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The Panchayat raj is a
political system In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state. It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the govern ...
, originating from the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
, found mainly in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
,
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
,
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, and
Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
. It is the oldest system of
local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
in the Indian subcontinent, and historical mentions date to the 250 CE period. The word ''raj'' means "rule" and ''panchayat'' means "assembly" (''ayat'') of five (''panch''). Traditionally, Panchayats consisted of wise and respected elders chosen and accepted by the local community. These assemblies settled disputes between both individuals and villages. However, there were varying forms of such assemblies. The leader of the Panchayat was often called the president
mukhi Mukhi (''mukhia'') is the title used for a head of community or village elitesIndia's Villages. Development Department, West Bengal, 1955 and their local government in Western India and the Sindh.Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India. ...
ya,
sarpanch A sarpanch ( IAST: ''Sarpañch'' Hindi: ''सरपंच'') or Gram Pradhan or Mukhiya is a decision-maker, elected by the village-level constitutional body of local self-government called the Gram Sabha (village government) in India. The Sarp ...
, or
pradhan Pradhan (Devanagari: प्रधान) is generally ministerial title of Sanskrit origin in cultures of Hindu tradition, mainly used in the Indian subcontinent. The Sanskrit ''pradhāna'' translates to "major" or "prime"; however, the more modern ...
, an elected or generally acknowledged position. The modern Panchayati Raj of India and its
gram panchayat Gram Panchayat () is a basic village-governing institute in Indian villages. It is a democratic structure at the grass-roots level in India. It is a political institute, acting as cabinet of the village. The Gram Sabha work as the general bod ...
s are neither to be confused with the traditional system nor with the extra-constitutional
khap A Khap is a community organisation representing a clan or a group of North Indian castes or clans. They are found mostly in northern India, particularly among the Jat people of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, but also amongst other states like Raja ...
panchayats (or caste panchayats) found in parts of northern India.
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
advocated ''panchayat raj'' as the foundation of India's political system. It would have been a decentralised form of government, where each village would be responsible for its own affairs. The term for such a vision was '' Gram Swaraj'' ("village self-governance"). Instead, India developed a highly centralised system of government. However, this has been moderated by the delegation of several administrative functions to the local level, empowering elected gram panchayats. There are significant differences between the traditional Panchayati Raj system, the system envisioned by Gandhi, and the system formalised in India in 1992.


In the Indian subcontinent


Early history

In the time of the Rigveda (1700 BC), evidences suggest that self-governing village bodies called 'sabhas' existed. With the passage of time, these bodies became panchayats (council of five persons). Panchayat were functional institutions of grassroots
governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, social norm, norms, power (social and political), power or language of an organized society over a social system (family, tribe, formal organization, formal or informal organization, a ...
in almost every village. The Village Panchayat or elected council had large ers, both executive and judicial. Land was distributed by this panchayat which also collected taxes out of the produce and paid the government's share on behalf of the village. Above a number of these village councils there was a larger panchayat or council to supervise and interfere if necessary. Casteism and feudalistic system of governance under Mughal rule in the medieval period slowly eroded the self-government in villages. A new class of feudal chiefs and revenue collectors (
zamindar A zamindar ( Hindustani: Devanagari: , ; Persian: , ) in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a province. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughals and later the British had begun using it as a ...
s) emerged between the ruler and the people. And, so began the stagnation and decline of self-government in villages. A detailed account of how a medieval south Indian village council functioned was carved into a temple wall in
Uthiramerur Uthiramerur is a panchayat town in Kancheepuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is situated 90 km south west of Chennai, the capital of Tamilnadu. It is noted for its temple inscriptions that describe a self-governance system ...
, a village in
Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...
some 85km westof
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
. Thirty councilmembers were chosen by lot, a form of
sortition In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger ...
. Males were eligible for selection if they were of good character and met a set of requirements based on landholdings and knowledge of Hindu scriptures. They were then assigned to various committees in charge of irrigation works, gardens and other matters.


