Politics of the Poor? NGOs and Grass‐roots Political Mobilization in Bangladesh

Given the corrupting influences of the traditional political process in South Asia, Indian political writer Rajni Kothari has proposed doing politics without alignment to any political party. Kothari describes this as the "non-party political process (NPPP)" and as an "attempt to open alternative political spaces outside the usual arenas of party and government though not outside the state" and "as part of a search of new instruments of political action when vacuums in the political space are emerging" (Kothari 1984:219). Kothari offers a constructive space for imagining collective action for social change. His work resonates with the new political processes actually emerging in the work of non-governmental organizations, the NGOs. But although this process opens new possibilities for change, it is beset by its own problems and contradictions, which I will identify in this paper. In Bangladesh, the social mobilization NGO (Proshika Human Development Forum) has occupied the rhetoric of "non-party-politics" and undertaken the organization of the poor (households that live below the Bangladeshi poverty level and own .5 acres of land or less fall into the category of poor) into a "grassroots political mobilization" both at the local and national levels. In the 1990s, Proshika, under the auspices of the largest NGO umbrella organization in Bangladesh, the Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB), organized public demonstrations of its members for the distribution of government land and for a pro-poor budget, successfully sponsored NGO women members in village level elections, and increased the participation of poor women in public rallies. Two decades ago, left parties in Bangladesh would organize such rallies and advocate land reform. At the turn of the twentyfirst century, such events are organized by indigenous NGOs that are funded by Western donors.