People’s Participation in Development: Sikkim in Perspective

The notion of participation and people’s involvement in the development has been gaining momentum in the process of human empowerment and development. Contemporary development scholars have been advocating the inclusion of people’s participation in development projects. Furthermore many development theorists, practitioners and international donor agencies believe that people’s participation is the sine qua non for development. It is in this backdrop, this study defines and discusses the concept of participation in the context of development in general, and in terms of community development through participation specifically. The study describes the application of the concepts in development activities in the state of Sikkim.