A REASSESSMENT OF ACTION APPROACH

TO C O M M U N I T Y LEADERSHIP‘

Sr AVTAR S I N G H

A4issim)~pi State University, U S A

During the past decade or so a host of leadership studies have appeared using action participation either as a single measure of community leadership or in combination with other methods, namely, reputation, and/or position.2 The findings of such studies, though important, are irreconcilable in that neither can one approach be reduced to another, nor can it be abandoned in favor of the other. Consequently, there is a growing controversy over the adequacy of the methods evolved. The claims and counter claims of the proponents of different methods call for a serious reconsideration of the measures of leadership. This study is an attempt to examine one of the several procedures, i.e., the action approach as applied to data from two small villages located in the north western part of India.3

The thesis central to this research is that since leadership does not exist in a vacuum and must occur in a social setting, the locale and certain dominant characteristics of a given community are bound to have important implications for the local leadership structure. Ac- cordingly, the hypothesis was formulated that if no such influences existed, action approach must measure leadership in “all its dimen- sions” in any village regardless of the demographic, ecological, or other structural variations among the localities. The assumption is implicit that there are more than one dimension of leadership, the ones considered here being position (holding of offices in organizations) and reputation (or recognition of a person as leader by the local residents). Operationally stated it would mean that the leaders identi- fied by the action approach would be the ones who held organizational positions in the village and were recognized as leaders by the local residents.

Without going into the relative merits and demerits of the action procedure, it may be noted that basically this method consists in the examination of the decision-making process and focuses on groups and persons involved in community actions.

4 Avtar Sin&

P R O B L E M A N D R E S E A R C H SITE

Objectives The data presented in this paper have been organized around three major objectives, namely, ( I ) to delineate leaders by using the action method, ( 2 ) to examine the adequacy of the procedure in terms of the reputation of and the offices held by the leaders, and ( 3 ) to relate selected demographic, socio-economic characteristics, and attitude patterns in the two villages to the leadershp structure.

Research Site and Procedures Two polar types of villages, hereafter referred to as Devigarh and Khera, were selected for study out of a total of I 7 I villages comprising the National Extension Service Block 'Chandi',4 which is located in the state of Panjab in Northwest India. As a first step toward the selection of villages, 1 3 Block officials and extension workers were asked to rank all the villages in the Block into five categories of decreasing degree of progressiveness. The categories were scored from one to five to determine the rank of the villages in terms of general development according to the subjective rating by these officials. The mean rank scores for Devigarh and Khera were 1 . 2 and 4 . 3 respectively, the higher score indicating lower level of develop- ment. Before making a final selection, the author also visited the above two villages and many others in the Block and had extensive dis- cussions with knowledgeable villagers.

The two villages were, by and large, similar in size of population, caste structure, and length of exposure to the Community Develop- ment Program which was initiated in this area in 1912. Both villages formed part of the same general culture and were predominantly agricultural with mostly small peasant proprietors cultivating land themselves. However, there were also some important differences which will be presented in detail as the analysis follows. At this point it may be noted that Devigarh was situated along an all-weather road, had many village services, such as a post office, school, co-operative society, etc., and was rated as a relatively developed village. Khera was highly isolated in terms of distance from an all-weather road, had few services available locally, and was judged to be a less-developed village by the Block officials. Thus, the two communities posed a sufficient contrast to make the analysis more meaningful.

A reassessment o f action approach to communit_y leadership

D E L I N E A T I O N O F A C T I O N L E A D E R S

5

Selection o f Actions Following Kaufman (19~9) , a community action was defined as any locality-oriented activity in which ( I ) the principal actors and bene- ficiaries were local residents, (2) the goals represented local interests, and ( 3 ) the action was public as opposed to private. The following criteria were used to select community actions, hereafter referred to as actions: I . The action must pertain to common goals of the community. 2. The action must involve a ‘reasonably large’ proportion of local

population both as participants and beneficiaries. 3 . The action must fall within the time period 1952-1964. 4. The action must serve public interests. Using the above criteria, a rather complete count of all actions that had occurred in the two villages since the inception of the Com- munity Development Program in 1952 was made. Three sources of information used for the purpose were ( I ) key influentials in the respective villages; (2) Block officials and other village level govern- ment functionaries; and (3 ) the official records of village organi- zations. Such informal community activities as religious celebrations, fiestas, festivals, and ‘superstitious’ or magical performances, if these involved a ‘significant’ portion of local population, were also included in the census of actions. This procedure yielded a total of 14 and 7 actions in Devigarh and Khera respectively. Out of these, purely governmental actions, i.e., sponsored and implemented by paid officials through hired workers, were dropped. This eliminated two actions (consolidation of land holdings), one in each village, leaving I 9 actions in the two villages.

