Alternative Perspectives on Panchayati Raj
While
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.