영국 지배 시기의 지방자치제도와 빤짜야뜨

Abstract

Panchayat had existed from the vedic times. It was a village's self-decision-making body on issues to a village's social, cultural and economic life. Panchayat's form and role was various and its role was changed according to the period. Definite change happened in British India. Village's self-decision-making body was changed into local self government system through the British India. I tried to classify the stage of the change. First stage was from 1757 to sepoy's resistance. In this period British India government reorganized political structure, strengthened centralization of power, introduced British-style system of justice. So government official took the role instead of leading figures in village jurisdiction area. Therefore in this stage, the real authority of the village panchayat was steadily eroded. The second step was from sepoy's resistance to 1882. In this stage Governor-General Mayo announced Lord Mayo's Prescriptions. He Introduced a local self-government system for share government financial difficulties with local province. He tried to reform the central government system and to entrust the local government to local revenues and local interests. So Mayo's reform had not direct influence on village panchayat. The third step was from 1882 to 1919. In this stage Lord Ripon marked a new chapter in the history of local self-government in India. Lord Ripon, in 1882 issued ‘Lord Ripon's Resolution’. He formulated local self-government system and expanded. Village-panchayat was not included in Ripon's Resolution. So village-panchayat was holding the autonomy yet. The forth step was from 1919 to 1947. British government took a census in 1911. They recognized that village-panchayat was important. So they made three level panchayat setup, and local self-government act was made in each province. So, village panchayat became a basic units of a local self-government system. It was in forth step that village's self-decision-making body was changed into local self government system. It was during this same period that the idea of the panchayat also entered into nationalist discourse. Of course, the purpose to introduce local self-government system was to exploit a colony. But to the external form, they insisted as follows that they enlarged the autonomy of a province government and introduced representative system. What is more, they emphasized indian people took a training of democratic system. However to nationalists, it means not simply decentralization of power but extension of an imperialism force to village. So nationalists including Gandhi opposed the British style self government system in village level and the diffusion of British province self-government system. After all village-panchayat, traditional decision-making instrument, was changed to self-government administrative instrument during the British India. The village-panchayat became the basic unit of grassroots democracy by 73th amendment of the constitution in 1993.