Rural Development in Bangladesh and Pakistan

398 Pages·1976·85.835 MB·English

by  Hamza Alavi (editor), Robert D. Stevens (editor), Peter Bertocci (editor)

RURAL
DEVELOPMENT
IN BANGLADESH
AND PAKISTAN
Jt THE EAST-WEST CENTER—formally known as "The
Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and
West"—was established in Hawaii by the United States Congress
in 1960. As a national educational institution in cooperation with
the University of Hawaii, the Center has the mandated goal "to
promote better relations and understanding between the United
States and the nations of Asia and the Pacific through cooperative
study, training, and research."
Each year about 2,000 men and women from the United States
and some 40 countries and territories of Asia and the Pacific area
work and study together with a multinational East-West Center
staff in wide-ranging programs dealing with problems of mutual
East-West concern. Participants are supported by federal scholar-
ships and grants, supplemented in some fields by contributions
from Asian/Pacific governments and private foundations.
Center programs are conducted by the East-West Communica-
tion Institute, the East-West Culture Learning Institute, the
East-West Food Institute, the East-West Population Institute, and
the East-West Technology and Development Institute. Open
Grants are awarded to provide scope for educational and research
innovation, including a program in humanities and the arts.
East-West Center Books are published by The University
Press of Hawaii to further the Center's aims and programs.
RURAL
DEVELOPMENT
IN BANGLADESH
AND PAKISTAN
Edited by
Robert D. Stevens
Hamza Alavi
Peter J. Bertocci
X AN EAST-WEST CENTER BOOK
The University Press of Hawaii
Honolulu
Copyright © 1976 by The University Press of Hawaii
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-
copying and recording, or by an information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Penny L. Faron
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Rural development in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Revised papers presented at a Research Workshop on
Rural Development in Pakistan, held at Michigan State
University, June 21-July 28, 1971, under the
sponsorship of the Asian Studies Center.
"An East-West Center book."
Includes bibliographies and index.
1. Bangladesh—Rural conditions—Congresses.
2. Pakistan—Rural conditions—Congresses.
I. Stevens, Robert Dale, 1927- II. Alavi,
Hamza, 1921- III. Bertocci, Peter ].
IV. Research Workshop on Rural Development in
Pakistan, Michigan State University, 1971.
HN690.6.A8R87 309.2'63'095491 75-17807
ISBN 0-8248-0332-9
CONTENTS
Preface vu
PART I. RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN BANGLADESH
1. Rural Development in Bangladesh: An Introduction 3
Peter J. Bertocci
2. Stability and Change in Landholding and Revenue
Systems in Bengal 9
Philip B. Calkins
3. The Administration of Rural Reform: Structural
Constraints and Political Dilemmas 29
Elliot L. Tepper
4. East Pakistan's Agricultural Planning and Development,
1955-1969: Its Legacy for Bangladesh 60
Charles M. Elkinton
5. Comilla Rural Development Programs to 1971 95
Robert D. Stevens
6. Introduction and Use of Improved Rice Varieties:
Who Benefits? 129
LeVern Faidley and Merle L. Esmay
7. Experience with Low-Cost Tubewell Irrigation 146
Khondaker Azharul Haq
8. Social Organization and Agricultural Development
in Bangladesh 157
Peter ]. Bertocci
PART II. RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN
9. Themes in Economic Growth and Social Change in
Rural Pakistan: An Introduction 187
Robert D. Stevens
10. The Historical Context of Pakistan's Rural Economy 198
Harry M. Raulet
vi Contents
11. Rural Self-Government in Pakistan: An Experiment in
Political Development through Bureaucracy 214
Muneer Ahmad
12. Agricultural Growth and Planning in the 1960s 232
Parvez Hasan
13. Relationships between Technology, Prices, and
Income Distribution in Pakistan's Agriculture:
Some Observations on the Green Revolution 242
Carl H. Gotsch
14. The Adoption and Effects of High-Yielding Wheats
on Unirrigated Subsistence Holdings in Pakistan 270
Refugio I. Rochin
15. The Development of Pakistan's Agriculture: An
Interdisciplinary Explanation 290
Shahid Javed Burki
16. The Rural Elite and Agricultural Development
in Pakistan 317
Hamza Alavi
17. The Green Revolution and Future Developments of
Pakistan's Agriculture 354
Carl H. Gotsch
Glossary 383
Index 389
PREFACE
Rural development experiences in Bangladesh and Pakistan
provide a major opportunity to examine the evolving interrelation-
ships between technical, economic, political, and social change.
Over the last quarter of a century, these experiences have occurred
in the context of a series of national development plans and the
onset of the "green revolution."* These rural development efforts
have had mixed results. In recent years Pakistan's Punjab has
broken international agricultural records through very rapid rates
of growth in wheat production. However, current social and politi-
cal trends in rural areas of Pakistan suggest considerable uncer-
tainty about future agricultural development and increased rural
conflict. To the east, the continuing touch-and-go struggle of the
Bengali people to increase rural welfare raises grave questions
about national economy viability in agriculture and reasonable
political stability.
These papers provide the first in-depth study of the problems
and processes of rural development, up to 1972, in the two regions
of the former nation of Pakistan. The analyses are set against the
backdrop of historical change and the emergent social and political
structures. They are undertaken in widely varying resource con-
texts, from the irrigated and unirrigated regions of low rainfall and
relatively low population density in Pakistan to the monsoon ag-
ricultural regions of high rainfall and exceedingly high population
density in Bangladesh. They include details of significant
technological developments behind the green revolution in South
Asia. The papers aid the student of development to gain insight into
how different sets of strategies are rooted in, and interact with,
* The term "green revolution" refers to the recent large-scale development of
high-yielding varieties of wheat, rice, and other grains, whose introduction into
developing countries has greatly increased crop yields and food production.
viii Preface
historical, but changing, social structures. Attention is focused on
evaluating the results of successful strategies as well as on under-
standing unintended outcomes. In doing so, these papers provide
essential knowledge of the lessons of past economic developments
