Based on a primary field survey and secondary sources of information, this study analyzes the West Bengal experience of participatory rural transformation in relation to the changing class structure in a differentiated rural economy, the rise in class-consciousness among the rural poor and the participation of different classes in the political process of decision-making. Utsa Patnaik's (1987) labour exploitation criterion is used in order to rank rural households in class terms, alongside the standard acreage groupings. This study strongly refutes the neo-liberal (World Bank) idea of social capital and civil society as sources of ‘people's participation’. It is argued that ‘people's participation’ is a meaningless concept, since the ‘people’ as a category includes different classes with conflicting interests. Though subordinate classes in West Bengal have achieved a higher level of class consciousness than in the past, and have resisted extra economic coercion, and while their political participation has risen, their involvement at the grass roots level of administrative decision-making is very weak. Panchayat Raj has so far failed to initiate a second phase of institutional reform in West Bengal, encompassing education, gender justice and above all the co-operative movement. This partial failure is the outcome of short-term electoral benefit being given priority over and so undermining class struggle.
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