Decentralisation and Local Governments: The Indian Experience 9788125058472

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Decentralisation and Local Governments

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Readings on the Economy, Polity and Society This series is being published as part of a University Grants Commission project to promote teaching and research in the social sciences in India. The project (2010–12) has been jointly executed by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and the Economic and Political Weekly. The series is meant to introduce university students and research scholars to important research that has been published in EPW in specific areas. The journal has, over the decades, published a large number of research papers in all the social sciences. The readers draw on this archive of EPW ’s published articles. The titles—in economics, politics, sociology and the environment— reflect EPW ’s strengths as well as the interests of the academic community. Each set of readings is compiled by a senior academic who has also written an introductory essay for the volume. TISS and EPW are grateful to the authors of the articles included here for permission to reprint them. Published Economic Reforms and Growth in India, ed. Pulapre Balakrishnan Environment, Technology and Development: Critical and Subversive Essays, ed. Rohan D’Souza Village Society, ed. Surinder S. Jodhka The Adivasi Question: Issues of Land, Forest and Livelihood, ed. Indra Munshi Women and Work, ed. Padmdmini Swaminathan Higher Education in India: In Search of Equality,

Quality and Quantity, ed. Jandhyala B. G. Tilak Forthcoming Caste and Society, ed. Satish Deshpande

Decentralisation and Local Governments The Indian Experience

Edited by T. R. Raghunandan

Orient BlackSwan Private Limited

Registered Office 3-6-752 Himayathnagar,Hyderabad 500 029 (Telangana), INDIA e-mail: [email protected] Other Offices Bangalore Bhopal Bhubaneshwar Chandigarh Chennai Ernakulam Guwahati Hyderabad Jaipur Kolkata Lucknow Mumbai New Delhi Patna www.orientblackswan.com © Orient Blackswan Private Limited and Economic and Political Weekly 2012 eISBN 978 81 250 5847 2 e-edition first published in 2015 Published by, Orient Blackswan Private Limited 1/24 Asaf Ali Road New Delhi 110 002 e-mail: [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, expect in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial

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Contents Introduction 1   Political Role of Panchayati Raj      V. M. Sirsikar 2   Decentralisation Below the State Level      Need for a New System of Governance      Nirmal Mukarji 3   Decentralised Planning      An Overview of Experience and Prospects      C. H. Hanumantha Rao 4   Panchayati Raj Bill      The Real Flaw      B. K. Chandrashekar 5   Panchayats versus Multinationals      Case of Du Pont      Norma Alvares 6   Women in Panchayati Raj      Grass Roots Democracy in Malgudi      Poornima Vyasulu and Vinod Vyasulu 7   Democracy and Social Capital in Central Himalayas      Tale of Two Villages      Niraja Gopal Jayal

8   Panchayati Raj      The Way Forward      Mani Shankar Aiyar 9   Grass Roots Politics and ‘Second Wave of      Decentralisation’ in Andhra Pradesh      Benjamin Powis 10  Networks of Panchayat Women       Civil Society Space for Political Action       Amitabh Behar and Yamini Aiyar 11  Poverty Alleviation Efforts of Panchayats in West Bengal       Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee 12  Experiment with Direct Democracy       Time for Reappraisal       Amitabh Behar 13  Building Budgets from Below        Ahalya S. Bhat, Suman Kolhar, Aarathi Chellappa and H. Anand 14  Impact of Reservation in Panchayati Raj       Evidence from a Nationwide Randomised Experiment       Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Esther Duflo 15  Law of Two-Child Norm in Panchayats       Implications, Consequences and Experiences       Nirmala Buch 16    Federalism, Urban Participation       Ramesh Ramanathan

Decentralisation

and

Citizen

17    Fiscal Decentralisation Governments       M. A. Oommen

to

the

Sub-State

Level

18    Functional Devolution to Rural Local Bodies in Four States       Indira Rajaraman and Darshy Sinha 19  Neighbourhood Associations and Local Democracy        Delhi Municipal Elections 2007       Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal 20  Expanding the Resource Base of Panchayats       Augmenting Own Revenues       M. Govinda Rao and U. A. Vasanth Rao 21  Women in Power?       Gender, Caste and the Politics of Local Urban Governance       Mary E. John 22  Revenue Efforts of Panchayats       Evidence from Four States       Pratap Ranjan Jena and Manish Gupta 23  Local Democracy and Clientelism       Implications for Political Stability in Rural West Bengal             Pranab Bardhan, Sandip Mitrtra, Dilip Mookherjee and Abhirup Sarkar 24  Limits of a ‘Devolution Index’       M. A. Oommen 25  Beyond Feminine Public Altruism       Women Leaders in Kerala’s Urban Bodies       J. Devika and Binitha V. Thampmpi

List of Authors

INTRODUCTION

T. R. RAGHUNANDAN local governments (LGs), is one of the most S trengthening important governance challenges in today’s India. While

high growth-rates have dramatically increased the wealth of some Indians, the vast majority still have little or no access to education, health services, drinking water, nutrition and electricity. A strong and empowered level of LGs, comprising panchayats, municipalities, autonomous district and regional councils and other similar structures of governance,1 could stitch accelerated and inclusive growth together with inclusive governance.           The history of decentralisation in India begins with the panchayats, which comprised five respected elders, who led village communities and acted as the main interface between the villagers and higher authorities. The next stage in the evolution of LGs happened under the British in India. The first step was the constitution of the municipal corporation of Madras as early as 1687 based on the British model of a town council. Later, the traditional village panchayat system was revived in Bengal by Lord Mayo2 and Lord Ripon3 introduced landmark reforms in 1882 that provided for rural local boards, two-thirds of which were to be composed of elected, nonofficial representatives and presided over by a non-official chairperson4. The Government of India Act 1919 transferred the subject of self-government to the domain of the provinces. The Government of India Act 1935 continued along this path and gave popularly elected governments in the provinces the right to enact laws to establish local selfgovernment institutions, including panchayats and

municipalities.           After Independence, Mahatma Gandhi’s vision that the entire edifice of Indian democracy should be based upon one popular election to the village panchayat, indirect elections from panchayats to state assemblies and from state assemblies to the Parliament5 did not find many supporters. The Constituent Assembly was inclined to not disturb the 1935 Act’s pattern of leaving it to the states to establish and empower LGs—Dr Ambedkar’s suspicion of traditional panchayats was well known—were it not for late action by the president of the Constituent Assembly, Dr Rajendra Prasad. He supported the idea of making a mention of panchayats in the Constitution. Consequently, an amendment proposed by the well-known Gandhian, K. Santhanam, led to the insertion of Article 40 in the Directive Principles of State Policy, which stated that the state shall take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such power and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.           Community development became the buzzword shortly after the Constitution came into force. S. K. Dey, the driving force behind the movement, felt that community development projects could not achieve their full potential without peoples’ participation.           The Balwant Rai Mehta Committee constituted for examining the Community Development Projects and National Extension Service is often cited as the harbinger of modern India’s panchayati raj system. The Committee offered two broad directional thrusts, suggesting that the administration should be decentralised and that it ought to be under the control of elected bodies. The Committee observed that, ‘development can be real only when the community understands its problems, realises its responsibilities, exercises the necessary powers through its chosen representatives and maintains a constant and intelligent

vigilance on local administration’. It recommended the ‘early establishment of statutory elective local bodies and devolution to them of the necessary resources, power and authority’. The next two decades saw fitful progress in decentralisation, which the report of the Committee on Panchayati Raj Institutions 1978 or the Ashok Mehta Committee, categorised into three phases; those of ascendency (1959–64), stagnation (1965–69) and decline (1969–71). The Ashok Mehta Committee was the first to squarely address the issue of strengthening panchayats across the country. The vision of the Committee was that panchayati raj, like democracy at the national and state levels, is both an end and a means. As an end, it spoke about panchayats being an ‘inevitable extension of democracy to the grassroots, thus making it the base of the democratic pyramid in the country’. It also stated that as an end, panchayats should emerge as a system of ‘democratic local government, discharging development, municipal and ultimately, regulatory functions’. As a means, the Committee said that panchayats would ‘continue to discharge obligations entrusted to it by the National and State Governments in spheres not yet transferred to its exclusive jurisdiction’. The committee concurred with the predominant views of those who responded to its call for suggestions and recommended constitutional status to be given to the panchayats. In the wake of the report, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh revisited their respective panchayati raj systems and undertook several new initiatives to constitute and endow panchayats with more powers. The feature of these second generation panchayats was the ascendancy of the zilla parishad at the district level, as a powerful body with a large range of powers devolved to it from the state.      In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi attempted to constitutionalise local governments through the 64th and 65th amendments to the Constitution. In his speech introducing the 64th Amendment

Bill in the Lok Sabha,6 he referred to weaknesses in the practice of Indian democracy and observed that the number of persons holding elective office in well-founded institutions of democracy have been far too small in relation to the size of the electorate. He also observed that the ‘vast chasm that separates the small number of elected representatives from the electorate had been occupied by power brokers, middlemen and vested interests’ and justified the constitutionalisation of LGs as key to the strengthening of democracy. These amendments failed to secure the requisite majority in Parliament by a whisker.7      The 73rd and 74th amendments, which incorporated many of the provisions of the earlier failed attempt was piloted through the legislature by a minority government, largely because of the recommendations of a Joint Select Committee that considered it prior to its introduction in Parliament.      An appreciation of history underscores that modern India’s approach to strengthening and empowering LG systems have been fitful. A lot of rhetoric is heard, yet little action has taken place on the ground. There have been—and still are—a few loyal flag-bearers who show unstinting loyalty to the concept of people governing themselves. They write reports recommending this or that reform; the powers that be make appropriate sympathetic noises and then continue with business as usual. This cycle is repeated every now and then, especially when work on preparing the national five-year plans (FYPs) is on.           There has been no concerted, pan-Indian pressure to strengthen LGs. There could be two reasons for the lack of a desire among most Indians to govern themselves at the local level. First, our constitutional design is of a ‘holding together’ federation, where our sub-national entities, the states that constitute the union of India, are themselves creations of the very union they constitute. We are not a ‘coming together’ federation, where once independent and sovereign states

consent to come together, transform themselves into subnational units of a federation and devolve upward some of their powers to the national federal government. The Indian approach results in the union determining how much power ought to be vested in the states and not vice versa. Residual powers vest in the union. Thus, our form of federalism has strong centralising overtones and the shadow of centralisation looms large over LGs and conditions their behaviour. They tend to see themselves as institutions at the bottom of a tiered government structure.           Second, conditioned by this centralising constitutional design, we are wary of too much of heterogeneity or independence in governance. ‘Coming together’ federations are often comfortable with diversity and celebratory of it. On the other hand, too much of celebration of diversity—be it a demand that primacy be given to a certain culture, way of life or language—is often seen as a dangerous trend in India, endangering the unity of the country. This attitude subliminally conditions modern Indians to accept centralised power more readily and the notion that the government is tiered. We do not seem to realise that governments could be relatively autonomous within their spheres of functioning. We perhaps believe that even a demand for more decentralised governance, if it goes beyond certain limits, could be perceived as anti-national.           The flip side of the reluctance to seek self-governing rights is the acquiescence to the idea of being ruled by a higher level of government. We are more likely to accept being ruled than seek the right to rule ourselves. Even when we militate against bad governance, we prefer to demand that our existing rulers govern better, rather than seek the right to govern ourselves. Seen in the light of this sobering reflection, we might better understand why the constitutional provisions concerning LGs have not been effective—we have not sought that they be effectively implemented.      In the absence of pressure from below to decentralise, the

p pace of devolution of powers and responsibilities downwards is critically dependent on individual champions. Experience shows that such champions have been very few. In our competitive political system, pursuing an agenda of decentralisation is a doubtful strategy for aspiring leaders seeking upward movement in party echelons. Established politicians do not have much motivation for pushing decentralisation as their political mission. If people see them as messiahs in any case, there is no great gain in pushing for power to the people; it does not bring them further political capital. Similarly, strong bureaucrats do not see pursuing a decentralisation agenda as holding much potential for career growth. Thus, even when political signals have favoured decentralisation, actual progress has always been hamstrung by weak administrative action.           In ‘holding together’ federations and unitary countries worldwide, effective LG empowerment has largely taken place through a big-bang kind of devolution. A leap of faith is usually taken or forced upon a politician or a political group and substantive functions are assigned to LGs along with sufficient resources to perform these effectively. Such accelerated drives for devolution are prompted by deep political imperatives, which might be a desire to break away from an unsavoury past of discrimination and domination,8 fear of balkanisation9 or as a strategy for seeking political legitimacy.10 However, in India, perhaps as a result of far greater heterogeneity, LG empowerment has ebbed and flowed, with only a few examples of accelerated evolution.11 States have had diverse experiences with decentralisation so far, stretching beyond the 73rd and 74th Amendments12 to the Constitution of India (1993). Suffice to say that none has been consistent in its pursuit of decentralisation. Most have gone through brief periods of sympathy and support for it, alternating with longer periods when the pace has slackened and rhetoric replaced action.

          Because of the stop-start nature of the devolution of functions, funds and functionaries to LGs, many decentralisation efforts are exhausted much before the stated vision is achieved. Typically, the functions devolved to LGs are imprecise and overlap with state activities, expenditure responsibilities are either not funded or restricted by funds that are tied up and the staff is inadequate, poorly trained and owe greater allegiance to the state than LGs. What remains stable—if it can be termed stability—is an uneasy limbo where supporters of both centralisation and decentralisation quietly try to further their respective agendas.      In almost all states, even after activity-mapping exercises (the process of separating a devolved function into its several activities and sub-activities and then assigning the responsibility for carrying out each function to the appropriate level of government), there is considerable overlap between the functional responsibilities of different levels of LG. This is exacerbated by distortions in fiscal design. In no state are LGs given tax assignments with which they can address their functional responsibilities. This is particularly true of intermediate and district panchayats, which either have no tax base or only a negligible one that is not worth the effort of pursuing. Most fund transfers are tied down to specific schemes and purposes and LGs do not function as anything more than agents of the state government. These agency arrangements are also most unfair. In most states, LGs not only have no clue as to how much they will receive as funds but also when they will get it. Worse still, they are bypassed by official channels that interfere in their functional space.           In all states, LGs have no flexibility to secure the manpower and capacity they need and remain woefully dependent on the state for their staff, training and development of physical infrastructure. Most LGs therefore spend most of their time negotiating with their principals, officers in higher levels of government, rather than carrying

g g y g out their functions. A close examination of even the best of them reveals that they are nothing but efficient and obedient agents of higher levels of government. The criteria for judging good local governance are themselves distorted; in the blinkered vision of their controllers, obedience, not independence, is the desired behaviour. With no incentive to perform their core responsibilities, people treat LGs with indifference and take no interest in institutions such as gram sabhas, which were designed to be part of a system where they could hold their LGs to account. Consequently, the health of the LG institutional mechanisms nationwide can be hardly called robust.           The question that is often asked is whether the union government can drive decentralisation better than individual states. India’s economic upswing has resulted in greater latitude for the central government to spend money and observers point out to the increasing level of funds that the centre spends in areas that pertain to the functional domain desired for the LGs. In the Tenth and Eleventh FYP periods, new schemes such as the National Rural Health Mission, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) have been launched and others such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana have been revamped.13 Legislations such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Disaster Management Act and the Rights of Forest Dwellers Act has given greater powers and responsibilities to LGs. Could not the centre design these schemes and laws in a pro-LG manner and thus influence states to move down the path of more devolution of powers and responsibilities to LGs? Even if paradoxical, can decentralisation be driven through centralisation?           My answer to that would be yes, this is indeed possible,

but it has not happened. It is undeniable that some of the significant increase in the transferred payments of tied funds to states has been designed to be spent by the LGs.14 This is often cited as evidence of the union’s commitment to strengthening LGs. However, on a closer look, large schematic transfers might have actually weakened, rather than strengthened, local governance. There are two deleterious effects caused by these tied fiscal transfers.           First, large schematic transfers result in their own tax revenues constituting a progressively smaller proportion of the revenues of LGs. Further, these schemes impose strict conditions on LGs as to how these transferred funds can be spent. Consequently, LGs are forced to spend more of their time on performing agency functions in implementation, rather than their original functions mandated by law. Very little time is spent by them on local governance or even envisaging how it ought to be done, for that matter.      Second, a significant proportion of these funds are spent through structures that are alternatives to LGs. These comprise line departments, so-called autonomous societies and ‘missions’, typically arranged around the district administration, which consists of a small group of official and political personalities. Funds spent through parallel structures and line departments further condition LG employees and elected representatives to behave as scheme implementing agents and neglect local governance.      The agencification of the LGs has effects down the line on their political character. If there are still those who get elected to the system inspired by a vision of gram swaraj or an autonomous village government, much of their initial enthusiasm is rapidly overcome by frustration and disinterest. Even as they see more and more money being poured into rural areas, they realise that much of it is beyond their control or responsibility. On the other hand, the incentives for contractors and their proxies to get elected to LGs is high

because the funds that swirl around and pass through them provide ample opportunity for them to dispense patronage without being accountable for results. All they need to do is master the complex web of relationships between the official and the political hierarchies, which arises when the official system is hybridised with local administration.           For die-hard panchayat supporters, the district administration is the villain of the piece, the implacable foe and the eternal sceptic that stands between the people and gram swaraj. The district collector15 is still considered the head of the district administration and along with the superintendent of police, the district forest officer, the public works department’s superintending or executive engineer and the project director of the district rural development agency (DRDA)16 constitutes its oligarchic power centre. The district political administration also follows a similar pattern, with most states tending to nominate ‘district ministers’ to supervise each district. The members of legislative assemblies (MLAs)17 occupy an important position in a district’s political set up and the district panchayat and municipal presidents are often considered lower in the political hierarchy. This officially managed delivery system has grown haphazardly over the years and consists of the same officials who perform a multitude of roles. It is to them that the state turns to for information, advice and action. The LG administrative structure is ignored in the scheme of things or is considered subordinate to the district collector, to whom is left the task of ‘getting them to work’.           In this context, the phenomenon of parallel bodies deserves special mention.18 Parallel bodies are those set up as directed by the state or central governments to plan and execute development projects in areas that are in the functional domain of LGs, using funds provided by the state or central governments or donors. They are called parallel because they have a separate system of decision-making on

resource allocation and execution of projects, which is independent and removed from the panchayat raj set up. These parallel bodies have considerable autonomy and provide places to bureaucrats, elected representatives, nonofficials and community representatives in their governing structure. Examples of parallel bodies include DRDAs, Forest and Watershed Development agencies and societies set up for implementing specific programmes such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, National Rural Health Mission and National Horticultural Mission.           Parallel bodies originated due to several reasons before the constitutional recognition of LGs. First, they were to provide professional support, often of a multi-disciplinary and supra-departmental nature, for implementation of programmes. Second, they facilitated easy and accountable funds management through being able to receive funds directly and deposit them in interest-drawing accounts in commercial banks outside the government treasury system to avoid risks of ways and means restrictions on fund flow. They enabled better tracking of fund utilisation, provided utilisation details, proper accounting and better follow up on releases. Third, they provided a flexible organisational system for quick decision-making and easy procurement of goods and services. Last, they enabled non-official participation in decisionmaking, especially of members of parliament (MPs) and members of legislative assemblies (MLAs), which was appropriate in the pre-panchayati raj era.           While parallel bodies were successful in ensuring nondiversion of funds, there was no commensurate improvement in planning, ensuring transparency and participation. Their existence is even more incongruous following the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments. They not only usurp the legitimate functional space of local governments, but also challenge the idea of a functional domain for them. By dominating the implementation process, they not only question the idea of LG but also mock them through superior

q g p resource endowments and visible patronage systems. Higherlevel authorities continue to park tied funds to programmespecific parallel structures that supplant LGs because of their persistent belief that the latter do not have the capacities to implement their programmes. These problems are worsened by serious gaps in staffing, particularly at the cutting edge of delivery of government services to the people.           The consequence of these shortcomings is that in most states, this ragtag, hybridised assembly of political and official systems cannot and does not function well. However, there is no way to quantify the damage done by poor grassroots administration; there are no baseline good local governance structures against which they can be compared. To be fair to them, line departments are not entirely suspicious of the decentralisation principle. Though they are usually sceptical about the competencies of LGs to implement top-down programmes, it is not as if they do not attempt to adopt decentralised strategies. Even under the looming shadow of oppressive fiscal centralisation, attempts are made to ground various decentralised practices at the grassroots. Two of these strategies stand out; these are what one would term ‘parallel’ decentralisation and decentralised planning.           Parallel decentralisation refers to attempts by sectoral departments to delegate implementation responsibilities to sector-specific user groups, committees and communitybased organisations (CBOs). Typically, such groups are sponsored by parallel bodies and constitute a vertically integrated hierarchical system of decentralisation within a departmental silo. It is necessary to state that the idea of decentralisation of governance activities to CBOs, self-help groups (SHGs) and user groups is not per se an anti-LG idea. They can exist as autonomous social           groups so necessary for augmenting social capital and deepening democracy or as government-organised groups for implementation of specific programmes such as water supply, irrigation, watershed management or poverty reduction. The

g g p y objectives behind setting up such groups can be legitimate and include participatory planning, involvement in implementation, mobilisation of local resources, development of interest groups, inculcating a culture of self-help, facilitating non-governmental organisation (NGO) involvement and ensuring sustainability through taking over operation and maintenance functions. Above all, decentralisation of such groups can be a powerful instrument for empowering communities. It is perfectly legitimate for SHGs and CBOs to challenge LGs and demand accountability, on the grounds of being independent watchdogs on behalf of communities.           However, the problem arises when departments persistently believe that constitutionally mandated LGs are incapable or too political to be effective and equitable agents of development and contract out public service delivery to department-sponsored user groups, contractor NGOs and artificially boosted CBOs. In doing so, they loosely equate CBOs and user groups with LGs, often failing to see the difference between the two. When departments and missionbased societies focus their energies on creating beneficiary groups instead of working in the direction of strengthening the implementation of their priorities through LGs, they do serious damage to the cause of democratic decentralisation. Much of the raison d’être for this approach is fallacious. Strangely enough, bureaucrats and NGOs are more at ease with such groups than with LGs. The basis of the faith that government scheme-sponsored CBOs and user groups can deliver what panchayats cannot because they are apolitical, less corrupt, more efficient and have greater capacity to perform has not been proved by research. There is little hard evidence to show that such groups are free of all the evils that are supposed to bedevil panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) such as politics, sharing of spoils, corruption and elite capture or the domination of elites in the local governments.      There are also serious questions about the sustainability of

q y these groups. There is an opportunity cost for honorary participation of people in such groups. People may be very active when there is a flow of funds and capacity-building support, but tend to lose interest when faced with the more mundane tasks of maintenance of assets and collection of user charges. Therefore, it is not wrong to conclude that parallel decentralisation has only a limited utility value and its sustainability is questionable.      The other strategy, an oft-tried political and bureaucratic one, is promoting decentralisation through the promotion of decentralised planning involving LGs at various steps in the process. Proponents of this approach believe that mass campaigns aimed at the preparation of plans by LGs will energise them to move briskly down the path of empowerment.19 However, given the patchy progress in decentralisation, most approaches towards decentralised planning have tended to become efforts at collecting petitions from the people, with degrees of participation by them in the process of listing wishes. At best, certain activities in a topdown planning exercise are decentralised (see Table I.1).

The limitation with this approach is that integrated decentralised district planning requires that several important design features across many critical aspects of governance be in place, such as grassroots democratic processes, fiscal decentralisation, a robust local government structure and well-designed mechanisms for data collection, baseline determination, progress monitoring and fixing of accountability for shortfalls. The process of decentralised planning can only be as strong as the weakest of these systems. In all states in India, at least one of these necessary structures is weak, if not more. Table I.2 elaborates how the country currently measures on these important features of institutional design.

          Some states might claim to have broken out of these tendencies but on closer observation, their performance is only one of degree of improvement. No state has been sustainably liberated from the systemic constraints described in Table I.2. Ascertaining true progress is difficult because of the tendency to effusively celebrate brief periods of perestroika in decentralised planning, sometimes far beyond their life spans. Planning has not been transformed into a truly bottom-up exercise anywhere. So-called champions measure up very poorly if evaluated against objective parameters of what decentralisation means. Thus, decentralised planning also has its limitations as a tool for energising LGs.           Let us pause to absorb the litany of problems, shortcomings and the results of failed strategies. Many of these were predicted by the visionaries who shaped the design of India’s LG system. As early as 1961, Jayaprakash Narayan pointed out that ‘After having accepted Panchayati Raj as the agency responsible for planning and execution of plans … there is no longer any valid reason for continuing individual allocations subject-wise even to serve as a guide’. In his supplementary note to the Ashok Mehta Committee, of which he was a member, E. M. S. Namboodiripad expressed his misgivings about the reluctance to decentralise regulation to the local level, pointing out that elected bodies of LGs ought to control the permanent services at the district and below. Therefore, these statements are not mere rants, a repetition of well-known problems, but evidence that most of the pitfalls that we were cautioned against have come to pass. One can emphasise with all vehemence that LGs are constitutionally mandated and that there is no other real alternative to them. We can repeat that we cannot wait any longer for LG reform to be brought to the centre-stage to reinforce economic reform and secure inclusive growth. But

all this will be of no avail if we continue business as usual.           We must consider how we might break out of the straitjacket of a harshly centralised fiscal system and a hierarchical political and administrative culture and step into the warm glow of a truly decentralised polity. Is there something new on the horizon, some new magic formula for this? Is there some genome that might trigger and accelerate rapid change in favour of decentralisation? Are there any unknown catalysts waiting to be discovered?           One could model a strategy to strengthen LGs on the basis of two assumptions—that the constitutional structure cannot be changed or that it can be changed. Presuming that the constitutional pattern of the centre laying down some broad mandates and the scope and ambit of LGs being largely determined by states cannot be changed, then one’s approach would largely be to consider whether a chain reaction can be triggered to either change the perception of the primary opponents of decentralisation or create a large-scale movement in favour of decentralisation.           With respect to the former, dealing with changing the mindsets of district administrations and NGOs could be an interesting place to start. Currently, district administrations ignore good performance by LGs; unless the latter’s achievements can be paraded as their own. Most members of the district administrations, through their deeply ingrained discussion and presentation styles, often tend to judge LGs by the worst among them, while officers themselves are judged in terms of the best performing among them. Stereotypes of inefficient panchayats, illiterate panchayat representatives, summary punishments perpetrated by panchayats and elite capture are perpetuated, along with tales of heroic, hardworking and egalitarian collectors. Much of the need for reform is silenced through adept self-advertisement, which even includes attributing LG successes to the bureaucracy and not to the people. Finally, meetings in New Delhi to understand realities in the field are conducted among

g an exclusive club of no-changers; LG-elected representatives do not merit a place around the table in policymaking and field feedback sessions. The press too gives more space to the failure of LGs than to their achievements.20      There exists a near complete conspiracy of silence among our elite about the achievements of LGs. That policymaking at higher levels is almost exclusively monopolised by those who passed through the district administration drill ensures that the ‘licence raj’ for development is perpetuated. Thus, even when LG reform is dictated by the higher bureaucracy, they carefully sidestep any move to reform themselves, particularly the way the district administration is run. For this reason, many conclude that reform cannot emerge from the higher bureaucracy, which constitutes a powerful and exclusive club with wide-ranging regulatory and developmental powers, including some that have no legal backing but are traditionally vested in them and because no one has dared disturb the existing order.           NGOs too, barring a few, are not champions of strengthening local governments. First, there are not many that work in the area of local governance, preferring instead to work in sectors such as education, health, drinking water, watersheds and so on, working with panchayats only if it is unavoidable. Many of them harbour prejudices against panchayats, believing that they are too political and corrupt, and work directly with communities through CBOs. Second, those that work with LGs depend on government or international organisation funding for their sustenance; indeed many of them are all but extended arms of the government, delivering the same homilies over and over again. This limits their scope in pulling out all stops to exhort LGs to assert themselves. Third, NGOs, while good at rights assertion and demanding change from the community’s perspective, have fewer skills in actually managing and improving government processes within LGs. Very few of

them have skills, for instance, of negotiating with policymakers on behalf of LGs.           Given this backdrop, it is easy to criticise district administrations and their NGO partners of being implacable foes of decentralisation. However, a close look shows that district administrations are as much victims of excessive and oppressive centralisation as LGs are. District-level implementing authorities have no scope or discretion to move funds that are tied to sectors and conditions to address local needs. Driven by the pressure of targets and hampered by severe shortages of staff, they have little time for making the kind of investments needed to nurture local social capital.           Can true decentralisation be catalysed through wellmeaning local bureaucracy-driven efforts? Would it be possible to somehow engineer collaboration between LGs on the one hand and district administrations and NGOs on the other, through each other’s recognition that they are all victims of centralisation? Could such a beneficial collaboration transform some of the opponents of decentralisation into champions of it? There might be two ways of doing this—giving up the current paradigm of capacity development and of decentralised planning, and transforming these into a different mode, which drives the right incentives for change. Each of these approaches has been examined in detail.       One way of converting sceptics into champions is by fully transforming the current approach to capacity development. Indeed, it may mean dropping of the term altogether and using another that is closer to the reality of what is required— knowledge support. An argument often heard against empowering LGs is that they do not have the capacity to undertake their responsibilities. Pointing to the large number of poor, illiterate and Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) members elected to LGs, most sceptics believe that capacity building should precede devolution. Current approaches to capacity building and training are supply driven.

pp p y g g pp y Training of LGs is generally spasmodic, slow to implement, has poor coverage and the quality of assimilation is unmonitored. While detailed frameworks for training and capacity building have been formulated,21 these have not been implemented fully because of delays in procuring hardware, the lack of an adequate number of high-quality face-to-face trainers22 and the lack of content tailored for rapid up-scaling. This results in a glaring paradox; even as efforts are on to providing funds for implementing such strategies in full,23 the available funds for training lapse.24 Simply put, there is no capacity to create capacity.       The answer lies in changing the whole paradigm of local government capability, from a low-value, supply-driven one to an effective, adaptive and demand-driven knowledgesupport one. Only then can we rapidly reach out to large numbers of elected representatives, who need information and guidance, by using a carefully designed basket of technologies aimed at user friendliness and easy recognition and retention. This can be made available both online and offline. Modules have to be prepared for LG representatives that encourage and enable them to learn just about everything they need on their own. Packaging such learning in the style that is most sensitive and responsive to their needs is what is sorely needed, not expensive, cascading lecture sessions. The rapidly growing electronic connectivity in the country is an opportunity that is pregnant with possibilities. Social networking and new media over the internet can work as a significant enabler for an effective knowledge support system for LG representatives.           But in order to achieve this, the elites that drive policymaking will need to realise that the 3.2 million elected representatives of LGs are a valuable and responsive market and not a liability; that there is now a sub-optimal utilisation of the enormous potential that exists within the LG structure.25 They will have to give up their simplistic notion

of equating capacity with the ability to be articulate or to read or write. They will need to understand that on the ground these skills might not have the kind of value attributed to them; that ‘capacity’ always has its context.           The elites will also need to realise that much of the reprehensible behaviour that they see in LG representatives arises from two infirmities—that there is no clearly discernible functional space for LGs and that the government system is unable to satisfactorily respond to the huge demand for knowledge support. It is necessary to realise that devolution by itself will accelerate capacity building by making it demand-driven. If one really gives LGs clear roles and holds them accountable for these, they will have an incentive to seek out the capacity support they need.       For being able to even begin doing all this, the elites must lower their voices and hear the subterranean rumblings among elected local representatives. They will need to realise that there is widespread simmering tension among the elected representatives of LGs. If LG representatives are determined to do something useful now, they have to fight against severe odds, with precious little nurturing or help from the higher levels of government. Wedged between an indifferent government and an increasingly restive electorate, they devise their own means of functioning, which is a mélange of hard work, rhetoric, arbitrage, rabble rousing, petitioning and corruption. Elites will need to understand that these pressures underlie the desperation of elected representatives; that their impatient behaviour is essentially conditioned by the desire to show results and get elected again.           While it is true that district administrations do not have the flexibility to equip LGs with the authority and capacities to perform effectively, they could certainly provide them knowledge support for good governance. This will mean going beyond merely issuing directions for implementation of schemes. They will also need to go beyond measuring the success of LGs in terms of how well they implement scheme

y p priorities and pay close attention to other critical aspects of good governance such as local revenue collection, proper maintenance of accounts, transparency in implementation and frequent consultations with people.           If local administrations pause and look around, they will realise that notwithstanding the lack of flexibility and indifference from higher levels, LGs have performed quite remarkably. If, in spite of serious breakdowns in service delivery, the country has not slipped into anarchy, it is because of the tireless efforts of hundreds of thousands of elected representatives to keep things going locally. Wandering around in panchayats with an open and perceptive mind would reveal many unsung heroes. The critical bottleneck is not in finding innovators or visionaries, but in enabling them to upscale. It would be ideal if we get LG champions across the country in touch with each other, indeed, facilitate them to document each other’s work. A directory of best practices from panchayats themselves would easily make a substantial difference to the performance of LGs.           Finally, there is no point in exhorting LGs to be transparent in their dealings if district administrations are not walking the talk on transparency. If the government itself does not reveal guidelines, say how much, when and how fiscal transfers are made and provide other details that critically effect decision-making in LGs, they cannot expect a high quality of decision-making from the latter. However, the higher levels of government have no particular interest in informing panchayats about the labyrinthine ways of the fiscal transfer system. We cannot expect a government training agency26 to promote an awareness of rights and true decentralisation as it would mean that it has to be critical of existing government policies.27 Such support for panchayats, which encourages them to throw the book at higher levels of government wherever necessary, will have to come from civil

society. This ought to encourage and provide them with the information to demand transparency from higher levels in the same manner as transparency is expected from them.       How does one plan? How does one fight corruption? How does one use the Right to Information Act, 2005? How does one bring errant officials to heel? How does one handle the details of implementation? How does one become more accountable and transparent? These demands for sound advice can be met if people with the requisite skills who are willing to help are linked with LGs who need their skills. Do panchayats want an NGO to help them in participative planning? Do they want an engineer to design a foot bridge? There ought to be a system that will help find them the right people; an information and skill exchange platform. Galloping connectivity and cheaper mobile phones will create the infrastructure backbone for the success of this social networking approach to knowledge support.       The other way of energising local governments within the confines of the current constitutional framework would be to proceed to the next level of broad-based integrated decentralised planning and transform it into a truly bottomup approach. In doing so, we must realise that there may be wide diversity among stakeholders in integrated decentralised district planning.28 Many of them may have clearly opposing agendas (see Table I.3).

          The most efficacious way to trigger and accelerate the move towards truly participative planning would be for the higher levels of government to themselves move, or be pressured to move, to a transparent budgeting system. In operational terms, this would mean that they need to reveal to LGs not only the details of the budgets available to operationalise their plans, but also the location-wise expenditures planned by them. This is a critical step in the planning process, which implementers have largely sidestepped. In the absence of the restriction of a clear budget envelope, LGs have always tended to be overambitious with their wish-lists. If the government reveals its

expenditure limits in advance, it has two beneficial effects on local planning. First, it forces LGs to prioritise their wishlists, and second, it brings home to them, like no other strategy can, that they need to look towards optimising their own revenue collections.           Before looking at the possibilities of constitutional rejigging, one needs to look at whether there could be some larger evolving political trend that might loosen the vice-like grip that party elites, MPs and MLAs have on LGs. Could, for instance, the current disillusionment with the state of governance and the widespread groundswell of anger against corruption actually fuel decentralisation? Some of the civil society leaders of the anti-corruption movement have made a case for decentralisation to be the next item on the agenda for good governance. If that is the focus of the next effort, some of the proposed reforms might affect the pace of decentralisation. One of the more promising reform efforts is to bring in a right to recall. Currently, higher-level elected representatives tend to interfere in and manipulate the activities of panchayats and municipalities behind the scenes. Their MP and MLA local area development funds give them an influence all out of proportion to their core task of representing the people in legislatures. A lot of their time is spent on things that ought not to be done at their level. This at once allows them the advantage of dispensing patronage, while not being accountable for the failure of governance at the local level. What if there were a right to recall and what if it were invoked to hold our higher-level elected representatives accountable for the full range of activities that fall within their currently wide spheres of influence? What would happen if voters invoked the right to recall on the basis of the failure of an MLA or an MP to implement local area schemes effectively? This writer believes that this might put pressure on elected representatives to voluntarily divest themselves of what they ought not to do and confine themselves to the skilful performance of their core

p responsibilities. Thus, the Damocles sword of a right to recall could prompt MLAs or MPs to function strictly within their terms of reference and cease to interfere in the work councillors and panchayat representatives ought to do.29 Finally, one needs to consider whether the constitutional pattern could be modified to enable a more robust design for LGs.30 Currently, the Constitution provides for three levels of LGs in rural areas (the district, intermediate and village levels) and two categories of urban local governments (municipalities and nagarpalikas). The approach in rural areas has been based on the report of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, which was also the basis of the first set of experiments with LGs in rural areas during the 1950s and 1960s.           However, it must be remembered that before the 1993 Constitutional Amendments, states had adopted different variations in the pattern followed, based on historical precedent and quite often, political expediency. Some of these variations typically included reducing the number of levels of LGs to two instead of three, doing away with powerful district boards and following a system of indirect elections to the intermediate level. Combined with the tendency to not hold elections for considerable lengths of time, variations in the powers devolved, different definitions of the relationships between different levels and varying approaches to reservations, it was no surprise that there was great variation in the political, administrative, fiscal and social approach to LGs from state to state.      In the aftermath of the 73rd and 74th Amendments, some level of standardisation has been brought into the structure of LGs across India. This is because the Constitution has defined some aspects of the structure in mandatory terms, whereas flexibility is given to states in others. However, questions are often raised on whether such an approach has well served the objective of strengthening LGs in India. At least two reports,31 one specifically constituted for suggesting changes

to the constitutional structure, have suggested amendments to Parts IX and IX-A of the Constitution, mainly to bring about a better definition of the scope of powers and responsibilities of LGs, as also their fiscal domain. These suggested amendments have not found unanimous support. Some have welcomed them as part of a natural process of evolution. They hold that changes in the constitutional structure are required because even 15 years after the 73rd and 74th Amendments, there were no truly empowered LGs; and the current structure leaves plenty of loopholes for the familiar foes of devolution—higher-level politicians and bureaucrats—to indulge in the rhetoric of devolution while concealing their true intent of not empowering LGs under a welter of rules, regulations and schematic guidelines, if not outright violation of constitutional provisions. The advocates of no-change argue that considerable progress has been achieved and that tinkering with the Constitution might provide an alibi for arresting this forward movement.      An examination of contemporary accounts and discussions with those who piloted the 73rd and 74th Amendments does not reveal any specific policy that determined that we require two separate amendments for urban and rural LGs. It seems that the bulk of the attention was focused on bringing in rural LGs through panchayats and the 74th Amendment and its predecessor, the 65th Amendment (1990), were afterthoughts. They aimed to take advantage of the political interest in rural LGs to accord constitutional status to urban LGs, along with socially empowering initiatives such as reservations for deprived communities and women. While the comparative lack of discussion on the urban LG structure in the days leading up to the amendments might seem inexplicable, it must be noted that they preceded economic liberalisation, which triggered the meteoric rise of the middle class, which, in turn, is the reason for the rapid increase in urbanisation that we see today. Rapid and unplanned urbanisation is the single biggest imperative for seeking a

g gg p g fresh approach to LGs. We need a robust LG system that will help us to cope with the challenge of India transiting from a largely rural to a substantially urban country over the next 20 to 25 years and this might necessitate constitutional changes.           A good LG system has to conform to certain design parameters that create the right incentives for bodies to function in a responsible and accountable fashion. First, they must be constructed to minimise, or at least discourage, destructive political rivalries between themselves and between them and political representatives of higher levels of government. Second, they must have a clearly defined functional space that is their own, where higher levels of government have little role to play. Third, they must also have a clearly defined fiscal space, created first and foremost by giving them a meaningful tax base, sufficient tax assignments and, if necessary, tied fund transfers to handle specific shortcomings or responsibilities. Fourth, they must have the freedom to secure the capacity that they need, both institutional and for the people who run these governments, from either higher levels of government or from other sources. Last, there must be good systems in place for people to hold their LGs to account—either directly or through recourse to an independent agency empowered to intervene and direct LGs if required.      It is only when these criteria are fulfilled that there will be a proper incentive for LGs to function the way they ought to. An LG that does not have to deal institutionally with political interference, which has clear functional space and matching fiscal resources, will have the incentive to seek the capacity it needs to perform effectively. Citizens will also be more vigilant and seek good performance, particularly if they perceive that it is their taxes that are being utilised to deliver the expected services. Most importantly, a good LG framework requires compliance with all these criteria and not merely a few convenient ones. Any deviation from these key principles will mean a distorted system of local governance.

p p y g Indeed, such a system would not be one of LGs at all, but one of politically elected implementing agencies, which are more accountable to higher tiers of government than to the local people.      Public finance theories that affect LG design have revolved round the question of the extent to which role separation between levels of government should be attempted. In one of the earliest papers on the matter (Tiebout 1956), the guiding precept laid down was that when LGs deliver different baskets of services in return for the taxes that people pay, people will tend to exercise their choice by selecting to live with those LGs that best match their preference of public goods. In other words, people will ‘vote with their feet’ and move to the jurisdictions of LGs that offer them the best deal for the taxes they pay. This approach was predicated on a clear jurisdictional separation of LGs. It did not opine how the system might be affected by a hierarchy of LGs with overlapping political, functional and fiscal jurisdictions.           One justification for having overlapping layers of LGs could be the difficulty of separating expenditure and service delivery responsibilities with the precision required to ensure that each LG has self-contained responsibilities. Most service delivery responsibilities have externalities, which often undergo constant change given the pressures on natural resources and changing economies of scale, particularly with the advent of new technologies and management techniques. Thus, hierarchies of local governments might be considered necessary where there are different levels of externalities to be dealt with. What cannot be delivered by a village panchayat may be entrusted to an intermediate panchayat and what cannot be delivered by an intermediate panchayat, to the district panchayat. On the question of externalities, one writer (Breton 1998) went to the extent of asserting that if all externalities could be estimated and quantified accurately, having a tiered LG structure would be actually redundant and it would be much more efficient to have a flatter structure.

          While these are theoretical underpinnings of the idea of role separation between layers of government, it is doubtful whether these matters were actually considered by various committees when suggesting the design of LGs. Without meaning to cite this as a flaw, the approach of the Balwant Rai Mehta and Ashok Mehta committees was more influenced by the design patterns of line departments than theories of public finance. Subliminally, the approach was to design LGs in the same manner as departments—the gram panchayat being the field office, the intermediate panchayat the block office and the district panchayat the district office. However, what was perhaps not realised was that these were elected bodies with elected representatives at each level, all claiming to rightfully possess the mandate of the people. Hierarchical political structures existing cheek by jowl are more of a recipe for conflict and discord and not for functioning as a harmonious whole.           Given these fundamental weaknesses in the thought processes that forged the Indian LG system, it is no wonder that its functioning does not meet good design criteria. Some of the negative facets of the structure can be attributed to distorted implementation of devolution. However, some of it is clearly due to design failure, in both the Constitution as well as state laws for devolution. Given these circumstances, this writer moots a new paradigm of LG design, which would mitigate some of the inconsistencies in the current hierarchical design and create a flatter structure for local governance. This conforms in greater measure to the objective design theory and therefore, contains within it the right incentives for responsible, effective and accountable functioning of LGs. The new pattern of LGs suggested is as follows: 1. There will be only one level of LG, viz., a body in the nature of a municipality but called whatever name one chooses. Each such body will have

y exclusive geographical jurisdiction, with certain core functions that do not overlap with those of other LGs. This jurisdiction can be either urban or rural, or a combination of both. 2. While all municipalities will have a common core set of functions, their sizes and scale can vary dramatically, from a metropolis such as Mumbai to a tiny gram panchayat in a sparsely populated hilly area. There will be five categories of municipalities as follows. a. Category A: The national capital territory of Delhi b. Category B: The large metropolises of the country, namely, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and perhaps, a few more fast-growing cities whose status as metropolises is imminent, such as Pune, Jaipur, and the like; c. Category C: All district headquarter towns/cities d. Category D: All taluk, tehsil or block headquarters; and e. Category E: All remaining gram panchayats. 3. This categorised, but essentially flat, structure where each entity operates on basically the same ground rules will supplant the current separate urban and rural LG structure. In particular, it will do away with the hierarchical three-tier structure in rural areas. 4. While each of these bodies will primarily be a local civic body, the fiscal package for each category will differ, given their scales, expenditure needs and tax capacities. However, there will be scope for re-classification at periodic intervals as the size and scale of the LGs change. 5. This approach will address the current cluttered design of LGs by removing intermediate institutions such as the intermediate and district panchayats, which do not have much original jurisdiction but function more as channellising, pooling or management agencies of the higher levels of government. If at all such higher-level institutions are

g g required for specific services by taking advantage of scales of efficiency, they can be formed as specific-purpose structures at the will of LGs, who can collaborate among themselves to create them. 6. If we accept that under a new dispensation, LGs will have the flexibility to form special purpose vehicles (SPVs) among themselves, this may signal the end of parallel structures. Their demise will not be mourned; it has to be admitted that they have posed a serious threat to the growth and maturation of PRIs as institutions of local self-government. Winding up parallel bodies does not really affect any interest. Their professionals can be retained in the new set-up and provide their competencies to the LG partnerships that emerge in a new dispensation. These might be audacious suggestions but the harsh reality of the current situation, which is either a limbo or a scenario of gradually weakening LGs, might prompt some major surgery.         It has been a privilege to edit this compilation of articles for the Economic and Political Weekly, but it has not been an easy task. More than 140 articles, features, commentaries and studies published in the journal over the past half a century were distilled to the 25 that feature in this volume. Going through the contributions led to some interesting discoveries. The first, somewhat disappointing, finding was that there is a wealth of problem statements, opinions, hopes and strategic thinking in these articles, but a poverty of data and hardcore research. Second, urban decentralisation has hardly been featured. One would have expected this in the earlier contributions, given that the traditional focus of research was rural governance. However, it is intriguing that even in the last six years, when the fiscal focus began to shift to urban governance through the JNNURM, researchers have not been particularly enamoured of working on it. I have, therefore, been a little generous in the selection of articles on urban governance. The third observation is that the interest in local governance does not seem to have been evenly spread

g y p over the last four decades. From 1966 to 1987, there were just 14 articles featuring panchayati raj. There was a spurt of interest in 1989, with 12 articles on LG. Many were critical or cautiously observed the implications of the 64th and 65th Amendments, which were then on the anvil. Usual business resumed and even the passage of the 73rd Amendment did not spark much interest. However, from 1999 onwards, there was a healthy interest in the subject with a peak from 2002 to 2004. In 2003, there were no less than 16 published items on LGs. However, from 2005 onwards, interest seems to have waned again.           During the selection process, first, one had to be on the alert against any biases that might distort it. The most obvious one was not to discard older articles, which one might, with the wisdom of hindsight, consider naïve or overstating the obvious. However, they are important early contributions to the discourse on decentralisation in the country. Many of the issues and concerns that troubled the earlier authors set the baseline for the future and provide an interesting contrast to the observations contained in later contributions. The opening essay by V. M. Sirsikar, written in 1966, is akin to a baseline study and it lays down the hopes about LGs that many might have shared at that time. Contrasting today’s situation with Sirsikar’s conjectures is revealing—he hoped that panchayats might change the political landscape and that has certainly not happened. Similarly, B. K. Chandrasekhar’s essay about the proposed 64th and 65th Amendments, pointing out the dangers of making panchayats work under the overall control and superintendence of district collectors, rings so true given that the contemporary position resembles what he feared.           Second, one had to make a choice between more journalistic accounts of events and extracts from pure research efforts. I confess to having a bias in favour of the latter, so book reviews and general discussions were eschewed. Yet, I could not resist including Norma Alvares’

g inspiring essay of how a gram panchayat in Goa resisted the efforts of a multinational to establish a factory in its jurisdiction. Though I included it, I also noticed that there were no solutions suggested in the article. What if every panchayat takes the stand that no industry can come up in its backyard? I could not but include the 2002 reflections of the then union minister for panchayati raj, Mani Shankar Aiyar, under whom I served. His articulate and impassioned account conveys in spirit, if not in words, the struggles that a champion of LGs has to face within the establishment.           Third, articles that primarily focused on sectors such as education and management of natural resources were reluctantly passed over unless they said something particularly perceptive about the role of panchayats. Fourth, given that India represents a many-hued mosaic of the practice of local democracy, one needed to ensure an even geographical spread of the focus of research. Some states such as West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka seemed to be favourites among researchers on decentralisation, while others had been relatively under-researched. Last was the need to ensure that a wide spectrum of authors was represented. But I must confess that I have not paid much attention to this imperative and some authors like M. A. Oommen, Pranab Bardhan, Dilip Mookerjee and Amitabh Behar, are featured more than once as their contributions to the field of study have been significant.           I would also like to thank Abdul Chowdhury for putting together all the articles on panchayati raj published in EPW over the decades.

1 POLITICAL ROLE OF PANCHAYATI RAJ V. M. SIRSRSIKAR

‘underdeveloped’, ‘emergent’ or ‘developing’ country A nfaces a host of problems that were unknown to it in the

colonial era. Some of these problems are attendant on the status of an independent nation-state. Others arise out of the hitherto denied aspirations of an enslaved country and the enormous gap between the new nations and the developed nations. These problems become complex if the country adopts and sticks to a democratic set-up. For, the voluntary denial of totalitarian ways does not automatically lead to the growth of a politically developed democratic society. Thus, a new democracy faces problems of political development and democratic growth in addition to the tasks of economic development and problems of modernisation.      A country like India, burdened with the enormous problems of economic development, was not, at the time of becoming independent, unaware of the significance of political development. The constitution-makers, in spite of certain objections, decided in favour of universal franchise for the illiterate masses. This could be regarded as a recognition of the desire of the masses to participate in politics. On the eve of the fourth general elections, with the largest electorate in the world, the leadership can claim that the risks involved in granting franchise to the illiterate (not necessarily ignorant) masses have been justified by the performance of the three general elections.

Political Development as a Process But political development does not end with universal franchise and peoples’ participation in general elections. It could be said that it only begins with it. In recent years, there has been a growing literature on the political development of new nations. Western, especially American, social scientists, have devoted much attention to the political development of new nations. It appears that as yet there is no agreement about the connotation of the term, political development. But,by and large, one could accept what Lucian W. Pye has said. He has examined ten different definitions of political development in his article, ‘The Concept of Political Development’. According to him, the syndrome of development consists of ‘a general spirit or attitude toward equality’, capacity of a political system’, and thirdly, ‘differentiation and specialisation’ (Pye 1965). An attempt is made in this brief essay to apply some of these criteria to democratic decentralisation in India.           If political development is viewed as a process, it is necessary to emphasise that the framers of the Indian Constitution were not unaware of the steps to be taken to generate ‘a general spirit toward equality’, to create institutions to increase the ‘capacity of a political system’. The Constitution, in its Directive Principles (Art 40), says that the state shall organise village panchayats (councils) and endow them with such powers as may enable them to function as units of self-government.      The creation of panchayati raj institutions in ten states of the Indian union, represents the implementation of the directive principle. Panchayati raj institutions provide the agency which ‘trains, educates people, makes them think in a particular way and drives all of them forward in a particular direction’ (Nehru quoted in Brecher 1959: 33). Article 17 of the Constitution took the second step to abolish

untouchability and penalise those who practise it. This was a major step towards social equality so far as the majority community was concerned. It is not suggested here that there was an automatic acceptance of this legal norm. The reports of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Tribes make depressing reading. There are any number of press reports which speak of the non-observance of the Constitution in this respect. This failure is not individual but is a widespread social defiance of the basic law.           With the background of a hierarchical caste-system, it would not be very realistic to expect that ‘a general spirit or attitude towards equality’ would automatically prevail with the adoption of an egalitarian constitution. Age-old social structures and traditions cannot be wished away, even when these might have become anachronistic. These have ‘amazing survival power’. The social climate has been gradually changing in favour of a more egalitarian society. But the very size and complex structure of Indian society, sometimes pose insurmountable barriers to the spread of a general spirit of equality. This raises the basic issue of the compatibility of an equalitarian democratic political structure and a rigid hierarchical social order.           Is it possible for a political system to disown the properties of the general social system? If the political system shares increasingly the character of the social system, what chances are there that it will maintain its democratic content?

New Rural Elites If a major device for rapid economic development is centralised planning, democratic decentralisation could be described as a major device for dispersing power and for stimulating political development. It must be realised that the

enthusiastic participation of voters in the general elections is not enough for the growth of a democratic community. The unsatisfactory state of the much advertised community development programme was another factor which contributed to the re-thinking of the leaders.      This experiment in democratic decentralisation is hardly six years old. The publication of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee Report on democratic decentralisation in 1957, gave an impetus to the decentralisation process, now known as panchayati raj. The state of Rajasthan was the first to launch panchayati raj on 2 October 1959. Other states followed after some time. In Maharashtra, panchayati raj came into existence in May 1962. So it can be evaluated only after a few more years. But certain tendencies can be observed even in the initial stages. What follows is a brief account of these tendencies. No use has been made of any empirical studies of the panchayati raj in this essay. The approach is merely to suggest some possibilities of development, not to make any definitive statements about the role of the institution as in democratic decentralisation.           It is noteworthy that the panchayati raj institutions have evoked a certain enthusiasm among the rural masses, who now appear to believe in ‘swaraj’ (self-government) as an experience of their day to day life. Elections to the threetiered institutions have brought forth ‘new rural elites’. These non-westernised ‘sons of the soil’, have more in common with the rural masses than with the westernised elites of urban India, whether bureaucratic or political. It is not suggested here that ‘vernacular-speaking’ leaders have replaced the ‘English-educated’. In all probability, many of the new rural elites are conversant in English. What is significant about them is that they have strong roots in the villages.      The understanding of western democracy by the ‘Englisheducated’ elites was mainly confined to the above institutional and to some extent mechanistic aspects. Hence, the emphasis in the Indian Constitution on parliamentary democracy,

p y y universal franchise, independence of the judiciary and so on. But when these institutional arrangements had to function in a non-western political culture, there were in fact three different political idioms operating together—the western, the traditional, and the saintly (Philips 1962: 135). The Indian Constitution envisaged only the first; while the politics of India could be said to be mainly under the influence of the two other political idioms.           It might be said that the rural leaders could successfully use two political idioms—the western and the traditional. The western political idiom had to be used when the zilla parishad chairman dealt with the secretary of the department of rural development of the state government. The same was true of the other civil service personnel, both at the district and the panchayat samiti levels. The westernised bureaucrats, even after 18 years of independence, have scrupulously adhered to the British tradition of impersonal government. The new recruits to the Indian Administrative Service generally come from the same urban and westernised social classes as before 1947. Thus, the western idiom of politics and administration will continue to operate for obvious reasons.      The panchayati raj institutions function in a traditional set up. Illiterate peasants are drawn into the politics of development. If leaders of panchayati raj institutions use the western idiom to communicate with the rural masses, there would be a breakdown of communication. The use of the traditional idiom is therefore, a necessity. Undoubtedly, there is an inherent danger in this practice, however, so far as political development is concerned. The continuous use of traditional idioms might result in the strengthening of traditional bonds of caste and kin-ship, and thus obstruct the drive towards equality.

Need for Social Mobilisation

Yet today, the new rural elites perform a significant function in political development. Edward Shils speaks of ‘a gap’ between the westernised elites and the masses (Shils 1965: 30–1). But the new elites are bridging this gap to a certain extent. They are mass-oriented and verbally committed to the new ideas of economic development, universal education, social equality and democratic politics. This commitment results from their belonging to political parties, especially the Congress, which subscribes to these goals. Verbalisation of values may not have much operational content but it starts the percolation process of party-ideals.      Political participation and social mobilisation are regarded as necessary for a modern nation-state, whether democratic or authoritarian. India has chosen the more difficult way of a democratic set-up. But political participation cannot be ordered. It has to be voluntary. Such voluntary participation requires stimulus. It could be said that the panchayati raj institutions, by and large, are successful in stimulating the rural population. To some extent, this participation might be the result of traditional loyalties. But the emergence of rival parties and elections may gradually change the character of the participation. Social mobilisation in the form of shramdan (voluntary labour) for a village school or an approach road is another indication of the impact of these institutions. Adult literacy campaigns, with the target of making the whole village literate are catching the fancy of the villagers. The response to nationally initiated drives—small-scale savings, use of new techniques of cultivation like the Japanese method of rice cultivation, use of fertilisers, use of contraceptives—are other encouraging signs of social mobilisation and political development.           If the growth of institutions contributes significantly to political development, democratic decentralisation could help in the process by building up political parties from below. There has been some well-intentioned criticism of the ‘pollution of village-level life by the introduction of party-

p g y p y politics’. Without indulging in any idealisation of political parties, it could be generally agreed that the party is a modern integrative agency in every developing country. In India, the predominance of one party among a few smaller parties has persisted since Independence. This might not exactly accord with the pure theory of parliamentary democracy, but in a certain sense it has given this country a stable nonauthoritarian government. Opposition parties, though weak, still exert a certain restraint on the party in power, and thus, prepare the people for a more intelligent understanding of political issues. Comparisons with Indonesia or Burma, would spotlight the democratic character of Indian politics and government. The tendency towards one party domination has been further accentuated in the panchayati raj institutions. The opposition parties are represented in very insignificant numbers. This might become a dangerous tendency as it might throttle non-conformist opinions, individuals, groups and parties.

End of Tradition of Sacrifice The ‘capacity of a political system’ depends primarily on the quality, training and socialisation of the leaders at various levels. Before Independence, a steady flow of leaders came out of the nationalist movement. The struggle with the imperial power naturally demanded a certain amount of sacrifice, and there developed a tradition of sacrifice among those who would be leaders in the field of politics. The drying up of this tradition of sacrifice—a tradition which had given us the generation of leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and many others was to be expected. At first, the tradition was continued by the dwindling ranks of the Sarvodaya group. Vinoba Bhave could be regarded as the last of those leaders

who could inspire a tradition of sacrifice. But the community needs a constant supply of leaders to take up the responisibilities of political direction.      The successful working of panchayati raj institutions might create a new catchment area for new political elites. These institutions are capable of inducting new classes of the population into politics. The working of these institutions might give people some experience in policy-making and political bargaining. And in time these institutions may prove to be the infrastructure of a mass-democracy in local and state politics. It is to be expected, however, that the new leaders would be more power-oriented than sacrificeoriented. But in a growing democracy, what is expected of a leader is his capacity to get things done, rather than his inclination to sacrifice for society. With a developing economy and centralised planning, leadership at the district and lower levels will have to exercise its ability in the ‘politics of bargaining’.      It might be impossible, however, to establish a tradition of expertise to substitute the tradition of sacrifice in this country. People will have to be gradually prepared to accept as leaders men who have proved their ability in different fields of life. With the rising tempo of economic development, the importance of expertise would have to be recognised at all levels of politics.      Democratisation of politics may be regarded as one of the indicators of political development. Yet democracy could be the most difficult form of government. In practice, however, a democratic set-up may not differ very much from a responsive, constitutional oligarchy. Without accepting Mosca’s dictum that all governments are oligarchies, it could be argued that the result of costly elections, oligarchically organised political parties, clever use of charisma, and absence of vertical and horizontal social mobility, is not very different from a responsive, constitutional oligarchy.      In the circumstances, democratic decentralisation could be

regarded as an effort at democratising oligarchic politics. It is too early to assert that this effort has succeeded. But it is certain that there is a great change in what I have earlier called the catchment area of leadership groups. This may gradually affect social mobility and the oligarchic structure of the ruling elite. It could, thus, be argued that democratic decentralisation is an insurance against possible political decay.

Role in Socio-Economic Change Though in this essay attention has been focussed on the political role of panchayati raj institutions, their role in socioeconomic change is not any less consequential. On the other hand, functions performed by zilla parishads to bring about socio-economic change could indirectly contribute towards political development. The role of local institutions in industrialising rural areas would be crucial to both economic and political development. An agro-industrial society would be in a vantage position to bridge the gap between the rural and the urban areas. This would correct the imbalance between the urban and rural sectors, both with regard to economic growth and political development.           The role of the bureaucracy in India, has a special significance from the point of view of political development. Professor Huntington has correctly observed in his article that the existence of a well-organised civil service in 1947 contributed to the political stability of Indian democracy and also to its political development afterwards (Huntington 1965: 410). The bureaucracy is considered a modernising agency in nearly all the developing countries. It could be said that the British legacy of the ‘steel-frame’ and the silent service, came in handy for the new leaders of government, both at the Centre and in the states. At the same time, this

unbroken tradition of the civil service meant the continuation of its limited role of administering law and order, though in the changed context of a welfare state holding the ideal of a socialistic pattern of society, the civil service was expected to play a more positive role than before.      Through the experiment in democratic decentralisation, an attempt is being made to also orient a law-and-order bureaucracy towards social welfare and economic development. ‘The economic development of a society, particularly if it is to be implemented by massive intervention of the public sector, requires a breed of bureaucrats different (e.g., more free-wheeling, less adhering to administrative forms, less attached to the importance of hierarchy and seniority) from the type of man who is useful when the primary concern of the bureaucracy is the maintenance of law and order’ (Palombara 1963).      At the same time, civil servants are being groomed to deal with the representatives of the people at the lower levels of administration. This interaction, between the westernised administrative elites and the rural political elites, might help the political development process. If political development demands specificity of functions and specialisation, this could be provided by the administrative elites. The new political elite on the other hand, would learn the procedures and processes of administrative machinery at close quarters.      This does not mean that the present situation is in any way an ideal one. There have been many complaints about frictions between the political and administrative elites. To some extent such friction is to be expected as the civil service is not used to taking orders at the district level from the representatives of the people. The civil servants allotted to panchayati raj institutions resent the loss of status, real or imaginery. Clearly, the proper psychological atmosphere for a growing partnership between the representatives of the people and the bureaucracy is yet to evolve. The main difference which democratic decentralisation has brought

g about in the structure of local self-government institutions is the pre-eminence to the representatives of the people. One may expect over a period of years a ‘better understanding between the two sectors of the political structure.

Democratising the Administration The constant interaction referred to above, would result in democratising the administration and modernising the political elites. These two consequences could be considered the most useful aspects of democratic decentralisation operating today. The functional decentralisation, envisaged in the present set up, might gradually lead to an effective decentralisation of political power and administrative control. W. H. Morris Jones expects that ‘some decentralising influence will persist and even grow’ (Rose 1962: 18). This would stimulate democratic growth, in terms of local initiative, autonomous functioning of panchayati raj institutions, increase in their functions, and political education of the masses.

2 DECENTRALISATION BELOW THE STATE LEVEL Need for a New System of Governance NIRMAL MUKARJI

Background India was ruled by a governor-general, under whom B ritish governors (or lieutenant-governors) ruled the provinces,

and district officers, variously called collectors, district magistrates or deputy commissioners, the districts. Some provinces had an intermediate layer of divisional commissioners. And all provinces had to accommodate the limited democracy extended by the reform Acts of 1919 and 1935. But the pyramid of rulers at the centre, the provinces and the districts remained the essence of the British system. Knit together by the common purpose of preserving the British raj, these rulers ran a unitary form of government. A unitary system is often accompanied by a high degree of centralisation. But the opposite was the case here. Governors and district magistrates were allowed a great deal of latitude to ‘do their own thing’ in many matters. It was an example of even a unitary system needing to centralise only selectively, leaving local problems to be managed through decentralised power in the provinces and districts. Within the unitary pyramid there was, thus, a nice balance between centralisation and decentralisation.      Independence did not bring about a revolutionary change in the system of governance. But even so, major changes did

take place in at least three respects. First, the territories comprising the British provinces and the princely states were reshaped into states, of which there are now 25. The political map of India bears hardly any resemblance to what the British left behind. Second, at the district level too, boundaries were drawn and redrawn, so that the administrative map of the country also is vastly different to what it was before. Third, and most significant is that the governor-general and governors were replaced by democratically elected governments at the centre and in the states. The union and state governments were accorded constitutional recognition and a federal relationship between the two came into existence as against the command structure of earlier times. The districts continued to be administered as before, which meant that the received command structure had to operate for the first time between governments at the state level and ‘ruler model’ bureaucrats in the districts.           As was to be expected, this last aspect led to friction. Neither the political leadership at the state level nor local leaders of the ruling party found it possible to accept without demur the considerable discretionary powers left with district officers under the British dispensation. The former officially took away many of these powers, ranging from such petty matters as the power to transfer primary school teachers to more weighty items like the power to withdraw prosecutions. Both state and local level politicians exerted unofficial pressure to see that such powers as remained were exercised in line with political preferences. This virtual take-over of bureaucratic powers by the political elites was, in a way, an extension of the struggle for self-government led by the same elites. A bureaucratically decentralised system thus gave way to a politically centralised one. British provinces were unitary but decentralised. The states were conceived as unitary, like the British provinces before them, but contrastingly started becoming centralised.      Simultaneously, there was a centralising process on at the

y gp national level also. Having witnessed the partition of the country, a fearful constituent assembly opted for a strong centre. In pursuance of this, political and legislative provisions were enacted which gave the union over-riding powers. Financial provisions were made, and these were of crucial importance, under which the union could and did wield enormous clout vis-a-vis the states. Supplementing these constitutional provisions, planning was adopted as the corner-stone of development, and the planning regime that came into being acted as a powerful centralising force. Over time, chiefly because central planning was backed by central financing, union ministries entrusted with state subjects became bloated with functions and staff. The union began doing much of the states’ work, and the states in turn did the same in respect of the districts. In this way, centralisation at the national level reinforced centralisation in the states (Mukarji and Arora 1992).1 Paradoxically, India’s federal democracy thus became more centralised than British India’s unitary bureaucracy ever was.      It is now being realised that the upward shift of functions, from the districts to the state and from the states to the union, has not in the least contributed either to strengthening the centre or to making planning more effective. Indeed it has had the opposite effect on both counts. The machinery of government has become excessively flabby, at the centre as well as in the states. Planning has become so out of touch with ground reality that it is in danger of losing credibility. These developments have made political parties and scholars think in terms of reversing the upwards trend, which, unambiguously put, means decentralising functions from the union to the states and from the states to the districts. Political leaders, who in the early years set out to conquer the bureaucracy, no longer fear decentralisation on the ground that this might put power back in the hands of bureaucrats, because the bureaucracy was successfully subordinated to

political control long ago. Their fears have more to do with an aversion to sharing power with anyone.           It is also being realised that, at the level of the people, things are not the same as they were when the Constitution was written. Universal adult suffrage coupled with frequent and regular elections have made a previously quiescent people politically conscious. The successful overthrow of entrenched regimes in several states, and even at the centre, has made people aware that they count. The progress of politicisation is uneven, which is not surprising given the diversity of the country. There are still pockets where elite politics holds sway. But the leaven of democracy has started a process towards mass politics everywhere. The people are beginning to demand a say in running their own affairs. It is this, more than the creeping decay of centralised governance, that has impelled political parties to turn their attention to decentralisation. If their statements of intent are to be taken seriously, the task is not whether to resolve the paradox of a high degree of centralisation in a federal democracy but how to do so.           To sum up, in the centralisation continuum, the system inherited from colonial times was in many respects more decentralised than centralised. With the arrival of democratically elected governments at the centre and in the states, the balance was heavily tilted towards centralisation. Four decades of experience yielded the lesson that centralised governance and central planning had not worked particularly well. Meanwhile mass politicisation began to make its presence felt and generated a demand for participation. It is now necessary as well as possible to reverse the tilt away from centralisation towards more decentralised governance, including more decentralised planning.

The States

In the descending cascade of decentralisation, from the union to the states and from the states to sub-state levels, the states would figure at both stages, as recipients of powers and functions at the first and as shedders of these at the second. If the cascade stops at the first stage, the states would be choked with powers and functions, and people’s participation would remain a far cry. If, on the other hand, the cascade only starts at the second stage, the states are unlikely to part with enough powers and functions to make sub-state levels viable for fear that this may reduce their own importance too much. All the past experiments to decentralise below the state level, especially variants of panchayati raj, have suffered on this account. The states must, therefore, receive as well as give. Decentralisation confined to the states-downward stage neither makes sense nor is practical. The cascade must start at the union level and go all the way down, stage by stage.      Since the states occupy a cardinal position in union-states relations on the one hand and in downward relations on the other, it may be useful to have a close look at them. The concept of partially self-governing states has its roots in preIndependence thinking. The Constitution gives it pride of place by the very first article declaring that India shall be a union of states. It is not necessary to trace in detail how the present configuration of states has evolved. It is sufficient to recall the major phases of that evolution. There was, first, the incorporation of the princely states which occasioned the division of the country into parts A, B, C and D states. There was, next, the demand triggered by Andhra for recognition of the linguistic principle which led to a comprehensive and largely durable reorganisation of state boundaries. Thirdly, the grant of full state-hood to a relatively small territory like Nagaland initiated a course in which, on tribal or other grounds, several other small states came into being. It cannot be said that the number of states will stay at the present twenty-five.

y           These twenty-five states vary greatly in many ways. Variation in size is particularly relevant to the present analysis. The elements which go into size are population, area, the nature of terrain and the state of communications. For ease of comprehension, the states could be ranked according to population alone and the other elements kept in mind when looking at the picture that emerges. Table 2.1 shows that the states fall into two broad categories. The first 15 having populations of above 15 million each could be regarded as major states, which makes the remaining 10 with populations under 10 million each, minor states. The major states account for 96.2 per cent of the country’s population and the minor for 2.67 per cent. Interestingly, the Gadgil formula for distribution of plan funds makes almost the same categorisation. The formula as such applies to only the major states, leaving aside Assam. All the minor states and Assam fall outside the scope of the formula and are given special assistance. Allowing for the Assam factor, in 1980–81, the 14 major ‘formula’ states, accounting for 93.3 per cent population, received Rs 6,200 crore as plan assistance, while Assam and the then minor states, with only around 5 per cent population, got as much as Rs 1,800 crore. The proportion of grants to loans for the former was 30:70, while for the latter it was a generous 90:10. All states are dependent on the union but the extent of dependence of the minor states is so overwhelming as to put a question mark on their viability.           The other feature that Table 2.1 brings out is that the major and minor states can each be further divided into two sub-categories. The major group has seven large states with a population well above 50 million each, ranging from Tamil Nadu with a whopping 58 million up to Uttar Pradesh with an almost unthinkable 133 million. These states could be viewed as not easily governable, with or without decentralisation, because of their large size. The remaining eight states in the major group are medium in size, having a population range of 15 million (Haryana) to 44 million (Karnataka), and could be

y

regarded as reasonably governable, given workable decentralisation below state level. The minor group has two small states, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, which because of their far-flung territories could be classed with medium states on the governability criterion. The remaining eight states can only be described as tiny and because of their miniature character are probably below governability level. There is little, barring constitutional status, to distinguish them from union territories.           The above analysis underlines the point that, while decentralisation must be combination of union to states and states downward exercises, both must of necessity be influenced by the sizes of the states. Thus, basically any new regime between the union and the major states in the crucial financial domain may not be good enough to sustain the minor states which may continue to need ‘Special category’ treatment. Similarly, a pattern of decentralisation below the states suited to the major states and possibly also to J & K and Himachal Pradesh may not be appropriate for the tiny states. With the major states, mega-states which are large by population as well as area, such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra, may find it useful to have some form of regional governments, especially for backward areas. Thinking in this direction is to be found in the regional development boards envisioned by Article 371 and those already in existence for the development of Chhota Nagpur in Bihar and the Hill Areas in Uttar Pradesh. The short point is that the states are a heterogeneous lot and this needs to be borne in mind when discussing decentralisation.

Below the State Level The tiny states are, in terms of size, more akin to districts elsewhere than to the other states. Some of them have district councils under the Sixth Schedule, which being constitutional bodies cannot be replicated in states where the Schedule does not apply. Table 2.2 ranks the smallest districts in the country by population as recorded in 1981. Of the 23 districts having a population of less than a lakh, 19 are

in the tiny states. Tiny states and tiny districts, it would appear, go together. Both have their own distinctive problems of governance. It would be best to leave them out of the scope of the rest of this essay.           Decentralisation from the state downward may be thought of as an extension of the cascade descending from the union. There would have to be intermediate levels before the ultimate level of the village. On the first point of decentralisation there are broadly three views. The Balwant Rai Mehta Report favoured the block as being nearest to the people (Planning Commission 1957). The Sukhamoy Chakravarty Report on decentralisation of planning considered even the district to be too small for proper area planning (Economic Advisory Council 1983). The Constitution contemplates a regional approach for states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have, as already noted, adopted the idea for backward areas. The Ashoka Mehta Report on panchayati raj, however, categorically favoured the district, because historically it had been the pivot of local administration for centuries and also because, for planning and related purposes, the requisite expertise could be mustered at this level and not lower (Ashoka Mehta Report 1978). The Dantwala Report on block level planning and the Hanumantha Rao Report on district planning in essence endorsed this view (Planning Commission 1984). Thinking in political parties, has also crystallised on the district as the most appropriate level for first stage decentralisation from the state level.       Excluding the tiny states, there were 361 districts in 1981 with an average population of about 1.8 million per district. The number of districts has increased since then but so has the population. The Ashoka Mehta report, in a section on smaller districts, pointed out that when districts are too large, plan formulation as well as supervision of development work is rendered difficult. Also popular representation in zilla parishads, based on population, becomes too large. It

p p p g visualised a million of population with local variations to be a ‘reasonable target’ (Agriculture Ministry 1978). Going by the million per district yardstick, the average in 1981 was on the high side. Averages notoriously obscure worrisome aspects. Districts below the average need cause no anxiety. But those above clearly should. Table 2.3 gives a list of 39 ‘monster’ districts with a population above three million each in 1981. Since then dozens more have crossed this mark or are on the verge of doing so. If India’s population can be kept down to a billion plus in the year 2001, it is necessary to think now in terms of doubling the number of districts, which then at 700 odd would at that time provide a reasonable average of a million and a half per district.

Traditional sentiment and non-plan financial implications were mentioned by the Ashoka Mehta report as the reasons for inaction in the direction of smaller districts, even when the logic was noticed. It must be said to the credit of the states that they have been seized of the need to break up large districts into smaller, more manageable ones. The monsterin-chief of 1981, 24 Parganas in West Bengal, has for instance recently been split into two districts, north and south. But each new district still has a (1989) population of over six million. Perhaps the states would find it easier to overcome the obstacle of traditional sentiment if the obstacle

of lack of funds could be got out of the way. Since decentralisation of any kind and degree to districts of ungovernable size is a questionable proposition, the reorganisation of large districts needs to be put on the national agenda, given priority and allotted requisite funds from national resources.           Coming to decentralisation below the district, there are two parallel hierarchies in all the states, a bureaucratic one and a democratic one. On the bureaucratic side, allowing for slight variations in the states, things have remained more or less frozen in the mould of sub-divisions, talukas or tehsils, revenue circles and village mauzas. The number of subdivisions has increased here and there but without disturbing the overall pattern. The only bold innovation has been in Andhra Pradesh where talukas have been broken into mandals headed by mandal revenue officers. The measure is intended to bring the administration closer to the people, with which end in view mandals have been constituted with an average population of only around 35,000 each. Mandal headquarters are meant to become focal points with banks, secondary schools, police stations and other local institutions. They could in time become growth centres, especially because they also house developmental offices and related facilities.           On the democratic side, the Balwant Rai Mehta Report visualised two levels below zilla parishads, viz., block samitis and village panchayats. During implementation, some states preferred to have samitis at the taluka level instead of the block. The Ashoka Mehta report felt that, below the district level, the balance between technological requirements and possibilities for meaningful participation by the people in development could best be achieved by grouping a number of villages to constitute mandal panchayats, with each such panchayat covering a population of 15,000–20,000 people. Karnataka has adopted such a model (Mukerji in Mathew 1986: 67–75).      Andhra Pradesh too has done so, except that its mandals

p are twice the size and are co-terminus with its unique revenue mandals. West Bengal has block samitis and gram panchayats, but the ‘gram’ is related to a population of 10,000 plus and not to a single village concept. There is, thus, a variety of arrangements below the district level and it may be wise to let each state continue to have the flexibility to evolve the system it considers best suited to its historical, cultural and political circumstances.

Diststrict Government An extreme form of decentralisation is to break up, or break off pieces from, a larger entity. If that were to happen to a country, it would amount to balkanisation or secession and either eventuality would be unacceptable. Bangladesh was a freak exception, if only because the two parts of undivided Pakistan were geographically far apart. But breaking up, or breaking pieces off from, sub-national units does not attract similar unacceptability. Thus, for instance, Andhra Pradesh was able to break up its talukas into mandals without encountering constitutional or political hurdles. Assam experienced Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram breaking off, not without political unrest and constitutional change, but with the nation’s acceptance since discontent with Guwahati’s yoke did not mean secession from the country. If Gorkhaland were to ultimately break off from West Bengal or for that matter Jharkhand from Bihar, Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha from Maharashtra and so on, the dominant elites of the mother states in each case may feel upset but the nation would survive such minor surgery. Surgical decentralisation is, however, not the central concern of this essay.           As already noted, the constitution-makers provided for

elected governments at the centre and in the states but strangely left the inherited ‘district officer’ system untouched in the districts. This was strange because local selfgovernment was on the agenda of the freedom movement long before purna swaraj and yet it came to be overlooked. Whatever the reasons for this, the objective situation now calls for a review. On the one hand today’s district officer has far too much to do and this, taken together with other constraints, means that he is unable to do anything effectively enough. On the other, the political awakening of the people has led them to expect much more from the system than it can deliver. Instead of flogging ‘district officer’ rule any longer, the time is ripe to consider letting the people run their own affairs through elected district governments. Decentralisation must, therefore, take the democratic route of devolution to these governments.2       If such governments are not to go the way of panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) they must possess characteristics, the lack of which led to the failure of the latter. First, district governments must be recognised as political entities, with political parties openly contesting elections. The past approach of keeping panchayats sanitised from politics, though well-intentioned in one sense, overlooked the invigorating role of politics as an engine for change. It also deprived the polity of an entry stage for new recruits into politics and a nursery for grooming such entrants for higher responsibilities. Without the political dimension there can be no real democracy. And anything short of genuine democracy will perish just as surely as guided democracy did elsewhere or party-less democracy in the case of the first generation PRIs. The second generation PRIs of West Bengal, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, having remedied matters in this respect, stand put as useful precedents.       Second, district governments must look after the totality of district governance, with the district bureaucracy coming

squarely under them. The division between regulatory and developmental functions, initiated by community development and continued in PRIs, is artificial and untenable. It compels development to stay within the limits set by the present societal configuration. This is so because any attempt to change the configuration, such as through land reform, inevitably comes up against the power structure. When that happens, regulatory administration all too often sides with the power elite. If there is to be any worthwhile change this collusion must go, and that can only become possible if the two arms, regulatory and developmental, are required to work together under district governments.3 Ultimately what matters is who wields the lathi and if that remains with the district officer, district governments will be just as unable to deliver genuine development as PRIs.      Third, the fate of district governments must not be left to the tender mercies of state governments. This means two things. One, elections must be held at regular intervals under the overall supervision of the Election Commission. As far as possible, the method of elections should be direct because the indirect route is easily manipulable. Two, super-sessions should be barred. In the case of the states there is the controversial and much misused Article 356 under which elected state governments can be removed and president’s rule imposed in the event of failure of the constitutional machinery. Sooner or later this vestige of colonial rule will have to go. In respect of the districts there is no justification for replicating a measure which would give state governments a handle to remove inconvenient district governments.      Fourth, district governments must be nested in the federal idea, forming a third tier of the polity. The third tier would subsume self-governing units at sub-district levels right down to the gram sabhas. This again means two things. One, that ‘the districts’ must find a place in the constitution, not perhaps in the elaborate manner of Part VI dealing with ‘the

states’ but equally not in the perfunctory manner of Part VIII dealing with ‘the Union Territories’. Happily, the intervening slot of Part VII has been lying vacant ever since Part B States were abolished and is available for a suitable formulation for the districts to be fitted in. Two, the introduction of a third tier must not squeeze the intermediate second tier or be seen as attempting to do so. If the aim is to strengthen and enlarge India’s federal democracy, it is as important to make the states more effective as to carve out a third tier for the districts, Consequently, a reordering of centre-state relations must go hand in hand with extending the federal idea to a third tier. As of now the union has overburdened itself with functions pertaining to state subjects. If the superfluous fat were to be shed, the union might handle what remains better, and the states would have more to share out with the districts.      Fifth, in a three-tier federal system, there would have to be a new financial regime as between the union, the states and the districts. On the one hand, the union must be left with resources to meet its essential obligations. On the other, the states and the districts, not being in a position to raise adequate resources on their own, must have the oxygen of assured, untied devolution of funds from the union in sufficient measure to make purposeful self-government at these levels possible. So far the percentage shares of the states in central taxes have been determined by the finance commissions. Raja Chelliah, the noted expert in public finance, once urged the need for finality in this matter. He specifically suggested that 40 per cent of income tax and corporation tax and 35 per cent of union excise should go to the states and in addition 5 per cent of income tax and corporation tax to local bodies,      and that a provision to this effect should be made in the constitution. Finance commissions should thereafter only distribute the total of the states’ share among the states. On the grants side, Chelliah suggested that all block and other

g gg grants should be channelled mainly through the Finance Commissions (rather than the Planning Commission), which should be guided not by the gap-filling approach but wellaccepted principles of equalisation. As regards loans, he wrote that ‘the basis of allocation of market borrowing among the states needs to be examined and new principles have to be evolved’ (Chelliah 1984: 56–114).           Going beyond Chelliah’s refreshing approach, one is inclined to suggest (as a non-expert) that, in order to introduce finality and avoid recriminatory debate, a provision may be made in the constitution that 45 per cent of the aggregate resources of the union (leaving aside obviously unshareable items like provident funds of central employees) should go to the states, of which 5 per cent should be earmarked for being passed on to the districts. The union’s aggregate resources are of two kinds, non-loan and loan. Non-loan resources (45 per cent) should go to the states and districts as unconditional devolutions. Loan resources (45 per cent) including market borrowing, external borrowing and deficit financing, should also be devolved unconditionally except for normal loan terms. Devolution of market borrowing should be by allocating ceilings within which major states should do their own borrowing, while the union may do so on behalf of the minor states. Finance commissions would then be left with the twin tasks of determining the shareable aggregate resources of the union, non-loan, and distributing the shares of the states and districts among the states, eschewing the gap-filling approach and adopting equalisation principles. Within the states, at least the major ones, there would have to be state finance commissions which would do a similar job in respect of the districts. The states should be required to set aside five per cent of their own aggregate resources (excluding devolutions from the union) for devolution to the districts. These and the earmarked union devolutions would comprise the distributable pool for the districts.

     Sixth, there must also be a new planning regime. We need to find a way to federalise national planning. The Planning Commission should move out of the investment-cum-growth type of planning in which it has remained locked and move into the hitherto almost unexplored terrain of policy planning. It should think anew about issues like the reasons for persistent mass poverty and deprivation, the reasons for the continued backwardness of regions, the roots of public unrest of various kinds, the oppression to which the weak are subjected, the decline of institutions like the police and judicial administration, the status of women, the proper nurturing and education of children, the full implications of population growth, the proper management of water and land resources, the restructuring of relations with neighbouring countries, the impact of external policies, the proper balance between defence and development, the rising cost of the bureaucracy, and many others. It should seek to build national consensus on the policies which the country as a whole should adopt in regard to such issues. The commission may involve itself in sectoral planning for union subjects. For the rest, planning should be decentralised to the states and districts. The states for sure and, to the maximum extent possible, the districts too must strengthen their planning capabilities. Vigorous state and district planning, within the compass of nationally accepted policies and under a financial regime which permits local innovations, would be the way to harmonise the planning idea with the federal.      It seems a stage has arrived when both the Congress and important opposition groups favour democratic decentralisation backed by constitutional sanction. But this overworked term means different things to different people. Some view it as involving only incremental improvements in panchayati raj within the existing framework of governance. Others, like this writer, think that democratic decentralisation should mean a fundamentally new system of governance through two related measures: a third tier of democratic

g district governments to replace bureaucratic ‘district officer’ rule, and a new scheme of relations between the union, the states and the districts based on optimal decentralisation. Some favour a uniform model for the whole country. Others, like this writer, see advantage in identifying the essentials for incorporation in the constitution, leaving all other matters flexible so as to permit adaptation of the underlying idea to local circumstances in different states. Some see in the Congress leadership’s new-found interest a design to bypass the states and virtually ‘to convert districts into union territories’ (Jain 1988). If this is indeed the intention, it would be a serious mistake.      Given the Congress and opposition positions in favour of democratic decentralisation, attention needs to be focused on giving content to what is only a concept so far. This essay is a modest effort to do just that. Before the constitution is amended there must be a full and open debate. It would be nothing short of tragic if, like the Defamation Bill, an amending bill in this case were to be suddenly sprung on the nation and hastily enacted. For then a vitally needed reform in the country’s system of governance would be obscured in a cloud of controversy. If combative postures which rule out the possibility of achieving consensus cannot be avoided in the run-up to the next election it would be wiser to defer the amending legislation till after the election.

Some Queststions Answered Should an amending bill go as far as drawing up a fourth list in the Seventh Schedule for district subjects, presumably by hiving off some items from the state list? It is for constitutional experts to say whether such a list is absolutely essential to give democratic decentralisation legitimacy. There

could be a view favouring a fifth list also setting out concurrent subjects as between the states and districts. As against this, there is a growing impression that even the existing lists have not served as adequate markers delineating union and states functions. There is hardly any subject of importance in the state and concurrent lists into which the union has not made inroads. Some of these are justifiable, such as interstate programmes like malaria eradication, research into problems transcending individual states and relations with international agencies like FAO, UNESCO and ILO. The study team of the Administrative Reforms Commission on centre-state relations identified, after going into the working of several union ministries and agencies, a short list of functions which was necessary for the union to perform even in respect of state list subjects (Administrative Reforms Commission 1968: 156). Inroads into functions other than these have been made possible entirely because of the union’s financial strength vis-a-vis the states (Krishnaswamy, Gulati and Vaidyanathan in Mukerji and Arora 1992). It may be stated as a proposition, at least in the Indian context, that functions go where there is money, regardless of constitutional lists. Consequently it is more important to install a new financial regime than to devise new lists.           Would a third tier at the district level, inclusive of subdistrict units, enhance the oppressive power of dominant groups and correspondingly place further burdens on the oppressed weaker sections? Under the present dispensation, it is the dominant groups that hold power at the state level (excluding states ruled by Left combinations), and it is largely their writ that runs at and below the district level through the bureaucracy, especially through the coercive arm, viz., the police. The view that high-minded civil servants, functioning as district officers, can act as brakes or moderators may be true here or there, but is essentially divorced from reality. Democratic decentralisation to a third tier would thus, not worsen matters. Since the logic of democracy favours

g y numbers, decentralised democracy would, on the other hand, open up the possibility of the oppressed majority organising itself and capturing power in individual districts or mandals. The organisation of the poor tends to be regarded as a pious and unrealisable hope. So it will remain as long as the poor have to organise across an entire state before exercising power. By extending the idea of democratically elected political governments to the states and stopping there, the constitution-makers unwittingly loaded the system against the poor and the dispossessed. Carrying the idea down to lower levels would correct this imbalance. Empirical evidence from West Bengal and Karnataka, both with second generation PRIs, suggests that this is precisely what is beginning to happen.           Would it be wise to dispense with the institution of a district officer completely, having regard to the lynchpin role he has performed so far? The governors of British provinces performed a similar role. Their replacement by elected governments was considered logical and appropriate in India’s federal democracy. The performance of most of the elected state governments leaves much to be desired, but that has not produced a yearning to go back to governors. Replacing district officers by elected governments could reasonably be expected to follow the same pattern. Besides, today’s district officer would be tomorrow’s chief secretary of a district government. His administrative powers would then be infused by a political content, due to his proximity to those in power at the district level, and this would increase rather than diminish his role as a co-ordinator and supervisor.

3 DECENTRALISED PLANNING

An Overview of Experience and Prospects C. H. HANUMANTHA RAO

The Context of the planning process has become, of B ecentralisation late, a matter of worldwide concern, whether in socialist

or mixed economies. Decentralisation through the involvement of local-level representative institutions in the formulation of plans for development as well as their implementation is being advocated in the interest of efficient utilisation of resources and for ensuring more equitable sharing of benefit from development. In the case of public enterprises, decentralisation or de-bureaucratisation is advocated for securing autonomy for the management in respect of decisions on important matters relating to investment, product-mix, pricing, wages and labour relations, with a view to ensuring result-oriented performance.           This general concern for decentralisation has been preceded by long periods of planning when fairly high rates of investment and high levels of development have been achieved particularly in respect of physical infrastructure, e.g., power, irrigation, roads and communications, etc. In socialist countries, basic changes in property relationships were brought about before the start of the planning process itself besides achieving a high level of social development, e.g., education, health and recreation facilities, etc., over the plan

period. In India, however, the pace of structural changes and social development has been slow, although certain institutional measures undertaken, such as abolition of intermediaries in land, ceilings on the ownership of landholdings, nationalisation and development of major financial institutions did contribute to opening up the opportunities for development for wider sections of population.      The present concern for decentralisation should, thus, be seen in the context of the slow rate of benefits flowing from the infrastructure already built up as indicated by the slow growth of productivity and, in the case of India, insufficient percolation of benefits to the poor and the socially disadvantaged sections, despite the proliferation of several poverty alleviation programmes in the recent period. Improvements in productivity through speedy absorption of modern technology as well as better allocation and utilisation of the available resources and greater impact of such productivity improvements on the living conditions of the weaker sections of population are sought to be achieved through decentralised planning. It is also recognised that certain pre-requisites for decentralised development such as education, general awareness, technical and organisational capabilities are found in greater measure now than in the early years of planning.           Decentralisation in decision-making is expected to be limited to certain sectors where the concerned unit of planning has a comparative advantage. These are generally activities and investments which are located in, and the flow of benefits largely confined to, the area concerned. Therefore, the process of decentralisation envisaged is not likely to weaken central planning, much less to obviate the need for it. Indeed, an intelligent process of decentralisation may contribute to the strengthening of the planning process in general by relieving the higher levels of planning from detailed decision-making and overseeing and thus strengthening their

g g g g capabilities in taking overall allocative decisions including those having a bearing on planning and development at the lower levels.

The Issues In this essay, we are concerned with decentralised planning essentially at the sub-state levels, i.e., regional, district, block and village levels, although the focus of attention will be decentralised planning at the district level. In India, the concern for decentralised planning is as old as planning itself. The First Five-Year Plan was as clear and eloquent as any latest official document on this subject. The following lines from the First Plan document bear this out: A democracy working for social ends has to base itself on the willing assent of the people and not the coercive power of the state ... their own views about their needs and difficulties and the correct solutions must be elicited and given the fullest weight in making the plans, in the execution of which they will be called upon to assist ... Means have, therefore, to be devised to bring the people into association both at the stage of formulation of the plans and in their implementation from stage to stage. The same position was reiterated in one form or another in all the subsequent plan documents including the Seventh Plan. The Balwant Rai Mehta Team appointed in 1957 recommended constitution of statutory elective local bodies with the necessary resources, power and authority devolved on them and a decentralised administrative system working under their control, which became the genesis of the panchayati raj system introduced in the country. The Planning

Commission issued guidelines for district planning as far back as 1969. In 1977, the Planning Commission appointed a working group under the chairmanship of M. L. Dantwala to draw up guidelines for block-level planning. Another committee on panchayati raj headed by Ashok Mehta was appointed in 1977. Both the committees submitted their reports in 1978. In 1983, the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister presented its Report on Decentralisation of Development Planning and Implementation in the States. The latest in the series of such reports is that of the Working Group on District Planning submitted to the Planning Commission in 1984, which formed the basis of the Seventh Plan proposals on decentralised planning.           Barring a few exceptions, the performance in respect of decentralised planning has been dismal, despite periodic reiteration of intentions and the setting up of formal structures like panchayati raj institutions on a statutory basis. After the initial enthusiasm in the late 1950s and early 1960s which raised expectations, there has been retrogression for over two decades now. Although the idea of decentralised planning at the district level has been revived recently with some vigour, it is necessary to bear in mind that a periodic revival of the idea has been a part of the history of our planning. It is important, therefore, to understand why the idea, though all along with us, has failed to work. In the absence of a proper understanding of the forces operating against decentralised planning, the present exercises are bound to result in the repetition of platitudes. A hard and objective look at the factors inhibiting meaningful decentralisation of planning and those conducive to it is called for.           In the discussions on decentralised planning, it is readily assumed that our growth performance would have been distinctly better and the distribution of benefits from development far more equitable if only we had effective planning at the sub-state, particularly at the grassroots

p g p y g levels. However, it is necessary to examine the validity of this proposition in the light of the factors or elements contributing to growth in the post-independence period and the competing claims, under the prevailing social structure, on the gains of development at the grassroots levels. In the light of such analysis, it would be necessary to identify the desirable degree of decentralisation in planning and the socio-political preconditions for making it feasible consistent with equitable distribution of benefits from development.

Decentrtralised Planning: Experirience over Time Political and bureaucratic resistance at the state level to sharing power and resources with the local-level institutions for planning from below, is often cited as the single most important reason for the failure of decentralised planning to strike roots. Therefore, those from the centre who advocate decentralised planning have been exhorting the state governments time and again to implement the agreed schemes and guidelines on decentralisation. In view of the tardy progress on this front, there are moves now to secure constitutional sanction for periodic elections to the panchayati raj institutions and delegation of certain planning functions as well as devolution of resources to them by specifying subjects under the District List, the State List and the Concurrent List. It may be noted, however, that panchayati raj institutions do enjoy, even at present, some kind of statutory position in the states which has not prevented the state governments from encroaching upon their powers and functions under various pretexts and through various devices. It may be noted on the other hand, that the planning process in the country, both at the centre and in the states, has been working reasonably well despite the absence

of constitutional provisions either in regard to the planning functions or the devolution of plan resources to the states.           The experience of the working of panchayati raj institutions has revealed that under the prevailing social structure and property relations, the rural elite has often come to dominate these institutions and appropriated a major share of benefits from development so that the improvement in the living conditions of the poor and the underprivileged has been negligible. In view of this, those who see decentralised planning as a means for improving the socioeconomic condition of the weaker sections are sceptical about the prospects of decentralised planning unless structural changes are brought about to ensure the rise of the rural poor to a position of dominance in these institutions.      It is true that a lack of political will at the state level and the dominance of the rural elite at the grassroots level are basically responsible for the failure of decentralised planning to materialise and for the non-fulfilment of its avowed objectives in most cases where it is on ground. But what is overlooked is that lack of political will at the grassroots level is equally responsible for these failures. It is puzzling to observe that despite the improvements in educational levels, general awareness and political consciousness over the last few decades, the pressure for decentralisation is coming now, not so much from the grassroots, as from the central and the state governments. Lack of initiative from the grassroots in this regard introduces a measure of scepticism about the prospects for decentralisation in planning.           Since decentralised planning involves delegation of decision-making powers to the sub-state levels with corresponding devolution of resources, the performance in this respect is very much linked to the politics of planning and development within a democratic framework. In the early years of planning, the political leadership both at the central and state levels had an ideological commitment to decentralisation, as most of them were in the forefront of the

national movement for independence and hence shared the perspectives of development in a free India as espoused during the freedom struggle. This generation of leadership also felt politically secure and confident because of their preeminent position earned even before Independence. Also, in the early years of planning, the level of public expenditure was relatively small, accounted largely by the essential infrastructural investments.      Over a period of time, however, the struggle for political power began to manifest itself at the state level. The state leaders almost everywhere encountered challenges to their power within the ruling party itself and became increasingly controversial and weaker and hence, began to feel insecure. On the other hand, planning and public expenditure steadily grew in importance. The rising importance of public expenditure provided opportunities for political consolidation to the ruling elites at the state level. The allocations for schools, hospitals, roads, water works, etc., which can potentially be decided upon at the district level by the elected institutions began to be increasingly made by the dominant groups at the state level by superseding the local-level institutions. The conflicts became sharp in cases where such institutions were dominated either by those belonging to a different political complexion or to a different political group within the ruling party itself.           In this process of decision-making from above, a large part of the local elite at the district and other levels became a beneficiary from such dispensations. The local elite in course of time got recruited into one or other channel of political power and patronage flowing from above and thus became an integral part of the political establishment. These developments may indeed explain why there is no discernible movement and pressure from the local-level elite for effective decentralisation in planning at the district and block levels.           It is also important to recognise that the imperatives of development planning in the initial stages favoured

p p g g centralised decisions at higher levels. For one thing, development of infrastructure, e.g., power, major and medium irrigation that accounted for the bulk of the state plan outlays, could be planned better at the state level. Even the divisible outlays on items like education and health could be decided upon at the state level, without serious loss of efficiency.           Second, technological changes introduced in agriculture around the mid-1960s were, of necessity, exogenous to the sub-state levels, as they had to originate from research stations and universities. The extension of new methods of cultivation and the supply of modern inputs like high yielding seeds, fertilisers and pesticides through centralised agencies led to the strengthening of line departments at the expense of community development and panchayati raj institutions.      Third, the initiative for institutional changes such as land reform, nationalisation of banks, etc., came from above, from the central leadership and the leadership at the state level merely fell in line. Thus, the initiative for such basic structural changes, did not originate from the ‘grassroots’ where the vested interests got fully entrenched and indeed put up resistance to measures on land and credit reform and managed to sabotage them to a considerable extent.           Fourth, by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the development experience had belied the assumption that economic growth will automatically result in the reduction of poverty. Population growth at well over two per cent per annum and the highly inadequate percolation of benefits from development to the poor under the prevailing social structure, was leading to social tensions and political unrest. Local-level institutions functioned well as long as they were concerned with problems such as roads, schools, hospitals, etc., which were common to various interest groups. But the rural elite were not interested in programmes which benefited mainly the poor and the underprivileged.           When poverty removal was incorporated as an explicit

p y p p objective of development strategy in the early 1970s, several programmes for the benefit of small and marginal farmers, landless labourers, Scheduled Castes and tribes were launched at the initiative of the government at the centre. Given the prevailing social structure and dominance of the rural rich at the local level, it did not appear, at least in the initial stages, that decentralisation was necessary for the effective implementation of such programmes. Indeed, the experience with institutional reforms pointed to the need for a contrary course of action. The rural elite which continued to be opposed to the various beneficiary-oriented programmes meant for the poor, was largely bypassed in their initiation and implementation. However, these programmes continued to encounter resistance from them in subtle ways including the appropriation of a large chunk of benefits meant for the poor.      In view of the above experience, it appears an exaggeration to think that lack of decentralised planning has proved to be a serious impediment either to growth or social justice. After all, the ideas of planning modernisation, democracy and social justice did not originate from the grassroots. They were largely borrowed from the experience of the West in the course of their own struggles for independence, democracy, development and social justice. A national consensus was built around these goals in the course of our own national movement for independence over a long period.      This is not to suggest, however, that these ideas are either alien to our culture or cannot be implemented through the democratic institutions at the grassroots levels. In fact, we are reaching a stage in the developmental process and the evolution of our democratic polity when decentralised planning has become both necessary and possible. The outlays on social development and poverty alleviation which are divisible in nature are becoming increasingly important as a proportion to total plan outlay and, potentially, most of them can be planned best at the local level. Second, the

p dominance of the rural rich in the elected local-level institutions, though very real in most places so far, is not an unchangeable phenomenon. As discussed later in this essay, it should be possible to devise an electoral system whereby the poorer strata come to dominate such bodies. As it is, the awareness on the part of the poor and the underprivileged is much better now than in the initial stages of our planned development. By introducing certain measures for social change, it should be possible to ensure an effective participation of the poor in such institutions. Such a participation has become necessary not only for better planning of various poverty alleviation programmes but, more importantly, for minimising leakages in their implementation so that the benefits of these programmes reach the poor.