Detailed information on actions was gathered through intensive interviews with knowledgeable villagers and extension workers, from records and proceedings of village organizations, and from official reports of the Block officials.

Classification o f Actions In classifying community actions and issues empirical studies have considered such criteria as issue importance, locality relevance of actions, institutional interest areas and the identity of participants, resource application, and goals in relation to the issue areas. In his highly challenging and tightly argued critique of power studies, Clark (I 968) suggests a classification based on composite criteria of “identity

6 Avfar Singh

of the actors”, “functional areas in which decisions are taken” and the “outcome of a decision” relative to the relationship between inputs and outputs of various actors seen along with several operational measures of issue importance. While these are important consider- ations in any meaningful classificatory schema of actions, these draw from a theoretical concern largely at the ‘social’ level. The cultural dimension, if at all, remains implicit. Community actions may indeed center totally around activities directed toward the perpetuation or maintenance of local traditions involving decisions already defined for the actors and for that matter for the whole community. In this study, since the attempt was not to develop an all-inclusive classifi- cation scheme, the actions were simply dichotomized into categories of traditional and developmental activities.

Examination of the I 9 actions noted in the two villages showed that these represented two general types of activities in the local life. First, there were those actions which involved conformity to traditions and were directed consciously or unconsciously towards the maintenance or perpetuation of local beliefs and traditions, e.g., paying homage to the tomb of some ‘Fakir’ (i.e. saint), or celebration of festivals, etc. These were termed as traditional actions. Two types of activities were discovered in this category: ( I ) religious functions, fiestas, and festi- vals comparable to such occasions as Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, etc. among Christians, and ( 2 ) superstitious or magical performances called ‘Toona’ in the native language. These activities admit of superstitious belief in ghosts and ‘spirits’ and possible control over such powers through proper invocation at the instance of a specialist, called ‘Siyana’, in order to accomplish specific goals such as the dispelling of evil spirits or the magical ‘cure’ of human and animal diseases.6

A second major type of community actions was change-oriented activities undertaken to develop, utilize or maintain community resources. These were called developmental actions. An example of this would be the construction of village school building. Table I

shows the distribution of actions in the two villages by category of action.

The table gives evidence that, as compared to Khera, Devigarh had a greater number not only of developmental actions but also of traditional activities. Significantly, all the traditional actions in Devi- garh were of a religious sort while half of those in Khera were of a superstitious nature. The latter village also had less developmental actions. This may be interpreted to mean that superstitious orientation

A reassessment of action approach to community leadership 7 TABLE I : Distribution of uctions in Devigurh and Khera by category of action

Present in village

Devigarh Khera Name & type of action

DEVELOPMENTAL ACTIONS

Pavement of village streets Sewing center for training in tailoring and embroidery Primary school: construction of building Artificial insemination center : animal husbandry Construction of ‘Dharamshala’ (village guest house) Construction of bundh or levee Earthwork on village road Construction of ‘Panchayat Ghar’ (community center especially to locate offices of local village council)

TRADITIONAL ACTIONS

Religious:

Dirvuli (Festival of lights to commemorate return of Lord Rama, prophet of Hindus, after fourteen years of ‘Ranabas’ or exile) Durhebru (Festival commemorating victory of Lord Rama over King Ravana symbolizing the victory of good over evil) Birth+ of Guru Ruvi Duss, a religious sage. (This day is particularly celebrated by low caste people as they claim him to be their prophet) Akhund Putb (Annual community prayer with recital of holy scripture as an expression of man’s gratitude to God) Sbuhid’r Day (Annual celebration to pay homage to martyrs who died in a battle fought locally for a holy cause. Mass prayers and a community dinner mark the occasion)

