Panchayats and gram sabhas, actually need no favours or largesse from any government or political authority to lead the people’s agenda or be the people’s voice. Admittedly over the years in Goa, Goa’s local bodies have done injustice to themselves and to the mandate that the Constitution of India gives them and have reduced themselves to any other government institution and not a people’s institution.
The problem therefore lies with what we have done to these institutions from where the power of the people should really flow. Yet it serves no purpose by further weakening these institutions by taking away or curtailing their power to discuss what is needed to be discussed for the cause of the people. The move to do away with putting “any other matter” on the agenda of gram sabhas is a way of blocking spontaneous issues being discussed.
If there is indeed a problem of political hijacking of gram sabhas, the specific problem can be addressed without touching the fundamental spirit of gram sabha meetings i.e. free-wheeling discussions. Now this has to be controlled in order to be meaningful but the freedom to place any agenda for discussion, cannot be taken away.
In his essay ‘Decentralisation and Rural Governments in India’, Rangeet Ghosh of the Indian Economic Service writes, “Rural local governments, in the form of panchayats, were included in the chapter on Directive Principles of the State Policy (Article 40). It stated that the states shall take steps to organize village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self government”. And the fuel on which panchayats run are gram sabhas.
Clearly if they have to function as units of self-government, they must be made to function without curbs and with accountability.
It is important that the “co-location of responsibility and power” (Ghosh’s phrase) is possible only when the community understands its problems, realises its responsibilities, exercises necessary powers through chosen representatives and maintains a constant and intelligent vigil on the local administration.
This could significantly be interpreted to mean that if there are irregularities or illegal functioning at the panchayat level, it is the gram sabhas which can keep a vigil.
Ironically, it is the inaction of successive governments in pushing the people’s agenda, which has led to the several agitations and protests across villages. If the governments really wants to engage further with the people then the formula should be to ensure people’s programmes are taken up with government’s participation rather than take up government programmes with people’s participation.
As Ghosh writes, the institution of “Gram Sabha” was always given importance. Consultation with the gram sabha on all important matters including planning and implementation of development programmes was made a necessary requirement. The amendment, to a great extent, paved the way for decentralisation of governance and transforming village panchayats as institutions of self government.
In tribal areas panchayats, controlled the ownership of minor forest produce, managed village markets, controlled money lending, exercised control over institutions and functionaries in all social sectors and had control over local plans and resources.
The gram sabhas of Goa need to exercise what is their right by law, by ensuring that what they do is responsible so they can safely be accountable to the people they represent.
