 thousand.l13 More than 100 senior engineers

were sent abroad for on-the-job training and higher degrees. From 1965 onward, the

US-AID sponsored a regular staff-training program for WAPDA personnel, conducted by the

California Department of Water Resources.l14 The expansion of the organization in contrast to

its achievements reached such a point that it became known as a 'white elephant' both to

the people and the press.

ll1 A H. Choudhury, Ibid, p. 149.

112 A short discussion on the IECO Master Plan has been included in Chapter V.

113 Interview with WAPDA Officers at the Dhaka Head Ofice. June, 1983.

114 EPWAPDA, "Biennial Review of Water Resources Development in East Pakistan, 1964-65", Paper No.32, Proceedings of Seventh Regional Conference Water Resources Develo~ment & & and East. held Canbera, Sept1966 NY: UNECAFE, 1967, p. 167.

Following 1971, WAPDA was bifurcated into two organizations: the Bangladesh Water

Development Board (BWDB) and the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), by a

Presidential Order of 31 May, 1972, and the pace of development of both the organizations

continued simultaneously. At present the Water Development Board alone has approximately

18,500 individuals on its staff. There are nearly 2000 high ranking "fully professional" (class

I and 11) members on its payroll of which 1100 are located at the Head Offices in the

capital city of Dhaka. The Board is composed of a Chairman and three Members, who

supervise 44 Divisions. The Divisions are led by 10 Chief Engineers and 31 Directors. In

addition, the Water Development Board has its technical field-staff in all 58 Sub-divisions

and 468 Thanas in the countryside.l15 The total financial outlay for water development in the

Second Five-Year Plan period (1980-85) was estimated at Taka 30 billions (USS1.7 b.) some

300% more than the First Plan period.

Through the creation of WAPDA, the financial and programfocused responsibilities of

the Irrigation Department were reduced drastically, resuliing in a conflict of interest between

the two organizations. The conflict was aggravated further and turned into a triangular form

when WAPDA expanded its sphere of activities to agricultural production and extension

services, which were being carried out until that time only by the Department of Agriculture.

The triangular competition of the agricultural development institutions provided impetus to the

state's influence-communicating role which became crucial at this stage.

The political success of the country's military rule depended on the ability to produce

adequate food to satisfy the needs of a growing population. To achieve this increased food

production, the government planned an Accelerated Rice Production Program (ARPP) in which

water control and irrigation was considered as the major achieving means. The ARPP was an

action program derived from the Green Revolution strategy. But since the notion of the

n5 GOB and World Bank, Review No.2327 BD, April, 1979. p. 45.

of Qg Bamladesh Water Develmment Board Report -

Green Revolution - use of technology, irrigation and high yield seed variety - was a

departure from past agricultural practices in the country, the WAPDA decided to open its

technical expertise to agriculture. The success of its Amla Experimental Farm at Kustia,

adopting irrigation technology during 1959-60, provided an impetus to expand in agriculture.

Soon WAPDA looked for its dominant role in both research and action programs in most of

the areas of water and agricultural development These included physical, geological,

hydrographic and qualitative aspects of water and water-use; tides, floods and ground water

resource development; climatology; land-reclamation and land use; soil patterns and soil's

physical, nutrient and chemical properties. WAPDA planned to expand its actions in all kinds

of agricultural areas including seeds, fertilizers, cropping patterns, extension services and the

farmers' organizations.l16 Its major emphasis was on the mechanisms of production increase

rather than on the social and human aspects of agriculture.

By 1968, seven major water control, coastal embankments and irrigation projects were

completed under the supervision of WAPDA. At this time 70 more projects were either

on-going or at the planning stage.l17

WAPDA's participation in "the Cooperative Agriculture" developed by the Cornilla

Academy, in which irrigation received high priority, expanded its role in agricult~re.~'~ By

procuring land from the private farmers for irrigation projects and providing pump-machines

and technical knowledge to the farmers' cooperative societies, WAPDA established a direct and

influencing link with the rural people. The policy of control by the state over the price and

supply of agricultural inputs made the farmers dependent on the government.

116 B.M. Abbas, "Utilization and Development of the Deltaic Area of East Pakistan," Paper No.1, Proceedings of Regional Svmwosium Flood Control, Reclamation. Utilization and Development of Deltaic Areas. Water Resource Series, NY: UNECAFT, 1963.

117 Abbas, Ibid., pp. 146-148.

118 Arthur Raper, Rural Develowment Action: Experiment Comilla, Itahaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970 pp.135-156.

The WAPDA's extensive role in agriculture threatened the power and jurisdiction of

both Irrigation and Agriculture departments resulting in serious conflicts among the three

organizations, These have continued to exist in most of the irrigated agricultural efforts,

including the Barisal Imgation Project (BIP).

The competition and conflict for jurisdiction of power and resources among the three

organizations resulted in organizational expansion in all institutions and increased personal

benefits for their officers and staff. Conversely, for the local farmers, as has been found in

the BIP case, the institutional expansion added new constraints in input and credit flow,

vis-a-vis the agricultural development. The technocrats of the state have been effective in

using the organizations to manifest and sustain their autonomous role. WAPDA renamed in

1973 as the Water Development Board (WDB), with its "irrigation technique" remained the

key building block in the strategy of the Green Revolution with the purpose of

communicating the influence of the state over the rural people.

INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE

BANGLADESH AGRICULTURE *

President

at ional Economic Council-f

I Cabinet

I plar&ing I Commission .Ministry

I 1

I Flood Control Agriculture I Local Go*. Water & Power I Rural Dev. &

I Cooperatives Resources I

Parastatax 1 Water Board ! m9

?

Power Board Rural

Dev. Rice ~ e s .1rist. T hana/upa- Jute Res.Inst. Z ila

Elect- Agri.Res.Counci1 rif ication Tea Board Reg.of Coop- Board Agri.University eratives

Academy for R.D, Union Council

R.D .Academy ,Bogra Municipalities

Dir.Plant Protecn. Tobacco Dev.Board Cen.Ext .Res.Dev.Inst. Horticulture Dev.Board

Source: Created by Author , March 1983.

Bangladesh Anricultural Develo~ment Corporation (BADC)

The Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) is another institution that played a

complementary role along with WAPDA to satisfy the political intention of the strategy of

the Green Revolution for the state. The BADC was created in 1961 and became responsible

for procuring agricultural technologies and inpus from both within and outside of the

country; it was also assigned to make the supply commercially available to all farmers. The

supplies included tractors, power-pumps, deep, shallow and hand tubewells, chemical fertilizers,

seeds and pesticides. Delivering inputs at the door-steps of the farmers worked as a rationale

for this institution to expand even faster than WAPDA. Similar to other technologies, the

agri-technology also produced 'magic results' in well-supervised and well controlled

experimental situations for a few seasons.l19 The 'magic result' of high output allured a large

number of farmers to shift their old ways to the new ways of technology-based agriculture.

But as we will see in the Barisal Irrigation Project, the pattern of communication within and

between WAPDA and BADC and with the farmers has created intense institutional constraints

for farmers to receive agria~lhlsal inputs:

The bureaucrats and technocrats of WAPDA and BADC competed for their own

institutional expansion; and none of them really lagged much behind. Although BADC started

small, it expanded rapidly to its present organizational status consisting of 7 Wings and 23

Divisions run by a Chairman, five-full time and two part-time Member Directors. The total

number on the payroll surpassed the 36 thousand figure by 1980. The total expenditure of

the Corporation approximately doubled every two years for a decade. In the second

Five-Year Plan period (1980-85) BADC alone received little more than half of the total

. fund allocated to the various agencies under the Agriculture sector.120 The funds supported 14

119 Luqman Ahmed, "Rice Production and Irrigation in Bangladesh", Bangladesh Ouarterlv, V01.3 No.9 1983. pp.15-20.

120 GoKof Bangladesh, Second Five-vear Plan, , Dhaka: Planning Commision, 1980. pp

irrigation, 10 fertlizer and six seed related projects of BADC. The foreign exchange

component of nearly fifty percent of the expenditure had been provided both as loans and

grants by the international agencies and countries, such as the World Bank, US-AID, ADB,

OPEC, and Saudi, the Dutch, Kuwait, Japan NORAD, FRG, EEC.

In Bangladesh, dry-season irrigation expanded from 1 million in 1965 to 2.5 million

acres in 1980. About 50% of this irrigation was being done by low-lift pumps and 40% by

deep, shallow and hand tubewells. All these pumps and wells which were either imported or

locally produced were distributed by the government through BADC. The government was

providing the pumps and tubewells to the farmers' cooperative groups with a subsidy for

over 50% on thoir costs and rents. But a decline in average pump utilization capacity since

the mid-sixties posed a problem that increased BADC's need to import more irrigation

equipment and resulted in an expansion of its organizational structure.121 By the end of the

Sixties, farmers became more dependent on the agri-inputs provided by BADC.

Consistently with the irrigation practice the use of chemical fertilizer increased

tremendously: after its introduction in the Sixties, it increased by 14 to 1? percent per y e s

between 1965 and 1969. But its price also went up very fast and became out of reach for

the farmers. Its sale reached about a million tons in 1983 from only 74 thousand tons in

1962-63.121 Still, the poor delivery system as Elkinson has pointed out and the continuous

price hike, as Jabbar has argued, limited its maximal use by the farmers.

In addition to these factors, this thesis will argue that competitive communication

between the agricultural institutions, and the indifferent and apathetic attitude and rampant

12' GOB & the WB, Amraisal Report, 1975. p. 9.

122 BADC, Annual Report, 198-83 ; Also, M.A. Jabbar,"Supply Distribution and Pricing, Chemical Fertilizers in Bangladesh", Journal of Social Studies, Dhaka: Dhaka University, 1981.

corruption of the government officials, became key constraints in both irrigation, fertilizer and

seed use by the farmers. The apathetic attitudes were explicit in the BIP case-study.

Regarding corruption, an investigative report has found 200 cases involving a sum of 900

million taka belonging to the corporation. One private contractor received an extra benefit of

1.3 million taka (nearly 90,000 US dollars) in 1976-77 through an exorbitant carrying rate.

The Report states that, "Eighty percent of corruption cases have been unresolved".123

A similar situation prevailed in the seed affairs of the country. In the early sixties the

high yield variety (HYV) seeds, developed at the International Rice Research Institute of the

Philippines, were imported and introduced in the country by the government Because of their

high yields, they became popular among farmers. On the basis of popularity, the BADC

reorganized and expanded its seed production and distribution Wing, through the development

of Seed Multiplication Farms, Contract Growers Scheme, Seed Processing, Godown-construction

and Seed Distribution Projects, and Agricultural Development I2~tates.l~~ A new Seed

Development Corporation with the same colossal structure as the BADC is presently under

consideration for development by the government125

Through the work of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Bangladesh Agricultural

Research Institute , Bangladesh Agriculture University and other research stations, the

neccessary seeds are being produced within the country. At present the popularity and the

rate of use of HYV seeds have started to decline . The reason is that HYV-Seeds require

huge amount! of controlled irrigation water and fertilizers, and are genetically vulnerable to

123 Mahmud Shafiq,"Krishi Unnayan Corporationer Durnityer Khatian" (A Report on Corruption Of BADC), Weekv Bichitra, 27 July, 1979. For a general understanding of corruption patterns in irrigation and agricultural projects, see Robert Wade, "The System of Adrninistarative and Political Corruption: Canal Irrigation in South India", Journal of Develowment Studies, 1982.

124 BADC, Annual Report: 1978, Dhaka: BADC, 1979 pp. 7-12.

12' Interview and discussion with Dr A.M. Shawkat Ali, Joint Secretary of Agriculture, GOB, August, 1983. He stated that though he was personally against establishing this independent seed corporation, the governmental and international agencies' needs will neccessitate it.

various kinds of pest attacks. Combined with increases in the cost of irrigation equipment, of

fuel, fertilizers and pesticides, and above all the lack of farmers' accessibility to credit and

inputs from the government sources turned the technology-based agriculture far from the

middle and poor farmers. After 25 years of effom, farmers did not acquire a capacity to

break through the institutional structure of new agricultural technology. Rather, they became

skeptical abotit the new system. Many of them were caught in its trap: now because of their

indebtedness to the government they can neither pursue the Green Revolution strategy, nor

can they return to the old system of agriculture. Furthermore, due to the long use of

fertilizer and pesticides the quality of soil has changed. Those few who have gone back to

the old system, are receiving less yield than they did during the pre-HYV cultivation period.

The evidence from BIP supports this fact.

As stated before, the matrixes of more infrastructural and technological development

provide more power to bureaucrats and technocrats in a developing society, because they

prevail at the centre of control and over all activities. In Bangladesh, WAPDA and BADC as

institutions promoted this purpose efficiently: these development institutions encouraged the

farmers to become dependent on the state. Although the international strategy of the Green

Revolution was to increase production in developing societies, the Bangladesh state used the

strategy successfully, as a technique to make the rural power base servile to it. Thus the

state in an attempt to preserve its relative autonomy played the key political communicator's

role in the development game of the country.

Department of Agriculture Extension Management (DAM)

The Department of Agriculture which was created by the British Government in 1880

to enquire about peasants' conditions, acquired most of the action programs of the country's

agriculture: its production, credit and input supplies, marketing and information dissemination.

But, following the line of argument in this thesis that the state creates new and restructures

old institutions based on its politico-communicational needs, most production-focussed roles of

the Agricultural Department were transfered to Village-AID, WAPDA and BADC, since the

department "failed" to prove its "worth".

The policy-control function remained with the Ministry of Agriculture, reducing the

Department to a Directorate of Agriculture Extension and Management (DAEM). The research

and development responsibilities went to the country's Agricultural Research Institute, Rice

Research Institute, Comilla Academy for Rural Development, Agricultural University and to the

Agricultural Research Council. However, all these institutions with their own individual

goal-orientation performed a communication-support role for the state. A detailed analysis of

these institutions is beyond the scope of this thesis.126

Retrenchment of production-focused functions turned DAEM into a frustrated,

disorganized and "inefficient" institution. Moreover, the success of a parallel extension program

initiated by WAPDA in the early sixties, posed a serious challenge to DAEM. The inherent

departmental rivalry between the DAEM, WAPDA and BADC Dmed i n t ~ explicit c~nfr,icts, in

12' For an excellent review of the science and politics in agriculture in Bangladesh, see Robert Anderson, Scientific Research. Technology Transfer, and Conflicts of Values & Changing Rice Agriculture & Bangladesh Unpublished Manuscript, British Columbia: Department of Communication, Simon Fraser University, 1986. For an intensive study of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, see his, "Removing the Limitations on Science: On the Responsibility of Rice Research in Bangladesh", in Anderson et al. op. cit, pp. 323-375.

On the role of Comilla Academy for Rural Development, see Arthur Raper, Rural Development b Action, Ithaca: Cornell University, 1970; S.A. Rahim Communication g@ R& Development Bangladesh, Honolulu: East West Communication Institute, 1976; Stevens, Alavi and Betrocci(eds.) Rural Development & Bangladesh and Pakistan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1976; A.R. Khan, "Comilla Model and the Integrated Rural Development Programme of Bangladesh - An Experiment in 'Cooperative Capitalism'", Dharam Ghai, A.R, Khan et a1 (eds.) Op cit, pp.113-157.

On agricultural education and universities, see Noazesh Ahmed, Development Agriculture & Bangladesh, Chapters 14 and 15 Dhaka: Bangladesh Books International Ltd. 1976, pp.138-162. Also see, The US President's Science Advisory Committee, World Food Problem: Report of the on the World Food Sut>wl~. Chapter 12: Research and Education, Washington DC: US GoRF'rinting Office, 1967, pp. 595-639.

the following period; these conflicts were clearly evident in the Barisal Irrigation Project, and

have posed serious questions about the success of the project itself.

No action program or research in agriculture is useful unless farmers are convinced of

its potential success and accept its practice. Since the major responsibility of inclining them

favourably toward the Green Revolution technology belonged to DAEM and since DAEM

already had some kind of communicating channel with the farmers through its extension

agents, the government preferred to reorganise and strengthen DAEM with international

support from the World Bank and the US-AID, rather than create a new extension system.

The DAEM at this time, in an attempt to gain more influence to compete with other

institutions defined a new and dynamic role for agricultural extension:

Rural Development in democratic societies is not a matter of only plans, statistics, targets and benefits, technology and methods, agencies and organization to administer them. Rather it is an effective use of these mechanisms as educational means for changing the mind and actions of people in such a way that they help themselves, attain economic and social improvements. Hence the process is one of working with people, not for them; helping people to become self reliant, not dependent on others. In short, helping people by means of education to put useful knowledge to work for them. The process is the essence of Agricultural Extension. lZ7

But for DAEM, in its perception of reorganization, the sense of competition with

BADC and WBD prevailed over the purpose of agricultural extension. To prove authority for

itself, DAEM has recently decided to withdraw from most joint projects and provide extension

services independently. In regard to joint work in a multi-institutional setting, such as the

BIP, the Director of DAEM and deputy told this researcher that, "the Water Board and

BADC officials should realize that we are also powerful. We are taking all our staff out of

the joint projects. We will run our extension services being independent of their control. We

are ready to work with them in the field, but no more under them."12* The DAEM officials

l2? S. Nakata, K. Mukawa, K. Mizoma, Agricultural Extension Community Develo~ment & Ban~ladesh Dhaka: CERDI, 1979, p.1

lZ8 Interview with the Director and Joint Director of Field Services Division of DAEM, Dhaka, August, 1983.

complained that their Department was always made the scape-goat for short-falls in a joint

project

Because the WDB and BADC people are mostly engineers who work with machines

and material resources, failures of which are easy to control, and because they are assigned

with the management responsibilities of most of the projects, they call all the shots, but for

failures make others responsible. These engineers fail to appreciate the complex job of human

motivation assigned to DAEM officials, success in which is not always easy to achieve. The

controversy presently has become a key issue in the power play among the participating

institutions in BIP.

However, pursuance of competitive role also provided some benefit to DAEM: expansion

of the institution, lifting its status and increase in salary for its staff. At present 60% of all

agricultural and technical extension staff in Bangladesh belong to this d e p m e n t These staff

operate upon about 20 million of 22 million available acres covering 6.2 million farm

holdings. The technical staff of DAEM are comprised of 17 national, 131 Regional, 92

Sub-divisional and 900 thana level officers, who supervise 5,700 Village Extension Agents

(VEA). Another 4,786 WAS, at present are receiving training at DAEM's training institute.

There is a similar number of support staff to help the technicians.lZ9 Recently through an

administrative change a Director General has been appointed as head, upgrading the status,

power and salary structure of the department130 This reorganization and expansion was

accompanied by the introduction of the Improved Extension Approach: Training and Visit

(T&V) based on the US extension system, Intensive Extension Efforts, Field Trials and

Demonstration, Special (multi-institution) Projects, Re- and In-service staff Training, and

lZ9 Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Report on Activities of Department of Agriculture Extension and Management, DhakxGOB, Feb. 1982, pp 1-2.

130 Ministry of Agriculture, Notification No.Ext/l/Ka 30/82/933, Bangladesh Gazette Nov. 11, 1982.

Farmers' Training Program, with support from the World Bank, ADB, UNDP and FAO.l3]

Emphasis on reorganization and development of DAEM has been an outcome of

competition among agricultural development institutions complemented by the government's

intention to generate and sustain institutional support in order to communicate influence over

the farmers. Although a dialectical relationship between knowledge-gathering and

input-procuring by the farmers prevails in the agricultural development process in Bangladesh,

the state has been integrating both the communication techniques in its strategy of the Green

Revolution for fulfilling its political intention.

Integrated Rural Develo~ment Programmes [IRDP)

The Integrated Rwal Development Programme (IRDP) is the third envisaged

development strategy of the state to control the rural people of Bangladesh.13* This thesis

suggests that creation and reorganization of development institutions had always been a key

instrument to express cor~trol: ~e gove=ment im the seventies expmded *e zcthities of +le

Integrated Rural Development Programmme throughout the country with the help of

international assistance.

It has been observed that a competitive communication aided by a paradoxical and

ui~oordinated development policy was the characteristic of the developmental scene of the late

sixties. The government-controlled programmes of massive rural public works, introduction of

the Accelerated Rice Production Programme (ARPP), and the fast expansion of the Thana

Irrigation Program (TIP), on the one hand, and the Comilla Experiment of self-reliant Village

131 Ministry of Agriculture, Re~ort Activities, op cit, pp. 3-11.

132 Although IRDP's present name has been changed to Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB), in this thesis we will continue to identify this institution as IRDP.

Cooperatives, on the other, confused the development p01icy."~ Consequently, the new

seed-fertilizer based cultivation under the existing institutional structure failed to produce the

country's required food and remove its large scale poverty. This led the government to

introduce an alternative institutional arrangement: The Integrated Rural Development

Programme (IRDP).

In addition to agricultural failure, the rampant disparity in the distribution of economic

and political resources between West and East Palcistan forced the government to this policy

change. The consequences of the failure and the disparity was so great that before the

changed ideas could turn into substantial program-policies, a mass upsurge began in the

country. In the absence of strong mass political organizations the deprived by the central

government, the Bengali bureaucracy, military and bourgeois political elements unitedly turned

the mass emancipatory upsurge into a nationalistic movement. Within nine months of m e d

struggle and with the intervention of foreign power, the new political state of Bangladesh was

born. But in the changed political milieu very few basic shifts were evident in its agricultural

and ma! development policies. ??ailing to frame a clearly defined development policy, L!e

government quickly adopted the pre-liberation framed IRDP strategy which was grounded on

an integrated approach of the experimental Comilla Cooperative System.

The rationale for introducing an integrated approach was, first, that in the past "even

rapid growth of income in rural areas did not assure either the availibility or equitable

access to social services and amenities". Second, it was recognized that rural development

involves a large number of interrelated activities which only through an integrated approach

could be coordinated to achieve "rapid and measurable gains in agricultural productivity and

. rural welfare".134

133Ab~ Abdullah, et al. "Agrarian Structure and the IRDP: Preliminary Considerations," Ban~ladesh Develo~ment Studies, Vol.IV, No. 2, April, 1976 p. 240.

u4 Vernon W. Ruttan, Integrated Rural Development Programmes: A Historical Perspective",

Similar to other development institutions the IRDPs creation was also influenced by

external resources. In 1971 the FA0 convened a major international symposium to suggest

possible institutional changes in many third world countries to implement a new integrated

nual development package. An immediate program-fund followed from the World Bank for

the purpose. In 1973 the World Bank president Robert McNarnara pledged "his organization

to direct its resources toward improving the productivity and welfare of the rural poor of the

poorest countries".13s In the following years, between 1973 and 1978, the World Bank's

investment in agriculture accelerated by nearly 400 percent. And the Integrated Rural

Development Programmes turned out to be the vehicle in the effort.136

The perception and action of the IRDP in the last decade varied depending on the

needs of the individual implementing countries.137 In Bangladesh the IRDP originated as a

new institutional arrangement to replicate the Comilla system of agricultural cooperatives, now

internationally known as "Comilla Model", all over the ~0unt ry . l~~ At its preliminary stage the

134(~ont'd) World Develowment, 1984, p. 394.

135 Ibid. p. 394.

136 For details of the World Bank's role in international rural development during last 15 years, see, Robert Apes, Banking QQ Poor: The World Bank World Povem Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1983; Also, William Clark,"Robert McNamara at the World Bank", Foreinn Affairs, 1983. pp. 167-184; Richard Stryker, "The World Bank and Agricultural Development: Food Production and Rural Poverty", World Develowment, Vo1.7 , 1979, pp. 325-336; Werner Baer,"The World Bank Group and the Process of Socio-Economic Development in the Third World", World Develowment, Vo1.2 N0.6 1979, pp. 1-10; The World Bank, Rural Develowment: Sector Policv Pawer, Washington D.C.: the World Bank, 1975.

13' See, A.T. Mosher, Thinking About Rural Develowment (NY: The Agricultural Development Council, 1976); Uma Lele, The Desinn of Rural Develowment: Lessons from Africa, (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1979); John Cohen, "Integrateing Services for Rural Development", Harvard University: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Kennedy School of Government, 1979; Dharam Ghai, A.R.Khan (eds.) Agrarian Svstem Rural Develowment, NY: Holmes & Meier Pub.Inc., 1979.

13' On Comilla Cooperative Model, See A.R. Khan, "Comilla Model and the Integrated Rural Development Programme of Bangladesh - An Experiment in 'Cooperative Capitalism"',Dharam Ghai, A.R, Khan et a1 (eds.) Op cit, pp.113-157; S.A. Rahim, Opcit.; Arthur Rapper, Rural Develowment Action NY, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969; Jan Paul Emmert, Breakdown fl Ideolonv: Rewlication of Comilla Cooperative Awwroach. , Unpublished Ph.D

US-AID, and later on the World Bank, provided extensive support for expansion of the

program.

Intensive reviews of the replicated IRDP Program suggest that the initiative has failed

to check the influence of the powerful village elites over the cooperative organizations. Since

this was, just like others, a program bureaucratically developed and managed, and imposed on

the rural people, the average villagers' understanding of and participation in the program was

very limited. As a consequence, the existing inequality in the rural areas has persisted and

has even become aggravated.139

The IRDP had various contradictions built within it. In this program, the government

bureaucrats were expected to guide the development of cooperative organisations with

egalitarian objectives and check the influence of village elites over the small fmers . But

Joseph Stepanek wrote, in this program "the target group was mi-st, the unity of villagers

was underestimated, and the strength of the civil service was overestimated" by the

implementing planners and bureaucrats. This supports a key argument in this thesis that the

government bureaucrats are engaged in a relentless exercise for their relative autonomous role

in state affairs. Stepanek continued,

Owners of small farms can not be reached easily because influential villagers control traditional resource flow and relationships. In a milieu free of social and economic checks on the elite, reaching the target group posed to be too great a challenge.140

"8(cont'd) thesis,Michigan State University. 1981. Also, M. Zakaria Choudhury, IRDP Barisa.1 Dhaka: IRDP, 1979; and Akhter Hamid Khan, "The Comilla Projects: A Personal Account", Conference Paper, Addis Ababa, October, 1973.

139 A.R,Khan, OpCit, p. 151; Abu Abdullah, OpCit. p. 252; Swadesh Bose,"The Comilla Cooperative Approach and the Prospects for Broad-based Green Revolution in Bangladesh", World Develo~ment, VoT.2, No.8 August, 1974, pp. 21-28. Alan Lindquist, "Rural Development, Cooperatives and the State", M.Sc. Thesis, Sussex, England: Institute of Development Studies, 1980; Also, articles by Geof D. Wood, in Ameerul Huq (ed.) Ex~loitation and Rural Poor, Comilla: BARD, 1976.

140 Stepanek, op.cit., p. 141.

This thesis posits that the goverment and its agents face the challenge of village elites

only at the rhetorical level. In real terms, in the larger context of competitive communication,

they are in a convenient cooperation with the village elites to sustain and enhance control

over the poor villagers. Still, the IRDP programmes in Bangladesh went on spreading from

33 thanas in 1972 to 430 thanas in 1983. But the more they spread, the more they unfold

their inherent characters and failures. Here the "failures" apply only with regard to the

programme's intention to serve the small farmer cooperators; the programme was rather

successful from the state's perspective to communicate its covert intention of control. The state

power through the technique of "improving the program", initiates a new institutional

structure to perpetuate more power and control for itself.

Observers have found few examples of pilot projects that have made the transition into

successful mal development programmes. Although it was easy to identify numerous pilot

projects which were successful only at their experimental phase, Ruttan explains that, "when

the programmes have been extended to a national scale they simply become mechanisms for

imposing centrally mandated programmes on communities rather than instruments that enable

communities to mobilize their own resources for development"141 In managing these

programmes the government carefully maintains that the programme's success should not create

independent political forces that would be difficult for the central administration to control.

The military-bureaucratic oligarchies of the post-colonial states have so few political resources

available to them at the centre that "they are unable or unwilling to risk the consequences

of the emergence of the multiple centres of political power that would arise as a result of

more effective organization and mobilization for rural development".14*

The basic reason for emphasizing competition as the basis of communication

relationships among national pararstatal institutions state as a communication agency in the

141 Vernon Ruttan, op.cit, pp. 395-396.

14' Ibid., p. 399.

rural development process of a post-colonial state, such as Bangladesh, lies in the fact that

most rural development programs have been only skillful manoeuvers of state power to keep

rural people out of the political process. This prevents them from gaining the capacity to

change the existing distribution system of political and economic resources. The latest

endeavour in this line was the 'Thana Upgrading Programme' through which the state has

advanced one step more to centralize political power in a pretext of decentralization.

The Thana U~nrading Programme --

The strategy of "upgrading" the status of thanas in the country was an outcome of

the new (1982) military government's administrative reorganization programme. It was the latest

attempt of the state power to "decentralize" administration in which the institution of the

thana regained its central focus. In theory, the state defined "upgrading" as a provision for

more power to the local institutions. This programme is also an illustration of how the state

power performs its communication functions through definition and statistics-creation roles and

using new concepts in its communication strategies. The argument has been extensively

developed with illustrations from BIP in Chapter VII.

After ascending to power through the proclamation of martial law in March, 1982, the

government of the Chief Martial Law Administrator General H. M. Ershad, within few weeks,

appointed a Council Committee for Administrative Improvement headed by his Deputy Martial

Law Administrator. This Committee was assigned to report and recommend reorganization and

reforms of the country's administrative structure including its local levels. Within eight weeks

the Committee prepared the report and submitted its re~ommendations.~~~

143 The Committee was formed on April 28, 1982 with a chairman and six members, of which two were military generals, four were national level bureaucrats and one was an academician. Later on, three more members: one retired one active bureaucrats and a journalist were included in the Committee. The Committee submitted its recommendations on June 22, 1982.

Analysing the historical roles, problems and potentials of the administrative structures

from the state's point of view, the report recommended increasing the number of districts by

turning sub-divisions into districts. Thus the step of subdivision - the link between the

district and thana institutions - was proposed to be abolished. The thana was considered the

basic unit of administration and the centre of all development activities at the local level.

Similar to the structures of the Sixties the thana regained its importance in administrative

structure. The importance of the thana in relations to the state, government and their

bureaucracies has been analysed in Chapter IX.

