Sunita Narain: The development laboratory

DOWN TO EARTH/ Experiments with decentralised governance must continue

Last year, Congress Chief Minister Digvijay Singh lost the Madhya Pradesh (MP) state elections. In 2001, the Communist-led coalition lost in Kerala.

Both governments had promoted decentralisation. Was their defeat a vote against the move for local governments and devolution of power? And, if decentralisation does not bring electoral benefits, will politicians invest in this idea in the future?

This is when we know that devolution holds the key to development. We know that bureaucracies cannot plant trees that survive, or build and maintain local water systems, or protect grazing lands from encroachment, or run schools in which teachers come to work.

But for people to participate, they need institutions, they need legal entitlements and they need funds to spend on what they think is their priority.

When reporters of Down To Earth travelled to find out what happened in MP, it was clear that decentralisation was weaving a new magic "" strong and effective local leaders, water in local tanks and teachers in schools. But still, people resented the man and the government that promoted these programmes.

There seem to be no real takers for the "idea" of decentralisation. This is not surprising. Decentralisation means decentralisation of power and finances. The politician who is serious about this programme will fall foul of the system at all levels "" from state- to district- and village-level functionaries and people's representatives.

It is clear that everybody will want decentralisation, but only up to their level. This is especially true of a country where corruption is a tidal phenomenon, where pelf, privilege and pilferage are the ways of the political and administrative system.

Singh invested in innovative institutional changes but he also succumbed to the pressures working against decentralisation. For instance, in 2001, he enacted the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj (Sansodhan) Adhiniyam (or the Gram Swaraj Amendment), which deepened democracy by making the gram sabhas (village assemblies) the Constitutional authority for governance. He did this to break the nexus of the "sarpanch raj".

He earned their ire and then had to delay implementation of the rules to transfer power to gram sabhas. In this process, the elected sarpanch and panchayat members worked against the gram sabha, making them pawns in the hands of petty government officials. Further, he gave in to elected representatives "" MLAs and ministers "" by making them members of the district planning committees or zila sarkar.

But at the same time, he also appeased officialdom by making the collector (district-level bureaucrat) the member secretary of the district government, responsible for preparing a draft development plan for the district as a whole.

Over time, the end result was that officialdom was strengthened; it continued to control funds and administrative decisions. But the elected representatives of the people were the ones who were visible and suffered from the incumbency vote.

Local leaders had to deal with the same horrible system and explained how they had to make many trips to government offices and how they "had to pay" to get their programme sanctioned.

Added to this is the fact that the Fifth Pay Commission "" which increased salaries and allowances for government employees "" has crippled state economies to such an extent that devolution of power and funds becomes a serious crunch.

Assistance to states from the Centre has decreased over the past few years. States have been forced to borrow more to survive. Now, if they were to decide to share revenues with decentralised agencies or people, they would be even worse off.

It is clear that to succeed in this effort, politicians will have to be capable of "working" their bureaucracies and not be "worked" by the entrenched officialdom. Decentralisation is a serious and difficult business. It will take time. It will take institutional innovation and this, in turn, will demand support against all odds.

Singh's biggest failure was his inability to convince his colleagues. His own party, the Congress, which had brought in the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution, giving powers to local agencies, was not willing to stand behind or to "sell" this example of shining India.

Similarly in Kerala, the Left Front has been working overtime to abuse the proponents of the its innovative People's Plan as agents of "imperialists powers", saying that the programme promoted non-ideological democracy.

But in the end, this failure belongs most of all to all of us, particularly the media and academia. The governance-related innovations of MP and Kerala need to be understood so that they can be replicated or amended.

This learning ground for democracy demands careful and continuous scrutiny. The issue is not if Singh lost or if Uma Bharti won. The only winner is the bureaucracy. The losers are all those who want change. This is the laboratory of development.