The soul of India lives in its villages,” proclaimed the Mahatma while alluding to the principles of self-reliance and local self-government. However, quite unfortunately even on the Mahatma’s 150th birth anniversary, these words are preached and echoed more than practised. In his mind the quintessential village and by extrapolation the volksgeist of the nation was to be a nation that was decentralised and self-reliant, independent and free, it was to be Swarajaya in its purest form. Elephantine governments are inefficient and cumbersome to manage, even the smallest task requires a monumental effort. A large government is therefore not an innovative government, it is instead a status quo government burdened by the need to maintain itself first and innovate later.
Rousseau was right in saying that “The rulers, overburdened with business, see nothing for themselves; clerks govern the state”.
There are a few things more endemic to India than its villages. More than two millennia have passed and the inherent nature of the Indian villages has remained the same despite conquerors and colonisers who have ruled the land. It was thanks to the sustainable and self reliant nature of the Indian village in almost every aspect that made its rulers mindful of interfering with its affairs, it was the perfect unit of governance. Yet despite its proven capability, there is hesitation today from the contemporary governments.
The Economic survey 2018-2019 pointed out that India’s local governments, both rural and urban have been constrained due to low autonomy in the arena of tax collection and spending autonomy. In fact, rural local governments relied up to 95 per cent on devolution of taxes to spend on basic infrastructure and services such as roads, footpaths and toilets. Panchayats have effectively been puppeted.
The Andhra Pradesh government, in an effort to realise the aspirations of Mahatma Gandhi and lakhs of Indians, has fundamentally provided for the decentralisation of administration and ensured the delivery of government services and schemes. The appointment of over 10,000 village secretariats, nearly 4,000 ward secretariats, 1.26 lakh employees and 2.41 lakh volunteers will spearhead this initiative to decentralise the system and ensure that the services are provided in a fair, transparent and accountable manner while being in direct contact with beneficiaries on the ground.
It will potentially clean up a corrupt system and ensure timely delivery of essential services such as existing monetary benefit to women, farmers and kidney patients. While a similar initiative has been implemented in Delhi, the scale and impetus of this initiative are unprecedented. It is estimated that this initiative will create over five lakh jobs. Gone are the days of ‘absentee governance’.To truly understand the implication of this initiative, it is necessary to understand the condition on the ground as it is today. Firstly, the MLA has become de facto responsible for the administration of government services and schemes due to the fact that the MLA is a member of the Janmabhoomi Committee.
While trying to ensure that services and schemes are delivered to all, in actuality only ten per cent, a fraction of the original beneficiaries get access to the services and schemes. Instead, MLAs overestimate the number of actual beneficiaries and the outcome of the schemes and services. The MLA is however not made aware of this and bears the frustration and anger of the majority in the form of anti-incumbency. He is thereby handed responsibility without power. On the other hand, the state bureaucracy does not face the same ire. Bureaucrats of the area suffer from a cognitive bias to overestimate their work, perhaps due to a lack of touch with the local affairs and information deficit. They fail to fully comprehend the inadequacies and issues in the delivery of government schemes and services and the presence of yes-men rather than the general public only accentuates this gap further. Secondly, Janmabhoomi Committees in Andhra Pradesh have also undermined the local self-government by becoming parallel political panchayats that established monopolies on government schemes and services and ensured their availability only to their political cadre.
Lastly, all citizens are aware of the toil to seek a government service and the lethargy with which it works, even with the introduction of digital services the leisurely pace at which the cogs of the complicated, almost kafkaesque government machinery works has always been an issue especially at the rural level. The Andhra Pradesh government’s new initiatives will address these concerns and strengthen the federal nature of our country.
To realise Bapu’s vision of a decentralised, self-governing and empowered nation we must address the issue of weak third tier government. We must remember that while India is a union of states, the spirit of India is its federation of villages for which swarajya is still to be obtained from the over centralised system. The Prime Minister said that there must be less government and more governance, however the ground work should not start from the states but from the villages and wards. The delivery of basic services requires small, flexible management that has an ear to the ground. Hopefully, this new initiative will serve as a model for governance in the future. Wishing you all a Happy Gandhi Jayanti !
LAVU SRI KRISHNA DEVARAYALU
YSRC MP, NARASARAOPET
(Assisted by Noel Therattil, LAMP fellow)