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Only in very few states like Kerala, the planning begins from neighbourhood groups, reaching the districts and state planning board, in a scientific way.
Independence must begin at the bottom. Thus, every village will be a republic or a panchayat having full powers. It follows, therefore, that every village has to be self-sustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of defending itself against the whole world.”
Till date, there have been no takers for Mahatma Gandhi’s sagely advice. Even in the Constitution it was not incorporated when it was adopted on November 26, 1949. In spite of strong arguments by leaders like Damodar Swarup Seth, H.V. Kamath, K. Santhanam, N.G. Ranga, and above all, Gandhiji’s intellectual and emotional insistence, the panchayats could find place only in the directive principles of state policy in article 40, thus sidelining the idea of power to the people.
Then it took 44 years for the panchayats to become ‘institutions of self-governance’ in part IX of the Constitution along with municipalities in Part IXA in 1993. Soon it will be 25 years after the much needed Constitution amendment became a reality—with great expectations. Where are we today? Have panchayats and municipalities brought any meaning and strength to democracy?
Let me put down a few issues from my personal experience.
While inaugurating the first panchayat in Nagaur on October 2, 1959, Jawaharlal Nehru said: “We are going to lay the foundations of democracy or panchayati raj in our country.... It is a historic event. It is fitting that the programme of panchayati raj should be inaugurated on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday.... The progress of our country is bound up with the progress in our villages.... Therefore, we decided that in every village there should be a village panchayat with more powers... which will help its economic effort.… In our panchayats also everyone should be considered equal; there should be no distinction between man and woman, high and low.”
On the occasion, President Rajendra Prasad had sent the following message: “This is the first occasion that any constituent state in the Indian Union has thought of trying decentralisation on such a large scale.”
Then, after a week, Nehru went to Shadnagar near Hyderabad to inaugurate another panchayat in south India.
After 36 years in 1995, I went to these two panchayats to understand the progress and development of the local governments. In Nagaur, everyone lamented the failure of panchayati raj. Young men were worried that there was no local body to voice the anguish of the people. There were no roads. Nagaur had no water to drink. People drank water from small ponds. Water in Nagaur had excess fluoride content and guinea worms.
The story was similar in Shadnagar. According to an old guard, the reason for the failure of panchayati raj was that the officials worked against giving power to the non-officials and especially the people’s representatives from the villages. In this they were hand in glove with state-level politicians.
In other words, top down interventions are killing the local governments. There are some states where the quest for democracy is growing. Take the case of Jammu & Kashmir. During the last panchayat elections in April 2011, I spent several days in the distant villages. The average voter turnout was above 80 per cent. It was because local democracy was their hope for the future.
In the Dara Harwan village in Srinagar, on the day of the panchayat election, more than 50 per cent of the voters had cast their votes in the first two hours. Men, women, youth and children were on the road in a festive mood. The local government elections create a bond between the communities. On the express way to Gulmarg in the Tangmarg tehsil, Asha Jee, a Pandit woman, defeated Suriya, a Muslim candidate underlining the harmony existing in Kashmir between communities during the panchayat elections.
If this is the case in Kashmir, other states are not far behind. There may be big fights and tension during elections but, for the ordinary people of India, panchayat elections are the best instruments to deepen democracy. How it has worked in Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh since 1980s is a case in point. In May 1993, when the panchayat elections were being held in West Bengal, I led a six-member delegation from the department of basic level government, ministry of civil affairs, People’s Republic of China, to observe the elections. They were thrilled. They observed the election campaign, interacted with a cross section of people, panchayat functionaries, leaders of different political parties, voters, candidates, including women, and election officials in Midnapore, Burdwan and Parganas districts. Then they called on the Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and shared their exciting experience.
After the 73rd and 74th amendments many states wanted to postpone panchayat elections. The judiciary came out strongly against this negative trend. The judgment by the five-judge Constitution bench headed by chief justice Y.K. Sabharwal (2006) directed that panchayat and municipal elections must be held within the stipulated timeframe.
Thus, two fundamental changes have come about in Indian democratic polity: (i) the democratic base of the Indian polity has widened, and (ii) it has brought significant changes in India’s federalism making it a multi-level federation with democratically elected local governments at the district and below.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on April 27, 2001 wrote to the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu: “You would recall that with the passage of the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act 1992 incorporated as Part IX of the Constitution, constitutional status has been provided to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). Consequent on the Amendment, Panchayats have been visualised as the third tier of the governance in the federal polity…. It is a matter of concern, therefore, that in several States and Union Territories the mandatory provisions of the Constitution have not been complied with.”
Since this letter was written, the BJP-led government was in power for three years followed by the Congress-led UPA government for 10 years. Then the BJP has returned to power with a thumping majority.
During all these years, 2004-2009 was an exceptional period when for the first time a ministry of panchayati raj was created and all the basic issues were brought to the centre stage. But forces against panchayats became active and that phase was brought down.
In the 2014 Parliamentary election manifesto the BJP has stated that it will work to ensure participatory democracy and not just representative democracy. It says, “A highly decentralized federal structure is… crucial in meeting the varied ideas and aspirations of our diverse people. BJP is committed to strengthen self-governance at the local level and we will empower Panchayati Raj Institutions with extensive devolution of the 3 Fs—Functions, Functionaries and Funds.” It went on to commit that panchayats performing well will be rewarded with additional developmental grants and that it will strengthen gram sabhas by “respecting” their inputs and development initiatives.
It was indeed encouraging that President of India Pranab Mukherjee, on June 9, 2014, in his first address to Parliament, after the NDA government came to power, said, “My government is committed to improving the quality of life in our villages, through empowered Panchayati Raj institutions. A substantial part of investment will focus on creating community assets and improving basic infrastructure such as roads, shelter, power and drinking water. My government will strive to end the rural-urban divide guided by the idea of Rurban; providing urban amenities to rural areas while preserving the ethos of the villages.”
Today, the local governments have been reduced to a statist level. There is no initiative to go forward by giving more powers to the local governments. Do we have an empowered local government with 29 subjects devolved to panchayats and 18 subjects to municipalities? Out of 23,900 village panchayts, how many panchayats have panchayat bhavans with modern facilities? Is there best investment for capacity building of the elected panchayat representatives? Even today for their local problems, the villagers have to go to their MLAs, MPs or officials from gram sevaks to the block development officers and collectors. It is easy to say that we have a panchayati raj and not a collector raj. But what is the reality?
District level planning is an important issue. Most of the district panchayats have not taken it seriously with the necessary data, facilities, technical officials and other wherewithals. Only in very few states like Kerala, the planning begins from neighbourhood groups, reaching the districts and state planning board, in a scientific way.
Because of the working of the new generation of panchayats in the last several years what we can find in the villages is the trust deficit. Ultimately, it will affect our democracy and other democratic institutions themselves. This is a big question our political leaders must ponder over.
The writer is chairman, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.
