Abstract
This paper, based on the proceedings of a UNRISD/Lokayan workshop held in New Delhi in December 1982, traces the prevailing sense of drift and uncertainty surrounding the conduct of public affairs, and modes of thinking about them, to the glaring dissonance between high expectations aroused by the dominant ideologies and theories (progress, development, and participation) and the reality of life as faced by a majority of people. While the paper sees all these as closely interrelated, it focuses on the issues of participation, its changing context and multiple paradoxes. It then discusses the dilemmas, possibilities and emerging thresholds of both theoretical concern and practical action. The analysis, though based by and large on the Indian experience, is more widely applicable and is therefore presented in general terms.
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