Experirience acrcross States The above discussion should not lead to the inference that decentralisation as such in planning did not matter at all in India so far either for achieving growth or for ensuring social justice. The effective decentralisation in planning in India exists today at the state levels vis-a-vis planning at the central level. The effectiveness of decentralisation at this level did seem to affect growth and where institutional reforms have been successful, it did seem to make an impact on social justice also. The effectiveness of decentralisation in planning at the state level seems to depend very much on the size of the state. The smaller the size of the state, the greater seems to be its ability to take decisions quickly and implement the programmes effectively by promptly reaching the grassroots levels and responding to their felt needs. Similarly, decentralisation at the sub-state levels seems to be effective and percolation of benefits to the poor satisfactory wherever

land reforms have been effectively implemented. The viability of the size of the state and structural changes brought about seem to have had a greater impact on growth, and social justice than formal decentralisation of planning below the state level.           The experience of Punjab and Haryana illustrates how smaller states with progressive land tenure systems can grow faster with more equitable sharing of benefits of growth even without decentralised planning at the sub-state levels. The per capita income of these states is highest among all the states of the country and the growth rate in income has also been about the highest among states. The system of land tenures is progressive and the proportion of people below the poverty line is the lowest in the country. There is hardly any decentralised planning worth the name below the state levels nor is there any enthusiasm visible among the politicians and administrators for decentralised planning, e.g., district planning in these states. Indeed, they seem to be somewhat sceptical about the need for decentralised planning, as bulk of the resources are committed for the development of irrigation and power so that there is already a clear lag between the development of such infrastructure sectors and sectors of social development which can be planned at the state level. However, owing to the increase in demand for labour in agriculture and rural industries, the wage rates are high resulting in a greater reduction in the poverty ratio than among other states. In view of the ease with which various government functionaries are able to communicate with grassroots levels, decentralisation in planning does not appear as an immediate felt need in these states. At the substate level, the effective units for decentralised decisionmaking seem to be the millions of farm and non-farm households whose initiative has been released on account of progressive land tenures, good infrastructure, profitable technology and responsive administration.           At the other extreme are big states like Uttar Pradesh,

g Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where decentralisation of planning at the sub-state levels is highlighted as a felt need and one finds a visible concern among politicians and administrators for decentralised planning. However, it is precisely in these states that decentralised planning is least successful. It appears as if the very largeness of size which necessitates decentralisation militates against it. For one thing, a larger state is also, as a rule, a more powerful unit in terms of concentration of political as well as bureaucratic power. Devolution of planning functions and resources to a large number of districts would mean immediate parting with the enormous power enjoyed by the politicians and bureaucracy at present as also foregoing the opportunities for the distribution of patronage. A bigger state is more prone to creeping political dissent and instability and the ruling elite can ill-afford to surrender the instruments for consolidation of its power. Second, since decentralisation in planning does not amount to giving complete autonomy to sub-state levels and indeed involves considerable amount of work at the state level by way of co-ordinating and monitoring development work through decentralisation, a switchover from the existing style of work of taking decisions directly to an indirect management through decentralisation among innumerable units is not an easy job. These states are, thus, too big and centralised to embark upon decentralisation.           These states account for the lowest per capita income among all states and their rate of growth in income has in general been lower than the national average. The proportion of people below the poverty line among these states is highest when compared to other states in the country. There is, therefore, a severe resources crunch in these states in relation to the essential requirements for infrastructure development and poverty alleviation. The scarcity of available resources also militates against their adequate sharing with units at the sub-state levels. These states are also characterised by outmoded land tenure systems with the

y y vestiges of semi-feudal relationships. The panchayati raj institutions are, therefore, easily dominated by the rural elite and, in quite a few places, even by those lacking commitment to the democratic norms and processes. In such a situation, one cannot expect genuine concerns at the grassroots levels for decentralised planning, much less for an equitable distribution of benefits to the poor and the underprivileged, The technical capabilities for planning are also lacking at the lower levels, although this cannot be considered a significant bottleneck in these states,           Whatever decentralised planning is practised at the district level in these states, and indeed in most other states in the country, is done essentially by the bureaucracy by putting together the various schemes undertaken by the different departments within the parameters set at the state level. In quite a few cases, this can even be described as district planning done at the state level. Even planning at a regional level such as for hill areas in Uttar Pradesh is reduced essentially to the putting together of schemes undertaken by various departments at the state level and at best monitoring of the flow of resources into the region on account of such schemes.           Even states like Gujarat and Maharashtra which have pioneered decentralised planning at the district level in the country, find the area of freedom for the allocation of resources at the district level extremely limited. In Gujarat, for instance, where about 30 per cent of the state plan outlay is accounted by district-level schemes, a bulk of it is accounted by the departmental schemes and only about 20 per cent of it or about 6 per cent of the total state plan outlay is amenable to free allocation at the district level. Besides, as much as 80 to 90 per cent of the outlays on district-level schemes are spent on ongoing schemes and very little is left for new schemes to be undertaken.       A more serious limitation to the effectiveness of district planning even in such advanced states, not adequately

p g q y appreciated so far, arises from the failure to reduce disparities in development between different regions. Marathwada and Vidarbha in Maharashtra, Saurashtra and Kutch in Gujarat, Telangana and Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand in Uttar Pradesh are some clear examples of the less-developed regions. When some of these areas were merged to constitute the linguistic states at the time of the states’ reorganisation—as in the case of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh despite the recommendation to the contrary by the States’ Reorganisation Commission—it was done with the assurance that special steps would be undertaken to bring these backward regions on par with the developed regions. However, the politics of planning in a democratic set-up within the state as a political unit have been such that it became increasingly difficult to impose sacrifices on the developed regions to the advantage of backward regions. The evidence, on the contrary, points to the accentuation of disparities as in the case of Marathwada, Vidarbha, Rayalaseema and Uttarakhand. This has happened despite the constitutional provisions to safeguard the interests of the backward regions through the establishment of regional development boards with special powers to the governors for monitoring progress, as in the case of Maharashtra and Gujarat.           It is wrong to expect that decentralised planning at the district level by itself can go a long way in reducing regional disparities in development. For one thing, the backwardness of each of these regions consisting of a number of districts, arises either from specific agro-climatic factors or from long periods of neglect before they were merged into the composite states. Because of these reasons, an integrated approach to the planning of infrastructure for each of these regions is required for removing backwardness. This is necessary even for making district planning effective by providing infrastructure which is beyond the district-level

p g y outlays. The potential district-level plan outlays account for only about 25 to 30 per cent of state plan outlay. Maharashtra shows a higher figure of around 40 per cent. This means, as much as 60 to 70 per cent of outlay is still planned and allocated at the state level for various infrastructural items, including particularly, power and major and medium irrigation, which have a bearing on the development of individual districts. Besides, in a mixed economy like ours, the level and pattern of private investment, particularly in the non-agricultural sectors, which can be influenced by state policies, is an important determinant of development. The major infrastructure investments and measures to induce private investments can be planned better at the level of a broadly homogeneous region consisting of a number of districts.       The distribution of resources for the district-level outlays among districts in several states is broadly analogous to the Gadgil Formula for the distribution of central plan assistance to states. Thus, the population of a district gets a major weightage together with some indicators of social and economic backwardness. In some cases weightage is also given to urbanisation. It is not clear, in balance, whether the backward districts end up by getting significantly larger allocations in per capita terms than the developed districts. In any case, the implied progress is likely to be modest considering the backlog of development in the less developed districts. Therefore, unless there is a mechanism to ensure that the flow of benefits from the remaining 60 to 70 per cent of the plan outlays has a significant degree of progression, the observed progressivity in the district wise allocations cannot make a significant impact on the removal of backwardness. It is possible to conceive of a situation where the pattern of state-level outlays is such that it more than neutralises whatever progressively that exists in the districtlevel allocations. That this is indeed so has been alleged time and again by the leaders of backward regions.

g y g       Whereas Maharashtra and Gujarat have pioneered district planning, their performance in respect of regional planning has been dismal, despite the existence of constitutional provisions in this regard. Indeed, there is evidence to believe that the move for district planning got a special impetus in Maharashtra towards the 1970s when there was widespread discontent in the backward regions. District planning began to be considered seriously as an alternative for countering the ‘narrow’ and ‘separatist’ regional sentiments. The ready acceptance of the idea of district planning has its basis in the reluctance on the part of a number of states to pursue planning at the regional level. However, there is no doubt that district planning can be effective in achieving its goals only in the measure in which problems of regional backwardness are simultaneously addressed through appropriate mechanisms.           It is interesting to note that states where decentralised planning at the district level is effective, are precisely the states whose performance in respect of land reforms has been better. West Bengal, Karnataka and J&K belong to this category. West Bengal is poised for decentralised planning down to the village level. Karnataka has embarked upon a bold legislation for delegation of planning functions to the district-level elected institutions and for creating the institutional mechanism for the devolution of resources on the lines of the Finance Commission at the national level. In J&K, the whole cabinet including the chief minister attends the district-level meetings, conducts public hearings and sanctions the schemes on the spot. Although this cannot be a substitute for decision-making by the local-level institutions, it is certainly an improvement over the practice of taking decisions in the state capital and is an effective mechanism for expediting implementation. Because of some structural changes brought about in these states, there is reason to believe that benefits of development are likely to be shared more equitably.

Existiting Positiitiition and Prospectcts We have come a long way from the romanticism of the 1950s in regard to decentralised planning. Planning at the regional level is conspicuous by its absence and whatever planning that is practised at the district and lower levels is virtually divorced from the panchayati raj institutions, which have often been superseded despite the statutory status enjoyed by them. There are now proposals for bringing in constitutional provisions for holding elections to these bodies regularly; for devolution of resources by specifying their functions; and for adequate representation to weaker sections.      A number of assumptions underlying the current optimism need critical examination in the light of past experience. Statutory provisions are no doubt desirable but do not seem to be sufficient to effect a break from the past. We have seen that regional development boards became defunct and virtually extinct in course of time despite constitutional provisions and, in the case of Maharashtra, despite the unanimous resolution passed by the state legislature urging implementation of the constitutional provisions. Constitutional provisions cannot be a substitute for the requisite political culture and political will. If the elected state governments can be superseded on account of political exigencies, there is no basis for entertaining different expectations in regard to the local-level institutions. Further, in view of the fact that even the recommendations of a constitutional body like the Finance Commission are not mandatory on the union government, it is not reasonable to expect that statutory provisions alone would be sufficient to ensure adequate transfer of resources to these institutions.           We have pointed out the possible motivation of certain state governments behind the ready acceptance of the idea of district planning. At the central level, there seems to be a

naive and somewhat exaggerated feeling that something has basically gone wrong with planning in India because the decisions are made at the centre and state capitals and that, therefore, future plans should be built from below, i.e., from the district and village levels. It is overlooked in this process that planning at the district levels, under the best of circumstances, can concern itself with not more than onefourth to one-third of state plan outlays and the rest has, of necessity, to be planned at higher levels. One, therefore, gets the feeling that there is a temptation to find softer solutions to the harder problems of development and deficiencies in planning in general. It also needs to be understood that the centre’s role in decentralised planning is purely advisory and such of the assistance that it can render for district or regional planning has to be done through the state governments whose consent and participation is, therefore, a necessary pre-condition. Decentralised planning should not become a factor in the deterioration of centre-state relations.           In the current discussions on district planning, the overriding issue seems to be the improvement in the decisionmaking process through the delegation of functions. Decentralised planning as an effective instrument for the formulation and implementation of poverty alleviation programmes has not been brought into the focus, presumably because of the belief that once the power is delegated to lower levels, implementation of these programmes will automatically improve because the elected representatives are accountable to the poor and the underprivileged who constitute the vast majority of our electorate. While this is true in the long run, a formal delegation of power is not sufficient to ensure this unless simultaneous measures are taken to bring about structural changes to weaken the socioeconomic power that the rural rich wield over the poor, ensure adequate representation to the poor in these bodies through the necessary electoral reforms and improve the bargaining power of the poor themselves by organising them

g gp p y g g into activity-specific groups and associations and through the involvement of voluntary or non-governmental organisations in the formulation as well as implementation of these programmes.           As mentioned earlier, notwithstanding the dismal performance in regard to decentralised planning, the need for such planning is greater now because of the increasing importance of programmes for social development and poverty alleviation and also because the prospects for such planning are better now on account of better availability of infrastructure at the lower levels, improvement in education levels, public awareness, etc. At the same time, if past experience is any guide, there should be no room for euphoria in this regard.           In addition to the statutory provisions currently under discussion, five major areas of action are indicated from past experience for making decentralised planning effective. These are: (1) Suitable modifications in the centrally sponsored schemes so as to impart greater flexibility for local-level planning; (2) Measures for planning at the regional level, particularly in bigger states; (3) Electoral reforms to ensure adequate representation to the poor in the local level institutions; (4) Structural changes to release the initiative of the rural poor by freeing them from various forms of socioeconomic exploitation; and (5) Strategy to ensure peoples’ participation, among other things, by involving voluntary organisations. All these measures would require considerable political will on the part of both the central and state governments. These are briefly discussed below.           Centrally sponsored schemes usually embody national concerns and, despite the opposition from certain state governments, their importance has increased in the recent period. They mainly relate to agriculture, rural development or poverty alleviation, health and education. Being divisible in nature, central assistance for such schemes together with matching outlays may account for bulk of the outlays at the

g y y y district level. Assuming that such schemes are intended to meet certain national goals and are essential in the sense that these are not likely to be taken up by the state governments without the central initiative, a major reform needed for the fulfilment of the objectives of the schemes is to make the schemes only indicative from the central level, i.e., to define the broad purpose of the schemes and leave the detailed planning of the schemes including target-setting and devising instruments for achieving the objectives, etc., to the institutions at the district level. It is extremely important for central ministries dealing with such schemes to clearly indicate the area of freedom in planning available to the local institutions. Indeed, the central ministries can ensure through these programmes that decentralised planning is practised at the local level. On the other hand, if the central ministries insist on doing detailed planning of these schemes themselves then decentralised planning will be highly circumscribed, the objectives of the schemes may not be fulfilled and the centre’s credibility in its advocacy of decentralised planning will be called into question.       Regional planning for backward areas provides the test for the credibility of state governments in regard to their avowed policy of removing regional disparities in development. As pointed out earlier, district planning by itself cannot be effective in removing regional disparities without a corresponding effort at the regional level. In some cases, such as in Maharashtra, the existing constitutional provisions provide for an executive role by the governor in the implementation of regional development programmes. Fears have been expressed that such a practice may lead to parallel centres of authority within a state which may result in friction and disruption of administration. If this is indeed likely to be the case, alternative mechanisms have to be found with the consent of the peoples’ representatives of the concerned regions to undertake and monitor developmental measures at the regional level, so as to carry conviction with the people of

g y p p the regions concerned. The centre, on its part, should take as much interest in regional planning as in district planning, particularly in respect of the backward and sensitive regions in bigger states.           Given the prevailing social structure dominated by the rural rich, the existing election process for panchayati raj institutions based on the territorial wards provides an opportunity for the rural elite to get elected to these bodies in large numbers and acquire a dominating position. As mentioned before, the dominance of the rural elite in these institutions is the single major factor accounting for the failure of these institutions to effectively undertake and implement the poverty-alleviation programmes.       Unlike planning at the central and state levels, planning at the district and lower levels is concerned essentially with the specific schemes which benefit identifiable areas and individuals who are in direct contact with the elected representatives. What is involved at these levels is not basic policymaking or major decisions on inter-sectoral allocations but translating the plans into concrete schemes suited to local conditions, mobilisation of local resources, identification of beneficiary areas and families and minimising leakages by ensuring public vigilance and participation.      These tasks can be performed best if those occupational or functional groups who are affected most by such planning are adequately represented in these bodies, where the candidates themselves belong to such groups. This can be ensured through proportional representation to broad occupational categories such as small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers, artisans, etc., which cut across caste and religion. Reservation for women, and Scheduled Castes and Tribes can be built into this system which can be made simpler and manageable. This system may not appear necessary in states where the social structure is such that the functional groups can be adequately represented even under the existing system of elections. But for other areas the system of proportional

y p p representation to occupational] groups is worth a trial to begin with at least’ on a pilot basis in some selected blocks and districts.           In the long run, however, there is no alternative to democratising the rural social structure by eliminating the exploitation of the poor and the underprivileged by the big landowners, usurious money lenders and contractors. There has been a continuous interaction between democracy, planning and socio-economic structure ever since Independence. However, experience shows that the impact of the existing socio-economic structure on the functioning of democracy and planning has been more pronounced. Planning and democracy as instruments for structural change have not been tapped adequately so far.           Towards this end, it would be necessary to pursue the effective implementation of land reforms, minimum wages and provision of institutional credit including for essential consumption. It would also be necessary to ensure reasonable prices to small producers including the tribals for their minor forest produce by abolishing the contractor system and the middle-men. Such reforms, relentlessly pursued, can change the balance of socio-economic power in rural areas in favour of the vast majority of the poor and the underprivileged and thus create the necessary conditions for the effective voice for these groups in the local-level institutions.       The formal structure for the participation of the people in the form of panchayati raj institutions can be effective only in the measure in which the initiative and awareness of the people, particularly the beneficiaries from the local-level planning, is raised by organising them into activity-specific groups, associations and cooperatives, and by using the mass media to disseminate useful information to them. The role of voluntary or non-governmental organisations is extremely important in this respect. Although the involvement of voluntary organisations in these tasks has been accepted as a matter of policy, the progress has not been very encouraging

p y p g y g g so far due to bureaucratic inhibitions and even resistance.           The crux of the problem stopping the poor from taking initiative is the lack of leadership which is pro-poor, motivated and has the courage to mobilise people against injustices. A leadership with all these qualities is necessarily scarce. Perhaps the scarcest among these leadership qualities is the ability to overcome all the procedural difficulties or formalities in dealing with the official programmes and the capacity to fight against the vested interests in the rural areas. If it is the question of only providing skills and selfless services and motivating the people for group endeavour and running their institutions, such people—teachers, engineers, doctors, scientists and technicians—are available in large numbers, thanks to the long tradition of voluntary work in the country. Government intervention can play a major role by way of simplifying rules and regulations, lending full moral and material support to individual leaders and associations against harassment from vested interests, petty-bureaucrats and police. If this support is forthcoming from the government, the leadership bottleneck will not be as formidable as it appears now.

4 PANCHAYATI RAJ BILL The Real Flaw B. K. CHANDRASHEKAR

Constitution 64th Amendment Bill introduced by the T he prime minister in the Lok Sabha to provide constitutional

status to panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) has attracted unusually strong comments. The non-Congress governments perceive that the centre is making a new onslaught on the constitutional role and functions of the states via the proposed amendment. They are also convinced that the amendment bill is only the first step in a series that will surely follow to institute the rule of India’s villages from Delhi, thus bypassing state governments. It is argued that while the prime minister and his party will commandeer their massive majority in parliament to push the inadequately discussed bill through, they will use a combination of state power and bureaucracy to control the panchayats through a new scheme of administrative and financial mechanisms (which, however, is not a part of the bill). Thus, it is widely believed that the deputy commissioner or the district magistrate (DM) will be the sole focus, hereafter, both of development and law and order matters. What, then, will be the relationship between the DM and the elected panchayat at the district level? It is also feared that the centre will keep a direct hold over panchayat bodies by funding them from Delhi without virtually any reference to the state governments, thus devaluing the constitutional, political and social status of the states. Are these mere ‘beliefs’ or probabilities based on some

evidence? What does the amendment bill itself contain? In what form, if any, can these other proposals come in? These different but related issues have all been mixed up in the politically charged debate.      The debate, if it may be called that, on the amendment bill has confused rather than clarified issues. For example, some senior opposition leaders and reputed journalists have condemned the bill on the grounds that; (1) the bill enables the centre to enact legislation concerning panchayats when such a thing should be left to the state governments; (2) that it provides access for the centre to the panchayats by means of direct financing of panchayats, and (3) that the bill, in its earlier version, had empowered the governor rather than the state government to dissolve the panchayats. The bill, therefore, is alleged to provide the basis for centralisation of power and not for decentralisation. Above all the question has been raised: Why the constitutional amendment?       The demand to entrench panchayati raj in the Constitution has been made by experts and various official commissions on the ground that most state governments had not implemented Article 40 of the Constitution (to organise village panchayats and endow them with powers of self-government) and as a consequence PRIs had been denied resources, responsibilities and powers. It is generally agreed that the constitution must provide for: (1) Mandatory setting up of PRIs; (2) holding of periodic elections to these bodies; (3) provision of reservation for the weaker groups, and (4) audit of PRIs’ accounts.

Ashoka Mehta Report Thus, the Ashoka Mehta Committee (1978) recognised the need for constitutional sanction and included in its report a draft Constitution amendment bill formulated by 21 eminent

citizens including E. M. S Namboodiripad, S. K. Dey, Ramakrishna Hegde, Madhu Limaye, S. M. Joshi, and L. M. Singhvi.       The draft bill made the establishment of PRIs mandatory; membership was by election and the chief election commissioner was put in charge of all election matters. The comptroller and auditor general was asked to audit the accounts and his report had to be submitted to the governor who, in turn, had to cause it to be laid before the state legislature. Panchayats could be empowered by the state legislature with executive and administrative functions including the ‘promotion of economic and social development and implementation of plans....’       A finance commission to review panchayat finances had to be set up by the state government once every five years and its report had to go before the legislature. As regards suspension and dissolution, where the governor of a state was satisfied that a panchayat was ‘not functioning in accordance with law or is grossly abusing its powers or is functioning in a manner which is detrimental to public interest’ he could suspend or dissolve the panchayat (Ibid. pp. 207–12). It was obviously not believed that such an amendment encroached upon the exclusive power of state governments to make legislation concerning panchayats (‘local government’ figures in the ‘state list’ of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution). Nor did the bill contemplate amendment of any of the entries in the ‘state’ or ‘concurrent’ lists in the Seventh Schedule so as to transfer them to the ‘union’ list. Now, how does this compare with the 64th Amendment Bill?

The 1989 Bill

The bill mandates the setting up of panchayats at the village, intermediate and district levels and they will have a five-year term. Smaller states with a population not exceeding 20 lakh could do with a two-tier set up (Article 243A). The bill empowers the legislature of a state to determine the composition of panchayats (Article 243B). Members shall be elected in direct elections with one exception, namely, the legislature may provide for the membership of MPs and MLAs and chairmen of panchayats in the appropriate panchayat bodies. Seats shall be reserved for SCs and STs in proportion to their population and to the total number of seats in a panchayat institution. Similarly, 30 per cent of the reserved seats shall be reserved for women belonging to SC and ST and a further 30 per cent of the total number of seats shall be reserved for women (Article 243C).       A finance commission shall be appointed by the governor to review the financial position of the panchayats and to make recommendations regarding taxes and duties to be imposed and the basis of sharing the revenue with the state government, grants-in-aid and related matters. The recommendations will have to be laid before the state legislature.       The conduct of elections to PRIs, including preparation of electoral rolls, etc., will be supervised and controlled by the Election Commission, as in Karnataka at the moment. However, it will be the prerogative of the state legislature to enact laws to govern elections to panchayats (Article 243 I and J). As regards accounts, the form in which accounts have to be kept will be determined on the advice of the comptroller and auditor general of India. The CAG will also arrange for the accounts to be audited and his reports to the governor will then be placed for consideration before the legislature. Finally, it has been left to the state legislature to endow the panchayats with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of selfgovernment. For example, panchayats will have powers and

g p p y p responsibilities for the ‘preparation of plans for economic development and social justice’ (Article 243F), for the ‘implementation of schemes for economic development and social justice as may be entrusted to them including those in relation to the matters listed in the Eleventh Schedule’. Thus, (1) a distinction is made between preparation of ‘plans’ and implementation of ‘schemes’. In the latter case, will it then be the right of the government to formulate ‘schemes’ which it has no right to in the case of ‘plans’? And (2) for the first time under the Constitution, the subjects listed in the Eleventh Schedule may be entrusted to panchayats. However, it is clear that such entrustment can be made only by a state legislature and not by the centre.

The 1978 Draraft and 1989 Bill It can be seen that both in terms of its format as well as the content, the 1989 amendment bill is similar to, and in several instances even identical to the 1978 bill. Whether in powers and responsibilities, the manner of elections, accounts and audit there is very little difference. The role of the CAG in presenting forms for panchayat accounts and audit can hardly be described as promoting centralisation. Indeed in Karnataka, the accountant general has been requested to audit the No. 2 account of mandal panchayats, i.e., development expenditure. There was a lot of fuss about the powers of dissolution given to the governor in the leaked (10 April 1989 Indian Express) version of the 1989 bill. There was an identical provision in the 1978 bill. The bill in its present form has deleted that provision. There need have been no fuss at all since the governor, for this purpose, could not have acted in his ‘discretionary’ role but only in his formal, constitutional role. He would be bound by the aid and advice

of the council of ministers (Article 163). ‘The governor is but a shorthand expression for the state government just as the president is an abbreviation for the central government’ (Supreme Court in Shamser Singh vs State of Punjab, 1974).       Can the Centre enact legislation to control panchayats? I believe that the Centre has no power to do so. The directive in Article 40 cannot extend to law-making except by state legislatures. The Constitution confers power to make laws under Articles 245 and 246 on both parliament and state legislatures but this is very clearly limited by the words in Article 245(1): ‘subject to the provisions of this Constitution’. The limitation refers to the distribution of legislative powers by the Seventh Schedule, i.e., by the three lists, the union list, the state list and the concurrent list. Since ‘local government’ and ‘village administration’ appear in Entry 5 of the state list, only a state legislature can make laws on these matters. There are some exceptional situations which empower the centre to legislate but they are not relevant for our purpose. The proposed amendment, therefore, represents only a generally agreed common denominator and there is nothing obnoxious in it from the view-point of state governments.

Collector’s Rule: Pri Pacackage It is not the amendment bill that is the problem. It is the rest of the elements in the prime minister’s package on panchayati raj that has given rise to deep-rooted apprehensions. The centrepiece of these elements is the proposed role for the collector or the district magistrate and this has to be seen in the context of the much publicised concept of district planning in which the officials will have the activist seat with a more passive role for elected representatives.       In 1987 and 1988 the prime minister held a series of five

workshops of district magistrates on the theme of ‘responsive administration’ a theme which was no doubt welcome from the limited perspective of the civil service. The views of these officers were further discussed by state chief secretaries and secretaries to the Government of India and distilled into a report submitted in July 1988. It is this report that should form the basis of discussion although where and how the recommendations pertaining to the supremacy of the DM would be drafted in the form of legislation is not known as yet.           The report recommends the constitution of a unified representative body—which will be the zilla parishad—to be in charge of planning, execution and monitoring at the district level. It brings in the DM as chief executive officer of the zilla parishad while he also continues as the district boss in charge of revenue and law and order. In other words the developmental as well as regulatory functions will be concentrated in the DM. The zilla parishad will have special subject committees to provide ‘guidance’ to officials. The new, powerful collector’s role is sought to be justified by contrasting the ugly, if democratic, conduct of politicians with that of the more service-oriented bureaucrats. ‘The presidentship of zilla parishad proving such a glittering prize, furious contests will develop with money and communal/caste influences overshadowing considerations of competence and commitment to social justice among the candidates, leading to the capture of the top positions by undesirable elements. This may be contrasted with the existing position where the bureaucracy might be sluggish but tries to be fair in its dealings as a rule.’ No further comment is necessary! How poorly they think of the people’s institutions is best conveyed in their own words: ‘Making the collector the CEO of the zilla parishad would bring to the zilla parishad the knowledge, the experience and the influence of the collector and thereby enhance its effectiveness’.       To give the DM the pride of place in the district involves

g p p several problems. It means reversing the independence of the various technical departments like irrigation, agriculture or public works that had grown out of DM’s control both in the execution of works and administration of their departments. The technocrats brought up for decades in this tradition would surely resent the new line of control. Second, it is crucial for the success of democratic decentralisation that officials including the DM accept the ability of non-officials to work the system. A study of the Maharashtra zilla parishad showed the ‘officials’ non-acceptance of and lack of faith in the capacities and capabilities of persons elected by the people to lead and work the system under democratic decentralisation’ (Gaikwad 1969: 65).           The question is asked reflecting the essence of the Westminster constitutional model: what is wrong if the bureaucracy is given a pivotal position so long as policymaking rests with the elected representatives and only its implementation with the bureaucracy? However, several countries have had bad experiences with this model. ‘The Westminster constitution guaranteed that the elected African governments would determine policy, and the civil service implement it. The African experience stood that myth on its head, and demonstrated what now seems self-evident: to grant anonymity, secrecy and independence to senior bureaucrats ensures their dominance over elected politicians’ (Seidman 1978: 395). Against this background, the Karnataka model promoted by Ramakrishna Hegde and Nazir Sab is a bold initiative. The elected zilla parishad is supreme in both plan formulation and execution. The president of the zilla parishad, who is of the rank of a state minister, is the executive head, and the chief secretary, who is an IAS official, is subordinate to him. The DM is in charge only of revenue and law and order, and is generally junior in service to the chief secretary. Here is an attempt to restructure the bureaucracy so that it’s compartmentalised character is altered. A new equation is sought to be built between the

q g people and the law-makers and that should be the heart and soul of democratic (as different from bureaucratic) decentralisation.

Politics of Centraralisation The acrimonious opinions that greeted the introduction of the bill—despite the acknowledged need for a revamped PR system—is reflective of a certain lack of credibility on the part of the centre. The entire gamut of opposition parties and independent observers appear convinced that the centre is inexorably pushing its policy of centralisation in a hundred different ways, violating the essence of co-operative federalism, cutting into areas of state governments’ activities. A government that centralises cannot, it is argued, decentralise selectively, and that, therefore, the amendment bill on PRIs is nothing but a gigantic exercise in votecatching.       Thus, does it make sense to speak of decentralisation of functions, authority and funds to the district and lower levels without such decentralisation from the centre to the states? Why is it that no correctives have been initiated to rectify the perverse use of such institutions as the governor, the Election Commission, the powers of the president in relation to states, especially, the imposition of president’s rule under Article 356? Likewise, in the realm of economic and financial relations, planning and decision-making processes have become excessively centralised while the present constitutional arrangements and practices on the sharing of taxes between the centre and the states remain highly inequitable. The centralising phenomenon is most crudely displayed in the case of the electronic media and the well reasoned campaign by the opposition led, in this case, by

Ramakrishna Hegde has elicited a negative and unconstructive response from the centre.

New Encrcroacachments The charge as well as the fear of centralisation is reinforced by the setting up recently of the ‘National Informatics Centre’ at Delhi for collection of data at the block level. An officer of the centre will be placed in every district to collect and computerise information at the district level and transmit it to the NIC. Curiously enough, the district computer terminals will reportedly be manned by NIC and not by state government staff. The information so gathered will be used for preparation of ‘model’ district plans. For example, a model plan was prepared for Almora district in UP at the instance of the centre. The next step may be the vetting of the district plans by the Planning Commission by passing the state governments.           While centrally planned and sponsored development schemes are an important feature of centre-state relations, they were not meant to reduce the responsibilities and initiative of state governments. Yet that is precisely what happened. Back in the 1970s the National Development Council had decided that the value of centrally-sponsored schemes would be limited to one-sixth or one-seventh of the quantum of assistance for state plans, and that they should be in the nature of experimental projects, survey and research. But while such schemes amounted to Rs 77 crore out of a total of Rs 497 crore in 1969–70 or about 15.4 per cent, in 1987–8 they amounted to 53 per cent of all the state plan schemes. For Karnataka state, in 1987–8, the figure was a staggering 103 per cent. As a result, ‘they contribute to centralisation and inflexibility in planning; and often they

distort state priorities and immobilise the state resources (Government of Karnataka 1988).       The Sarkaria Commission on centre-state relations was, therefore, obliged to observe that the schemes should be kept to the minimum and the process of decentralisation in plan formulation should be pursued seriously.      But let alone cutting down central schemes, a new one has just been started, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, in place of NREP and RLEGP. Funds are sent directly to the DMs or chief secretaries of zilla parishad and not via the state governments. The guidelines for the scheme include who the beneficiaries should be, how they should be identified, the mode of implementation and so on thus ensuring centralisation and the rigidity that goes with it.           Is it not a crude contradiction, it is asked, that the PM wants to decentralise power to PRIs while it is totally denied to the functionaries and members of his own party? A mind and a political structure which deny inner-party democracy will never really give ‘power to the people’, according to opposition spokesmen. After Rajiv Gandhi’s celebrated condemnation of the rot and the ‘power brokers’ in his own party at the 1985 Congress Centenary Session in Bombay, he announced in May 1986 that organisational elections would be held in early 1987. But that year elections were put off several times and eventually any talk of inner-party democracy or of Rajiv Gandhi giving up presidentship of Congress in deference to the principle of sharing power has been the given go-by.           In sum, the centre has thrown away an opportunity to develop a consensus on a matter of national concern and its credibility gap is increasing. The decentralisation process must begin with the centre shedding its powers to the states, to be followed thereafter from the state govern-ment to PRIs. The centre should desist from direct funding of panchayats. Most important, the amendment should include, a provision containing the basis of devolution of finances from

p g the centre to PRIs via the state governments. Alternatively, the Finance Commission could be empowered to make such a recommendation.

5 PANCHAYATS VERSUS MULTINATIONALS Case of Du Pont NORMA ALVARES

is by now well known throughout the country and abroad I tthat the American multinational corporation Du Pont, which wanted to establish a factory in Goa to produce Nylon 6,6, was forced to give up its plans and move to another state (Tamil Nadu) due to a sustained agitation launched by the villagers of the area in which the factory was to be located. Few people, however, know that the crucial decision that sealed Du Pont’s fate was made by the panchayat of Querim utilising its new-found powers under the 73rd Constitutional Amendment and the Goa Panchayati Raj Act, 1993. In this sense, the use of the new panchayat legislation to reject an MNC’s proposals was unprecedented. Hitherto, decisions about the location of such factories were made by the corporations themselves who were often able to manipulate politicians and bureaucrats to gain needed permissions. Panchayats, prior to the constitutional amendment, had been relegated to the low position of granting automatic or formal permissions or licences for construction once all the government permissions have been granted and their say was never considered by governments in the matter.      In the Du Pont case, the central government and the state government of Goa both cleared the project. This was done under the Industrial Development Acts which empower governments to grant special favours to industry in the interests of development. However, after these permissions

were granted, it so happened the 73rd Constitutional Amendment came into force and the state assembly, as a consequence, passed the Goa Panchayati Raj Act, 1993. Under the new legislation, since the area fell under the jurisdiction of the Querim panchayat, the panchayat naturally exercised its new powers to review decisions taken by government authorities which might not be in the best interests of the village.           To a great extent, as we shall see, this trend-setting action was made possible because of provisions in the Goa Panchayati Raj Act, 1993. These provisions may be absent in the new panchayat legislations required by the constitutional amendment in other states. Despite this, the Goa case is a good example of governments conceding grassroots democracy even when extremely powerful actors are involved. It is also a significant development since the central and state governments are now increasingly weak as far as multinationals are concerned and the power and responsibility f or checking the multinational menace has passed into the hands of the local bodies and municipalities under the new constitutional amendments.       To many observers of the Nylon 6,6 controversy, it was clear almost from the start that if any force could stop the multinational Du Pont from imposing itself on an unwilling Goan population it would be the joint action of the villagers of Querim and Savoi-Verem. Without the villagers’ struggle nothing could have been achieved. One life, in fact, was sacrificed in the cause of the agitation. The location of the proposed site was also singularly appropriate for strategically organised mass action. There is a single road-leading to the proposed site and Du Pont’s personnel and vehicles had to pass through it to reach it. The terrain was favourable to road blockades. Since villages like Querim are small, it was also possible to have effective village level consensus.       In the struggle, the villagers welcomed and received the backing, support and encouragement of the citizens of Goa,

g pp g numerous environment groups and others. The American multinational is no small force to reckon with. So, even Greenpeace was roped willingly into the war. However, as events unfolded, it turned out that the company was eventually humbled by the local village panchayat which refused Du Pont the necessary permission to construct the factory or any attendant constructions under the newly enacted Goa Panchayati Raj Act 1993 under instruction from the village sabha.       The Goa Panchayati Raj Act 1993 came into effect on 16 August 1994 giving the panchayat new powers to decide and plan for the development of the area within the village. The constitutional amendment, which compelled the Goa Act, sets out in a schedule a ‘panchayat list’ (in addition to the state and central lists). Prior to this act in Goa, there existed the Goa Village Panchayat Regulations 1962, in which the role of the panchayat was more in keeping with that of an implementing authority with power to issue only NOCs. Very often, parties did not even bother to apply for these NOCs. The actual political power of the panchayats was abysmal.           Interestingly, much before the new constitutional amendment arrived on the scene, Du Pont had already applied for and received permissions under the Goa Village Panchayat Regulations to put up a few administrative buildings and a boundary fencing around the premises. However, the company had at that time not obtained conversion sanad under the Land Revenue Code and hence, the permissions granted were questionable in themselves and these were in fact subsequently challenged in court. With these permissions, which it procured around 1990, Du Pont immediately began construction of the buildings and a compound wall.       However, shortly thereafter, the Goa government issued instructions to the company to stop the work and asked the panchayat to revoke the construction licences. The reason for this sudden development was the setting up of a house

p g p committee by the Goa legislative assembly to examine irregularities in the land acquisition proceedings related to the Nylon 6,6 project. The house committee report eventually went squarely against the Nylon 6,6 plant, vindicating the stand of the Anti-Nylon Action Committee (comprised entirely of persons from the village and headed by Dattaram Desai, a local medical practitioner) that the project was not in either the villagers’ or Goa’s interests. The state government, however, persisted with its plans to impose the project on the public, especially the protesting villages of Querim and SavoiVerem. In 1994, it resumed negotiations with the company to re-start work on the project at the disputed site.       Events began to escalate rapidly from June 1994 onwards when the company began constructing a compound wall without the permission of the panchayat. The panchayat issued a show-cause notice dated 16 June, asking Du Pont to stop work. The very next day Du Pont delivered a simple letter to the panchayat requesting that the letter itself be treated as an application for permission to construct the compound wall for the Nylon 6,6 factory site. The letter estimated the cost of the construction of the wall at Rs 60 lakh. The panchayat rejected the suggestion, directing that a formal application be made, accompanied by a list of documents. It was the first salvo, for one of the documents requested was the conversion sanad which the company had not yet obtained. The company submitted to the panchayat with a formal application dated 24 June 1994. The new application now stated the wall would cost Rs 35 lakh. It also revealed that conversion sanad had not yet been granted. Since the company did not give all the documents requested, the panchayat did not treat the application as valid and consequently no decision was taken on it.       However, at its monthly meeting, the panchayat resolved unanimously that before granting permission/licence to Du Pont, public opinion should be considered by holding a gram sabha. Accordingly a gram sabha meeting was called on 17

gy g g July 1994. At the gram sabha it was resolved not to grant permission as the project was bound to cause pollution to the villages of the area and also affect population within a belt of 10 km from the site of the Nylon 6,6 plant. On 1 August 1994, the panchayat was surprised to receive a letter from Gannon Dunkerly, a firm engaged by Du Pont for development work. The letter stated the firm was commencing such work using explosives which would involve blasting at the site. The panchayat immediately informed the company not to carry out the operations and also addressed copies of complaints to the police station. The company disregarded the communication.           On 1 October 1994 more than 80 villagers submitted a memorandum to the government protesting the damage done to their houses by the illegal blasting operations. Despite inspections by the BDO and Mamlatdar no action was, however, taken against the company. On 6 October, a meeting of Du Pont officials, local leaders and members of the five panchayats in the area was held, but Du Pont was not able to convince those present about the bona fide nature of its proposed activities.On 7 October, in the context of the rising tension in the village and considering the provisions of the new panchayat act, the sarpanch, Santosh M. Gaude, issued a show-cause notice to Du Pont to stop the illegal construction work forthwith, giving the company seven days’ time to remove the illegal wall.       Du Pont, however, preferred an appeal against the showcause notice before the director of panchayats—the appellate authority under the new act—and prayed for interim relief staying the operation of the panchayat notice. Interim relief was rejected. The appeal was fixed for hearing on 14 October (the same day that the panchayat notice would expire). However, on October 12 some 2,000 villagers, having had enough of the MNC’s arrogance, demolished the illegal wall themselves. On 14 October the director of panchayats ordered status quo and thereafter proceeded to hear the

q p appeal. Du Pont argued that: (1) the show-cause notice was issued by the sarpanch in his personal capacity and without the backing of a resolution from the panchayat; (2) Du Pont had a deemed permission to construct the wall as the panchayat had not rejected their application within the 60 days’ stipulated time. The panchayat in turn argued that: (1) a notice signed by the sarpanch could only be in official capacity; (2) Du Pont could not claim deeming provisions since it had not submitted a complete application and the panchayat had repeatedly requested them for documents and proper evaluation certificate without which correct licence fees could not be charged.       The director of panchayats passed judgment on November 21, 1994. He upheld Du Pont’s first contention—that powers relating to demolition of unauthorised constructions are conferred on the panchayat which is a corporate body and not the sarpanch. As the sarpanch failed to produce a resolution of the panchayat authorising him to issue the show-cause notice, the director accordingly quashed the said notice. However, he rejected Du Pont’s claim to deemed permission to construct a compound wall, on the ground that during the period when its application lay before the panchayat, the Village Panchayat Regulations 1962 had already been repealed but the new panchayati raj act had not yet come into force. Therefore, he held, there was no law in force during the said period. Hence, the question of deeming provisions did not arise and the panchayat was moreover right in not deciding the application for issue of licence. Further, the director of panchayats in his order directed the company to submit the conversion sanad, when it was received, to the panchayat, upon which the panchayat would take a decision within ten days. Indirectly, therefore, the appellate authority endorsed the panchayat’s claim that Du Pont’s application was incomplete. But most important, the appellate authority affirmed the law that the company could not put up any constructions without the permission of the panchayat. It was

p p y generally believed at this stage that only the conversion sanad now stood in the way of Du Pont and its factory premises. Environment groups thus readied themselves to begin court proceedings to challenge the Nylon 6,6 project on environmental and other grounds. Five of the leading environment groups in the state led by the Goa Foundation got together and prepared a total of three writ petitions to be moved in the high court.       The first writ petition challenged the earlier licences given by the panchayat and also the directions being issued by functionaries of the government (BDO, collector, etc.) to the panchayat to act in a particular manner. It argued that these authorities no longer had any powers to issue directions to the panchayat after the Goa Panchayati Raj Act 1993 came into force. The petition also sought a declaration from the court that the panchayat could only grant permissions for the Du Pont factory in accordance with the new Panchayati Raj Act, 1993. The second petition challenged the land acquisition proceedings on the ground that the mandatory site selection tests had not been carried out. To the contrary, both the chief town planner and the director of industries had rejected the site chosen because it would have disastrous consequences for the ecology of the area.       The third petition was filed on environment grounds and marshalled all the relevant arguments against the setting up of the plant at the Querim site. The petitions were filed in January 1995 soon after it was known that the deputy collector had rejected all arguments filed by environment groups and villagers against land conversion and was preparing to issue the conversion sanad. On 10 January 1995, the deputy collector finally issued the crucial sanad and thus, cleared all obstacles in the way of Du Pont. He was practically ordered to do so by the Goa government. On 11 January Du Pont made a formal application to the panchayat as directed by the judgment of November 21, 1994 for permission to construct a compound wall for Nylon 6,6 factory site. It

p y y appended the conversion sanad to the application. As per the director of panchayat’s judgment, the panchayat now had ten days to decide the application. The ten days stipulated time was completely unlawful since the director had no authority in law to issue such directions. The following day, on 12 January 1995, it submitted the factory plans for approval of the panchayat.       As for the anti-Nylon 6,6 agitation, it seemed nearly the end. The writ petitions, the final hope against the project, were scheduled for admission at the end of January. On 23 January, Du Pont, smelling success, took a bus load of foreigners to the plant site. News of the visit spread like wildfire and people were incensed that construction work would soon start against their wishes. It was 4 pm in the afternoon and hundreds of people, largely women, turned out on the lone road leading to the site to block the way. The bus was accordingly turned back by the crowd who refused to budge from the road. Du Pont met the chief minister and secured a police posse to accompany the bus. That was the final straw. The irate villagers decided to block the police vans and jeeps. The police opened fire on the defenceless mob of largely women and youth. One 25-year-old man was shot dead at point blank range. Three young women were shot in the arms and thighs. With the unleashing of police violence at the instigation of the company, the village reacted as one and in complete rage. Ponda town was shut down the next day and the entire Du Pont office was emptied out into the street and set on fire. The crowd found suitcases full of Rs 500 notes. These were burnt with files and fax machines. The verdict of the people was by now crystal clear: Nylon 6,6 was not wanted at Querim.       All eyes were now focused on the panchayat and how it would react to the still pending application before it. On January 24, the panchayat held its meeting at the Querim office, with hundreds of villagers waiting outside for the

verdict. The meeting lasted three hours and at the end of it, the panchayat minutes read as follows. On this (Nylon 6,6 factory) there was a lot of discussions and thinking and it was unanimously decided by all members that as in the present situation there is an anti-Nylon 6,6 wave in the village and outside the village everywhere. It has been decided that the plant is not wanted in the village. Therefore, this panchayat now resolves as below: As the plant is not accepted in the village the files of compound wall and of building construction are rejected. Resolution passed unanimously. By this resolution, the Querim panchayat rejected both Du Pont’s application dated 12 January to construct the factory and the 11 January application to raise the compound wall. The news spread like wildfire. People were jubilant, but shock waves went through officialdom in the state. Could a mere panchayat reject a huge plant which had received all the required approvals and clearances from state and central governments and which claimed to bring the country new technology? Is this what panchayati raj was all about? The stage was now set for another litigation and interpretation of the law.       There were a few criticisms that the resolution passed by the panchayat shelving the project was too brief and did not record the reasons why they had rejected the proposals. A few months later, before a general body meeting of the sabha was scheduled, a detailed resolution was passed by the Querim panchayat giving the reasons for its rejection of the Du Pont plant earlier that year. The following is the text of the additional resolution passed by the panchayat on 7 May 1995:           Resolved that permission for the construction of

compound wall and other buildings to Thapar Du Pont company has been rejected for the following reasons: 1. If the Nylon 6,6 project comes up, development of the village will not take place in the direction the panchayat has envisaged for holistic development. 2. The Goa government had appointed a house committee regarding Nylon 6,6 project of Thapar Du Pont company. According to the recommendations of this Committee this project is not good for Querim or any other place in Goa. The Panchayat is accepting the report of this Committee. In view of this project should not come in this Panchayat area the permission for compound wall and other buildings has been rejected. 3. If this Nylon 6,6 project comes up, the beauty of the village and the natural beauty will get damaged. This village has a place on the map of Goa as an area blessed with nature’s beauty. This is likely to be lost. 4. Instead of Nylon 6,6 project at Bhutkhamb, if smaller units processing the local produce as raw material are set up, it will give more employment to the village people and will not damage the environment and natural beauty. 5. As per opinion spelt out by Chief Town Planner and Director of Industries, the Nylon 6,6 plant if set up in this area, will damage the ecology of the Panchayat area. 6. Members of the Panchayat and the officers of the company had a joint meeting at Marcela on 6 January 1994. On that occasion the officers of the company could not give justifying reply to the points raised by the Panchayat members. Taking into account all this, and the welfare of the village this resolution has been passed unanimously without any

pressure from unanimously.

anybody.

Resolution

passed

The panchayat was firm in its opinion that under the new Panchayat Act, it had the power to reject a factory even if the factory had been approved by government. The panchayat’s legal advisers were relying on a significant judgment of the Bombay High Court in Gazdar vs Panjim Planning and Development Authority and some judgments of the supreme court. These judgments declared that as far as planning was concerned, when a new law came into force, the new law and its requirements would apply and all earlier permissions would be subject to the requirements of the new law.           In other words all development which commences after the new law has come into force and also activities which might have commenced before such notification but are still being carried on have to comply with the planned development as envisaged under the new act. Since the 73rd Constitutional Amendment makes it clear that the power and duty to plan for the development of the villages in their jurisdiction rests with the panchayat. It follows that projects which are not in consonance with the Outline Development Plans prepared by the panchayat for the area can be vetoed on the ground that they do not fit into the scheme of planned development drawn up for the area.           The sequence of events threw Du Pont into complete disarray. It was now the company’s burden to file writ petitions and appeals, which it soon did since competent lawyers and high legal fees were no deterrent for the multinational. It initiated three legal actions: (1) It appealed the resolution of the panchayat dated 24 January 1995 rejecting permission to construct the factory, before the director of panchayats. (2) It filed a writ petition in the high court challenging the earlier judgment of the director of panchayats dated 21 November 1994 which had rejected its arguments that it had a deeming provision to construct the

g g p compound wall. Simultaneously, it challenged the panchayat resolution dated 24 January 1995 which rejected the construction of factory wall. (3) It filed a second writ petition in the high court challenging the power given to the panchayat to decide on permissions for factory buildings, as ultra vires the construction.       I will now take each case separately and highlight the legal issues therein. Before that, some of the clauses of the Goa Panchayat Raj Act need to be briefly explained: One of the important clauses inserted in the Act is Section 68 which categorically states: ‘No person shall without the permission of the Panchayat and except in accordance with conditions specified in such permission (a) construct or establish any factory, workshop or work place in which it is proposed to employ steam power, water power or any other electrical power; or (b) install in any premises any machinery or manufacturing plant driven by any power as aforesaid not being machinery or manufacturing plant exempted by rules made by the government under this Act.’           This was an entirely new provision and it gave the panchayat power to decide whether it wanted a factory within the jurisdiction of the village or not. Section 72 allowed appeals from any order passed under section (u/s) 68 but these must be made before the chief executive officer notified under the act.       The law relating to constructions in general is contained in section 66 which states: ‘Subject to such rules as may be prescribed, no person shall erect any building or alter or add to any existing buildings or reconstruct any building without the written permission of the panchayat.’ The section further states: ‘If the Panchayat does not within 60 days from the receipt of the application determine whether such permission should be given or not and communicate its decision to the applicant, such permission shall be deemed to have been given and the applicant may proceed to execute the work, but not so as to contravene any of the provisions or rules under

y p this Act.’ An appeal from an order passed u/s 66 would lie before the director of panchayats. Section 66 was very similar to the provisions of the earlier Village Panchayat Regulations 1962, but section 68 was brand new and as far as regulating village development goes, it was simply without precedent. In fact, in the Goa Industrial Development Act, a section permitted the Industrial Development Corporation to overrule any objection filed by any panchayat regarding the location of an industry within its jurisdiction. That section was now no longer valid in view of the new section 68 of the Panchayati Raj Act, 1993.

Du Pont’s Appppeal Du Pont appealed the resolution of the panchayat to reject the factory construction on the following grounds: (1) After all licences and permissions from statutory authorities had been obtained and land had been acquired for the project, it was not possible for a panchayat of a village to reject such a project; (2) The company had not sought permission u/s 68 but only u/s 66. Once construction licence for buildings was received the company would certainly make the application u/s 68 which in any case was a formality as permission would have to be granted.           The panchayat in its affidavit (1) raised preliminary objections to the appeal being filed before the director of panchayats. It pointed out the director had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal because the application of the company had to be and was considered by the panchayat u/s 68 as it pertained to factory construction. An application decided u/s 68 could only be appealed before the chief executive officer and not the director of panchayats. (It may be noted here that the chief executive officer and zilla parishads had not yet

been set up under the act). (2) As to the merits of the appeal, the panchayat pointed out that section 68 was indeed fully applicable to the construction sought to be raised as it was factory premises. Hence, it was first necessary for the panchayat to decide whether or not permission is to be granted for the establishment of factories (Section 68). The question of issuing permission for the construction of buildings (Section 66) would apply only thereafter. In an important order, the director of panchayats accepted both the arguments of the panchayat, ruling that the appeal was filed in the wrong forum and also that when any person intends to establish a factory in the jurisdiction of the panchayat, permission u/s Section 68 is mandatory. The panchayat had won the first round.           The first writ petition filed by Du Pont in the high court challenged the earlier judgment and order of the director of panchayats dated 21 November 1994 which had rejected deeming provisions as applicable to the compound wall of the company. Simultaneously, the petition sought quashing of the resolution of the panchayat dated 24 January 1995 rejecting permission to Du Pont to construct a compound wall on the following grounds: 1. The director of panchayats, in his order, had directed Du Pont to submit the conversion sanad after which the panchayat had to merely dispose of the company’s application. In other words, once the conversion sanad was submitted, the panchayat had no alternative but to grant permission. 2. The panchayat resolution dated 24 January 1995 also referred to an anti-Nylon wave as a cause for the rejection of the proposed factory. This, the company claimed was an extraneous consideration since a factory or project could only be rejected for reasons intrinsic to the scheme of the act. Hence, the panchayat resolution was liable to be quashed.

p y q The panchayat in its turn argued that it was too late to challenge the judgment of the director of panchayat, as Du Pont has already submitted to the order by making the fresh application dated 11 January 1995 for permission for the wall and factory. Thus, the company had closed its options to appeal. On merits, it advanced the arguments (1) that deeming provisions could not apply to the company’s original application of June 1994 since at the time the application was made, the relevant conversion sanad (permitting change of use from agriculture to non-agriculture) had not been issued by the deputy collector. Moreover the panchayat was aware that conversion sanad had been rejected twice earlier by the same authority. (2) The resolution of 24 January 1995 was necessarily brief and it recorded only the final conclusion of the discussions during which several aspects of the proposal including the past record of the company, the situation prevailing in the jurisdiction of the panchayat, and the panchayat’s own responsibility to prepare for the planned development of the village were considered and it was only after a lengthy debate that the decision to reject the factory was taken. Since the application for the factory was rejected, where was the necessity to permit a factory wall to be constructed?       The high court accepted in toto the panchayat’s argument regarding deeming provisions not being applicable to the construction of Du Pont’s wall. It held that no valid permission could obtain from any panchayat, deemed or otherwise, in the absence of a conversion sanad. The court however held that now that the company had obtained conversion sanad, it did have a right at the very least to protect its property with a wall (even if it had now decided to take the factory elsewhere). The court therefore issued a writ of mandamus to the panchayat to grant permission for a wall to encompass 300,675 sq m only as particularised in the conversion sanad on the condition that Du Pont comply with all the rules applicable. The court did not permit the company

pp p p y to raise a wall around the entire 1,232,000 sq m property, as the company had sought in its application. The court also recorded that the permission to construct a compound wall did not imply that the company was automatically authorised to use the land for any industrial project. The company never followed up the matter and the wall has never been constructed.       The second petition filed belatedly by Du Pont in the high court to challenge the vires of section 68 of the Panchayati Raj Act was dismissed as withdrawn, as Du Pont had by then informed the court it had decided to shift the plant out of Goa.       The three petitions filed by the environment groups were also withdrawn as their subject matter had become of mere academic nature. Once the panchayat had rejected the site for the Nylon 6,6 project, there was no longer any need for the petitioners to agitate the issues of inappropriate plant siting. An attempt was made by the state government to draw the environment groups into a round of negotiations with Du Pont during the pendency of the petitions by suggesting that a committee be set up to examine the project de novo in which the NGOs could participate fully. However, the environment groups unanimously rejected this suggestion, as in their opinion there was no further need of committees. They assured the court they stood by the decision of the people of Querim as reflected in the panchayat resolution that sent Du Pont out of the state. Thus, it was panchayati raj under the 73rd constitutional amendment which ultimately saved Querim and Goa from Du Pont.           The fact that a multinational company, the largest American chemical multinational, had to submit to the decision of a panchayat sent shock waves through the ruling elite. Some of the members of the legislative assembly criticised the new development though they were in the assembly when the act was passed. One votary of Du Pont went to the extent of declaiming: ‘Who does the sarpanch of

g p Querim Panchayat think he is? Is he the prime minister of India?’ If that indeed is the truth of the matter, it was easy to understand why MLAs felt threatened. For the local people, however, it was a clear victory.           Barely a month later, another factory, the Binani Zinc plant, was also nearly shown the door when a public interest petition was filed challenging the constructions of the factory when it had not received permission u/s 68. In this case, too, even though the panchayat eventually succumbed to political pressures and granted permission u/s 68, it was clear that industries wanting to set up shop within village jurisdictions were now required to get more than just formal consent before they attempted business.       The 73rd Constitutional Amendment could, thus, be used by panchayats to locate industries within their development plans and reject industry proposals if these are not in harmony with existing plans. It has thus given panchayats for the first time the option to be selective about the industries they may wish to allow within their jurisdiction. That indeed is the lesson, if any, of the successful struggle of panchayati raj versus state raj and MNC raj.

6 WOMEN IN PANCHAYATI RAJ

Grass Roots Democracy in Malgudi POORNIMA VYASULU AND VINOD VYASULU

Introduction has now become clear that, for sustainable economic and I tsocial development to take place in any country, it is

necessary that people participate in the political process. The process of participation is complex,1 and it is by no means clear that it is comprehensively inclusive. By this, we mean that it is not possible to assume that all sections of the population take part effectively in the political and democratic processes of society. There are many reasons why people may not participate—from apathy to a sense of helplessness.           In particular, unless specific conditions are met, women face multiple hurdles and find it difficult to participate in the political process that has hitherto been a male bastion. The reasons for this are gender specific. Women are less mobile than men. They have domestic responsibilities, which puts limits on the time they can spend in such processes. There are historical prejudices. Consistent efforts will have to be made over a period of time to engender the political process and institutions, and issues that are critical to this process. This essay explores some aspects of this process in the context of decentralised governance ushered in by the 73rd Constitutional Amendment in India in the last five years.           Recognising this limitation where gender is concerned,

India has passed laws that make it mandatory for local governments to include women. These laws do not apply to state and national level legislatures.2 One-third of the seats in local bodies—gram or village panchayats, municipalities, city corporations and district bodies—are ‘reserved’ for women. This means the contests can only be between women in these constituencies. The first step in enabling women to participate has been taken. This reservation of seats in the 1993–94 elections has brought in about 800,000 women into the political process in a single election. They are now just about completing their first term (of five years) in elected office. Elections for the second round will soon have to be held. What has been the experience with this experiment in social engineering?       This essay is organised as follows. Section II presents the overall picture of women in Panchayati Raj Institutions or PRIs.3 This section also discusses the structure of the system as it has evolved so far, and why this essay is limited to discussing the experience of one state—Karnataka.4 Section III then discusses some specific experiences of women in PRIs.5 This brings out in concrete form the field level reality. This is something that may be appreciated intellectually by law-makers and scholars. But this local reality has to be built into institutions and processes in an essential way if the system is to be made to work as intended. Since these can be sensitive issues, and our intention is to learn from such experience, not cause local turbulence, we are locating all the specific cases we present in the mythical district of Malgudi, immortalised by R. K. Narayan in his novels. Everybody knows Malgudi is in Karnataka. Section IV then tries to identify the barriers or impediments to the full participation of women in the political process.

II Background Grassroots democracy has been ushered in by an amendment to the constitution from the ‘top’. This was not because of a mass movement by the people. This is also true of the onethird reservation for women: it was not because women who were conscientised demanded their due share in power, or contested in large numbers to capture seats in these bodies. It happened, and women (as a group) were caught quite unprepared by this development.           For a number of reasons, the Indian state felt that the implementation of development programmes like the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), for example, would be most effective if local people were involved.6 The strident debate on centre-state relations, the poor targeting of poverty alleviation programmes and the like led to the realisation that local involvement and participation are essential if such programmes are to succeed. This is specially so for beneficiary identification, and to a smaller extent, for decisions on how to spend the limited amount available locally on different local projects. And given the lack of interest in devolving such power in most of the states, coercion through a constitutional amendment was the chosen route for introducing such decentralisation.7 The amendment prescribed a three-tier system of local governance for the entire country.8 This has been effective since 1993.9

Three tiers of PRIs

These bodies, which are legally local government, have a pyramidal structure.10 At the base is the gram sabha or GS— the entire body of citizens in a village or ‘gram’. This is the general body that elects the local government and charges it with specific responsibilities. This body is expected to meet at specific times11 and approve major decisions taken by the elected body. Above this basic unit of democracy, is the gram panchayat or GP, which is the first level elected body,12 covering a population of around 5,000 people. This may include more than one village. It is not uncommon to find several villages coming under one GP. This has implications for women’s participation, as women have limited mobility.       At the district level is a zilla panchayat or ZP, which is the link with the state government. In between the two is an intermediate body called, in Karnataka, the taluk panchayat, which is expected to play a co-ordinating role among the GPs in its jurisdiction and the ZP in planning and administration. While the levels are common across the country, states have passed laws that are not necessarily similar with respect to roles, functions and responsibilities. There is thus much variation and it is essential we learn from this. But that is another question.       In this system, the GS has to play a crucial role in ensuring downward accountability, transparency and voice to the people. In reality, this is far from being the case. There is even some confusion about the GS—for example, has the electorate of an entire gram panchayat to meet together for the GS, or do smaller habitations have their own GSs in their own area? 13 Are the members of the GPs to be present in all such GSs? If not, what is the mechanism to co-ordinate decision-making and convey the constituent villages’ views upward to the elected body? Who does this, and how is it done?14       This is basically an empirical question and the answer will lie in what is happening in the villages. Factors that aid or abet women’s participation can be identified in ‘process’

issues like these: When are meetings held? Is the hour and place convenient for women members? Will two to three elected women’s representatives coming in from neighbouring habitations feel free enough to participate in GS meetings? Are all communications (meeting notice, agenda, and minutes of proceedings etc.,) in written form? Who writes them and who has access to read what has been written and recorded? Our impression is that much needs to be done to make GSs effective. This will be crucial to the success of the entire system.15 At the moment, it is enough if we note these concerns as they clearly place constraints on women’s full and effective participation in the system.

Impetus for PRIs The word ‘panchayat’ is a traditional one, referring to the five elders in a village who mediated conflict and spoke on behalf of all the residents of a village in pre-modern times. In these traditional bodies, the lower castes and women had no representation.16          The word panchayat has been retained for use after the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution. The meaning is now a formal one referring to a body, but not of five persons, elected according to law. Further, the same word is used for the three tiers of local administration brought in by the 73rd Amendment, the highest being the district or zilla panchayat. The lowest is the gram panchayat that may consist of several traditional villages. All citizens of these villages constitute the gram sabha,which then becomes the basic unit of democracy. In between is a co-ordinating level—the taluka panchayat. The powers that these panchayats enjoy are enshrined in the laws enacted by each state and, in India there is considerable variation across states. Thus, this traditional word must now

be understood in a thoroughly modern context.17 And this is quite recent. But this does not mean the traditional bodies have disappeared. What influence they wield at an informal level in the rural society, is another matter that merits careful study.           The Constitution provided (in Part 4, The Directive Principles of State Policy, Article 40) for the setting up of village panchayats. But this was non-justiciable, and there was no pressure on any state to set up such a system. Many saw this article as a concession to Gandhi, rather than as a serious matter to be immediately implemented. The reason for this was the powerful voice of Ambedkar. Drawing on his own experience of rural India as it then was, he argued that local elite and upper castes were so well entrenched that any local self-government only meant the continuing exploitation of the downtrodden masses of Indian society. Nehru shared this view. Thus, in addition to affirmative action enshrined in the Constitution, the distribution of powers was deliberately made to favour the union18 as against the local or even state governments.           The union, being far away from the squalid batches of rural India, and being looked after by an educated and urban strata of society, would, it was felt, be more just—or at least more impartial—in its dealings with the downtrodden. Historical experience would tend, we suspect, to justify this early expectation.19 But is this still true after 50 years of gradual change? Has not the power of the upper castes in the rural areas declined? To what extent have things changed for the better for the SC/STs?       The union in those early days took up what was called the Community Development Programme. This was meant for allround social and economic development, and it was an important ministry headed for long by S. K. Dey. It was this programme that brought in such functionaries as the village level worker and the block development officer. After the

1960s this programme declined, as centrifugal forces led to the gradual dominance of the union. Finally, the ministry of community development ceased to exist. That philosophy became a thing of the past. But the bureaucracy it created remained. Whether this helps the new PRIs is still an open question.           This is not the place to trace the experience of this ambitious programme. Suffice it to say that, when it was being reviewed, the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee in the late 1960s came up with the idea of local governments, which was given the traditional name of panchayat. Later, in another context, the Ashoka Mehta Committee in the late 1970s too made recommendations for the setting up of local governments.20 As we shall see, these had an important impact many years down the line. It is from the union’s experience of development programmes that the idea/need for local governments came to be pushed. It has been a toplevel initiative for local development and decentralised administration. And, we might add, it continues to be so.       Given the overall centralising trends in the Indian polity, the states too developed an authoritarian system of governance. States almost became subservient to the union. Article 356 was used to keep a firm check on the behaviour of state governments. This ensured that strong hierarchical systems developed. All this was further strengthened during the emergency.21 The states behaved in the same dominating way with lower tiers of governance—or more correctly, the administration. This is true, perhaps in varying degrees, of all the states. Indian democracy lost the grassroots link: it became a top-down system. At the same time, the bureaucracy grew in influence. Women were suddenly brought into this system as one dimension of this complex process—and it defines the context in which they have to function.           Yet, and this is the Indian paradox, several state

governments conducted their own experiments with local self-government.22 This is the result of the shift in power from the traditional upper castes to the OBCs or intermediate castes, certainly in states like Tamil Nadu23 and Karnataka. The changes that occurred over the last 50 years of planned development also resulted in pressures from below, to which political forces have had to respond.24 How these changes impacted on the SCs and STs that Ambedkar was concerned about is another question. Caste and class are not overlapping categories. Grabbing political power from the brahmin and other upper castes does not mean that SC/STs will automatically be empowered, and the same applies to women as well. An important point that is missed out in all debates on reservations is that there are women in all castes, class and religions.

PRIs in other states This brief review of experience will be incomplete without some reference to the reality in the different states. This is a subject that has been extensively studied by many, in particular the Institute of Social Sciences, the National Institute of Rural Development and the Institute of Social Studies Trust.25 We can just note some major points that emerge from our general reading, meant only to give a background for further discussions.          It is only a few states that have experience over several electoral cycles with panchayati raj. For one thing, after the 73rd Amendment, it is only now that the second round of election has become due. Thus, when we speak of such experience, it is that of states which experimented with PRIs before this amendment. Among them, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra are the

major ones. Kerala has much to offer in recent years, especially in involving people in the planning process. But Kerala is exceptional in several ways—for example, in the high levels of literacy, in the history of political mobilisation, etc. In Kerala, the role of the party is critical, and there is apparently an overlap between party functioning and patriarchal attitudes. A recent study has shown that, in this state with high literacy, women who have held positions in the PRIs are not keen on contesting again. But it is still a new experiment.       West Bengal has gone through several cycles of elections since 1978, when this system was introduced. A major reason for success here was the commitment of the Left Front government to these bodies. It has been argued that their strength comes from the fact that the cadres of these parties have now entrenched themselves in the PRI institutions. This is the charge made by the breakaway faction of the Congress, the Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee. Be that as it may, the fact remains that these bodies have taken root, and work at the local level in this state is done through these bodies and there has been an improvement over the centralised administration of the past. But this also has a flip side. For one thing, it has not meant that corruption has been eliminated—there are charges of a great deal of corruption. For another, NGOs have little space in West Bengal. They work in a hostile environment where PRIs are pitted against them. This can have a political base, but it is the reality. Overall though, West Bengal scores high on implementing panchayati raj. It is more difficult to say about the role of women in PRIs but we would be inclined to hypothesise that the situation is better than most other states.       Andhra Pradesh is another state that took to PRIs in the 1980s, when N. T. Rama Rao was the chief minister. Here too the system started with hope. Nine per cent of the seats were reserved for women but not the position of chairman. But the most important struggle that Andhra is known for—the antiarrack agitation—came, not from women in the PRIs, but from

g women in the literacy programme in Nellore district. As a result of increasing literacy, and analysis stemming from the praxis methodology of Paulo Freire, women began to organise against the evils of drinking alcohol, and pushed for a policy of prohibition. This was, however, hijacked by the Telugu Desam Party, which rode to power on this slogan in Andhra. Once the state took over the demand of these women, they became curiously disempowered. Prohibition became the hotbed of corruption. Women got trapped into a situation in which they had no control. Their organisation broke up and little remains of the excitement of the literacy campaign days today.       Also, in a more recent development, while the PRI system continues to exist, NTR’s successor, Chandrababu Naidu, taking a leaf out of the South Korean experience, introduced the Janmabhoomi programme for rural development. This is a programme run efficiently from the chief minister’s office, by creating a bureaucratic edifice that is clearly accountable to him. The programme calls for contributions from local people for taking up projects that are of importance to them. This is done by selecting projects through discussions with the people in well-organised meetings, attended by all the concerned officials, who have with them the authority to take decisions. Clear guidelines have been given for financing—how much will be matched in funds by the state government and for what purpose. Often shramdaan or free labour is called for. The programme explicitly seeks to involve women in this process of deciding upon what is to be done, how, and in monitoring the work. By all accounts, the programme has made a big difference to the implementation of projects in rural Andhra Pradesh. Even critics of the programme agree that it has made a big difference.26 Corruption has not been eliminated, but the percentages, we are told, are smaller. However, more work is being done, and so volumes make up for the difference.

      The interesting thing about this programme is that it has many of the good points that are used for justifying local governance. But it achieves this end by marginalising the elected system of PRIs. That this is true is seen from the fact that elected pradhans have recently gone on a fast in front of the chief minister’s house.       What is the lesson from Andhra Pradesh? Good work can be done outside of PRIs. But PRIs are a value we stand for and so the managerial techniques of Janmabhoomi need to be welded into the PRIs. It is, however, still an open question how this can be done.           Madhya Pradesh (MP) is another interesting case. The chief minister realised its potential and decided to gamble his political career on it. He had two advantages. First, none of the major parties in MP were looking at decentralised governance; their attention was fixed firmly on urban areas and large contracts. He left these issues to his cabinet. Second, the 73rd Amendment had just been passed, elections had been held, and a large number of local elected representatives were looking for work and responsibility.       The state had just brought out the first state level Human Development Report in 1995. Among the findings was the paradox that, in a state where every village had a school, literacy levels were abysmally low and so were health and other social indicators. The chief minister made these his priority. He set up the Rajiv Gandhi missions, which were coordinated from his office.           Putting together the expertise in his office with the energies of the local representatives, a Lok Sampark Abhiyan was organised. Each elected representative, accompanied by the local schoolteacher, conducted a survey of education and other conditions in his/her constituency. The mission office provided the technical support. As a result, each representative developed a good idea of what his/her constituency needed, and priorities were set which would be met through the Rajiv Gandhi missions.

g j       The finding for education was interesting. It was true that each revenue village had a school. But in MP, a revenue village consisted of several habitations, sometimes four or five, called tolas, which were quite a distance from the area where the school was located. Children in these tolas did not have access to school. Hence, the low literacy was more due to problems of access than anything else.          The response was the Education Guarantee Scheme. An example would be: Consider a village which had 40 children (25 in tribal areas) who wanted to go to school. If the panchayat met, decided to offer space where the school could be run, and to identify a guruji from the same panchayat or a neighbouring one, who had finished 12th standard, then the government undertook to set up a school within 90 days. In this time, the guruji would be trained in pedagogy, and provided materials. The power to sanction the school was vested in the janpad panchayat. Funds were transferred directly to the panchayat, which would then supervise the functioning of the school.27 Within two years, over 20,000 such schools were set up and access to school is no longer a problem in MP.       Madhya Pradesh has made use of the panchayat system in an innovative way to meet social sector demands. Several of the Rajiv Gandhi Missions, all implemented through the PRIs, have done well, on an independent reckoning. It perhaps has the most progressive PRI system in the country today. But here too, the support of the chief minister has been critical. It is not power that has been demanded, but power that has been given. For all that, it is a positive development that must be built upon.

PRIs in Karnataka

Karnataka has been something of an exception when it comes to decentralisation and panchayati raj. For various extraneous reasons, the state legislature passed a law in 1983 setting up a system of panchayati raj. That system was a two-tier one, the zilla parishad at the district level and the mandal panchayat for a cluster of villages at the local level. At that time the progressive step of reserving 25 per cent of the seats for women had already been taken. This system went through one electoral cycle before it was abandoned. But this experience was important to those who drafted the 73rd Amendment. And after the amendment, Karnataka brought in a new law, and that too has just about completed one electoral round. Elections are due sometime after February 1999.28 As a result of this historical background, women in Karnataka have gained valuable political experience. Between the two rounds of (different) local government systems, thousands have stood for elections. Hundreds have held elective office because of reservations of important positions. Since the reservations were in favour of the hitherto oppressed sections of the population, women from the poorest sections have gained this experience. Most are not literate, yet have held office. Such an opportunity is bound to have had an impact, not only on the women themselves, but also on the whole of rural society. It would be useful to try and understand the nature of this change—even if this is rather early to do so.29       The question of oppressed castes is an old one in India— often called the anti-brahmin movement. In Karnataka, the Miller Commission (1918) was of the opinion that, except for brahmins and Christians, everyone else was backward in Mysore. Policies were made on this basis—and in all fairness, they led to improvements in the situation of many castes. Many who had little exposure to modern education and professions till then moved into them. This however, directly benefited the men of these castes. Women probably

benefited indirectly. The anti-brahmin movement of the time did bring about change and a shift in power equations.       Against this background, political power moved from the upper castes—largely brahmins—to what are today variously called socially and culturally backward castes (SCBs), or Other Backward Castes (OBCs). It is not clear that it benefited the SCs and STs as much. For one thing, SC/ST reservation is more recent, stemming as it does from the Constitution. For another, they fall below the OBCs in the caste hierarchy. It is far from clear that they were the beneficiaries of the anti-brahmin movements in the south. There is antagonism between them and the OBCs. Whether the ascendancy of the OBCs to political power has helped them has to be seen. The hostility of the Bahujan Samaj Party to both the upper-caste Congress and BJP on the one hand, and the ‘mandal’ Janata Dal and its offshoots on the other, suggests that this is a complex matter. We have an antibrahmin movement still, but are the brahmins still the major exploiters? Have other castes now taken over the dominant role that the brahmins previously had? Who is the target of the anti-brahmin movement today—brahmins, or those who behave like the brahmins of old? There is much that needs to be clarified. We leave it there.       While there is some overlap between caste and class, it is far from complete. Some of the backward caste people were not poor in an economic sense. More accurately, there were affluent groups among them. And, among the upper castes, including brahmins, there were those who were below the poverty line. But they were not traditionally exploited, and their exposure to, and access to education, was always much better. This is not true of the SCs and STs, who had limited productive assets and could only sell their physical labour. They were systematically exploited, denied access to opportunities of education, facilities like drinking water, etc. But then, this is well known.       The reservation for backward groups then had two distinct

g p meanings. When used by the union of India (under the inspiration of thinkers like B. R. Ambedkar), it referred to today’s Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories.30 These are definitely the most deprived of Indian society. But when state level authorities use the term, it refers to the OBCs—the intermediate castes.31 While many who belong to these castes are poor, they are not necessarily the most wretched of the earth.           The legislation reflected this duality, Because of the constitutional requirement, there has been a reservation for the SCs and STs. But in addition there has been a reservation for the OBCs. If one looks at the figures in the panchayati raj system, this comes out clearly.32 In the current system, where the reservation for women is one-third, in a three-tier system, the reservation is as follows: In 5,640 GPs in the state, there are a total of 80,627 seats. Of these 17,906 are reserved for SCs; 7,575 for STs; and 26,828 for BCs. The open seats number 28,306. Many who contest the open seats are OBCs.       While the SCs and STs undoubtedly enjoy representation on a scale unheard of in the past, the largest is the OBC group—it is this which today wields effective power.33 And in recent years, caste has been gaining in importance in political matters. Caste and class are often used interchangeably. And there are so many classifications we have to deal with: advanced, backward, forward, dominant, scheduled, dalit Christian...       To the extent that there is an overlap between caste and gender, the representation given to women has done little to change the caste hold on power. For example, in a given situation, do women align themselves with their caste or along gender lines? Experience has shown that it is often on caste lines. For example in the context of a drinking water problem, an upper-caste woman member took up the cause of harijans when the pipe leading to their basti was broken.

She was asked why she was bothered when she had water—it was, after all, ‘their’ problem, not ‘ours’. Thus, while the representation of women in these bodies is a welcome move, it is not reasonable to expect that it will change the caste balance of power in favour of the most disadvantaged groups. This matter requires more careful analysis. This essay is only a preliminary effort.           What has been the impact on women of two different kinds of panchayati raj system? We have a longer time span to study. We have a state in which progressive legislation led to a backlash—and more restrictive new legislation. We have what many would call a ‘PRI-friendly state’. What is possible and what has been achieved in Karnataka will probably tell of what is the most we can expect. If other states achieve as much, we would probably have made the best use of this system. How much of the experience is of a generic nature and which should hold in essence in any Indian state is a separate question. This essay then, draws its lessons mainly from Karnataka.34           In the rural areas, Karnataka began experimenting with panchayats in 1960—and this was based on the experience of princely Mysore.35 Other states, like Gujarat and West Bengal too have valuable experience to learn from. It is also true that in some other states, there has been little positive change.       Some case studies may help us to understand issues that may have a more general validity. Karnataka is a middle ranking state, and the district we will use to illustrate our points, Malgudi, is a middle-ranking district, typical in essence. The focus is on gender issues: other factors are frozen under the ceteris paribus assumption. How far one can generalise is a matter we will leave open at this time.       After the 1960 experiment with decentralisation, the next major change in Karnataka was a new law passed in 1983 and implemented from 1987. This had a two-tier system of zilla

parishads and mandal panchayats, created on the basis of population size. A notable feature of this system was that it gave the president of the zilla panchayat the status of a minister of state. It vested in him the control of the senior officer (of about 15 years experience in the IAS) who was posted as the chief secretary of the district.36 This gave the zilla parishad importance in the eyes of both the public and the civil servants. It became an important political forum.           This experiment was aborted for several reasons to do with state politics. But this experience was important in giving shape to the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution. Ironically, the same party that was busy demolishing it in the state passed this amendment, which drew much inspiration from the 1983 Karnataka Act, in the Lok Sabha. We mention this only to show that, for all the stated agreement on these issues,37 there is in many quarters hostility to local selfgovernment.38 This fact must be factored in if any new policies meant to strengthen the system are to succeed.       The Karnataka Act which followed the 73rd Amendment is less liberal to local stakeholders than the 1983 one.39 It has brought about obvious changes. In Karnataka, for example, although the reservation for women is one-third, as in the rest of the country. At the gram panchayat level well over 40 per cent of the elected representatives are women.40 Many are in politics for the first time. If they lack in experience, they also have not been spoiled by past practices. Many are young, and look forward to a long career in politics.41 The prospects for participation by women in framing and implementing social sector programmes are therefore bright. A start has been made. This has now to be taken forward and the question is how can this best be done?           It is, therefore, possible to learn from the Karnataka experience. In Shimoga district, there is even an all women panchayat in one grama.42 The conditions under which this

came about are peculiar. Reports have it that the inspiration for this came from an influential local man. We understand that these women are not enthusiastic about contesting for elections again. Since we have not yet personally studied it, we do no more than mention this oddity here. There are many such cases that have yet to be carefully studied. We are not as far advanced as we should be in our research and documentation in this field—a lot more has to be done.

III Expeperieiences from Malgudi As may be expected, the experience of women in panchayati raj has been varied. Many are surrogates for husbands and fathers who could not contest because of the reservation. Some were put in place by the wealthy and powerful, for their malleability—a kind of puppet to serve the vested interest while appearing to be an elected representative. This has led to many problems that have been extensively discussed in the literature43 and form the basis for an excellent film sponsored by UNICEF called Sanshodhan.44           There have also been many efforts to train the women who have been elected. Interestingly enough, the state government has undertaken some of these. In Karnataka, the department of women and child development co-operated with professionals in what has come to be known as the gramsat programme. This had two parts. The first was an interactive session, using satellite technology to link the different district headquarters to Bangalore. This session used material generated through meetings of women elected to gram panchayats. The impact was immediately visible, and even today, its role in giving these women self-confidence to face a big challenge cannot be underestimated.

      As a part of this programme, these women were taken to visit the Vidhana Soudha, the seat of the state government, and to the legislative assembly. They were awed by the council chamber. They saw where the speaker sat and conducted the proceedings. They saw where the chief minister and the leader of the opposition sat for the debates. Later, we found this was an immensely empowering experience. In meetings in their GPs, they often ended an argument, especially with men, with ‘What do you know? Have you seen the Vidhana Soudha? I have!’           The second part was training material developed as an extension of the first, including issues of concern to women— nutrition, water, primary education, basic health services, immunisations, common property resources, etc., which were used in training programmes across the state. The objective here was twofold—to raise certain questions in their minds on these issues and also to provide them with some basic information that would enable them to play their roles in the GPs. The impact of this so far as we know, has yet to be assessed.       Yet, it must not be forgotten that this experiment in local self-government is being undertaken in a society that is predominantly illiterate. Many of the people elected, especially those in the reserved categories are very poor. In attending meetings of the GP, they often have to give up a day’s wages. To use terms popularised by Amartya Sen, the entitlements of the actors in this great drama of democracy are way below what they should be. As a result, their capabilities to play these roles are low as these are in uncharted territory.           All the training programmes referred to above can only mitigate this to a small extent. These are people who have not been supported by society so far to play any formal leadership roles or achieve their full functioning. Yet they have embarked on this great experiment. To expect too much would be unfair on our part; not to recognise what they have achieved, despite

p g y p all these constraints, would be boorish. We have to make haste slowly.       We present below some field level experiences of women in panchayati raj. These are cases of which we have direct knowledge having observed them in the course of our work. They relate to a restricted area, yet, we feel they throw up questions that have a general validity for many parts of India. It is these matters that we feel can be usefully discussed. To facilitate this, we raise a few issues after each case is presented. Case 1: Haleuru gram panchayat is located between Malgudi, the district headquarters, and Balgudi, the taluk HQ. It is 17 km from each on the main highway. The total population is over 4,000. There are 490 houses and 580 families. The GP is divided into seven wards, and has eight members. Two positions are reserved for SCs and one for STs. Out of the eight, four are women.           When the elections to the GP were held in 1993, there was considerable discussion in the village. Under the guidance of the elders of the village, it was decided that only one candidate’s name would be proposed for each post. So each member was declared elected without a contest.       After the election, the post of GP president was reserved for an ST woman. Gangamma Jayakar, the only eligible candidate, thus became the president. She has passed her 4th standard. The other members who did not mind her being an ‘ordinary member’, could not accept her in the role of the president of the GP. They asked her to resign, so that one of the others could take over as president. She was not willing to do this and the others refused to co-operate with her.       She sought the advice of the officials at the taluk and zilla levels. She was told that she need not resign: the post was hers by right. She was also told that the quorum for meetings was three members, and that she and two other members could take decisions. With the help of the two SC members,

p she conducted the meetings. When the others protested against this, as advised by the officials she went to the high court in Bangalore, which ruled in her favour. After that, the three members have been conducting meetings for the village. The others attend every third meeting, sign the register and leave (just to retain their membership). They refuse to cooperate in the running of the panchayat so long as she remains president. She can be a ‘number’, but not a ‘member’. (In rural Karnataka, the word ‘member is used for the GP president and ‘number’ for other members.)           These members also argue with the GP secretary, who therefore, seek an excuse to ask for a transfer. The present secretary is the third one in this term. Gangamma is not happy with him. She feels that she could have achieved a lot more if the others co-operated. As it is, in getting works like digging gutters done, she has to effectively work alone. But she is proud that she could get a bus stand constructed. She could do all this because of the support of officials at the TP and ZP levels.       Several questions arise here. Does a mere reservation for women bring in social change? What is the relation between caste and class? Here, reservation has brought to prominence a person who would never have attained such a position under ‘normal’ conditions. Would a man have fared differently in this situation? Can officials make the difference to the functioning of local governments to this extent? If so, under what conditions will they play a positive role, as in this case? Case 2:There was a public protest, early in January 1999, by the women members of the Malgudi zilla panchayat. Located in the capital of the state, this should be a ‘model’ of sorts and it is. The women, who we noticed in the course of our visits, always sat in one group on one side of the chamber, have now said there is no point reserving seats for them if there is no intention of the ZP listening to what they have to say. They have pointed out that the current president is a

y y p p woman. Yet when Ganga Bai, the president, was present in the chamber and presiding over the meeting, the vice president, a man, was answering the questions that were being raised. The president was not allowed to answer! They have pointed out that when the president is in the house, the vice president cannot usurp his powers and functions.           We tried to interview Ganga Bai. She had been elected from a remote part of Malgudi—a very backward area with poor roads, no electricity and little drinking water. We had to walk a long way to get to her place. When we got there we were told she did not live there and that she had been living for long in Malgudi. We could not find her in Malgudi either. The phone number given to us as a contact number turned out to be that of an STD booth that did not know her. Yet, one day, she became the president of the zilla panchayat.       It is not surprising this matter has come to the fore. It is surprising it has taken so long to do so. And we do not know how the issue will be resolved. It clearly shows the situation in which women have to work after getting elected. The chief executive officer of this ZP is also a woman, an IAS officer. But she seems to have no difficulty in doing her job. We have seen her differing on many matters with the earlier president, a powerful male politician.           What questions does this protest raise? Ganga Bai is clearly a ‘dummy’ member, there because a male relative could not contest due to the reservation for women. What was she to do? In a traditional society, it is difficult for men to accept women in positions of authority. There is not only a loss of face, but of power that has been exercised without gender controls till now. What kind of orientation do men need in this situation? Has this question been addressed in any way in training them? And if it is ignored, what will be the consequences for women? Also, why is it that the CEO does not seem to face such problems? Does belonging to the IAS give her a special status? Or is it the fact that she is highly educated? If so, is this a gender question at all?

g q Case 3: Is Gangavva Bai president of Hosahalli gram panchayat? The question is not an idle one.           Hosahalli gram panchayat is located in Malgudi district, about 55 km from the district HQ. It is on the main road to Bhimeshwar, about 10 km from Balgudi—the taluk HQ. In 1991 it had a population of 10,991, of which 707 were SC and 365 ST. The area grows chilly, and the village has 100 small farmers, 498 medium farmers and 410 large farmers. The GP consists of Hosahalli village and Nayahalli hamlet. It is a relatively prosperous village, with a railway station and six primary schools. Eighty per cent of the houses have tap water facility.       Elections for the gram panchayat, which has 28 members, were held in 1993. Nine seats are reserved for women. The post of president was reserved for an SC woman—and Jamunavva became the president. She had the support of two other members who were also SCs. The rest of the panchayat members did not like the fact that her associate—a man who they said was her lover—began to dictate events in the panchayat. They moved a no-confidence motion against Jamunavva and she was voted out of office in 1995. The presidency, however, was reserved for an SC woman, and the other woman, who supported Jamunavva, refused to accept the presidency. Since she was an SC, and a friend of Jamunavva, the others also did not really want her as president.           Now comes the astounding part. All the other members (except Jamunavva and her friend) resigned, and the panchayat got dissolved. For one year this state of affairs continued. An administrator was appointed to look after routine matters. When no work could be done, the elders in the village decided to act. New elections were scheduled, and a new panchayat was elected without contest. They took the officials into confidence, and effectively ‘selected’ 27 members to the GP on 6 July 1997. Most of them were people who had lost the election in 1993. This group elected

p p g p Gangavva, who is an SC, ‘selected’ into the panchayat, president. Since then, panchayat matters have been running smoothly—the panchayat’s tax collection is about Rs 3 lakh.       Is this a situation we purists can be happy with? Was this situation due to gender effects, or not? What was the basis of objection—that it was Jamunavva’s lover who was dictating terms? Would it have been acceptable if her husband was doing so? Are reservations for women alone enough to bring in democratic change in our society? And, if the local people have accepted this situation, and it is performing well, then is opposition on merely ethical grounds correct in a democracy? Case 4: Gangamma Jayker has just completed her 20-month term as president of the Malgudi zilla panchayat. She now plans to contest the election to the legislative assembly of Karnataka.       Gangamma is a product of reservations in the PRI system. She comes from a small village called Haleuru in Malgudi taluk, and belongs to the SC category. Her childhood story is typical (in several respects) of women born into that strata of society. She was married at the age of 10, had a son at 13, and struggled to get a primary education—walking 7 km to go to school. She was the only girl from the area going to school. She completed her primary education, and attended school till the 8th standard.      Being educated, she felt she should do something for the women in her village, and started a mahila mandal. Growing to strength of 100 members, this mandal was successful in accessing government loans meant for poor women—like sewing machines under TRYSEM. This was the beginning of her political career. When the PRI institutions were set up in 1987, the mandal became her base, and she was elected to the mandal panchayat—the second tier in the earlier Karnataka system. She completed her five-year term, and learned a great deal about the functioning of local government in the process. She established good links with politicians from the area—in particular the local MLA, X. Y. Patel, who later

p became a minister in the J. H. Patel ministry in Karnataka.           These panchayats were abolished by the Bangarappa government, and later, after the 73rd Amendment, when elections were held for the new gram panchayats in 1993. She was elected once again—and offered the presidency of the GP. She did not accept this. She wanted to fight elections to the zilla panchayat and did so by resigning from the GP when elections were called. In the ZP, the post of president was reserved for a woman from the SC category—and she fought for this position. With the support of X. Y. Patel, who was powerful in Bangalore, she won the position. Although she had the usual problems, she completed her term, and at the end of it, she brought out a pamphlet on her achievements.           In Gangamma’s view, the earlier two-tier system was better than the current three-tier system. It is a matter of local autonomy, she says. In the current system, there is greater delay built in. Gangamma Jayker is an example of the new politician emerging from the PRI system in Karnataka. Women like her would have found it impossible to make a mark in the system without the reservations. Yet, she argues that this is only a first step. Without educational improvements, women will find it difficult to work the system.       Gangamma shows the system of reservations for women and for depressed sections of society working at its best. How many such cases are there? Do cases that show genuine growth of new political players, like Gangamma, outnumber the cases of ‘proxy’ members and so on? Under what conditions will such reservations lead to positive results, especially where women are concerned? How will established politicians react to the emergence of politicians like Gangamma? Case 5: Gangamma Jayaker is a sarpanch. She had been active in her village, and, after the panchayat elections, had been elected sarpanch. She is very keen on promoting education. An educated person herself, she has been running literacy

p g y classes for women in her village—and continues to do even after her election. On hearing of the government programme for girls’ education, she got the details of the scheme, and followed the procedures to get a school opened in her village. When she heard that we were visiting schools in the area, she made sure that we visited her school.       Her activities did not go unnoticed in the village. She was going against age-old traditions and customs. Some of the panchs got together, and got her defeated in a no-confidence motion. She was forced out of office. She was not discouraged. She fought back, organised, made her political deals, and got re-elected sarpanch when the post came up for re-election. She is the kind of person from whom the political leaders of the future will emerge. While there are people like her around, there is little doubt that panchayati raj will succeed and not be a male dominated one either. People like her can be relied upon to develop their areas responsibly.           How many persons like Gangamma Jayakar are there in our rural areas? How many of them are capable of fighting as she did? What gave her the confidence, and strength to fight as she did? Would it be very surprising if many of them did not relish such fights and opted for ‘softer’ solutions? What can we do so that the system supports the Gangamma Jayakers? Case 6: Gangamma and Jamunavva were elected president and vice president of Malgudi district panchayat, defeating Honappa and Siddappa respectively, when elections became due after the earlier incumbents had completed their 20month term of office. Is this a cause for celebration by women?           Gangamma was elected from Haleouru constituency in Balgudi taluk on a party A ticket. Jamunavva was elected from Hosaouru in Malgudi taluk on a party B ticket. Four hours prior to the election for the ZP president and vice president, Gangamma joined party B along with five ‘rebel’ members of party A. A former president of the ZP, Ayaram, who had

p y p y joined party C after being expelled from party A some time ago, accompanied her in this. He too joined party B. As a result of this realignment, party B’s strength in the ZP rose to 11 from four. In the election, Gangamma and Jamunavva, as party B’s candidates, secured 11 votes against eight for party A’s candidates.           Gangamma is 45 years old and is a graduate. She has worked in literacy programmes and organised women in different ways in Balgudi taluk. She said she joined her new party to end political uncertainly and to work with others for the development of the district. Gangamma has shown considerable political dexterity. The realignment of party loyalty of a few persons has changed the fortunes of major political parties in the district. Few men could match these political skills. But has this in anyway improved the status of women in Malgudi? Has this in anyway improved political ethics? Has Gangamma struck a blow for gender, or for personal gain? If women behave in this manner, what benefits does reservation bring?       These cases, of which we have direct knowledge, raise a number of issues for discussion. We are not clear about the direct positive gender impact from them. Except for the fact that women are fully into the political process, what specific gains have women made in Malgudi?

IV In Lieieu of a Conclusion What can we say men about the factors that influence the effective participation of women in the new panchayati raj institutions? We will try to put all this together.       One, the grinding poverty in which most of the people live makes abstract notions of democracy and ethics rather distant

concepts. Exploitation of different sorts is a reality. Corruption is a matter of routine, where payment of a bribe is at best seen as a minor nuisance to getting something. It is into this situation that local self-government has been introduced from the top. If one goes by the spirit of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee report, nothing loftier than an efficient local tier of development administration was intended.45 This is what the higher level would like to see. It is important to remind ourselves of this basic truth.       Added to this is the fact that the women who have come in under caste reservation have come in ‘with their social and economic disadvantages’ viz., they are mostly illiterate, with little productive assets, largely dependent on wage labour and from a rural society that has fixed places for various castes and gender. These cannot be changed by a wave of the constitutional amendment wand. What can we reasonably expect of this system? Are we expecting too much?       Two, while people have a clear sense of survival, they are prepared to cope in a feudal type system in which direct action does not work. Rural reality is complex—being freed from bondage has often not meant freedom as many expected it to. Experience has taught them to go slow, to approach their goal indirectly. They have to decide if attending PR meetings is sometimes worth missing their daily wage. This is even more so in the case of women, who have to worry about crying babies and hungry husbands. (The title of a recent book by Brinda Datta, dealing with women in PRIs, is Who Will Make The Chapattis?)       This is how they see the new system of PRIs. Thus, it is unrealistic to expect much in terms of their response. It has first to be demonstrated that the system is indeed here to stay. In West Bengal, it is only after one or two rounds of elections had been held that the system settled down as a permanent part of the rural countryside. In Karnataka, the constant tinkering with the system has meant that people are

still cautious about this system. No one is sure it will not be overturned tomorrow. Why then should anyone take a risk?           Three, the new system co-exists with traditional institutions. The elders wield power in a way the Constitution may not have foreseen. If the PRIs are to succeed in their main goals, then they must work in harmony with these traditional institutions, not confront them head-on. This is easier said than done. The traditional institutions have not given space for women. The pros and cons of this are beyond the scope of this essay. It is enough to note that many of the factors that hindered women in the earlier systems continue to exist and operate in rural areas—and legal changes cannot change them. Four, giving women positions in the panchayats is good in itself. But it would be naive to believe that it would address social injustice or issues of poverty. Women have class and caste identities, not just a gender identity. In fact gender as a phenomenon hardly ever appears in a pure form. It is almost always alloyed with caste, class and religious factors. In matters where there is a clash between gender and caste or class, we cannot expect women to align themselves with other women, going against their caste or class loyalties.           Some women have developed political ambitions too, especially when it is seen as a quick means for upward mobility. And political survival will be difficult if they ‘betray’ class and caste interests. This is why the reservation of the posts of president to the SC/ST category is so resented. They can be members of the panchayat, but not its president or vice president. And if they are in such posts, then a conflict between their different roles is inevitable. Different individuals will cope in different ways. The problem is in society, not in the panchayat that only reflects social reality. Five, it is essential that the panchayat system be stable. In Karnataka, the state began well in the 1980s. But since then the spirit of local democracy has taken several steps backward. The state act passed after the 73rd Amendment is far less progressive than the earlier one. Given that both were

p g imposed from the top, the withdrawal can be seen as a response of politicians at the higher level to the backlash on the ground—from politicians and the civil servants. But the continuing tinkering with this act has done little to convince people that the system is here to stay. In this situation, women in particular will choose to play safe. What is the point of risking one’s local position with powerful people if the system itself is likely to undergo changes?46 The experience of West Bengal provides a strong contrast to Karnataka.       Six, the power enjoyed, and exercised by line departments of the state government, will have to be reduced. Today, it is they who decide major matters. And officials, who belong to these departments, treat district postings, and panchayat authorities, as minor nuisances. This administration is quite gender insensitive. It is just not enough that there are women in the civil service—the service has to be sensitised.47 While an effort has been made in Karnataka to reduce diarchy in administration by giving the chief executive officer a coordinating role in the ZP, much more needs to be done. Capabilities have to be developed at this level. It is only when ZPs develop their own (gender sensitive) expertise that they can begin to chart their own path. Important in this will be co-ordination amongst themselves. For example, they could get together to form an inter-district council on the lines of the inter-state council. It is important that, in such a body, the chief minister remains one among equals, not a superior. This kind of body does not exist at all at the moment. Much needs to be done.       Seven, what is the relationship between NGOs and PRIs? 48 NGOs work in the social sector, and have strong links at the grass roots. They do not have a very positive experience of government at this level. In fact, many of them came on the scene because government was unable to deliver the goods. There are NGOs that resent the emergence of PRIs because

they now have to vacate space for these new bodies. There are some who argue that panchayats are NGOs.49 There are NGOs that see PRIs as rivals and competitors for implementing government programmes and believe they are superior because they are not ‘political’. NGOs have been involved in training those elected to PRIs. But there are also other NGOs that have welcomed the emergence of these local governments. It will be essential to reduce the hostility of some of these NGOs to PRIs in the coming years. How is this to be done?           The involvement of NGOs with grass roots democracy arises out of their activities in the following areas: 1. Organisation of the disadvantaged sections of rural society—for example, the dalits, minorities, landless, SC/STs, agricultural/plantation labour, labour of the unorganised sectors. It is these sections that have been provided a ‘space’ in the PRIs under the reservation policy. 2. In addition to organising, most NGOs run training programmes—leadership development, capacity building, group dynamics, management and so on. Some of the NGOs have organised training specifically for PRI members (e.g., SEARCH and UMA in Karnataka, FRCH in Maharashtra, CINI in West Bengal, YIP in Andhra Pradesh). 3. The most valuable area of contribution of NGOs to engendering the PRIs has been in the organising of women (whatever sector the NGO works with— health, IGPs, SHGs, housing, water and sanitation, education, watershed). The opportunities provided in small groups dealing with the above issues have been a kind of ‘testing ground’ for women to enter a larger arena, having been empowered in the smaller arena. Further, it has also been reported that women

in PRIs who have been supported and nurtured by NGOs and those who have been involved in larger people’s movements have gained a more ‘assertive’ stance which gives them an edge over other women in the PRI process. The best examples of this can be seen the ‘Right to Information’ movement in Rajasthan and the anti-arrack movement in Andhra Pradesh. Inspite of these very positive aspects, many NGOs seem wary of getting directly or closely involved with the PRIs. An often heard comment is ‘we are working in development; politics is not our cup of tea’. But, if PRIs, especially GPs, are the forum where development and politics come together, it is difficult to see how NGOs can keep non-aligned in the process. Perhaps some of them are bound by donor conditionalities or wise enough to avoid working against the ‘establishment’. But, sooner or later NGOs will get entangled in the politics of power transfer in the PRIs; the clearer their perspective on gender, the greater will be their contribution to the process.           Eight, what has been the impact of PRIs on women individually? Why is it that so many of them say they do not wish to contest elections again, in spite of the fact that it has given them power and status? Is it that they have only male role models that they do not wish to follow? Is it that this experience has taught them that they cannot change the system without joining it, even with all its corruption? This needs deeper probing.           The experiences of women in the PRIs have been so varied, across the three levels of the PRIs and the different states that except for some ‘tautological’ statements little can be said.       We need to distinguish between women who come from families with a political background and those who can be termed ‘first generation political aspirants’—women who drifted into PRIs due to the 73rd Amendment. Even though

g the amendment made the ‘space’ for both these to enter the PRIs, the alacrity with which they take to the new role will vary.       The point to be noted is that hitherto, space for women to participate in institutions like the PRI which are in the ‘public sphere’ were negligible. Consequently, the early entrants have had only ‘male role models’ of political leadership. (Some of us will recall the paradoxical statement about Indira Gandhi being ‘the only one wearing the pants in the parliament’). Thus, we have had women in a double blind—to be seen as effective, they have to take to masculine ways and when they do that they cease representing women’s interests.       From everywhere, an oft-heard comment is that many of these women would not like to contest in the next round of elections. Why is that so? Is it a pointer to their ‘unsuitability’ to assume leadership? Or an inability to cope with multiple and conflicting role demands? Or is it time we ask ourselves what it is about PRIs (and politics) that makes it unpalatable to half of humanity, even when it can determine me quality of life?           Nine, What is the constituency for panchayati raj? Is it women as a gender? Is it the local electorate? We have seen that the changes that have so far been brought about have come from the ‘top’, the union of India, for a number of reasons. At the local level, there is a great deal of opposition, from the bureaucracy and the established politician like the MLA. If they have little interest in PRIs, then who, other than a small number from the urban elite, is interested in promoting the cause of PRIs—and of women within them. Is it not strange that researchers, women’s groups and international organisations are more excited about the PRI experiment than the politicians? How else can we explain the steps back that Karnataka has been taking? And if the system provokes such opposition, then what can we do to support women within that system? It is a difficult problem.           Ten, there is an ethical problem for people like us. We

p p p have reported in this essay from our direct knowledge of the field. All are real situations. We have spoken of situations that would call for official action if the ‘authorities’ were aware of the identities of those we are talking of. But this would mean administrative and legal intervention in local situations, resulting not from local events, but from our observation of them. What is our goal—to learn from what we have seen, or to (inadvertently) intervene, and cause changes of a type over which we have no control, and in which there will be few winners and many losers? We, of course will be far away from the local havoc. Clarity is needed in this matter. We would not like to cause trouble for those who have trusted us with information, with their confidence. This matter merits discussion too.       In conclusion, for fundamental changes in society, much more than PRIs are required; but that does not mean PRIs are not important. That the PRIs as they are now are limited does not mean that they cannot be improved. PRIs as grass roots democratic governance institutions are a necessary, but not sufficient condition in the transformation to a better social order. And in that transformation, enabling women’s participation through reservations is a first and important step.           In this process of social transformation, there may be some negative unintended consequences—sub-optimal utilisation of resources, weakening of other bodies of governance, etc.,—not all these will automatically mean empowerment of women or engendering of the PRIs.       Much more will be needed if gender justice is to become the norm. And it will take time. We must not be impatient. But it is important to support this fledgling experiment in every way we can—if we believe in democracy at the grass roots.

7 DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL CAPITAL IN CENTRAL HIMALAYAS Tale of Two Villages NIRAJA GOPAL JAYAL

essay seeks to explore the link between democracy and T his social capital in the context of rural hill society in the

central Himalaya. The field-work on which the essay is based was conducted in the summer of 1999, in the middle Himalayan ranges, in the Tehri Garhwal district which was at that time a part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, and is now in Uttaranchal. The essay examines the connections between social capital and democracy through a focus on two villages in this region. It provides a narrative based on the field-study, as also an analysis of it in terms of the central research question. It then attempts to interpret these conclusions so as to illuminate some conceptual and theoretical issues associated with the study of social capital.

I The Concepts Collective action for natural resource management was chosen as relevant and useful, because locally specific, indicator of social capital, the independent variable in this research collective. Small, relatively isolated rural

communities in this region have a great deal by way of everyday face-to-face interaction, but there are no local Putnamesque equivalents of associations like choral societies or bird-watching clubs.1           The literature on social capital cautions us against confusing the sources of social capital with their outcomes. Some of the important but unresolved ambiguities surrounding this notion include the following: whether social capital is the infrastructure or the content of social relations; whether it is possible to separate what social capital is from what it does; whether it is possible to distinguish between the benefits of social capital and its sources. Specific outcomes or manifestations of social capital should not, we are told, be mistaken for social capital itself (1999:3).2       To treat collective action for natural resource management as a plausible indicator of social capital is not, however, to suggest that such collective action is either the source of social capital, or social capital itself. The region of study has a strong tradition of evolving local institutions, which formulate and implement rules relating to the use of natural resources, and impose sanctions for their violation. Here, such collective action is seen as no more than a manifestation of social capital, the presumption being that such action is made possible by the pre-existence of stocks of social capital which may not find reflection in every, or even any other, area of social life. In the absence of a vibrant associational life, or even networks of civic engagement, we must make do here with the norms of reciprocity that are unquestionably embodied in such local institutions.       The forest is an important natural resource on which the life of individuals and households in the community is critically dependent. Community initiatives to manage these frequently take the form of effective local institutions with defined structures, which are governed by collectively formulated norms and procedures, and impart a certain

abiding quality to the social cooperation expressed through them. Such institutions would arguably not be possible except in communities which have a fair degree of social capital, perhaps facilitated by the relative isolation fostered by life in the mountains. Institutions of this nature should not be discounted also because they are expressions of continuing interactions over time-periods spanning at least a few decades. Indeed, such interactions not only help to sustain the institutions but are in turn sustained by them. The social or political anthropologist therefore encounters a very real blurring of boundaries that makes it virtually impossible to separate the form from the content and the source from its manifestation.       The indicator for democratic performance—the dependent variable in this study—is the performance of the local democratic institutions, which were revived following the enactment of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts (1993). Elections to the gram (village) panchayats in this region were held in 1996, after which the implementation of development schemes through them commenced. The local institutions for natural resource management remain in existence, but they occupy a quite distinct domain, unrecognised by the state to the extent that they have no legal status. Nevertheless, the new panchayat institutions have had a not insignificant impact on them, and indeed on the very nature of community life. Hence, social capital— expressed through local institutions for natural resource management—is linked with democratic performance, as expressed through state-sponsored institutions of local democracy in various and unexpected ways, some of which, it is the purpose of this essay to uncover.       Segmentation is an important variable in this research, and its role in the chosen context must, therefore, be specified. Social anthropologists have observed that the caste system in the hill society of this region is markedly atypical when compared with that of the plains. To begin with, it is

p p g characterised by fewer levels of stratification and consequently much less rigidity in inter-caste relationships. The caste structure of the predominantly Hindu population of this region is expressed in a two-fold division into high caste groups (brahmin and rajput/khasiya) and low caste artisan groups (the so-called doms, more properly described as dalits). Within each of these, there are primarily status distinctions rather than the kind of social and ritual distance that characterises inter-caste relations in other parts of India. In his ethnographic study of a village in the lesser Himalayas, Gerald Berreman (1963) has remarked on the absence of great class divisions, and the presence of community solidarity within the village. It is such evidence that has also led scholars to affirm that community solidarity—the conditions for which were already present in local society— was an important factor facilitating the success of the Chipko movement (Guha 1991:168).           However, it is important not to romanticise the relative absence of segmentation. A more cautious approach would recognise that the dalit groups have traditionally lived outside or on the periphery of the main villages, which are frequently uni-caste, i.e., either brahmin or rajput, and have customarily provided a variety of services to them. Even if, therefore, dalits are not routinely subjected to violent oppression in mountain society, they are far from being social equals. At best, a sort of moral economy of mountain society may prevail, which mandates and sustains relationships of interdependence within a hierarchical order.3 Such relationships of dependence and inter-dependence may make for relatively less oppressive relationships between the two groups. Perhaps it is the enforced isolation of village communities in the mountains,4 especially through the winter months, that accounts for the atypicality of inter-caste relationships here.           Analytically, the advantage of locating the study in an atypical social setting is that segmentation becomes a

controlled variable here, and as such, has less potential to distort. As opposed to this, in more typical situations, where extreme polarities in terms of caste status obtain, or there are multiple axes of stratification—such as caste, religious and class differences—these would surely impact the outcomes of democratic institutions. Controlling the variable of segmentation obviates this possibility moderately. In the particular villages studied, moreover, most households practice subsistence agriculture, and there are no great disparities in the size of landholdings. As a result, there is a fairly low level of class differentiation, and such differences as obtain are the result of remittances from the outside that characterise the so-called ‘money-order economy’ of the region.           To eschew romanticism about the absence of segmentation is also to simultaneously abandon the search for the mythic construct of the community that is often presumed by studies of the collective and cooperative management of natural resources. An overview of the debate on community and conservation shows that two positions have been pre-eminent. The first of these is the argument that poverty contributes to ecological degradation, and this position is broadly compatible with, on the one hand, Garrett Hardin’s argument about ‘the tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin 1968) and, on the other, the official foresters’ argument that the interests of local communities are irrevocably opposed to conservation.5 This position has been largely superseded by another which, contrary to the first, points to common property regimes (CPRs) to show that institutions for collective action provide alternatives—both theoretical and empirical—to centralisation and privatisation as ways of governing the commons (Ostrom 1990). N. S. Jodha’s study of common property resources and the rural poor in the dry regions of India has even shown that CPRs help reduce rural inequalities, and therefore, ‘they should be

recognised as an integral part of programmes directed towards reduction in rural poverty and inequality’ (Jodha 1994:176).           In this essay, I seek to draw attention to instances of community-based conservation which are reasonably successful.6 They are however neither the outcomes of state policy, nor have been in any way facilitated by it. On the contrary, the wellsprings of these initiatives are local/indigenous and, instead of being supported by the state, they have often taken upon themselves the task of conserving resources which are legally the property of the state. It is very likely that the success stories of conservation described here possess a local specificity, and are not widely generalisable. As such, they should not inspire us to valorise the idea of the inherently conserving community.7 On the contrary, it makes sense to be alert to the possibility of social inequalities, recognising that if collective action for natural resource management in these specific contexts has been effective, this may be for reasons that are locally specific. In the context of joint forest management, for instance, Madhu Sarin has argued that smallness of size and homogeneity of social composition are factors that facilitate the efficient management of resources by community institutions (Sarin 1996:180). In the cases discussed below, caste and class homogeneity obtains to a greater degree than is common in Indian villages, and there are no great disparities in landholding. In addition to these, however, there is the critical factor of an historical and ideological legacy of participation in the Sarvodaya and Chipko movements, which has contributed in no small measure to the formation of local institutions for the management of natural resources. Nevertheless, it is important to note that relationships of power and transactions of exchange are never absent from community life. Indeed, modern democratic institutions may even contribute to the introduction and reinforcement of such

inequitous relationships, as this essay will argue.           Does social capital, a la Putnam, make democracy work better? For most, if not all, of us, democracy is by definition empowering. It is an intrinsic good and an unqualified desideratum. A logical corollary of this argument has been the belief that development should be decentralised, and that the task of determining local developmental priorities should devolve on institutions of local self-government, because these can better represent and fulfil the aspirations of the people. There has also been a tendency to assume that these conditions having been achieved, the twin tasks of democracy and development may be simultaneously accomplished. And if this fairytale ending was facilitated by an already pre-existing stock of social capital, we would have arrived at the formula in which social capital, democracy and development could be neatly bundled together and packaged as a model for replication.           Ground reality, alas, is infinitely more complex and unpredictable. It resists and even thwarts attempts to fit it into theoretical straitjackets. Thus, even in situations where a reasonable reservoir of social capital exists, it does not necessarily or inevitably make for the successful functioning of democratic institutions, in terms of enhanced development performance or even simply greater governmental responsiveness. On the contrary, the fieldwork on which this essay is based suggests that the recent establishment of democratic institutions at the local level, and the channelising of development funds and programmes through these, have set in motion processes that tend to deplete, rather than enhance, the pre-existing reserves of social capital. Sometimes, this can almost irreparably damage the delicate social and moral fabric of community life.

II The Field Historical Backdrop Both the villages which are the focus of this essay are located in the Tehri Garhwal district of Uttar Pradesh. The history of this district, one of the oldest kingdoms of north India, is somewhat distinctive in the wider region of Uttarakhand. In the early nineteenth century, a Garhwal weakened by famine and earthquakes was repeatedly invaded and eventually subjugated by the Gorkhas. The then king Pradumna Sah was killed in a battle in Dehra Dun, but his minor son Sudarsan Sah was saved. Many years later, Sudarsan Sah, with the help of the East India Company, overthrew the Gorkha rulers. As the price of this assistance, Kumaon, Dehra Dun and eastern Garhwal were placed under British rule, while western Garhwal, broadly encompassing the present-day districts of Tehri and Uttarkashi, was given to Sudarsan Sah as the Tehri ‘riyasat’. The dynasty ruled Tehri from 1815–1949, when Manvendra Sah ceded sovereignty to the government of India. Manvendra Sah has since represented the Tehri constituency in parliament several times, as an Indian National Congress candidate between 1957–67, and most recently as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate. The history of forest policy and forest use in Garhwal and Kumaon conventionally commences with an account of colonial policy. Was the situation that obtained in the princely state of Tehri any different? It appears that the rich forest cover of the region inspired both the kings of Garhwal as well as the Gorkha rulers to market the timber outside. As such, commercial forestry in Tehri Garhwal predates that in British Garhwal. The commercial success of an Englishman called Wilson, to whom large tracts of forest were leased, inspired the Tehri state to renegotiate the lease so that, instead of an annual

rental, the raja would receive 80 per cent of the net profit (Walton 1989:211). Eventually, by the turn of the century, the state had assumed control over the management of forests. In the following years, large tracts of forest were declared reserved, and restrictions were placed on their use by the villagers. Resentment and eventually resistance followed, in response to which the raja announced some modification to these restrictions. In the next few decades, there were many revolts and rebellions on the issue of forest resources and, in 1930, a peaceful satyagraha at Tilari was suppressed with violence that resulted in several (estimates vary between 200–400) dead and many others wounded (Guha 1991:76). In the 1940s, the struggle for democracy in Tehri Garhwal intensified, with increased popular participation in the praja mandal. One of the notable leaders of the struggle was Sridev Suman, who inspired young boys like Sunderlal Bahuguna. The legacy of these struggles was revived in the 1960s, when the Gandhian leader Acharya Vinoba Bhave charged Bahuguna with the task of spreading the message of sarvodaya in Uttarakhand. This resulted in the formation of the Uttarakhand Sarvodaya Mandal, led by Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt, which mobilised large numbers of people in its effort to strengthen the movement for forest rights as also the movement against the consumption of liquor. On 30 May 1968, a massive protest meeting was held at Tilari, to commemorate the martyrs of the forest satyagraha. In the years that followed, the conflict between local and outside commercial interests in the forest became apparent. Several local forest-based industries operated by Sarvodaya workers across Uttarakhand began to press for more raw material allocation, and also led a mass campaign for a ban on felling by contractors. It was these tendencies that climaxed in the Chipko movement, which spread dramatically through the Garhwal and Kumaon hills through the 1970s. Chipko has been variously interpreted as a peasant movement, a feminist movement and, most

p famously, as an environmental movement. While its characterisation remains contentious, the continuity between Chipko and earlier forms of social protest in the region is rarely disputed (Pathak 1985, 1998). In particular, Ramachandra Guha has argued that the dhandak, a form of protest typical of the Tehri area was a precursor of Chipko. The dhandak involved attacks by the people on state officials, rather than against the raja who was (at least partly on account of his traditional role as the religious head of the Badrinath temple) seen to be the personification of the divine and hence the source of restorative justice (Guha 1991:67ff). Two districts were carved out of the former Tehri riyasat after independence. These are the districts of Uttarkashi and Tehri Garhwal. Agriculture is the main economic activity in all the eight districts of the UP hills (Uttarakhand), but its share is highest in the district of Tehri Garhwal (85 per cent). It is not, therefore, surprising that the degree of urbanisation is also the lowest in this district (Mehta 1997). Despite this, there has been a continuous decline in the density of forests in the district, of both the oak forests and the chir pine that had replaced these over the past four decades. An astonishing recent finding suggests that: ...even after commercial felling stopped in 1981, the availability of timber, now exclusively obtained from fallen and wind-blown trees, remains almost the same as it was when the forests were commercially exploited (Nanda 1999:80). Indeed, the ban on felling has led to the emergence of what is locally referred to as a ‘timber mafia’, forest contractors who are engaged in illegal felling and theft from reserved forests. The timber mafia is also involved in a range of other illegal activities, including the brewing of illicit liquor, which is a major social problem in the hill districts (Rangan 1996:219).       In the villages under study, we shall see how the legacy of

g y g y the sarvodaya and Chipko movements contributed to the building of local institutions for the management of forests and—cause or consequence?—of social capital. Jardhargaon is a village in the Hemvalghati (the valley of the river Hemval) region of Tehri Garhwal district. From Upli Nagni, the nearest roadhead, one has to walk on a bridle path three km uphill to reach Jardhargaon, at an altitude of approximately 1,500 m. Jardhargaon is a village scattered across six km, with its approximately 18 hamlets, each consisting of four or five houses, lying at some distance from each other. Above the village, another half-hour climb up, is an enormous forest, extending over several hundred hectares, densely populated by many varieties of oak, rhododendron, horse chestnut, pine and other trees. The village depends on the forest for many of its basic requirements: fuel-wood, fodder and leaf-litter for the stall-fed animals, grazing grounds, fruit, medicinal plants and wood for house-building and special occasions like weddings.           In this village of approximately 3,000 people, there are 250-odd households of which about 200 are rajput, and the remaining are dalit households. The dalits are fairly poor, especially those, like the drummers, who do not even send their children to school. On the other hand, those who work as masons are better off and more conscious of the value of education. Landholdings in Jardhargaon are fairly small, averaging about 1.5 acres, and hence the agriculture (wheat and rice) and animal husbandry practised here is mainly for self-sustenance. It is therefore unsurprising that a majority of men in the village have migrated to Delhi or Dehra Dun in search of employment, and there are also many who are serving in the army. This trend, of outward migration, has visibly accelerated in recent years, as young men in the village are attracted by the possibilities of earning more money outside. The outmigration of men has placed additional

g p burdens on the women of the village, but it has also implied that their participation in the village economy and in the common life of the village is quite high. They are out collecting firewood and fodder, but they also participate actively in the village panchayats. Just a few weeks before the field visit, for instance, the forest had caught fire five times, and the women were in the forefront of the effort to put it out, thereby saving fully 90 per cent of the forest from destruction. The enrolment of girls in the village schools is also slightly higher than that of boys, 52 per cent, and this is sufficiently unusual for it to be remarkable. There is one basic school, one junior school and one intermediate college in the area. The nearest doctor can be found only in the town of Chamba, but this year a government ayurvedic dispensary has been sanctioned for Nagni.           The dense forest above Jardhargaon is the result of a massive community effort undertaken barely 20 years ago. According to popular memory, this was originally a dense forest which had been completely denuded as a result of over-exploitation by the villagers themselves, rather than by commercial felling. The degradation of the forest had also led to the drying up of many water sources in the area. In 1980, during the last phase of the Chipko movement, in which many young people from this area participated actively, the community mobilised itself to regenerate the forest and thereby the water sources. A meeting was called in which the entire village community decided to form a Van Suraksha Samiti or VSS (a seven to eight member council for the protection of the forest). Its members were, and continue to be, elected by consensus, and a set of rules was drawn up. The forest was declared closed, bandh van, and the process of regeneration began. In the last two decades, this has once again become a dense forest. The villagers’ daily needs are now easily met, because as there is a larger forest cover, there is also more dry wood available, and the green branches (or ‘kachchi lakdi’) are not threatened. The distribution of

dead wood for house building and weddings is also regulated according to the principle of need. Thus, in 1999, an acute shortage of fodder had led the samiti to allow some lopping.           Similarly, rules were formulated for grass-cutting from the Civil Soyam forest,8 traditionally meant for village use. The VSS decided that this forest should be closed for grasscutting between August and December, so that the grass can regenerate in the monsoon months. During these months, there is enough grass anyhow around the houses for the cattle to graze, thus obviating the need for the women to go into the forest to collect fodder. When the forest is opened, one member, and no more, from each family is allowed to cut only one head-load of grass per day, and most of this is stored for the dry months.       The Van Suraksha Samiti meets every three months, and its members are always chosen by consensus. In cases of violation of the rules governing the forest, the offenders are fined. In earlier days, the fines started at Rs 2, now they vary between Rs 5 and Rs 50, in exceptional cases going to Rs 100. The samiti also appoints a van sewak (watchman) to guard the forest. Till 1990, the Van Sewak’s salary (Rs 300 a month) was paid by a small contribution made by every household, and whatever funds the samiti could collect by way of fines. In 1990, under an afforestation scheme of the ministry of environment and forests (locally called the ‘hariyali’ or ‘greening scheme’), the salary of the watchman was provided for, and there was no need for community contribution. The subsidy lasted approximately three years. But, having been interrupted once, the old rotational system has broken down, and the community has not been able to revive effectively the earlier contributory pattern of raising resources. Apparently, continuous involvement, participation and even monetary contribution, keep alive a certain commitment to the cause, which is lost when a government agency steps in to do it.

      On the whole, however, the community spirit remains, as was witnessed in October 1998 when there were devastating floods in the valley, and again in the summer of 1999, when the Garhwal Himalayas fell victim to raging forest fires. When the floods came, so did many state functionaries, from the district magistrate to the MLA, and even a minister. But no immediate relief seemed to be forthcoming, not even in the form of compensation for ‘guhls’ (a traditional irrigation system in Garhwal) that had been washed away, much less future plans for embankments The village folk decided to act according to antecedent community tradition, and instead of waiting for state assistance, joined together to make four or five guhls by ‘shramdan’ (voluntary labour). It is estimated that the shramdan amounted to 500 mandays.           Similarly, when the fires spread all over Garhwal in the summer of 1999, Jardhargaon too was affected. Fire broke out at least five times, but each time it was quelled by a community effort, with women in the forefront. In fact, since this episode of fire in the forest, the women, through the Mahila Mangal Dal (women’s welfare committee), have appointed a separate female van sewak, because they are of the opinion that the Van Suraksha Samiti was slackening. They are also of the view that women can alert other women more quickly, especially if, as happened recently, the men are out, and only the women are home. In the past, too, the Mahila Mangal Dal has been active in mobilising the women of the village against limestone quarrying, as also in plantation work under the afforestation scheme of the government.       The Van Suraksha Samiti includes members of the Mahila Mangal Dal. Only a year ago, Jardhargaon saw the constitution of a van (forest) panchayat, under official aegis. Since the van panchayat was set up, the Van Suraksha Samiti has become visibly slack, because all the villagers expect the van panchayat to do the work. This is despite the fact that the village community has handed over only the civil forest to the

van panchayat, retaining control over the reserved forest!9 Their grouse against the van panchayat is that its officials, though elected by the village, begin to see themselves less as representatives of the people, and identify more with the officials. This committee of approximately 12 members had (till the time of the field visit) no member in common with the VSS. In 1996, following the 73rd Constitution Amendment Act revitalising the panchayat institutions, elections were held to the gram panchayat. The gram panchayat has 11 members and one pradhan (head). The pradhan’s seat here is reserved for a woman, with two more dalit women, elected on reserved seats, in the panchayat.           The lack of transparency and accountability is the main cause for unhappiness with the functioning of the panchayat. There is, of course, little popular awareness of what the new act entails, but there is a perception (contrary to the objectives of the act!) that everything is decided ‘from above’. This metaphor, oopar se, represents the distance between the decision-maker and those for whom, or even on whose behalf, decisions are being made. It also represents the beneficiary as a passive subject, rather than the empowered participant in the decision-making process that was the object of decentralisation. Hence, while it is apparent to all that resources are flowing in from ‘above’ on a scale they never did before, these are seen to be bedevilled by the commissions and kickbacks that are entailed. There is little possibility of transparency in development expenditure, as even muster rolls are not shown. The organisational framework and the resources are both seen as flawed as a result of being dictated from above. As such, the popular perception regarding both the van panchayat and the gram panchayat is the same: that the functionaries of these bodies, though elected by the village folk themselves, prefer to listen to the district magistrate and the block development officials than to their electors. The VSS, by contrast, is seen to be a

better model because it represents what in development literature is called a bottom-up approach. Dalits alone have greater faith in government schemes, as they naturally expect greater impartiality and also perhaps more benefits (e.g., in the form of reservations) from outside authority.       Jardhargaon has its share of conflicts, mostly small ones that are settled by the intervention of village elders and others. There is a moral sanction against taking a conflict to the police or the courts in the first instance, and people are even fined for doing so. (Some even believe that crime follows the setting up of a police station!) At the time of the field visit, a conflict with a neighbouring village seemed imminent. The people of this village have customarily enjoyed access to the banj (oak) forest of Jardhargaon. But when the forest fires spread, they did not come out to help douse the fires. The people of Jardhargaon sent them a notice barring them from the forest forthwith. They were yet to reply, but it was anticipated that they would either apologise and be allowed to continue as before, or else they might try to appeal to the government. The popular feeling was that if they appealed to the government, their claim would not be sustained, because if they had a right over the forest, they should also have felt it their duty and responsibility to participate in the saving of it.           Within the village too, there are disparities and differences. Not everyone participates equally. For instance, dalits did not participate very actively in the recent forest fires, causing the others to complain. But this was at least partly due to a rumour that some of the more active men in the village benefit from their engagement in ‘social work’, that they receive payments of Rs 5,000 in helping to put out the fires and get publicity for it in the media outside. Thus, suspecting that the selfish interest of only a few ‘suvarnas’ was involved, the dalits stayed away. For the rest, they do participate in the Van Suraksha Samiti, though there is no reservation here. Socially, also, they are less than equal.

y y q Though it is dalit drummers who lead a marriage procession in Garhwal, there is no inter-dining. At weddings and festivals, they eat separately or later. In the panchayat, however, there is necessarily a degree of formal equality, with everyone sitting together.10           There are, further, approximately 20 households, all belonging to the locally dominant rajput caste, who also stay away from community activities. As such, they would neither meddle with the management of the forest nor participate in putting out the fires. They are simply indifferent. These households are largely those who have external links, and are more prosperous because of the remittances received from family members who have migrated. If the village is demanding a road, they can be depended upon to cooperate, but in matters relating to the daily life (jan jeevan/pashu palan) of ordinary village folk, they are disinterested.       Some of these people are also working as contractors, and though they do not have the courage to speak out openly in meetings (where they know themselves to be heavily outnumbered), they do try and influence the panchayat’s decisions where it serves their interests. For instance, a nahar (canal) was to be built which should have been located where it would have benefited approximately 50 farmers. Instead, it was constructed at some distance where it could benefit only two or three farmers. The more vocal members of the village were not present at the meeting in which this decision was taken, and when they later protested, the alibi was readily provided: the construction materials had already been transported to the site, and the work had just begun. The others suspect that these people also have political connections, but are not alarmed or threatened by them in any way, simply because theirs is not an overwhelming presence.       The doubts about the top-down pattern of development should not be interpreted to mean that the village folk are against the conventional model of development. There are

undoubtedly some activists, like Vijay Jardhari, who strongly favour a sustainable model of development, but the majority would like to have infrastructure like roads and electricity. As of now, only two hamlets (out of 18) are electrified, which is sufficient for official statistics to count Jardhargaon among the villages that have been electrified! One more hamlet will be electrified this year, but there are some who use solar energy even for television sets. There are also those who are not sure that electricity is an unmixed blessing, for the actual availability of it is uncertain, the timings are unpredictable and the billing is invariably wrong! For these reasons, there are some who would prefer not to have electricity.           Among those who participated in the Chipko movement and helped mobilise the village community to regenerate the forest is Vijay Jardhari. Vijay started his career as a social activist in the anti-liquor movement 30 years ago. He was an active participant in the Chipko movement, along with other well known Chipko activists of this area like Dhoom Singh Negi and Kunwar Prasun. In 1974, he organised and led the famous 600 km ‘padayatra’ (foot march) from Askot to Arakot to raise awareness about the importance of forest conservation, and wants to do it once more, this time from Arakot to Askot. He successfully led a local movement against limestone quarrying in the mid-1980s, when the government allotted a patta and mining contract in Nagni. Vijay and his colleagues mobilised local people by making them aware of how mining would cause the water sources in the area to dry up. In 1980, he was one of the moving spirits behind the formation of the Van Suraksha Samiti.       Today, Vijay Jardhari is spearheading a movement called the Beej Bachao Andolan (Save the Seeds movement) which seeks to conserve agricultural biodiversity. Jardhari was inspired to launch this when it became apparent that the shift to high-yielding varieties and chemical fertilisers, as part of the Green Revolution strategy, was reducing crop diversity and also making the ordinary farmer less self-sufficient.

g y Jardhari began to campaign for the traditional farming practice of the region, known as ‘barahnaja’ (12 seeds). Barahnaja is the name of an intercropping system of rainfed agriculture in the hills, in which twelve crops are grown together in a mix that is balanced so as to meet the various requirements of the household, as also to keep the soil fertile and productive. This system has been replaced by modern commercial cropping which was initially attractive because of the subsidised and often virtually free inputs given by the government. Though the productivity would rise in the first year, but it quickly became apparent that this was not sustained once the free inputs were withdrawn. It was this realisation that led Vijay Jardhari to initiate the BBA11 (Interview with Vijay Jardhari; Jardhari and Kothari 1997). Along with like-minded young colleagues, he has travelled extensively in India, collecting diverse, even rare, varieties of seeds, growing them experimentally, without chemical inputs, and carefully observing their characteristics in terms of productivity and pest resistance. Those with promise are then given to farmers in exchange for an equivalent amount of their seeds. What Jardhari and his colleagues have created, right in their own backyard, is a remarkable living gene bank. The collection includes an astonishing 150 varieties of ‘rajma’ (phaseolus mungo), 130 varieties of rice, and 40 varieties of millets.       Is the management of the forest in Jardhargaon, especially the establishment of local community institutions with their own rules and sanctions for this purpose, sufficient reason to suggest that social capital is at work? The setting up of community institutions of this kind is indicative of social capital because such institutions are the result of an ideological commitment. They are not inspired by considerations of a transactional nature, or by a simple computation of material interests. The principles and procedures that characterise their functioning, from the

choice of members of the VSS by consensus rather than majority voting to the imposition of sanctions and fines for violation of the procedures agreed upon, suggest norms of fairness and reciprocity that are for the most part abided by. The coming together of the community to fight forest fires, and the donation of voluntary labour amounting to 500 mandays for fighting the floods, are also suggestive of a fair degree of social capital.       It is clear that if there is social capital in Jardhargaon, then it is external linkages that are singularly responsible for depleting it. These external linkages typically take two forms: first, the ‘money-order economy’ which brings in remittances from the outside, and so makes some people more prosperous than others. This has the added effect of making them indifferent to, and disinterested in, community efforts, especially insofar as these involve the conservation of natural resources. The second form of external linkage is that which is introduced by the state, in the form of a variety of institutions such as gram panchayats and van panchayats, and development outlays which are made the responsibility of local elected bodies. As we saw, in Jardhargaon, even the payment of the watchman’s salary for three years had the effect of enervating the community and weakening its commitment to revive the earlier contributory system. Similarly, development schemes bring forth special interests which are sometimes powerful enough to bend the decisionmaking process to personal/group advantage rather than the common good. Khavada Khavada village is located in the Bhilangana block of Tehri Garhwal district, in the fork formed by the Balganga and Bhilangana rivers. The nearest big town is Tehri (the site of the controversial dam project), and the nearest roadhead is Chamiyala, from where there is a kacchha but motorable road all the way up to the village,which is situated at an altitude of

y p g approximately 1,200 m. The gram panchayat of Khavada includes the villages of Simara and Naulichak. Simara is an Ambedkar village of approximately 45 households, while Naulichak has only three dalit households. Khavada itself is a large village with 247 households. Out of this total of approximately 300 households, 45 each are brahmin and dalit households, while the remaining are rajput.       The main occupation in Khavada, as in Jardhargaon and as indeed in the entire district, is agriculture. Most landholdings are between one and two acres in size, with only seven households owning land of about five acres each. Dalits have less than 0.5 acres of land on an average, and many of them are landless. Most of the adult population of this gram sabha has migrated to the cities in search of jobs, a process exacerbated by the spread of education. There is one primary school and one junior high school here, and enrolment is fairly high. The midday meal scheme encouraged more parents to send their daughters to school as well. As is to be expected, those households in which more than one member has migrated are relatively more prosperous than the others. And, as in Jardhargaon, this has led to a certain apathy towards community issues from these sections. Khavada has electricity, several television sets and even a couple of dish antennae. But there is a rather acute shortage of drinking water. Simara and Naulichak between them have only one water tank, and the residents of Naulichak have to come down to Simara to collect water. Simara has one basic primary school, which is privately owned. Enrolment here, however, is fairly low. There is no primary health centre.           The Mahila Mangal Dal in these parts has been in existence for approximately 30 years. Many of the older women responsible for crafting this institution were involved with the Sarvodaya and Chipko movements. Some of them even attended meetings and marches in relatively distant places like Thati and Uttarkashi. The MMD consists of nine members, with the president chosen by consensus. The

p y president is chosen for a term of three years, though she may be re-elected and continue for as long as the members wish.       Among the early achievements of the MMD were the antiliquor movement and the declaration of the forest as a bandh van. The major issue at the time was that the men sat around the house and drank, never going to the fields for work. This put considerable pressure on the women. Their strategy was to punish both those who drank and those who brewed liquor, by shaving off half their heads so as to ‘make them look mad’. In the early days, their anti-liquor agitation was successful and its impact apparently endured for several years, but in recent times, liquor has once again become a social menace, and this time the women find themselves less effective at tackling it.       The MMD has also been taking up a variety of other tasks, including building roads, cleaning water tanks used by the community, funding the temple and religious observances and, above all, protecting the forest. This last objective was accomplished by formulating a set of rules, the strict observance of which was ensured by levying a fine for violations. The forest was also protected from intruders and commercial interests, by the vigilance of the women themselves, who blocked all possible paths into the forest. The village folk were also disallowed from cutting green leaves, or more green grass than was required. Sections of the forest were alternately opened and closed for the people to meet their requirements of grass, leaves and fuel-wood. This helped prevent the senseless overexploitation of wood and grass. When one part of the forest had been optimally exploited, the other was opened up and the first allowed to regenerate. In this way, seasonal regeneration was provided for and waste was effectively prevented.           There is free access to the reserved forest, though no cutting of big trees, green leaves, shrubs or bushes is allowed. From the oak trees, for instance, while green leaves can be cut, whole branches cannot. There is also no limitation

on ringal, a shrub used for weaving baskets and mats. The panchayat forest, also an oak forest, is closed. It is opened every two or three years, when the MMD decides that it needs cutting or lopping. During the open season, one member of each family can go in, and cut grass and leaves. The chowkidar is paid a salary of Rs 500–600 per month, collected by a contribution of Rs 10 from each household, and also given two kg each of wheat and rice, along with beedis and matches. The ‘chowkidar’ is supposed to monitor entry into the forest and, if more than one person from a family comes in, to send them back. Those who have migrated and paid up their contribution can authorise relatives to claim their share of the forest produce. If any household has special requirements, such as a wedding, a meeting of the MMD is convened and, even if the forest is not open at that time, those who need the wood are allowed to take it by simply paying a fine. In levying the fine, however, the unwritten code is that it should amount to less than what it would cost to buy the wood.           Another conservationist practice that has been popularised by the MMD is to stop the use of chir pine trees for wedding mandaps. Earlier, at least four such trees had to be cut every time there was a wedding, to provide the four pillars of the mandap. Now, pillars of clay are built instead, and decorated with grass. Further, at every wedding, the family of the bride or bridegroom is enjoined to plant a tree and tie a sacred thread around it. Any tree may be chosen and planted anywhere, in the panchayat forest or near the house, and it serves as a reminder of the happy event.       Fines of up to Rs 50 are levied on those violating the rules laid down by the MMD, whether these pertain to drinking or brewing liquor, or to the forest. On both these fronts, efforts have recently been accelerated because drinking has become a problem once more, and because the motivation for forest conservation has also been on the decline. Legislations like the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 weakened the sense of

community and introduced a more cavalier attitude towards the forest which now came to be seen as government property, to be looked after by the government. Forest laws were also perceived to be insensitive to the villagers’ needs, in the sense that they treated contractors and villagers equally as threats to the forest.12           In recent years, there has been a sustained attempt at generating greater awareness by the Chetna Andolan,13 a group of young social activists from the nearby village of Chamiyala. There are lots of ecological slogans in the air: jungle hi jeevan hai (the forest is our life); jal, jungle, zamin (water, forest, land); jungle nahin to jeevan nahin (where there is no forest there is no life), etc. In 1996, the MMD organised a ceremony of Raksha Bandhan, of tying the sacred thread around the trees or adopting the trees as their brothers. The procession was led, as marriage processions are in these parts, by the drummers (nagadas) who are always dalits. This ceremony has been repeated every year since on the day of the festival. Its significance is symbolic and ritual. Religious devotion is widespread in the hills of Uttarakhand, also known as Devabhoomi (the abode of the gods), which is the location of several of the most sacred sites of the Hindu religion. The use of a religious ritual for the essentially secular purpose of conservation is clever, because it puts up a bar that few would dare to violate. Indeed, we were told that everyone in the village was asked, even forced, to participate in the ceremony, being threatened with a fine of Rs 50 if they did not do so.       The MMD’s routine functions are funded by collections in the form of money and rations (in grain). These resources are sometimes used to assist families in which there is no active earner. Such families are also often helped with livestock and fuel-wood. In this way, some recognition is given to the principle of need and community responsibility for those who are incapable of looking after themselves.

          The gram sabha of Khavada is, however, unfortunately split down the middle. A schism haunts every aspect of its life, from the innocent play of children to an underlying violence in the relations among adults. Many of those interviewed blamed this schism on the elections to the gram panchayat in 1996: chunao hi jhagde ki jad hai (this election is the root of the quarrel). Khavada is one of the several villages in this area in which the Chetna Andolan sponsored a candidate for the reserved (for women) post of pradhan. Its candidate was Ganga Rawat, a 40-year old woman educated in the village school. Ganga’s husband was a block development official till he took early retirement some years ago. The rival faction is led by a rajput kinsman, who had his wife nominated for the same position. Ganga won by a wide majority, but the village has known no peace since. Bachal Singh Rawat is close to the former pradhan, a man called Radhakrishna who held this position for 27 years, at least partly because no panchayat elections had been held for several years in Uttar Pradesh. It is not surprising that Radhakrishna had become rather prosperous on account of this long spell in power. For instance, 19 grants were made for house construction in Simara under the Indira Awas Yojana, but only three houses were actually built. Radhakrishna was naturally miffed when Ganga won the election, and even threatened to kill her. The people apparently voted for Ganga because she promised them transparent and honest governance. However, Ganga’s main enemies remain Bachal Singh (who happens to be a postgraduate), his five young sons who are the local bullies, and a few cronies. The dread they seem to evoke in the local populace is somehow linked with the fear of Bachal Singh’s close friend, a lawyer called Avval Singh Bisht, and the schoolmaster who is also locally influential.       The reason why the election lies at the root of the schism in this divided community is clearly because it is the election that decides who controls development expenditure and

p p therefore opportunities for material advancement. The stakes are high by local standards, and the percentages due to various officials and elected representatives are fixed. Corruption seems to have a certain social acceptability: the commission amounts are openly announced in the panchayat meetings, and rarely provoke any protest. The more vocal sections of the community believe that it is the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana that brought corruption to the doorstep of the village, because it tainted even the village-level representatives. It also created factions and divisions within a community whose members were previously on terms of easy cordiality with each other. Pradhans were also now enabled to divert the benefits of projects to their own kin or caste groups, thereby creating resentment among excluded castes and social groups.       Bureaucratic accountability is obviously an oxymoron, but there have been attempts to demand accountability from the elected representatives, and the Chetna Andolan has been in the forefront of such activity. Though the Uttar Pradesh government does not yet have a Right to Information Act, the people of Bhilangana block have been holding periodic jan sunvais (people’s hearings). Some of the jan sunvais are on issues such as the future of Uttarakhand as a state or the Tehri Dam, but the more relevant ones (for our purpose) have been those in which the activists present information collected from government departments, on the basis of which people demand accountability. In Khavada, for instance, it was found that a sum of Rs 1,780,000 was sanctioned to the PWD to build a 5 km approach road to the Ambedkar village of Naulichak, but no work was done. Similar investigations into misappropriation of funds in other gram panchayats of this block, under a variety of schemes ranging from afforestation to irrigiation works and water supply schemes, have yielded a total ‘missing’ amount of Rs 8,727,900.           Ganga Rawat, the pradhan of Khavada gram panchayat,

g p g p y has been resolute in her refusal to accept cuts by way of commissions in the expenditure sanctioned to her. Among the works completed in her tenure are two RCC (cement) water tanks, a pucca road from Khavada to Simara, drinking water, a well for irrigation purposes, one basic school and one junior high school. She says she has been punished with delays for her refusal to allow the district authorities to give her a cheque from which the commissions have already been deducted. As a result, she has put in her own money into the school project, and has not been reimbursed for more than a year.14 She has also been insistent on employing only people from within the village on all these works, and ensuring that they get a couple of rupees more than the minimum wage, rather than less.           The schism in the village is also beginning to manifest itself in attempts to intimidate the dalits who voted for Ganga. On the festival of Holi in 1999, two dalit women were molested. When their men tried to protest and threatened to go to the police, they were beaten up. The insecurity of the dalits has now increased, and they are fearful of reprisals by Bachal Singh’s men for having dared to vote for Ganga rather than for his wife. Traditionally, in Khavada, dalits have been a part of the village community as suppliers of services, including masonry and house-building. They have also been visiting the temple, though till recently they did not enter it. It was only in 1998 that a dalit, supported by Ganga’s faction, actually entered the local temple for the first time. Nevertheless, there is considerable disillusionment with the democratic process, which is perceived as the source of all trouble in the everyday life of the community.       The major source of conflict in this community, which has a history of being fairly participatory, is not caste, even though caste differences are maintained in relation to religious observances, rituals and weddings. There is however a fear of wealth, with remittances from outside, especially

from abroad, being seen as sources of social difference. Bachal Singh’s faction is feared because of its readiness to engage in violence with or without provocation, and also because the schoolmaster and lawyer are seen to be aligned with it, and there is considerable fear of those who wield the power of the written word. It is widely believed that those who are educated enjoy access to state officials and can implicate the innocent in a variety of ways. Ordinary village folk are terrified of being dragged to the courts, where their lack of education and of money would severely handicap them. It is this combined fear of the physical and ‘intellectual’ clout of this group that has created an atmosphere of terror, especially for the poor and dalit sections of the community.           It would appear that, in Khavada, top-down decentralisation has rendered people insecure instead of empowering them. It has created friction in the village, leading to conflicts over the control of material resources, such as have never been seen before. To the extent that the process of democratisation has entailed a decentralisation of development efforts (following the revival of panchayati raj institutions), which in turn is linked to opportunities for material advancement for those who hold office in these institutions, the stakes in democracy are clearly high. This is why elections are so bitterly contested and their fallout, so unpleasant.           It is, therefore, the coincidence between development resources and democracy that creates conflicts which democracy is unable to resolve. A community which always chose the functionaries of its local institutions by consensus and cheerfully kept them there for an indeterminate period, is now riven with conflict over an election to the gram panchayat. A community which possessed the ability to formulate rules and sanctions to govern the use of the forest, and for the most part abide by these, is now divided over the most trivial issues. It would have been logical to expect that a community which had displayed such exemplary skills in the

y p y p y management of its natural resources would be equipped with superior skills for democracy, but this is not so. On the contrary, instead of social capital translating into better democratic performance, we find democracy (in tandem with the decentralisation of development) undermining social capital itself. Arguably, a superior and antecedent form of substantive democracy has been superseded by nominally democratic modern institutions which do not necessarily result in democratic outcomes, and also undermine the democratic character of the older traditional institutions which underpinned the norms of social interaction.       What, therefore, does this field-study imply for the link between social capital and democracy in a segmented society? As mentioned at the very outset of the essay, caste segmentation is not a fact of great significance in either Jardhargaon or Khavada. It may also be the case that social homogeneity does not invariably or necessarily issue in powerful reserves of social capital. Hence, whether this is in the nature of a causal link or merely a coincidence, the evidence does suggest that there are higher levels of social capital in village communities like these, when compared to more typically stratified village communities in the plains. Indeed, a comparison between Jardhargaon and Khavada does suggest, intuitively rather than through any measurable criteria, that the higher levels of social capital in Jardhargaon over Khavada may be a function of the lower levels of segmentation in the former. Khavada, which is somewhat more segmented, does manifest a lower degree of social capital than Jardhargaon.           Arguably, the only kind of social capital that can theoretically cohabit with democracy has to be other than that suggested by the moral economy framework, where trust and reciprocity can coexist with extreme inequalities. Perhaps because these are subsistence economies in the mountains, and hence relatively recently and only partially linked with the outside worlds of state and market, the chief source of social

differentiation is external linkages, especially in the form of remittances. In both villages, there is a palpable disquiet about the disparities introduced by inter-household variations in the remittances. Such disparities are also predictably perceived to imply political connections, the ability to pay bribes and influence decisions. In Khavada, the power of literacy and education is equally feared. Thus, inequalities have been introduced by a variety of factors: external remittances, the power of knowledge, and most recently state-initiated development programmes channelled through bodies designed to be participatory. Though the democratic ideal is inspired by the principle of equality, the link with development here actually creates and reinforces inequality in background situations of relative equity. In both our cases, to a greater or lesser degree, equity has become a casualty of democracy.           If, as has been argued, social capital is merely the infrastructure of social relations, it presumably cannot be created, and it becomes very similar to a genetic endowment, so that you either have it or you don’t. In cases such as the ones discussed in this essay, it may be rash to presuppose the historical existence of social capital. Indeed, though the creation of such community institutions is predicated on social capital, social capital is also the consequence of these institutions, if only because their working tends to reinforce it. It follows from this that not only the institutional context of social capital (Berman 1997), but equally its ideological context is important. In this field study, for instance, the evolution of community institutions for natural resource management was seen to flow from an earlier tradition of participation in movements like the Sarvodaya and Chipko. It may be appropriate also to emphasise the nongeneralisability of social capital, for it is quite possible that it is manifested in one sphere of activity but not in others. However, should its absence from some (or all other) sphere of social or political life lead us to state that it does not exist

p or to say that, whatever else this may be, it is not social capital? There is a real danger that we may define social capital so inclusively that anything qualifies to get in. On the other hand, there is equally the danger that our definition may be so overly rigorous that nothing qualifies. It is for these reasons that accepting the idea of non-generalisability, or sectoral social capital, has some merit.           Finally, social capital appears to be a dynamic category that changes over time. The field-study suggested that social capital can be regenerated, or at least generated, as it was in the Hardin-type tragedy of the commons that obtained in Jardhargaon before the Chipko movement inspired the initiative to overcome and transcend it.15 Similarly, as the Khavada study shows, social capital can also be depleted. If social capital has been more vulnerable to depletion in Khavada, and less so in Jardhargaon, this could be a function of the fragility of the original position. It is arguable that, in Jardhargaon, a more robust form of social capital has obtained than in Khavada, and hence in the latter situation it has been more vulnerable to erosion. Perhaps only longitudinal studies can tell us something more definitive about this.       It is clear, therefore, that indicators of social capital need to be culturally nuanced, as they will vary from one cultural context to another. Scholars working in this area have to reflect on the equivalence or otherwise of different manifestations of social capital, and therefore on the relative worth of indicators like associational networks, trust, collective action, and so forth. However contentious the concept, its indicators and its analytical value may be, it is obvious that studies of social capital cannot afford to ignore exogenous factors, both institutional and ideological. Social capital cannot be understood outside of its particular cultural, ideological and institutional contexts, or indeed independently of the nature of social segmentedness, whether along caste,

class or any other lines. This may compel us to whittle down somewhat our expectations from the concept and its explanatory possibilities. We may then find it useful in some contexts, without however placing on it the burden of providing all answers to the puzzle of democracy.

8 PANCHAYATI RAJ

The Way Forward MANI SHANKAR AIYAR have now experienced a whole decade of economic W ereforms. But these reforms have hardly touched the lives

of the common people. Even if there is no great anger against reforms on the part of the people at large, there is no enthusiasm either. This is because the reformers regard panchayati raj as being as irrelevant to their purposes as the people regard reforms as being irrelevant to their lives. Reformers have no great objection to panchayati raj; the tragedy is they regard panchayati raj as a side-show. Not until economic reforms are integrated with planning and implementation through institutions of self-government will grassroots empowerment lead to grass roots development. This then is the right moment to ensure that both move together in tandem. Indeed, panchayati raj needs to be made the fulcrum of the reform process. It was after all launched the same year that saw the reforms process take off.           Part IX (‘The Panchayats’) and Part IX A (‘the Municipalities’) are the longest and most detailed amendments made to the Constitution since its promulgation more than half a century ago. If implemented in letter and spirit, the two parts hold the promise of a silent revolution that would dramatically alter the outlook for grassroots development through grassroots democracy by endowing power to the people, in both rural and urban India.       Unfortunately, in the nine years that have passed since the

Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha passed the legislation on 22 and 23 December 1992, respectively, and the almost nine years that have passed since Part IX was gazetted with the president’s consent on 24 April 1993 (and Part IX A the following month) the results on the ground have fallen far short of expectations. Gandhiji’s dream of poorna swarajya through gram swarajya still remains a distant dream. The reasons for these are many. Although the overarching aim of Part IX is to ‘endow the panchayats with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government’ (Article 243G), barring a few exceptions, such as the state of Kerala, almost nowhere in the country has a sincere and serious attempt been made to ensure in practice that panchayats function as ‘institutions of self-government’.       Panchayats can fulfil their responsibility as institutions of self-government only if devolution is patterned on a nexus between the three Fs: Functions, Functionaries and Finances. Very few states have linked the formal devolution of functions to the means for actualising it through the devolution of functionaries and finances. The Planning Commission must prepare a Devolution Index, based on the three Fs, which will enable a measure to be taken of the actual degree of devolution achieved, so that the best practice becomes the ideal towards which all states strive, with the encouragement and support of the centre.       There is a disturbing lack of clarity about the tasks to be entrusted to different tiers of the panchayati raj system. Some states like Karnataka and Kerala have shown the way to how different functions can be entrusted to different tiers and how the work of the different tiers can be synergised to the benefit of the system as a whole. Each state government must establish an appropriate body to recommend the division of devolved functions (along with functionaries and finances) to different tiers of the panchayati raj system. The central government might set the tone with an indicative model

g g prepared by an appropriate central body.       In view of the clear direction given by the Constitution to enable the panchayats to function as institutions of selfgovernance, it is no longer necessary for the centre to route its financial support to schemes pertaining to the Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution to the panchayats through the state governments. In a very large number of instances, funds for rural development and poverty alleviation appear to have been diverted, at least temporarily, to meet the ways and means requirements of state governments, leading to inordinate delays and even the lapsing of funds meant to be spent through the panchayati raj institutions. The central government must channel all funds for central and centrallysponsored schemes falling within the ambit of the Eleventh Schedule direct to the panchayats at the appropriate level.           With the entry into force of Part IX, the pre-Part IX instrument of the District Rural Development Authority (DRDA) has become obsolescent and needs to be ended, especially as the DRDA is inimical to the fundamental objective of Part IX which is the establishment of institutions of self-government. In the interests of effective panchayati raj, as envisaged in the Constitution, DRDAs should be disbanded and merged with district panchayats, with the chairperson of the district panchayat as chairperson of the merged DRDA. Moreover, pari passu with the clarification of which functions, functionaries and finances are to be devolved to which tier of the panchayati raj system, intermediate and village-level bodies with duties paralleling those of the existing DRDAs would need to be set up at these levels, so that state and central finances are channelled to the appropriate tier and not necessarily concentrated in the merged DRDA at the district panchayat level.       The devolution of functionaries with functions implies the closing down of line departments and the transfer of staff to the administrative and disciplinary control of the panchayats. In the absence of such effective devolution of functionaires

with functions, there is a kind of dyarchy operating at the ground level which is detrimental to good governance and extinguishes all possibility of effective self-government as provided for in the Constitution. There will be a progressively growing need to establish a panchayat service, for both administrative and technical functions, on the lines of existing state and central services governed by Part XIV of the Constitution. The central and state governments need to take appropriate steps in this direction with all deliberate speed.       The provisions of Part IX are in part mandatory and in part recommendatory. It is the fundamental duty of the centre to ensure strict observance of the mandatory provisions of Part IX, and to use its powers of persuasion to prevail upon state governments to conform to the letter and spirit of the recommendatory provisions. There has been persistent flouting of even the mandatory provisions of Part IX, leave alone the recommendatory provisions. The ultimate recourse of the centre of wilful flouting of the Constitution is dismissal of the state government under Article 356. This, however, is an extreme step. It would be preferable for the centre to secure directions from the Supreme Court. Such directions may be obtained through litigation, initiated either by the union government or through public interest litigation. As the union government might be somewhat reluctant to drag state governments to court, CAPART might be encouraged to appropriately support NGOs engaged in promoting through litigation compliance with the letter and spirit of Part IX.       There is need for harmonising and clarifying the body of jurisprudence arising out of the relatively recent introduction of Part IX, since some court judgments appear prima facie to be not consistent with other judgments. It is urged that such a process of harmonisation and clarification be undertaken by the authority or authorities concerned.       Many central and state Acts need amendment in view of the powers conferred constitutionally on the elected local bodies. The central government and the state governments

g g must establish appropriate review bodies to carefully examine the compatibility of pre-Part IX legislation with the new constitutional provisions. This exercise needs to be undertaken urgently within a time-bound framework. Possibly, the Law Commission might be entrusted with the initial responsibility of identifying the categories of central and state legislation which need to be so examined and acted upon.       There has been a mushrooming of parallel bodies which is seriously undermining the functions entrusted to the panchayats by virtue of Article 243G and the Eleventh Schedule. Such parallel bodies must be wound up and their duties entrusted to the panchayats at the appropriate level.           Parts IX and IXA were designed as mutually reinforcing parts of the Constitution designed to integrate economic and social development in the urban areas with their rural hinterland, not to artificially divide rural from urban India. Yet, that is what is happening in consequence of Parts IX and IXA being administered by different ministries both at the centre and the states. A single ministry of panchayats and nagarpalikas, at both the centre and the states, will promote the synergies required for rural and urban development to mutually reinforce each other rather than be pursued separately in a compartmentalised manner.       Arrangements for the training of elected members of the panchayats at different levels, and of the administrative and technical staff attached to the panchayats, fall far short of requirements at present. An exponential increase in the quantum of funds made available for such training is required as well as deep consideration to the overall training requirements of both elected members and panchayat staff. Moreover, there is special need to concentrate on training for the weaker sections and women. The Indira Gandhi National Open University has evolved a multi-media model for extending training on a mass scale through the use of both traditional and innovative forms of mass communication. This

multi-media model needs to be brought into play with all deliberate speed. Doordarshan too needs to take up the challenge of effectively training elected members and staff, especially representatives of the weaker sections and women, in the arts of panchayati raj.       The question of definitions in Part IX needs looking into. To avoid problems arising out of the territorial constituency of an elected person at one level being co-terminus with the territorial constituency of another person elected to another level, the intermediate level should be defined at an appropriately high level to clearly distinguish it from the village and district level. To facilitate the effective democratic functioning of the gram sabha, which is the fulcrum of the system, the size of a village panchayat needs be fixed at a level that would facilitate democratic participation by all adult voters, and that where, for any reason, the size of the gram sabha appears too large for effective democratic participation, subsidiary sabhas be established at, say, the ward level.       In regard to the gram sabha, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, passed by parliament in pursuance of section 4(b) of Article 243M, sets out the functions of the gram sabha in an exemplary manner. State legislatures should take these provisions as a model to effectively empower gram sabhas in non-scheduled areas as well and so define the role that the gram sabhas are expected to play.           In view of the misuse of the quorum system, which in most cases provides for lower levels of quorum at each subsequent meeting of the gram sabha, instead of lowering the quorum the law might state that funds will be cut off to gram sabhas which fail to meet as specified by law. This will create a community stake in holding meetings of the gram sabha.           In view of the crucial importance of adequate women’s participation in meetings of the gram sabha, a sub-quorum of female attendance should be built into the required quorum.

q q Moreover, provision may be made that meetings of the gram sabha be preceded by meetings of the Mahila Sabha, comprising all adult women voters of the village panchayat, to ensure that gender concerns and preferences get fully reflected in the proceedings of the gram sabha.       Regarding the composition of panchayats, in some states there appear to be wide variations in the ratio of population to territorial area of panchayats at different levels. Existing ratios need to be reviewed to ensure that the constitutional injunction for the ratio ‘as far as practicable, to be the same throughout the panchayat area’ proviso to Article 243C (1) is observed.           While there may be scope to reconsider the manner of election to different tiers of the panchayati raj system at some future date, the important thing now is to ensure that the panchayats are enabled to function as institutions of selfgovernment within the meaning of Article 243G. Failure to ensure effective and meaningful devolution is the root cause of widespread dissatisfaction with the manner of implementation of Part IX. It is only after devolution in letter and spirit has been achieved that there might arise a case for reviewing the provisions of this Article.       Reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are generally working well. But, in the light of the experience gained, each state may wish to consider afresh the period for which reservations are made, i.e., for one term or more than one term (Part IX leaves this to the discretion of state legislatures).       Reservations for the backward classes have been left to the discretion of the state legislatures. In some instances, this has led to intensive litigation and delays in holding elections to the panchayats. The centre should bring the experience of different states in this regard to the attention of state governments with a view to the states evolving reservation systems for the backward classes which enjoy a wide measure of consensus in society in general and without coming in the

y g g way of the effective and timely implementation of Part IX.           Reservation for women has opened the door to revolutionary changes of a political, social and cultural nature. India can truly be proud of being the first and only country in the world to have empowered through free and fair elections more than one million women who are participating in the panchayats. There is, however, still some way to go in changing the apparent empowerment of women into a real and genuine empowerment. To this end: • Reservations for women to extend to at least two terms. • No-confidence motions against women chairpersons be allowed to be tabled only once every two years, no oftener, so as to end the widespread harassment of women chairpersons through threats of no-confidence motions, which are much more in vogue with respect to women than men chairpersons. If a woman chairperson or member is removed for any reason whatsoever, she must be replaced by another woman of the same category, not by a man, whether in full or acting charge.       Regarding the duration of panchayats, it is categorical and clear that the maximum tenure of the panchayats is five years and that, in terms of Article 243E (3) (a), elections have to be held before the expiry of the five-year period, so that the new panchayats are constituted immediately thereafter without any extention beyond five years of the previously elected panchayats. Yet, many states have flouted the five-year rule and introduced an interregnum between the expiry of one tenure and the commencement of the next. Recourse has been had to sub-section (b) of clause (3) of Article 243E to justify this, as that sub-section states that a panchayat, if dissolved, shall be reconstituted by elections within six months. This sub-section was expressly designed for the

p y g dissolution of any single panchayat on grounds of malfeasance, not for a situation in which all panchayats stand dissolved owing to the expiry of their tenure. In fact, unlike the constitutional provisions for elections to parliament or the state legislatures, which envisage and provide for situations in which elections can be postponed, Article 243E nowhere provides for postponing elections in any circumstances, although the Supreme Court, in a 1997 judgment, has ruled that in ‘genuine supervening circumstances’, such as natural calamities, elections to panchayats may be postponed. The intention of Article 243E is clear: elections to panchayats must be held within five years of their being constituted so that there is no hiatus between the expiry of one tenure and the commencement of the next. Since regular periodic elections, within the letter and spirit of the constitutional provision, lies at the very heart of the democratic process, the central government must secure a clear ruling from the Supreme Court about the meaning and scope of Article 243E so that elections are held within five years and jurisprudence clearly indicates the highly exceptional situations, if any, in which there might be a short postponement.       The three tiers of the panchayati raj system are integrated and mutually reinforcing; indeed, Article 243ZD clearly shows that even the municipal bodies constituted under Part IX A are expected to work in tandem with the institutions of selfgovernment of Part IX. As such, it is imperative that simultaneous elections be held to all three tiers of the panchayat system and the municipalities. Yet, the growing practice in most states has been to disaggregate these elections. Elections to the panchayats at all tiers and to the municipalities must take place simultaneously to ensure the maximum synergy in their functioning.           Owing to allegations of serious and widespread malpractices and excessive expenditure by candidates, resulting in the growth of money-power and muscle-power which vitiates people’s power, the Election Commission

p p p should be requested to convene the state election authorities for a detailed exchange of experience and the drawing up of a code for the conduct for elections to the rural and urban institutions of self-government that would contribute to free, fair, transparent and economical elections.       Notwithstanding the disqualifications prescribed by law, a large number of undesirable people manage to get themselves elected to the local bodies by threatening and cajoling voters and then proceed to dominate and terrorise the local community. Each state should, therefore, have the present disqualifications reviewed by the state election authority or any other suitable body with a view to the state legislature passing additional legislation designed to insulate the elected local bodies from such malign influences.           Article 243G relating to the powers, authority and responsibilities of panchayat, is the heart of Part IX, the kernel of panchayati raj. Tragically, very few states have even attempted to approximate the goals of Article 243G. Not till this Article is fully implemented in letter and spirit can it be said that we have progressed towards fulfilling the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi and the framers of Part IX. The union government is doing little to monitor progress towards the achievement of these goals, with a view to bringing to the attention of all concerned the best practice in different states in this regard, and convening state ministers for rural development on an annual basis or even oftener to lay down milestones and measure the progress made towards the timebound achievement of these goals. This is an urgent requirement and should constitute the central task of the union ministry.       Article 243G provides that panchayats should be enabled ‘by law’ to function as ‘institutions of self-government’. Yet in most states, devolution and decentralisation is by executive orders under the law rather than ‘by law’ per se. It must be ensured that all states undertake devolution ‘by law’, as called for in the Constitution, so that no retrogression in devolution

g is possible without the explicit concurrence of the state legislature.           It is essential that state governments establish expert bodies to clearly designate which functions will be exercised at which tier of the three-tier system so that there is no confusion and no overlapping between different tiers and development work is synergised at all three levels. Such demarcation of responsibilities at different levels of the system will also facilitate the devolution of functionaries and finances to the appropriate level of the panchayati raj system. Effective devolution requires the devolution of functions with functionaries and finances (the three Fs mentioned above). The sine qua non of effective panchayati raj is the demarcation of responsibilities between the three tiers for each devolved function go hand-in-hand with the devolution of functionaries and finances to that level.       The two key functions of the panchayats at each level are defined in Article 243G as: ‘1. the preparation of plans for economic development and social justice; 2. the implementation of schemes for economic development and social justice’. Unless planning and implementation is undertaken by the panchayats they will not be serving their purpose. Of course, the Article provides that such planning and implementation will be ‘subject to such conditions’ as may, by law, be stipulated. But the central function of the panchayats is planning and implementation. Yet, in most states, there is no planning by panchayats and implementation has been reduced to a nexus between the contractor, the chairperson of the panchayat and the bureaucrats and technocrats of the line departments. In consequence, instead of evolving as ‘institutions of self-government’, the panchayats have been reduced to functional impotence and the corruption which

p p arises out of chairpersons exercising their authority without the involvement and sanction of the members of the panchayat at all levels and of the gram sabha at the village level.           Corruption in the panchayats at all levels has become rampant in most states because chairpersons are not responsible to the committees of the panchayats or to the general body of the panchayats. In association with the bureaucracy, chairpersons have tended to usurp the functions which properly belong to the panchayat as a whole. It is, therefore, of crucial importance to establish standing and ad hoc committees of the panchayats at each level so that proposals are processed by such committees and then brought before the general body of the panchayat for approval before,during and after the execution of works. Utilisation certificates should be issued by the panchayat as a whole and, at the village level, after securing the endorsement of the gram sabha. It is only if this is done that the gram sabhas will have functional relevance, the elected members of the panchayats real and meaningful work to do, and the chairperson operate as chairperson-in-council, thus reducing, if not always completely eliminating, the scope for nepotism and corruption.       Planning is required to be undertaken at every tier of the panchayati raj system and not at the level of the District Planning Committee alone. Indeed, the very wording of Article 243ZD dealing with the District Planning Committees says the DPC is to ‘consolidate the plans prepared by the panchayats’. The Tenth Five-Year Plan, presently under preparation, be based on plans prepared by the three tiers of the panchayati raj system (and the municipalities) and consolidated at the district level by the DPCs. It is not till the Planning Commission fulfils its constitutional obligation of making district planning through elected DPCs the basis of all planning that the objectives of clause (a) of Article 243G can be fulfilled.

          To assist panchayats in the preparations of plans, state planning bodies should extend technical assistance and the union and state governments should encourage NGO involvement in the exercise. Local educational institutions, especially college faculties, local professionals (architects, engineers, doctors, etc., and retired bureaucrats/technocrats) would have a crucial role to play in facilitating scientific planning at all three levels of the panchayati raj system.           In addition to such ‘conditions’ as may by law be stipulated, state governments must give panchayats at different levels a clear idea of the financial resources available, both tied and untied, to make panchayat-level planning realistic and resource-based. This would also encourage panchayats to search for their own resources for need-based projects or programmes which might otherwise have to be postponed or abandoned.           To involve women in the planning process, consultation with the village-level mahila sabha should be built into the planning process. Equally, implementation is a key responsibility of the panchayats. But this has to be by panchayats functioning as ‘institutions of self-government’, not as hand-maidens of the line departments. In respect of all devolved subjects, implementation should be the responsibility of the panchayats at the appropriate level, with the bureaucracy and technocracy assisting the elected authority in implementation and answerable to the panchayat concerned, not the line department of the state government. That is the way forward. Indeed, for all subjects that have been fully devolved to the panchayats, the line department concerned should be abolished, with the minister retaining only such secretarial staff as are necessary to monitor developments and report to the legislature.           The gram sabha must be deeply involved in implementation at all levels because it is the best form of social audit, both pre-implementation and postimplementation. This is also the most effective way of cutting

p y g down corruption and nepotism and ensuring transparency and accountability, as well as functioning democracy. In laying down the procedure for panchayat-level implementation at all levels of the panchayati raj system, state governments should specify the role and functions of the panchayats, preferably in line with the role assigned to the gram sabhas in parliament’s Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 even for non-Fifth Schedule areas, especially as regards: • beneficiary identification, • approval of implementation proposals, and • the issue of utilisation certificates. Few legislatures have made adequate provision in their laws for the fiscal duties and rights of the panchayats at different levels. There also appears to have been no endeavours made to demarcate fiscal duties and rights as between each of the three tiers of the panchayati raj system. State Finance Commissions also do not appear to have applied their mind to this issue. The union government should identify a suitable expert body, possibly the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, to prepare model recommendations in this regard for the consideration of state Finance Commissions and state legislatures/governments.           Although Article 243H (a) provides for panchayats to ‘appropriate’ into their own funds the proceeds of taxes, etc., collected by them, few states appear to have encouraged this useful mechanism for panchayats to raise their own resources. Therefore, state legislatures should consider which of the taxes, etc., assigned to the panchayats might be left to be appropriated by the panchayats and request state governments to prepare appropriate legislation in this regard. Such appropriation should be encouraged to the maximum extent possible.           In view of Article 243H (c) which mandates the ‘constitution of funds’ in each panchayat for crediting and

p y g withdrawal of the moneys of the panchayats, there remains no reason for the continuance of District Rural Development Authorities (DRDAs) which were established before the entry into force of Part IX primarily to receive and disburse funds. DRDAs should be merged with panchayats at the district level. The union government should credit all funds for central and centrally-sponsored schemes directly to the fund of the panchayat concerned pro rata in accordance with the demarcation of responsibilities as between the three tiers of the panchayati raj system. State governments may be directed to similarly credit direct to the funds of the panchayats, in accordance with the demarcation of functional responsibilities and pro rata, the share of the contribution they are required to make to central rural development schemes.           With regard to the Finance Commissions constituted by state governments to review the financial position of the panchayats, in some cases, there have been delays in the constitution of State Finance Commissions and in the submission of their recommendations to state legislatures; in most cases, action is delayed even after the legislature has accepted state finance commission recommendations; in some cases, the rejection or placing in abeyance of state finance commission recommendations appears to be somewhat arbitrary; and many state finance commissions are confining themselves to routine recommendations rather than suggesting innovative ways of raising and utilising resources.           These deficiencies need to be examined and identified state-wise with a view to rectification. To this end, a consolidated review of state finance commission recommendations needs to be undertaken by the union government, preferably in association with an expert body like the Indian Institute of Public Finance, so that best practices are brought to the attention of all state legislatures/governments. There has been tardy and inadequate implementation in many states of the directives of the Tenth and Eleventh Finance Commissions in respect of

p the panchayats. This is distressing because, unlike State Finance Commission recommendations which are recommendatory, the decisions of the Finance Commissions set up by the union government under the provisions of the Constitution are mandatory. The union government, in consultation with state governments, must carefully review and monitor, on an ongoing basis, the implementation of the directions of the Tenth and Eleventh Finance Commissions and subsequent Finance Commissions.           Present procedures for auditing the accounts of panchayats are serving little purpose because the sheer volume of work is resulting in inordinate delays in audit and action taken thereon. These delays are fuelling corruption and malfeasance in the panchayats. In the light of the experience gained over the last decade, the comptroller and auditor general should be invited to review the arrangements which have been put in place for the audit of the accounts of the panchayats and to make recommendations for quicker, more transparent and effective audit that would deter malpractice. It is only social audit through the gram sabhas that can effectively ensure adherence to prescribed procedures and transparency in the spending of panchayat moneys. The authorised functions of the gram sabha should specify their responsibilities in regard to social audit.           In elections to the panchayats, there are widespread complaints of electoral malpractice, including the harassment of women candidates, and excessive expenditure, as well as disturbing reports of the criminalisation of the panchayati raj system in parts of the country. The Election Commission may be invited to review the experience of the conduct of panchayat elections in different parts of the country with a view to making recommendations that would promote free and fair elections, restraint on election expenditure, ending harassment of women candidates and other candidates belonging to the weaker sections, and the sharp curtailing of criminalisation in the panchayati raj system. State Election

p y j y Commissions should undertake similar reviews.       Whereas the independence and autonomy of the Election Commission at the centre is beyond question, not all state legislatures have made adequate provision for the independence and autonomy of state election commissions. As independence and autonomy for election commissions constitute the quintessence of democratic practice, in the light of the experience gained hitherto, state legislatures should re-examine the existing legislative provisions in relation to State Election Commissions.       Some state governments have started giving financial and other incentives to panchayats to choose representatives by consensus instead of submitting themselves to the electoral process. Such subversion of grass roots democracy is deplorable. As elections are the essence of democracy, no incentives should be given for choosing representatives by consensus in preference to elections. Although as many as five years have gone by since parliament, in fulfilment of its obligation under clause (4) (b) of Article 243M, passed the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, the Act remains in a state of suspended animation virtually everywhere in Fifth Schedule areas, including the recently constituted states where Fifth Schedule provisions apply all over the state. As the Act has been passed pursuant to a constitutional imperative, the failure to implement the Act in Fifth Schedule areas amounts to non-compliance with constitutional provisions. The union government must take all necessary steps, including resort, if necessary, to litigation, to ensure compliance with the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996.           There are a number of states where district planning committees have not yet been constituted in accordance with the provisions of Article 243 ZD. As this amounts to a serious infringement of a key constitutional requirement, all state legislatures/governments must take the required action in this regard and ask the union government to ensure full

g g compliance with this Article in all states and union territories within a time-bound framework, say by the end of calendar year 2002. With a view to ensuring the participation of all tiers of the panchayati raj system in the planning process, under the provisions of clause (2)(b) of Article 243 ZD arrangements should be made for the representation of the panchayats at the village and intermediate levels in the district planning committees.       District planning committees can function effectively and in harmony with state planning bodies only if detailed guidelines are issued under clause (2)(d) of this Article on ‘the functions relating to district planning which may be assigned to such Committees’. It is, therefore, essential that the union government accord the highest priority to the Constitution and functioning of the district planning committees with a view to making plans prepared by them the basis for the preparation of the Tenth Five-Year Plan and subsequent FiveYear Plans.           Before forwarding development plans of the district planning committee to the government of the state, as provided for in clause (4) of the Article, it would be desirable that the district planning committee convene a general body meeting of all panchayat and municipal representatives of the district to approve and endorse the plan so that due importance is accorded to such district plans in the planning process at higher levels.       Some state governments have constituted planning bodies at the district level that are not in accordance with the provisions of Article 243 ZD and fall outside the ambit of the constitutional provisions. Such extra-constitutional planning bodies at the district level must be dissolved and all arrangements made for constituting district planning committees and ensuring their functioning in conformity with the provisions of Article 243 ZD.       The suggestions given above constitute a call for action. If they are taken seriously and implemented conscientiously in

y y p y letter and spirit, panchayati raj may yet come to flourish within our generation in the land of Mahatma Gandhi.

9 GRASS ROOTS POLITICS AND SECOND WAVE OF DECENTRALISATION IN ANDHRA PRADESH BENJAMIN POWIS

character of democratic decentralisation is currently T he undergoing a transition that challenges both theory and

practice. The creation of user and self-help groups is having an undeniable impact on local self-governance. New channels for resource allocations are now prevalent at the village level across India. These committees and groups often exist in parallel and overlap with the established framework of local self-governance. These parallel channels result in new spaces for participation as well as new positions of power and influence. At this stage there is very little consensus as to whether multiple channels of participation can aid the project of local democracy and empowerment in the long term. While we can observe within India some successes in terms of the devolution yielding positive and empowering outcomes we need to be mindful of the political context, motivations and strategies of ruling regimes.      In this essay I seek to highlight the importance of some of the emerging trends from Andhra Pradesh that have resulted from the establishment of multiple channels of participation at the village level. In so doing I seek to establish the significance of the short-term process of mobilisation of a minority of grassroots actors over and above the more longterm question of empowerment of the masses. By adopting this perspective we can establish two core research themes that have received little attention to date. First, is the

importance of a subset of the village electorate, which I refer to as the ‘political stratum’. Second, is the role of party political dynamics and structures and their impact on grass roots participation. Events concerning political participation in Andhra Pradesh can be seen to be somewhat unique, but nonetheless expose some issues that may be of relevance in other states in India, or indeed cases of decentralisation elsewhere in the world.

Defining the Problem and Issues To date, democratic decentralisation in India has tended to be discussed in terms of the core system of local governance through the panchayati raj institutions. Gram panchayats (GPs), or elected village-level local bodies have constitutional status, contain provisions for both representative and direct democratic participation and have responsibilities covering a number of sectors or subjects. Positions in the GPs are also determined by a system of reservations for backward and scheduled castes and women.       Current rural development policies demand that we talk in terms of a second system of decentralisation through usergroups and self-help groups. For the purpose of analysis we can cluster the heterogeneous components of this second system under the heading of ‘stakeholder associations’ (SHAs). Stakeholder associations include self-help groups and user committees. These clearly differ from the GPs in terms of their objectives, structures, target groups, and coverage. However, in the most general sense, these associations generally have one purpose (saving, natural or human resource management), vary in their degree of institutionalisation and democratisation and, on the whole, are controlled through line departments or ministries.

Membership in SHAs is not generally limited by caste-based reservations. By contrasting these two systems (GPs and SHAs) we can begin to understand what Manor has termed ‘a potentially damaging second wave of decentralisation’ (Manor 2004).           There has been some work to date that examines the desirability and potential of linkages between these two systems of decentralisation (ODI 2001; Bandyopadhyay, Yugandhar and Mukherjee 2002; Sitaram 2002). On the whole this has tended to focus on specific sectoral issues. In particular, work has focused on the linkages between local government and stakeholder-based natural resource management. When considering the broader picture, two competing schools can be identified. One school believes that strengthening the institutional arrangements for ‘convergence’ between two systems (SHAs and GPs) can achieve more effective development outcomes. Failure to do so, it is argued, will result in the fragmentation and dilution of the project of democratic decentralisation. The counter argument is that multiple systems of representation can respond better to the needs of heterogeneous rural populations (Eshman and Uphoff 1984). They believe that a unified system of local governance is in danger of domination by powerful groups and may exclude weaker, marginal voices. In this argument, SHAs may provide space for developing the capacities of citizens (leadership, awareness and participation) and thus contribute to establishing the longterm conditions for a viable village level democracy.           Focusing on this micro-level debate could obscure the equally important issue of the motivations of the ruling regime and bureaucratic elite in opting for multi-institutional models of decentralisation (Mohan and Stokke 2000). Manor raises two very important arguments in this regard. First, that globally, there exists a degree of suspicion that the regimes of less developed countries (LDCs) can use user groups as a means to catalyse, but also to co-opt and control civil society

y

p y at the local level—chiefly by strengthening the local bureaucratic control over the development process. Second, LDC regimes have employed the argument that user-groups can insulate the development process at the local level from politics. Cynical officials have interpreted this as a dignified means to sustain or extend commandism, and even insulate SHAs from democracy or participation (Manor 2004). Indeed this author has encountered these arguments from senior bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh. The issues raised by Manor signify an important departure from the localised themes that dominate contemporary debate on the subject and need to be taken further. Most importantly they serve to place the debate in the wider context of the compulsions of the political regime (Manor 1998).       Andhra Pradesh has been widely recognised as one of the best case studies we have of a regime that has deliberately opted for rural development through SHAs. This strategy has to be seen as a component of an alternative process of statesociety interaction through the Janmabhoomi programme and within the context of a comparatively weak commitment to the panchayats. What is less acknowledged is that Andhra Pradesh is to an extent unique in that elections to the gram panchayats are contested, unofficially, on party lines, and strong inter-party competition is the rule rather than the exception. It should, however, be noted that the degree of penetration of party politics found in Andhra Pradesh is somewhat unique in India, with the significant exceptions of the cadre-based leftist parties in Kerala and West Bengal.       One of the reasons for this is that since the inception of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) political consciousness was raised in the state and party politics were brought closer to the village level. One of the first policies of N. T. Rama Rao, the first TDP chief minister, was to reduce the size of the intermediate tier of the panchayats by replacing 330 Panchayat Samitis with 1,104 Mandal Parishads. Members to these Mandal Panchayats are directly elected under party

y y p y symbols and have a constituency roughly approximating that of the officially ‘non-political’ sarpanches. It is unsurprising therefore that party politics has permeated to the village level.           Policy literature and theory on SHAs tend to emphasise models of social capital formation and participation and overlook the impact on governance and politics. Hence, there is little critical analysis of the political aspects of macro policy frameworks that prioritise SHAs over GPs. Moreover, there is some justification to claim that there is a bias among development agencies against seeing community based development as a political process (Harriss 2001). There is some emerging debate regarding the potential for political regimes to utilise community based development strategy for more pragmatic political objectives. However, at present there is little existing field research that has critically examined this claim.           My inquiry sought to redress this. Field-based research was conducted in Nalgonda and Prakasham districts in Andhra Pradesh during 2002 covering a total of 18 villages. Villages were purposefully sampled on the basis of contrasting political relations at the village, mandal and assembly constituency levels. Research comprised of both structured and semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of members of the rural electorate in four villages and reputationally sampled leaders across all 18 villages. In reviewing my findings, I first set out below the prevalence of party politics at village level and the effect this has on the electorate.

Politics at Gram Panchayat Level There is a clear conspiracy of silence around the issue of political elections at the gram panchayat level in most states

in India. In Andhra, I found that this hides an important reality. All but two of the villages studied had well developed party-based competition. Elections for the sarpanch were fought on political grounds. It would be wrong to assume that such evidence of the political nature of the elections is an indication of clearly articulated political ideology, manifesto and identity at the local level. The complexities of this issue are beyond the scope of this essay. There is clearly an argument that local politics need to be treated with some caution due to the proximity to caste, clan, family and factional rivalries. Party affiliations can and are used to rearticulate far more traditional and personal issues and identities. However, party politics has clearly reached to the grass roots in a significant majority of villages in the state in some form.           Political competition is most intense around sarpanch elections. These elections are the primary mechanism for members of the gram sabha (the term given to all eligible voters) to participate in gram panchayats. Of those members interviewed, over three-quarters said they had voted in all gram panchayat elections since they were old enough to vote. Women reported a similar level of participation in these elections to men. During the last election, a startling 93 per cent of respondents said that someone requesting their vote had contacted them. One-third of all villagers had campaigned themselves for candidates, although men were more involved in campaigning than women (42.5 per cent and 20.5 per cent respectively). Men were twice as likely to have attended a political meeting than women in the last year (44 per cent and 22 per cent). When respondents were asked to name the most important factors influencing their choice of the sarpanch candidates, political factors were found to be most important (see Table 9.1).

Discussions indicated that voters express allegiance along party lines due both to an ideological commitment to parties and to the political biases in benefit allocations. Long term or active supporters are more likely to avail themselves of benefits (for example loans or house sanctions) if their party or candidate is voted into power. Supporting a party over time, as opposed to pragmatic party-jumping, is important in establishing this relationship. More active forms of participation like attending meetings and taking part in campaigns further solidify relations between the electorate and their representatives.       In the villages studied, I found that formal mechanisms for direct accountability of representatives were weakly implemented. The provisions for village meetings or gram sabha are rarely carried out in any effective form, but Andhra Pradesh is far from unique in this. Indeed, the only gram sabhas I saw being conducted were held to discuss special grants (food-for-work funds) and on the whole these failed to attract widespread interest. This is perhaps a particular issue in Andhra where village-level Janmabhoomi meetings,

that are effectively headed by local bureaucrats, have significantly diluted the notion of gram sabha.       Participation between elections does, however, take place through informal gatherings and individual requests for assistance. For the majority of the electorate this form of interaction is best modelled as patron-client relations, relations that are most visibly crystallised around elections. These relations arise due to the active role played by an important subset of the electorate who are both key agents in elections and who take a lead role in village political affairs on a day-to-day basis. Borrowing Robert Dahl’s phrase we can call this the village level ‘political stratum’.

The Political Stratum Leaders in the village form a distinct and vital set of actors who play a disproportionate role in the local affairs (both governance and social functions) when compared to the majority of the gram sabha members. Typically they will sacrifice time and livelihood to attend political meetings, arbitrate in local conflict resolution, mobilise cadre, campaign in elections and meet with visiting MLAs and local leaders. They often also play a role in party affairs like the selection of candidates, implementing and disseminating party instructions and contributing money for campaigns and meetings. Political leaders are a recognised part of village life, and the sacrifices involved in entering the political stratum make it somewhat exclusive, especially for the labour classes who depend on daily wages. It also should be noted that this stratum is almost exclusively male.       Political leaders cite a number of different motivations for such sacrifices. Financial rewards are clearly a key factor. Substantial financial rewards can be accessed by local

political leaders who can play a role in contracts for village development works (Rao 2000). However, access to these rewards is somewhat restricted, and there are certain key biases shaping the politician-contractor nexus. However, in this discussion I want to emphasise the broader nature of political leadership. The bulk of the political stratum comprises of sub-leaders who are not full-time politicians and are not principally involved in executing contracts, yet play an active role in village politics.       Sub-leaders, or party cadres explained their involvement in party affairs in terms of the need for political status and recognition as a means to build relations and access to local officials and politicians. Political status is important to access development benefits in the material sense. This included access to small contract work, preference in receiving loan sanctions and even getting day-to-day works done in the mandal office like obtaining caste certificates. However, it is important not to ignore the more symbolic aspects of leadership, of status and respect. While entry into this stratum may be premised on the expectation of financial rewards, developing political recognition and status is a vital step to achieving this. Cadres speak of engaging in party work (moving with political leaders, attending conflict resolution sessions) as a means to gain merit, experience and recognition. Conferring positions on party cadres was found to be an important means to confer status in a visible form and to recognise their commitment. Positions are also vital in developing the political careers of local leaders and in giving leaders a platform on which to extend their political involvement. As one leader told me ‘without some position we cannot be recognised by the “big leaders” and the MLA’.           Gram panchayat elections offer little potential for leadership development in this more general sense. The sarpanch post is the prime locus of village power. Sarpanches are generally seen to be more important than the mandal panchayat members and on the whole ward members are seen

p y as holding nominal posts. This is true for Andhra Pradesh, but not of states with stronger panchayati raj institutions. Nomination for sarpanch elections is limited by (1) castebased reservations, (2) finance and in some cases (3) party nomination. Spending on the last sarpanch election by the winning candidate varied between Rs 0.4 lakh and Rs 8 lakh, with an average of Rs 2.3 lakh. Looking back to past elections it is clear that this figure is increasing. This is a significant risk when we consider that the opposition candidates faced a similar outlay. As a result, candidates are often selected for nomination on the basis of their ability to ‘spend for the election’. The panchayat election is the only village institution, at present at least, that has a well developed culture of and expectation of ‘money politics’–distributed in the form of gifts, liquor and cash-for-vote.

Matrix of Village-Level Institutions Out of the total of 219,000 women’s SHGs formed under the DWCRA scheme in India 115,000 are in Andhra Pradesh. Other initiatives include establishing 37,885 youth employment groups, 6,616 joint forest management groups, 10,292 water-user associations, 36,436 mother committees, 99,618 school education committees and 5,499 watershed committees. In one small village of 80 households, 11 new stakeholder associations have been started since Chandrababu Naidu became chief minister. It stands to reason that this collection of bodies opens up new spaces for active party-workers to gain positions and status.          Evidence suggests that this is biased towards the ruling party cadre but the reasons need to be considered carefully. It was common for village leaders to express the opinion that Chandrababu Naidu has created these committees to extend

political employment for TDP cadre in the state. The policy of maintaining a five-tier panchayat system with direct election for members of the intermediary and district panchayats has encountered the same criticism. However, before assessing the realities of this claim in relation to SHAs there are a number of caveats that need to be considered.           The social and political impact of user-groups has not been tested in practice. In many cases elections to usergroups were uncontested in their first phase, and as a result party political competition was rare. In many cases even active local leaders could not have envisaged the magnitude of resources that user-committee members eventually had discretion over. In time we can expect this situation to change and more fierce competition to arise. I came across more than one case where local political leaders said they would rather run for water-user association chairman than sarpanch as they felt it was a more important and powerful post. Many of the committees have very little statutory, and less financial power. This is particularly true of School and Mothers’ committees. The political importance of these committees when compared to panchayat bodies is further limited by the fact that they represent and are elected from a specific subset of the gram sabha (in the case of school committee it is the parents of school-going children). Natural resource committees in particular can have a far wider constituency than the panchayats, albeit centring on a specific set of stakeholders.       There are of course other types of local associations that existed before the new development associations that I am focusing on here. Many of these fall into the traditional definition of civil society organisations and differ from stakeholder associations which are official or semi-official and thus an extension of the state. Cooperatives, professional associations (like farmers and weavers societies), caste associations and youth groups could be included here, to name but a few. There is not enough space here to explore

g p p the role of these groups in any detail, other than to say that many of the case studies showed that in reality these ‘civil society organisations’ are inducted in the village-level political space under the same conditions as the SHAs.       The final point, however, is that the SHAs we are focusing on are not the only innovations we can attribute to the Naidu regime. Even before he assumed leadership of the TDP the present chief minister had been prioritising the strengthening of the party structure. The Telugu Desam government in Andhra, under the leadership of Chandrababu Naidu is developing SHAs within the context of significant structural development of the party. It is claimed that TDP committees exist in all habitations in the state—from polling booth level committees at the sub-village level to the state level. In 2002 the party claimed to have over 12 lakh active members and, if the party positions were all filled, there would be nearly 8 lakh party committee position-holders at various levels. This implies that 63 per cent of active TDP cadre can get ‘political employment’ by holding positions in booth, village, mandal, district committees or on the various sub-committees. In nearly all the villages I visited I found written records of the TDP committees. However, except for the position of village party president, the value of these names remained on paper only.           Establishing party committees is also a part of the opposition parties’ strategy, but the TDP has been far more proactive in developing the village level party structure. Of the 181 village level political leaders I interviewed, I found that out of the 49 who had held at least one village-level party committee posts, 37 were with the TDP, and only 12 were committees from other parties. The penetration of this structure can be expected to increase after the recent membership campaign of the TDP in the state. It is also interesting to note that the party is claiming a ‘cadre’ base, often employing terminology and initiating processes that have so far only been associated with the communist parties

y p in India. It would be wrong to accept at face value the organisational strength that the state-level party leaders claim. I did, however, find that village party committees did exist in most villages although their effectiveness varied. However, they were found to be strong where capacities exist to utilise the potentials that the party structure offered.

Appropriation of Potential Political Spaces Committees of various forms have opened up space for the local party leaders to offer symbolic, if not financial incentives to party cadre. Key positions like water-user association chairman or village party president have offered opportunities to relocate important village leaders who cannot contest for sarpanch due to caste-based reservation in the panchayats. Well-connected leaders can utilise these positions to capture funds by utilising the influence of the local MLA. This can, in certain circumstances, facilitate the effective capture of gram panchayat’s functions and powers. In one particular village I found the upper-caste TDP village president had access to funds through a variety of channels (food-for-work, tank development and Janmabhoomi). The elected Scheduled Caste Congress sarpanch had no knowledge of, or access to, such funds. As the general panchayat funds were relatively insignificant, in effect, the powers of the elected sarpanch were by-passed. As a result, the reservations for the lower castes in the panchayats in this village, were made ineffective. This trend is to an extent legitimised by the existence of parallel bodies.       It is also not uncommon to find cases where party leaders have used the offer of nominations to key posts as incentives to instigate defections of opposition party cadre. A number of cases showed that the TDP had successfully exploited the

strategy of taking in newly defected leaders who had their own following and giving them positions immediately. It was not uncommon to find opposition cadres justifying their jump to the TDP on the ground that years of party work in the opposition had never been recognised by the dominant and entrenched party leaders. This proactive and responsive reward structure is made effective by local leaders’ capacity to understand the micro-level context and to relay this information through the party structure. There seems at least some justification for suggesting that this potential for political mobility is attracting the youth in particular, and has unsettled some of the more long-term local power structures at the village level.           SHAs also offer potential spaces for the articulation of conflict. Reviewing the political history of the villages I studied revealed that seemingly minor events and elections often developed a political importance by virtue of their context. These events become politically important where competition was transferred from the gram panchayats or where local political leaders were excluded from the panchayats due to reservations. For example, a number of cases arose over the school education committee (SEC). In one such case the SEC election was held in advance of the panchayat election. Fierce competition broke out between political parties, as the election became a matter of prestige for the party leaders. Election papers were torn up in protest of malpractice, and the police was called to the village to oversee the re-election. In another case a contract for a school compound wall had been taken by a non-TDP sarpanch without the consent of the TDP school committee chairman. The chairman complained to the TDP MLA who came to the village and ordered the transfer of all the materials to one of the TDP DWCRA leaders. As a result the sarpanch joined the TDP, realising he could not work in the opposition. It was surprisingly common to find that the local MLA intervened in something as seemingly minor as the

g gy appointment of an Anganwadi (nursery school) teacher by the Mothers’ Committee if this is seen to have implications for party strength or the welfare of cadres in the village.

Implications of Findings What I have attempted to show in this article is that the proliferation of SHAs in the context of political competition, and in conjunction with the development of party structure, harbours significance in terms of developing political agency at the grassroots. Broadening the scope and range of positions of influence in the village can be seen both to respond to the latent demand of rural leadership, and to provide a platform for the proactive development of party cadre.       Civil forums for engagement can be expected to respond and strengthen over time as a result of the new potentials and platforms for participation offered by multiple institutions. However, in the short term at least we need to account for the fact that the active stratum of political leaders and aspirants is making use of these spaces to further personal and political ambition. This calls for an analysis that looks more at potential, or de facto power of positions, rather than more formal modes of analysis that focus on institutions, rules and formal mandates. In other words, we need to be able to account for the fact that positions like village party presidents or school committee chairpersons do not necessarily have importance in their own right. Rather, it is the context and capacity of rural leadership that are the key factors in determining their significance.           The political stratum is capable of appropriating these spaces to further their own interests. In the extreme this can result in the restructuring of channels of power and access to

resources. To understand this further more research is needed on the way in which the state has supported parallel and discretionary channels of funding. However, from the purely socio-institutional perspective the analysis of the protocols of committee formation, provisions and potential horizontal linkages between institutions is in danger of missing the vital role of these political agents in appropriating and co-opting these spaces. Linkages clearly exist—as a strategy based on self-interest, but also in terms of collective, party-based identities.       However, it is important while highlighting the impact of this matrix of institutions to guard against giving undue importance to what could be ‘new wine in old bottles’. Cleaver’s important critique of the participation paradigm highlights the danger of ‘codifying the translation of individual into collective endeavour in a form that is visible, analysable and amenable to intervention and influence’—or as she puts it, ‘rendering the community legible’ (Cleaver 1999). Highlighting stakeholder associations and the dynamics that have developed around them could lead to simplifying far more complex social and political processes. We therefore need to consider carefully whether the creation of new political spaces is a factor in the observed deepening of political agency, or whether it is merely an exogenous process.       Evidence from the field and indeed discussions with senior party leaders from the TDP make it clear that the linkage between the development strategy of committee-formation, in association with a deepening party structure, is as much a political project as a development one. In the short term at least, the lack of institutional clarity coupled with the achievement of grassroots associational density can be seen as a means to exploit the comparative advantage of a wellorganised party structure. These comparative advantages can be seen as preferential access to information and the developmental and political advantages of a motivated and

p p g incentive driven cadre. The interface of these factors can and should be seen as a deliberate political strategy by the ruling regime to catalyse and control civil society, as Manor has hypothesised.       While we are clearly in the early stages of understanding the political motivations and impact of the second wave of decentralisation, it is nonetheless important to account for these issues in further research. In speculating on the motivations of the regime in embarking on this approach, one hypothesis could be that SHAs have extended the stock of political capital within the ruling political party, and that this capital is being used to motivate cadre. Time will reveal if the largely symbolic rewards fulfil aspiration in the long term and if the apex party command can maintain control over the process. Another key question is whether the boundaries between social and political forms of participation are indeed being blurred, and what implications this has for rural development. Andhra Pradesh is likely to yield important insights into these issues in the near future.

10 NETWORKS OF PANCHAYAT WOMEN

Civil Society Space for Political Action AMITABH BEHAR AND YAMINI AIYAR

government representatives from all over India got L ocal together with several NGOs at a meeting organised by the

Institute of Social Sciences with support from the World Bank and the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), in New Delhi from 9–11 June 2003. The purpose of the workshop was to discuss and facilitate the formation of an association of local governments in India. At the end of the workshop it was decided to form an Association of Local Governments in India (ALGI).1 Although most participants found the intent of the workshop highly laudable, the general perception was that the operationalisation of such an association in India was problematic, despite the recommended federal character of the association. The critique was premised on two central arguments. First, it was argued that due to the vast numbers, plurality and diversity of local governments, their conditions, issues and needs vary dramatically, making it difficult therefore, to implement top driven, macro initiatives such as the ALGI. Second, it was argued that any serious association of large numbers of elected representatives and bodies poses a threat and challenge to the mainstream political systems whose response will be to suffocate or co-opt such initiatives. Alternatively put, the political mainstream will not tolerate

organised incursions of political space and the existing power distribution arrangements by new actors like associations of local self-governments. The third important critique, though not mentioned specifically by the participants, was the inadequate attention paid to micro initiatives taking shape in different parts of the country for forming of associations and networks of elected representatives of local governments, particularly elected women representatives of panchayats. An attempt at systematic experience sharing of these networks and associations of elected women representatives from across the country could have enriched the discussion, though the conference did benefit from sharing of experiences of some associations of local governments from different parts of the country and also from associations of local governments of northern countries like France, Germany, Denmark, etc.           This essay is an attempt to address this third criticism through an analysis of the processes and issues emerging from micro initiatives towards the formation of networks and associations of elected representatives, particularly women representatives with a view to contribute to the growing debate on finding alternative, bottom-up strategies for strengthening institutions of local self-governance and facilitating the formation of effective associations of local self-governments. Importantly, these networks, by virtue of being micro in nature and constitution, directly address the first criticism and through their innovative use of civil society space for political action, address the second criticism.       In the past few years, several networks of elected women representatives (EWRs) have been initiated and formed without much fanfare across the country, with a higher density in west and south India. These initiatives have evolved through a dynamic process and are rooted in the concrete experiences and pragmatic strategies developed by EWRs and civil society groups supporting them, to equip themselves to better perform their constitutionally mandated role in an

p y adverse environment that is both patriarchal and largely antidecentralisation. The growing numbers and success of these networks demonstrate strongly, the significance of such micro and innovative initiatives in promoting and institutionalising the panchayati raj system in the country.          The experience of the networking strategy is crucial not only for the impact it has on strengthening local selfgovernment in India but also for its potential to provide noteworthy insights for civil society actors in particular and the civil society discourse in the country in general. Most of these networks have been initiated as innovative capacity building strategies for EWRs. In practice, these initiatives have gone beyond their primary mandate and entered the political arena by using these networks to engage in advocacy and negotiations with the state. In some cases the networks have, directly entered the political mainstream and have developed as recruitment grounds for political parties. However, forays into the political mainstream have primarily been made indirectly by building women’s political capabilities and in this process strengthening women’s leadership for political roles. The journey these networks have made from their ‘apolitical’ capacity building mandate to political action is extremely significant especially for the innovative processes through which they have used civil society spaces to create and expand a political space for themselves. This transition in the roles of the networks of EWR’s clearly indicates the permeability of civil society and the political system and is a successful example of civil society’s direct influence on political space.2 Although these networks are relatively young and still evolving structures whose impact is yet to be fully felt, the experiences they have generated are crucial for furthering our understanding of the positive role that civil society can play in initiating social change on the one hand as well as strengthening the democratic discourse in the country on the other.

Capacity Building of Panchayat Institutions: An Overview Before we go any further in discussing the nature, objectives, experiences and processes of these networks, it is important to understand the historical and political context in which they have emerged. The historic 73rd Amendment of the Constitution empowering the panchayats was passed in 1992. However, experience over the last ten years has demonstrated that the implementation of the 73rd Amendment has been plagued by many problems and shortcomings. Broadly speaking, there are three main concerns that have emerged from the field experiences of working panchayats. These are; first, the inadequate functions, functionaries and funds made available to panchayats due to bureaucratic resistance and lack of political will; second, the overt or covert capture of panchayat institutions by local elites and third, the lack of capacities of elected representatives and panchayat institutions to perform their constitutionally mandated tasks. This ten-year voyage of the panchayats has been lonely in the shadow of resistance from the bureaucracy and the political class and while there has been some support from the few rare pro-panchayati raj politicians and bureaucrats. But for the most part, this process has gathered its key supporters from NGOs, research and academic institutions, donor organisations and international agencies. Given the pre-dominantly ‘apolitical’ nature of the support for panchayats and the fact that these agencies operate within the civil society domain, overtly political issues of concern such as that of elite capture and direct advocacy have not been directly addressed. Instead, most civil society forays into the area of advocacy for panchayati raj have been restricted to issues such as the lack of functions and functionaries, funds to panchayats and to

administrative or procedural concerns without addressing the underlying the central political question of power sharing between the two tiers of government. Consequent to these limitations, civil society support for panchayati raj largely came in the form of support for capacity building of elected representatives. One of most significant features of the 73rd Amendment was the reservation of one-third seats for women in the panchayat system that brought as many as 800,000 women into the formal political process. Most of these elected women representatives had low capacities for performing the mandated role of EWRs, so logically the capacity building of these EWRs became a vital component of the work of pro-panchayat civil society organisations.           The operationalisation and creation of a new tier of governance with a new set of elected leaders with little previous experience of governance became a big challenge for the state governments. Most of the state governments responded by designating certain institutions such as the state institutes of rural developments (SIRDs) to undertake centralised two–three day training sessions in a classroom setting for the elected representatives. Civil society groups in some states were invited to help in the development of modules and a system of training of trainers (TOT), but given the mammoth task and the huge numbers of elected representatives involved, the primary task of capacity building remained with the state governments. Non-governmental organisations like PRIA, Search, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and UNICEF also contributed to some capacity building exercises in some states. However, despite the vast amounts of energy and resources invested by the state governments and other organisations, the capacity building of panchayat institutions remained weak and ineffective.      The ground experience of the working panchayats strongly highlighted the continued need for effective capacity building. New ideas and alternative strategies for capacity building were experimented with, including, on the job training,

p g j g learning by doing, multi-stage training instead of one-shot training and mobile training vans. One such idea was the formation of associations of elected representatives with the aim of building members capacities to undertake the role of capacity building of all the elected representatives as an institutionalised system. Importantly, in this idea, the process of forming associations of elected representatives was itself seen as an important capacity building exercise for the members. This idea was rooted in the successes of lateral learning processes often demonstrated by the techniques of learning and sharing with peers. Here, it meant that the initial emphasis was on capacity building of elected representatives through lateral learning gradually leading to the formation of associations. This idea was also inspired by the fact that in many northern countries the primary responsibility of capacity building of the newly elected members lies with similar associations. Efforts in this direction were initially undertaken in southern India and with EWRs. Very soon the different actors involved in the process recognised the high efficacy of this method for capacity building of elected representatives and also the potential of these networks and associations to strengthen the institutions of local self-governance.       In order to understand the impact of these newly formed networks of EWRs, it would be useful at this juncture to take a closer look at a few successful experiments. As suggested earlier, the most notable experiments in networking and association formation have taken place in southern and western India. Examples of these can be found in work done by Search in Karnataka, Mahila Swaraj Abhiyaan in Gujarat, Mahila Samakhya and Sakhi with SSF in Karnataka and Kerala respectively. The associations that have been set up are not uni-dimensional and work at different levels, of which capacity building for EWRs is the primary task. Through their regular meetings, the association members are able to precisely articulate their training needs which have helped in organising focused, need-based trainings for EWRs. This is

g g g particularly significant as EWRs specific needs are often sidelined in regular trainings of the elected representatives due to resistance from their male counterparts. In addition to this primary function, the formation and working of networks of EWRs has triggered three significant processes. First, the formation of these networks promotes solidarity among elected women representatives who are otherwise divided by caste, religion and geographical boundaries. In this process of working together as a network, women also learn from each other and are exposed to each other’s work, problems and private life resulting in strengthening of solidarity. Second, the formation of these networks is a significant first step in the direction of empowering women. The very act of going out of the village to attend network meetings is viewed as a significantly empowering process by most elected women representatives, who otherwise due to their socio-economic status and gender remain confined to their households and have limited mobility. Gradually some of these networks of EWRs, with the support of facilitating NGOs have gone a step further and begun to use the network as a platform through which issues of direct relevance to women are raised. The network of EWRs supported by the Mahila Swaraj Abhiyaan in Gujarat for instance initiated a successful drinking water campaign in five districts in Gujarat. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the networks and the attendant activities have been able to generate hope and optimism amongst women representatives for securing the space and freedom for using the panchayats, a symbol of state power, for their ‘own’ developmental needs and objectives.           The networks of elected women representatives are primarily constituted of gram panchayat members and have largely been formed at the block or taluk levels. The networks do not include members from higher levels of local governments. However, more recently, some of these networks have moved towards the formation of district level networks and attempts have been made at organising state

p g g level forums for EWRs of panchayats. Most of these networks operate as informal associations organised largely through the efforts and initiatives of the NGO or civil society agency who play the role of a facilitator. Increasingly however, efforts are being made to register the networks as organisations in accordance with state laws. In Tamil Nadu for instance, the Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayat Raj Studies of the Gandhi Gram Institute has formed a registered organisation with around 4,000 women panchayat presidents. The primary activities of these networks are to organise meetings; undertake trainings and exchange visits for members. Some of the associations also undertake campaigns for advocacy on issues of relevance to their members. We look at some of these associations or networks of EWRs to provide some facts and flavour of the field. ‘Search’, a Bangalore-based NGO, which did pioneering work in this area has facilitated the formation of a strong network of EWRs in 48 taluks of ten districts of Karanataka. The network has been formed at the taluk level and its membership constitutes several gram panchayat members. In each district, the network has an executive committee comprising a president, vice-president, secretary and taluk level leaders. The executive committee is appointed through an election process based on rules formulated by the network members themselves. The key function of the network is to organise meetings during which EWRs share their experiences, explore solutions and interact with other GP members and officials. ‘Search’ aids the process by providing infrastructural support as well as resource persons to assist the network in its functions. Enthused by the successes of taluk level networks of the EWRs, ‘Search’ is now working towards facilitating the formation of a state forum for women PRI members. Mahila Samakhya is another such organisation in Karnataka that has been actively involved in promoting the formation of associations of EWRs and has successfully organised six district level associations in Bijapur, Bellary, Bidar, Gulbarga,

j p y g Kopal and Raichur. The core membership of these networks consists of dalit women GP members who in turn ‘invite’ other GP members to join their networks. As in the case of ‘Search’ facilitated networks, the key activities of the network revolve around issues of experience sharing, capacity building and advocacy on issues of local administration.           Some attempts have been made to extend the scope of the advocacy component of the network and recently, the networks have been involved in some local level activism on the issue of the sale of arrack in the state. In Gujarat, the Mahila Swaraj Abhiyaan (MSA), a coalition of NGOs and individuals working on issues of governance and gender, has been working towards the creation of networks since 1997. Crucially, MSA conceived of the network as a space where issues concerning poor women can gain a legitimate political voice. The networks are also used as spaces for addressing issues related to good and effective local governance as well as a space where specific concerns of elected women representatives are addressed and supported. To this end, MSA’s work has been particularly significant for the role that it has played in strengthening the advocacy potential of the networks. MSA has been instrumental in the organisation of two successful campaigns on social security and drinking water. These campaigns have been significant for the role that they have played in engendering governance. In addition to advocacy, the networks also play a role in providing a platform for information exchange as well as capacity building inputs to its members. Lok Satta, in Andhra Pradesh, is involved in a similar initiative of forming networks on EWRs. The organisation is successfully working in three districts with an outreach of 6,500 EWRs.           The experiences of organising and operationalising such networks of EWRs have been varied and are dependent on factors such as the local political climate, the role and value orientation of the promoting NGO and the nature of leadership within the networks. Despite this diversity of

p p y experiences, some common issues can be identified. At this juncture, it would be important to emphasise that the networking process is still in its initial phase and any attempt at evaluating the impact of these networks will leave many facets and dimensions unexplored. Our attempt, therefore, is to highlight a few of the key issues that have emerged from the experience.

Emerging Key Issues \ First and foremost, members find participating in networks an empowering experience. As suggested earlier, women find mobility a great source of strength. Network members also feel that their status within the family and in official circles improves if they are members of such networks. The impact of network membership for women and the accompanying empowerment processes transcends public and private boundaries and enters the private and family spheres of the members which, in many cases, has lead to the reorganisation of relationships within the household. Importantly the women acknowledge the bonding or ‘sisterhood’ created amongst different members as a considerable asset and that it adds to the sense of empowerment.           Second, the networks have contributed greatly towards helping members perform their roles as elected representatives of local self-governments more effectively, thereby clearly reflecting the utility of networking as an effective capacity building strategy especially when compared with the one or two-day trainings provided by the government to panchayat representatives. Crucially, the network promotes experience sharing amongst members, which goes a long way in promoting peer learning. Members

have found networks particularly useful as they have been able to learn from each other the nuances of the role of a panchayat member and the operational rules of the panchayat system. The peer learning process is supplemented with group trainings and on the job handholding undertaken by the facilitating NGO. The intimate relationship that has developed between the facilitating NGO and the network members, through the process of network formation, has contributed to making such training successful. The network also helps in disseminating good practices that are often adopted by network members thus aiding in the effective functioning of the EWRs.           Third and most important, the networks have initiated political processes that have the potential to build solidarity amongst hitherto divided elected representatives, to create the political space for new leadership and to provide them the agency (networks, federations) for political action and effective advocacy.3 The networks have been significant in the contribution they have made towards strengthening the leadership capacities of women panchayat members. The government often showcases panchayat EWRs as examples of strong women leaders, however in the absence of real leadership capacities, due to issues discussed earlier; this is a hollow claim. The strategy of networking in practice has gradually built the capacities of EWRs and the space required for assertion and articulation of this new leadership. In fact, according to Suman Kolar of SSF, ‘in Karnataka some of the network members have turned out to be such strong leaders that the mainstream political parties feel threatened and have approached many of them with invitations for joining the party’. Although the networks are currently mostly used as a space through which to bargain for personnel issues such as the demand for a hike in travel or daily allowance, network members are increasingly recognising the potential of strength in numbers as a tool for political bargaining. The idea

of formation of federations of networks of EWRs, for example, the Lok Satta-led federation in Andhra Pradesh, is one such move in the direction of exploring and securing the political space for them. In addition to this, some networks such as those facilitated through MSA as discussed earlier, have already started politically significant and effective advocacy efforts from a gendered perspective. Such advocacy efforts, although currently restricted to personnel or governance issues, are a clear signal of the potential political roles for EWRs.           The experience and impact of the networks of EWRs reflects a positive movement in the direction not only of strengthening local democracy in India but also towards the creation of a space for effective political action for women. However, upon a critical examination there are a few areas of concern that emerge, which need to be addressed by the initiators of this strategy. It is important to state here that the following criticisms, although rooted in the experience of networks of EWRs do not negate the positive experiences emerging from the networking strategy.       An important critique of the networking strategy emerges from the disjunct that it has to the feminist movement. By and large, the movement for networks of EWRs has been promoted by and unfolded in an environment dominated by civil society actors with a central focus on governance issues and little effort has been made to include or interact with feminist groups (or groups working on women’s issues). Attempts have also not been made to anchor this work and the networks in the feminist discourse, which could qualitatively improve the efficacy of the strategy.4 There are some instances where individuals from the feminist movement have informally contributed to these networks. However, these have been few and far between. The absence of any dialogue with feminist groups has resulted in solidarity being created, first as panchayat members and second as

women. A critical impact of this can be seen in the fact that the advocacy potential of the networks has remained largely underutilised. As suggested earlier, advocacy by EWRs has largely remained ‘apolitical’ leaving the space for effective political action by women unused. There have been a few efforts in this direction as can be seen in the MSA experience however; the trend remains to view networks as an effective capacity building strategy rather than a space for building women’s political capabilities.5 In the absence of systematic efforts in this direction, the potential political strength of these networks will remain limited and eventually diminish.

Role of NGO's An overarching issue that needs to be acknowledged when assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the networks is the role played by the facilitating NGO. This is central to the evolution and future shape of the networks and is partly responsible for the issues just discussed. The facilitating NGOs have a critical role to play in bringing EWRs together, mobilising them to form networks and providing relevant support to the networks on a need basis. However, the networks, perhaps due to the fact that they are relatively new and still evolving, are yet to cut the umbilical cord from their parent NGO. The relationship of dependency is so strong that the networks are often referred to by the facilitating NGO name. In this process, the value orientation of the facilitating agency has played a crucial role in defining the parameters within which the networks operate. Consequently, those organisations that have a distinctly feminist orientation such as Sakhi and MSA have weaved in feminist political concerns into the work of the networks while others have not. Equally, as discussed, most facilitating NGOs view networks as a

capacity building strategy that has triggered the idea of registering the federation with the government which has the inherent danger of restricting political space of the networks. It is important therefore, that the strategy recognises and appreciates the high potential that these networks have to develop as political formations and not as registered bodies on government doles. In order to take this process forward, it is imperative that the facilitating agency works towards the empowerment of marginalised communities where capacity building on local self-governance issues is viewed as a means rather than an end.           The dependence issue raises important questions with regard to the sustainability of these networks. This is relevant not only in terms of the future of the networks in the event that priorities of the facilitating NGO change but also from the perspective of resources. Although donor support for networks is extremely generous at this present point in time, no systematic effort has been made to identify an alternative resource base for the networks in the future. Finally, no systematic effort has been made to engage the networks in a dialogue with other civil society organisations at the grass roots such as self-help groups and community-based organisations on the one hand and the state on the other. It is critical both for the sustainability of networks as well as to strengthen their impact, that spaces are created for these networks to actively engage with the state and other local bodies in order that they are able to effectively impact policy and decision-making processes.       Perhaps the most crucial issue, as suggested, is the fact that the potential of these networks of EWRs for advocacy remains highly underutilised, though a shift in the understanding of limited capacity building roles of networks of EWRs is evident. Finally, the strategy of forming networks of EWRs has been useful but till now has been unable to take a decisive shift into the next phase, where these networks are clearly articulated as political formations and not merely as

y p y capacity building exercises. Importantly, the initiators have to view this strategy as operating in the political domain and provide support to interventions that are not merely limited to core tasks of association formation and capacity building but would prepare the ground for the networks of EWRs to take political action.       To conclude, the experience of networks and associations of EWRs need to be viewed as an important step in the direction of strengthening democracy in the country. Significantly, these initiatives attempt to broaden the current understanding of the role and operating space of the civil society. The rootedness of this initiative, for strengthening democracy by opening up spaces for political action through blurring of boundaries between civil and political society, is its uniqueness. However, in such initiatives where new political spaces are created it is critical to link up the ‘politics’ of new spaces with world views of people centric social transformation for truly deepening democracy. Given the nature of interventions of networks and associations of EWRs, it is also important for realisation of full potential of these initiatives, to build ties with the feminist movement and attempt to engender governance of panchayats. Finally, an ambitious objective for the associations and networks of EWRs would be to form alliances within and outside civil and political societies for the goal of contributing towards democratising the mainstream political system of the country. The efficacy of this initiative in contributing to the democratisation of the mainstream political system might be questionable, nevertheless, the benefits of a process that depoliticises the civil society cannot be doubted.

11 POVERTY ALLEVIATION EFFOTS OF PANCHAYATS IN WEST BENGAL PRANAB BARDHAN AND DILIP MOOKHERJEE

I Introduction local governments (panchayats) have played an E lected important role in the implementation of various poverty

alleviation programmes in West Bengal since 1978. These programmes include land reform, delivery of credit, farm inputs and local infrastructure projects designed to generate employment for the poor. It is widely believed that these programmes were effectively targeted in favour of the poor, due in part to the involvement of the panchayats in their implementation (Appu 1996; Dreze and Sen 1989; Kohli 1997; Lieten 1992; Sengupta and Gazdar 1996; Swaminathan 1990; Webster 1992). The West Bengal experience thus suggests that decentralisation of delivery of antipoverty programmes can result in reduction of targeting failures which have plagued traditional delivery mechanisms entrusted to centralised bureaucracies.           The literature on decentralisation of service delivery however stresses some potential pitfalls (Bardhan 1996, 2002; Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000; Bird 1995; Crook and Manor 1998; Dreze and Sen 1989; Lieten 1996; Mathew and Nayak 1996; Mookherjee 2004; Prud’homme 1995; Tanzi

1996; Manor 1999; World Development Report 2003). The most important of these is the possibility that local democracy may not function well in some contexts, e.g., where the distribution of assets, literacy and social status is highly unequal, a tradition of widespread political participation does not exist, and political competition is lacking. Under such conditions, political parties may be prone to capture by special interest groups, participation in elections may not be widespread, and voters may be swayed more by campaign rhetoric or political handouts rather than genuine policy issues. Dreze and Sen (1989: 107) explain this concern succinctly: The extent of economic distress experienced by different individuals is, to a great extent, a matter of common knowledge within a given rural community. An apparent solution to the selection problem would take the form of making the selection process rely on local institutions to allocate public support according to individual needs.       Would this method work in practice? The leaders of a village community undoubtedly have a lot of information relevant for appropriate selection. But in addition to the informational issue, there is also the question as to whether the community leaders have strong enough motivation–or incentives–to give adequately preferential treatment to vulnerable groups. Much will undoubtedly depend on the nature and functioning of political institutions at the local level, and in particular on the power that the poor and the deprived have in the rural community. Where the poor are also powerless—as is frequently the case—the reliance on local institutions to allocate relief is problematic, and can end up being at best indiscriminate and at worst blatantly iniquitous, as numerous observers have noted in diverse countries.

In some earlier theoretical work, we have explored some of these issues and their implications for the effect of decentralising delivery of anti-poverty programmes (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2002, 2003a). However, there is relatively little detailed empirical evidence available about how targeting performance in a decentralised system varies with local asset inequality, literacy or political concentration.1       In this essay we report the results of our recent research concerning this issue in the context of the West Bengal panchayats. It is based on a dataset we have assembled for a sample of 89 villages spread through 15 districts of the state (which exclude only Kolkata and Darjeeling). Our data includes the extent of land reforms implemented, and the proportion of benefits of various anti-poverty programmes that accrued to landless and small landowners, across four different panchayat administrations spanning two decades since the late 1970s. We examine how these varied with land inequality, literacy among the poor, proportion of Scheduled Castes and tribes in the local population, and political concentration (i.e., the proportion of panchayat seats secured by the dominant Left Front). Our results are based on examining variations in land reform effort and targeting of anti-poverty programmes with respect to variations in land inequality, literacy and political concentration within these villages over time. This enables us to control for unobserved village or district characteristics that may give rise to spurious correlations in a cross-sectional analysis. The West Bengal experience is uniquely suited for this purpose because it provides a long enough experience with devolution to local governments to permit such an analysis.       Such an exercise is aimed at understanding determinants of effectiveness of local democracy in implementing antipoverty schemes. The data does not permit us to compare the performance of the decentralised system with the centralised system that preceded it in West Bengal prior to the late

1970s, nor relative to other Indian states. The results reported here are based on a more detailed analysis which interested readers seeking further clarification of the data, econometric methodology or regression results can refer to (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2003b, 2003c). The purpose of this essay is to provide an overview of the main results, without going into excessive technical detail. Accordingly we present the results in terms of the impact of a hypothetical ceteris paribus change in land distribution, literacy or political concentration (of a magnitude comparable to changes observed over the sample period).           Section II describes the nature of the data set and its construction. Section III then evaluates the land reform experience, and Section IV the targeting performance of farm input delivery and various anti-poverty schemes.

II Data Our data is based on a stratified random sample of villages originally selected by the state department of agriculture for the purpose of estimating costs of cultivation.2 We use a subsample of these villages, based on our ability to locate original records of data concerning individual farms. There are 89 villages, whose distribution across districts is given in Table 11.1. The second column gives the average fraction of seat proportion secured by the Left Front in the concerned gram panchayat (GP) over the period 1978–98.

We conducted an ‘indirect’ survey of these villages in order to collect data on changes in land distribution, literacy, occupational structure and caste. A number of village elders provided relevant details of households in the village, based on a voter list from the most recently conducted panchayat elections in 1998, and one from an earlier year at the beginning of the sample (1978 in most cases, and 1983 in a few instances where the 1978 list was not available). Data on

farm wage rates and farm yields (value added per acre) for different size classes was obtained from the cost of cultivation surveys. Rainfall data for neighbouring recording centres was collected from the state meteorological office. Data for missing or intervening years were computed on the basis of interpolation assuming constant rates of growth within the period in question.       Sample averages of relevant characteristics for 1978 and 1998 are provided in Table 11.2. There was a sharp increase in the number of households within villages, resulting in increased population density relative to cultivable land area. In computing the land distribution we use only statistics pertaining to cultivable land, excluding what households received from the land reform programme. As we shall see later these changes were substantially larger than the extent of land distributed through the land reform programme. The average fraction of landless households rose from 45 to 49 per cent, accounting for almost half the population by the end of the period. At the same time big landholdings were subdivided into smaller ones. In terms of the demographic weight of different land classes, the proportion of medium and big landowners declined by 2.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively. The shift to small landholdings below 5 acres in size involved about 12.5 per cent of cultivable land, operating through household division and market sales. Even within the small landholding category there was an increase in the proportion of land in the marginal category ranging from 0 to 2.5 acres. Our working paper shows that these changes in our dataset parallel corresponding changes in the distribution of operational holdings between 1980 and 1995 in the state Agricultural Censuses.3       Apart from the change in the land distribution, there were also significant changes in education and occupational structure. The illiteracy rate among the poor (henceforth defined as the sum of landless and small landowning

households) dropped from one half to one-third. Medium and big landowners were almost entirely literate at the beginning of the time period, so did not encounter any significant change in this respect. The proportion of households belonging to Scheduled Castes and tribes (SC/ST) remained stationary at about one-third. The importance of nonagricultural occupations grew substantially. Farm yields and male wage rates rose in nominal terms, though most of these were outweighed by increases in the cost-of-living index.

III Land Reforms Table 11.3 provides averages of the land (patta) distribution and sharecropper (barga) registration programmes achieved by 1998. Data on land titles distributed and sharecroppers registered for the relevant villages in the local block land records office (BLRO) were collected directly from those offices. An alternative estimate was provided by the village elders in the indirect survey, while accounting for the nature and sources of land belonging to different households. As Table 11.3 indicates,the survey estimates lie considerably below the BLRO estimates. Since the survey estimates are based on third-party non-legal evidence (and also subject to recall biases concerning land reforms carried out up to 20 years ago), we prefer to use the BLRO estimates which are firmly based on legal records.4

The following facts are worth noting from Table 11.3. Particularly outside north Bengal, the proportion of cultivable land area distributed in the form of land titles was below 4 per cent. This is considerably less than the change in the cultivable area into small holdings from medium or big holdings that occurred through household division or land sales. Second, the proportion of households that were issued land titles was of the order of 15 per cent. This amounted to approximately one in every three landless households. The land reform programme was thus more significant in terms of the number of households that benefited, rather than cultivable land area transferred. Third, in demographic terms the land title programme was far more significant that the barga programme, which benefited less than 5 per cent of households on the basis of the BLRO records. A similar estimate of the relative magnitude of the two programmes is provided by the survey data.       Our regression analysis examined the covariation of these four different land reform measures (proportion of cultivable land area and of households under the two different programmes) with the village land distribution, literacy among the poor, proportion of SC/ST households, and proportion of

seats in the local GP secured by the Left Front. These span four successive five-year timeblocks, each corresponding to a given panchayat administration (1979–83, 1984–88, 1989– 93, 1994–98). The regression controlled for village fixed effects, time dummies and substantial censoring in the data (wherein a majority of villages did not carry out any land reforms at all in any given timeblock). The regression coefficients can therefore be interpreted as the extent to which deviations in the land reform measure from a common time trend were associated with changes occurring in any regressor within any village, while controlling for all other regressors, for a village in which land reforms were being undertaken at all.           We found that a significant determinant of land reform activity was the extent of Left control over the local GP. Specifically, land reform was declining in the extent of political concentration. The relationship with the Left share of GP seats represented an inverse-U, with a turning point well below the mean Left share of 68 per cent (as well as the median share of 74 per cent). In other words, for a majority of villages in the sample, there was a tendency for land reform effort to decline as the Left Front gained increased control of the local government.       Our working paper explored possible explanations for this finding. While in principle the Left share of GP seats is endogenously determined along with land reforms, we provide evidence there that the Left share was driven principally by swings in voter loyalty, based on events at the district or state level, combined with historical patterns of incumbency within the village. In particular they do not seem to have been influenced either by the existing land distribution or past land reforms carried out in the village. Hence, the inverse-U pattern cannot be explained by a possible correlation of Left electoral success with a perceived need (or lack of it) for land reform by voters within the village. Proceeding on the assumption that changes in political

g p g p control were exogenous with respect to the land reforms or the nature of the local land distribution, the inverted U pattern can be explained by a tendency for the dominant party to slacken its effort to satisfy voter demand for land reform when it faced less electoral competition from its political rivals (owing to a swing of voter sentiment in its favour). Conversely officials from rival parties exerted greater land reform effort in an effort to woo voters back. The incentive of the dominant party to slacken land reforms may be the result of various factors, such as the cost of the required effort by the concerned officials, campaign contributions or influence exerted by other means by medium or big landowners to limit the reforms.       Local land inequality or prevalence of SC/ST households played a less important role, relative to political composition of gram panchayats. On the other hand, higher literacy among the poor was strongly and positively correlated with the land distribution programme, though not with the sharecropper registration programme. The significance of different factors in explaining the land reform effort is depicted in Table 11.4, which displays the effect of a hypothetical ceteris paribus change in different aspects of the land distribution, literacy, and caste on different land reform measures as predicted by our regression results. The latter are of an order of magnitude comparable to those actually observed over time (e.g., in the average across different villages), with the exception of the SC/ST proportion which changed very slightly (less than 2 percentage points).

An increase in the Left share of GP seats from 68 per cent to 75 per cent was associated with a statistically significant drop in land areas covered by either land distribution (patta) or sharecropper registration (barga) programmes, and in the proportion of households receiving pattas. The predicted changes are quantitatively significant, e.g., relative to the mean value of the concerned land reform measure. The same is true in relation to the standard deviation as well, excepting the case of land area distributed.5 The effect of a 12 per cent increase in literacy among the landless and small landowners is even more dramatic. A 10 per cent shift in the share of cultivable land area from medium to small landowners has a statistically significant effect only on the proportion of households receiving pattas, but this effect is large (amounting to almost twice the standard deviation of the dependent variable). In summary, villages with a more egalitarian land distribution, higher levels of literacy among the poor, and more evenly contested between rival political

parties experienced significantly higher land reform. From a normative (equity) standpoint the ‘need’ for land reform is more pressing the more unequal the land distribution and the less literate the poor are. The fact that the actual pattern was the opposite of this suggests that differences in political accountability of the local governments played a key role, with greater equality in land, literacy and political competition inducing greater accountability.

IV Delivery of Farm Inputs and Anti-Poverty Programmes The West Bengal panchayats played an important role in delivery of farm inputs and implementation of poverty alleviation schemes. This included selection of beneficiaries of credit under the IRDP programme, agricultural mini-kits, and employment generation programmes aimed at creating and maintaining rural infrastructure such as roads and irrigation (e.g., the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana [JRY] programme). Besides these major programmes, they implemented hundreds of minor earmarked programmes handed down from upper level governments. In most cases, the aggregate quantum of the resource in question was handed down to the panchayats through a hierarchical budgeting process, and their capacity to supplement these with additional local revenues was limited. Most of the grants received from higher level governments were tied to specific programmes, offering them little flexibility with respect to their allocation across different sectors. The only possible exception is the allocation of JRY funds, which the gram panchayats could allocate across different kinds of local projects (though we have been told by panchayat officials that even this was restricted in certain

periods). The employment programmes typically stipulate the proportion of expenditures across wages and material costs, further limiting flexibility with respect to their implementation. Accordingly the main responsibility devolved to the gram panchayats was the selection of beneficiaries of limited amounts of resources within specified sectors within the village.           Accordingly, the analysis of targeting of these programmes involves two distinct but interrelated components. First, each resource was allocated across different districts and villages, a decision made at higher levels of the government, such as the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) of the state government allocating them across districts; zilla parishads at the district level allocating their allotments across different blocks; and panchayat samities at the block level allocating theirs in turn across different gram panchayats. We refer to the outcome of this as the inter-village allocation. Second, each gram panchayat allocates the amounts it receives across different villages under its purview, and across beneficiaries within each village. We refer to the latter as the intra-village allocation. It is made by a different set of officials (elected officials of the gram panchayat, rather than upper level bodies), motivated by different kinds of electoral pressures (winning local rather than district or state elections), informational bases and resource constraints. Accordingly the intra and inter-village allocations need to be analysed separately, and reveal something about responsiveness of the panchayat systems at different levels. The intra and intervillage allocations are likely to be linked, owing to attempts made by the state government since the mid-1980s to involve lower levels of the panchayat system in expressing their needs to higher levels. In addition, the inter-village allocation is likely to incorporate expectations by higher level panchayat officials concerning the nature of intra-village targeting achieved by different gram panchayats within their

y g p y jurisdiction. For instance, if a given gram panchayat is not expected to target any significant portion of the resource to the poor, a higher level government may decide not to allocate much to that gram panchayat on the grounds that most of the resource will not reach the intended beneficiaries. This does not necessarily indicate that the higher level government officials lack a commitment to the poor.           Additional problems arise in making inferences about accountability from targeting performance, which are elaborated more fully in our working paper. A panchayat may allocate less farm inputs to small landowners relative to large ones if the former are likely to make less productive use of these inputs. An accountable government may be motivated by considerations of the overall productivity of agriculture in the village, which may benefit the poor indirectly: e.g., by generating more farm employment for the landless, more revenues for the panchayat which could be used to fund lowincome benefits. Such productivity considerations (rather than lower levels of panchayat accountability) may induce lower targeting performance when land shares are skewed in favour of big landowners. Our analysis of targeting therefore controls for productivity differences between small and large landowners in the intra-village allocation, and between villages in the inter-village allocation. A more revealing way to infer patterns of accountability is to examine variations of targeting shares with the demographic weights of the poor, since demographic weights are less likely (than their land shares or literacy) to directly affect relative productivity of small and big farms in the use of distributed resources. Villages with greater proportion of landless households for instance thus, ought to target its resources more intensively in favour of the poor. This is the outcome one would expect from a functioning local democracy when landless and small landowners comprise 95 per cent of the population. If the observed pattern is the opposite, i.e., if a rise in the proportion of landless or low caste households is associated

p p with poorer targeting to those groups, it is more likely to have been caused by an accompanying decline in government accountability to the poor.6           A third way to evaluate accountability on the basis of targeting performance is to examine leakages in programmes earmarked exclusively for the poor, such as the IRDP credit programme. We also examine the proportion of panchayat expenditures allocated to developmental expenditures rather than salaries and administrative costs, which reflect the allocation of public revenues between panchayat officials on the one hand and both poor and non-poor residents on the other.

IRDP Credit Programme The IRDP programme which started in 1978 replaced a number of different programmes with a single integrated package of technology, services and assets aimed at improving the earning capacity of the rural poor. The most important component was a loan offered to the recipient, a certain fraction of which was a subsidy which did not have to be repaid. The target groups were Scheduled Castes and Tribes, agricultural workers, artisans, marginal and small farmers not owning more than five acres of land. The subsidy rate was highest (50 per cent) for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and lower (ranging from 25 to 33 per cent) for others depending on how much land they owned. A certain fraction was earmarked for women and Scheduled Castes and Tribes. The loans were usually given to enable recipients to invest in assets required in service professions (such as artisan tools, retail shops or rickshaws), livestock and agricultural implements. The loans were channelled through ‘lead’ commercial banks located in the vicinity of the villages. The

panchayats usually selected a number of applicants from within each village and forwarded their applications to the local lead bank, with the ultimate loan decision made in consultation between panchayat officials, officers of the bank, block officials, and DRDA officers.       Table 11.5 provides some descriptive statistics concerning disbursement of loans in our sample villages. Data was collected for selected years (usually one or two years within any given five-year time-block associated with a given panchayat administration) from the corresponding lead bank, who furnished details of IRDP loans advanced during that year. Matching the names of the borrowers with our indirect survey enabled us to identify their landholding status. However, the coverage of the data was limited in the first time-block 1979–83, possibly because the IRDP programme was slow to start in the beginning (Lieten 1992: Chapter 7). A complete enumeration of landholding status of all loans advanced was possible for over 90 per cent of the villageyears that we sampled, and our analysis is based on this subsample. We also estimated the extent of the loan subsidy involved by incorporating the direct subsidy component, and imputing the indirect subsidy on the rest under varying assumptions about the difference between the interest charged and informal interest rate. Since the results did not turn out to be affected by alternative assumptions concerning informal interest rates, we report the results corresponding to the assumption of a 50 per cent difference between the interest charged on the loan and the rate on the informal market.       Table 11.5 indicates that by the mid-1980s, virtually all villages were participating in the programme. Within participating villages the total volume of credit subsidy in any given year was Rs 6,700 (in 1980 prices), amounting to about Rs 30 per household. The average size of subsidy in an individual loan was Rs 826, with eight out of 300 households

on average receiving a loan. Hence participation within the village was highly selective.

The share of credit subsidy of the target population comprising the landless and small landowners was 0.96, averaging across all villages and years. The corresponding average share of the landless was approximately half of this, amounting to 0.46. As Table 11.5 indicates, these were above their respective demographic weights and land shares. The average level of targeting to the intended beneficiaries was thus quite high. However, this high average was accompanied by substantial variations within the sample, especially with regard to the targeting share of the landless. Table 11.6 indicates substantial biases in the inter-village allocation of IRDP credit operating against landless and SC/ST households.7 Relatively small increases in their demographic weight were associated with large decreases in credit allotted to the village. On the other hand increases in land share of

small landowners and their literacy were associated with large increase in credit allotments. While the latter can perhaps be rationalised by productivity considerations, the former fact is less easy to rationalise on that basis, particularly for a programme whose objective is to help the rural poor and low caste population invest in assets in order to reduce their poverty. It is more plausible to interpret these as reflecting variations in the political weight of the poor, which fell when there was greater poverty within the village. Table 11.5 also indicates that political concentration at the district level affected the inter-village allocation. An increase in the Left share of the zilla parishad by 10 percentage points from its mean was associated with a decline in the allocation to villages in that district by about one-seventh of the mean allocation.

Table 11.7 shows similar biases operating in the intra-village allocation as well. Increased landlessness, prevalence of SC/ST households in the village and a rise in political control of the Left over the zilla parishad beyond the mean was associated with increased leakages to medium and big landowners at the expense of the intended beneficiaries (the

‘up to small’ category). Conversely, increased land shares of small landowners were associated with improved targeting. These effects are however small in comparison with the high average level of targeting. Moreover, no statistically significant effects on the share of the landless emerged, suggesting that the results reflect a conflict between small landowners on the one hand and medium and big landowners on the other. Especially striking is the fact that the magnitude of the biases in intra-village targeting pale in comparison with the inter-village allocation. For instance, if we calculate the combined effect of increased landlessness or proportion of SC/ST households in the village on the flow of the credit subsidy to its intended beneficiaries, the inter-village biases dominate by far. Credit to the village as a whole declined by 140 and 75 per cent respectively, while the intra-village share of target groups declined by less than 5 per cent.

Agricultural Mini-kits An important component of agricultural policy during this period comprised the distribution of mini-kits containing seeds of high yielding rice varieties, potatoes, mustard, sesame, vegetables, fruits and lentils, besides fertilisers and pesticides. These were distributed by the block offices of the state’s agriculture department, in consultation with panchayat officials. In the sample villages the bulk of these were accounted by HYV rice seeds, potato seeds and oilseeds. Table 11.8 provides some of the relevant descriptive statistics for the number of all kits distributed, as well as those kits containing rice seeds, potato and oilseeds specifically. The spread of kits of any single category was limited to a relatively small fraction of villages in any given year, and this is even more true for other categories of kits. So it makes sense to focus mainly on the allocation of all kits. Since the kits cannot be used by non-cultivators, we examine the targeting share of the ‘up to small’ category rather than of the landless households.8

Similar to the allocation of IRDP credit, the target share of small and marginal landowners was high on average, amounting to approximately 87 per cent. The same average prevailed within the category of kits containing rice seeds and potato/oilseeds as well. These shares significantly exceeded their demographic weights and land shares.           Table 11.9 provides estimates of how intra and intervillage targeting varied with village characteristics. Again, increased landlessness is associated with a significant decline in the number of kits received by a village, and in turn the fraction of these allocated to small landowners or landless within the village. And again the magnitude of the variation associated with the inter-village bias is proportionately much greater than the intra-village bias. In case one wonders whether the inter-village bias can be rationalised by the

inability of the landless to use the kits productively, note that similar results obtain for demographic shifts between medium and small landowners which are unlikely to impact relative productivity the same way that landholdings or literacy might. Parallel to the credit results, we again see a positive effect on targeting associated with rising land shares of small landowners (at the intra-village level), and a negative effect with rising proportion of SC/ST households. Rising literacy among the poor was associated with a significant rise in the allocation received by the village. All these results are consistent with the hypothesis that the variations are driven by political weights of the poor that declined as they became poorer and less literate. The alternative hypothesis that productivity considerations dominated the allocation decisions is additionally undermined by the fact that the effects reported here control for productivity differences (between villages in the intervillage analysis, and between size classes within the village in the intra-village analysis).

Employment Programmes Employment programmes were probably the single most important instrument for generating incomes among the poor. In 1980 the Food for Work programme was replaced by the NREP and RLEGP, whose objectives were to generate employment for the landless, with a preference for Scheduled Castes and women. The projects usually involved construction of rural infrastructure. In 1989 these various programmes were merged into the JRY, which existed until the late 1990s. The programmes were sponsored by the central government, with matching contributions from the state government. In West Bengal, the responsibility for implementation of the

programmes were devolved to the panchayats. However, numerous restrictions concerning utilisation of funds were imposed, especially with respect to proportion of labour and material costs, and sometimes concerning the nature of projects to be selected. While allocation of these grants was formula-based, their actual utilisation often varied from the sanctioned amounts owing to delays in disbursements.           The scale of these programmes was considerably larger than the IRDP. From the budgetary records of the GPs in our sample, we computed the total grants actually received and spent for all employment programmes for selected years. Approximately one in 10 GPs did not receive any grants in any given year. For those that did receive grants, the average amount received was about Rs 60,000 per year at 1980 prices, or about Rs 850 per household. This was ten times the average allotment of credit subsidies under the IRDP.       To examine the nature of targeting of these employment grants, we examine variations in grants received per household by any given village for the inter-village analysis, and man-days of employment generated per rupee of grant money received for the intra-village analysis (since employment generated best represents the benefits of the programme to the landless).9 Our regression results indicate that the targeting of employment programmes varied far less with respect to changes in the land distribution, literacy or caste than in credit or mini-kits.10 None of these village characteristics had a statistically significant effect on either inter-village or intra-village targeting. The only significant correlate of employment generation from allotted grants to the GP was the fraction of local GP seats secured by the Left, with respect to which an inverted-U relationship emerged, parallel to our results for the land reform programme.           Table 11.10 provides estimates of shifts in land distribution, literacy, SC/ST proportion and Left control of the GP on targeting of employment programmes. The results are

qualitatively similar to those of the credit, kits and land reform programmes, though most of these effects are statistically insignificant owing to large standard errors. Increased landlessness and higher illiteracy among the poor worsened targeting at both inter-village and intra-village levels, while caste had a negligible effect. The inter-village effects of changing land distribution were quantitatively more significant than the intra-village effects. However, the opposite was true for changes in literacy and political composition of the GP.       The fact that the effects of changing land distribution and literacy were similar to those seen for the other programmes, and that these employment programmes were intended mainly to increase incomes of the landless, adds credence to the hypothesis that targeting variations responded to changing political weights of different classes (rather than productivity differences). However, the employment programme exhibited less variability with respect to these village characteristics. This is perhaps the effect of being more formula-bound than the credit or kits programme, allowing less discretion to panchayat officials over their implementation. Our regressions found that the inter-village allocation of employment grants was also insensitive to variations in rural wage rates, farm yields or rainfall. This is the flip side of a formula-bound programme: a lack of sensitivity to variations in local need.

Fiscal Performance Finally we consider the fiscal performance of the panchayats in some respects which had a bearing on the share of benefits from government programmes accruing to the poor. Apart from employment grants which comprised approximately 50– 60 per cent of the resources available to gram panchayats in any given year, a number of other fiscal grants tied to specific projects collectively accounted for approximately 25 per cent of panchayat revenues. The rest was raised by the gram

p y y g panchayats from local sources, mostly in the form of schemes involving sale of assets and collectively produced goods (e.g., fish produced in community ponds). Taxes and fees accounted for a minuscule fraction of panchayat revenues, less than 4 per cent on average. Over three quarters of panchayat revenues were accounted by fiscal grants received from higher level governments.      Table 11.11 provides estimates of the effect of variation in land distribution, literacy, caste and political composition on the volume of aggregate fiscal grants per household received by a GP. The only statistically significant effect arises from an increase in proportion of landless households: a 2.5 per cent increase in this proportion was associated with over 20 per cent decline in fiscal grants. The other effects are statistically insignificant, though the effects or rising literacy or political competition are quantitatively quite large. The direction of change is the same as in all previous contexts studied: villages received larger grants per capita when they had fewer landless or low-caste households, when the poor became more literate and owned a larger share of cultivable land share, and when political competition between the Left and the Congress was keener.

Since most of the fiscal grants (excluding those in the employment programme) were associated with a large variety of minor welfare and infrastructure programmes, it is difficult to perform a detailed analysis of how well they were targeted within the village. Instead we examine the fraction of the overall gram panchayat budget allocated to nondevelopmental expenditures, i.e., to salaries and administrative costs. As Table 11.12 indicates, on average about 36 per cent of panchayat budgets were devoted to non-developmental expenditures, with a standard deviation of 19 per cent. A rise in this proportion meant that less was available for spending on welfare and public works programmes that would benefit the poor. It is apparent that there was considerable variation in this proportion within the sample. Our regressions (which control for the scale of the grant received and the village population in order to capture the fixed overhead cost nature of administrative costs, besides other village characteristics) reveal that a significant part of this variation was associated with changes in the land distribution within the village. Increased landlessness and

inequality of land shares raised the proportion allocated to non-developmental expenses. Literacy among the poor or caste did not have a significant effect, but were qualitatively similar to the patterns observed in other contexts.

Conclusions We first summarise our main findings.           First, average levels of targeting and land reform effort were quite high. Leakages of the IRDP credit programme to ineligible households were small, only about 4 per cent or so. Eighty-seven per cent of the mini-kits were given to landless and small landowning households. The land distribution programme benefited one in seven households on average, and one in three landless households. The land areas involved in the land reform programme were not high (of the order of 3–8 per cent of cultivable land), though significantly higher than reported for most other Indian states (e.g., Appu [1996]) reports that most states have distributed less than 2 per cent

of land). This confirms what many others have remarked—that the West Bengal panchayats directed a significant portion of benefits of different developmental and poverty alleviation programmes to the poor.       Second, this high average masks significant variability in targeting and land reform effort. Our analysis focused on the extent to which changes in these, over time, were associated with changes in local land distribution, literacy among the poor, prevalence of low-caste households, and contestability of panchayat elections. We consistently found that targeting performance was poorer when the land distribution became less equal, the poor were less literate, when there were more low-caste households, and local elections were less contested. From a normative standpoint, the opposite should have happened: poverty alleviation effort should have increased when there was greater poverty, illiteracy or inequality. This suggests that the outcomes reflected variations in government accountability owing to a decline in the political weight of the poor when they became more vulnerable.       Some of the patterns could conceivably be rationalised by productivity considerations, wherein the poor were allocated less when they would be expected to be less productive. We argued that such an explanation did not seem satisfactory for many reasons: it does not pertain to explicitly redistributive programmes (such as the IRDP credit programme) or measures of fiscal performance (such as proportion of panchayat expenditures devoted to salaries and administrative costs) that affect all categories of residents in a similar fashion. Moreover, the regressions underlying our analysis controlled for differences in farm yields. Finally, the sharpest results obtained with respect to increases in demographic weight of the landless and small landowners, which are unlikely to be driven by productivity considerations. In a well functioning democracy these demographic changes ought to have improved targeting. The fact that the opposite was true

p g g pp thus suggests that there were significant distortions in government accountability that were accentuated with greater landlessness, illiteracy and prevalence of low-caste households.           Third, the political biases were more significant in the allocation of resources across villages, rather than within villages. The findings reported here are similar to those of Galasso and Ravallion (2000) for a decentralised education programme in Bangladesh. Most of the literature stressing the pitfalls of decentralisation in contrast has stressed the danger of poor intra-village targeting owing to capture of local governments by local elites. Considerably less attention has been devoted to the process by which resources are allocated across villages by higher level governments. In Bolivia and South Africa, decentralisation to local government has been accompanied by formula bound transfers across jurisdictions and levels of government. The available evidence suggests that this was instrumental in increasing interregional equity in those countries (Faguet 2003; Wittenberg 2003). In West Bengal with the possible exception of the employment generating programmes, most others were based on political discretion of higher level governments. Even in the context of employment programme grants, we found some evidence of similar patterns, though these were considerably weaker. This suggests that incorporation of need-based formulae in intervillage allocations could significantly improve pro-poor targeting.           We now mention a number of qualifications to our analysis. Our use of the indirect survey inevitably gives rise to measurement error in the key village characteristics, a problem which can be rectified only if direct household surveys are carried out to estimate changes in landholding patterns, literacy or caste more precisely. Moreover, we analysed targeting on the basis only of landholding status of recipients, rather than gender, caste or political affiliation. In other words, we examined the fraction of resources reaching

g the poor (defined in terms of landholding status), but not the fraction reaching other minority groups. It has been argued that targeting performance of the West Bengal panchayats on the other dimensions was far weaker.11 Further research is needed on both these issues. Second, our results could be criticised for assuming that variations in land distribution, literacy, caste or political concentration were exogenous with respect to targeting. Instead they could be subject to reverse causality, or the outcome of unobserved factors that simultaneously affected targeting. In the absence of any truly exogenous source of variation in these village characteristics, such concerns are difficult to confirm or dispel in any conclusive fashion.           Yet one can attempt to rule out a number of possible channels of reverse causality or omitted variable bias. Unobserved village characteristics fixed over time have been controlled for with village fixed effects in the underlying regressions. The scale of most of the programmes was quite small, and unlikely to have a significant impact on the distribution of land or literacy within the village. For instance, the land reform programme involved no more than 3–4 per cent of cultivable land area outside north Bengal, a small fraction of the overall change in the land distribution. IRDP loans amounted to about Rs 30 per household per year, and employment programmes to about Rs 300 per household per year. Given an average daily wage of Rs 40–60 for farm labour, these programmes were small, amounting to no more than ten days wages. On this scale they were unlikely to make a significant dent in the local land distribution or other assets of the poor.       Endogeneity bias could conceivably arise from migration and resulting ‘welfare magnet’ effects, wherein the poor or low-caste groups migrate to regions with superior targeting performance. It seems to us unlikely that migration among the poor could have been motivated by considerations of

eligibility for services delivered by the government—outsiders are hardly likely to be recipients when there are so many poor residents of long standing in proportion to the benefits being offered. Participation within the village was highly selective: with the exception of the land distribution programme the average proportion of households receiving any benefits in any given programme was typically less than 5 per cent. Moreover, welfare magnet effects should give rise to a positive correlation between targeting and demographic weight of the poor, whereas we observed exactly the opposite. If at all significant, the bias resulting from this effect ought to be positive, in which case our results understate the true effects.       Another source of endogeneity bias may be the impact of poor targeting on yield of small landholdings, which discourages purchase of small plots by the landless, causing greater landlessness. We think this is unlikely for two reasons. One is that we controlled for productivity of small plots relative to others in the village in our regressions. Second, the results of changing demographic weights with respect to caste paralleled those with respect to landlessness. Since caste is inherited by birth and cannot be acquired, such an explanation cannot work for explaining the patterns with respect to caste. Political competition for panchayat seats is undoubtedly jointly determined along with antipoverty policies of the panchayat. However, our working paper documents that the electoral success of the Left Front in gram panchayat elections was driven primarily by wider shifts in voter loyalties (as gauged by vote shares at the district level in elections to the state legislature occurring around the same time) and pro-incumbency bias among voters, rather than local patterns of land distribution, literacy or caste.       One could continue to examine whether the evidence fits any other hypothesis of endogeneity bias. Instead we conclude our discussion by noting that the hypothesis of lower political accountability of local governments to the poor

p y g p when they are more vulnerable provides a parsimonious explanation of the observed targeting patterns in a wide variety of programmes.

12 EXPERIMENT WITH DIRECT DEMOCRACY

Time for ReaPpraisal AMITABH BEHAR

expert James Manor writing about the D ecentralisation gram swaraj in Madhya Pradesh said, ‘It is a leap into the

unknown. It may work well, or prove disappointing—but there is no doubting its audacity and its broader significance’ (Manor 2001). The gram swaraj system1 introduced by the Madhya Pradesh government on 26 January 2001 now completes eighteen months of functional and operational existence. Eighteen months is a short time to evaluate the progress and implications of such a radical restructuring of the governance space, however, it is a reasonable time frame for undertaking an appraisal of the process of institutionalisation of the new system.      The introduction of gram swaraj had raised a lot of hopes, particularly among civil society organisations, Gandhian groups and academia working on issues of decentralised local self-governance. People and groups working on panchayati raj across the country2 still show strong interest and excitement about the gram swaraj system of Madhya Pradesh. On the other hand, the enthusiasm declined in the state, paving the way for a more pragmatic understanding informed by the reality of a very modest and cautious beginning of gram swaraj. The experiences emanating from the field are largely discouraging. However, some exemplars of success

remind us of the potential of the new system for truly participatory and effective local democracy. It was clear from the beginning that a state-led endeavour for top-down progressive reform of the panchayat structure couldn’t be successful without a massive mobilisation attempt and support by the state apparatus. Disappointingly, state support has been inconsistent leading to irregular institutionalisation and development of the gram swaraj system. The potential and space for change provided by gram swaraj remains rather underutilised.       It would be helpful to get a picture of ground realities of the gram swaraj system by identifying and looking at some primary indicators reflecting the status of operationalisation of the system. Five easily assessable basic indicators to reflect the status of gram swaraj could be: (1) regularity of gram sabha meetings, (2) quorum of gram sabha meetings, (3) participation of women and marginalised sections of the society in the gram sabha meetings, (4) formation of gram sabha committees, and (5) decision-making by gram sabha going beyond the mandatory requirement of approval of beneficiary lists for government programmes. The monthly meetings of gram sabha under the gram swaraj system have not been held regularly in any part of the state. Wherever these meetings have been held, it’s largely due to a pro-active local NGO or under pressure from the government. Often the meetings have not been held due to lack of quorum leading to their postponement. The current quorum of 20 per cent is very high, which has led to demands from various quarters to reduce it. In most of the villages, the existing practice of taking the attendance register from house to house in the village for securing signatures of absent members of gram sabha to complete the quorum continues, defeating the principle behind the quorum for a meeting. In this dismal scenario, it is futile to discuss the issue of participation of women and the marginalised in the gram sabha meetings and active decision-making undertaken by gram sabhas. However,

g yg it is extremely important to underscore that compared with the pre-gram swaraj panchayat system, the new gram swaraj system has seen more regular and higher percentage of gram sabha meetings. The enthusiasm of the community, particularly in villages that have pro-active NGOs, is very high. Importantly, grass roots workers and the local community, despite these initial hiccups, have faith in the potential of empowered gram sabhas for effective and people-sensitive development.       The issue of formation of the standing committees of the gram sabha is more complex raising questions of broader implications. In most of the villages, the committees have been formed by government fiats with the help of a government functionary and not by democratic elections, as the lack of regular gram sabha meetings did not provide the opportunity for elections. In many cases the ‘elected’ members of the gram sabha committees are themselves unaware that they are members of such committees and often there is no clarity of role for members who are aware of their membership. The meetings of these committees have not been held regularly. Substantial confusion of roles, functions and powers has been created due to the continuation of parallel committees formed by the government for implementing programmes of line departments like forest, education and health. For example, a committee formed for the implementation of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) by the forest department continues and has not been dissolved, making the new gram sabha standing committee on common property resource ineffective.           The task force formed by the state government for the creation of gram swaraj had anticipated this confusion and strongly recommended the abolition of all such committees in its final report. However, the government diluted this recommendation and put a clause in the act, which says ‘such developmental committees can exist in a village with the due approval of gram sabha’. The Madhya Pradesh government

pp g y g has in the past few years, enthusiastically supported the strategy of community involvement by forming user group committees for the implementation of its developmental plans and programmes, often leading to rich dividends as demonstrated by the success of programmes like JFM and the watershed mission.3 The government believes that such user committees promote social capital and plurality in a village making democracy vibrant. These committees formed from the community also make development programmes more effective. However, many others believe that the creation of alternative institutions and user committees weaken the panchayat system as the state government channels its developmental resources through user committees under line departments and government missions4 and not through panchayats. At the grass roots level, the panchayats remain resource-starved whereas these alternative committees are resource-rich due to direct inflow from government missions, de-legitimising the panchayats. For example, a watershed programme in Gudmania village in Pawai block of Panna district has been allotted several lakhs of rupees, attracting a large number of villagers for meetings and activities; in the same village a resource-poor gram sabha is not able to complete the quorum of its meetings. The common villagers find panchayats unable to perform their developmental roles due to lack of resources but the user committees undertake some developmental work leading to discrediting of panchayats vis-a-vis the government formed user committees. This contradiction has become more pronounced in the post gram swaraj phase leading to serious problems of institutionalisation of the new system. The state government will have to tackle this issue of multiplicity of institutions and clear the confusion by merging the existing user committees in the gram swaraj committees.           One of the objectives of the gram swaraj was to end sarpanch raj as clearly articulated by state chief minister

Digvijay Singh in his speeches and to empower the local community through the strengthening of gram sabha. However, the gram swaraj system has failed in curtailing the power of the sarpanches who continue to enjoy a preeminent position in the panchayat system. The sarpanch continues as the chairperson of gram sabha, therefore, the nature and the message of change have not become apparent either to the sarpanch or to the larger community. The perception of pre-eminence of the sarpanch and the way they are treated by the local bureaucracy nullifies the attempt to curtail their powers. The bureaucracy still talks to the sarpanch about issues of panchayats and does not deem it necessary to consult the gram sabha. Interestingly, after the completion of one year of gram swaraj, the chief minister visited Panna district to celebrate the first anniversary, the banners welcoming in were all sponsored by sarpanches and not a single banner of a gram swaraj was visible.           However, initially, the sarpanch lobby had got the message that the gram swaraj system would curtail their powers and they would be marginalised. There was mobilisation of sarpanches as a community against the introduction of the Gram Swaraj Act leading to filing of a case questioning the constitutional validity of the new system in the Jabalpur High Court. The government, under political pressure from an important layer of the power chain—the sarpanches—was forced to backtrack and bring them back in the gram swaraj system by making them co-signatories for operating the gram swaraj account. The gram swaraj system had envisioned a separate finance committee with a separate treasurer working according to the instructions of the gram sabha. The importance of the treasurer as envisaged in the final task force report caught on with the people leading to keenly contested elections for the position of treasurer, which resulted in an initial sense of marginalisation amongst the sarpanches without realising that the step to make them cosignatories in handling of the accounts of the gram sabha

g g g provided them an opportunity to control the finances of the panchayat, making them powerful in the new system. The sarpanches initially did not realise it and protested against the introduction of the new system. Once they realised that their powers could still be exercised, things started working in the old mould. This has led to dilution of the power of gram swaraj and gram sabhas.       It was expected that the new system would invigorate the gram sabhas and empower them to function as true institutions of local self-governance. In practice, this is not happening as discussed earlier. In fact, a major critique of gram swaraj was rooted in the lack of vibrancy of gram sabhas. Nevertheless, this was anticipated by the framers of gram swaraj who hoped that in the new system the gram sabhas would debate, discuss and decide on issues directly affecting the life of the people, generating interest amongst the community for gram sabhas. Unfortunately, the gram sabhas in the post-gram swaraj phase continue to primarily focus on approval of beneficiary lists for government schemes without taking up issues directly affecting the people, thus making no apparent change in the nature of gram sabhas. The lack of devolution of significant powers to gram sabhas is an important reason for this. After framing the new act for gram swaraj, the government has not adequately followed up the process by working at the nuts and bolts of the new system by devolving and decentralising powers; the lack of financial devolution by the state government especially remains a major bottleneck. In this resources-starved scenario, the government of India programmes and schemes bringing resources to panchayats become significant. The government continues to devolve its funds to gram panchayats, which are controlled by the sarpanches who remain powerful despite the new role of gram sabhas. The government of Madhya Pradesh needs to address this issue and evolve mechanisms in consultation with the government of India to channelise funds directly to gram kosh. In spite of the intentions and the

y g p philosophy of the act, the gram swaraj functions merely as the last tier of the government performing some developmental roles with very meagre resources. It has still not been entrusted or devolved serious governmental functions like justice or security. To energise gram swaraj it becomes important to assign it some governmental functions and also facilitate its role in the social sphere so that it is not seen merely as a government agency but as an institution of the people to discuss and deliberate on issues of consequence to the community.           It would be pertinent to take note of some key factors hindering the process of institutionalisation of gram swaraj. First, the absence of effective communication strategies and channels has resulted in lack of awareness about the gram swaraj.5 The government and the civil society have been unable to communicate the message of gram swaraj to the people who are being empowered by the introduction of gram swaraj. This is an issue, that can have wide political implications (and dividends) if the Congress is able to communicate with the people that the new system introduced by their government directly empowers the common person. However, the critics of the chief minister and gram swaraj would argue that there has been lack of effective communication with the people because the real agenda of the gram swaraj was not to empower people through an empowered gram sabha but to contain the new emerging leadership from the panchayats of women, dalits and tribals. Second, to a limited extent the government has failed in implementing its own policy effectively as the task force report had a section on the creation of an enabling environment for the success of gram swaraj; however, the government was unable to formulate a detailed process change strategy leading to systemic and institutional realignment for the smooth operation and institutionalisation of gram swaraj. Third, the government machinery and the

bureaucracy have failed to internalise the radical restructuring of the governance system and have not responded by making the required adjustments and changes. The conceptual shift from the representative form of local self-governance to a system of direct democracy remains largely unappreciated at the level of state, district or local bureaucracy, neither are the implications of such a drastic change understood or debated.6 Importantly, the bureaucracy has been strongly resistant to change; even the panchayat secretary realises that access to information gives him a privileged position and therefore he hinders the flow of information to the gram sabhas. The initial experience of gram swaraj clearly indicates that the bureaucratic, political and economic nexus represented by the local bureaucracy, sarpanch and service contractors has developed a vested interest in the panchayat system and therefore they oppose any move to curtail the powers of panchayats and shifting of the power centre to the gram sabhas. Finally, the capacities of the gram sabhas in most villages are inadequate to operationalise an institution, which operates as a rational-bureaucratic structure. Most of the villages also do not have enough people who could effectively form and operationalise the committees of the gram swaraj. The government has undertaken some initiatives7 for training on gram swaraj though it has largely remained ritualistic. Some NGO groups have also started working on enhancing the capacities of the gram sabhas and the committees of gram swaraj but due to the limitations of NGOs the initiatives have remained local.       This preliminary evaluation of the gram swaraj in Madhya Pradesh clearly demonstrates that the new system has to overcome various stumbling blocks before becoming an effective institution of local governance. Some of the key factors responsible for the slow start have been discussed. Two other issues, with the potential to affect the success of gram swaraj merit discussion. First, the heritage of 50 years

of state-centric polity and society has shrunk the non-state sphere leading to marginal space of operation for the civil society in rural societies. According to a task force member, the idea of ‘gram swaraj is embedded in the potential convergence of civil society and state sphere in the institution of gram sabha’. This idea has not been understood and gram sabha is continued to be seen as an institution of the state and not of the people resulting in an ineffective gram swaraj system and the majority view that it is just another wellintentioned ‘idealistic’ government initiative for good local self-governance. Attempts to seriously convey this fundamental shift in the discourse of governance to the bureaucracy and the society could play an important role in creating an enabling environment for gram swaraj. The second issue flows from the first and becomes particularly relevant in the context of Madhya Pradesh. The state has a vibrant and rich civil society consisting of social movements, membership based organisations and professional development agencies.8 These organisations with a strong support base in their areas of operation and high levels of professional competence can play a significant role in strengthening the gram swaraj institutions, which would also facilitate their own work through a sustainable and institutional mechanism though till now these groups have been largely indifferent to the new system. In recent months there has been some softening of stand of the mass based organisations towards gram swaraj; nevertheless, a clear commitment to support the new system is still not visible. It is important to underscore that gram swaraj offers a unique opportunity to the social movements and mass based organisations to harness the peoples’ support for a progressive agenda through an institutional arrangement backed by state laws and acts.       The evidence from the field suggests that gram swaraj has made a slow and cautious beginning in Madhya Pradesh. The strong political will which was instrumental in conceiving and

framing the system has not sustained itself through the implementation phase. Resistance from the bureaucracy, lack of capacities at the gram sabha level and inability of the governance systems to adapt to radical restructuring of the governance space has led to weak gram swaraj. However, the opportunities presented by this experiment with direct democracy are still alive. The chief minister could achieve high political dividends in the form of mass support and peoplecentric development by providing governmental support for effective functioning and institutionalisation of gram swaraj. It is critical for Madhya Pradesh to invest substantial energies in vitalising the gram swaraj to comprehensively complement its ongoing efforts for effective governance where ‘people are viewed as solutions and not as problems’.

13 BUILIDING BUDGETS FROM BELOW

AHALYA S. BHAT, SUMAN KOLHAR, AARATHI CHELLAPPA AND H. ANAND streams of discourse or action research efforts have T wo been considered in this essay. The first is the interest on, if

not support of, what can go under names such as decentralisation, subsidiarity, localism or even localisation. These words do indicate nuances in the political premises upon which this consideration is taken on board. One can see an ideological location when we shift from subsidiarity (Jain and Sujaya 2002) to localism. Localism is seen as an imperative, postulated as the opposite of globalism (Jain 2002). The other stream is the interest in enabling women to participate in what can be broadly called economic decisionmaking, and specifically, in fiscal decisions.           This essay, based on an action research project, finds a bridge between these two streams. Locating the exercise in the structure of devolution of governance, it tries to investigate the degrees of freedom available to those elected into a system of local self-government, in determining not only local fiscal policy, but also macro fiscal policy.

Gender Budgeting The interest in what is now called gender budgeting has been translated into practice or advocacy in various ways across

the world. From looking at economic spaces which are meaningful predominantly to women and how far funds are allocated to them, it has taken on specific development initiatives and looks at how far they have understood the role women play and the benefits they might or might not have received. In other words, there is also a participatory investigation of the implementation of budgets. Have budget allocations been utilised? Have budgets intended for a specific objective reached the intended beneficiary? Has a sufficient budget been provided to areas in which it is often assumed women have the largest interest, viz., social development services? And so on.       While the exercise described here has benefited from the learnings of these gender budgeting experiences, this is an attempt to enable women politicians, who are plugged into an accountable elected state apparatus, viz., local selfgovernment, to actually determine the revenue and expenditure sides of a budget, apart from tracing its final outcomes. The exercise is possible because of the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Indian Constitution, which set up these locally elected institutions with 33.33 per cent reservation for women and a slightly smaller percentage reserved for other traditionally excluded communities, such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (UNDP 2004). The research has gone through three phases. The first was to profile the state level budget of Karnataka; tracking the trend of allocation to areas of women’s interest, i.e., the social development package, pre- and post-reforms or the impact of the changes introduced by the structural adjustment programme (SAP). This is to give a background of the state’s finances and has been compiled with the use of secondary data.       The second phase was an attempt to enable local women politicians, the elected representatives, to fashion a budget, preferably developed out of their choice of items and priorities, without any constraints of money or other

p y y boundaries. Simultaneously, using the opportunity provided by the encounters, the focused group discussions and questionnaires, an attempt was also made to look at the implementation of services critical to women, viz., the public distribution system and the health system and how these are linked to what could be an enabling mechanism through the local self-government, for the women in their locales. For the fieldwork, two urban1 and two rural sites,2 were selected to study the level of interaction in and awareness of the budget process among elected women representatives. This phase is described in some detail including the methodology.       In the third phase, with the enthusiasm and support of the community and elected persons of the earlier selected villages, an attempt was made to translate the participation into a few receivable outcomes of intervention. In order to achieve this objective, a partnership was forged with a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) in Karnataka, most effective in its urban pockets, who was involved in engaging citizens with functionaries of municipalities to ensure the benefits and taxes collected for a particular purpose reached the intended beneficiaries. Thus, in four locales, an attempt was made to build a stakeholders group, viz., the elected women and the outside, i.e., the community and the administration and engage them to make the budget allocations relevant and effective.

Phase One: Data Analysis The state level analysis separated the pre-reform and postreform revenue receipts of selected departments in Karnataka, under the ‘social and economic services’ head. Further, expenditure allocated for women specific schemes and selected departments in the state were obtained for

social and economic services during the pre-SAP and postSAP reform phases. A comparative analysis of the revenue pre- and post-reform is found in Tables 13.1 and 13.2. It was observed from the state budget analysis that during the prereform phase, (1988–89 to 1990–91) the receipts from public health were the highest under ‘social services’ whereas under ‘economic services’, it was the village and small-scale industries that occupied first place. This shows that during the 1990s, public health and village and small-scale industries were important sources of revenue. During the post-reform phase, while the receipts from social services is less than 1 per cent of the total, economic services showed fluctuations varying between 2.8 per cent and 4.2 per cent. was an increase in expenditure towards social services in terms of absolute figures as compared to economic services. This is illustrated by the expenditure incurred towards public health, family welfare, general education and social security. In the post-reform phase, under social services, the expenditure towards social security, public health and family welfare increased considerably. Under economic services, the allocation towards women specific schemes has shown fluctuations in respect of cooperation, rural development and panchayati raj, agriculture and fisheries.

Phase Two: On the Ground with Secondary Data

Secondary data regarding the preparation of the budget by local self-government bodies, socio-economic infrastructure, revenue and expenditure of the chosen sites and elected women representatives was also collected. The income and expenditure patterns of Mysore City Corporation are found in Tables 13.5 and 13.6. A study of the income and expenditure of the same shows that the major source of income for the corporation is government grants and its own resources and the bulk of the expenditure is on establishment charges and office expenses.

Tables 13.7 and 13.8 contain the income and expenditure of the Udupi City Municipal Council and show that the major source of income for the body is grants and contributions.

However, unlike Mysore, consistently, expenditure was on public works.

the

highest

Tables 13.9 and 13.10 show the income and expenditure of the Honaganhalli gram panchayat in the post-reform phase. Again, the major source of income for the gram panchayat is grants. Expenditure towards public infrastructure shows an

increasing trend from year to year whereas social security, basic amenities and JRY/JGSY works show fluctuations.

Tables 13.11 and 13.12 show the income and expenditure of the Kogali gram panchayat for the years 1999 to 2002. The tax revenue in this gram panchayat is even less than that in the Honaganhalli gram panchayat and again, the major revenue is from grants. The expenditure pattern shows increased spending on amenities but reducing expenditure on public infrastructure.

The primary data used for this phase of the project required extensive fieldwork, so a rigorous training and orientation programme was conducted to equip the field staff to do the work effectively. They were taught the techniques of participatory rural appraisal such as time line assessment, group profile, extension preference ranking, etc., and focused group discussions. They were also given training on budget

preparation and other subjects relevant to gender budgeting. The field workers were taken on a visit to a gram panchayat near Bangalore to enable them to interact with the elected representatives there so that they would gain confidence.       The two rural sites, the Honaganhalli gram panchayat and the Kogali gram panchayat, had already experienced interventions from the Karnataka Women’s Information and Resource Centre (KWIRC), an activity of the Singamma Sreenivasan Foundation.3 A project entitled ‘Associating Elected Women’s Representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions’ had been initiated in these panchayats in November 1999 and federations had been formed by the time the budgeting exercise began.4 The awareness and the collectivities created by the federating exercise offered a valuable brick on which to construct the budget-building exercise.       In 2000, the KWIRC took up a project entitled ‘Engaging Local Women Politicians in Macro Policy Making’,5 to identify measures for improving the socio-economic security of women and to enable them to participate in macro-economic policy debates. A series of workshops were conducted between August 2002 and May 2003 with these local women politicians and videography was used to enable them to see themselves and to develop the confidence to speak collectively. The women of the Kogali gram panchayat had participated in this project and suggested several solutions to their local obstacles. This experience further strengthened the base for the budgeting exercise.           Drawing on the field experiences of the two above projects that were being implemented at the same sites, primary data was collected from individual households and the general public with the help of a checklist designed for the project. The list raised questions about awareness of the budget, budget process, participation in the budget process, revenue and expenditure of the local self-government body,

etc. Additionally, focused group discussions were held on the same issues to assess the situation in the field.           The main aim of this phase was the development of an ‘ought budget’ to reflect the concerns and priorities of the elected women, as opposed to the ‘is budget’ which is the budget that is traditionally prepared. The purpose was to show that women’s priorities are not restricted to so-called ‘women’s issues’ and in fact, extend to all development issues in their localities. Through a series of meetings and focused group discussions, the priorities of the elected women were gathered and it was found that the needs of men and women in the gram panchayat were more or less the same. However, it seemed that this was due to the fact that women received no training about the budget process, were not given the space to articulate their views, and so were not able to prioritise their needs and seek budget allocations.       In order to enable the elected women representatives to arrive at the ‘ought budget’, focus group discussions were held with the elected representatives. The priorities of elected women representatives of the Honaganhalli gram panchayat and Kogali gram panchayat are reflected in Table 13.13 and the priorities of the elected women representatives of the Udupi gram panchayat are reflected in Table 13.14.

From this exercise, it became clear that the priorities of elected women varied from the priorities reflected in the existing budgets, even though women expressed the same needs. A mock budget session was held with the elected women representatives in the Honaganhalli gram panchayat in which they were asked to role-play a typical budget session and allocate funds according to their own priorities. The outcome of this mock session was that women identified their needs as relating to drinking water, drainage, public infrastructure, security, houses for the poor, administration, a maternity hospital and self-employment for women.           The outcomes of the first phase showed that, though elected women representatives at the rural levels are often uneducated, they understand what developmental works are required in their region and are, therefore, capable of formulating a realistic budget.

Public Distribution System and Health Services: Responses As a part of the second phase, the experiences of the community and elected representatives at each site with regard to the public distribution system and health services were elicited. The public distribution system has been listed as one of the functions of local self-government bodies in the 11th and 12th Schedules but, currently, in rural areas in Karnataka, the tahsildar is responsible for the implementation of this system. In urban areas, with a population of more than 40,000, there is an informal rationing system. The public distribution system is implemented through a network of fair price shops, which supply essential commodities such as rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene. In the gram panchayats, the following observations were noted: 1. Quality of the food grain distributed was poor, affecting nutrition, especially of women and girl children. 2. The shops were not open on holidays, so agricultural labourers were often unable to purchase the grain. 3. There were irregularities in the measurement of quantities, especially of kerosene. The participants in the study in the gram panchayats suggested that women should manage the fair price shops and monitoring done by a local committee containing several women members. They also suggested that the public distribution system should be handed over to the panchayats. The observations collected from the Udupi City Municipal Council were that the rates at which grain was sold at fair price shops was not very different from the rates in the open

market. Further, the quality of grain in fair price shops was poor and there was faulty measurement, especially of kerosene.           The observations from Mysore also showed that the quality of grain in fair price shops was poor. Further, about 33 per cent of the participants felt that there is not much difference between the rates of grain in fair price shops and the open market. Again, faulty measurement, especially of kerosene, was noted.           The department of health and family welfare services implements various national and state health programmes of public health. It provides comprehensive health care services to the people of the state. The policy of the government is to establish a primary health centre for a population of 30,000 in the plains and 20,000 in tribal and hilly areas. One of every four primary health centres is to be upgraded to a community health centre with a 30-bed hospital.       The participants in the study at the gram panchayats said that the services of the government hospitals were not satisfactory and infrastructure facilities were poor. Further, the doctors do not stay at the headquarters. People residing in remote areas have difficulty in reaching primary health centres. A great demand was felt for women doctors. The participants at Udupi felt that in government hospitals, the attention given to emergencies at night was insufficient. They also said that now the staff of the Manipal hospital visit households and provide awareness on health aspects. At Mysore, the observations showed that most participants visit private hospitals rather than the government health centres. A third of the participants felt that patients in government hospitals were properly cared for only if money was given to the functionaries of the hospitals.

Phase Three: Working Towards Outcomes

With the learning that elected women representatives often do not participate in the budget process sufficiently and efficiently due to the lack of training, the second phase of the project was initiated. The main aim of this phase was to develop a tool to capacitate elected women representatives to participate effectively in the budget process. In this phase, the foundation partnered with Janaagraha, a voluntary organisation based in Bangalore.           Janaagraha is a citizen’s movement for improving public governance through strong participatory democracy (Clay 2004) in Bangalore. Usually, citizens leave the process of governance implementation to the government, preferring to believe that their role is limited to casting their vote. Janaagraha has sensitised citizens in several wards in Bangalore and made them aware that it is also their responsibility to ensure proper governance. The thrust of Janaagraha’s activities is to involve citizens in the process of governance through dialogue, rather than confrontation, with government officials.           Initially, Janaagraha mobilised citizens to monitor development works relating to roads, footpaths, street lights, drains and parks, to ensure that they were carried out according to approved specifications. This constituted the ward works campaign. Thereafter, a more ambitious ward vision campaign was launched. This campaign involved the collection of ward-wise data to ascertain the resources and social and economic profile of each ward. Afterwards, workshops were held with the community in each ward to identify the problems faced by them. Once the problems were identified, the citizens were involved to identify possible solutions for these problems, assign monetary tags to them and form ward level associations that would take responsibility for the implementation of the chosen solutions. This way, the community took ownership of the process within their particular ward.           Thereafter, the community created vision documents

y outlining the future for their ward. They also identified potential sources of revenue to meet the expenditure required to achieve their vision. Currently, to ensure that problems are promptly dealt with, monthly meetings are held by ward level federations with citizens and officials assigned to that ward. At these meetings, the concerned officials of the health, transport and police departments, corporation, water supply and sewerage board, etc., are present, to discuss the issues of that ward. Citizens are able to raise their issues and immediately receive replies to them. This collaborative process enables the officials to understand the needs of each community and also makes citizens aware of the constraints under which the officials function.           In implementing these campaigns, Janaagraha has generated a large amount of intellectual property on the methodology to achieve community participation, on the sources of information that would be useful in creating a socio-economic profile of a site, understanding the sources of revenue at a particular site and following and engaging in the budget process. They have generated documentation on the costs involved, for example, in tarring a road. While these costs are available with government bodies such as the public works department, the average citizen does not know that this. Janaagraha agreed to share their know-how to enable the second phase of the building budgets from below project.           Thereafter, in the third phase of the project, meetings were held in collaboration with Janaagraha and the stakeholders, viz., elected women representatives, government officials and non-governmental organisations, to develop a tool that would be useful across rural and urban sites to capacitate elected women representatives to participate in the budget process. Developing the tool involved holding meetings with communities to generate a socio-economic profile of each site, ascertaining their needs, evaluating methods to fulfil those needs, including identifying their monetary impact and ensuring that the elected woman

y p g representative has sufficient support to seek such budgetary allocations.           Once the tool was developed, it was realised that its implementation would require substantial time and energy inputs and an immediate change could be made at three of the four sites chosen for the second phase,6 as the budget for the present year, 2004–05 was still being prepared. Therefore, meetings were held with the elected women representatives of the Mysore City Corporation, the Kogali gram panchayat and the Honaganhalli gram panchayat to ascertain if it was possible for them to influence the budget, prior to the implementation of the tool at each site. At these meetings, it became clear that even educated elected women do not have sufficient understanding of budget jargon and since women’s inputs are not actively sought, and at times silenced, they do not take much interest in the process.           When the corporators of the Mysore City Corporation realised that they can actually influence the budget and obtain funds for the requirements of their wards, they were motivated to study the existing budget and to try and slot their requirements under one or the other existing budget head. They were also unaware of the process of translating their requirements into demands for budgetary allocation, but used the existing allocations to meet the needs of their wards. The Mysore meeting proved fruitful to the extent that the women corporators realised they could influence the budget and ensured that sufficient allocation was made for women’s programmes in the budget for the year 2004–05.7           The rural elected women representatives were also unaware of the jargon involved in budgeting. They mentioned that their voices were often suppressed, but were very clear about the requirements in their particular localities. At the Honaganhalli gram panchayat meeting, the elected women outlined their priorities for the year 2004–05 and gave a commitment that they would ensure that they were reflected

in the action plan and budget for the same year. Their priorities were, raising the wall of an existing women’s toilet, the construction of a new women’s toilet in another village and the construction of a bus stop outside the panchayat office.           The women of the Kogali gram panchayat also outlined the development works they would like to have undertaken in 2004–05 and agreed to ensure that they were reflected in the action plan and budget. The main concern of these women was drainage repair in several places. One of the members of the gram panchayat, Rami bai, outlined her requirements of a water tank and a tarred road.       At present, the elected women representatives that have been included in the process have an understanding of the budget exercise. They were elected roughly four years ago and have only one more year in office. All of them discussed their initial hesitation and lack of confidence and, now slowly, have begun interacting in meetings of the panchayat. At the meeting concerning the Honaganhalli gram panchayat, Shivaleela Ganachari, the president of the Kembavvi gram panchayat in Gulbarga district made some pertinent observations. She said that the officials of any panchayat are very important, as often the women members are not educated and cannot, therefore, read the documents involved. If panchayat officials do not explain the documents clearly, the women will naturally be hesitant to sign them, leading them to become proxies for male family members. She also explained that in her panchayat, women were earlier unsure and lacked confidence, but are now willing to voice their opinions as their views are heard and given due weight. This further reiterates the point that women are capable of participating in the budget process and only need training and support to function in the established system of decentralisation.

Conclusions Devolution of power to local self-governments, through reservations for women and other deprived segments, gives them the opportunity to participate in decisions pertaining to their development priorities. However, due to insufficient training, women are not able to utilise this opportunity to the fullest. They are further constrained by the limited funds available to institutions of local self governance.       The central government has recently observed that though Articles 243I and 243Y of the Constitution require local selfgovernment bodies to have ‘sound finances’, they are short of funds (Mohan 2004). Therefore, even though the local selfgovernment bodies have powers and responsibilities, they do not have the funds to discharge their responsibilities. The union ministry for panchayati raj has suggested that the funds earmarked by the 10th and 11th Finance Commissions for disbursal to panchayati raj bodies be released at the earliest (Mohan 2004). The ministry has asked the states to inform local self-government bodies of the tied and untied funds they will receive as well as the resources they are expected to raise on their own, through taxation (Mohan 2004).       In effect now, the trend is towards suitably empowering local self-government bodies to function in accordance with the mandate of the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution. However, while working with elected women representatives, SAKHI, an NGO in Kerala has learned that women are not capacitated to utilise untied funds.8 They tend to suffer from traditional approaches and are not fully aware of the various functions to which such untied funds may be used.           The experiences in the building budgets from below project have demonstrated that elected women in local selfgovernment bodies do not lack the capacity to participate in

directing fiscal policy. However, they lack sufficient training to enable them to participate effectively. Often, elected women representatives also are not aware of the monetary impact of the requirements they raise. This is important, because while they may be interested in getting the issues in their areas resolved, the costs related to such solutions may prove prohibitive leading to the non-fulfilment of requirements and leaving the community with no recourse. This further emphasises the need for training to achieve a basic understanding of budgeting in the formal sense.       This project has established that whether educated or not, women have sufficient understanding and capacity to participate in fiscal policy. What is now required is specific training to enable elected women representatives to understand the budget process and enable them to direct fiscal policy, not only at the local but also the state levels.

14 IMPACT OF RESERVATION IN PANCHAYATI RAJ

Evidence from a Nationwide Randomised Experiment RAGHABENDRA CHATOPADHYAY AND ESTHER DUFLO

Introduction 73rd Amendment paved the way for a fundamental T he change in the way public goods are delivered in rural areas

in India. Through the structure of the panchayati raj, local councils directly elected by the people are responsible for making decisions on an array of public-good decisions. Twice a year, the councils must also convene village meetings (gram sabhas), where the villagers must approve their plan and their budget. Eventually, the gram panchayats are supposed to be given control over an even broader array of social services, including basic education and primary health care. The hope is that decentralisation, by bringing decision-making closer to the people, may improve both the quality of social services delivery in India, which is in many ways disastrous (e.g., Probe Team 1999), and its adequacy to meet people’s needs.      However, in a country with a heterogeneous population, a danger is that decentralisation will make it more difficult to protect the interests of weaker segments of the population, notably women, the Scheduled Castes (SC) and the Scheduled Tribes (ST), and, in particular, to ensure that they get their fair share of public goods. To alleviate this concern, the 73rd Amendment required that a fraction of seats at all levels be reserved to women, SCs and STs. While reservations

for SCs and STs are in place in other elected bodies (national and state legislative assemblies), the 73rd Amendment is the first one in India that mandated women’s reservation, and this made it a landmark piece of legislation as well as, to some extent, a test case.1 It also makes an objective and rigorous analysis of its effects particularly important.           A necessary condition for the efficacy of the reservation policy is that the elected representatives have independent power and autonomy, over and above not only the direct control of the villagers (exerted through voting or through the gram sabhas), but also above the control of the bureaucracy, party hierarchies, and the local elite. Thus, by asking whether or not reservations make a difference for political outcomes, we can start answering two important questions on the panchayati raj. First, do the panchayat leaders matter at all? Second, do they make decisions that better reflect the needs of their own groups?           This essay summarises some of the findings from our research project on local decentralisation (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2003a, Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2003b).2 We answer these questions using two data sets we collected in two districts, Birbhum in West Bengal and Udaipur in Rajasthan. In both places, we conducted detailed village surveys, from which we learned both the types and the locations of the public goods provided on the ground since the last election. We also collected data on gram sabhas and complaints to the GP (by men and women), and we therefore know, in each place, what women and men seem to care most about.       A key feature of the reservation policy is that the seats to be reserved were randomly allocated, which ensures that the only difference between reserved and unreserved villages is that some of them were picked to be reserved, while some were not. With a large enough sample, this means that if we find any difference between the types of goods that are provided in GPs that are reserved for women pradhans and in

those that are not, this must reflect the impact of the policy. We first show that women invest more in goods that are relevant to the needs of local women: water and roads in West Bengal; water in Rajasthan. They invest less in goods that are less relevant to the needs of women: non-formal education centres in West Bengal; roads in Rajasthan. In Birbhum, where we have data on investments in hamlets populated by SCs, STs and the general population within each village, we also show that SC pradhans invest a larger share of public goods in SC hamlets than do non-SC pradhans. This research thus shows that some of the fears expressed regarding decentralisation are not founded: Local leaders seem to have some effective control over decisions, even when they are women or SCs. Moreover, it indicates that the oft-heard anecdotal evidence regarding women being entirely controlled by their husbands when in office should not be given too much weight. Correcting the imbalances in political agency leads to a correction of imbalance in other spheres as well (Sen 1999). Reservations of electoral seats may, therefore, be an effective tool to safeguard the interest of the weaker groups.

II Institutions Panchayat System The panchayat is a system of village-level (gram panchayat), block-level (panchayat samiti) and district-level (zilla parishad) councils, members of which are elected by the people, and are responsible for the administration of local public goods. Each gram panchayat (GP) encompasses 10,000 people in several villages (between five and 15). The GPs do not have jurisdiction over urban areas, which are

administered by separate municipalities. Voters elect a council, which then elects among its members a pradhan (chief) and an upapradhan (vice-chief).3 Candidates are generally nominated by political parties, but have to be residents of the villages they represent. The council makes decisions by majority voting (the pradhan does not have veto power). The pradhan, however, is the only member of the council with a full-time appointment.      The panchayat system has existed formally in most of the major states of India since the early 1950s. However, in most states, the system was not an effective body of governance until the early 1990s. Elections were not held, and the panchayats did not assume any active role (Ghatak and Ghatak 1999). In 1992, the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India established the framework of a threetiered panchayat system with regular elections throughout India.           It gave the GP primary responsibility for implementing development programmes, as well as in identifying the needs of the villages under its jurisdiction. Between 1993 and 2003, all major states but two (Bihar and Punjab) had at least two elections. The major responsibilities of the GP are to administer local infrastructure (public buildings, water, roads) and identify targeted welfare recipients. The main source of financing is still the state, but most of the money that was previously earmarked for specific uses is now allocated through four broad schemes: The Jawhar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) for infrastructure (irrigation, drinking water, roads, repairs of community buildings, etc.); a small additional drinking water scheme; funds for welfare programmes (widow’s, old age, and maternity pensions, etc.); and a grant for GP functioning.4 The GP has, in principle, complete flexibility in allocating these funds. At this point, the GP has no direct control over the appointments of government-paid teachers or health workers, but in some states (Tamil Nadu and West Bengal,

for example) there are informal panchayat-run schools.           The panchayat is required to organise two meetings per year, called ‘Gram Samsad’. These are meetings of villagers and village heads in which all voters may participate. The GP council submits the proposed budget to the gram samsad and reports on their activities in the previous six months. The GP leader also must set up regular office hours where villagers can lodge complaints or requests. In West Bengal, the Left Front (communist) government gained power in 1977 on a platform of agrarian and political reform. The major political reform was to give life to a three-tiered panchayat electoral system. The first election took place in 1978 and elections have taken place at five-year intervals ever since. Thus, the system put into place by the 73rd Amendment all over India was already well established in West Bengal. Following the amendment, the GP was given additional responsibilities in West Bengal. In particular, they were entrusted to establish and administer informal education centres (called SSK), an alternative form of education for children who do not attend school (a instructor who is not required to have any formal qualification teaches children three hours a day in a temporary building or outdoors).      In Rajasthan, unlike West Bengal, there was no regularly elected panchayat system in charge of distribution of state funds until 1995. The first election was held in 1995, followed by a second election in 2000. Since 1995, elections and gram samsads have been held regularly, and are well attended. The setting is thus very different, with a much shorter history of democratic government. As in West Bengal, the panchayat can spend money on local infrastructure, but unlike in West Bengal, they are not allowed to run their own schools.

Reservation for Women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes In 1992, the 73rd Amendment provided that one-third of the seats in all panchayat councils, as well as one-third of the pradhan positions, must be reserved for women. Seats and pradhan positions were also reserved for the two disadvantaged minorities in India, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in the form of mandated representation proportional to each minority’s population share in each district. Reservations for women have been implemented in all major states except Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (which has only reserved 25 per cent of the seats to women).           In West Bengal, the Panchayat Constitution Rule was modified in 1993 so as to reserve one-third of the councillor positions in each GP to women, and a share equal to their population for SCs and STs; in a third of the villages in each GP, only women could be candidates for the position of councillor for the area. The proportion of women elected to panchayat councils increased to 36 per cent after the 1993 election. The experience was considered a disappointment, however, because very few women (only 196 out of 3,324 GPs) advanced to the position of pradhan, which is the only one that yields effective power (Kanango 1998). To conform to the 73rd Amendment, the Panchayat Constitution Rule of West Bengal was again modified in April of 1998 (Government of West Bengal 1998) to introduce reservation of pradhan positions for women and SC/STs. In Rajasthan, the random rotation system was implemented in 1995 and in 2000 at both levels (council members and pradhans).       In both states, a specific set of rules ensures the random selection of GPs where the office of pradhan was to be reserved. All GPs in a district are ranked in consecutive order according to their serial legislative number (an administrative

number pre-dating this reform). GPs that have less than 5 per cent SCs (or STs) are excluded from the list of possible SC (or ST) reservation. A table of random numbers (in the electoral law) is then used to determine the seats that are to be reserved for SCs and STs, according to the numbers that need to be reserved in these particular districts. They are then ranked in three separate lists, according to whether or not the seats had been reserved for a SC, for a ST, or are unreserved. Using these lists, every third GP starting with the first on the list is reserved for a woman pradhan in the first election.5           From discussions with government officials at the panchayat directorate who devised the system and district officials who implemented it in individual districts, it appears that these instructions were successfully implemented. More importantly, in the district we study in West Bengal, we could verify that the policy was strictly implemented. After sorting the GPs into those reserved for SC/ST and those not reserved, we could reconstruct the entire list of GPs reserved for women by sorting all GPs by their serial number (allocated several years before the law was passed), and selecting every third GP starting from the first in each list. This verifies that the allocation of GPs to the reserved list was indeed random, as intended.6       Table 14.1, panel A shows the number of female pradhans in reserved and unreserved GPs in the two districts we study. In both districts, all pradhans in GPs reserved for a woman are female. In West Bengal, only 6.5 per cent of the pradhans are female in unreserved GPs. In Rajasthan, only one woman was elected on an unreserved seat, despite the fact that this was the second cycle. Women elected once due to the reservation system were not reelected.7 Panel B shows the number of SC pradhans in Birbhum, in reserved and unreserved areas. Again, the policy dramatically increased the fraction of SC pradhans in reserved areas. In this essay, we will focus on reservation for SC, rather than ST, because all

GPs in Birbhum have more than 5 per cent SC, so that no GP is excluded from being reserved. However, many GPs have less than 5 per cent ST, so that the number of GPs in our study would be too small.8

III Data Collection

We collected data in two locations: Birbhum in West Bengal and Udaipur in Rajasthan. In the summer of 2000, we conducted a survey of all GPs in the district of Birbhum, West Bengal. Birbhum is located in the western part of West Bengal,about 125 miles from the state capital, Kolkata. At the time of the 1991 Census, it had a population of 2.56 million. Agriculture is the main economic activity, and rice is the main crop cultivated. The male and female literacy rates were 50 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively. The district is known to have a relatively well-functioning panchayat system.

There are 166 GPs in Birbhum, of which five were reserved for pre-testing, leaving 161 GPs in our study. Table 14.2 shows the means of the most relevant village variables

collected by the 1991 census of India in GPs reserved for women and GP that are not reserved, and their differences. As expected, given the random selection of GPs, there are no important differences between reserved and unreserved GPs.9 Note that very few villages (3 per cent among the unreserved GPs) have tap water, the most common sources of drinking water being hand pumps and tube wells. Most villages are accessible only by a dirt road. Ninety-one per cent of villages have a primary school, but very few have any other type of school. Irrigation is important; 43 per cent of the cultivated land is irrigated, with at least some land being irrigated in all villages. Very few villages (8 per cent) have any public health facilities.       We collected the data in two stages. First, we conducted an interview with the GP pradhan. We asked each one a set of questions about his or her family background, education, previous political experience, and political ambitions, as well as a set of questions about the activities of the GP since his or her election in May 1998 (with support from written records). We then completed a survey of three villages in the GP: two villages randomly selected in each GP, as well as the village in which the GP Pradhan resides. During the village interview, we drew a resource map of the village with a group of 10 to 20 villagers. The map featured all the available infrastructure in the village, and we asked whether each of the available equipment items had been built or repaired since May 1998.           Previous experience of one of the authors, as well as experimentation during the pre-testing period, suggested that this method yields extremely accurate information about the village. We then conducted an additional interview with the most active participants of the mapping exercise, in which we asked in more detail about investments in various public goods. We also collected the minutes of village meetings, and asked whether women and men of the village had expressed

complaints or requests to the GP in the previous six months. For all outcomes for which it was possible, we collected the same information at the GP-level and at the village-level. The village-level information is likely to be more reliable, because it is not provided by the pradhan, and because it was easy for villagers to recall investments made in their village in the previous two years. However, the information given by the GP head refers to investment in the entire GP, and is thus, free from sampling error. Therefore, when an outcome is available at both levels, we perform the analysis separately for both and compare the results.       Between August and December of 2002, we collected the same village-level data (there was no pradhan interview) in 100 hamlets in Udaipur, Rajasthan, chosen randomly in a subset of villages covered by a local NGO, Seva Mandir.10 The reference period for asking about investment was also two years, 2000–02. In Rajasthan, there was no regularly elected panchayat system until 1995. Table 14.2 displays the characteristics of villages reserved for women and unreserved in our sample.11 Udaipur is a much poorer district than Birbhum. It is located in an extremely arid area with little irrigation and has male and female literacy rates of 27.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively. Because the villages are bigger, they are more likely to have a middle school, health facility and road connectivity, compared to villages in West Bengal. As in Rajasthan, we see no difference between the characteristics of reserved and unreserved villages before the reservation policy was implemented.

IV Findings

In the absence of reservation, if we found that different public goods investments are undertaken in GPs that elect women and SCs, compared to GPs that do not, it would be very difficult to interpret these results, since the few places that elect women or SCs are presumably very different from places that do not elect women. For example, places that are dominated by SCs may elect a SC pradhan and also invest more in the SC hamlet, but this would not imply that if we constrain random places to elect a SC pradhans, the pradhan will have any power to implement the policy he chooses. By contrast, in this case, because the reserved seats were randomly assigned, we can now compare the outcome in GPs where the position of pradhan is reserved for a woman or a SC to those where it is not reserved, and be confident that any difference reflects only the impact of the reservation policy.

Reservation for Women Effects on the political participation of women: Table 14.3 displays the effect of having a woman pradhan on the political participation of women. Columns (1) and (2) display the average participation rates in reserved and unreserved GPs, respectively. Column (3) displays the difference. Differences that are significant at the 95 per cent confidence interval, using standard significance tests, are in bold. In West Bengal, the percentage of women among participants in the gram samsad is significantly higher when the pradhan is a woman (increasing from 6.9 per cent to 9.9 per cent). Since reservation does not affect the percentage of eligible voters attending the gram samsad, this corresponds to a net increase in the participation of women, and a decline in the participation of men. This is consistent with the idea that

political communication is influenced by the fact that citizens and leaders are of the same sex. Women in villages with reserved pradhans are twice as likely to have addressed a request or a complaint to the GP pradhan in the previous six months, and this difference is significant.12 The fact that the pradhan is a woman, therefore, significantly increases the involvement of women in the affairs of the GP in West Bengal.      In Rajasthan, the fact that the pradhan is a woman has no effect on women’s participation at the gram samsad or the occurrence of women’s complaints. Note that women participate more in the gram samsad in Rajasthan, most probably because the process is very recent, and the GP leaders are trained to mobilise women in public meetings.13

Requests of men and women: Table 14.4 shows the fraction of formal requests by type of good made by villagers to the panchayat in the six months prior to the survey.14 In West Bengal, drinking water and roads were by far the issues most frequently raised by women. The next most important issue was welfare programmes, followed by housing and electricity. In Rajasthan, drinking water welfare programmes, and roads were the issues most frequently raised by women. The issues most frequently raised by men in West Bengal were roads,

irrigation, drinking water, and education. With the exception of irrigation, men have the same priorities in Rajasthan. Note that these patterns of preferences are expected, in view of the activities of both men and women in these areas. Women are in charge of collecting drinking water, and they are the primary recipients of welfare programmes (maternity pension, widow’s pension, and old age pension for the destitute, who tend to be women). In West Bengal, they are the main source of labour employed on the roads. In Rajasthan, both men and women work on roads, and the employment motive is therefore common to both. However, men travel very frequently out of the villages in search of work, while women do not travel long distances; accordingly, men have a stronger need for good roads.

Effects of the policy on public goods provision: Table 14.5 presents the effects of the pradhan’s gender on all public goods investments made by the GP since the last election in West Bengal and Rajasthan. The first column presents the average number of investments (repair or new construction) in each category in reserved GPs, and the second presents the

same number in unreserved GPs. The third column presents the difference between the two. In all cases, the number below the coefficient is the standard error of the estimate. Differences in bold are significantly different from 0 at the 95 per cent level of confidence, using standard significance tests.           In both West Bengal and Rajasthan, the gender of the pradhan affects the provision of public goods. In both places, there are significantly more investments in drinking water in GPs reserved for women. This is what we expected, since in both places, women complain more often than men about water. In West Bengal, GPs are less likely to have set up informal schools (in the village, this is significant only at the 10 per cent level) in GPs reserved for women. Interestingly, the effect of reservation on the quality of roads is opposite in Rajasthan and in West Bengal; in West Bengal, roads are significantly better in GPs reserved for women, but in Rajasthan, it is the opposite. This result is important since it corroborates expectations based on the complaint data for men and women. The only unexpected result is that we do not find a significant effect of reservation for women on irrigation in West Bengal. In West Bengal, we run the same regression for GP-level investments (instead of village-level). The results, presented in panel B, are entirely consistent, and the effect on informal schooling is significant at the 5 per cent level in the GP-level regression.           These results suggest that the reservation policy has important effects on policy decisions at the local level. These effects are consistent with the policy priorities expressed by women. Robustness: Some doubt the effectiveness of the reservation policy, citing anecdotal evidence that women pradhans are observed to be subservient to their husbands or other powerful men. As Table 14.6 shows, 17 per cent of the spouses of the women leaders have previously been elected to the panchayat. Forty-three per cent of the female leaders acknowledge being helped by their spouse. The interviewers

g g p y p are more likely to find the women hesitant and they are more likely to acknowledge that they did not know how the GP functioned before being elected and that they do not intend to run again.

However, despite all this, what remains is that women do different things than men. This remains true even for women who say they are helped by their husband or for women whose husbands were previously elected in the panchayat.15 We also have good reasons to think that the effects of the policy are indeed due to the gender of the pradhan, rather than other aspects of the reservation policy. In Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2003a), we show that the difference between men and women remain identical when we restrict the comparison to other men who were elected recently, men who will not be able to re-elected, or SC/ST pradhans.           The impression that women are not effective leaders, thus, seems to stem largely from the social perceptions of women that the policy precisely tries to address. What these results show is that, despite the handicaps they may face in terms of education and prior experience, and the preconception of weak leadership, women have a real impact on policy decisions. Using data collected by the Public Action Centre, matched with data on reservation, Topalova (2003) finds illuminating results: Not only does she find that the quality of water provided is better in GPs that are reserved for women, and that women are somewhat less likely to demand bribes, but she also finds that villagers are less likely to be satisfied about the quality of the water when GPs are reserved for women, despite receiving objectively better service. This suggests that women tend to be considered as worse policy-makers even in cases where they are objectively better. This may explain the scepticism about the impact of the policy in the face of the evidence.       Reservation for Scheduled Castes: These results focus on West Bengal, where we have conducted the village survey for the entire village, and not only for one hamlet per village. Because there are at least 5 per cent of SCs in these villages, they also focus on reservation for SCs. Effect on the type of

public goods: The first question we can ask is whether SC pradhans, like women pradhans, choose to invest in different types of public goods than non-SC pradhans. In Table 14.7, we reproduce in column (1) the difference between GPs reserved to women and unreserved GPs shown in Table 14.5. In column (2), we show the same difference, but for GPs reserved for SCs. In contrast to the previous results, no difference is significant. We can see that, unlike women, SC pradhans do not radically change the types of investment they undertake.       Effect on the location of public goods: We might expect a larger impact, however, on the location of these investments. Specifically, do SC pradhans invest more in SC hamlets? The SC population may not need a different set of public goods than the non-SC population, but they may want these goods to be located in their hamlet, rather than in the other hamlets in the village. The reservation to a SC pradhan may ensure that this happens. When we collected the data in the PRA, we made sure to indicate the location of each public good: Is it in the SC hamlet, the ST hamlet (if any), the general hamlet, or in common areas?       To verify that villages were indeed comparable before the reservation was put in place, Table 14.8 displays information about the location of public goods in these villages before 1998, when the reservation policy was first introduced. For each good, we construct the share of public goods that are located in the SC area, normalised by the share of the population that lives in the area. Therefore, an index smaller than 1 suggests that the SC hamlet has fewer goods than one would expect on the basis of the SC share in the population of the village, and an index higher than 1 suggests that the SC hamlet has more goods than one would expect on the basis of the SC share in the population of the village. In column (1), we display the normalised share in GPs that were not reserved for SCs between 1998 and 2003. In column (2), we display the normalised share in GPs that were reserved for

p y SCs between 1998 and 2003. Because the reservation was randomly assigned, we do not expect any significant difference in the investment shares between GPs that are reserved for SCs and GPs that are not reserved for SCs. Three important facts emerge from this table. SCs get a somewhat smaller share of public goods than non-SC on average (the index for the average is 0.93), but the index is not significantly different from 1, and the extent of underinvestment in SC hamlets depends on the types of goods. It seems that in SC hamlets there tends to be more public provision of goods for which there are private substitutes (drinking water wells, sanitation equipment) and less public provision for goods for which there are fewer private substitutes (schools, adult education). Second, there are much less privately provided equivalents of public goods in SC hamlets (we have information for water and irrigation equipment). Third, the indices are very similar in reserved and unreserved GPs, which is reassuring. Before 1998, SC hamlets were not treated differently in GPs that were reserved for SCs from 1998 to 2003.

Table 14.9 displays the normalised investment shares in SC and non-SC GPs, their differences, and their ratio. Overall, across all goods, and controlling for the difference in population share, the SC hamlet received 14 per cent more investments in goods in GPs reserved for SCs, relative to GPs that were not reserved for SCs. Note that we have excluded the pradhan’s village from this sample, which shows that the observed differences are not due to the direct effect of the pradhan putting more goods next to his own home. Instead, this seems to reflect a general tendency to favour the SC population when the pradhan position is reserved for SCs. This result is consistent with the results in Pande (2003), who finds that there are more transfers targeted to SCs in

states where there are more reservations for SCs in parliament, and of Besley and Rao (2003), who find that SC households are more likely to receive public transfers if the pradhan is SC.

When we look at different goods separately (Table 14.9), we see that the increase in the share of public goods going to the SC hamlet in GPs reserved for SCs seems to reflect the existing imbalance across goods: Except for informal schools, where the share is smaller in GPs reserved for SCs, the share of goods going to the SC hamlet increases for all goods, and it increases more for goods where the share is already higher in non-reserved hamlets (sanitation, for example). It appears that when the SCs gain more power, they do not feel the need to radically change the types of goods that they are getting, but rather to get a little more of everything.

Conclusions This essay has shown that reservation for SCs and women in the panchayati raj makes a difference: Both women and SCs invest more in what women and SCs seem to want (water for women, goods in SC hamlets for SCs). This underscores the power of the elected panchayat leaders and, by implication, the importance of the 73rd Amendment. In this regard, it is particularly important that the results are comparable in Rajasthan, where the 73rd Amendment was the first attempt to revive the panchayat structure, and in West Bengal, where it had been active since the late 1970s.           These results also suggest that, given the difficulty of targeting public transfers to specific groups in an otherwise decentralised system, reservation may be a tool to ensure not only adequate representation but also adequate delivery of local public goods to disadvantaged groups. They fly in the face of scepticism founded on anecdotes or prejudice that women or SCs are not capable of being independent leaders. These results show that, whatever the process underlying the effects may be, women and SC leaders make a difference on the ground. Correcting imbalance in political agency does result in correcting inequities in other spheres as well (Sen 1999).           In this light, recent developments that try to tag other objectives onto the reservation policy are troubling. Six states (Haryana, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh) now have laws mandating a two-child norm for members of the panchayat. As we can see in Table 14.6, women and men pradhans have the same number of children on average (around 2.5 in West Bengal). Since women do not necessarily control their fertility choices, and are unlikely to find it worthwhile to fight their family in order to be eligible for the panchayat, this policy is likely to discourage women, or members of the SCs and STs, from

being candidates, even when there is reservation, thus encouraging the situations that critics of the reservation policy describe, where ‘puppet candidates’ will take the place of real candidates. De facto, it will thus reduce women’s agency and, if anything, may result in an increase in fertility, rather than the opposite.16       This would be an unfortunate outcome, given the evidence that panchayat leaders make a difference and that bringing women and SCs into politics may help in improving their welfare. Reduced fertility may be achieved by increasing women’s bargaining power in the family, and an effective democracy with adequate women’s representation may be more effective at achieving it than regulation that takes away from women and SCs what the 73rd Amendment guarantees them.

15 LAW OF TWO-CHILD NORM IN PANCHAYATS Implications, Consequences and Experiences NIRMALA BUCH

I Introduction decade of 1990s started with two major developments T he in democratic decentralisation and in population policy and strategies in India. The first related to the conclusion of a major exercise in 1992 with the 73rd Constitutional Amendment mandating more inclusive, regularly elected panchayats with reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women and lowering the minimum age for entry to 21 years. The second development was the state’s response to the population figures of 1991 Census, in the conception of a two-child norm for elected representatives.           The ‘two-child norm’ for the elected representatives included in some state panchayat laws, runs counter to the objective of bringing women, weaker sections and younger members in these institutions. Hence, the law to empower them is seen as ‘being circumvented by these imaginatively anti-democratic population policies’ (Rao 2003).       With the excitement about the new panchayat experiment, this law and its implications did not receive adequate attention. In this essay, I present results of an exploratory,

qualitative study1 in 2001–02, of the implications, consequences and experiences of this law in panchayats in five states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh (AP), Haryana, Orissa and Rajasthan. Lack of state-level data about disqualification cases under this law was one of the serious constraints faced in our study. So we continued our engagement with the issue and I supplement the results of the study by state level data collected in 2004.

Evolution of the Two-Child Norm The history of the two-child norm in panchayats began soon after the 1991 Census when the National Development Council (NDC) set up a Committee on Population with the then chief minister of Kerala (K. Karunakaran) as its chairperson in 1992. It recommended legislation in Parliament prohibiting persons with more than two children from holding any post from the panchayats to the Parliament in future. It was suggested that such legislation would convey the country’s seriousness about adopting the small family norm. The report was presented to the NDC in 1993. A number of states have since adopted this norm for elected panchayats, urban local bodies, cooperatives and agricultural produce market committees, etc. and also for entry and promotions of employees in public services and to decide the eligibility for government’s welfare programmes and services.           Rajasthan introduced this norm for panchayats and municipalities in 1992 even before the NDC committee made its recommendation. Andhra Pradesh and Haryana introduced it in 1993. Orissa introduced it for zilla parishads in 1993 and for village and block level panchayats in 1994. Himachal Pradesh and MP adopted it in 2000 and Maharashtra in 2003 with retrospective effect from 2002. The state of

Chhattisgarh created out of MP, inherited it from the MP laws and has retained it so far. In the context of country’s national and international commitments the NDC recommendation predates the ICPD agreement of 1994 and the National Population Policy (NPP) 2000 and most of the states adopted the norm before NPP 2000.

II Understanding the Two-Child Norm In the two-child norm as formulated for aspirants to elected posts in panchayats (1) a person having more than two children/more than two living children after a specified date is not eligible for entry or continuance in panchayats, and (2) having more than two children does not attract disqualification on the date of coming into effect of the law introducing this disqualification or up to the end of one year thereof if an additional child is not born thereafter. This effectively means that the norm is applicable only to persons in the active reproductive age group, and exempts older individuals who have completed their families. The action to disqualify is taken on a complaint/petition alleging violation of the norm except whereas in MP (and at gram panchayat2 level in Orissa) the competent authority can also initiate action on his own initiative. The competent authorities are generally executive officers, e.g., collectors, commissioners except in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa (for PS and ZP) where the judicial officers do this adjudication.           The introduction of this norm and the widespread fascination for it draw inspiration from China’s one-child policy. China has achieved remarkable success in reducing its population growth rate, which is supposed to be due to norm-based population policies, and many in India have

envied it. In fact a number of policy-makers, doctors, and others interviewed in our study, referred to China with obvious admiration. But even in India, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have achieved much faster declines in fertility than China has achieved since it introduced the ‘one-child policy’ and related measures (Sen 1995) without employing such coercion. The negative implication of the one-child policy was also seen in China in ‘gendered social problems, frightful in nature and proportion’, and ‘worrying socio-demographic consequences’ (Greenhalgh 2001) of declining child sex ratio and the falling number of girl children. Relaxations were, thus, made in the policy, which was loosened further, and took son preference into greater account. Many rural communities in China moved to institute a two-child policy and adopted an exception allowing couples whose first child was a girl to have a second child (ZengYi 1989; Short et el. 1998).           The assumption in introducing and supporting this government-enforced norm is that it will encourage couples to adopt contraceptive measures. When it is applied to elected leaders, they will be considered models and others will follow their example. Others state that community leaders should be practising what they preach. They raise the issue of those not having foresight to plan their family, or not having knowledge or power to do so, subsequently being made in charge of planning for the community (Bhat 2003).       The success of using such a norm in panchayats through a law assumes that the law can make people decide to have small families. It further assumes that: (1) People, including the poor who tend to have many children, will aspire for leadership positions and hence follow the norm to fulfil their aspiration. The introduction of this norm in panchayats almost simultaneously with the entry of SC/ST and women guaranteed by the 73rd Amendment clearly links their consequent emerging political aspirations with legally prescribed conditionality of fertility choices; (2) local political leaders are seen as social models and therefore, others will

follow them in their desired family composition; (3) choice of number of children is independent of the sex of the children; (4) health services are adequately available, affordable and accessible to give confidence for survival of children among all sections, and (5) contraceptive services are universally available and equally accessible.           Each of these assumptions is questionable especially when seen in the context of past experience of coercive measures and of the ground realities and the two-child norm is a coercive measure. The two-child norm has no direct relation to the character and functions of the panchayats. The norm, as formulated, directly and indirectly, impacts entry and continuation of exactly those sections, which were included by reservations, mandated in the 73rd Amendment. When the NDC committee recommended the norm, the new composition of panchayats was very much under active consideration, with the joint select committee of parliament studying the Amendment Bill. Hence, it is surprising that those who suggested this measure for its perceived contribution to ‘population control’ did not pause to consider its likely impact on women, weaker sections and youth.

III Methodology The study was exploratory and qualitative in nature and used a combination of secondary data and primary data. Primary data was qualitative in nature and included semi-structured interviews, detailed case studies as well as focus group discussions (FGDs) to cover both opinions as well as experiences. We have looked at the norm and its consequences primarily through the experiences of individuals affected by the norm. Affected individuals were seen as those

who faced complaints or legal proceedings for disqualification for violating the norm or were prevented from contesting for this reason.           Five of the seven states, which adopted the two-child norm till the time of study in 2001, were included in the study, thereby making it a fairly representative sample. The two exceptions were Himachal Pradesh (which adopted the norm simultaneously with MP but implemented it from a later date) and Chhattisgarh (which inherited it from MP in November 2000).In each state, a few districts were selected primarily based on availability of data about affected persons. The selected districts are listed in Table 15.1.

Individual cases, initially 20 in each state, were purposively chosen through a process of identification of individuals affected by the norm. In MP these were chosen additionally when cases of disqualification for violation of the norm suddenly started towards the end of fieldwork.           Respondents of field study included: (1) panchayat persons affected by the norm (respondents)—interviews and case-studies; (2) panchayat persons not yet affected by the

norm (respondents)—interviews; (3) persons in leadership, positions, opinion makers or officials (key respondents)— interviews and (4) community—focus group discussions.       The details of the different kinds of 262 respondents are outlined in Table 15.2.           The key respondents from government included a wide range of people from high ranking state level policy-making officials to programme implementers like collectors, deputy collectors and chief medical officers, and village level ‘anganwadi’ workers of ICDS projects. The key respondents from civil society included media persons, lawyers and NGO representatives. Care was taken to include lawyers who had experience or information of handling cases related to disqualification under the two-child norm, NGO representatives were chosen from NGOs having some experience in working on women’s issues, issues of social justice, or in panchayat matters.

Limitations and Constraints The largest limitation faced in practically implementing the study was the unavailability of state level data of disqualified persons, besides the limited time frame and the sensitive nature of issues relating to fertility decisions. In two states, where some data was available at the state level, these were not confirmed at district and sub-district levels.       The norm became operative in different years, i.e., 1995, 1997 or 2001 in different states and there was uneven availability of data about the cases of norm violation even formally instituted by the competent authorities. While

Haryana and Rajasthan had some data at the state level, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa had none. Information about persons disqualified at the time nominations to contest panchayat election were filed, was not available anywhere. An added dimension was of persons having exceeded the norm but not faced disqualification. Hence, the data and findings are qualitatively indicative and not statistically representative.

IV Population, Development and Gender Key indicators3 of decadal population growth rate, total fertility rate (TFR), unmet contraceptive needs, contraceptive use, changes in couple protection rate, sex ratio,under-six sex ratio and decadal changes in this and male-female literacy gap in the five states give a varied picture. AP and Orissa have significantly lower decadal growth rates (13.86 per cent and 15.19 per cent) than the country level (21.34 per cent) and lower TFR (2.25 and 2.46 per cent) than the national average (2.85 per cent). In Haryana TFR (2.88 per cent) is roughly the same as national average. Contraceptive prevalence is also much higher than the national average (48.2 per cent) in AP (59.67 per cent) and Haryana (62.4 per cent) and the unmet contraceptive needs in these states are also less than half (7.7 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively) of the national average (15.8 per cent). The percentage growth in contraceptive prevalence between the two rounds of NFHS also has higher changes in all the five states (21 per cent to 29 per cent) than the national average (19 per cent). These, therefore, do not justify the anxiety shown in introduction of this coercive measure in these states.           In gender related indicators, Rajasthan and MP have higher male-female literacy gap (72 per cent and 51 per cent)

than the national average (41 per cent) and Haryana has an alarming decline in juvenile sex ratio (59). All the five states have a declining juvenile sex ratio. These indicate a need of serious concern about implications of the coercive two-child norm particularly in the grassroot level institutions in these states.

V Findings from the Field Study Panchayat representatives affected by the two-child norm: Since the two-child norm was included in the panchayat law as part of a policy to motivate panchayat leaders to adopt small family norm, it was reasonable to expect monitoring if many such leaders were still to be disqualified on this ground and what was happening to panchayats as a result of this law. But though disqualifications are subject of formal proceedings, in most states no data was kept/collected about the number and details of these cases.           Where data was available from various sources, they showed large number of disqualifications for violation of the norm. In Rajasthan, between 1995 and 1997, 450 cases of disqualifications had been documented and 112 or 25 per cent of the persons affected were women. Information collected by the study team showed that in the period of 18 months after the 2000 elections, 63 persons (53 men and 10 women) had been finally disqualified for violating the twochild norm. Except one member each of the zilla parishad and panchayat samiti, these were panchas and sarpanches of gram panchayats with the number of sarpanches being disproportionately higher compared to the ratio between panchas and sarpanches in position.       In Haryana no data was available about the situation prior

to panchayat elections of 2000. Positions left vacant after decisions of disqualification are reported to the state election commission for holding by-elections; these do not reflect the number of cases completed but these are still subject to appeals and stay orders. However,data available from the state election commission show that the number of persons disqualified on various grounds in a period of 16 months after the election of March 2000 were 387(275). These included 101 (31) sarpanches and 270 (230) panchas. Two (2) were ZP members and 14(12) were PS members (figures in brackets show number of persons disqualified for violating the two-child norm). We note that a large proportion of disqualifications were for violating the two-child norm. In all cases except for those against the sarpanches it was the overwhelming reason. The actual number of cases for the state as a whole would be more as we found 166 cases in only three study districts visited for field work in this period.           In MP, the law became operational from 26 January 2001but some of the senior government officers as well as elected representatives and media persons were convinced that the legal norm would come into effect only at the time of the next panchayat general election in 2005. The first phase of our fieldwork in August 2001 showed that a number of elected representatives had violated the norm, but neither did they knows about the norm nor was any action initiated under the law. This was despite the state law enabling the competent authorities to start action without waiting for complaints.           In November 2001, the news of the issue of a disqualification notice to a woman gram panchayat sarpanch in Neemuch district, which borders Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, was published. Thereafter, there followed a spate of complaints and disqualifications across the state. By end March 2002, the number of complaints/cases as reported in the media rose to 52 in seven districts. There were many other cases, which did not find mention in the media.

      In Andhra Pradesh and Orissa very little data was available at any level. The Orissa state election commission gave a list of seven cases in nine districts. However, a quick visit to 10 districts showed 27 cases in nine districts. Similarly, data was not available in Andhra Pradesh where most cases were pending in civil courts with stay orders on the disqualification notices. Data collected by us in July 2004 show 1,552 disqualifications of panchayat representatives in Haryana on various grounds given in the law, after the panchayat election in 2000. Of them, 1,350 (87 per cent) were for violation of the two-child norm. Similarly in Rajasthan, total disqualifications after the election in 2000 were 808 with 508 (63 per cent) for violation of the two-child norm.       In MP there were 2,122 disqualifications. Of these 1,140 (54 per cent) were for violation of the two-child norm. Chhattisgarh, which had inherited this law from MP, had a total of 1,123 disqualifications of which 766 (68 per cent) were for violation of the two-child norm. Thus, violation of the two-child norm was the ground for disqualification of panchayat representatives in most cases. Data collected in 2004 about panchayat representatives disqualified for violation of the norm are given in Table 15. 3. The figures do not include those not able to follow the norm and therefore: (1) do not seek to contest election or (2) whose nominations have been rejected, and also (3) those who have exceeded the norm and are in constant tension of facing such proceedings any time. An overwhelming number of disqualifications are at the gram panchayat level. If we see their social composition available for MP state (72 per cent SC, ST, OBC) we find these trends confirming the profile of our sample respondents (Table 15. 4).

Socio-economic background of representatives: A total of 136 panchayat representatives were respondents in our study. Of them, 111 faced disqualification. The others who had not faced it so far were interviewed to get their perspectives, especially in MP where implementation had not started till the first phase of our fieldwork and in Orissa

where data was not available about such persons till they were located through informal channels. All of them were interviewed and 40 case studies were prepared. The socioeconomic background of 111 respondents—panchayat representatives facing disqualification is provided in Table 15.4.           The following picture emerges from Table 15. 4: (1) women form 41 per cent of the respondents while the overall proportion of women in panchayats is a little over a third of the membership; (2) Scheduled Castes, tribes and backward castes form an overwhelming 80 per cent of the respondents; (3) roughly 50 per cent have an annual income of less than 20,000 rupees and (4) most representatives were in the age bracket of 21 to 49 years.       The posts held by the affected representatives is given in Table 15.5. There are 54 panchas and an equal number of sarpanches among affected persons though the proportion of sarpanches in the panchayats is generally one out of 10 or 15. The sarpanches who have an important leadership role in panchayats were obviously targeted by this law. An overwhelming large number (95 per cent) of the representatives were from the village level. Overall the respondents who faced disqualification were young (21–49 years), poor, and predominantly from the Scheduled Castes and backward castes.

Experiences of Panchayat Representatives Facing Disqualification Contraceptive use and family planning: Most (80 per cent) of the affected representatives were already aware of the importance of small families, and over a half (53 per cent) had adopted permanent methods but only after their desired family size and its sex composition was completed and this exceeded the legal norm of two. Roughly a fourth (23 per cent) of them was practising some form of contraception. There were also differences among the states. The disturbing factor was that, among the respondents, we found at least 11 cases in which abortion had been induced and in four cases pre-natal sex determination had been done resulting in abortions in cases of female foetus and continuation of pregnancy if it was reported to be male. These numbers have to be seen in the background of this information not being given easily.

          The elected representatives tried to show a reduced number of children in their families to claim that the norm had been followed and the practices adopted are adverse to women as seen in the case studies discussed here (all names changed). • M Madaniah, a 35-year-old sarpanch from the backward potter caste, won the election from Nalgonda (AP) in August 2001. He has four children from two wives. He knew about the two-child norm prior to the election. He made his first wife go for sterilisation in 2000 and claims that his second wife, mother of two of his children, is no more his wife as he had left her. So he insists that he is not violating the two-child norm. He had married her, as the first wife did not have a child for two years. The desertion of the second wife is obviously to show only two children. • Somyajulu, a 40-year-old cobbler from the Schedule Caste, educated up to class three, was a sarpanch in Nalgonda from 1995 to 2001. His wife became pregnant for the third time in 1997 and a complaint was lodged against him. He sent his pregnant wife away to her parent’s home for two years to avoid proof of the pregnancy and childbirth. Along with an NGO official and a dalit leader, he went to the authorities with a plea that he was being falsely implicated as he had refused to join the party of the complainant. They also met and told opposition leaders that they could implicate their party supporters for not following the two-child norm. The opponent leaders compromised and the complaint was not followed through. In the meantime he quietly married a second time. His second wife also had a son who was about one and half years old at the time of our fieldwork. Another

y case of virtual desertion of the first wife. • Mitwa, the most educated OBC woman in her family was selected as the ‘pradhan’ of a panchayat samiti in Rajasthan in 1995. The birth of her third child has been a major source of tension for her though she tried to suppress its evidence. She did not want the third child, a second son, but her husband did. ‘We end up producing children due to men, women are not to be blamed’, she says. She showed visible signs of tension since, as a lactating mother, she could not openly feed her undeclared child or take it to meetings. She had three induced abortions after the election. She continued until 1998, when she was disqualified for violation of this law. Despite being politically connected, with knowledge about panchayat system and wanting to work, her functioning was clearly impaired by the tense state of her mind. Her experience of complaints and litigation has made this youngest woman pradhan bitter, disillusioned and averse to any political participation in future. • The wife of Mangatram, sarpanch of a gram panchayat in Morena district in MP gave birth to a third child in November 2001. He maintained that the child could not be his as his wife was away at her parents’ home since 1999. He requested the ADM for permission to divorce his wife on grounds of adultery (as reported in Hindi Daily Nav Bharat, Bhopal edition, 16 April 2002). The compulsion of the norm leads to practices and allegations derogatory to women by husbands wanting to prevent their own disqualification. • Ram Kunwar, a thirty years old Rajput sarpanch from Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan) was educated up to class nine and came from a reasonably well off agricultural family. Her father-in-law had been a

g y sarpanch for 18 years. She had one son and two daughters. The family wanted one more son since they believed that one son was equal to only one eye. She had her fourth child, a daughter, when she was the sarpanch. Being aware of the two-child norm in panchayats, she had taken admission for delivery in a hospital in another city in her sister-inlaw’s name. She also left the female infant behind in town to avoid detection where it died at the age of six months allegedly of ‘rickets’. So the complaint case against her was dropped. Her husband also has a second wife, a nurse, who has two children. The fertility decisions were not affected and the neglect of the female child and her death was the price paid to stay on in the post to keep the family’s hold on the panchayat. • Maheshwari’s husband was up-sarpanch and later sarpanch in the panchayat in AP. The couple had three children but all were born before the cut-off date. She became pregnant before the election. She underwent an abortion terminating her five-month old pregnancy because she wanted to contest for the post of sarpanch reserved for a backward caste woman in the 2001 elections. She lost the election. Later, her two-year old son died when he accidentally drank kerosene. She denied the fact of abortion, perhaps fearing an enquiry. She was pregnant again at the time of our fieldwork. • Hirulal, a 36-year old, Scheduled Caste sarpanch in a panchayat in Hoshangabad in MP contested the panchayat election in January 2000 for the first time. His fourth child, a son, was born on 7 May 2001. He received a show cause notice on 18 March 2002 for violating the two-child norm. His wife was five months pregnant when he learnt about the legislation. Determined not to lose his post, he

g p planned to abort the pregnancy. He consulted the doctor in the nearby PHC who in turn advised him to consult another doctor in Hoshangabad. The latter did not agree to do an induced abortion at such an advanced stage of pregnancy because of the risks involved and the likely legal action. So the child was born and he lost the post. There were thus, cases of representatives resorting to desertion of their wives, sex selection tests and aborting the female foetus. Others went ahead and had more children despite the two-child norm because of their own reasons particularly, in the hope of a son to provide for old age security. • Ram Prakash, a tribal sarpanch in Betul in MP has six children through three wives. Two of the wives are alive. The last child, a boy, was born to the third wife in February 2001. When informed that he was subject to disqualification because of his son he replied: ‘The sarpanch’s post is not going to support me during my old age, but my son will. It does not really matter if I lose the post of sarpanch.’ • Twenty-six year-old Menka, a Scheduled Tribe in the gram panchayat in Angul district in Orissa had three daughters, one of them born after the cut-off date. She had not used any contraceptive or gone for sterilisation, as she wanted a son. During the third pregnancy, she had gone for sex determination test and the doctor had told her that she was carrying a son. So she carried the pregnancy to full term. But it turned out to be a girl. ‘If I had known, I would have aborted. Now I have lost my position and there is no son’, was all that she could say. She tried to prevent her disqualification by getting a certificate that her child was that of her sister.

• Radha, a 30 year-old Scheduled Caste woman was elected panch in 1997 in Angul district in Orissa. She and her husband make cups and plates out of leaf.During her fourth pregnancy, when she was already a panch, she undertook a sex determination test and was told that the foetus was a female. She had an abortion. In her next pregnancy, she had the test done again and learnt that it was male. She continued the pregnancy and delivered her fourth child, a son and hence, faced removal from the post. For her, having a boy was more important than the political post. On the other hand, the female foetus was aborted.

Complaints, Disqualifications and Circumventing the Law There were instances when cases of violation duly supported by appropriate documents went unheard when the violation was by a person considered powerful or resourceful. For instance, Ramlal who had contested against Mukesh for the post of sarpanch in Sawai Madhopur district had raised the issue of Mukesh’s four children. Ramlal had filed an election petition with supporting documents including anganwadi record, birth-death register, immunisation record and ration card but reportedly no action had been taken against Mukesh and he won the election. In another case the pramukh as well as the members of zilla parishad knew about the violation of the norm by a zilla parishad member from the mina caste, but they were afraid to speak out because he came from a dominant caste and belonged to the party in power. It was reported that those who had money or influence also

p y succeeded in delaying or influencing the inquiry and prolonging court proceedings so that they could continue in their posts despite violating the norm.          In Orissa the study revealed that ignorance of the norm was one of the main reasons for elected members facing disqualification despite its being in force for more than five years by then. In fact, only two out of 20 representatives who were interviewed here said that they knew about the twochild norm prior to contesting the panchayat elections. One person learnt it at the time of filing nomination papers while 11 persons learnt about it when notices were served to them while six were unaware of the norm. As action in any case of violation of the norm could be taken after complaints there were cases of using the two-child norm to settle political scores.           Among the nine case studies in Andhra Pradesh, there were three cases where the complaints were politically motivated. In two cases, these representatives had held office earlier and the norm had been violated in their earlier term without any complaint having been made. In the third case the complaint was false because the third child was born before the cut-off date. All three cases were from the backward castes, and two were women. Interestingly, in all three cases, the couple had adopted the permanent method of contraception before the election in which their disqualification was sought. • Nisha, educated up to class seven, is from the backward potter caste. A mother of three, she underwent tubectomy in 1994, well before the cutoff date. In August 2001, she was elected sarpanch with an absolute majority, defeating the candidate of a party that had till then always held the post of sarpanch in that panchayat. Some people attacked Nisha during a victory procession organised by her supporters. Chilli powder was thrown on her face. Her electoral rival filed a case against her in October

g 2001 declaring falsely that Nisha’s third child was born after May 1995. She feels that rich politicians are misusing the two-child norm law to keep control and power in their hands. She also feels that potential candidates, who are poor, will not be able to run around courts and spend money defending their cases, and this law is not in favour of the poor. In Haryana, the study team came across disqualified representatives who were certain that the complaint against them was politically motivated. There were other panchayat members who had violated the norm but no complaints had been made against them. There were also disqualified representatives who contested the elections because they did not know of the norm. They claimed that they would not have contested had they known about the law.           Representatives have used many strategies to deny the birth of a child, have hidden and misreported children or even tampered with or provided contrary documents. In Rajasthan, the study team came across a variety of methods that had been used. In one case, the child’s horoscope, details on the ration card and school records were provided as proof, but even this did not work. In another case the ANM’s records had been tampered. In a third case, the doctors certified that the child was not of the representative and in a fourth the woman representative tried to hide her child among the other children in her joint family. In one case, the OBC sarpanch went for a sex-determination test and then went for an induced abortion of the female foetus to avoid disqualification.           In Haryana, the study team came across different strategies to avoid disqualification. The common practice in Gurgaon district was to obtain stay orders from a higher authority. There were also five instances where the disputed children had been given in adoption to near relatives and adoption deeds obtained in some cases.

p           From evidence available from interviews with representatives and from key informants, it was seen that the different methods adopted to provide evidence in Andhra Pradesh were producing certificates—birth certificates as well as sterilisation certificates, including certificates of failed sterilisation. There were also cases of desertion of wives in this state. In Orissa the desire to contest a complaint was less as the people were poorer and could not afford prolonged litigation. However there were cases where the representative provided documents to prove that the complaint was illfounded.       In Madhya Pradesh tactics used to avoid disqualification ranged from expressing ignorance about the norm to pushing the date(s) of conception prior to the cut-off date. For this, they used anganwadi/ANM records and ration cards. Some had given their children in adoption to relatives. In one case the couple planned to divorce each other to avoid disqualification.

Perspectives and Opinions Government officials: The opinions of government officials on the two-child norm in the five states can be broadly divided into the opinion of policy-makers and senior government officials at the state level, and the opinion of implementers of the norm, primarily officials at the district and sub-district level. Among the senior government functionaries, there is unanimity across the states about the importance of this provision in view of the ‘population problem’ and ‘national interest’. One senior health policy-maker said, ‘How long can we wait for social development. Population problem is too serious.’ Another policy-maker concerned with panchayats said, ‘Population is too serious a national problem. Everything

is fair to deal with it.’       There was also uniform acceptance of the assumption that this law would set an example for leaders and the community at large. When asked about the potential of this law in increasing women’s vulnerability to abortion or desertion the officials discounted the possibility. There was also a misplaced belief that an Indian woman elected to a panchayat becomes so empowered that she could freely decide the timing and number of children irrespective of her family’s wishes and social pressures for producing sons. At the implementation level this law was seen as just one more condition to be met for eligibility as a panchayat representative.       However, there are a couple of noteworthy opinions. One official in Haryana noted that this provision was an important tool for harassment and called it the ‘Harassment Act’. In Orissa professors at a medical college called for harsher laws similar to the one-child norm in China, which is interesting in the light of the low population growth rate in Orissa. In Andhra Pradesh, a district medical officer claimed that this law was un-necessary considering the desire for small families, which is already near universal.

Lawyers: The opinion of lawyers in these states can be broadly divided into the opinion of those who practise in the high court and those who practise in subordinate courts. Across the five states there was agreement among high court lawyers that the norm was justified. The issue of ‘national interest’ was also mentioned more than once. In Rajasthan, there was more than one case with the high court ruling in favour of the norm immediately after it came into force and lawyers agreed with the decision.           A lawyer practising in a subordinate court in Andhra Pradesh was categorical that ‘This act is deceiving the poor. The educated are deceiving the illiterate. Wrong certificates are being produced. Some people say they have given their

g p p p y y g child for adoption, others deny that the child is theirs … all sorts of things happen. And, anyway, most candidates complete their term by the time the court trials are finalised....’ He was indicating the expenses of the poor to contest the complaints, the malpractices followed to circumvent the law and the use of stay orders to prolong the proceedings till the tenure of an elected post was almost complete. One lawyer in Orissa felt the law violated civil rights and was an invasion of privacy. In the case of lawyers who had handled such cases, most felt that the problems in the implementation of the Act could be avoided with better dissemination of information about it.

Media: The role of the media in all states had been limited to reporting the law and cases of complaints and disqualification. Media persons across the five states mentioned that there had been little debate in the media about the norm vis-a-vis the democratic rights of people especially women. There was also a feeling that this norm had made a modest beginning with the lower rungs of representatives and should be extended to cover legislators at state and national levels. NGO leaders: Opinion among members of the NGO community in these states was mixed. While some supported the legislation, others felt that it was not in the interests of women and had a great potential for abuse. Some NGO leaders felt that it affected the dalits and the poor adversely because they tended to have larger families for various reasons. Some NGOs admitted that they had not thought about the implications of this provision though they had been engaged in training and capacity building of panchayat representatives. Community perspective: There was a difference of opinion regarding the two child norm among members of the

g g g community (those affected as well as those others randomly selected from the community for focus group discussions). In places the men or the better-off agreed that the norm was useful, whereas women and the poor did not agree. Members also mentioned instances of misuse of this provision to settle scores and the ways in which those who had resources circumvented the norm. This was also confirmed by the case study experiences.           Focus group discussions with community members revealed that while the affluent may go unchallenged for violating the two-child norm and can afford to contest any litigation if they did get implicated, the poor were in no position to do so. Our case studies substantiated these observations. Thus while the complaint against a woman sarpanch from an influential family was closed because the female infant died, obviously, of illness and neglect, (Ram Kunwar’s case) another person who had a stillborn child was disqualified because, as the divisional commissioner observed the representative had done everything to violate the norm; only nature’s intervention resulted in the stillbirth.

Legal and Judicial Perspectives To the legal mind, the two-child norm is firmly positioned on issues such as population explosion, resource depletion and sustainable development, requiring measures to contain population growth. The norm is not seen as directly interfering with the right of any citizen to take a decision in the matter of procreation. It is seen as only generating a legal consequence for a person who has exceeded the norm when seeking elected panchayat office.           The courts have accepted the legality of this clause and rejected the arguments of violation of human rights,

democratic rights, personal law of minorities, or equality as the clause is not applicable to MPs/MLAs. The judgments have statements of concern about the ‘population bomb’ and ‘population explosion’. The efficacy of social development and women’s empowerment and autonomy to further the goal of population stabilisation and the likely negative consequences of a coercive measure have not been brought up before the courts.           The Andhra Pradesh High Court observed,4 ‘the said provision has been incorporated in view of the population explosion which is beyond imagination….’ (emphasis mine). The Punjab and Haryana High court observed,5 ‘How can the state assure one the right to work, education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement and in other cases of undeserved want, if there is no check on the growth of population? In the recent years, the growth of population in the country is alarming. It is expected from the panchas and sarpanches to set good examples and they are supposed to maintain norm of two children. If they themselves violate the same, what examples they can set before the public’ (emphasis mine).       The Rajasthan High Court considered the validity of this norm6 and observed, ‘though having more than two children does not, in any way, affect the working of the sarpanch, panch or a member of a panchayati raj institution but the population explosion has affected the economic condition of the state and it is with the purpose to implement the mandate of the directive principles of state policy that this measure was considered necessary’ (emphasis mine).           As a result of these early judicial pronouncements, the panchayat representatives have tried to circumvent the law by adopting practices that show a reduced number of children. It has also, to some extent, led to issues and implications not being debated very widely. The Supreme Court’s judgment in Javed and others vs state of Haryana and others in July

20037 reflected the same concern for ‘population control’. The court accepted the constitutional validity of the Haryana law disqualifying persons with more than two living children to contest or continue in panchayats. The submission that a person’s number of children did not affect her capacity, competence and ability to serve in panchayat office and had no nexus with the purpose of the act was not accepted. The court observed that one of the objects of the Haryana law was to popularise family welfare/family planning programme, the clause was also consistent with the National Population Policy and served the purpose of the law.

IV Analysis of Outcomes Impact on the Women’s Status The two-child norm has serious impact on the status of women. Women face a double-edged challenge. Decisionmaking in reproduction has not been in women’s hands and yet they have suffered the consequences of implementation of the norm directly (as candidates) or indirectly (as spouse of those disqualified). A number of disquieting trends were visible in practices used to meet the conditionality of the law without changing decisions about family size and without moving away from strong son preference. One important area of concern was the desertion of women. Other areas of concern noted in the interviews and case studies were: (1) hospital admission for delivery under wrong name, neglect and death of female infant; (2) cases of desertion and bigamy; (3) cases of pre-natal sex determination and induced abortion of female foetus whereas having a son was seen as far outweighing the benefits of being a panchayat representative; (4) seeking abortion at advance stage of wife’s pregnancy; (5)

children given away for adoption; (6) allegations of infidelity, denial of paternity of the third child; (7) women exposed to violence from their opponents. This included physical and psychological violence and then followed by a complaint of violation of the two-child norm. Impact on Adoption of Contraception/Small Family Norm Our study highlights some very significant issues which need to be considered when examining the assumption whether the two-child norm for panchayat leaders can help set a social acceptance of the small family norm. Overall, a large proportion (76 per cent) of the disqualified representatives was practising contraception (permanent 53 per cent, plus the other 23 per cent). When it was a choice between leadership position and family size, especially if it pertained to a son, the desire for a child won in many cases.           Since the study focused on candidates who had faced disqualification, it was not possible to determine whether the norm did indeed lead to other couples deciding to opt for a smaller than desired family. But it is significant to note that when the respondents were asked what they would have done had they known about the new law, they did not say that they would not have had the additional child. They asserted that they would not have contested the election. It was also disquieting to learn that a number of disqualified representatives had resorted to induced abortion. There is a possibility that the incidence of sex selection tests and induced abortions could be higher among those who did not face disqualification. The report of no cases of disqualifications in some of the districts with very adverse sex ratio and with high political consciousness in MP reinforces this possibility and needs to be studied further.8 Impact on Participation in Governance The examination of state-level data from Haryana showed

that nearly three-fourths of all disqualifications were because of the two-child norm. The data collected for disqualifications between 2000 and 2004 also show that in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, 54 per cent, 68 per cent and 63 per cent respectively of all disqualifications were for exceeding the two-child norm and in Haryana these were 87 per cent.           Studies of women’s experiences in the panchayats after the 73rd Amendment have shown a large entry of poor, even illiterate and younger women. Our study noted a high number of women (41 per cent) among our respondents who faced disqualification for violating the two-child norm. Among dalit respondents, this proportion was even higher (50 per cent).       The 73rd Amendment is aimed at providing women, dalits and younger persons an opportunity to participate in politics and governance There was evidence in our study of women being discouraged in view of long-drawn court cases, enquiries and mental trauma resulting from a dilemma between continuing in the post and a simultaneous desire and family pressure for a son. The mental trauma was noted especially in Rajasthan where the norm has been in place for some time. This defeats the very intent of the 73rd Amendment to encourage entry of women across class and caste into panchayats.       While experience shows the potential of using this norm to harass opponents, there was also an indication that the norm could be circumvented and avoided through manipulation, which is easier for those with political or financial clout. The process of complaints, enquiry and disqualification is a continuing process encroaching upon not only the resources of competent authorities, but also distracting the elected representatives from more productive development work. The majority of the respondents felt that the legislation has been discriminatory because of its selective application to local bodies, and that the norm has worked against the poor who of late were coming forward to contest, particularly at the GP level.

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VIII Conclusions

Our study clearly demonstrated that the application of the norm has the potential of adversely affecting both the democratic rights and reproductive choices of individuals. It has serious consequences for the status of women. There is, however, an overwhelming public opinion, especially among key actors like policy-makers, programme implementers, doctors and lawyers that the norm is necessary to reduce family size and population growth and give impetus to development. Policy-makers expected the two-child norm to make people decide in favour of a small family. In their view, those who wanted to be in politics would definitely keep the two-child norm in view.           Discussions with a cross-section of the population revealed two broad strands of thoughts. Those working at the policy level and mostly in the urban milieu supported the twochild norm whereas grassroot workers closer to ground realities had doubts about its efficacy. Also, in several cases, opinions were formed on the basis of personal characteristics rather than in-depth understanding and long-term implications if the norm was to be followed through.           People in relatively privileged position and not directly affected by the two-child norm had either not thought about it seriously or favoured the norm to have an impact on the family size of the poor and illiterates. For many it was not a preventive act, but a way to send a message advocating a small family norm. They seem to have missed the point that the norm itself could be a coercive measure and when enforced as a law could encroach upon democratic and reproductive rights and choices of individuals. There was inadequate appreciation of the distinction between informed responsible choice for a small family and the state’s

responsibility to facilitate such choice by social development and access to quality services on the one hand, and the coercion inherent in a norm applied through a law, its limitations and negative impacts, on the other.           The norm imposed by a law ignores the state’s responsibility in providing accessible, affordable, equitable, quality health and family welfare services. The inadequacy of these services is seen in high unmet contraceptive needs among desiring couples (documented by NFHS II), high unwanted fertility levels due to high IMR, and poor quality healthcare services. The social context of early marriages, early pregnancies and son preference is also ignored and all the responsibility is placed only on individuals, particularly women, with serious consequences for them.           The norm contradicts the rights based approach to women’s development, and with the objectives of the constitutional amendment enacted towards ensuring greater political participation and empowerment of politically and socially marginalised groups such as weaker sections and women. Those who had the power, influence and resources to manoeuvre or contest, could circumvent the norm. The twochild norm gets selectively applied to persons depending upon their socio-economic vulnerability, political rivalries, perceived importance of the post occupied and as a tool to discourage potentially promising candidates.       The study found no evidence to show that the norm has achieved the intended outcome. The law was introduced with the expectation that the panchayat representatives by following the norm would be able to set an example for others to follow. Our field-based qualitative study found no corroborative evidences to this effect. On the other hand, there were enough evidences to suggest that the unintended outcomes were far more serious. Contrary to the expectation, none of the respondents had accepted contraceptives because of the norm. They did so only after the desired family size (invariably including at least one son) was achieved. Clearly,

y g y long-term familial security far outweighed political aspirations, thus defeating the very purpose of imposing the norm. Field observations are that acceptance of sterilisation exists independent of this norm. In fact, child/early marriages and frequent childbirth indicate that the policies have to pay much attention to provision of affordable and accessible health and family welfare services, social development and women’s empowerment.       The norm also has the potential to aggravate the declining child sex ratio. Cases were noted where persons resorted to sex selection tests and abortions of female foetus. It affects the principle of gender equity. Many of these practices demean the social status of women, which becomes a matter of grave concern.           One issue of concern related to the lack of awareness among key members of society, which includes doctors, lawyers, policy makers and civil servants, about the linkages between population and development as well as the fact that India is currently going through the ‘population momentum’ phase. The concept of ‘population explosion’ still seems to be the dominant discourse even though it has been discarded in favour of ‘population stabilisation’ and ‘human development.’ Efforts need to be made to educate key influential persons.       There is need for a wider debate on the rationale of the two-child norm in the context of grassroots reality, the equity-oriented focus of the Indian Constitution and the adverse and demeaning practices for women resulting from the implementation of this norm documented in the experiences of affected persons.

16 FEDERALISM, URBAN DECENTRALISATION AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION RAMESH RAMANATHAN

I The Context—An Institutional Perspective all the focus on panchayati raj institutions in India, W ith urban decentralisation has received far less attention in

the country, suffering for long from policies that saw urbanisation as a trend that needed to be slowed if not stopped altogether.           With the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments in 1992, we completed the federal puzzle in our country, creating units of local self-government at the rural and urban levels. While there are still enormous challenges in implementing the legal provisions with regard to rural decentralisation, tremendous energy is being expended within many state governments to solidify this process. Issues such as untying of funds, streamlining of programmes, capacity building and training of grama panchayat members are among the hottest potatoes being tossed around in state legislatures.           So, in this journey towards a healthy federalist governmental arrangement, the patient incrementalism of policy-makers seems to be working fairly well. While there are gaps in inter-governmental institutions that can oversee and regulate the interchanges, given the magnitude of the

local government initiative in the last decade to expand the base of the third level, it seems that enough is going well. As George Mathew says: The panchayats—districts and below are now treated as the third stratum of governance … Today in India if there is a strong centre it is not by virtue of its powers over other units but because the lower units —states, districts, blocks, villages—are powerful. This is exactly the opposite of what India started with. Thus, one can say that strong regional and state level political parties have strengthened India’s democracy and federal character (Mathew 2000). Unfortunately, these statistics hide an uncomfortable truth: the base of the pyramid is expanding only for rural local government. Such leadership is sorely lacking in urban decentralisation. Caught in the penumbra of the spotlight on their rural brethren, urban dwellers are finding themselves in a governance vacuum, with all signs of the situation worsening. Consider the statistics for Karnataka1 shown in Table 16.1.

The representation ratio between citizens and their elected representatives is almost ten times larger for urban areas. In Bangalore, the ratio is 42,000 citizens for one elected representative. One possible interpretation of this could be that government is more than 100 times further away for the resident of Bangalore than for the average rural dweller.       In addition to this, the idea that every registered voter is a member of a gram sabha, and should participate in decision making through this vehicle, is one that at least has formal sanction in rural decentralisation, if not much track record.           In contrast, urban areas have the concept of the ward committees, which are meant to be constituted for the city corporations. In Bangalore, for example, there are meant to be 28 (recently revised to 31) such ward committees, which are fatally hampered by the combination of a debatable nomination process, limited citizen representation and an ambiguous mandate.           So, while it may seem reasonable to believe that decentralisation is now only an implementation challenge in India, the reality is that we have an extremely skewed federalist structure at the third tier. And this situation is getting worse, because while India was 28 per cent urban at the turn of the century, it is projected to be 46 per cent urban by 2030 (DESIPA 1996).           This failure to have a coherent rural-urban approach to decentralisation is a big lacuna in Indian federalism. Indeed it is astonishing that despite the general rigour that has characterised India’s approach to democratic institutionalisation, often correctly placing due process at a premium over short term outcomes, there has been such an intellectual vacuum with respect to urbanisation, with very few champions of the cause.       This lopsided approach can be traced even to the drafting of the two seminal pieces of legislation that have given rural and urban local governments their current positions—the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments respectively—and

p y perhaps explains the difference in attitude that people in government have towards these two forms of local government even today. The 73rd Amendment was the culmination of over four decades of struggle and intense debate by a range of players: three generations of Gandhians, advocates of rural self government, and champions of three tier federalism. This saw numerous initiatives for promoting panchayati raj institutions as well as two national committees separated by two decades—the Balwantrai Mehta committee in 1957, and the Ashoka Mehta committee in 1977. Associated with this energy—possibly because of it—there is also a great deal of documentary evidence on the evolution of rural decentralisation in India. Unfortunately, this richness of material is absent when it comes to urban decentralisation. There were some noises about urban challenges through the early decades of our Independence with the constitution of an All India Council of Mayors which consistently demanded greater urban autonomy. The mid-1980s saw the crystallising of some of this energy: for example, one of the recommendations of the National Commission on Urbanisation (NCU) was to suggest that Article 40 of the directive principles of state policy—requiring states to organise panchayats as units of local self government in rural areas—be expanded to include urban areas as well.       In discussions that this author has had with some of the key actors in the drafting of the 74th Constitutional Amendment, this is the picture that emerges on how this amendment came about: even as the original constitutional amendment (64th) for panchayati raj was being drafted during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as prime minister in the late 1980s amidst much debate, one of the senior Congress party members asked the prime minister what was being done about municipalities. Until this issue arose, no protracted debate on this subject had occurred across the country, and no advocates of urban self-government had as yet emerged on the Indian political landscape—at least no one who had a

p p national impact. At this point, given the urgency of passing the laws, an urban decentralisation amendment (65th Amendment) was drafted within a period of a few months, mirroring in some ways the structural aspects of rural decentralisation, capturing in others the unique needs of urban areas, but missing the essential spirit of the rural amendment—the centrality of the citizen and the bottom up nature of local self-government.2 Both amendments failed to pass, and were eventually passed in 1992 as the 73rd and 74th Amendments respectively.           This gap, created at the very genesis of the 74th Amendment, continues to plague urban decentralisation even today: our cities and towns do not have bottom-up structures that create more proximity between the citizen and their urban local government. And without citizen participation, federalism is like a batsman without a partner at the crease: decentralisation of what is called the ‘3 Fs’—funds, functions and functionaries—needs to be accompanied by accountability as well. This accountability ought to be directly to citizens, rather than to some other level of government. One form of such accountability is to provide formal opportunity for citizens to participate in local governance. Citizen engagement is one of the critical success factors for federalism (Hosp 2003). Indeed, some would claim that citizen participation is at the heart of democracy itself.3 The absence of the opportunity to participate has other consequences beyond poorly functioning urban local governments, and these are related to the political education of the urban Indian. In a young democracy such as India’s, local governments act as a political kindergarten to educate the citizen. In the absence of this, the urban voter is not only disconnected from government, but also illiterate about the politics of change. So today, when we are often confronted with a cynical citizenry, it begs the question: what comes first, the indifference or the disempowerment?

II The Context—A Citizen Perspective Our cities and towns in India provide many comforts: livelihood opportunities; relatively better infrastructure than rural areas; access to choice in education and healthcare, and so on. While the quality compares poorly with developed countries, conditions are superior to what is available even a few kilometres outside the urban boundaries.       However, viewed in a different sense, our urban centres do not have an essential ‘rooting’, an organic connection between the urban citizen and the government. From the point of view of the individual citizen, there are significant gaps in urban living. Examples abound: there is no opportunity to participate in decisions on local development, no mechanism to stop the illegal violation of the local park, no system to prevent the neighbour’s residence from being converted into a hospital that could soon dump toxic waste in the storm water drains, no grassroots answer to manage the voter roll errors which are upwards of 40 per cent in urban areas and no space to even vent one’s frustrations. While the urban resident can see herself as a producer of urban goods and services, or as a consumer of urban comforts, she cannot so easily see herself as a citizen. In fact, her identity as a citizen in urban India is one that is minimally developed, if at all.           These gaps exist for everyone. For those within government, be they Supreme Court judges, cabinet secretaries or employees of the railways, they know all about the empty edifice of citizenry and often come to terms with their civic emasculation by leveraging their positions and titles. Even for the elite, this same sense of disconnection prevails: the industrialists, writers, media, film makers, intellectuals and even activitists. None of them can

individually survive in the city without the coping mechanisms that their particular position offers them: their networks, their identities. Strip away these identities, and the hollow shell of basic ‘citizenry’ will provide cold comfort. Imagine if this is true for the ‘empowered’ urban Indian, what it could be doing to the 35 per cent and more of the urban dwellers who are the urban poor. They are twice forsaken, once because of their state, and once by the state.           The fabric of any society begins with the individual, her sense of empowerment and her belief in her own agency. In a society that is static or changing at a leisurely pace, most challenges can be addressed at a similar pace. However, in a society that is urbanising rapidly, the changes are faster: old identities are being wiped clean and being replaced with an aching vacuum, where the underlying rules of engagement are increasingly transactional. And this is what is happening in our urban areas. Alienation is the underbelly of urban living in our country.       It sounds odd to be talking of urban residents needing to be treated in the same vein as the rural citizen, when one compares the quality of life in urban India with that in the rural areas. However, in this context, the comparison is not about roads or water supply, education or healthcare, employment opportunities or gender equality. It is about the fundamental right to be treated equally as a citizen fully engaged in the democratic process, with the same rights and responsibilities.

III Summary of Janaagraha’s Experiences Against the backdrop of a state that has not provided enough toeholds for the urban resident to assert his identity as a

citizen, grassroots work continues to show that people do not stay still, they react to this reality. It is not that people do not care, or do not want to address this. Across the length and breadth of this country, local communities sprout like wild grass, bringing groups of people together to address their local problems. Whether it is in the form of resident welfare associations (RWAs), neighbourhood groups in urban slums, or even less formal community-based groups, these display an energy for change that in many cases has tremendous potential.           And in the study of these communities, one discovers remarkable stories of self-help: of cleaning their streets of garbage, of procuring water supply in their slums, of community policing and so on. But equally striking will be the observation that these demonstrate either a complete detachment from the state, or at best an ad hoc, situational arrangement with the government. They will also show the power of collective action, rather than the empowerment of an individual citizen.       In Bangalore, over the past few years, we have attempted to right this ship of decentralised urban governance through a citizen-led initiative for participatory democracy called Janaagraha (meaning jana agraha, or the moral force of the people). During this time, we have accumulated plenty of evidence to suggest that while the urban resident cares, and wants to take part, the state has not only denied her the formal spaces to engage, but often actively thwarts this desire.       Examples of work that we have been involved with over the past few years in Bangalore:       A ward works campaign was Janaagraha’s launch between December 2001 and May 2002: getting citizens to participate in the allocation of ward level funds for local development. This was the first campaign of Janaagraha, and marked our approach: a collaborative one, emphasising partnership between citizens, their corporators, and the city

p y administration. In this exercise conducted for the financial year 2002–03, citizens from 65 wards took part; in 32 of these wards, citizens came together in strong numbers, and actively negotiated with their corporators and the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) administration; in 22 of these wards, citizens were happy with the final works list that was produced. This represented a total of Rs 10.7 crore of works, out of a total ward works list of Rs 50 crore. A total of more than 5,000 citizens took part in the exercise, and hundreds of volunteers were involved in conducting the training programmes, and providing the engineering, technology and support activities. Since there was no formal space for such citizen participation in ward-level planning, each ward’s success was the result of one or more of a unique set of conditions: a resolute citizenry, a willing elected representative, and a supportive administration. Where these enabling conditions did not exist, the results were marginal or non-existent. The experience demonstrated that citizens are willing to engage, take the trouble, and even compromise on their own needs, so long as they perceive the process as scientific, transparent and fair. Institutionalising this engagement would increase citizen participation manifold.       In the 2004 national elections, many citizen communities wanted to be involved in increasing voter registration and voter turnout. There is sketchy documentary evidence to suggest that urban voter rolls have error rates that are 40–45 per cent,4 arising primarily from non-registration of valid voters, and bogus entries in the list. Rural voter lists also have errors, but these are less than half the urban error percentages. Also, several initiatives in various states have had significant impact in correcting voter lists in rural areas. To name one successful exercise, the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (MKSS) demand of getting the chief election commissioner (CEC) to have the voter list read out formally at all rural ward sabhas (80–100 households each) in

Rajasthan resulted in a CEC notification (Order 23/2003PLN-II), resulting in the correction of over 700,000 voter entries. Unfortunately, the CEC provision for the urban voter was a much diluted one, requesting that the list be read out in mohalla committees or RWA meetings; this is because there is no similar politically legitimate platform for such an exercise, there is no ward sabha or grama sabha for the urban voter. The only alternative for communities is to conduct door-to-door verification of the voter list. This suffers from two weaknesses: one, it is not a formal exercise of the government machinery; and two, it is extraordinarily time and people-intensive. In spite of this, a pilot exercise was conducted in two polling stations, which showed that the error rates were in the region of 45 per cent. Unfortunately, there could be no institutional redressal of the matter, since the entire election machinery by this time was occupied with other pressing matters like electronic voting machines (EVMs) and candidate disclosure.       Hence, the urban voter list continues to be error-prone, due to the lack of equality in treatment of the urban voter. Is it any surprise that voter turnout is low and tending to become lower in urban areas, across all elections in our federalist system?           A ‘Ward Vision’ campaign conducted between June and December 2003, where citizens at the ward level got together to prepare a vision for their ward. In 10 of the city’s 100 wards, over 2,000 people attended five workshops to prepare detailed documents for their wards, including the expenditure requirements, and the sources of funds. After analysing the funding sources, they discovered that the city was only collecting 30 per cent of the potential property tax revenues at the ward level, and hence, suggested an innovative plan to raise compliance called Ward Revenue Enhancement with Citizen Participation (RECI-P). They suggested that citizens would support the city administrators to increase revenues, with the condition that a portion of the

p increased revenues be allocated for local ward development.       Hailed by eminent economists and public policy experts as an innovative public finance solution to help local governments, this proposal is still awaiting a response from the local government. The actual citizen plans would have done any government department proud: detailed, prioritised projects, with estimated costs. However, because there was no formal mechanism for these plans to be produced in a participatory process, they are lying in cold storage. The result is that the citizen participant is fast becoming an activist, demanding his rights: while some are willing to trudge this path, it is too large a burden to place on all citizens.           While all Janaagraha’s campaigns encouraged citizens across the spectrum to participate, the experiences in the first campaign showed that the poor needed additional focus to bring them to the governance table. With this in mind, an exclusive campaign was undertaken, focused on the urban poor. Swarna Jayanti Shehari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) is a government of India urban poverty alleviation programme. Unfortunately, the record of implementation of this programme was less than satisfactory in the Bangalore area (Supriti and Ramanathan 2002). In 2002, Janaagraha conducted a survey in respect of loans sanctioned under SJSRY and produced a report titled ‘Case studies on delivery of loans to the urban poor’.5 This led to the creation of Alliance for Networked Kinship of Underprivileged Residents (ANKUR), a platform which envisaged participation of all the stakeholders of SJSRY, i.e., the government, NGOs, beneficiaries and banks. A pilot project steered by the Karnataka government’s department of municipal administration was undertaken over a period of 12 months, with the following features:

• Bringing all the stakeholders on a common platform; • Identification of nodal branches for disbursal of loans; • Standardisation of loan application forms; • Joint identification of beneficiaries by the community, bankers and NGOs; • EDP training for beneficiaries mandatory before release of loan; • Participation of NGOs in the formation and nurturing of thrift and credit groups. The performance under the pilot project is shown in Table 16.2.6       While the results on improving the bank linkage through the SJSRY pilot were promising, Janaagraha’s purpose in improving the functioning of the SJSRY programme in Bangalore was a different one, related to the structural presence of community groups in the scheme: a pyramidal clustering of neighbourhood groups (NHGs), neighbourhood committees (NHCs) and community development societies (CDSs), representing over 100,000 BPL (Below Poverty Level) families in Bangalore.

The SJSRY programme not only provided a single platform through which it linked what was supposed to be a readymade community structure of the poor at the grassroots, but also one that was empowered to demand development outcomes from various arms of government that worked in the area of urban poverty (slum improvement boards, housing boards, city corporations etc.) through the articles of association of the CDSs, which were registered societies.           However, the experience was that the citywide SJSRY platform provided little tangible benefit to the poor in terms of public service outcomes or governance outcomes. There were several impediments to this process: 1. The formal mandate to demand outcomes was only with the CDS, the apex institution, and not with the lower level community structures like the NHC and NHG. The six CDSs that were established for the entire city meant that each CDS had a massive area of one-sixth of the city, covering approximately 15,000 urban poor families, to cover. 2. There was little social connection among the

members of the CDS, since they came from different parts of the city, with no prior interpersonal contact. 3. Very little capacity building effort had been expended for the CDS members, who were officially vested with a fair degree of authority to demand the presence of various government agencies, and pass binding resolutions for actions by these agencies, but had little real use of these powers. 4. CDS meetings did not take place within the geographic boundaries of each CDS (itself a vast geographic stretch), but at the nodal SJSRY office. Members did not get travel compensation or any pay for the time and cost in participating in the CDS meetings. As a result, few of the CDS meetings were well-attended, and often did not even have a quorum. Janaagraha’s efforts, over an 18-month period, in attempting to make an exclusive, legitimate, government-authorised platform for the poor to bring them better local services were less than successful due to a variety of reasons: one, grassroots resistance from the administration despite senior level leadership; two, the limited duration of the pilot; three, the inherent structural considerations of the programme that the CDS was too large and removed a platform to provide meaningful engagement for the poor.           While the first two issues are part of any social change process, the third issue gave us pause to see if it was even worthwhile to make the CDS work. This resulted in an effort to work with the local neighbourhood communities. The responses at this level were far greater, with poor residents willing to engage on issues that mattered to them locally: water supply, sanitation, electrification of lanes, health concerns and so on. It was interesting that the poor were willing to engage at a neighbourhood level that did not have any formal legitimacy, while not using a platform like the CDS

y g y g p that had power but was somewhat removed from their specific concerns.           There was one additional positive experience: given the reasonable level of middle-class involvement in other campaigns of Janaagraha, they expressed interest in knowing more about the SJSRY campaign, and working with local community clusters of the poor in their wards. This resulted in Janaagraha linking the middle-class with the urban poor at the ward level, with many interesting positive outcomes.7           One of the significant issues that arose in the SJSRY campaign was the choice of beneficiaries and the veracity of the BPL list. There were many claims by NGOs, and even by other government departments, that the list had many flaws in it. (The food and civil supplies [F&CS] department refused to use the SJSRY list for the release of its BPL ration cards.)           Arising from this, Janaagraha undertook a separate exercise to verify the BPL lists across three government agencies: F&CS department, DMA and Karnataka Slum Board. A detailed report prepared jointly by Janaagraha and these three agencies has been submitted to the government of Karnataka.8 The key finding of the study was that the list of common BPL names among all three agencies was less than 6 per cent. Given the startling nature of the statistic, it was clear that substantial work needed to be done to improve the quality of the BPL list. The proposal submitted to the government suggests the creation of a common BPL list (CBL) that could be used by all government agencies. While no action has been taken on the report, it must be admitted that this process would only eliminate multiple lists, and not necessarily address the issue of the authenticity of the list itself.           There were several lessons that emerged out of these experiences for Janaagraha:

1. While the myth of the cynical urban citizen is not without merit, there are still sufficient numbers of urban residents willing to participate. Over the past three years, more than 100,000 citizens have participated at some level in one or more of Janaagraha’s activities.9 And this is when there is no formal sanction for citizen participation. Robert Putnam writes of the level of citizen participation in Portland, Oregon at 10 per cent, where citizen participation was actively encouraged by the city government (Putnam Feldstein and Cohen 2003). Clearly, these are large proportions at the grassroots, numbers that could ensure robust participatory outcomes. There is nothing to suggest that they cannot be achieved in urban India when formal roles are given to citizens. 2. Even though the CDS platform for the poor provided them a great level of political legitimacy, there were several lacunae that prevented it from being used appropriately. One possible explanation could have been that real political legitimacy needed to come at a level that was much more personal, much closer to home for the individual to feel empowered. Also, the CDS platform was a parallel form of political legitimacy, which—in the long run— would only undermine the legitimate political structures of local government. It could be argued that the demands of the poor are best achieved within the institutional framework of governance, rather than by establishing structures outside it. 3. The lowest level of political representation is the unit of the ward, one that has a reasonable limited geographic boundary, a political representative, and the possibility of a grassroots platform for direct political participation. It seems that the ward ought

to become the unit of all endeavours, with the establishment of additional structures within it, to ensure organised citizen participation. 3. This hypothesis has some merit to it, when looking at the Kerala experience with poverty alleviation (including SJSRY), through a programme called Kudumbashree. The self-help group (SHG) members of Kudumbashree have secured many outcomes for themselves outside of the programme, through their participation in the gram sabhas of the participatory planning campaign that the state has established.10 4. The BPL list experience demonstrated that while administrative reforms are critically needed to ensure proper targeting of beneficiaries, there also needed to be a grassroots component, where beneficiary identification could be done at a locally legitimate level itself.       Interestingly, the study on the effectiveness of gram sabhas also found that ‘targeting of landless and illiterate individuals is more intensive in villages that have held a gram sabha meeting. Moreover, these effects are economically significant with an 8– 10 per cent increase in the probability of receiving a BPL card in a village that held a gram sabha’ (Besley, Pande and Rao 2005).       The correlation between the conducting of gram sabhas and the improvement in the quality of the BPL list in such areas suggests that similar outcomes could be likely with urban sabhas as well. 5. Voter list issues are somewhat similar to the BPL list issue, in that there are concerns with the quality of the list, in terms of both inclusion and exclusion. Even if there was a one-time clean up of the list, it begs the question of how this can be done

consistently over time. A structural solution to this question would be one where there is a politically legitimate platform for the voters in a polling booth; given that the numbers involved (approximately 1,000–1,200 voters) compare with those of gram sabhas in the rural areas, there could be some merit to this argument.

IV Institutionalising Citizen Participation - A Proposal From a constitutional standpoint, there has always been a bias towards the rural voter, whether it be the directive principles of state policy or the 73rd Constitutional Amendment.11 While the voter was a central figure in the 73rd Amendment, in the 74th Amendment on urban decentralisation, there is no mention of the phrase ‘a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls’. Even in Article 243S, which discusses the ward committee(s), the amendment is still engaged with institutional arrangements rather than recognising the centrality of the registered voter, as in the case of rural decentralisation.12          These constitutional amendments have percolated down to state laws for rural and urban decentralisation that mirror these biases. Two reports were prepared to assess urban decentralisation—the report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRCW), and the Sen Committee Report to review decentralisation in Kerala. However, these reports, while making incisive observations about the poor functioning of urban decentralisation and the need for greater citizen involvement, did not go far enough to fill the fundamental gap in the architecture of decentralisation

to give a clear and formal status to every urban voter.13           Janaagraha’s experiences in Bangalore are not unique— they reflect those of many other civil society and communitybased organisations across the country. Collectively, they provide substantial evidence that urban residents—even in large metros—care deeply about their city, and wish to participate. Indeed, the amount of social energy that can be harnessed is extraordinary, if the appropriate structures are made available to the citizen.           Urban local governments also face a range of other challenges that require changes in law, jurisdiction, administrative streamlining, decision support systems etc. Credible, realistic solutions are available for these issues as well, so that a holistic governance environment can be created in urban India. We cannot adopt an ‘either or’ approach to resolving issues of urban governance: all reforms are required, and we need to find the intellectual bandwidth and institutional energy to push for all necessary reforms.       The suggestions for reforms in municipalities being made here will concern themselves only with two aspects: one, ensuring that the urban citizen has access to a platform for full freedom of expression; and two, that this mechanism also functions as a platform of accountability from the local government. Both these aspects are being clubbed together under the broad heading ‘Institutionalising citizen participation in urban areas’.           Any response to such a demand for citizen participation needs to address the following issues: 1. The creation of a mechanism for every registered voter to participate in issues of local government in a meaningful manner. This means creating an appropriate tier below the ward level. 2. An unambiguous role for these ward and subward platforms, so that there is a seamless

integration between their role and that of the municipality. This role should be comprehensive, extending from planning to budgeting to oversight and financial authority, and possibly also to spatial planning issues like zoning, change in land use and comprehensive development plans that can be built bottom up. 3. The integration of the internal systems of the municipality to support such a decentralised architecture: appropriate accounting and budgetary systems; administrative support; establishment of necessary bank accounts; ward maps and GIS systems; data collection mechanisms at the ward level on issues like building starts and other such economic activities; voter rolls and BPL lists, and so on. 4. A calendar of activities that define clearly how these grassroots decision-making systems are linked to the processes at the municipality. For example, the municipality budget is to be placed before the taxation and finance committee at a certain time of the year, normally around January. It is then placed before the council within a few weeks for approval. Any proposed system of decentralisation can only be provided full teeth if it has a say in the budgeting process. This means that a calendar of its budgeting process needs to be created, to synchronise with the overall municipality calendar. In fulfilling the above requirements, the first is the most critical: the establishment of the appropriate legitimate political and accountability ‘spaces’. Once these are done, then these spaces can be mandated with functions, roles and responsibilities and with appropriate support systems to fulfil these responsibilities.

p       This document concerns itself only with the first issue: the structure of decentralisation that links urban governance to the last citizen. The other issues of functions, duties and responsibilities are addressed in a separate document       Figure 16.1 illustrates the solution being suggested and describes the proposed structure in detail. It can be understood in terms of platforms and participants.

Platforms: There are three, at the level of the municipality (A), at the level of the ward (B), and at the level of the polling station, called the area sabha (C). There shall be a ward committee in every ward, irrespective of the size of the ward or the municipality. While the first two are well known, it is the area sabha that is being newly introduced. The footprint

of every polling station could be the smallest unit in such an architecture; this could be called an area sabha. Each of these is a legitimate, formal space, which will be defined in terms of constitution, composition, functions, duties and responsibilities. Participants: Every registered voter of a polling booth (boundaries of the polling booth will be defined by the election commission) shall be a member of that area sabha. This creates an urban equivalent of the gram sabha, retains a reasonable level of intimacy, and recognises the unique features of urban dwellings.           At the next level of the ward committee, the current practice of nomination to the ward committee can be replaced by a nomination of an area sabha representative from the area sabha. The benefit of this structure is that it automatically adjusts for the size of a municipality or ward, rather than have a prescribed single size being defined for a ward committee. Large municipalities would have wards with greater population, more polling booths, and hence more area sabhas, resulting in larger ward committees. Smaller municipalities would have smaller population in each ward, hence fewer area sabhas and fewer members in each ward committee.       The elected councillor of the ward shall be the chairman of the ward committee, and continue to represent the ward in the municipal council.           Role of informal structures: The presence of a formal structure of decentralisation to the citizen will create the appropriate participatory and accountability mechanism for the citizen. However, this does not mean that informal community structures like local residents’ associations, neighbourhood groups and ward-level federations will become less important. If anything, these structures can now become more effective beyond their social role, by linking their public issues at the grassroots into the appropriate platform, either the area sabha or the ward committee. The

p lessons from rural decentralisation indicate that while informal structures are important, parallel power structures should not be created.           Janaagraha has prepared a draft ‘Nagara Raj Bill’, embedding the above structure into a legal document, with details like the constitution, composition, functions, roles and responsibilities of the area sabhas and ward committees. This document has emerged out of the examination of the platform that was provided with the 74th Amendment, the good work already done by some selected states like West Bengal and Kerala, and also the grassroots experiences from a citizen’s standpoint. The drafting has been done in a manner that would allow the bill to be passed separately, or included as an amendment to the municipalities acts of states as a chapter exclusively dealing with institutionalising citizen participation in urban governance. Some sections of this act could require other parts of a state’s municipality act to be modified, such as the budgeting process mentioned above. 1. It will give formal voice to every voter to participate in issues of local governance, removing the lopsided treatment of the rural and urban voters that has prevailed since the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments were passed. 2. This three-tiered municipal governance structure will also create accountability of the municipality directly to the citizen herself. Issues of transparency, decision-making, and so on can be addressed at the level of the area sabha, rather than creating complex processes of reporting to state government bureaucracies. 3. These platforms will also expose citizens to the need to participate, rather than stand on the sidelines and complain. While participation cannot be expected to be widespread, this process of political engagement will bring citizens closer to

p g g g government, and seek solutions to public issues from our public institutions rather than outside them. In some sense, therefore, area sabhas are as much about government accountability to citizens as they are about citizens’ accountability to themselves. 4. The creation of local engagement allows for localised solutions to emerge, as well as a flexibility and dynamism that are healthy attributes for any institution. 5. Other institutions could also use these platforms to integrate into their requirements: even a small handful of area sabha members can verify and maintain the accuracy of the voter lists. The Election Commission, in turn, could formally use the area sabha to update the voter lists. Similarly, departments of government that require BPL lists could have these verified at the level of the area sabha, much like the gram sabha experiences in rural India. The police department could use the area sabhas for community policing initiatives. Disaster management situations will have a readymade, widespread grassroots platform for information dissemination and coordinated action. 6. Given the nature of the area sabha, its composition will be heterogeneous, cutting across caste, community and economic lines. Engagement at the area sabha could, therefore, have significant social implications, in generating social capital in ways that are otherwise unlikely to occur. 7. A few important findings with respect to gram sabha functioning warrant some discussion here, in light of the potential implications for area sabha functioning: (a) Literacy levels and gram sabhas: The positive correlation between literacy levels and gram sabha functioning holds positive implications for area

g p p sabhas, given that urban literacy levels are higher than rural. (b) The evidence suggests that gram sabha meetings ‘seem to be a forum used by some of the most disadvantaged groups in the village—landless, illiterates and Scheduled Castes/tribes. This suggests that these groups find the gram sabha useful and that gram sabha meetings may play some role in moving policy in a direction favoured by these groups.’14 The same could be true of urban area sabhas as well, possibly solving an issue of elite capture in urban planning and public expenditure. (c) The study finds correlation between levels of awareness of the gram sabha and levels of participation. A case can be made that given the density of urban settlements, and more powerful tools of communication, coupled with higher literacy rates, the likelihood of greater awareness of area sabhas could also be greater, thus leading to potentially greater participation. This higher awareness also has another possible effect: how it changes the mental attitude, from emasculation to empowerment. Irrespective of whether a voter participates or not, she now has the knowledge of the opportunity to participate. This needs to be measured as well, in terms of what voters begin to feel about being ‘empowered’, irrespective of their actual participation. (d) The gram sabha findings also observed that participation from women is lower in rural areas. Here again, area sabhas could be more powerful as a forum for women, given higher levels of literacy and emancipation of women in urban areas. 8. If anything, the hypothesis could be that not only will the sabha concept work well in urban areas, and

generate socially equitable outcomes, but that these sabhas could also be a more significant presence in local governance issues than in rural areas, and possibly more successfully address universal participation issues across caste, economic status and gender. The proposed benefits of citizen participation in urban areas are in the realm of hypotheses. These need to be urgently tested, not only for their own reasons, but also for the positive and normative impact they can have on rural decentralisation, and the cross fertilisation of successful practices and learning. Such common platforms across rural and urban centres could also create mechanisms for rural and urban citizens to reach out to each other directly, rather than only indirectly through political processes. This has major significance in peri-urban areas, and the fringes of urban growth, where deep schisms are being created every day due to the damaging consequences of jurisdictional schizophrenia.

V Conclusions India stands at the inflection point of two critical trends: the increasing importance of local governments, and a critical mass of urbanisation. Both of these have significant implications for governance outcomes on a range of important quality-of-life issues for citizens. Citizen participation is not just a moral argument; it is a strong accountability mechanism for local governments. While rural participation is imbedded in the Constitution, citizen involvement in urban areas is still very indirect. This needs to be urgently corrected. This essay describes the context of urban decentralisation and the need

for citizen participation, and also offers a solution that can be imbedded into law at the state and municipality levels, without having to change the Constitution. There are credible reasons to believe that substantial benefits can accrue by creating institutional mechanisms for citizen participation in urban areas.

17 FISCAL DECENTRALISATION TO THE SUB-STATE LEVEL GOVERNMENTS M. A. OOMMEN

decentralisation is a subset of decentralisation. Given F iscal the manifold ways decentralisation is interpreted and the

vast diversity of country experiences, it has to be contextually defined and understood (Bird and Vaillancourt 1998). For the purpose of this essay, decentralisation is defined as the empowerment of the local people through the local governments. Fiscal decentralisation, therefore, is the fiscal empowerment of lower tiers of government which involves the devolution of taxing and spending powers along with the arrangements for rectifying mismatches in resources and responsibilities (Fukasaku and De Mello 1999; Tanzi 1996 and Oommen 2004). This definition is important as it is in broad agreement with the 73rd/74th Constitutional Amendments which seek to establish a third stratum of government in India. The local government (LG) has relevance not only because of its instrumental significance in providing an efficient delivery of public services and local goods, but also because of the failure of national and state governments in providing basic services of comparable quality to the citizens during the last half a century. On the basis of a detailed analytical study, Rao and Singh (2005) conclude that the union finance commission, the Planning Commission and the centrally-sponsored schemes have made a substantial dent into regional disparities. In the contemporary world, only India constitutionally empowers the local governments to

prepare ‘plans for economic development and social justice’ along with the mandate to establish panchayats or rural local governments as institutions of self-government (Articles 243G, 243W and 243ZD of the Indian Constitution). Fiscal decentralisation is the key variable in this new dispensation of governance. This essay tries to analyse the trend in fiscal decentralisation in India focusing on the 15 major non-special category states based on the data set relating to panchayati raj institution (PRIs) and urban local bodies (ULBs) given as Annexure to Chapter 8 of the Twelfth Finance Commission (TFC) report. We are aware of the serious limitations of such a set of aggregate data reported by the various state governments. However, it is a matter of comfort that these data are canvassed through a common format prepared and collated by the TFC. This analysis is supplemented by a study of the second state finance commission (SSFFC) reports of five states.1 The state finance commission (SFC) is a constitutional counterpart of the union finance commission (UFC) at the state level to mediate between the state and the local governments (Article 243 I and 243 Y).

Trend and Extent of Fiscal Decentralisation The extent of fiscal decentralisation depends on the expenditure responsibilities and revenue assignments devolved to the lower tiers. The total expenditure of local governments (PRIs and ULBs), as a proportion of the combined expenditure of union, state and local governments works out to about 6.4 per cent in 1998–99 and 5.1 per cent in 2002–03.2 The decline in the expenditure of the PRIs (from 3.9 per cent in 1998–99 to 3.3 per cent in 2002–03) which covers nearly 73 per cent of the people, needs special mention because the decentralised governance is envisaged

primarily to improve the quality of life in the rural areas. The PRIs expenditure in 2002–03 as a proportion of GDP works out only to 1.07 per cent. The own source revenue (tax + non-tax revenue) of local bodies as a proportion of the combined tax and non-tax revenue of the union, states and local governments for 1998–99 which was around 2.7 per cent, declined to 1.9 per cent in 2002–03. Reckoned in terms of GDP, in 2002–03, the own source revenue (OSR) of local governments is only 0.39 per cent, more than 82 per cent of which is accounted for by ULBs. The extent of fiscal decentralisation which was already very low has shown a pronounced declining trend. When we know that in most advanced countries local governments normally account for about 20–35 per cent of total government expenditure (in some countries like Denmark it goes as high as 45 per cent), India, with two major constitutional amendments ostensibly to transfer power, authority and resources to local governments, has very little to write about.           The trend in the overall scenario of decentralisation in India raises several questions. We may address some of them for the purpose of this essay: What has been the state-wise scenario? What interstate differences are there in the structure and pattern of transfers by states to local governments? What role has the SFC constitutionally created to rationalise state-sub-state level fiscal relations and transfers in the context of decentralisation played?

Third Strata of Government Table 17.1 shows the state-wise progress with regard to expenditure and tax decentralisation as well as the changes in the relative magnitudes of these variables by comparing two years, 1998–99 and 2002–03. The proportion of local

governments’ expenditure of all states to the expenditure of all states and local governments combined declined from 11.24 per cent in 1998–99 to 9.47 per cent. Among the 15 major states shown in Table 17.1, only Bihar, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh seem to have made some progress. In all the other 11 states, the percentage has declined. The progress of Bihar and the other three states is due to their very low base in 1998–99. During this period, the percentage of local government expenditure to total expenditure comprising state and local governments ranged from 0.92 per cent in Bihar to 21.73 per cent in Karnataka, followed by 20.90 per cent in Kerala3 (18.76 per cent if RBI figures are used) and 20.36 per cent in Gujarat. In 2002–03, the corresponding range was from 0.93 per cent in Assam to 18.22 per cent in Karnataka and 14 per cent in Kerala (13.32 per cent with RBI figures) and Gujarat. Karnataka occupies the top position in expenditure decentralisation in both the years. It could be firmly confirmed from Table A.1 in Appendix A which gives the rate of growth of the total expenditure of each of the 15 states and that for all states for the period, 1998–99 to 2002–03 that the decline in the ratio is due to the lower growth rate of the expenditure of the local bodies. While the all-states average rate of growth of expenditure increased at 11.6 per cent during the period, the rate of growth in the total expenditure of PRIs was only 6.87 per cent and of ULBs 4.07 per cent. Actually, the trend in Gujarat, Kerala and Orissa for PRIs and in Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra for ULBs is negative (Appendix A).

Turning to tax decentralisation, Table 17.1 shows that at the all-states level, the percentage of own tax revenue of local government as a percentage of state’s own tax revenue plus local tax revenue declined by 1.74 percentage points in 2002– 03 compared with 1998–99. Only in seven states do we see a marginal increase during this period. The decline ranges from 0.62 percentage points in Assam to 4.80 percentage points in Maharashtra with Gujarat closely following. The magnitude

and the pathology of the own revenue situation may be captured better in the three tables given under Appendix B. Table B.1 shows the per capita own tax (OT) and per capita OSR of PRIs along with the average growth rate from 1998– 99 through 2002–03. Table B.2 shows the corresponding growth rate for ULBs. Table B.3 shows the ratio of OSR to total expenditure for PRIs and ULBs in the states under study for 1998–99 and 2002–03.           The per capita tax and per capita OSR of urban local bodies are several times higher than that of the PRIs in all the states (see Table B.1 and Table B.2 of Appendix B). Table B.2 shows that in 2002–03, the per capita OT of PRIs is below Re 1 (zero in Bihar) or around it in five states. The highest per capita OSR among PRIs in all the five years consistently is reported in Kerala (as high as Rs 101.96 in 1999–2000). The per capita OSR of PRIs is below the all-state average in the nine states in 2002–03. The rate of growth for all states with regard to PRIs during the quinquennium 1998–99 to 2002– 03 is over 7.7 per cent for tax and 5.7 per cent for own source revenue. The rate of growth in the tax revenue of PRIs, however, is negative in Gujarat, Orissa and Punjab. Although the level of OSR of ULBs is very high compared to PRIs and in 2002–03, the per capita OSR ranges from Rs 75.34 in Orissa to Rs 743 in Punjab, the overall rate of growth of OSR of ULBs for all states has been negative (3.14 per cent per annum) during the period from 1998–99 to 2002–03. The growth rate of per capita taxes of ULBs is negative in Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Rajasthan. Indeed, the OSR situation at the third tier of government especially that of PRIs, does not seem to support a healthy decentralisation process in the country. The ratio of OSR to total expenditure which could be considered as a measure of the fiscal autonomy of the states (Table B. 3 presents a somewhat misleading picture. The picture of ULBs is apparently encouraging and definitely better than that of the PRIs. If we assume that a local government raises 50 per

g p cent of its expenditure through OSR, it could be considered as fairly autonomous. By this standard except in a few states the ULB scenario is in fairly good shape. The share of OSR to total expenditure for ULB is over 52 per cent in 2002–03 as against 6.7 per cent for PRIs for the same year. In the case of Assam and Punjab, the high OSR ratio of PRIs is presumably because of poor expenditure assignments.

Trends in Revenue Transfers to Local Governments The effectiveness of fiscal decentralisation to the sub-state level governments depends on: (1) Appropriate expenditure assignments (illustrative guidelines follow from Schedule XI and XII of the Constitution) broken up into activities and subactivities accompanied by the transfer of funds from the concerned state department head of accounts in the state budget to the local bodies; (2) appropriate revenue/tax assignments; and (3) efficient design of the transfer system and its proper implementation. The latter, of course, is the primary responsibility of the state finance commission and the concerned state governments.       Table 17.2 presents the state-wise trend in the ratios of transfers (tax devolution plus grants-in-aid)4 to net state domestic product (NSDP), to state’s total revenue, as well as to state’s total expenditure excluding loans and interest payments. Besides that, Table 17.2 contains a column (No. 3) which shows the ratio of tax devolution to local governments as a percentage of state’s own tax revenue. All these are different ways to measure the magnitude of transfers.

Table 17.2 also focuses on the magnitude of transfers made by the major state governments to local governments and has to be seen along with the poor revenue and expenditure decentralisation noted in Table 17.1 and Appendix B. The transfers to local governments as a percentage of SDP have declined in the country as a whole. However, it improved in 10 states in 2002–03, albeit marginally compared to 1998– 99. SDP is not a good fiscal variable to measure the

magnitude of transfers. The best way is to reckon transfers with reference to the state’s expenditure and revenue. We have also examined the tax component of the transfers vis-àvis the own tax revenue of the state. In nine states the total transfers have registered a decline as a proportion of the total state expenditure. This includes such prominent states upholding decentralisation like Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal. An important measure of fiscal decentralisation is the percentage of tax revenue devolved (e.g., tax assigned, plus state taxes shared) to total state tax revenue. In 1998–99 it ranges from zero in Bihar to 52.63 per cent in Karnataka and in 2002–03, the same pattern continues except that Karnataka’s share has fallen to 42.62 per cent. Karnataka is followed by Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh in 2002–03. The transfers as a percentage of state revenue declined in nine states as well as for all states. Table 17.2 clearly shows that only Karnataka has above all-state average with regard to all the four measures in all the years. Maharashtra and Rajasthan fall in the secondbest category as they qualify for all measures except tax devolution as a percentage of the state’s own tax revenue. In brief, the record of fiscal decentralisation, to the sub-state level governments through transfers has been very poor. As regards Karnataka, it is important to note that the transfers are linked to the schemes transferred by the state government. The system that prevailed in 1993 continues. The local governments do not have any autonomy to determine priorities, discontinue schemes or change the composition of expenditures. Moreover, the gram panchayats in the state account for only 5 per cent of the total allocation of state funds to PRIs in 2002–03 and in 2000–01 as low as 3.5 per cent (Karnataka Second SFC Report 2002: 27). In all other states the share of village panchayats is high. Indeed, the efficiency of resources use and the quality and effectiveness of the delivery of basic services depend on the quantum of expenditure at the cutting-edge level. Before we

q p g g conclude this discussion, we must try to discern the pattern in the structure of transfers to local governments. Table 17.3 juxtaposes the state-wise distribution of per capita state revenue and per capita transfers in 2002–03 to PRIs and ULBs for the 15 states. One important aspect to be noted from the table is the higher per capita transfers to the rural areas (PRIs) than the urban areas for the country as a whole. By and large this is true in the case of most of the states. This is a healthy trend. But there are significant exceptions. Assam makes no transfers to PRIs.5 It is very significant that in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa which are admittedly backward states with a very high tribal population, the per capita transfers to PRIs is way below that to ULBs. In West Bengal, the per capita transfers to PRIs is only Rs 24.126 as against Rs 232.37 for ULBs. Although Tamil Nadu’s case is not as glaring as West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh or Orissa, the gap is very conspicuous.

Figure 17.1 seeks to illustrate the association between per capita state revenue and the transfers made to the local bodies. The per capita state revenue is shown in the x-axis and per capita transfers in the y-axis with the median lines relevant to these two variables being drawn making the whole figure into a box with four quadrangles identified as A, B, C and D. In the figure, Quadrangle A represents the case of states with low per capita revenue (less than the median level of per capita revenue, or states with per capita revenue less than the middle 50 per cent, when the states are arranged in order of increasing per capita revenue), and low per capita

transfers to the LGs (less than the median level of per capita transfers). Quadrangle B represents the case of states with high per capita revenue (greater than median level of per capita revenue) and low per capita transfers to LGs (less than median level of per capita transfer). Quadrangle C represents the case of states with high per capita revenue and high per capita transfers to LGs. Quadrangle D represents those cases with low per capita revenue but high per capita transfers.

What Figure 17.1 shows is that though higher transfers are mostly seen to be made by the richer revenue states, it is not true in all cases. Punjab with the highest per capita revenue has the lowest per capita transfer. More or less the same story is narrated in the case of Haryana. The highest per capita transfer is made by Karnataka which is a state with per capita revenue in the middle 50 per cent of states when they are ranked according to their per capita revenue.       It may also be seen that most of the states with low per

capita revenue devolves less or even nil to LGs, with Rajasthan standing out as an exception. Though a low per capita revenue state, Rajasthan devolves funds to LGs in much larger magnitude in per capita terms than that of Punjab, Haryana or West Bengal. This is shown by it being the sole state in Quadrangle D.

Role of SFC's: Study of Five Second SFC's Inter alia, the poor progress of fiscal decentralisation may be considered as reflecting the ineffectiveness of the institution of the SFC. It could as well be due to the failure of the states in implementing SFC recommendations. The primary task of the union finance commission is to mediate in the sharing of revenues between the centre and the states by rectifying the mismatches between responsibilities and resources as well as to reduce the horizontal fiscal imbalances between states in an equitable manner. The SFC which is a counterpart of the UFC at the state level is mandated to perform these tasks at the state sub-state level. The task is probably more complex and onerous for the SFCs because of the lack of clarity with regard to expenditure responsibilities in many states. Except in a few states like Kerala, where the responsibilities of the panchayats and urban local bodies are broken down into activities and sub-activities, every function of the LG is stateconcurrent and, therefore, administratively complex. Because the local governments are constitutionally required to create institutions of local self-government and prepare plans for economic development and social justice under the decentralisation regime, the responsibilities of an SFC in ensuring vertical and horizontal equity and balance are very high. Economically, poor gram panchayats and municipalities will have to be helped in providing comparable services

through equalising allocations (grants) which will compensate for genuine revenue raising problems and cost disadvantages such as distance, mountainous or marshy regions and the like. In what follows, we examine very briefly how five second generation SFCs (Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu) have tried to improve vertical and horizontal imbalances in their respective states.           The size of vertical transfers logically depends on the goals to be achieved and the needs of local governments which certainly will have to take into account the magnitude of the mismatches in resources available and the expenditure responsibilities. All the SFCs under study except Kerala have made estimates of vertical gaps. But none has made this exercise with reference to functional assignments and needs following from that. Actually a clear demarcation of functional domain is not available in most cases. All the five SFCs agree in regard to the need for providing basic public services of comparable quality at the level of rural and urban local bodies. Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Rajasthan SFCs estimate the fiscal gap including capital requirements mostly taking civic functions into account. The Rajasthan SSFC takes the view that investment requirements for providing civic services are ‘large and ought to be met from plan funds including cess and externally funded projects’ (Rajasthan SSFC Report: 82).       In Appendix C we present a broad outline of the scheme of vertical transfers of the five SSFCs which shows the magnitude of transfer, the instrument of transfers and the basis of vertical distribution between PRIs and ULBs. The size of transfers ranges from 2.25 per cent (this includes 0.05 per cent as an incentive grant for raising additional revenue) of state’s own net tax revenue in Rajasthan to 40 per cent of non-loan gross own revenue receipts (NLGORR) in Karnataka. All SFCs except Karnataka consider net tax revenue as the instrument and source of transfer. The Kerala SSFC which endorses the prevailing practice of giving onethird of plan outlay to the LGs, as plan grants-in-aid,

p y p g additionally recommends the devolution of a maintenance grant (5.5 per cent of net own tax revenue of state) based on a current cost of replacement and a general purpose grant to the tune of 3.5 per cent of the net own tax revenue.6       We also see from Appendix C Table C.1 that the basis of vertical distribution between PRIs and ULBs is population in most cases. Besides population, Karnataka takes illiteracy rate and population per hospital bed into consideration and the ratio works out to 80 per cent for PRIs and 20 per cent for ULBs. Tamil Nadu takes besides population (50 per cent weight) needs (operation and maintenance,capital and debt) and resource potential, and the rural-urban proportion work out to 58:42. It is clear that the choice of criteria and the weightage given to them which in turn depends on the objectives and priorities underlying the design of transfer of the concerned SFC assume significance in determining the vertical share of PRIs and ULBs.           Turning to horizontal distribution, we may make some general observations based on the five SSFC reports. We have noted in Table 17.3 that in 2002–03 (see the figure) that Karnataka has the highest per capita transfer. This is obviously due to the high vertical transfers through the transfer of schemes of the state government as we have already mentioned. The real question is whether it also results in higher horizontal equity or not. The answer is in the negative. For one, the allocation to gram panchayats7 in Karnataka as we have already noted is only around 5 per cent of the total allocation to PRIs in 2002–03. The criteria for inter se distribution such as population, area, illiteracy rate, the ratio of population per bed and so on are applicable only in the case of zilla panchayats and taluka panchayats. The gram panchayats get only a fixed amount (Rs 3.5 lakh per GP). In the case of the other states, the tax shares recommended to gram panchayats range from 60 per cent of the share of PRIs in Tamil Nadu to 100 per cent in Punjab.

The Kerala SSFC besides giving nearly 70 per cent plan grant share to GPs, also earmarks 78.5 per cent of general purpose grant for them.8 While in Kerala, the inter se distribution among the municipalities and corporations should be entirely on the basis of population, as regards GPs, a corpus of Rs 10 crore is recommended to be set apart as horizontal gap filling to cover the gap between obligatory expenses and own revenue plus general purpose grant of GPs. A 100 per cent gap filling in the case of second and third grade GPs, 50 per cent in the case of first grade GPs and 25 per cent in the case of special grade GPs are recommended. The balance is to be distributed on the basis of population.           The most rational horizontal distribution is to give adequate weightage to equity and efficiency. For inter se allocation among GPs, all SFCs other than Karnataka use population as the dominant criterion followed by area, tax efforts and some indicators of backwardness. The choice of relevant backwardness criteria with appropriate weightage, incentivising revenue efforts and ensuring delivery of quality of services, assume significance. On this score, most of the SSFCs require improvements and need to incorporate better efficiency and equity elements. Besides the horizontal gap filling recommendations of Kerala SSFC, two recommendations of the Tamil Nadu SSFC need special mention: one relates to the introduction of the report card system for the inter se distribution of incentive funds. Five per cent of the total devolution is set apart for providing incentives to local bodies for the efficient resource mobilisation as well as for the delivery of quality public services. The report card system is a way of assessing the quality of public services from the perspective of citizens or users of civic services. The users can provide feedback on the quality, efficiency and adequacy of the services through various entries in the card. The other is the equalisation fund to compensate for fiscal disabilities. Any GP with less than Rs

17 per capita tax (which is the state average for all GPs) is considered a weak village panchayat deserving this fund. The shortfall from Rs 17 is made good from the equalisation fund. It may be noted here that one may do well to compare fiscal capacity at a given average tax rate rather than the actual per capita tax, which may be low due to lower tax effort. Even so the promotion of equalisation is a relevant effort towards horizontal equity. A great weakness of the Tamil Nadu SSFC is that it left 20 per cent of devolution to be discretionary and only 80 per cent as formula-based. A rational devolution mechanism should be fully formula-based which, of course, should be operationally simple.       By and large, the SSFC reports are better than their first generation counterparts in terms of analytical content and quality of recommendations. Despite the innumerable shortcomings of the first series of SFC reports, pointed out by the Eleventh Finance Commission (EFC) and those raised by the TFC about SFC reports they examined, it cannot be gainsaid that SSFCs raised the magnitude of vertical devolution compared to the previous regime. However, the pertinent question is the cavalier fashion in which most state governments have treated the recommendations of the SFCs. All the five SSFCs under study have reviewed the progress the respective states have made in implementing the first SFC, devolution packages and recommendations. All of them report very serious lapses on the part of the state governments. The constitutional provisions contained in Article 243 (4) that ‘The governor shall cause every recommendation made by the commission under this article together with an explanatory memorandum as to the action taken thereon to be laid before the legislature of the state’, have been violated by almost all the states. By dishonouring and soft-peddling the recommendations of successive SFCs, most state governments have put the fiscal decentralisation process in reverse gear.       Presumably, the most striking mistake with regard to the

y g g transfer system emerging at the state sub-state level following decentralisation reforms is treating the transfers to LGs as an additional financial allocation. Yes, there is a need for extra resources. But the basic principle that as part of decentralisation of funds,9 the budgetary provision that an item of expenditure responsibility that has been transferred to the LGs should be followed with corresponding reduction in the concerned departmental budget of the state has not been followed in most states. So long as the necessary adjustments are not made, all of the state transfers to the LGs become an additional burden on the state. It is a grave mistake on the part of the SFCs that they have not taken this into account in arriving at the vertical gaps. Economic efficiency and efficiency in governance are enhanced by the division of governmental functions among different levels depending on their comparative advantage or what is called the principle of subsidiarity. Although the Kerala assembly has made functional demarcations between the state and the LGs and the LGs, inter se, and the Kerala government introduced a separate budget document for panchayats and ULBs as appendix IV to the budget papers, there was no pro tanto reduction at the state departmental level except in the case of a very few departments. So decentralisation resulted in an additional burden on the state exchequer even in Kerala. There is also a need to insure local government from the impact of the fiscal imprudence of the state governments.           To conclude, after more than a decade of decentralised governance the emerging fiscal decentralisation scenario is disquieting. The percentage of local government expenditure in relation to total government expenditure has declined significantly during the period 1998–99 to 2002–03. The progress of expenditure decentralisation in 11 out of the 15 states appears to be on the decline. The revenue decentralisation trend is also no better. That the average rate of growth in the tax revenue of PRIs and ULBs in most of the

states in the country had been negative or declining provides a wrong signal. It renders impossible any effort towards building autonomous local governments. As regards transfers to the local governments, reckoned in terms of the SDP, state revenue and state expenditure, the overall trend has been very discouraging, although there are significant exceptions. Again, while by and large, the per capita transfers to rural governments are higher than that of the ULBs, the per capita transfers to the ULBs are very high in the states like Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. The performance of SFCs which have the responsibility to mediate in the revenue sharing between the state and the LGs leaves many things to be desired. The functional mapping with reference to state and LGs on the one hand and that among the three tiers of PRIs has not made much progress in most states. Sometimes functions are transferred without making any change in the budgetary head by way of devolution to local bodies. This makes transfers an additional burden on the state exchequer. Needless to say, economic and political efficiency is best ensured when the functions among the different levels are organised on the basis of comparative advantage followed by the corresponding transfers. The design of the transfer system at the state sub-state level needs drastic reform. SFC recommendation is one thing, but implementation is the responsibility of the state. It is the state governments who should bear the major responsibility about the poor progress of fiscal decentralisation in the country.

18 FUNCTIONAL DEVOLUTION TO RURAL LOCAL BODIES IN FOUR STATES INDIRA RAJARAMAN AND DARSHY SINHA

I Introduction Eleventh Schedule added to the Constitution by the T he 73rd Amendment lists 29 functions devolvable by states to

rural local bodies (panchayati raj institutions). States were free to set the speed and design of their approach to decentralisation under the general framework of the Constitutional mandate. Although the constitutional amendments were enacted at the centre, it is at the level of the state where authority for expenditure assignment and devolution of functions to panchayats is fundamentally vested. No devolution of functions is expected from the centre to the states.      Fourteen years on, a quantitative measure is attempted in this essay of the extent to which functional transfers have been achieved through the budgetary transfer of funds, with respect to the fiscal year 2006–07. A notified functional transfer without an associated budgetary provision does not carry any operational significance. The use of budget estimates (BE) for an ongoing year rather than achieved actuals for some past year is justified on the grounds that it is the most current devolution picture that is of relevance.

Further, as a statement of budgetary intent, budget estimates carry validity in and of themselves.       This essay presents estimates of functional devolution for four states: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,1 Orissa and Rajasthan.2 The exercise also makes it abundantly clear why it is that such an exercise has not been attempted so far. In official documents, such as GoI, 2006, functional transfer to rural local bodies is dealt with in a purely qualitative manner, based on administrative notifications.3           Budgets of both central and state governments are presented and approved by the Parliament or the legislature, in the form of numbered demands for grants,which carry no requirement of uniformity whatever across states in terms of either numbering or purpose. If all flows to panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) were presented under a dedicated demand head comprehensively covering all fund transfers to PRIs, this would yield an aggregate estimate of transfer of resources. Unfortunately, this is not practiced by all states.       Each demand lists expenditures under budget heads and sub-heads, which are nationally uniform, at least in principle. In an earlier simpler era, there would have been a one-to-one correspondence between demand, four-digit budget head, and department. For example, the demand for grants for forests would have carried exclusively the four-digit revenue budget head for forests (2406 along with the corresponding capital budget head 4406), and been assigned to the forestry department. This correspondence broke down much before the advent of decentralisation. New demands defined by the identity of beneficiaries (special component plans for Scheduled Castes for example) carried a very wide assortment of budget heads. Even states which do have separate dedicated demands do not comprehensively include all transfers to PRIs, and include within these demands expenditures by the state-level panchayati raj department which are not transferred to PRIs. These practices make the

unearthing of transfers to PRIs needlessly tedious, so that a quick assessment of the status of functional devolution across all states is not possible.       If demands for grants are visualised as columns in a matrix array with budgetary heads and sub-heads in rows, a separate demand for PRIs carries the further and more important advantage that functional decentralisation becomes monitorable as the migration over time of budgetary provisions (in each row of the matrix) from the parent demands (columns) to the demand (column) for PRIs.           The budget head equivalents of the Eleventh Schedule functions do not constitute devolvable expenditures in their totality. Every budget head has constituents that cannot be devolved to PRIs, certainly at the present stage of their development.4 Although there is an unavoidable subjective element in the designation of some expenditure in any segment as devolvable, it is nevertheless preferable to interpolate this in measuring the progress made by the state towards devolution of the specified functions. It serves to underline the fact that it is not desirable, and indeed may be seriously counter-productive, if all components of functions listed in the Eleventh Schedule are designated as devolvable. Even with this attempt, the identification of devolvable expenditures is by no means as delimited as it should be in principle. Budget heads make no distinction between rural and urban expenditures, so that the devolvable base in most cases includes expenditures targeted at urban areas as well.       Section II of the essay maps 21 of the 29 functions listed in the Eleventh Schedule onto their equivalent four-digit budget heads, or sub-heads as the case may be. There is a residual miscellany of functions, whose equivalent budget heads are not explored. Some of them, like rural electrification, non-conventional energy sources, or technical and vocational education, will require much greater maturity in PRI governance and capacities before any substantial

transfer can take place. Some, like cultural activities, libraries, or maintenance of community assets, are a bit inchoate and difficult to map onto any particular budget head. Finally, markets and fairs were among the functions traditionally performed by panchayats much before the Constitutional amendments, and are a major entry in revenue receipts rather than in revenue expenditures.       Section III of the essay goes into the demand structure in each of the four states for recording fund transfer to panchayats. Section IV demonstrates the lack of conformity across states even to common budget heads, which do carry a requirement of uniformity. This is demonstrated with respect to three major national schemes, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY) and Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). Section V then uses the budget head equivalents of Section II to quantify the fund transfer to panchayats for each of 21 functions mapped. In addition to budgetary heads corresponding to specific functions, flows from the state government mandated by the State Finance Commissions, and other grants for specific purposes such as establishment grants, are also quantified in Section V. Aggregating across all expenditure categories within the identified set, an overall rating is possible of the quantitative extent of devolution achieved in the four states, subject to a (hopefully acceptable) margin of error. Section VI concludes the essay.

II Mapping the Eleventh Schedule onto Budget Head Equivalents

Table 18.1 maps 21 out of the 29 functions in the Eleventh Schedule onto the four-digit revenue budget head which are the major classificatory boundaries for revenue expenditure, and are fortunately uniform in subject coverage across states. Each carries sub-heads (two-digit with three-digit components, or directly three-digit). In some cases, as shown, the Eleventh Schedule function is so finely specified as to map onto only a sub-head, or the sum of a few subheads. In other cases, a single function like poverty alleviation can map onto three budget heads, but there are other functions like social forestry, and minor forest produce, which map onto the same budget head. Thus, the 21 functions map (purely coincidentally) onto a total of 21 budget heads for examination. In addition to the budget heads in Table 18.1, individual states have idiosyncratic ways of accounting for their expenditures. These are added on wherever they were discovered, through the process of tracking the fund flow of major national schemes.           Capital expenditures are not examined (with a major exception, dealt with below). There might be episodic capital expenditures directly incurred by state government departments on PRIs, for construction of panchayat buildings and structures for example, under the heads of administration, or public works. But where these funds for capital expenditure are transferred to PRIs, they get recorded in revenue expenditure, since the capital account cannot by definition include grants to PRIs, even where it is intended for capital expenditure. Loans to PRIs if any would get recorded in the capital expenditure of the state, but states have not so far lent funds to PRIs.

III Mapping Fund Transfer to Panchayats: Dedicated Demands Most states have a basic dedicated demand for fund transfer to panchayats, which has at its core the four-digit budget head 3604, for assigned revenues to PRIs as shares of either particular taxes or generalised state revenue. These are listed in the first row of Table 18.2. Even here there are exceptions; budget head 3604 may be found under other demands as well (Table 18.6). Rajasthan places these flows not only in the demand designated for the purpose (49), but also in another for community development (41). Basic revenue support grants are also to be found in the four-digit budget head 2515, for ‘Other Rural Development Programmes’.

In addition to the basic dedicated demand, three of the four states (all but Rajasthan) have other dedicated demands for PRIs, in which functional fund transfers to PRIs are recorded. The multiplicity of dedicated demands is an unfortunate complication, but retains the essential advantage of separateness and transparency. The inclusion of functional transfers in dedicated demands for grants for PRIs in this manner, running in parallel with the parent demands for grants down through rows of budgetary heads, yields a matrix array with two advantages. Functional decentralisation for each of the 29 functions becomes monitorable as the migration over time of budgetary provisions (in each row of the matrix) from the parent demand (column) to the set of demands (columns) for PRIs. The second advantage is that the sum of dedicated demands for PRIs, and the per cent they

p y constitute of total budgeted expenditure, yields an aggregate (albeit very approximate) estimate of transfer of resources. The list of dedicated demands for grants in the four states under which fund transfer to PRIs is effected in Table 18.2 includes, in addition to demands explicitly for financial assistance to PRIs, those for expenditure on rural development and externally aided plans under which there might be substantial grants-in-aid to PRIs. Rajasthan is different. Neither the basic demand for PRIs, nor the other demands for rural development include functional transfers of funds to PRIs. Instead, these are incorporated within the parent functional demands under three-digit budget subheads, which specify the panchayat tier receiving the fund (196, 197 and 198 for zilla, block and gram panchayats respectively). This carries two disadvantages. First, it is impossible to obtain a summary approximation to the aggregate transfer of resources to PRIs from demand heads alone, as is possible for the other three states. Second, the three-digit sub-head under which the transfer took place is not known, in the way possible with a parallel demand, which carries the same budget head structure, and enables an understanding of the function that has been transferred along with the funds. This is a matter of immense importance, since fund transfer to PRIs is merely a concomitant of transfer of functions. The practice of recording transfers to PRIs under the three-digit budget subheads—196, 197, and 198, is adopted at the centre also, where it is entirely appropriate. It is not at the centre that functional decentralisation of governance is expected to take place, so a budgetary system for recording fund transfers adopted at the centre is not suitable at state level, where it is only the pattern of fund transfer that records the associated functional transfer. The sole provision within the budget head structure for recording funds devolved to PRIs in such a manner that the function transferred is indicated thereby under the budgetary head for elementary education (2202/01), where subhead 103 is for

y ‘Assistance to local bodies for primary education’ (Rajaraman and Sinha 2007). Table 18.3 illustrates the advantage of having an accounting structure whereby the functional transfer gets identified, with the example of crop husbandry (budget head 2401). This is the first function in the Eleventh Schedule. In Madhya Pradesh, the parallel demand structure makes possible quantification of the degree of devolution for each sub-function. Funds for horticulture and vegetable crops have been the most devolved, with foodgrain and commercial crops second. There is the larger issue of the unsatisfactory classification system into subheads itself.5 In Rajasthan by contrast, since the accounting mechanism merely adds fund transfer to PRIs under additional three-digit subheads 196/197/198, the pattern of transfer by sub-function is not known. All that is known is the total quantum transferred, without the associated functional transfer. Table 18.4 provides another illustration with figures for Madhya Pradesh for village and small industries.6 The largest transfers are for cooperatives and sericulture. Handloom, handicraft and khadi industries, surprisingly, have zero or negligible transfer to PRIs. This profile of functional transfer is revealed only because of the accounting structure adopted in Madhya Pradesh.

