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decentralization of resources and decision-making to
Local Self-Governing Institutions run by elected representatives,
which is now built into our Constitution, is almost
universally supported, there are at least two distinct
perspectives underlying this support. Putting it differently,
there are at least two very different philosophical
approaches to Panchayati Raj.
One locates Panchayati
Raj in the concept of a ''village community''. The village
according to this view constitutes a unit around which
the life of a particular collectivity of people is organized.
This view was given much currency during the colonial
period by the British author B. H. Baden-Powell, who
described pre-colonial India as being characterized
by self-sufficient village communities. Subsequent historical
research has found that the pre-colonial villages did
not constitute self-sufficient economic units. There
was considerable commodity production, i.e. production
for the market, of agricultural and other goods, because
of which the land revenue paid to the overlord was largely
in cash. With the entry of cash into its economy, the
village was not just a seller of commodities to towns
but also a buyer of urban goods manufactured by artisans.
That is, superimposed upon the local-level division
of labour within the village (sometimes referred to
as the jajmani system) there was also exchange between
the town and the village. But even though the village
as a self-sufficient economic unit might not have characterized
pre-colonial India, the ''village community'' as the basis
of organization of social life supposedly did.
Many would argue that notwithstanding the colonial period
and the decades of post-colonial development, which
carried commodity production forward by leaps and bounds,
the village community continues to remain the basic
unit of organization of social life in India, and that
the panchayati raj institutions give expression to this
fact. They constitute a ''governance arrangement'' which
is desirable because each tier of ''governance'' corresponds
to a particular layer of organization of social life:
the Union government corresponds to the organization
of the Indian nation; the state governments correspond
to the various linguistic nationalities (for notwithstanding
the recent tendency to break up large states into smaller
ones, the linguistic basis for the formation of states
continues to be the guiding principle); and the LSGIs
correspond to the villages as the basic micro-level
unit of organization of social life.
This first approach therefore sees panchayati raj essentially
as a ''governance arrangement'' corresponding to a communitarian
village life, and hence as an end in itself. Its commitment
is to panchayati raj as such, and not to panchayati
raj as a means towards the achievement of some other
end. And since any ''governance arrangement'' that vests
greater power in the ''village community'', is considered
superior and more democratic for being closer to the
''people'', this first approach tends to applaud every
increase in the devolution of powers and resources from
the state government to LSGIs. Or putting it differently,
the degree of devolution of powers and resources from
the state government to the LSGIs is sought to be increased
as far as possible by those subscribing to this perspective,
rather than being kept at some appropriate level, which
may be considered ''optimal'' for achieving some desired
end.
I disagree with this first approach. The problem with
it in my view is that it glosses over a basic fact,
namely that the village as the unit of social life has
also been the location of intense class and caste oppression.
The village community was by no means an idyll; within
it there was untouchability, ''unseeability'', and other
most revolting forms of discrimination. Progress in
our country has to take the form of overturning and
destroying this village community and not in preserving
and giving expression to it. A modern, progressive,
secular and egalitarian outlook does not spring up on
the village soil spontaneously; it has to be brought
to the village from outside. Panchayati Raj institutions
must be so fashioned therefore that this march to a
modern democratic and egalitarian society is facilitated,
rather than impeded, by them. Decentralization is not
an end in itself, but a means towards an end; hence
the degree of devolution of resources and powers has
to be so determined that this process of social transformation
is completed without retrogressions.
This is the second approach, which I share. Panchayati
Raj according to this view is neither a mere ''governance
arrangement'' nor an end in itself. It is a means of
social transformation and derives its legitimacy exclusively
from the perspective of how far it facilitates this
process of social transformation. If we miss the transformational
role of panchayati raj and see it only as a ''governance
arrangement'', then we may end up condoning and even
accentuating caste and class oppression in the countryside.
It is not widely known that Dr. Ambedkar was extremely
lukewarm, even hostile, to the idea of panchayati raj,
which he feared would perpetuate the oppression of Dalits.
This oppression, he felt, could be broken only with
ideas and interventions from outside the fold of the
so-called ''village community''. Dr. Ambedkar was right.
Panchayati raj may well become a means of perpetuating
social stasis. It is only under certain conditions that
it can aid social transformation. Unless, therefore,
panchayati raj is conceptualized, organized and structured
in a manner that explicitly locates it within a context
of social transformation, as accelerating that transformation,
it will have little to commend it.
Several conclusions follow from this second approach.
First, as already mentioned, the devolution of funds
and powers from the state government to panchayats,
must be ''optimal'' rather than ''maximal''. Secondly, panchayati
raj is not an instrument for weakening the State structure
for the pursuit of some ''communitarian'' objective (I
use the word State here in the larger political sense,
not in the sense of state governments), but a means
of strengthening the democratic State as a whole, of
which the panchayats are also a part, through whose
intervention alone can the task of social transformation
be carried out in a country like ours. Thirdly, this
strengthened State structure must have the dual task
of both overcoming millennia-old oppression and exploitation
within the country, and resisting the hegemony of imperialism
in order to preserve our freedom. The ''governance arrangement''
view of panchayati raj for instance often slips into
arguing that panchayats should be allowed to have direct
relationships with multilateral agencies dominated by
the powerful nations, since they would then be able
to raise more resources and promote more ''development''.
Quite apart from the question of whether access to such
resources causes genuine ''development'', this move has
the potential of providing entry for such agencies to
the Indian countryside and thereby facilitating imperialist
hegemony.
Since each of these approaches has far-reaching implications,
students of panchayati raj, especially in a state like
Kerala, where decentralization has proceeded further
than elsewhere in the country and where there is a strong
and enlightened radical tradition, must distinguish
between them and debate them thoroughly.
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