Recent experience of Panchayat elections
made me rethink about what I had read about this form of ‘decentralised
democracy’ during my civil services preparation. As I recall, this was thought as
a mean to ensure democracy (government of the people, by the people and for the people ) at the lowest
level of the government. It was felt that only the people of the village can
decide about their development, so they should be given both resources and
authority. The purpose was that capable people of the village should be made
part of the village government so they can use village resources in the best
possible manner. The whole system was then constitutionalised also to make it more
sacrosanct.
Having all this is mind, I was exited when
I got an opportunity to witness these elections recently. But the experience
disappointed me as what I saw did not resemble to what I had read. At most of
the places, it was ‘this community’ Vs ‘that community’. Caste or community of
the candidate was a major factor in determining how much chances he/she has of winning the
election. No one seemed to be talking about or discussing about work done by
any of the candidates for the development of the village.
Another interesting thing was amount of
money being spent by candidates for the election. At some places it went upto
several lakhs. Most of the money was spent in distributing free food and liquor.
And this also was seen a major factor in deciding the winning candidate. Village
people considered this an good opportunity to enjoy delicious free food and
store liquor for few months.
Things don’t end here. The elections are so
keenly contested that heavy police deployment is to be done to ensure law and
order. There has been history of fights and sometimes even firing during these
elections in the past. There has been incidencts of disrupting the polling and
counting process. The Election Commission has this time introduced system of
counting at Panchayat Samiti if counting is not feasible in the village due to
higher probablity of violence. And remember, this all nuisance is being created
by the so called innocent village people.
So where are we going. The system was
introduced to give equal opportunity to everyone to become part of government
but in the end, we have only the influential people. My only hope is few cases
where educated young people being elected as Panch & Sarpach. I hope that
success story of these villages will inspire others also to follow the same.
In the end it forced me to think, Were all
efforts of administration and police were worth to ensure smooth conduct of
something where neither the process nor the result were as desired….