Superstitious:

Cattle Cburm (A ‘Toona’ or charm performed to ward off epidemics of animals. All local residents observe certain abstinences for three days. A ‘Siyana’ or magic man performs a charm) Vorship of Tombs or Gruves (This is to invoke the evil spirits to use them for accomplishing certain ends)

x

x

X X

X

X

X

X

8 Avtar Sin&

and widespread belief in ‘magical’ solutions to problems in the community tend to adversely affect the developmental activity. Considering the case of Devigarh, where both traditional-religious and developmental actions were more as compared to Khera, the question may be raised as to whether communities having relatively greater traditional activities of a given sort are also ‘well organized’ for and prone to accept developmental actions.6

Analysis of Actions and Identifiation of Leaders A simple method for evaluating the extent of an individual’s partici- pation in actions would be a mere count of actions in which he was involved. Such a procedure, however, would not discriminate as to the differential participation of the actors. Another procedure, and the one followed here, is to analyze actions in terms of analytically significant stages or phases in the action process.

All actions were analyzed in terms of five phases or stages of action in order to determine the leaders’ contribution to the community action process. Traditional actions were treated as a structural variable in the village organization. Schematically, the five phases of action may be presented as follows:

~~ ~~ ~ ~ ~~~~ ~

Phase of Action Specific Tasks

Awareness

Initiation

Decision-Making

Recruitment Implementation

Conception and definition of a local need and spreading of this consciousness. Organization of sponsor which may be an individual, a group, or an organization, local or extra-local. Goal setting, and specific means to Ix ernployecl for real- ization of goals. Resource mobilization and gaining participation. Deployment of means and resources.

Nimericd Swing of Acfions As a first step, each of the ten developmental actions in the two villages was analyzed in terms of 9 major categories and 40 sub-categories specially set up to break down the qualitative, descriptive accounts into analytically relevant action categories. These were then collapsed into the five phases noted above for each action. For each phase of an action in which a person was involved a numerical score of one was

A reassessment of action approach to comrnaninit_y leadership 9 assigned, so that theoretically an individual could receive a maximum score of five in any one action.

In certain actions individual persons were not designated as participants; instead, the local village development council, i.e. the ‘Panchayat’, was mentioned as the participating body. In such in- stances, a score was assigned to the Panchayat according to the scoring procedure followed in the case of individual persons, and the Panchayat was treated as a leader.

An implication of this procedure to be noted is that a person who participated in one phase each of say five actions could receive a smaller score as compared to the one who was involved in all the phases of just two actions. Which one of the two was more involved and made the greater contribution to the action process is an empirical question.’ The scoring method also involved the assumption that all actions were equally salient to the community and that all phases in an action had equal ‘status’.

An individual’s total action participation score, hereinafter called action score, was worked out by simply adding the scores for each of the phases of actions in which he was involved.

Leaders and their Scores Using the procedure noted above, a total number of I 5 and 7 persons were identified in Devigarh and Khera respectively who participated in community actions. O u t of these, only those who had an action score of more than one were treated as leaders identified by the action approach. This eliminated 7 persons in Devigarh and I in Khera from the list. Table z shows the action leaders in the two villages ranked in terms of action scores.

The table shows that in Devigarh not only was the number of actions much higher than in Khera (being four times), but also that the leaders were much more involved in actions. The mean action score for the leaders (Panchayat not included) was three times as much as in Khera. It was even higher when the top five leaders were taken into consideration. Also, 3 out of the 8 leaders in Devigarh had action scores higher than the local Panchayat of that village. This indicates that in the former village some of the individual leaders were much more involved in actions than the formal institutional governmental structures. Contrariwise, in the latter community it was the Panchayat that provided action leadership for the most part.

