The Arkleton Lecture, 2001

Baburao launched his lecture with a quote from Ela R Bhatt:- "Democracy and development require active and informed participation at the grassroots."

He proceeded to comment on the great rise of NGOs in India since the 1980s and questioned the lack of systematic studies of this phenomenon:

• How have NGOs become such an important part of civil society?
• What is the socio-economic background of the activists associated with NGOs?
• What is the dynamic and the process of decision making within them?
• What are the linkages between state agencies, NGOs and 'civil society'?
• Whenever a case is perceived as successful there is an attempt to replicate it elsewhere. We must find out if replicas succeed as much as the original case.
• We should enquire how adequate NGOs are when they attempt to substitute for the state. Can NGOs take on tasks that, in order to make any kind of dent in terms of social problems, must be conceived on a nation-wide or state-wide scale?
• The issue of accountability is also raised by the dependence of NGOs on external sources of funding.
• The belief that NGOs represent the view of vulnerable social groups, or are sympathetic and empathetic towards them, a belief that has been used to justify the greater reliance on NGOs for development, needs closer scrutiny.

Professor Baviskar was born the son of a small farmer in the State of Maharashtra. He was Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics until his retirement after 32 years. He has held visiting positions at the University of Sussex (IDS), McGill University, and the American University in Cairo. He has taken a special interest in Rural Development Co-operatives and Farmers Organisations. Currently he is President of the Indian Sociological Association. In 1980 and 1982 he was a member of a group of 'third world' experts who came, at the invitation of the Arkleton Trust, to visit rural areas in the UK, and advise on their development problems. He has been a member of the Trust's International Advisory Committee since the early 1980's.

The lecture was published by the Trust in December 2001 and is available by mail order: