NOTE:
It has been published and can be cited as
Renu and Balwinder Kaur, Government Policy for Democratic Decentralization: A Step towards Good
Governance, Journal of
Government and Political Studies, Vol. XXXVI, Issue No. 2, March, 2011,
pp.130-138.
Dr. Renu
Associate Professor & Head,
Dept. of Public Administration
Punjabi University, Patiala
Balwinder Kaur
Lecturer,
Dept. of Political Science
Guru Hargobind Sahib Khalsa College For Women
Hansali-khera (Fatehgarh Sahib)
Introduction
Good governance is not a new concept
but it acquired a dominant place in the post-cold war debate, especially in
relation with the contemporary political system and overall impact on the
economic growth. Governance means ensuring the responsibility and
accountability of various stakeholders like the community, the government, the
civil society and the corporate sector. Good governance lays special emphasis
on accountability, transparency, rule of law, participation, decentralization,
responsiveness, social equality, justice and human rights. Good governance
means to make the various agents of political system work for the betterment of
all the citizens especially the marginalized and the vulnerable communities.
Good governance is enhancing the ability of the people to gain a dignified
life, growth options to choose from and ensuring transparency in administration
etc.1 Good
governance implied utmost concern for
people's welfare wherein the government and its bureaucracy follow policies and
discharge their duties with a deep sense of commitment; respecting the rule of law
in a manner which is transparent ensuring human rights and dignity, probity and
public accountability.2 Though the concern for good governance in
some form or the other has been a part of our ancient heritage, yet in the
modern times, after getting Independence, India put on record its unwavering
resolve to secure for all its citizens justice, liberty, equality and
fraternity for a dignified life right in the Preamble of the Constitution of
India. Various policies have been framed from time to time for ensuring a
better today and a brighter future for all the Indian citizens.
To Indian mind, Panchayats and good
governance essentially interweave together to give a good life to its citizens
as “local governance generated a great
deal of interest among the people, since it is the localized communities that
represent the aspirations and hopes, culture and society of people.3
In the present times, the functions and actions of the state have grown manifold.
There is hardly any part of human life which is not touched by the state. Since
the functions of the government are of multidimensional nature, the Central
Government is unable to perform all the functions. Moreover, the large number
of problems are of local nature and the central government cannot be expected
neither to have knowledge of the local problems nor the capacity to solve them.
"From this emerges the need of decentralisation with political and
administrative connotations - constituting a centrifugal movement aiming to
entrust local organs, created in local areas, with powers local in character,
the presumption being that people belonging to locality know best and
appreciate their own problems and needs and can effectively solve them."4
The underlying idea behind democratic decentralisation is to widen the area of
democracy by granting both authority and autonomy to the people at lower
levels. In simple words, it symbolizes an attempt to create democracies within
democracy. It implies mass participation of the decision-making and the
decision implementing process.5
Indian
Government's Policy towards Democratic Decentralization
India is still a land of villages
after more than six decades of Independence from foreign rule. Panchayats have
been a part of Indian life from times immemorial. Ancient India combined the
principle of direct democracy with the authority of the King and fostered
Panchayats in each village to look after their affairs. The Panchayat system of
governance, wherein a small village was an independent political entity and
acted as an administrative unit, is unique to India. The word
"Panchayat" means governance by five persons. Panchayat had judicial
and magisterial powers too and made villages autonomous with full authority
over their jurisdiction. The Panchayat is best suited to the Indian social
norms in as much as Indian society believed in devolution of powers,
decentralization of the authority and upliftment of the self, family,
community, village and so on.6 In a
democracy, decentralization of political, economic and social power is
essential, because a few centres of powers cannot fulfill the needs of vast
multitudes of people. The concept of democratic decentralization in Indian
context has mostly been associated with the Gandhian philosophy of non-violent
social order consisting of self sufficient village republic. He suggested that,
if India is to evolve along non-violent lines, it would have to decentralize
many things. Mahatma Gandhi regarded it as essential for restoring order in the
contemporary period of change and conflict, political instability and
inefficiency in administration.7 After Independence, the Panchayati
Raj as postulated by Mahatma Gandhi, was given a place in Article 40 (Part IV)
of the Indian Constitution which stated: 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. The prominent leaders of freedom
struggles such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Jaya Prakash Narayan and others also
perceived that the major task of independent India would be to take democracy
at the grass roots levels and to involve reconstruction. Gandhiji advocated
that, "True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the
centre. It has to be worked from below by the people of every village."8 He believed in
supremacy of people and insisted upon people's democracy and sovereignty at the
grass-root level which he called as Panchayati Raj.
It is true that Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs)
were visualized as one of the potential agencies for bringing about
socio-economic transformation by empowering rural masses for self governance.
However, prior to the establishment of PRIs, the Government of India
made a policy to launch Community Development Programme and National Extension
Service to bring about socio-economic development of rural India, but these
could not achieve the desired objectives for want of people's participation. Since then, the process of democratic
decentralization has passed through four distinct phases within its short span.9
Briefly, in the first phase of ascendancy (1958-64) the basic pillar of
Panchyati Raj were erected following the recommendations of Balvantrai Mehta
committee. The second phase (1964-69) marked the stagnation in which no serious
attempt was made either to revamp or to revitalize Panchayati Raj structure.
The third phase (1969-83) which is termed as the period of decline as it marked
the neglect of Panchayat Raj institutions (PRIs). Panchayati Raj in India
entered a phase of revival after 1983 when the central government headed by Mr.
Rajiv Gandhi made serious attempts in the form of 64th and 65th
Amendment Bills to grant constitutional status to local self-government in
India but the move could not become a reality. The credit goes to the then PM
Narsimha Rao who got the historic 73rd and 74th
Constitutional Amendments relating to local self-government at rural and urban
levels passed in the Parliament and they got
implemented in May, 1993. They inserted Part IX and IX-A in the
Constitution and created history by providing a constitutional status to the
local bodies for the first time in the history of Independent India. 11th
and 12th Schedules mentioned functions for these institutions.
At
present, local government is an integral part of the governmental system in our
country. India boasts of local government at the bottom of a pyramid of
governmental institutions with the national government at the top and the state
government occupying the middle level. State govts have enacted their local
govt. acts in the light of the central acts of 1992. Therefore, local
government operates both in urban and rural areas. Urban local government manifests itself in
Municipal Corporations, Municipal Committees, Nagar Panchayats and the rural
local institutions comprise of Zila Parishads, Panchayat Samities and Gram
Panchayats and Gram Sabhas. In most of the states, three rounds of local bodies
have been held from 1994 to 2009.
Is democratic
decentralization a step towards good governance?
Democratic decentralisation is not a
new concept in India nor is good governance. But does that mean that
automatically govt.’s policy for democratic decentralization is a successful
step towards good governance in India? Question is not only about the formal
existence of decentralised structures but how far decentralisation has become
an effective policy to ensure good governance it promised. To answer this
question, it is imperative to examine various aspects of local governance
first.
Examining the history of local govt.,
it emerges that the post-independent India adopted a federal polity with a
difference than other federal countries. Our constitution makers wanted to make
centre more powerful by making the state governments weak, so they provided for
the creation of a highly centralized federal system having no place for
Panchayats. While the Gandhians wanted India to be a polity with maximum powers
at the Panchayat level, the chairman of the Drafting Committee, Dr. B.R.
Ambedkar, did not want to give any place to this institution in the
Constitution. He favoured the individual rather than a village as the unit of
the Constitution. Being a Dalit, he feared that the Panchayats would be controlled
by the landlords and the high castes that will use it for the exploitation and
oppression of the weaker sections of the rural society. However, the Gandhians
ultimately succeeded in getting village Panchayat included in Directive
Principles of state policy.10 It appears
surprising that in a country like India with an ancient tradition of
Panchayats, Panchayats got included in the Constitution by Indians
themselves only after great effort and pressure. However, as it was only a
Directive Principle, its implementation remained at the mercy of states. Indian
government reformulated policies regarding PRIs from time to time in the light
of experience with their implementation, but the government was not fully
sincere about it. As a result, policy remained mostly on papers and was not
implemented in true spirit. It can be further observed that though the local
self-government institutions have been in existence for a long time, these
institutions could not acquire the status and dignity of viable and responsive
people's bodies due to a number of reasons. The major causes for their failure
to achieve their objectives include absence of regular elections, prolonged
suppressions, insufficient representation of weaker sections like scheduled
castes, scheduled tribes and women, inadequate devolution of powers and lack of
financial sources. It can be well-imagined how could local self government
institutions perform effectively as vibrant democratic units of self-government
and achieve public good in this scenario?