Table 18.5 summarises revenue account transfers under the demand heads of Table 18.2, as a per cent of total revenue expenditures budgeted in 2006–07, with an unavoidable element of both inclusion and exclusion error. Inclusion error arises as in the case of demand number 62 in Madhya Pradesh, for example, which includes expenditure on panchayat elections, clearly not a transfer to PRIs, or more seriously in the case of Orissa demand number 28, where

expenditure of 387 crore on construction of water supply and district roads is not devolved to PRIs. Exclusion error arises because even in Madhya Pradesh, there are grants-in-aid to PRIs, which exist in the small print of parent demands for grants. This initial estimate will be juxtaposed against that obtained from the more detailed examination of functional devolution that follows in the Section V.7

The function-specific figures from the budget heads onto which each function maps, are taken in turn in the sections that follow.

IV Budgetary Routes for Some Major National Schemes Even where, as in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, there are separate demands for transfer of funds to PRIs, not all transfers to PRIs take place within these grants. This is illustrated with respect to three major central rural schemes, designed for full devolution to PRIs.8 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the newest and

most ambitious of the employment programmes on offer in 200 districts, is not intended for full devolution to gram panchayats, since the guidelines specify that they must actually implement only a minimum of 50 per cent of the works under the scheme. However, middle and zilla panchayats may implement the remainder, and the funds are transferred in any case to a district-level programme officer who can be the CEO of the zilla panchayat. The NREGS is recorded under the same budget head everywhere except Rajasthan, where it is not even in the revenue account (Table A.1 in the Appendix). The justification for recording NREGS in the capital account in Rajasthan seems to be that the NREGS was the descendant of the earlier National Food for Work Programme, under which both receipts from the centre and expenditures were recorded in the capital account. These accounting conundrums need to be resolved in a uniform manner across states.       The NREGS is split into several demands in each state. In Madhya Pradesh, all are devolved demands, but in Chhattisgarh, the funds are devolved through grants-in-aid to PRIs in parent demands for tribals (demand 41) and Scheduled Castes (demand 64), not through the corresponding demands for transfer to PRIs of funds for tribals (demand 82) or Scheduled Castes (demand 15). Quite aside from the tedium of assembling the total provision across these separate provisions, there is the larger issue of whether a demand-driven employment programme not intended for demarcation by caste or tribe, should be separately provided for by identity of recipient in state-level demands in this manner.           The Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY), a scheme for development of 100 backward districts; and the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), a nationwide scheme for self-employment, are both fully devolved to PRIs. The provision under state budgets for NREGS and SGSY is for the state contribution alone, with the central contribution

flowing directly to PRIs. The RSVY on the other hand is entirely routed through state budgets under central support for state plans, so that state budgets capture the full fund flow to PRIs under the scheme.       The RSVY (which has been renamed the Backward Areas Development Fund with effect from 2006–07) is recorded under budget heads 2501 or 2515, even extending to 3451 for Secretariat Economic Services in Orissa, and there is the splintering by demand as well (Table A.2). The Orissa practice departs seriously from the intent of RSVY, and is what makes the mapping of Table 18.1 not complete in its depiction of actual practice. The SGSY is splintered in all three states, into multiple budget heads (2501 and 2225) and multiple demands, including parent demands for tribals and Scheduled Castes (Table A.3).           From the evidence for these three schemes, a summary percentage of devolved expenditures from devolved demands alone may understate transfers to PRIs. In Rajasthan in particular, where major schemes like NREGS are accounted for under the capital account, devolved expenditures are not contained even within the revenue account.

V Devolved as a Per Cent of Devolvable Expenditures Devolution percentages have been computed for each budgetary head as a percentage of what is devolvable. Percentages of devolvable to total expenditure under each budget head are provided alongside, and the product of this with the devolved percentage yields the per cent devolved to total expenditure. In addition to the functions listed in the Eleventh Schedule, there are other funds devolved to PRIs. The basic revenues owed to them under the accepted

recommendations of the State Finance Commissions, as revenue shares and establishment and other grants, are recorded under budget head 3604, but also under budget head 2515 (other rural development programmes). These provisions are tabulated in Table 18.6. There is a total lack of uniformity in recording practices once again. In two states, shares of levies are recorded under designated budget heads which indicate the source (such as 102 for stamp duty), but in Rajasthan and Orissa, shares are recorded by destination in terms of panchayat tier. Once again, uniformity in accounting practices would be a great aid to a cross-state understanding of patterns of revenue sharing between states and panchayats. Aggregating across all these entries the basic revenue transfer from state governments to PRIs, independent of the functional flows addressed in the rest of this chapter, stand at Rs 56.34 per head in Madhya Pradesh, Rs 89.88 in Chhattisgarh, Rs 83.04 in Rajasthan and Rs 42.78 in Orissa. Thus, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan are about at par, and transfer about 60 per cent more than Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. These figures exclude the provisions made by the TFC, which are routed through the state budget. The TFC transfers are listed in the notes to Table 18.6. The devolvable percentage (Table 18.7) is low where there is large expenditure on departmental infrastructure (as in crop and animal husbandry, fisheries, minor irrigation and water supply) and in a few of the targeted welfare categories. The devolvable percentages are high, where the function maps onto only a sub-head, or a sum of sub-heads, such as medical and public health for example. Comparing across states, they are in general much higher in Chhattisgarh than in Madhya Pradesh, the state of which it was until 2000–01 a part. The reasons could be that the state inherited a lower departmental overhang. Devolvable shares in Rajasthan are more similar to those in Madhya Pradesh, with relatively lower shares in animal husbandry and forestry. In view of the importance of animal husbandry in Rajasthan, the low

p y j devolvability is of some concern. Orissa has low percentages in some categories like adult education in which other states are fully devolvable, reflecting the high share of expenditure on departmental administration.

In aggregate, the weighted average of devolvable expenditure as a per cent of the total across all functions is remarkably similar, falling in a narrow range of 86 to 91 for the four states. The percentage is this high because it is heavily weighted by the centrally-driven anti-poverty programmes.       The devolved as a percentage of devolvable expenditures vary very widely across functions (Table 18.8). The highest devolved percentages are of course in the rural employment and other rural programmes, where they are close to 100 per cent. These programmes are driven by central directives on devolution of funds to PRIs, and do not really reflect state moves towards devolution. Between the other classes of functions, devolution of rural and public health is uniformly low across states, as are family welfare and nutrition. The devolution of old age and widows’ pensions to PRIs in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh accounts for the high devolved percentages in one of the two welfare heads. Elementary education shows one-third devolution in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan but none in the other two.       Elementary education also has grants-in-aid under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and Kasturba Gandhi Gram Vidyalayas for girl children, but the recipients of these grants are either the schools themselves or line outposts of state government departments. Madhya Pradesh devolves more in some livelihood and infrastructure categories, for example minor irrigation, water supply, crop husbandry, and fisheries than in education, health and nutrition programmes.           With the major exceptions of elementary education and fisheries, devolved percentages are much lower in Chhattisgarh than in Madhya Pradesh, or about on par (Chhattisgarh also devolves old age and widows’ pensions), while Rajasthan has sharply high devolution in some categories. For example, soil and water conservation, an important function in a water-scarce state, is highly devolved, at 85.99 per cent of the devolvable total. Elementary

education is also at around the one-third mark, as in Chhattisgarh. In all other functions, including minor irrigation, drought relief and water supply, the devolved per cent is surprisingly low. Rajasthan also does not devolve old age and widows’ pensions, unlike Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.           What uniquely distinguishes Orissa is that the per cent devolved is at or close to zero, with the exception of the centrally funded rural programmes. Even expenditure on fisheries, which shows high devolved percentages in the other three states, are not devolved in Orissa. The devolved percentage in elementary education is zero.       The product of the figures in the two tables will yield the share of devolved to total expenditure in the relevant budget category.9           Although devolved as a percentage of devolvable expenditure show large differences between states for particular functions, in aggregate, these differences get averaged out, and the weighted devolved percentages vary within a narrow band of 25 to 30 per cent in all states except Orissa, where the weighted average is 11 per cent. Because of the high devolvable average across functions, devolved as a per cent of total expenditure falls in the range 23 to 26 per cent for Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and at 10 per cent for Orissa.           An analysis of variance on the devolved percentages in Table 18.8 does not show any statistical significance for the difference between all four states taken together, although of course it does show differences for pair-wise comparisons of Orissa with each of the other three taken in turn.

Pulling together the consolidated flow from states to PRIs in the four states, Table 18.9 shows the per capita flow in terms of the budgeted release from state budgets in the ongoing budget year 2006–07. The functional flow is obtained by adding on to the 21 listed functions in Table 18.8, the flows from the capital account in Rajasthan for NREGS and other rural employment schemes (Table A.1), and from other than rural budget heads in Orissa for the RSVY (Table A.2). These flows include those TFC and other flows from the centre routed through state budgets. It is not feasible, nor really analytically useful, to separate those out, since the intent here is to capture what flows to PRIs, and not so much to capture the source of funding of these flows.

Adding on the revenue support, in accordance with SFC recommendations, yields a total per capita flow in the range Rs 473 to 484 per capita in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, about 30 per cent higher, at Rs 621 in Chhattisgarh, and lowest of all in Orissa, at Rs 198 per head.           Finally, Table 18.10 obtains the sum from the detailed

extraction of flows to PRIs described in the previous section as a per cent of total revenue expenditure budgeted for fiscal year 2006–07. (There is a slight, but unavoidable error, in adding on the capital flows under NREGS in Rajasthan.) These are then juxtaposed against the estimate from the sum of PRI-dedicated demands shown in Table 18.5. It can be seen quite clearly that in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which have separate (albeit multiple) demands for PRIs, the sum of dedicated demands yields a good approximation. However, in Rajasthan, where functional flows to PRIs are not recorded in dedicated demands, clearly they underestimate total flows. In Orissa, the sum of dedicated demands include 437 crore of expenditures incurred by the state government on rural roads and waterworks, but not actually devolved to PRIs.

VI Conclusion

A final relative ranking of the four states follows in Table 18.11. This is juxtaposed against the rural poverty headcount ratio for 2004–05. It is clear that Orissa, where rural poverty incidence is highest, also has the lowest devolution achievement in both per capita and percentage terms. Two caveats immediately follow. First, no causal relationship can be inferred between the two. Second, the relationship is not neatly inverse, since Rajasthan is not at the top of the devolution indicators.

The most astonishing feature of decentralisation of governance in India has been the complete absence of a uniform accounting system that would render transparent the transfer of functions mandated. This is a major deficiency of the process of decentralisation in India. Accounting uniformity was entirely compatible with the freedom rightly granted to state governments to shape the contours and speed of decentralisation. Even transfer of state funds to PRIs under some major national schemes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee, the Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana, and the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, is not uniformly dealt with across states in terms of budget heads, which unlike the grant structure do carry a requirement of uniformity The structure of budget heads and sub-heads is

nationally uniform, and therefore any departures found in practice constitute a violation of that requirement of uniformity. The structure of demands for grants however is not required to be nationally uniform. Here, the appeal for a common structure is based on the need for monitoring the process of functional transfer over time. In the absence of a nationally uniform grant structure, an assessment of the functional devolution across all states calls for an impossibly detailed examination of the budget of each state.       The first four of the six recommendations that follows are immediately implementable at the state level. The last two are possible only at the national level. It will be impossible to quantify the extent of functional devolution over time unless these recommendations are fully implemented. First, at the state level, all revenues transfers from states to PRIs, under the mandate of State Finance Commissions, along with establishment and salary grants, should be recorded entirely under the head 3604 specified for this purpose (‘compensation to local bodies and PRIs’). Rajasthan records these transfers entirely, and Chhattisgarh largely, under the head 2515, which is for ‘other rural development programmes’, with line entries specifying that these are SFCmandated flows. Madhya Pradesh and Orissa record them largely under 3604, but also have some bits under the head 2515.           Second, the major state flows to PRIs under centrally funded schemes need to be recorded in the revenue account, and under uniform (revenue) budget heads. This is not the case at present. With the rural employment schemes, the same budget head 2505 for rural employment programmes is used everywhere except Rajasthan, where they go into 4515, which is capital expenditure for rural development. The justification for this in Rajasthan seems to be that the NREGS was the descendant of the earlier National Food for Work Programme, under which both receipts from the centre and expenditures were recorded in the capital account. A grant to

p p g PRIs recorded in the capital account is in any case technically wrong in an accounting sense. The Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana for backward districts is recorded either under 2501 (Special Rural Development Programmes), or 2515 (Other Rural Development Programmes), or even 3451 (Secretariat Economic Services). The Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana for rural self-employment can be found in 2501 or in 2225 (Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Tribes).       Third, although states are perfectly free to structure their demands for grants, it is possible to monitor the progress towards functional devolution only if all fund flows from states to PRIs, whether of the revenue transfer or the functional variety, are assigned to demands uniquely designated for the purpose. This is presently being done, though not comprehensively, in three of the four states. Rajasthan is the exception again. The Rajasthan budget records functional flows to PRIs within the parent functional demands under three-digit budget subheads, specifying the tier receiving the fund (196, 197 and 198 for zilla, block and gram panchayats respectively). This practice is adopted at the centre, where it is entirely appropriate, since there is no functional decentralisation of governance from centre to PRIs. It is not suitable at the state level, where functional transfer can be tracked only through the associated pattern of fund transfer. The audited finance accounts also group transfers to PRIs under these three subheads, and so lose the information potentially available from a well-structured grant format.           Even where fund flows to PRIs are placed in separate demands, as in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, a few are tucked away as grants-in-aid under general demand heads. These states also have multiple demand heads dedicated for PRIs, reflecting the historical evolution of demands, away from what was initially a purely functional orientation, towards demands for designated caste and other beneficiaries. These practices add an avoidable element of

p extreme tedium in determining what flows to PRIs from state exchequers.           Fourth, state provisions under the NREGS, a demanddriven programme for all rural households that self-select into it, should not be carved into demand heads for targeted groups like Scheduled Castes or tribes. By the national objectives, which are to provide employment to self-selecting poor households regardless of caste or tribe, the state contribution should come under general demands for transfer of funds, and not under demands targeted towards special groups.           At the national level, two reforms are needed. First, budgetary heads and sub-heads have to be restructured so as to convey the functional content of each. There is duplication between categories 2501 and 2515, both of which cover rural development programmes. Then, within four-digit heads, such as crop husbandry (2401) for example, there are some input based categories (like 103 for seeds or 105 for manure and fertilisers), and some output based categories (like 102 for foodgrain crops, and 108 for commercial crops). The assignment of expenditure in such an irrational system would necessarily be ad hoc. Again, the catch-all component 001 for direction and administration in this as under other budget heads needs to be subdivided and grouped with other non-salary expenditures for the performance of a particular function so as to enable a more functional understanding. The category 109 for extension and training is an example. Salaries for extension staff are not included under this head, but are grouped with other salaries under 001. These boundaries do not enable an understanding of the different sub-functions within an overall head.           Second at the national level, the budgetary structure needs to provide for distinctions between rural and urban expenditures. The devolvable base in most budget heads in the previous section unavoidably includes expenditures targeted at urban areas as well.

g

19 NEIGHBOURHOOD ASSOCIATIONS AND LOCAL DEMOCRACY Delhi Municipal Elections 2007 STEPHANIE TAWA LAMA-REWAL

went through municipal elections in April 2007, for D elhi the third time since the implementation of the 74th

Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA), which defines democratic decentralisation in the urban context. But for the first time, a substantial number of neighbourhood associations engaged in different ways with the electoral process. This essay1 describes the modalities and implications of such engagement, which it considers as an analyser of the relationship between the representative and participative dimensions of local democracy. Considering that municipal councillors embody the representative dimension of local democracy and that neighbourhood associations embody its participative dimension, I argue (1) that the democratisation of local government aimed at in the 74th CAA, i.e., the democratic part of decentralisation, is severely limited by a series of institutional and social factors; (2) that neighbourhood associations, by their nature and their action, contribute to containing the democratisation of local governance; but that (3) these associations have recently engaged into a democratisation process of their own, and may ultimately strengthen local democracy rather than undermine it.

Democratisation of Urban Local Bodies The 74th CAA, adopted in 1992 by the Indian Parliament, is a historic piece of legislation which promotes the democratisation of urban local bodies (ULBs) in a double sense: as extension, and as inclusion.       First, the 74th CAA democratises ULBs by extending the principle of electoral representation to the level of the city council. Up to 1992, local self-government (a subject on the states’ list in the Indian federal system) was diversely developed in the Indian states.2 For instance, while West Bengal and Maharashtra have organised local elections at regular intervals since the mid-1980s, this was not the case in many other states, where elected assemblies at the local level could be superseded sine die. Thus the municipal corporation of Delhi (MCD) was superseded in 1987, and new elections were held only 10 years later. Giving ULBs a constitutional status and making local elections compulsory3 are, therefore, crucial features of the 74th CAA.          Second, the 74th CAA promotes the democratisation of ULBs by the inclusion of social categories hitherto politically marginalised, through electoral quotas or reservations. The act makes it mandatory for all elected assemblies at the local level to include one-third women, and Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in proportion to their respective demographic importance in the cities.4           In order to implement the decentralisation policy, all states, in 1993–94, had to adopt conformity legislations including both mandatory and optional provisions. The mandatory nature of the two provisions mentioned above points at the policymakers’ emphasis on the democratic dimension of decentralisation. Indeed, even though conformity legislations adopted by the states reveal a general reluctance towards a true devolution of functions,

functionaries and funds to local governments, their implementation has meant a double transformation of the face of ULBs: wherever ULBs used to be essentially administrative institutions, they have been transformed into political institutions by the new role of locally elected representatives; and everywhere SCs, STs, and women have come to occupy a new, significant space in these institutions.

Limits of Democratisation The observation of local political life, however, reveals a series of facts that combine to drastically limit the democratisation of local self-government in the urban context. First, despite the extension of the electoral principle, councillors are limited in their role as people’s representatives by two institutional constraints: (1) the prevalence of the ‘commissioner system’, and (2) the fact that ward committees are largely non functional. In the commissioner system (also called ‘Bombay system’), the commissioner, a senior IAS officer nominated by the state (and in Delhi by the centre), heads the executive wing of the municipal corporation, which is in charge of framing policies and drafting the budget. The commissioner is, therefore, much better known than the mayor (usually elected from among councillors,5 for one year in Delhi, two and a half years in Mumbai) whose role is largely honorific. Councillors, who together form the deliberative wing, are supposed to deliberate in the framework of thematic committees, but their role, then, is essentially a consultative one—with the exception of the standing committee(s) which exercise some financial control over decisions.6 The other institutional limit to the democratisation of municipal corporations is the reluctant development of the third tier of decentralisation through ward committees. Most

cities have no ward committees in the spirit of the 74th CAA, i.e., forums where problems concerning the ward—the smallest electoral constituency in the Indian political architecture—can be debated between the local councillor, members of the municipal administration, and local representatives of civil society. What is referred to as ‘ward committees’ is actually a second tier of decentralisation, i.e., instances concerning a cluster of electoral wards, involving the concerned councillors and representatives of the various municipal departments.7 Ward committees as they exist are doubly unable to be the participatory institutions they are meant to be in the 74th CAA: (1) they suffer from the lack of representation of civil society, and (2) they operate on a scale defying the very notion of proximity, since they regroup a number of electoral wards which are already characterised by their big size.8 This is all the more regrettable that proximity to local issues is precisely a major argument supporting political decentralisation, and a factor of legitimacy for locally elected representatives.9 Second, the democratisation of municipal corporations through the inclusion of new categories is limited by social factors. A recent study of the implementation of reservations for women in the municipal corporations of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai showed that women councillors are doubly handicapped when it comes to exercising their new functions. On the one hand, they are relatively deprived of crucial political resources such as money, contacts, experience and time. On the other hand, they face discrimination, as women, on the part of contemptuous bureaucrats and resentful fellow party members (Ghosh and Tawa Lama-Rewal 2005). One important consequence of this double handicap is that it takes women councillors a long time to understand their role and the room for manoeuvre that they have, which reduces their effectiveness as elected representatives. This series of constraints translates into a relationship between councillors

and bureaucrats that is characterised by the pre-eminence of the latter over the former. This is most evident in the case of Delhi, which has long been ruled by bureaucrats. In addition to these internal limits, the power and visibility of locally elected representatives are also externally constrained by the relationship between municipal corporations and other government institutions. Indeed, the role of ULBs in the management of local affairs is restricted by the intervention of the central or state governments and their parastatal agencies in charge of water, housing, etc. In this context of institutional fragmentation, the role of municipal corporations is largely reduced to the maintenance of civic infrastructures. To sum up, the institutional and social context in which the implementation of the 74th CAA took place has severely limited the impact of the democratisation of municipal corporations. The lack of empowerment of municipal councillors doubtlessly explains the lack of people’s interest in local government, as evident from the fact that most people do not know the name of their councillor, nor even of the city mayor (whereas most people know the name of their representative at the state level, the MLA). An important manifestation of this relative indifference is the low voting rate in municipal elections,10 always lower than for assembly and parliamentary elections. This is in contrast with the strong participation in local elections in rural India (Yadav 2000: 123), and can be explained in several ways: beyond the lack of proximity and the low stakes already mentioned, the fact that cities concentrate wealth and wealthy people is certainly a factor. Indeed the voting pattern in India is characterised by the fact that the poorer, less educated sections of the population vote the most.11 This is reflected in municipal elections by the high voting rate of slumdwellers, as opposed to the large abstention of ‘middle class’12 voters, as shown in Map 19.1: the highest level of abstention is to be found in the posh colonies of south Delhi,

but also in the better off parts of Rohini, Civil Lines and Mayur Vihar.

Role of Neighbourhood Associations Is urban democracy, then, a ‘weak democracy’ (Rosanvallon 2006), in India as in Europe? If we consider urban democracy as going beyond municipal elections, the answer to that question is far from obvious. Indeed the general indifference

towards local affairs that is presumed on the basis of voters’ apathy is contradicted by several examples of collective action by local actors—neighbourhood associations—on local issues like the maintenance of roads, parks and water pipes, rainwater harvesting, solid waste management, etc. Indeed neighbourhood associations have emerged over the past decade as an important actor of urban governance in most Indian megacities,13 as they have appropriated the role of representatives of local people in their interactions with the municipal corporation, but also with the state government and its parastatal agencies.       Under the generic phrase ‘neighbourhood associations’, I include a series of associations whose names differ according to the city but also according to their origin: in Delhi, neighbourhood associations include mostly resident welfare associations (RWAs), but also cooperative group housing societies; in Mumbai they include road associations but also advanced locality management groups, etc. More specifically, two features distinguish them from the other types of associations active in these cities.       First, neighbourhood associations represent a truly local type of activism: they exist and act on the scale of the neighbourhood—a building, a street, a colony—and they usually focus on strictly local issues. They claim to represent local people—the inhabitants of the building, the street, the colony—but unlike NGOs, they speak and act on their own behalf.           Second, neighbourhood associations are an activism of the ‘middle class’, for the ‘middle class’: in Delhi, but also in Hyderabad (Kennedy 2007), Mumbai (Zérah 2007), Bangalore (Nair 2006) and Chennai (Coelho 2005; Harriss 2005), they are a feature of residential colonies and are absent from slums (where their equivalent would be community based organisations, or CBOs, which are also local associations active on local issues).

          Just like NGOs and CBOs, however, neighbourhood associations have been promoted through the implementation of participative schemes, in the context of a political discourse favouring participation as one of the defining virtues of good governance. Thus, even though neighbourhood associations are not new in Indian cities, over the past decade they have multiplied, taken up a new role, and acquired a new visibility.       In Delhi, RWAs have existed at least since the 1970s, but assessing their number today proves particularly difficult, considering that they can exist without being registered. Even if one considers only registered associations, there is a systematic discrepancy between the number of associations found on official lists and the figures orally provided by registration authorities. Thus, the registrar of societies estimates that several thousand RWAs exist in Delhi,14 but the data provided by his website show a list of only 870 associations. Another registration authority is the Bhagidari cell of the chief minister’s office, which is concerned only with those RWAS that are members of the Bhagidari scheme (for which they have to prove that they are registered, that they hold yearly elections, and that they have existed for a number of years). The list provided by the Bhagidari cell in 2006 includes 1096 RWAs15—but one can estimate that several hundred RWAs are not included in it.       Based on this listing,16 Map 19.2, shows the distribution of RWAs over the city. It highlights the strong presence of RWAs in middle-middle-class areas such as Dwarka, Rohini and Mayur Vihar, and shows that these associations are not confined to the posh colonies of south Delhi alone. RWAs are largely absent from: (1) the territories administered by the New Delhi municipal council (NDMC), i.e., Lutyens’ Delhi, and by the Delhi cantonment board (DCB), i.e., the Delhi cantonment area (DCA); and (2) from the fringes. Concerning the first two areas, one can see three explanations: (1) the residential space is limited by the presence of administrative

buildings, airports and military zones; (2) most residents (be they Indian bureaucrats, foreign diplomats or military personnel) are not the owners of the buildings they live in— whereas RWAs involve a majority of owners; and (3) they live in areas whose special status ensure that those issues taken up by RWAs, such as the bad maintenance of roads, parks etc., are not relevant. Concerning the outer border of Delhi, one can see two other reasons for the relative absence of RWAs: (1) the western fringe is largely rural; and (2) both the west and north fringes are the site of a number of slums— where RWAs do not exist—and of unauthorised, nonregularised colonies, where RWAs exist but cannot be registered.17

The Bhagidari (citizen-government partnership) scheme, initiated by the Delhi government in 2000, was certainly a decisive factor in the new visibility of RWAs. This scheme associates neighbourhood associations (RWAs, but also senior citizens associations, market traders associations, etc.) to the management of local affairs by consulting them on specific schemes; by promoting their interaction with municipal officials concerning the maintenance of civic infrastructure; and by entitling them to a role of supervision

of local public works. The Bhagidari scheme ensures its own visibility through regular announcements in the press.           But RWAs themselves have shown, over the past six years, a remarkable ability to assert their presence through the media. Their visibility stems in part from the fact that they have formed large federations, two of which are headed by people with a professional experience in public relations: the Delhi Joint Front of Resident Welfare Associations, created in 2002, claims today a membership of 253 RWAs; while the United Residents Joint Association (URJA), created in 2004, claims a membership of over 700 associations. These two federations are distinct, both in size and in ambition, from many smaller federations, based on the territorial contiguity of a series of RWAs. They gather RWAs from all over the city, and they claim to speak on behalf of the city residents as a whole. In this perspective, they interact regularly with journalists in charge of city affairs, be it with national dailies or local, free newsletters; they frequently issue press statements, call press conferences and they meet with a favourable response from press editors. The Hindustan Times, for instance, calls RWAs the ‘residents voice’, thus contributing to asserting their legitimacy as the spokespersons of ‘local people’.

Neighbourhood Associations: An Obstacle to Democratisation? What is the impact of neighbourhood associations on local democracy? This question evokes two possible, non-exclusive answers: (1) neighbourhood associations may provide an answer to the weakness of the representative dimension of urban democracy as they promote the participation of local people in the management of local affairs, and embody the

relevance of proximity; or (2) they may constitute the means through which the upper strata of society attempt to regain their influence over local affairs, threatened by the inclusive dimension of the democratisation of local government.           The first interpretation is congruent with the fact that neighbourhood associations have become an important actor in all cities but Kolkata, where representative democracy is certainly stronger than elsewhere, for several reasons. First, the mayor-in-council system empowers councillors in a unique way, and voting participation in municipal elections (as in other elections) is higher in Kolkata than in other megacities. Second, the CPI(M), a major component of the left front which has been ruling the state since 1977, is characterised by a strong network of local cells, called ‘nagarik committees’ in Kolkata, which tend to play the role of local forums (Ghosh 2007: 21). Third, on the whole, ‘civil society was not encouraged (to play an important role in) city governance’ (Ghosh 2007: 1).       But the second interpretation is supported by a number of features of neighbourhood associations, suggesting that they are essentially undemocratic institutions. A qualitative study conducted on a sample of 16 RWAs in different areas of the city in 2004–06 suggests that beyond variations in terms of the socio-economic category to which they belong and cater, neighbourhood associations can be qualified as undemocratic on two grounds: (1) their unrepresentative, elite nature, and (2) their modes of operation, which tend to bypass democratic channels.       First, these associations are undemocratic in nature. They are usually formed by self-selection and cooptation; they most often work in a non-public way, through monthly meetings in the flat or the house of one of the office bearers; and they favour consensus over debate (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007c). They are representative—in a democratic, majoritarian sense—neither at the level of the neighbourhood, considering that they are not always elected and often exclude, de facto,

y y tenants; nor at the level of the city, since they exist mostly in upper and ‘middle class’ residential areas. They are also not representative in a descriptive (Pitkin 1967) sense, since their office-bearers are drawn from largely male elite in terms of education level and occupation (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007c).       Second, neighbourhood associations are undemocratic in their modes of action. They express a reluctance to delegate the representation of their interests to local councillors on two grounds. First, they suspect councillors to favour the urban poor whenever a conflict of interests arises, since the poor vote en masse in municipal elections, unlike the ‘middle classes’. Second, they tend to question the competence of local councillors, who often have a lower social status than themselves. Thus, the discourse of neighbourhood associations (as perceived through public statements and interviews) conveys an image of electoral politics as being characterised by vested interests (vote banks, corruption) and therefore, inefficient. Now efficiency is precisely the key word of the alternative type of legitimacy they try to appropriate, that of ‘outputs’, i.e., economic results, as opposed to the legitimacy of ‘inputs’, i.e., the electoral process (Papadopoulos in Hermet 2004: 175). As a consequence, neighbourhood associations favour interactions with non-elected authorities—government officials and judges —which contradicts the democratisation of local government. The class affinity between these three actors (strongest in Delhi, since many RWAs’ office-bearers are retired public servants) is reinforced by an ideological convergence. Interviews with municipal bureaucrats indeed reveal a negative perception of the role played by councillors in the management of local affairs, in Delhi particularly (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007b). And the statements issued by the Supreme Court during the conflict over land use that shook Delhi in 200618 expressed a similar discontent concerning the performance of the local (and the state) government.

          However, elite capture and the recourse to channels of influence parallel to those of democratic representation are regular features of participative democracy all over the world (Bacqué, Rey; Sintomer 2005); very few experiments in participation satisfy the criteria of representative democracy in terms of representation and equality of expression. This does not mean that these experiments are anti-democratic, but rather that they pertain to the sphere of ‘counterdemocracy’, as defined by the French political scientist Pierre Rosanvallon: ‘Counter-democracy is not the opposite of democracy; it is, rather, that form of democracy which contradicts the other one; the democracy of indirect powers disseminated in the social body; the democracy of organised distrust facing the democracy of electoral legitimacy’ (Rosanvallon 2006:16).           One may, therefore, consider that neighbourhood associations, by playing the role of watchdog (a fundamental of democracy), by organising—on their limited scale—the distrust of politicians, really constitute a different ‘democratic experience’ (Rosanvallon 2006:12). But does this different type of local democracy complement or threaten the other one? In Indian megacities, the different avenues of political participation provided by local elections on the one hand, and by neighbourhood activism on the other hand, are overwhelmingly informed by class: the essentially ‘middle class’ nature of neighbourhood associations gives them access to resources—money, contacts, information, and communication skills—which allow them to compete with elected councillors as bearers of people’s concerns in local affairs.19 Their ability to form fronts and federations manifests their capacity to aggregate interests and, therefore, to lobby in an effective way, as was evident in the cases of the regulation of cable operators or the rise in electricity tariffs in Delhi. As visible spokespersons and efficient lobbyists, neighbourhood associations can bypass local

councillors to interact directly with decision-makers— municipal bureaucrats, the state government—thereby undermining the already fragile legitimacy of elected representatives. One could therefore fear that the relative effectiveness of neighbourhood associations may convert representative local democracy into a relegated democracy—of the poor (voters), by the poor (councillors), for the poor (users of municipal services—schools, dispensaries…), to put it in an oversimplified way. A series of recent initiatives however suggest that neighbourhood activism and local elections actually need each other, that they interact with, and complement each other.

Democratisation of Neighbourhood Associations Neighbourhood associations seem to have engaged into a democratisation process of their own: (1) they try to conform to democratic norms; (2) they aspire to a democratic type of legitimacy; and (3) they took an active part in recent local elections.           First, some neighbourhood associations impose on themselves the submission to a number of democratic norms, practices and values. Thus, many of the RWA office-bearers I interviewed in Delhi emphasised procedures such as elections at regular intervals (from one to three years); the impossibility for an office-bearer to occupy the same position for more than two terms in a row; the keeping of minutes of the monthly meetings, which can be consulted by any RWA member at any time, and are presented to the public once a year during the annual general body meeting; and the auditing of the RWA accounts. The Delhi Joint Front of Resident Welfare Associations even created a women’s wing to

promote the inclusion of women among office-bearers.           These initiatives are significant because registration authorities do not impose such rules.20 They are also recent: my first series of interviews, two years ago, revealed that many RWAs held elections very irregularly if at all; that elections were often uncontested; and that when there was a contest, it would take place in an open way, by raising their hands.       This evolution is doubtlessly encouraged, in Delhi, by the Bhagidari scheme, which attracts RWAs with a number of incentives: being part of the scheme means being associated to consultation workshops on civic issues; being granted a supervising role concerning the maintenance of local civic amenities; having opportunities to interact with top level bureaucrats and with political leaders—including the chief minister; and most recently, having access to (modest) public funds for developing local projects. But to be part of this scheme, RWAs have to submit to a small number of conditions—including yearly elections.           Second, this self-imposed compliance with democratic procedures pertains to the aspiration to a democratic type of legitimacy. Indeed neighbourhood associations need to fend off de-legitimising criticisms,21 if only because these weaken their influence, as was evident in the opposition between trader associations and RWAs over the issue of mixed land use in Delhi in 2006. Thus, RWAs, in association with NGOs working on urban governance, have been advocating the creation of ‘area sabhas’, composed of all the voters registered in one polling station (i.e., 1,500 to 3,000 persons in Delhi); the idea being that area sabhas would elect two representatives, who then would be statutory members of the local ward committee.22       Third, neighbourhood associations have actively engaged with the municipal elections which took place in April 2007 in Delhi—just as they did in February 2007 in Mumbai.23 In the

capital city, where I could observe the electoral campaign directly, RWAs engaged with the electoral process in three different ways.           One, just like other local organisations, they tried to pressurise political parties through their role as relays of candidates in the mobilisation of local voters: candidates were eager to get the support of RWAs’ leaders to organise their ‘corner meetings’—which were an opportunity for RWAs to voice their demands, or to simply assert their importance in the area.       Two, some RWAs organised ‘meet your candidate’ events, whereby all the candidates contesting in a ward were invited to a meeting in which they were subjected to questions by local voters. It seems however that these events were rare and confined to the upper-middle-class areas of south Delhi.24 Three, RWAs proved to be a rich pool of candidates— of three different types: (1) a number of RWA office bearers got the ticket from a political party; (2) some of them were denied a ticket and contested as independents, but in the classical, ‘party’ style; (3) lastly, about 35 ‘RWA candidates’25 contested as such, that is, as independent candidates claiming to represent civil society in general and RWAs in particular.26 I will now focus on the latter category.

‘People’s Candidates’ in MCD Elections 2007 Most of the ‘RWA candidates’ were supported by two federations of associations:27 URJA, which selected and supported 21 candidates; and the Jan Pratinidhi Manch (Front of People’s Representatives), a federation of about 20 associations from various constituencies, which supported 11 candidates. These 32 ‘people’s candidates’, as they liked to call themselves, were differently distributed over the city: the

JPM candidates were confined to south Delhi and Dwarka, while URJA candidates were more evenly spread, since they were present in north and west Delhi as well as in transYamuna areas.       The two initiatives were similar in many ways. Concerning their raison d’être, both initiatives justified themselves on a double argument: (1) proximity to local people and local issues should be the decisive factor in selecting your councillor; and (2) the selection methods of political parties are inadequate. In this regard, the methods used by the two federations to select candidates were also largely similar: local committees were formed, gathering a number of associations active in the area, and these committees designated a person as their candidate, pledging to support her/him. In both cases, also, the critique of political parties, targeting the role of money and muscle power in elections and the corruption it generates, was part of the assertion of a political ambition in the noblest sense. While the JPM presented itself as a ‘unifying political platform’, URJA defines itself as ‘a political entity’.28 Both federations promised that once elected, their candidates would meet RWAs on a regular basis; report once a year on their material achievements and especially on the use of the councillor’s development fund; and be ready to step down in case constituents were unhappy with their performance.       Concerning their resources, both federations tried to cash in on the recent successes achieved by the mobilisation of RWAs against the rise in electricity tariffs in order to assert their credibility as representatives of people’s interests. And both proved to be media savvy: in both cases support to the candidates consisted of some election paraphernalia (a common pamphlet), and above all media coverage obtained through the contacts of the federations’ leaders. Thus, the English press reported extensively on a few of these candidates, URJA associated itself with the Hindi paper

Punjab Kesri, while the JPM documented its initiative on its website.29 In addition, supporters of these initiatives launched a campaign through emails to encourage the ‘middle classes’ to go and cast their ballot on election day.           There were also important contrasts between the two federations, in terms of their composition and their political project. The JPM gathered associations with different statuses, objectives and constituencies: it included RWAs, but also advocacy NGOs and Jugghi Jompris Niwasi Samitis (slum associations), and the 11 candidates it supported had very different profiles, from a retired army man to the operator of a chole-bathure thela. URJA on the contrary is made up of only RWAs; moreover, it promoted clearly elitist criteria for the selection of candidates, such as their education level (minimum standard XII).30           The greater socio-economic heterogeneity of the JPM translated, in its manifesto, into a vast array of issues, going from healthcare for all to the preservation of children’s playgrounds, while URJA’s manifesto was clearly focused on good governance issues only. More generally, the agenda of the JPM appeared more radical, with an emphasis on the need to get rid of political parties, and on the right to recall elected representatives in case of low performance. This radicalism was also apparent in the campaigning methods, relying on close interactions between the candidate (accompanied by two or three supporters only) and voters, beside street plays and press conferences. I could follow the campaign of one of the JPM candidates: a lady contesting in Ward 191 (Shahpur Jat). Her door-to-door campaign was very low key, and she found it difficult to convince women leaders in slums, to organise corner meetings for her, but she sincerely tried to establish a communication with voters, to convince them that politics could be different, and her efforts did meet with some appreciation: despite their obvious scepticism, those women who were present in the slum that day also expressed their

surprise: ‘It’s the first time I actually talked with a candidate during an election’, remarked one of them.31 URJA was much less critical of parties and their methods than the JPM. Indeed URJA’s involvement in MCD elections was only the latest step in the engagement of its founder, Sanjay Kaul, with the larger issue of political reform. Sanjay Kaul is the founder of People’s Action, an NGO based in Gurgaon, whose main goal is to improve governance. People’s Action was already part of the Delhi Election Watch, ‘a coalition of concerned citizens and civil society organisations … whose main purpose (was) to mobilise effective citizen participation in the context of the Delhi Assembly elections’ in 2003, spearheaded a campaign in the same year to update electoral rolls in Gurgaon, and enrolled RWAs to ensure that 100,000 newly registered voters, mostly from the ‘middle classes’, could go and cast their votes in the 2004 parliamentary elections.32 In 2005, it was behind the creation, of the ‘Gurgaon Residents’ Party’, by the RWAs which put up one candidate in Haryana assembly elections (the candidate was not elected).33           People’s Action’s involvement, through URJA, in MCD elections was carefully prepared. After a failed attempt at involving both RWAs and parties in the selection of future candidates34 in November 2006, the press reported the results of a survey of 500 RWAs conducted by People’s Action and URJA, showing that there was a ‘general disenchantment with councillors’.35 Early in 2007, URJA organised a ‘Delhi RWAs political convention’ which concluded that the time had come for RWAs to participate in elections, at least at the local level,36 through two campaigns: one aiming at motivating people to cast their vote; the other aiming at supporting ‘people’s candidates’. But those candidates selected by URJA were the first to try and get a ticket from a political party; contesting as independents was only the second option.           The campaigning method of URJA candidates, as I

p g g observed in Ward 49 (Rohini north), was very similar to that of political parties. The candidate hired a number of supporters for whom he provided T-shirts and caps bearing his name and his symbol; he walked across the streets, surrounded by this noisy little crowd of supporters, armed with banners, a microphone and a drum. He tried to assert his difference by offering a rose to each female voter, emphasising that unlike party candidates he would not buy votes with liquor, saris or cash, but that he was committed to improving the life of his constituents.       None of the ‘people’s candidates’ was eventually elected. URJA candidates generally got a greater number of votes and scored higher on the list of candidates (five of them actually came third, behind the candidates put up by the main parties) than JPM candidates, some of whom could not even get 100 votes. A close look at the electoral results, by polling station, of the candidates mentioned above, partly explains such results. The two series of maps show: (1) the distribution of socio-economic categories in the ward37 and the distribution of electoral abstention; and (2) the number of votes (in absolute figures38) of the candidate whose campaign I observed.           Maps 19.3a and 19.3b concern the JPM candidate. In a ward characterised by great economic disparity between various areas, Map 19.3a confirms that abstention is highest in the richest colonies, but shows that it can also be relatively high in poorer areas such as Khirki village. Map 19.3b shows that the candidate’s support was really concentrated in one area: Masjid Moth, the place where she resides and where she has been actively involved, as an RWA office bearer, in the protection of a children’s park.

Maps 19.4a and 19.4b concern the URJA candidate. Again, the correlation between economic status and electoral abstention is not systematic, since Map 19.4a shows a relatively high level of abstention in JJ camp, as well a low abstention in the southern part of Sector 15, which is a middle income colony. Map 19.4b again highlights the good score of the candidate in the area where he resides and has been an active member of the local RWA (Sector 18), but it also suggests some success at mobilising slum-dwellers. One can suppose that his campaigning style, quite similar to that of party candidates, made him more credible in the eyes of poor voters than the JPM candidate in Shahpur Jat. The next series of maps, about candidates with a strong involvement in the local RWA, but who did not contest as ‘people’s candidates’, help situating the specificity of the latter. Maps 19.5a and 19.5b concern Ward 118 (Janakpuri south), where the Congress candidate highlighted, on his leaflets, both his

‘political position’ (as an office bearer of the local party cell) and his ‘social position’ (as an office bearer of the local RWA). In a ward characterised by a strong socio-economic homogeneity, the level of abstention appears relatively low (Map 19.5a). Map 19.5b shows the even distribution of votes which seems to make the major difference between independent and party candidates.39 Lastly, Maps 6a and 6b concern Ward 163 (Safdarjung Enclave), where an RWA office bearer, also a Congress member, was denied the party ticket and contested as an independent (albeit with the support of a number of party workers). Map 19.6a shows in this case a close correlation between economic status and the level of abstention. Most importantly, Map 19.6b reveals that the uneven distribution of votes is typical of independent candidates—not of ‘people’s candidates’ only—even though in this case the support of a section of party voters seems to have made the presence of the independent candidate more largely felt than either the JPM or the URJA candidates. Indeed the largest numbers of votes come not from the area where the candidate resides and is active as an RWA officebearer (Hauz Khas village), but from the poorer area of Humayunpur—which reflects the typical voting pattern for the Congress Party.

The failure of independent candidates to gather a sufficient number of votes is actually a constant feature of independent candidates in local elections, as shown in the table: they make up about half the total number of candidates, but their success rate is extremely low.

Conclulusions Lastly, the engagement of neighbourhood associations with local elections was revealing in many ways. One, it confirmed that RWAs aspire to a status giving them the legitimacy and means to act beyond the neighbourhood level. At the same time the inability of ‘people’s candidates’ to attract a substantial number of votes in all or most areas of the ward highlights the inherent contradiction in RWAs’ endeavour to play a role beyond the neighbourhood they belong and cater to—which is due to the socio-economic heterogeneity of most wards, but also to the very parochial nature of RWAs’ concerns. Thus, ‘people’s candidates’ are bound to be defeated by party candidates who can rely on the long established, widespread network of local party cells.           Two, the campaign offered an opportunity for RWAs to express critical but constructive views on local democracy. Most candidates underlined their difference40 with party candidates, and tried to convert their relative lack of political resources into an advantage: they emphasised their refusal to buy votes with money or goods as a first proof of their commitment to an anti-corruption agenda; they promised to be accountable, to report to their constituents once a year about the implementation of their projects; and they offered to step down if their constituents expressed this wish. The very method adopted to select ‘people’s candidates’, relying on the election by (admittedly ad hoc) ‘ward committees’, underlines the crying need for a participative structure offering avenues of participation to neighbourhood associations on the ward level.           Three, the bad electoral results of ‘people’s candidates’ provide a reality check to the RWAs’ claim that they represent local people—for local people hardly bothered to vote, and when they did, they voted for party candidates. In fact

amateurishness was glaring in the campaign of some candidates, who did not bother to assert their presence in front of polling stations on the voting day, as is the custom. This betrayed, at worst, a complete ignorance of the materiality of the electoral process, and, at best, a naive idealism. More importantly, this revealed that for all their media visibility, ‘people’s candidates’ did not appear credible as an alternative to party candidates. Also the mobilisation of RWAs, be it before or during the electoral campaign, did not seem to have made much of an impact on political parties. Neither the manifesto of the Congress (I) nor that of the BJP mentioned them. In this regard, the fact that the Congress did not even mention the Bhagidari scheme, while the BJP evoked it in positive terms,41 is rather surprising. Lastly, the overall low rate of participation (43 per cent) suggests that RWAs failed to get the ‘middle classes’ to vote, even though the ban on the use of ration cards as a proof of identity is certainly another explanation.           Yet the engagement of neighbourhood associations with local elections suggests that their impact on local democracy is, on the whole, positive. This experience proves that the essentially micro-local nature of neighbourhood associations prevents them from competing with political parties when it comes to mobilising the majority of a ward’s voters, even while it helps motivate the largely apathetic ‘middle classes’ to vote. The method they adopted to select their candidates supports the demand for ward committees in the spirit of the 74th CAA. Their vocal demands for more transparency, accountability and participation can only improve the functioning of representative democracy. And last but not least, the assertion of the political nature of their initiative testifies to their belief that politics can be a respectable activity.           Indeed the self-imposed democratisation of neighbourhood associations testifies to the resilience of

democracy as a source of legitimacy in the Indian society. This process also supports the idea that these associations pertain to the sphere of ‘counter-democracy’, existing in a ‘democratic organisation of distrust’, meant to ensure that those who govern keep ‘serving the common good’ (Rosanvallon 2006: 15). The notion of ‘common good’, however, reminds us that the positive impact of neighbourhood associations on local democracy is limited to its procedural dimension, as opposed to its substantive dimension. Indeed these associations, promoting the political participation of the ‘middle classes’, end up empowering the already powerful. John Harriss recently underlined ‘the paradox that increasing opportunities for participation may go to increase political inequality’ (Harriss 2007: 2719). The ‘paradox’ actually stems from the assumption that participation is necessarily progressive, that it is always a factor of greater social justice. Despite the limited scale of their action, neighbourhood associations, as a rare case of ‘conservative participation’ (Bénit-Gbaffou), thus raise a major issue: what is the essence of democracy? What does it ultimately stand for?

20 EXPANDING THE RESOURCE BASE OF PANCHAYATS

Augmenting Own Revenues M. GOVINDA RAO AND U. A. VASANTH RAO

Introduction feature of all multi-level fiscal systems is the A common existence of vertical fiscal imbalance. It is well

acknowledged that while decentralised governments are better suited to deliver public services and, therefore, efficient conduct of allocative function of the government requires assignment of many functions to them. At the same time, significant redistributive and stabilisation functions have to be undertaken by higher levels of governments and this bestows comparative advantage to them in raising revenues and borrowing (Oates 1972). The mismatch between the functional assignment and financial powers causes vertical fiscal imbalance. Furthermore, within decentralised levels, the capacity to raise resources is different and therefore, different government units within a level cannot provide comparable levels of public services at comparable tax rates and this is termed as horizontal fiscal imbalance. Each decentralised system has devised a mechanism to resolve vertical and horizontal fiscal imbalances and this mechanism has important bearings on adequacy, equity and efficiency in public service provision.

          It is possible to minimise the vertical fiscal imbalance by assigning important revenue handles to the local governments or a mechanism could be devised to resolve the imbalances through fiscal transfers. Dependence on fiscal transfers could reduce fiscal autonomy and if the transfers are conditional and purpose specific, it could reduce the autonomy of local governments to allocate resources according to their own priorities. At the same time, assignment of broad based and redistributive taxes to local governments could cause tax disharmony, poor tax compliance and resource misallocation. Thus, there can be a trade-off between fiscal autonomy and harmony in the tax system. Therefore, it is important to have a judicious mix of assigning revenue powers to decentralised governments and making intergovernmental transfers (Rao 2006).           In the Indian context, decentralisation for rural local governments is meaningful only when the panchayats have adequate untied funds to provide public services assigned to them. Untied funds would imply that either the panchayats should be able to raise tax and non-tax revenues from the sources assigned to them or higher level governments should provide unconditional transfers by way of share in taxes or block grants. Even though transfers are inevitable at local levels as they do not have comparative advantage in raising revenues, requiring them to mobilise ‘own’ revenues is important both for reasons of efficiency and accountability.

Revenue-Expenditure Links Thus, a critical factor necessary for strengthening panchayats is to enable and empower them to enhance their own revenues. Improving own revenues strengthens the link between revenue and expenditure decisions of the rural local

bodies at the margin, which is extremely important to promote both efficiency and accountability in the provision of services. Linking the decision to provide public services with raising revenues at the margin is extremely important to ensure efficiency and accountability in public service provision. Although it is not possible to raise the entire revenue required to finance expenditures at sub-national levels, the system should ensure that the burden of public services provision is not shifted to non-residents. To minimise the ‘common pool’ problems associated with local public goods, the revenue assignment should ensure that beneficiaries of public services should, by and large, pay for the public services consumed (Bahl 2002).       Assignment of adequate and appropriate revenue sources to rural local governments is extremely important in the Indian context. The inability to assign potent revenue sources has led to local governments carrying on unfunded mandates and this has resulted in poor service delivery. Inadequate assignments combined with low levels of effort by the rural local governments have led to high levels of transfer dependence and low fiscal autonomy. The practice of scheme-bound transfer of resources to rural local governments has reduced them to the role of agencies of the state governments (Rao, Amar Nath and Vani 2003). At the same time, insignificant locally raised revenues have not only robbed them of flexibility and autonomy on the one hand but also reduced efficiency and social accountability on the other. From the viewpoint of minimising common pool problems, enhancing efficiency in public service delivery and improving accountability and incentives, it is important to identify the ways and means to improve the own revenues of the local governments. On the whole, poor revenue collections at the local level have been a major constraint in realising the benefits of fiscal decentralisation.       Keeping the above considerations in view, the first Round Table of state ministers of panchayati raj at Kolkata

p y j recommended that steps should be taken to encourage panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) to raise their own resources, especially through the provision to ‘appropriate’ revenues raised by them for their own purposes, in accordance with Article 243-H of the Constitution. The Empowered Subcommittee of the National Development Council agreed in its meeting on 12 June 2006 to the proposal of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) to conduct a seminar on local taxation and evolve a national policy or guidelines in this regard. This seminar was the culmination of that proposal.

Empowering Panchayats As mentioned above, the strategy of strengthening of panchayats is inextricably intertwined with empowering them to raise revenues from tax and non-tax sources assigned to them. In several states, this is a neglected aspect of panchayat empowerment. There are two diametrically opposite points of view regarding raising revenues by panchayats. The first is the assertion that panchayats are disinterested in collection of taxes, that the poor would suffer and that this is politically inadvisable. The alternative viewpoint is that given the possibility of linking taxes with benefits from public services at local levels, it is possible to ensure better compliance of tax payments at local levels. Indeed, the actual revenue raising depends on a variety of factors including the visibility of benefits, rate of tax imposed, culture of tax payments vis-à-vis ‘free riding’, capacity of panchayats to administer and enforce the tax which, inter alia, depends on the power structure in the villages. Indeed, there are a slew of good practices emerging where panchayats on their own have collected taxes. It is important to understand these practices to evolve policies and institutions with the

appropriate incentive structure.           Empowering the panchayats is a necessary condition to strengthen decentralisation. The issue gains additional focus as over Rs 50,000 crore are likely to be transferred to the panchayats from the centre for implementing various flagship programmes. Failure to evolve a proper incentive structure at the panchayat level could lead to diversion of these funds from these programmes to other activities. It is, therefore, opportune to explore the appropriate tax and non-tax revenue handles to be assigned to the panchayats and the ways and means of administering and enforcing them to achieve a greater linkage between revenue raising and spending decisions at the local level. Indeed, it is important also to build capacity in the panchayats to administer and enforce the tax to elicit compliance. Requiring matching contributions from the panchayats while funding various schemes like the ‘swajal dhara’ scheme of the department of drinking water supply could be replicated in other schemes as well.       This essay explores the ways and means of empowering the panchayats to enhance their contribution to financing public services with a view to enhance efficiency and accountability in public service delivery. Section II shows that current levels of raising revenues is wholly inadequate and underlines the need to undertake reforms to empower the panchayats to augment revenues for them to play a meaningful role in the development of the country. Section III underlines the appropriate revenue handles for the panchayats and examines the revenue sources assigned to them in various state acts. It also summarises the salient features of the revenue raising powers of panchayats. In Section IV, appropriate revenue handles that could be assigned to panchayats and the mechanisms to empower them to raise revenues are discussed. The final section summarises the strategy of empowering panchayats to raise revenues.

Current State of Panchayat Revenues A major handicap in analysing panchayat revenues is the paucity of information and data on the panchayat finances. The states, on their part, have not found it necessary to compile the data on panchayat revenues. The Eleventh Finance Commission (EFC) underlined this as an area of concern and recommended a grant of Rs 200 crore for the creation of database at the local body level of which the share of rural local bodies was Rs 197.06 crore which amounted to about Rs 8 lakh per panchayat. Similarly, the EFC allocated Rs 483 crore for the maintenance of accounts to local bodies. The Twelfth Finance Commission (TFC) in its report stated that, of the Rs 200 crore allocated for the creation of database, the actual utilisation was only Rs 93 crore or 30 per cent. In the case of funds allocated for maintenance of accounts too, the utilisation rate was 30 per cent. Commenting on the issue, the TFC stated, ‘Most states do not have accurate information on the finances of their local bodies’ (p. 153). The TFC reiterated, ‘It is … imperative that high priority should be accorded to creation of database and maintenance of accounts at the grassroots level’. It further recommended that a permanent state finance commission (SFC) cell may be created in the finance departments of state governments as the collection and collation of data would have to be done constantly. Not much seems to have been done in this direction. In the meantime the entire discussion, debate, planning and policy calibration at the local body level is being done without any reliable data. Most of the SFCs make their recommendations on transfer of resources to panchayats without any reference to the revenue potential and expenditure needs of panchayats.           The TFC also attempted to compile the information on panchayat finances and has published data on revenues and expenditures of the panchayats for the period from 1998–99

and 2002–03. A close scrutiny of the data brings out a number of shortcomings in it casting serious doubts on their reliability. The important shortcomings of the data are: (1) a number of smaller and special category state governments did not submit information to the TFC and therefore, the data have not been reported. These include Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. (2) The data on panchayat finances reported for the remaining states is much too aggregative to undertake any meaningful analysis for policy. The data is published for the village, intermediate and district level panchayats together and no separate information is available. (3) In some states, own non-tax revenue is shown as zero. (Karnataka, Tripura) which is simply not the case in reality. In part, this is due to the fact that the reporting formats appear to have been ambiguous and partly because the states simply fulfilled the formality of supplying the information to the commission and did not take care to check the accuracy of the figures. Similarly, a comparison of data among different states casts serious doubts on their reliability. Thus, total revenue in Kerala in 2002–03 was just Rs 960 crore whereas, in Karnataka it was more than four times higher at Rs 4,303 crore. In Tamil Nadu, the total revenue was just Rs 592.76 crore in 2000–01, but declined to Rs 325.63 crore next year before increasing steeply to Rs 825.14 crore in the following year. All these cast serious doubts on the reliability of the data.

Negligible Revenues In the absence of any other information available, we have analysed the data put out by the EFC and the TFC. Given the doubts about the reliability of data outlined above, the

analysis should be taken with some measure of caution. Own revenue collections and revenue accruals of panchayats from 2000–01 to 2002–03 as a ratio of primary sector gross state domestic product (GSDP) (which is taken to be a proxy for rural GSDP) is presented in Table 20.1. Similarly, a comparison of revenue collections and accruals per rural person at constant prices is presented in Table 20.2.

The analysis of the data shows that the revenues raised by panchayats from the sources assigned to them are abysmal. These constituted 0.07 per cent of GDP and 0.35 per cent of the total public revenues (centre, state and local revenues taken together) in the country. Even as a ratio of total revenues accruing to panchayats during 1998–99 to 2002– 03, the revenues raised by panchayats constituted just 6.4 per cent. Although this was marginally higher than the 4.2 per

cent witnessed during 1990–91 to 1997–2000, the contribution of own revenues can be considered negligible (GoI 2004).           The analysis presented in Table 20.1 shows that the revenues mobilised by the panchayats have shown increase over the years and yet, the contribution continues to be negligible. The revenues raised by panchayat as a ratio of GDP increased from 0.04 per cent in 1997–98 to 0.07 per cent in 2002–03. Commensurately their revenue accruals increased from 0.8 per cent to 1 per cent during the period. Irrespective of the trend what these estimates show is that despite all the emphasis on decentralisation, rural local governments play an abysmally small part in public service provision and the principal reason for this has to be found in the negligible revenue mobilisation from them.

Table 20.2 presents information on the revenues collected by panchayats in different states as a ratio of their state domestic products from the agriculture and allied activities.

We have taken the latter variable in the denominator to broadly represent the rural incomes which is the relevant indicator. The data presented in the table bring out three important features. First, it reiterates the point made above that the revenue mobilisation by the panchayats is abysmal. Second, the revenue mobilisation has shown increase over time. The all-state average revenue as a ratio of agricultural GSDP actually decline from 0.23 per cent in 1990–91 to 0.16 per cent in 1995–96, but increased thereafter to 0.37 per cent in 2002–03. Third, even as the revenue mobilisation efforts of all the states are low, there are significant interstate variations. The revenue agricultural SDP ratio varied from 0.03 per cent in Bihar and Orissa to 1.48 per cent in Kerala and 1.10 per cent in Maharashtra. The inter-state variation is not only very high but has also shown a steady increase over the years. The coefficient of variation of revenue—primary sector GSDP has increased from 0.798 in 1990–91 to 1.062 in 2002–03.

All state average local revenue as a ratio of primary sector GSDP was substantially higher when the assigned taxes, shared taxes and grants from higher levels of government are taken into account. The average revenue accruing to

panchayats relative to GSDP from the primary sector increased from 4 per cent in 1990–91 to 5.4 per cent in 2002–03. However, as in the case of own revenues, there is considerable interstate variations in the revenue accruals which underlines the significant variations in the expenditure levels of panchayats between different states. The revenueprimary sector GSDP ratio varied from 16.5 per cent in Karnataka and 13.4 per cent in Gujarat to just 0.4 per cent in West Bengal. The coefficient of variation of revenue accruals is however, lower than that of own revenues though, it is still very high at 0.89 in 2002–03. It is also seen that coefficient of variation has shown a steady decline from 1.14 in 2000– 01 to 0.89 in 2002–03.

The service levels in panchayats depends on the per capita revenues raised and per capita revenues accruing to panchayats and Table 20.5 presents state-wise per capita expenditures in 1993–94 prices. Per capita revenue estimates have been arrived at by dividing the revenue collections of panchayats with the rural population. The constant (1993–

94) price estimates are arrived at by deflating the revenue series with the wholesale price index.           The analysis shows that the own revenues of the panchayats in per capita terms at 1993 prices has increased from just about Rs 5.9 in 1990–91 to 23.7 in 2002–03 in current prices to Rs 8 in 1990–91 to Rs 14.2 in 2002–03 at constant (1993) prices (Tables 20.4 and 20.5). Own revenues constituted a very small proportion of total revenues of the panchayats at just about 5.6 per cent and increased only marginally to 6.8 per cent in 2002–03. In other words, the generation of own revenue by panchayats has remained at a low level.           However, the analysis shows that own revenues of panchayats were significantly higher in states with higher per capita primary sector GSDP (Figure 20.1). The correlation coefficient of own panchayat revenue–GSDP ratio with per capita GSDP in 2002–03 was 0.19, whereas the correlation of per capita own revenues with per capita GSDP was 0.58. Thus, while the revenue mobilisation by panchayats in general was low, the states with higher per capita primary sector GSDP mobilised larger revenues.       While there are significant inter-state variations, it would not be far from the truth to state that own revenues do not play any significant role in financing public services in panchayats in any of the states in India. The maximum per capita revenue was generated in Goa and second to that in Kerala and that amounted to just Rs 118.52 and Rs 94.96 in 2002–03. In contrast, per capita revenue generation by panchayats in Bihar was Rs 88 and in Uttar Pradesh Rs 1.06. Surely, no meaningful fiscal decentralisation can be advanced in an environment in which panchayats fail to collect worthwhile revenues.

Revenue Powers of Panchayats

What are the taxes that should be assigned to local governments? In assigning revenue sources, as already mentioned, there is a serious trade-off between the objectives of achieving fiscal autonomy and harmony in the tax systems among sub-national governments. It is very well recognised that nation-wide mobile tax bases should not be assigned to local governments as it can create serious resource distortions. The local governments not only do not have the capacity to create the information system needed to determine the tax bases and enforce the levy, but the levy by local governments could also result in tax-induced mobility of the bases leading to significant distortions. Therefore, generally, the local governments are assigned relatively less mobile tax bases. In general, the principle of assignment that is followed is that the tax burden should fall on the local residents so that there is some relationship between the community’s contribution and the benefits it receives. (Musgrave 1983).

The three most important considerations in assignment are: (1) the local governments should have revenue powers that enable them to finance a significant proportion of the cost of

the public services that they provide; (2) the assignment of tax powers to local governments should not result in large scale mobility of economic agents and tax induced distortions; and (3) the burden of raising revenues for financing public services by local governments should fall by and large on the residents who are the beneficiaries of these public services.           At present, the rural local bodies in India at the district and block levels do not have own sources of revenue that are worthwhile. They can raise revenues, albeit meagre ones, from rents on the buildings they have let out. They virtually depend on the transfers made by the state governments and to some extent, the central government. In some states, block and district level rural local governments receive shares in some of the state taxes such as entertainment tax or stamps duty. From the viewpoint of raising revenues, only the village panchayats have been assigned the power to levy, collect and appropriate revenues. However, the amount of revenue raised by them, as mentioned above, is not very significant.

Few Sources of Revenue A close perusal of the various taxes levied by panchayats in different states shows that, altogether there are as many as 66 different types of taxes, user fees and charges. Most of the levies are only in the statute books and are just not levied. Though the list of tax and non-tax revenues are extracted from the respective state panchayat acts, we do not have full information from the respective state governments of how many taxes, fees and fines, user charges and other miscellaneous receipts the gram panchayats have actually been exercising. But going by the information received from 10 states, it is the property tax that accounts for the major source of revenue for the gram panchayats in all the states.

However, in some states, gram panchayats also have significant sources of revenue from octroi (Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan), professional tax (Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab), and entertainment tax (Assam, Gujarat, Kerala, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu). Barring these taxes there is no separate information on the revenue realised by the gram panchayats on the other tax handles that find an entry in the respective acts. Of these, the property tax is the only important tax. These taxes are not important either because the tax base is negligible or the local bodies do not have the capacity to administer them. In respect of property taxes too, the village panchayats can levy and collect this tax subject to the specified exemptions and ceiling rate specified. In most states the state governments specify both the maximum and minimum tax rates and stipulate a variety of other conditions in respect of taxes and fees including the property tax.           There are two important problems with respect to the assignment of tax powers to panchayats. The first is that although in terms of numbers there are quite a few taxes and fees, none of the revenue handles is significant from the viewpoint of generating revenues except the property tax. Thus, any serious attempt to improve the fiscal autonomy of the panchayats should ensure greater tax powers to them. It is only when the tax powers are assigned to the panchayats that they would be able to improve the standards of public services, ensure greater efficiency and accountability, as there would be greater correspondence between tax payments and the benefit from public services.

Problem of Enforcement

A more serious problem, however, is the capacity of rural local governments to administer and enforce the levy. At present, even in the case of property tax, administration and enforcement of the tax has left much to be desired. Here, the example of Karnataka highlights the seriousness of the issue. First of all, average per capita tax collected in the sample of 700 village panchayats in 2000–01 was as low as Rs 8.21 and almost 80 per cent of the panchayats paid less than Rs 10. The situation in the poorer districts of the state was worse. Although virtually all the panchayats levied the tax at the stipulated maximum rate in nominal terms (10 per cent) the significant undervaluation of the property has rendered the effective rates much lower. Thus, the demand for property tax collections is much less than that should be expected when a more realistic valuation is made. What is more, even the low level of tax demand is not actually collected by the panchayats. In Karnataka, for example, in 2000–01, collection efficiency measured in terms of actual collections to demand, in almost 30 per cent of the panchayats, was less than 50 per cent. The average collection efficiency, however, was 69 per cent. On average, about 72 per cent of the revenue was spent in collecting the taxes. In respect of 42 per cent of the village panchayats, cost of tax collection was higher than the tax collected (Rao, Amar Nath and Vani 2003). The analysis of property tax as also other revenues brings to the fore the inability of the panchayats to enforce it. The question is unless the system is reformed to ensure better compliance and the panchayats are empowered and their capacity is developed to administer and enforce the tax, giving them additional tax handles may not enhance fiscal autonomy and efficiency in local governments nor add to the revenue collections. The only important non-tax revenue at the village panchayat level is the water charge. While in principle, it should be possible to collect user charges for the services rendered at local level because of the strong correspondence between tax payment and benefit of public service levels, in

p y p actual practice, village panchayats have found it difficult to collect the user charges. In Karnataka for example, in 2000– 01, over 99 per cent of the panchayats collected less than Rs 10 by way of water charges, and almost 44 per cent of the panchayats did not collect any user charges for supplying water.

Extending the Revenue Envelope The earlier analysis shows that in order to augment the revenue powers of the panchayats, it is necessary to take a re-look at the tax powers assigned to them and examine the possibility of assigning additional productive revenue handles. In addition, it is important to build the capacity of the panchayats to administer and enforce the taxes assigned to them. The basic requirement in building their capacity is to create a reliable data and information system. Unless an attempt is made to build the basic information system, and update it from time to time, it will be impossible to create the capacity to levy administer and enforce any tax.

Building the Information System The information system to be organised for the tax administration cannot be a stand-alone project. It should be a part of the general statistical information system necessary for planning and delivering public services at the panchayat level. It should be developed in such a manner that it is useful for planning and should be subject to norms of accountability. The report on planning at the grassroots level has provided a detailed strategy for building the information system (GoI

2006). To begin with, it is important to devise a simple accounting format particularly at the gram panchayat level. As regards the district and block level panchayats are concerned, much of the revenues come from devolution from the state government. They do not have worthwhile revenue sources of their own and in most of the states, the transfers given to the panchayats are for specified programmes or expenditure items and very little is allocated for general purpose (lump sum). Given the strong linkage of district and block panchayat finances with that of the state budget, it would be necessary to devise a harmonised system for the purpose of accounting the transactions in block and district panchayats with that of the state government.           As far as gram panchayats are concerned, they do have revenue sources of their own and also receive some lump sum transfers from the state governments. The gram panchayats receive a bulk of their revenues for implementing the flagship programmes. It should be possible to devise a simple accounting system to show own revenues and lump sum transfers received from above under both plan and non-plan heads. It is necessary to emphasise that the system of classification should be very simple and should be within the capacity of the panchayat administration to compile.           In designing the format, it would be easy to look at the existing accounting system. Therefore, the first task is to get the details of the existing accounting system in the gram panchayats and devise a system based thereon. The variables for which the data should be collected include, on the revenue side, own revenues and transfers. Under own revenues, data needs to be collected inter alia, on property tax collections, water cess and water charges. Under the transfers head, we need information on the lump sum transfer in the form of tax devolution/and grants received from the states, lump sum transfer from the centre (Central Finance Commission recommendation), and transfers for various flagship schemes for specified purposes. As a bulk of transfers received by

p p p y panchayats are in the latter half of the financial year, they are unable to spend these funds. It would, therefore, be useful to collect information beginning with the opening balance, receipts during the year, expenditures incurred during the year and the closing balance figures. This would give an indication to the unspent balance with the panchayats for spending in the next year. If this is not done the annual data may lead to misleading conclusions.

Common Data System In addition to the fiscal information, it is also necessary to compile basic geographical information system (GIS) on the resource base in each of the panchayats and also the demographic information. A simple data system for each type of information should be devised. Once a simple common data system is designed, the panchayati raj departments of the state governments should be mandated to get the information collected. Collection of data from about 236,350 village panchayats in the country is going to be a Herculean task. The rural development departments in turn can entrust the task to the district panchayats and it can coordinate the information received from them.       The entire data should be collected at the gram panchayat level in a computerised format and it should be transmitted to the block panchayats. Each block panchayat should computerise and consolidate the data relating to the gram panchayats under its scope and transmit it to the district panchayats with a copy to the panchayat raj department of the state. The district panchayats, in turn, should consolidate the data on both gram panchayats and block panchayats under their aegis and should transmit it to the panchayat raj department. The panchayat raj department in each of the

states should consolidate the information on gram, block and district panchayats. Each state government should have a cell in the panchayat raj department to compile and consolidate the information and analyse them. The data should be placed in the web site and every year, the department should regularly publish the statistics relating to panchayats.

Additional Revenue Handles The issue of assigning additional revenue handles merits careful consideration. With the introduction of full-fledged VAT at the state level, some of the revenue handles such as entertainment tax will be merged with the VAT and some, such as octroi, will be abolished for reasons of efficiency and competitiveness. Therefore, new tax handles will become necessary even to maintain the revenues at the prevailing level.           As mentioned earlier, the actual levy and collection of revenues are done mainly at the village level and district and intermediate level panchayats simply receive tax revenues assigned to them or taxes shared with them. In fact, they do not even levy user charges and whatever little revenue they collect is from the rents received by letting out their properties. However, in respect of these levels of rural local governments, it is possible to assign them powers to set rates in respect of selected handles within a band or share revenues from selected taxes. The important candidates for assignment could be land revenue and the revenue from this could be shared equally by the district and intermediate levels. In 2006–07, the collection from this in the states taken together is estimated at Rs 3,332.44 crore which is substantial as compared to the own revenue collection of panchayats at all the three levels in 2002–03 of Rs 1,643 crore.

      In addition to the above, there is a half a per cent levy on the VAT turnover at the last point at which a registered dealer sells the commodity to the non-registered dealers or consumers. The tax will be on the turnover and as the levy is at the last point, there will not be further cascading of the tax. In 2006–07, revenue from sales tax collections was estimated at Rs 120,709.15 crore. Assuming that the effective rate is about 8 per cent, the turnover is estimated at Rs 1,508,863 crore and a levy of half a per cent on the turnover would work out to Rs 750 crore. For 2008–09, assuming a 15 per cent increase per year, this would roughly work out to Rs 1,000 crore. Of this, the share of urban local bodies could be taken as roughly 70 per cent and the rural local bodies could receive about Rs 300 crore.           The intermediate and district level local bodies can also levy local business tax or charges in locations close to urban agglomerations. In these places, village level panchayats may not have the requisite capacity and district panchayats may be better suited to levy the charges. The additional charges could be imposed on factories, shops and establishments located at 20 km radius outside the municipal jurisdictions in the case of municipal corporation areas and 10 km radius outside the municipal areas. The fee may be fixed on the basis of some objective indicator (floor area?) and revised every five years. The funds thus collected may be earmarked to augment infrastructure in panchayat areas adjacent to these urban areas to provide a continuum of infrastructure.

Capacity Building to Administer and Enforce the Tax at Village Level At the village level, as discussed in the previous section, there are a number of tax handles but from the viewpoint of

revenue, only the property tax is important. Even in the case of this tax, in some states, the levy does not exist (Rajasthan, Punjab) and in others, the revenue from the levy is stagnant. There is an imperative need to strengthen the capacity of the village panchayats to levy and administer the tax, to achieve meaningful fiscal decentralisation to rural local governments. The critical element in this is the designing of a clear structure of the tax.           Experience has shown that area-based property taxation varying with the location of the property, floor area and the type of construction would be appropriate. If the state government issues a guided value in each of the blocks, it should be easy for the local governments to apply them. This will make the tax system simple and transparent. Assurance that the tax will not be revised for five years will also impart stability and acceptability to the tax. The state should only set the minimum rate and not the band as is prevailing at present.           As already mentioned, at present even in a state like Karnataka, collection efficiency is low. The reason for this is the poor administrative and more so, the enforcement capacity of the village panchayats. This has more to do with the power structure in the villages rather than the ability of the tax collectors. The way to enforce the tax, therefore, will have to mandate complimentary benefits for payment of taxes and penalties for its non-payment. Some specific measures in this regard can be: (1) If it is feasible, a law should be enacted to disqualify those families defaulting on the taxes from voting and contesting in elections. (2) The defaulters could be made ineligible to receive cooperative credit, supplies from the public distribution system. (3) There could be a one-time settlement of arrears to begin with without any penalty. (4) Panchayats collecting revenues above 80 per cent of the demand could be given a bonus at specified pre-announced rates. Alternatively, a matching element could be introduced to the grants to be given from the state governments.       In addition to these, it is important that there should be

p trained tax collectors in each of the villages. If one collector for each village panchayat is not viable, a tax collector can be assigned to multiple villages with appropriate specification of responsibility. The training should equip the tax collectors to determine the tax demand for each of the properties. Simultaneously, the information system necessary to determine the tax demand should be collected and computerised.       With regard to water rates, it is important to increase the collection efficiency. The government of India, based on the recommendation of the TFC, is initiating measures to moving towards transferring all assets relating to the water supply and sanitation systems to the village panchayats. The panchayats should, however, be required to recover 50 per cent of the maintenance costs by way of user charges. Often, there is a separate specialised agency for water supply and village panchayats can play an important role as collection agents and commission could be given to the panchayats at predetermined rates. Similar intermediation is also possible in the collection of electricity bills.       The above discussion has been too general and necessarily so. The actual mechanism to augment revenues of panchayats and enhance their fiscal base will depend on the specific revenue handles available and the circumstances faced by the village panchayats. It is nevertheless important to assign clear and productive revenue handles to them, empower them with capacity to administer and enforce the tax and institute an incentive system so that the elected representatives are not left with the choice of not collecting the revenues and continue the syndrome of fiscal dependency.

21 WOMEN IN POWER

Gender, Caste and the Politics of Local Urban Governance MARY E. JOHN thanks to the United Progressive Alliance’s S uddenly, decision to nominate a woman for the position of the

president of India, women in politics have become newsworthy again. When the announcement was first made, Sushma Swaraj immediately reiterated the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) unimplemented but oft-stated declaration that 30 per cent of all party positions in the BJP would be given to women. Meanwhile, a poll among women by Outlook magazine reassured us not only that Patil was the right choice for president, but that women can ensure a cleaner, more committed politics, and even expressed the demand that the women’s reservation bill should finally be passed in the coming parliamentary session (Outlook 2007: 59). It was further acknowledged that politics continues to be a male bastion; in the minuscule group of female politicians, ‘selfmade’ women are the exceptions rather than the rule. And yet, the addition of India’s first woman president to the significant number of chief ministers who happen to be women—in Uttar Pradesh most recently, but also in Rajasthan and Delhi, (not to forget Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh a short while ago), turns the spotlight onto an aspect of politics that has always occupied a distinctly uncertain place in our time, viz., the question of women’s relationship to power. Indeed, when we look more closely, the uncertainty only grows—what

does it mean today to be a woman in politics?           This essay offers a window into the world of political women, but from a segment that rarely makes news—the world of urban local politics inhabited by corporators and councillors. For reasons that are easy to understand, political decentralisation in India has been associated with the revival of the panchayat system of local self-government (made into law through the 73rd Amendment in 1993) to the point of being practically synonymous with it.1 A considerable amount of interest has been generated in this revival, and especially in the provision of a one-third reservation for women within panchayati raj institutions (PRIs). Campaigns and debates on 33 per cent reservations for women have evolved in two phases. The first was concerned with the degrees of success as well as the obstacles faced by women in entering the system of decentralised government (once again, concentrating on the rural system from village to district). The second phase, from 1996 onwards, focused on the pros and cons of introducing similar reservations in the state assemblies and in Parliament (first tabled as the 81st Amendment Bill). This is now rather well known as a decade long campaign which has been unable even to have the issue debated in Parliament. In sharp contrast to the public attention devoted to the Women’s Reservations Bill and the entry of women into the PRIs, the urban twin of the 73rd Amendment—passed almost simultaneously as the 74th Amendment or the Nagarpalika Act of June 1993—remains largely unknown. Very few are aware that the Nagarpalika Act seeks to restructure the municipal system, and includes a provision that reserves for women one-third of all seats in all urban local bodies from small towns to metropolitan cities. The point of departure of this essay is, therefore, the comparative neglect of the urban situation in contemporary activism and scholarship, whether this is in discussions concerning local governance or the role of women in politics.

The essay draws on the experiences and findings of a preliminary study on municipal governance in two cities. The larger study looks into the social and political backgrounds of municipal councillors, both men and women, across class, caste and community, and elicits their opinions on a range of issues pertaining to the functioning of the municipal system, and the role of reservations within it. The views of the voting public were also a part of the study, in order to explore what impact and knowledge of the municipal system existed on the ground. My essay aims to open up for further discussion two issues that have underwritten more general concerns about women’s political participation. The first of these is the problem of the so-called ‘proxy’ women, i.e., women who are stand-ins for male relatives, usually politician husbands. The existing scheme of reservations and the rotation of reserved seats over successive elections, it has been said, encourage the election of such proxies, whose presence, thus, vitiates the basis of reservations for women. The second, related question concerns the very rationale behind women’s reservations, viz., the need to have a critical mass of women in the political arena. While the first issue has been clearly identified as a negative drawback by feminists and political analysts, the second has been more or less assumed to be the positive ground for reservations and has not been subjected to much scrutiny. Our own study, however, muddies the waters considerably on both these issues. I will argue that the proxy problem is far more complex than what existing critiques would allow. On the other hand, it cannot be simply asserted that women in bodies such as the municipal corporations of our major cities constitute, in themselves, a political identity or a distinct force. Indeed, as we shall see, the subject of women in power—at least in the world of urban local politics—turns out to be quite an intractable one, and raises many new questions for feminism and the women’s movement.

Background to the Study Before moving any further into these extremely important issues, it is necessary to provide a brief background. The study is based on two municipal corporations—the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Bangalore City Corporation (BCC), and was conducted during 2002–03. At the time of the study, the MCD (which covers most of Delhi, barring the small cantonment areas and the central district covered by the New Delhi Municipal Council) was administering a population of over 13 million people. This was spread across an area covering 1,400 square kilometres, and was composed of 134 wards, created by dividing Delhi’s 67 assembly constituencies into two parts.2 The city of Bangalore on the other hand, was about half the size of Delhi, with a population of about six million spread across 225 square kilometres, divided into 100 wards among the 15 assembly seats, all administered by the BCC.       Delhi and Bangalore present a picture of contrasts in more ways than one. A particularly significant aspect for our purposes here concerns the pattern of reserving wards in both cities. Reservations create a set of categories based on interlocking considerations of gender and caste. In Delhi’s MCD, a total of 25 wards were reserved for Scheduled Castes, while the remaining was marked ‘general’. Within this overall structure, one-third of all the wards were reserved for women, producing a final pattern of nine reserved seats for dalit women (SCW), 16 for dalits (SC), 37 for women (W) and 72 general seats. The distribution was mechanically generated and made public in the Delhi gazette as early as 1994, and was to be in force for the next five elections. In preparation for the first elections (which were held in 1997), every third ward was marked for women, every sixth as SC, and so on, and elections were held accordingly, with no

woman standing from a general seat. (According to the system of rotation, the existing one-third seats would be dereserved, i.e., become general seats in the next elections, and another set of one-third seats reserved, and so on, in a cyclical fashion.) However, just before the next elections were to be held in 2002, the BJP government then in power in Delhi state managed to freeze rotations (even though this was strictly speaking illegal), thus maintaining the existing pattern and location of reserved wards for all groups. The overall picture has been summarised in Table 21.1. (The table includes the break-up of winning candidates for the two elections of 1997 and 2002 by political party.)

The BCC presents a remarkably different picture. As a consequence of its history of backward caste mobilisation, the state of Karnataka also has reservations for the backward castes (BC) along with Scheduled Castes (SC) and women. The BC quota is further sub-divided among two sub-groups: while the BC(A) category includes the entire range of BCs from vokkaligas to yadavas, kurubas, gollas, banajigas as well as backward caste Muslims, the smaller BC(B) category includes intermediate castes such as vokkaligas/gowdas and reddys, coupled with an income criterion. Each of these categories in turn had one-third seats reserved for women,

adding up to a total of 35 seats. Thus, in the BCC, one-third of the 100 seats were reserved for BCs (27 BC (A) and 6 BC (B)), 14 seats for dalits, while the remaining 53 were general. The overall distribution of castes has been presented for the two elections of 1996 and 2001 (with a break-up of corporators according to political party) in Table 21.2. Unlike Delhi, rotation did take place in Bangalore, and for all seats. While the selection of SC wards was determined according to the proportion of SCs in the population of the ward, as far as BCs and women were concerned, it appeared that the absence of demographic data (for BCs) or any mechanical criterion (as in the case of Delhi) resulted in a situation of some arbitrariness. Thus, which wards became reserved and for whom at election time was open to some manipulation, with the ruling party of the time using this to their advantage.

Since it was not possible to interview all councillors, Table 21.3 gives the gender, caste and community break-up of our

sample in each city, totalling 75 in Delhi and 59 in Bangalore. Beyond ensuring that more than 50 per cent were women, and that all reserved categories were represented in our sample, councillors were randomly selected from different wards. In the case of Bangalore, the figures in brackets indicate the reserved wards selected in our sample, i.e., three wards reserved for SC women, five for SCs, seven for BC(A) women, seven for BC(A), three for BC(B) women, two for BC, 19 women and 12 general wards. But, as we discovered along the way, the general category showed greater caste diversity than we had initially anticipated. Thus, our sample included six SC male councillors, one of whom won from a general seat. The number of backward caste councillors, both men and women, far exceeded the wards reserved for them, as many won from general wards. Upper castes in Bangalore were in relatively small numbers. The contrast with Delhi is evident, where women and dalits were confined to their respective reserved categories, and upper-caste men dominated the general category (our sample had just three OBC men and no OBC women).

Due to space constraints it is not possible to go into any detail regarding their social, occupational and educational backgrounds. On an average, women were younger than men,

and the Bangalore Corporation was more youthful than its Delhi counterpart. In terms of education, a greater proportion of high school and technical degree holders in Bangalore contrast with more graduates and professional degree holders in Delhi. Twice as many women in Delhi were graduates compared to Bangalore, and among the dalit women the differences between the two cities were even starker (this was not the case among dalit men). Business, especially as contractors, developers and factory owners, was the most common occupation among the male councillors in both cities, including among husbands of women councillors. At the same time, class differences were discernable, with proportionately more councillors in Bangalore coming from middle and working class backgrounds, including two factory workers and a bus conductor, a phenomenon quite unthinkable in Delhi.3 Among the women, the largest common category was that of housewife—75 per cent in Bangalore and 42 per cent in Delhi. (In our entire sample, five women were single compared to two men.) Interestingly, in Delhi only two out of nine dalit women were housewives, and only one of the three Muslim councillors. In Bangalore, on the other hand, all three dalit women were housewives. The most frequent professional category among the women was that of the teacher.           As regards their political histories, more than half our Bangalore sample were newcomers to politics compared to 22 per cent in Delhi. Of these, the vast majority were women. Among both men and women, upper castes were overrepresented among those with longer political involvements, while at the other end of the spectrum seven out of the 10 Muslim councillors began their political careers after election to the corporation. The dalit and BC councillors presented a more mixed picture.

The Figure of the Proxy It is in connection with questions related to sources of support for entering politics, including from family members, that our exploration of the proxy begins. One must begin by unmasking certain assumptions about the whole proxy issue: this has to do with men’s presumed autonomy in politics versus women’s dependent and place-holder status. One of the reasons why this assumption has enjoyed such wide acceptance is that debates over women’s reservations almost never include men, or more general considerations about political processes and conditions of participation. Limiting ourselves to our own study, it was quite illuminating to see how the question about sources of support was answered. First of all, practically no one claimed that their entry into the field of electoral politics was self-motivated. On the contrary, what did emerge with a surprisingly large number of councillors—18 women and 34 men, and equally from both cities—was their clear statement that they owed their entry to a political leader or ‘godfather’.       This is but an indication (culled as it is from interviews) of how relationships within the political system are fostered. It suggests that, for men as much as for women, being a proxy of sorts is the condition of entry into politics. The only question is about the nature of this relationship—for whom is one being a proxy and in what manner? It is important to note, moreover, that the family is but a small part of the web of power relations and dependencies that constitute the political sphere. Unqualified notions of autonomy may therefore be largely misplaced for men and women alike, especially at this local level.           The difference lies in the extent to which men acknowledge the role of family members compared to women. Thus, in our study, over one-third (25 out of 73) of the women referred to husbands as their main source of

support, and a further 18 mentioned other family members (parents, in-laws, brothers and so on). Very few men mentioned family in this context—just four out of 61. However, some men did have other family members in politics —eight in Bangalore and eight in Delhi (mainly brothers and fathers, but also wives and, in one case, a mother). Indeed, coming from a political family has huge advantages, as we all know. It is, therefore, noteworthy that in our entire sample none of the Muslim councillors and only two dalit councillors (out of 16) were in this group, so that familial advantages were largely confined to a section of upper-caste and OBC councillors.       As we mentioned at the beginning, only in Bangalore did rotation take place prior to the second round of elections. Since this is the context that is said to strongly engender the proxy phenomenon, let us look a little more closely at what some of our Bangalore councillors had to say. First of all, there is little doubt that some women do fit the proxy label; indeed, most corporators referred to proxies at some point in the course of their interview. One of our interviewees, for instance, sullenly and repeatedly stated that she knew nothing of corporation matters even at the end of her five year term, so much so that the interview petered out fairly soon. In another case, the interview could not even take place because the ex-corporator, in her husband’s presence, locked herself into an inner room and refused to come out. (Of course, this could be interpreted in more ways than one.) A more spirited proxy declared that she had been forced to stand ‘against her will’, turning to her husband to say ‘you men continue in politics if you want, but don’t drag us women into it’. She went on to tell us how much she missed her children. However, as it turns out, these were the rare cases.       Among those in Bangalore who did not stand again when the ward was de-reserved for women, including both Scheduled Castes and Backward Castes, we were often given a different version. We were told by women councillors, often

y with great poignancy, that it had been their husband’s lifelong ambition to stand for election, so how could they prevent them from doing so when the ward was de-reserved and made an open seat in the next election? Thus, far from being motivated by a lack of interest or of ability in politics, the withdrawal of such women from elections pointed to the dilemmas they were faced with sharing political opportunities within the family.       In another case, the wife of a Janata Dal worker (a gowda running a small shop) who had been made to stand in a true proxy fashion in 1996, actually stood again when the ward was de-reserved five years later, but then lost to the (male) Congress candidate. In yet another interview with a Reddy ex-councillor, the husband, (who was not a politician himself and sat in on the discussions), proclaimed that he was fully in favour of reservations for women, because, in his words ‘you get two for the price of one’! (While she attended council meetings, he helped supervise development work in the ward.) We see here a clear repudiation of the zero sum approach presupposed by the proxy argument, presented in the form of an alternative, nuanced perspective on how political work may be shared between men and women.           Yet another perspective is provided by the only woman corporator in Bangalore to win again from an open seat in 2001 (she had contested the 1996 election in a BC(A) women’s ward as an independent candidate). Claiming that she started out with absolutely no interest in politics, this seasoned corporator now preferred to work on her own, in spite of family responsibilities. Her husband played no part in her political life, she said emphatically, not even accompanying her on her rounds. Interestingly, one of the strongest criticisms of the proxy came from a widow, who contested but lost in 1996 from a neighbouring ward reserved for women, and in 2001 stood successfully from her own ward which was reserved for BC(B) women. With 10 years of political experience behind her, she spoke at length

y p p p g about the difficulties of the work involved, the interference of rival male politicians, and the need for capable women; even reservations were but a ‘pretence of equality’.4 Compare this stand with that of the only ST corporator, who, while acknowledging that she owed her entry into politics to her husband, placed far greater emphasis on the enabling role of reservations. She was disturbed, she said, by the frequent talk (by men) of trying to scrap reservations for women. She was very clear that she would have made no headway in local politics without reservations. There was such a strong caste hierarchy in the municipality that she feels she would have been kept out of any standing committee, but for the fact that the Social Justice Committee was reserved for SC/ST.       The proxy then, turns out to be a complex rather than a straightforward phenomenon, open to varying degrees of negotiation once the classic housewife relationship has been destabilised through accession to the public post of a corporator. At the very least, the real life instances cited above make it evident that there are a number of shortcomings in existing critiques of the proxy. A common assumption has been that such women would be passive place-holders for their men—but instead, a whole spectrum of possibilities emerged. There were, no doubt, the few who remained victim figures throughout their term. But there were many more women who developed in different ways in the course of five years in office, some becoming significant political players in their own right.       Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that the housewife is, or ought to be, an important figure for feminist politics. Rather than offering premature condemnation, feminists should be trying to understand the process that is engendered when such a person gains a modicum of power within the system. This does not imply, of course, that such women be privileged at the expense of others, but to insist that the problem needs to be posed very differently. This is especially

true in the world of politics, which is all about having the ‘right connections’, including familial ones. We need to pay more attention to what happens after women gain entry— especially women from the backward and Scheduled Castes.

Views on Reservations We now come to the more difficult questions. In what ways do ‘women’ emerge as a subject within the field of local urban politics? Before getting further into our study, let us look at some recent considerations. In the context of a parallel study of women’s reservations in urban metropolitan India, Stephanie Tawa Lama-Rewal (2000) has presented some of the main arguments that support women’s reservations. These include–considerations of gender justice (women’s political presence should be proportional to their presence in society); arguments focusing on women’s interests (a sizeable presence of women is necessary for their interests to be adequately represented); and a resource argument (women have specific qualities that ought to be part of political life). From a very different perspective, Nivedita Menon (2000) has critiqued the very notion of the category of ‘women’ in debates over the Women’s Reservation Bill. Her argument is that it is necessary to go beyond quotas (which are but the beginning) to question the tendency of treating women as ‘a neutral category that exists independently of all political considerations’ (Menon 2000: 3842). The category of ‘women’ does not precede other forms of social identity and mobilisation. And since identities such as class, religion and caste have tended to prevail over gender in contexts like ours, ‘women’ are at best the goal of feminist politics, a category to be constructed.       It seems to me that both these sets of claims need to be

addressed within specific contexts, and the political world of the metropolitan municipality provides a good instance of just such a context. After all, questions of the putative identity of women and the raison d’être of reservations are best tested by the men and women who are the subjects of local urban politics themselves. Clearly, there are no neutral spaces where women (or any other group for that matter) are predefined. Indeed, I would state the problem from the opposite end—that the challenge for feminism is precisely to be meaningful in contexts predefined by fields of power. How, then, has the reservation or quota system produced a discourse of caste and gender among the councillors? What is the role of the municipal system of political representation? Where, if at all, do feminist considerations find a place? So much has been said about the dominance of caste in Indian politics and the ubiquity of vote banks, that it might surprise readers to hear about its relatively muted place in our interviews with councillors. Of course, since we are dealing with people’s opinions, and that, too, on a theme surrounded by high levels of ‘political correctness’, the views expressed here must be taken with extra caution. With this caveat, we found a distinct difference in the style of answering questions about reservations for women compared to caste based reservations. Broadly, councillors had much more to say about women, often providing a contradictory mix of reasons in the course of their response. There was also a palpable contrast in the two cities—while Delhi spoke more favourably on women than on caste-based reservations, the balance went the other way in Bangalore.           We were particularly struck by the flatness of the response to our questions on caste-based reservations, whether for SCs or OBCs. In Delhi, a stronger antipathy was palpable; in many cases our question was even misunderstood as referring to Mandal, i.e., to reservations in education and government jobs, such was the remoteness of political reservations from the minds of this city’s municipal

y p councillors. In Bangalore, a kind of political correctness on caste prevailed upto a point, so much so that it was the dalit corporators themselves who voiced strong criticisms. One of them said that the SC reservations were not working as they should; another that they were unable to help their own people, and a third that his success depended on ‘not looking or behaving like an SC’. On the other hand, a number of nondalit corporators in Bangalore, both men and women, who claimed to support caste-based reservations, subsequently referred to the ‘problem’ that SC corporators were standing from general wards, implying a ‘lost opportunity’ for ‘capable’ candidates. In other words, one got the distinct impression that SC reservations were tolerated, so long as they did not extend beyond their assigned place.       Among dalit women councillors, we often came across a sense of uncertainty about their status and right to reservations, as though their double marking by both caste and gender served to underscore their transient presence. It was uncommon to find outspoken women among them; even the high levels of education and professional qualifications in most of our Delhi sample did not substantially change this picture. Only one dalit woman councillor in Delhi seems to have made a political career for herself; she was also the only dalit from her party, the BJP, to be given a ticket to stand again in 2002.5       The subject of backward caste reservations in Bangalore also elicited surprisingly brief responses, with very few corporators wishing to be drawn into further discussion. Only a very small number referred explicitly to the diminished presence of upper castes in the Bangalore City Corporation, whether positively or negatively. In a unique instance, which must be cited here, an ex-councillor, a developer from the nayanaja kshatriya caste, which comes within the BC(A) category (he started out as an independent but then followed his godfather into the Congress; his wife is the current

corporator), spoke at considerable length about the positive value of reservations, especially for women from the backward castes: It is not just my wife getting a chance … Backward class women are not in politics. Women from a community like the brahmins got chances previously whereas women from backward communities were unable or not inclined... (She) might not perform for three to four years, or might not know the work, or someone else might work on her behalf… (but) she will finally know the worth of that power. Her children, relatives and friends too will learn to face the future. It allows everyone to grow. What, then, did councillors have to say about reservations for women? Far more, as we have already said, than on the subject of caste. Women spoke more in favour than men, and more so in Delhi than Bangalore. Interestingly, it was in Bangalore that both women and men said most frequently that women needed to be given a chance in politics, whereas in Delhi the most common grounds were different, viz., that women possessed special qualities—whether of sincerity or honesty, or the ability to get more work done—that justified reservations. Just four women in Delhi justified reservations because women ‘felt more free’ to talk to another woman. Interestingly, this is the closest reference made in this context to women as voters and to women councillors’ possible role as women’s representatives, a matter we will return to later. If we go back to the types of justifications for reservations provided by Lama-Rewal, the closest to a gender justice argument was articulated by those who felt women deserved to get a chance. Arguments related to women’s interests figured nowhere. The resource argument about women’s special qualities was particularly popular in Delhi. How might we respond to such views?

p       It seems to me that we need to be wary of arguments that rely on women’s ascribed positive qualities. The extent to which they depend upon conventional constructions of good womanhood is itself part of the problem. Moreover, opposition to reservations for women (openly articulated by a small number of both men and women councillors from all social groups) is easily able to turn such arguments on their head—women are less capable, unsuited to the job, unable to function because they lack the right qualities, and so on. Two women councillors in Delhi went further to say that women were even more corrupt than men. A much stronger starting place for any feminist discussion of the place of ‘women’ in the world of local politics would be in relation to experiences and perceptions of gender discrimination. This is also how the proxy issue ought to be tackled—rather than worry over the role that men may be playing, it is whether women councillors feel the need to name problems they or others might be facing as women that is relevant.           All councillors were initially asked an open-ended question about any experiences of constraints in carrying out their work. Interestingly, at this general level, councillors only brought up problems related to the functioning of the municipality—no gender, caste or minority issues came up. Instead, they voiced constraints created by administrative interference and the functioning of municipal officials, lack of financial power, corruption and so on. If control by others was a problem, this took the most frequent form of interference by the local MLAs, especially in Delhi.           What happens when the focus of the question of constraints is specifically turned onto experiences of disadvantage? In order to probe further, all interviewees were asked a series of questions that sought to determine the presence of discrimination, whether in their work and interaction with colleagues and officials, in the kinds of responsibilities entrusted to them, as well as in relation to their families. Only some spoke up on these issues, whether

y p p on their own behalf or for others, with significant numbers in both cities denying the importance or relevance of discrimination in their lives as corporators. This is by no means an easy issue to interpret. Are we dealing with the genuine absence of such experiences for most people, or is it that such experiences are disavowed and denied? We obviously cannot say for certain, but then, this problem is by no means unique for this kind of question, since it structures to varying degrees all the responses received in the interviews.           To put this differently, methodologically speaking, we cannot be overly concerned with determining just what the councillors might be holding back (a matter that came up earlier in discussing degrees of ‘political correctness’ on the subject of reservations); we must lay greater stress on comparing what they do say in the course of a structured interview. In Delhi, for instance, only six women spoke up on the issue of public discrimination, such as being given smaller jobs, being removed from responsible posts, or being harassed. Others said that, regardless of their own social status, what mattered was having a godfather; that women were as guilty of pulling each other down; or that too much power was vested in the ruling party. Yet others said that colleagues, male or female, were of little consequence, one just had to get the work done, especially with the cooperation of officials. It is particularly telling that the dalit women councillors in Delhi were the least forthcoming on the subject, with the exception of the sole representative of the BSP, a newcomer. Among dalit men in Delhi, three spoke out about caste biases among colleagues and bureaucrats. One said that ‘they want bonded SC members who would be like a pet dog’, and another that he was humiliated by never being given an important post.       The one question in Delhi that elicited the largest number of positive responses (from practically 50 per cent of women councillors) was the role of family responsibilities and

y p constraints from family members. ‘Home life is finished!’ declared two newly elected upper-caste women councillors. Women spoke about disturbances caused by the intrusion of corporation issues, lack of attention to family matters, or that daughters and husbands needed to help them, whether at home or at work. Never speaking in the first person, a number of women (and men) said that the husbands of younger women were jealous of their wives’ movements, especially among strangers, and reported cases of separation due to lack of support and understanding. Much depended on how family members handled the situation—one dalit woman councillor said that a new division of labour was required within the family. While it is clear, therefore, that the sphere of the home elicited far more than the public sphere of work insofar as issues were frequently acknowledged and dwelt upon, barring some exceptions they did not appear as major obstacles either. It should also be remembered that the remaining 50 per cent claimed they faced no difficulties in carrying out their tasks as councillors—husbands were cooperative, cooking was taken over by others, children adjusted. In conducting interviews, we discovered that while women frequently turned the front rooms of homes into offices to maintain a continuum between home and work, men had separate offices located in market areas.           In Bangalore, on the other hand, proportionately more women talked about the problems they faced in their public lives, sometimes in the first person (‘when we speak we are simply not heard by the officials, we have to learn how to become loud and aggressive’), but more frequently, adopting a third person position, referring to what certain other women, whom they sometimes mentioned by name, had suffered. A common refrain was that new women corporators in particular were discriminated against and that only experienced women counted. A small number of women and men emphasised that husbands could be a problem–their jealousies (one particularly good-looking woman corporator

j p y g g p was practically stalked by her husband and never allowed out of eyesight), their manipulation of their wives, and their desire to be in control. This lack of freedom was occasionally turned into a reason as to why reservations for women were pointless if not counter-productive.       Two Muslim women corporators in Bangalore, as it turned out, had much to say on the subject of discrimination. One of them, who had stood successfully since 1990 from a Muslim populated ward every time it was reserved for women, and was now councillor for the third time, claimed that male domination was rampant, especially in her community. Not only did Muslim leaders attempt to scuttle reservations for women in her ward, but even women did not find it easy to accept women leaders. The other, a teacher and a newcomer to politics, spoke of the advantages of being unmarried—not only had she faced opposition from party members and ward members, but even her own brother-in-law attempted to wrest control and harassed her repeatedly—she was only able to talk about this when the interview was officially concluded.