The Committee suggested handing over all development responsibilities of districts, thanas

and unions to their respective elected bodies. The proposals of this committee, with few

exceptions, were consistent with the Zaman Committee of early 1972, the Choudhury

Committee of late 1972, and the Rashid Committee of 1976. The present Committee in

analysing the reasons for poor performance of the earlier governments in managing the state

affairs, made the country's politicians responsible for failing in their duties to formulate and

manage a development-oriented political system. Although the Report correctly stated the truth

about the politicians, it failed to record the other truth of pervasiveness of political control

by the state power: the communicational role of the military and bureaucracy to preserve and

enhance their domination through organizing and reorganizing institutions to satisfy

administrative needs. The Report considered the bureaucratic administrative system as only a

sub-system within the political structure.144 This thesis contests this perspective and argues that

it is a skeptical view of the bureaucracy to analyse their own critical relationships with the

state. It was not a surprising view for the Committee since the Committee itself was

composed of bureaucrats. This thesis posits that the interest of the state power is dialectically

opposed to decentralization of administration, particularly when the state power is composed of

the military and bureaucratic oligarchies. Thus, the recommendations were more close to

144 Section 2.5 of the Committee for Administratve Reorganization and Reform, quoted in Shanabad Dhaka August 26, 1982.

political rhetorics than actual action programmes.

However, accepting the major recommendations of the Committee in principle, the

Government went ahead with the abolition of subdivision and the Thana Upgrading

Programme. Through this programme the thana was renamed as Upa-Zila (subdistrict}, and

its Circle Officer was replaced by a Thana Nirbahi Officer (TNO: Thana Executive Officer)

with much higher bureaucratic rank and status. A judicial administration with one munsif

(village judge) and two magistrates was also placed at the thana. The judiciary was perceived

to be independent of TNO's administration. The major responsibility of TNO was to

coordinate and supervise the eleven government officials and their developmental roles within

each thana.

The Government accepted the recommendation of the Reorganization Committee for an

elected Upa-Zila Council consisting of a chairman, a vice-chairman and 11 members to

originate and implement the thana's development plans. But at the earlier stage the

relationships between TNO and the elected Council were unclear. Similar to the Thana

Project Officer (TFQ) and the elected Tbm Central Cooperative Association (TCCA) mder

IRDP, the jurisdiction of power and privileges of the elected Council and TNO emerged as

a source of potential conflict. Following a series of press criticism, the military government

on November 6, 1982, came out with a clarification on the issue to the effect that the

Chairman of the Upa-Zila Council would be the chief executive of Thana administration.

TNO would help the council in all administrative affairs. Paradoxically, the power and

privileges of an elected Thana Council were determined not by any elected body but by a

military government.

But this decision of the government did not satisfy many of the newly appointed

TNOs and some influential people among them, expressing their inherent character of

bureaucracy, refused to take responsibilities under an elected village leader. This added a new

dimension of administrative conflict within the "Upgrading" programme. The problem was

temporarily solved through conceding to the bureaucracy: the full power went to the TNOs

until the chairmen and council members were elected. It was not until the middle of 1985

that the Government held the Upa-ZiZa election against vehement protests and a boycott by

the 21 political parties in the country. Following the elections the nature of conflict between

the elected councils and appointed TNOs is sure to enter into a new phase, which remains

an interesting area of future research.

The state's discriminatory policy of prefering some thanas over others in order to

satisfy its requirements of autonomous power, was also manifested in the Thana Upgrading

Programme. For the reasons discussed above, here too, Nazirpur received a low priority. The

selection of the Divisional Commissioner, by the Government, to perform the ceremony of

upgrading of Nazirpur was a symbolic gesture of discrimination, when the higher oftices of

the President and the Chief Martial Law Adrninstrator, the Deputy and the Zonal Martial

Law Administrators, Cabinet Ministers and Secretaries were upgrading the other thanas. The

Divisional Commissioner had a Joint Secretary status and was at the bottom among the very

important persons selected for performing the upgradation ceremonies.

It is premature at this stage to judge the consequences of the Thana Upgrading

Programme from the rural peoples' point of view, that is, in the interest of whom the

administration is being "decentralized". But it will not be wrong to state that the programme

is not much different in content from the communication strategies of the Sixties; it may

have only a different form. After the upgrading of Nazirpw thana, a senior official of the

Government said that they were putting "the same wine in a new bottle". It was not the

thana that received new status or power, it was the lower level officials and executives of

the government who recieved a boost in their pay, status and power. The thanas and their

people will remain the same. An old retired primary school teacher who was among the

invitees at the upgrading ceremony made an emphatic comment: "now the corruption and

expropriation of government officials will reach our doors".

CHAPTER V

JRRIGATION POLICY DEVELOPMENT IN BANGLADESH

Despite the long existence of inrigation systems in Bengal, the official irrigation policy

of Bangladesh is recent In a short time irrigation has produced a potential social organising

system, in which state power used irrigation as a means of influence and control. An

intensive study of the Barisal Irrigation Project suggests that an understanding of appropriate

modes of command area organisation and the pattern of communication in and between the

implementing parastatal institutions are the most critical issues in the irrigation problem,

vis-a-vis the agricultural and rural development of Bangladesh. Until now scholars have

ignored the institutional communication factor in their analyses of national development

problems in this agricultural society. For Bangladesh, the official irrigation policy and its

operative institutions remained at the centre of the state's communication in centralizing its

political power. Although focus of this thesis is not on the origin of the centralized political

power through irrigation system, this chapter uses the Hydraulic Hypothesis to illustrate how

the centralizing process of the state power is maintained and enhanced through irrigation

dvelopment

In the BIP project the World Bank, the state, and the farmers' organisations are major

participating international, national and local institutions. How the project has strengthened and

weakened the relations between national and local institutions has been investigated in this

study. The project is thus seen as an arena of communication of influence among institutions.

The detailed matrixes of competitive communication among the institutions in BIP will be

discussed in following chapters. The present chapter focuses on a critical discussion on the

hydraulic hypothesis in relation to centralization of political power, its relevance to Bangladesh,

and the evolution of an irrigation policy in the country through time.

There is no sign that ancient East Bengal had an irrigation policy, nor did any policy

exist during the early part of the colonial rule. An irrigation policy only began to emerge in

the last part of British rule. However, during the period since the partition of India in 1947,

irrigation policy has passed through various stages and only recently it received a central

focus in national development plans.

In the late Fifties and early sixties, irrigation as policy was under-emphasized and

remained as a minor part of the dominant flood control plan. But, in order to reduce the

food deficit and to satisfy the new demand for foodgrains for the country's fast-growing

population, a clear policy started to evolve with emphasis on projects with large scale gravity

water development and power pump irrigation. These large scale projects proved unsuccessful

and the policy emphasis shifted to the small-scale projects. Now surface water irrigation with

extensive use of low lift pumps and tubewells were developed.

With this policy shift significant changes also occurred in the relationship between the

government and farmers' organizations. Changes took place with respect to the ownership of

land (which incresed from 200 to 333 acres in 1962 but reduced te only 33 acres in 1973),

control of land, the structure and functions of farmers' cooperatives, and the use and prices

of agricultural inputs. Also influencing these changes was the larger context of economic and

political developments. The role of the government became central to all affairs. Every

government in the country attempted to adapt the irrigated agricultural strategy to centralize

and possess the state power. Irrigated agriculture and political power became inseparable.

Whether or not irrigation development facilitates the centralization of state power, its

enquiry has produced an interesting debate between h 1 Wittfogel (through his 'Hydraulic

. Hypothesis') and his critics. A review of the current status of the debate would be useful

before discussing the irrigation context of Bangladesh, its past and present.

Hvdraulic Hmothesis: A summm of debate

In his work Karl Wittfogel assumed that large-scale irrigation is a general character of

oriental societies and that these societies required a centralized authoritarian political system to

coordinate and direct irrigation efforts.145 Studying the classical Chinese society intensively,

Wittfogel concluded that irrigation was a major cause of the emergence of centralized political

authority, the development of early states and civilization,

Before Wittfogel, Julian Steward in 1949 and Goldfrank in 1952 developed a similar

argument146 Steward proposed that the irrigation civilizations (e.g Egypt, Mesopotamia, China,

Mesoamerica and the Central Andes) had common basic cultural features and developmental

sequences, because their adaptation to an arid or semi-arid environment required large-scale

irrigation. Advancing Steward's arguments, Goldfrank writes:

large scale water control, which demands cooperative effort, requires a directing centre outside the family and usually outside the local community.147

More recently the hydraulic theory has come under attack. Opposing Karl Wittfogel's

idea of irrigation being the major reason behind centralization of power, Robert Adam

forwarded evidence from Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica that the centralized states developed

prior to large scale irrigation development.148 Rowe has found that among the Inca "large

14' Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Power, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.

146 Julian Steward, "Cultural causality and law", American Anthro~ologist, No.51, (1949) pp. 1-27. Also, his "Introduction" in Irrigation Civilizations: A comparative studv. Pan American Union Social Science Monographs, No.1, 1955.

14' Goldfrank, Ibid. p. 75.

148 Robert Adams, "Early civilizations, subsistence and environment," in Carl Kraeling and Robert Adam (eds.) C& Invincible: A svmposium urbanization and cultural development & j& ancient Near East , Chicago: Chicago U. Press, 1960; Also, Evolution of Urban Society Chicago: Aldine, 1966.'

cities appeared first and major irrigation canals were only built later.149 LanninglSO and

Masonlsl also offered similar evidence in their studies of Peruvian society. They all argued

that centralized government preceded an extensive irrigation system. They concluded that

irrigation was a product of civilization, not a cause of itlS2 In this regard Edmund Leach's

criticism of Wittfogel is much stronger.

Leach charged Wittfogel with being short of methodological neutrality and accused him

of using comparative methodology only partially. Leach said that Wittfogel looked only for

positive evidence which would support his thesis and argued that he evaded or ignored the

negative instances.lS3 He attacked Wittfogel for using terms like "Asiatic", "Oriental" and

"Feudal" synonymously. Challenging the hydraulic hypothesis, Leach argued that Wittfogel's

thesis was not supported by the data on ancient Ceylon: "although there were large irrigation

works, there was no evidence that such irrigation works produced the hydraulic bureaucracy

required by Wittfogel's thesis". He suggested that:

we cannot infer from large scale irrigation works the existence of a large labour force under central government control; nor can we make inferences about the size of the population ?.hat was fed by the irrigation system. Still less we ca make inferences about the nature of political authority in the ancient state.Is4

Elsewhere Leach argued that for Ceylon, individuals and small-group-efforts were more

vital in irrigation than centralized bureaucracy. He said, "when the central government was

disrupted, and major works fell into disrepair, village life could carry on quite adequately;

for each village still possessed its own small scale irrigation system which was maintained by

149 John H. Rowe, "Urban settlements in ancient Peru," Nama Pacha No.1 1963. p. 20.

lSO Edward Laming, Peru before &g Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967.

lS1 Alden J. Mason, Ancient Civilizations of &I-J Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968.

lS2 William Mitchel, "Hydraulic Hypothesis: An Appraisal," Current Anthroplonv 1973. p. 532.

lS3 Ibid. p. 5

lS4 William Mitchel, op. cit., p. 533.

the villagers themselves".1s5

Supporting Leach's contention Mitchel maintains that large scale irrigation does not

always require or produce centralized direction or coordination of effort He writes:

It is mistaken to view irrigation by itself as the independent variable. Any society may or may not direct its irrigation activities centrally, such direction is not

But like k h , Mitchel does not completely discard Wittfogel's proposition. He accepts

that by the hydraulic theory Wittfogel has isolated important social consequences not of large

scale irrigation itself, but of an irrigation system that is regulated by some central political

authority. He suggests a reformulation of Witfogel's hypothesis that if there is centralized

direction of irrigation activities in an arid or semi-arid environment then there will be a

corresponding increase in centralized political power in other areas of social life.ls7

This thesis supports the above proposition with some modifications. On the basis of an

intensive study of the Barisal Irrigation Project in Bangladesh this thesis advances the

argument that irrigation is a potential social organizing system through which rulers and their

agents exert immense influence and control. Although origin of the centraIization of political

power through irrigation is not the area of major focus of this thesis, in case of Bangladesh,

this author finds irrigation to be a technique of sustaining and enhancing this influence and

control.

lS5 Edmund Leach, "Hydraulic Society in Ceylon", & Present. 1959. p. 23.

lS6 Mitchel, op.cit, p. 534.

lS7 Mitchel, Ibid., p. 534.

Relevance o_f Hvdraulic Hvoothesis & Bengal, Bangladesh M s a l Imnation.

It is interesting to note that no one concerned with the hydraulic hypothesis has used

the irrigation system of Bengal in their argument This suggests two possibilities: first, they

were unawase of this ancient irrigation system in the eastern part of India, although many of

them referred to the existence or role of irrigation in northern and southern India; second,

that it could have been an insignificant phenomenon to these theorists, although its

importance has been emphasized by the British colonial irrigation of'ficers and engineers.lss

During the British rule, i.e. prior to 1947, irrigation in East Bengal did not receive

much attention. Since irrigation was not extensively used in the eastern part of Bengal in the

past, the relationship between irrigation and centrali~ation of political power in the area can

not be clearly supported by the hydraulic hypothesis. However, in present Bangladesh,

irrigated agriculture remains as a major technique of power relations and a means of

centralizing political power by the state.

The irrigation policy in the first two desades emphasized flood como! o m inigatier!

for agriculture. This emphasis was explict in the country's Water Development Master Plan

(1964) prepared by the International Engineering Company (IECO) of San Francisco and The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for the newly created water development projects

implementing institution the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). However

irrigation component the plan possesed, they were subsidiary to huge-type hydrolic power

generation oriented projects such as the Ganga-Kapodak and the Kamafuli projects. Under

some other drainage projects

waters in specific agricultural

access water out from those

embankments were erected with regulators for admitting flood

zones and then used gravity or pumping methods to drain

specific zones. From an agricultural point of view these were

lS6 Willcocks mentioned that when in early days the Chola Kings of Bengal conquered southern India, they introduced the Bengal system of irrigation in those areas. Willcocks, Ancient Irrigation jg Bengal, Calcutta: Calcutta Univ. Press, 1918. p.14.

more cropprotective rather than making water available for irrigation for increasing the crop

production. Most of these were technology-intensive, high cost and long-gestation period

projects. There were very few projects particularly designed for irrigation per se. Only in the

late sixties and early seventies, low-cost, quick-yielding irrigation projects with emphasis to

increase agriculture started to emerge.

Following liberation in 1971, a sharp shift of emphasis away from fundamentally high

cost and long-gestation projects towards low cost and quick-yielding projects was visible in

the irrigation ploicy of Bangladesh. This shift occurred for clusters of reasons. First, it was

due to the questionable depth and focus of the Master Plan, to the very quick success of

the TIP-based irrigation system and the introduction of a new seed technology highly adapted

to dry season irrigation. The second reason was the inability of the new government to

finance the import of 1.5 million tons of food grains in 1972 to feed the fast-growing

population of the country. The government had to put its major efforts to the reconstruction

of the war devastated economy.

The policy shift for small and quick-yidding projects ir! irigztim with a focus on

'food production and not on flood protection' was initiated with the help of the World Bank.

Following the country's independence, the World Bank continued to have the most significant

influence upon its development efforts. Before proposing the shifts in the Bangladesh irrigation

program, the Bank conducted an intensive study on the land and water problems of the

C O U ~ ~ I ~ ~

The Government policy was made consistent with the World Bank study report, and

thus projected the food grain self-sufficiency for the country by 1983. The 'Self-sufficiency'

. was expected through the implementation of a multifaceted program which included,

lS9 This report in nine volumes is called: The Land and Water Resources Sector Study: Bangladesh, IBRD, Dec 1, 1972. The UNDP and the FA0 of the United Nations assisted the World Bank in this study.

high yielding seeds production and distribution, use of input packages comprising of seeds, fertilizers, plant protection and improved draft animal power, greater availability of low-lift pumps and small drainage improvements; completion of minor and medium size drainage works, and the rapid expansion of capital.160

Because of the limited resource base, the implementation of the food self-sufficiency

program and other major development efforts were mostly dependent on external aid. As the

major donor the World Bank's influences were explicit: it played a key role in the planning

and execution of the inigation-based agricultural projects.lS1 The components of the Bank's

study became a major basis of the two Five-Year and one Two-Year Plans of the country.

Although in theory the Bank's intention was to alleviate rural poverty by increasing

yields in agricultural produce, in practice, as a Bank, its interest was more towards investment

in Bangladesh. For Bangladesh, the result of aid has become, in the view of Sobhan:

"inimical to the mobilization and the effective use of productive capacities in the country's

prevailing structural constraints."162 The present policy emphasis on irrigated agriculture is an

outcome of the World Bank's increased sectoral investment in irrigation and agriculture. The

Barisal Irrigation Project is one of the nine Bank-funded on-going irrigation projects of the

country.lb3 The following chapters concentrate on an intensive study of the Barisal Irrigation

Project, its institutional and cornmunicational roles in the development of Bangladesh.

lbO Hanratty, op. cit, p. 16.

lb l Just Faaland, et al. &.I Influence: CQ of Bangladesh N.Y: Martin PressJ981. p. 18; also, Rehman Sobhan, Crisis of External De~endence, Dhaka: UBL, 1982.

lbl Rehman Sobhan, Opcit., p. inside cover.

lb3 Presently, in i986 more irrigation projects are being planned and the negotiation process for funding from the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank is in progress.

CHAPTER VI

THE BARISAL IRRIGATION PROJECT

The Barisal Irrigation Project (BIP) is one of the medium scale, labour intensive and

quick-yielding irrigated-agricultural projects of Bangladesh. Although it is the outcome of the

irrigation policy changes in the post-1971 period, its origin can be traced back to the

International Engineering Company (IECO) Master Plan of 1964.

The IECO Master Plan included the Faridpur-Barisal Project (Barisal Unit) as one of

its fifty major projects. According to the 1964 Plan the Faridpur-Barisal Project was to be

used in two areas; first, in the southern part of Faridpur district and in the northern part

of Barisal district with a gross area of 630,000 acres in one polder (see maps 4 and 5).

The second area covering 540,000 acres included the southern part of Barisal and the

northern part of present Patuakhali Similar to IECO's many other projects, it

proposed to develop these areas in two phases: flood protection and drainage at its initial

phase, and irrigation in the second. The development of its first phase was completed in

1969. The second phase came into existence only recently in 1973 with the change in the

irrigation policy of the country, which emphasised food production instead of flood protection.

The present Barisal Irrigation Project was an extended outcome of the the second phase of

the Faridpur-Barisal Project

Although Barisal was a high surpius area in food production in the early part of this

century, in the 1940s its surplus status began to recede.165 By 1960, Barisal belonged to the

food deficit group among the country's 19 districts.166 In its post-independence period Barisal

has never produced more than 85% of its food requirements. Presently it ranks 10th in land

164 At that time Patuakhali was part of Barisal district.

x65 Barisal was known as the "granary of Bengal" in the early twentieth century.

Anderson, Opeit, pp. 98-99.

area with 2,537 square miles (1,669,120 acres), 8th in population with 4.6 million (4.9% of

the country's 95 million people), but produces 4.2% (ranks 5th) of the country's food

production. The district had a 2.7% growth rate in population against little less than 2%

increase in food production in 1981.16' The density of population in Barisal is 1771 which is

much higher than the national average of 1727 per square mile. If land area alone is

counted (by eliminating water surfaces) the density will be over 2000 per square mile.

Administratively, in 1981, the district had 5 Subdivisions, 28 Thanas, 226 Unions and 2461

villages. But in 1983-84, with the changes in local administrative systems, Barisal was divided

into 3 district. and 29 Upa-Zilas (subdistricts). The "Sub-divisions" were thus abolished

through this change. The implications of this change in the development process of the

country have been discussed in chapter IX.

The district of Barisal is a flat delta at the south-west confluence of the Ganges, the

Brahmaputra, and the Meghna rivers. It is criss-crossed by hundreds of medium and small

rivers and canals served by fresh water through high and low tides twice everyday.

Covered by monsoon dimate. Barid's yearly mezn rahfall is recorded at 90 inches of

which 80% precipitates between June and October. The dry winter season which runs through

November to February has little rainfall and is low in temperatures and humidities. The

pre-monsoon season between March and May has higher temperatures (85'-90'F) with high

evaporation (about 5"-6"inches), but very little rainfall. Thus, due to the availability of huge

water the major cultivation periods in Barisal are in pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. This

deltaic plain land is only 10 feet above the sea level.

Barisal was a comparatively developed area in the colonial period because the head

. office of the British Steamer Company in the south was located here. But in the

16' A total of 7,680,010 tons of rice was produced in Barisal in 1981. The figure includes all three Aus, Arnan and Boro crops produced in that year; calculated from GOB, Agricultural Year Book of Bangladesh, Dhaka: Bureau of Statistics, 1982. pp. 27-59.

post-independence period in the Seventies and Eighties it became one of the most backward

districts of Bangladesh. Although its distance is only 70 miles from the capital city of Dhaka,

it takes a day to reach there either by boat or by car. Within the district boats happen to

be the major vehicle for transport. Barisal is still one of the fertile areas of Bangladesh

because of its alluvial siltation done by the regular high-low tide in the rivers.

The BIP was created in this fertile land to increase the acreage of dry winter-season

irrigated agriculture in four Thanas of Barisal, viz. Kotwali, Nalchity, Jhalakati and Babuganj.

Irrigation in the dry season in these four Thanas was to be achieved by constructing 57

primary sluice gates on major canals which were fed by the tidal waters of the major rivers,

and by re-excavating the existing reservoirs and khals to hold and preserve water carried by

the high tides; and then to use 100 primary (each with 25 cusec capacity) and 2500

secondary (each with 1 or 2 cusec capacity) power pumps to lift water from reservoirs to

the minor canals and field channels. The supply, installation and maintenance of primary

pumps were the responsibilities of BIP, whereas secondary pumps were rented out to the

cooperatives by BIP. The relationships and their consequential problems regarding pumps and

cooperatives will be discussed later in this thesis.

Two of the four BIP thanas, Kotwali and Jhalakati have been selected for intensive

study in this thesis. (See maps 3, 4, 5. 6) . An analysis of the development-communication

process of these two thanas and a comparison with two other non-BIP thanas, Perojpur and

Nazirpur, have been attempted in a subsequent chapter. This and the following chapter

concentrate on the background, factors for its origin, achievements and failures, and the

diverse nature of the competitive communicational problems in the Barisal Irrigation Project

I

--

DISTRICT BARISAL COMILLA

LOCATIONS OF SAMPLE THANAS /" '. - a .

/ ' -:

Bay Of Elengal Source: World Food Programme, Dhaka, 1984.

BARISAL DISTRICT

KOT WALI

B A R I S A L ,qLJ-b-- \

)C*O.Y. ........ Source: World .Food Programme, Dhaka, 1984.

JHALAKATI D I S T R I C T

JHALAKATI

'-44++ s I,, 0 I .- / e

Organisational Structure

BARlSAL IRRIGATION PROJECT

Dist.Mngr. BADC

PROJECT DIRECTOR S .E . A s s t .Reg .of Coops. , ,(froi,W.,D.B.) , A s s t . D i r . R. Dev. Chairman TCCA Ex.Engt. P.D.B.

4 !!E -- BADC DAEM IRDP -

Ex .Engnr s . Ex . E n g ~ s . Deputy D epntr y . Constructn Mech .Div. D i r e c t r ~ i r e c t r

Div .1 - 4 pum - Agronomst ~ o r K s hop

A s s t .Engrs . t .Engrs. Sub-Div. A s s t . Constructn. Sub-Div .Mngr Ext . D i r e c t r . sub-D i v . - F e r t i l i z e r s O f f i c e r Engineers. Seeds S r .Overseer

A s s t .Engrs. F e r t i l i z e r s T.R .O. TCCA Chairman Seeds P lan t . D .P -0.

I P .O. Accountant

Ext .Ovrsr . I I

Sub-unjt Of fc r Union Agr. Chief I n s tr . F e r t i l ~ z e r s A s s t . B i l l . ~ c c c g .

I F A R M E R S I

Some - Total estimated budget

(1975-86)

World Bank credit

E.EC grants

Bangladesh govt.

Total cultivable area

Estimated irrigated area

Existing HYV-ultv. acres

Area expected to bring

under HYV in BIP

Table 3

basic facts about

B r o Rice Production increse by

$3.12 m.

$15.88 m.

147,000 acres

141,000

13,000

Source: The Appraisal Report of The Barisal Irrigation Project,

GOB and WB, Dhaka, 1976.

External Dvnamics: Role of @g World Bank

Just after liberation, as has been mentioned earlier, the government was faced with two

immediate goals: feeding its huge population of impoverished people, and reconstructing the

war-tom economy. To realize these goals many development projects had to be instituted. In

the absence of required resources, both in the form of capital and technology, Bangladesh

had to seek external help from both the West and the East. Initially, the United Nations

offered to reconstruct part of the country's economy.168 The World Bank, which now has a

huge investment in Bangladesh was reluctant to invest in the country in the early Seventies

due to Bangladesh's refusal to accept liabilities for the debts contracted by Pakistan prior to

1971.169

When the debt-liability debate was resolved, the World Bank became enthusiastic at the

prospect of investing in Bangladesh. This enthusiasm to invest was a step toward realizing the

Bank's 1967 policy of increased lending in South Asia. For political and economic reasons the

World Bank increased its investment by more than 400% between 1967 and 1977.170 The

Bank made available nearly a billion dollars to Bangladesh even to some extent against the

wishes of the host-country government The finance minister of the then government had

little interest in the World Bank's help to reconstruct his country, because he was committed

to develop Bangladesh through a socialist approach, which he believed would not be possible

through the World Bank foreign aid. It was the World Bank that approached and pushed

the Bangladesh government to accept the Bank's funds. Just Faaland, a former consultant to

the Wor!d Bark a d z c!me observer of the relationship between the h d c snd Bangladesh

wrote:

It is difficult to trace the early development of relations between the Bank and Bangladesh with completeness. The story at the time, possibly apocryphal, indicated that the first approaches were made in Delhi in February, 1972, when Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed, then Finance Minister of Bangladesh, and Mr McNarnara, the President of the World Bank, both happened to be visiting the Indian capital. The Finance Minister was reluctant to meet the President of the World Bank and refused the overtures that were made. The Indian Government was equal to the occasion and skillful enough to arrange that both McNamara and Tajuddin were invited to Son et Lumiere, at the Red Fort on the same day. Strangely enough they were seated together; perhaps more strangely not one word was exchanged. Tajuddin was not amenable to such tactics.

168 Thomas Olivier, United Nations & Bangladesh, Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1978.

For details on the role of the World Bank in the Bangladesh-Pakistan debt issue, see Rehman Sobhan, of External Dependence, Dhaka: The University Publishers Ltd., 1982.

See the WB report on IDA April, 1978, p. 19.

McNarnara refused to allow himself to be put off by evidence of reluctance to cooperate and persisted in attempting to establish contact He succeeded in being invited to Dhaka as an official guest of the Government, largely as a result of the personal intervention of the Prime Minister.171

The aid offer created a serious conflict among the decision makers in the Government at

both ideological and socio-economic program levels: the Cabinet was divided on the issue. At

this stage Bangladesh and the United States did not have mutual diplomatic recognition.

However, finally in the competition, the WB got the break.

Between 1971 and 1981, the Bank injected 1.8 billion dollars of aid to Bang1ade~h.l~~

In the strategies of both the Bank and of the government, irrigated agriculture and ma]

development as a combined single sector received the highest (22.5%) priority in their

investment173 The priority was consistent with the World Bank's agriculture sector policy

commitments. In the ten years' time between 1968 and 1978, the total investment of the

International Development Association (IDA), the Bank's investment mechanism in the Third

World, in agriculture grew from $300m. to S3,300m. d01lars.l~~ A major portion (48%) of this

investment was in irrigation alone. Between 1961 and 1966 the percentage of investment in

irrigation was as high as 79

The Bank's general policy of increased lending with particular emphasis on irrigation

allured the Government of Bangladesh and its Water Development Board to prepare a series

of projects to develop the country's deficient agriculture. The Barisal Irrigation Project in 1975

171 Just Faaland, et al, Influence: Caa of Banaladesh (NY: S t Martin's Press, 1981) p. 148.

17* The exact figure is 1,843 million. (Source: The WB, Dhaka, June 25, 1981.) The current (1986) World Bank investment in Bangladesh is USS3.205 billions. The total external public debt for the country is USS6.819 billion. (Source: The World Bank Annual Report 1985. pp. 166 and 180.)

173 The percentage will be higher (33.5) if calculated excluding the $665 m. which was given as Import Program Credit

174 The World Bank, IDA. Washington, April, 1978.

17' The WB, Rural Develowment: Sector Policv Pawer, Washington, 1975, p. 58 .

(Credit No. 542 BD, April 29, 1975) became the third in the irrigation series, funded by the

IDA, following the country's independen~e.'~~ The Bank's enthusiasm to fund irrigation projects

in Bangladesh was extraordinary. The intention and the historical role of the Bank in

international agricultural development have been discussed earlier. Before the Government could

ask the Banb funding for the BIP, the Bank itself prepared two preliminary Project

Identification and Appraisal reports with the help of the Food and Agricultural Organization

(FAO) Program Mission that visited Bangladesh in October, 1972. Here it is necessary to

note that this pre-project report preparation process turned out to be an important influencing

technique for the World Bank over its fund-receiving country. The nine volume study-reports

on Bangladesh water development and the preproject reports on Barisal were forwarded to

the Government officials as 'guidelines' for the Barisal Irrigation Project preparati~n.'~~ The

Appraisal Report of the Barisal Project states that,

... in view of the immense technical and financial problems encountered in carrying out water control projects of a capital intensive nature and the immediate critical need to increase food production as quickly as possible, future strategies should place stronger emphasis on less ambitious projects designed to yield results more rapidly. The Barisal Irrigation Project reflects this view.178

The report strongly supported irrigation wit! high yielding seed varieties (EYV) in cofij-mc'Jan

with the use o'f fertilizer and pesticides as the only way to increase production.

The proposal of the Barisal project reflected the World Bank's interest in increased

investment in Bangladesh agriculture. An increased investment was considered as the most

important success-parameter for the Bank, whether that investment brought any benefit for

176 TWO other projects were the Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra (DND) Project and the Chandpur Irrigation Project(C1P). At present the World Bank is supporting at least seven more irrigation, drainage or flood control projects in Bangladesh. For a list and individual project information, see T& World Bank 1 3 OPerations Bangladesh, GOB: External .Resources Division, 1980.

177 A Joint Secretary, External Resources Division, GOB., June, 1983. (A senior Government bureaucrat located between the Secretary and a Deputy Secretary.)

The WB & GOB, Amraisal Re~ort, April, 1975, pp. 3-4.

that country or not.179 After two long years of negotiations the Bank provided a loan of $27

million in US funds, in accordance with IDA terms to implement the project In addition to

the IDA loan, the European Economic Community (EEC) added US$3.12 million dollars as a

grant to the project fund. The other USS15.88 m. of the total US$46 m. was provided by

the Bangladesh Government in local taka funds.

The Internal Politics the Government.

