World Development Vol. 29, No. 12, pp.

2007±2023, 2001
Ó 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev 0305-750X/01/$ - see front matter
PII: S0305-750X(01)00085-7

Is Devolution Democratization?
NANDINI SUNDAR *
Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India
Summary. Ð Recent attempts at introducing new forms of governance in forest management in
India have focused on devolution to user-groups or village level ``participatory committees.''
Success or failure is attributed to the presence or absence of ``social capital'' among these groups.
These groups have never existed outside the state, however, and social relations, including social
capital, are continually being transformed by administrative and market forces. This paper argues
that what matters is not the degree of government intervention, i.e., more or less devolution, or the
degree of social capital among local communities, but state accountability. This can only be
ensured through addressing questions of political reform. Ó 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.

Key words Ð devolution, social capital, state, forestry, Asia, India

1. INTRODUCTION candidates, mostly from the Bharatiya Janata

The last Muria Durbar of the 20th century in
Bastar was no di€erent from those that had
gone before. Although intended as a two-way
channel of communication between the king
and his subjects, as usual, government ocials
and elected representatives occupied the stage
and did most of the talking. Anturam Kashyap,
a local legislator, told the audience of majhis
(traditional supravillage headmen) that under a
new law, the gram sabha or an assembly of all
adults in a village, was even more powerful
than the chief minister of the state. 1 Even as he
spoke, however, it was evident that this meant
nothing serious. In what has come to pass for
normal VIP behavior in India, others on the
dais, indi€erent to the audience, passed around
a copy of a popular evening tabloid Highway
Channel among themselves.
Since 1906, the Muria Durbar has served as a
microcosm for the state of political a€airs in
Bastar (Sundar, 1997). The 1999 parliamentary
elections which took place barely two weeks
before the Durbar had been fought on the issue
of an administrative ban, under the aegis of a
Congress government, on free trade in tama-
rind. Instead, purchasing committees of villag-
ers had been formed to ensure better rates for
the gatherers. The district administrator glori-
®ed this by calling it an ``Imli Andolan''
(tamarind struggle), and the committees ``Van
Dhan Samitis'' (Forest Wealth Committees).
The traders whose interests were a€ected
invested large sums to ensure their preferred
2007
Party (BJP) won. Yet none of the heat of this
campaign came through in the Durbar. The
distortion in ``representation'' introduced by
money should have been central to discussions
there, yet no one talked about it. Thus even as
the state publicizes its attempts at devolution,
and the World Bank proclaims the roots of
empowerment lie in ``social capital,'' existing
arenas of trust and community action are being
transformed, often at the behest of old-fash-
ioned ``capital.''
By evaluating recent government attempts at
devolution in the ®eld of forest management in
one district of central India, this paper attempts
to problematize the currently fashionable idea
of devolution as the panacea to the problems of
governance and development (World Bank,
2000, p. 106), as well as the links that are drawn
between successful devolution and ``social
capital'' (Collier, 1998; World Bank, 1997,
2000). The failures of inadequate and poorly
carried out devolution, especially in the form of
specially created ``participatory committees,''
* The research for this paper was funded by the
International Fund for Agricultural Development as
part of a joint project with the Centre for International
Forestry Research on ``Creating Space for Local Forest
Management: The Impacts of Devolution Policies and
Civil Society Alternatives.'' I am grateful to Madhu
Sarin, David Edmunds, Lini Wollenberg and the anon-
ymous referees for their comments. Final revision
accepted: 19 July 2001.
2008 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

are often blamed on the lack of ``social capital'' powerful (tool) for achieving development goals in
among villagers. In fact, the form devolution ways that respond to the needs of local communities,
takes in the Indian forestry context has often by assigning control rights to people who have the
information and incentives to make decisions best sui-
served merely to reduce costs and responsibili- ted to those needs, and who have the responsibility for
ties for the state, while extending the reach of the political and economic consequences of their deci-
the administration and donors to new areas. In sions (World Bank, 2000, p. 106).
the process, this reshapes communities to re¯ect
more closely state, donor and market ideolo-
The Bank uses decentralization to mean ``the
gies, and transforms existing bases of ``social
formal devolution of power to local decision
capital'' (see also Ribot, 1999; Sarin, 2001;
makers'' (World Bank, 2000, p. 106). De®ni-
Schroeder, 1999; Sundar, 2000).
tions of devolution and its relation to decen-
This paper argues that more, rather than less,
tralization di€er (Agrawal, Britt, & Kanel,
direct government interventionÐin the form of
1999, pp. 13±15) but a common emphasis seems
enforcing the rule of law, or providing a
to be on empowering lower level authorities,
countervailing power to local elitesÐmay in
independent of government, with decision-mak-
fact have more democratic consequences than
ing responsibilities and resources (see Manor,
formal devolution. What matters is not the
1999, p. 13; Samo€, 1990, p. 528) (emphasis
degree but the nature of government interven-
mine).
tion. If development is seen primarily as a
One major reason cited for devolution is its
redistribution of power, it is not just the pres-
contribution to enhancing participation, which
ence or absence of ``social capital'' among small
is often seen as a good in itself. 4 But, govern-
communities that allows successful collective
ments may also undertake devolution on the
action, but also the absence of a coercive
grounds of its greater eciency, both in
response from those whose power is being
managerial and ®nancial terms (Agrawal et al.,
challenged, whether the state or local elites (see
1999; Cheema & Rondinelli, 1983, p. 27). Thus,
also Evans, 1996b; Fox, 1996). In other words,
devolution, as a form of empowering non-state,
economic development cannot be divorced
independent, usually small-scale or local enti-
from questions of political and legal reform.
ties, has both conservative and progressive
Bastar serves as an excellent site for exem-
ancestryÐin market-led structural adjustment
plifying the problems associated with the
policies as well as in anti-market new social
concepts of devolution and social capital for
movements (Handler, 1996, pp. 8±9).
several reasons. 2 A sparsely populated area, 3
Along with devolution, increasing the social
with an ocial forest cover of 57.25% (GOMP,
capital of the poor ®gures prominently in the
1998, p. 208), Bastar has seen concerted e€orts
Bank's report (World Bank, 2000, pp. 128±131;
to exploit its forests by the forest department
see Kumar, Saxena, Alagh, & Mitra, 1999, p. 1,
from the colonial period onward. Resistance to
for the application of this idea to the forestry
the appropriation of forest land whether under
sector in India). The link between social capital
the leadership of majhis in the past or
and successful devolution is widely attributed
communist guerillas in the present, has been
to Putnam who de®ned social capital as those
met with armed repression, and whatever
attributes of social organizations such as trust,
community arrangements for forest protection
norms and networks that can facilitate collec-
have survived are rapidly being dismantled by
tive action for mutual bene®t (Putnam,
the superimposition of new structures. Even as
Leonardi, & Nanetti, 1993, p. 167). 5 He
the Government is allegedly building up ``social
argued, on the basis of a comparison between
capital'' in small scale units to increase
North and South Italy, that devolution works
accountability, it puts down political move-
best in those regions/countries whose inhabit-
ments which attempt to make the state
ants have social capital. But, there is serious
accountable.
danger of tautology in inferring social capital
from its outcomes, since other causes (such as
2. DEVOLUTION, DEVELOPMENT AND relative equality in North Italy vs. exploitation
SOCIAL CAPITAL in the South) cannot be ruled out (Portes, 1998,
pp. 19±20; Woolcock, 1998, p. 156). Equally
Among the many prescriptions that the 2000 problematic is the question of how to measure
World Development Report contains, decen- social capital (see Wall, Ferrazi, & Schryer,
tralization ®gures as a 1998, pp. 314±317).
