PANCHAYAT ACADEMY |
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A Proposal by Elango Rangasamy |
Background |
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Panchyati Raj is an ancient system of self-governance in India. Every village was an independent republic, collected its own taxes and enjoyed prosperity. With colonial intervention, first by the Mughals and then by the British, revenue collection was centralized collapsing the local village system of governance. Starting from 1921, many half-hearted attempts were made to revive panchayats. |
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Panchayati Raj Act – 1992: 73rd amendment |
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Thanks to Rajiv Gandhi, the Panchayati Raj act finally came into effect in 1993 after much deliberation and consensus through the 73rd constitutional amendment. In simple terms, it declares village panchayats as independent republics and devolves governance and finance to them. In this form of governance, the Gram Sabha (made up of all the villagers) is the legislative body and the Gram Panchayat (a body of ten elected members) the executive body. The Gram Sabha is mandated to meet once in every three months, where all major village decisions are made, and the panchayat accounts are discussed. |
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Panchayati Raj in Tamil Nadu – Challenges and Prospects |
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There are 12,619 villages in TN. The first round of panchayat elections were held in 1994, with a 33% reservation for women and 22% for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The second round of elections was held in October 2001 after a term of five years. |
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The panchayat system in India is largely corrupt, with a few influential and powerful members of the community, with vested interests, contesting without much competition. Even the few honest panchayat leaders lack understanding and awareness about their constitutional powers, and have only been functioning as honest "contractors" to implement government plans to lay roads and sinks pumps. The leaders have usually no vision for the development of their villages, and many decades of dependency on centralised government initiatives and resources for development has left them with little confidence that they can govern themselves. Though constitution allows candidates to contest only as independents, most of them have affiliations with political parties. |
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In this grim scenario, we need to realize that the panchayat system has tremendous potential to attain village swaraj. There are quite a few inspiring stories of how panchayat leaders have brought about change in their villages. The strengths of these leaders are their transparency in financial management, accountability to their gram sabhas, good people's support, and commitment and willingness to work for their villages. It is also heartening to see the exercising of power at the village level in the recent panchayat elections. In the first election, the villagers were not very aware of panchayati raj, its concept and processes. In cases of female members, they were merely puppets in the hands of their husbands. In the recent election, voter awareness had increased and the non-performing and corrupt sarpanchs, have been replaced by honest community workers, who have demonstrated leadership skills and care for the society. |
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Some inspiring stories of panchayat leaders |
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Elango Rangasamy |
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Elango hails from a dalit farmer family in Kuthambakkam village (40 km from Chennai in Thiruvallur district), Tamil Nadu. He grew up to become a chemical engineer and was a scientist at the Council for Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR) for eight years. Every time Elango visited his village, which was fraught with poverty, natural resource degradation, caste riots, illicit distilling (which employed 35% of the population) and associated evils, his desire to do something burnt brighter. Finally, in 1994, he left his job and began working with his fellow villagers to improve their living conditions. He independently contested and won the 1996 panchayat election and has been reelected in the 2001 elections with zero campaign cost. During his first term of five years, Elango visited and studied several experiments in rural development across India and made inroads into the government's planning committees on Panchayati Raj. He has eradicated alcoholism, employing all the rehabilitated families in constructing low-cost, eco-friendly houses and health centres, laying roads and drains, installing street lights and creating water harvesting structures. Most importantly, Elango has inspired the traditionally antagonistic dalit and non-dalit communities to live together peacefully in twin houses. After being elected in the second round of panchayat elections in October 2001 at no cost, Elango is now undertaking the next and the most challenging task of establishing a land/agriculture-based village economy. A toor dal processing unit, a dairy industry, a groundnut processing industry, a jute industry, a leather industry, a handloom industry, a bakery and a soap-making industry are all a reality today, with more on the anvil. Elango is also working towards building network economies, where a group of six neighbouring villages will come together and trade what they produce. Koduveli, Adigathur and Kondaveluri, whose panchayat leaders are talked about below, will be nuclei villages in these networks. Elango has recently been awarded 'Ashoka Fellowship', and was invited by the UK government to study and share his experiences on local self-governance. |