During British rule

The British were not generally concerned with local administration, but left that to the local rulers, and thus didn't interfere with existing panchayati systems, nor induce the rulers to consider more democratic institutions at the local level. The rulers were interested in the creation of 'controlled' local bodies, which could help them in their trading interests by collecting taxes for them. When the colonial administration came under severe financial pressure after the 1857 uprising, decentralization was sought by transferring responsibility for road and public works to local bodies. However, the thrust of this 'compelled' decentralization was with respect to municipal administration. "The panchayat was destroyed by the East India Company when it was granted the office of Diwan in 1765 in Bengal by the nawab as part of reparation after his defeat at Buxar. As Diwan the Company took two decisions. The first was that it abolished the village land record office and created a company official called Patwari. The Patwari became the official record keeper for a number of villages. The second was the creation of the office of magistrate and the abolition of village police. The magistrate carried out policing functions through the
Darogha Darogas (also spelled darogha or daroghah) were police officials in the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. In the Mughal Empire, a daroga was superintendent of the "slaves" of a Mughal monarch. Duties performed by daroga The darogas served in the ...
who had always been a state functionary under the Faujdar. The primary purpose of these measures was the collection of land revenue by fiat. The depredations of the Patwari and the Darogha are part of our folklore and it led to the worst famine in Bengal. The effects of the famine lingered right to the end of the 18th century. These two measures completely disempowered the village community and destroyed the panchayat. After 1857 the British tried to restore the panchayat by giving it powers to try minor offences and to resolve village disputes. But these measures never restored the lost powers of the village community." From 1870 when the
Viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning "k ...
’s Lord Mayo's Resolution (for decentralization of power to bring about administrative efficiency in meeting people's demand and to add to the finances of colonial regime) gave the needed impetus to the development of local institutions. It was a landmark in the evolution of colonial policy towards local government. The real bench marking of the government policy on decentralization can, however, be attributed to Lord Ripon who, in his famous resolution on local self-government on May 18, 1882, recognized the twin considerations of local government: (i) administrative efficiency and (ii) political education. The Ripon Resolution, which focused on towns, provided for local bodies consisting of a large majority of elected non-official members and presided over by a non-official chairperson. This resolution met with resistance from colonial administrators. The progress of local self-government was tardy with only half- hearted steps taken in setting up municipal bodies. Rural
decentralization Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Conce ...
remained a neglected area of administrative reform. The Royal Commission on Decentralization (1907) under the chairmanship of Sir H. W. Primrose recognized the importance of panchayats at the village level. The commission recommended that "it is most desirable, alike in the interests of decentralization and in order to associate the people with the local tasks of administration, that an attempt should be made to constitute and develop village panchayats for the administration of local village affairs." But, the Montague-Chemsford reforms (1919) brought local self-government as a provincial transferred subject, under the domain of Indian ministers in the provinces. Due to organisational and fiscal constraints, the reform was unable to make panchayat institutions truly democratic and vibrant. However, the most significant development of this period was the 'establishment of village panchayats in a number of provinces, that were no longer mere ad hoc judicial tribunal, but representative institutions symbolising the corporate character of the village and having a wide jurisdiction in respect of civic matters'. l By 1925, eight provinces had passed panchayat acts and by 1926, six native states had also passed panchayat laws. The provincial autonomy under the Government of India Act, 1935, marked the evolution of panchayats in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. Popularly elected governments in provinces enacted legislations to further democratize institutions of local self-government. But the system of responsible government at the grassroots level was least responsible. D.P. Mishra, the then minister for local self-government under the Government of India Act of 1935 in Central Provinces was of the view that 'the working of our local bodies... in our province and perhaps in the whole country presents a tragic picture... 'Inefficiency' and 'local body' have become synonymous terms....'. In spite of various committees such as the Royal Commission on Decentralization (1907), the report of Montague and Chemsford on constitutional reform (1919), the Government of India Resolution (1919), etc., a hierarchical administrative structure based on supervision and control evolved. The administrator became the focal point of rural governance. The British were not concerned with decentralized democracy but were aiming for colonial objectives. The
Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
from the 1920s to 1947, emphasized the issue of all-India Swaraj, and organized movements for Independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. The task of preparing any sort of blueprint for the local level was neglected as a result. There was no consensus among the top leaders regarding the status and role to be assigned to the institution of rural local self-government; rather there were divergent views on the subject. On the one end
Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
favoured Village Swaraj and strengthening the village panchayat to the fullest extent and on the other end, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar opposed this idea. He believed that the village represented regressive India, a source of oppression. The model state hence had to build safeguards against such social oppression and the only way it could be done was through the adoption of the parliamentary model of politics. During the drafting of the Constitution of India, Panchayati Raj Institutions were placed in the non-justiciable part of the Constitution, the Directive Principles of State Policy, as Article 40. The Article read 'the State shall take steps to organize village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government'. However, no worthwhile legislation was enacted either at the national or state level to implement it. In the four decades since the adoption of the
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...
, panchayat raj institutions have travelled from the non-justiciable part of the Constitution to one where, through a separate amendment, a whole new status has been added to their history.Bajpai and Verma, (1995), Panchayati Raj in India.