How did participation in developmental actions relate to involve- ment in traditional actions? This was determined by examining the

I 0 Autar Singb ‘TABLE z : A c f i o n leaders in Detiigarl, and Khcra ranked according to action participation scoreJ

Devigarh Khera

Leader Action identified score

Action score of Panchayat Total number of develop-

mental actions Maximum possible score

for any leader Mean action score: All leaders Top five leaders

A 28 B 26

D I 8

F 6

C 24

E 9

G 3 H 3

2 3

8

4 0

15 21

Leader Action identified score

____

a 7 b 6

5

3

C

d 3

f 3 C

8

2

I 0

5 I

Note: The alphabetical order of the names ( i t . pseudonyms) corresponds to the rank order of the leaders according to action score.

role of action leaders in traditional activities. The data showed that in the developed village of Devigarh, of the 8 action leaders, the 4 with the top action scores (i.e., A, B, C, and D) were involved in the religious category of actions. O n the other hand, in Khera, the less developed village, 4 out of the 6 action leaders (a, c, d and e) were involved in superstitious performances.8 Thus, we may say that communities with certain types of traditional leadership, in this case religious, are likely to have a ‘strong’ action-oriented leadership structure, while those with a superstition-oriented traditional leader- ship structure tend to have 3 relatively ‘weak‘ action leadership. The question may be raised as to what types of traditional community activities are most conducive to the development of strong action leadership.

Association between Action-Participation, Position and Reputation of Leaders It will now be pertinent to examine ( I ) whether the leaders delineated

A reassessment of action approach to commr@y leaderdip I 1

by the action approach were recognized as such by the local residents, and (2) what number and types of organizational positions, if any, such leaders occupied ? A comparison of the two villages in this regard follows.

The relationship between action-participation and the other two indicators of leadership, i.e., position holding and reputation, was determined by the following procedure. Information on the positional Status of leaders was secured from official records of village organi- zations as well as through personal interviews with knowledgeable persons. Data on reputation was based on information obtained from all the household heads (88 in Devigarh and 60 in Iihera) through a questionnaire especially designed for the purpose. The pertinent question on leadership requested each of the 148 household heads to name as many persons as one would whom he considered to be the local leaders. A total number of I 8 persons in Devigarh and 8 in Khera were mentioned as leaders by the local resident^.^ Out of these only those who received three or more reputational or leadership mentions were treated as leaders. In all, there were 7 persons in Devigarh and 6 in Khera who received at least 3 leadership mentions. The total number of mentions received by an individual constituted his recog- nition score for the purposes of this analysis. Information on the positional status and reputation of action leaders was then singled out. This is presented in Table 3 .

r A m E 3 : Porition and recoKnition of action leaders in the two viltales . ~ _ _ ~ _ _ _ _ - _ _ ~ - . - _ _ ~ _ _ _ _ . ~ _ _ _ ~ ~ _ _ . .

Devigarh Khera - ___ Leader No. of offices Recog- Leader No. of offices Recog-

identified held in nition identified held in nition organizations score organizations score

______~ ~ ~- _-- ~ -~__ ~

a I A 6 1 2 3 B 6 88 b 2 3 C 59 3 D 6 3 1 d 0 6 E 4 32 e 0 0

F 2 3 f I 0

G 4 I 0 H 0 0

2 C 0

It is evident from the above table that, in Devigarh, the holding of organizational positions and reputational influence were positively

I 2 Avtar Singb

related with the multiple participation in community actions by the leaders. By and large, the higher the action score of a person, the greater was the number of offices held by him and the higher the recog- nition score. Whether participation in actions is the cause or conse- quence of one’s positional status and reputational influence is an important research question.

As to the kinds of organizational positions held, the data showed that in Devigarh an overwhelmingly large number of action leaders (6 out of 8) held offices in both local government, such as Panchayat, the village Headmen Agency (an appointive hereditary office for collection of land revenue and law and order purposes), and other village organizations. This indicated the coalescing of local govern- ment and voluntary informal structures in the community.

The case of leaders ‘G’ and ‘H’ deserved further attention. Both had equal action-participation score of three. But while ‘G’ held four ofices and had a recognition score of 10, ‘H’ had neither any position nor recognition score. How could this be explained? The datareveal- ed that one of the possible reasons could be that ‘H’ was a Harijan (i.e., a low caste) and the only action in which he participated was the construction of ‘Dharmshala’ or village guest house for Harijans, so that the reason for his participation could well be the group pressure from his fellow Harijans. The specifics of leader ‘G’ lend further credence to this argument. It was discovered that he participated in two actions, namely, “the construction of the primary school” and the “pavement of village streets”. Both actions obviously were of general interest to the community as a whole, and for that matter ‘G’ had a higher recognition score than ‘H’.

