Panchayati raj: Ten years and sunshine stories

MUMBAI: There are two ways to understand terms like “participatory democracy’’ and “accountability’’: peruse shelves of World Bank reports about panchayati raj, or make a quick trip to Kajala in Osmanabad.
For the dusty little village has actually translated words into deeds. It has strung loudspeakers across the village, ensuring that all 2,800 villagers can listen in on the gram panchayat proceedings.So Gajanan Deshpande no longer has to grovel for information about drought-alleviation schemes.
While his wife follows the debate over new public toilets even as she cooks daal. This simple enactment of democracy is based on a script written ten years ago in distant New Delhi. On December 22, 1992, parliament passed the 73rd amendment to the Constitution, laying the foundation for panchayati raj in the country. Today India has 3.4 million elected representatives, 2,27,698 gram panchayats, and a few thousand sunshine stories.
But has the brave experiment succeeded? Has it really delivered functioning handpumps and transparency at the village level? Can it spark a million miracles? “The last ten years have been more about hurdles than achievements. But the few successes reveal the tremendous possibilities,’’ says George Mathew of the Institute of Social Sciences in Delhi. Adds Prema Gopalan of the Swayam Shikshan Prayog, an NGO working in rural Maharashtra, “Gram panchayats are supposed to manage local services like water and sanitation —the logic being that villagers are more sensitive to a broken handpump than some engineer living miles away. Also, they are meant to promote self-government.
The last two years have seen some movement in Maharashtra.’’ The panchayati structure is founded on the gram sabha, which comprises all adults in a cluster of villages. Each gram sabha elects five to seven representatives who make up the gram panchayat.
Earlier, bureaucrats could take unchallenged decisions regarding which families would benefit from povertyalleviation schemes, where the new well would be located, and just how many paise of the rupee would trickle down to the village. Today this power is in the hands of the gram panchayat— at least on paper. “In Kerala, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh this has started to happen,’’ says Y.K.Alagh, the noted economist who was involved with the path-breaking legislation. “But in states like Bihar, where elections were held only in 2001,we are seeing a parody of panchayati raj.’’
Not that these obstacles are entirely unexpected. “Rajiv Gandhi realised that India is too vast a country to be run out of New Delhi,’’ says Mr Alagh. Many examples justify Rajiv Gandhi’s belief that villagers usually know best what their village needs— and that, when they get it, they can create pockets of unexpected prosperity. In Siddapur in Andhra Pradesh, for example, the panchayat bought a computer so farmers can check commodity prices online. The sarpanch of Khidajia in Gujarat —an illiterate woman named Dayaben— arranged loans of Rs 47 lakhs to construct check dams and a pucca road. While the gram sabha of Hivare Bazaar voted to make HIV testing compulsory for engaged couples.
“Panchayats offer a platform for discussing local issues,’’ says Venkatesh Kumar, who during the recent ‘States in Transition’ seminar organised by Mumbai University, presented a paper on the transformation of Dhar district in MP. In 2001, after three years of drought, the villagers came together and agreed to build bunds and tanks through government schemes and voluntary labour.When the rains came, the ponds filled, the wells were regenerated and the villager were better prepared for future droughts.
Sadly, though, for every Kajala or Bhoyare Khurd— where the panchayat displays meticulous accounts in the village mandir—there are dozens of villages where sarpanches “pay’’ Rs 36 lakhs for the construction of imaginary canals, or divert Rojgar Yojna funds to buy themselves a horse. “But as people get involved and demand accountability,’’ says Mr Mathew, “panchayati raj could transform India into a wealthy, progressive country.’’ (This is the first in a series looking at ten years of panchayati raj.)