Grassroots Democracy — Part 2: Local Government in Rural Areas

Why This Matters

Imagine a small village. Let us call it Lakshmanpur. It sits at the foot of big hills. It has about 200 houses and 700 people. Most of them are farmers.

One day, heavy rain damages the main road. The hand pump for drinking water breaks. Two neighbours start fighting over a small piece of land.

Who will fix the road? Who will mend the hand pump? Who will settle the fight?

The capital of India is in Delhi. The capital of the state may be hundreds of kilometres away. Should the villagers travel all that way for every small problem? That would take days. It would cost a lot. And the people far away do not even know this village.

There has to be a better way. And there is. The villagers run many of their own affairs, right there in the village. This is called local government. “Local” means near you, in your own area. In this chapter, we will see how a village governs itself.

The Big Idea

A village does not need to wait for far-away leaders to solve its small problems. The people of the village run their own affairs through a system called Panchayati Raj. (“Panchayat” means a village council. “Raj” means rule. So Panchayati Raj means rule by the village council.) All the adult voters of the village meet as the Gram Sabha. They elect a small group of people, the Gram Panchayat, to do the day-to-day work. This is democracy at the smallest, closest level — the grassroots. It lets ordinary villagers take charge of their own village.

Let’s Break It Down

Before we go further, let us quickly remember one big idea from the last chapter.

Why villages have their own local government

Let us answer the “why” first. Why not let the state or the national government do everything?

Think about Lakshmanpur’s broken hand pump. The villagers know exactly where it is. They know it broke yesterday. They can fix it this week.

Now imagine they had to ask Delhi instead. A letter would travel far. An officer who has never seen the village would read it. He would not know which pump, or how urgent it is. The answer might take months.

So the rule is simple. Local problems are best solved by local people. The people who live with a problem understand it best. They also care the most. Figure 11.1 below shows this clearly.

Tap to zoom

There is one more reason. When people run their own village, they take part. They speak up. They decide together. This is self-government — governing yourself instead of being governed only from far away. It makes democracy real for everyone, not just at election time.

The Gram Sabha (who is in it, what it does)

Now let us meet the two main parts of village government. The first is the Gram Sabha.

The Gram Sabha is all the adult voters of the village. (“Gram” means village. “Sabha” means a gathering or meeting.) So the Gram Sabha is the whole village of grown-ups, sitting together.

Who counts? Every adult of the village whose name is on the voters’ list — women and men, all of them. So if your mother and father are adult voters of the village, they are both members of the Gram Sabha. Children are not members yet, because they are not voters.

What does the Gram Sabha do? The members meet a few times a year. In these meetings they:

• Talk about the village’s problems and needs.
• Decide what work should be done first.
• Choose (elect) the people who will do the work.
• Check what those people have done with the village’s money.

So the Gram Sabha is like the whole village raising its hand together. It is the most powerful part, because everyone is in it.

The Gram Panchayat — Sarpanch & Panch (how elected, what they do)

A meeting of the whole village cannot do daily work. You cannot call 700 people every time a light needs fixing. So the Gram Sabha chooses a small team to do the day-to-day work. This team is the Gram Panchayat.

The Gram Panchayat is a small group of people, elected by the Gram Sabha, to run the village from day to day.

How are they chosen? By voting, just like in the recap above. The members of the Gram Sabha vote. The people with the most votes are elected. The village (often along with nearby villages) is split into small parts called wards. Each ward elects one member.

• Each elected member is called a Panch. (Many of them together are the Panches or Panchs.)
• The whole Gram Panchayat elects one head. This head is called the Sarpanch (also called Pradhan in some places). The Sarpanch leads the Gram Panchayat’s meetings.

In recent years, more and more women have become Sarpanch. That is a good thing — the village’s women lead the village too.

Figure 11.2 below shows the whole idea in one picture. The many (the Gram Sabha) choose the few (the Gram Panchayat).

Tap to zoom

The Gram Panchayat gets a little help too. A Panchayat Secretary is an officer who calls the meetings and keeps the written records. In many parts of India, an officer called the Patwari keeps the village’s land records — who owns which field. Some Patwaris keep maps that are generations old.