 IS DEVOLUTION DEMOCRATIZATION?
A judicious choice of indicators can produce
a desired ranking, especially when it comes to
rating entire countries. On the basis of the
number of associations present (see also World
Bank, 1997), Fukuyama (1995) and others have
concluded that ``Americans are more trusting
and more engaged than people in most other
countries of the world'' (Putnam, 1995, p. 74).
Alternative criteria such as the level of invest-
ment in military spending, or covert operations
(Quigley, 1992; Shalom, 1993) might reveal a
rather di€erent picture. It is hard to understand
why a country whose citizens are as trusting as
they are claimed to be, would need to build up
the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Even
more alarming is the almost eugenicist
correlation of social capital to features like
population density, to come up with the right
``trust-conducive density'' (Collier, 1998, p. 13).
While Tocqueville (1969) related the rise of
civic associations in America to a particular
form of managing the governance problems
created by individualism and equality, other
societies with di€erent political economies
might have di€erent arrangements. While
introducing capitalism, colonial governments
often based their systems of governance on so-
called primordial identities such as race, caste,
religion, or ethnicity, thereby strengthening and
in some cases even producing these identities
(see Breckenridge & van der Veer, 1993; Wolf,
1982). Although these were sources of certain
forms of social capital, their parochialism and
exclusivity meant that they hindered forms of
development that required broader collective
action (see also Foley & Edwards, 1997,
pp. 551±552; Portes, 1998, pp. 15±19). If one
wants to measure ``social capital'' therefore,
one needs historically and culturally speci®c
indicators to understand where the problems of
governance and social action lie. The issue is
not the natural presence of social capital among
some communities and its absence among
others, but the continued thrust of capitalism,
which is constantly transforming the prospects
of civil society or unity among the poor. 6
People may express their understanding of
democracy in a variety of ways, of which small-
scale associations are only one form.
One of the strongest challenges to the link
drawn between social capital and development
is the existence of several regions (including
Bastar), which have large reserves of natural
resources and whose inhabitants have high
levels of ``social capital'' in terms of mutual
trust, but which are among the poorest in the
2009
country in material terms (see also Fox, 1996,
p. 1091; Wall et al., 1998, p. 311). In response
to criticisms of the portmanteau nature of the
concept (Portes, 1998; Wall et al., 1998) and its
neglect of power (Fine, 1999; Harris & de
Renzio, 1997), the Bank's latest ``motherhood
and apple pie'' document distinguishes three
types of social capital: bonding social capital or
that which connects close associates, bridging
social capital which is weaker and which
connects those roughly of the same class, and
linking social capital which ``consists of the
vertical ties between poor people and people in
positions of in¯uence in formal organizations.''
The Bank recognizes that without the third, the
®rst two are insucient (World Bank, 2000, pp.
128±129; see also Woolcock, 1998, p. 186).
While nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
or religious organizations are seen as the most
likely agents to play the role of ``linking social
capital'' (consonant with the strategy of priv-
atizing state functions), the state can also create
social capital by ``building trust between
government workers and poor people'' (World
Bank, 2000, p. 130). If ``linking social capital''
(access to capital and power by another name)
is essential, as is the ``enabling environment''
provided by macro institutions, the idea of
``bridging social capital'' as a necessary ingre-
dient for development loses much of its focus.
Who would argue with the conclusion that
development requires all the right conditions,
macro, meso and micro?
In contrast, some scholars have argued that
social capital at the level of small communities or
associations is not the key to successful devel-
opment so much as the ability to scale this up
(preferably on universalist principles) to form
organizations at levels that are ``politically and
economically ecacious'' and that can act as a
countervailing power to ensure state account-
ability (Evans, 1996b, p. 1125; Fox, 1996; Heller,
1996). Fox (1996) highlights the role played by
reformist elements in the bureaucracy and the
absence of state repression in enabling this
scaling up, and the di€erences in the ``thickness''
of civil society even within a single nation state.
Thus, state intervention can play a positive role,
leading to ``synergy'' between state and society,
and state intervention need not necessarily
``crowd out'' societal initiative (Evans, 1996a,
p. 1034). But ultimately, Evans argues, the
``limits to synergy are located in government
rather than civil society'' (Evans, 1996b, p.
1125). This paper attempts to extend some of
these insights by showing how synergy can be
2010 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
built upon, not through devolution, but by
recognizing local power structures, including the
interests of the local bureaucracy, and working
to make the state accountable.
3. DEVOLUTION IN FOREST
MANAGEMENT IN INDIA
In the forestry sector, the forest policy of
1988 and the Joint Forest Management (JFM)
Resolution of 1990 appear to mark a watershed
in devolution. The 1988 policy gave priority to
villagers' needs, while JFM was intended to
enable local people to contribute to and bene®t
from the regeneration of forests. In India,
devolution predominantly takes the form of
delegating certain responsibilities and rights,
not to lower levels of government such as the
panchayats, but to ``participatory committees''
at the village level, which actually bypass the
panchayats, such as the Forest Protection
Committees (FPCs) and Village Forest
Committees (VFCs) under JFM and the Van
Dhan Samitis (VDSs). These, however, occupy
an ambiguous status between government
organizations (since they are directly governed
by state framed rules in terms of membership,
meetings, etc., and are often funded by the
state) and ``people's organizations.'' 7
A potentially more extensive form of devolu-
tion is the Provisions of the Panchayats (Exten-
sion to the Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), passed
on December 24, 1996. This is a modi®cation of
the 73rd amendment to the Constitution, for
tribal areas. PESA made the gram sabha ``com-
petent to safeguard and preserve the traditions
and customs of the people, their cultural iden-
tity, community resources and the customary
mode of dispute resolution.'' (Clause 4d). The
Madhya Pradesh (MP) version of the Act,
passed on December 5, 1997 provides that the
gram sabha in scheduled areas will have the
powers to ``manage natural resources including
land, water, and forests within the area of the
village in accordance with its tradition and in
harmony with the provisions of the Constitution
and with due regard to the spirit of other relevant
laws for the time being in force.'' 8
Retired administrator turned activist, Dr.
B.D. Sharma, who is mainly responsible for
drafting PESA, has spent several years propa-
gating the idea of a tribal society which has
somehow survived colonialism and capitalism
and retains strong community ties at a hamlet-
based level (Sharma, 1998). PESA was intended
to support and revive the authority exercised by
these communities. Although the understand-
ing of tradition embodied in PESA is rather
simplistic and historically naive, 9 it can help
people who are already organized.
In general, however, as an informal survey in
Bastar revealed, the implications of PESA are
not yet understood by politicians, administra-
tors or villagers. The MP Act is rather vague in
whether it gives precedence to decisions taken
by the gram sabha or to existing laws, and as far
as senior administrators are concerned, the
Forest Conservation Act and other forest rules
continue to operate (Interviews, October±De-
cember 1999). So do the institutions of the state
such as the police, forest department, and
revenue department. Were the Act to become
e€ective, these institutions and laws would
become largely redundant, which could be one
reason why the Act has not been widely
publicized by the government and why its
provisions are so vague (see also Pal, 2000).
