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6 Soc. Change 3 (1976)

handle is hein.journals/sclcnge6 and id is 1 raw text is: Social Change ; March-June 1976 Adult Suffrage and Social Change: Changing Status of a Depressed Caste K. D. Gangrade The result of the third Panchayat Election held in December, 1969 came as a rude shock to the Jats of Sherpur village of Delhi. Their inability to resolve differences among themselves made it possible for a person belonging to the Chamar caste to get elected as Pradhan of the village Panchayat. The victory of the Chamar at the polls has created a situation unparalleled in the annals of the village. The leadership of the village has passed from the hands of the high castes to that of a depressed caste. A'case study of panchayat elections of 1959, 1963 and 1969 in village Sherpur which is situated near Delhi shows that the community in the sense of cohesive and united village community hardly exists. Caste and kinship still form the village social organisation and this splits the village into several communities. This has given rise to 'coalition'. The members of the higher castes when they find themselves divided enter into coalition with the lower castes to ensure their victory. The lower castes in their turn have been able to politicise themselves to gain the advantage of adult suffrage. They have been able to unite and pose a great challenge to the higher castes. They - have been successful in some cases in gaining their hold over the statutory panchayats by defeating candidates of the higher castes. This mobilisation has enabled them to assert to seek their own self-identity and self-determination rather than continue to depend on others. While both decentralisation and democracy are the accepted principles in Indian political thought, the programme of introduction of democratic decentralisation in 1959, in India, owes its origin to the report of the Study Team on the Community Development. The team ascribed the comparative absence of public enthusiasm in community development to the non-association of the people and their representatives in the planning and execution of development schemes. It, therefore, recommended that all development in a block area should be entrusted to representative institutions capable of evoking local interest and initiative. The main aims of Panchayat Raj institutions were to create institutions at the village, block and district levels to provide opportunities for self-expression and political representation at these levels; to mobilise public support and local resources for the development programmes; and to decentralise decision- making and thereby allow local experiences, needs and aspirations to have full play in the planning and implementation of development programmes. The team visualised a three- tiered structure of local-self government institutions. At the base is the village paychayat (village council), at the block level the panchayat samiti (block council), at the districl level the zilla parishad (district council). A village panchayat is divided into wards, and each ward on an average consists of 250-300 persons. Each ward elects one member and the whole panchayat elects a Pradhan (chairman) by direct election. The panchayat samiti is constituted of the pradhans of village panchayats within its jurisdiction. Each panchayat samiti elects a chairman, and the-zila parishad includes all the chairmen of the panchayat samitis in the district. Power and Functions of the Panchayat The Act vests the village panchayat'with all village common land. It also charges the village panchayat with general superintendance, management and control of (i) all land whether cultivable or otherwise, except land for the time being comprised in any grove; (ii) all trees (other than trees in a holding or on the boundary thereof, or in a grove, or abadi); (iii) huts, bazars, and melas; (iv) public wells; (v) fisheries; (vi) tanks, ponds, water channels, pathways; and (vii) forest if any. The village panchayat was also charged with other obligatory duties of developing agriculture and cottage 3

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