A Pro‐Poor Development Project in Rural Pakistan: An Academic Analysis and a Non‐Intervention

Abstract

The Asian Development Bank is an important source of external development assistance. In the course of a Bank project in rural Sindh (Pakistan), it was revealed at the project identification stage that sharecropping continued to be the basis of the agrarian system and that many of the sharecroppers were kept in a bonded relationship. The material conditions of the majority of the people in the area, despite past development projects, may have deteriorated in the last two decades and, it was suggested, would continue to do so unless the conditions of the sharecroppers were given primary attention. The research commissioned by the Bank revealed that deprivation, indebtedness and bondedness are widespread and co-exist with a tendency among the big landlords to turn part of their land to mechanized farming, thereby further marginalizing and disempowering tenant families. The team commissioned to study the conditions and propose the modalities of a rural development project proposed a bottom-up approach that confronted the sharecropping system headon. The Asian Development Bank has been silent thereafter.

The Bonded Labour System in Nepal

“…The South Asian 'sharecropping' or 'long-term farm labour' practice in subsistence agriculture reportedly dates back to the Moghul empire (circa 1500-1700 AD), extending from the present-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh (Lieten and Breman, 2002). After Britain colonized India in the mid-18th century, the small landholders (or beggar/hari people) in general were benevolently treated, defending them from 'landlords who at the time did not have a direct right over land ownership, but controlled the access of the beggar/hari to land through the sharecropping system' (Lieten and Breman, 2002: 336-7).…”

Preliminary Material

“…Again, these may not be new insights, but the report under discussion reiterates the need to continuously insist on the importance of social relations in rural development (see also Harriss 2007 andMosse 2010). By way of a reminder, Lieten and Breman (2002) have already critically discussed planned interventions by the Asian Development Bank (adb) in rural Sindh. The adb's plans were to address rural poverty mainly through the provision of physical infrastructure: very little attention was paid to haris, and no interventions were planned to address the root causes embedded in social relations.…”