at a critical turning point in South Asian history. In accomplishing
these tasks they point to major rural development issues of the
1970s in these two large Asian nations and provide guidelines for
future planning.
Fundamental questions of economic and cultural change are
explored in these two important agricultural regions of the subcon-
tinent, which have shared a common colonial history and until
recently the same administrative and political structures. The
questions taken up in these studies include the extent to which
social structures are flexible and responsive to technical and
economic changes, alternative roles for the civil bureaucracy in
rural development, the extent of the impact of government policies
and planning on rural development, the unexpected social effects
of private and governmental agricultural development achieve-
ments, the extent to which rural income disparities are increasing,
and the impact of original experiments in institutional change on
government programs.
Three general themes emerge: of agricultural stagnation and
geographically limited spurts of growth in each nation; of the need
for political and administrative change to accompany social,
economic, and technological developments; and of the importance
of the interrelationships between social structures and the distribu-
tion of the benefits of technical and economic progress in rural
areas.
Most of the authors represented in this volume were active
participants in rural development programs in these nations in the
1960s. They have sought to analyze past developments, both as a
guide to future rural strategy in these nations and for the lessons
these experiences may provide for other developing nations. De-
spite notable successes, uncertainty is so great about the future
directions of these large rural areas of South Asia that questions
keep arising as to whether these national and rural social systems
will be able to change themselves rapidly enough in an evolution-
Preface ix
ary manner, or whether economic and political events will occur so
rapidly that revolutionary change will ensue.
The following political events provide a time frame for the
analyses that follow. In August 1947, Pakistan attained indepen-
dence from Britain as a result of the partition of the subcontinent
with India. The new nation led by Governor General Mohammed
Ali Jinnah comprised the predominantly Muslim areas in Bengal
(East Pakistan) and all or parts of five regions in the northwestern
area of the subcontinent, the Punjab, North-West Frontier Pro-
vince, Kashmir, the Sind, and Baluchistan (West Pakistan). A dec-
ade later, in October 1958, after a series of short-lived governments,
the army in a bloodless coup installed General Ayub Khan as
president of Pakistan. Ayub Khan ruled for ten years until he
resigned under pressure in March 1969. General Yahya Khan,
commander-in-chief of the army, then became president and pre-
sided over elections in December 1970 that gave a sweeping vic-
tory to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League in East Pakistan
and a decisive victory to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Peoples' Party in
West Pakistan. A few months later, on March 26,1971, as the result
of a constitutional crisis over the powers of the central and provin-
cial governments and a mass attack launched by the Pakistan Army
upon the Awami League, students, faculty, Hindus, and others in
East Pakistan, an independent Bangladesh was declared. Warfare
ensued between the Pakistan Army and the Mukhti Bahini gueril-
las. On December 3, 1971, the Indian government ordered her
troops to advance on Dacca, and on December 16, the Pakistan
Army in East Pakistan surrendered. Pakistan's disastrous losses led
to Bhutto's being sworn in as president of what remained of Pakis-
tan (West Pakistan). On January 10,1972, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
returned in triumph to Dacca to become the first prime minister of
the nation of Bangladesh.
Four major needs led to this volume and the preceding re-
search workshop, which refined the analyses. The first was the
often-noted relative dearth of scholarship available on Bangladesh
and Pakistan, particularly as compared with material on the more
accessible and popular areas of the subcontinent, such as India. A
few studies are available on the general economic and political
x Preface
development of Bangladesh and Pakistan, but relatively little
scholarly work treats rural development.
The second need was for more analysis of rural social and
economic change, in view of the dominance of rural people and of
agricultural production in national economic life. In 1965, more
than 57 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of East
Pakistan originated in agriculture. In West Pakistan where other
economic activities had grown more rapidly, agriculture remained
in 1965 by far the most important industry, originating more than 35
percent of the GDP. All manufacturing industries together origi-
nated less than 13 percent of West Pakistan's GDP in 1965.
The importance of rural areas in these nations is shown also by
the proportion of population residing in them. The rural popula-
tion, which depends directly or indirectly almost entirely on ag-
ricultural and associated rural economic activities, was estimated
for both "wings" of Pakistan at 85 percent of the total population in
1965.
The term "rural development" is used in this volume to en-
compass the whole range of technical, economic, political, and
social changes related to private and governmental efforts to in-
crease the well-being of rural citizens. As agriculture is the domin-
ant economic activity in rural areas, a large share of the scholarly
work properly has focused on this sector, a distribution reflected in
this volume. Other fields of rural development include the whole
range of the technical and social sciences, especially such fields as
water technology, administration and government, political de-
velopment, and community social and cultural change.
The third need was professional: to integrate the research
results of different disciplines into a reasonably consistent under-
standing of significant trends in rural development. As rural de-
velopment involves many interrelated economic and cultural
changes, the strengths of different professional tools and ap-
proaches can provide a more general analysis upon which we may
have greater confidence. The workshop was a first attempt to as-
semble a group of scholars representing an appropriate range of
social science disciplines to focus on problems of rural develop-
ment in Pakistan. The authors in this volume, although they some-
times come to different conclusions on major issues, are, to an