The Barisal Irrigation Project was also created to satisfy the political needs of the new

government. When the liberation war ended, the Awami League government, having very little

management experience, was faced with the paramount task of providing food, housing and

jobs for thousands of unemployed people, particularly the young freedom fighters and the

party workers. A temporary failure to command control over the state by the government

resulted in rampant chaos and fast detorioriation of law and order. The government did not

have a coherent plan as how to employ these people, so it was ready to receive proposals

and funds from any source. Moreover, there was tremendous pressure on the government

from the vociferous party leaders and Members of Parliament, to fullfil their pre-liberation

election commitments. The availability of funds from the Bank was congruent with the

immediate governmental need for both food production and job creation and its desire to

pacify the political cadres. The question of the farmers and their prospective relationship with

the project received minimal emphasis in the project planning. Thus the BIP was more a

push from the Government and the Bank than a pull from the Barisal village people. The

expanding role of the World Bank in various projects created a symbiotic relationship with

. the country's sustenance and expansion of the parastatal institutions in order to bring most of

its development efforts under government control.

The statement was the outcome of a discussion between the author, the Project Director of BIP, and a World Bank Consultant at Dhaka, December, 1981.

Whv Proiect Barisal

Following liberation, when the nation's irrigation program was under discussion, the

Barisal Project was not a part of the original proposal. Instead, another project in the

northern part of M s a l , the Faridpw-Msal Project, existed in the original proposal. The

area covered under the project was in the South-East (operational) Zone of the Water

Developement Board, and was under the supervision of a Superintending Engineer. Since

Faridpur was the home district of Prime Minister S.K. Mujibur Rahman, it was not unusual

in this society that he would expect Faridpw to receive special attention in the country's

flood control and irrigated agricultural development process. Faridpw was also one of the

most flood vulnerable districts in the country.180 But the political factor dominated over other

needs, and Fa~idpw received special attention. Immediate action followed: the Khulna Zonal

Head office was transfered to Faridpur and was upgraded by the posting of a Chief

Engineer.I8 l

At this same time (1972-74) Abdur Rob Serniabat of Barisal was the Water and Power

Development Minister in S.K. Mujib's cabinet Being a brother-in-law of the Prime Minister,

Serniabat was a very powerful member of the inner cabinet Serniabat wanted the people of

Barisal, his political friends and followers in particular, to receive some benefits from the

foreign aid for irrigated agricultural projects. So, in a Cabinet meeting, he proposed a project

for Barisal. Another influential (Finance) minister challenged him saying that an irrigation

project already existed in Barisal. However, the Finance minister was referring to the old

Faridpur-Barisal Project, mentioned above. Serniabat clarified his position by specifically

requesting a project in the Thanas around Barisal town. At this time Serniabat's son was a

. powerful political personality and the Chairman of Barisal Municipality. It was evident that

laO See, Aminul Islam & Maniruzzaman Miah (eds.) Bangladesh & Maw Flood Vulnerabilik Dhaka University of Dhaka, 1981. p. 14.

The Faridpw Zonal Ofice started functioning from July, 1973.

Serniabat wanted to extend his political control over Thanas around Barisal town. The Prime

Minister could not ignore his brother-in-law's request and the cabinet ministers felt obliged

to agree to the request. Thus, the Barisal Project was

The World Bank as a funding agency did not play any important role in placing the

project in Barisal: this has been stated by a reliable source within the Bank's Dhaka office

who did not want to be identified. The source said that at this time the Bank's relationship

with the new government was just beginning to develop. The Bank could not risk not

listening to the Government. While it was true that the Bank assessed feasibilities though its

own studies before funding a project, in this case political priorities of both the government

and the Bank may have overshadowed many technical requirements. Still, in comparison to

other irrigation projects in the country, Barisal's projected costs of $211 per acre unit were

the lowest.

BIP: A 'Mqst Successful' Model:

The planners and patrons of agricultural development in Bangladesh have identified BIP

as "the most successful" attempt of the country's medium and minor scale irrigation projects.

Several planning documents and review reports of the government carry stories about this

"fine" project. The 'Review of the Bangladesh Water Development Board', jointly prepared by

the Government of Bangladesh and the World BanklS3 has stressed the project's wonderful

organizational arrangements that have worked exceedingly well in the Barisal Irrigation project.

In the Medium-Term Foodgrain Production Plan (MTFPP), prepared by the Planning

Commission in Feb. 1981, the Commission aspired to attain food self-sufficiency for the

1 8 2 A personal interview with Kh. Mustaque Ahmed, then a Cabinet Minister and later President of Bangladesh at his private residence, April, 1983. Mr. Ahmed did not remember the date of the cabinet meeting.

lS3 The Govt. of Bangladesh & the World Bank, Review of & Bangladesh Water Development Board, Report No.2327 BD April, 1979, p. 28.

country mainly through "Barisal" kind of projects.

The MTFPP stated that all the small scale irrigation attempts, such as Barisal, would

successfully irrigate 100,000 acres of land with a 43% internal rate of ret~rn.''~ The MTFPP

document estimated a future investment of 1.23 billion US dollars for minor irrigation

development in the country, and to develop projects such as BIP. The government planned to

share nearly 50 percent ($650 m.) of the total amount of investment The remaining $670 m.

the government expected to come from the private sector.

This was an inherent contradiction within the irrigation plan. On the one hand the

Government expected private investments in irrigation from the local cooperative institutions

(single individuals were ineligible to receive subsidized services from the government), on the

other hand through the influences of parastatal institutions it was obstructing proper growth

of village cooperatives. It was not ready to share the power and its decision-making role

with the village people and their institutions who, in practice, would use the irrigation

services in the field. In this plan the relationships between the agricultural cooperatives and

their members and the government agents, who had total contro! over L!x agricultwa! iapt

distribution system, were not clearly defined. The conflicts arising out of these diffused

relationships will be discussed in the following chapter.

Still, the possible success of such projects has been stressed by the principal funding

agency - the World Bank. In an interview with this researcher, a senior irrigation engineer

of the World Bank at Dhaka, described the BIP as "the finest" project in Bangladesh. When

asked about the BIP's schedule delay, the WB engineer defended the project and said, "3 or

6 months behind the proposed completion date is not bad by South and South-East Asian

. standards. Rather this is an excellent achievement. I wish other projects would follow the

lS4 GOB: Planning Commision, Medium-Term Foodnrain Production Plan 1981.

example of the BIP".la5

Similar feelings have been expressed by government officials regarding the BIP. A

senior Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, who was responsible for coordinating the

projects funded by the World Bank, said in an interview that it would be difficult to find

anything to criticise in the Barisal project He suggested that for a critical study I should

select one of the many other "messy" projects of Bangladesh. He thought that the BIP was

going to be an "ideal model" for many future projects in Bangladesh. In addition to this

both a former and the present Executive Directors of the BIP expressed their high optimism

about the Project. A congenial uniformity in the expectation of BIP's success was evident in

both the World Bank and the state bureaucracies.

But after making an intensive study of the project, our opinion differs from those of

the Government and the World Bank officials in significant ways. The following is an

attempt to present and compare the expected targets and the level of achievements of the

project Included as well, is an examination of various levels of cornrnunicational relationships

among the four executing agencies, and relationships between the BIP and the BIP-service

users in the area.

The Project Achievements

The construction of the project went quickly. Some of its elements included reexcavation

of canals, construction of sluice gates, primary pump houses, storage for the fuel, seeds, and

fertilizers, the buildings for offices and staff residences. The project, upon completion, was

expected to irrigate 141,000 acres of its total 147,000 cultivable acres. The area suited for the

. dry season Boro rice was expected to expand from 13,000 to 112,000 acres. In addition,

87,000 acres were planned to bring under HYV-Aman rice cultivation during monsoon season,

lS5 Interviewed by this author at his office at the World Bank Resident Mission in Dhaka; June 1983.

totalling a year-round area of 199,000 acres for HYV-cultivation (Boro and Aman together)

in the four BIP thanas.

But in 1979, in the first year of its completion, the project, according to an official

source, brought only 104,000 acres under irrigation coverage. In the second year the

achievement was even poorer: irrigation services were targeted for only 70,000 acres, which

was 35% of its estimated capacity. However, this target was also not reached by the end of

the second year. 24,800 gross acres were irrigated in that yearlE6 The project was to field

2500 Low Lift Pumps (LLP) in the area through rent and loan to the Krishak Saxnabaye

Samities (KSS - the village-level farmers' cooperative organizations). At the time of

completion 2276 pumppoints were established in the official maps, but not actually in the

field. The actual pumpfielding figures in the field were 736 for 1979-80, 603 for 1980-81

and 621 in 1981-82, which was merely 25% percent of the expected number. The BIP

officials believed that the small number of pumpfielding was due to land tenure patterns,

absentee landlords, extensive share-cropping system that existed in Barisal agriculture. Of the

targeted 100 primary pumps, 59 were fielded, 35% of 2500 secondary pumps were rented out

and 340 sluice gates were constructed against the targeted 750 (see Table 4).

In the sphere of farmers' credit requirements, the same inadequacy prevailed. The

agricultural credit required for the farmers was estimated at Tk.28,700,000 in '79-'80,

Tk.50,560,000 in980-'81, and Tk. 73,790,000 in 81-82. The money supplies were only

Tk.16,354,460, Tk.21,897,820 and Tk.17570,370 for those three respective years. The percentage

of shortfall was nearly 40% in the first year, more than 54% in the second year and 70%

in the third year. The figures clearly reveal the distant relationship between the expected

goals and the actual achievements of the project. In spite of this critical status, the

representatives of international and national instihltions did not hesitate in 1983 to define

lE6 (see Table 4). The term "coverage" is the official definition of the areas where irrigation services have been provided by BIP. This does not imply the actual use of irrigation in the field.

"Barisal" as a model for future successful projects.

However, an analysis of the project allows us to pose questions regarding the relevance

of irrigation in the ecology of Barisal, the organization and communication of the participating

agencies, communication between the project authority and farmers and their organizations, and

their relationships with state power.

Qjgj Barisal Need Irrigation?

Earlier, it was observed that no organized irrigation for agriculture existed in Barisal,

although the district was the rice granary for Bengal: it used to export a large quantity of

fine quality rice (Balm) to many urban centres all over India. Today the largest rice market

in the country is still located at Banaripara near Jhalakati, in this district.

At present, it is debatable whether or not Barisal needs any irrigation. Two opposite

views prevail. National politicians, government bureaucrats and technocrats, and the foreign

donor agencies, or! the m e had ague that tc~ realise the nation's food self-sufficiency

policy, the whole country should be brought under modern irrigated agriculture. Although

Barisal has many rivers and canals for water sources for its agriculture, for winter cultivation

even Barisal needs irrigation. Without winter cultivation self-sufficiency in food is impossible

to achieve in Bangladesh.

On the other hand, a reverse view states that Barisal does not need organized

irrigation or a big irrigation project such as BIP. What it needs is reexcavation of the silted

canals to allow the free flow of water during the high tides. According to this view

. reexcavation of brooks and canals is less expensive. It would create more jobs in the area

and would be ideally fit for the Barisal pattern of agriculture. This view has been supported

by the local people and the farmers of Barisal. A 92 year old local Muhkter (lower court

lawyer) who lived all his life in Barisal and who still does farming through his sons and

grandsons explained:

The soil of Barisal is quite conducive to good rice harvest In the past, we never felt shortage of water in canals, creeks or in the field for cultivation, even in the dry-winter season. Because enough waters were reaching to the fields through the rivers' high tide system. But lately due to huge landslides and floods at the higher level, the principal rivers and their tributaries at the lower level are full of silt This is causing a shortage of water in Barisal. However enough water is still available for the monsoon-cultivation. It is m e that we face a water shortage in winter.

But this problem can very easily be resolved by digging and reexcavating the old canals, as President Zia was doing. If the government had taken a regular canal reexcavation programme instead of a big irrigation project [he was referring to BIP] then along with water it could also help the problem of huge seasonal unemployment in the rural areas.

When he was asked specifically about BIP, he modestly replied that he did not have a clear

opinion about it, but had heard farmers complaining about shortage of water in the canals

for both cultivation and boat movement187 A similar opinion was held by eight different

people, which include one local contractor who worked in constructing this project, four

village leaders within the project area and three mid-level BIP officials.lS8

It is difficult to determine the necessity of irrigation In Baris! from these conflictifig

opinions. However, it is interesting to note that the forces external to Barisal recognised

Barisal's need for irrigation more than the Barisal people themselves. Whether the Barisal

people fail to identify their interests in irrigated agriculture or their interests rest outside it,

or they recognize their interest in irrigation but being unable to compete with the dominant

parastatal institutions who control the irrigation and input supplies, therefore rationalize

18' In most of the villages in Barisal, boats are the major carriers for people, animals agricultural products.

and

lS8 The selection of these respondents was random but based on their relationship with the major questions asked; all the eight respondents had their permanent home in Barisal. The opinions of the BIP officials are considered to be more authentic since they were recorded in much informal situations. One was during our walk from the mosque after an evening prayer to the residence of an official. The two other persons talked informally after a dinner at the residence of one of the BIP engineers. This author stayed in the house of this engineer for five days.

irrigation as unnecessary, are important areas of inquiry. For this thesis, as has been stated

before, it is the last area which demands special focus.

Recognizing the importance of this focus of attention, the following chapter examines

the problems of organization and communication in and through the BIP, the BIP's

relationships with the Barisal people, their culture, and the competitive communicational role

of the state.

CHAPTER VII

DEFINITION AND DATA CREATION ROLES OF DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTIONS

This chapter illustrates processes of definition formation and statistics creation by the

development institutions and shows their implications in the development process in both BIP

and non-BIP thanas in Barisal. The first example analyses how the four implementing

institutions in BIP define the project itself in three different ways in order to incorporate

their institutional values and interests. The second example, the process of statistics creation,

reveals the hierarchical nature of these development institutions and how this affects the data

gathering process used in order to make important development decisions about thanas. Taken

together these two processes help to explain the behavior of competing institutions in the

analysis of specific issues which follows in chapter eight.

DEFINITION &Q DEFINITIONAL PROBLEMS

Definitions and the definition creating processes are important ingredients in the

articulation process of institutional communication. An understanding of the definitions and

their creation process provide a clearer picture to an analyst of the view point and position

an institution lakes in its communication. Definitions are statements with a precise meaning

attached to a word, to the nature of a thing, or to a phenomenon. The value of definitions

are determined in their use, not in terms of their approximation of some transcendental ideal.

This is particularly true for the operational definitions at work in BIP. The definition creating

processes, the ways by which limits are determined, categories are created, and boundaries are

imposed and data and statistics are used in communication - involve power.ls9 The process

shown here attempts to establish or alter shared meanings among the group members.

la9 Peter Sederberg, Politics of Meaninn: Power & Ex~lanations h Construction of Social Reality, Tucson: Univ.of Arizona Press, 1984. pp. 94-96. -

Meaning is the significance people attach or derive from words, ideas and events.

Meaning does not unfold by itself, communicators find i t They find it in their own way -

this is the same way they design their plans to realize their goals. Thus both in creating

definitions and in finding meanings, information and facts are included and excluded accordiag

to the point of views, positions and "needs" of the communicating actors. Another key

element in definition-making can be attributed to logic. Communicators aspire to defend

themselves against the fear of attack and logic remains a tool in that defense. Both

definitions and logic are powerful tools to realize communicators' objectives; thus

'mis-definitions' and 'distortions' are the products of a process in which most actors attempt

to gain advantage over others.lgO These assumptions are analysed in order to explain how

individuals and institutions in BIP create definitions and take stances to first preserve and

then to enhance their institutional interests and power.

Definition SLf BIP: Irrigation or Agriculture?

The a&mit.listmtors md techicizns nf the fiw iqlemefiting bodies of t!x Briszil

Irrigation Project disagreed on the nature of the project: specifically on whether it was an

agricultural or irrigation project. Three definitions emerged from these four participating

agencies.

The Bangladesh Water Development Board (WDB), because of its technical and

hydrological knowledge and capacity to manage physical construction, defined "Barisal" as an

irrigation project. On the other hand the Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture

Extension and Management (DAEM) - a department which was responsible for dissemination

of agricultural and cultivation information-defined the project as an agricultural one. The third

lgO Elizabeth Janeway, J& Power of Weak, NY: Alfred Knopf, 1980. pp. 81-94. Janeway used these arguments in order to explain the nature of competition in relation between the sexes in North American social structures.

definition was brought forward by the two other institutions in the BIP the Bangladesh

Agricultuaral Development Corporation (BADC) and the Integrated Rural Development

Programs (IRDP). The representatives of these institutions defined it as both an "irrigation

and agricultural" project; the BADC representative defined it as also an irrigation project

because he was by profession an engineer and preferred to be identified with the

engineer-administrators of the project He accepted the definition of his higher management

His role was both difficult and mcial because he had to maintain a vital operational link

with the other two non-engineering agencies. So his definition encompassed the interest of

most of the participating institutions. He was supported by the Deputy Director of IRDP

who was assigned the responsibility of organising farmers into agri-cooperatives so that

farmers were eligible to receive government credits and agricultural inputs at a subsidized

price. However, the Deputy Director's support was given for a different, more personal

reason. In analysing these definitions we will concentrate on how and why the point of view

differed among these agencies. Because as stated before, the point of views show the

direction these institutions and their bureaucracies were prepared to take. A central theme

which emerged f m the analysis was that a!! a c t s and instimtions in their

definition-creation roles attempted articulate and to project their interests to exert greater

control over the project

Definition & the WDB

First, consider the concept of the Bangladesh Water Development Board (WDB) which

defined Barisal as an irrigation project The WDB was the leading parastatal institution

responsible for providing surface water irrigation, drainage, flood and erosion control, town

protection and river training throughout Bangladesh. The representatives of the WDB defined

this as an irrigation project because the Board's engineers were assigned to dig and/or

renovate canals to bring water from a perennial source, then store the water in a

semi-perennial creek by constructing several sluices, and finally lift the water to a maximum

level of 10 feet by the use of power pumps.

The WDB was the major water planning and management agency in the country built

over the years through numerous World Bank contracts. Its employees were mainly engineers

and technicians who defined and measured works in terms of weight of materials, volumes of

waters and spatial distances. Despite their proficiency at such technical tasks, on many

occasions they were found wanting in their ability to understand social facts and events and

their relevance to farmers' needs at the village level.

The senior WDB officials of the Barisal Project stated that it was not their duty to

look after actual water use. One official said, "Our responsibility is to lift and place water

in the field. What the farmers do with that water - whether they use it for agriculture or

wash clothes or take a bath - is not our problem". Another official remarked:

If it were not an irrigation project, then why were we here. We were not agricultural experts or agronomis ts.... In all the documents, papers and reports of the government and of the donors it had been explicitly said that 'Barisal was an irrigation project'.

Supporting the official's statement the WDB Director said,

This is our definition of the project, that is the way we see i t Other agencies may have their own opinion, their own definition. But since we are channeling and lifting the water from one source to another, through changes in the physical landscape, as far as we are concerned, it is an irrigation project

According to this definition, the WDB was only supposed to provide water in the field,

but not to see what farmers did with the water. But without realising the purpose of water

use, the time and volume of water necessity would be difficult to determine. However, their

overlooking of water-use was undermining the success of the project These irrigation

engineers had placed several pump points on their design maps and had asked the farmers

to place the rented pumps from BIP at those fixed points. The BIP engineers were very

rigid about pump placement at the fixed points. But because the original studies on the

reduced levels of the land were not accurate, the farmers near many pump points did not

receive their required water. A study of the pump point issue follows in the next chapter.

The officials of WDB in BIP were aware of the different definitions of other

participating agencies. Since the management and supervision of the project was with the

WDB, its officials were quite dominating. Using their managerial status these engineers

proclaimed themselves as experts in all affairs in the organisation. As authorities, they were

eager to put forward their own independent definition of the project Using this

definition-creation role, they were more inclined to satisfy and preserve their institutional

needs and commands than to attend to the water needs of the farmers.

The supervision and control of the project was to go to the Department of Agricultural

Extension and Management (DAEM) upon the completion of the physical construction phase

in five years time in 1981. Since the WDB officials did not want to lose their control over

the project, they had been declaring that its construction phase was not over. They did it

through extending the project activities to three more thanas in its "second phase" and had

planned for a "third phase" expansion The expansion of the project was a s a m e of pemr

and benefits for the Water Board officials, because through this expansion WDB would have

been able to continue its leading managerial role in, and hold control of the project. These

officials were apparently not forgetting the underlying purpose and usefulness of the project

for them in creating their definitions. There was no place for farmers' needs in their

definitions of the project.

Definition DAEM

The second definition was put forward by the Deputy Director of Agriculture in the

project He was a permanent employee of the Directorate of Extension and Mangement in

the Department of Agriculture. In BIP he was on deputation since 1977 from his department

to look after the extension and management services in the project area. He had a

Bachelors' degree in Agricultural Science, and had worked with the Department of Agriculture

Extension and Management for 23 years. He started his career as a Thana Agricultural

Officer.

He defined BIP as a "purely agricultural project", but considered irrigation as one of

the important necessary components of agriculture. In the discussion, he supported his

definition by quoting from the World Bank Appraisal Report of the BIP. Criticising the role

of WDB Administrators in the project, he stated that since the organizational management

and financial control were with the WDB, it would always remain an "irrigation project".

The interest of institutional development for the Water Board prevailed in irrigation and not

in agriculture. The Water Board did not see the problem of agriculture holistically, in his

view.

According to this Deputy Director, the farmers, the real users of the project's water,

would derive no benefit from the project Technically it had been designed as more an

'irrigation' than an 'irrigation for agricdmre' project, Roth in design irnplerneMaGon of

the physical plan, the WDB engineers emphasized their mechanical knowledge and techniques

more than the needs of the farmers. The WDB constructed some canals which, in his view,

would never be used by the farmers. On some canals, they fixed points to place pumps

where farmers would never place their pumps. Farmers know their land and their water

requirements, at least for their old, non-technical, labour intensive traditional agriculture. What

is more the Deputy Director said,

We need to educate and train them to use modem techniques and inputs, so that in cultivating the same land, farmers can grow more produce. In a project like this a total commitment among the officials towards the farmers was needed. However, in my opinion, this commitment is lacking on the part of the WDB officials and engineers. What ever name it may have, BIP was a project to increase agricultural production. The interest of the engineers was dampening the objectives of the project.

Although the BIP was once considered an "excellent model" for irrigated agricultural

management organization jointly managed by four major implementing institutions in

agriculture, by both the Government and the World Bank, this Deputy Director, who had

been a significant part of the project, was sceptical as to its success. When he was asked

why, he replied: "WDB as the supervisor of the project lacks in leadership ability", because

the WDB officials considered other participating agencies only as their competitors in sharing

power, and thus tried to put other departments under them. They preferred to impose their

decisions, rather than share ideas in decision making with agrncies like DAEM. The Deputy

Director said:

Since we were representing the ideas and interests of poor illiterate farmers, the engineers equated us with the farmers as 'uncultured, unsophisticated' people. They always looked down at us. On many occasions, the WDB officials over-ruled our valuable suggestions and ridiculed us in the departmental coordination meetings. They felt they were superior because they were using more sophisticated methods of engineering technology. This attitude influenced the WDB engineers to even misbehave towards the staff of other participating agencies. " l9

After seven years of work with the WDB people in BIP, the Director General of

DAEM decided to withdraw his whole department and thus his Deputy Director from BIP.

The Deputy Director was transfered to Noakhali with more power and jurisdiction as a

District Agriculture Officer. The responsibility of the extension and management activities in

BIP was simply assigned to the existing District Agriculture Officer of Bari~a1.l~~ While this

move saved some money for the Agricultural Ministry by appointing one person for two

positions, the Ministry lost much of its direct influence in BIP. Here the definitional

differences had produced such serious contest between the participating agencies that they had

created a stalemate in the normal working of the project.

191 An example of such 'rnisbehaviour' was offered as follows: When the officials were visiting an irrigation site at Jhalakati, there was an argument which finally turn into a confrontation between the Executive Director (WDB) and the Agronomist (DAEM) over the jurisdiction of responsibility.

19* According to WDB sources the Deputy Director of Agriculture did not clear his financial records at the time of his departure. When he was asked to explain his conduct, the conflict between the two departments, was intensely aggravated.

Definitions BADC IRDP

The third concept of the BIP was that it was both an agricultural and irrigation

project, The contributors to this notion were the representatives of the two other participating

agencies, the Executive Engineer of the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation and

the Deputy Director of the Integrated Rural Development Project.

The representative of BADC was by training an engineer but was working in the

Agricultural Development Corporation of the Govemment,lq3 When he was asked to define

the BIP, the BADC engineer paused for a while, smiled and said, "I am in a very difficult

situation". Then he paused again and said, "I would say, it was both an irrigation and

agricultural project," When this interviewer asked why he would call his situation "a difficult

one", the Engineer replied that that was long story:

In this organization there is power struggle between WDB and DAEM, both at individual and organizational levels, to hold control over its management. And I am caught in the middle.

The Water Board does not go to the farmers with services. They design the canals and sluices on paper and construct them in the field. It is we: BADC, DAEM and IRDP, who face the farmers and their problems in the field because we try to reach farmers with our agri-inputs and services.

I am an engineer, and let me tell you, it is much easier to work with tools and materials than with people. Since the Water Board's main responsibility is the physical construction of the project, they work in a controlled-situation of materials and techniques with less possibilities of failures. Even if there are failures, it was not impossible to correct them. So, the WDB people are having comparatively more success in their work than the other three agencies who are engaged in the difficult job of satisfying farmers with agricultural inputs, information, institutional credit management and other socio-economic services.

The Board is in control of the project. They expect the same level of success from the agencies working directly with the farmers. There is our probiem. The Water Board directors are not exposed to the problems of service sectors, especially at the village level. They can not and do not appreciate the problems of the other coordinating agencies working with them. This has produced serious problems resulting with the withdrawal of the DAEM component from the

193 BADC's responsibility in the Project was to supply agricultural inputs such as pumps, fuel for pumps, seeds, fertilizers etc. to the farmer groups, following the credit agreements between the Cooperative Associations' Federations (TCCA's) and the Commercial Banks.

project. Since I myself an engineer, I understand the WDB engineers' mentality and try to communicate with them in the interest of the organization. On many occasions I may not agree with them, but I do not oppose them either. That is the way I am surviving here and that is why I said I am in a very difficult s i t~at i0n. l~~

This young BADC engineer had a Mechanical Engineering degree from Rajshahi

Engineering College He worked six years with the BADC before being appointed to represent

it in BIP in 1978. Because he was cooperative with the WDB administration, this engineer

was recommended for a Government scholarship for a three-month training program in Japan,

which he attended in the middle of 1983.195

Definition b~ Intenrated Rural Develo~ment Pro~ramme

The fourth participating agency which subscribed to the concept that BIP was both an

agricultural and irrigation project was the Integrated Rural Deveopment Program (IRDP). The

IRDP was represented by a Deputy Director in BIP. The present Deputy Director held a

Masters' degree in Economics and started his career as a Thana Project Officer (TPO). His

original home was in Barisal. His office's major responsibility was to organize medium and

marginal farmers in cooperative groups. He was to help enhance the farmers' financial and

managerial capacity, so that they could use the government credit and agricultural inputs in

the project area. Although he projected a "high" success in the IRDP's role by an increased

number of cooperatives and their members, in practice, IRDP's achievement was meagre. The

IRDP Deputy Director attempted to prove his achievements in numbers and statistics, but

when his data were checked in the field, the numbers of active cooperative societies and

their actual members were found to be inaccurate.

- 19This interview was conducted at the respondent's office in Barisal in February, 1982. The facts of the statements were checked in at least six subsequent discussions.

195 This scholarship was actually meant for more junior staff training, and one Assistant Engineer below him was nominated at first, but later the nomination was reversed. The disappointed Assistant Engineer got himself transferred out of the Project to another district.

Although he defined the project as both irrigation and agricultural one, his emphasis

was more on irrigation. His definition was very close to the WDB engineers who performed

the leading managerial role in BIP. Although the principal assignment for the IRDP Deputy

Director was to improve agriculture in the BIP area through organizing farmers cooperatives,

the Deputy Director preferred to define BIP as also an irrigation project On this issue he

differed with his own Assistant Director and called him "stupid" for offering an opposing

view. The Assistant Director volunteered his criticisms of BIP, WDB, and some of the

visiting World Bank officials, for their lack of understanding about Barisal village society and

the "needs" of the farmers. He suggested that the administrators of BIP never attempted to

understand problems from a farmer's point of view. This he considered as the major problem

in BIP. Thus within the IRDP officials' differences in definitions and point of views were

evident The Deputy Director's definition was very close to the definition of the

BIP-management, whereas, the Assistant Director's was unsupportive of the management's

definition. Evidence of definitional differences was also apparent in other institutions. In BIP

both individuals and institutions tried to project their potential roles as competitive actors in

communication.

The Deputy Director of the IRDP supported the Water Development Board on the

question of definition and other issues because he wanted to remain in BIP longer than the

scheduled period of his stay. Since he was from Barisal, he preferred to stay and work in

Barisal, live with his relatives and friends and look after the landed property he owned in

the district Once, he was transferred to Chittagong with a promotion, but he preferred to

stay in Barisal and managed to cancel the transfer. So, his interpretations and definitions

about BIP were motivated chiefly by his personal interests. In many informal discussions he

called BIP a Fatki (false) institution. In such a discussion he said,

BIP will never be successful; here, everyone is busy with himself and his own interest, including me. The project will never give any benefit to the farmers, because in Barisal we don't need irrigation of this type .... In this organization we just obey orders, our suggestions are not entertained or appreciated .... So here, Me

too, look for my own interests.

He then laughed, and suddenly lowering his voice said, "common people call this project as

"Bark1 Shesh Project", and not "Barisal Shech Projectw. In Bengali language "Shech" means

irrigation, and "Sheshw stands for "to do away with" "to finish", "to ruin". Humorously

enough, according to this version BIP stands for a "project to destroy Barisal".

However, the officials and the agencies in BIP must have assumed a shared meaning

about BIP which made BIP a single institution. Still, the differences in their perceptions

about the project were profound. The differences manifested through the officials' definition

creating roles had serious consequences on achieving the objectives of the BIP. For example,

2500 Low Lift Pumps were procured for irrigating the area, but only a quarter was deployed

in the field in each season. The responsibility of procurring the pumps, which was done in

time, was with the WDB who defined it as an irrigation project. This "irrigation" definition

of the project emphasized project's mechanical aspects such as pumps and their procurements,

maintenanc etc., canal sizes and their digging techniques, water flow and water trapping. But

the actual use of the pumps in the field depended on increasing of farmers' awareness,

interests and capacities which were a responsibility of DAEM and IRDP. DAEM defined it

as an agricultural project because by this definition DAEM could preserve its institutional

character and contest with the WDB's irrigation-engineering character. The major purpose of

both the definitions was their institutional supremacy rather than the deployment of pumps in

the field. The consequence was that in the I3IP's ten years of existence (1976-86) the pump

deployment figure in the field never went above 25% of its target Other examples of the

implications of the definition creating roles of bureaucracies at the local institutional level has

been discussed in the section on Thana Upgrading Programme in Chapter IV.