People's movements and NGOs have tried to
highlight issues of accountability and trans-
parency in other ways, besides forming village-
level institutions. For instance, they have
engaged in public interest litigation against
political, bureaucratic and mercantile misuse of
a scheme that allowed tree felling on private
land (Malik Makbuja), or protested against the
absence of transparency in setting up large
dams or industries. While such people's move-
ments provide a form of ``linking social capi-
tal,'' bringing information to villagers and
articulating their concerns upward, the attitude
of both the Bank and government toward
them, especially the more militant organiza-
tions, is marked by suspicion (see GOMP,
2000), or downright repression. 10 When it
comes to recognizing that it takes a lot of
``social capital'' for poor people to join such
movements, especially given the risk of state
repression, both the Bank and government turn
curiously blind. The Madhya Pradesh govern-
ment has recently enacted a draconian law, the
MP Special Areas Security Act (2001) which
allows the government to declare any organi-
zation ``contrary to law,'' ban it, and arrest its
members and sympathizers. 11
4. DEVOLUTION IN THE CONTEXT OF
PRIOR APPROPRIATION IN BASTAR
For a region which is apparently so ``back-
ward'' and ``isolated,'' Bastar can compete with
 IS DEVOLUTION DEMOCRATIZATION?
any metropolis in terms of ethnic and
linguistic diversity. Although its people spoke
many di€erent languages, the kingdom was
politically and socially welded together in
collective rituals at both village and state level.
These rested on a detailed division of labor
and mutual co-operation (for details, see
Sundar, 1997). At the same time, ecologically
and culturally, Bastar forms a contiguous belt
with neighboring areas in Maharashtra, Orissa
and Andhra Pradesh. A major political space
was lost when these areas were integrated into
di€erent linguistic states. The creation of
Chhattisgarh state, although ostensibly a form
of regional devolution, is likely to result in
even more systematic exploitation by the
regional bourgeoise. 12
The Bastar forests are of the tropical moist
deciduous variety with sal (Shorea robusta)
shading into teak (Tectona grandis) as the most
important commercial species, as one goes from
north to south. Agriculture is the main occu-
pation, and is supplemented by the gathering
and sale of nontimber forest products (NTFPs),
as well as wage work in various government
schemes.
Commercial forest exploitation began in the
mid-19th century to serve the demand from the
railways. By 1891, the process of demarcating
forests as exclusive state property or ``reserva-
tion'' had begun. ``Reservation'' ostensibly
protected the forests from the impact of shifting
cultivation, but in practice allowed the appro-
priation of land for timber production and
thereby revenue generation for the colonial
state (see Sundar, 1997). In addition to Reserve
Forests, which were completely closed o€ to the
public, and Protected Forests in which villagers
had some rights, the Central Provinces also had
a system of nistari forests, from which villagers
could take their fuel, fodder and NTFPs free.
The term nistar is used in multiple ways: ``the
actual right of user; an item or items of jungle
produce required; and bona ®de domestic use''
(Kamath, 1941, p. 34). Apart from the amount
sanctioned for nistar, NTFPs were made the
subject of state monopolies, and agents were
given leases to purchase individual NTFPs such
as lac (Laccifer lacca) or hurra (Terminalia
chebula). This meant that villagers had to take
whatever terms were o€ered to them for
collection, and their earlier links with local
artisans as well as Banjara traders were broken
(see also Prasad, 1994, pp. 127±128). A greater
number of immigrant traders from other parts
of India now found a foothold in Bastar, a
2011
foothold that they progressively expanded into
complete dominance.
The sweep of reservation (initially two-thirds
the total forest area of the state directly under
the Crown), the rede®nition of NTFPs as state
property and the imposition of fees for grazing,
along with several other changes, led to a major
rebellion in 1910 which spread rapidly all
across the state before it was violently put
down (see Sundar, 1997). This was perhaps the
last time popular action was led by traditional
headmen, majhis, before they were co-opted
into the structures of the modern bureaucracy.
Independence made little di€erence, except
that policy was now determined by indigenous
commercial industrial interests rather than
imperial needs (Gadgil & Guha, 1992, p. 185).
Under the in¯uence of the World Bank and the
Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO),
monocultures were favored over natural
species. Under the 1970s World Bank-funded
Technical Assistance Project, 4,600 ha of
natural sal forest (along with what the FAO
called ``a wide variety of presently unmarket-
able species'') were to be replaced by tropical
pine to provide pulp for the paper industry
(Anderson & Huber, 1988, pp. 59, 63). Oppo-
sition by local environmentalists and the tribal
welfare department eventually led to the project
being abandoned (Anderson & Huber, 1988,
pp. 68±69). But, much deforestation had
already taken place. During 1956±81, 125,483
ha of forest land in Bastar were transferred to
development projects, accounting for a third of
the total forest loss in the district (CSE, 1985,
p. 87).
Even as it destroyed the forests already under
its care, the forest department appropriated
further land from peasants. In 1949, all the
nistari forests of Bastar were declared govern-
ment Protected Forests with the condition that
the nistari rights of the people would not be
a€ected. 13 This blanket noti®cation meant that
many of these forests remained unsurveyed,
with control shared uneasily between the reve-
nue and forest departments. These were known
as ``orange areas'' on the basis of the color
assigned in maps. Although the land was
claimed by the forest department as protected
forest, the revenue department has granted title
deeds on this land, often without informing the
forest department. Villagers also continue to
refer to these areas as their nistari forest in a
proprietary way.
One consequence of this legal and physical
ambiguity has been that several long-term
2012 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
cultivators have been declared ``encroachers''
(Sharma, 1992), and risk forest department
attempts at removal. Although fresh
encroachment is a very real problem and has
increased in recent years, 14 the problem must
be looked at in terms of an unproductive agri-
cultural base (only 2.9% of the sown area in
undivided Bastar was irrigated), the lack of
other employment opportunities, and the
collusion of the forest department in accepting
bribes for encroachment. Government attempts
at agricultural extensionÐgiving loans for
wells, hybrid seeds, etc.Ðoften fail in the face
of the vagaries of nature, inadequate training
and the corruption of the government workers,
making people worse o€ than before (see
Gregory, 1997; Sundar, 1997, p. 254).
Given the centrality of land to local politics,
the MP government has periodically ``regular-
ized'' encroachment or given title deeds to
encroachers. Forest ocials are invariably
bitter over these orders arguing that they
encourage encroachment since ``o€enders'' are
con®dent that at some point their lands will be
regularized. The mainstream political parties
often use this issue, when out of power, to get
votes. Promises of regularization just before the
1989 elections helped the BJP win in Madhya
Pradesh and led to increased felling just before
the elections. While parties such as the BJP and
Congress display complete cynicism in the
manner they use the issue of settlement of
encroachments, other parties/peoples' organi-
zations have been consistent in demanding a
solution to this problem, which would include
enforcement of the ceiling laws, land distribu-
tion and forest protection. In 1999±2000, Ekta
Parishad, a mass organization in several
districts of MP, conducted a major campaign
on this issue. Both the Communist Party of
India (CPI) and the People's War Group
(PWG) which in the past encouraged support-
ers to seize forest land are now also encourag-
ing forest protection (CCC, 1998, p. 70).