‘Women’ as a Political Category Given all that has been said so far, it is perhaps not surprising that when we posed the question whether reserved candidates were able to constitute a group or force within the corporation, this was overwhelmingly answered in the negative. An important assumption has been the ‘critical mass’ theory, viz., that the presence of a minimum of one-third women in political bodies would make a significant difference towards influencing proceedings, instead of a few token women having to act in isolation. However, if the experience of local urban government is anything to go by, then this concept is not working, at least not directly. In fact, when the

question of acting as a group was posed to the councillors, many of them did not even understand what we meant.       Just one councillor from Delhi, an older BJP member who was dropped by the party in 2002 and who was unique in her openly professed concern about women’s issues, claimed to have tried to bring all the women in the corporation together— across party lines—to enable them to act collectively when important decisions were being taken. However, these efforts failed as she conceded that women came together at times of crisis at best. One incident in particular appears to have been a rallying point, since it was also mentioned by three others— the widely reported case of a Mumbai woman corporator who was attacked and killed in the course of her work. The issue was discussed in the house and a resolution passed that women councillors should be provided with a security guard. There was also an incident of sexual harassment by an official of a Muslim councillor, and a reported case where a woman councillor was stabbed by her husband, which were brought up in the municipal meetings. Three others mentioned the existence of a Mahila Kalyan Committee. But the vast majority said that women could not be expected to act in any concerted way—they performed individually or as members of their respective parties. All that the men were willing to concede was that some women could be effective (sometimes giving their names), or, as they put it, a handful of women had ‘personality’.           In Bangalore the story was much the same, if anything even more so. Just two women corporators said that women come together on certain welfare issues—for widow pensions, distributing free sewing machines—but for little else. There was no scope for being a collective force—the women worked on their own, some were dependent on their husbands, and, in any case, primary loyalty belonged to one’s party. The men concurred. With so much unanimity here, across gender and social groups and in both the cities, this is surely an issue calling for further reflection. The idea that women share,

g much less cultivate, a common identity as women in the process of becoming local political leaders is thrown into serious doubt. As already mentioned earlier, none of the women councillors brought up their possible representative role towards the women ward members or towards the women’s interests more generally.

Concluding Questions The issues we have raised in the course of this essay barely scratch the surface of the world of local urban electoral politics. Nonetheless, our experiences have not followed certain commonly held expectations. We encountered more political housewives than passive proxies, most of whom developed a strong relationship to the municipal system, if only for a five-year term. The title of a study of all-women panchayats in Maharashtra—‘And Who Will Make the Chapatis?’—has offered one an important view of the kind of opposition and double burden that women are likely to encounter, should they enter the electoral domain (Dutta 1998). However, families did not emerge as major sites of strife in our study—indeed, barring specific cases of conflict encountered by younger women, especially in Bangalore, accommodation if not support (through the presence of daughters or daughters-in-law, domestic labour, and some cooperation from men, without implying revolutionary changes in gender relations) appeared to be the more common situation.       Nor did collective identities such as those of caste play a prominent political role. Rather, we encountered the muting effects of Scheduled Caste reservations among dalit women, supplemented by outbursts of resentment or expressions of resignation by some dalit men. The undoubtedly major shifts

inaugurated by backward caste politics in Bangalore also did not yield a corresponding willingness to engage with these processes to any significant degree. (The point is not that caste groups and associations were never mentioned, but rather that these jostled for importance with any number of other important organisations—religious bodies, traders’ associations, the local Kannada Sangha in Bangalore.) Women, for their part, were particularly eager to lay claim to the language of abstract universalism in their representative function and did not wish to be either identified with some putative constituency of ‘women’, or with the advancement of women’s issues and interests. They measured their success by their ability to be players in the municipal system, and drew on both masculine and feminine codes and norms in the process. While one successful corporator disavowed even the problems of irregular hours and being called out at night, another ‘held court’ in regal fashion, with her husband among those in attendance. Their careers—barring the tiny number of independents—were shaped by their allegiances to their respective political parties.           One of the reasons why the urban situation is so important—compared to most accounts of the experiences of women in the rural panchayats—is that it includes many more dimensions of the political arena. These include the dominance of political parties in the electoral process, the high stakes of municipal governance with large financial outlays, the significance of various local organisations, leaders and localities, and displays of power on the part of councillors. As I noted at the outset, the domain of decentralisation in India has been synonymous with the revival of rural panchayats. Efforts have been launched by different institutions to assist in this process. Women’s organisations and gender-sensitive NGOs have been second to none in promoting the participation of elected women panchayat members by monitoring their problems, organising meetings, and, especially by providing them with training.

g p y y p g g Empowering women through the panchayats is a major plank of contemporary rural development. It is striking that nothing equivalent exists in urban India, a few exceptions notwithstanding. The contrast is instructive in ways that may have escaped attention. For one thing, political parties have been officially debarred from backing panchayat candidates. For another, a number of urban-based organisations— whether state supported or with international funding—have made the effort to link up with the panchayat system, aided by relations of power and the perception of being part of a larger developmental and anti-poverty initiative. Even though cities like Delhi and Bangalore boast of major women’s organisations and NGOs, they have shown little interest in reaching out to the women in the urban local bodies of these cities, who might even be the local councillors of the very wards where these organisations are housed.           I do not think that this is an oversight. The problems involved in gaining a foothold within urban politics are daunting. Indeed, relations of power between ‘people like us’ (or the typical urban middle-class researcher) and many councillors could well be structured in their favour, as we ourselves discovered in the course of our work. In their study of women in municipal politics, Ghosh and Lama-Rewal (2006) have gone so far as to identify a ‘blatant contradiction’ between the ‘prevalent distaste for the particular mores of politics—its murkiness, its violence, its corruption’ among many women activists and the active support provided to the Women’s Reservation Bill (WRB). Given that there has been considerable debate amongst feminists on the WRB, the contradiction may not be a blatant one for everyone. Groups identifying with the women’s movement have included the women’s wings of left parties. Feminists have also become known for their critiques of the Hindu Right, including especially the violent agency and communal incitement displayed by its women leaders (Sarkar 1991; Sangari 1993). However, there has been little sustained reflection on

changing forms of political and civic mobilisation. Cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have been witnessing what Janaki Nair (2006) has aptly called ‘social municipalism’. The term refers to initiatives by middle-class residents, especially women and retired people, to improve their neighbourhoods in the face of ‘the failures of local governance’, initiatives that seek to bypass or supplant both the electoral process and popular local politics.           Clearly, the world of urban politics offers numerous challenges and no easy points of entry. However, it is important to resist middle-class conceptions—also stoked by NGOs and hyped by the media—of politics as essentially corrupt and dirty. For such conceptions are frequently expressions of the frustration of powerful people whose power is not working. Instead, the presence of reservations based on caste and gender in our municipalities needs to be turned into an opportunity. Councillors and corporators occupy little understood positions within a dense network that ranges from ‘the politics of the governed’ (Chatterjee 2004) at the margins of the metropolis to the new dispensers of governance via mega projects and public-private partnerships. More sustained interactions with this world over a longer period of time—through ethnographies of municipal life, for instance—are sure to yield deep insights into the everyday exclusions, conflicts and forms of empowerment that constitute democratic political processes and their effects on people’s lives. As I have argued above, the challenge lies precisely in learning how to make the subject of women and feminism meaningful within contexts already defined by politics and power. After all, those supporting the demand for similar reservations at the state and national levels can ill afford to hold on to illusory notions of ‘women’ as a social or political identity. The problems and possibilities of ‘women’ within the politics of urban local governance thus deserve much more space than we have granted them so far.

22 REVENUE EFFORTS OF PANCHAYATS

Evidence from Four States PRATAP RAJAN JENA AND MANISH GUPTA recent studies on panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) in W hile India have focused on issues relating to the role of

panchayats in poverty alleviation and employment generation programmes, resource allocation favouring disadvantaged groups and improved participation of women in decisionmaking process,1 the own revenue effort of panchayats has received little attention.2 There is no standing national database on panchayat finances in India, which limits any meaningful analysis of revenue effort of panchayats.       Reports of the central finance commissions serve as the only source of information. Central finance commissions collect data on own revenue of panchayats from the state governments. The Eleventh Finance Commission (EFC) Report provides data on own revenue of the PRIs for the period 1990–91 to 1997–98, which was further extended by the Twelfth Finance Commission (TFC) Report up to 2002–03. However, the data reported by the successive Central Finance Commissions are not comparable.           Provision of services responding to local needs and preferences in a decentralised government system depends to a large extent upon the willingness and ability of the local governments to raise revenue from their own sources. The constitutional amendment in India assigned the state governments with exclusive legislative authority to empower the PRIs to levy taxes. The major objective of devolving

revenue raising powers to the PRIs is to enable them to function as effective institutions of self-government at local level by improving their autonomy in planning and decisionmaking.       This essay analyses the own revenue effort of PRIs based on a survey conducted in the four states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan for the fiscal year 2005–06. It examines the extent to which the PRIs have exploited their statutorily designated revenue rights. The essay also examines the various sources of own revenues comprising own tax and own non-tax revenues. It provides a comparative picture of own revenues of the PRIs based on the survey results and those provided by the TFC for the year 2002–03. Finally, the essay looks at the willingness of the panchayats to collect resources through participatory approach in response to the revealed local needs.           The essay is organised as follows. The first section discusses the survey design and data collection methodology while the second provides the background to the revenue rights of panchayats. The survey findings are analysed in the third section and the final section provides concluding remarks and suggestions.

I Survey Design and Data Collection Within the three tiers of panchayats the focus of this essay is on the functioning of the lower-most tier—the gram panchayat (GP), where the authority to levy taxes is largely vested. It is the panchayats and not the households which form our final sampling unit.       This essay is part of a larger study funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the

assessment of own revenues of the PRIs being one of the many objectives.3 The geographical coverage of the larger study was confined to the four states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan. A pre-selected set of nine backward districts within these states constituted the initial focus of the study.4 These were Bastar and Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, Khargone and Mandla in Madhya Pradesh, Kandhamal and Mayurbhanj in Orissa and Banswara, Dungarpur and Jhalawar in Rajasthan. This set (of districts) was subsequently expanded to include districts from other areas of the state with lower deprivation characteristics, so as to yield a more varied set of findings with respect to panchayat functioning. We call this new set the comparator districts. The selection of these additional districts was based on a number of indicators5 and as the number of indicators involved was large and diverse, the method of principal components was used to rank the districts in each of the four states. The selection of the comparator districts was based on ranking by principal component analysis (PCA), although their location with respect to the backward set by per capita income alone, or Human Development Index (HDI) alone, may not necessarily mark them as less deprived. The eight comparator districts were Dhamtari in Chhattisgarh, Bhind and Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, Bargarh, Kendrapara and Malkangiri in Orissa, and Jhunjhunu and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Orissa is an exception where the pre-selected backward districts are not at the bottom of the PCA ranking. The comparator set, therefore, spans the full range of the PCA ranking. Malkangiri which was placed towards the bottom in Orissa in terms of ranking based on HDI, was included in the set because of its relatively better ranking in terms of per capita income and district domestic product (UNDP 2004).          The selection of the lower two tiers of panchayats, viz., the ‘janpad’ panchayats (JPs) and gram panchayats, was done on the basis of random sampling. The sample was designed to

cover half of the blocks in each district. The selection of blocks in each district was done through random sampling after arranging them in an ascending order on the basis of number of GPs. A final sample of 78 blocks was so selected from the universe of 158 blocks. The number of sample GPs was targeted at 10 on average per block, so as to yield a total of 780 GPs from a universe of 6,301 GPs. This yields a sample selection percentage of 12.38 for the GPs, and therefore, the corresponding sampling interval. The GPs in each block were listed and selected using simple random sampling with replacement, using the chosen sampling interval. Thus, the sampling occurred in multiple stages, and consisted of purposive sampling up to the level of districts and random sampling within these districts. The final sample consisted of 780 GPs, 78 JPs and 17 zilla panchayats (ZPs) spread across the four states.           It is important to note here that since the selection of districts in the state was through non-random procedures, the results from the sample survey cannot statistically hold for the state taken as a whole. However, the random sampling procedure enables estimates from the cluster of backward districts across states and likewise for the cluster of comparator districts across states. The two estimates can be juxtaposed so as to provide a range for each variable of interest.           The instrument of survey is a questionnaire on the panchayat as an institution. Three questionnaires, one for each of the three tiers in the panchayat structure, i.e., for the GP, JP and ZP were used.

II Background

In the three-tier PRI structure, it is the lower-most tier or the GP which is largely endowed with the revenue-raising tax and non-tax powers, while the intermediate and the district tiers, by and large, have very limited or no revenue-raising powers assigned to them. A review of the statutes of the four states covered under the present study reveals that in Orissa, only the GPs are assigned with tax rights, while in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, in addition to GPs, the JPs are empowered to levy a few taxes, and in Rajasthan apart from the lower two tiers, the ZPs are also empowered to levy taxes but the numbers actually exercising these powers are limited. In Madhya Pradesh, following the Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam 2001, some of the revenue raising powers of the GPs have been transferred to the gram sabhas.           Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh classify some of the taxes assigned to PRIs as obligatory, while in Orissa and Rajasthan all taxes remain optional. The assignment of tax rights to the three tiers of panchayats in the four states is shown in Table 22.3 Both in obligatory and optional taxes, the tax rate and the base is decided by the state government while in the case of optional taxes, the statutes stipulate that these can only be levied with the prior permission of the state government. The relevant state statutes or the executive orders issued by the state government lay down the tax rates, tax base and exemptions for the taxes assigned to PRIs. The tax rates in the four states are prescribed most usually as absolute rates or maximum rates. For example, in Orissa, an absolute rate is prescribed for the tax on vehicles, while for other taxes like the latrine and drainage tax, a maximum rate is prescribed. In Rajasthan, a maximum tax rate is prescribed for the house tax (the slab is with respect to floor area) and also for the professional tax, while for other taxes like the vehicle tax, tax on drinking water and taxes on commercial crops, flat rates are prescribed. Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the two states where the statute prescribes a minimum in addition to a maximum rate for a few taxes like

the tax on land and buildings, profession tax and entertainment tax.       The house and building tax, which is the core element in the PRI fiscal domain, is assigned to panchayats in most states, but not in Orissa despite recommendation by successive state finance commissions. Even in the three other states, where this tax is assigned to the panchayats, it is specified as a specific absolute levy slabbed at best with respect to the floor area. In addition to the tax sources, the PRIs are also empowered to collect non-tax revenues in the form of fees, fines and user charges. The panchayats are vested with public properties like irrigation sources, ferry ghats, wastelands and communal lands, orchards, tanks, markets and fairs. Income from these vested properties form part of their non-tax revenues, although where these are still owned and controlled by the line departments of the state governments the non-tax revenues accrue to the state. The properties built by the panchayats such as sewerage, drains, public roads and buildings are also panchayat properties and some of these do generate non-tax revenues.           Table 22.1 gives data on per capita equivalents of revenues of the PRIs as reported by the EFC for the period 1990–91 to 1997–98 and TFC for the period 1998–99 to 2002–03. From the table we see that the per capita own tax revenue of the PRIs in Madhya Pradesh which varied between Re 0.5 and Rs 2 during the period 1990–91 and 1997–98 has shown a sudden rise to Rs 28.30 in 1998–99 and in 2002–03 it was Rs 33.89. Prima facie such a jump in per capita own tax revenue of the PRIs in 1998–99 is implausible. The second state finance commission of Madhya Pradesh, which submitted its report in 2003 recommending state transfers to PRIs for the period 2001 to 2006, has analysed the finances of PRIs till 1997–98 taking the data provided by the EFC. So we do not have any other source to verify the authenticity of post-1997–98 spurt in own tax revenues of PRIs in Madhya Pradesh. A comparison of own revenue effort

y p of the PRIs based on the field survey results for 2005–06 reported in the next section with those provided by the TFC for 2002–03 shows huge differences between the two in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

III Survey Findings The number and type of own taxes collected by the GPs in the surveyed backward and comparator district are shown in Table 22.2. Such an aggregation within the two sets of sample districts is statistically feasible and meaningful because the selection of lower tiers of panchayats, namely the JP and the GP within each set of districts was done through simple random sampling with replacement. Since the districts were selected purposively, the results hold only for the sample set of districts and cannot be generalised to the state as a whole.

Table 22.2 shows that in the backward districts 70.28 per cent of GPs do not levy any of the assigned taxes and in the selected comparator districts the percentage is even higher at 80.25. The remaining 24 per cent of the GPs in backward districts and 15 per cent in comparator districts, collect from only one source. That leaves very few GPs collecting more than one source of tax revenue. A larger percentage of GPs in the backward districts seems to be exploiting their statutorily defined tax rights as compared to those in the comparator districts, though there are variations across the states (not shown in the table). In Madhya Pradesh, for instance, 77.2 per cent of the GPs in the comparator and 49.6 per cent in the backward districts do not levy taxes, while in Orissa 93 per cent in the comparator and 92.4 per cent in backward districts and in Rajasthan 94.9 per cent on comparator and 81.2 per cent in backward districts do not levy any taxes. Only in Chhattisgarh, a larger per cent of GPs in the backward districts (71.7 per cent) as compared to those in the comparator districts (40.5 per cent) did not levy any taxes at all.

At the middle tier, only 35.48 per cent of the JPs, confined to Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, levy some taxes (not shown in the table). In Madhya Pradesh the JPs levy business tax and entertainment tax while in Rajasthan they levy panchayat samiti tax (tax on fairs), vikas tax and education cess. In the case of ZPs, none of them collect any taxes at all.       The mapping between assigned tax sources and the survey results is shown in Table 22.3. The table merely shows the taxes that have been collected by at least one of the surveyed GPs and not the number of GPs collecting such taxes. For example, if in Chhattisgarh only one GP collects animal tax, then the table would show that animal tax is being collected by the GPs in the state. In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh the assigned tax rights seem to have been exploited by at least one panchayat, but the conservancy tax and profession tax, although designated as obligatory are not levied by any GP. In Rajasthan only house tax, water rates and fees on

markets are exploited. The education cess imposed by the JPs in Rajasthan piggybacks on the state taxes and in no way reflects their revenue effort. In Orissa, with the exception of market fees none of the assigned taxes are collected.

The spread of GPs collecting non-tax revenue is large as compared to those collecting taxes both in terms of total number of GPs and number of sources. Table 22.4 shows that around 70 per cent of GPs in backward districts and 77 per cent in comparator districts do raise non-tax revenues from one or more sources.

Incomes from physical properties vested with the panchayats are the major source of non-tax revenue for GPs as around 40 per cent of them reported having received income from these sources. This category includes renting out panchayat properties, auctioning of ferry ghats, orchards, trees and leasing out properties for public use. A large number, 35 per cent in backward and 44 per cent in comparator districts, also receive interest from the bank deposits of funds received by them under various central and state schemes. However, this source of income depends upon the amount of unspent funds under different schemes remaining with the banks and is not based on any revenue effort of the GPs. Royalty from minor minerals and income from forest products accrue to relatively fewer GPs, depending upon the endowment of such properties. Other sources mainly include fees for issuing various certificates and for use of shops and buildings in

markets and fairs, user charges on services provided by the GPs, sale of scrap and fines.           Table 22.5 shows shares by source of own revenue of GPs by district. Non-tax revenues are the dominant sources of own revenues of GPs everywhere except Khargone, a backward district in Madhya Pradesh, where a large number of GPs collect water tax. Among the non-tax sources, the important ones are the income from lease and auctions of ponds, markets and orchards and rent from panchayat properties. In addition to these sources, interest receipts form an important source of non-tax revenues of the GPs in Orissa, while in Rajasthan, income from fees and fines is high as is evident from the table. Tax rights are more effectively exercised in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which are the two states designating certain taxes as obligatory.       A similar analysis of own revenue composition by source and district at JP level (not tabulated) reveals that almost the entire own revenue of the JPs in Chhattisgarh and Orissa is derived from non-tax sources. Among the non-tax sources of JPs in the four states the important ones are income from lease and auction and interest receipts. In Rajasthan income from rent is another important source of non-tax revenue of the JPs.       ZPs do not raise any tax revenue in any of the four states. This is due to the non-assignment of tax powers to this tier except in Rajasthan, where the ZPs do not exploit their tax rights. Thus, the own revenues of ZPs are collected principally from non-tax sources. Among the non-tax sources income from lease and auction, rent from panchayat properties are the important revenue sources in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The ZPs in Orissa do not raise any non-tax revenues. The per capita own revenue raised at the three tiers averaged over comparator and backward districts is given in Table 22.6. For GPs across the district clusters, per capita total revenue varies between Rs 7 and Rs 9.5 in Madhya Pradesh, Rs 5 and Rs 11 in Chhattisgarh, Rs 5

y g and Rs 6 in Orissa and is lowest in Rajasthan varying between Rs 2 and Rs 2.7. Of this total, the contribution of own taxes is less than Re 1 per capita with two exceptions of the backward district cluster in Madhya Pradesh and the comparator district cluster in Chhattisgarh.           Across tiers GPs collect more per capita taxes as compared to the middle and district tier panchayats as the tax rights are mostly vested at this level, the exception being Rajasthan, where the per capita own tax is higher in JPs, in part because of the education cess. A comparison of these figures for the survey year 2005–06 with those provided by the TFC for 2002–03 shows that the per capita own tax revenue of the PRIs in Madhya Pradesh, derived from the Twelfth Finance Commission Report for 2002–03 at Rs 34 is higher than the survey figures in the range of Rs 1–5, by a very large multiple. For the other three states, however, the two sources are roughly at par for tax revenue. The per capita non-tax revenue for Chhattisgarh as reported in TFC report at Rs 32 also varies widely from the survey results that fall in the range of Re 0.20 to Rs 7.

A clear pattern in terms of per capita revenue collection distinguishing backward from the comparator district sets is not discernible across states. In Chhattisgarh, Orissa and

Rajasthan the per capita own revenue of GPs in the comparator districts is higher vis-à-vis the backward districts, while in Madhya Pradesh the opposite is true.           The share of own revenues of PRIs, both from tax and non-tax revenue, in total receipts comprising centrallysponsored schemes funds (CSS), central finance commission funds, state scheme funds and funds from the state finance commissions is very low as shown in Table 22.7. Across the three tiers in both the district clusters, the share of own revenue in total receipts is higher among the GPs, except in Rajasthan where the shares are at par for the JPs and GPs in the comparator districts. For the survey results as the total receipts include CSS receipts, the share of own revenue in total receipts are not comparable with those provided by the TFC.

The poor performance of panchayats in generating own revenues can be attributed to a number of factors. Excessive state control over panchayat tax domain has limited the autonomy of the PRIs. The recommendations of state finance commissions to expand the tax domain of panchayats have

not been heeded by the state governments. The tax rates are specific and are not periodically reviewed and revised. For instance, in Orissa, the vehicle tax rates prescribed in 1975 continue to exist. For many taxes there is an absence of floor rate as only an upper limit is prescribed. This adversely affects revenue mobilisation. However, in some cases the statute prescribes a range, i.e., minimum and maximum rates. For example, in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh the statute prescribes a range for tax on land and buildings, profession tax and entertainment tax.       Within their limited tax domain, the failure of the PRIs can also be attributed to factors like reluctance to levy taxes, poor administrative capacity and electoral politics. The noncollection of even obligatory taxes by a large number of GPs in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh can be attributed to lack of willingness and poor administrative capacity. The GPs by and large are provided with one secretary who acts as a record keeper and looks after their administrative matters. However, all the record keepers are not GP appointees. In many places, state-appointed record keepers manage more than one GP and panchayats have less control over them. With greater emphasis on PRIs as the preferred implementing agency for various central and state development schemes, the administrative capacity of the panchayats is overstretched. As a result the panchayat administration is more geared towards implementation of these schemes and own-revenue collection effort takes a back seat. The political factors like proximity to voters also act as a disincentive to levy taxes. The elected representatives are many a time handicapped by the lack of clarity as regards their functional responsibilities and powers to levy taxes.       The study also assesses the willingness of the panchayats to raise resources for meeting the local needs either by levying taxes or through user charges. The GPs were asked about their local needs and their willingness to raise resources to meet these. The major local needs as expressed

j p by the GPs are provision of drinking water, street lighting, better sanitation and drainage facility, and weekly visits by doctor (Table 22.8). As regards willingness to raise resources to meet these needs, none of the GPs were willing to raise resources either by levying taxes or through user charges. The survey to assess the willingness to collect was confined only to the elected representatives of the panchayat and the panchayat secretary. It did not assess household’s willingness to pay for the services provided by the panchayats. The investigation needs to be taken forward by analysing the willingness to pay by the people for services provided by the local bodies by undertaking a household survey.

IV Conclusions Around 70 per cent of GPs in the backward districts and 80 per cent in the comparator districts do not exploit their statutorily defined tax rights. The per capita own tax revenue collection is less than Re 1 with two exceptions of backward districts in Madhya Pradesh and comparator district in Chhattisgarh. The share of own revenues in total funds received by the GPs is very low and varies roughly between 2 and 4 per cent. Non-tax revenues in the form of income from vested physical properties and some fees and fines are the major sources of own revenue. Lack of tax effort at the GP level, where the tax rights are largely vested, is a matter of great concern. Higher own revenue collection would offer flexibility in decision-making and planning for delivery of services without which the rural local bodies remain eternally dependent on the higher level governments. Designating some of the panchayat taxes as obligatory seems to have a positive effect in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as these

taxes are collected by some GPs as against little contribution from optional tax collections in Orissa and Rajasthan. However, specifying mandatory collection of some taxes in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh has not resulted in exploitation of such taxes by all the GPs. Demarcating some taxes for obligatory collection, therefore, is not sufficient, they need to be monitored for better tax yield. The panchayat tax structure should be restructured first by designating some important taxes as obligatory, where all the taxes are optional, and second, by putting up supervisory mechanism at the PRI level to monitor adherence. The state control of tax domain of panchayats through statutory provisions regarding rates, base and exemptions limits their revenue raising capacity. The absence of a floor rate has the potential of adversely affecting the revenue mobilisation as the panchayats may fix the tax rate at a very low level. In addition, the state statutes have not changed much for long period of time to address the ground realities. The tax structure needs to be revised with respect to rates and base. Infusing flexibility to the system is required and innovations at local level should be encouraged. The recommendations of state finance commissions to expand the tax domain of the PRIs should be calibrated and considered on merit. The nonassignment of house and building tax despite recommendations of successive state finance commissions in Orissa is an evidence of rigidity that has crept into the system. The elected representatives of the PRIs and the supporting staff need to be made aware of the various statutory provisions regarding tax rights through proper training. Incentivising tax effort of the PRIs is an important issue that needs to be considered to improve tax collection. Incentives can be built into the inter se distribution formula for devolution to PRIs by the state finance commissions. The incentive scheme to be fair across panchayat jurisdictions should be designed incorporating the revenue potential and the own revenue effort of the panchayats. The evidence of

p y better tax collection in the backward districts reveals the potential of higher own revenues provided the panchayats make an earnest effort to improve the delivery of public services. Improvement in service delivery by the PRIs in their localities will help in participation of people at large and willingness to pay taxes will improve. In this context the evidence collected through the sample survey regarding lack of ‘willingness to collect’ revenues to provide services as revealed by the GPs in their localities needs to be investigated further by taking a ‘willingness to pay’ approach.

23 LOCAL DEMOCRACY AND CLIENTELISM

Implications for Political Stability in Rural West Bengal PRANAB BARDHAN, SANDIP MITRA, DILIP MOOKHERJEE AND ABHIRUP SARKAR all Indian states, West Bengal is the only one in A mongst which a single political party has uninterruptedly been in

power at state and local levels of government over the past three decades. With some moderate fluctuations, the political supremacy of the Left Front has been maintained in both panchayat and assembly elections throughout the period 1977–2006. This is clear from Figures 23.1 and 23.2. The seat shares of the Left reached a peak around 1987–88 and trended downward for three consecutive elections thereafter. But in the 2003 panchayat elections and 2006 assembly elections they picked up again so that no discernable downward (or upward) trend was present for the period as a whole. The purpose of this essay is to understand and explain this unusual political stability on the basis of a household survey conducted by the authors during 2003–05.

I Introduction The long lasting political supremacy of the Left in West Bengal received a jolt in the recently-held panchayat elections of 2008. In 2003, 71 per cent gram panchayats, 86 per cent panchayat samitis and 88 per cent zilla parishads were controlled by the Left. In 2008, these proportions were reduced to 49 per cent for gram panchayats, 69 per cent for

panchayat samitis and 76 per cent for zilla parishads. But, as Figures 23.1 and 23.2 would testify, there was no indication of this decline before 2006. In other words, this decline in Left supremacy has been sudden rather than gradual. Events after 2006 must have prompted this abrupt change: the most obvious and noticeable event likely to have been responsible for this transformation of public sentiment is the attempt of the government to acquire agricultural land for industrialisation. However, our survey, which was conducted before 2006 cannot capture the effects of this event. Our purpose, therefore, is to explain the long political supremacy of the Left in West Bengal during 1977–2006. However, we make some very brief comments about the change in voting pattern in 2008 in the concluding section of the essay.           This supremacy is difficult to explain on the basis of economic performance alone. The performance of West Bengal on the economic front has hardly been extraordinary compared to other Indian states since the late 1970s, when the Left Front government first began to dominate the political landscape. It is, of course, true that during the 1980s the state witnessed a spectacular growth in agricultural production, particularly in foodgrains, which raised incomes and spread prosperity in rural areas. But for various reasons this upward trend started tapering off from the beginning of the 1990s. At the beginning of the new century, the level of living in rural West Bengal stood in the neighbourhood of that of the average Indian village. The 2001 National Human Development Report of Indian states reveal that, by some indicators, the state was below the all India average, while by some others it was above. But in neither case was the divergence significant.1 To this one may add the steady decline of the formal industrial sector in West Bengal during the 1980s and the 1990s. So, one is faced with the nontrivial task of explaining the unusual political durability of the Left Front in the state. Of course, there may have been

important distributional changes favouring the large majority of the rural population composed of the poor: Example, gratitude for the land reforms implemented mainly in the 1980s may have played a positive role in the Left Front winning elections. The agricultural growth of that period may also have been credited to the ruling party, which, in turn, could have given rise to a feeling of gratitude that survived the stagnation of the 1990s. But these hypotheses deserve careful scrutiny.           One particular achievement often attributed to the Left Front is that it introduced and subsequently maintained a genuine grassroots democracy in rural West Bengal. This involved decentralisation of rural power through a well functioning panchayat raj, well in advance of most other Indian states. It is frequently claimed that the hierarchical power structure existing prior to the advent of Left Front rule in rural areas was replaced by a more democratic structure where the poor and the underprivileged were enabled to play an active role in local decision-making within villages. As a consequence, they acquired a life of dignity hitherto unknown to them, and a form of economic security not reflected in aggregate measures of economic well-being for the state. Clearly, if this claim turns out to be correct, it could explain the political success of the Left Front in terms of good governance and a well functioning grass roots level democracy. Is the hypothesis of good governance supported by actual data?       This essay examines the functioning of local democracy in rural West Bengal under Left Front rule. A well functioning democracy entails, on the one hand, political awareness and political participation of the poor and the underprivileged. On the other hand, it requires a proper targeting of government benefits, through the panchayat system, towards the socially disadvantaged. On the basis of a survey conducted in 2003– 05 of 2,400 households in 88 villages of West Bengal, we investigate the extent to which this was the case. We

g investigate, for example, the roles of wealth, caste, education and gender in determining political participation at the local level. In particular, we check if the poor or the socially disadvantaged in rural West Bengal were less aware of government actions or political realities in comparison with more privileged counterparts. We also examine how political participation (ranging from participation in elections, village meetings, political campaigns, to direct financial contributions to political parties and placing demands in village panchayat meetings) varied significantly with economic or social status. Finally, we examine both inter-village and intra-village benefit delivery patterns to discover how local governments distributed benefits in various developmental programmes across diverse economic and social classes, and whether these distributions reflected political partisanship in any manner.           We find high average levels of political participation in elections, village meetings and political campaigns, exposure to the media, political awareness and awareness of programmes administered by the gram panchayats (GP). These results are consistent with findings for other Indian states (e.g., by Krishna (2006) for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh) or for many Latin American countries (e.g., Gaviria et al (2002)). But more importantly, apart from education, gender and immigration status, socio-economically weaker sections of the population were at least as likely to participate in local politics compared to others. Indeed, after controlling for household land, education and immigrant status, households belonging to SC and ST communities exhibited significantly higher levels of attendance and active participation in gram sabhas, as well as in contributions to political campaigns.           Our study also reveals that the distribution of benefits within a village exhibited a bias in favour of SC/ST groups and those with less education, and no bias with respect to either more or less land owned. However, comparisons across

p villages show that villages with a higher proportion of landless households received lower benefits per household. These results suggest greater accountability to the poor within the lowest level of local governments, compared with higher levels of government (i.e., at the block or district levels) that allocate programmes across different gram panchayats. These results are consistent with the findings in Bardhan and Mookherjee (2006) which were based on village panel data collected directly from official records of local governments. Finally, our study indicates that village meetings may have provided a channel of accountability of GPs to the poor and low caste groups. However, it does not necessarily indicate a causal impact of village meetings on targeting of benefits: the results are equally consistent with the hypothesis that village meeting participation and targeting both reflected the effect of deeper unobserved characteristics of the community such as social capital.       Can we infer that the pattern of benefit distribution was consistent with good governance? Relative to several other states and relative to what the situation was in West Bengal before, the distribution of benefits within a village (or GP) did not show any significant bias against the poor or the socially disadvantaged. In this sense West Bengal is marked by a remarkable absence of ‘local capture’ by the elite which is one of the persistent problems in decentralisation experiences all over the world. But at the inter-village level there seems to be an effective anti-poor bias in the actual allocation of benefits. It is not clear if this is a problem in the implementation of the criteria laid down for inter-GP allotments in the state finance commission reports. These criteria and the methods of their implementation are not widely known, nor even to panchayat officials. Lack of local information on the inter-village allocation may have minimised the loss of political support that the inter-village bias may have potentially entailed.           Can we explain the unusual political stability in West Bengal by the lack of capture of local governments by local

g y p g y elites alone? In fact, a section of the media ascribes the success of the Left Front instead to coercion and malpractices during elections. It is frequently alleged that the formidable election machinery of the Left has been primarily responsible for winning elections, and this was largely achieved through unscrupulous means. For the entire population in our survey, about 5 per cent reported disturbance during elections and another 8 per cent chose to remain silent on the issue. Only four households in the entire sample reported not being able to cast their vote because of fear of disturbances or because they discovered their vote had already been cast by someone else or because they had to wait too long at the polling booth. Our survey results suggest that while there may be some substance to the allegations made in the media, they do not support the claim that elections were won primarily owing to these malpractices. For instance, the polling disturbances were reported (or the respondents refused to comment) disproportionately among poorer, landless households, who typically vote in favour of the Left. Thus, we have to look for other explanations.           In Sarkar (2006) it was suggested that the overall economic stagnation in West Bengal had actually helped the ruling Left Front to remain in power. Economic stagnation has severely limited the economic opportunities open to the citizens making many of them crucially dependent on the ruling party for small favours giving rise to a political society (a concept developed by Chatterjee (2004) in a somewhat different context) where politics is an integral part of the survival strategy of the members. This dependence, in turn, is argued by Sarkar to have induced a sizeable chunk of the population to vote for the Left. This hypothesis suggests, therefore, that had there been more economic growth (especially more expansion in the formal industrial sector), the extent of this dependence would have been much less and the chances of the ruling Left to remain in power would have been substantially reduced.

y       Some of the services that the ruling party could potentially distribute as political favours were precisely the kind of benefits that are usually distributed through the panchayats. We examine whether the data is consistent with the claim that the Left Front received consistent support from voters by distributing these benefits to its politically loyal clients. In this context we can think of three levels of political clientelismcum-loyalty of households towards the Left. The weakest involves voting behaviour alone, whereby, favours received from the GP are returned by voting for the party locally in power. This hypothesis of course has the problem of explaining how voters signal their allegiance in a secret ballot. In light of this, it is perhaps unsurprising that our survey reveals that households voting Left without any other political involvement did not get any extra benefits from Leftdominated panchayats.       A more visible form of political loyalty involves attendance in political meetings. We discovered in our survey that, within a village, the households regularly attending political meetings got more benefits on an average than others that did not attend these meetings regularly. This finding certainly suggests the presence of clientelism. But surprisingly, a higher form of political involvement, namely, taking an active part in political campaigns, showed a negative and significant correlation with getting benefits. Anecdotes picked up in the field suggest that those campaigning actively for the locally dominant party may have received fewer benefits partly because they wanted to project a clean image of the party and partly because benefits distributed through panchayats were small in comparison with other hidden rewards offered to them outside the ambit of the panchayat-administered programmes.       Finally, attendance in gram sabha (GS) meetings displayed a significant positive association with receipt of benefits. This by itself may signal good governance. But it is open to alternative interpretations, given the fact that GS attendance

p g was positively correlated with voting Left. One possible interpretation could be that GSs were dominated by Left supporters who used them as a platform to get more benefits. Others did not attend GSs because they knew that their demands would not be entertained. On the other hand, the evidence is also consistent with the explanation that the Left were particularly successful in organising and persuading their supporters to attend GSs where they placed demands and received benefits subsequently.       To obtain a better clue to the political stability puzzle, at the end of our survey, we conducted a secret ballot where respondents indicated their preferences across political parties active in the local area. Voting patterns among the surveyed households reveal several statistically significant tendencies. First, there is a clear and positive statistical association between voting for the Left and having less land, less education or belonging to SC or ST groups. In other words, less wealthy, less educated and socially disadvantaged groups exhibited a greater inclination to vote for the Left.           Second, the likelihood of voting for the Left increased with benefits received from programmes administered by previous Left dominated local governments. But not all benefits mattered equally in this respect. We found that receipt of recurring benefits like Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), credit, mini-kits, employment and relief programmes had a positive correlation with voting for the Left. On the other hand, one-time benefits like housing, supply of water, building of roads or provision of ration cards were not associated in any systematic manner with voting patterns. In addition to recurring benefits, help provided by GPs in overcoming difficulties faced in one’s occupation, and in times of personal emergency in Left dominated local governments were positively associated with voting in favour of the Left.       Third, improvement in agricultural fortunes over the period 1978–2004 were significantly associated with a higher

g y g likelihood of voting Left in Left Front dominated panchayats. It is possible this reflected the role of favours granted by local governments, either through land reforms, distribution of mini-kits, or improvements in irrigation facilities. The latter largely involved building of shallow and deep tube wells through private initiative. However, during periods of peak demand the panchayat played a role in the distribution of water and in resolution of related conflicts. Moreover, we collected stories about private owners with permits for installing shallow tube wells actually installing deep tube wells and the panchayat looking the other way. In short, building irrigation facilities and distribution of irrigation water involved direct and indirect panchayat help and may have been treated as recurring benefits and political favour.       What can we infer from all this? We have seen above that those who regularly attended political meetings on average got more benefits than others who did not. The former were not small in number. In our sample, election meetings were attended by approximately 48per cent of the population. Presumably a large fraction of them voted for the Left coalition. The fact that only recurring benefits (and not onetime benefits) mattered in getting votes points further to the possibility that the pattern reflected clientelism rather than voter gratitude arising out of good governance.          On the other hand, gratitude did play a role at different levels. Controlling for all other effects, the incidence of belonging to SC/ST and having less land or education increased the probability of voting Left. Most probably, this picks up the effects of broad-based social changes implemented during the Left rule. Especially with regard to the opportunity to participate in local democracy and lead a more dignified life under the Left Front, compared with what they had been historically accustomed to before the Left came to power. In fact we found that almost one half of the total population, comprising predominantly of SC/ST groups and the landless, constituted a secure vote bank for the Left,

having voted in their favour consistently over the past quarter century.       Given this, the Left needed to secure only a fraction of the remaining swing voters in order to win an absolute majority. Hence, everything taken together, the survey results indicate the political success of the Left reflects a combination of clientelism as well as gratitude among poor and vulnerable sections arising out of broad-based social and economic changes.       The rest of the essay is organised as follows. We give a general description of our survey and the data in Section II. Section III examines political participation and awareness of the citizens, and how they were related to measures of socioeconomic status. Section IV studies targeting of benefits disbursed by local governments and Section V examines voting patterns. Section VI concludes the essay.

II Survey and Household Characteristics Our results are based on a survey of 2,400 rural households in a sample of 85 villages in West Bengal. The survey was carried out in 2003–05. Our village sample is actually a subsample of a larger stratified sample of villages selected from all districts of the state except Kolkata and Darjeeling. The original sample was drawn by the Socio-Economic Evaluation Branch of the Department of Agriculture, Government of West Bengal, for the purpose of calculating cost of cultivation of major crops in the state between 1981 and 1996. A more detailed description of this sample can be found in Bardhan and Mookherjee (2004, 2006). A random sample of blocks within each district was selected, and within each block, one village was selected randomly. This was followed by a random

selection of another village within an 8 km radius. Our survey teams visited these villages between 2003 and 2005 and, as a first step, carried out a listing of landholdings of every household. Next, households were stratified according to their landholdings and on the basis of this stratification, a stratified random sample was selected of 25 households per village on an average. Selected households were then administered a survey questionnaire. The questions pertained to demographic, economic and political characteristics of the respondents. Apart from caste, age distribution, landholding and asset holding of the households, we collected data on the benefits received by them from the panchayat. We also asked questions related to media exposure, political awareness and participation, and voting behaviour. Finally, at the end of the survey we gave the respondents mock ballot papers with imprinted symbols of political parties and asked them to indicate their political preference. Our survey is distinctive in two different ways. First, the National Election Surveys in India use household surveys to measure political participation, attitude and preference, but with very few exceptions political behaviour is not usually related to socio-economic characteristics of the household.2 Our survey fills this gap. Second, the National Election Surveys focus on national level elections rather than on processes of local governance. In contrast, the purpose of our survey is to understand politicoeconomic forces in local governance at the grass roots level. Studies of political participation in local governments have been carried out for three different districts each of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by Krishna (2006), and two Karnataka districts by Crook and Manor (1998). Ghatak and Ghatak (2002) have studied participation in village meetings (gram sansads) in a sample of 20 villages in Birbhum district of West Bengal. Our survey complements these studies. In addition, it becomes especially relevant because it helps us analyse and understand political stability in West Bengal. A

summary of sample characteristics is presented in Table 23.1. Landownership seems to be the most natural criterion on the basis of which these rural households can be classified into different wealth categories. Accordingly we classify the households into six categories: landless, marginal (0 to 1.5 acres), small (1.5 to 2.5 acres), medium (2.5 to 5 acres), large (5 to 10 acres) and big (above 10 acres). In our sample, landless households along with small and marginal farmers constitute more than 80per cent of the total households. Again, SCs and STs together account for about 35 per cent of households and the percentage is significantly higher among the landless and the marginal farmers. Finally, 47 per cent of the households have agriculture as their primary occupation. Maximum education in a household refers to the maximum completed years in school across all members of the household. As expected, this maximum increased with the size of landownership. Age and sex refer to those of the household head who was the usual respondent of the interview. Finally, we classify a household as immigrant if it migrated into the village after 1967. Again, as expected, incidence of migration is the highest among the landless.

III Political Awareness and Participation We examined two different measures of general political awareness among the surveyed households. First, the respondents were asked a few questions3 about the general political environment the answers to which could be correct or incorrect. On the basis of the number of correct answers given, a composite score of general political awareness was calculated for each household in a 6-point scale. A second measure of political awareness that we looked at was media exposure. We asked the respondents whether they watched political and economic news on the television on a regular basis. Similar questions were asked about the radio. The results regarding political awareness are reported in Table 23.2. As one might expect, political awareness by all the three measures increased with the size of landholding. General political awareness, as is evident from the second column, was quite high. As for media exposure, exposure to radio was less dispersed across various size classes than exposure to television. Finally, except for the marginal farmers, exposure to television was higher in all the other categories than exposure to television.

Apart from general political awareness, we investigated the extent to which households of different classes were aware of various development or antipoverty programmes administered by the GPs. As Table 23.3 reveals, awareness about GP development programmes was quite low on an average. Taking raw averages for each group, we see that except for big landowners, information about an average programme is available to less than 20per cent households in each group and for big landlords the figure is just above 20per cent. On the other hand, none of the programmes was known, on an average, to more than 20per cent households.           We shall see below that for most programmes administered by the GPs, only a very small proportion of households reported receiving benefits under that programme. Indeed the average proportion of households that reported to have received benefits from any single programme did not exceed 4 per cent and only in a small number of programmes reported benefit rates exceeded 1per cent. The low level of awareness about GP programmes may have been caused by the low level of coverage of the

development programmes. Equally likely, low levels of awareness caused development programmes remain limited in coverage and scale. Finally, a two-way causation with low awareness limiting development programmes and limited programmes causing low awareness cannot be ruled out either.

Table 23.3 reveals that awareness of anti-poverty development schemes was uniformly higher in the highest strata of landholding, compared to the landless. In the middle tiers, awareness was more for some programmes and less for others and in general across different programmes awareness varied with need and/or entitlement. Landless households were more aware of loan and employment programmes, marginal landowners more aware of loan and seed programmes that they only will find useful.           Sources of information concerning GP activities varied little across landowning groups as Table 23.4 illustrates. For all classes except the highest landholding class, panchayat members were an important source of information, closely followed by friends and relatives. On the other hand, big landowners, comprising of top 1per cent of the landowning

class, seemed to depend a lot more on panchayat members than on peer groups. This points to an extraordinary closeness between panchayat members and the top landowning class and somewhat contradicts the popular perception about the plebeian character of West Bengal panchayats. Finally, political activists have also been instrumental in disseminating information, but their role in this respect has been more or less uniform across all classes including the topmost.

Next, we consider political participation. We looked at three types of political activities: attending political rallies and meetings, taking an active part in political campaigns, and making financial contribution to political parties. The profile of political participation is presented in Table 23.5.       On average, political participation was high. This is most pronounced in the inclination for making financial contributions to political parties. An astounding 69 per cent of all households reported making financial contributions to political parties, the proportion increasing uniformly with landholding. Even within the landless, a proportion as high as

61per cent made financial contributions and the number rose to 93 per cent for the highest strata. Anecdotes suggest that a significant part of these financial contributions is made to buy political protection against unforeseen emergencies. A general perception is that situations like an illness in the family requiring hospitalisation or a dispute with a neighbour requiring mediation can be handled more smoothly if some political help is available.       A more active form of political participation is taking part in political campaigns. Approximately 26 per cent of all households were actively involved in campaigns and the proportions were more evenly distributed across different land classes than the distribution of financial contributions. However, the difference in involvement in political campaigns appears to be sharper if one compares the landless with big landowners. The contrast suggests that West Bengal grass root politics is yet to be completely free from elitist domination. It may be mentioned that the proportion of households involved in political campaigns in West Bengal is similar to that in Karnataka districts studied by Crook and Manor (1998) (where it was 23 per cent), but lower than that in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh districts studied by Krishna (2006) (where it was 43 per cent).           Finally, attendance in political meetings was quite high, averaging 48 per cent across the population, and much higher than the corresponding attendance rate of 33 per cent reported for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by Krishna (2006). Attendance rates were higher than 40 per cent for all landowning groups and like the proportion of participation in political campaigns did not exhibit any monotonic increase with the size of landholding. However, similar to campaign participation patterns, there is a significant difference in attendance rates between the landless and the top 1 per cent of the landowning class, suggesting once again that rural politics in West Bengal is not quite free from the influence of the big landowning class as yet. Perhaps superior education

g g y p p plays a crucial part in assigning the landed a key role in rural politics.

But if we control for other characteristics like education, landholding, age and gender of respondent, we find that the probability of political participation (by all the three measures) significantly increased if the household belonged to the SC or ST category. This is clear from the regressions we run for explaining political activity. The detailed regression results are reported in Table 23.6. Our findings of the involvement of the SC and ST groups in rural politics corroborates accounts by Ruud (1999, 2003) of increasingly active role played by some SC groups in the village politics in some districts of West Bengal. Similarly, our regressions reveal that education significantly increased the chance of active political involvement, controlling for other household characteristics. Moreover, political participation showed a distinct gender bias; being a male clearly increased the probability of political participation, other things remaining the same. Finally, if we control for education and other characteristics, the chance of

attending political meetings decreases and that of making political contribution increases with the size of landholding, i.e., ceteris paribus big landholders prefer to express their political loyalty by making financial contribution than spending time in political rallies.       One other important thing to notice from Table 23.6 is the effect of the SC dummy interacting negatively with a North Bengal dummy. And the opposite is true for agricultural land owned: its effect on political contributions is significantly higher in North Bengal. This would mean that in North Bengal, political participation among the SCs is significantly lower and large landowners contribute more to campaigns. It may be mentioned that parts of North Bengal continue to be the traditional Congress base and our results indicate that politics in these parts of the state is still controlled by higher castes and big landowners.       Yet another form of political participation is attendance in GS. We have looked at two variants of this form of political participation: just attending a GS, and speaking or asking questions in a GS. Evidently the second variant, which we call participation in GS, is a deeper form of political participation than the first.           Table 23.7 records the two forms of GS involvement across different landowning classes. It reveals that more than one-third of the population reported attending village meetings, which discussed matters relating to local government activities, within the previous three years of the survey. The proportion is high compared with 17 per cent in the Karnataka districts studied by Crook and Manor (1998). Attendance rates do not show any clear pattern across landowning classes. In contrast, proportion of households standing up to speak or ask questions at the GS is just above 11per cent, and there is a notable difference in participation rates between the extreme ends of the landholding spectrum. The figures seem to suggest that while attendance rates in village meetings did not vary with respect to landholding, the

g g y p g big farmers were certainly ahead of the rest as far as standing up and speaking in a GS was concerned. Once more, this was probably due to a superior education level of the big landowners. Regression results on GS attendance and participation (reported in our companion paper Bardhan et al 2008) confirm that the maximum level of education in the household is significantly associated with GS participation and to a lesser extent with GS attendance.

We conclude this section by noting that both political awareness as well as political participation is reasonably high on an average in rural West Bengal. The awareness and participation, however, varied across landholding classes and education. Controlling for education and landholding, the probability of political participation significantly increased when the household belonged to either the SC or the ST community.

IV Intra-Village and Inter-Village Distribution of Benefits Next, we examine the extent to which rural households of West Bengal could utilise political participation and awareness to obtain actual benefits from local governments. We are particularly interested in studying the proportion of

benefits that went to the poor, and how far the distribution of benefits was influenced by political considerations. We carry out our investigation in three stages. First, we examine the proportion of benefits of different categories (such as housing, mini-kits, drinking water, ration cards and so on) going to the poor and the socially underprivileged classes. Second, we study the effects of different variables (like landholding, education, caste, political participation, etc) on the distribution of benefits within a village. Finally, we look into the determinants of benefits across villages to understand how village characteristics like proportion of landless or backward classes residing in the village or inequality in landholding and education within the village influence the distribution of benefits. The three stages of investigation, taken together, give us a more or less complete picture of distribution of benefits.           Table 23.8 records the percentages of households who reported receiving different benefit programmes (house, water, employment, mini-kits of agricultural inputs, IRDP, roads, relief against disasters or old age or widow status, and ration card) over the periods 1978–98 and 1998–2005. We report these periods separately because the reported benefits for the earlier period may be subjected to a greater recall bias. We see that the proportions reporting receiving benefits were substantially higher for the later period. Therefore, we use the figures for the later period in our subsequent analysis of benefits.

A number of observations can be made about the figures provided in Table 23.8. First, the largest benefits were reported for roads (32 per cent) and water (23 per cent) which have non-excludable public goods properties. Within the set of excludable personal benefits, beneficiaries from ration cards (12 per cent) and from relief of various kinds (12 per cent) topped the list. The proportion of households benefiting from the remaining programmes was small. There is yet another list of benefits for which the proportions of beneficiaries are negligible. Those have not been reported in Table 23.8.           But whatever the reach of the benefit programmes may have been, it is clear from Table 23.8 that a reasonably fair proportion of these benefits went to the landless and the SC/ST. We may recall from Table 23.1 that the landless constituted about 50 per cent of our sample households while SC and ST taken together constituted about 37 per cent. If we confine ourselves to the 1998–2005 period, we find that, for five out of eight categories of benefits, the proportion going to SC and ST households was more than their

demographic weight and in the remaining three it was less but not remarkably so. Similarly for the landless, if we exclude mini-kits (because the landless have little use for them), in three out of seven categories the proportion of benefited households exceeded the demographic weight. In the remaining four categories, proportions of beneficiaries were slightly below the demographic share.Finally, if we ignore demographic weights and just look at the proportion of benefits going to the underprivileged, we find that the proportions were high.           The regression results in Table 23.9 supplement Table 23.8. The results demonstrate that being a member of either the STs or the SCs significantly increased the chance of getting benefits from the panchayat. However, the results show that the relationship between receiving benefits and landholding was not significant, though it was negative. To examine the clientelist hypothesis against the gratitude hypothesis, we have further divided the benefits into two categories: one-time and recurring. Clearly a clientelist relationship between the party and the electorate would involve distribution of recurring benefits. On the other hand, if votes are obtained because of a gratitude factor, both kinds of benefits would be important. It is clear from Table 23.9 that the STS received more one-time benefits than recurring ones, while for the SCs it was exactly the opposite. We shall see below that the SC/ST cohort comprise a major vote bank of the Left. The regression results of Table 23.9 suggest that while ST votes were based more on the gratitude factor, SC votes are mainly rooted in a clientelist relationship between the party and the electorate.

The high proportion of benefits going to SC/ST, however, has to be interpreted along with the regression results reported in Table 23.10 where we examine determinants of the number of benefits (aggregating across different programmes) received by a household over the period 1998–2003, controlling for village fixed effects. The exercise captures the determinants of the distribution of benefits within a village.           We find from Table 23.10 that the number of benefits received by a household within a village does not significantly depend upon education, caste, landholding, voting preference or campaign contribution. This simply means that if we control for the other characteristics of a household, just being a member of the SC/ST community does not significantly affect the number of benefits received by the household. Therefore, it must be the case that the SC, ST households are getting a sizeable portion of the benefits (as we saw in Tables 23.8 and 23.9), because many of these households satisfy some other characteristics with which the number of benefits are positively correlated.       There are two variables which have significantly positive effects on the number of benefits: non-agricultural land owned and the political meeting attendance dummy. The first is mildly significant (at 10 per cent) and the second is more significant (at 5 per cent). The underprivileged like the SC and ST are unlikely to own more non-agricultural land than others. But from Table 23.6 we know that the association between SC and ST and attendance of political meetings was positive and significant. Thus, one could infer that a high proportion of benefits have gone to the SC/ST largely because they attended political meetings more than others. But once we control for that, being an SC or ST as such did not significantly increase their chance of getting more benefits.           The other curious thing about Table 23.10 is that it records a significantly negative relationship between the

political campaign involvement dummy and the number of benefits received. It is not easy to explain why benefits might tend to fall if a household is involved in political campaign on behalf of the party in power. Stories that we gathered from the field suggest a possible explanation. One may think of three possible shades of party loyalty in decreasing order of intensity: taking part in political campaigns before elections, attending political meetings and rallies organised by the party, and simply voting for the party without engaging in the other two activities. There is yet a fourth activity, viz., making financial contribution to a political party, about which we shall comment later.           Anecdotes we heard in the course of our survey work suggest two possible reasons why households closest to the party and involved in campaigns may receive fewer benefits from the panchayat. On the one hand, to maintain a cleaner image of the party he is canvassing for, the campaigner cannot visibly receive too many benefits from the panchayat. In fact, he tends to take lower than normal benefits from the panchayat to project an honest image of the party and of himself. On the other hand, benefits that can be possibly received from the panchayat may be too small for the services rendered by the campaigner for the party. The campaigner may be compensated in less conspicuous but more rewarding ways.4

For households attending meetings and rallies, however, benefits received through the panchayat seem to be sufficient compensation, because attendance in political meetings entails an intermediate level of commitment to the party. Finally, contrary to popular perception, the voting process in rural Bengal still seems to maintain some confidentiality. As a result, just voting for the party in power, without participating in campaigns or showing up in rallies, cannot send any credible signal of party loyalty and, hence, does not seem to fetch any additional benefits from the panchayat. We must hasten to add that the above explanation, being based on anecdotes picked up in the field, has all the associated limitations.           The lack of significance of financial contribution to political parties, on the other hand, is not easy to explain. One could argue that since a large number of households are making financial contributions to the political parties, these contributions cannot be used as a screening device for distributing benefits. Perhaps making a contribution has become the norm: the act of not making a contribution is interpreted as a negative signal, i.e., it is an indicator of active opposition to the Left. Since so many contribute, it is not possible for all of them to be given benefits given the resource shortages. Contributions are then a necessary but not a sufficient condition to receive benefits in return.       Another important thing that needs to be noticed in Table 23.9 is that the interaction terms of GS attendance rate with both meeting attendance and political campaign involvement are significant. Moreover, while the first interaction term is negative, the second is positive. This clearly implies that the biases in benefit targeting caused by meeting attendance and involvement in political campaigns are reduced by higher GS attendance rates in the village. It is easy to understand how higher GS attendance rates, by making the panchayat more transparent would partly eliminate the partisan bias arising

out of meeting attendance. But it is not immediately clear why the under-provision of benefits associated with campaign involvement would be partly corrected due to higher GS attendance rates. Perhaps a more transparent-processoriented panchayat reduces the apprehension of the campaigner of being falsely charged with misappropriation of panchayat benefits.           Finally, we examine the distribution of benefits across villages. The relevant regression results are reported in Table 23.11. First, we note that the proportion of landless in a village has a negative significant association with per household benefits within the village. This means that villages with a larger proportion of landless received significantly smaller benefits, indicating a perverse pattern of targeting by higher level governments. The result is consistent with the results in Bardhan and Mookherjee (2006) based on an entirely different source and nature of data for the same villages covering the period 1978–98. It may be mentioned in this context that we tried to find out whether any formula or rule was used to allocate funds across GPs from higher level like panchayat samitis or zilla parishads. We discovered that even though a formula for disbursement of funds was laid down in the State Finance Commission Reports, even zilla parishad sabhadhipatis were not aware of it. Therefore, it seems that discretion rather than rule was used to disburse funds across GPs.

Second, the significant negative relationship between Left seat share within a panchayat and per household benefits in the village along with a significant positive relationship between Left share squared and per household benefits indicate a significant U-shaped relation between Left seat share and per household benefits. The U-shaped relationship implies that more resources were allocated to villages where seat allocations were extreme, that is, either the proportion of Left seats was very high or very low. This, in turn, meant that in villages where the ruling party (Left or non-Left) was in big majority, it could successfully bring more resources from higher level governments. In contrast, more evenly contested

panchayats could bring fewer benefits per household. The turning point of the U occurred around 57 per cent proportion of GP seats secured by the Left.

V Determinants of Voting Behaviour From the discussion in Section IV, it is clear that there was some partisan allocation of benefits both within and across villages. Within a village, attendance in political rallies tended to fetch more benefits than usual. Across villages, panchayats where the Left enjoyed an overwhelming majority were successful on an average in obtaining more resources from higher levels. The natural question is: how far did the allocation of benefits from above help the Left attract votes? To arrive at an answer we have to look into the voting behaviour of the households and identify, in particular, the significant determinants of Left votes. But before going into this we examine some general characteristics of the voters, provided in Table 23.12.

On average, voter registration rates were quite high except among the landless where more than 12 per cent households were not enlisted as voters. Reported voter turnout rates were almost universal, excepting among the landless. Probably, lower registration and turnout of the landless were caused by their relative mobility compared with the landed. Moreover, there must have been some over-reporting of turnout because the reported proportions are substantially above the actual figures. The aggregate reported voter turnout rate was however similar to that reported (95 per cent) in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan by Krishna (2006).       As for those who reported disturbance during elections or declined to respond to the question, the overall proportion was not very high, but not negligible either. In fact, only four households in the entire sample reported not being able to cast their vote because of fear of disturbances, or because they discovered their vote had already been cast by someone else, or because they had to wait too long at the polling booth. So we describe instead their response to the question whether they faced any difficulties or disturbances when they went to vote (which does not seem to have prevented them

from casting their vote). About 5 per cent households reported facing difficulties or disturbances in and around polling booths and nearly 200 households did not respond to the question. Thus, there may be some substance in the allegation that elections have not been free and fair in all areas. But it cannot explain the overall outcome of panchayat elections. More so because those who reported disturbances or declined to answer were not predominantly non-Left voters. In fact, the proportions reporting disturbances were the highest among the landless and the marginal (who tend to vote Left).           We shall see below that there is a significant statistical relationship between voting Left and owning less land or belonging to the SC or ST community. It also appears that voter registration was the lowest among the landless and the marginal; voter turnout was 10 per cent lower among the landless compared with other groups. Moreover, regression results (reported in our companion paper Bardhan et al 2008) suggest a strong negative correlation between having one’s name in the voters list or showing up for casting one’s vote on the one hand and being SC or ST. Finally, the last column of Table 23.11 suggests that the landless and the marginal faced more difficulties than others while casting their votes. All this taken together would imply that distortions in the voting process, if any, as picked up by lower voter registration, fewer turnouts and disturbances in and around polling booths, went against the Left rather than working in their favour.5       Before looking into the determinant of voting behaviour, we represent the actual profile of voters’ choices. This is given in Table 23.13. Apart from the households which have reported to vote for one single party all along, a small number have reported voting for different parties in different elections. They have also found a separate place in Table 23.12. It is to be noted that the reported vote shares in our survey are not much different from the actual vote shares in

the zilla parishad elections of 2003 which are given in column 3. In most cases they are unusually close.

We now investigate the determinants of the likelihood of a given respondent voting in favour of the Left Front. The relevant regression results are given in Table 23.14. To settle the question of possible clientelism, we make a distinction between two types of personal benefits: one-time and recurring. Clientelism involves an implicit quid pro quo, an exchange of recurring favours for recurring political support. The latter category includes IRDP, credit, minikits, employment, the former including the rest. Some programmes are inherently one-time, such as land reform benefits,

building of houses, toilets or installation of drinking water taps in the neighbourhood. For these a positive association is more likely to indicate gratitude rather than a continuing reciprocity. Others are ambiguous, such as road programmes. We include roads in one-time category partly because it has a one-time infrastructural, local public good nature. Besides, we ran regressions also including roads in the recurring category and found the results largely unchanged.

The following are the striking features of the regression results recorded in Table 23.14. First, while one-time benefits received by oneself or by one’s friends or family members had no significant effect on voting Left in a Leftdominated panchayat, recurring benefits received by oneself had a significantly positive effect. This suggests a clientelist relationship between the party and the voters.6           On the other hand, GP help during different kinds of disturbances and with occupation having the characteristics of one-time benefits are also positively significant. This is consistent with gratitude on the part of the households receiving help. It is harder to rationalise by a clientelism hypothesis, particularly in the case of one-time benefits (given that the votes are being cast after these benefits were received).       Third, improvement in agricultural incomes over the period 1978–2004, which was presumably credited to Left Front rule, had a positively significant effect on Left votes. In our study, improvement in agricultural income basically meant improvement in irrigation facilities, which came mostly in the form of shallow and deep tube wells. These irrigation facilities were built with private initiative. But the distribution of water during peak agricultural months needed panchayat help, especially with respect to management and resolution of conflicts. Moreover, anecdotes suggest that in many instances private providers of water installed deep tube wells when they had permission to install only a shallow well and the panchayat looked the other way. In short, irrigation facilities, though installed under private initiative, were often treated like recurring panchayat benefits. The same would be true with respect to distribution of agricultural mini-kits or disbursement of cheap credit under the IRDP programme under the recommendation of GP officials.       Finally, the regression results indicate that if we control for benefits (either recurring or one-time) being land poor,

uneducated, or a member of the backward castes or tribes each separately increases the probability of voting Left. In other words, the poor, the socially backward and the uneducated, irrespective of whether they received GP benefits or not, have a clear inclination to vote Left. The negative connection between landholding and voting Left is further demonstrated in Table 23.15 where we find that in almost all the districts average landholding of Left Front voters is lower than that of the INC and AITC and that of the all district average.       The question is: why would the poor, the uneducated and the socially backward vote for the Left irrespective of whether or not they received GP benefits? The question seems puzzling if we consider the fact that in our survey approximately 11per cent of the sample households reported that they do not get adequate food. It may be mentioned that a similar figure of food inadequacy among rural households in West Bengal has been quoted in a recent NSS report (2007).7 In the NSS document 10.6 per cent of the rural households in West Bengal have been reported to have inadequate food for some months of the year. The starvation figure is not only the highest among all major Indian states, it is significantly above that of Orissa (4.8 per cent) which occupies the second highest place.

Table 23.16 reports some additional regression results concerning association of Left support with indicators of household well-being such as whether it lived in a nonpermanent (kuchha) house, and whether it reported that its food intake was insufficient for its needs. While the sufficient food dummy did not have any significant association with Left votes, the non-permanent home dummy showed a significant positive correlation only in the regression without village fixed effects. This indicates that there is greater support for the Left in poorer villages, though not within a village across types of households. In other words, the regression results confirm that the poor constitute an important vote base for

the Left, and even starvation does not reverse this loyalty. Finally, immigrants had a higher probability of voting Left, which could owe to the help of Left-dominated local governments in settling into their new habitat.           It, thus, seems that the loyalty of the poor and the underprivileged towards the Left has to be explained by factors which go beyond standard economic explanations. It is sometimes claimed that during the Left rule the poor in the villages of West Bengal came to enjoy a kind of dignity which was unknown to them before. Perhaps this social upgrading created another kind of gratitude8 which survived all economic hardships for 30 years. We do not have firm evidence on this, but it seems quite plausible.

A deeper understanding of voting behaviour, especially that leading to a lack of political change, requires an examination of the characteristics of voters who were consistently faithful to either the Left or to their political opponents over the past quarter century. We refer to them as secure voters. Part of the continued domination of the Left Front has been associated with a large secure base of voters. Forty-five per cent of respondents reported that they vote the same way as their fathers, while an even higher proportion (67 per cent) reported voting for the same party in the last 25 years. The proportion that voted for Left Front parties in our ballot was 65per cent. Among those voting Left, the proportions of loyal voters were slightly higher than in the entire population: 48per cent reported voting like their father, and 76per cent reported having voted consistently for the same party in the last 25 years. This implies approximately half of all voters have been loyal to the Left throughout the past quarter century.           Table 23.17 presents logit regressions predicting the likelihood that voters were secure for either the Left or nonLeft parties, on the basis of household characteristics. It shows that households belonging to the SCs or STs, those with little or no land and those with low levels of education had a significantly higher chance of being a secure Left voter. Among these categories, members of SC or ST had a significantly lower probability of becoming secure voters for the non-Left parties as well. Finally, gratitude arising out of GP help in dispute resolution or financial emergencies has also played a statistically significant role in enlarging the cohort of secured voters for the Left. These results reinforce the findings of Tables 23.16 and 23.14.

VI Summary and Conclusions In this essay, we examined the working of grass roots democracy in rural West Bengal in order to understand factors underlying the unusual political stability in the state. The exercise involved a survey of 2,400 households spread over 88 villages in all the districts of West Bengal except Darjeeling.       A well-functioning local democracy involves, on the one hand, high political awareness and participation of the citizens. On the other, it requires proper targeting of benefits distributed through the panchayats towards the poor and the socially underprivileged. In particular, it should preclude blatantly partisan distribution of government benefits.           Our survey results indicate that political awareness and participation have been reasonably high on average. As might be expected, these were somewhat higher among the educated and the relatively affluent, but poor and SC/ST households did not lag far behind. As for distribution of GP benefits within a village, they favoured the poor and SC/ST groups. There was no indication of partisanship in benefit distribution, after controlling for household socio-economic characteristics.

Surprisingly, involvement in political campaigns, a more active form of political participation than attending meetings, were negatively correlated with the number of benefits received by the household. And comparing across villages, panchayats with more landless households tended to receive fewer benefits per household, and villages where the ruling party had an overwhelming majority tended to get more. All this, taken together, suggests some distortion in the distribution of benefits at the inter-village and inter-GP level by higher levels of government, but not within villages. To the extent that information about relative entitlements and distributions exists at the intra-village rather than inter-village level, this is likely to have contributed to the view that the panchayat system has worked fairly well to uphold the interests of vulnerable sections of the population.       Looking further into the determinants of political loyalties of voters, we found that Left votes were associated positively and significantly with receipt of recurring GP benefits, though not with one-time benefits. This suggests a clientelist relationship between the party and the electorate. On the other hand, gratitude also had a role to play in securing votes for the Left because GP help during emergencies or with occupation increased the probability of voting Left in Leftdominated panchayats. More importantly, controlling for the effects of benefit distribution, we found that being land-poor, socially backward or uneducated significantly increased the chance of voting for the Left. This might reflect a different kind of gratitude arising out of a social betterment of the disadvantaged during Left Front rule. Thus the unusual political stability witnessed in rural West Bengal seems partly due to a clientelist relationship between the Left and the electorate, and partly to a gratitude factor arising out of good governance in a general sense of the term.           On the basis of our 2003–05 survey do we have any indicators for post–2005 voting patterns? In general we can

say that with improving education, increasing mobility, declining agriculture and eroding effects of past land reforms, our results would lead us to predict a trend decline in vote share of the Left parties in panchayat elections in the years ahead. But the actual election results depend on many contingent factors, including the nature of explicit or tacit alliance of the opposition parties. The opposition was quite divided in the 2003 panchayat elections and the 2006 assembly elections, which may have neutralised and overcome such a declining trend for Left share (particularly in seats). The recent 2008 panchayat elections show a sharp fall in Left seat share, which certainly have been partly associated with the recent events associated with the land acquisition process for new industries. The unplanned and uncoordinated ways of implementing these programmes, and especially the highhanded and violent ways of meeting any resistance on the ground, have galvanised the opposition in the whole state, apart from causing disunity within the Left coalition and eroding its general credibility as a defender of the interests of vulnerable sections of the rural population.

24 LIMITS OF A ‘DEVOLUTION INDEX’ M. A. OOMMEN

essay seeks to offer some comments on the devolution T his index (DI) prepared by the National Council of Applied

Economic Research (NCAER) and the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) for 2008–09 to evaluate the performance of states in empowering panchayati raj institutions (PRIs). A ranking of states based on that was published on 2 March 2009. The first four states in the ranking order are Madhya Pradesh (MP), West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.           Since 2005–06, the MoPR has been operating what it calls the Panchayat Empowerment and Accountability Incentive Scheme (PEAIS) under which states are assessed for their performance in empowering the PRIs and the accountability of the PRIs in the discharge of their functions. Any incentive mechanism to empower PRIs is to be seen as a step towards better local democracy and development in India. Two questions are crucial here: (1) What do you mean by empowerment of PRIs?, and (2) How do you measure it? Empowerment in the context of decentralisation is to be seen as empowerment of the people through empowering the PRIs (Oommen 2004, 2008). The DI and the criteria used to prepare it and the ranking of states based on that, therefore, assume significance.           The basic objective of the 73rd/74th Constitutional Amendments is to create ‘institutions of self-governments’ at the sub-state level by empowering the local governments through appropriate devolution of powers and responsibilities in regard to the mandated functions, with adequate finance

and functionaries. Unlike their counterparts elsewhere in the world, the local governments in India, inter alia, have to plan for ‘economic development and social justice’ and implement them. The magnitude of the devolution package envisaged is indeed substantial as well as crucial. As regards the scope of devolution in the context of the PRIs, the report of a 2001 task force observes: Devolution in the context of the panchayats means that when the authority in respect of a specific activity is transferred from the state to the local governments, the latter should have the prerogative of taking decisions in respect of planning and implementation of such activity. In fact, functions, funds and functionaries are complementary to one another in the process of devolution of responsibilities and powers upon the panchayats (GoI 2001: 5). The task force stressed that functions, finance and functionaries are complementary and that they have to be transferred simultaneously so that the transfer of political power from the higher level to the local governments can be real. Moreover, there is a great emphasis on planning and implementation of plans for economic development and social justice. No DI, whoever constructs it, can be oblivious of these fundamentals.

The NCAER/MoPR Index It is significant that the MoPR/NCAER have constructed a DI with reference to the 3Fs, viz., Functions, Finances and Functionaries, along with accountability. In all there are 34 indicators of which five relate to functions, 15 relate to

finances and 14 to functionaries. Accountability is subsumed under ‘finance’, and probably under functionaries (see Table 24.1, Items 16, 17, 18, 26, 27 and 28). Broadly speaking, accountability of a public institution means being answerable to the public for their actions or inactions. Traditionally, panchayats have been subjected to audit and inspection by special institutions such as the local fund audit and examiner of local accounts under the accountant general (AG) of each state. This type of upward accountability has to continue. However, it is important to underscore the role of the gram sabha which demands a downward accountability to the citizens. A social audit, ombudsman, citizens’ charter, right to information, and so on are also ways to ensure accountability of the PRIs in India. The DI has failed to take account of issues of downward accountability.

Functional Devolution Table 24.1 spells out the measurement criteria used in the DI prepared by NCAER/MoPR to rank states. Under functions, five criteria are taken into account, of which three (Items 3, 4 and 5) are yes or no questions and have very little operational relevance as a meaningful measure of functional devolution. A positive answer to the question (Item No 3), ‘whether District Planning Committee (DPC) is involved in the preparation of the District Plan’ has no meaning. For example, look at the case of Madhya Pradesh, where a state minister presides over the DPC. Here, the state government replaces the PRI structure. Instead of giving a negative score, the MoPR/NCAER indicator seems to celebrate this. Also, see what the Third State Finance Commission (SFC) of Tamil Nadu says: ‘The District Planning Committee which should have been the focal centre for dovetailing the District Plan is

in doldrums’ (Third TNSFC 2006: 11). Item No 4, ‘Are GPs (gram panchayats) implementing the major flagship programmes?’ is a question that does not in any way measure functional autonomy. Flagship programmes are at best agency functions. Again, Item No 5, ‘Are GPs fully empowered to prepare plans for expenditure?’ assumes significance only if it is supplemented by probing questions such as, do you consult the gram sabha? What mechanisms are used to concretise the ‘felt needs’ of the gram sabha? What consultative device is used to ensure technical support and projectisation? The questions are far too many to be mentioned here. These are not hypothetical questions. Kerala is one state that has created a multi-stage process of decentralised planning and showed that it is possible to plan for ‘economic development and social justice’ through a process of widening the avenues of people’s participation.

Any meaningful measure of functional autonomy will have to take into account the institutional decentralisation or the transfer of institutions that legitimately belong to the appropriate level of the three tiers. For example, in Kerala, critical institutions of public services like hospitals, schools, veterinary institutions, Krishi Bhavans, etc., have been transferred to PRIs as part of decentralised governance. Here, it is also important to note that where there is a strong district rural development agency (DRDA), functional autonomy of PRIs is severely compromised. West Bengal and Kerala have merged DRDA with district panchayat. It is interesting and surely instructive to quote from a publication of MoPR (2006) on Tamil Nadu, the third best in the choice of the ministry: The DRDAs are separate and powerful institutions, chaired by the district collector. The district collector directs the implementation of all area development

programmes in his capacity as the chairman of DRDA. Though the chairman of the district panchayat is the vice chairman of the DRDA, the chairman is invited only for governing body meeting to read out the annual report and plays no great role in the day to day functions of the DRDA (MoPR 2006: 775). Is MoPR oblivious of these realities when they announced the performance ranking? The most surprising part of the exercise is that Kerala’s functional autonomy scores are the same as that of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka and Sikkim.

Financial Devolution The table shows that 15 criteria have been used to measure financial devolution. So long as you word your criteria vaguely, you arrive at scores of doubtful value. Madhya Pradesh has the highest scores, and Kerala is not only the lowest among the four, but occupies only the eleventh position among the 21 states examined. Anyone with some familiarity with the Indian fiscal decentralisation reality would find difficulty in endorsing this. It may be noted that the per capita devolution to local governments in Kerala increased from Rs 210 in 1996–97 to Rs 910 in 2007–08, the year that is apparently considered for the rating and the total devolution in 2007–08 as percentage of state’s own revenue was 20.37 per cent, which does not include the salaries of the various officials transferred to the PRIs.           Out of the 15 financial indicators, I comment only on a few which are seriously flawed. Item 6, ‘authorisation of PRIs to collect taxes, duties, tolls, etc.,’ is too general to carry any meaning because even in pre-amendment regimes, states

have been lavish in such authorisations. Who collects and appropriates property tax, profession tax, entertainment tax, etc., is probably a better way to ask the question. Item 7, ‘PRIs own revenue as percentage of PRIs expenditure’ can result in wrong numbers. If PRI expenditure is less (some states insist on a surplus budget), the own revenue remaining the same, the percentage will be high. A widely accepted and valid measure of financial devolution is the percentage of local governments’ (LGs) own source revenue (OSR) to total own revenue of the state plus LG’s OSR. An equally important one with reference to revenue effort is per capita tax and per capita OSR. Reckoned in terms of these two variables, Kerala is easily above all other states as far as PRIs are concerned. The total OSR of the gram panchayats (GP) of Kerala for 2007–08, the year considered by the MoPR is Rs 302.23 crore and this as a percentage of the state’s own revenue and GPs’ OSR is around 2 per cent as against 0.5 per cent for West Bengal.1 The per capita tax revenue of the GPs of Kerala for 2007–08 works out to Rs 70 and that of OSR, Rs 119 as against a per capita OSR of Rs 7.6 for West Bengal (estimate by World Bank for 2005). The situation of MP, and Tamil Nadu could not be any better if past is any guide (See Oommen 2006 and second SFC reports of these states).           Item 9 (percentage of funds devolved to PRIs that are untied [plan]), Item 10 (percentage of funds devolved to PRIs that are untied [non-plan]) and Item 13 (Are GP fully empowered to sanction?) are allied questions and must be unambiguously worded. The critical measure is the magnitude of funds a gram panchayat at the cutting edge level obtains and manages. In Kerala, 70 per cent of the plan funds for PRIs goes to the GPs. But when a state government makes schematic transfers to the district panchayats (DPs), you get a distorted picture. For example, when West Bengal gives schematic transfers up to the order of 16 per cent of the states own revenue as recommended by the first and second

SFCs or when Tamil Nadu makes discretionary plan transfers, are they honestly promoting institutions of self-governments at the grassroots level? Financial autonomy is only in name and can be highly perverse as in the case of Tamil Nadu. In the words of the MoPR on Tamil Nadu, ‘there has been no great improvement in the untied funds that reach panchayats…These funds were meant to be untied, but in reality were almost all tied to cement roads and street lights’ (MoPR 2006: Vol II 778). Again, in Tamil Nadu any estimate beyond Rs 2 lakh and for a panchayat union above Rs 10 lakh has to get the sanction of the district collector.2 On the other hand, in Kerala once the DPC approves a plan or project, administrative sanction is automatic. Needless to say, the MoPR under no circumstance can be a party to promoting the collector raj. It should be the champion of panchayati raj.           Item 12 ‘Allocation of funds, based on apportionment formula’ is an unassailable parameter. But where do you place a state like Tamil Nadu where discretionary plan transfers to sub-state level governments increased from Rs 594.7 crore in 2000–01 to Rs 1,317.5 crore in 2004–05, although slightly decreased it was of the order of Rs 1,005.26 crore in 2006– 07 (BE) (Third SFC report). The permissive ceiling for discretionary transfers recommended by the second SFC of Tamil Nadu was 20 per cent (which is wrong in principle) and it was seldom adhered to. Actually the discretionary transfers are but schemes under various heads. When you make schematic transfers you negate autonomy.       Item 14 is a question: ‘whether there is a separate budget line for PRIs in the state budget for 2007–08?’ A positive answer does not mean much if the line department appropriates a lion’s share with a negligible proportion to gram panchayats. Again, where do you put a state like Kerala where in 2007–08 (the year considered by the MoPR) the entire transfers to local bodies are allocated under separate heads of accounts for each LG level and for each local body

by name and are given as Appendix IV in the state budget.3           Item 15 again is posed as a question: ‘devolution of finance corresponds to functions?’. This question is valuable provided the NCAER experts have drawn up a foolproof or even the second best mechanism to link activity maps corresponding to each tier with the budgetary heads and allocation of funds with reference to those.           Items 16, 17 and 18 refer to the percentage of panchayats audited corresponding to each one of the three tiers. They do not measure financial devolution but are included presumably as a measure of accountability. But what about social audit or other means of downward accountability? Items 19 and 20 are too silly when you do such a serious exercise as the ranking of states. If you give equal weight to good, bad and indifferent items, you can come up with a meaningless ranking. At any rate, the MoPR must put the working sheets, if it has one, on the basis of which they arrived at their decisions. One would also like to know the sources of data and the means used if any to standardise them. This is but an elementary transparency guarantee.

Devolution of Functionaries None of the 14 items given under ‘functionaries’ measure administrative autonomy. There is absolutely no reference to redeployment of functionaries or even how many departments have done this. Out of the 14 items, 10 are related to training and capacity-building. While they are important, by no stretch of imagination do they measure the progress in the devolution of functionaries to the PRIs. Four items are included probably to gauge accountability: three (26, 27 and 28) of them refer to ‘functionary-wise accountability to PRIs’ (no one knows

what it means) of the three tiers. The last six items refer to average number of days trained. What is ostensibly to be measured is the administrative autonomy and not the number of days trained (a military regime will score high on most of the items). How many administrative officials, technical staff, engineers, doctors are deployed to PRIs is the crucial question. Who writes their confidential reports? Can the PRIs take disciplinary actions? Surely the MoPR does not want to preside over a PRI regime which is a meek appendage of the rural development department.           The DI raises several issues. The academic community which has faith in participatory democracy cannot afford to treat them lightly. The MoPR, if it means business, cannot be indifferent to its foundational calling.

25 BEYOND FEMININE PUBLIC ALTRUSIM Women Leaders in Kerala’s Urban Bodies J. DEVIKA AND BINITHA V. THAMPI

33 per cent reservation offered to women in local T he bodies has certainly provided women in Kerala with a major opportunity to enter politics and public life since the mid-1990s. There was much hope about the empowering effects this would produce in the national debate as well, strong enough to convince sceptics (Ghosh and Lama-Rewal 2005: 7). For instance, Susheela Gopalan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), well known for her efforts to organise women and women workers, remarked in an interview in 1999 thus: Initially, I was against reservations. But today there is no option ... when women become Panchayat members they acquire earning capacity and become independent ... They develop confidence and can be trained as potential candidates for Assembly and Parliamentary elections in the future (Kumari and Kidwai 1999: 163–64). Has women’s participation in local governance delivered on this promise? Our research on women leaders in local governance in Kerala in the 2005–10 term was mainly driven by this basic question (Devika and Thampi 2011).1 We focused on ‘successful’ women leaders—those who have not only gained goodwill in their local communities, but also

converted this into durable support, evident in their ability to return to power in later terms—and this choice was deliberate. The reasons why women fail in leadership positions are relatively better explored than the reasons for their success. We feel that it is necessary to ask questions of the nature of ‘success’ itself. It is too readily assumed that women’s success implies the decline of entrenched patriarchal gender norms. As we were increasingly convinced in the course of our interviewing, in the present case, success is often contingent on women leaders’ conformity to entrenched gender norms, which are not entirely disempowering, but part of a ‘patriarchal bargain’ (Kandiyoti 1988: 274–90).           In Kerala, we found that successful women leaders are often the bearers of a specific form of power linked to the deployment of sentiment and affect which has been associated with an ideal femininity since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Devika 2007). The same form of power has also been projected as crucial for the smooth functioning of local governance. This is perhaps only to be expected in a society in which women are most often directed towards the domestic and the sentimental as true domains of femininity which they may legitimately claim, and from which they may derive resources to make sense of and deal with the world in general. However, besides ‘gentle power’, successful women attribute their success equally to knowledge—of official norms and procedure, which is certainly not associated with sentiment and affect, but with the rule of the state, clearly beyond sentimental considerations. This advantage arises from the superior level of education that women in Kerala often possess, and their practical experience of working in government institutions, often in positions of leadership, such as that of the school headmistress or government official. Thus, it appears that the ground has been set for the flourishing of a certain ‘feminine public altruism’ which draws upon new elite gender norms, remains largely subservient to bureaucratic norms and rules, and rings quite

g q differently from the militant class politics of the mid-to-late 20th century Kerala. It was, however, clear from our research that both these bring at best ambiguous and partial gains. Not only is maintaining the dividing line between ‘genteel’ and ‘docile’ behaviour tedious, it also traps women leaders in the role of welfare distributors, and undermines their emergence as leaders of local politics and development, besides making them over-dependent on rules and norms. The elite moorings of ‘gentle power’ were also evident from its relatively poor availability to dalit women.       However, an entirely different picture emerged from our interviews with women leaders of urban governance. The rapidly changing urban scenario seems to have important implications for gendering governance in Kerala. In our interviews, we observed that besides the different histories mediated by caste and community, the spatial location of women leaders in local governance was crucial in shaping their agency. Indeed, as Mary John (2007: 3986–95) remarks, the study of women leaders in urban governance may perhaps yield better insight into questions about women’s entry into and access to political power.

Urbanisation and Urban Governance in Kerala Political decentralisation in Kerala in the mid-1990s coincided with a spurt in urbanisation. The pace of urbanisation in Kerala over the twentieth century has been consistent but one of the slowest in India, rising from 7.11per cent in 1901 to 18.78 per cent in 1981 (Sreekumar 1993: 27). Metropolises were absent; agricultural and trading activities dominated the urban economic environment (Ibid: 58). Urban areas here were better dispersed spatially, leading to a ‘rurban’ pattern of settlement (Ibid: 73–74). However,

this pattern began changing since the late 1980s, accelerating in the 1990s and after. Heightened urbanisation is linked to the inflow of remittances from the Gulf which fuelled consumption, leading to service-sector-led growth and the boom in the house construction sector, which has hiked the demand for real estate (Gopikuttan 1990: 2083–88; Sooryamoorthy 1997; CDS 2005: 44). Added to these was the emerging post-liberalisation national context which generated an intense thrust towards reshaping the cityspaces throughout the country, in which the prospective arrival of globalised capital and emergence of neo-liberal policy frameworks of urban management were key influences. These crucially informed the shape of emergent decentralised urban governance in the mid-1990s (Kundu and Kundu 2004: 132–70) and this applies to Kerala as well, which spelt out an urban policy in 2002 (GoK 2002).       Scholars have pointed out that some unique steps towards democratising urban governance were evident in Kerala. For example, parastatals were dismantled to make space for democratically-elected local bodies (Kundu and Kundu 2004: 140); unlike in many other states, ward committees were set up to promote deliberation and consultation from below; Kerala has also passed legislation to set up metropolitan planning committees. However, the gains from these seem to be ambiguous from a perspective critical of the new public management framework. As the literature on neo-liberal urbanisation in other parts of the world (Harvey 1989; Lovering 1995: 109–26; Werna 1995: 353–59) observes, such measures tend to overlook the political dimension of social justice, reducing questions about welfare and redistribution of resources in urban space to technical issues dealing with mainly physical aspects of life—social services, infrastructure, and housing (Mahadevia 2005). Policy documents in Kerala display an unmistakable neo-liberal perspective. The document ‘Urban Policy and Action Plan for Kerala’ (GoK 2002) notes that urban bodies have been given

g the authority to formulate spatial plans and, therefore, urban development authorities have lost their significance—they have been abolished in five towns. However, this does not mean a divergence from the neo-liberal thrust of urban policy in India. It seeks to replace the urban development authorities with the urban regulatory authority, which is to be: entrusted with the responsibility to ensure private sector participation in municipal services, avoid creation of monopolies in municipal services, maintain quality of services, make sure that the cost of services to the public is reasonable...[and] function as a forum for receiving complaints/suggestions on all urban services. This authority will be given statutory powers to enforce these objectives... (Ibid). The formation of master plans by urban bodies through consultation does not necessarily indicate a shift since land markets are largely in private hands (Kundu and Kundu 2004: 142). As confirmed by all our interviewees unanimously, the most daunting task in heavily urbanising contexts is the enforcement of building regulations, which are largely honoured in the breach. There is also research that shows that ward committees may not enhance democratic participation by themselves. A study based on fieldwork in two city corporations and two municipalities in Kerala (Thomas 2006: 138–200) notes that the selection of ward committee members was heavily influenced by the preferences of local politicians (Ibid: 167, 181). Moreover, the contractor-raj seems rampant now in wards, where in the early phase of decentralisation funds were made directly available to ward committees which formed beneficiary committees to execute works (Ibid: 170). Women’s participation is low, and their presence is on the strength of the positions they hold (such as that of the local Kudumbashree self-help-group functionary) (Ibid: 161).

p g p y Importantly, ward committee members reported that they were rarely consulted by the municipal/corporation authorities regarding the use of public land in their wards (Ibid: 178). They complained that there was no mechanism to solve conflicting interests in wards and ensure equitable distribution of resources. Those with political clout usually avail of the benefits (Ibid: 184).

Neither High Politics nor Local Governance Reflecting on the effects of decentralisation in the field of politics in Kerala, we argue that, first, a key effect has been the division of political space into ‘high politics’ and ‘local governance’. The former is characterised by hyperactivity, especially in political decisions and policy innovation, characterised by dramatic instances of state action undertaken by leaders, including the dramatic ushering of political decentralisation itself (called the ‘big-bang approach’). In contrast, ‘local governance’ is marked by governing-by-rule-and-procedure, and squarely under the supervision and guardianship of several agencies such as the department of local self-government and the ombudsman. Second, the modes of rule prominent in each are different: in high politics, political and moral authoritarianism and use of force, if not violence, to silence critics, is evident, whereas in local governance, there is a concession to working with the opposition. Third, the relation of each domain to capital is also different: while in high politics leaders struggle to smoothly translate the earlier agenda of state-led large-scale industrialised development into approval for neo-liberal growth, the domain of local governance tries out ‘sustainable and small-scale development programmes’. High politics, of course, remains the more powerful of the two domains, since

all major policy decisions, including those relevant to local governance, are shaped within it.           It must not be assumed, however, that these are watertight compartments. There are instances in which features of the former are shared by the latter, especially in panchayats where earlier left militancy is somewhat more prominent, where the styles and concerns of high politics overrides those of local governance. The political spaces opened up in and through the municipal councils and city corporations in contemporary Kerala are also of an ambiguous nature, partaking of features of both high politics and local governance. First, the ideal of the hyper-moralised local community cannot be easily projected on urban spaces as it is on village panchayats. As elsewhere in the world (Stren and White 1989; Mattingly 1995), urban spaces in Kerala too are being fragmented economically, politically and socially; mutually-incompatible interests—business interests, realtors, local middle-class residents, migrant workers and workingclass poor—jostle for space in urban wards. The evocation of ‘community’ in urban contexts seems less related to democratising local governance so that the urban poor participate, and more to what has been referred to as the ‘rhetoric of enablement’, which helps mobilise resources (McCarney et al 1995: 91–141). Community often refers to more exclusively middle-class residents’ associations (CSES, CRM, CAPDECK 2003), counted as ‘community-based organisations’, collaborators in current urban development projects (see The Hindu, 2008: 3). However, urban local bodies too function under the department of urban affairs and the ombudsman, and also have to take into consideration of the decisions of bodies set up for various development projects, such as the Kerala State Urban Development Project Empowering Committee and the Kerala Road Fund Board.           Cities and towns in Kerala are increasingly perceived as spaces meant for corporate and non-corporate capital (these are often in conflict) and their ‘development’ is often treated

p as synonymous with the new urban management,2 which has the dual aim of setting up infrastructure for global capital and managing poverty among the urban poor. Urban bodies, therefore, cannot focus exclusively on welfare, but have to accord priority to the creation of urban infrastructure. Also, urban policy explicitly encourages private sector participation and this gives the notion of ‘governance’ advanced in urban contexts a rather different spin when compared with its connotations in panchayats.       This means that many issues that are perceived as more relevant to high politics than to local governance are of key significance in urban governance. Thus, in contemporary, urban governance in Kerala, we typically find a mix of bureaucratic control along with intense power struggles characteristic of high politics, which, however, increasingly rejects urban ‘political society’, even those elements of political society integrated closely with mass organisations of the dominant Left parties.3 While Kerala has put in place measures that seem to yield urban governance that is more democratic (like ward committees), a huge amount of business is transacted through informal channels. Residents’ associations, for example, have been given a prominent place in urban governance; however, it has been observed that ‘they are actually quite strong lobbies for the interests of their members, who are mostly the middle- and upper-middle class. Though they have more access to local governments than any other organisations, usually they do not follow the formal democratic channels (gram sabhas, ward assemblies, etc) but have access through informal channels to secure favourable’ (CSES, CRM, CAPDECK 2003: 39). There has also been much discussion in the press of how building rules are being systematically flouted by the real estate players who have access to powerful figures in high politics and higher bureaucracy (Basheer 2006: 5; Bhaskar 2007). Given the high degree of political fragmentation, municipal councils

have been often rocked by no-confidence motions and heated politicking, especially when the ruling party had only a thin majority (Muraleedharan 2010: 4). There is reason to think that welfare distribution in the urban local bodies serves to bolster political patronage.4           The councils’ powers are also limited through multiplication/duplication of authorities in the wake of large urban development projects such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded Kerala State Urban Development Project.5 Both critics (Raman 2010: 135–56), and more sympathetic commentators of the ADB loan were critical of the conditionalities that it imposed. As a more sympathetic commentator argued: The ADB’s financial plan, while desirable, lacks respect for the robustness of local democracy... Given the economic potential of the urban local bodies, the language of and the compulsions following from these clauses need modification (Oommen 2007: 737). Further, as elsewhere, urban bodies in Kerala too are overloaded with new responsibilities and grievously understaffed (GoK 2009: 83); they lack technical support for projects (Kundu and Kundu 2004; GoK 2009: 75, 145–46) which often need to be produced in complicated formats required by the central government agencies (GoK 2009: 30). The common lack of clarity on town planning and problems with implementing building rules as well as identifying the nature and sites for urban welfare, are present in Kerala too (GoK 2009: 145–46). In short, urban governance in Kerala seems to offer plenty of loopholes and opportunities for patronage and corruption.           From the above discussion, it is evident that the urban scenario is an extremely challenging terrain for women,

especially those who have no experience at all in ‘high politics’. Neither ‘gentle power’ nor ‘knowledge of the rules’ seems to be of much use, at least by themselves, in urban governance. Rather, the ability to negotiate with local politicians, increase influence and connections with powerful groups and seize emergent opportunities seems all-important for enduring success—or perhaps even for sheer survival.           This essay is based on our interviews with 11 women leaders in urban governance from the past term. They range from leaders regarded as ‘highly successful’ to those considered ‘utter failures’. Eight were chairpersons of municipal councils (out of 18 such posts reserved for women in the past term and two mayors of city corporations). We also interviewed an ex-mayor. The most striking feature of this group was the remarkably high educational achievements of its members. A good number were lawyers and professors; almost all (with the exception of one dalit woman leader, who had been a worker) were from middle-class or affluent backgrounds. This is perhaps not surprising given the present identification of urban development with urban management. Age-wise, most of them were above 30 and below 60; those who had young children were supported by other female members of their families. Spouses (with one exception) were well-educated and well-placed, and/or with considerable influence in ‘high politics’. Though many reported to be not interested in re-election, some who reported thus did contest the 2010 elections to local bodies. The urban areas in which they held their terms were also diverse, ranging from towns that retain many rural features, to fully-urbanised municipalities.

Neither ‘Gentle Power’ nor ‘Knowledge of the Rules’

A majority of our interviewees were conscious of their middle-class moorings. While many of them came from families with explicit political sympathies, they themselves had remained apolitical or at the fringes of mass organisations, pursuing professional careers. But they regarded their middle-class status not as an anomaly, but as a feature that political parties recognised as valuable in the context of changing notions of urban governance. A leader from one of the municipalities in the Kochi metropolitan area pointed to a political change that she felt had occurred over the past 40 years. In the 1970s, the Left trade unions were an invincible force in Kochi; they could ‘hold the place to ransom, if they wanted’. But things have changed now. The clout of the unions has decreased considerably, and this seems to coincide with the rise of the notion of urban governance as urban management, with all its elite and civil connotations. Highly educated women with minimal links with politics appear to be fit to be the new urban managers. ‘And somehow, city governance is identified with a middle-class issue. That is why women like me, with more contacts in the middle class, were chosen’.       However, almost without exception, all our interviewees from highly urbanised areas agreed that higher education alone was of limited value in confronting the actually-existing urban scene (an exception was a chairperson of a relatively new, still largely rural municipality). The more one’s education prepared one for public life, the better, they said. Thus, lawyers felt that their experience in law practice not only prepared them better to deal with urban politics, it also made them appear less vulnerable than others. One of the lawyers remembered: When I entered municipal governance, I was already a practising lawyer of many years’ experience and held superior degrees in law. But the truth was that I knew little about governance. I had to ask my

g y junior-most staff about what the Kudumbashree was, I had no clue about the abbreviations that were commonly used to refer to officers and various committees ... But nobody dared to climb on my head or call me ignorant. Somehow, they never noticed that I was so ignorant—and that, I feel, was because I was an experienced professional in law. This was, indeed, in sharp contrast with the experience of another woman leader of the same Kochi metropolitan area, who had been a schoolteacher. She had worked in administration and knew the basics of office management. Yet, she was considered, in the early days, to be ‘inexperienced’ and hence, faced more of interference from both local politicians and officials.           The narratives of women leaders in urban governance reveal a different relation to ‘gentle power’—even when endorsed, those who favoured it did feel that it could be used only selectively and strategically, and not as a ‘natural’ capacity. They, thus, differed from many ‘successful’ women leaders of panchayats, who associated it with the ‘naturally feminine’. Many reasons were cited: the urban poor are far more fragmented than the rural poor; beneficiary lists in urban areas are often means of the local councillor’s political patronage, and trying to bring about transparency through patience and persuasiveness is near-impossible. Though some of our interviewees did attempt to exercise gentle power, they granted it largely strategic and limited value. As one of our interviewees remarked: The officials, well, they are pretty sharp and quite wily. The secretary is powerful and one should be careful not to antagonise powerful officials. So you need to be gentle, ‘soft’ (mayatthil nilkkanam). But you also give the message that if necessary you will be tough, and that you know the norms and

g y procedures ... The vice-chairman is usually a powerful local politician and much senior to you. Again, do not make enemies of him. But never be totally dependent—yet give the impression that you are taking his views on everything. The exceptions to the above are, however, interesting precisely because their experience seemed to reveal the limited value of gentle power. To quote one of them: I had contested as an independent supported by a political front, and I felt, early on, that I should preserve my neutral image. It worked well. I also gave a lot of respect to the leader of the opposition who is a very experienced councillor and that served me very well, though my own party colleagues were sometimes uncomfortable. But you have to carry with you a large number of councillors, so I could not pay attention to their discomfort! ... I have also been very respectful to senior politicians within our party ... They treat me like a sister ... and the MLA here, he is from the other front; he too has been extremely well-disposed towards me. He has helped us with many things ... and I am almost like a daughter to him. Commenting on another woman leader who has been generally judged an utter failure, she linked this failure to her unwillingness to exercise gentle power: ‘She was always too stern, too openly confident of her abilities ... she never would even bother to smile at officials or show respect to party leaders... That made her very unpopular’! However, she did admit that male leaders did not have to project themselves thus; this was because ‘our society is still unprepared to accept a woman leader ‘. And it did become apparent that gentle power actually brought unstable gains. In a later

g p y g g interview, she admitted this, speaking of her experience of unexpectedly losing the 2010 elections to the same municipality (quite unlike the panchayats, where women who exercise gentle power do get re-elected frequently). She had been too successful in her deployment of gentle power—‘they (her own party workers) felt I had established myself without their help ... so they allotted me a ward where I had a slimmer chance of winning. They set up things so carefully that I did not even have a slight doubt until four days before polling. And they succeeded’. Her party had lost power in her municipality by a very narrow margin of seats but elements in the local party wanted her out ‘even at the cost of the party losing power—since I would have cooperated with whoever who won to ensure that all the projects that I had initiated be successfully completed’. Another interviewee who vouched for the efficacy of gentle power in overcoming defections and no-confidence motions from rebel members of her own party is, however, now completely out of politics, and does not contemplate any kind of public life.