Collection of Statistics Develo~ment: A Bureaucratic Process

This case of collecting statistics of crop failure in Nazirpur thana by the national

institutions and their local officials is an example of the inherent bureaucratic nature of the

development statistics gathering process. The case provides evidence that the bureaucratic

requirements of the process overshadows both the qauality and practical use of data in

important decisions regarding the development problems of the thanas. The example provided

here is from Nazirpur, one of the two non-BIP thanas selected for a comparative study with

BIP thanas, in relation to their relationships with the state apparatus and state power.

Primary information, data or statistics are the logical bases on which assumptions,

definitions and theories rest Whether researchers influence the data-generation processes and

create their "own data" in order to support their assumed hypotheses, or a "value-free",

"neutral" data generation is possible, remains a different debate. What is important here is

that the development practitioners whether they are at an international, national or local level,

and whether they are individuals or institutions, continuously create statistical data which

influence almost all aspects of development programmes. The capacity to generate statistics is

considered as a criterion of efficiency among the practitioners. Most international and national

development programmes "have to achieve their targets, so their targets are reported

achieved".196 Achieving targets in statistical terms becomes a more important issue than their

actual realizations in the field. But danger may arise when statistics alone become more

important than the actual facts; when supporting a specific definition becomes a goal; when

the power relations in the generation and use of statistics are ignored.197

Robert Chambers, Rural Development: Putting Last First, NY: Longman, 1983. p. 34.

19' A.K. Nazmul Karim, "An Address to Sociology Teachers' Refreshers Course", Dept. of Sociology, Dhaka University, January, 1970.

The power in the hierarchy of development institutions is manifested in the capacity of

an institution to demand reports and statistics from their subordinates. The World Bank

headquarters in Washington expects its Bangladesh resident mission to provide their

programme achievement statistics. The Bangladesh mission demands "success reports" from the

concerned directors of the country projects, such as the BIP. The BIP-directors pass the

demand to their deputies of the four affiliated institutions: WDB, BADC, DAEM, IRDP.

These dep~ty directors ask their local officials to provide their achievement statistics. These

local officials at the thana level, for various reasons discussed earlier, remain most vulnerable;

most of the time they lag behind their achievement targets. Because of personal job

insecurity and their interests in maintaining a hierarchical institutional structure, an upward

flow of generated "good" and "success" statistics becomes a basis of this bureaucratic

communication. The recognition of the bureaucratic demand for statistics among the

development programmes does not oppose the hierarchical accountibility, rather it emphasizes

the role of "success statistics" which are generated to satisfy only the bureaucratic success

needs. The intention behind the production of success statistics creates a tremendous gap

between the generated statistks a d acrid facts QII the ground, and this g2p is ackncw!edged

by the officials involved.

Nazirpur Thana Crop Failure Statistics

When in 1982 a serious pest attack was devastating the major crops in some of the

areas of Nazirpur, most of the agriculture, extension and plant protection officials of the

thana were as usual unconcerned about i t If some were aware, they would have been unable

to deal with such a problem which requires a rigorous measure in a very short and specific

time because they did not possess the necessary pesticides, equipments and manpower. There

was no official information of this crop damage either at the district office or at the

national headquarters, although the Thana Agricultural Office told me it passed the

information upward. When the crops were severely damaged a brief report of the event was

printed in an influential daily, dispatched by a local correspondent of the newspaper. This

happened following the Martial Law proclamation in the country. To prove the military

government's efficiency, the ministry of Agriculture immediately demanded a report from the

district's Deputy Commissioner (DC) on the crop damage situation. The DC as usual passed

the demand to his Sub-divisional Officer (SDO) at Perojpur. The SDO asked the Perojpur

Thana Extension Officer, who was also officiating in the vacant position of a Sub-divisional

Agricultural Officer, for an immediate report198 The hierarchy of bureaucracy was in action.

The Thana Extension Officer sitting in Perojpur, being unsuccessful in procuring the details of

crop damage, decided to go to Nazirpur the next morning.

Since the statistics and report were demanded by the Ministry and the D.C. the matter

was of grave concern. Considering the seriousness of the report reaching Nazirpur, the Officer

convened a meeting of the thana officers. The positions of both the Thana Agricultural and

Extension Officers were vacant; the Thana Statistical Officer was unavailable; the Thana

Project Officer of IRDP went to visit the field; the Circle Officer did not feel like

attending a meeting called by an officer junior to him, but agreed to sign the meeting

attendance book and asked the meeting's notice-carrying messenger to bring the book after

the meeting. Without attending the meeting the Circle Officer later on in fact signed his

presence in the book. The visiting officer had to be satisfied with the Assistant Agricultural

Officer who was the lone representative of Nazirpur to attend the meeting. The purpose of

the meeting was to determine the figures on the area and amount of crop damage due to

pest attack and dtermine immediate actions.

A major portion of the meeting time was spent discussing the appointments and

transfers of their colleagues, preparing and signing the travelling allowance vouchers, and for

19* There was no Agricultural Thana Officer or Thana Extension Officer in Nazirpur in that period. Both the positions were lying vacant.

lunch. After lunch, in one and a half hour's time the resolutions of the meeting were

drafted, the statistics of crop damage were generated and a final report was prepared. They

did not visit the fields, nor did they talk to the fanners who suffered from crop damage.

Considering the huge damage of crops, the report recommended an immediate spreading of

insecticides by the Plant Protection Department's twin-otter planes over 15,000 "cropdamaged"

acres. When they were asked where they found this figure, the Nazirpur's Assistant Thana

Agri-Officer said they were not sure about the figure, but if they had not given an

extorbitantly high figure they would not receive the service of the plant protection planes.

The Assistant Agricultural Officer boastfully said: "Spreading by plane in Naziprpur will be a

great news for us".

However, no plane ever came to Nazirpur, because the gathered statistics did not have

any real impact on the bureaucratic decision-makings on the thana's development The report

lost its value for being late in its travelling through hierarchical stages. It took four weeks

to reach at the national level, who makes major decisions such as spreading pesticides by

planes, when the the need of pesticides for Nazirpur crop fields have already waned. Here,

the thesis argument is that the generated statistics are created not to use in real desicions.

The data collected in this process reamain least important because the development decisions

regarding the thanas have already been made basaed on the priorities set by the interests of

the bureaucratic structure of state power. Data are collected mainly to manifest the capacity

of higher institutions to demand legitimacy from their subordinates. The real needs of the

farmers were neither emphasized in this Nazirpur crop failure report nor any follow up

action was taken in this regard.

In most such bureaucratic data gathering cases the officials generate statistics to prove

their efficiency, protect themselves, their superiors and their institutions. They astutely leave

the data open for multiple-interpretations. They naturally try to play it safe. In this case,

there was no factual relationship between the generated statistics in the report and the reality

of Nazirpur crop damage. The institutional needs over-ride the service responsibilities of the

institutions in the generation of statistics. These needs are ultimately shaped by the

requirements of competitive communication. Both the defintions and statistics discussed here

became essential in the process of articulation among the institutions involved in BIP. This

process is revealed very concretely in the discussion in the following chapter of issues around

which competetive comunication actually took place.

CHAPTER VIII

COMMUNICATION IN AND THROUGH THE BIP

The communication and interaction of different forces within the project has been

considered in this thesis as the key factor affecting the project's success. This chapter raises

some major issues at the implementation level in order to explain the competitive pattern of

commlmication in and through the project. Some of the evidence of the project relations with

the public will also be dealt in this chapter. The irrigation pump use and location of pumps,

"outsiders-insiders" and "We and They", the leadership problem, the role of consultants, the

farmers and the BIP officials, a K.S.S formation, etc. are issues which formed the major

communication matrix in BIP.

The rigid decision of the BIP officials about the location of irrigation pump at specific

points remained an important issue among other difficulties in BIP. This issue had raised a

great many debates and disagreements among the BIP-technical officials, the project-consultants,

the cooperative group organizers and the farmers. The second issue of "outsiders-insiders" and

"we and they" were the reflections of the nature of competition that were on-going among

the officials in the project. "The leadership" issue raised questions about the role of an

engineering-biased institution (in this case WDB) to lead a multiple-agency coordinated

agricultural development project. Then the issue of "the consultants" revealed the rationale of

engaging international consultants in the projects, how the BIP and the local officials valued

the role of both local and foreign consultants, and how foreign consultants perceived the

implementing officials in the project. "The farmers and the BIP-officials" issue dealt with

relations of

. Finally, the

of a K.S.S.

the BIP-officials with both the rich and poor farmers in

issue of this "officials-faremrs" relationship was extended

formation case.

the project area.

through an illustration

The analysis of these issues reveals the internal complexities of competitive

communication among the implementing agencies, and between them and the farmers.

According to this thesis, these issues show why those who had earlier praised BIP might

later have come to question it, if not reject it. The questions of benefits and beneficiaries

have been discussed in the concluding chapter.

The Pumtmoint -

Considering the possible problems in the project, in July 1982, the World Bank

Resident Mission in Bangladesh, in consultation with the GOB officials, conducted a special

short duration study on BIP to identify the factors which were limiting the full utilization of

the irrigation potentials, and to recommend measures for a quick achievement of the project

targets. The study obtained data from the project and project related agencies in BIP and

also interviewed members of seven pump groups and 97 farmers in the project area.lg9

The study classified the project problems into four categories, identifying technical

problems as number one. Three other kinds of problems were agro-climatic, socio-economic

and support services. The agro-climatic factor recognized the easy water availibility in the low

lying Barisal project areas through high precipitation and tidal waves in the rainy season, for

which reason farmers do not feel encourged to grow winter Boro crop by paying high costs

for irrigation. The socio-economic factors include, in addition to the higher costs of irrigated

agriculture, adverse share cropping and land tenure arrangements, and unattractive output

prices, as constraints for increasing this winter HYV crops. In the category of support services

ineffective institutional credit flow, complex system of pump procurring and lack of proper

organization and pump group management, were identified as major problems by the study.

lg9 Anand Seth, Gerald Shockman, Srinath Sing, "BIP: Special Study on Constraints in Achieving Full Potential", Dhaka: The World Bank Mission, 1982.

Although technical problems were regarded as the first problems of the project in this

1982 study report, remedial suggestions were made regarding only 25 cusec primary pumps.

There were no clear recognition of the secondary (1-2 cusec) pumppoint problem which this

researcher and many field staff considered as an important source of conflict in the project.

A pump point is the place determined by the BIP technicians on which to place an

irrigation pump supplied to an agricultural cooperative or to other pump groups by the BIP

on rental or sale basis. Normally a concrete slab was constructed at the designated

pumppoint The points were determined by the the BIP-technicians to cover the maximum

area under each pump.

There were numerous complaints from the farmers regarding defective pump points in

the fields of the two BIP thanas that were under consideration. Twenty five farmers at

different points along the canals had similar complaints. If the farmers had placed the power

pump at the points fixed by the BIP-technicians, they said, they simply would not receive

water for irrigation. Approximately 85 percent of about 200 farmers we met in Kotwali and

Jhalakati thanas complained about the inadequacy of wat& in the canals.

A Work Assistant, age 30, who worked for 6 years in one of the construction divisions

of the BIP provided some internal information which if accepted would give one explanation

of the problem. The Work Assistant reported that the pump points were supposed to be

established after assessing the level of land elevations (Reduced Levels: R.L. in the project's

technical language) of the land by a group of surveyers in the Kotwali Perennial Canal

(KPC) area. The group consisted of a Section Officer (a Sub-Asst engineer), a Designer, and

2 Surveyors of the construction division. The Work Assistant stated that this group did not

take any intensive field surveys to determine the different R.L's of land. The group, sitting

in their offices at Barisal town, on the basis of cadastral maps had established the

pumppoints at certain frequencies. Since the R.L.s were not determined first, many of the

points chosen were fundamentally incorrect

But the technical consultants to the Bank who worked for the project during that

period disagreed with the above view. In recent communication they argued that "each

secondary pump site was topographically defined", and "the purpose of fixing pump points by

the BIP-engineers was to select the optimum location for the pump so that maximum land

could be brought under the command area."200 The farmers both in Kotwali and Jhalakati

stated that if pumps were placed at the BIP-designed point they would not get enough water

for cultivation. But the consultants suggested that a few pumps were actually placed at the

points fixed by the BIP-engineers. According to them, many pumps were placed at some

other arbitrary locations, and this was caused by richer and more influential farmers having

land in some special nearby pockets. This was found true by this researcher at least six

cases in Kotwali and Jhalakati. The Special Study by the World Bank in 1982 recorded 21

(out of nearly 400) pump points in Babuganj alone where no water was avialable. According

to the Special Study, 96% of the respondents (of 7 pump groups and 97 farmers) reported

the non-availability of the assured water in the creeks and canals.201 The pump point was a

source of conflict between the pump renting agency (BADC) and the farmers, and the

implementing agencies themselves always retained the pumprenting decisions. This confiict has

affected both the processes of pump procurement by the farmers' groups and their

pumpbased group formation itself. These difficulties naturally limited the planned increases in

Boro rice production.

The BIP engineers had been very rigid about their pump points. They were trying to

force the farmers to place pumps at the BIP-designed points. Otherwise, they threatened, the

farmer groups would not be eligible to rent pumps from the BIP. The BIP's rigidity about

the pump points was confirmed by the Executive Engineer of BADC, who was in charge of

Personal Communication from E.W. van Heurn May 5, 1986 and L.A. Meyboom. June 5, 1986.

Anand Seth, Gerald Shockman, Srinath Sing, "BIP: Special Study on Constraints in Achieving Full Potential", Dhaka: The World Bank Mission, 1982. p. Annex-1. Table 1.

pump distribution. Although the points looked proportionate and practical on the design-map,

in reality, the water was not reaching enough to the fields to satisfy farmers' requirements.z0z

The Executive Engineer (BADC) told us that the farmer groups were not required to prepare

a plan of their land or pump points, to accompany their applications for pumps, because

pump points were already set on the Cadastral-map. Farmers could simply organise themselves

in groups around the pump-points in order to receive credit from IRDP-TCCA and to rent

pumps from BIP.

The process of renting pumps by farmers from BIP was perceived as easy and simple

by the BIP engineers, but not by the farmers. Most farmers found the process to be quite

complex and were unsatisfied with itzo3 At the beginning of each irrigation season the

farmers groups, which were pressumed to be well organized by the IRDP Thana Project

Officers and the TCCA Inspectors, had to meet and pass a resolution with the signature of

all potential participants in a specified Rent Application Form in which they agree to assign

the responsibilities to an elected manager in order to make all necessary arrangements to

procure a pump from BIP. The farmers who were not members of the IRDP-sponsored

registered cooperative societies could also borrow pumps if they were able to form informal

groups and produce 20 signatures and pay the rental money in time. In both cases the

groups were to submit applications consenting to install the pumps and cultivate the land in

accordance with the irrigation plans and maps prepared by the BIP staff. Further they had

to agree to construct field channels in accordance with the BIP design through their land

irrespective of the costs or their status as small medium or large farmers.

These applications then were sent to the BIP Head Office at Barisal through the thana

branches for approval. The farmers resented that the process itself was complicated, lengthy

'OZ The Executive Engineer, during an interview, enthusiastically showed the beautifully designed pump point maps to this author.

'03 This has also been recognized by the WB Special Study Report, 1982. p. 21

and was difficult to follow up. The managers had to make several visits to the BIP Head

Office for follow up, which involved extra time and expense. Moreover the complicated

paperwork placed the members at the mercy of a few shrewed village people who could

read and write. Above all the pump point rigidity of the officials became a challenge to

organize cooperative groups in the project area, responsibility for which remained with the

DAEM until 1978; following that year IRDP joined BIP and began its institutional

development work. This issue is discussed in the next section.

This researcher observed that in many instances the farmers made application for the

pumps, but failed to organise their groups on a fixed point basis, and therefore were unable

to qualify of the BIP services. As a result, the number of the BIP-supplied pumps remained

very low, as has been mentioned earlier. However, when he was asked about the

unavailibility of water at the pump points, the Executive Engineer said that they were trying

to improve the situation. But he was unable to change the fixed pump points since this

would go against the policy of technical reqiurements of the BIP. "I am merely carrying it

out," he said bureaucratically.

It seemed that the primary reason for poor fielding of pumps was the lack of assured

irrigation water in the creeks at the established pump points, although project technicians

rarely accepted this technical failing. They termed the lack of Ba rd farmers' awareness and

interest in irrigated agriculture as the major drawback for low pump fielding in BIP. The

managers of BADC-sponsored Betagi Demonstration Farm at Jhalakati, and

Chandrapara-Masuria at Babuganj showed us 6 and 8 pump points respectively, where no

water was available in the irrigation season. The World Bank Study also noticed these points

in Jhalakati and Babuganj. The bureaucracies of these parastatal institutions were using

authority to rationalize their institutional values and expectations, as defined by bureaucrats.

Their interests were inscribed in this rationalization, and remained opposed to the interests of

the farmers. Use of comptetitive communication to preserve and enhance power continued as

a key technique in communication in BIP.

According to the Integrated Rural Development (IRDP) officials within BIP, the pump

points fixed by the BIP engineers impeded the formation and efficient working of farmers'

cooperatives. The major responsibility of IRDP was to organise the middle and poor

farmers.204 into Krishak Samabaye Samity (KSS: Farmers Cooperative Societies), register these

societies with the Cooperative Registrar's Office, and make them members of Thana Central

Cooperative Association (TCCA) to be eligible for the IRDP's agricultural credit The IRDP

officials argued that organizing poor illiterate farmers into cooperatives was a complex job in

a post-colonial agricultural society. The process became more difficult when dominant

institutions such as BIP imposed "control communication"205 on the farmers, for example, the

BIP pump points.

Social groups and institutions in the villages of Bangladesh are formed on the basis of

kinship206, religion207, Para and Gousti (these two social groups are more integrated than the

western notion of the Community.208 A farmer may own or rent land in an area or under a

par"Jcdar pump point, but may not be socially known to that para (community) or Viiiage.

He may have no interest in being a member of a pump-based KSS in an area where he

204 The farmers in Bangladesh are usually classified into four groups based on their ownership in land: Landless: with 0 to 1 acre; Small: possesing 1 to 5 acres; Medium: 5 to 10 acres; and Large: possesing 10 and more acres of land. For details, see 'The Summary Report of the Land Occupancy Survey of Bangladesh, GOB: Bureau of Statistics, 1977.

20' Andrew Arno. "Structure and Control Communication: An Interactionist Pers~ective on Legal and ~ u s t o k u y Procedures for Conflict Management", American ~nthropoiogist, No.87, 1985 pp. 4-55.

206 Ashraful Aziz, Anthro~olog;~ of Bangladesh, Dhaka: International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research' Bangladesh, 1981; B.K.Jahangir, Differentiation. Polarization and Confrontation in Rural Bangladesh, Dhaka: Centre for Social Studies. 1979. - - '07 A.K. 1956.

Societv and Pakistan, Dhaka: Ideal Publishers,

208 Peter Bertocci, Elusive Villages: Social Structure and Communitv Organizations & Rural &&t Pakistan, Unpublished Ph.D thesis, East lansing: Michigan State University, 1970.

has land or where he lives, depending on his interests. The land under one pump point

may be spread over two or more villages, Mmzm or Krishi- Goustis. Moreover, the farmers

do perceive cooperatives more as organizations to acquire social power and status for their

members rather than just as a means of water for the field. And these organizations are

basically Gmti-based. That is why the villagers rarely go out of their Gousti (community

based on lineage) in order to become members of a specific pumppoint cooperative. The

complex land tenure structure and the Gousti-interests of farmers results in factional politics

among villagers. The lack of understanding about these complex relationships, on the part of

the IRDP officials, poses a serious challenge to the officials to organize cooperatives as a

substitute for the existing social groups in the villages. Furthermore, lack of enthusiastic

administrative support from the BIP authorities make IRDP's function more difficult. Following

is the reaction of an Assistant Director of IRDP within the BIP:

Although some of the engineers do recognise our problems, they do not sympathize with them. If we fall short in our responsibilities due to reasons beyond our control, they blame us, they blame our organization. If there is less fielding of pumps, its our fault; if there is less production of crops, it's the IRDP and the DAEM's fault. But if something good occurs in the BIP because of our hard work, the Water Board takes the whole credit for it. ... We had been made scapegoats for most of the BIP-failures. The failures are ours, successes are theirs.

Although the World Bank Special Study recognized the communication factor

emphasizing poor feedback system from the farmers to the project officials, particularly on

these technical issues, it did not pursue communication as a general problem in the project.

The Special Study stated that

... no effective mechanism exists for the diificulties perceived by farmers to be listened to at the field level. Project staff are most hesitant to discuss these problems. Even when farmers have used the forthnightly training class at the TCCA (81% of LLPs are rented to TCCA groups) to voice these concerns, the responsiveness by BIP staff has not been satifactory.*09

209 S~ecial Study, p. ii.

Non-persuance of communication as a factor in the study of development projects and

problems is a general phenomenon in Bangladesh. Although many scholars have recognised its

necessity very few have actually attempted to persue i t May be scholars did not have

enough time or preparation to investigate communicational problems thoroughly, especially in

development projects. However, in the following section I will put forward some evidence and

analyses of problems and difficulties based on local cultural factors in the communication in

BIP. These will provide greater insight and understanding of the relationships of and between

BIP and the people of Barisal. The two issues "outsiders and insiders" and "we and they"

illustrate, first, the conflicts beteween the Barisal and non-Barisal people working in BIP, and

then, the critical relations between officials of different agencies within BIP.

'Insiders and Outsiders', and 'We

The people from Barisal working in the project felt that since the project was located in

Barisal, and was for the betterment of the people of Barisal, the senior decision makers

should have come from Barisal. They argued that outsiders did not and could not understand

the complexities of the Barisal society and the point of view of Barisal people. Outsiders

were unable to look after the interest of Barisal people. The people from Barisal, both

within and out of the project, reason that outsiders come to the project to enhance their

personal career. These outsiders lack serious commitment to the project Although the project

had a huge potential for success, the lack of understanding and interest of the oficials to

see problems from the point of view of Barisal people, led the project to create adverse

effects on the farmers of many areas. For example, the farmers talked about the narrow

width of the sluice gates, which was creating problems for their boats' movements. They

said: "our lives are dependent on boats: we carry agricultural input and produce to and

from the market, move our cattles and other necessary goods for our livelyhood throughout

the year, by boat Now it has become difficult to move medium and large boats through

133

the narrow width of the sluice gates." When the farmers were asked whether they raised the

issue with the BIP-Officials, the farmers replied "thousand times ... but without results". One

farmers said "they are not Barisal people that they will understand the importance of boats".

Another farmer said "in fact they don't care".

Another example they cited was the shortage of farm inputs and the basis of their

distribution since the beginning of the project. In the project area the farm inputs were

brought and sold by the project administration. The farmers complained that the project

officials provided farm inputs to large and rich farmers neglecting the needs of the small

and landless. The officials on behalf of the government, on the one hand asked the small

farmers to make extensive use of modem techniques, on the other, they increased the prices

of purnp-rentals, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. Whenever the small and poor farmers went

to receive agricultural inputs, the officials ignored them. At present there are at least five

groups of land users such as land-owning non-cultivators, absentee land owners, land-owning

large, medium and small farmers, landless farmers, and landless wage labourers. In addition,

at least seven different types of share-cropping arrangements exist in Barisal village society.210

Thus it is necessary for the project officials to understand the nature and complexities of the

land and sharecropping systems in this village society before distributing the scarse state

resources to farmers.

The IRDP officials and their agents, for lack of understanding about the Barisal-village

society, have contributed in creating ill-feelings and conflicts among the members of the

family, Gourti, and the Village. This they did through providing arbitrary loans to some

members over others. There were complaints from people who never became members of

cooperatives but loans were issued against their names and the money was appropriated by

some influential members. The villagers also complained that the outside agricultural and

development agents hurt their social and religious feelings by their insensitivity to the local

210 A. Alim, p. 79; and author's field observations.

culture. Our survey which was later confirmed by the departmental heads in BIP, revealed

that out of approximately 1650 employees of BIP 66% came from Barisal. Of this 66%.

nearly 85% were lower level employees. Among the senior and mid-level decision making

bureacrats only 13 out of 70 came from Barisal.

On the other side, senior and mid-level administrators had a different view point of

the problem. In their opinion the locally recruited employees were lazy and inefficient. Since

these local people had permanent dwellings in nearby villages, they considered BIP as in a

way their personal instituition and took everything easy and granted; for being unconcerned

about their sense of responsibility, they would come late to work and attend to their

personal affairs during office hours. On many occasions they were absent from duties without

permission. Local people were careless with office properties and used them for their personal

benefits against the project regulations. Because the project was located in Barisal, according

to the outside officials, the Barisal people in the project believed that they have special

privilege in the project

kccording to an administrative source, many of these people were appointed to their

present positions through political requests and pressures. Most of these requests came from

two major sources: first, a powerful Chairman of Barisal Municipality, the son of an

Irrigation Minister, and second, from a State Minister from Barisal in the post-liberation

Awami League Government. In the opinion of the administrators, these "inefficient" people

were banded together against the administration. If the administration wanted to take action

against their misconduct, the local employees would band together to exert pressure on the

authorities even if it meant using physical force. "Barisal people are 'dakats' [dangerous

robbers]: I have come here to work, not to endanger my life. I should save myself first,

then the question of the project will come," a senior "outside" official of the project told

me.

In October, 1982, the local lower level employees received some special personal

benefits with the approval of a newly appointed Project Director. But these benefits were not

legal: the new Project Director had unknowingly approved them. So, when the adminstxation

withdrew the benefits and made deductions from their pay, the staff became furious and

created a stalemate in the Project The Barisal people stated that the first Executive Director,

who was from Barisal, was doing very well in project since he was aware of Barisal village

problems. Another time the Project Director came down hard on the local people saying that

he would be in this project for only "few days", and in his absence, the Barisal people

would plunder it. The Project Director was concerned that regional and local antagonism had

become a serious threat to the project It is interesting to note that the majority of the

lower level workers identified senior officials of the project as "outsiders". An ethnic affinity

became a strong basis of competitive communication. This "Barisal versus Outsiders" dichotomy

was such an important cultural fact that its existence perpetuated serious conflict in the

project negatively affecting its potential.

We and Thev Issue: --

A similar dichotomous issue, this one based on narrower group interest of the

bureaucracies of the participating institutions surfaced in BIP. This was a feeling of "we" and

"they", a feeling which divided the project officials into two clear interest groups irrespective

of whether they were from Barisal or outside. According to one version although the project

started well, in a short time a clear feeling of we and they began to emerge; the problem

became acute with the departure of its first Executive Director.211 Two illustrations follow:

One problem was exemplified by the dichotomy in the comments of the IRDP

Assistant Director. In addition to the 'wrong pump point' controversy, the Assistant Director

211 Discussion with a Senior Overseer, BIP. June 1983.

was critical about the partial management role of WDB. He said:

There are fom participating agencies in BIP each on their own and equal footing. But most of the power and privileges are being enjoyed by THEM. For difficult motivational work there is no reward or incentive for US. OUR field staff receive 10 to 12 Taka as conveyance to travel 20 to 30 miles on village roads per day; the rate is unusually low. THEY do not want to increase OUR rate. W E don't get a motor bike or a speed boat for OUR use. THEY use them right and left, as if these are THEIR personal properties. THEIR staff live in the newly built beautiful BIP staff residences. But most of U S except OUR Deputy Director, live outside the BIP complex in rented houses.212

Apparently these statements may seem to be simple and normal for many organizations, still

their localized meaning carries deeper implications in the relationships among the officials of

BIP. The word "they" signified the dominating nature of the WDB, the leading managing

institutions of BIP. The people included in "they" were holding most financial and

administrative decision-making power in the project, but did not maintain any direct link with

the prime project service-users, the farmers. On the other hand, the word "we" referred to

some of the IRDP and DAEM staff who maintained the vital link with the farmers but did

not possess much power in making project-decision. Since the members of the "we" cosidered

them as an under-privileged group. their greivences against the management always popped up

in the expressions of their relationships. The IRDP and DAEM officials were less enthusiastic

in attending meetings with WDB; if they had to attend one, they would have attempted to

keep quiet to express their dessension in most discussions and decisions. But not all officials

of "we" group expressed dissension quietly. The expression of Assistant Director of IRDP was

explicit and loud:

The BIP supervisors say that if the project fails it will fail because of IRDP and DAEM people. W E are not here only to take the blames for failure. W E don't want to work under THEM [Water Board Engineers]. W E would like to work with THEM not under THEM. The Agriculture Deputy Director has gone out of the Project, W E too will get out from under THEIR control.

212 Living within the BIP complex was a matter of privilege and of high status for the staff. Since the BIP head offices were in the complex, it is a more secure area and convenient to attend official duties.

A second example was regmding WDB's alloting apartment houses to the officials of

other participating institutions.

Here too similar "WE" and "THEY" feeling was evident because of a discriminatory

policy adopted by WDB against officials of other institutions. This happened in the Project's

Jhalakati thana, where three Assistant engineers, two from WDB and one from BADC, and a

Thana Extension Officer of DAEM worked and lived in the BIP's Jhalakati complex The

administration and management of the BIP-complex was under the supervision of a WDB

engineer. The complex included 6 residential buildings with each having 4 to 6 apartments,

an office building, a workshop, a warehouse, a small park and a mosque. The number of

apartments were seem to be enough to accomodate most of the officials located there. Still

there were conflicts, which this thesis argues as an outcome of the competitive communication

of the project bureaucracies.

A BADC engineer and the DAEM's Extension Officer of Jhalakati made applications

for two vacant appartments and waited eight months for a decision. There were no eligible '

staff or applicants from the WIlB for these vacant residences. The two applicants explained:

W E reminded THEM [the WDB officials in charge of complex management] several times about OUR applications, but without any result After eight months W E understood that THEY did not want US to have these vacant apartments. So W E broke the locks of the apartments and occupied them. As a result, THEY treated US badly. W E also stopped cooperating with THEM. W E attended THEIR meetings only when the senior officials of the government and the World Bank staff came from Dhaka. W e were only doing the work which W E felt was absolutely necessary for the project.

It seemed that the facilities and services of the BIP were only for THEM: the Water Board people; the BADC, IRDP, and DAEM people were not considered for these accommodations. If THEY treat us in this way how could W E work with THEM. The BIP will not be successful, not even survive, if THEY continue this discriminatory management policy.

When they were asked for the possible reasons of the WDB officials to baheve unfriendly

with other agencies, one of the representative replied, "they don't consider us as equivalent

to them in status and efficiency. They fail to recognize the uniqueness of the work and the

nature of problem faced by each institution." The IRDP's TPO used an analogy to describe

the role of WDB and said that "it's not possible to awake a pretentiously sleeping person."

