Cultural Variables are imperative to assess Development

In continuation with the lectures on development communication delivered by Prof. K. V. Nagaraj, the third lecture by him began with the discussion on dominant paradigm. He said dominant paradigm is criticized, as it does not take into consideration many of the cultural variables, while gauging development. The western perspectives do not take into account the realities/ specificities of other cultures. This hegemonic attitude of the western paradigms makes them inappropriate for developing countries. The instance of Andre Gunder Frank questioning the hegemonic attitude and being chased away to Chile was cited by Prof. Nagaraj. Sameer Ameen and many others, who contested the hegemonic stance of the Western concepts of development.

As far as the economic development is concerned, there is a huge gap between the developing and developed countries. But media does not portray this economic divide. They highlight only the fascinating facts and do not concentrate on development.

The western model of development is a Mechanistic model of development, where everything is injected on to the people and people are generally passive in the process of development.  Hence, to actualize real development, an organic model of development is required. Socio-economic factors are no doubt, an essential component of development. However, the quality of life is not an easily quantifiable phenomenon. Happiness and material comforts cannot be equated with each other. Despite the fact that western scholars have identified certain variables like education, health, nutrition, employment and others to describe the quality of life, the eastern civilization and cultures cannot be studied on those scales. In continuation with this, various instances of development in the rural areas of India without the support of the government were discussed.

Then the discussion gradually moved to corruption, and he stated that corruption has become institutionalized now-a-days. The developmental process is designed by the corporate. He spoke about the partial success of endeavors like ‘Radio Rice’ and others and stated how development strategies are prepared which are not successful. Bureaucrats, Politicians, Panchayat Leaders and others share the money allotted for developmental projects. Many development projects remain on paper.  Gandhiji’s model of development ‘Swaraj’, is one of the finest models of development and he claimed that villages should produce for themselves and be self sufficient. Today villages are produce to gratify the needs of urban India. Villages are being exploited. Gandhi was not against machines. He wanted machines that do not affect the employment of man. Perhaps, Gandhian philosophy was suitable for his time. It did not foresee the technological developments of the future.

Communitarian thinkers like Majid Tehranian and others say that development does not mean economic development alone. They have opposed the imposition of Western value system in the name of modernization. It is against the preservation of native cultures of the developing countries. Development is cultural, social and political development. Development is not simply producing and consuming. If social and cultural aspects are not taken into consideration, development is meaningless and cannot be assessed. 

Report prepared by Dr. K.S. Krithika on the first session, October 25, 2017 on Refresher Course on Communication for Development organised by Department of Communication and Journalism and UGC-HRDC, Gauhati University with support from UNICEF, Assam