The Great Speeches of Modern India

by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

  Third, it is erroneous and misleading to say, as some members opposite have alleged, that what we have attempted to do is to draft a detailed municipal legislation by the back door of detailed constitutional amendments. We have restricted ourselves to essential features such as regularity in elections and the forestalling of arbitrary and prolonged suspensions. We have been asked why we have prescribed in such detail a common structure of panchayats at village, intermediate and district levels, as also a common structure of nagarpalikas for different sizes of population. The answer is simple. A uniform structure means uniform pattern and degree of democratic representation in the local bodies. Why would the pattern and degree of democracy differ from one part of the country to the other? We are, after all, one country. Another major objective we have in mind is to reduce the vast gap that now separates the voter from his representative. In a vast country like ours, there are at present not more than about 5,500 persons—5,000 in the state legislatures and around 500 in Parliament—to directly represent 800 million people. The number of voters seeking the assistance of the elected representative is so large that there is no way the representative can really give his personal attention to his electorate as a whole. Also, it means the people have to approach their MLA, or even MP, to get grassroot problems attended to. The Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika Bills will generate so many lakhs of elected grassroot representatives that the distance between the voters and his representative would be drastically reduced, the power brokers would be driven from their perches and grassroot problems would receive grassroot attention. There is no reason why these benefits should not reach the people in a more or less uniform manner throughout the country. That objective can only be secured by uniformity in the structure of local bodies.

  The third point is perhaps, of the greatest significance. We are determined to ensure just representation for the weaker sections of society through reservations in all our local bodies. The only way of ensuring uniformity in reservations is by ensuring a uniform structure of local government. Let me give you an example to illustrate the complications that would have arisen if we had tried to secure a uniform system of reservations without having a uniform structure of local government. At present in some states including Congress-run Maharashtra and non-Congress-run West Bengal, the panchayat samiti is a body directly elected by the people at large. In some other states, however, the panchayat samiti is not a directly elected body but a committee of the Chairman of village panchayats. In a directly elected panchayat samiti it is entirely feasible to reserve seats for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in proportion to their population, as also to reserve thirty percent of the seats for women. If, however, the panchayat samiti is not a directly elected body but only a committee of the chairman of the village panchayats how is one to secure proportionate representation for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes or thirty percent reservation for women? In prescribing a uniform structure of local government, for the country as a whole, our aim is not to arbitrarily impose a uniform structure on a diverse country. It is only to ensure that there is uniformity of reservations throughout the country for the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes and women. We are second to none in recognizing the diversity of our country. We are second to none in celebrating the variegated cultures of our country. We are second to none in being the most passionate advocates of our unity in diversity, in recognizing and affirming that, in a country like India, the only unity that is possible is by a large hearted acceptance of diversity. Respect for diversity means recognizing that palm trees grow in some parts of the country and the chinar grows in others. But what has this to do with the oppression of harijans or adivasis or discrimination against women? Surely, the ladies of Kerala deserve equal treatment in the panchayats as the ladies of Kashmir, even as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes everywhere are entitled to equal representation. Diversity means respect for a Carnatic kriti in Thanjavur, a baul in Bengal, a dhrupad in Gwalior and a manganiar lok geet in Rajasthan. But does this mean reservations in Tamil Nadu should be different to reservations in Bengal? Does this mean that the adivasis of Rajasthan should be treated differently to the adivasis of Madhya Pradesh or that the scheduled castes in one part of the country should get reservations in proportion to their population but be denied the same privilege in other parts of the country? To do this would be to make a farce of the noble precept of unity in diversity.

  We celebrate the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural diversity of our country. But, as I said a minute ago, we are one country. When it comes to oppression and discrimination, the people of India are united in demanding a uniform end to all oppression, all suppression, all social tyranny, all obsolete social morals. I repeat, madam, that it is to secure a uniform system of reservations that we were obliged to prescribe a uniform structure of local government.

