Gram Sabha as a tool of Decentralised local governance– A Practitioners’ Perspective
Dr. PC Jaffer IAS[1]
This articles tries to give an insight in to the functioning of Gram Sabhas as witnessed by the writer during his tenures in rural development sector. The experiences he came across regarding the functioning of gram Sabhas, their assertiveness for supremacy and certain efforts to dilute their powers are referred in this article. The paper explains the evolution and changing roles of Gram Sabha and evaluates its actual functioning in the field. It also gives a brief comparison of the functioning of Gram Sabha in Kerala and Karnataka based on the observations made by the author rather than based on documentary analysis.
The Gram Sabha is explained in the context of the Constitution of India as a meeting of all adult members of a village who has the right to vote. This has been conceptualised as a body to ensure the accountability of the elected representatives at the grass roots. This is a very powerful mechanism of decentralised governance. This concept has been from the existing system of village Panchayats, used to reach collective decisions and settle disputes. The 73rd amendment to the constitution has legalised the existing system. Thus one can explain Gram Sabha as a mechanism of collective decision-making and dispute resolution in the villages, which has been adopted as a tool for decentralised governance.
It is worthwhile to examine the system of collective decision making in the villages and its evolution over time. The system that was in vogue revolved around the influence enjoyed by the village headman over the villagers. The village headman or the most influential person of the village was selected mostly on the basis of the family, dominant caste, wealth. In most of the cases this had to be a male member. The existence of women in this capacity was very rare. In most cases, the village headman has the benefit on all the three counts. This means, he is in a very influential family from the dominant caste in the village having lot of wealth. The wealth coupled with poverty in the village made people approach them for small financial favours. Their response to these was on two lines. Either they were too generous to part away a share of their wealth in the form of charity that earned them a lot of legitimate respect or they exploited the poor in need by indulging in money lending with exorbitant rates of interest. The dispute resolution mechanism revolved around such influential persons in the villages as they enjoy acceptability out of respect or out of fear.
Such influential persons over a period of time became the representatives of the village with the governments of the time stated to deal regarding the affairs of the village. It has to be noted that the governance was also not on democratic lines at that time. The British or the local Kings found it convenient to decentralise the village governance in the hands of such people. This further increased their legitimacy. Thus we had a system of village Pradhans (Police patil, Shanbog etc) who were the representatives of the government. These positions were hereditary ensuring the continued dominance of certain families in the villages.
All disputes in the villages were heard and decided by a group of people known as Village Panchayat and the group used to be normally headed by these influential people. Though they were expected to be impartial, the possibilities of the subjectivity and partiality on the lines of family and caste could not be ruled out. Certain traditions and practices rather than statutes and rules bound them. The effectiveness of the system revolved around the collective fear of the villagers on these people which was reinforced through the decisions of social boycott or use of physical force. These people also took decisions regarding the developmental activities of the villages. These were endorsed by the occasional meeting of people headed by the very same people.
The same system was followed in Karnataka as well. There used to be a system of the heads of village, head of seven villages and head of 12 villages etc. This system helped in sorting out differences and disputes that were of inter village in nature. Thus the characteristic features of traditional system were hereditary, non-democratic and based on social and economic status, enjoyed the support of people out of influence, and the decisions were not contested by people, the decisions were implemented through the threats of social sanctions. This system was primarily for the dispute redressal and the role of such village Sabhas was minimal in developmental activities and planning. They did not enjoy any sanctity in the eyes of law. The biggest advantage of this was to minimise the litigations in the villages and thereby avoid the negative emotions generated in the village due to this. This was a big help to the administration as well.
Despite having many advantages, this system lacked democratic nature and representativeness. It did not go well with the aim of inclusive growth and protection of the interest of the disadvantaged sections of the society. Certain developments have eroded this authority of the rural governance. Most important of these are the advent of Local Self Government Institutions established under Legislative authority. The leaders of this type of village government are elected through a fair and transparent process and enjoy the confidence of people. They have to approach their electorate for renewal of the contract with people. Instead of hereditary and informal authority, they enjoy formal democratic authority. Another major development that coincided with this was the abolition of hereditary officers in most parts of the country. Thus we have been gradually moving from am informal system of rural governance to a formalised and legalised system.
The erosion of informal authority coincides with certain major social changes in the country. As already discussed, the earlier system depended on the social sanctions and boycotts. This works when an individual is scared of the non-cooperation from the society, as he requires help from others. The recent development towards a highly individualised and self-centric society has removed the strong need for dependence over others. Increase in the income and wealth of people with openings for spending ensured that the people have everything at their disposal if once has money. This has weakened the harmony in the society.