The analogy meant the WDB officials who, according to him, were pretending of not

knowing about the needs of the officials of other instutitions in BIP.

In response to my question about the irregularities in alloting apartments in Jhalakati,

the WDB ofiicials at the BIP head office said that the BADC Assistant Engineer was a

single person and did not need a large place like a two bed-room apartment for himself.

But the said WDB official agreed that the BADC Assistant Engineer was eligible for an

apartment Regarding DAEMs Extension Officer's allotment he said, "we were little late in

processing his application, but finally an aparment was alloted to him." All the "we" officials

argued that WDB was least concerned about the needs of the other agencies and raised the

question of leadership by an engineering-biased institutions such as WDB in an agricultural

development project213

of Leadershi2 Issue:

The BIP started out with lots of enthusiasm among the project officials, contractors,

national and local politicians, and the farmers of the four selected Thanas. In its physical

construction phase people were serious, active and hard working. Huge funds were coming in

with a lot of construction materials, trucks, cars, vans, speed-boats etc. The World Bank

teams and local and national politicians were often visiting the project area. It seemed that it

was developing into a big affair. But the seriousness was lost with the passage of time.214

One explanation as to the reason why, may be found in the bureaucratic management of the

213 TO avoid this this unfavourable persoanl situation, the BADC engineer had himself transferred to Chittagong. The Jhalakati Thana Extension Officer was also trying to get out of the BIP.

214 This is what Dr. Marilyn Gates has called as "projectismo" or "project fever", in her comments to this (draft) dissertation.

project.

I interviewed the Senior Extension Officer, one of the oldest employees of the BIP,

who was with the project from its inception. He was of retirement age and had a profound

understanding of project problems. But he was hesitant to answer my queries. He said that

he was an old man and would be retiring soon. He felt that he should not be critical

about the project or its senior officials. Furthermore, his opinion would not bring any change

to the project status. He murmured: Khdi Khdi Shomoy Nasto "useless, only a wastage of

your time". When I tried to persuade him to analyse the situation, he kept quiet for some

time and finally started to speak in metaphorical terms. "You know", he said:

the economic and cultural harmony in a family, in our society, depends on the father. It would be unusual to expect a good family of a bad father; [he paused for a while] a project depends on the intentions and capacities of its leaders. Now, none of the senior officers or directors have any love for this project.

There were three Project Directors in the last two and half years. One Director came to the

project for only five months, to gain an experience in the field, so as to receive a high

promotion in the Head Office. This person later became a Special Assistant to the Chairman

of the Water Development Board.

According to this Senior Extension Overseer, at present the officers of the project do

not see any successful career within the project. The officers are not explicit about the

project's uncertain future, but many of them have a negative feeling about i t They are thus

naturally becoming disinterested in the project. The Executive Director, who is the chief

executive of the project, spends on an average two weeks in each month outside the project

He did not bring his wife and family who live in Dhaka, to live in Barisal. The Executive

Director visited Dhaka two or three times a month to look after his family. His attachment

and commitment to the project seem, therefore, not wholehearted.

In the absence of the Executive Director, the middlelevel officers influence

decision-making to their advantage. I have found some of the middle and lower level

140

officials, in contrast to the senior bureaucrats, take special interest in the woking of the

project In an interview, an Assistant Engineer, a middle level officer, stated that he had

only started his career in this projecti He needs to prove his worth to earn a promotion

and get transferred to a more a "prosperous" place.215

According to this experienced Overseer, the leaders of this project have failed to

perform their most important duty. They could not encourage the small and middle farmers

to get organized in groups to face the dominant middlemen and money lenders in the

villages. Secondly, due to poor and partial management, conflicts among the four agencies

have increased. "Who knows, may be 'we' want to sustain the conflicts and fish out of

them." However, the truth remains, acording to him, the enthusiasm among the officials and

the staff does not exist any more. "The BIP-feeling was lost" and this was due to a lack

of proper leadership by the leading agency of BIP. The then team leader of the foreign

consultants (1982-83) to the project also recognized the weaknesses in the leadership of BIP

and a general evasiveness of the senior project officials which are discussed later under the

Foreign Consultants Issue.

BJ and @g Farmers Issue

The relationship between the farmers and the BIP officials had never been very cordial

because the majority of the small farmers in the BIP thanas were not clear about the

purpose of the project. The farmers were uninformed about the project goals and they

remained outside the decision-making before the beginning of its construction. Farmers became

'I5 In Bangladesh, for an engineer particularly working in a project managed by the parastatal institutions, a "prosperous place" means handling more financial resources and receiving special benefits and privileges out of the project See. Robert Wade, "The System of Administration and Political Corruption: Canal Irrigation in South India", Journal of Devlovment Studies, 1982 for a detailed analysis of irrigation engineers' conduct in the Third World countries. Some of these irrigation projects of South India, in purpose and organization, are similar to BIP.

a party to the project when the BIP officials visited the fields to acquire their lands for

irrigation channels. Many of them thought that it was a government project only to help the

rich; since they were poor, they did not have access to BIP resources. Some believed that

BIP had potential for agricultural development, but was greatly hampered by incongruous

agricultural policies and inappropriate attitudes of the bureaucracies towards the farmers.

Others thought that Barisal had so many rivers and canals that it required no big irrigation

project such as BIP; it was simply a waste of money like many other government projects.

Bribes and corruption by the officials also stifled the relationships between the farmers and

the officials.

Tam Miah, a small farmer and a primary school teacher in Jhalakati witnessed farmers

resisting the establishment of BIP. According to him, farmers were unsure about BIP's

intention and role. They were afraid of losing their land under the project For Barisal

people, land was the only source of their living. Here, people rarely make a permanent

move from their land. In Kauarchar village of Char Kaua Union in Kotwali Thana, the

resistance was so severe that when the BIP officials reached there to acquire land for canals,

farmers chased them away with sticks and spears. There were also clashes between two

groups of farmers, those for and those against the project It was not easy to acquire land

for the project at the early stage. Later on, the project authorities got their required land

through influential local people. The officials, and the rich and poor farmers, all had a

different understanding of the project goals. Tam Miah stated that the local rich and

influential Matabbars helped BIP to help themselves. He referred to Abdul Hossain Chairman

of Jhalakati as an example.

Abdul Hossain, a former Union Council Chairman of the 1960s received the "Best

Farmer's Medal" under the BIP for producing a record of 124 maunds of paddy in an

acre.216 The average of his paddy production per acre was nearly 100 maunds, against the

z16 One Maund eqLials 82 pounds in weight

average production rate of 30 to 50 rnaunds per acre in the area. The intelligent village

Chairman used his social and financial influences over the BIP officials to derive maximum

benefits from the BIP's agricultural and irrigation strategies.

Abdul Hossain, 53, a high school graduate, owned only 6 acres of land by himself,

but cultivated high yielding varieties of paddy in nearly 65 acres of land. He managed to

take these lands on rent from small farmers. Hossain had been a relatively rich farmer for

a long time. For procuring land, his technique was to pay small amounts of cash to small

farmers as advance rent when they were short sf money, and take their land for his own

cultivation. Since agricultural inputs were to be scarce and expensive during the cultivating

season, Hossain used to buy and stock them early. He had the necessary capital. He used to

influence the irrigation, seeds, fertilizer, and pest control officials of the B1P all to his

advantage. He never became a member of a Cooperative, yet often he received agricultural

loans, irrigation-pumps and other inputs from the government agencies at subsidized prices.

Since this rich farmer had a better understanding of irrigation and farm-management, and

above all capacities to satisfy the needs of the bureaucracies, the BIP officials were eager to

help him. These bureaucracies saw the realization of their policies vis a vis their personal

and institutional interests through Hossain's success.

The Director of the BIP referred several times to Hossain's success story in our

discussions. He wanted me to visit this farm with him. 1 did visit the farm but on my

own. Hossain told me how he worked hard to achieve his success. However, it seemed to

him that the civil administration of the district (the Deputy Commissioner, the Sub-Divisional

Officer etc.) and the BIP officials were interested in maintaining his level of achievement

"Now, I can't stop it even if I want to", he told me. According to him this had motivated

some other big farmers in Jhalakati; the present Union Council Chairman and a

Village-doctor have since become interested in commercial farming. Hossain admitted that the

BIP would not be beneficial to poor or average farmers. When asked for reasons, he said,

BIP-field staff were made responsible to supervise us and monitor our agriculture, but in fact, I advise them and get my things done. The poor farmers and their cooperatives were not powerful enough to influence and use these field-staff. The field staff do not go to poor farmers, and there were obvious reasons for that They can not feed and treat the officials the way they want to be treated. They don't enjoy talking to them. So they come to us. To be honest, small and poor farmers do not have the capital and knowledge to manage commercial agriculture, neither can they procure agricultural inputs and knowledge from BIP. I do not think there was any place for subsistence agriculture in the BIP system

But according to the senior BIP officials, this project was neither intended nor designed to

help big farmers or village politicians. But in fact that was what it was doing.

My repeat visit to the field in March 1986 revealed that even the rich farmers had

not sustained enough returns by participating in the project This rich farmer Hossain in 1986

had to move out of the project because of the high cost for agricultural inputs and the

project officials' heavy handedness. He said in the production season of 1985-86, by investing

Taka 400,000 he received a profit of Taka 18,000, which is only 4.5% of the investment

Moving out of agriculture, now he has started a salt factory in Jhalakati through which he

expects a 25 to 30% profit He was very critical of the government's organized effort to

keep the country's food price down through test rationing and the Food for Works

Programme since they led to low returns to the farmers.

In 1972, the government reorganized the existing Test Rationing system, which provides

subsidized food supplies to the armed forces, government officials and the urban residents.

This subsidy affects the farmers' returns especially when they are forced to sell their produce

immediately after the harvesting season under distress conditions such as loan repayment, or

government intervention in the market by release of imported grains. This intervention has

become a regular feature of the Food For Works Programme where payment for development

activities such as road construction, canal and well digging etc. is made in kind to the wage

labourer by using the imported wheat. This wheat, which usually comes to the country as a

help from the US-Government under the PIA8O through the World Food Programme, has

become an important element of the governmental leverage against the farmers and thereby a

major i n s m e n t of political communication in the state's agricultural and rural developmental

strategy.

The evidence of a disrespectful attitude of the officials towards the farmers was also a

common phenomenon the project In our discussions the officials called farmers "Chasha"

(uncultured), "Gadha" (Donkey:fool), "O-shikhitya" (un-educated: a slang used to convey a

dull and stupid sense), "Khairatee" (beggar) and "Shaitan" (devil or wicked). They were

- perceived as a kind of sub-human species by the officials. It was observed that farmers did

not have easy access to the officials. If a desperate farmer did reach one, that farmer would

inevitably be told that the official was busy and he should come back the next day or the

following week. Whether the official really remained busy with work or was gossiping with

friends during work, would not make a difference. One such incident occurred in my

presence.

One manager of a Village Agriculture Society (KSS) came for the third time for the

promised wheat BIP owed to him for digging field-channels for irrigation according to the

BIP's standard. When junior sffidals refused to deliver him the wheat withoct bribe, Lbe

farmer-manager wanted to see the Project Director with his complaint When the farmer

entered the Director's room overcoming secretarial barriers, before he say anything he was

told to return the following day: the director was too busy in a "meeting". Immediately an

orderly came and took the farmer out The Director was not at all in a formal meeting: he

and two other engineers were gossiping about the post-Maaial Law "stories" of Bari~al.~"

217 I met this farmer-manager about four months later in June 1983, in a meeting of the Barisal Kotwali Thana Central Cooperative Association at the TTDC and confirmed that he did not receive the promised wheat till that day, (June '83) which was eight months after his canal work was completed.

The Foreinn Consultants Issue:

Consultants are experts normally engaged by the pre-project and project authorities to

conceive, design and even carry out projects on a sound basis in the absence of the

personnel required in specific areas by the aid-borrowing countries. The provision of foreign

consultants in the World Bank-IDA projects has become a norm. Whether the countries or

their projects actually need them or not, acceptence of foreign consultants remains a

precondition in most IDA credit agreements. Some consider the consultants as agents of the

funding agencies in the agencies' efforts to assert unoff~cial control over the projects.218

Foreign consultants are usually used by the borrowing countries for pre-investment

studies, preparation and implementation services and for technical assistance to the project.

The pre-investment studies become the basis of selection for investment areas, sector policy

priorities, and feasibility of the projects. These studies identify and suggest changes in the

host government policies, and reorganise or create new institutions necessary for the country's

development219 These studies design and direct the courses of development in such a way

that, in fact, they become one of the the major instruments of the World Bank's economic

and ideological influence over the recipient country. Most consulting firms and their

representatives employed by the host country's projects require an approval by the World

Bank.

The preparation services include technical, economic and other analyses necessary to each

specific project. Implementation and Technical Assistance services are provided in the areas of

const~uction-supervision, project management, materials and equipment supplies, institution

building, staffing, training, preparation of modules for project maintenance and other

218 Interview with Project Director of BIP, at his office in Barisal, June, 1982.

219 Warren C. Baum & Stokes M. Talbart. Investing & Development: Lessons of World Bank Ex~erience. NY: Oxford University Press, 1985 p. 559.

project-needed specifics.

Following the World Bank procedures and guidelines, the consultant services to BIP

began much earlier than the actual project's commencement in May 1975. In fact, the project

completion report by the WB (1986) records that the first identification team for this project

visited the field in October of 1972 and prepared a report in 1973.

Within the project, the Netherland Development Company (NEDECO) provided the

major consulting services during the project's five year (1976-81) construction period. A team

of four expatriates, composed of three engineers (irrigation, mechanical, and construction) and

an agriculturist, were employed by the project on varying tenures. The appraisers of the

project proposed the irrigation engineer to be the team leader, which suggests the project's

engineering bias over its agricultural nature from the beginning of the project Following this

appraisers' suggestion, as stated before, the management of the project also went to the

engineers of the WDB. This engineering bias in a multi-institutional co-ordinated project was

the beginning of serious conflicts among the four participating agencies, ultimately affecting

the success of the project

At the beginning $ 0.9 million was proposed as the cost for the consultancy services,

which was 2% of the total project costs. But at the completion of the project these charges

reached as high as 11%. The consultants received 80% of this amount in foreign exchange

which is usually recycled to their home countries. The provisions for tax-free privileges with

high quality housing, transports, oflice supplies and support-staff, for the consultants, were

clearly stated in the credit agreements and appraisal reports. The pay and privileges received

by the foreign consultants were much higher in comparision to local consultants or the

. project staff for a similar type of work in BIP. Although the consultants avoided commenting

on the consequences of these differences in the project, I have found this an important issue

in the project-management effectiveness.

The Project Director told me that since it was a condition attached to the project

credit agreement, 'they were obliged to invite foreign consultants to the project The PD said:

frankly speaking, some of them know nothing about their work. I am not saying that ail are useless. But we can get similar service from local consultants at a one-tenth cheaper cost One thing is true that they are very punctual about their service delivery, however relevant the services are. I have strong reservations about the quality of many of the consultants, both in BIP and in other projects. Now in our country, even in our Water Board, we have well trained persons to provide expert services. In fact, we treat these foreign consultants as our guests. Since, they have good linkage with the donor agencies, we give them patient hearing. In fact, they are the project-supervising representatives of the aid-agencies.

The chief engineer stated that since most of these consultants write better reports in English

than the project staff, they ask the consultants to edit and correct the reports, those go to

their head office or to the World Bank Resident Mission in BangIadesh (WBRMB).

The NEDECO consultants in BIP preferred to avoid comparisons regarding the quality

and financial aspects of their consultancy services with the project staff, but commented on

the coordination problem in the project and the general evasiveness of the senior project

administrators. Elaborating on the issue, the acting team leader in (June) 1983, said that the

BIP has become a "leisure place for the management hobbyists." He referred to fast, transfa

of project directors during 1981-82. Three different project directors from WDB supervised the

project in this short period. According to consultant, these dirctors manipulated their transfers

to and out of the project only to add a year's experience of the field to their careers.

Because of the short period of their stay (maximum 2.5 years) most of the directors were

unacquainted with the project's actual problems. Thus the disinterested directors and their

officials would make many decisions but very few of them would carry out very few of

them.

The consultants found the project officials to be very polite and cooperative since they

were agreeing in most of the proposals forwarded by them, but they were also frustrated

because many of their suggestions were not realized in practice, for example the consultants

suggested building a shed over the expensive water pumps left over outside the workshop;

the project management agreed, but never built i t There was a theft at the pump workshop

and one consultant asked for two flood lights to be fixed outside the workshop. The P.D

said "yes" to the request and he noted it down in his book, but they were never fixed.

When the consultant inquired about it the P.D. told him that they did not have a fund for

the lights. This (foreign) consultant could not accept this as a genuine explanation. Again, the

special demonstration farms under the project were short of seeds. The Chief Executive

Director directed the agricultural section to procure extra seeds from Dhaka-BADC office; the

director himself phoned Dhaka Office for seeds; the Dhaka Oflice said that they were

sending them on an urgent basis. But nothing happened. "People here always say 'yes, yes,

we will do it', but on many occasions they don't do i t Which "yes" is a real yes and

which one is no, is really difficult to differentiate. We foreign consultants are fine in our

technical work, but are least effective in real social communication."

In general, the policies of the World Bank favour employing local consultants or

consultants from neighbouring developing countries who have better exposure to the local

conditions. But because of the required skills pertaining to large and complex projects, and

because of the vulnerability to the local pressures, employment of local consultants can

become difficultZZ0 Still, since development of local manpower is a strong precondition for

sustained development, special efforts are required to help develop local project consultants

parallel to the project development itself, in the developing countries. This practice is

beginning in the World Bank in Bangladesh, but BIP is a case where no local consultants

were engaged, except in a feasibility study for extending the project into a third phase which

was shelved due to disappointing performance of the earlier phases.

It is difficult to determine how much the project has benefitted and its opportunity

costs if the consultants were not there at least from the project management viewpoint. But

220 Baum, Op cit, pp. 560-561.

it was clear that the consultants have received more than a million dollars in 75

man-months, on in average nearly $14,000 per month for pay and other expenses. The

benefits seem to be quite high even by the North American income standards. However,

Warren Baum and Stokes Tolbert, two senior World Bank staff in their recent book have

defended the higher expenses for the consultants:

The cost of consulting services is usually a small fraction of total project costs, but the quality of the work performed can have an impact on the final project out of all proportion to the cost.221

This argument is less convincing when the actual project implemntation hinges upon the field

staff such as the messenger-peon, the pump mechanic and others whose continuous attention

keeps the project alive. These people, however, are paid on an average $30-40 per month,

and the senior supervisory staff earn about $250-350 dollars. In relation to the time, the

consultants give to the project and the money they earn, the field staff, who are aware of

the disparity in the pay feel less motivated to fully involve themselves in the project. This

is one of the key factors that affects the project. Ultimately the debt incurred during the

project will be borne by the people vis-a-vis the farmers of the country.

of a K.S.S. Formation

In has been mentioned earlier that from its inception the relationships among the

bureaucracies, and between the bureaucracies and the farmers were uneven in the project

Competitive communication prevailed among most of its bureaucratic actors. The communication

was more unpleasant between the local institutions of farmers and the local officials which

became crucial for the project itself. An apathetic attitude of the officials toward the farmers

was explicit The interest of the officials revolved around the achievement-statistics of their

institutional structures more than the farmers' interests. The symbiotic relationship between the

development of farmers and the development of agriculture was ignored by the officials.

221 Baum and Tolbert p. 593.

Furthermore, "misinformation" emerged as a technique of motivation particularly by the local

level bureaucracies in this communication. An illustration of this follows.

Shekh Ali, a small farmer and the Manager of Betagi Demonstration Farm, had lost

his faith in the BIP-system of agricultural development. He believed BIP was an institution

apathetic toward the middle and poor farmers. Although he was the manager of an

Agicultural Cooperative Society (KSS), he was unable to get access to the agricultural inputs

- of BIP on behalf of his Betagi-KSS members.

Ali told us that he and his present fellow KSS members first became interested in

forming a K.S.S. and in HYV cultivation, when an WIP Inspector of the BIP informed

them of the "lakhs of Taka" they could receive from the Government. With that money, the

KSS members could meet their agricultural expenses and other social requirements such as to

pay dowry at daughters' marraige, celebrate religious occasion etc. To Barisal people, social

needs receive high importance in comparison to the satisfaction of many basic needs. Such

social needs include dowries from the bride's parents, conspicuous spending on social and

religious ceremonies, particularly on feasts, and long-term coar suits ever! or! smA! lands.

A ten-fold increase in the prices of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and a six-fold

increase in irrigation pump rentals in ten years and between 1972 and 1982,222 affected the

small farmers, and sometimes completely pushed them out of cultivation. In an adverse

situation like this, Shekh Ali welcomed the lRDP Inspector's idea of receiving Lakh Taka,

(an expression similar to "a million dollars") and formed the KSS with 21 members.223 This

KSS designed a plan for HYV-cultivation in 70 acres of land, based on the promise for

loans by the IRDP Inspector. The KSS members made an application and paid a 500 Taka

. fee for its registration expecting to receive loans and inputs at cultivation time. But when

222 See, "Supply, Distribution and Pricing, Chemical Fertilizers in Bangladesh," by M. A. Jabbar, Journal of Social Studies, Dhaka University, July 1981. pp. 49-68.

223 For the objectives and functions of the KSS Cooperative societies see chapter 3.

they went to receive these the Inspector sent them to the Thana Cooperative Office only to

find that their KSS had not been registered. Only now did the Inspector tell them that if a

KSS was not registered and had not deposited "savings and shares" to the Thana Central

Cooperative Association, it would not qualify for loans or inputs. He did not explain all the

details and complexities of a KSS formation process, and the rights and duties of its

members beforehand; rather, the Inspector allured them with the promises of the "free

government money".

In a separate interview, this Inspector stated that if the farmers were told about

"savings and share deposits", they would not be interested in forming Societies. According to

him, he felt that farmers were unwilling to deposit weekly savings with the KSS and buy its

shares. The IRDP Inspectors and Thana Project Officers (TPO) were under pressure from

their higher bureaucracy to increase the number of cooperative societies. Thus the inspectors

and TPOs were providing "mis" and "controlled" information on the one hand to the

farmers about the procedures of KSS formation, and on the other, to the authorities about

the increased number of cooperative societies. A contest between covert and overt techniques

was evident in their communication. In studying cooperative societies in Rajshahi, a northern

district of Bangladesh, Jan Paul Emmeret referred to the problem as "A Breakdown in an

Grganization J Ideology" .2 24 The demand for generation of "achievement statistics" remains a

key problem in bureaucratically managed development action programmes. The problem has

been discussed in chapter Seven.

The next week Shekh Ali deposited the 'savings and shares', to the TCCA, borrowing

money from outside the KSS members in anticipation of receiving IRDP credits.225 This was

224 See Jan Paul Ernmert, "Breakdown of an Organizational Ideology: The Replication of Comilla-type Cooperatives in Bangladesh", Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 1981.

225 In fact, most of these societies lacked in real cooperative organization. None of the members of these organizations were motivated to deposit the 2 taka weekly savings and to buy the minimum one ten-taka share in the KSS. Absence of cooperative relationships among

in addition to the 500 taka paid out for the society's registration fee. At this point the

Inspector told them that they had to complete a "good conduct" waiting period of six

months to be eligible for registration. Ali then went to the Thana and District Cooperative

Registrar's Offices, who were independent of IRDP, and was given the same information.

With cultivation season rapidly approaching, Shekh Ali asked the Deputy Director of IRDP,

the Executive Engineer of BADC, the Project and the Executive Directors of BIP to help

him with low interest government loans to cultivate HYVs. However, he was unsuccessful in

his bid to get a loan. The Inspector told Shekh Ali that if he gave a bribe of one

thousand taka he would have the registration quickly processed through the Thana

Cooperative Registrar's Office. But Shekh Ali refused; he was tired and had lost faith in the

system. He was unable to register his cooperative society and thus was deprived of

agricultural credit The consequences for Ali and the group were profound.

Since the members of this KSS prepared their field for HYV-cultivation they had to

borrow money from the village money-lenders at a very high rate of interest (50 to 60

percent for a four-month crop season). Still they failed to procure the required capid for

cultivation. Due to half-hearted participation on the part of the already fmstrated members,

in addition to the high price of agricultural inputs, the returns on their cultivation were

poor. Only 10% per cent of the farmers made a small profit out of the cultivation; 65%

received only their investment back; the remaining 25% per cent lost their crops due to lack

of capital to procure seeds, fertilizers, pesticides etc. in time. They borrowed money beyond

their capacity in anticipation of this high yielding variety crop. The last 25% were now in a

most critical situation, and were about to lose their only land to the village money-lenders.

Shekh Ali stated that he was confident if they had received proper inputs in time, they

225(~ont'd) the members and organizers was clearly evident. In most cases, one or two initiators deposited the necessary savings and share money for the whole group to get a society registered and be eligible for IRDP credits. Since the IRDP byelaw requires a society to have 21 members, the initiators add other names at their discretion. Sometimes, initiators add false names and distribute credit money between themselves. A good number of cooperative societies exist only on paper.

could have produced a record crop through the Betagi KSS; thus he believed that BIP had

potential as an agricultural development project.

Shekh Ali, as an organizer of a cooperative society, became known to the BIP Thana

officials. A year later he was offered a govemment-sponsored demonstration farm. Even

though all inputs for this farm were supposed to be supplied by the Agriculture Department

of BIP, Shekh Ali felt it would be a difficult job to actually obtain them from the

apathetic BIP officials. There was no easy access for middle and poor farmers in BIP.

Shekh Ali cited another example of the un-motivated and apathetic behaviours of the

BIP officials. In his Demonstration Farm he excavated nearly two miles of field-channels to

meet his water requirements as he understood them. On a visit to the farm, the BIP

agronomist accompanied by the project's foreign consultant, suggested that the channel's width

should be 54 inches at the top, 12 inches at the bottom, and its depth should be at least

12 inches. As well he thought there should be an earth elevation on both sides of the

channel with the same depth, width and height measurement. In accordance with the

instruction, the farmers changed their chsme! stnmoxe. But after two weeks, a Sub-Divisicd

Engineer (SDE) of the BADC (BIP) visited the farm and changed the design. Since the

irrigation pumps and their fuel were under the SDE's supervision and control, the farmers

had to follow his instructions and again alter the channel structure. Still, a few weeks later,

a team from the World Bank, the major donor agency, accompanied by senior WDB officials

visited the farm and changed the design. In three months, according to Shekh Ali, the

farmers had to structure and restructure the channels four times. In all, the farmers spent an

extra 11,782 taka for restructuring purposes. This extra expediture was not very easy for the

poor farmers. The BIP officials promised to reimburse the money or pay it back through

'Food For Works' wheat, but they never did.

The BIP officials remain unconcerned about the cost and impact on the farmers of

their whimsical and inappropriate decisions. When a marginal failure of a crop becomes a

question of life for farmers, the officials who make wrong decisions that cause crop failure,

do not suffer themselves any of the consequences. Instead, as a major punishment for many

such serious offence, officials receive an order of transfer to another project; sometimes if

they can manipulate, they get themselves transferred with promotions or better benefits. The

system of administration and management of the project clearly reflects a potential source of

conflict in the relationships among the actors in the project. As we have seen, in this

communication between actors only the farmers and the country's agriculture suffer. All the

processes and techniques of the articulation of interests and their consequential power relations

among the actors in BIP, which is defined as the project communication of BIP, remained

evidently uneven. The management-bureaucracies as representatives of the state power,

construed through institutions such as BIP, played a pervasive and controlling role over the

people in the project area, rather than actually helping the farmers to form and strengthen

local institutions in order to ensure farmers' active participation and access to national

development resources.

CHAPTER IX

COMPARISONS OF BIP-PROJECT AND NON-PROJECT THANAS

The role of local institutions, particularly at the Thana level in the development process

of Bangladesh, has rarely been studied comparatively. Those few studies which were

attempted, have tended to overlook the role of communication in Thana level institutions and

their relationships with the state apparatus and state power. This chapter has attempted to

illustrate a comparative course of development in both BIP and nearby non-BIP thanas to

explain the nature and reasons for the governmental engagament in the thana development

process: why some thanas are more favoured than others to be covered by the projects such

as BIP, and how the non-aided (i.e. non-BIP) thanas persue their development efforts in

absence of government projects like BIP.

This chapter refers back to the analyses of the state and the parastatal institutional

responses to the governmental development policies in the country for last three decades, as

discussed in chapter I11 and IV, where arguments have been made that the state

bureaucracies through gaining a relatively autonomous power create and/or organize institutions

in distributing scarce national resources differetially. Thus they can hold control over the local

people and their institutions, for domination. The four thana comparison provided evidence to

support these arguments in much clearer way by explaining the role of the parastatal

bureaucracies and BIP in the development process of Barisal thanas, particularly of Kotwali

and Jhalakati (BIP), and Perojpur and Nazirpur (non-BIP).

The comparison found that the nature of engagement of the state in the development

of these four thanas was very different prior to the introduction of BIP. Amplifying the

differences, it was observed that the BIP thanas were receiving more resources of the state

than non-BIP thanas. The selection of BIP in particular thanas was influenced by their

already comparatively developed status. The convenience of the implementing bureaucracies to

stay in, move around and manage the project emerged as a strong criterion for the

distribution of scarce governmental resources for the development of BIP thanas against other

less developed thanas. Then, due to the concentration in Nazirpur, of a religious minority

community opposed to the government, the thana was not favoured by the government and it

received very few development inputs for the thana. Thus from this evidence it would be

difficult to argue that any present development in BIP thanas is simply a consequence of

BIP. Further, the less developed non-BIP thanas follow alternative techniques both for their

own development and to maintain relationship with the state power.

The importance of the thana institution as a unit of analysis in communication studies

rests on the fact that the thana is the key link between the government and the rural

people. The officials of the thanas are the important mediating actors and interpreters in the

communication of resources, authority and legitimacy between the state power and its subjects.

The thana and its bureaucracies, as mediators, have profound capacities to facilitate or restrict

the processess of communication flows.

Four thanas were selected for comparisofi, two of which were f m the Barrsz!

Irrigation Project area. These two were Kotwali and Jhalakati. The two other thanas outside

BIP included in this study were Perojpur and Nazirpur. Since all the four thanas are located

within one southern deltaic district of Bangladesh, the apparent physical and ecological

backdrop of these thanas may seem to be similar. But a deeper look will reveal the

uniqueness of each thana, their needs, process of development and their relationships in the

state structure. The study of these relationships is particularly necessary since these shape the

life processes of nearly a million people in these four thanas. The rationale for the thana

studies in Bangladesh in fact depends on the origin and evolution of the institution itself,

and the key role it plays in the present development matrixes of Bangladesh.

