THE TRIBUNE CHANDIGARH | SATURDAY | 8 JULY 2023
OPED
Democracy is about institutionalisation of values
NEERA CHANDHOKE
POLITICAL SCIENTIST
D
EMOCRACY
possesses many
virtues. But it
has also shown
an uncanny
propensity to tolerate deep-
rooted contradictions: terri-
ble social and economic
inequality exists alongside
formal political equality;
appalling hate speech coex-
ists with rhetorical obei-
sance to accommodation of
diversity; and above all, we
see a relentless quest for
power at the expense of
people’s rights. Yet, lead-
ers continue to glorify our
flawed democracy despite
caste and class inequali-
ties, hounding of minori-
ties, violence against
women and the sight of
our fellow citizens show-
ing their diseased or muti-
lated limbs to beg for alms
at road crossings.
We should ask members of
Scheduled Castes who have
been subjected to horrifying
discrimination, the Sched-
uled Tribes and minorities
who are ritually humiliated,
Tale of collective distrust in governance at the local level
M RAJIVLOCHAN
HISTORIAN
T
HE brouhaha over
the proposed reor-
ganisation of the
local government
in Kharar, Mohali
and Zirakpur has turned the
spotlight on democratic gov-
ernance. The fact is that at
the local level, there is hard-
ly any democratic engage-
ment between the people
and those who govern them.
While in India we love to
celebrate democracy at the
levels of the state and the
nation, we seldom think
about democratising our
own localities.
Democracy is also about
developing abilities to use
the democratic processes for
systems that impact our dai-
ly lives — such as civic facili-
ties, education and health.
Our local concerns —
whether they be about the
growing menace of stray
dogs or the supply of potable
water to all households —
need to be addressed by us
through democratic deci-
sion-making rather than a
top-down process that is con-
trolled by bureaucrats and
powerful lobbies.
As of today, the only viable
option left for the people to
draw attention to their needs is
to either mope around and suf-
fer or to rebel and suffer.
And therein lies the tale of
quick crossword
women who carry ineradica-
ble scars of violence and poor
children who will never know
what it means to live a good
life — do they live in a demo-
cratic society? They would
turn around and ask us what
democracy means. This is the
paramount question that
should confront right-think-
ing Indians. What is democra-
cy, after all? Just elections that
catapult conceited politicians
to unthinkable heights of
power, not to better the lives of
the people who voted for
them, but for their self-
aggrandisement?
We need to clarify the
notion of democracy. A good
place to begin is the funeral
oration delivered by Peri-
cles, a great statesman of
ancient Athens. The speech
was immortalised by
Thucydides in History of the
Peloponnesian War. The war
(431-404 BCE) ended with
the defeat of democratic
Athens at the hands of a
monarchical Sparta. Thucy-
dides reportedly admitted
that the speech was based
on his own experience of lis-
tening to one of the greatest
orators of Athens. But no
matter, the ideas in the
speech are infinitely more
important than the exact
rendition and historical pre-
cision. So, let us concentrate
on the meaning that Peri-
cles gave to democracy that
our collective distrust in dem-
ocratic governance at the local
level, our disinterest in ensur-
ing that local governance is
democratic in nature. Instead,
we take selfish pride in having
powerful and influential
friends in the right places who
will resolve civic problems
insofar as they impact us per-
sonally without resolving the
civic issues for the residents of
our entire locality.
In the 1950s, Congress
leader Harsh Dev Malaviya
wrote a comprehensive trea-
tise on the prevalence of cor-
ruption in local bodies. When
they were not corrupt,
Malaviya would write in his
detailed tome on the Pan-
chayati Raj system, the local
bodies were incompetent
and had no clue about the
rules and regulations with
which the modern govern-
ment functioned. His single-
point recommendation was
that the Panchayati Raj sys-
tem in India needed to be
suspended and taken over
by administrators who
would be under the control
of MLAs and MPs.
