THE PASSAGE OF the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution of India (known as the Panchayat and Nagarpalika amendments, respectively) represent a significant attempt to change the structure of Indian government to ensure decentralization and a greater voice for people. These amendments established village, intermediate and district level panchayats in rural areas, with parallel structures for urban and transitional areas. Seats were to be reserved both for women and for scheduled castes and tribes. By creating a distinct third tier of government, these changes help to bridge the gap between India's vast and diverse electorate and the small number of representatives at state and national levels.
The author was involved in the amendment process and, with his extensive experience of issues of governance, he is in an excellent position to comment on the history and implications of these changes.
Earlier in the 1950s, the country made considerable progress in establishing panchayats at local level – more successfully in some states than in others. But these were often regarded as a potential threat to higher levels of government and, in time, were derailed. The exercise that resulted in passage of the 73rd and 74th amendments, initiated by Rajiv Gandhi, was an attempt to resume and speed the process of decentralization.
This book follows the history of this attempt – from the early drafting of the amendments and parliamentary debates on the two bills, through elections and changes of administration, to the introduction of the current amendments. The author then discusses a number of the achievements connected with the change, as well as the fierce controversies that have surrounded many of its provisions. The reservation of one-third of the seats for women, for instance, has resulted, in many cases, in a new class of surrogate leaders, husbands of women who have used their wives as pawns. In other cases, where women took on their new roles with energy and commitment, they were harrassed, assaulted and even murdered. Overall, however, there has been a “discernible revolution” in this regard, as women have worked to acquire the skills for leadership and for making changes.
Other issues discussed by the author include: the evolving definition of the functions of local government; the efforts to devise practical financial arrangements; the difficulties in reconciling local autonomy with large metropolitan perspectives (the problems inherent in the system are most visible in large cities); and the complexities of sharing political power. The author perceives as an on-going problem the fact that decentralization is best accepted at village or small town level – as one moves up the scale to the district level, state and national leadership tend to be increasingly threatened by demands for autonomy. Sivaramakrishnan points out that while national government has reaffirmed its belief in decentralization, in fact it is a process that can easily lose credibility (there are charges, for instance, that it has served only to decentralize corruption). He stresses, however, that in a country of a billion people of great diversity, it is essential that needs and solutions be locally articulated and dealt with, and that this structure provides the means for this to happen.