In Khera, there was practically n o relationship between action- participation and position-holding. The top action leader ‘a’ held only one position and so did ‘f’ who ranked much lower on action score than ‘a’. Also half of the action leaders did not hold any position at 211. Those, however, who did hold organizational positions (a, c, and f) were members of the local Panchayat, indicating that action leader- ship was largely anchored in governmental positions.

As regards the relationship between action-participation and:repu- tation, Table 3 reflects an equally diffuse picture in this village (i.e. Khera). The fact that the highest recognized action leader ‘d’ received only six (10 per cent) leadership mentions, and the three action leaders a t the top (a, b, and c) were mentioned as so by only three persons in the village, shows that the action leaders were hardly recognized as leaders by the local residents. In other words, there was practically

A reassessment of action approach to communit_y leadership ‘ 3 no relationship between the action-participational rank of a leader and the number of positions held by him or his reputational rank.10

The findings thus far may be summarized with the following generalization. In small, relatively developed, and less isolated villages, the action approach to leadership by and large delineates the leaders who hold many positions and are ‘strongly’ recognized. Furthermore, action leadership in such communities tends to be anchored in both governmental and other organizational positions. On the other hand, in small, isolated, and less developed villages, leaders identified by the action approach may not be recognized as such by the local residents and may not be occupants of organizational positions in particular in voluntary organizations. This would indicate that the ‘reliability’

TABLE 4 : Comparison of villager on selected communi9 characteristics

Name of village

Devigarh Khera - ~-

I. DEMOGRAPHIC A N D ECOLOGICAL

Distance from block headquarters (in miles) Distance from all-weather road (in miles) Total population (1961 census) Literate population (per cent) Female literacy (per cent of female population) Per cent change in literacy during 1951-1961

11. ACTIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS

Number of actions Developmental Traditional : “Religious” “Superstitious” Number of organizations in the village Number of services in village (e.g. school, post office,

Number of outside offices held by local residents etc.)

111. AGRICULTURE

Mean size of farm (in acres) Percentage of applicable agricultural practices adopted Percentage of farmers having contacts with extension

agents

IV. MEAN RANK SCORE (evaluation by Block officials)

I 1

0

447 24 ‘4 ’ 9

n

5

6 0

I 0

3

2 1

51

48

1 . 2

I 4 6

393 7

3 0

2

2

2

2

5

0

21

62 0

4.3

14 Avtar Sit&

of action-participation as a single measure of leadership in such com- munities is open to serious doubt. The type of community studied appears to be of crucial relevance to the adequacy o f the action ap- proach as a methodological procedure.

Leadership Structwe and Communit_y Characteristics We may now examine the differential leadership structure of the two villages in the light of their divergent social settings. The rationale of the varying degree of relationship between action participation and the reputation and position of leaders may be seen in Table 4.

This table reflects significant village differences regarding their socio-economic and demographic characteristics. The two com- munities were more or less equal in size of population and average size of farm, but they differed markedly as to their physical isolation, literacy (particularly among females), number of developmental actions, village organizations, services, contacts with extension agents, and the number of extra-local organizational positions held by the local residents. Devigarh ranked higher than Khera on all the above characteristics. It was only in the case of the adoption of agri- cultural practices that the former village ranked somewhat lower than the latter.” This points to the importance of such community factors for local leadership structure.

The most significant contrast was found in relation to the attitudes and opinions of the local residents toward “development and change”. T h s was determined in terms of the responses of the 148 household heads in the two villages to selected opinion statements specially designed to elicit such attitudes. The results are shown in Table 5 .

’This underscorcs the importance of the general climate of opinion in the local community, for the understanding of the leadership structure. Clearly, the two villages represented contrasting situations with regard to people’s attitude toward development programs and change. While the residents of Devigarh viewed social change favor- ably, evinced confidence in local leadership, and were ‘self-reliant’, the residents of Khera appeared to be less favorable to change and held a sceptical attitude toward local leadership and the development potential of the village. Presumably, the physical isolation of the latter community minimized extra-local contacts and influences, conse- quently enhancing its ties with local traditions. On the other hand, Devigarh with relatively greater outside contacts had a ‘well-defined’, action-oriented leadership structure.

