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LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN INDIA *

M. S. PRAKASA RAO
Senior Research Officer and
Editor: MANPOWER JOURNAL, IAMR, New Delhi

Understanding of social phenomena and human behaviour, in addition to knowledge about the social process and its determinants, is essential for framing of policies to promote social change and to produce a dynamic society capable of absorbing and utilising scientific and technological developments for the welfare of humanity. With this end in view, the Government of India enunciated a National Social Science Research Policy, and, for its implementation, established in May 1969, The National Council of Social Science Research. Delivering the Inaugural Address of the Council, Dr. V. K. R. V. Rao, the then Union Minister for Education and Youth Services, accorded top priority in the programme of the Council for the establishment of a central 鈥榙ata library.鈥� It is to function at the national level not merely as a clearing house of information but also as an agency to provide essential facilities to research workers in the form of statistical services and technical guidance in designing, coding and tabulation.

Thanks to the vast accumulations during the present century in practically every branch of human knowledge, documentation has fast developed into a science in its own right. It has become imperative to devise an 鈥榠nformation technology鈥� if only to disseminate knowledge of the sources of information to researchers. Annotated bibliographies, digests and abstracts form an indispensable element in the libraries of research centres. That these are not status symbols but pre-conditions in the context of social dynamism for genuine research requiring access to authentic documents and primary data, may easily be inferred from the burgeoning demand for them in almost all major research institutions.

It is in this framework of reference that the book under review 鈥淟ocal Government in India鈥�, a compilation of 鈥楽elect Readings鈥� edited by the eminent Professor Venkatarangaiya and Shri M. Pattabhiram, the reputed columnist of The Hindu, acquires its significance. Through this documentation service the authors have doubtless made a timely and important contribution to the national 鈥榙ata library鈥�.

Experience of our development programme brought the realisation that the shaping and functioning of appropriate institutions at the grass-roots level isas necessary as planning at the national level for the attainment of pre-determined economic and social goals. The rather disappointing results of the Community Development Projects have shifted the focus of study from central blue-prints to local administration; and a reappraisal of the adequacy of the existing local institutions could be attempted on the basis of a full knowledge of their evolution over time. Since these 鈥楽elect Readings鈥� provide precisely such knowledge, their relevance is likely to be best appreciated. In particular, researchers, currently involved in an evaluation of the Panchayati Raj as an instrument specially fashioned to engineer the transformation of the rural economy, might well find the source material in this compilation immediately useful.

鈥淭his volume, as the authors tell us, includes all the relevant state papers, pronouncements of statesmen, recommendations of committees and commissions which have shaped the system of local self-government in India over these hundred and odd years鈥� (p. iv), that is, from 1858 when 鈥渢he British thought seriously about the desirability of creating institutions of local self-government鈥� (p. v) up to 1969, the date of the compilation鈥檚 publication. Further, the volume also includes extracts from articles written by leading publicists and experts in prominent journals, especially the one published by the Indian Institute of Public Administration. We share the authors鈥� hope that the compilation will be found useful by 鈥渟tudents of political science who have been taking sustained interest in the study of local self-government in India,鈥� as well as the general public who are the real partners in any scheme of local government (p. VI).

The compilation runs the entire gamut of the relevant source material, ranging all the way from Kautilya鈥檚 Arthasastrabelonging to c. 300 B. C. down to a reproduction of the concluding chapter of the Report of the Calcutta Corporation Investigation Commission of 1950, and appropriately ending on an excerpt from John Stuart Mill鈥檚 Essay on Representative Government. The 鈥楽elect Readings鈥� choice drawn from over 60 basic sources inclusive of original documents, reports, speeches and memoranda, not to speak of our Five- Year Plans, have been classified into 43 chapters and again regrouped under four major heads (1) Ancient India, (2) India under the East India Company, (3) India under the British Crown, and (4) Post-Independence Period. The value of the documentation service is further enhanced by (a) a brief explanatory note preceding every abstract and (b) by an introduction running into 59 pages and providing a comprehensive review of the evolution of local government during this eventful period, thus aiding the reader in his critical appraisal of the source material to follow.

Apart from the scholarship and mastery over the subject implicit in the annotation and interpretation of documents, the sheer industry necessitated by the collection, classification and meaningful presentation of the vast mass of source material in a single, succinct and manageable volume places the whole body of researchers in this vital field of public administration under a deep debt of gratitude to the authors.

A more competent authority to undertake this project than Professor Venkatarangaiya could hardly be imagined. Throughout his research and writing extending over half a century, the subject of local government constitutes a recurring theme. The results of his earliest research in this area as a fellow of the Madras University in 1925 were embodied in the pioneering work 鈥淭he Beginnings of Local Taxation in the Madras Presidency鈥� (Longmans, 1928). After he became the Professor of Political Science at the Andhra University in 1938, he brought out his Development of Local Boards in the Madras Presidency鈥�. While occupying the Sir Pherozesha Mehta Professorship of Politics at the Bombay University, he contributed a chapter on 鈥淏ombay and Calcutta鈥� to the monumental work 鈥淭he World鈥檚 Great Cities鈥� undertaken by Dr. Robson of the London School of Economics. As a delegate of the Indian Political Science Association (which he helped to establish), to the International Political Science Conference held at Hague in 1952, he contributed a Paper on 鈥淟ocal Self-Government in India.鈥� He participated in the Seminar on 鈥淩ural Local Government鈥� and 鈥淯rban Government鈥� held at Delhi and Bangalore respectively, at the invitation of the Indian Institute of Public Administration. The three lectures on 鈥淭he Executive in Local Government鈥� which he prepared at the instance of this Institute in 1958-鈥�59 were subsequently published in the Local Self-Government Quarterly, Bombay. Three more lectures on 鈥淟ocal Self-Government in India鈥揚ast, Present and Future鈥� delivered by him at the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs, Bangalore, in 1961 were also published in the same Quarterly. Recently, at the invitation or the State Chamber of Panchayats, Andhra Pradesh, he collaborated with Dr. Rami Reddy of the Osmania University in bringing out a book on Panchayati Raj in this State where it was first initiated.

