빤짜야뜨 라즈(Panchayat Raj): 그 과거와 현재

Abstract

M. K. Gandhi believed that democratic freedoms have to be founded in institutions of self-government in every village in India. He drew his inspiration from the traditional Panchayats; ‘village republics’, which he called Panchayat Raj. He based his vision of contemporary democracy in independent India on genuine peoples’ participation in the development and welfare of their own habitats through elected Panchayats. The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act 1993 ushered in a new era of democratic decentralization, in which both powers and responsibilities are devolved upon elected Panchayats. The act aims to provide 3-tier system of Panchayati Raj for all States having population of over 2 million, to hold Panchayat elections regularly every 5 years, to provide reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Women, to appoint State Finance Commission to make recommendations as regards the financial powers of the Panchayats and to constitute District Planning Committee to prepare draft development plan for the district. Panchayati Raj in India, in terms of the size of the electorate, the number of grassroots institutions (about 2.4 lakh), the number of persons elected – 30 lakh in the Panchayats y – and in terms of the empowerment at the grassroots of women, is the greatest experiment in democracy ever undertaken anywhere in the world or at any time in history. No less than 10 lakh women have been elected to our Panchayati Raj Institutions, constituting some 37 per cent of all those elected and rising to as high as 54 per cent in Bihar which has 50 per cent reservations for women.1 There are also reservations for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Scheduled Tribes (STs), and the other backward classes in proportion to their share of the population in each panchayat area. The overall functioning of the Panchayats across different states has revealed both positive and negative trends. But, in Gram Panchayat level, lack of awareness, knowledge and experience have become obstacles to their effective functioning. The elected representatives faced various kinds of opposition, obstruction and functional difficulty such as gender, caste and family bias. Villagers generally approached the representatives of their own caste. Another factor is that though provisions for decisions by majority exist in the Acts, it has been observed that influential group in the village dominates the decision-making process. Due to reservation also, tension and frictions have been found. Panchayat Raj, as a development mechanism, primarily rests on power mechanism. Power to people for true democracy and development is the real objective which needs be fulfilled through revolution of powers and finances to the Panchayats. Only then, people of all classes can participate in democracy in effective manner. Rural people will get the opportunity to plan and administer their own affairs.