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28 Soc. Change 3 (1998)

handle is hein.journals/sclcnge28 and id is 1 raw text is: 3-6 Social Change : March 1998 : Vol. 28 No. I An outline of the contours of panchayati raj Abdul Aziz* RECENT YEARS HAVE seen an upsurge of interest in decentralised governance and planning. Two underlying factors have been at work - one, the failure of the macro governance and planning system to meet needs and aspirations; and two, the desire of the people to manage their own affairs and meet their needs by tapping local resources and local wisdom. It is not as if local governance, especially the panchayati rajsystem, did not exist all these days in our country. Indeed, panchayati raj is age old and has been with us for centuries; but in post Independent India, several attempts have been made to formally establish and strengthen thepanchayati raj system following the recommendations of various expert committees. Yet, panchayati raj has been plagued by deficiencies. One was that panchayats did not have the much needed permanency; State governments, which had the respon- sibility of establishing and nursing panchayats treated them as playthings - estab- lishing them when convenient and throwing them away when it did not suit them, by exercising powers of supersession or by holding elections at will. Wherever constituted, panchayats were treated not as units of local government but as agents charged with the task of undertaking and implementing local development projects on behalf of State governments. Also, with panchayats under the State list, each State evolved a unique panchayat structure and wrote down a unique set of rules and regulations, so that there emerged heterogeneous panchayati raj systems; the powers and functions assigned topanchayats varied widely, not only across States, but also in the same State from time to time in accordance with the whims and fancies of the State government. Moreover, panchayats functioned under severe financial constraints as they were not allocated taxes and other sources of finance commensurate with assigned functions. Finally, panchayat bodies had come to be dominated by rural elites, especially the landed gentry, who happened to be mem- bers of the dominant communities. Members of the weaker sections - SCs, STs, Backward Classes - hardly had access to panchayat membership or authority posi- tions like 'President' and 'Vice President'. Consequently, power and authority in panchayats was skewed in favour of the strongest. This was not consistent with the participatory governance envisaged. Professor & Head, Decentralised Governance & Planning, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Nagarbhavi. P.O., Bangalore 560 072.

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