PHILOSOPHY OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN INDIA

ABSTRACT:

In 1950, India implemented Panchayati Raj, a form of local government that is "encouraged"
by the constitution. As the link connecting citizens to governance and delivery mechanisms,
PRIs, which are now more than 20 years old, form the third tier of government and bear
enormous responsibility. With over 65% of India residing in its villages, the performance of
PRIs is critical for poverty alleviation, strengthening livelihoods and more importantly
establishing distributive justice. In this paper I will be including what is local governance, its
evolution, the 73rd Amendment Act in detail, the first established committee for this purpose
called The Balwantrai Mehta Commission, the Gandhian and Nehruvian concept of local
governannce. I will be ending this paper by giving a case study on local governanace in
Karnataka.

Keywords: local governance, Panchayat, constitution, government, citizens

INTRODUCTION:

Indians use the term "local government" to describe governmental entities that are not at the
state level. Local self-government is the process through which citizens in cities, villages, and
rural communities choose the local councils' leaders and give them the authority to address
pressing concerns. The three levels of government in India are federal, state, and local. Local
governments are recognised and protected under the 73rd and 74th constitutional
amendments, and each state also has its own local government laws. Since 1992, India has
had two quite different types of municipal administration. In contrast to rural locals, whose
powers have been established under the panchayat raj system, urban localities, covered by the
74th amendment to the Constitution, have Nagar Palika but draw their authority from the
various state governments. The democratically chosen local governing organisations in India
are referred to as "municipalities" (MC) in urban areas and "Panchayati Raj Institutes (PRI)"
(or just "panchayats") in rural regions.

Over 5.8 lakh (580,000) villages and nearly 99.6% of the rural population in India are served
by panchayats. Nearly 1.3 million of the approximately 3 million elected representatives at all
panchayat levels as of 2020 are female. More than 2.4 lakh (240,000) gramme panchayats,
more than 6,672 intermediate level panchayat samitis at the block level, and more than 500
zila parishads at the district level are all represented by these individuals.

73rd AMENDMENT ACT, 1992:

The 64th Amendment bill on local government was introduced by Rajiv Gandhi, the
country's then-prime minister, on May 15, 1989, however it did not receive the necessary
backing. In September 1990, a second attempt was made to pass the bill in the Parliament.
However, the bill was never even brought up for discussion. Under the leadership of the then-
prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, the Congress administration launched a new Panchayati
Raj bill in September 1991. It was approved in 1992 as the 73rd Amendment Act 1992 and
went into effect on April 24, 1993.

The Act mandated the creation of grama sabhas in every village. All adults who are registered
to vote in the panchayat region shall make up this body. At the village, intermediate, and
district levels, there will be a three-tiered panchayat system. Smaller states that have less than
20 lakes in their population will have the choice not to establish intermediate level
panchayats. All three levels of panchayat seats must be filled through direct election.
Additionally, at the intermediate level, the village panchayat chairman might be elected as a
member of the panchayat. Members of panchayats at the intermediate and district levels may
also be MPs, MLAs, or MLCs.

Seats in all panchayats should be allocated for SCs and STs in proportion to their population,
with one-third of the total seats going to women. In the state, a proportionate number of SC
and ST people shall hold the positions of panchayat chairperson at all levels. Women shall
hold one-third of the positions of panchayat chairpersons at all levels.

BALWANTRAI MEHTA COMMISSION:

The Balwantrai Mehta Commission was the first, established in 1957. The committee held
that participation of the community in the planning, decision-making, and implementation
processes was essential to the success of community development. The committee
recommended using the block (samiti) level as the fundamental unit of democratic
decentralisation because the local body's legislative territory should not be excessively vast or
tiny.
The block was both big enough for effective management and economical operation and
small enough to keep residents' sense of involvement. The Zilla Parishad (ZP) should also
serve in an advisory capacity. The group, which concentrated on the rural sector, said that
PRIs should have as their primary mandates the growth of agriculture in all its forms, the
support of regional businesses, and the provision of other amenities like drinking water and
road construction. From the village to the district level, there should be three tier structures of
local self-government entities, and these bodies should be connected. In order for these
bodies to fulfil their obligations, there needs to be a genuine transfer of authority and
responsibility.

The Balwantrai Mehta Report led to the introduction of the PRI structure in the majority of
the nation. But it failed to gain the necessary democratic impetus and did not meet the
demands of rural development. Factors like: Political and bureaucratic resistance at the state
level to sharing of power and resources with the local level institutions, The rural elite's
takeover of these institutions and their monopolisation of the benefits of the various welfare
schemes, and, a lack of capacity at the local level contributed to this.

GANDHIAN CONCEPT OF LOCAL SELF GOVERNANNCE:

Gandhi's ideas on Gram Swaraj, often known as local self-rule, were crucial. Gandhi believed
that the village should be the centre of political and social order. He focused his attention on
the village for this group. Gram Swaraj can be seen as a pair of lights for nonviolence and the
truth. According to the Gram Swaraj philosophy, each village should have its own
autonomous republic. The village should be autonomous from its surrounding villages and
should not rely on them for any of its essential requirements or desires. For some
requirements and wants, however, dependence between the settlements is possible and even
necessary. Gandhi essentially intended every community to be self-sufficient and self-
sustaining in terms of the fundamental essentials of life, such as access to clean water,
sanitary facilities, shelter, education, food, and clothing. It also covered the government, self-
defense, and all other societal requirements that a man might have. As an illustration, having
a theatre in the hamlet would contribute to its independence. Gandhi envisioned every hamlet
in India as an independent republic with all the rights of a sovereign nation. These concepts
were groundbreaking both then and now.