A reassessment of action approach t o communit_r leadership 15

T o gain further insights, the data were explored regarding the socio-economic characteristics of the leaders. It was found that there were no significant differences between the villages regarding their age and education. In Devigarh, the age range of the leaders was 33 to 70 years with a mean of j I . The corresponding figures for Khera were 40 to 67 years with a mean of j 9. In both villages, an overwhclm- ingly large number of leaders was illiterate. Only one leader in each of the two villages had received some formal schooling. Significant was the fact that in Devigarh four out of the eight leaders were Harijans or low caste persons, the top action leader ‘A’ being one of them. This

TABLE 5 : Comparison of villager on attitude toward and responriueness to change and development

Per cent household heads responding favorably

______~_. - _______~ -

Statement Devigarh Khera .__ -

Responrivcness to Cbangc

Education of boys Education of girls Women joining service Merit as basis of leadership

Attitude Toward Local Leadership

Leadership of this community is forward

Leaders are able to reach agreement quickly

Leaders serve relativcs and friends and n o one

looking

on major community issues

cares for a common man

93 81 89

I 0 0

I00

1 ao

0

(N = 60)

4

1

93 Organr ration for Development

This community is well organized for con-

Local groups co-operate for community t i m i n g development I00 0

development I00 I

This community is like a house divided against 0 87 itself

(7 pcr cent had no opinion)

- -___ __.__.__

I In the context of local culture these statements involved four highly sensitive areas of life and were assumed to be indicative of responsiveness to change.

16 Avtur J’ingb

indicates that the leadership structure in this village was represcn- tative of both upper and lower castes so that the various caste groups were involved in community decision-making. In Khera, on the other hand, all the six action leaders were Jats, an upper caste, although the lower castes constituted as much as 5 I per cent of the local population as against only 40 per cent in Devigarh. This reflects dominance by a single upper caste group in the local affairs to the total exclusion of the lower castes, as well as of all other upper castes except the Jats.

The above comparison suggests that, more than age or education, it was the ‘democratic decision-making’ and representativeness of the leadership structure that distinguished Devigarh most markedly from Khera. Interestingly, these findings compare with those of R. Covar (1965) in another developing country, i.e. Philippines.

Implications An important consideration, and the notion that provides orientation to studies of power, is the conceptualization of the term leadership itself, that is the question “What is being measured?” The distinction pertinent here is that between the type of ‘influence’ involved, namely, the institutionalized (position), the actualized (action participation) or the preceived power (reputation). Failure to recognize this dis- tinction appears to be at the root of the recurring controversial themes like “elitism versus pluralism” and “reputational versus participation- al” in the theory and methodology of leadership studies. Researchers using all three procedures as measures of leadership have obviously been attempting to develop a comprehensive composite index of power. Those who use one of the three indices (action, position or reputation) as a sole measure of local influence, unless otherwise specifically indicated, implicitly or explicitly posit the assumption that it (the method employed) automatically measures the type of power indexed by the other measures. While the validity of a procedure should be assessed in terms of what it is intended to measure, any proposition such as the one stated above should be treated as a hypo- thesis t o be tested rather than as an a priori assumption. It has been a serious concern of this study to test such a hypothesis in the case of action procedure by examining systematically the extent to which it is likely to measure ‘adequately’ the influence indexed by thc positional and reputational techniques in polar types of social settings. The structural or situational relativity of the method, as demonstrated by this analysis, warrants rejection of the hypothesis. The findings support

A reassessment of action approach t o communit_y leadership ‘7 the contention that action-participation as a measure of leadership has a different meaning and significance in different types of social settings. The type of community, level of development, local value ethos and climate of opinion appear to be crucial considerations in any meaning- ful analysis of leadership. The ‘adequacy’ of the action approach to leadership depends on where it is being applied.’Z The results, how- ever, must be seen in the light of the relatively small number of leaders and actions involved.