While adivasi encroachments are demonized,
illicit felling by timber merchants and local
politicians, an equally regular feature in Bastar
throughout the last century, is often
condoned. Even when trucks are initially
seized, the large contractors are usually let o€.
Petty cases are, however, dealt with severely.
In much of southeast Bastar, felling trees to
make charcoal for tin smelting has devastated
large tracts. In north Bastar similarly, Hire-
math, Nath, Kongovi, and Dandavatimath
(1997) reported much felling for illegal bauxite
mining. But, the most organized form of
timber theft has been through the ``legal''
Malik Makbuja route.
Before 1947, felling teak or fruit-bearing trees
on private land was prohibited except when
shade or falling leaves upset standing crops. 15
After independence, peasants were given the
right (Malik Makbuja), to cut trees on their
own land, after taking government permission
(Dvivedi, 1986). This right was abused by
contractors who persuaded market-innocent
peasants to sell them teak trees at ridiculously
low rates, sometimes for a few hundred rupees,
when the actual prices were in the thousands
(Nath, 1956, Paragraph 12). Several hundred
truckloads of timber were thus taken away,
with the contractors also taking advantage of
the lack of clear demarcation to remove timber
from government forests. The MP Protection
of Scheduled Tribes (Interest in Trees) Act,
1956, was passed in response, under which the
sale of trees from tribal lands has to be sanc-
tioned and supervised by the Collector to
ensure that tribals are not cheated.
Gradually, lengthy bureaucratic procedures
and administrative collusion with timber
merchants subverted the spirit of this law.
Agents (usually upper-caste immigrants)
o€ered to pursue the complex paperwork
involved in return for a commission. Helped by
widespread illiteracy, however, they usually
appropriated the bulk of the money. Equally
commonly, timber merchants bought land in
order to fell the timber trees on it (Lokayukt
Committee, 1998). Since land alienation laws
restrict purchase of tribal land by nontribals,
they usually targeted poor nontribals. But, rich
tribal politicians from both the ruling and
opposition party were able to buy land from
other tribals as well. Again, land records were
fudged with the help of revenue sta€, to enable
theft from government forests. Forest ocials
who are responsible for marking the trees and
organizing the felling, transport and auction,
put up no resistance.
During 1993±96, despite questions raised in
the Legislative assembly by Communist MLA,
Manish Kunjam and others, and the
complaints of the local Collector (District
Administrator) against his own superior for
collusion in the Malik Makbuja scam (Naidu,
1998, p. 8), the MP government did nothing.
Two NGOs, Ekta Parishad and Samaj Pari-
vartana Samudaya, then took the matter to the
Supreme Court. 16 In 1997, the Court banned
all felling in Bastar. An independent enquiry by
 IS DEVOLUTION DEMOCRATIZATION?
the Lokayukt, a Government watchdog body,
resulted in charges being ®led against several
people, but further action is still to be taken. 17
The ban on felling in Bastar is inevitably
selectively imposed by the forest department. It
is called into e€ect when villagers need timber
for domestic use, but ignored when it comes to
mass illicit felling by traders.
To sum up so far, the current attempt at
devolution must be set in the context of all the
land that has been appropriated by the forest
department in the past, including the area that
is still under dispute with the revenue depart-
ment (orange areas), and which the forest
department is trying to a€orest through JFM
and thereby bring it under its jurisdiction.
There has been no consultative discussion with
villagers on rational land use policy, and how
much land needs to be maintained under
forests. The last round of ``regularization'' of
encroachments by the state government recog-
nized all lands colonized by poor farmers (up to
®ve acres) before 1980. 18 But, the Supreme
Court's retrospective application of the Forest
Conservation Act of 1980 has stalled this by
laying down certain conditions such as
compensatory a€orestation for the land lost to
encroachment. 19 While the Supreme Court's
intervention in the Malik Makbuja issue has
been supportive of local organizations, its
directives on the Forest Conservation Act
represent a form of centralization that runs
counter to government devolution initiatives.
Without viewing agriculture and forestry toge-
ther and resolving the land issue, attempts at
devolution in the forestry sector alone are
unlikely to be meaningful.
Government inaction on the Malik Makbuja
cases also illustrates the fact that the main
structures of government are nonparticipatory
and nontransparent, even as it seeks to create
little pockets of devolution. As people's move-
ments have realized, bringing o€enders to
justice, especially powerful ones, often gives
communities and poor people greater con®-
dence in their ability to control their lives, faith
in democracy, and a feeling of participation in
government than setting up any number of
``participatory committees.'' Even when villag-
ers have plenty of social capital and have
formed e€ective forest protection groups, their
ability to catch and censure o€enders who are
government ocials or politicians is limited,
since there is no formal system of holding
public ocials accountable to people. The
following sections will examine the workings of
2013
``participatory committees'' under the JFM and
Van Dhan Schemes.
5. JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT
Unlike other Indian states where JFM
followed a public groundswell (see Po€enber-
ger, McGean, & Khare, 1996; Sundar, Je€ery,
& Thin, 2001), in Madhya Pradesh, it is a direct
o€shoot of the 1990 Government of India
circular promoting community involvement in
regeneration of degraded land (MOEF, 1990).
MP's 1991 order, ``Community participation in
preventing illicit felling and rehabilitation of
the forests'' was revised in 1995 to coincide with
a large World Bank-funded project covering
two phases, with a total outlay of Rs. 795
crores. The order was further modi®ed in 2000
after the ®rst phase of the project had ended.
MP was one of the few states which provided
for well stocked forest under JFM, not just
degraded land. This feature is likely to become
widespread following the Ministry of Environ-
ment's February 2000 Guidelines (MOEF,
2000). In MP, forests have been divided into
four zones and di€erent types of committees are
envisaged for villages within 5 km of each zone.
The shares assigned to FPCs and VFCs have
varied over the years with successive govern-
ment resolutions on JFM (see Table 1) and are
meant to ``increase their stake in the manage-
ment and utilisation of the forests'' (Kumar
et al., 1999, p. 1). The second strand of the
World Bank Forestry Project, aims to provide
alternative sources of employment (the
Economic Development Program) ``to reduce
the pressure on forests.'' This includes work on
plantation and regeneration activities as well as
building of sources of drinking water supply,
approach roads, schools, check dams, and
other facilities (Kumar et al., 1999, p. 1). The
schemes are variously known as Ecodevelop-
ment (for villages in the periphery of protected
areas) and Village Resource Development
Program (VRDP) in VFCs. In Ecodevelop-
ment, there is also a provision for ``voluntary
relocation'' from the core to the peripheries
(World Bank, 1995, Annex 6, p. 8). According
to tribal peoples' organizations in MP, this has
led to signi®cant involuntary displacement
(Joint Mission, 1999).
