Boringram Revisited Persistent Power Structure and Agricultural Growth in a Bangladesh

Boringram Revisited: Persistent Power Structure and Agricultural Growth in a Bangladesh Village is a restudy of a village first examined by Kirsten Westergaard in 1975/76. The period between the two studies saw major policy shifts in Bangladesh, with the abandonment of socialist ideology in favor of capitalism, liberalization, privatization, and structural adjustment reforms. The impacts of these reforms were mixed, and for agriculture, the agro-ecological characteristics were crucial. Boringram, located in the Barind Tract in northwestern Bangladesh, is well-suited for irrigation and the high-yielding crop varieties introduced in the early 1980s. The study found that while landownership sizes declined, all sections of the population improved their standard of living—landowners due to increased productivity and the landless due to higher agricultural wages and informal sector employment. Although the pauperisation of the mid-1970s had halted, inequality had increased. With NGO credit and non-agricultural jobs, the poor became less dependent on the landed classes, weakening economic patron-client ties. However, these changes did little to alter the political landscape. Village unity continued to break down, and traditional institutions eroded. Despite a lack of trust in traditional leaders, their leadership went unchallenged, and the local power structure persisted.