Negotiating for Connections It appears that women in urban politics need means other than gentle power, like the ability to negotiate shrewdly— quite similar to the situation in high politics. Women in high politics negotiate actively for connections, and also take advantage of strategic opportunities and family and other connections.       Successful women leaders of urban bodies draw on both these styles. The first was well-illustrated by the experience of a highly successful woman leader of a municipality who has been elected unopposed from her ward a second time in the 2010 elections—and her party managed to retain power

despite massive setbacks throughout the state. This leader also stressed the importance of building alliances across political fronts, but rejected gentle power entirely. Knowledge of the rules was prescribed as the best way of dealing with officials, while negotiating alliances and networks with more groups in civil society and business, she felt, was the best way to deal with local politicians, especially party colleagues. She pointed out that she was relatively junior in the party compared with the chairmen of the standing committees. ‘That does not matter if you have strong connections in places where the party does not have any. That makes you indispensable’. She said: When I first became councillor, I took care to see that my work did not focus exclusively on my ward. I saw to it that my ward was well-provided, but I gradually acquired a lot of experience working on general issues relevant to the municipal area as a whole, which made me indispensable to both fronts. I also gained a large number of contacts with both ordinary people and those in positions of influence. I was already very successful in my profession which involved meeting a lot of people. This gave me a lot of confidence in dealing with my own party as well ... and I have stood as firm as a rock on many issues ... my advice to ladies is—‘stay utterly firm when you have taken a decision about which you are completely convinced’. Do not step back even an inch. Stepping back only makes you look like a paavam (docile person). This leader, who has excellent connections with all sections of people in her municipality, including businessmen, powerful community leaders, and religious organisations, was also insistent that alliances have to build on ‘negotiations’ and not on gentle power, which, she felt, ‘reminds them all the more,

g p that this is a woman, a paavam.’ Her first act as the leader of the municipality was to distribute copies of the Municipality Act to all the members. ‘I told them that I know this Act well, and I expect them to know it well too. We have to work by it, and not by what the officials may say. The chairperson has executive powers—the power to make an official do something which he says cannot be done. ‘She was also keen to stress her distance from all possible manifestations of gentle power. She was not intimate with welfare beneficiaries—‘I think it is my duty to listen to them very, very carefully. We are public servants and owe them that respect. But I do not listen to their sorrows—that will immediately relegate me to the paavam woman’s status’. Again, dealing with opposition members successfully, she said, had nothing to do with being gentle: ‘Do not be a paavam, be fair. Women think that they need to assert themselves only when necessary. That is an illusion. Be firm from the very beginning, but be utterly transparent and fair in all dealings with the opposition. Convince your own members—and stay firm—that being unfair will only make things difficult for us’. This seems to have worked for her, judging from her success in the present elections and acceptance as the unquestioned leader of her party in the municipality.       But connections were perceived in other ways as well, as ‘family’ connections. In this case, women leaders had powerful male kin in political parties, sometimes in positions that enabled them to negotiate with the opposition informally. The husband’s experience in politics and local governance was crucial, often to the rise of women leaders of less-urbanised municipalities. The leader of the least-urbanised municipality in our sample claimed that she relied entirely on her party to build connections for her; the metaphor of the extended family was frequently used by her to refer to the party. Indeed, this leader, who was formerly a leader of women’s self-help groups, was keener to talk of their activities than about her role as urban leader. However, such submissiveness

is relatively rare among urban leaders compared to the panchayat leaders. The importance of building connections through multiple routes was also evident from the experience of a woman leader with relatively less experience in politics, the mayor of a major city corporation. Anti-corruption, transparency and efficiency measures may be high up on the urban governance agenda, but even this or other tasks cannot be performed without adequate political support. Such failure or ‘inefficiency’ gets quickly translated into gendered accusations of women’s inherent incompetence at dealing with complex situations. She told us: The corporation’s problems did not spring up suddenly. The issue of waste disposal, the traffic congestion, the city centre getting overcrowded—all these are old.6 But media and other politicians behave as if they were new issues, and as a woman’s failure. But I have tried to intervene effectively in people’s issues. In this office, earlier, people could come only via agents. That is not the case today. This leader sought to build a political base through improving administrative efficiency, by efforts to reduce corruption, but this did not rescue her from gendered accusations of inefficiency. In a rapidly-urbanising city like Kochi, anticorruption measures may be regarded as relatively less complex than others like waste management, which she failed to resolve, and this was related to her inability to garner enough political support. This was read in gendered terms, she observed, as the ‘inadequacy of an inexperienced woman’. The mismatch between the demands of urban politics and those of the new urban management is such that what were deemed upper middle-class woman leader’s merits may end up being perceived as her weaknesses. Thus, this leader’s highly-educated status came to be perceived as a

disadvantage which predisposed her to elitism.7       The other feature vital to success in urban areas relates to leaders’ ability to grasp the changing urban scenario and the increasing stakes in it of the private sector on the one hand, and the middle-classes on the other. Most of our interviewees were uncritical of the new urban management agenda—and this is not surprising, given their middle-class, relatively apolitical backgrounds. Thus, one of them proudly reported that she had got all the roadside hawkers off the road: ‘I used to be very particular... would even stop my car, get out, and scold hawkers who plied their carts on the main roads....’ Indeed, the most successful ones in urban governance swam with the tide. Commenting on the losses of the CPI(M) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the 2010 panchayat elections, one of them argued that it was because the party failed to see that people perceived ‘development’ differently: ‘People are not interested in welfare anymore. For them, development means roads, large bridges, buildings, modern amenities. We have to work towards that and borrow large sums, if necessary’. In contrast, less successful leaders were reluctant to borrow large sums. One of them admitted that she had streamlined welfare distribution and made it transparent; however, this went unnoticed: ‘Welfare, after all, is distributed to individuals. What people count are the more visible things. They felt that we had done nothing—why? Because, we did not build a town hall, a stadium, or large buildings’.8 The poor financial condition of her municipality prevented her from hiring consultants; because of this, they failed to secure key central funds. Some interviewees did identify welfare distribution as the most satisfying responsibility, but notably, they were usually of relatively less-urbanised municipalities.       But it is also important to see that urban governance is not high politics: leaders in urban governance are closely supervised by a number of bodies, often constituted by

politicians powerful in high politics and senior bureaucrats. A woman leader of a highly urbanised municipality in central Kerala complained vehemently about how urban bodies had to seek ‘permission from innumerable officials, officers, clerks, IAS officers, and who else...’: This was about the solid waste recycling plant project which was approved and about to be tendered. When we approached the KSUDP [Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project] office, they said that the empowered committee had to take a decision. This committee ordered that the tender should be routed through the Kochi Corporation. We were not even consulted; we were told after the decision was taken! This was unacceptable to us, and I protested quite strongly on a public platform where senior politicians and bureaucrats were present. But they were unwilling to re-examine the decision. This caused us such distress—I had to be in and out of the Kochi Corporation, goodness knows how many times, to get it done! Further, it is important to note that in the present context of intense political fragmentation, it is all the more difficult for political leaders, male or female, to build political bases among city populations.9 And the middle-class backgrounds of these leaders do not seem to be translating into special influence on the urban middle-class. Political fragmentation often leads to all sorts of unexpected coalitions which prove insurmountable. The frustrating experience of trying to set up waste-recycling plants in city areas which almost all women leaders from more urbanised municipalities recalled, indicated this. The experience of trying to find land for this purpose was described as truly harrowing. Many interviewees reported that this turned many of their ardent supporters into enemies

almost overnight, and when support was not forthcoming from all sections of the municipal council, the project would simply have to be dropped.           In this complex scenario, dalit women appeared clearly disadvantaged, unlike in the panchayats where many of them did surmount a number of hurdles, including those of caste. The two dalit interviewees presented two models of disempowerment. One appeared to be completely embedded in her local party, and insisted that all decisions were taken in and through the party, and she had little more to add except her view that the ‘party is like a family and we meet all our social needs through it’. The other seemed quite unable to take advantage of the fact that she became the chairperson because the party which won the majority did not have a successful dalit woman candidate. During the interview, she was continuously interrupted and corrected by the vicechairman. She seemed to be disadvantaged by her relatively poor education, lack of connections, and working-class status and seems to have suffered considerable latent violence from both sides: the ruling side, which wanted to keep her in check through the vice-chairman, and the opposition to which she belonged, which wanted to ensure that she would not make mistakes. But her experience certainly does not represent that of dalit women in urban governance in any general sense. There are others, such as V. Devayani, the (former) chairperson of the Palakkad Municipal Council, who survived such a situation quite adeptly. But it may also be that she had greater space for manoeuvre, since the council was deadlocked without a chairperson for long and Devayani was sworn in following a directive of the Kerala High Court to fill the post reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates. She apparently remarked that from being completely ignorant of urban governance, she vaulted into high levels of selfconfidence ‘the day I realised how important my signature was’ (Mathrubhumi 2010: 4). Indeed, she left the Congress during the negotiations around candidature in the 2010

g g panchayat elections, protesting that the Congress had denied her a SC reservation ward to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (The Hindu 2010, Thiruvananthapuram edition).

Conclusions As Mary John has noted, the relative neglect of women in urban governance by scholars studying decentralised governance is a serious flaw because it is the urban scene ‘that includes many more dimensions of the political arena’ (2007: 3992). Contemporary urban governance in Kerala, we find, shares many key features of high politics while remaining bound by the constraints of local governance. This produces significant challenges for women leaders of urban bodies.       Unwillingness to engage with politics appeared to us to be the surest recipe of failure in the urban scene. A women leader of a municipality who had grappled hard with bureaucracy complained thus: I have no talent for politicking and these days, unblemished conduct in politics seems to be of least value. I tried my best—was very conciliatory to the opposition and insistent that I will not support corruption. But it was quite useless. Overcoming unwarranted interference took up all my time and getting the bureaucracy to get something done ... that was another torture. I still remember how we were made to run from one government office to another to get a project approved, and my pleas were useless. Finally, I got our vice-chairman and some male members to come and they dealt with the issue in a language only politicians can speak. Only

then did the department officials clear the hurdles without delay. I cannot speak that language, and so this is not my field. These skills and orientation are of value, too, in panchayats undergoing rapid urbanisation in Kerala, which are not few. Here, powerful processes of political fragmentation often render councils unstable. Diligence in welfare distribution pales into insignificance as a useful strategy for building a political base; rather, a set of very different skills emerge as vital for not just success, but survival itself. These include the skill to negotiate with all the players in the political field, to summon support from a range of diverse political sources other than one’s own party, to draw upon diverse forms of social capital (in Bourdieu’s sense), and to put together the technical expertise to access funding for infrastructure projects.10           Access to powerful politicians in high politics and the ability to negotiate across parties is also vitally necessary even in the panchayats, when the panchayat leader, male or female, seeks to get beyond welfare distribution and intervene seriously in local development priorities (Sharma 2009: 123; Devika and Thampi 2011). In Kerala’s village panchayats, we found that women are less likely to possess these skills. However, wherever development continues to be perceived largely as welfare distribution, women who exercise gentle power and knowledge of the rules continue to gain popularity, with strong chances of re-election. But rapid urbanisation does mean that women will increasingly have to face the challenge of governing urbanising spaces. It appears that women leaders do not always fail. Perhaps it is befitting to end this essay with a quote from an interview with a highly successful woman leader, who had to not only keep the opposition on her side, but also curb the intrigues of her party

colleagues, without, however, letting the constant internal struggle for power spill into the public: Now I do know that I am absolutely necessary for the survival of my party here; so I am hardly challenged directly. But one must always remain alert. I have always been careful to follow the rules myself and so no one has yet got a chance to attack me personally. Now, recently, I had been abroad for 14 days. I took permission from the government through proper channels but did not hand over charge to the vice-chairman, because I was coming back within 15 days (and there is no rule that I should do this unless I exceed the 15-day limit). Now, some of the hostile press caught hold of this and kicked up a fuss—that I had left for a long period without handing over charge to the vice-chairman. They apparently asked him and he told them that I was away—but did not bother to tell them that I would be back really soon. Now, that is the kind of hidden missile aimed at a successful woman! It looks minor but can damage our moral authority to take to task the shirkers and rule-breakers in the municipal office! I took it in my stride, though. As soon as I came back I clarified my position, but when asked why the vice-chairman did not reveal this, I did not take the bait! They, of course, wanted to probe whether there was a hidden power struggle in the municipality. But I wanted to convey a message to this vice-chairman, someone from my own side, that I did see his game only too well and that I knew how to put him in his place. And so I responded, “the vice-chairman is on the best terms with me; if your intention is to provoke us, it will not work. He committed a mistake perhaps, and that is probably

because he is not very familiar with rules generally, and the Municipal Act....”

Authors Mani Shankar Aiyar is currently a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha and was earlier Union Minister of Panchayati Raj. Yamini Aiyar is the Director of Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research. Norma Alvares is an independent advocate. Pranab Bardhan is Emeritus Professor of Graduate School in University of California, Berkeley US. Amitabh Behar is the Executive Director for National Foundation for India. Ahalya S. Bhat is with Singamma Sreenivasan Foundation (SSF). Nirmala Buch is a retired IAS Officer and currently president of Child Rights Observatory, Madhya Pradesh. B. K. Chandrashekar is Chairman of Bangalore Climate Commission Initiative— Karnataka and former Minister for Education and Information and formerly the Chairman of Karnataka Legislative Council. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay is Professor at Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. J. Devika is Associate Fellow, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. Esther Duflo is Professor at the Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Manish Gupta is Assistant Professor at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delh. Niraja Gopal Jayal is Professor and Chairperson for the Centre of Study for Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Pratap Ranjan Jena is Associate Professor at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi.

Mary E. John is currently Senior Fellow, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi. Suman Kolhar is an ex-vice president of Bijapur Zilla Parishad Sandip Mitra is with the Economic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Dilip Mookherjee is Professor of Economics at Boston University US. Nirmal Mukarji was the last member of the Indian Civil Service to serve and a former Home Secretary, Cabinet Secretary and Governor of Punjab. M. A. Oommen is Honorary Fellow at Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram and Emeritus Professor at Institute for Social Sciences. Benjamin Powis is currently based in Kathmandu and working with the DFID, Government of the United Kingdom. Indira Rajaraman is Honorary Visiting Professor at Development Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Ramesh Ramanathan is co-founder of Janagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. M. Govinda Rao is currently member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission. U. A. Vasanth Rao is General Manager (Finance), Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited, Bangalore. C. H. Hanumantha Rao is a former Planning Commission Member and the founder member of Centre for Economic and Social Sciences, Hyderabad. Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal is Research Fellow, Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CNRS-EHESS), Paris. Abhirup Sarkar is Professor at the Economic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Darshy Sinha is currently working as a consultant in the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. V. M. Sirsikar was Mahatma Gandhi Professor (1969–80) at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Pune. Binitha V. Thampi is Assistant Professor (Development

p p Studies), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. Poornima Vyasulu was with Centre for Budget and Policy Studies. Vinod Vyasulu is an advisor to Centre for Budget and Policy Studies.

Notes and References Introduction 1.Panchayats at the district, intermediate and village levels in

rural areas of states and union territories to which Part IX of the Constitution applies; municipalities in urban areas in states and union territories to which Part IXA of the Constitution applies; autonomous district and regional councils in areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram specified under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution; and village councils and village development boards in the hill areas of Manipur and in Nagaland. 2.Viceroy of India (1869–72). 3.Governor General and Viceroy of India (1880–84). 4.A concise account of the landmark events in the evolution of decentralisation in India is found in the first chapter of the State of the Panchayats Report (2006). 5.This design finds a place in Narayan (1946) which, in the words of Gandhiji, was a ‘thoughtful contribution to the many attempts at presenting India with constitutions’. 6.15 May 1989. 7.The amendment failed to secure a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha by just 3 votes. 8.For instance, South Africa. 9.For instance, Indonesia. 10.Many military dictators have good records in empowering LGs. Examples in the region include, in Pakistan, Gen Ayub

Khan’s ‘Basic Democrats’ effort of the 1950s and General Parvez Musharraf’s Local Government Ordinance of 2001. In Bangladesh, Lieutenant General H. M. Ershad created the middle tier of local governments, the upa zilla parishads, in the 1980s. 11.Karnataka, under Ramakrishna Hedge in 1987, Kerala’s peoples’ planning campaign in 1996 and more recently, Digvijay Singh’s Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam in Madhya Pradesh, in 2001. 12.Though the latter brought about some standardisation, particularly with respect to the establishment of rural LGs at three levels, conduct of regular elections, reservations to seats and leadership positions in LGs and the establishment of independent authorities mandated in the amendments, such as the state finance and election commissions. 13.The total number of centrally sponsored schemes in 2004 was 207, with a total allocation of around Rs. 36,000 crore. In 2008–09, while the numbers of schemes came down to 120, the allocations swelled to around Rs 130,000 crore. This does not include substantial government expenditure through additional central assistance to state plans, through programme initiatives such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the Backward Regions Grant Fund and the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana. 14.The largest such funding stream pertains to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. 15.Also referred to as the deputy commissioner or district magistrate. 16.Who might also be the CEO of the district panchayat. 17.And MLCs, where bicameral legislatures exist. 18.These paragraphs are extracted and summarised from a paper presented by S. M. Vijayanand (then the Principal Secretary, Department of Local Self Government Institutions, Kerala State and now Additional Chief Secretary and Director

General of the Institute of Management in Government, Thiruvananthapuram) and this author at the second Round Table of State Ministers of Panchayati Raj, organised by the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj at Mysore in July 2004. I am grateful to Vijayanand for permitting the inclusion of these abstracts here. 19.Kerala’s people’s planning campaign, launched in 1996, is a good example of such an effort. Current ongoing efforts include Madhya Pradesh’s decentralised planning exercise. 20.Adverse reports on ‘panchayats’ undertaking moral policing are usually traceable back to khap panchayats and not democratically elected village panchayats. The press does not make this distinction, with the effect that elected panchayats are discredited by the actions of others. 21.The National Capability Building Framework, prepared by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India. 22.It is estimated that 31,000 well-trained resource persons are required for delivering a quality training programme for elected representatives to PRI. It is not known whether a similar exercise has been undertaken for urban local government training. 23.It is estimated that about Rs 2,400 crore is required for the hardware to provide satellite-assisted training and about Rs 900 crore annually to meet the revenue cost of training. 24.Currently, the Ministry of Rural Development provides Rs 67 crore for strengthening state institutes of rural development. About Rs 15 crore lapses. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj provides Rs 293 crore (Rs 250 crore for backward regions grant fund (BRGF) districts and Rs 43 crore for non-BRGF districts). About half the amount lapses due to poor expenditure by states. 25.Since the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, at least three rounds of elections have been held to panchayats in most states. Jharkhand, the last state to not have had elections to

panchayats, also conducted them in 2010, following delays arising from protracted litigation.There are more than 2.6 million representatives elected to panchayats and about a million to municipalities. About 1.2 million of these are women and about 22 per cent SCs/STs. On an average, about 370 rural voters, or 75 families, elect a panchayat representative. 26.It would only pursue its agenda of promoting top-down decentralised planning and will thereby seek obedience. 27.There are individual trainers who are deeply committed to the ideal of decentralisation and bring a lot of the required attitudes to bear on their work. But being within the government, there are limits to how much they can highlight internal contradictions in government actions. We cannot expect them to cross this border when educating LG representatives on how to assert their rights. 28.That there are sharp differences in the approach can be gauged from that some people describe the process as integrated district planning, dropping the important word ‘decentralised’ from the description. 29.A right to recall might not be as far-fetched as some would have us believe, A right to recall members of elected local governments was part of the recommended 73rd amendment, as cleared by the Joint Select Committee of Parliament, but was withdrawn by the government in order to forge a consensus to have the amendments passed. 30.These thoughts were first expressed in a discussion paper prepared by this author for the consideration of the Justice Punchchi Commission for Centre State Relations. 31.The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution headed by Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah and the Second Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Veerappa Moily.

REFERENCES • Breton, Albert. 1998. Competitive Governments: An Economic Theory of Politics and Public Finance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Ministry of Panchayati Raj. 2006. State of the Panchayats Report, 2006. New Delhi: Government of India. • Narayan, Shriman. 1946. Gandhian Constitution for Free India. Allahabad: Kitabistan. • Tiebout, Charles. 1956. ‘A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures’. Journal of Political Economy 64 (5).

1. Political Role of Panchayati Raj REFERENCES Brecher, M. 1961. Nehru: A Political Biography. London: Oxford University Press. Huntington, Samel P. 1965. ‘Political Development and Political Decay’. World Politics 17 (03). April. Palombara, J. La (ed.). 1963. Bureaucracy and Political Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Philips, C. H (ed.). 1962. Politics and Society in India. New York: Praeger. Pye, Lucian W. 1965. ‘The Concept of Political Development’. The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science 358. March. Rose, Saul (ed.). 1963. Politics in Southern Asia. London: Macmillan. Shils, Edward. 1965. Political Development in the New States. The Hague: Mouton.

2. Decentralisation Below the State Level 1.For a review of major trends over last four decades, see

Mukarji and Arora (eds) (1992). 2.The concept of ‘District Government’ was first spelt out by this author in a paper presented at the seminar on Rural Development at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and published subsequently under the title ‘The Alternative: District Government?’ in Dantwala, Gupta and D’ Souza (1986: 235–61). It was further elaborated in ‘The Future of District Governance’, paper presented at the workshop organised under the auspices of the union ministry of rural development at Hyderabad, July 1985. 3.‘The Note of Dissent’ by E M S Namboodripad in Ashoka Mehta Report. pp. 160–3.

REFERENCES Administrative Reforms Commission. 1968. Report of the Study Team on Centre-State Relationships. (1). New Delhi. p. 156. Asian Seminar on Rural Development. 1986. The Indian Experiences. New Delhi: Oxford IBH. pp. 235–61. Economic Advisory Council. 1983. ‘Decentralisation of Development Planning and Implement Systems in the States’. New Delhi. Reproduced in Mainstream. 1984. (22). 21. Economic and Planning Council. 1984. Seminar on CentreState Relations: Papers, Group Reports and Conclusions. Bangalore: Government of Karnataka. Mukarji and Arora (eds). 1992. Origins and Development of Federalism in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Mukarji, Nirmal. 1986 ‘The Karnataka Model of District

Government’. In Panchayati Raj in Karnataka Today, ed. George Mathew. New Delhi: Concept Publishers. pp. 67–75. Planning Commission. 1984. Report of the Working Group on District Planning. New: Delhi: Government of India. May. Rural Development (Department). 1978. Report of the Committee on Panchayati Raj Institutions, (Ashoka Mehta Report). New Delhi: Agriculture Ministry. p. 76.

3. Decentralised Planning REFERENCES Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. 1983. First Report on Decentralisation of Development Planning and Implementation in States, 1983. Text published in Economic Times, 14 January 1984. Government of Karnataka. 1983. The Karnataka Zilla Parishads, Taluk Panchayat Samithis, Mandal Panchayats and Nyaya Panchayats Act. Hirway, Indira. 1986. Abolition of Poverty in India, with Special Reference to Target Group Approach in Gujarat, Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Review by C. H. Hanumantha Rao. 1987. Economic and Political Weekly 22 (35): 1493. 29 August. Jain, L. C., B. V. Krishnamurthy and P. M. Tripathi. 1985. Grass without Roots—Rural Development under Government Auspices. Delhi: Sage Publications. Pais, H, and C. S. K. Singh. 1987. Face to Face—Action Interventions in Jhabua, Noida: National Labour Institute. Palanidurai, K. V. 1988. Decentralised Planning in India, Precept and Practice—Experience of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Mimeograph. Delhi: Institute of Economic Growth.

Planning Commission. First Five-Year Plan. New Delhi: Government of India.. ----1985. Seventh Five Year Plan. I and II. New Delhi: Government of India.. ----1957. Report of the Team for the Study of Community Projects and National Extension Service Blocks (Balwant Rai Mehta Committee). New Delhi: Government of India.. ----1978. Report of the Committee on Panchayati Raj Institutions (Ashoka Mehta Committee). New Delhi: Government of India.. ----1978. Report of the Working Group on Block Level Planning (M. L. Dantwala Committee). New Delhi: Government of India.. ----1985. Report of the Working Group on District Planning. I and II. New Delhi: Government of India. Planning Department. 1984. Report of the Fact Finding Committee on Regional Imbalance in Maharashtra. (V. M. Dandekar Committee). Government of Maharashtra. Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. 1988. Panchayati Raj and District Planning, Discussion paper. Conference of Chief Secretaries. New Delhi: Government of India. Multi-level Planning Section. 1986. Towards Improved Local Level Planning for Rural Development—Lessons from Some Experiences. New Delhi: Government of India.

4. Panchayati Raj Bill REFERENCES Gaikwad, V. R. 1969. Panchayati Raj and Bureaucracy. Hyderabad: National Institute of Community Development.

65. Planning Commission. 1978. Report of the Committee on Panchayati Raj Institutions (Ashoka Mehta Committee). New Delhi: Government of India. Seidman, Robert B. 1978. The State, Law and Development. London: Croom Helm. 395. Government of Karnataka. 1988. Centrally Sponsored Schemes: An Instrument for Centralisation in Planning.

6. Women in Panchayati Raj 1.For example, participation is more than a willingness to pay

for services—the meaning given to the term in some World Bank documents. See Jonathan Isham, Deepa Narayan and Lant Pritchett (1995.) In our context, such willingness or ability to pay may not even be relevant. It is important to keep this in mind in this debate. 2.A proposal to amend the Constitution to reserve one-third of the seats in parliament has been hanging Are for some time now. When Inder Kumar Gujral, as prime minister, tried to introduce the bill in the Lok Sabha, none other than the president of his Party, Sharad Yadav, opposed him. The chances of such a bill being passed look quite remote now. 3.We exclude the urban bodies from this study. Their experience and context is different. Also, attention has focused more on the follow-up of the 73rd Amendment than of the 74th. 4.For details of the Karnataka law, see B. K. Chandrashekar (1989). 5.One of the cases presented in Section III is from a state other than Karnataka. But, for the purposes of this paper, we believe it makes no difference.

6.When the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee was evaluating the

experience with the Community Development Programme in the late 1960s, they felt the need for greater local participation by the people in the implementation of development programmes. In this view, they may be conceptualised as the third tier of development administration. But PRIs have to be seen as much more. Administrating development schemes should be only one function of such bodies. 7.Even here there was limited freedom. Given the judgment of the Supreme Court that the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution could not be amended by parliament, it was considered not possible to amend the Constitution to add a new list for local governments. The addition of such a list as a Schedule to the Constitution could be considered as tampering with the basic structure. Hence an enabling amendment which would empower the states to pass their own laws was the method chosen for this purpose. 8.For urban areas, the 74th Amendment provides for what are called nagar palikas below the stale government. This Amendment also provides for district planning committees to bring rural and urban areas together. Women have a role in all this. But these institutions are not dealt with in this essay. 9.There are delinquent states—Bihar has yet to hold elections for panchayats. But that is another story. 10.For more details on this issue, see Vinod Vyasulu (1998a). 11.In reality, there is much to be desired in how the gram sabha works in Karnataka. 12.On an average, there is one elected representative at this level for approximately every 400 persons. 13.In Karnataka, the current proposal to merge several gram panchayats into larger mandal panchayats, if carried out, will make the functioning of the gram sabha much more difficult. See Vinod Vyasulu (1998b).

14.Incidentally, all the problems discussed in social choice

theory—from Arrow’s impossibility theorem to Sen’s general possibility theorem become relevant here. But this is another story, to be pursued elsewhere. 15.This has been borne out by the experience of Kerala, in the people’s planning campaign. 16.They are still important in many parts of the country. See G. Palanathuri (1999). 17.In a seminar organised by the Institute of Social Sciences and the Ford Foundation in Bangalore on 6 and 7 January 1999. It was pointed out that traditional panchayats still exist in many parts of the country and play an important role in settling disputes, because they have some kind of legitimacy. This is something that needs to be investigated further. 18.This was very much an integral part of what Sunil Khilnani has called ‘the Idea of India’, (1997). 19.This does not of course mean that there was no exploitation. 20.In the 1980s, the Janata Dal government led by Ramakrishna Hegde was trying to show it was different from the Congress then headed by Indira Gandhi. It hit upon panchayati raj as a way of showing its democratic credentials. Abdul Nazir Sab took advantage of this situation to push through a very progressive law. This background is important to understand later developments in Karnataka. 21.The 42nd Amendment to the Constitution formalised this. The 44th Amendment did not undo all that the 42nd Amendment brought in. 22.With time, a view developed that there was too much concentration of power in the union. This became crystallised in what has come to be known as the debate on centre-state relations, and it has been particularly strong in the context of financial relations. It is an interesting feature of this debate that the arguments marshalled to support a devolution of

power from the union to the states are resisted when it comes to further devolution to local levels. 23.Unlike Karnataka, Tamil Nadu has not been very friendly to panchayati raj. There are important differences too that we must not ignore. 24.For an interesting analysis of these issues, see Narendar Pani (1982). 25.We draw upon the papers presented at a conference on ‘Assessing the Role of Women in Panchayats’(1999). 26.This draws on personal discussions with the field coordinators of the Gandhi Peace Centre who have been working in several districts of AP and who have observed this programme closely. 27.See Vinod Vyasulu, ‘In the Wonderland of Primary Education’, report submitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Prathmik Siksha Mission, Bhopal, August 1998. 28.History is likely to repeat itself, for it is likely that these elections will be postponed on the ground that constituencies have to be delimited. The minister of panchayati raj, M. P. Prakash has submitted his resignation, but ‘will not press for its acceptance’. The political drama is being played out once again. 29.When Chou-en-lai, former prime minister of China, was asked in the 1930s what he fell were the impacts of the French Revolution of 1789, he replied that it was too early to say. The caution is justified. 30.We have forgotten the fact that it was also meant for a limited time, 10 years only. 31.The relations between the SC/STs on the one hand, and the OBCs on the other are not simple. There can be exploitation by the intermediate castes as well. The Bahujan Samaj Party, representing the dalits, does not see any difference between ‘upper’ caste parties like the BJP and the Congress, and intermediate caste parties like the Samajwadi

Party, the Rashtriya Janata Party or even the Janata Dal. To view the SC/STs and OBCs as natural allies may be more the result of wishful thinking than realism. But this is another matter altogether. 32.The data have been taken from the appendices in K. Subha 33.There are many in the field who have told us that reservation of seats for women in the panchayats is fine. But they have also gone on to say that reservation of positions of president and vice president for these low caste groups is not desirable. How are we to interpret this? 34.This is not to deny the importance of state level studies. Nor is it to claim that Karnataka has actually done better than others. It is simply to take advantage of the longer experience there of progressive legislation—and our own lesser ignorance. We hasten lo add that much can be learned—and must be learned—from the other states. 35.Clearly, Karnataka was much more than old Mysore. Several parts of upstate had a different history. It took a while for a Karnataka gestalt to develop. This is often forgotten in studies that comment on one aspect or the other of this state’s recent experience. The unevenness one sees is in part due to the different starting points. 36.The ZP president wrote the annual confidential report on the chief secretary’s work. This was withdrawn in the later law. 37.This also is the case with the bill to reserve one-third of the seats in state assemblies and parliament for women. Some things have to be said even if there is no will to implement them. 38.We may ask to what extent these bodies are government. They do not have police power, for example. We will set aside this aspect in this essay. 39.There was also an amendment to the earlier act in 1991. I mention this only to show that the local self-government

system has yet to settle down. We may also expect such churning to take place for some more time. 40.This may simply be the logic of fractions, rather than any social awareness. For example, one-third of 10 means 4–40 per cent of the members. This could have happened in many gram panchayats. Karnataka may not deserve any special credit for its treatment of women. 41.The department of women and child development, in cooperation with UNICEF and many professionals, conducted some innovative orientation programmes for women elected to gram panchayats. This has been documented in the programme called Gramsat, available in cassettes. This was important in making these women realise that they too had a role to play in dealing with the finances of panchayats. It encouraged them to take part in these matters. 42.This has been reported in publications of the Indian Social Studies Trust in Bangalore. The Mydalola gram panchayat needs more careful study—which is why we have not used it here as a case. 43.For example, Maitri Pushpa’s ‘Verdict’ (1993). 44.Directed by Govind Nihalani. and a staple in training courses now. 45.On the possible role of officials, and reform of the bureaucracy, see S. K. Das (1998). 46.The changes brought in by an ordinance just before elections were due—and which has led to cases in the high court—has the effect of reducing the number of seats at the GP level. This will of course have a negative impact on many who were planning to contest. Women are likely to be among those who see the end of a possible political career. 47.One example of this is the recent setting up of ‘all women’ police stations. These are still oddities, to be shown to visitors. Elsewhere, it is business as usual. This is not to say

there must be no such stations. It is to argue that they must not be equated to zoos. 48.See M. K. Bhat, D. Rajsekhar and Neil Webster (1996) for a discussion of these issues. 49.See Vinod Vyasulu (1998c) for an elaboration of this theme.

REFERENCES Bhat, M. K., D. Rajsekhar and Neil Webster. 1996. ‘People Centred Development—Panchayats and NGOs’. Bangalore Consultancy Office. Chandrashekar, B. K. 1984. ‘Panchayati Raj Law in Karnataka: Janata Initiative in Decentralisation’. Economic and Political Weekly 19 (16). 2 April.. ---- 1989. ‘Panchayati Raj Bill: The Real Flaw’. Economic and Political Weekly 24 (26). 1 July. Das, S. K. 1998. Civil Service Reform and Structural Adjustment. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST). 1999. ‘Assessing the Role of Women in Panchayats’. Conference held in Bangalore. 3–6 February. Isham, Jonathan, Deepa Narayan and Lant Pritchett. 1995. ‘Does Participation Improve Performance? Establishing Causality with Subjective Data’. The World Bank Economic Review 9 (2). May. Khilnani, Sunil. 1997. The Idea of India. London: Hamish Hamilton. Palanathuri, G. 1999. ‘Women Participation in Local Governance—A Case Analysis of Tamil Nadu’. Paper presented at seminar on ‘Women in Local Governance: Exploring New Frontiers’. Bangalore: Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST). 3–6 February.

Pani, Narendar. 1982. Reforms to Pre-empt Change. Delhi: Concept Publishers. Pushpa, Maitri. 1993. ‘Verdict’. In Katha III. Delhi: Rupa Publishers. Subha, K. 1997. Karnataka Panchayat Elections 1995. Bangalore: Institute of Social Sciences. Vyasulu, Vinod. 1998a. ‘Panchayats: NGOs or Local Governments?’ unpublished paper. Bangalore. September.. ----1998b. ‘Give the System a Chance’. Deccan Herald. October.. ----1998c. ‘Panchayats: Local Government or NGOs?’. Paper presented at a seminar. Bangalore: Centre for Study of Culture and Society. November.

7. Democracy and Social Capital in Central Himalayas 1.I have not, however, sought to provide a statistically

measurable indicator of social capital of the type employed by Anirudh Krishna and Norman Uphoff in their work on watershed management programmes in Rajasthan (1998). Finding Putnam’s variables empirically unsupported in that context, Krishna and Uphoff also conceptualise social capital in terms of collective action, which they qualify with the phrase ‘mutually beneficial’. In its structural forms, then, social capital is found in the rules, social networks, roles, procedures and precedents that facilitate such mutually beneficial collective action. Its cognitive form is represented by the norms, values, attitudes and beliefs which support such action. It is tested through a quantitative measure of Development-Oriented Collective Action which results in a high performance in watershed development programmes. 2.‘The outcome of high levels of social capital can be seen in collective action for public goods provision‘, writes Deepa

Narayan. ‘These outcomes may be a manifestation of social capital but are not social capital itself. The measure of social capital should not include success in achieving outcomes, but rather focus on the structure and functioning of social groups and associated norms’ (Narayan 1999:3). 3.Drawing upon historical accounts of Italy and Spain, Sergio Lenci has made a useful distinction between private trust in pre-industrial society, which implies ties of belief and faith between kin groups, and public trust in modern society which is historically necessitated by the requirements of centralised political control (Lenci 1997:16–17). 4.Kenneth Newton has argued that in small, face-to-face, homogeneous, isolated and exclusive communities, the essential ingredient of solidarity is ‘thick trust’ which is maintained by strict social sanctions that can be enforced in such communities. Modern society, on the other hand, is characterised by ‘thin trust’ which tends to be more amorphous, and conducive to the formation of voluntary associations (Newton 1997:578–9). 5.The official concern for conservation dates back to the colonial period, and was also motivated by the need to ensure a continuous supply of timber (Cf Pathak 1997: 910). 6.The many advantages of community-based conservation (as opposed to purely official or private efforts) are documented, on the basis of case-studies from south and central Asia. (Kothari, Pathak, Anuradha and Taneja eds 1998). 7.In recent years, scholars have struck a cautionary note on community to qualify the unbounded enthusiasm of others for community-based conservation. They advise caution in the search for the mythic community, arguing that community should not be ‘imagined’ as if it were a domain completely insulated from the state and market, and from the relations of power and exchange respectively that characterise these institutions (Agrawal 1997). Scholars have also pointed to the

conflicts that arise on account of intra-community or intrauser group inequalities (Singh 1997; Bhatia 1997). 8.Civil Soyam forests belong to the revenue department and are formally depicted within the revenue boundary of villages. Despite the official tag, however, they are rather like village commons, regarded as belonging to the people, with the gram panchayat possessing the authority to recommend the lease or allotment of such lands. 9.That this is a common phenomenon in this region is borne out by the following statement: ‘It is a strange paradox ... that reserve forests sometimes belong more to the villagers than the civil soyam lands or village commons’ (Nanda 1999:105). 10.We were told, however, that in panchayat meetings those who find it hard to overcome traditional prejudices, often politely say they don’t really feel like a cup of tea. 11.The Beej Bachao Andolan is not a registered society or a non-governmental organisation. It is not financed by any donors and its activities are sustained purely by the sale of its produce and the odd publication. 12.This was, of course, partly because the people themselves had earlier given statements, or been forced to give such statements by the contractors who employed them, to the effect that the contractors also belonged to the village. 13.The Chetna Andolan is led by Trepan Singh Chauhan, who participated in the Chipko movement as a child, and subsequently in the movement for a separate state of Uttarakhand. However, disillusioned by the selfish and careerist ambitions of the leadership, he struck out on his own, and today works tirelessly for people-friendly development and against the timber, liquor and water mafia that hold the region to ransom. The Chetna Andolan put up 40 candidates in the last panchayat elections, of whom 30 won. However, many of them have capitulated to the usual practices, while a few like Ganga Rawat, hold out.

14.Ganga

displayed an extraordinary understanding of democracy when there were attempts to cajole her into affixing her signature on fake muster rolls. She refused to sign, saying that neither her hand nor her signature were her own, they were given to her by the people of the village. 15.In a very similar context, Sanjeev Prakash has argued that ‘the pattern of relationships, reciprocity and trust on which informal institutions are founded is continually reinforced and reinvented through social interaction’ (Prakash 1997:16).

REFERENCES Agrawal, Arun. 1997. ‘Community in Conservation: Beyond Enchantment and Disenchantment’. Mimeograph. Berman, Sheri. 1997. ‘Civil Society and Political Institutionalisation’. American Behavioral Scientist 40 (5). March/April. Berreman, Gerald. 1963. Hindus of the Himalayas. Mumbai: Oxford University Press. Bhatia, Anupam. 1997. ‘Power, Equity, Gender, and Conflicts in Common Property Resources in the Hindu KushHimalayas’. Issues in Mountain Development 97 (7). Kathmandu: ICIMOD. Guha, Ramachandra. 1991. The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Hardin, Garrett. 1968. ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’. Science 162. Jardhari, Vijay and Ashish Kothari. 1997. ‘Conserving Agricultural Biodiversity: The Case of Tehri Garhwal and Implications for National Policy’. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Jodha, N. S. 1994. ‘Common Property Resources and the

Rural Poor’. In Social Ecology, ed. Ramachandra Guha. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kothari, Ashish, Neema Pathak, R V Anuradha and Bansuri Taneja eds. 1998. Communities and Conservation: Natural Resource Management in South and Central Asia, New Delhi: UNESCO and Sage Publications. Krishna, Anirudh and Norma Uphoff. 1998. ‘Mapping and Measuring Social Capital: A Conceptual and Empirical Study of Collective Action Conserving and Developing Watersheds in Rajasthan, India’. Mimeograph. Lenci, Sergio. 1997. ‘Social Capital? From Pizza Connection to Collective Action: An Inquiry into Power, Culture and Civil Society’. Working Paper no. 244. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Mehta, G. S. 1997. ‘Development Experiences and Options in a Hill Region: The Case of Uttarakhand, UP, India’. Discussion Paper Series no. MEI 97/4. Kathmandu: ICIMOD. Nanda, Neeru. 1999. Forests for Whom? Destruction and Restoration in the UP Himalayas. New Delhi: Har-Anand Publishers. Narayan, Deepa. 1999. ‘Highlights from a Forthcoming Paper: A Dimensional Approach to Measuring Social Capital’. NEXUS Newsletter 1(2). 26 March. Newton, Kenneth. 1997. ‘Social Capital and Democracy’. American Behavioral Scientist 40 (5). March/April. Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pathak, Shekhar. 1985. ‘Intoxication as a Social Evil: AntiAlcohol Movement in Uttarakhand’. Economic and Political Weekly 20 (32). 10 August.. 1998. ‘State, Society and Natural Resources in Himalaya: Dynamics of Change in Colonial and Post-Colonial Uttarakhand’. Economic and Political Weekly 32 (17). 26 April. Prakash, Sanjeev. 1997. ‘Fairness, Social Capital and the Commons: The Societal Foundations of Collective Action’. Mimeograph.

g p Rangan, Haripriya. 1996. ‘From Chipko to Uttaranchal: Development, Environment and Social Protest in the Garhwal Himalayas, India’. In Liberation Ecologies, eds R. Peet and M. Watts. London: Routledge. Sarin, Madhu. 1996. ‘From Conflict to Collaboration: Institutional Issues in Community Management’. In Village Voices, Forest Choices: Joint Forest Management in India, eds Mark Poffenberger and Betsy McGean. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Satyajit. 1997. ‘Collective Dilemmas and Collective Pursuits: Community Management of Van Panchayats (forest councils) in the UP Hills’. Mimeograph. Suryanarayan, Jaishree and Ashish Kothari. 1999. ‘Protecting Forests, Conserving Seeds: The Story of Jardhargaon’. Paper presented at E-conference of the Mountain Forum. 19 April. Walton, H. G. 1989. A Gazetteer of Garhwal Himalaya. Dehra Dun: Natraj Publishers. First published 1910. Woolcock, Michael. 1997. ‘Social Capital and Economic Development: Towards a Theoretical Synthesis and Policy Framework’. Theory and Society.

9. Grass Roots Politics and ‘Second Wave of Decentralisation’ in Andhra Pradesh REFERENCES Bandhyopadhyay, D., B. N. Yugandhar and Amitava Mukherjee. 2002. ‘Convergence of Programmes by Empowering SHGs and PRIs’. Economic and Political Weekly 37 (26). 29 June. Cleaver, F. 1999. ‘Paradoxes of Participation: Questioning Participatory Approaches to Development’. Journal of

International Development 11: pp. 597–612. Eshman, M., and N. Uphoff. 1984. Local Organisation: Local Intermediaries in Rural Development. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Harriss, J. 2001. Depoliticising Development: The World Bank and Social Capital. New Delhi: LeftWord. Manor, J. 1998. ‘Democratisation and the Development State’. In The Democratic Developmental State: Politics and Institutional Design, eds Gordon White and Mark Robinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 125–49.. ----2004. ‘User Groups: A Potentially Damaging Second Wave of Decentralisation’. European Journal of Development Studies 16 (1). Mohan, G., and K. Stokke. 2000. ‘Participatory Development and Empowerment: The Dangers of Localism’. Third World Quarterly 21(2). pp. 247–68. Overseas Development Institute (ODI). 2001. Summary of Research Findings on Andhra Pradesh, ODI and TARU. www.panchayats.org. Rao, G. B. 2000. ‘Strengthening of Panchayats: Beyond Contractor’s Role: A Note on Andhra Pradesh Experience’. New Delhi: Workshop on Role of Panchayati Raj Institutions in Natural Resource Management. Sitaram, S. 2002. ‘Interface of Panchayati Raj Institutions and Community-Based Organisations in Andhra Pradesh’. Rural Poverty Reduction Project. Hyderabad: Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty.

10. Networks of Panchayat Women 1.Nagarpalika Update, May–June 2003 and Panchayati Raj

Update, June 2003.

2.This is important in the context of many critiques of civil

society that have emerged in recent years that argue that the apolitical nature of civil society limits its capacity for social change on the one hand and depoliticising development on the other (see Harriss 2002). By demonstrating the permeability of civil and political society, the strategy of networking makes an important contribution in furthering our understandings of the relationship between civil and political society and the capacity they both have to come together to initiate social change. 3.This has been witnessed in the case of Kerala where the facilitating agency, Sakhi, initially faced a lot of opposition to setting up of networks due to the complete polarisation of Kerala society on party lines. However, after some initial groundwork, the women EWRs recognised the value of collective mobilisation and have come together to form a network. The success of the network was witnessed when members came together to protest against the disbanding of the state women’s commission. 4.The importance of anchoring such work within the feminist discourse can be understood if one were to look at the example of the contribution that feminist critiques have made to micro credit initiatives. Such critiques (see for instance, Goetz and Sengupta 1996) have been crucial in ensuring that facilitating agencies weave in gender concerns to their work with women’s groups as also exploit the potential for collective mobilisation that innovative credit delivery processes have created. 5.Interestingly, a recent evaluation by MSA has argued that because the focus of its work has been on mobilising and training women from a ‘gender’ perspective rather than a governance perspective, the issues faced by EWRs as panchayat members have not been adequately addressed. It is important therefore for the facilitating agency to maintain a balance between the two discourses. The strength of the

networking strategy will only be exploited when both perspectives are married together.

REFERENCES Goetz, A. M., and R. Sen Gupta. 1996. ‘Who takes the credit? Gender, power, and control over loan use in rural credit programmes in Bangladesh’. World Development 24 (1). 45– 63. Harriss, J. 2002. Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital. London: Anthem Press.

11. Poverty Alleviation Efforts of Panchayats in West Bengal 1.There are of course numerous case studies in the literature,

many of which have been cited above. Available literature on experience of different developing countries is surveyed in Mookherjee (2004). Econometric evidence on targeting of a decentralised education programme in Bangladesh is studied by Galasso and Ravallion (2000), and of a land reform programme in Vietnam by Ravallion and van de Walle (2002). Banerjee (2003) examines the allocation of infrastructure, education and health services across Indian villages. 2.The purpose of these surveys was to provide a set of cost estimates to regulatory bodies in the central government (e.g., the Agricultural Prices Commission). They have not been used by the West Bengal state government to estimate agricultural production levels. 3.They are also consistent with the findings of the WIDER survey carried out by Sengupta and Gazdar (1996) for six

villages. 4.However, it should be noted that some of the discrepancy may involve failures in the delivery of actual land titles to the concerned recipients, so the BLRO records may represent an overestimate of the actual distribution of benefits to households. Moreover, the BLRO land title statistics pertain to all land titles issued, including both cultivable and noncultivable land, whereas the village elders involved in the survey tended to discount titles to barren, non-cultivable land. This partly accounts for the large discrepancy in the land areas estimated to have been transferred in north Bengal villages, many of which reportedly involved abandoned fruit orchards that could not be used for cultivation. Our survey estimate of the cultivable fraction of distributed land was 70 per cent in north Bengal, compared with 90 per cent in the rest of the state. 5.They are between a third and one-sixth the standard deviation reported in the first row of Table 11. 4 which include variability both across and within villages. The appropriate benchmark, however, is the within village standard deviation (over time), which were approximately a half of the overall standard deviation. The predicted changes are thus between one-third and two-thirds of the withinvillage standard deviations, with the exception of land area distributed (where it was one-eighth). 6.In addition, a negative correlation of targeting with demographic weight of the poor cannot be accounted by potential endogeneity of the demographic weights arising from migration of the poor. If at all the poor move between villages and districts in order to be eligible for the benefits of these anti-poverty programmes, it would induce a positive correlation between targeting and landlessness. 7.Apart from village and timeblock dummies, the underlying regression controls for the average credit flow in the state as a whole, population-bank branch ratio in the district, and the

following village variables: number of households, average farm yield, wage rate, rainfall, and per cent household heads in non-agricultural occupations. 8.Landless households may however use the kits on homestead land, or on plots they may lease in. Moreover even if they could not use a kit they could conceivably sell it. So it does not make sense to exclude them either in the target group. It turns out that a non-trivial fraction of the kits were indeed allocated to landless households. 9.We do not have access to data concerning the landholding status of those employed in these programs, so cannot assess intra-village targeting on that basis. 10.The intra-village regression uses a tobit with district (rather than village) fixed effects in order to incorporate substantial censoring in the data, i. e, villages that did not generate any employment at all in a given year. Some of the statistical imprecision may have resulted from this. 11See Webster (1992: 117) for instance, who finds in case studies of two gram panchayats that benefits of developmental programs were not reaching women in general, and poor women in particular.

REFERENCES Appu, P. S. 1996. Land Reforms in India, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Banerjee, A. 2004. ‘Who is Getting the Public Goods in India: Some Evidence and Some Speculation’. In India’s Emerging Economy: Performance and Prospects in the 1990s and Beyond ed. K. Basu. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Bardhan, P. 1996. ‘Decentralised Development’. Indian Economic Review 31(2).. 2002. ‘Decentralisation of Governance and Development’. Journal of Economic

Perspectives, Fall 2002. 16(4). 185–206. Bardhan, P. and D. Mookherjee. 2000. ‘Capture and Governance at Local and National Levels’, American Economic Review. May. 135–39.. ----2002. ‘Decentralising Anti-Poverty Programme Delivery in Developing Countries’. Mimeograph. Journal of Public Economics. Boston: Boston University.. ----2003a. ‘Decentralisation and Accountability in Infrastructure Delivery in Developing Countries’. Working Paper. Institute for Economic Development. Boston: Boston University.. ---- 2003b. ‘Political Economy of Land Reforms in West Bengal 1978–98’. Mimeograph. Boston: Boston University.. ----2003c. ‘Pro-Poor Targeting and Accountability of Local Governments in West Bengal’. Mimeograph. Boston: Boston University. Bird, R. 1995. ‘Decentralising Infrastructure: For Good or Ill?’. In Decentralising Infrastructure: Advantages and Limitations ed. A Estache. World Bank Discussion Papers 290. Washington, DC. Crook, R. and J. Manor. 1998. Democracy and Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dreze, J. and A. Sen. 1989. Hunger and Public Action. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Faguet, J. P. 2003. ‘Decentralisation and Local Government in Bolivia’. Paper prepared for a conference on The Rise of Local Governments in Developing Countries. London: London School of Economics. May. Galasso, E. and M. Ravallion. 2000. ‘Distributional Outcomes of a Decentralised Welfare Programme’. Working Paper no. 2316. Washington, DC: World Bank Research Department. Kohli, A. 1997. ‘From Breakdown to Order: West Bengal’. In State and Politics in India ed. P. Chatterjee. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Lieten, G. K. 1992. Continuity and Change in Rural West

y g Bengal. New Delhi: Sage Publications.. ----1996. ‘Panchayats in Western Uttar Pradesh’. Economic and Political Weekly 31 (39). 28 September. 2700–05. Manor, J. 1999. The Political Economy of Democratic Decentralisation. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Mathew, G., and R. Nayak. 1996. ‘Panchayats at Work: What It Means for the Oppressed?’. Economic and Political Weekly 31 (27). 6 July. 1765–71. Mookherjee, D. 2004. The Crisis in Government Accountability: Essays on Governance Reforms and India’s Economic Performance. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Prud’homme, P. 1995. ‘The Dangers of Decentralisation’. World Bank Research Observer 10. 201–20. Ravallion, M., and D. van de Walle. 2002. ‘Land Allocation in Vietnam’s Agrarian Transition’. Working Paper. Washington, DC: World Bank Research Department. Sengupta, S., and H. Gazdar. 1996. ‘Agrarian Politics and Rural Development in West Bengal’. In Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives eds J. Dreze and A. Sen. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Swaminathan, M. 1990. ‘Village Level Implementation of IRDP: A Comparison of West Bengal and TamilNadu’. Economic and Political Weekly 25 (13). 31 March. A17–A27. Tanzi, V. 1996. ‘Fiscal Federalism and Efficiency: A Review of Some Efficiency and Macroeconomic Aspects’. In Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, eds. M. Bruno and B. Pleskovic. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Webster, N. 1992. Panchayati Raj and the Decentralisation of Development Planning in West Bengal. Calcutta: K P Bagchi and Co. Wittenberg, M. 2003. ‘Decentralisation in South Africa’. Working Paper. Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand. Presented at a conference on The Rise of Local Governments in Developing Countries. London: London School of Economics. May. World Development Report. 2004. Making Services Work for

p

p g Poor People. The World Bank. Washington, DC: Oxford University Press.

12. Experiment with Direct Democracy 1.Gram swaraj, enacted by the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj

(Sanshodhan) Adhiniyam 2001, and operationalised from 26 January 2001 is a system of local self-governance at the village level, which moves from indirect to direct democracy. It is based on the premise that, in a village, people can assemble and sit collectively, and therefore, representatives to represent the views, aspirations, needs and interests of the people are not required. The new system intends to give power to the people and not to their representatives. To operationalise this system in the field, it has been decided that gram sabhas shall be strengthened, which under the new structure will exercise all the powers of gram panchayats and many more powers will also be devolved to gram sabhas. Gram sabhas will function as decision-making bodies and to discharge its duties and implement its decisions, it will constitute eight standing committees and additional ad hoc committees (as and when required) comprising of stakeholders of the work assigned to the committees. These implementation committees shall be accountable and responsible to the gram sabhas. 2.Particularly in Maharashtra and Rajasthan where the state governments are attempting to strengthen the gram sabhas through different mechanisms. 3.Many mass-based activist groups do not agree with the government of Madhya Pradesh and feel that these programmes have alienated and further marginalised the tribals and disempowered communities instead of benefiting them.

4.Madhya

Pradesh government has adopted a mission approach for speedy and effective implementation of development programmes (examples—the Watershed Mission and the Education Mission). These missions are government agencies under the direct control of the chief minister created outside the traditional line departments to avoid the bureaucratic red tape. The resources coming from many national and international programmes and outside donor agencies are being channelised through these missions. 5.For example, government letters detailing the delegation of powers to gram sabhas were sent to the ‘janpad’ panchayats. These letters were not even copied to gram panchayat or gram sabha leading to the information getting lost in the middle. 6.In a district, the chief executive officer of a janpad panchayat called a meeting of sarpanches and panchayat secretaries. In the meeting he insisted that the sarpanches and the panchayat secretaries should ensure that the allotted developmental funds should be spent within the financial year. In this entire discussion, the process of consultation with the gram sabha was not suggested even once. Just after completing this agenda item, a government functionary involved with the gram swaraj experiment was requested to give a talk on gram swaraj, clearly indicating the ritualistic interest in gram swaraj. 7.One of the rare serious government initiatives for providing training on gram swaraj is the establishment of Gram Swaraj Sanstha by the Panna district administration in collaboration with the Mahatma Gandhi Gramodaya University, Chitrakoot. This new initiative has already undertaken training of panchayat secretaries and all members of Gram Vikas Samitis from 140 villages. It has also conducted cluster training and training of trainers. 8.For example—Narmada Bachao Andolan and its network, Ekta Parishad and its network, Ekalavaya, etc.

REFERENCES Manor, James. 2001. Madhya Pradesh Experiments with Direct Democracy. Economic and Political Weekly 36 (9). 3 March.

13. Building Budgets from Below 1.The chosen urban sites were the Mysore city corporation,

the local self-government body for an average developed city with fairly good social indicators and the Udupi city municipal council, the local self-government body for a well developed city with good social indicators. 2.The rural sites selected were the Kogali gram panchayat in Bellary district, the local self-government body for an average developed dry land area and the Honaganhalli gram panchayat in Bijapur district, the local self-government body for a not developed, dry land area. 3.The Singamma Sreenivasan Foundation is a voluntary organisation based in Bangalore, founded in 1983 by Singamma Sreenivasan and M A Sreenivasan, created primarily to facilitate the advancement, social and general welfare of women, irrespective of caste, race or religion. 4.Funded by the Ford Foundation; report of the first phase, March 2000 to March 2002, entitled ‘Associating Elected Women’s Representatives in Local Self-Government’, prepared by the Karnataka Women’s Information and Resource Centre was submitted to the Ford Foundation, in March 2002. 5.Funded by the Canadian High Commission, report entitled ‘In Search of a Thavara Mane in Politics: Engaging Local

Women Politicians in Public/Macro Policy-Making’, was submitted by the Karnataka Women’s Information and Resource Centre to the Canadian High Commission, New Delhi, September, 2003 6.The Mysore city corporation, the Tumkur city municipal council, the Kogali gram panchayat in Bellary district and the Honaganhalli gram panchayat in Bijapur district. 7.The amount allocated for women’s programmes by the Mysore city corporation for the year 2003–04 was Rs 58.50 lakh. This figure was reduced to Rs 37.50 lakh in the proposed allocations for the year 2004–05. The women corporators, at the council meeting, ensured that even for the year 2004–05, the allocations for women’s programmes remained at Rs 58.50 lakh. 8.A study of the uses to which the women’s component plan was put revealed that most of the activities resulted only in short-term income generation related to traditional activities. See http://www.kit.nl/gcg/html/india_projects_.asp#sakhiindia. Last accessed on 3 July 2012.

REFERENCES Clay, Elizabeth. 2004. Shaping Vibrant Cities, Neighbourhood Vision Campaign, 2003: A Citizens’ Platform for Participatory Ward Planning. First edition. Bangalore: Ramanathan Foundation. p. 10. Jain, Devaki, and C. P. Sujaya. 2002. Development Planning For and By Women: Over Five Decades of the Indian Experience. Paper presented at ‘Strengthening Women’s Participation on District Level Governance’. Meeting. Bangalore: SSF. May. Jain, Devaki. 2002. Globalism and Localism. Paper presented

at Panel on ‘Rethinking Gender—Democracy and Development’. Italy: Ferrara University and Modena University. 20–22 May. Mohan, Madan M. 2004. ‘Centre’s Recipe for Fund-Starved Panchayats’. The Hindu. Bangalore. 7 July. p. 5. UNDP. 1995. ‘Panchayati Raj: An Institutional Platform for Women’s Leadership—A Success Story from India’. Panel on Women in Governance. New York: UNDP. 24 March.

14. Impact of Reservation in Panchayati Raj 1.There are reservations for women in many other countries,

however. Quotas for women in assemblies or on parties’ candidate lists are in force in the legislation of over 30 countries (World Bank 2001), and in the internal rules of at least one party in 12 countries of the European Union (Norris 2001). 2.More details can be found in these essays. 3.In Rajasthan, the chief is called a sarpanch. In this essay, we will use the terminology pradhan for both states. 4.According to the balance sheets we could collect in 40 GPs in West Bengal, the JRY accounts for 30 per cent of total GP income, the drinking water scheme—5 per cent, the welfare programmes—15 per cent, the grant for GP functioning—33 per cent, and the GP’s own revenue for 8 per cent. GPs can also apply for some special schemes, a housing scheme for SC/STs, for example. 5.For the next election, every third GP starting with the second on the list was reserved for a woman, etc. The Panchayat Constitution Rule has actual tables indicating the ranks of the GPs to be reserved in each election.

6.We could not obtain the necessary information to perform

the same exercise in Rajasthan. However, there too, the system appears to have been correctly implemented. 7.The one woman elected on an unreserved seat was not previously elected on a reserved seat. 8.In future work, we will address this question in Rajasthan. 9.The standard errors are omitted from the table for clarity, but none of the differences are significant at the 95 per cent confidence level. 10.Rajasthani villages are much more spread out than West Bengal villages (a Rajasthani village covers an area on average 10 times bigger than a West Bengal village) and are much less densely populated. They are made of a series of independent ‘hamlets’, which are not administrative entities but function as independent villages. Our sampling unit is the hamlet: We first sampled 100 villages (with probability of selection weighted by village size) and then one hamlet per village (again, the probability of selection was weighted by village size). 11.For Udaipur, we could not obtain the data necessary to match villages to panchayat in the entire district. 12.In the subsample of villages in which we conducted follow-up surveys, we also asked whether men had brought up any issue in the previous six months. In all cases but one (a reserved GP), they had. 13.Interestingly, women’s participation is significantly higher when the position of council member of the village is reserved for a woman (results not reported to conserve space). This difference is probably due to the very long-distance between villages in Rajasthan. 14.We recorded the exact complaint or request, for example, the need to repair a specific well. We classified them ex post into these categories. In West Bengal, we had initially not

asked about issues raised by men: A random subset of 48 villages was subsequently resurveyed later. 15.Results available from the authors on request. 16.There is considerable evidence that higher bargaining power leads to a reduction in women’s fertility.

REFERENCES Besley, Timothy, Rohini Pande, Lupin Rahman and Vijayendra Rao. 2004. ‘The Politics of Public Goods Provision: Evidence from Indian Local Government’. Journal of the European Economic Association Papers and Proceedings 2 (2–3). 416– 26. April-May. Chattopadhyay, Raghabendra and Esther Duflo. 2003a. ‘Efficiency and Rent Seeking in Local Governments: Evidence from Randomised Policy Experiments in India’. Mimeograph. US: MIT.. 2003b. ‘Women as Policy-Makers: Evidence from a Randomised Policy Experiment in India’. Mimeograph. Econometrica. US: MIT. In ‘Grass Roots Democracy: A Study of the Panchayat System in West Bengal’. Mimeograph. Maitreya Ghatak and Maitreesh Ghatak. 1999. Development Research Group Calcutta and University of Chicago. Government of West Bengal. 1998. The West Bengal Panchayat (Constitution) Rules, 1975. Department of Panchayats and Rural Devlelopment. Kanango, Sukla Deb. 1998. ‘Panchayati Raj and Emerging Women Leadership: An Overview’. In People’s Power and Panchayati Raj: Theory and Practice ed. Bansaku. Kolkata: Indian Social Institute. 77–95. Norris, Pippa. 2001. ‘Breaking the Barriers: Positive Discrimination Policies for Women’. In Has Liberalism Failed Women: Parity, Quotas and Political Representation, eds. Jyette Klausen and Charles Maier. UK: St Martin’s Press.

Chapter 10. Pande, Rohini. 2003. ‘Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India’. American Economic Review 93(4). 1132–51. Probe Team. 1999. ‘The School Environment’. In ‘Public Report on Basic Education in India’. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chapter 4. Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. First edition. UK: Random House. Topalova, Petia. 2003. ‘Women are Changing Governance in India? The Impact of Female Leadership on Household Satisfaction, Quality of Public Goods and Governance’. Mimeograph. US: MIT. World Bank. 2001. Engendering Development: Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice. Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press.

15. Law of Two-Child Norm in Pancnchayats 1.Study by Mahila Chetna Manch, Bhopal. (Operationally five

state studies on a common framework, supported by UNFPA, New Delhi). 2.Zilla Parishad, Zilla Panchayats (ZP) are panchayats at the district level; panchayat samitis, janpad panchayats (PS) are at the intermediate block or mandal level and gram panchayats (GP) are for a village or group of villages. 3.Data from Census 2001, National Family Health Survey (NFHS) I and II, and National Human Development Report (HDR) 2001. 4.Are Gangadhar vs zilla parishad, Karimnagar and others, 1995 (5) ALD 585 (DB). 5.Fazru vs state of Haryana, 1998 (I) PLJ.

6.Mukesh Kumar Ajmera and others vs state of Rajasthan and

others: AIR 1997 Rajasthan 250. 7.Javed and others vs state of Haryana and others in July 2003 (2003[8] SCC). 8.The districts of Morena (child sex ratio 837), Bhind (child sex ratio 832), Datia (child sex ratio 874), Gwalior (child sex ratio 853) and sharp decline in child sex ratio (number of females for 1000 male in 0–6 age group) from 1991 to 2001 have reported no case of persons disqualified for violation of the two-child norm up to 2004.

REFERENCES Bhat, Mari P. N. 2003. ‘Two-Child Norm: In Defence of Supreme Court Judgment’, Economic and Political Weekly 38 (44). 4714–16. 1 November. Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS). (1997.): ‘National Population Policy–Perspectives from the Women’s Movement’. Compilation of documents. New Delhi: CWDS. Government of India. 2000. ‘National Population Policy 2000’. New Delhi: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Greenhalgh, Susan. 2001. ‘Fresh Winds in Beijing: Chinese Feminists Speak Out on the One-Child Policy and Women’s Lives’. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 20 (3). 601–41. 847–86. Rao, Mohan. 2003. ‘Two-Child Norm in Panchayats: Many Steps Back’. Economic and Political Weekly 38 (38). 3451– 53. 16, August. Report of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). (1994.): ‘Programme Of Action’. UNFPA. Cairo: ICPD. 5–13 September. Sen, Amartya. 1995. ‘Population Policy: Authoritarianism vs Cooperation’. Lecture. New Delhi: International Lecture series

on Population Issues. 17 August. Short, Susan E., and Zhai Fengying. (1998.): ‘Looking Locally at China’s One-child Policy’. Studies in Family Planning 1998; 29 (4): 373–87. Zeng Yi. (1989).: ‘Is the Chinese Family Planning Programme “Tightening Up”?’. Population and Development Review 15 (2). 333–37.

16. Federalism, Urban Decentralisation and Citizen Participation 1.Urban

development department and department of panchayati raj institutions, government of Karnataka. 2.Conversations on the subject that the author has had with Mani Shankar Aiyar and Sivaramakrish nan, both involved in drafting the original 66th Constitutional Amendment that dealt with urban decentralisation. Both the rural and the urban bills were defeated in Parliament, and were only reintroduced after Rajiv Gandhi’s death in 1993, under Narasimha Rao’s tenure as prime minister, eventually passing as the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution. 3.In the three-pronged framework that Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen use to assess democracy in India—ideals, institutions and practice—the only element that finds place in all three prongs of the framework is the participation of citizens (Dreze and Sen 2002). 4.Loksatta study in Andhra Pradesh, available on their web site: www.loksatta.org. Also confirmed by Janaagraha in a sample study of two polling booths in Bangalore during the 2004 elections. 5.Janaagraha report submitted to department of municipal administration, government of Karnataka.

6.SJSRY pilot project documentation reports submitted to

government of Karnataka, and available with Janaagraha. 7.Documentary examples of middle-class and poor interactions available with Janaagraha. 8.Common BPL List Report, a joint report submitted to government of Karnataka by department of food and civil supplies, department of municipal administration, Karnataka Slum Board and Janaagraha, 2004. Available with Janaagraha. 9.Janaagraha campaign documents. 10.Several documents on the convergence of the people’s planning process in Kerala, and the poverty alleviation programme called Kudumbashree. 11.Directive principles of state policy: Article 40, which states ‘Organisation of village panchayats. The state shall take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.’ Article 243b of the 73rd Amendment which states ‘Gram Sabha means a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls relating to a village comprised within the area of panchayat at the village level’. 12.Article 243S which states ‘(ii) The legislature of a state may, by law, make provision with respect to (a) the composition and the territorial area of a wards committee; (b) the manner in which the seats in a wards committee shall be filled’. 13.National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRCW) report: One example is suggestion 1.62c, which only requires ‘knowledgeable residents’ of a ward to be included. If this were suggested for rural decentralisation, there would have been howls of protest, with justified accusations of elite capture of political institutions. Similarly, in the Sen Committee Report for Kerala, the concept of the ward sabha is not thought of as

mandatory, but rather as a vehicle that can be used only in smaller municipalities (population less than 100,000). In 1991, there were 296 Class I cities with a population greater than 100,000, out of the 3,610 urban centres in the country. They contained over 65 per cent of the total urban population in the country, meaning that over 150 million Indians are living in cities and towns that would be considered too large for them to exercise their fundamental rights as citizens. 14.The study shows the presence of ‘informal leaders (who) are accessible to all slum dwellers, but (that) formal government figures are most accessed by the wealthy and the well-connected’. This highlights the need for legitimate participatory spaces in urban areas, open to all voters across the social spectrum (Jha, Rao and Woolcock 2005).

REFERENCES Besley, Tim, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao. 2005. ‘Participatory Democracy in Action: Survey Evidence from South India’. Journal of the European Economic Association 3(2–3). 648–57. Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis (DESIPA). 1996. World Urbanization Prospects: The 1996 Revision. New York: United Nations Population Division. Drèze, Jean, and Amartya Sen. 2002. India: Development and Participation. New York: Oxford University Press. Hosp, Gerald. 2003. ‘Fiscal Federalism for Emerging Economies: Lessons from Switzerland’. Publius. 1 January. Jha, Rao and Woolcock. 2005. ‘Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Leadership in Delhi’s Slums. Paper. Washington, DC: World Bank. July. Mathew, George. 2000. ‘Democracy at Work: Evolving

Federalism through Political Representation in Socio-Cultural Pluralism’. Monograph. Brasilia: Conference on Cooperative Federalism, Globalisation and Democracy. 9–11 May. Putnam, Robert D., and Lewis Feldstein with Don Cohen. 2003. Better Together: Restoring the American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Supriti, Sharon Barnhardt, and Ramesh Ramanathan. 2002. Urban Poverty Alleviation in India. Bangalore: Ramanathan Foundation.

17. Fiscal Decentralisation to the Sub-State Level Governments 1.They are Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil

Nadu. 2.The expenditure data for local governments are from TFC report and that for union and state governments are from Economic Survey, Government of India for the relevant years. 3.For details, see footnote to Table 17.1. 4.Transfers consist of tax assignment plus tax devolved plus grant-in-aid transferred to local governments (PRIs and ULBs). The TFC data contain an item ‘Others’, other than own source revenue and tax devolution and grants-in-aid. As it is a mixed category we have not included it in the transfers. 5.This cannot be a case of non-reporting because it is zero in all the five years. 6.In West Bengal in the year 2001–02, the per capita transfer to PRIs was above Rs 70. 7.Moving the 73rd Amendment on 1 December 1992 in the Lok Sabha, the then Minister for Rural Development said: ‘The Constitution (73rd) Amendment Bill casts a duty on the centre as well as the states to establish and nourish the

village panchayats so as to make them effective selfgoverning institutions’. This basic objective must be a governing consideration in the state sub-state level transfer system. 8.The GPs share is determined after allotting a one-time share for the district and block panchayats in the general purpose grant based on their establishment cost and office expense requirements. 9.For the whole process to be complete, logically, the functionaries should also be transferred to the lower tiers. This is a serious deficit in the democratic decentralisation underway in the country.

REFERENCES Bird, Richard M., and Francios Vaillancourt. 1998. Fiscal Decentralisation in Developing Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fukasaku, Kichiro, and L. R. De Mello Jr. 1999. Fiscal Decentralisation in Emerging Economies. Paris: Development Centre OECD. Oommen, M. A. 2004. ‘Fiscal decentralisation in Kerala’. In Fiscal Decentralisation to Rural Governments in India, ed. Geeta Sethi. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rao M. G., and Nirvikar Singh. 2005. Political Economy of Federalism in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Report of the Second State Finance Commissions of Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Reserve Bank of India. State Finances: A Study of Budgets for Different Years. Tanzi, Vito. 1996. ‘Fiscal Federalism and Decentralisation: A Review of Some Efficiency and Macroeconomic Aspects’. In Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics

1995, eds Michael Bruno and Boris Plesrovic. Washington, DC: World Bank.

18. Functional Devolution to Rural Local Bodies in Four States 1.The state was a constituent of Madhya Pradesh prior to

November 2000. 2.The four-state study was funded by UNDP Project No. IND/03/020. 3.With one marginal exception, dealt with later on. 4.The sub-heads within each four-digit budget category assigned to the devolvable and non-devolvable categories are listed in annex 1 of Rajaraman and Sinha (2007). 5.Some three-digit sub-heads are input based (like 103 for seeds, or 105 for manure and fertilisers), and some are output based (like 102 for foodgrain crops, and 108 for commercial crops). The assignment of expenditure between these categories would necessarily be ad hoc. 6.In Rajasthan, this budget head is found under demands 30 (Tribal Area Development), 42 (Industries) and 51 (Special Component Plan for Scheduled Castes), none of which is a demand dedicated to PRIs. 7.In GOI (2006; Volume II), a sum across demand heads 80, 82 and 15 is obtained for Chhattisgarh alone, of the four states, to quantify fund flows to PRIs. 8.This was the process through which budget heads, outside those mapped in Table 18.1, were uncovered. 9.The product of the devolved and devolvable percentages in Tables 18.7 and 18.8 for crop husbandry yields the devolved to total percentage figure of 10.31 shown in Table 18.3.

REFERENCES Governments of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan. 2006. Budget Documents 2006–07. Government of India.1987. List of Major and Minor Heads of Account of Union and States. Controller General of Accounts. Ministry of Finance.. ----1993. Constitution of India.. ----2005. Report of the Twelfth Finance Commission.. ----2006. ‘The State of the Panchayats: A Mid-Term Review and Appraisal’. Vols 1–3 (Ministry of Panchayati Raj.. ----2007: Poverty Estimates for 2004–05. Press Information Bureau. 21 March. Rajaraman, Indira and Darshy Sinha. 2007. ‘Tracking Functional Devolution by States to Panchayats’. Mimeograph. Delhi: NIPFP. March.

19. Neighbourhood Associations and Local Democracy 1.This essay is based on a detailed, qualitative study of 16

resident welfare associations (RWAs) located all over the city (Kalkaji, Khirki Extension, Gulmohar Park, Safdarjang Enclave, Shahpur Jat, Haus Khas, Sarvodaya Enclave in the south; Churi Walan, Jama Masjid, Karol Bagh, Rohini in the north; New Seemapuri, Mayur Vihar in the east; Janakpuri, Dwarka, Shyam Vihar in the west). The methodology relied on indepth interviews completed by the perusal of the directories, newsletters and (whenever possible) minutes of the meetings held by RWAs. In addition, I directly observed Bhagidari workshops and the campaigning in March–April 2007 of four candidates coming from RWAs.

2.On the history of local self-government in independent

India, see Kumar 2006. 3.Local elections now have to be held every five years, under the supervision of state election commissions, and the gap between the dissolution of the previous assembly and the first convening of the next one cannot exceed six months. 4.In addition to reservations for women, SCs and STs (all three are mandatory under the act), nine states have provided, in their conformity legislations, reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as well. 5.But in Chennai the mayor is directly elected by voters for a five-year period. 6.Kolkata is an exception among Indian megacities: the municipal corporation of that city functions under the ‘mayorin-council system’ (present only in West Bengal and in Madhya Pradesh) whereby the mayor heads the executive wing of the municipal corporation, in the manner of the prime minister in a parliamentary democracy. 7.Only in Mumbai (and only since 2000) do these ward committees include representatives of civil society, in the form of three NGOs selected every year by the councillors from the wards. 8.In Delhi, until 2007, there were on an average 100,000 people in each of the 134 municipal wards, and wards committees covered an average population of more than one million people (Shah and Bakore: 27). But a re-delimitation of wards took place prior to municipal elections in April 2007, making the average population of the new 272 wards closer to 50,000 people—still a large figure by any standard. 9.The comparative observation of meetings at the house (i.e., the corporation) and at the wards committee levels, in Delhi, reveals that while councillors are clearly dominated by municipal bureaucrats at the city level, they have the upper hand at the ‘zone’ level (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007b: 8), which

suggests that a third tier of decentralisation would strengthen their effectiveness vis-à-vis the bureaucracy. 10.Sixty-five per cent in Kolkata in 2000, 43 per cent in Mumbai and 45 per cent in Delhi in 2002 (source: state election commissions of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Delhi). 11.‘India is perhaps the only large democracy in the world today where the turnout of the lower orders of society is well above that of the most privileged groups’ (Yadav 2000: 133). 12.The phrase ‘middle class’ is particularly fallacious, as it refers to a social group which, even though large and heterogeneous, constitutes neither the majority of the population, nor the middle of the socio-economic scale. As shown by Satish Deshpande, the population referred to as ‘middle class’ represents, at the most, 15 per cent people at the top of the socio-economic ladder (Deshpande 2006: 222). But the statistically more accurate notion of ‘upper class’ is also problematic insofar as it loses the essential aspiration of this category to represent the majority of the population. I will therefore use the notion of middle-class within quotes to remind the reader that the phrase does not mean what it seems to. 13.With the exception of Kolkata, where they seem to be, if not absent, at least invisible. 14.Interview, October 2006. 15.Neither the list of the registrar of societies nor that of the Bhagidari cell provide systematic information on the date of creation of registered RWAs. But all the RWA office bearers I interviewed underlined the fact that RWAs have multiplied in the past five years. They have observed the creation of new associations in the neighbouring colonies, as well as the subdivision of existing associations, for instance at the colony level, into a number of associations catering to a smaller area within the colony, for instance the street or the building.

16.Five per cent of RWAs could not be localised and do not

appear on the map. 17.RWAs are actually all the more needed in unauthorised colonies where residents have to take charge of a number of civic services provided in planned colonies by local authorities, such as the cleaning of roads, for instance. However, the unauthorised status of the colony means that the local RWA cannot get officially registered, neither with the registrar of societies, nor with the Bhagidari cell. 18.Early in 2006, the Supreme Court expressed concern over the mushrooming of commercial activities in residential areas, in violation of the Delhi master plan 2001. It ordered the MCD to publish a list of residential premises used for commercial purposes and requested their owners to stop misuse or face closure. In March 2006, the Supreme Court ordered that illegal structures and shops functioning in zones designated as exclusively residential be demolished and sealed respectively—a mammoth task, since 18,000 buildings are said to be concerned (80 per cent of Delhi buildings are partly unauthorised, according to the MCD). Traders (44,000 shopkeepers were said to be affected) organised various types of protests, which became increasingly violent. The following months were marked by a wrestling match between the Supreme Court, supported by the Delhi RWAs Joint Front in its defence of a strict compliance with the master plan, and the central government, supporting the traders’ claim for mixed land use for the sake of protecting their livelihoods. The MCD showed much reluctance to implement the court orders, citing law and order problems. However, the sealing drive went on, albeit with a few suspensions, until the new master plan 2021 was notified in February 2007. The new master plan promotes a mixed land use policy and identifies 2,183 roads on which commercial establishments are allowed.

19.The discourse of neighbourhood associations is amplified,

on the one hand, by their ability to use the professional competences of their members (including lawyers, journalists, communication professionals), and on the other hand, by the interest shown by the news media, both television and press, which give considerable space to the statements and initiatives of these associations. As a consequence, neighbourhood associations benefit from a disproportionate visibility (Zérah 2007b: 14), which supports their claim to the role of people’s spokespersons. 20.Not all RWAs are registered with the registrar of societies (but this is a precondition for applying to the Bhagidari scheme), and registration imposes few constraints on them, i.e., having seven founding members and a permanent address, meeting regularly, having a constitution (whose content is decided by the association), and producing a yearly activity report. 21.These come from NGOs advocating the rights of the urban poor, as well as from elected representatives and ministers. 22.This proposition emerged in the context of a consultation on ‘The Community Participation Law’ included in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) launched by the central government in 2005. The initial proposal provided for area sabha representatives to be nominated by the local councillor, MLA or MP, or by local people, through nominations in the newspapers (Centre for Civil Society 2006). 23.The fact is not new per se: in 2001, a number of independent candidates were put up and supported by RWAs in the Chennai municipal elections (Ghosh and Tawa LamaRewal 2005: 95). And in Hyderabad, where municipal elections are due in 2007, the NGO Lok Satta is associated to the ‘Vote Hyderabad Campaign’ which is calling on ‘citizen elected candidates’ to stand up.

24.In Greater Kailash I, a group of RWAs calling itself ‘Voice

of Ward 192’, informed the press of their decision to lobby political parties so as to make their concerns heard. 25.There were 2,575 candidates in the fray for the 272 seats, including 1,216 independents (i.e., 47.2 per cent). ‘RWA candidates’ were a small minority of the independents (2.6 per cent). 26.The president of the Delhi joint front of RWAs stated publicly that RWAs should not enter the electoral process as candidates, lest they lose their political neutrality, considered as a condition both of their credibility as local people’s spokespersons, and as a pragmatic necessity to interact with elected representatives from various parties. But several office bearers of RWAs that are members of that front contested nevertheless. 27.But the press also spoke about a handful of independent candidates (in wards 159 and 209, for instance) who claimed the support of the local RWAs but who were not part of these two federations. 28.Interview with an URJA leader, April 2007. 29.http://www.lokrajsangathan.org/ 30.Interview with an URJA leader, April 2007. 31.Observation of the campaign in Jagdamba camp, 2 April 2007. 32.Elections 2003: A Report by DEW, 2003, p. 12. 33.‘How to Launch a Party and Fight Elections’, Civil Society, Vol. 2, No. 4, February 2005, pp. 12–5. 34.The Hindu, 15 November 2006 35.The Hindu, 26 December 2006. 36.The Hindu, 23 January 2007 37.The classification into low income, medium income or high income groups rests, for each series of maps, on two main criteria: the status of the colony (slum—LIG, unauthorised—

LIG or MIG, regularised—MIG, planned—MIG or HIG) and type of housing (huts, flats, individual houses); this rough classification was made more accurate by direct observation of the urban landscape. 38.The scale used to represent the number of votes obtained by candidates differs for each ward, thus one cannot compare the respective results of the four candidates by comparing the size of the dots on the different maps. 39.This candidate actually came second, behind the BJP candidate. 40.Their campaigning style contributed to asserting their difference. In this regard they were objectively helped by the strict implementation of the code of conduct, putting strong restrictions on practices which require most money and a show of numbers: the use of posters, banners, loudspeakers and drums were severely limited, if not banned altogether. 41.The BJP’s manifesto mentions the role of ‘the Bhagidari movement’ in building a ‘clean and green Delhi’. But manifestoes of both the BJP and the Congress(I) were released at the very end of the campaign, apparently more for the media than for candidates, many of whom received it too late to include it in their election paraphernalia.

REFERENCES Bacqué, M. H., H. Rey and Y. Sintomer. 2005. ‘La démocratie participative, un nouveau paradigme de l’action publique?’. In Gestion de proximité et démocratie participative. Une perspective comparative, eds M. H. Bacqué, H. Rey and Y. Paris: La Découverte. 9–48. Centre for Civil Society. 2006. Minutes of the meeting on JNNURM of Delhi Civil Society Organisations. Discussion on the Community Participation Law. Delhi. 27 November.

Coelho, K. 2005. ‘Civil and Uncivil Mobilisations: A Report of the Preliminary Mapping Study on Collective Action Related to Service Delivery in Chennai, South India’. September. Deshpande, Satish. 2006. ‘Mapping the ‘Middle’: Issues in Analysis of the ‘Non-Poor’ Classes in India’. In Contested Transformations: Changing Economies and Identities in Contemporary India, eds Mary E. John, Praveen Kumar Jha and S Surinder Jodhka. Delhi: Tulika. 215–36. Ghosh, A., and S. Tawa Lama-Rewal. 2005. Democratisation in Progress: Women and Local Politics in Urban India. Delhi: Tulika. 158. Ghosh, Archana. 2007. Urban Governance in Kolkata: Actors, Policies and Reforms. Paper presented in the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’. Delhi. 23–24 January. Harriss, John. 2005. ‘Middle-Class Activism and Poor People’s Politics: An Exploration of Civil Society in Chennai’. Working Paper Series. London School of Economics and Political Science. No. 05–72. 37. Harriss, John. 2007. ‘Antinomies of Empowerment: Observations on Civil Society, Politics and Urban Governance in India’. Economic and Political Weekly 42 (26). 30 June. 2716–24. Kennedy, L. 2007. ‘Assessing Urban Governance in Hyderabad: Strong Reforms and Weak City Government’. Paper presented in the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’. Delhi. 23–24 January. Kumar, G. 2006. Local Democracy in India: Interpreting Decentralisation. Delhi: Sage. Nair, Janaki. 2006. ‘Social Municipalism and the New Metropolis’. In Contested Transformations: Changing Economies and Identities in Contemporary India. eds Mary E. John, Praveen Kumar Jha and S Surinder Jodhka. Delhi: Tulika. 125–46. Papadopoulos, Y. 2002. ‘Démocratie, gouvernance et

p p g ‘management de l’interdépendance’: des rapports complexes’. In A la recherche de la démocratie: Mélanges offerts à Guy Hermet, ed. Javier Santiso. Paris: Karthala. 133–60. Pitkin, Hanna. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rosanvallon, P. 2006. La contre-démocratie. La politique à l’âge de la défiance, Paris: Seuil. Shah, Partha and Makarand Bakore (eds). 2006. Ward Power: Decentralised Urban Governance, Delhi: Centre for Civil Society. Tawa Lama-Rewal, S. 2007a. ‘Delhi in the 1990s–2000s: Good Governance and Bad Governability’. Paper presented in the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’. Delhi. 23–24 January.. ----2007b. ‘The Delivery of Primary Level Health Services as an Analyser of Urban Governance’. Paper presented in the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’. Delhi. 23–24 January.. ----2007c. ‘Démocratie locale dans les métropoles indiennes. Les associations de résidents à, New Delhi’. Transcontinentales. June. Yadav, Y. 2000. ‘Understanding the Second Democratic Upsurge: Trends of Bahujan Participation in Electoral Politics in the 1990s’. In Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy, eds F. R. Frankel, Z. Hasan, R. Bhargava and B. Arora. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Zérah, M. H. 2007a. ‘Urban Governance in Mumbai‘. Paper presented in the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’. Delhi. 23–24 January.. ----2007b. ‘Reforming Solid Waste Management in Mumbai and Hyderabad: Policy Convergence, Distinctive Processes’. Paper presented in the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’. Delhi. 23–24 January.

20. Expanding the Resource Base of Panchayats REFERENCES Bahl, Roy W. 2002. ‘Implementation Rules of Fiscal Decentralisation’. In Development, Poverty and Fiscal Policy, ed. M Govinda Rao. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 253–77. Government of India. 2004. Report of the Twelfth Finance Commission. Ministry of Finance.. -----2006. Planning at the Grassroots Level. Ministry of Panchayati Raj. Oates, Wallace E. 1972. Fiscal Federalism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich. Musgrave, R. A. 1983. ‘Who Should Tax, When and What’?. In Tax Assignment in Federal Countries, ed. Charles McLure. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Rao, Govinda M. 2006. ‘Resolving Fiscal Imbalances: Issues in Revenue Sharing’. In Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers, Robin Boadway and Anwar Shah. Washington, DC: The World Bank. 319–38. Rao, Govinda M., H. K. Amar Nath and B. P. Vani. 2003. ‘Rural Fiscal Decentralisation in Karnataka State’. Mimeograph. Delhi: National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

21. Women in Power? 1.The 73rd Amendment represented the fulfilment of a

constitutional provision, a directive principle for establishing local self-government. Panchayati raj thus occupies a special constitutional status compared to that of the 74th

Amendment. I am grateful to Anupama Roy for bringing this to my notice. 2.In the recently concluded MCD elections conducted in March 2007, the wards were delimited afresh, their number more than doubling to 272. 3.The class segment in Delhi from which the councillors came was much more homogeneous, and did not include anyone from a working class background, with much larger financial outlays being involved in the campaigning process. There is a definite class-caste distinction between the two cities, which is even more visible among the women. The large presence of backward castes in Bangalore has thus also made its corporation far less elite. Interestingly, the elite structure of the Delhi Corporation seems to have affected the choice of successful dalit corporators, especially among the women, some of whom were more educated than their upper-caste counterparts. 4.In a shocking development, this corporator was in fact murdered a year after our study was completed. Newspaper reports mentioned that a political vendetta may have been the cause of the murder. 5.In this essay, it has not been possible to discuss the huge role played by the various political parties as well as the large swings at the time of the elections. Parties are decisive in terms of who is dropped, who is allowed to stand, and elections, of course, decide who wins. In Delhi, for instance, prior to the 2002 elections, the BJP (which had been in power in the MCD), dropped all its sitting dalit councillors barring one, and many of its women. In spite of these and other tactics, the Congress won with a resounding majority. (This has been reversed yet again in the 2007 municipal elections.)

REFERENCES

Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most Parts of the World. New York: Columbia University Press. Dutta, Bishakha (ed). 1998. And Who Will Make the Chapatis? A Study of All Women Panchayats in Maharashtra. Kolkata: Stree. Ghosh, Archana and Stephanie Tawa Lama-Rewal. 2006. Democratisation in Progress: Women in Local Urban Politics. New Delhi: Tulika Books. Lama-Rewal, Stephanie Tawa. 2001. ‘Women in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation: A Study in the Context of the Debate on the Women’s Reservation Bill’. CSH Occasional Paper 2. Menon, Nivedita. 2000. ‘Elusive Woman: Feminism and the Women’s Reservation Bill’. Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (43–44). 21–27 October. 28 October. 3 November. 3842. Nair, Janaki. 2006. ‘Social Municipalism and the New Metropolis’. In Contested Transformations: Changing Economies and Identities in Contemporary India. New Delhi: Tulika Books. 130. Outlook. 2007. ‘The New Patil’. 2 July. Sangari, Kumkum. 1993. ‘Consent, Agency and Rhetorics of Incitement’. Economic and Political Weekly 20 (10). 1 May. Sarkar, Tanika.1991. ‘Woman as Communal Subject: The Rashtra Sevika Samiti and Ram Janmabhoomi Movement’. Economic and Political Weekly 26 (35). 31 August.

22. Revenue Efforts of Panchayats 1.Bardhan and Mookherjee (2004) have shown that the

panchayats have started playing an important role in poverty alleviation efforts through the instruments of pro-poor targeting and employment generation programmes. A study by Besley et al (2007) has found that the targeting of

beneficiaries of welfare programmes, especially the socially disadvantaged groups, has improved after the democratic decentralisation at the rural level. The results of the study by Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004a, b) indicate that the mandated reservation for women in panchayats has improved women participation and decision-making in delivery of local public goods that reflects their own interests. 2.One of the recent studies that deals with own revenues of PRIs is Rajaraman (2003). The study argues for the expansion of fiscal domain of panchayats by transferring to them the right to tax agriculture through a set of crop-specific norm based levies on agricultural land. 3.The objectives of the larger study were (1) to quantify the present state of expenditure assignment and assess this against the functional devolution visualised in the constitutional amendments, (2) to assess the present status of state finance commission recommendations, (3) to assess the present status of revenue assignment, (4) to assess the present composition of revenue receipts by source and thereby the present state of intergovernmental transfers, and (5) to assess the utilisation of receipts by PRIs and thereby the state of fiscal monitoring. For more details refer to the NIPFP study on ‘Rural Decentralisation and Participatory Planning for Poverty Reduction’ comprising of one overall report and four state reports. 4.These are the poorest districts receiving Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY) support (Backward Area Development Fund with effect from 2006–07). 5.The indicators used were per capita income, population density, infant mortality rate, crude birth rate, rural female sex ratio (0–6 years), Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe population as per cent to total population, households without electricity, water and toilet facilities, rural workforce participation rate, female work participation rate, agricultural

labour, rural literacy rate, enrolment ratio in the age group 5– 14 years, rural households below the poverty line.

REFERENCES Bardhan, Pranab and Dilip Mookherjee. 2004. ‘Poverty Alleviation Efforts of Panchayats in West Bengal’. Economic and Political Weekly. 39 (9). 965–74. Besely, Timothy, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao. 2007. ‘Political Economy of Panchayats in South India’. Economic and Political Weekly. 24 February. Chattopadhyay, Raghabendra and Esther Duflo. 2004a. ‘Impact of Reservation in Panchayati Raj: Evidence from a Nationwide Randomised Experiment’. Economic and Political Weekly. 28 February.. ----2004b. ‘Women as Policymakers: Evidence from a Randomised Policy Experiment in India’. Econometrica 72 (5). Rajaraman, Indira. 2003. A Fiscal Domain for Panchayats. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. UNDP. 2004. Orissa Human Development Report. New Delhi: Department of Planning and Coordination. 196.

23. Local Democracy and Clientelism 1.According to the National Human Development Report

(2001) of the Government of India, West Bengal was below the all India average with respect to rural per capita consumption, growth rate of rural employment, rate of rural unemployment, rural households having pucca houses, electricity connections, access to safe drinking water or private toilet facility. On the other hand, the average West

Bengal village was ahead of the average Indian village in terms of literacy and life expectancy. 2.Some studies like Suri (2004, 2006) and Yadav (2004) have attempted to relate voting behaviour in national elections with socio-economic characteristics of the voters. 3.The respondents were asked six questions to test their political awareness: they were asked to (1) name three political parties with their symbols; (2) name the party currently in power in the state; (3) mention the number of years the currently ruling party is in power; (4) name the present chief minister; (5) name the previous chief minister; and (6) name the party in power at the centre. For each correct answer a respondent got one point and the maximum point he/she could score was six. 4.Some examples of larger benefits a close party associate like a campaigner could get are: securing the order to build roads or to supply building materials for public constructions, getting jobs in government run schools or health centres, or simply an encouragement from the higher authorities to pursue a political career which involves getting a bunch of facilities including free transport. 5.Two particularly common methods of rigging elections are false voting and tampering with the voters’ list. These would be captured in our data insofar as voters reporting not being able to vote because they are not registered, or if someone else has voted on their behalf by the time they arrived in the voting area. 6.However, recurring benefits received by peer groups (within a village) probably gave rise to some envy producing a mildly significant negative effect on voting Left in Left-dominated panchayats. 7.National Sample Survey 61st Round: Perceived Adequacy of Food Consumption in Indian Households. 2004–05.

8.Since the respondents in our survey were household heads,

there was an age bias. This age bias, in turn, probably led to a gratitude bias, which would have been reduced if we could incorporate the responses of the younger members of the household as well.

REFERENCES Baiochhi, Gianpaolo, Patrick Heller, Shubham Chaudhuri and Marcelo Silva. 2006. ‘Evaluating Empowerment: Participatory Budgeting in Brazilian Muncipalities’. Mimeograph. Department of Politics. Amherst: University of Massachusetts. Bardhan, Pranab, Sandip Mitra, Dilip Mookherjee and Abhrup Sarkar. 2008. ‘Political Participation, Clientelism and Targeting of Public Services by Local Governments: Analysis of Survey Results from Rural West Bengal, India’. Upublished., and Dilip Mookherjee. 2004. ‘Poverty Alleviation Efforts of West Bengal Panchayats’. Economic and Political Weekly. 28 February. 965–74.. 2006. ‘Pro-Poor Targeting and Accountability of Local Governments in West Bengal’. Journal of Development Economics. Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. Politics of the Governed. Permanent Black. Crook, Richard and James Manor. 1998. Democracy and Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa. Cambridge University Press. Gaviria, Alejandro, Ugo Panizzia and Jessica Seddon. 2002. ‘Economic, Social and Demographic Determinants of Political Participation in Latin America: Evidence from the 1990s’. Working Paper 472. Research Department. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank. Ghatak, M., and M. Ghatak. 2002. ‘Recent Reforms in the

Panchayat System in West Bengal: Towards Greater Participatory Governance’. Economic and Political Weekly. 5 January. 45–58. Krishna, Anirudh. 2006. ‘Poverty and Democratic Participation Reconsidered: Evidence from the Local Level in India’. Mimeograph. Comparative Politics. Duke University. Ruud, Arild. 1999. “From Untouchable to Communist: Wealth, Power and Status among Supporters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Rural West Bengal (1977–90)’. In Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh, eds B. Rogaly, B. Harriss-White and S. Bose. London: Sage Publications.. 2003. Poetics of Village Politics. Oxford University Press. Sarkar, Abhirup. 2006. ‘Political Economy of West Bengal: A Puzzle and a Hypothesis’. Economic and Political Weekly 41 (4). 28 January. Suri, K. C. 2004. ‘Democracy, Economic Reforms and Election Results in India’. Economic and Political Weekly 39 (51). 18 December.. ----2006. ‘Patterns of Electoral Support and Party Leadership in India: Some Observations Based on Empirical Research’. Mimeograph. Nagarjuna University. Yadav, Yogendra. 2004. ‘The Elusive Mandate of 2004’. Economic and Political Weekly 39 (51). 18 December.

24. Limits of a ‘Devolution Index’ 1.The data for West Bengal is for 2005 and is based on the

World Bank report (2007). 2.Before 20 December 2007, the limit to village panchayat for administrative sanction was only Rs 1 lakh and for the intermediate tier (panchayat union), Rs 3 lakh.

3.Appendix IV is part of the Kerala State Budget since 1997–

98.

REFERENCES Krishi Bhavan. 2001. Report of the Task Force on Decentralisation of Powers and Functions upon Panchayati Raj Institutions. New Delhi: Government of India. Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR). 2006. A Mid-Term Review and Appraisal. Vols I, II and IV. New Delhi: Government of India. Oommen, M. A. 2004. India: Fiscal Decentralisation to Rural Governments. Rural Development Division. Washington: World Bank.. 2006. ‘Fiscal Decentralisation to the Sub-state Level Governments’. Economic and Political Weekly 41 (10). 11 March.. 2008. ‘Introduction’. In Fiscal Decentralisation to Local Government in India, ed. Oommen. UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. TNSFC. 2006. Report of the Third State Finance Commission of Tamil Nadu. Chennai: Government of Tamil Nadu. World Bank. 2007. West Bengal: Fiscal Decentralisation to Rural Governments. Unpublished report. Wasington, DC: World Bank.

25. Beyond Feminine Public Altruism 1.Our

research involved semi-structured, open-ended interviews with 75 village panchayat presidents, 12 block panchayat presidents, and two district panchayat presidents, besides the leaders of urban bodies discussed in this essay— all women. We also interviewed more than 58 women

politicians of different parties. We sought to record and interpret these rich narratives, in their emergent and historical contexts and also read them along with quantifiable data from the field, which told us much about how this new generation perceived of ‘politics’ and ‘welfare’. This essay also draws upon our book (Devika and Thampi 2011). 2.See, for example, the discussion on the blog Kochi Now! (2010). 3.This was not so a few decades back. The organised working class, into which many political societies had been integrated, was a powerful presence in cities like Kochi and Kozhikode, which is now in decline. (Noronha 2006: 1–22). 4.See Thomas (2006); GoK (2009). GoK (2009) notes that in urban bodies, the chances of beneficiary lists being transparent look slimmer: ‘... [in] the absence of city/town level data bank, ad hoc lists are prepared in several cases for every scheme often in a partisan manner favouring those who line up behind the ward councillor/member or those who are with the ruling party’ (146). 5.This refers to the approximately $1,000 million loan from the Asian Development Bank routed through the Government of India to be repaid in 25 years, aimed at modernising government programmes, fiscal reform, power sector reforms, and the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development, Environmental Improvement and Poverty Reduction Programme (Raman 2010: 140). 6.See Suchitra and Venugopal (2009). The former mayor, C. M. Dinesh Mani, had been severely reprimanded by the ombudsman for inefficient waste disposal in Kochi (The Hindu 2004, Kochi edition). 7.It may be interesting to compare the political biography of Mercy Williams, the mayor of Kochi in the last term, with that of C. Jayan Babu, her counterpart in Thiruvananthapuram. Williams was the Head of the Department of Sociology at St Theresa’s College, Ernakulam, and head of the Board of

g Postgraduate Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University. Her husband is a businessman and her parents were government employees. She did not have prior experience in politics. In contrast, Jayan Babu is a full-time politician with local roots, a high-level functionary of the CPI(M). He first contested and served as a councillor in 1988 and was the mayor during 1988–89 and chairman of the Trivandrum Development Authority in 2000. The lags in road construction as part of the KSUDP did generate accusations of inefficiency against him, but the discourse was strikingly non-gendered. 8.It has been argued that urban poverty in Kerala has been grossly underestimated in the official urban poverty ratios (Patnaik 2010: 42–53). 9.T. Devi, a senior CPI (M) leader, spoke to us about her work as the only woman among 50 members in the Kozhikode urban body in 1979. She spoke of how she organised the urban poor deprived of basic services, led militant protest for water and other amenities, and organised squatting on government land (despite the opposition of local leaders) to build a strong base, especially among poor women there. Such a possibility is rare now with urban politics being fragmented and the political priorities of all parties now shifting mostly away from the issues of the urban poor. 10.The 2011 move to separate urban and rural local governance in Kerala generated considerable protests from the LDF and their supporters (Nair 2011: 4). Whatever the reasons it is clear that there is a perceptible difference between the ways in which leaders of urban and rural governance comprehend the notion of development.

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