  I now turn to questions of political propriety which appears to have agitated the feelings of our friends opposite. We have been asked: how dare the Prime Minister interact directly with district magistrates? I answer: What call has the Prime Minister of a country like India to remain as Prime Minister unless he feels at home in the humblest hut of the humblest, remotest village of our vast and varied country? I toured hundreds of villages. I spoke to countless people. There, in their hearths and homes, I experienced the cruelty of an unresponsive administration, the oppression of an administration without a heart, the callous lack of compassion that most of our people find at the hands of much of our administration. I then looked at the administrators themselves—most of them dedicated young men and women, of extraordinarily high intelligence, deeply concerned about the people placed in their charge and yet, apparently incapable of converting their enthusiasm and personal compassion into a responsive administration. I sought an answer to this riddle, a solution to this conundrum. That is how I decided to pose the question to the district magistrates themselves. How could this possibly be wrong?

  In any case, there was nothing clandestine about my encounters with district magistrates. The first one was held at Bhopal. I invited Chief Minister Motilal Vora, to join us. He accepted and was with us in the meeting. The second one was at Hyderabad.

  I invited Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao to accompany me to the encounter. For reasons best known to him, he haughtily declined… I asked him once again at Hyderabad airport. He once again refused to come with me. How can the Opposition…now turn around and say I went behind the backs of chief ministers to talk to district magistrates?

  When it came to meetings with village pradhans and sarpanches, panchayat samiti chairmen and presidents of zila parshads, we took care to seek the cooperation of at least two Opposition-run state governments in holding these sammelans (meetings). Chief Minister Jyoti Basu kindly agreed to cooperate and we held a most informative and useful sammelan in Calcutta, in full view, I might add, of the representatives of that state’s non-Congress government. We were making arrangements with an Opposition-run government for the south zone sammelan in Bangalore when that government crumbled under the weight of its own inconsistencies. If the Janata Dal failed to host the south zone sammelan that was not on account of any failing on our part but only because of their own inability to hold out until the panchayat representatives arrived.

  We have consulted openly, frankly and freely with every echelon concerned: beginning with the common folk of our villages to whom I spoke; then the bureaucracy, including district magistrates, chief secretaries and secretaries to the Government of India; and then the panchayat and local self-government ministers and chief ministers of states. It was never we who shied away from meeting them. Regrettably, however, some Opposition-run state governments refused to send officials and even elected representatives to these encounters and then, in a shameful act of abnegation of governmental responsibility, failed to participate in the conference of chief ministers which I called in early July.

  We come to this House, madam, at the culmination of a process of open, transparent consultation witho
ut precedent in the history of independent India. The amendments we present are the distilled essence of the views of thousands of elected local body representatives, hundreds of district magistrates, scores of senior government servants and dozens of ministers and chief ministers. There is no impropriety on our part. The only impropriety has lain in the discourtesy with which a well-intentioned invitation was turned down.

  Madam, much play has been made by the Opposition of the proximity of the forthcoming general elections to the important legislation which this House will shortly be voting upon. I do not quite understand the point at issue here. Is it not a fact that we were elected to govern and legislate for a five-year period?…

  Is it not a fact that we were elected to serve the people of their development and progress for a five-year period? Should we stop governing and legislating only because elections are in the offing? It is the people who have given us this responsibility. It is to the people and the people alone—that we are responsible…. We reject this artful misinterpretation of parliamentary practice that would require us to desist from legislation because of the proximity of the polls.

  In any case, madam, it was at the very beginning of our present term of office, in the first broadcast I made to the nation in January 1985 that I outlined the plan we had in mind to make our administration responsive to the people’s needs. I raised these issues in my speech at the Congress centenary in Bombay in December 1985. In August 1986 this intention of government was enshrined as the twentieth point of the 20-point programme under the rubric ‘Responsive Administration’.

  At that time, I must confess, we were in quest of managerial solutions to an unresponsive administration. We were looking to a simplification of procedures, grievance redressal machinery, single-window clearances, computerization and courtesy as the answers to the problem. As we went along, we discovered that a managerial solution would not do. What was needed was a systematic solution.

