Resurgent Rural India: Decade After the Constitutionalisation of Panchayati Raj

Part IX and Part IX A of the Constitution of India dealing with Panchayats and Municipalities respectively are the most detailed amendments made to the constitution since its promulgation more than half a century ago. If implemented in letter and spirit, the two parts hold the promise of a silent revolution that would dramatically alter the outlook for grassroots developments by endowing power to the people, in both rural and urban India. Unfortunately, in the fourteen years since the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha passed the legislation and almost thirteen years since Part IX was gazetted with the Presidents consent on Twenty-Fourth April 1993, the results on the ground have fallen far short of expectations.  But the operationalisation of the Seventy-Third Constitution Amendment has no doubt generated a great deal of interest among all concerned. The Panchayati Raj reforms being carried out in different states are under close scrutiny in this volume, to know the extent to which the objectives of the Seventy-Third Constitutional Amendment are being met. Moreover, the present study Resurgent Rural India was undertaken with a view to examine the critical issues such as extent and effectiveness in the implementation of decentralization, functional and financial devolution, changing role of the Gram Sabha, women’s participation and perception in the PRIs, rural development and PRIs in the era of globalization and the role of the PRI’s in uplifting human rights values and ensuring social justice at the grassroots level. Fourteen years have lapsed since the Seventy-Third Amendment came into force and the whole new generation of PRIs has had an opportunity to initiate the process of self-governance at the grassroots level. Hence, the time is ripe enough to make an analytical study of how the PRIs have evolved in various states across the nation.