A
landmark change came in the area of local governance with the enactment of 73rd
and 74th constitutional amendments in India. They injected a new lease of life
and vitality to India's democratic polity and its commitment to planned
socio-economic development, social equality, citizens’ participation and
responsive governance. These amendments
were expected to revive, rejuvenate and revolutionse the 'third tier' of
government of federal decentralised democratic polity of India. However, our
lofty hopes stand belied to a large extent.
It is true that the 73rd Amendment
Act, 1992 opened a new era for more meaningful democratic decentralization in
our nation in the twenty first century. This amendment provided a uniform
structure of Panchayati Raj in all the states, 29 items for PRIs in the XIth
Schedule, setting up of Finance Commission to review the financial position of
Panchayats after every five years, the State Election Commission to conduct and
supervise the elections, provisions for reservation of offices and membership
for the women and reservation of offices and membership to the scheduled
castes/scheduled tribes in accordance
with their proportion in the population of the state etc. But this legal
framework to make rural governance good suffers from a large number of
shortcomings itself. The most important one is the lack of clearly specifying
the powers and functions of Gram Sabha. Constitutional status was given to the
Gram Sabha and it was hailed as Lok Sabha of the village where citizens
can participate in their local matters but it has more or less remained a
non-functional body.
Secondly,
both the 73rd and 74th amendments made a provision for
the establishment of State Finance Commission (SFC) to make the necessary
recommendations for the allocation of resources to local bodies (LBs) but
experience shows that in most of the states, SFC report for devolution of funds
to the LBs are not implemented seriously by the state governments.
Moreover,
these acts have failed to remove bureaucratic bottlenecks in the way of speedy
and good governance because of their detrimental silence on the relation
between the officials and local elected representatives. Above all, the
functions mentioned in the 11th and 12th Schedules are
mere eye-wash if one examines the complex jargon of the Acts where devolution
of functions to the LBs has been in fact left to the mercy of the state govts.11 Its fallout can be easily predicted.
Praise
for the reservation these both acts of 1992 gave to the weaker sections of the
society cannot be taken without a pinch of salt as the experience highlighted
in various research studies shows that most of the women and SC/SC leaders fail
to play their role independently and with caste and gender bias so deeply
entrenched in Indian society, many such leaders end up as puppets in the hands
of the dominating elite class. The social equity, upliftment and qualitative
empowerment of the weaker sections of the society will take a long time to
materialize.
Another main weakness is the provision
of voting right to the MPs and MLAs in the capacity of ex-officio members which
is contrary to the spirit of decentralization. It leads to their dominance over
these institutions esp. After passing
the 73rd Amendment Act the Govt. launched Member of Parliament Local Area
Development Scheme in the same year. But
the reports of the National Commission to Review the working of constitution
(2002), the National Advisory Council (2005), the Second Administrative Reforms
Commission (2007), the Comptroller and Auditor General of Indian (CAG) said
that this scheme should be scrapped because of various shortcomings like
diversion and misuse of funds by MPs, extremely poor monitoring, transparency
and accountability.12
Thus it is obvious that the changes
done by the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts, 1992 to the
Indian Constitution generated high hopes regarding the decentralized governance
and finally good governance at local level in India by providing a
constitutional status to the PRIs but the existing form of the local governance
is a far cry from the expected image.