  The Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika Bills constitute the most signifciant systemic transformation in the governance of the Indian polity since the Constitution entered into force just under forty years ago. We learnt that a paternalistic administration cannot be a responsive administration. We learnt that a grassroot administration without political authority was like a meal without salt. We learnt that however well-intentioned our district bureaucracy might be, without effective elected authority the gap between the people and the bureaucracy could not be closed. We learnt that the vacuum created by the absence of local level political authority had spawned the power brokers who occupy the gap between the people and their representatives in distant Vidhan Sabhas and the ever more remote Parliament. We learnt that corruption could only be ended by giving power to the panchayats and making panchayats responsible to the people. We learnt that inefficiency could only be ended by entrusting the people at the grassroot level with the responsibility for their own development. We learnt that callousness could only be ended by empowering the people to send their own representatives to institutions of local self-government, by empowering the people to reject those who betray their mandate.

  The Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika Bills are not only instruments for bringing democracy and devolution of every chaupal (square) and every chabutra (pillar), to every angan (verandah) and every dalan, they are also a charter for ending bureaucratic oppression, technocratic tyranny, crass inefficiency, bribery, jobbery, nepotism, corruption and the million other malfeasances that afflict the poor of our villages, towns and cities. The bills are the warrant for ending the reign of the power brokers, of the intermediaries whom Shakespeare called ‘the caterpillars of the commonwealth’.

  These bills fill a yawning gap in the country’s polity. They are the result of a process that was started in the immediate aftermath of our great electoral victory and has been carried forward in carefully considered stages till it has ripened for consideration by our august houses of Parliament. There is nothing sudden or surprising about the timing of these Bills.

  There is another point I would wish to stress. Elections come and go. The consequences of these constitutional amendments will far outlast the outcome of the forthcoming general elections. These amendments will become a sacred obligation on the governments, whether at the centre or in the states, whether run by the Congress or by any Opposition party. There is nothing gimmicky about our intentions. We are making democracy at the grassroots a solemn and ineluctable constitutional obligation. Equally, we are making the devolution of administrative and financial powers to the local bodies an inescapable responsibility of all governments, now and in the future, here at the centre and there in the states, a responsibility as much of Congress run governments as of governments run by others. An election gimmick is a trick of the trade. A constitutional amendment is a solemn, long-term pledge, ours is a pledge to the people. Those who thwart the people do so at grave risk to themselves. When the voter stands in the seclusion of the voting booth, his hand will go down on the hand which clasps his as a friend.

  With your permission madam, I would now like to deal with some of the matters of detail touched upon by participants in this debate.

  It has been alleged that Schedules eleven and twelve infringe in some manner upon the legislative sovereignty of the state legislatures and the freedom of action of state governments in regard to responsibilities assigned to them by the constitution. The confusion appears to arise out of confounding the legislative lists of schedule seven and the lists incorporated in the proposed schedules eleven and twelve. The Union, State, and Concurrent Lists detailed in schedule seven deal with the respective legislative competence of the union, the states, and the union and the states together. Schedules eleven and twelve on the other hand constitute an illustrative list of subjects in respect to which development programmes might be implemented by panchayats and nagarpalikas respectively. These are subjects regarding which understanding at the local level is likely to be much more profound at that level than in some distant state capital and where implementation by local elected bodies is likely to be much more responsive to articulated public need than the cold administrations of official agencies.

  Schedules eleven and twelve do not confer any legislative competence upon the local bodies. Nothing is taken away from the legislative competence of state legislatures. All that is indicated by these schedules is the path along which effective devolution might be pursued to render the panchayats and nagarpalikas into vibrant, dynamic, meaningful institutions of local self-government. It is explicitly stated in the constitutional amendments now before the House that it would be for the state legislatures to lay down the legislative parameters of devolution and for state governments to give practical effect to these parameters. We recognize that the precise pattern of devolution might vary from state to state. We leave it to the good sense of our people to endorse or reject through their vote the degree and nature of devolution conferred upon the panchayats and nagarpalikas by different state legislatures and state governments. Those state governments that live up to the expectations of the people will receive the endorsement of the people. Those who fail the people will receive the rejection they deserve. Our sanction is the people’s vote. The only threat we hold out to state governments is the threat of their being rejected at the polls by the people whose constitutional rights they transgress, by the people who feel deprived of the opportunities given to them by constitutional amendments.