What the panchayat looks after

So what exactly does the Gram Panchayat do? It looks after the everyday needs of the village. Here are the main jobs:

• Drinking water — taps, wells and hand pumps, so people have clean water.
• Roads — building and repairing the village roads.
• Street lights — putting up and fixing lights so the streets are safe at night.
• Cleanliness — drains, waste, toilets, keeping the village neat and healthy.
• Records — keeping records of births, deaths, land and so on.
• Settling small disputes — calming small quarrels between villagers.

It also helps with the village school, health and farming. Figure 11.3 below shows these jobs as easy-to-remember pictures.

Tap to zoom

Let us now compare the two parts you have met, side by side.

Here is the simplest way to remember it. The Gram Sabha is the whole village of adults. The Gram Panchayat is the small team the Gram Sabha picks to do the work. Sabha = everyone; Panchayat = the chosen few.

Now let us use what we have learnt. Here is a real problem a villager might face.

The three tiers — Gram Panchayat, Block (Panchayat Samiti), District (Zila Parishad)

So far we have stayed inside one village. But a district has many villages. They need to work together too. So the Panchayati Raj system is built at three levels. We call them three tiers. (“Tier” just means a level or layer, like the layers of a cake.)

Here are the three tiers, from the bottom up:

• Gram Panchayat — the village level. This is the base. It is closest to the people.
• Panchayat Samiti — the block level. A block is a group of villages. The Panchayat Samiti joins many villages together. (It is also called the Block Panchayat.)
• Zila Parishad — the district level. A district is a group of blocks. The Zila Parishad sits at the top and joins many blocks together. (“Zila” means district.)

Why “from the bottom up”? Because the village is the base — the most important part — and the bigger levels are built on top of it. Each higher level covers a bigger area but does the same kind of work. Figure 11.4 below shows the three tiers as a pyramid.

Tap to zoom

The block and district levels do not replace the village. They join the villages together. The Panchayat Samiti is the link between the Gram Panchayats and the Zila Parishad. For example, it collects the development plans from all the Gram Panchayats and takes them up to the district and state. This helps the bigger schemes — like building all-weather village roads — reach every village.

One more good thing: special rules make sure everyone is heard. One-third of the seats are kept (reserved) for women. Seats are also kept for groups who were left out in the past. So the village government tries to include everybody.

Where the money comes from

Roads, water and lights all need money. So where does the Gram Panchayat get it?

Most of the money comes from above. The Central government and the State government give grants. (“Grants” are sums of money given for a purpose, like development.) This money flows down through the district and block levels to the Gram Panchayat.

The Gram Panchayat also raises a little money on its own. It collects small local taxes and fees in the village. (A “tax” is money people pay to the government for shared things, like roads and lights.)

All this money is then used for the village’s work. Figure 11.5 below shows the money flow.

Tap to zoom

Common Mistakes

Some ideas are easy to mix up. Let us clear them up now.

Quick Check

Let us see how much you remember. Try these.

Practice Problems

Try each one yourself first. Then open the answer to check.

Easy

Medium

Challenge

Summary

• A village runs many of its own affairs through local government, because local problems are best solved by local people who are right there and care the most.
• This system is called Panchayati Raj — rule by the village council. It is a form of self-government.
• The Gram Sabha is all the adult voters of the village. It meets a few times a year to discuss, decide, elect, and check the work.
• The Gram Panchayat is the small group elected by the Gram Sabha to do the day-to-day work. Its members are called Panch, and its head is the Sarpanch (or Pradhan).
• The Gram Panchayat looks after water, roads, street lights, cleanliness, records, and small disputes — and helps with the school, health and farming.
• The system has three tiers, built from the bottom up: Gram Panchayat (village) → Panchayat Samiti (block) → Zila Parishad (district).
• Most of the money comes as grants from the Central and State governments, flowing down through the district and block; a small part is raised through local taxes and fees.
• One-third of the seats are reserved for women, and seats are kept for groups left out in the past, so everyone’s voice is heard.

What’s Next

You have seen how villages govern themselves. But most towns and cities are very different — they are crowded, busy, and have their own kinds of problems, like traffic, water supply for thousands of homes, and rubbish from huge markets.

So who runs a town or a city? That is the story of the next chapter: Chapter 12 — Grassroots Democracy — Part 3: Local Government in Urban Areas. There you will meet the city’s own councils and leaders, and see how local democracy works in busy places too.