[wsfii-discuss] the cooperative way for India?

Thu Jul 6 12:09:10 UTC 2006

Quoting Balaji G <balaji_g1947 at yahoo.com>:

> What should these mechanisms be ? I have my doubts on the scaling of
> community based approaches, but one must develop the area further, as well
> as explore other mechanisms.  Hope is in strenghtening the energies of
> communities as against burdening them with another development task, which
> is easier done by Government and moneyed industry. 

Community based approaches, on the contrary, are probably the most powerful in
terms of scaling. Half the reason that mobile networks in rural areas are so
pathetic as that no urban executive wants to go spend months in the boondocks
wrangling with ticklish local issues of electricity, workers, spares, drinking
water, food etc. 

That critical problem is erased when the work is community-driven. But
unfortunately, decades (centuries) of autocratic rule has damped down the
desire of most rural Indian groups to do things for themselves, which is why
the most genuinely successful ICT projects are in places where a significant
amount of preparatory work has been done, sometimes for years. 

Depressing, perhaps, but no reason to lose hope or abandon this country's fate
solely to 'big' governments and (essentially greedy) private businesses to come
to the rescue. 

Vickram