  Surprisingly, little has been said in this debate about the heart of the amendments, which is the provisions of planning and implementation. It is undeniable that our planning has become increasingly removed from the perceptions and aspirations of our people at the grassroots. Such district planning as is taking place is largely formalistic in nature, a putting together by bureaucrats and technocrats of what they perceive to be in the interests of the people. The people themselves are not consulted at all, or are consulted but perfunctorily. Through these amendments, the primary responsibility for planning would devolve
upon the panchayats at every level, and each tier of the nagarpalikas. Each local community, whether in a small village covered by a village panchayat or in a village turning into a town governed by a nagar panchayat, or in a town governed by the municipal councillor in a city governed by a corporation would prepare its own plan for its own development. I would particularly draw the attention of the House to the wording of the relevant provision. It provides in effect for any plan for economic development to incorporate its social justice component. As it is, the provision for reservation ensures that the panchayat and the nagarpalika undertaking the planning exercise will be adequately weighed with the weaker sections of society. That in itself will contribute to a heightened social consciousness in the preparation of plans. But these constitutional provisions go even further. They make the completion of any plan prepared by a panchayat or a nagarpalika contingent upon the incorporation in the plan of its social justice component. In other words, whereas up till now, even in so progressive a state as Gujarat, which has pioneered the social justice committees in panchayats, social justice has been an adjunct to the planning process. These constitutional amendments make social justice an integral element of the planning process. Plans prepared by panchayats, panchayat samitis and nagarpalikas will then be filtered upwards to the zila parishads for harmonizing and consolidation by a committee elected by the members of the zila parishads and the nagarpalikas. This committee for district planning incorporates members of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in proportion to their population in the district and reserves thirty percent of the seats for women. Thus the very composition of the district planning committee is such as to ensure the integration of social justice with economic planning in district plans. This holds true equally of the elected body being established for metropolitan planning. These constitutional amendments presage an entirely new era in planning not only in terms of detailed consultations at the grassroots but also in terms of ensuring social justice as an integral component of the development process. As regards implementation, there has been a half-hearted attempt by some members of the Opposition to raise an alarm by pointing to one lacuna or the other in the eleventh and the twelfth schedule. These digs would have a purpose if there had been any attempt to make these schedules either comprehensive or obligatory. We have made it amply clear that these two schedules are illustrative in nature aimed at indicating practical ways in which the implementation of the programmes and projects might be entrusted to elected local bodies, instead of being carried out as at present by cold, remote official agencies. It is by being held responsible for the implementation of programmes that local bodies will become truly responsible to the people. It is when representativeness is combined with responsibility that responsive administration follows. Moreover, the location of the district planning committee in the zila parishad and indeed its very creation provides the first ever platform of rural-urban interaction of developmental issues. This in itself will contribute to a higher awareness of various problems of social injustice and the remedial measures required to rectify them. Through the proposed metropolitan planning authority, India becomes one of the first developing countries in the world to provide a platform for interaction between state and central authorities and the elected representative of urban and adjacent rural local bodies, thus integrating the demands of social justice with the imperatives of economic growth. We have left it to state legislatures and state governments to determine the precise contours of the responsibility that will devolve on local bodies for the implementation of programmes. Some states will go further than others. Some variations in the degree and pattern of devolution would be justified and acceptable. But any state government which transgresses the spirit of these amendments will have to face the wrath of the people. We at the Centre have made a beginning in trusting the local bodies to implement their own programmes. The Jawahar Rozgar Yojna and the Nehru Rozgar Yojna are the earnest of our commitment of placing responsibility for development administration squarely in the hands of the elected representatives of the people at the grassroots. No longer will the people have to run from one bureaucratic closed door to another, from one indifferent official to another. No longer will they have to bribe and cajole their way to securing their legitimate rights. We are bringing to an end the Kafkaesque nightmare through which the people at the grassroots have lived. Their problems will now be solved at their doorsteps. Answerability will be within the very villages where they live. Accountability would be nailed to the panchayat ghar and the nagarpalika. Truth will not be hidden in ever more voluminous files and cupboards bursting at the seams but will be revealed on the floor of the panchayat ghar and at the village hustings, on the floor of the town hall and the hustings in every mohalla (area).