Conclusions
and Suggestions
Undoubtedly, there is a close relation between democratic
decentralization and good
governance and in India, both of these concepts are quite old and both are
intensely desirable too in the present times. It can be said that there also
exists formal structures for democratic decentralization in our country but the
million dollar question is: has it resulted in real decentralization and good
governance? From the above discussion,
it can be concluded that govt. remained half-hearted and weak willed
while framing policy for democratic decentralization. Though LBs got a much
needed and long due constitutional status by 73rd and 74th
Constitutional Amendments in 1992 and they are an important step, yet
sufficient devolution of powers, funds and functions to LBs has not been made
till now. As local govt is a state subject, LBs are dependent on the mercy of
the state governments and their condition differs from state to state. Therefore,
it is strongly advocated that the required authority, functions and funds must
be devolved on these institutions without further delay. Such recommendations
have also come from the Second Commission on Centre-State Relations’ Report of
2010 with a new emphasis. It “favours mandatory devolution of powers to local
bodies and recommends that devolution of functions be completed by 2015.”13
To improve financial health of LBs, it is
important to quote the recommendation from the Report of Second Administrative
Reforms Commission, 2005-2007. Its 6th Report is related to local
governance. It says that SFC should be obligatory. “SFC should evolve objective
and transparent norms for devolution and distribution of funds. The Action
Taken Report on the recommendations of the SFC must be placed in the state
legislature within 6 months of submission and followed with annual statement on
the devolution made and grants given to individual LBs…”.14 The
Second ARC’s recommendation of introduction of Ombudsman for local bodies is
worth serious consideration as it would be a good step towards increasing
responsiveness, accountability and transparency in the system.
A
policy can achieve its desired objectives if it is drafted flawlessly and
implemented in its true spirit. It has been observed that these Acts of 1992
are lacking in both counts. Certain essential pre-requisites such as revamping
the Gram Sabha, financial viability, enlightened rural masses, political will
for decentralization, committed and dedicated representatives and responsive
and accountable office-bearers are missing. Amendments are urgently required.
Public participation should be encouraged in Gram Sabhas if democratic
decentralization is to effectively produce the expected benefits and bring good
governance at the grassroots level.
Some
scholars have aptly pointed out that “…the most fertile ground for
experimentation with good governance practices is probably at the local level
where the public can easily participate and leaders can most directly feel
results of successful partnerships with the community.’’15 This can
go a long way in introducing broader policy changes in the quest for good
governance at local as well as higher levels.
References
References
1.
Surya Narain Yadav &
Indu Baghel, Good Governance : Issues, Challenges and Prospects, Global Vision Publishing House, New Delhi,
2009, p.5.
2. S.C.
Arora, "Governance at the Grassroots Level" in Noorjahan Bava (ed.) Public Administration
in the 21st Century, Kanishka Publishers, New Delhi, 2004,
p. 314.
p. 314.
3. Surya
Narain Yadav & Indu Baghel, op. cit., p.6.
4. M.A. Muttalib and Akbar Ali Khan, Theory
of Local Government, New Delhi, Sterling
Publisher, 1983, pp. 1-2.
5. Saroj
Malik, "Democratic Decentralization and the Panchayati Raj in India : The Gandhian Paradigm", in Surat Singh
(Ed.) book, Decentralized Governance in India Myth and Reality, Deep & Deep
Publication, New Delhi, 2004, p.17.
6. R.
Venkataraman, "Making Panchayati Raj work, Decentralization is the Key",
Mainstream, Vol.2 XXXIII, No. 38 August 12, 1995, p. 5.
Mainstream, Vol.2 XXXIII, No. 38 August 12, 1995, p. 5.
7. Saroj
Malik, op. cit., p. 16.
8. Shakuntla Sharma, “Grass Root
Politics and Panchayati Raj”, Deep and Deep
Publications, New Delhi,1994, p. 1.
9.
M.R.Biju,
“Dynamics of New Panchayati Raj System ”, Reflections and Retrospections,
Knishka
Publishers, Distributors New
Delhi , 1999, pp 1-3
10. Ranbir
Singh, "Gensis and Development of the Concept of Panchayati Raj" in Surat
Singh (ed.), op. cit., p. 64.
11.
For details, see Renu, “Kendreey Panchayati Raj Kanoon(1992): Ek Samiksha”, Gyan Garima Sindhu, Anka
1, January-March, 2000, pp. 12-18.
12. http://prasannamohantyblog.
blogspot.com.
13. R.K.Kundu
& S.L.Kundu, Centre-State Relations and Local Bodies: Perspective of the Second Commission on Centre-State
Relations in India, Vidhanmala, Vol.
IV, No. II, December, 2010, p. 60.
IV, No. II, December, 2010, p. 60.
14. Mridula
Sharda, Evolution of Panchayati Raj in India, Kanishka Publishers, New Delhi, 2010, p. 132.
15. Ronald W. Johnson &
Henry P. Minis, Jr., Towards Democratic Decentralization:
Approaches to Promoting Good Governance",
www.rti.org/pubs.
www.rti.org/pubs.