Historical records state that thanas originated as small cantonments to collect and store

the rent and provide support to rent collectors in rural areas appointed by the Rajas and

Nawabs of Bengal. Wiiliam Hunter in 1883 wrote:

The Raja divided his territory into sections of very irregular size, and placed under the care of a native officer, whose chief business judging from the records, was to assist the land-stewards in collecting the rents. To this end he had a certain number of troops and foot soldie~s under him, the main body of whom lived in quarters around the house; and the little cantonment thus formed passed under the name of T h a w and was sometimes dignified with a fofiZZ6

In the later part of 18th century when Bengal was under the dual rule of the Indian

native kings and the British East India Company, its administration was in disarray. To have

more control over both rent management and criminal administration, Viceroy Lord Cornwallis

attempted to create a regular police regiment out of the fiscal police forces. In 1792 he

divided

the thanadari establishment into two classes - those who were attached to the thana received wages, and those who were stationed in the villages and paid by grants of rent-la~~d.~~'

Although the police force was divided into fiscal and regular, their interdependent role in

rent collection continued. Soon the jilrisdiction of thanas began to he sm!!er In size, becaw

the more thanadar (native police officer) the colonial administration could engage, the higher

the rent they could collect from the alien land.

The fiscal and military character of the thana added a third, "developmental", feature

at the end of colonial rule. In 1962 through an administrative reform the rnilitaq president

increased the number of thanas by further reducing their sizes. He appointed a Circle Officer

for Development (C.O.Dev.) in addition to the existing Revenue Circle Officer (R.C.O.) in

each thana.228 The C.O., now disconnected from revenue collection, became the chief

226 W.W. Hunter, Annals of Rural Bennal, Calcutta: Indian Studies, Past and Present, 1883 (reprinted in 1965) p. 169.

227 Hunter, Ibid, p. 171.

228 Ali Ahmed, op.cit, pp. 78-80.

government executive in the thana. This was a qualitative shift in the relationships between

the thana and the state. In this shift, the state's instruments of control adding more

dimensions, became highly centralized and efficient; its pattern of communication became more

covert and rhetorical.

In the sixties each thana institution acquired a number of development functions with

additional bureaucrats. Since 1970, there have been 17 governmant officers in each thana to

"communicate" between the state and the people. The Thana has remained at the bottom of

the institutional structure through which the government attempted to assert its direct

communication over rural people. That is why the thana has always been at the centre of

most administrative reform undertakings.

Following 1971, the new government of Bangladesh attempted to "decentralize" the

administration by delegating some power to Districts and Thanas. An elected District Council

headed by an appointed Governor, who would draw up and implement major development

plans, was about to be introduced. The country comprised of 21 districts, was now to be

divided into 62. But a b y before the i=p!emen&tion of k progrimme, ~e government wzs

overthrown through a brutal military coup. Before introducing the reform the old government

disbanded the multi-party political system, shut down all opposition newspapers, and forced all

political forces to join its only party, the Bangladesh Krishak Srarnik Awami League

(BKSAL). The BKSAL planned to establish party offices at districts and thanas parallel to

the government administration for an alternative private communication channel for the party.

The major covert intention of this communication strategy was to bring most rural forces

under the control of the government and the party. Analysing the facts, we would argue that

the process of decentralization of state power was only a pretext for further centralization by

the state power. The differential treatment in the distribution of national resources through

the institutions such as BIP, to some thanas over others, is also an example of the technique

adopted by the state power in its centralization policy.

In 1976 the military government of General Zia introduced the "Gram Sarkar" another

village government system, retaining the central focus of reform on thana. This was a

disorganized arrangement to relegate an undefined power and authority to some local leaders,

who were expected to finally help to legitimate the rule of the military government Now

the political cadres of the military supported the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and

became key actors in thana and village level administration and control.229 This continued

until 1981 when President Zia was killed in a military coup. The new president elect, Justice

Abdus Sam, for a short period followed Zia's reforms, until he was removed by the next

military coup in March 1982. The succeeding government of General Ershad adopted an

identical strategy, drew more attention to thanas and undertook a massive programme to

upgrade the status of the thanas as Upa-Zila or sub-districts But in the upgrading process

also some thanas received higher attention over others, for example, Jhalakati and Perojpur

over Nazirpur. An analysis of this programme has been included in chapter (IV): The

Institutional Response to Agricultural and Rural Development To perform the inugaural

ceremony of upgrading Nazirpur, the thana received a Joint Secretary, where as the

ceremonies in other thanas were performed by the President, Martid Law Adminstrators,

Ministers and full Secretaries. At present there are 468 Upa-Zilus in the country.

Four Thanas

As mentioned earlier all four thanas selected for this study belonged to Barisal district,

located in the south west of the confluence of the three major rivers: the Padma (Ganges),

the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. Kotwali and Jhalakati are the two neighbowring thanas

selected from BIP command area. Neither of these two has a border with the other two

non-BIP thanas - Perojpur and Nazirpur - which are attached to each other.

229 For details on the failure of the Gram Sarkar institution see, A. S. Huque, "The Problems of Local Govt. Reform in Bangladesh: The Failure of Sawnirvar Gram Sarkar", Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1984.

btwali is the largest of the four thanas, with 72,320 acres, Nazirpur is second with

60,800, followed by Jhalakati and Perojpur with 48,000 and 32,405 acres, respectively. On the

basis of population, again Kotawali ranks first with 350,337, but Jhalakati second with 180,405

and then comes Perojpur and Nazirpur with 164,984 and 154,407 people respectively230 (see

Table 5). The yearly rate of population increase is 0.5% higher in Nazirpur than other

thanas. In age group distribution, Nazirpur and Perojpur have more younger people than the

two BII'-thanas. But in wider comparison in both age groups 1-10 and 11-24, all four

thanas rank below the national and Barisal district rate. On the basis of sex the male

population in Kotwali is 55%, Jhalakati 51%, Perojpur 52% and Nazirpur 53%.

The population distribution on the basis of religion is an important variable for

comparisons in these thanas. Except Kotwali where it is 7%, the other three thanas have a

higher percentage of Hindu population than the national average which is 14%. Jhalakati has

20% Perojpur 30% and Nazirpur 62% Hindus in each of its population. We have found that

the higher percentage of Hindu people in Nazirpur has special implications for the

undeveloped and imbalanced pattern of communication between this thana and the centre. The

implications will be discussed in the Nazirpur Section of this thesis. The comparisons provide

evidence that the two BIP thanas in most respects are more developed than the non-BIP

thanas. But this is not a consequence of the project; the differences were there even before

the project came to Kotwali and Jhalakati. Tables 6 and 7 represent the comparative picture

of the number and volume of Low Lift Pumps and Seeds distributed by the government

agencies. to these thanas. In terns of physical infrastructure, Kotwali and Jhalakati were much

developed than Perojpur and Nazirpur. See Tables 10 through 13 reagrding industrial and

~ 0 m m c i d enterprises, newspaper readers, health and educational data, and for roads and

. physical communication, see Tables 8 and 9. The project planners and the parastatal

institutions responsible for the area-selection for BIP preferred to include comparatively

2 3 0 The present population of Perojpur thana has decreased because another new lhana at Indarkani was created by bifurcating Perojpur in 1981.

developed areas in the project

The BIP thanas were more accessible in terms of physical communication, information

and services. Statistics were relatively easy to gather and generate and because of their

accessibility these thanas were less difficult for the development bureaucracies live in,

supervise and manage on behalf of the government Furthermore, a higher political and

economic return for the government on the investment made, remained a key rationale for

the distribution of projects among the thanas. The rationale was based on the satisfaction of

needs of the state and its bureaucracies rather than the people of the respective thanas. On

the other hand, discrimination in the state's policy of resource distribution among the local

institutions was evident. The comparatively developed thanas which were able to provide

political legitimacy and better economic return to the military governments received more and

thus earned higher competitive power to communicate with the state, than other thanas.

Kotwali and Jhalakati, two BIP thanas developed convenient relationship with the state power

through BIP developed thanas.

The Kotwali Thana ---

The term "Kotwal" signifies the "executor" or the "guard" of the state. The thana,

where the Kotwal lived or which predominantly was administrative in nature, was called

Kotwali. This Barisal thana became Kotwali when in 1801 the administrative headquarters of

Barisal district was transferred from Bakerganj. A major reason for this move was to be

close to the large commercial centre of Jhalakati. Most of the office buildings in the town

were built between 1801 and 1831. The town committee was formed in 1868 and it became

. a municipality in 1876.

The Kotwali thana began to flourish when in 1884 it was connected with the nearest

railway station town (Khulna) through a steamer service. Because of its crisscross network of

rivers the establishment of railway tracks was impossible. High costs of bridge construction

constrained road development Through the introduction of steamer-service Kotwali became the

centre of linkage between southern Bengal and the city of Calc~tta.~~' Within the thana,

rivers and canals remained major ways of physical movement However, at the time there

were two major roads: Kotwali to Dapdapia (7 miles) and Kotwali to Khajanchi's Hat (3

miles) built in the early 19th century.232 At present there are 70 miles of paved roads and

36 miles of pathways in the t h a r ~ a . ~ ~ ~

In the last 50 years this thana has expanded very quickly and has become the centre

of most district administrations, housing the offices of the Deputy Commissioner, Sub-Zonal

Martial Law administrator, District Judge, Police Superintendent, Revenue and Tax Officers,

District Agriculture, Health, Education, Social Welfare, IRDP, Food and Civil Supply officers,

and the district head offices for Inland Water, Road and Highways, Electricity Engineers.

Kotwali was a centre for Christian missionary activities: the Anglicans, Catholics,

Baptists, Oxford Mission, all had established their churches by the early or middle of the

19th century. The census of 1911. recorded the popurlation of the town as 22,473 nf %hi&

54% was Hindu, 40% was Muslim, 5% was Christians and the remaining one percent was

Brahmo and Buddhist234 There were five high schools and two colleges mostly established by

Christian missionaries. Only the Broza Mohan High School and College was founded by a

Hindu philanthropist Babu Aswani Kumar Dutta. The Kotwali thana town had water works,

drainage systeni, electricity and hospitals as early as 1912.

231 J.C. Jack, op.Cit, p. 130.

232 Beveridge, op.cit, pp. 322-326.

233 Secretary, Barisal Municipality, 1982

234 Quoted in J.C. Jack. op. cit, p. 129

The reason for emphasizing the historical context is to indicate that thanas selected for

development under BIP already had a comparatively higher level of socio-economic

development and as such were important to the interest of national parastatal institutions. The

argument is developed below.

The Jhalakati Thana -

Unlike administrative Kotwali, Jhalakati thana developed as a commercial and

semi-industrial centre. Historically Jhalakati was a part of Barisal until 1874 when it received

revenue circle status and its own police station. Within one year Jhalakati established its

municipality. Business and commerce developed in this thana so much that it was called a

"second Calcutta", and in this commercial development the Hindu population played the key

role. A common saying popular in this thana at the time was:

"Zarni Chashye Musalrnan

Babshaya Janey Hindujon"

which means cultivation is for the Muslims, and trade and business belongs 10 the Hindus.23s

In 1911 the percentage of Hindu population in Jhalakati was 45%, which since the forties

began to decrease. Today it is less than 20 percent.

In the late 19th and and early 20th centuries Jhalakati was the largest timber market

in the south. The timber used to come from Sundarban, the huge 610 square mile forest on

the Bay of Bengal. After sawing the logs in numerous mills they were shipped to major

urban centres.236 Rice processing and export was the second big affair of Jhalakati market.

The paddies came from distant thanas to be processed and sold. The processors had huge 20

by 20 feet containers to boil the paddies and football-field sized cemented grounds to dry

235 Collected from a School Teacher in Kirtipasha, Jhalakati, February 1983.

236 Jack, op.cit, p. 145.

them in the sun.237 The rice-mills were run by steam generated power. Imported coal from

Calcutta was used as fuel to produce stearn power. Jhalakati was the largest trading centre

for rice in south Bengal. The Pal Choudhury family was the most renowned rice-trader. The

family had a fleet of boats for expomg rice to Dhaka, Calcutta and other large cities.

Edible oil was the third commodity in Jhalakati's market. Like rice, oil seeds were also

coming from Jhalakati's hinterland. One Kanai Roy used to own the majority of mills in the

- thana. He was known as "Tel-Kanai" after the word "Tel" which is the vernacular word for

oil. Tel-Kanai's younger brother earned the title of "It-Kanai" for being rich through the

brick trade. "It" is the word for bricks. It-Kanai was the first to bring a generator to

produce electricity in the area, which were also supllied to administrative Kotwali. Since

Jhalakati was close to Kotwali and was connected by direct road communication, these thanas

had good economic linkage. Jhalakati was also a wholesale depot for kerosine and petrol

coming from Calcutta for the southern districts of East Bengal.

Salt production was another industry located at Jhalakati. Hatia, Sandwip, Maheshkhali

and other big islands on the Bay were forwarding saw salt for deming; cxvshing and

marketing at this thana. Even today there are 13 large salt crushing factories in Jhalakati

town (see Table 10). Manufacturing of local clothes, pottery, tobacco and tobacco products,

coconuts and coconut coir products, mats, and cane furniture were among the other industries

of the thana. Parallel to these, a huge boat making industry also developed in the thana to

support the trade at this important market place.238

Following the partition of India new business centres developed at Chandpur, Barisal,

Khulna, Sawrupkati and Banaripara and the dominant commercial character of Jhalakati

237 In most of the South Asian countries par-boiled brown rice is more popular than unboiled white rice.

238 Jack, p. 145. Also, interview with Thana Statistical Officer, and an important informant, Mr. Mahiuddin of Janata Bank, and local elderly merchants.

165

The big Hindu businessmen either moved or were forced to leave the land for

India. The timber business moved to Sawrupkati and Inderhat, and the rice-market to

Banaripara, all within Barisal. However, Jhalakati is still the second most developed thana in

the district of Barisal. Even today, it has 47 rice and flour-mills, 12 saw-mills and 6

oil-mills. It has a little less than 30 miles of metal and 276 miles of earthern roads (see

Tables 8 and 9). It has a direct road link and regular bus and launch services with the

district-headquarters at Barisal. This thana provides comparatively more revenue than others

among these four, to the government Both the BIP thanas under consideration have more

schools, colleges, hospitals and government supported agricultural farms than the non-BIP

thanas of Perojpur and Na~irpur.~~O

See Map 2. Chandpur, situated on the Meghna, is a large river port that connects Dhaka Chittahong and Cornilla with Barisal. Khulna is the second sea port in the country located in the south west of Bangladesh. Swarupkati and Banaripara are in the district of Barisal.

240 For comparisons of health and educational data see tables 12 and 13.

166

BARISAL DISTRICT 4 0 08

Source: World Food Programme, Dkaka, 1984.

M A L A K A T I D I S T R I C T

,/,/ +- ...,"I Y . , . .I..(

Source : World b o d Programme, Iihaka, 1984.

PEROJPUR DlSTRlCT

PEROJPUR

I**O.ll..

Source: World Food Programme, Dhaka, 1984.

P f ROJPUR

- -. PEROJPUR D I S T R I C T

NAZIRPUR

Peroi~ur Thana

Perojpur thana was established in 1859 with an upgraded status of subdivision.

Although it was much older than Jhalakati, it was less developed than Jhalakati. Since the

land of this thana was low lying and marshy, and was less productive than others,

discrimination against this thana in terms of governmental development investments, was

explicit

Perojpur and three other thanas included in this sub-division - Sawrupkati, Bhandaria

and Mathbaria - were composed of beels meaning marshy and low lying jungles. The major

beels in the area were Chechri Rampur of Bhandaria, Salta, Deulbari-Dobra and Jhanjania of

Sawrupkati thana. The beels in Sawrupkati thana later on became a major part of Nazirpur

thana. The area was at the intersection of many rivers and streams. Because of its

inaccessibility it became a hiding place for pirates and dacoits. According to J.C. Jack the

Perojpur thana was established to control piracies in and around the area.241 Due to jungles

and marshy land the revenue-cause for the government to settle people in the area became

secondary. The land-tenure in the thana probably had been an Abadkari Taluk system. In

this system a tenure was granted to a person for bringing the land into cultivation through

clearing the jungles. For a specified period it remained rent-free, then different rates of rents

were charged depending on the quality of land.242

Following the establishment of Perojpur a century has passed without much development

in the thana. There was no important commercial centre in the thana; Rajganj Hat was the

only market in the area. With the exception of rice, fish and vegetables, all other

commodities were imported from outside. Coconut, betel leaf and betelnuts were the major

241 Jack, p. 158.

242 M.H. Rashid,(ed.) Bangladesh District Gazetters: Barisal, Dhaka: Bangladesh GovLPress, 1980. pp. 271-277.

export and clay-tiles and earthern pots were the only manufacturing items.243

According to the census of 1911, 70% of the population of Perojpur were Hindus. The

dominance of Hindus receded in the fifties and sixties; in the eighties the ratio of the

Hindu-Muslim population was reversed. In 1981 the percentage of Muslim population was a

little less than 80%. In the 1930's there was 5 mile-long roads, 3 schools, a large mosque, a

few sub-divisional and thana office buildings and some private houses. Although a leader like

- Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlulu Huq, a Chief Minister of undivided Bengalin the forties, a Chief

Minister and Governor of East Pakistan in the fifties came from Perojpur Sub-division, but

not much action was taken to develop Perojpur thana.

A natural change in the ecology of the area, particularly for changing the course of

major rivers, helped to improve the land and produce in the thana and thus the revenue

interest of the state. Since the end of colonial rule, the state did not establish any

manufacturing or industrial units, but it provided a few roads, bridges, educational and office

buildings and transport and communication facilities in the thana. In 1983 there were 36

miles of pavedhemi-paved and 127 miles of eabern rmds, and 6 markets, 2 col!eges, 19

high schools, 19 Muslim religious schools, 2 hospitals, 23 post and telegraph offices and one

telephone exchange with 25 lines for its 126,000 people.244

Although Perojpur is located within 35 miles of Barisal Kotwali, there is no road to

connect them. It takes about five hours to cover the distance by launch and steamers. The

distance (as a factor of inconvenience) on the part of the development bureaucrats, low

productivity and lack of exportable commodities and lack of dynamic leadership from the area

provided scope to the state to discriminate against this thana in its resource distribution. This

. was one of the oldest thanas still it remained as an undeveloped thana in the district.

243 Jack, p. 157.

244 For road, transport, health and education data see Tables 8, 9, 12, 13.

The Nazimur Thana -

The present Nazirpur thana was a s d l part o ~f Tappa Nazirpur Pargana owned by

Zaminder Syed Shamsuddin Mohammed and his descendents Syed Immamuddin Mohammed

and Mir Mamtazuddin in the 18th century. In 1829, due to a conflict between the British

Raj and the Muslim Zaminders over the amount of revenue payment, the Nazirpur Pargoana

went under the control of the Tagore family of Calcutta. The Tagores already owned Idilpur,

another large pargona in the area. Although they did not live in Barisal, administrating

through their agents, they thus became the biggest Zaminder in 19th century B a r i ~ a l . ~ ~ ~

Geographically Nazirpur is different from the other three thanas. As has been

mentioned earlier, a major part of it consists of marshes and beels. The swampy beels work

as a drainage reservoir in the area. During the rainy season these lands become full with

water leaving only elevated edges above water. When the water starts to recede in dry

weather, people try to retain water of higher grounds for cultivation by means of erecting

little Aails or banks made with s'traw and mud.246 The little banks form a patch work: a

kind of crooked matrix, in thousands of acres of land. Since they all are made of fresh

alluvial soil which remains for a short period until the next waters come, people cultivate

various fast-growing vegetable plants. Thus Nazirpur remains a major vegetable growing and

exporting thana in Barisal. Within the thana the East Deulbari-Dobra union produces the

highest volume of quality vegetables. Culturally, since vegetables receive low priority in the

national food menu, this thana as a vegetable growing area also receives low attention for its

development.

At present Nazirpur is one of the least developed, among 468 thanas in the country. It

does not have an urban centre at all. It has no major drinking water source, no paved road,

245 Beveridge, p. 118.

246 Jack, Bennal District Gazetter: Bakernani, 1918. p. 7.

and only sporadic electric A fivemile paved road under this thana connects

Nazirpur with the Perojpur sub-divisional headquarters. There is a hospital with 31 beds, 17

post and telegraph offices, 3 telephone lines to Perojpur for its 154 thousand people. For

lack of roads, hand rowing boats are the principal means of transportation. Only one launch

service and 15 tricycle rickshaws allow people to move in and out of Nazirpur, though there

is a cargo launch service managed by private traders in order to carry vegetables out of the

thana. Nazirpur produces seven to eight thousand tons of vegetables in each season which

are exported to Barisal, Dhaka, Chandpur and Chittagong. Other than vegetables and rice,

coconut, betelnut and betel leaves are the key produce of the thana.

One quarter of the thana's 60,000 acres is uncultivable. Another 14,000 acres of deep

innundated land grow only long-sheaf rice. Still the thana's cultivable waste land is

proportionally less than other thanas. Here the people are to work harder than in other

thanas for their survival. But an unfavourable ecology, in addition to the indifferent attitude

of the state, remain the key reasons for its peoples' underdevelopment

At present Nazirpur thana has 25 rice and floor mills; the figure is nearly half of

that of any of the other thanas. Due to lack of any important raw material, irregular power

supply and regular flight of capital, no manufacturing and industrial unit has developed.

Nearly 94% of the people in the thana live on agriculture, but 55% of this population are

completely landless or have less than half of an acre of land. In Bangladesh, a family of

five requires a minimum of six acres to survive as a subsistence farmer. Because of the

comparatively higher price of rice, poor cultivators sell their rice in exchange for imported

wheat Matibhanga and

Most of the wholesale

merchants. 64% of the

Sriramkati are the larger among the thanass 20 biweekly markets.

trades and the major permanent shops are owned by Hindu

thana's population are Hindus. The concentration of a minority

247 Only 56 shops and houses in Sriramkati market, four buildings of TTDC, the police station and two saw mills in Nazirpur Bazzar receive irregular electricity.

174

community forming a high majority within one thana has special bearing on the development

of the thana itself. The implications of this fact require more explanation.

The pre-partition political, economic, religious and cultural linkages of Hindus with

Calcutta have diminished profoundly in the last forty years. Many rich Hindus of the area

left for Calcutta in the fifties and sixties. The power and status of the remaining Hindus in

comparison to Muslims has been greatly reduced. This has forced them to come together.

The voting pattern of the thana is a good indicator of their integration. The Hindu

candidates of the pro-Indian political parties win easily over Between 1972 and

1975, Mr. Shudhangshu Shekhar Halder was an influential Member of Parliament in the

Awarni League Government from this thana. But unfortunately no basic development attempt

was made. Among the population, except for a few select Muslim families, most of the

Hindus are richer than Muslim cultivators. The Hindu community of the thana as a local

social institution having less access to the national development resource has affected the

development process of the whole thana. Thus the Muslim cultivators of the thana have also

suffered. The deprived Hindu community, for its own survival and growth, maintained an

independent and parallel structure of social relations: a subsystem within the system.

An Alternative Sub-System -

The Hindu dominated Calcutta was the centre of commerce, politics and culture in the

pre-partition period for the whole of Bengal. Following partition in 1947, when Calcutta

remained in the Indian part of (West) Bengal, the rich Hindus of Fast Bengal did not see

any reason to live in an alien Muslim land. The phenomenon of mass migration was

. mentioned earlier. During the migration a rich and astute section of Muslims bought or took

possession of much of the land and properties of the emigrating Hindus. The poor Hindus

248 See Results of Parliament Election, 1972 and Presidential Elections of 1978, 1981. Form XI, Bangladesh Election Commission, Dhaka.

who stayed behind also received land and other properties from their emigrating relatives and

friends. A good number of these Hindus in Nazirpur immediately invested their capital in

wholesale trades of consumer goods rather than in land. Thus, they now own and control

the major markets within the thana.

The Hindu community of Nazirpur, in addition to their participation in the country's

socio-political system, particularly in local institutions and village market systems, maintain a

sub-system for themselves. They have their "elders" for major decision processes for the

community. The community maintains close relations among its members in order to help

disadvantaged members both in business and agriculture. A barter exchange system still

predominates within the community. Its members work as Kabiraz, doctors and midwives to

provide mutual health care. Although the total number of, schools here is not higher than

other thanas, the community emphasizes high quality education. The rich businessmen add

funds to the public schools for better education for their children. Women's education

receives special attention. In some areas within the thana the literacy rate is more than 60

percent, when the national and district rates are 26 and 32 percent respectively. The

readership of newspapers is also much higher among Hindus than Muslims. The community

receives 60 copies of national dailies which they rotate among the members. The vernacular

Ittefaq with an assumed pro-Indian leaning is the most read newspaper, followed by The

Shangbad a left-oriented daily.249

Deprived of their share in the national development process, the Hindu community of

Nazirpur, in order to survive and grow, retains a parallel communication with the forces

outside the the country, especially West Bengal (India). This community receives Calcutta

newspapers, a week or 10 days old, on a regular basis and tunes into the Calcutta Radio

station for information and entertainment. Children read elementary books by publishers in

Calcutta. The post offices in the thana, particularly at Sriramkati, process 6 to 10 times more

2 4 9 For comparative data on newspapers circulation and the readership refer to Table 11.

176

mail to and from India than local mail. In one day in May, 1982 it handled 286 Indian

letters and other mail against 16 Bangladeshi letters.250 During their social and religious

ceremonies the community members exchange gifts made in and brought from Calcutta.

The link of this community with India is still deeper. Here is an illustration. Since the

transfer of money by private sources between Bangladesh and India is prohibited by law, the

transactions occur through a secret "hundi" system. In this system the unofficial money

- dealers provide secret codes to their clients which the clients carry to receive cash in the

other country. The Government of each country approves only a limited money transaction

for official business purposes. It is difficult to estimate the amount of capital that leaves

Nazirpur. through this process. But the Circle Officer, the administrator of the thana, finds

connection between the flight of capital out of the thana and the thana's level of

development. He complained that the Hindu community do not reinvest their profit-money to

Nazirpur's economy, rather, they buy consumer and luxury goods from India through the

"hundi" system. "No government can help develop an area, if the peoples' interests and

commitments are somewhere else." The Circle Officer also spoke against the closed living

system of the community from the main stream of the national life. But the reasons for the

underdevelopment of Nazirpur were perceived differently by the Hindu community leaders.

They argued that since the partition of the country, Hindus have been identified as an

"anti-nationalistic" force. The opinion of this minority community rarely received any

recognition. An explicit policy of discrimination always existed aginst them. "We have become

a second class citizen in our own country", one said. The community denied the charges that

they do not particiapte in the development process of the thana. A leader said, 'we are not

allowed to participate"; another said, "government does not want to develop Nazirpur because

. its a Hindu majority thana."

Sub-Post Master, Nazirpur, May 27, 1982.

177

Whatever the reason was for the underdevelopment of Nazirpur, whether the flight of

capital through the "hundi" system, or the maintenance of a closed subsystem by the

Hindus, or the local majority status of Hindus in a Muslim dominated nation, the

governmental participation in the development of Nazirpur was minimal. Due to the

discriminatory policy of the government against Nazirpur, the Muslim farmers also suffered.

Whether the government or the international agencies extend their development efforts

more to particular areas than others, each area and each community has its unique

communicational and developmental technique. It is the prerogative of the dominant institutions

of society, in this case the institution of the state, to discriminate in their resource

distribution among the receivers, in order to satisfy the distributors' autonomous institutional

needs. Conversely, the discriminated social institutions adopt alternative communicational

techniques for their sustenance and development The attempt by the state to create a new

market at Nazirpur, and the nature of opposition provided by the local small units, is

another example of the unique communicational technique of survival for the small and weak

social institutions.

The Nazimur Market -

The Nazirpur community faced tremendous pressure from the administration to establish

a market around the newly built Thana and Circle Ofice complex. A market in these

underdeveloped villages was more than just an economic institution. It was an interface of

political, social and cultural realities of all the nearby villages. It was the centre around

which the village life revolved. The administrative rationale for establishing a new market

. around the complex was that it would add special status to these government offices.

Furthermore, it would be easy for these offices to play their "mediating" and influencing role

over the rural people on behalf of the state in a market situation where most village-people

would

Since this new market was a challenge to the Hindu-dominated Sriramkati market and

since the Hindu traders wanted to remain out of direct governmental control, the community

opposed the idea of the new market When the Thana Circle Officer asked the traders to

transfer their shops to the new place, some had to oblige. But the integrated Hindu

community adopted a covert technique of its competitive communication and soon the market

- died down for lack of buyers. Realizing the complexities of destabilizing an existing market,

the government agents had to remain quiet agianst the integrated power of sub-systemic units.

A similar sub-systemic attempt in a miniscule form also existed in the northern part of

Jhalakati thana. If Nazirpur thana was provided with development projects like BIP (Nazirpur

does not need irrigation, others projects such as calinity control, strong physical infrstructure

etc.) the plausiblity of the Hindu community in national development must have been higher.

This thesis, on the basis of clearly established evidence through this comparison of BIP

and non-BIP thanas that the state treats thanas differently in its resource distribution function,

argues that the state power and its parastah! insimti~ns use &ese differentiati~ns as

techniques of their articulation in competition. The state power prefers to keep most local

and social institutions weak and isolated so that their development does not create multiple

centres of political power that might compete with the state's strategy of control and

domination. What follows from this thana comparisons is an assessment of the benefits of the

BIP and an attempt to specify in broad terms who the beneficiaries have been.

251 For the role of government in Bengali village markets, see Akos Oster, Culture and Power, chapter 3: Bazzar, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1984. pp. 91-156.

179

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSIONS: THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATION IN BIP

The study attempted to identify and explain the communication patterns in and between

institutions affecting the development process in Bangladesh. It has particularly shown the

influences of the relationships of national parastatal institutions and their local level extensions

on the Barisal Irrigation Project, which is considered as a representative example of the

present endeavours in agricultural and rural development in the country. In this concluding

chapter an analysis of the benefits and the beneficiaries of BIP will be presented in order

to describe more distinctly the role of communication in the project, because this thesis

maintains that who receives what and why in a development project is a significant

consequence of communication. A summary discussion of the project implementation and

project relations will be included along with some future research questions. While reading

these conclusions the reader should bear in mind the research questions posed in Chapter I

(pp. 3-4); all three levels are critical to an understanding of the BIP: its implementation, the

projects' relations with development of sun~unding thanas, md the raticm! bureaucratic

sbxcture of the state.

Benefits and Beneficiaries

The benefits in the Barisal Irrigation Project had different expressions which included

direct and indirect, material, financial, social and political forms. Some of the benefits were

"expected", "just" and "prerogatives", and others were "undue", "unjust" and "corrupt". Here

benefits are defined as favours and advantages which the concerned persons actually received

or were expected to receive, which are expressed both in material and non-material terms.

