Community formation, 'ideal' villages and watershed development in western India

This paper discusses how the vision of an 'ideal village' is used in the construction of feelings of community in a watershed development project in India. What constitutes the notion of idealness and how it emerges in a particular context is determined by a number of factors. The discussion of the working of two aspects of the project - voluntary labour and watershed-plus measures - brings out the usefulness of such a vision in community formation, even though different actors involved in these aspects are also motivated by factors other than idealness. Further, the successful working of these aspects also indirectly re-enforces the notion of idealness, although critical engagement with it is sometimes limited by the focus on community-making.