Laypersons perspective

People have their existential problems and every day concerns. They can articulate and analyze their concerns better. If they have knowledge and resources they can solve their problems in much better way that the government. Robert Chamber’s famous participatory approach to development is based on this assumption. Yet, they would not be interested in big pictures. They are not interested in macro level problems; they are more interested in living and solving day to day problems of life. They have no access to power, wealth and knowledge. It is expected that in democracy their voice will be represented by their political representatives but in a society like India which is complex and divided horizontally and vertically, and in which political representatives are constantly looking for new mantras to attract people to their fold it is doubtful whether real problems and concerns of people get articulated.

There is one more problem. People cannot always analyze their situation in terms favorable to their interests. Like social scientists they too need a conceptual apparatus. The dynamic conceptual apparatuses they use are neither natural to them nor in the best interest of them. Conceptual apparatuses have their own history and mobility and people just get them from the social environment. This means that they can ask for solutions which are actually hostile to their interests. The concept of colonized mind expresses this idea quite well. In Civilization and Modernization Ali Shariati (u.d.) refers to similar condition of mind in which people belonging to one culture start evaluating their problems from the perspective of the others.

Gandhi understood this well and, therefore, along with political and socio-economic struggle of Indian people he also wanted them to be awakened to the danger of adopting Western civilization in toto after getting freedom from the British rule.