Gram Panchayat and Gram Sabha

Start at the base: the Gram Panchayat, the body closest to people in rural areas. Its members are elected directly by the Gram Sabha.

Two words that are easy to mix up:

• The Gram Sabha is all the adults of a village (or a group of neighbouring villages) who are registered as voters. If you are 18 or over and live in the village, you belong to it. In the Gram Sabha, women and men discuss all matters about their area and take decisions.
• The Gram Panchayat is the smaller body they elect. The village is usually divided into wards, and each ward elects a member. Each Gram Panchayat chooses a head or president, called the 'Sarpanch' or 'Pradhan'. In recent years, more and more women have become Sarpanchs.

The Gram Panchayat is helped by a Panchayat Secretary (often called 'Sachiv-ji'), an official who calls meetings and keeps records. Most Gram Panchayats are also helped by an officer called the 'Patwari' (in some States the 'Lekhpāl'), who keeps the villagers' land records. Some Patwaris keep maps that are generations old! Remember the land quarrel in Lakshmanpur: those records help settle it.

The book names three real Sarpanchs. Dnyaneshwar Kamble, a transgender person, was elected Sarpanch of Tarangfal village in Solapur district, Maharashtra, in 2017, defeating six other candidates. Kamble's motto is 'lok seva, gram seva', 'Service to the village is service to the public.'

Vandana Bahadur Maida, of the Bhil community, from Khankhandvi village in Madhya Pradesh, went against old male-dominated customs to become the first woman Sarpanch of her village. She persuaded the village women to attend the Sabha meetings and took up important issues like education and sanitation, winning recognition far and wide. Her story shows how women can lead the change in rural India.

Hiware Bazar, a village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, used to suffer frequent droughts and poor harvests. After Popatrao Baguji Pawar became Sarpanch, he applied Anna Hazare's model: rainwater harvesting, watershed conservation and planting lakhs of trees, all of which helped refill the groundwater.

With the villagers working together, Hiware Bazar became a green and prosperous village within a few years. Shri Popatrao Pawar received the Padma Shri in 2020. Note 'with the villagers': a Sarpanch cannot plant lakhs of trees alone.