From this two-pronged strategy of increasing
local stakes, and weaning people away from
forest dependence (World Bank, 1995; Kumar
et al., 1999, p. 1), it is clear that the Bank
2014 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Table 1. Provisions of the MP government resolutions on JFM

Zone/type Management Type of Bene®ts from Bene®ts from Bene®ts from Funds
of forest objective committee forest (1991) forest (1995) forest (2000) for village
development
Zone I. Biodiversity Eco-devel- None Royalty free none Eco-develop-
Protected areas: conservation opment nistar plus ment funds
national parks (in the amount paid
and sanctuaries peripheries) the nearest
FPC for ®nal
harvest
Zone II. To obtain forest Forest 20% of the net Only free Royalty
Closed forest products under Protection income from nistar (without free nistar,
regular forestry Committee ®nal timber royalty, but intermediate
works (FPC) harvest from on payment of thinnings,
area protected extraction 10% of the
costs) ®nal harvest
Zone 3. Regeneration/ Village Intermediate Same as 1991 Same as 1991 VRDP funds
Open forest rehabilitation Forest thinnings plus plus royalty at Rs. 300 per
(degraded) of degraded Committee 30% of ®nal free nistar. Of ha up to 300
forest land (VFC) harvest the villagers' ha per year for
share, 50% is four years
paid in cash,
30% kept
for village
development
work, 20%
reinvested in
forests
Zone 4. Farm Lok Vaniki ± ± All bene®ts
Private and forestry scheme to private
community land farmer

believes that (a) ordinary villages, especially
poor people are the culprit, and (b) they can be
trained to behave better and protect their
forests through suitable injections of ®nancial
and social capital (Kumar et al., 1999, p. 1).
Although the Bank and government also real-
ized that attitudinal change was necessary not
just among forest dependent people but also
among forest sta€, the ``spearhead teams''
which were formed to train sta€ in participa-
tory planning and management seem to have
been disbanded after the ®rst phase.
Observations from 10 villages in two contig-
uous divisions, Central Bastar forest division
(Darbha range) and Sukma division (Tongpal
range) suggest that the manner in which JFM
has been implemented is essentially nonpartic-
ipatory, quite apart from the fact that the
returns that villages can expect are decided
from above, and subject to change unilater-
ally. 20 Although earlier resolutions speci®ed
one male and one female per household as
members of the general body, the 2000 resolu-
tion opens it out to all eligible voters. In prac-
tice, however, in the eyes of the villagers,
ocial membership seems con®ned to about
10±15 people or the numbers required for the
executive committee. Even if they attend
meetings, people are rarely aware they are
members of a committee. Meetings seem to be
held on a random basis every three to ®ve
months.
In Darbha, the Forest Department (FD) is
paying the FPC to engage watchmen, whereas
in Tongpal, the money is used to buy some
collective asset for the village, and the villagers
engage in patrolling themselves. Decisions
about whether to appoint a watchman, who to
select and how much to pay them are deter-
mined by FD sta€. The chairpersons of the
FPC too are usually FD appointees. In some
cases, the samiti members are petty politicians
and shopkeepers, who can be relied on to
collude with the forest sta€ in managing funds.
In other cases, the FPC chairs are chosen
because they are illiterate and therefore unable
to challenge the FD. The ocial records and
bank statements of the committee are kept with
the beat guard, who, according to the JFM
resolution, is the secretary of the committee.
 IS DEVOLUTION DEMOCRATIZATION?
The forest sta€ justify this by saying that ulti-
mately they are responsible for the use of
government funds, though in practice, forest
sta€ are transferred and take no responsibility
for long-term impacts on the forest.
As shall be evident from the next section, the
selection of some villages for VRDP funds,
while other villages have nothing except the
money they may collect through ®nes, appears
arbitrary and has led to mutual suspicion
between villages. FD control over this money
also breeds suspicion, and is an easy source of
corruption (e.g., in two villages the forester
bought ``community assets'' on his own with-
out involving the FPC members). One of the
immediate (though short-term) bene®ts of JFM
in both the ranges has been employment
(planting saplings, digging pits, etc. for ``as-
sisted natural regeneration''), but here again,
villagers are not always given the full daily
wage rate they are meant to get.
A major objective of the FD appears to be
checking encroachment. A€oresting ``orange
areas'' is one method. In some villages, existing
encroachments have been retained while new
ones have been frowned upon. This is harder to
enforce in some villages, particularly those,
such as Heeram, where the entire settlement is
classed as an ``encroachment'' and villagers are
®ghting for legal titles. The deputy ranger in
charge of this area called Heeram a ``poor
FPC'' for its inability to stop encroachment,
even though he and the guard themselves had
illegally cut teak trees in the Heeram forest for
furniture, importing laborers from outside to
fell them. In Sitlaguda, where the villagers are
harassed when entering Kanger National Park
for ®rewood, 500±600 teak trees had been cut
by the forest guards in 1998. The Sitlaguda
FPC had con®scated the wood, but the Divi-
sional Forest Ocer (DFO) managed to hush it
up. If such villages perform ``poorly''Ðthen the
FD has only itself to blame.
Under the FD's in¯uence, most villages have
banned selling bamboo shoots in the market,
but home consumption is allowed. The ban is
variably enforced, since poor women are
dependent on the sale of bamboo shoots and
many villagers are reluctant to deprive them of
a livelihood. Some committees also allow their
own members to get timber for building houses
and making implements, while preventing those
from other villages.
To summarize, there is little transparency in
fund management, the chairs are often selected
by the forest sta€, and apart from the token
2015
women on the executive committee, the absence
of women is conspicuous. The costs of JFM are
borne disproportionately by landless ``encro-
achers,'' and by women who collect bamboo
shoots and headloads for sale. Not only are
strong bureaucracies such as the forest depart-
ment able to shape devolution initiatives so that
the actual transfer of power is limited, but the
money coming in for devolution policies often
helps to strengthen and enrich further the
agents of the state (on similar experiences in
other states, see Sundar et al., 2001).
6. ``COMMUNITY FOREST
MANAGEMENT''
While apportioning forests to villages to
protect under JFM, the FD has made no
attempt to understand existing boundaries
between villages. In Bastar cosmology, villages
were founded on the basis of land given to the
founding member by the Earth, which has
therefore to be propitiated at all agricultural
festivals. The Earth includes the spirits of the
river, the forest and the mountain to each of
whom separate o€erings are made.
Although the appropriation and reservation
of forests by the Forest Department meant that
forests were ocially taken out of village
boundaries, they often continue to be part of a
village for ritual purposes. A strong tradition of
managing the forests within one's village
boundaries that continues even today (albeit
severely attenuated), involved charging resi-
dents of other villages a small fee known vari-
ously as devsari, dand, man or saribodi, in
exchange for use of one's forest. In some
villages in north Bastar, the fee was based on
the amount of timber taken, and usually took
the form of liquor or meat. Some villages
charged only for good timber and not for dry
or fallen wood, and others only if the wood was
stolen. Similarly, in some villages, they expec-
ted man for grazing, while others allowed
grazing free. In south Bastar, villages which
used the forest of another village, made
collective contributions to the Earth of that
village at festival times. This was not neces-
sarily a system of forest protection as it is
understood today, but managed to regulate
excessive felling and enabled a supervisory eye
on what was happening. Inevitably, there are
cases where it did not work. The residents of
Chitrakote, for example, complained that while
paying this fee or o€ering, other villages had
2016 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
cleaned out their forests, and now they in turn
had to pay another village to use its forests. By
and large, however, it seems to have been fairly
successful.