But these definitions of benefits varied among the actors of the project depending on their

expectations and interpretations. The notions of point of view and the role of definitions and

statistics as discussed in chapters

differences in the 'perceptions of

11, I11 and VII help us to analyse the reasons for

benefits and beneficiaries in the project. The actors' and

instimtions' viewpoints and their processes and powers of creating definitions and statistics for

decision-making depend on the actor's context, his location in the hierarchy in the context,

assumed role, frame of reference, and above all, on the extent of his capacity to realize his

interests. The beneficiaries of BIP are defined as the persons and institutions who were both

included in the project plan documents and who actually received material and non-material

advantages through the preparation and operation of the project: the World Bank, the four

major parastatal implementing agencies of the state, their national and local level

bureaucracies, the construction contractors, the large, middle and small farmers, all had their

own perceptions in the project's "benefits" and "beneficiaries".

Although the World Bank calculated the general benefits of the project in terms of

increased paddy production, it advanced its goals as a financial institution by investing USS27

millions dollars through the projectZS2 As an international development institution it succeeded

in creating an impact on the host-country policy makers; and it expanded its own

organization and bureaucratic structure by employing more administrators, experts and

consultants through this project. The Bank viewed the international manufacturers, suppliers

and consultants as important beneficiaries and arranged to extend benefits for them. Nearly

50% ($13.4m.) of the total foreign exchange amount in the project was spent for importing

materials, equipment, vehicles and fuel, and for the consulting services provided by the

foreign experts. In addition to the farmers and the state power of Bangladesh, these suppliers

and consultants were also the Bank's assumed beneficiaries, particularly for the above amount

of fund.2s3

*" WB, BIP: The (Draft) Project Completion Report, March 1986.

253 See Appraisal Report of the BIP, Annexure 3, Table 2. '

Since the Bank's economic benefits are not immediately due in the long term

IDA-system of credit, it is relevant to ask whether it receives other kinds of benefits, such

as political benefits, in the meantime. But the achievement of political benefits by the Bank

through the project remained unclear because of the broad, complex and diffuse nature of

these benefits. Although the assessment of the Bank's political benefits are obscured by some

covert communication techniques such as restrictions on the circulation of their internal memos

and documents and the institution's "no accountibility" nature, analysts have some

comprehension concerning its political gains.254 Within the country, at least four national

officials and many more at the project level, suggested that the Bank may have received

benefits in political terms in addition to economic gains through investing in such projects in

Banglade~h.~~' One Joint Secretary of the Government stated his viewpoint in the following

way:

The Bank is fighting an ideological war in which we are also a party. The Bank officials influence our major planning and development orientations. It's not that we don't understand their intentions. But what else could we do with our complex problems created by limited resource base and high population growth? I don't think the country wants to be communist.

It's dso in om interest that we invite foreign investment instittitions to fund our projects. The provided funds are mostly interest free or with very low interest credits. Who would invest without some gains? Moreover, I don't think it , would be easy for us in the near future to repay our debts; now we have to borrow to pay the service charges for our old credits. If we can't pay back in cash we will have to pay in kind. We are very small in the global power game. Our interest is to develop our own country. I would not ask the questions of political benefits of the funding agencies from these projects whether the agencies are from East or West.

The viewpoint of this official could have more than one interpretation. Some may find a

pragmatic approach in them to the management of the present Bangladesh development

254 Joseph Collins and Frances Moore Lappe, "Whom Does the World Bank Serve?", Economic Political Weekly, May 12, 1979. complied in World Bank's Formula foI Development of Bannladesh, Dhaka: Community Development Library, Bangladesh. February 1985. pp. 1-8; See also, Just Faaland, Nurul Islam and J. Parkins. Aid Influence:

of Bangladesh, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1981.

255 The national offcials include two Joint Secretaries of the Ministries of Planning and Agriculture, and two Directors of WDB and IRDP; also see, "Bangladesh: Two Views of the Bank - agency or agent?" The Far Eastern Economic Review, October 10, 1985 pp.66-67

problems. Others may say they reflect the passive, withdrawn, and dependent nature of

government policy. The question of benefits to the farmers, particularly to the small and

landless farmers, who constitute nearly 60% of the country's population, through projects

similar to BIP, remain unresolved. Rather, the viewpoint can be interpreted as a basis for a

compatable duet of convenience between the the bureaucracies of the national and

international development institutions, as discussed in chapter 111.

The Staff Economist of the WBRMB did not perceive the benefits to the Bank in

political terms. He argued that the Bank was convinced of the project's possible economic

benefits over its costs for both the Bank and Bangladesh. He expected the government

officials to be more active, conscientious and patient in their endeavour. Another Bank

irrigation official said that the Bank's interest would be better served through an increased

agricultural production in Barisal. He suggested that presently there could be many apparent

beneficiaries, but in the long run the farmers would be the biggest beneficiaries of the area

only if they cultivate Boro rice. In April, 1986, even after the project's disappointing

performance, this official reiterated this stance which could be interpreted as a viewpoint of a

committed employee of the Bank, because such views of the employees of institutions tend to

support the perceived success of the institutions' endeavours.

The benefits for the four participating parastatal institutions at the project

implementation level were equally explicit in economic terms. The project created nearly a

thousand new jobs, including 32 national and distrcit-level and 80 thana-level positions for

engineers and administrators. The rest were middle or lower level technical and general

support staff positions. With the establishment of the project, promotions and benefits for

engineers and staff were widespread within the four agencies. Two Superintending Engineers

were promoted as Chief Engineers and two others became Superintending Engineers from

their Executive positions. Many Assistant Engineers earned their Executive status during the

project's eight. years' tenure. In BADC 8 new positions of Executive, Assistant Engineers, and

Workshop Supervisors with 407 support staff were created. The positions of the Deputy

Director, Agronomist, Senior Overseers, with 170 support staff for DAEM, and Deputy and

Assistant Directors along with 183 support staff for IRDP, were created. The creation of

positions in newly established institutions is not unusual, but the widespread promotions and

benefits would not have reached these implementing officials if the BIP had not been

created. Considering the trends of promotions and benefits at their head offices, the

Superintending and Executive engineers, when questioned, agreed that they would not be in

these positions today, if the BIP did not existzs6

The argument spelled out in chapter 111, that the construction and expansion of projects

brings greater power and personal benefits for their management bureaucracies, was applicable

to the BIP officials. Out of the 54 buildings constructed in the BIP complexes, 46 were

residential bungalows and apartment buildings which housed senior officials and foreign

consultants. Each of the apartment buildings contained 4 to 8 apartments with 2, 3, or 4

bedrooms. Four buildings were used for offices and three for pump-repairing workshops. Out

of the budgeted US46 million (which includes both local and foreign exchange funds, of

which US$27m. were provided by the World Bank) $4.6 million or one-tenth of the amount

was spent for constructing buildings for office and residences, and the vehicles provided to

the staff. An additional USS2.8 million was spent for engineering works and managing the

construction of these buildings.

The huge funds spent for residences, vehicles and construction management were defined

as "benefits" for the high level project officials both by the project staff and the local

people, because only the high level officials had the privilege to enjoy these facilities. The

three or four foreign consultants of two companies employed by the project received nearly a

million dollars which some project officials found "unnecessary" or "merely a waste of

money." As stated earlier, these officials argued that the work done by the foreign

2s6 Interview with BIP engineers and staff, Barisal, June, 1983.

184

consultants could have been performed by local experts at much less cost But this statement

of the officials is difficult to accept in this form because this thesis emphasizes the point of

view as an important ingredient of institutional communication. The officials' viewpoint may

have been influenced by their clan-feeling and interest in finding a convenient way to

influence and direct the local consultants. However, the acceptance of foreign consultants,

according to the officials, was binding on the project itself because it was a condition of

signing the project credit agreement with the Bank. Further, the project officials stated that

the foreign consultants received comparatively more benefits than they should have received

by Bangladesh standard for their services in BIP.2s7

During the construction period, the major beneficiaries were the international and

national equipment and material suppliers, foreign consultants, national construction contractors

and the management engineers. The national supply and construction contractors were mostly

from outside Barisal. The Barisal contractors received only small earth-cutting contracts of

canal re-excavation; thus they complained that they received only meagre benefit from the

project The landless village labourers who constitute little more than half of the population

in the project area, received some benefits through temporary seasonal employment in the

canal re-excavation programmes; 72 of the 200 farmers we met in the BIP area worked in

these canal re-excavation programmes. The daily wages for the workers at this time was

Tk.12 to Tk.15 ($0.50-60 cents) which had the capacity to buy 3 lbs. of rice at the local

market258

257 For details on the problem of foreign and local consultants, see, S.A.L. Reza, "Comments", and Alexander Storrer, "Aid Coordination in Bangladesh", in M. Farashuddin (ed.) Mobilization & Coordination of External Assistance, Dhaka: ERD, Government of Bangladesh, 1979. Also, for a semi-official view of the World Bank, see, Warren Baum et al. Investing & Development: Lessons of World Bank Experience, NY: Oxford University Press, 1985. pp. 559-568. For general aid conditionalities imposed by the Bank on Third World countries, see, R. Sobhan, op.cit; J. Faaland, op.cit and Teresa Hayter and Catherine Watson, Aid: Rhetoric Realitv, London: Pluto Press, 1985.

2s8 In a Bangladesh village, a family with 5 dependents requires 6 lbs. of rice for two basic daily meals.

Some indirect and small benefits from the project also went to the owners of small

grocery and drug stores, restaurants and printing shops that developed around the project. The

project's newly constructed roads provided general benefits to the local people as a whole.

The middle and small farmers who do not posses more than 10 acres of land, who

actually formed 40% of the one million people in the area, could not receive their expected

benefits from the project operation, because they were unable to organize pumpbased

' cooperative socities to become eligible for IRDP-agricultural input credits. Those who

organized cooperatives could not sustain them for more than one season. The reasons for this

failing, both at farmers' and officials levels have been discussed in Chapters VII, VII., and

IX. But these middle and small farmers were, in the original plan, the major perceived

beneficiaries of the project The WB and BIP officials categorically emphasized the project's

potential post-completion benefits for these farmers. From the Bank's point of view, its

irrigation engineer argued that the farmers were still unaware of the project's potential

benefits. He said that once the farmers start receiving higher yields through irrigated

agriculture in the Boro-season, the project's sucdess would be proved. Yet he was unable to

explain how and when this "once" would occur in the project area in the first place.

Overlooking institutional communications and their power plays within BIP, he declared DAEM

and IRDP (and not WDB) responsible for achieving the project goals. A similar explanation

about the potential benefits waiting for the farmers was provided by the senior project

officials.

Many of the 200 middle and small farmers interwiewed thought that they not only

benefitted the least, but were actually adversely affected by the project As an illusnation of

these adverse effects, consider the case of Malu Bairagi, a 44 year school-dropout farmer of

Lakutia of Kotwali thana who did HYV-cultivation by himself for three consecutive years by

borrowing production expenses from village money lenders. The head of a six-member family,

Bairagi lost his crops for all three years and had to sell his last half-acre of land to pay

his debts. In the first two years he failed to provide the necessary water to the field

because of a conflict with the BIP sluice gate operator. Since he was not a cooperative

member and was against the influential people in the area, water was refused to him. He

was not accepted as a member of the BIP-IRDP cooperatives because of his vocal criticism

of the coterie of cooperative leaders. The second year was critical for him because his

miseries, like those of other farmers, were added to by poor seeds provided by a BIP

demonstration farm. He did not receive better seeds because he refused to pay "extra

money" to the seed inspector. He thought if he could get one good crop he would be able

to manage the present production costs, previous debts, other family expenses and preserve

sufficient seeds. So he went for the HYV cultivation for the third year.

Although he could now resolve the water problem, the price of fertilizers in the third

year went out of his reach, because the Bank was successful in having subsidies removed as

a national policy. He could not afford to treat the land with the necessary fertilizers. The

technology-reliant high yielding agriculture was a curse for this small farmer. According to

Bairagi, the plants of the HYV-seeds supplied by the government were prone to pest attack.

The strength of the pesticides available in the local markets was not strong enough to

control the pests. The cheap pesticides were adulterated, the price of others were out of the

reach of average small farmers such as Bairagi. He tried to contact the BIP extension and

plant protection officials without success. He failed to save his crops and his land. He

became debt free at the cost of being landless. According to him, "the BIP Irri-Programme

has taken his land". Now he is rickshaw puller on the streets of Bari~d.~~~

Bairagi had also to pay social costs for adopting irrigated agriculture. His affectionate

and respectful relationship with his in-laws who supported him on many occasions were

weakened, because he failed to visit and socialize with his relatives. He was unable to take

his wife to his father-in-law's house in the winter season which was also the

2 5 9 This author used Bairagi's rikshaw for moving in the villages of Kotwali thana.

HYV-cultivation period.260 Bairagi said: "Mi-tey Shashur-bari Nai" (There is no special

in-law treatment for IRRI-cultivators). The high yielding rice cultivation system restricted his

special treats from parents-in-law. Failing to visits in-laws adversely affected his social

relationships with them and thus his status in the village. His final comment regarding the

BIP carries a deeper implication and a lesson for project planners and managers. He said: "

if this US46 million dollars of project money was distributed as credit among the

capital-needy farmers, leaving the agricultural inputs available in the local market, the farmers

themselves could help boost agriculture up in the area.w261

The capital and technology-reliant high-yielding agriculture has again proved to be an

impediment for small and poor farmers. The nature of this agriculture demands greater

attention and higher labour-time which these farmers failed to arrange properly they

attempted to substitute mechanical farming by animal and human labour due to local

structural and farmers' personal economic and social constraints. Furthermore, due to physical

over-exertion in the field on the one hand, and for lack of necessary food and nutrient on

the other, their health suffered over the three seasons he cultivated. It is a paradox that due

to the adoption of the high-yielding agricultural system, many of the small farmers

degenerated economically, socially and physically.

Opposing the above view point a junior-level BIP-official argued that during the five

year implementation period more than two millions man-days of hired labour was created by

the project which went to small and landless farmers. This was an added employment for

the landless in their off-working season. During its regular operation the project will create

employment of nearly 300,000 man-days per year.262 The source stated that the farmers

260 Visiting in-laws is a major annual social event for most villagers in Barisal. These visits usually last for weeks in the dry-winter season. The new HYV-winter crop system was coming in conflict with the villagers' social rituals.

Emphasis added

262 Interview in BIP, June 1983.

simply received economic benefits from earth-cutting work and not from the project's

agricultural achievements. The project's major future agricultural benefits, if any, according to

the official, will go to the wealthy large-farm owners in the area. This official termed the

benefits for the project officials as "just", "due" and "automatic", saying, "our share of

benefit as government official is guaranteed. It will not vary with the failure or success of

the project. We received it in the past, the same will continue in the future."

The phases specified in the Appraisal Report show that the project would increase

irrigation facilities from 13,000 to 112,000 acres and place 2,500 irrigation pumps in the field

through organizing cooperative societies by the end of 1981. But the World Bank's "Special

Study on Constraints in Achieving Full Potentials" itself has stated that as of July 1982 the

benefit of irrigation was extended only to 33,000 acres, that is an increase of 20,000 acres,

not the 99,000 acres predicted. Only 588 pumps were active in the field "which was below

the 1979-80 pre-project figure of 736", and "the area under HYV Aman was 5% of

pre-project levels".263

The 1982 Special Study recognised the technical problems of watcr mavai!ibility,

shortage in inputs and credit supplies and of the poor performance of management in the

project which has been reinforced by my study. The Special Study called for a more explicit

role for the IRDP and DAEM. On the whole it emphasized BIP's institutional needs over

the BIP's perceived beneficiaries - the middle and small farmers. In April, 1986, in an

interview, the World Bank officials in Bangladesh reiterated the BIP's emphasis on small

farmers. But the actual activities of the project and the needs of the majority of farmers of

the area remained far apart. What this Special Study and many other reports of the project

sponsors' missed, were the institutional relationships, the definition and statistics-creation roles

of the bureaucracies in the project as important factors in affecting the project operation.

263 A.K. Seth and G.M. Schokman, "Special Study on ConsDaints in Achieving Full Potentials", Dhaka: The World Bank Mission, October, 1982 p. 1

Also missed were the differences in perceptions between the project officials and the farmers

about the articulation and techniques of satisfying their needs in and through the project, or

in other words, the communication in and by the project, which affected the project and the

lives of the people in the area. Although always mentioned, none of this was formally

investigated by the World Bank or by the Government of Bangladesh.264

Whoever the beneficiaries are, or what ever they have received from the BIP at the

national or project implementation levels, this project which was perceived by the World Bank

and the Bangladesh Government officials in 1982-83, as a highly successful "ideal modelw for

many future projects in the country. In March 1986 the project's Chief Executive called it a

"damn failure." He termed it a politically-motivated project designed to satisfy the needs of

the then minister and senior bureaucrats of the Water Development Ministry and its

parastatal institutions, most of whom were from Barisal.

The project failed to fulfill both its physical and agricultural targets. It has already

been mentioned that the project was unable to expand its irrigation facilities for Boro-crop

production f r m 13,000 to 112,000 acres, and eaploy 2500 irrigation pumps in the fidb as

planned in the Appraisal Report. Instead, the targeted area coverage of Boro production

acreage increased only to a maximum of 33,000 acres in 1981, and declined to 5,071 acres

in 1985, which is 8,000 acres below the pre-project figure. The original area coverage target

was officially reduced to 48,500 acres in 1985 against the appraisal target of 112,000 acres (

a reduction of 57%) with an achievement of only 5,071 acres. Achievement was thus little

more than 10% of the reduced target, which was 4.5% of the original appraisal target.

Fielding of pumps never went above 726 (1985), which was 29% of the appraisal target of

2,500. In 1986, it was 287 pumps, only 11% of the original target265 The major reason for

264 See, The World Bank's Final Supervision Report on BIP, Dhaka: WBRMB, April 9, 1985; and the (Draft) Project Completion Report, March 1986.

265 BIP Memo No. DDA/BIP/P-26/339(7), Progress Report on Fielding of Pumps and Area Covered by Irrigation upto March 7, 1986, under Barisal Irrigation Project. WDB. Barisal.

this sudden reduction in number of pumps in use and the area covered, could be attributed

to the fact that the K.S.S. and TCCAs lost their eligibility for IRDP credit for

pump-renting, because they have failed to pay back their previous credit: three of the four

TCCAs with nearly 1900 KSSs under the BIP became ineligible because they had not cleared

IIPDP dues worth Tk.12 million.266

Some large farmers with generous input support have managed to receive up to 225%

of profit for a year or two, as has been reported earlier. But by 1986, it became diRcult

for them to continue farming under BIP and they began to withdraw from the project One

such farmer made profit in 1985 of only Tk.18,000 taka after investing more than Tk.400,000

taka, which was 4.5% of his investment Now, this large farmer who used to cultivate more

than 150 acres and provide a number of jobs in the area, has left agriculture and moved to

the salt-refining business. He explained that it was impossible to continue inigated rice

farming in the midst of policies where the rice price was deliberately kept low by the

government while at the same time it allowed the price of agriculture inputs to rise by 5 to

10 times. For its own reasons the government has been trying hard to keep the rice price

low and apparently save itself from political agitations and food riots by the people. The

dialectics between the governmental policies for agricultural production and pricing, and

between the state power and the rural people, were evident. A competitive communication

adopting covert techniques became the norm for the government agricultural and rural

development policies.

Self-sufficiency in food, particularly in rice, has been the centre of most development

rhetoric and political maneouvres in Bangladesh for the last two decades. The free foreign

wheat received from the international aid agencies, was released by the Government at a

cheap price to counter the rising tendency of the rice price. Farmers thus think they never

26S(~ont'd) March 10, 1986.

266 Deputy Director, IRDP-BIP, March 1986.

managed to get a fair price for their produce. Further, there are more parastatal agencies

and their officials in the field of agriculture than farmers think are actually needed. Their

ideas and instructions are so diverse and complex that farmers cannot follow them. One large

farmer said: "there are more teachers than real student-farmers around us". As well, the

university-educated officers do not help farmers to improve their ideas and satisfy farmers'

needs. They only attempt to teach farmers what they have learned in books, however

irrelevant this may be for Barisal farming. "In fact", this farmer said, "they know very little

about the field in practice."

The policy of self-sufficiency in food has contributed to the proliferation of numerous

parastatal institutions which became instnunents of the state power in maintaining a

dominating relationship with the fanners and the rural people. Creating new and reorganising

the old institutions in place of weak and inefficient ones in order to sustain the competitive

and dominating relationships has became the major strategy of the food self-sufficiency policy.

Parallel to the self-sufficency policy were the policies of centralization through reorganization

of local village institutions. The Basic Democracy, Union Parishad, Shawnirvar Gram Sarker,

upgrading of thanas into Upa-Zilas are some such initiatives. But underlying these were the

irrigation programmes and their implementing institutions that really facilitated the process of

centralization of power of the state. Although this centralization process was subtle and was

rationalized by more development philosophies and rhetoric than the ancient irrigation

strategies as described by Wittfogel, in essence they remained the same. While not being

completely sure about the hydraulic origin of the state power for the reasons discussed

earlier, particularly within Bangladesh, this thesis argues that the role of irrigation system and

projects such as the BIP is a potential resource for the sustenance and enhancement of the

. bureaucratic state power. The state power has quite successfuly maintained its central-local,

strong-weak dichotomous relationship through such projects. It is true that some governments

have also been maintained by force of arms, but arms alone could not perform the task, as

the history of Pakistan shows. Practical undertakings like irrigation projects thus became

essential.

Communication Imwlications of Institutional Communication: BIP a Failure?

The matrix of the project communication as discussed in the previous chapters may be

summarked in a project-process-chronology beginning from pre-planning through project

implementation to the present maintenance status. At its pre-planning and planning levels, the

project was an outcome of the national irrigated agricultural policy which evolved in three

phases: first, with huge river-course-change and flood-control emphasis; second, ground water

development emphasis, and then with medium and minor-irrigation for agriculture emphasis.

At all these levels, both in Pakistan and Bangladesh periods, the state powers were more

interested to use irrigation as a context of political communication which could legitimize their

military regimes, rather than to leave the objectives of irrigation solely in agriculture itself.

These state powers perceived irrigated agriculture as an effective means to communicate their

political and economic interests to the mrd people even f!~rou& the "poorly mrnagedn or

"failed" irrigation projects, because with the introduction of new technology-based agriculture

the farmers have increasingly become dependent on the state-subsidized, expensive, agricultural

inputs. The most crucial of these inputs has been irrigation.

In Bangladesh, in absence of a single dominating class and through frequent martial

law, the military and the bureaucracy symbiotically formed state power. The concept of state

power has been an effective tool in analysing the role of the state and its parastatal

institutions in development: it has become relatively autonomous from class power and has

. achieved a new economic role by using the entire resources of the state. Now the state

communicates on its own about its own interests using the parastal institutions and

development projects as important channels.

The international development institutions cooperated with the state for their mutual

benefit in organising the parastatal institutions and initiating and implementing the projects.

The World Bank, as the leading institution for international development sponsored the Barisal

Irrigation Project to satisfy both its economic and institutional interests. Most development

projects in Bangladesh, including the BIP, are a convenience channel of communication

between the state power and the international development institution such as the Bank.

This communication pattern affected the project in the following way; that is, neither

the project management (including the local implementing officials) nor the farmers were clear

about the national parastatal or the international institutions' ultimate intentions. Farmers and

their local institutions, who actually realise the state's irrigated-agricultural policy goals in the

field, who remain at the centre of project development benefits at least in reports and

documents, and whose work is the context for the international agencies' influence upon the

state, remained uncertain and confused about what they could really benefit from the BIP.

This conclusion is supported by the fact of their conflicting relationships with the officials

and their limited participation in the project activities. The farmers with their limited

understanding and restricted ability to communicate their interests to the state power and the

international institutions, remained weak and alienated. This has constrained the bargaining

power of the farmers to communicate their interests with the dominant forces in society. In

the opinion of the small farmers, their interests have eroded even while others gained from

this project's communication, the farmers remained at the losing end: several lost their

capacity to borrow agricultural credits and others became landless. Even some large farmers

could not escape the effect. Whether the project works or not, the farmers will have to

produce rice for their own survival. For lack of viable alternative opportunities in the

. country, they are unable to leave agriculture. It is they and their future generations who will

cany a debt burden for which they were not at all responsible. These are some of the

discernable effects the project had on the farmers in the BIP area.

But when the project is termed a "failure," it is not necessarily so from the point of

view of the state and the international institutions. It may have failed only in statistical

terms, or from the point of view of the farmers. In actuality, the state power or its local

officials may not have lost anything through the project. Some are not unhappy with the

way it turned out. They may have wanted the way it has been. They may have effectively

succeeded in their endeavour to keep farmers weak in the access to and control of resources,

through the project's "failure". Rather, a possible explanation may be that the state has

avoided the creation of multiple centres of political power that would arise as a result of

more effective organization and mobilization through projects like BIP; as discussed in Chapter

IV. If the project is withdrawn from Barisal, it would matter little to the state power and

the management bureaucracies. It might raise the level of disagreement with or opposition to

the government among the Barisal population. The state will find more projects to sponsor

and more bureaucracies to manage, because the parastatal institutions and their bureaucracies

know the powerful techniques of articulating their own interests under competitive conditions.

In fact the Barisal Irrigation Project has been extended to three more thanas. In addition,

two more (the Bhda md the Satla-Bag&) Irrigation Rejects are beiag comrriissioned by t!x

World Bank in the southern parts of Barisal and Patuakhali, particularly where tidal water is

more available than the Barisal project command area.

At the project planning level, the local farmers were not communicated with, neither

they were party to the planning in the preliminary decision-making on questions such as:

whether they need an irrigation project in Barisal; if they need one, how should it be

designed; what immediate and longterm priorities should it meet; how and who should

manage the project at the construction and operational levels, and how its benefits would be

. distributed.

While it is true that farmers did not possess the power to communicate to the state

or the international agencies on equal terms, they had developed independent techniques and

local systems of communication with the powerful. They opposed the establishment of BIP;

they refused to participate in the project and to form cooperatives; they withheld repayment

of the loans which they borrowed from the state; some arranged to receive loans more than

the value of their properties and resources; they have used the motors of the agricultural

pumps for non-agricultural purposes such as running rice mills, commercial boats etc. in

defiance of the project purposes and procedures. The comparison of the project and

non-project thanas showed that the project thanas had a historically more convenient

relationship with the state apparatus and thus received national resources for their thanas'

development In Perojpur and Nazirpur, the thanas outside the project area, the deprived

communities and local social institutions developed their own sub-system of survival and

development The farmers in these thanas, however little bargaining capacity or access to

national resources they have, are always engaged in a competitive communication with the

state power. Any attempt to increase the capacity to bargain with the state power, specially

for the smaller farmers, is a step towards development for them.

At the appraisal level, a lack of understanding of the Barisal's physical features and

the culture of its people pervaded the development thinking of the appraisers, and was

reflected in highly exaggerated definitions of the project needs . The appraisal report

suggested 100 primary pumps and 2500 secondary pumps for the project; in fact, 59 primary

pumps were sufficient and were finally installed. The demand for secondary pumps were

never more than one third of the projections. Other pumps bought for the project were

sitting idle, depreciating in value every day. The administrative costs and the cost of foreign

consultants increased by 200% over the appraised estimate. An over-all evaluation of the

appraisal would reflect a profound lack of communication between the appraisers of the

. project and its perceived beneficiaries, the farmers. The appraisal report suffers from

identifying unrealistic needs and announcing absurd objectives for the project area. How could

it understand the needs of the area if it did not understand the farmers in that area?

The most crucial factor in the appraisal report was the proposal for the experiment in

co-ordinated inter-parastatal institutional management, an experiment which most adversely

affected the success of the project. There are two possible explanations. First, an ignorance

about the parastatal institutions in Bangladesh: how and with what objectives these institutions

were created, what are their expected roles, how they use information, and create definitions

to serve their institutional needs. The other possible explanation is that the appraises have

attempted to create something new to impress their sponsors without putting concious efforts

to analyse its' implications which produced serious bureaucratic conflicts in the project This,

however, does not suggest any involved conspiracy by the appraisers, but emphasises the

appraisers' bias in favour of an unsuitable and unrealistic endeavour meant for the poor

farmers in order to serve both the appraiser's and its sponsors' institutional interests.

The conflict among the bureaucracies became the major communication pattern at the

organizational level. The technical bias in the management performed by the Water

Development Board (WDB) engineers over other non-technical institutions turned the project

into a major battle-field for inter-departmental rivalry. Engineers blamed the workers of

motivational departments for lack of efficiency because, according to the engineers, they have

failed to organise co-operative societies, to expand the irrigated coverage areas, and to

increase the number of pumps used by the farmers. Motivational agencies such as DAEM

and IRDP, were considered subordinate to the Water Development Board, the major

controlling body in the project On the other hand, these agenices Miticised the WDB for its

lack of knowledge about village societies and for failing to make water available in the

agricultural fields. Fixing of pumps at wrong pumppoints became a source of strong debate.

The rigidity of the WDB on fixed pump points contradicted the existing social institutional

. values of the farmers and their groups, and the bases of their formation in Barisal. The

IRDP cooperative society organizers considered the policy of rigid pump points as a strong

impediment in organizing cooperatives.

The motivational workers of the DAEM and IRDP were deprived of project facilities

and personal benefits such as good office places, transport, secretarial services and housing;

they considered, that this loss reduced their individual and institutional efficiency and status

in the project area. The conflict reached such a level that the DAEM component withdrew

from the joint inter-parastatal project management team. The conflict between WDB and

IRDP over access to vehicles by IRDP continued in 1986.267 The key reason for these

conflicts rested in two communication factors: how the actors perceived the project and their

role in it, and how they articulated their interest in and through the project. The foreign

consultants and the WBRMB were aware of these very conflicts in 1976-77, but were unable

to resolve then2'j8

The Central Evaluation Committee (CEC) constituted by the four supervising ministries

of the implementing parastatal institutions considered the competitive communication and

conflicts as small project problems. The CEC did not meet for more than three years till

late 1982. But, when from the 1984-85 season the pump rental programme was stopped, and

a sale programme was initiated, and when most of the TCCAs under the BIP became

disqualified for the government credits, the number of pumps in use in the BIP came down

to 271 from its expected 2,500. Most importantly, due to the fear of rapidly reducing the

project effectiveness through decreasing the number of pumps deployed, the area coverage,

and credit distribution, the CEC suddenly became active. On December 14, 1985, a so-called

"high powered committee" (HPC) composed of four Ministerial Secretaries, 15 Chairmen,

Directors, Commissioners and Chief Engineers, headed by the Planning Commission Member,

visited the BIP.269 The HPC reviewed the

261 see, Memo No.DD/BRDB/BIP/Ad-8/15 Administration, BRDB-Head Office, Dhaka.