To a scholar so remarkably dedicated to research in a specialised area, two things are bound to be evident as matters of crucial importance for further research: one鈥揻acilitating ready reference to documented source material, and two鈥搑emoving identified gaps in information. Hence this compilation.

The Professor is singularly fortunate in his collaborator, Shri Pattabhiram, who as the Chief Correspondent of a national daily, functioning at the capital, is strategically placed to feel the impulses of the reading public. His despatches reflect rare insights into public affairs attributable as much to his wide travels as to his frequent communion with personalities who make history. Readers of his impressions of Western Germany which he visited recently have recognised in him a competent political analyst. His work on 鈥淕eneral Elections鈥� in India (Allied Publishers, 1967) makes a notable addition to the growing literature on what has come to be defined as Applied Politics.

Limitation of space constrains our detailed examination of the documentation under review. We would therefore confine our attention to the extreme ends of the spectrum of local government, as it were, a metropolitan corporation at one end and a village Panchayatat the other, with a view to facilitating by a method of stratified sampling a fuller appreciation of the basic sources illuminating these areas of study, as documented by the authors.

Let us begin with the Metropolitan Corporation of Calcutta. The administrative decay of this Leviathan conurbation to the present state of paralysis inthe face of organised violence which threatens to overwhelm the entire body politic of West Bengal makes perhaps the saddest commentary on Municipal Government in India. Calcutta (inclusIve of Howrah) seethes with a mass of 35 lakh population, of whom 800,000 are estimated to reside in鈥榖ustees鈥� (a local euphemism for slums) devoid of elementary civic amenities. Regarding housing shortage alone, a recent survey found as many as 24 men housed in one room, using it only to sleep in by three shifts of eight men each. **

When in 1961 The World Bank pointed out that 鈥渙ne of the most dangerous weaknesses in the (Third) Plan鈥� is the neglect of Calcutta, a provision of Rs. 26.81 crores was included in the Plan to improve civic amenities in the city; but only a sum of Rs. 8.50 crores could be spent by the end of the plan largely on account of bureaucratic red-tape. The Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organization (CMPO) set up later as an advisory body of experts, was rendered inoperative owing to the non-co-operation of the Calcutta Corporation and the three Directorates of Public Works. The Calcutta Municipal Development Authority (CMDA) established in 1969, superseding CMPO, was rightly vested with statutory powers to execute a Rs. 150 crore plan of improvement. However, the open hostility of Calcutta Corporation and neighbouring municipalities towards CMDA precludes undue optimism. Indeed, the Mayor of the Corporation is reported to have declared 鈥渢hat the authority (CMDA) had been conceived to cripple the local bodies, to curb the democratic rights of the people, to frustrate mass movements, and that, as such, it should be scrapped forthwith.鈥� (The Times of India, January 25, 1971.)

Next we turn to the complex of democratic institutions at the District and Block levels; inclusive of the Gram Sabha and the Villige Panchayat鈥揵roadly indicated by the term Panchayat Raj. Its establishment in 1958 constitutes, in the opinion of the authors, 鈥渇undamental and far-reaching changes in the structure of District administration and in the pattern of rural development鈥� (p. 308). The radical reform, in local government, consequent upon the recommendations of the Balwantray Mehta Committee, consists in the replacement of the two-tier system of the British period by a three-tier system鈥揨illa Parishads, Panchayat Samithis and Village Panchayats鈥搕he Samithis in the centre being assigned an operationally crucial role.

By 1962 it became clear that the performance of the new institutions (notwithstanding their radicalism) in implementing the development programme would not match the expectations of the reformers. The authors refer to the 鈥渓arge amount of dissatisfaction with the functioning of the Panchayati Raj Bodies鈥� (p. 37), and cite a formidable list of grievances against them causing the dissatisfaction. It is a moot point whether any one single institution would apply with uniform validity to a country of multinational dimensions, regardless of the bewildering variations characterising local community behaviour. In fact, the Maharashtra legislation on Panchayati Raj, as carefully noted by the authors, differed in certain essential respects from those of many other States, (p. 36), and presumably, results justified this deviation from the general pattern.

Now, a study team recently appointed by the Punjab Government to examine the working of these institutions in this State has come to the conclusion that 鈥渢he best way to improve the working of Panchayati Raj will be to adopt the system of direct elections to the Zilla Parishads and abolish the Samithis altogether.鈥� (The Times of India, January 26, 1971) The dual responsibility of both Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samithis for carrying out development work was found to result in avoidable delay and confusion and waste of resources. The team鈥檚 recommendation, be it noted, demands a reversion to the old two-tier system. Has the wheel come full circle?

At this point, we invite political theoreticians as well as public administrators to make a close study of the authors鈥� introduction and the annotated abstracts (pp. 308-381) relating to the problem of insulating local bodies responsible for development work from political pressures while ensuring their effective participation in purely local Government. The study, hopefully, might stimulate further research and eventually lead to a solution. After all, politics is the art of the possible.

An index, a neat cover jacket and faultless printing make this compilation a credit to Allied Publishers. No institution where Applied Politics is assuming importance as a major social science could afford not to have these 鈥楽elect Readings鈥� in its library.

* Edited by M. Venkatarangaiya and M. Pattabhiram: Local Government in India, Selected Readings. Allied Publishers, Calcutta. Pp. 515 + VI. price: Rs. 25.00
** A survey conducted by Dr. K. N. Vaid of Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations, New Delhi.