Some villages protected their forests by
engaging watchmen who were paid through
contributions of grain from each household,
and also given uniforms and axes. Both
Junawani and Ulnar villages in central Bastar
set up the rotating post of a jungle sarpanch (or
forest headman) who managed the forest.
Ulnar divided up its nistari forest of approxi-
mately 6,000 acres between 12 villages, each of
whom had its own jungle sarpanch and watch-
men. The jungle sarpanchs met weekly at the
market and annually at ``®rst sowing'' to
discuss the state of the forests. Timber was
provided on application, and those who vio-
lated the rules were ®ned, or had their imple-
ments auctioned. Sometimes, extra money was
raised by auctioning wood to villages which
had no forests of their own. In 1937, this system
was discovered and formalized by the Chief
Forest Ocer (Daver, 1938). Unlike JFM, this
ran successfully for a while as it built upon an
existing system. Nationalization of the nistari
forests (conversion into state-managed protec-
ted forests) reduced the ecacy of the system,
as neighboring villages stopped recognizing the
ownership rights of Junawani or Ulnar over
these forests.
In the 1990s, the forest department attemp-
ted to start FPCs and VFCs in this area. In one
village, there is some tension between support-
ers of the FD's nominee for jungle sarpanch
and supporters of the existing jungle sarpanch.
Decisions to sanction timber to individuals that
were earlier taken individually by the sarpanch
and accepted by everyone, now have to be
vetted in meetings because of the breakdown of
trust. In another village, the formal FPC has
strengthened protection e€orts, which had
lapsed because of a violent dispute with timber
thieves from a neighboring village. But, the fact
that the guard's payment now comes out of FD
funds rather than village contributions has
reduced their feelings of ownership over the
forest. In addition, the FD planted species such
as eucalyptus and acacia on 50 ha, which are of
little use to villagers. Some of this plantation is
on land they had formerly encroached to grow
pulses to supplement their main crop of paddy.
In situations where several contiguous villa-
ges have been protecting their forests, the
di€erential infusion of funds under JFM creates
tensions. For instance, Malebhata and the
neighboring villages of Leedapal, Kandri and
Singapati in Kanker, had all begun protecting
their own nistari forests in the mid-1980s, under
the in¯uence of Ekta Parishad. In 1997, a
government FPC was formed in Malebhata.
Not only was the patch of Protected Forest
they were assigned to protect further away
from the village than their nistari jungle, but
while Malebhata got nothing for its protection,
Kandri village got VRDP money to build a
stop dam, well and pond, as well as wages for
plantation work.
In those cases where women were active in
protection, the setting up of a formal FPC,
invariably transfers responsibility and author-
ity to males in the village (see Sundar, 1998).
For instance, in Khelgaon and other villages in
Kanker, women's groups formed by Ekta
Parishad started protecting their forests a
couple of years ago. The main obstacle was
men from their own and neighboring villages,
who were trying to steal wood. In 1999, a
formal FPC was started in Khelgaon and a
man was appointed as chair. Conversations
with members of the women's group in
December 1999 revealed strong resentment
against this formal committee and its chair.
Although their signatures had been taken at an
initial meeting, they were told nothing. The
FPC had received money to trade in tamarind
and urea, but no one except a few oce bearers
knew what was going on. But the womens'
major complaint was that the FPC chair
accepted money on their behalf for allowing
neighboring villages to cut trees, but kept it for
himself. When they tried to stop o€enders, they
would be told that money had already been
paid, and they could do nothing.
Where villagers have been organized enough,
they have been able to resist the imposition of a
formal scheme. For example, in a neighboring
district, the Bharat Jan Andolan has mobilized
villages around their rights to manage their
forests under PESA. An FD proposal to start a
VFC in one such village was rejected on the
grounds that the 30% being o€ered by the FD
was too low, and the JFM rules made no
provision for timber for domestic use.
To summarize, all over this belt, ``tradition-
al'' forest management rested on the recogni-
tion of village boundaries in forests, and the
need to make o€erings to the forest gods for the
use of the forest. In many places, the villagers
trace deforestation to FD felling in coupes.
Apart from (falsely) blaming villages for
deforestation, even within the reversed and so-
 IS DEVOLUTION DEMOCRATIZATION?
called participatory framework of JFM, there
has been no e€ort to institutionalize existing
cultural systems of management. In some cases,
FPCs have been superimposed on existing
community management systems. With the
coming of forest department sanctions and
money, villagers' own contributions have
ceased, as well as the control which ¯owed from
this. Equally problematic is the neglect of
traditional boundaries in approportioning
forest land for protection. In essence what we
see is a destruction of traditional ``social capi-
tal'' by a formal system, moreoever one which
is inadequately participatory.
``Traditional'' systems may not, however,
always be democratic, and successful interven-
tions by governments or NGOs may introduce
or enhance con¯ict by attempting to give
poorer villagers or women representation in
decision-making, thereby challenging the status
quo. The problem here is that while the formal
systems are transforming existing systems, they
are incapable of providing a more democratic
alternative because the impulse for these comes
from structures which are themselves hierar-
chical like the World Bank and the forestry
department.
7. DEVOLUTION IN NTFP
MANAGEMENT
The emphasis on devolution in forest
management has been accompanied by a new
emphasis on NTFPs as against timber. This
makes sense in many ways: ®rst, NTFPs
account for more than half of the income-gen-
erating employment in the forestry sector
(Saigal, Agarwal, & Campbell, 1996, p. 5).
Second, enhancement of prices for NTFP
collection and sale; 21 or the introduction of
new processing and value-adding mechanisms
can sustain local interest in forest management
on an ongoing basis as compared to timber
production which takes a long time. Third,
without villagers' involvement, bringing these
NTFPs into the market would be impossible.
Currently, NTFPs in Madhya Pradesh are
classi®ed into two categoriesÐnationalized
NTFPs (tendu or Diospyros melanoxylon
leaves, hurra fruit and sal seeds) in which
private trade is banned and non-nationalized
NTFPs (all the rest). 22
Non-nationalized produce is bought by
traders (mostly immigrants) from villagers at
local weekly markets and sold at the Jagdalpur
2017
agricultural exchange to traders from Calcutta,
Andhra Pradesh, and elsewhere. Many of the
traders in Bastar came in relatively poor and
have made their fortunes on the NTFP trade,
or trade in illegal mineral smuggling. At the top
of the trader hierarchy are the Marwaris, whose
trading links stretch across India. They have
carved up the market in Bastar among them-
selves. The Marwaris not only purchase NTFPs
and grain in bulk but also import cloth,
precious metals (for jewellery) and ``fancy''
goods such as soaps, cosmetics, etc. They retail
onward to smaller merchants who often barter
their goods for grain and NTFP (Gregory,
1997; Sundar, 1997, p. 253). At the bottom are
the small agents known as kochiyas. The
kochiyas are legally restricted to purchasing
only within the market, but many of them pick
up the produce directly from people's houses
before market day or lease trees from villagers
for a lump sum. On market day itself, some
kochiyas use force to try and get women to sell
to them, or underweigh the produce.
