Grass root democracy and empowerment of people: evaluation of Panchayati Raj in India

At independence, about a third of the villages in India had flourishing traditional Panchayats. The government decided to promote their creation as effective units of local self- government with the aim of fostering democratic participation by involving villagers in the development of their communities to reduce the costs of administration. The Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) are supposed to be genuine institutions of local self government, not adjuncts to the implementing agencies of State governments. However, bureaucratic apathy, public indifference, lack of political will and uniformity led to the failure of the system. This paper is about this unique form of decentralization.

The paper identifies the following shortcomings of the PRI system:

• Uniformity of PR system undermines each state’s unique history, traditions and consequent structures of local government
• There are clashes of interests between the parliamentarians and PR representatives and the role of political parties is not clearly defined
• The Act is silent on the relationship between PRIs and local bureaucracy
• There is no mechanism for dissolution of PRIs by states.

The paper makes the following constitutional recommendations – PRIs should:

• Encourage self-governance and mass participation in its workings
• Contribute towards strengthening the planning process at the micro level and overall rural development
• Improve the access of the masses to the highest level of decision-making process
• Ensure the empowerment of the poor and marginalized people and protect them from exploitation of dominant class
• Train members for their new roles
• Should not be politicized to avoid violence and local tensions.
  

A further study, made the following propositions for the improvement of this mode of decentralization for improved accountability for poor and marginal groups in society:

• There should be active participation among broad elements of society in activities such as voting, campaigning, attending meetings, running for office and lobbying representatives
• The government should provide strong fiscal and political support
• Pro-people competitive political parties should be encouraged
• There should be deeper economic transformations, which embolden traditionally, subordinate groups to challenge local authority structures.
  

The paper concludes that it is imperative to revive PRIs in this era of globalization and liberalization to enhance competitiveness and income generation among the village community to lessen the rural-urban divide. All this calls for genuine commitment to Panchayati Raj as a political value and ideology.