India is in the middle of a general election process for selection of the next national Government and also Governments in some States including Odisha. But in the din of the electoral frenzy, it seems the nation has forgotten its vision of ‘participatory democracy’. As we celebrate the Panchayati Raj Day on April 24, it gives us an opportunity again to think and act for ‘participatory democracy’ the quintessence of strong Panchayats.
Genuine democracy implies a bottom-up pattern of power sharing and not a top-down one. Mahatma Gandhi believed that the strength of the Government atop must rest on the strength of its foundation, the self-governing village and not at its expense. He wanted a well-knit political and economic decentralisation. After Independence, with the concept and practice of democracy evolving, the idea of the Panchayats was revived. The Panchayats were to play a new role for strengthening the foundation of democracy whereby the people would directly exercise their democratic rights. However, this concept did not find any place in the Part-III entitled ‘Fundamental Rights’ of the Constitution but was paid only a lip-service in its Part-IV entitled Directive Principles of State Policy, the provisions of which, though fundamental to the country’s governance are not justiceable in courts of law.
leaders of independent India believed that the fruits of industrialisation with centralised planning would gradually trickle down to the people. Besides, political leaders and bureaucrats who wielded considerable power did not want to share it with common people. In the process, devolving power to people was not given priority. However in course of time several Government-appointed committees chaired by such stalwarts as Balwant Rai Mehta and Ashok Mehta advocated for strengthening the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and suggested ways to realise the same. In 1992, the PV Narasinghma Rao-led Government brought about the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution and thereon the Panchayat Raj Act became applicable from April 24, 1993. This amendment to the Constitution was a revolutionary step towards decentralisation of power and system of governance. It provided for planning and development of local resources by the Panchayats, periodic elections to these bodies and reservation of seats for women and SCs and STs. As per this amendment, the basic feature of the new Panchayati Raj would be devolution of political power to people and to enable them to participate in the developmental schemes meant for the village. However, practical experience with regard to the promised autonomy of the Panchayats is not at all visible or significant.
Following the 73rd Amendment, almost every State Government repealed their respective outdated Panchayat laws and replaced them by a comprehensive and consolidated Panchayat law in their effort to comply with the amendment. However, Odisha stands out as an exception to this general trend. Instead of a single and consolidated law, Odisha still maintains three Panchayat Acts made at different points of time -- Orissa Gram Panchyat Act 1964, Panchayat Samiti Act 1959 and Zilla Parishad Act 1991. All these laws are marked by one common feature: concentration of all real powers, be it in respect of taxation, finance and administration, in the hands of bureaucrats at different levels so as to keep every level of Panchayat under their control.
Besides, the texts of these laws are too bulky and laid out in a too complex and cumbersome style which renders them unintelligible and unfriendly to the general readers. No member of a Panchayat, be it of Zilla Parishad, Panchayat Samiti or Gram Panchayat, can comfortably decipher and interpret its provisions. Thus, the foremost task of every votary of Panchayati Raj in Odisha should be to see as to how a single, consolidated law in conformity to the mandate of the 73rd Amendment to cover all the three tiers of Panchayat be enacted to replace the existing basket of three laws, and this new law ought to be framed in simple Odia language and laid out in a user-friendly style so that every literate villager is able to go through it comfortably.
In 2013, to mark the 20th anniversary of the epoch-making 73rd Constitution Amendment, the Union Ministry or Panchayati Raj constituted an expert committee under the chairmanship of Mani Shankar Aiyer. The committee brought out a report on April 24, 2013 titled ‘leveraging PRIs for more efficient delivery of public goods and services’. A major finding was that the States have visibly failed in carrying out the devolution of funds, functions and functionaries to the Panchayats as mandated by the 73rd Amendment. Out of about 150 CSSs (Central Sector Schemes), only two, MG-NREGA and BRGF, provide for the role of Gram Sabha and Gram Panchayats in respect of administration of these schemes. The other schemes are basically bureaucracy-driven and, therefore, poorly administered. This fact also demeans the 73rd Amendment since the latter provides for planning and execution of all rural programmes and schemes through Gram Sabha and PRIs. Besides, the CSSs have promoted parallel bodies at village level which are made responsible before the bureaucrats of respective line departments but not answerable to the local Panchayats. The CSSs don’t recognise the centrality of Panchayats in the system of delivery of goods and services but are designed in such a way as to make delivery through the bureaucracy.
Hence, there is a need to ensure that the devolution to Panchayats shall promote efficiency of CSSs in the delivery of public goods and services. Being self-governing units, the Panchayats need to directly receive the money transferred to them. The States should also endow Gram Sabha with necessary powers as required under Article 243A of the Constitution. It is to be remembered that the Panchayats are symbols of representative democracy, but the Gram Sabha is a symbol of participatory democracy. Powers of Grama Sabha in the Scheduled Areas are already incorporated in the PESA Act 1996. The elected representatives need to implement the decisions of the Gram Sabha and the Government employees at various levels need to concur with it. The Gram Sabha can thus become a strong, basic unit of democracy.
(The writer belonging to the National Centre for Advocacy Studies, Bhubaneswar, has been working on the subject of democratic decentralisation since a decade)