The markup on tamarind may be more than
300%. For instance, in 1995, tamarind was
bought at prices between Rs. 2 and Rs. 4 and
sold on at the agricultural exchange for Rs. 10±
12, or kept in cold storage and sold in October±
November for Rs. 30. Periodic government
attempts to reduce this exploitation through
government purchasing have failed in the face
of local corruption and trader cunning. For
instance, it once gave the Large Multipurpose
Area Societies (LAMPS) responsibility for
purchasing NTFPs. LAMPS are meant to be
farmer co-operatives with an elected president,
and carry out the function of fair price shops,
credit agencies and grain purchasing centres. In
practice, LAMPS tend to be run by the
managers who are paid employees. When
LAMPS began buying, traders raised their
prices, and dropped them as soon as LAMPS
stopped. The LAMPS agents sometimes collu-
ded with the traders by buying NTFP at lower
prices than the listed rates, or claiming to have
no money so that people were forced to go to
the traders. The traders bought cheap from
villagers and resold it to the government at
higher rates. In any case, purchasing NTFP
through LAMPS was not very ecient since the
agents had to choose between selling rations
and buying grain and NTFP (see also Lele &
Rao, 1996). Attempts by other organizations
such as the Communist Party of India to
intervene to raise prices failed because of
inadequate capital.
2018 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
The latest attempt in the series was the Van
Dhan scheme set up by the government in 1999,
which started with purchasing tamarind and
then expanded to other items. This scheme
rested on two important innovations: ®rst,
strictly enforcing the Krishi Upaj Mandi Act,
which forbids traders from buying outside the
weekly market where produce is auctioned. The
PESA clause giving tribals ownership over
NTFPs, while otherwise ignored, was invoked
to set up self-help groups called Van Dhan
Samitis (VDS) consisting of 6±10 people, in
theory selected by the gram panchayat. 23 These
groups no longer had to compete with traders
in an open market. The second important
innovation was ensuring sucient capital, from
TRIFED, an apex-level body of state Tribal
Development Co-operative Federations and
State Forest Corporations, funded by the
Ministry of Tribal Welfare. The VDS
purchased NTFPs from villagers with advances
from TRIFED, and then transported the goods
to a TRIFED godown. In return, the society got
a commission.
The Van Dhan scheme ran successfully for
two years. 24 VDS members earned much more
(Rs. 90±120 per day) than the usual daily wage
(for income estimates, see Bhogal & Shankar,
2000, p. 21). Primary collectors too bene®ted
from higher rates, though few of them managed
to become members of VDS themselves.
Women members were nonexistent except
where there are strong NGO-promoted
women's groups already engaged in trade. The
scheme encountered several other problems
such as government inability to enforce a
complete ban on private traders at the weekly
markets, inadequate fund ¯ow and bureau-
cratic hurdles in actually getting the money
from TRIFED to the VDS, restrictions on what
items could be purchased when, and lack of
¯exibility in prices. 25 While traders adjust their
prices according to the quality o€ered or the
distance over which goods have to be trans-
ported, VDS prices were ®xed to ensure trans-
parency. Primary collectors also su€ered
because VDSs did not attend every market,
especially if quantities coming in were low and
even when they did, selling to one society was
time consuming. Most primary collectors are
dependent on immediate sales at weekly
markets in order to buy essentials such as oil
and salt. The program was also very closely
associated with the Collector who initiated it,
and doubts were raised about its sustainability
after his transfer. More than any of these
problems, however, the collapse of tamarind
prices due to a bumper crop, both domestic and
international in the third year (2001) has dealt a
severe blow to the scheme. Low rates meant
that TRIFED stocks piled up unsold, reducing
both the storage space and money available for
fresh purchases. After TRIFED withdrew from
the market, prices fell as low as Rs. 1 per kg of
tamarind, and traders triumphantly announced
the end of the VDS scheme. Although TRIFED
claims that it has plans to enter the market
again, the scheme will need intensive resusci-
tation in order to survive. 26
8. CONCLUSION: DEVOLUTION,
DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
We now come back to the question of what
the impact of devolution policies has been,
whether other kinds of government interven-
tion might be more useful for good governance
and development, and how devolution interacts
with social capital. The recent attempts at
devolution in Bastar must be seen in the light of
the long history of state appropriation of
forests from communities, ongoing illicit felling
by private capital, and the repression of polit-
ical movements which have sought to stop this.
In places such as Bastar, the state is doubly
alien to ordinary citizensÐnot only is it run in
the interests of the rich and powerful, but the
people ``manning'' the administration at all
levels are largely from outside, originate from
the upper caste, and look down upon the
adivasis as backward and in need of civilization.
Where adivasis have managed to gain some
power and in¯uence, e.g., as MLAs and MPs,
they are dependent on the ®nancial backing of
trading or capitalist interests, and have started
exploiting the adivasis themselves. The state
works eciently when it comes to facilitating
exploitation by the rich, for example, through
its sanction to large development projects or
the speed with which permission is given in
Malik Makbuja cases (see remarks by the
Lokayukt Committee, 1998, pp. 22, 26), but is
slow and bureaucratic when it comes to helping
the poor.
While sympathetic administrators do help
(such as the collectors who ®rst broke the
Malik Makbuja scam and initiated the VDS
scheme) they are unable permanently to trans-
form the basic structure of the state, especially
in its relation to capital. Attempts at devolution
from above often end up being subverted by
 IS DEVOLUTION DEMOCRATIZATION?
entrenched bureaucratic interests. In the forest
case, they are also limited by a legal framework
that was designed to serve the interests of
revenue. Despite the setting up of ``participa-
tory committees'' to manage resources, the
1927 Forest Act designed to keep people out
from the forests and free them up for state
production remains the central motif with
which forest sta€ operate. Even though the
1980 Forest Conservation Act ostensibly ele-
vates conservation over revenue, the basic
control remains centralized, which results in the
contradictory interventions of the Supreme
Court.
The ``participatory committees'' are tightly
controlled by government sta€ and rarely
represent the actual users of the forest. In
setting up committees for forest protection,
there has been no attempt to build upon or to
formalize existing methods and institutions.
Indeed, rather than devolving powers to
manage the forest onto villagers, the govern-
ment has partially appropriated initiative from
the villages by imposing a much more limited
and formal structure through JFM. JFM has
simply been another means to extend forest
department control to new areas, such as the
``orange areas,'' thus taking away the nistar
rights that people had continued to enjoy in
these, even after formal noti®cation as protec-
ted areas.
In the Van Dhan case, despite the e€orts of
the senior administration to break the political
and economic stranglehold of traders, they
were ultimately defeated by market forces such
as the prices of tamarind, and the vested
interests of the lower bureaucracy. While adiv-
asis and traders both have social capital, the
critical di€erence is that the traders also have
®nancial capital and can sustain themselves
through a bad season, while village-level soci-
eties cannot. Given a small tax base, ®scal stress
and pressure from the Bank and other mone-
tary institutions to restructure and reduce
subsidies, state capacity to sustain these groups
is limited. 27 From trying to intervene in the
market on behalf of adivasis, the Chhattisgarh
state is moving to privatize LAMPS and the
purchase of tendu leaves, which was hitherto
nationalized.
