Nehru, Albert Mayer, and Origins of Community Projects

of Community Projects Alice Thorner The first community development project, launched in Etowah district of 'Uttar Pradesh in 1948, was essentially the brain-child of cm enthusiastic American, Albert Mayer, whose background was urban rather than rural or agricultural, and whose acquaintance with India was limited. How did Nehru come to entrust so great a responsibility to a man whom he had never met before 1945 and whose qualifications were so slight?, Did Nehru see in Mayer's suggestions for improving the livelihood and the life of the villages as a whole a hope for holding off a brutal challenge to the status quo on the part of the village have-nots? Did he, in those hopeful years, believe that land reform legislation would soon remove the most glaring inequalities and that it "was essential to procure a respite from violent confrontation until these laws could be passed and implemented?