Democracy is considered to be of essence in co-operatives as it belongs to all its members. It is the logical outcome of this that many co-operatives hold elections to elect chairman. However it might be counterproductive as elected leaders often put their interest above that of the co-operative. Thus there exists a need to nurture a culture whereby members have the right to scrutinise, question and if necessary intervene vigorously. This would reduce the dependence on the whims of individual leaders making the co-operatives truly democratic and more effective in serving the needs of its members.
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3 comments:
Election is surely one way of democratization of cooperatives. But in large cooperatives is it really possible to scrutinize, question and or intervene vigorously?
Adding to ponit by Ritesh, ours is a democratic country but if we think that a wrong member has got elected by us, can we do anything? or even if we do, will it effect?questioning selected higher officials is possible only in the situations when one is made to feel that he is the servant of the members of the cooperative and not the lord, but that does not happen. The idology towards a post has to be changed where people can feel empowered to ask questions and expect to recieve answers as well
Simply electing leaders without performance evaluation would be actually undemocratic as they would end up enjoying powers sans responsibilities. As given in Prof. Shah's reading, in a lot of successful co-operatives, GBMs were used as forums for scrutinizing, questioning and intervening. Thus even in large settings control over leaders is possible. However for this a culture of scrutiny must be developed from the initial stages so that anyone getting elected realises that intense appraisal of his performance is a natural corollary to his job. Knowing that his fate depends on his ability in satisfying all stakeholders would make him accountable.
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