The struggle by people's organizations to
unearth the Malik Makbuja illegalities has
perhaps done more to make the state account-
able, as well as preserve the environment in
the long run, than formal devolution policies.
The same factors that were responsible for the
2019
Malik Makbuja scam are also responsible for
the subversion of devolution policies in a
general sense. For example, continued illicit
felling by ocers and merchants in collusion
minimizes the e€ectiveness of village patrolling
under JFM; money made through illegal timber
and mineral exploitation enables the traders to
control electoral outcomes. As yet, however,
there is little public knowledge about the full
implications of the Malik Makbuja scandal and
the organizations which initiated the legal
action have not been able to make it a mass
issue on which to mobilize.
Although the Bank suggests scaling up
local-level ``bridging social capital'' to deliver
projects (World Bank, 1997, 2000), concedes
that projects may ``weaken existing positive
social capital'' and cautions Bank sta€ against
doing harm (World Bank, 1997), in prac-
tice neither the Bank nor state governments
have made attempts at wider consultations
with forest dependent people. ``Stakeholder
consultations,'' are limited to bureaucrats and
``experts.'' Nor have they reacted favorably to
the ``linking social capital'' provided by NGOs
and people's organizations, except where they
are small and uncritical (see GOMP, 2000).
On the contrary, activists of NGOs and
political parties such as the Communist Party
or the People's War Group are being threat-
ened with draconian preventive detention
laws.
Ironically people's organizations across India
which have long struggled for devolution, are
now opposing the formal devolution initiated
by government as illusory. Many of them
oppose Bank funded forestry projects (in
Andhra Pradesh, MP, Uttar Pradesh), on the
grounds that they have displaced people from
national parks, sanctuaries, and ``encroached
land,'' and have succeeded only in generating
resources for the forest department (see, for
example, Joint Mission, 1999). 28 As a
primarily lending organization, the Bank is
ultimately not interested in supporting organi-
zations which argue that the changes that are
needed for e€ective governance or account-
ability do not require money.
More e€ective devolution in terms of greater
control over funding, membership, etc. would
be useful, but is not in itself sucient to ensure
ecient governance or participatory develop-
ment. The latter needs a more basic transfor-
mation in the existing structure of the state,
starting with electoral reform to create a level
playing ground in terms of candidate ®nances
2020 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
and thus ensure better political representation,
and changes in the basic legal structure. These
are things, however, which require widespread
NOTES
1. Provisions of the Panchayat (Extension to Sched-
uled Areas) Act, 1996.
2. Bastar was formerly a kingdom in the Central
Provinces, then merged with Kanker kingdom to form a
district in the state of Madhya Pradesh (MP). It has now
been divided again into three districts, Kanker, Bastar
and Dantewada, as part of the newly formed state of
Chhattisgarh.
3. Population density in divided Bastar district is 87
persons per sq. km compared to the all India average of
324 persons per sq. km (2001 census). Scheduled tribes
comprise 67.35% and scheduled castes 5.85% of the
population of undivided Bastar (1991 census).
4. Participation by those a€ected is also useful as a
means to better decision-making; it trains individuals in
holding positions of responsibility, and a plurality of
power acts as a check on centralization (Black, 1997,
p. 19).
5. The term was initially developed by Bourdieu (1985)
to mean the use of social networks by individuals to gain
access to more economic or cultural capital within a
strati®ed social ®eld. In Coleman's (1988) usage, social
capital became a positive externality or public good
generated by bonds of reciprocity and trust within
families or communities, leading to increased human or
®nancial capital.
6. If con¯icts prevent growth in developing countries,
blame Africans or Asians for their lack of social capital,
their ``ethnic fragmentation'' or ``ancient religious hatr-
eds,'' without looking at how these divisions were
created under colonialism, the role of contemporary
governments, or the e€ect of Bank policies like structural
adjustment on social con¯ict (see World Bank, 2000,
Box 3.2 & Figure 7.4, for an ahistorical, uncontextual-
ized use of such issues). Putnam (1995, p. 68), similarly
blames the declining political engagement in America
not on a government which is increasingly responsive to
the big business which funds election campaigns, but to
declining social capital among citizens (see Foley &
Edwards, 1997, p. 557 for a critique).
7. GOMP (1998) lists approximately 44 di€erent types
of ``people's institutions'' in Madhya Pradesh. MP had
39,078 such societies, of which 1,300 were in Bastar.
internal political mobilization to succeed, and
cannot be mandated by donors or devolved by
governments from above.
8. The separation of Chhattisgarh (including Bastar)
from MP is too recent (November 2000) for new
Chhattisgarh laws to be passed. Most MP laws continue
to apply.
9. In the ``traditional'' system, itself a product of
earlier pre-colonial governments, certain powers were
exercised at the supravillage or pargana level. Under the
devolution provided by PESA, however, these powers,
such as those of customary dispute resolution or
resource management, have been ocially assigned to
the level of village assemblies.
10. In Dewas district of MP, four people were killed in
April 2001, by a government task force intent on
demolishing a local organization, the Adivasi Morcha
Sanghatan, which had been organizing villagers to take
control over the forests.
11. This does not apply to Chhattisgarh, but since the
law is ostensibly aimed at countering Marxist Leninist
guerrillas or ``Naxalites'' and most of them are now in
Chhattisgarh, it is possible that the Chhattisgarh
government will follow with a similar black law. For
two decades now, extra police battalions have been
posted in Bastar to counter Naxalites.
12. See Sundar (1997) on the BJP's demand for a steel
plant in Bastar.
13. Government of CP and Berar, Noti®cation No.
3282 to 3284-2845-IX dt. 17.10.1949.
14. Not all the encroachers are landlessÐit requires
money to bribe the forest department or to pay ®nes or
undergo the time consuming and expensive legal cases
that follow arrest. In Jagdalpur forest circle alone, 32.5
sq. km out of 11,600 sq. km were encroached upon
during 1976±80 (Conservator's Oce, Jagdalpur, 1995).
15. This rule was relaxed during WW II when teak was
particularly in demand (Working Plan South Bastar,
1981, pp. 128±129).
16. Interlocutory Application No. 60 of 1997, ®led by
Hiremath (SPS) and Ekta Parishad, as part of Writ
Petition 202 of 1995 (T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad
vs. Union of India).
 IS DEVOLUTION DEMOCRATIZATION?
17. According to CBI letter, No. 5235/3-2(A)/14(A)/
98/CBI/GPL/99, dated 14.10.1999, FIRs had been
®led against 10 people for o€ences during 1992±96 in
56 villages, including government ocials and politi-
cians.
18. MP Forest Department, Bhopal, January 25, 1995.
19. Forest Secretary, MP Government, personal
communication, November 28, 2000.
20. Some of the names of villages in this paper have
been changed.
21. Rajan (1994, p. 80) estimates that the sale from
NTFP collection comprises on average 34±55% of
household income in MP. NTFPs are crucial supple-
ments to agriculture in terms of consumption too.
22. In 2001, however, purchase of tendu leaves was
handed over to private contractors in Dantewada
district (formerly South Bastar), on an experimental
basis.
23. Only those villagers who have land titles are
allowed to join the VDS, which rules out the most needy.
24. In 1999, 652 samitis were formed, and gained a
commission of Rs. 71.82 lakhs. 7,500 youth were given
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