The world of social sector interventions is changing. Policymakers and researchers are increasingly focusing on people rather than outcomes and are prioritizing the longer-term sustainability of change over short-term results. As we study successful social interventions that have stood the test of time, researchers are starting to realise a common thread between these cases — the salience of local initiative and leadership, and collective action within the target community.
An excellent example of a successful local-led collective action comes from the village of Mendha Lekha (Mendha), located in the densely forested Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. The community’s initiative and collective efforts enabled them in becoming the first village with healthy standing forests to be brought under the Joint Forest Management programme (JFM) by the Government of India, even though this scheme is targeted only towards severely degraded forests. Under JFM, the locals of Mendha were able to harvest forest produce (which the colonial forest laws had prohibited them from extracting) and build their livelihoods on these forest resources. Later, Mendha Lekha attained Community Forest Rights (CFR) over their surrounding forest; thus granting their Gram Sabha the rights and responsibility towards protection, conservation, and sustainable use of these resources. This autonomy has brought significant improvement in the standard of living of the locals as well as the quality of the forest resource.
This village’s success is an effort that started in the 1980s, and has sustained for almost forty years and continues to provide benefits for the locals. However, the success of Mendha Lekha cannot be attributed to any one ‘leader’ as such. While some individuals did play a role in bringing people together, the community’s success is a product of collaboration with local environmental NGOs and the Forest Department.
Although the case of Mendha can easily be dismissed as a unique one, the logic for its success can also be found in Elinor Ostrom’s work on collective action. Ostrom strongly advises against excessive external control by state agencies, developmental organizations, or NGOs as it discourages the development of social norms and in turn, results in an increased probability of defection as the risk of being caught is low. Instead of state-controlled operations, she recommends creating an organizational structure within the community built on below-mentioned design principles that she deems essential for sustained cooperation and interestingly, we see a lot of these ideas reflected in Mendha Lekha’s organizational structure.
According to Ostrom, there should be a clear distinction between members and non-members of the collective organization. This distinction should be based on criteria decided by the group itself as doing so results in the development of greater trust and reciprocity within the community. In Mendha, the Gram Sabha, the collective organization in charge of all conservation and protection activities, comprises all adult members of the village.
Secondly the rules regarding the amount, timing, and technology of harvesting and allocating benefits should be drawn out according to local needs and prevailing conditions. At the same time, the affected parties should be involved in the rulemaking process and creating a sense of fairness. Consistent with these principles, the forest protection rules operative in Mendha Lekha are a mixture of the official resolution stated by the JFM programme and those decided by the villagers.
When it comes to ensuring compliance, Ostrom advises that the monitoring duty should either be assigned on a rotation system amongst the users or by contributing to hiring monitors jointly. Further, she recommends creation of a low cost and easily accessible conflict redressal forum to facilitate speedy redressal as it is crucial in maintaining trust and in turn, facilitating compliance as differences in opinions are bound to crop up over time. The punishments on non-compliance is to be graduated according to the seriousness of the offense and be composed of a mixture of monetary fines as well as social pressure instruments.
Mendha’s Gram Sabha not only makes its decisions on a consensus basis after discussion amongst the members, but also ensures participation of the members in their development activities by creating a micro economy of their own. Every resident contributes to village development through their time and labor as it is seen as a collective responsibility. Instead of relying on external funds, every member contributes 10% of their income to the Gram Kosh (village fund), from the employment generated through Gram Sabha’s resource management activities such as conservation efforts, monitoring, and harvesting. This fund also includes donations and leftover funds from development projects. It is used to issue interest-free loans to the villagers, thus eliminating their dependency on external money lenders. A grain bank has also been set up to ensure food security for the village in case of crop failure, by loaning grains to affected families that can be repaid along with interest when the harvests are good. The Mendha Gram Sabha, which overlooks conflict resolution activities as well, observed that sole reliance on monetary penalties failed to make much impact. It’s current sanctioning mechanism capitalizes on the community’s pre-existing social and cultural norms by employing peer pressure such as creating family shame and ostracization to reprimand non-compliers.
Additionally, Ostrom encourages collaboration and an approach of mutual respect between the state agencies and the locals by recommending that the external authorities respect the local’s social norms and pre-existing informal structures. By assuming joint responsibility, the locals of Mendha Lekha have become mediators between government departments and NGOs, facilitating efficient resource allocation and execution of regional development plans. This lessens the forest department’s burden of selecting and maintaining a staff that is sensitive to the local needs while also generating livelihood opportunities for the economically underprivileged locals who assume these responsibilities.
Mendha Lekha’s success has inspired other communities to take responsibility for their local resources too. They have used Mendha’s model as a blueprint to organize themselves, with some minor tweaks, to match their local context.
This case study, based at the intersection of Elinor Ostrom’s work and Mendha’s development model, suggests that the ideal model for community action is neither a state-controlled operation nor a laissez faire approach. It lies somewhere in between, with state interventions nudging the community towards harmonizing their activities for the collective while maintaining the locals’ autonomy in the process.
Pranjal Tipnis
