Opinion
-
Leader Page Articles
Globalisation and decentralisation
By Supriya RoyChowdhury
|
Where existing structures of inequality are left intact and become compounded with the disadvantages of marketisation, political empowerment is a useful slogan, not a realistic or genuine goal.
|
IN RECENT times, decentralised governance has gained enormously in political currency under the overarching framework of what is possibly the most compelling force of our times, globalisation. Conceptually, both marketisation and decentralisation involve a shift away from the centrality of the state, and together symbolise the post-socialist era's collective revulsion for the state. In the last two decades, the World Bank and other similar institutions have promoted both economic liberalisation and political decentralisation. While on paper the twin agenda looks really good, a complex relationship underlies the institutions that represent these two forces, at a functional level.
In India, democratic decentralisation was part of the overall commitment to democracy at Independence. However, in most States, with the exception of a few such as Kerala, West Bengal and Karnataka, panchayati raj institutions dissolved into non-functioning local bodies. The 73rd Amendment enacted in 1993 coincided not only with the liberalisation impetus of the Central Government, but also with the World Bank's marked emphasis on ``good governance'' and decentralisation. Along with this policy emphasis came an avalanche of foreign funding, as prestigious agencies such as the Ford and MacArthur Foundations began to spend millions of dollars to support research and promotion of decentralised governance in developing countries.
This euphoria may be short lived, or otherwise. But the central point here is that the issue of decentralisation goes to the heart of the broader problem of democracy in the present era. And if indeed globalisation is the defining paradigm of our times, then the important question to ask, surely, is, what is the relationship between that larger process, and the aspirations towards democracy and decentralisation? Are these compatible, or inherently conflicting tendencies?
As the fundamental impulse of the economy moves away from centralised state institutions towards markets, in principle, this should facilitate the creation of structures that devolve power to localised bodies. The underlying principle of panchayati raj is the use of local knowledge, popular experience and participation in the making of decisions that affect local people. The local economy, however, particularly in a marketised context, is essentially a part and parcel of the larger economy and intimately connected to policies that define the macro economy. At that level, the process of policy-making is predominantly a technocratic, and therefore an elite-centred, rather than a participatory, exercise. These opposed tendencies in the logic of policy-making, at the local and national/State levels need to be acknowledged.
The exercise of economic planning, which began as a part of independent India's developmental agenda, itself was a technically defined activity. However, the emotive and ideological flavour of concepts such as the public sector, socialistic pattern of society and so on imparted a popular and accessible tone to economic policy-making. In contrast, economic liberalisation has been by and large the product of the intellectual and ideological preferences of a technocracy put in place and supported by successive Governments. While the political class has broadly supported the economic reform programme, the programme itself has a technocratic character.
The domain of policy-making at the national and state levels therefore belongs to that of the technical expert, and the language of policy itself is frequently technical and therefore inaccessible to the ordinary person, particularly the unlettered. The theory of decentralisation does not tell us what could be the connecting bridges between the increasingly technocratic character of public policy-making, on the one hand, and the ostensible commitment to using people's knowledge and participation at local levels. When reduced to a question of choice between these two ends of the knowledge spectrum, the state's preference is obviously for a technocratic orientation to policy-making rather than to people's knowledge.
Second, while the process of economic policy-making reflects centralising and exclusivist tendencies, and is in conflict with the logic of broad-based participatory governance, the outcome of these processes, that is, specific policies themselves, go against the logic of empowerment of the poor. For example, trade liberalisation of agricultural products, or decline in rural credit, are examples of policies enacted at the highest levels of the policy apparatus. The adverse impact of these policies on poor farmers, in terms of a fall in prices of their products, indebtedness to money-lenders leading to bankruptcy, distress and a spate of farmers' suicides in some States, have been widely documented .
Similarly, encroachment by MNCs, which turn small peasants' agricultural land into large-scale agribusiness ventures, threatens the livelihoods of thousands, without the promise of alternative employment. The given scope of panchayati raj institutions does not enable poor farmers to have any kind of impact on such policies, which shape their lives. The right to vote on local budgets, or having a few women represented in grama sabhas through reservation, may mean little in a situation where the economic backbone of rural livelihoods is eroding. These trends underline the contradictions between an elite-driven policy regime geared towards global markets, and the rhetoric of local empowerment.
If the macro framework detracts from the logic of local empowerment, the local institutional context is no more facilitating for the poor. Panchayati raj institutions supposedly reconstitute decision processes on the basis of local participation on a continuous basis, and therefore, in principle, represent an institutionalised shift in power towards lower, hitherto disempowered classes. The only flaw in this logic, of course, is that village level institutions continue to reflect unequal social and economic structures. Study after study of panchayati raj institutions repeats the same themes, that despite reservation for the lowest castes, higher caste and economically powerful groups within the village continue to be de facto leaders in panchayats. Despite reservation of seats for women, it is their men who participate in panchayat affairs and decisions, keeping the women as proxies.
Panchayati raj institutions are inserted within the existing political and economic system, rather than as a challenge to the latter. Typically village strongmen (frequently representing a higher caste and superior economic power) and/or local bureaucrats, have wielded power within the village. The logic of panchayati raj is based to some extent on the principle of cooperation and collaboration between these agents on the one hand and the poor and the marginalised on the other. Yet, the simple question, why should the local strongman and the bureaucrat collaborate with the lower classes in a programme which potentially spells the end of their power and vested interests, has not been addressed, or even acknowledged? The hope is that somehow using the strength of their numbers, the poor can use the institution for their own benefit. And yet, the history of democracy has long established that numbers per se do not mean power, that numerical strength translates into power only via organisation and movement, and never otherwise.
Today there is an ideological vacuum, as a state-led and redistributive developmental model no longer provides a legitimising discourse, and the market does not offer an alternative ideological platform. Democratic decentralisation offers a readymade legitimising formula, subtly replacing the commitment to economic redistribution with a misleading rhetoric of political empowerment. But where existing structures of inequality are left intact and become compounded with the disadvantages of marketisation, political empowerment is an useful slogan, not a realistic or genuine goal.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Opinion
|