Post-Independence period

Panchayat raj had to go through various stages. The First Five Year Plan failed to bring about active
participation Participation or Participant may refer to: Politics *Participation (decision making), mechanisms for people to participate in social decisions *Civic participation, engagement by the citizens in government *e-participation, citizen participation ...
and involvement of the people in the Plan processes, which included Plan formulation implementation and monitoring. The Second Five Year Plan attempted to cover the entire countryside with National Extensive Service Blocks through the institutions of Block Development Officers, Assistant Development Officers, Village Level Workers, in addition to nominated representatives of village panchayats of that area and some other popular organisations like co-operative societies. But the plan failed to satisfactorily accomplish decentralisation. Hence, committees were constituted by various authorities to advise the Centre on different aspects of decentralisation. At least in part to provide the
Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
an goal of direct political participation of people at the grass root level, in 1957, the National Development Council appointed a committee under
Balwant Rai Mehta Balwantrai Mehta ( – ) was an Indian politician who served as the second Chief Minister of Gujarat state, India. He participated in Indian independence movement and later held various public offices. He is considered as the 'Architect of ''Pa ...
, which submitted its report in 1958 in which it recommended:- 》A 3-tier structure consisting of Zila Parishad at the District level, Panchayat Samiti at the Block level and Gram Panchayat at the village level. The next major change in the panchayat system of India came in the form of the passage of the Panchayati Raj Act (73rd Amendment) in 1992. A key motivation of this act was the belief that local governments may be better placed than centrally appointed bureaucrats to identify and respond to the needs of the village. Hence, this act was an important part of India's move towards decentralization. The main features of this act are: (a) a 3-tier system of Panchayati Raj for all States having population of over 20 lakh; (b) Panchayat elections regularly every 5 years; (c) reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women (not less than one-third of seats); (d) appointment of State Finance Commission to make recommendations as regards the financial powers of the Panchayats. Hence, in theory, panchayats have been given sufficient authority to function as institutions of self-governance and aid social justice. There were several positive effects of this amendment, some of which have been listed above. However, there is also evidence of deeply ingrained vote-trading structures maintained through extra-political means. This can potentially be blamed on the fact that Gram Sabhas have not been sufficiently empowered and strengthened to ensure greater people's participation and transparency in functioning of Panchayats as envisaged in the Panchayat Act.


See also

*
Panchayat (Nepal) Panchayat ( ne, पञ्चायत) was a partyless political system incepted by King Mahendra by sidelining the Nepali Congress government of B. P. Koirala on 15 December 1960 AD (1st Poush 2017 BS). He introduced the partyless Panchayat sys ...


References


Further reading

* {{Authority control Forms of local government