Democratizing Development in South Asia: Responding to the Challenge of Globalization

The Legacy of Akhter Hameed Khan
Akhter Hameed Khan was an inspiration to my generation. I had the privilege of learning from him when I was a young teacher of economics at Dhaka University in the early 1960s. His model of rural development was then making its impact in Comilla Thana and its headquarters in the Abhoy Ashram in Comilla had already became a place of pilgrimage for those at home and from abroad seeking inspiration for resolving the problems of poverty in an increasingly unequal society. What lent credibility to Akhter Hameed sabib’s endeavours was his own human personality and willingness to realign his career choices to conform to his beliefs. The simplicity of his manner, the austerity of his life style, the wry, self-deprecating humour with which he dealt with people of all classes, age groups and background served as a testament to his commitment and integrity as a human being.

The Comilla model was essentially targeted to the small or subsistence farmer who survived in an unequal relationship with the surplus farmer and therefore needed to be brought together in a cooperative framework to help themselves through access to credit and irrigation. This model did not accommodate the landless who constitute the ranks of the poorest segment of the population. For these groups he designed the rural works programme offering state funded employment in the dry season.

The Comilla model had its limitations because of the scope for capture of the rural cooperatives by the elite which subsequently compromised its replicability across the country. But few questioned the sincerity of Akhter Hameed’s intentions or the value of his immediate efforts in Comilla. The ultimate tribute to Akhter Hameed’s contribution to changing the lives of the less privileged are to be found in the role models he inspired. In Bangladesh people such as Mohammed Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and our most recent Nobel Laureate, targeted the landless groups as the principal beneficiary of collateral free micro-credit. In Pakistan, Shoaib Sultan Khan used the Aga Khan Rural Support Project (AKRSP), to demonstrate that the dispossessed can indeed help themselves through collective action. Both the Grameen as well as AKRSP model built on the Akhter Hameed Khan tradition that the less privileged can help themselves if they aggregate their efforts and minimal resources are made available to them.

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