How then we are to come out of this trap? The answer to the question is complex and simple, both at a time. It will remain complex if the mindset of the governance remains the same where it is now - which is predominated by the ideas of those who seemed to have knowledge but are really ignorant of the grassroot realities of the villages in general and problem villages in particular. It is unfortunate that such people of Knowledge hesitate to sit with the grassroot people or with the people who have first hand knowledge of the problem. If such 'common people' are involved in the process, the trap will simply vanish. Then there will remain only the labour pain that we have to undergo to cause birth of a new Rural India, making the answer to the problem simpler than we can imagine.
Let us explain the present practice of governance that has made our villages and villagers the objects of suffering. Yes, Object of Suffering, because they are merely object to the verb, not the Subject to the verb.
Despite the 73rd amendment to the Constitution of India, our legislators tell them only to vote, and they will take care of their development. And the legislators plan for them and their agents (more properly government employees) implement them. Villagers are yet to get full power to plan, to implement, and to conduct social audit for the works done in their areas.
For example, a legislator can ask in the Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha as to why certain thing was not planned, not implemented or not properly implemented. And then they have also power to vote in favour or against certain things on regular basis. But a poor villager can vote for or against only once in five years if the legislatures complete full term. More over, the poor fellow can't plan for his own life but he gives the power to plan for him to the legislators.
This mentality of our officials and legislators must go forthwith, because we have now a third level of governance in the form of Panchayati Raj.
In this system, a person having got adulthood, that is becoming 18 years old, gets automatically the power to vote, the power to move proposals for development etc, and the power to initiate social audit of any programme implemented in the area. The individual can ask for even technical audit. And the Gram Sabha, in the same manner as the Vidhan Sabha or the Lok Sabha, is obliged to take appropriate action in appropriate manner.
This level of power to an individual is yet a dream despite of being provisions which are constitutionally provided.
If this new system of governance at the village level, the unit that should contain not more the 100 families, is adopted in its true spirit, many of the problem will simply be solved in a record time.
This new system is well defined which is also in three levels. Gram Panchayat is the next level, Block Panchayat comes next and the District Panchayat operates at the Top level with District Magistrate as the official member.
However, due to the old mindset, the District Magistrates, Block Development Officers, and Karmacharies of the Village Panchayats have been calling the shots making the whole concept redundant. Legislators at the State and Central level are also doing the same thing. Union government and the State governments are still playing politics and making the Panchayati Raj institutions fund and power starved.
Such a thing is being done by the Union Government itself. Earlier, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj used to have a minister of its own - I mean full-fledged minister. Now this ministry is being systematically ignored resulting in hampering the implementation of the Constitutional provisions. There is now a Minister of Rural Development who has been assigned additional charge of Panchayati Raj.
The minister, obviously, gives more time to his originally assigned departments while this additional department of Panchayati Raj gets little attention.
Let us take an example. Everybody knows that in some of the states like Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and some areas of Jat belt in Uttar Pradesh, there are illegal and unconstitutional Panchayats which are ruling the roost. One of such Khap Panchayat, recently has come out to object decisions of even courts. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has done nothing despite the fact that it has the responsibility to restore the power and prestige of legally elected Panchayats and to ban all the bodies who are illegally and unconstitutionally claiming themselves as Panchayats and doing all sorts of illegal things. This is tarnishing the image of the legally elected Panchayats and people even in the government are using the illegal activities of illegal Panchayats against legal Panchayats just to fulfill their intention of not giving sufficient powers, provisions and funds to them.
Rural predicament: the Fault lies in Governance
Dr Gyan Pathak - 2010-06-29 13:04
New Delhi: Indian rural scene still presents a picture that is well-stricken in poverty and all sorts of sufferings the origin of which lies nowhere else but in very low level of governance which tends to no governance at all. Human predicaments in the rural areas are perceivable in totality for those who have eyes to perceive. But then it is so ugly that very few people dare to see it without a veil. There are many people who see the villagers differently - for example, politicians see the villages as vote banks spread all over; wealth seekers see as the repository of overground and underground wealth for exploitation; a kind of breed that in interested in minting money in the name of their plight; a lately a new kind of people are on the increase who romanticize the rural areas for their so called beauties to attract people into the area in the name of tourism - and even sex-tourism, threatening now the very culture and ecosystems of the area. Not to mention here the extremist problem, that the villagers are suffering on account of being their areas turned into haven of extremists and a battlefield in which they are trapped in the crossfire of extremists and security forces.