Growth of local government

Early history. Self-governing village communities are believed to have existed from early times as 'sabhas' (village assemblies), which later took the form of panchayats (assemblies of five) that settled village issues.

• In modern times, elected local bodies were created after 1882 on the initiative of the Viceroy Lord Ripon; they were called local boards. Progress was slow; after the Government of India Act 1919, village panchayats were set up in several provinces, a trend that continued after the 1935 Act.
• Mahatma Gandhi strongly favoured decentralisation of economic and political power, with strong village panchayats: 'Independence must begin at the bottom. Thus every village will be a republic,' with life as a pyramid 'with the apex sustained by the bottom'. For the national movement, independence meant decentralising power from the Governor General in Delhi.

In the Constitution (1950). Local government was made a State subject and mentioned in the Directive Principles, which are non-justiciable and advisory. So it did not get adequate importance. Why?

• The turmoil of Partition gave the Constitution a strong unitary inclination; Nehru saw extreme localism as a threat to national unity.
• A powerful voice led by Dr B.R. Ambedkar feared that the faction- and caste-ridden nature of rural society would defeat local self-government.
• Yet no one denied the importance of people's participation, and many members wanted village panchayats as the basis of democracy if villages could be reformed.

After Independence:

• The Community Development Programme (1952) sought people's participation in local development; a three-tier Panchayati Raj system was then recommended for rural areas. Some states, such as Gujarat and Maharashtra, adopted elected local bodies around 1960.
• But in many states local bodies had few powers, depended on state and central funds, or were not set up at all; some were dissolved and handed to officials; many had indirect elections; elections were often postponed.
• After 1987, a review began; in 1989 the P.K. Thungon Committee recommended constitutional recognition of local bodies, with periodic elections and assigned functions and funds.

Example (new): a town whose municipal council has not been elected for eight years because the state keeps postponing polls, while officials run everything, shows why local bodies needed constitutional protection.