Most of the gram sabhas and ward committees in our country don’t utilise their powers to the full, but things are looking up for the future

Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, famously said: “The soul of India lies in its villages.” If there are people with no greed, avarice and mentality to cheat others, they can be found only in villages. Villagers do not have any complaint or ill-will towards anybody. Simple rural life, unspoilt by the trappings of modernity, is a real beauty.

The morning cuppa, which comes from the shop in the village square to the accompaniment of gossip, is the ideal way to begin the day. Village panchayat meetings are an extension of the daily chai pe charcha. There are no ‘points of order’ or clauses from Shakdhar & Kaul to disrupt the proceedings. Panchayat members conduct the sessions in an impeccable style. No tearing up of Bills or running into the well of the House!

The only wordy duel at a panchayat meeting this writer is witness to took place in Angamali, Kerala, back in the 1970s. Ouseph, an elder member, told his interrupting counterpart: “Nee onnum parayanda (You need not speak).” The opposition was on its feet complaining that Ouseph shouldn’t have used the word ‘Nee’ (You). He retorted: “Ridiculous. My evening prayer is Oh Daivame, Njan Ninne Snehikkunnu (Oh God, I love you).” The opposition fell quiet.

Despite this old-world charm, the villagers and villages continued to be ignored by masters in State capitals and the national Capital. The villagers remain ignorant of the powers they wield. It was former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who launched the mission to empower villages. The three-tier local self-government system which we see today is the result of his dreams though he did not live to see its realisation.

Though there has been decentralisation of power to local bodies, the villagers are yet to understand the impact of laws. Barring Kerala, there are complaints from other States, like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, how the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and women panchayat presidents and members are harassed by upper caste people. The electoral system has reserved 50 per cent seats in local bodies to people belonging to these categories but that has not resolved the issue. Villagers are still ignorant about gram sabhas which are capable of overturning Government decisions that harm their wards.

Kerala Finance Commission chairperson SM Vijayanand is of the view that panchayat raj laws need urgent reforms to make the local governance system more effective. He says the system of 50 per cent reservation of local seats for women and SCs/STs should be reformed at the earliest.

Interactions with those elected to such bodies under these categories reveals they were not at all interested in taking up major works in their wards. This is because the ‘reserved’ ward would become ‘general’ in the subsequent election and the chances of them getting re-elected become bleak. “A member should get a minimum two-term tenure to undertake major initiatives,” Vijayanand told a congregation of senior lawyers, judges and panchayat raj members in a seminar held by CG3 (Connecting Governed, Governing and Governance), an initiative to empower local body members. The veteran IAS officer, who is rated as one of the masterminds in the country in the system of power decentralisation, says that those in power dare to bring in anti-people policies because of the failure of gram sabhas and ward committees, the “basic units of the Republic”.

“What Rajiv Gandhi dreamt of was transferring power to people. He had visualised gram sabhas and ward committees as institutions as important as legislatures and Parliament. If these gram sabhas and committees do not succeed, the concept of decentralisation also fails,” said Vijayanand.

Kerala would not have experienced the deluge and landslides it suffered since 2018 had the local self-governments made use of their power and freedom effectively, he feels. The natural disasters were the fallout of the failure to implement the recommendations of the Madhav Gadgil Committee that was constituted to suggest ways to preserve the sanctity of the Western Ghats, the water tower of South India. Massive deforestation and quarrying had almost robbed the Ghats of rain forests. “Had the local bodies put their foot down, the administration would not have been able to overrule them,” he said.

Kylasanadha Pillay, a senior advocate in the Supreme Court who conceived the concept of CG3, disclosed that LAMP (Legal Awareness and Motivation Programme), a mission to take legal awareness to schools and students, has found takers from Kayamkulam in Kerala to Nepal. “Though the workshop for panchayat members has concluded, we are launching the next step of CG3. The members of urban local bodies would be trained in taking up people’s causes,” said Dr Pillay. He says CG3 was born out of the COVID-induced lockdown. “But we have succeeded in launching a silent revolution to make India a republic of villages,” he said. An ideal tribute to the Father of the Nation!

(The writer is a senior journalist with The Pioneer. The views expressed are personal.)