Alternative democratic vision for Rural India through local bodies

Abstract:

Dr B. R. Ambedkar's reservations about empowering rural local bodies during the constituent assembly debates carried merit: Panchayats were then hotbeds of ignorance and feudal influence. Granting more power to local governments risked reinforcing elite control. However, circumstances have evolved. While villages retain some aspects of the more traditional modes of life, urbanization alone hasn't eradicated ignorance, corruption, and communal divides. Moreover, higher-level elections increasingly favour the affluent. It is against this backdrop that the 72nd and 73rd constitutional amendments mandating decentralized governance structures nationwide assume increased significance. In the three decades since they were passed, how has decentralisation worked? Can rural local bodies
emerge as sites for a radical transformation of Indian democracy? Can they defy centralizing pressures, amplify citizen voices, and reshape power dynamics?

About the Author

Dr. M R Sharan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his PhD from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Subsequently, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Global Development. He has also worked as a
researcher and policy economist with research organizations, state governments and the central government in India. His research centres around questions in development economics and political economy and focuses on inequality in socially diverse settings and how institutional and technological innovations could empower marginalized groups. He has also worked on grievance redressal mechanisms and the role of local government actors in making them more effective; the
consequences of reservation for Dalits (Scheduled Castes) in village local governments; the consequences of reservation for women on corruption and development outcomes (in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh); the NREGA; identifying the poor (in Karnataka). In addition to research in economics, Dr. Sharan has also published a narrative non-fiction book on village politics in Bihar titled Last Among Equals in 2021 and a novel titled Blue in 2014.