Abstract
After nearly a quarter century of decentralisation starting with the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution, a stocktaking of what has happened since then appears necessary. This book review assumes significance in that context. The edited volume covers wide-ranging issues on decentralisation in diverse states of India and a period since the enactment of 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act. This book has a Foreword by James Manor and Preface by G. Haragopal. The editor himself has written two chapters in this book besides introducing it. While the introduction describes contents of this book and provides a panoramic view of the contents, the first chapter written by E. Venkatesu elaborates the committee system in the panchayats. The second chapter by B. P. Syam Roy deals with ‘Democratic Decentralisation in West Bengal—A Devolution Perspective’. Roy states that ‘in fact, the West Bengal Panchayats or the municipalities, like almost all the states in India, have not been discharging, as yet, devolution based functional responsibilities even after two decades of 73rd and 74th Amendments’. The third chapter by Jawed Alam Khan entitled ‘Issues in Devolution of Functions, Functionaries and Funds to PRIs: A Comparative Assessment of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Kerala’ argues that:
the status of devolution to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) across states varies significantly. In UP, decentralisation to Panchayats is still in a very nascent stage and Panchayats of all tiers enjoy limited or no autonomy. In Rajasthan, there is a limited autonomy to PRIs in the transferred activities. In Kerala by contrast, the PRIs have been given maximum autonomy with each tier functioning in a coordinated manner.
This finding is nothing new as many studies in the past have stated this. In the following chapter, Avaneesh Maurya writes about the dilemma of Dalit empowerment in Uttar Pradesh. This article is entitled ‘Reservations in the Panchayati Raj Institutions and Empowerment of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh’. He argues that while there are sub-castes among the Dalits and inequality of power among them, the reservations in the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) have, however, united all the Dalit sub-castes vis-a-vis the non-Dalit upper castes. He finds that among the sub-castes in Dalits, only some of them benefited from the reservations while many did not. Following this article, there are four articles devoted to discussion of Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act of 1996, in various contexts ranging from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra to the North Eastern India. All of the four articles elaborate on the constraints and limitations within which the PESA Act is implemented. Thus, all the four articles on the Scheduled Areas where PESA is implemented make clear that the Act has made only marginal impact on the local tribal population.
In the following part of this book, Reetika Syal presents her study on ‘Decentralisation and Civil Society Interventions in Madhya Pradesh’ regarding elementary education management, where she concludes that civil society on its own cannot accomplish what the state can. She observes that;
Though the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are brought in by the state to improve education delivery, they are temporary mechanisms which cannot exist forever. They can be part of the solution, but not the solution itself. It is ultimately the state’s responsibility to provide education (as a fundamental right) and hence the ground-level working of the institutions and structures established by the state will have to be improved for better education delivery.
This article is followed by Lavanya Suresh’s article on ‘Understanding Nestedness in Democratic Decentralisation through the Lens of Forest Resource Governance in Tamil Nadu’. This article elaborates how different decentralised organisations are working for the forest governance in the Nilgiri forest areas of Tamil Nadu. She argues that a multiplicity of organisations and the networking of them, which she calls ‘nestedness’, can, in principle, improve governance. However, that is rare to be found and the structures of forest management are being increasingly centralised by the Forest Department. This is perhaps the case everywhere wherever there is forest management and Tamil Nadu here is a case in point. This is one of the excellent articles of this book. The next article deals with the interaction between informal Khap panchayats and formal Gram Panchayats and Gram Nayayalayas in Haryana. This is an interesting article which itself deals with wide-ranging issues from local justice system by Khap panchayats to inter-caste marriages to the mobilisation of Khaps by local elites for their benefits to the incompatibility between the informal panchayats and formal panchayats. Although this is an interesting article, the author demonstrates complete ignorance about the work done on informal panchayats elsewhere; for example, the work by Kripa Ananthpur in Karnataka. The next two articles are again independent case studies, wherein G. Sudarshanam and N. Chaitanya Pradeep deal with parallel bodies to Panchayats in Andhra Pradesh. This phenomenon of parallel bodies to PRIs is an old issue that was first brought to notice by civil society organisations like the Participatory Research in Asia way back in 2001. These authors write about the same 15 long years later. This is the most dim-witted article of this book. The article neither recognises the importance of civil society nor sheds any new light on the phenomenon. The next article deals with PRIs’ role in conflict mitigation in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). In this excellent and very balanced article, the author discusses the pros and cons of Panchayats in J&K. No doubt, the role of the PRIs in J&K in stabilising the situation and increasing the welfare and development is only limited.
This book is wrapped up with the discussion on capacity building by the editor E. Venkatesu, in which he expresses his disappointment with capacity building efforts of the successive governments and their organisations regarding elected representatives of the PRIs at different levels.
This book presents mixed findings and James Manor notes this very well in the Foreword that this ‘book, [which] is a study in ambiguity’. The attempt to bring out different perspectives in this book is appreciable. However, this book is poorly edited with too many spelling and grammatical mistakes.