Techniques of Mobilizing Rural People to Support Rural Development Programme

How to mobilize rural people to participate and support rural development programmes is a crucial issue to resolve. The importance of this issue is being increasingly realized by the developing Afro-Asian countries. This paper is concerned with general theoretical principles or concepts based on comparative analysis of experiences in rural development programmes in five Afro-Asian countries. Based on these experiences of these five countries, the techniques of mobilization of rural people are conceptually classified into two models: Harmony model and Conflict Model. The two models are defined in terms of method of applying intervention techniques in mobilizing rural people. Broadly there are 4 categories of interventions: structural, institutional, technological and political. Given certain preconditions, usually the outsider-stimulator provoke mobilization of rural people in support of development programmes through applying certain intervention techniques. In the conflict model, outsider-stimulator usually starts with a conscientisation programme with emphasis on structural interventions such as agrarian reform and then radically confronting and escalating the force against the structural cleavage. The other three intervention techniques are the consequent result of the structural interventions, in the conflict model. The conflict model is illustrated in the paper in relation to Chinese and Indonesia’s PKI movements. According to harmony model on the other hand the outsider stimulator attempts to mobilize either through technological or institutional interventions without disturbing the structural aspects of the society. Harmony model is illustrated in the paper in relation to some rural development programmes in Tanzania, India and Bangladesh. The ideological philosophies of the two models are fundamentally different with concomitant advantages and disadvantages depending on the existing objective conditions of the society in which they are applied.