In the village where I went, illegal liquor brewing was rampant and was often used as an income generating activity by the tribal youth. A leader emerged from our particular hamlet, under whose guidance it became the number one liquor manufacturing hub in the Panchayat. He was able to :
1. Increase the income of many tribals.
2. Increase his own income.
3. Climb up the political ladder by getting recognized by a party for his leadership.
So, what we see here is a mixture of nest feathering, political ladder climbing and perhaps a genuine interest in improving the lives of others.
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7 comments:
Seeing the impact of collective action, the traits of leaders are identified.
In doing so will we see direct benefits or indirect benefits or the both as result of collective action?
In the above case the increase in income of the tribal’s can be direct or indirect benefit. Will that reflect that the leader had genuine interest to improve the life of others.
Did it really improve the lives?
I doubt that .
The question here is that was this a cooperative at all. From the story, it comes across as more of an economic enterprise being run by the 'leader', where teh villagers are employed to work. Here it would be wrong to judge the income generated by their salaries as a collective benefit, as it is the leader who is cornering away majority of the benefits and not everyone.
rajat, 30029
Rajat, the above mentioned enterprise was not on an employer-worker basis. Everyone involved made profits from the liquor sales and was not at all in the form of salaries. The leader just mobilized the youth in the hamlet to scale up their manufacture and sales of liquor.The resulting economies of scale also brought in profits for the leader along with the others.
This is definitely the case of many leaders where even a detailed psychological analysis of the person may not be able to identify the true reasons behind his/her leadership. It is also possible that self interest and social commitment can co-exist in the same leader. The only question is " to which aspect does he give more priority?"
As far as I have learnt about the tribal villages from my friends, I felt that consuming liquor in these areas is important especially after the hard day's labor and scarce food and other resources.
The leader who emerged need some incentive to continue with the work. It does benefit him, but it benefits others also. I would not consider such a leader in the category of leaders to be avoided. Instead, I feel such leaders are imperative for development of those backward regions.
Compare this leader with a corporate body, who makes merry for self as well all shareholders!
Talking about the classification of leaders to be avoided,I saw a similar situation in my village where the leader of the collective action used it to build his own political career albeit indirectly.I believe there is more than meets the eye in every collective action and there lies our challenge....to see what is not seen...it is not that these leaders should be avoided or not...are they beneficial or not...that can be answered only when members of the collective action can see the larger picture...and if not then who will tell them????
This illegal liqour brewing in tribal villages can be considered as an example of collective action. The leader takes initative of mobilising people for this work.
This adds and improve their economic condition.In case of settlement with legal authorities all bears the cost. And for eventuality like raids and searches they have collective mechanism of information dissemination so that they can escape from authorities and hide the things.....
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