What is the point of working hard for years to ensure that gram sabha meetings take place when the mandate of the gram sabha is blatantly and callously rejected by governments bent on exploiting natural resources?

Is the role of CSOs only to strengthen the props but not to question the huge clash of interest between a State sold out to globalisation and self-governance bodies struggling to retain control over their natural resources?

And what should be the role of an initiative like the PACS Programme in all this?

Questions like these, raised unexpectedly and also somewhat vitriolically, changed the tenor of the session on local self-governance at the national ‘What it takes to eradicate poverty’ conference organised in New Delhi by the PACS Programme on December 4-6, 2007.

The session was proceeding in the usual manner of thematic sessions at civil society organisation meets, with theme papers, experience-sharing and so on. However, towards the end when, during an open discussion session, Santosh Khoware of the National Institute of Women Child and Youth Development (NIWCYD) raised the issue of penetration of political parties in local governance, the focus of the discussions changed dramatically.

Ravi of Vardaan, Chhattisgarh, remarked that CSOs were unable to make any substantial dent in the wall of corruption that prevents panchayats from functioning, while Me Mehdi from Margadarshak, Chhattisgarh, described how, despite 14 rounds of gram sabha resolutions rejecting a livelihood-destroying project in the Sarguja district, the government was not only blatantly supporting the project but the bureaucracy and politicians had also launched a concerted attack to crush gram sabhas in the region.

Savita Banerjee of Chetna Vikas in Jharkhand recalled how village women had criminal charges slapped against them when they tried to report black-marketing. Manjushri from Bihar lamented that the present panchayati raj legislation does not give the required powers to the gram sabha, while Ramesh Kumar from Bihar talked about the dubious nature of political will.

PACS Programme partners stressed that if local self-governance is part of the second phase of the programme, then the programme must include components on sensitising bureaucrats, politicians and government institutions in general to the rights of local governance institutions, and on organising members of such institutions to assert and struggle for these rights.

Earlier, the theme paper ‘Role of Civil Society in Governance -- Possibility and Challenges’ was read out by Professor Ramesh Saran from the economics department of Ranchi University. The paper spoke about the challenges of development and governance, and how CSOs had helped reduce corruption, ensure entitlements and raise awareness. Click here to view the paper in PDF format.

Case studies on successful efforts to strengthen self-governance institutions and make their structure more participatory were presented by representatives from various PACS Programme partners.

In Bihar, programme partners helped over 2,250 scheduled caste women contest the last panchayat elections.

In Uttar Pradesh, pre-election voter awareness workshops held for PACS Programme partners resulted in the creation of a platform for elected representatives and people to communicate, share experiences and raise questions.

The Action Research Villages Campaign, based on the use of RTI, reported how five villages in Uttar Pradesh had solved seemingly insurmountable problems through the judicious use of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Click here to read a detailed report on this campaign.

PACS Programme partners NIWCYD from Madhya Pradesh and Paryay from Osmanabad, Maharashtra, presented stories about the successful realisation of entitlements through implementation of the innovative gramdoot and Lok Adhikar Manch concepts respectively.

An overview of PACS Programme interventions in strengthening local self-governance networks was provided by the programme’s Uttar Pradesh state manager Santosh K Dwivedi.

From the sharing of experiences, some markers for future work emerged. Activation of gram sabhas, increasing voter awareness through pre-election campaigns, special training for elected representatives, especially women, improving the regularity of gram sabha meetings, and ensuring the participation of marginalised groups in gram sabha activities were found to be effective ways to strengthen the participation of both individuals and groups in local government.

Significant impacts of PACS Programme interventions were found to be:

• A change towards the active from the passive in the vocabulary and style of the rural poor.
• Decentralisation of leadership and encouragement of collective leadership.
• People’s access to entitlements has improved immensely.
• Dedicated workers are receiving support from aware community groups, and good work is being rewarded.
• Marginalised communities are coming to the forefront.

Despite these positive indicators, however, much work needs to be done to make local self-governance an effective tool for good governance and ensuring entitlement of rights.

Speakers emphasised the need to continue awareness-generation work, create linkages between local self-governance and development initiatives, build the capacities of elected representatives, promote people-oriented accountability mechanisms, and develop a positive working relationship between the community, leadership and service-providers.

In his keynote address, Dr Prakash Louis said that India is uniquely suited for decentralised and inclusive local self-governance due to its rich diversity in all aspects of life such as population, economy, language, topography and culture, and also because it is one of the few societies in which indigenous technology and governance skills have survived the onslaught of modernisation.

Similar views were expressed by Union panchayati raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who spoke at the plenary on the first day of the conference.

Other speakers like Meenakshi Dutta Ghosh and Rajwant Sandhu, both secretaries, panchayati raj, Government of India, expressed satisfaction that there was enough evidence of the existence of political will and rules and laws supportive of the growth of a vibrant local self-governance practice in the country.

Former vice-chancellor of Ranchi University Dr Ram Dayal Munda and Pankaj Jain, governance advisor to DIFD, spoke about the need for corporate groups and rich individuals to support the cause of removing unemployment.