N O T E S

1 This is a revised version of “Action Measure of Leadership: A Study of T w o Indian Villages”, a paper presented at the Rural Sociological Society meeting held in San Frail- cisco, California, August, 1967. It is Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State Uni- versity, Journal Paper No. 32. The writer acknowledges the critical suggestions by Harold F. Kaufman, and help in editing provided by Avtar Kaur and Lucy W. Cole on the initial drafts. * Among these may be noted the works of Raymond E. Wolfinger (1960), Robert A. Dahl (1961), Edward C. Banfield (1961), William V. D’Antonio erC Idoward J . Ehrlich, cds. (1961), and among others a review by Charles M. Bonjean C(r David M. Olson (1966). a Data used in this paper constitute part of a larger research project conducted co-oper- atively by the Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University, (USA), and the Department of Sociology, Panjab University, India. Data were collected by the author during the summer and fall of 1964. Funds for field work and a portion of analysis were supplied by the Agricultural Development Council, New York.

A block comprises Xo to I Z O villages and serves a rural population of about IOO,OOO.

The headquarters of a block are usually in a centrally located town. The name of the block ns also those of villages and leaders appearing in this study are pseudonyms.

In the native language, actions termed here as superstitious are cnllcd Toona, and those classified as religious are called Dharmik Tehwar. For those not familiar with the local culture and terminology, it may be well to remember that toonas and religious activities, both representing traditional behavior, arc antithetical in essence. Strictly speaking local religious beliefs would not admit of a toona. For that matter a person cannot be both a religious priest and a siyana or toona-expert at the same time.

Sociological literature is replete with research work showing an ‘inhcrent’ conflict bc- tween tradition and change. Strictly speaking, this conflict may well be at the cultural level alone. At the social level the same types of interactional networks may he conducive to traditional as well as to developmental activity. Among the many Indian studies sup- porting the notion of conflict between ‘tradition’ and ‘change’ scc Majumdar, D. N. (195 X), Caste and Communication in an Indian Village (Bombay: Asia Publishing I3ouse); and I.ewis, 0. (1968), Village Life in Northern India (Urbana: University of Illinois Press). 7 In a related study, Wilkinson found a positive correlation between the number of actions in which a person was involved and the number of phases of actions in which he partici- pated. Wilkinson, K. P. (1965). A Behavioral Measure of Community Leadership, Ph. D. Dissertation (State College, Mississippi State University : Departmcnt of Sociology & Anthropology).

In the larger study of six Indian villages, of which this analysis constitutes a part, it was

1 8 Avtar Sin& found that in the group of less developed villages, either there was a complete absence of traditional leaders or such leaders were predominantly engaged in actions based on superstitions. See Avtar Singh (1967). Leadership Patterns and Village Structure, Ph. D. Dissertation (State College: Mississippi State University).

In Khera, 30 household heads (jo per cent) did not name any person as a leader while one person mentioned himself as a leader but was not recognized as so by any other person.

In the larger study it was found that in Khera the top reputational leader who received only 17 (28.3 per cent) leadership mentions, did not participate in any community action. See: Villages Upward Bound, (forthcoming book) by the writer with Haro1d.F. Kaufman and others, at Mississippi State University, State College, Mississippi. I 1 According to the findings of the larger study, the higher adoption ratecould be attributed to the following factors: ( I ) agricultural adoption involves largely an individual farmer’s decision; (2) in the interest area of agriculture, reputational leaders were “well recognized” in Khera. Ibid. 1’ The writer arrived at similar results in relation to the reputational method in an earlier study. See Avtar Singh (1966), Reputational Measure of Leadership: A Study of Two Indian Villages (Paper read at the Rural Sociological Society Meeting, Miami Beach, USA).

R E F E R E N C E S

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D’ANTONIO, W. V. & HOWARD, J. EHRLICH eds. (1961). Power and Democracy in

BONJEAN, C. M. & DAVID M. OLSON (1966). Community Leadership: Directions of

KAUFMAN, H. F. (1959). Toward an Interactional Conception of Community. Social

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S U M M A R Y

A R E A S S E S S M E N T O F A C T I O N A P P R O A C H

T O C O M M U N I T Y L E A D E R S H I P

This study is an attempt to assess the adequacy of action participation as a measure of community leadership. The study is based on data from two small villages in Northwest India, similar in size, general culture, and caste structure, but constituting polar types on selected development criteria. Leaders were delineated by using an action approach and ranked according to the action-participation scores assigned each leader for involvement in various phases of action