Gandhiji's concept of Gram Swaraj is original and appropriate. Considering the sustainability
of development in terms of both society and the environment. According to Gandhiji, "there
is enough on earth to satisfy everyone's need but not for anyone's greed." After the global
financial crisis of 2008, the idea of "too large to fail" is no longer regarded as being true.
Because of the US housing bubble, even the most renowned institutions failed during the
financial crisis of 2008. At this point, India needs to take proactive measures to safeguard the
protection of its economy, which is now experiencing a recession. Gram Swaraj, a concept
proposed by Gandhiji, may serve as an Indian adaptation to help increase the economy's total
demand by generating income. When the nation's overall demand increases, more money will
be made, more jobs will be created, and various other advantages will accrue. The primary
causes of the lack of required aggregate demand include the deprivation of rural populations
of productive resources, the absence of sustainable economic growth, and issues with
residents' ability to make a living on a daily basis.

NEHRUVIAN CONCEPT OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE:

Jawaharlal Nehru ardently sought to provide Indian democracy a solid and stable foundation.
Adult suffrage meant that everyone could participate, while the Constitution provided the
framework and the State and Federal legislatures served as the superstructure.

However, the villages lacked an institutional underpinning for this structure. The foundation
would erode if the top failed. The local council or panchayat would fill in that deficit. The
panchayat would be at the base of the electoral democracy pyramid, followed by the State
legislature and then Parliament. Nehru, however, didn't appear to be able to decide if the
panchayat was a political organisation or a committee of bureaucrats.

Although the Constitution did not include panchayats as political leaders, he did not take
action to change this oversight. He occasionally spoke about panchayats as if they were to
serve in that capacity. In the same way as Parliament and State legislatures did, he imagined
them to be the nation's representatives. He wished for Madhya Bharat's panchayats to "rise
above local emotions and think of greater issues and the service of the country" in 1951.

He regarded the Constitution's Sixth Schedule's provision for autonomous districts and
regions as "a very smart measure." He anticipated that they would succeed if they could raise
money from taxation because they were founded in the Northeast. Panchayats were obviously
not analogous to even the last of these in the Soviet pattern, which had a political hierarchy
that went from the Union through the Union Republics (which were comparable to Indian
States) to the Autonomous Republics.
According to Nehru, "they must first learn and be schooled in the ideas of administration and
then play an active role in governing the country" if he wanted "real authority to be in the
hands of the people in villages, districts, and states." The panchayats obviously required
instruction but not the legitimate political bodies like the District Councils.

Training, however, hints at bureaucracy rather than political leadership. In many respects,
Nehru referred to panchayats as bureaucracies, saying that he would give them authority, that
he was decentralising through them, that they would take on some administrative
responsibilities, and that they would "assist" because the government "cannot do everything."
He did not envision them as political leaders like himself, but rather as elected civil servants.
Nehru established an elected village and municipal bureaucracy to complement the state
bureaucracy, which was unable to get involved in the specifics of local life, much like
centralising states have done across the rest of the globe from the 16th century.

CASE STUDY: LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN KARNATAKA:

Decentralization in Karnataka has a rather impressively long history. Long before the 1992
amendment that made panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) constitutionally required,
democratically elected local government structures were institutionalised and political space
was created for marginalised groups. 1 Despite this, Karnataka's municipal government is
still not entirely formalised. At the village level, customary village councils (CVCs), which
are based on long-standing practises, values, and power structures, coexist with elected grama
panchayats. It is widely held that traditional institutions, especially in light of the
establishment of formal, elected local grama panchayats, are tools of caste supremacy,
oppressive in character, and retreating in the face of modernity. These perceptions are not
entirely incorrect, but the data suggests that the situation is more complicated. Actually,
CVCs

(1) Intercaste institutions often comprise of caste leaders from various caste groups that are
represented in the community and serve as platforms for discussion with a focus on
compromise rather than merely enforcing rules.

(2) undertake a variety of helpful tasks at the village level, frequently in a non-repressive
way, in addition to upholding "traditional" laws and traditions.

(3) engage favourably with the purportedly more formal, modern local institutions that are
supposed to be taking their place, rather than dissipate in the face of modernity.
This demonstrates that local administration in Karnataka is a complicated and contentious
issue where formal and informal institutions of local governance sometimes work in harmony
and sometimes clash.

CONCLUSION:

Local governments are not exclusively found in rural areas. How citizens participate in the
decision-making process determines how deeply they participate in local governance. Even
more money received could boost the influence of these organisations. Better policy and
programme implementation may arise from local and state governments working together.
State governments, for instance, should assist local organisations to raise political awareness
of the laws that benefit the people. The implementation of policies and programmes may be
hampered by the various authorities' lack of coordination. The main goal of constructing
institutions at the local level is to lessen the concentration of excessive authority in the hands
of the Center and operationalize democracy as a result.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Srinivasan, R. (1970) Local Government in India: Past, present, and future perspectives, IGI
Global. IGI Global. Available at: https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/local-
government-in-india/157521 (Accessed: February 6, 2023).

An introduction to local government in India (2022) Giving Compass. Available at:

Evolution of local self-government in India (no date) Legal Service India - Law, Lawyers and
Legal Resources. Available at: https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-7960-
evolution-of-local-self-government-in-india.html (Accessed: February 6, 2023).

Dynamics of Local Governance in Karnataka : (2007) Economic and Political Weekly.