The Hindu : Consolidating grassroots democracy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 13, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Consolidating grassroots democracy

THE CONCERN WIDELY echoed at the All-India Conference of Heads of Panchayats last week on the need to bestow greater financial and functional autonomy on Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) has really to do more with politics than finances. What has hindered any real devolution of powers to the panchayats hitherto is not any lacuna in the law, but a palpable lack of political will on the part of parties across the spectrum to infuse fresh blood into these indigenous political institutions. Considering that bodies for local self-government were accorded legal status by the Constitution 73rd and 74th Amendments in 1992 wherein procedures for the conduct of elections and the composition of PRIs were streamlined, it is about time perhaps that the administrative nitty-gritty to ensure their effectiveness as vibrant institutions of participatory democracy received due attention. The task ahead is clearly formidable, not in the least because of the stark reality of some States refusing to hold local elections for years since the landmark enactment of 1992 and systematic attempts by the political classes to scuttle the democratic process in an overwhelming majority of others. The recourse to the Judiciary just to ensure that elections are held at the end of each five-year tenure of panchayats and audacious attempts by State Governments to circumvent the orders of the lower courts have become routine in almost every State regardless of which party is in power.

Against this backdrop, a Constitutional Amendment — important as it perhaps may be to fine-tune the law — should not be used to camouflage more fundamental issues pertaining to the implementation of existing provisions. For instance, Article 243G of the Constitution requires State legislatures to enact laws vesting panchayats with responsibilities in a wide range of areas such as land improvement and soil conservation, small scale industries, rural housing, drinking water, transport and communication, and primary, secondary and vocational education. Correspondingly, Article 243H empowers State legislatures to authorise panchayats to independently levy and appropriate taxes and provide for grants-in-aid for local bodies. State Governors are also required under Article 243I to constitute finance commissions to review the financial health of PRIs and make recommendations, among others, on the norms that should govern the distribution of the proceeds from the taxes between the State Governments and panchayats. Thus, it is obvious that genuine efforts to implement these provisions are sure to bring about radical social transformation over the long term. Therefore, any consideration of the functioning of local self-governing bodies must necessarily begin with a stock-taking on the extent to which existing provisions in the law have been acted upon in practice. On this score, it is difficult to give a clean chit to political parties which have failed to crack the whip on their respective State units that connive with the bureaucracy to postpone local elections under one or the other pretext.

Some of the proposals mooted at the conference to merge parallel mechanisms such as the District Rural Development Authority into the PRIs or to disband the Janmabhoomi programmes would have to be weighed carefully in view of their greater potential to cause political rift than help in achieving the desired objectives. Vesting local bodies with real powers and responsibilities and enforcing accountability in these institutions is probably a more realistic alternative to make local bodies functionally autonomous.

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