Indain Jati Panchayati Raj

jaiMARGIN SPEAK

India’s (Jati) Panchayati Raj

Anand Teltumbde

What has been the impact of reservations for women, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in panchayati raj institutions? In case the reserved seat is for a woman, it is usually the wife or daughter-in-law of the old sarpanch who is made to sign papers, while the husband or the father-in-law is de facto in control. In the case of reservations for the SC/STs, it is the bonded labourer of the sarpanch who becomes a proxy for his rule. In exceptional cases, where dalit sarpanches have dared to exercise their powers in the public interest, the dominant castes have unleashed terror against them.

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We must not forget that these idyllic villagecommunities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism... – Marx What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism? – Ambedkar

ndia formally adopted neo-liberal economic reforms in July 1991 with a definite blueprint that was spearheaded by men with Fund-Bank antecedents to oversee its execution. Within two months, a constitutional amendment bill was readied to institute panchayati raj in rural India, which was finally enacted by Parliament in April 1993. Urban India got its complement in the form of the 74th constitutional amendment. Although both the bills were meant to devolve power to the local levels in accordance with Article 40 of the Constitution (one of the Directive Principles of State Policy), the most radical aspect of the amendments was the prescription of one-third reservations for women, scheduled tribes (STs) and scheduled castes (SCs) in the local bodies as members as well as office-bearers. It meant that not only one-third of the elected members but also one-third of the elected sarpanches (panchayat heads) or chairpersons (panchayat samiti heads) or presidents (zilla parishad heads) had to be from amongst these sections. The...