268 Personal Communication, with the first WB Engineer at Dhaka. June 1983.

269 The Chief Engineer of the BIP stated the meeting. He proudly said, "You know,

reasons for the disappointing achievements of BIP

from Deputy Director, IRDP-BIP to Director Dated January 1, 1986.

consultant in BIP, May, 1986; and interview with

that in all 36 senior bureaucrats were present in on that day half of the Bangladesh Government

and made some major decisions to try to save the project among which most important was

to reinstate the pump rental programme. But it was too late for the project; one senior

member of the HPC commented "Mora Teneye Ar Kato Din? (How long we should carry

this dead horse?)"

The failure of the BIP to sell pumps to TCCAs and KSSs, which was pushed by the

World Bank, created an opinion among the offtcials of BIP that Barisal farmers have the

least understanding about irrigated agriculture, and they do not know how to alleviate their

own poverty. But in December, 1985, an influential local leader took away by force 125 idly

sitting pumps from the BIP warehouse at Babuganj and promised to return the pumps and

pay their rentals after the harvest He did this by ignoring procedural, legal and institutional

constraints. These very pumps would irrigate nearly 4,000 acres, he said, create seasonal

employment for 15,000 farm workers and produce approximately 3,000 tons of Boro rice.270

If the farmers achieve these targets in their (as described) own way, using the seized

irrigation pumps, the myth of the backward nature of Barisal farmers will be shattered and

the ~lecesslty of !arge parastatal irstJtutiom xc! their bweaucrades, agents arid will be

in question: it will be necessary to rethink the huge irrigation project concept sponsored by

the international donor agencies and the government. However, the private pumpowning

system has its inherent deficiencies which also require serious attention. For example, in

Jhalakati, at least 6 non-farming individuals, who bought irrigation pumps under the BIP

pump sale program have been renting water to other small farmers at the cost of Tk.800

per acre, which is an exceedingly high rate. These private pump owning individuals who

269(~ont'd) was in Barisal".

270 This was just a week after the high-power committee made the decision to reintroduce the pumprental programme in BIP area. Since the Boro cultivation season was quickly passing away and the farmers needed water in that week, he decided to take the pumps superceeding the bureaucratic and procedural requirements. Now the BIP of'ficials have instituted a criminal burglary case against this farmer-leader, but the officials included the number of pumps he "seized" their oMicial pumpfielding achievement in the BIP area.

could be termed as Pani-lenders (Water lords), parallel to the village money-lenders, have

been adding a new impediment for small and poor farmers in their access to national

development resources.

The engineers and the generalists in the BIP perceived the project goals from two

different dimensions and defined both the role of the project, and their own role in it, from

two polarised perspectives. These perspectives were the outcome of a long interest-articulation

process. Whether the BIP was an irrigation or an agricultural project depended on the

institutions' and their actors' intentions to hold control over and receive benefits out of it.

Since WDB controls irrigation construction and management in the country, to hold control

over this project, the WDB engineers defined it as an irrigation project. After its completion

in 1981, although the project was supposed to be handed over to the agriculture department,

it did not happen at its operational level even in March 1986, rather the WDB management

changed the designation of the "Project Director" of the BIP to a Superintending Engineer

for Operations and Maintenance which means that only an engineer would be eligible for the

job. In two other implementing agencies, DAEM or in IRDP no Superintending Engineer's

position really exists. Thus the possibility of these institutions receiving supervisory

responsibility is very remote, although at this operational level, their work remains the most

important and essential for the project. Thus the differences of these definitions about the

project reflected the values and procedures of each institution and their effects on the

outcome of of the project.

This signifies the pervasive control of the WDB which was to hold control over the

project and preserves its institutional intent beyond the project's agricultural goals. When the

commitment of the managing authorities for their parochial institutional interests superceded an

inter-institutional project goal, the projects' efficiency and success were necessarily at their

lowest

These limitations of the BIP have not affected or stopped the international development

institutions from taking similar initiatives: the state and its parastatal institutions created new

but similar irrigation projects around Barisal. The Bhola and the Satla-Bagda irrigation projects

are only two examples. While scholars with long experience have argued for expansion only

after effectiveness and efficiency, in the Bangladesh case neither the international development

institutions nor the state power cared to heed these arguments.271 The argument of this thesis

is that by studying a project from this communication perspective, essential lessons can be

learned which might otherwise be missed. Does the Barisal Irrigation Project teach us any

lesson?

Questions for Future Research

The absence of many successful project designs itself proves that the path to

development is a difficult one. There is no easy approach to a design in which the weaker

segment of society, the farmers in Bangladesh, will be able to gain bargaining capacity and

access to resources. This is because any good design has to address severe s@xma!, techrid

and institutional constraints in Bangladesh, in its agriculture and rural development A recent

study on the alleviation of rural poverty in Bangladesh by Bangladeshi experts for the

North-South Institute has carefully examined these problems, and particularly emphasized the

role of external aid agencies in redesigning their aid policies. The North-South Institue report

argued that all the best intentions of the external agencies would be defeated unless there is

"more recourse to local expertise, less tied-aid, more local and current cost financing, less

emphasis on disbursement, more program aid, less centralized decision-making and more

accountability. " 27

271 David Kortan, ed al, Bureaucracy the , West Hartfrod, Conn: Kumarian Press, 1983.

272 North-South Institute, Rural Poverty Bangladesh: A Report the Like-Minded Group. Ottawa: North-South Institute, April, 1985.

While the report outlines essential directions for the external agencies, the national and

local implementation levels deserve special attention because any comprehensive approach for

Bangladesh should seek to overcome most constraints. Some technical problems appear to have

quick and standardized solutions, but resolution of structural problems are skimpy. Projects and

institutions would become a genuine means of structural change IF their effectiveness is

extended to higher access to create resources for the farmers. This "if"' remained unrealized

in the Barisal Irrigation Project.

The experience of the BIP suggest that understanding each others' institutional

expectations, and articulation of interests, in other words, an understanding of the

communication among the actors in the project, is possibly the most important dimension of

project improvement Thus intensive communication studies are necessary in order to identify

major actors and their both perceived and actual roles, interests and the processes and

techniques of articulation to achieve those interests by the actors, in the project before the

project begins. The design can thus anticipate and account for their bahaviour which may

lack to counter-productive conflicts.

Assumed that national parastatal institutions will remain as implementing agencies for

some more years to come, critical knowledge should be generated about their autonomous or

relatively autonomous values, procedures, viewpoints, and evaluate whether these are consistent

with the needs of the perceived beneficiaries. These evaluations, in simple local vernacular,

should be available to the project area farmers for their individual and group decision-making

about the project and its implementing agencies and mechanisms. Likewise farmers' views

should be part of the project planning and implementation. The notion of "public hearing",

before and during the project implementation, if possible, should be introduced so that

farmers can express their viwes on issues that concern them most

Studies should be done to find ways to make project bureaucracies responsible to the

users of the project services, through elected local bodies. Possible separation of project funds

from the staff-salary and benefit funds should be tried, in order to channel salaries and

benefits of the project bureaucracies through the local bodies. The key rationale for this

remains as the reduction of bureaucratic autonomy in relation to the project service users.

The identification and selection of the priorities into the solutions of the local

development problems have to be done by the local people. Future studies should concentrate

on the attempts to find the idiosyncratic economic, political and socio-cultural characteristics of

each project area, assuming that each area and their needs are different and independent,

before the irrigation projects are designed. Participation of local people and their local social

institutions, should be ensured from the conception level of the project

These directions of future research on the irrigated agriculture policies and project

development in Bangladesh remain an addition to the suggestions incorported in the report of

the North-South Institute. Since the international development institutions provide nearly 80%

of the national development expenses in Bangladesh, the responsibi!ity nf !emifig f r m

and pursuing future initiatives in both research and action programmes belongs to them, as

well as to the state apparatus. While it is difficult to overcome the competing motivations of

the state power and the rural people, the problem becomes more complex when dominating

international development agencies saongly favour the state power. But new project designs

are necessary to strengthen the rural people so as to strengthen their bargaining capacity with

the state power for future, balanced development.

APPENDIX I. GLOSSARY AND ACRONYMS

AMAN : a rice cultivating season from August to December; the major crop in Barisal and Bangladesh

A.R.P.P. : Accelerated Rice Production Programme; introduced by the government in mid-seventies.

Assistant : first appointment of a university graduated Engineer engineer; works under an executive engineer

Aus : A rice cultivation season from April to July; a second crop for Msal area; harvested in summer.

Awami : dominant political party in Bangladesh; League won the Pakistan national election in 1970;

formed the first government in Bangladesh in 1971, but was removed by a military coup in 1975 (when the leader of the party Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed along with most of his family members); still a strong party in the country; participated in the Parliamentary election in 1986 under Martial Law.

Bangla : The language of Bangali and Bangladeshi people.

Bangali : The ethnic identity of both the people of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal; population approximately 140 Illillion,

Bangladeshi : A citizen of Bangladesh.

Bari : A house; or a household of patrimonially related members.

Bengal : A province of an ethnically, linguistically and culturally homogeneous people in prepartitioned India, divided into West Bengal and East Pakistan in 1947 based on Hindu and Muslim majorities, respectively; the former eastern province of Pakistan is now Bangladesh.

Bee1

Bigha

Boro

: A vast marshy area.

: A unit of land measurement; 1/3 of an acre (33 dicimal)

: A rice cultivating season from December to April; crop harvested in May. The major

B.A.D.C.

B.A.R.D.

B.I.P.

B.R.D.B.

B.W.D.B. (WDB)

C.E.

CEC

C.I.P.

Commi- ssioner

C.0

D.A.E.M.

D.C.

D.D.

D.P.O.

D.T.W.

E.D.

objective of the governmental irrigation policy was to grow this third winter crop all over the country.

: Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation.

: Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development at Comilla; known as the centre which originated the two-tier Comilla cooperative approach.

: The Barisal Irrigation Project

: Bangladesh Rural Development Board; name of I.R.D.P. since 1983. (see IRDP)

: Bangladesh Water Development Board; formerly East Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA).

: Chief Engineer: head of an engineering department in a ministry or Directorate; chief executive of most irrigation projects including BIP.

: Central Evaluation Committee in BIP

: Chandpur Irrigation Project.

: The civil administrator of a Division, comprised of several districts.

: Circle OMicer: the civil and revenue administrator of a Thana.

: Department of Agricultural Extension and Management

: Deputy Commissioner: civil administrator of a district under the Commissioner; has both '

executive and judicial power.

: Deputy Director (for IRDP or DAEM).

Deputy Project Officer of I.R.D.P., at Thana level.

deep tube well.

Executive Director; Chief Executive of BIP.

: Executive Engineer: position between Superintending Engineer and Assistant Engineer; engineering head of a district who directly supervises project activities at the field levels.

Five : Economic Development Plan (for Pakistan 1955-70, Year Plan for Bangladesh 1975-85).

Haat : a village market, usually sits twice a week.

H.T.W. : Hand Tube Well

HPC

HYV

I.D.A.

I.M.F.

IRRI

Ittefaq

Kabiraz

Khal

K.I.P.

K.S.S.

: High Power Committee formed for BIP.

: high yielding variety

: International Development Association: the low cost affiliate operated by the World Bank to finance development projects in less developed countries.

: International Engineering Company of San Francisco

: Integrated Rural Development Programme: vehicle for the expansion of the two-tiered Comilla co-operative approach.

: International Rice Research Institute; a synonarne for HYV-seed and Boro cultivation to the farmers.

: a leading Bengali newspaper; argues in favour of western democratic ideology.

: a village doctor who treats with herbal medicine.

: big canal but smaller than a river.

: Karnaphuli Irrigation Project in Chittagong.

: Krishi Samabaye Sanity: agricultural cooperative societies at village level; bottom level coops of Comilla approach.

L.L.P. : Low Lift Pump: one or two cusec pumps used by individual or cooperative groups for inigation.

Overseer : non-degree Diploma Engineer; usually works

under Assistant Engineer; also, agricultural diploma holder who works with Thana Extension 'and Agricultural Officers.

Para : a community with high homogeneity occupying contiguous space like a neighbourhood

P.D. : Project Director (for BIP, IRDP, or Dm).

PIC : Project Implementation Cornmitee of BIP.

Rai yat : A land tilling tenant,

S.E. : Superintending Engineer - a position below Chief Engineer but above Executive Engineer; the S.E. is the Project Director in BIP.

Shangbad : a leading Bengali newspaper argues in favour of socialist ideology.

S.T.W. : Shallow Tube Well.

T.C.C.A : Thana Central Cooperative Association: known since 1983 as Upazila Central Cooperative Association; federating body of agricultural coops at village level.

T.C.O.

Taka

Thana

: Thana Cooperative Officer.

: Bangladesh monetary currency note.

: a Police Station; an area under a police station; a development county, larger than Union but smaller than sub-division; Thana has been renamed as Upa-Zila in 1983.

T.I.P. : Thana Irrigation Programme introduced by the government through the Comilla Academy in the early sixties

T.P.O. : Thana Project Officer of I.R.D.P.

T.T.D.C. : Thana Training and Development Centre

U.C. : Union Council.

Up-Zila : new name of thanas developed as Sub-districts.

U.N.O. : Upa-zila Nirbahi Oofficer; up-zila executive officer or civil administrator.

U.P. : Union Parishad.

US-AID : The United States Agency for International Development

W.A.P.D.A. : Water and Power Development Authority: parastatal institution which existed in the pre-1971 period.

W.B. : The World Bank - another name of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, also known as "the Bank".

WB.RMB : The World Bank Resident Mission in Bangladesh.

Zamindar : a landlord with rent collecting rights; existed the pre-British and British periods.

APPENDIX II. CHRONOLOGY

1757 : beginning of British colonial rule in Bangladesh (as a part of Indian Subcontinent).

1792 : creation of Thana as police jurisdiction by dividing Districts.

1793 : introduction of the Permanent Settlement Act: new proprietorship in land on fixed rent; creation of a new landlord class with Hindu majority.

1857 : Sepoy Mutiny: revolt by the native military.

1876 : creation of Indian National Congress.

1888 : establishment of Department of Agriculture in India.

1905 : The (first) partition of Bengal into East & West Bengal.

1906 : creation of Muslim League.

1911 : annulment of the partition of Bengal; introduction of administrative "Circles".

1916 : first government-initiated Rural Development Society in Bengd managed by G.S. Butaa in Rirbhm m-d Mymensingh.

1922 : Sriniketan: the first private rural development effort by Tagore Family of Calcutta.

1940-50 : government rural development programmes: by N.M. Khan, SDO, in Brahmanbaria in Comilla; by Nurunnabi Choudhury, DC, in Bogra; by H.S.M. Ishaque, SDO, Serajganj in Pabna.

1947 : end of colonial rule; freedom of India; creation of Pakistan (present Bangladesh as East Pakistan).

1950 : abolition of Permanent Settlement Act.

1952 : language-based political movement: against West Pakistani Urdu language, in East Pakistan; introduction of Community Development Programme.

1954 : severe flood in East Pakistan; Election in Pakistan: defeat of Muslim League.

: first Constitution of Pakistan.

: declaration of Martial Law by General Ayub Khan; beginning of major institutional changes at local level.

: creation of the Water and Power Development Authority; two WAPDAs in West and East Pakistan.

: the beginning of the Green Revolution.

: election under new Basic (controlled) Democracy system; General Ayub Khan became President of Pakistan; creation of Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) in West and East Pakistan.

: war with India; East Pakistan's security was in question.

: mass upheaval against West Pakistan's domination of East Pakistan; fall of Ayub's Government; declaration of Martial Law by General Yahia Khan.

: general election in Pakistan; Sheikh Mujib's Awami League wins 99% in the seats of National Assembly from EaST Pakistan; Bhutto's People's Party wins most seats of National Assembly from West Pakistan. Major cyclone hits East Pakistan, thousands die; economic and political conflict between East and West Pakistan accelerates.

: Creation of I.R.D.P.

: Pakistan Army cracks down on East Pakistan on March 25; East Pakistan war of independence begins. war ends on December 16, with creation of Bangladesh.

: general and parliamentary elections; Awami League forms first government in Bangladesh; nationalization of major industries and financial institutions.

: first discussion about Barisal Irrigation Project in the context of Bangladesh's World Bank membership.

: severe famine in Bangladesh.

: abolition of multi-party democracy; banning of all newspapers except four government publications; introduction of one-party rule; militw coup and killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family. Khadakar Mustaque - ~ h m e d becomes President for 81

days; counter military coup by Khaled Musharraf on November 3; military power struggle between Nov. 3-6; General Ziaur Rahman takes over on November 7.

1977 : President Zia introduces local institutional reform: "Swanirvar Gram Sarker" (Village Government) Programme.

1981 : President Ziaur Rahrnan killed in a coup at Chittagong. Vice-President Justice Abdus Sattar becomes acting President Justice Sattar becomes President as a BNP candidate defeating Awami League's DI. Kamal Hossain.

1982 : Chief of Staff General H. M. Ershad declares Martial Law, removing President Sattar;. (July) abolition of "Swanirvar Gram Sarkars".

1983 : General Ershad becomes President; introduces local institution reform "Upa-zila Programme" upgrading the status of Thana to Upa-zila, abolishing Sub-divisons.

1986 : Parliamentary election under Martial Law; Government backed Jatiyo Party won 152, Awami League 75, Jarnaati Islam 10, Muslim League 4 JSD 4, Independent 40, others 8, undeclared results in 6 ridings, out of 300 seats.

Table 1 REGIONAL ALLOCATIONS OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURES BETWEEN EAST AND WEST PAKISTAN IN AGRICULTURE AND WATER SECTORS UNDER THE: FOUR FIVE YEAR

PLANS.

Rupees in millions

Sec 1st plan 2nd plan 3rd plan 4th plan ' tors 1955-60 1961-65 1966-70 1971-73

EP WP EP WP EP WP EP WP

Total 1290 2506 4670 6870 I

Water 830 1340 1790 2338 3790 4610 3890 5160 sector

Total 2170 4140 8400 9050

Source: The four five year plans of Pakistan quoted in KT_ Seth. hncmic pmspez*~ ,f!&xiesh New Delhi: Trimurthi publishers, 1972.

Table 2

IRRIGATION C

OVERAGE BY

DIFFERENT AGENCIES,

19

80

-85

Be

nch

m

ark

a

s on,

To

tal

are

a

to

be

ir

rig

ate

d

Ju

ne

'8

0

du

rin

g 8

4-8

5

Nam

e o

f a

ge

ncy

Typ

e

of

pro

jec

t -

Pe

rce

nta

ge

sh

are

C

ove

rag

e

%

As

pe

r d

es

ign

ate

d

Es

tim

ate

d

By

dif

fere

nt

'000'

Capac l t y

c

ov

era

ge

m

et h

od

s

ac

res

('000' a

cre

s)

'000' a

cre

s

A.

BAD

C

Low

l

if

t p

um

p

13

00

3 7

( 3

70

00

Deep

tub

ew

ell

5

50

15

( 1

04

52

)

Sh

all

ow

tu

be

we

ll

18

0

5

(18

00

0)

Ha

nd

pum

p w

ell

6

0

.3

(20

00

0)

Ash

ug

an

g

Sabuf

5

0.1

Pra

ka

lpa

Su

b-t

ota

l 'A

' 209 1

5

8

6 70

0

47

65

6

6.0

6. 1.B

WD

B

Al

l p

ro

jec

ts

18

0

5

20

00

2.

B K

B

S

ha

llo

w

Tu

be

we

ll

10

G . 2

4 5

9

( 8

00

0 1

( 3

00

00

)

3.

IR

DP

H

an

d T

ub

ew

ell

3

0

0.

f3

10

0

(lG

O.0

00

) (2

00

.00

0)

4.

Tra

df t

ion

al

13

00

3 6

1

00

0

Su

b-t

ota

l 'B

' 1

52

0

4 2

3

55

0

24

35

34 .0

Grand total

361 I

10

0

10250

7200

100.0

N.B

. Figures in bracket Indicates Nos. of LLP.

DT

W,

ST

lJ and

HT

W.

Source :

BA

DC

outline of BADC's programmes under Second Five Year plan

(19

80

-85

). Dhaka. Planning Divislon.

BA

DC

.

1982. P.82.,

Table 3

Some Basic Facts About BIP

Total estimated budget : US$ 46.00 millions

World Bank credit 27.00 m.

EEC. grants 3.12 m.

Bangladesh govt. 15.88 m.

Total cultivable area : 147.000 acres

Estimated higated area: 141,000

Existing HW-ultv. acres: 12,000

Area expected to bring

under HYV in BIP 112,000

Increase production by : 140%

-- -

Source: BIP Appraisal Report, 1976.

Tabla

4 B

IP'S

E

XP

EC

TE

D

TAR

GE

TS

AN

D

AC

HIE

VE

ME

NT

S .

Heads

Expected targets

Actually achieved

1979-80

1980-8 1

1981-82

1984-85

Irrigated

141.000

17.000

24,000

- 16,000

acres

Primary Pumps

100

58

5 9

5 9

Pump Points

2500

2276

2276

2290

2290

'd

Pumps F ld

t3

in all four

CI 0

Thanas

Including B

.ga

nj

and Nalchity

2500

736

603

62 1

214

(27%)

(23%)

(25%)

(8.5%)

In Kotwali

316

265

254

N.A.

In Jhalakatl

111

129

109

N.A.

In Taka funds

Est.credit

28.700.000

50.560.000

73.790.000

N.A

.*

requ 1

rmnt

-- --

--

Credit Supplied

16.354.460

21.897.820

17,570.370

N.A. Not Applicable

* No credit were supplied in 1984-85 because these two Thana Central Cooperative Associations were considered

as ineligible for credits since they became "defaulters" for not paying previous loans and instalments.

Source: BIP Appraisal Report. 1976 and data provided by

BIP

Project Director and his deputies. Barisal, March

1986.

Ta

ble

5

THE

A

REA

O

F E

AC

H T

HA

NA

A

ND

TH

E

PO

PU

LA

TT

ION

DIS

TR

IBU

TIO

N B

Y S

EX

&

U

RB

AN

-RU

RA

L

P 1 ace

1974

1981

Kotwal I

Male

female

Urban

142533

127547

98127

Rural

Total

Ma 1 e

17 19521

270080

196930

Fema 1 e

Urban

Rural

Total

$53407

159298

19 1039

350337

--

-

- --

- -

Jhalakat i

80250

75 106

2 1272

133994.

155266

94918

85487

31381

149024

180405

Pero j pur

62342

5939 1

22218

995 15

121733

- -

- -

3 1429

133492

-

Naz f rpur

66008

43485

- -

129493

129493

78246

76161

- -

154407

154407

source: Bangladesh Census Report, 1974. 198

Ta

ble

8

DIS

TR

IBU

TIO

N O

F G

OVE

RN

MEN

T IR

RIG

AT

I'ON

LO

W

LIF

T P

UM

PS

AN

D

AR

EA

CO

VE

RE

D

IN A

CR

ES

Cu

ltfv

Th

an

a

To

tal

Are

a

Pum

ps

Are

a

Pum

ps

Are

a

Pum

ps

Are

a

Ko

twa

l 1

51

83

8

94

40

3

8 1

1

02

53

3

16

8

67

1

31

6

So

urc

e:

BA

DC

a

nd

B

IP.

Au

g.

19

83

.

Table 7 DBTRIBUTION OF SEEDS AMONG FARMERS BY BADC (in Maunds)

Thana HYV Local H W Loml HYV Local

Aus 210 0 25 0 155 15

Kotwali Boro 410 0 84 0 690 0

-- - -

Aus 0 0 14 0 65 12

Boro 150 0 21 0 180 0

Pota 0 0 26 0 0 9 - - - - -

Aus. 46 0 14 0 50 3

Perojpur Boro 1036 0 21 0 0 0

Pota 0 0 20 0 0 10

Aus. 100 0 12 0 5 0

Nazi~pur Boro 250 0 12 0 95 0

Pota 0 352 40 0 0 0

- - -- -- --- -- - -

Source: BADC Annual Reports, 1972-1982. BADC, Dhaka.

p \ 22Q

Table 8 ROADS IN EACH THANA (IN MILES)

Thana Cemented & Earthen Cemented & Ear then S.Cemented S.Cemented

Jhalakat i 9 180 23 276

Pero jpur 22 47 29 172

Nazi rpur 5* 6 1 5 6 1

* Only Semi-cemented Roads. Source: The Barisal Municipality, Circle Officers of Jhaikati, Perojepur, Nazirpur.

Table 9

PHYSICAL COMMUNICATION STATUS IN EACH T

HA

NA

Typ

e

of

Ko

twa

l l

Jh

alk

~lt

l P

ero

jpu

r N

az i rp

ur

fa

cil

it

y

19

72

8

3

72

8

3

72

8

3

72

8

3

Bo

ats

:

Co

mrc

. 7

50

9

00

4

50

6

00

4

00

3

00

3

00

3

00

Pa

ss

en

. - -

Ca

rt

10

0

15

0

16

28

0

0

0

0

Bik

e

+d

Ric

k

4 P3

shaw

N

cy

cle

Ca

r/

13

0

22

5

4 8

1

2

0

0

Je

ep

Bu

s

3 5

8

4

13

2 1

4

12

0

0

- --

-

Tru

ck

3

0

50

3

6

0

2

0

0

Tem

po

4 4

7

2

0

0

15

2 8

0

0

Sc

oo

ter

--

Lau

nch

So

urc

e:

Th

an

a

Sta

tis

tic

al

Off

ice

r,

Cir

cle

Off

ice

r,

an

d a

uth

or'

s

Su

rve

y,

Ap

ril

-Ju

ly.

19

82

a

nd

J

un

e-J

uly

1

98

3.

Table 10 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL ENlXWRISES IN EACH THANA

Source: Newspaper selling agents in the four thanas, confirmed by each Newspaper circulation office in Dhaka.

Table 11 AVAILABILITY OF NEWSPAPER COPIES AND APPROXIMATE

READERS.

1972 1983 place

COPY S Rdrs COPY S Rdrs

Kotwali 2576 9000 4050 14715

Jhalakat i 38 1 1474 576 2236

Pero jepur 260 1200 395 1791

Nazi rpur 30 179

Source: Newspaper selling agents in the four thanas, confirmed by each Newspaper circulation office in Dhaka .

Ta

ble

12

AVAILABLE H

EA

LTH

FACILITIES S

IN E

ACH T

HA

NA

Ty

pe

o

f K

otw

al i

Jh

al k

at l

Pe

rojp

ur

Na

zi r

pu

r

fa

cil

ity

1972

75

8 3

72

75

8 3

7 2

75

83

72

75

8 3

Ho

sp

1 ta

1 2

2

2

2

2

2

1 1

2

1 1

1

Bed

s

600

600

620

30

40

40

42

42

9 2

3 1

3 1

3 1

Do

cto

rs

5 1

85

103

6

10

13

6

14

18

3

3

4

MB

BS

/LM

F

Nu

rse

s

72

75

109

12

18

37

10

10

30

4

4

5

N

Ch

ar

1 t

N

2

vl

d i s

pe

ns

Hm

eo

path

32

36

4 5

28

30

3 5

I I

15

22

5

8

12

Da

kta

r/

Qu

ack

30

3 3

40

3 5

39

4 5

30

33

38

30

35

40

He

kim

7

7

93

3

4

4

2

3

1 1

3

0

Kab

i r

a j

3 1

3 1

30

58

60

6 3

40

42

4 5

50

50

4 8

Me

dic

ine

106

120

150

13

16

22

18

2 1

26

7

8

10

sh

op

Fami 1

y

2

4

12

5

6

8

0

5

8

1 4

7

plannlng

cl inic

Source: Thana Statistical Officers. Medical College Hospital, and District Surgeon, Barisal, Jan-Aug, 1983.

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. "Joint Review Report of the IRDP", Dhaka, 1980.

Government of Bangladesh, "BIP-Appraisal Report", Dhaka, 1976.

Farashuddin, M. (ed.). Mobilization Coordinationof External Assistance: Bangladesh Exverience, Dhaka: W B Foundation. December, 1979.

. Bangladesh Medium-Term Food Grain Production Plan: Overview, Dhaka: Planning Commission, 1981.

. Procedures and Problems Relating to Aid Negotiations, Allocation and Utilization, May 1983.

. "The World Bank and Its Operations in Bangladesh", Dhaka: The Ministry of Finance, ERD, June 1980.

. "Memorandum for the Bangladesh Aid-Group, 1982-83", Dhaka: Planning Commission and ERD, March, 1982.

. "Report on The 9th Annual Meeting of the Bangladesh Aid-Group" (in Paris), Dhaka: ERD, Ministry of Finance, June 19, 1982.

. "The Second Five-Year Plan - 1980-85", Dhaka: Planning Commission, May, 1980.

. "Report of Irrigation Management", Dhaka: IRDP, September, 1981.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, "Agriculture Year-book of Bangladesh", Dhaka, 1982.

. Thana Statistics: Land Use and Irrigation, Vol.1, Dhaka: Ministry of Planning, 1981.

. "Preliminary Census Reprot, 1981", Dhaka: Ministry of Planning, 1982.

220. North South Institute. "Rural Poverty in Bangladesh: A Report to the Like-Minded Group", Ottawa: North South Institute, April, 1985.

221. BADC. Annual Re~ort,, 1977-78, 1978-79, 1979-80, also "Brief Annual Report, 1981-82". Dhaka: BADC.

222. BARD. "Thana Level Qff~cers' Training Conference", Comilla: BARD, 1974.

Articles from News~a~ers Weeklies

223. Lelyveld, Joseph. "Macnamara's style at the World Bank", New York Times, November 30, 1975.

224. Alam, Jghlul. "Growing Landless: A Fly's Eye View", Bangladesh Today, Dhaka, July 1-15, 1983.

225. Staff Reporter. "Bhumi Sangskar: Land Reform", Weekly Robbar, Dhaka, May 16, 1982.

226. Hoque, K.M. "Gram Shamaz, Bhumi Babostya: Village Society and Land Management - Cornowallis to General Ershad", Chitra Banala, January, 1983.

227. Staff Reporter. "How the Government Files Move?" Weeklv Bichitra, June 10, 1983.

228. Rahman, AshabmWBideshi Shahajp Kader Jannya? Foreign Aids for Whom?" Weeklv Bichitra, May 30, 1980

229. Majumdar, Taposh. "Administration: Centrlization versus Decentralization", Weeklv Robbar, September 11, 1983.

230. The F a Eastern Fxonornic ReviewJssues between Jan. 1981 and Dec. 1985.

231. The Ban~ladesh Times, Jan. 1981 to March, 1986.

232. Shanabad, Jan. 1981 to Dec. 1984.

233. Weeklv Holiday, Jan. 1981 to Dec. 1984.