A reassessment of action approach to commwit_y leadership 19 programs in the two villages. Reputational choices of all the household heads in each of the two villages concerning their respective leaders determined the recognition score. The number of positions held by a leader determined his positional rank. A comparison of the association between these correlates of leadership in the two villages showed a marked relationship between the action participation of leaders, their reputational rank and the number of positions held in one village, and no relationship in the other. The results supported the contention that the adequacy of the action approach as a single measure of leadership depends, to a large degree, upon the type of community studied. The general level of development, physical isolation, local value ethos and climate of opinion of the community appear to be critical con- siderations in the understanding of leadership.

R E S U M B

U N E R ~ ~ V A L U A T I O N D E L ’ A C T I O N A P P R O A C H

C O M M E M E S U R E D U L E A D E R S H I P L O C A L

Cette ttude constitue un essai de rttvaluation de la mesure du leadrr- ship local par la participation. Elk a pour base la situation de deux petits villages du Nord-Ouest de l’Inde, similaires quant a la taille, la culture et la structure de castes, mais reprtsentant, en function de certains critkres, d ~ u x typzs opposts de dtveloppement. Les leaders ont etd d6tzrmini.s en utilisant l’approche d’action et classes en fonc- tion de leur degrt de participation aux diverses phases des program- mes de dtv&ppernent des deux villages. Des choix basks sur la noto- riktt!, effectuts parmi leurs leaders respectifs, par l’ensemble des chefs de famille des deux villages, constituaient la note de chacun d’entre eux en tant que leader reconnu. Le nombre de choix pondtres r e p s par un leader dkterminait son rang.

Une comparaison des corrdlations entre les deux khelles de leader- ship dans les deux villages, niontrkrent, dans l’un des villages, une relation ttroite entre le degrk de participation des leaders et leur degrt de notorittk. Cette relation ttait inexistante dam l’autre. Ces r h l t a t s permettent d’affirmer que l’adtquation de cette seule mtthode comme mesure du leadership dCpend, dans une large mesure, du type de com- munautt ttudii.. Le niveau gdnkral du dkveloppement, l’isolement, les valeurs tthiques locales et l’opinion, paraissent &tre des facteurs dtter- minants de la comprkhension du leadership.

20 Avtar Sin&

Z U S A M M E N F A S S U N G

N E U E U B E R L E G U N G E N V E E R DEN ‘ACTION A P P R O A C H ’

A L S M A S S K O M M U N A L E R P U H R E R S C H A F T

Die vorliegende Studie ist ein Versuch, die Aussagekraft der Teil- nahme an Aktionen als eine Messziffer kommunaler Fuhrerschaft eintuschatzen. Sie basiert auf Daten aus zwei kleinen Dorfern Nord- westindiens, die in Grosse, allgemeiner Kultur und Kastenstruktur ahnlich sind, aber hinsichtlich ausgewahlter Entwicklungsmerkmale polare Typen darstellen. Ortliche Fuhrer wurden mit Hilfe des actiorr approach beschrieben und entsprechend ihrer Teilnahme an verschie- denen Stufen von Aktionsprogrammen in ihren Dorfern eingestuft. Der Anerkennungswert einer Fuhrungsperson wurde aus Reputa- tionswahlen aller Haushaltsvorstande in beiden Dorfern bestimmt. Die Summe der Positionen bestimmte den Platz in der Skala. Ein Vergleich der Assoziation dieser Messziffern der Fuhrerschaft zeigte in einem Dorf eine deutliche Beziehung zwischen Aktionsteilnahme der Fuhrer, ihrem Ansehen und der Zahl ihrer dorflichen Positionen. Im andern Dorf besteht keine Beziehung. Die Ergebnisse stutzten die Behauptung, dass die Aussagekraft des action approach als alleinigen Masstabs der Fuhrerschaft weitgehend vom Typ der untersuchten Gemeinde abhangt. Der allgemeine Entwicklungsstand, die hbge- legenheit, die lokalen Wertvorstellungen und die Meinungsfelder einer Gemeinde scheinen wesentlichen Einfluss auf die Beurteilung der fuhrenden Personlichkeiten zu haben.