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Kumar |
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Kumar hails from a family of dalit agricultural laborers in Koduveli village, Thiruvallur District, TN. Though Kumar graduated with a masters degree in Political Science, he chose to stay back in his village and involve himself in serving his fellow villagers. He has been elected as the panchayat leader for a second time in 2001. During his first term, he has worked for the betterment of the lives of the Irulas (a snake-catching tribe, considered a very low caste) and build houses for 130 of them. |
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Chidambaranathan |
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Chidambaranathan is a dalit, social activist from Adigathur village, Thiruvallur District, TN. Chidambaranathan chose to return to farming in spite of graduating with an engineering degree. Over the past several years, Chidambaranathan has been involved in dalit movements, promoted women’s self-help groups, opposed illicit arrack by organizing the women and led youth clubs. His most significant achievement is stopping the illicit river (Cooum) sand quarrying, which was affecting the water table of the village. He did this with the support of the youth groups. Thus Chidambaranathan had gained the confidence of the people and was elected as the panchayat president in the 2001 elections. |
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Senthamizh Chelvi |
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Senthamizh Chelvi is a dalit, and the relected panchayat leader of Kondaveluri village in Thiruvallur District, TN. According to Senthamizh Chelvi, her experience brining up her mentally retarted daughter, and the support that she receives from husband gave her the confidence to fight social evils in her village. She has worked as a volunteer in literacy movements, promoted SHGs, facilitated laying concrete roads in every part of the dalit village, and has provided housing for the people. |
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Need for Panchayat Academy |
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Though the 73rd amendment was passed with the intention of devolving powers to the panchayats, they do not receive any form of orientation / training to help them take on the task of village governance. The few existing training programs, like that of the State Institutes for Rural Development and the National Institute for Rural Development (Hyderabad), are heavily theoretical and do not show the participants ‘what can be done’. |
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For this reason, even the aware and honest panchayat leaders have been reduced to performing the functions of an agency for the state and the central governments, defeating the very purpose of the constitutional amendment. This, according to Elango, can be dangerous to democracy. There has not been a greater need for the creation of a role model village panchayat, which will become the text for and inspire other villages. Kuthambakkam is emerging as a role model village, which is being visited by hundreds of interested people, and is an ideal village for setting up such a Panchayat Academy. |
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There are 12,619 villages in Tamil Nadu, of which around 400 village panchayats are in Elango's panchayat network. |
Mode of Functioning |
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The Panchayat Academy will not function on a convention classroom teacher- student model. In Elango’s words “We need to respect the fact that my brothers and sisters (village leaders) from other villages, have their own experience, knowledge and ideas of things. The Panchayat Academy will be a learning space, a forum for ideas and inspiring stories, which will help me share my experience with them, inspire them, show them what has been possible in Kuthambakkam with my Gandhian approach to democracy, development and economic regeneration, and help them plan for their own villages.” |
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The academy will invite anywhere between 30 and 50 panchayat leaders every month for a week-long residential programme. During this time, the village leaders will learn, through successful working live experiments in Kuthambakkam, about |
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· Panchayati Raj |
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· Gandhian Philosophy |
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· Leadership skills |
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· Network Economy (sub topics: globalization, local currency) |
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· Addressing social issues – casteism, illiticit alcohol brewing, violence against women, etc. |
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· Nai Talim |
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· Ethics |
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· Rural Technology – Housing, water harvesting, traditional (organic) farming, land regeneration, appropriate technology, sanitation |
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Estimated Budget |
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Building (classroom, kitchen, dining) 5,10,000 |
Residential Facility (2000 sq.ft. x 2 floors) 9,50,000 |
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Teaching Aids 60,000 |
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Chairs 24,000 |
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Tables (+ other office furniture) 6,000 |
Bedding and kitchen utensils 50,000 |
TOTAL 16,00,000 |
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