WHITHER PANCHAYATI RAJ?

by S Venkatesh

The number of grassroots institutions, i.e. Panchyat Raj Institutions, (about 2.4 lakh), the number of persons elected - 36 lakhs in the panchayats and Nagarpalikas (higher than the population of Norway) and in terms of the empowerment of women, it is the greatest experiment in democracy ever undertaken anywhere in the would or at any time in history. But has the experiment succeeded and if so how far? Sadly the results are disappointing as the standing committee of the Parliament found out.

Several promising and laudable programmes have been launched by the Government but none of them have produced expected results. Whether it is the unemployment plan or poverty alleviation scheme, the result, unfortunately, has been the same. The country has still to make a major dent in poverty. Traditionally, panchayats have been a major pivot of village administration. Many decades ago panchayati Raj institutions were given a primary place in the Government's development scheme. Rajiv Gandhi gave a further boost to it by pushing through the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution, recognizing it as the fountain-head of people's power and vesting in it all the necessary dressings of a democratic institution, with a statutory mandate to hold regular elections. In this manner, it was hoped, that the rural masses, who constitute the majority of India's population, would play an important role in the democratic process. To give further importance to his dream of ensuring that democracy percolated down to the lowest levels, for the first time since Independence, a Minister for Panchayati Raj was appointed. As the Minister, Mani Shankar Iyer, never tires of repeating, in terms of the size of the electorate of panchayati raj in India, the number of grassroots institutions (about 2.4 lakh), the number of persons elected - 36 lakhs in the panchayats and Nagarpalikas (higher than the population of Norway) and in terms of the empowerment of women, it is the greatest experiment in democracy ever undertaken anywhere in the would or at any time in history. But has the experiment succeeded and if so how far? A standing Committee of Parliament set up to review the progress of implementation of the 73rd Amendment in the ten-year period 1993-2002, came up with some sad conclusions. The Committee found that the process of implantation by the Central and State Governments was not only "woeful" but the States were willfully flouting Constitutional provisions. Time-bound regular elections mandated by the Constitution through the amendment, under an independent State Election Commission to ensure "continuity and certainty", remained on paper. The committee reported that at one stage, the Supreme Court had to intervene and rule that "the concerned States cannot be permitted to withhold election of panchayats, it will be unfortunate if the State remain insensitive to the constitutional mandate," The court further held that any legislative device of the Government which comes into direct conflict with the mandatory provisions of Article 243E of the Constitution, such device has to be declared as ultra vires of the provisions of the Constitution. The Committee noted that even after ten years, the panchayats were lacking "in a framework in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution to devolve appropriate powers so that the elected bodies could be made functional in totality." Further, it was "constrained to note that most of the States are yet to fully and conscientitiously implement Article 243G of the Constitution". The devolution of financial resources to panchayats was peripheral. The bulk of the budgetary sums related to 29 subjects mentioned in the Eleventh Schedule (assigned to the panchayats by the Constitution) were still retained by Governments. "More than Rs 40,000 crores of the total annual plan outlay under the Centrally-sponsored or Central Schemes and about of Rs.31,000 crores of the annual plan outlay of the State plans, partly or wholly, were retained by the government Mr. L.C. Jain, a former Member of the Planning Commission, pointing to the findings of the parliamentary committee, says that "the most flagrant and recent example of assault on the spirit of and letter of the 73rd Amendment is the attempt of the Karnataka legislators to 'legally' dislodge the elected panchayats from some of their 'constitutionally mandated' functions and to transfer the latter to the committees headed by MLAs. Fortunately, for the present their manoeuvre has been foiled by the prineipled stand taken by the former State Governor. The Governor, in his lengthy reasoning while returning the bill, said, among other things, "the 73rd Amendment does not envisage that parallel institutions be invented to discharge functions even in the guise of a default power, where and when duties are alleged to be not discharged effectively by panchayats." The 73rd Amendment made it mandatory for 33% of all panchayat seats to be reserved for women. It also made provisions for quotas for socially-marginalized sections including Dalits and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. But the passage of the legislation making it mandatory for all panchayat members to follow a two-child norm, passed by six States, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh has acted adversely in this regard. As Nirmala Buch, who runs the Bhopal-based NGO Mahila Chetna Munch points out, already 412 members in Rajasthan have been removed from their posts over the past three years because they failed to comply with the two-child norm. she adds, "in Madhya Pradesh 350 panchayat members have been removed and in Haryana the number of those removee is 275. in Madhya Pradesh all those who were removed from their posts were tribals. They are not familiar with the laws of the land, and instead of encouraging them to join this process they are being forced to turn away." But it is the larger picture which is more distressing. At the time of review and Appraisal of Panchayat Raj, Mani shankar Iyer noted that "regrettably a large number of States have not applied for and secured their installments (funds set apart by the Finance Commission for 2003-20 of Rs. 20,000 crores ) in due time and far too many of them have delayed disbursement of panchayat Raj institutions. It would appear that in some States, other agencies such as MLAs, Are being given an voice (formally or informally) in determining allocations from the Finance Commission grants. This requires joint monitoring by the Ministry of Finance (which is the disbursing authority) and the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, "while the baneful effects of money power and muscle power, as will as class power and caste power in panchayati raj elections cannot be denied, equally it cannot be denied that repeated rounds of elections to lakhs of panchayati raj institutions around the country constitutes a democratic miracle without parallel in the world or precedent in history." Should one marvel at the size of the experiment or be disappointed with its utter failure to serve its real purpose