It is against this background that we have to see the functioning of Gram Sabhas. The functions of the Gram Sabha are to prepare the development plans for the village, select beneficiaries and monitor the implementation for all the welfare schemes. By doing this, the Gram Sabha acts as an agency to converge the traditional collective wisdom of the villagers, technical knowledge of the academics/experts and the experience of government officials in planning and execution.
Gram Sabha being a meeting of all voters in the village, all the adults are expected to participate. However, the trend across the country is not encouraging. Only those who are actively involved in the politics or those who are the aspirants of the benefits attend Gram Sabha regularly. Though there is attendance in large number in many cases, those who actively participate in the proceedings are very few. Thus, there is some reflection of the social hierarchy in the modern Gram Sabhas as well. Thus the many times, the decisions of Gram Sabha again reflect the wishes of the influential people in the village. However, there are numerous instances where Gram Sabhas have given valuable suggestions in formulating the development plan for the village. This is especially true in case of prioritisation of the schemes.
There are experiences where Gram Sabhas and GPs fought against the external interference in selection of beneficiaries. One such example happened in the year 2008. Beneficiaries were selected for the Ashraya, housing scheme for the government of Karnataka. The scheme guidelines stipulate the Gram Sabha to identify the beneficiaries. There is a vigilance committee headed by the MLA who will evaluate the selection before forwarding to the Government, The idea was to keep a check on the activities at the lower level and ensure that they follow proper procedure. The committee can only point out the wrongly selected beneficiaries but cannot add anybody. In this case, about 750 beneficiaries were replaced at the Taluka level at the behest of the MLA. Since it was approved by the Vigilance Committee, the government approved it as well. But, once the approved list was sent to the Gram Panchayat for implementation, they have realised that the list proposed by them has been completely modified. The GPs approached the Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat along with the documents. The CEO after conducting verification found that the approved list did not have the seal of approval by the Gram Sabha. All these beneficiaries were cancelled after sending a report to the government in this regard. Though very rare, this shows the evolution of Gram Sabhas to an agency powerful enough to question the MLA (who incidentally was a cabinet minister).
Another aspect that can be examined in this paper is the comparative picture of Gram Sabha in Kerala and Karnataka as observed by this writer in the last few years. These are only observations and not based on any official documents likes minutes of the meeting. The attendance in the Gram Sabhas is almost on the same pattern, may be more number of people participating in Karnataka. However, the quality of input from the common man and the availability of technical knowledge in the village are tremendous in Kerala. Since the state is generally progressed in the Education field, every village has many educated people resulting in better quality of deliberations in Gram Sabha. The beneficiary selection and prioritisation are more objective in Kerala as most of the members of the Gram Sabha would be generally aware of the provisions regarding all the schemes. The documentation and record keeping is an area where Karnataka has to improve significantly. There are many instances where one could not trace the proceedings of the Gram Sabha while conducting inspections of the GP.
The Gram Sabha is given the responsibility of monitoring the developmental works carried out in the village. In Kerala, payment for many such works is contingent upon the clearance by the Gram Sabha or through the vigilance committee set up by the Gram Sabha. This is not enforced in Karnataka for many activities. The transaction of business including the planning, monitoring, social audit are more serious in Kerala than Karnataka. The Gram Sabha has sub-groups in the form of neighbourhood groups in Kerala. The Self Help Groups are formally coordinated through Kudumbashree and formally made a part of the Gram Sabha. In Karnataka, there are multiple agencies promoting SHGs. They are not made fully part of the Gram Sabha and GP.
The ongoing discussions lead us to a few conclusions. Firstly, the institution of collective governance in the village has evolved from a hereditary and informal system to a democratised, representative and legalised system. This evolution has resulted in having diversity of opinions in the village ensuring fair chance to the downtrodden in the decision making process. The Gram Sabha has transformed from a body of dispute redressal to an agency of decentralised governance having responsibilities of planning and implementation of developmental programmes. This changes have been accelerated due to the advent of local government institutions, abolitions and hereditary offices and to a certain extent, globalisation. The discussion ahs also found that the deliberations in the Gram Sabha many times lack seriousness and they deviate from the actual aim of facilitating development to the secondary aim of selection of beneficiaries to the individual programmes. Finally, the Gram Sabha proceedings are more serious and properly documents in Kerala than in Karnataka.
The case study mentioned in the paper demonstrates the evolution of gram Sabha to a level where they can question the authority of the elected representatives at the higher level. This is an indication of the expected conflict between the elected governments at various levels, which eventually will result in a further democratised and decentralised system of governance.
[1] The author is a member of the Karnataka cadre of Indian Administrative Service. He is currently working as the Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate, Mandya district; which is the leading position of district administration in India. He had previously worked in rural development Sector as Chief Executive Officer of Zilla Panchayat, Gulbarga and as Director, NREGA in Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Dept, Govt of Karnataka
