Local Governments

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Political Science Class XI (Indian Constitution at Work), Chapter 8.

Can a village say no to the government, and win?

The State government of Tamil Nadu issued an order to hand over two hectares of village common land to 71 government employees. The Gram Panchayat of Vengaivasal refused to approve it, took the matter to the Madras High Court and won. The Division Bench held that the order was a gross violation of the constitutional status of Panchayats.

That one case is the whole chapter in miniature. Until 1993 a State government could dissolve or ignore a village council almost at will. After the 73rd and 74th Amendments, local bodies are a constitutionally protected third tier of government. This page shows how that status was won, how the structure is built, and why the practice still lags behind the law.

Why do we need local government at all?

Local government is the government closest to the people. It decides about drinking water, village roads, schools and drains: the things you meet every day. Three reasons explain why democracy needs it.

The Vengaivasal case adds a fourth point: a strong local body protects local interests against a higher authority.

Pause and predict: a State order takes village common land and gives it to government employees. Which two virtues of local government does the Vengaivasal Panchayat's reaction show?

Check your answer: accountability to local people (the Panchayat answered to villagers, not to the State capital) and protection of local interests against a higher tier. Both appear as answer options in CUET source-based questions.

How the idea grew: a timeline

Self-governing village communities (sabhas) existed from the earliest times and evolved into Panchayats, literally an assembly of five persons. The modern elected local body is much younger.

Gandhi is the great voice for this tradition in the freedom movement. He pleaded for decentralisation of economic and political power and argued that every village should be a republic, with power built up from the village like a pyramid.

Why the Constitution stayed silent for four decades

If decentralisation was so attractive, why did the framers not make local government a constitutional tier? The chapter gives causes and their effects.

Two views. For the exam: the framers placed local government in the Directive Principles and left it to the States, so it had no constitutional status until 1992. Another reading: Gandhi saw the village republic as the base of democracy, while Nehru and Ambedkar feared that local power could harden local hierarchies and weaken national unity. The 1992 amendments are best read as an attempt to keep Gandhi's participation while writing in safeguards against local domination, namely reservations and independent elections.

Before 1992 the steps were modest. The 1952 Community Development Programme invited participation, expert committees recommended a three-tier Panchayati Raj, and Gujarat and Maharashtra set up elected bodies around 1960. Most States, however, kept their local bodies weak. The Thungon Committee of 1989 finally argued for constitutional recognition, and that argument became the 73rd and 74th Amendments.

The 73rd Amendment: how Panchayati Raj is built

The 73rd Amendment created one uniform three-tier structure for rural India, with a Gram Sabha underneath.

Elections have three distinctive features. All three tiers are elected directly by the people, the term is five years, and if a Panchayat is dissolved early, fresh elections must be held within six months. The six-month rule matters because it stops a State from keeping a body dissolved indefinitely, which was a common pre-1992 practice.

Reservations are the part CUET loves, because they overlap.

Pause and predict: a Panchayat has 30 seats and 6 of them are reserved for Scheduled Tribes. At least how many seats must be reserved for women overall, and how many of the 6 ST seats must go to ST women?

Check your answer: one third of 30 is 10 seats for women overall, and one third of the 6 ST seats is 2 seats for ST women. Women's reservation runs inside the SC and ST quotas as well as across the whole body.

Transfer of subjects. The 11th Schedule lists 29 subjects to be transferred to Panchayats, among them agriculture, minor irrigation, small scale industries, rural housing, drinking water, roads, rural electrification, poverty alleviation, education, libraries, markets, health and sanitation, family welfare, women and child development, and the public distribution system. The basis is Article 243G, which lets a State legislature give Panchayats the powers and authority to function as self-government. The 29 subjects come from the State List, because local government is a State matter and only a State legislature can pass laws on them. Defence, police and foreign affairs are not on the list.

Adivasi areas. The 1996 PESA Act extended Panchayat provisions to Adivasi-inhabited areas and gave Gram Sabhas stronger powers, including a say in protecting traditional management of forest and water resources.

Two safeguards keep local bodies independent.

The 74th Amendment: the same idea for towns

The 74th Amendment applies the same design to urban India and creates Nagarpalikas: municipal corporations in cities, municipalities in towns and Nagar Panchayats in areas moving from rural to urban. Direct elections, reservations, a State Election Commission and a State Finance Commission all apply here too. What is new is the list of urban functions in the 12th Schedule.

A place counts as urban in the Census only when it passes all three tests.

In the 2011 Census about 31 per cent of India's people lived in urban areas.

The scorecard: strong on paper, uneven in practice

By 2004 most States had held at least two rounds of local elections, and a few had held three. The scale of the change is large.

The weak spots are just as clear. Many States have transferred few of the 29 subjects, and local bodies lack money. Rural local bodies raise only 0.24 per cent of total government revenue, yet account for about 4 per cent of total government spending, so they depend heavily on grants from the State and the Union.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: the 73rd and 74th Amendments give local government constitutional status, and the 11th Schedule lists 29 subjects for Panchayats. In reality: constitutional status guarantees that local bodies exist and are elected, but Article 243G says a State legislature may give them powers. How much real power a Panchayat holds therefore differs from State to State. The chapter's own conclusion is that a democracy is tested by how its laws are practised, not only by what they say.

Pause and predict: the 11th Schedule subjects are taken from the State List, not the Union List. Why?

Check your answer: because local government is a State subject. A State legislature can legislate on State List matters and so can hand them to Panchayats, while the Union List belongs to Parliament.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: India's reform is one example of decentralisation. In reality: other countries have moved the same way. In Bolivia, the 1994 Law of Popular Participation gave 314 municipalities 20 per cent of national tax revenue, so local money followed local responsibility. In Brazil, municipalities have independent jurisdiction alongside the states. The comparison shows what India's rural bodies still lack: a guaranteed share of resources.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Federalism explains the Union and States, and why local government sits inside the State's sphere.
• Related: Election and Representation covers the Election Commission, to which the State Election Commissioner is compared.
• Next: Constitution as a Living Document lists the 73rd and 74th Amendments among the amendments made through political consensus.