This, by the way, was the
same line of thinking that
had been followed by the
British rulers when educated
Indians demanded to be
involved in governance.
There was no effort at cre-
ating systems to resolve the
problems or to educate
those elected to the local
bodies in matters of gover-
nance. Rather, by the 1970s,
our leaders did away with
all elected panchayats and
municipal bodies. Even the
powerful mayor of Bombay
was divested of all his pow-
ers and reduced to being a
ACROSS
1 Gently persuasive
tactics (4,4)
5 Magician’s stick (4)
9 Poem expressing
emotions (5)
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11
Ancient Chinese game (3-4)
At once and on the
spot (4,3,5)
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Exposure to public view (6)
Small smooth stone (6)
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Be discarded (2,2,3,5)
Impartial (7)
21 Loud sound (5)
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Raise (4)
Lengthy religious choral work (8)
YESTERDAY’S sOLUTION
Across: 1 Upper case, 8 Frame, 9 Rampant, 10 Woeful,
11 Stooge, 12 Rhetoric, 15 Withheld, 18 Occupy, 20
Immune, 21 Tactful, 22 Cycle, 23 Ray of hope.
Down: 2 Plant, 3 Employ, 4 Converse, 5 Effort, 6
Warfare, 7 Real McCoy, 11 Showpiece, 13 El Dorado,
14 Stomach, 16 Hanker, 17 Scotch, 19 Plump.
FRANCHISE: It’s time we realised that democracy has much more to it than elections. TRIBUNE PHOTO
was initiated in Athens
around 500 BCE.
The famous speech by Peri-
cles was delivered at a mass
burial of fallen soldiers after
the first year of the war. The
funeral oration, which is cen-
tral to the work of Thucydides,
offered an opportunity to
skilled orators to mourn war-
riors who had given their life
for the country, acknowledge
the contribution of ancestors
to the making of Athenian cul-
ture democracy, freedom and
justice, and defend democra-
cy that gave an edge to Athe-
nians over Spartans.
Pericles’ celebration of
democracy has inspired
countless scholars and lead-
HINDRANCE: Local bodies have limited authority to tax or control public utilities. FILE PHOTO
mere figurehead. Gover-
nance came to be centred
in the hands of government
officials. Of the three layers
of government that the
makers of the Constitution
had envisaged — local, dis-
trict and state — the one
that was closest to the
everyday lives of the peo-
ple had been destroyed on
the pretext of being corrupt
and incompetent.
It was only in the late 1980s
that serious concern was
expressed over lack of democ-
racy at the local level. The then
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
noticed that in the absence of
elected governments at the
local level, the people had no
say in decisions on local
issues. Their engagement
with democracy was confined
to the General Election.
The General Election is too
widely spread out in time to
be an effective means of hold-
ing leaders accountable. As
the layer of government that
DOWN
1 Unaccompanied (4)
2 Promote (7)
3 Deeply ingrained (6,6)
4 Express grief for (6)
6 Make amends (5)
7 Bad comic verse (8)
8 In either case (7,2,3)
12 Barely sufficient (8)
15 Obstacle (7)
16 Stock of wines (6)
18 Good-naturedly frank (5)
19 Chief male character in
play (4)
07
No state that
interferes in the
private domain
without due cause
can be called a
democracy.
Limited tenures
with no power
make the office of
the mayor largely
a ceremonial one.
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5 8
MEDIUM
ers to conceptualise the
virtues of democracy.
We should, said Pericles,
remember and honour our
ancestors who struggled to
give us a free state and a
great empire. “We are called a
democracy because power is
in the hands of the many, not
in the hands of a few. Our
government does not copy
our neighbours because we
have equal justice for all. Our
citizens are rewarded for
merit, and exceptional citi-
zens are appointed to the gov-
ernment. We are also free to
do as we like in our private
business. We trust one anoth-
er and are not angered by a
neighbour if he does what he
is closest to the people, local
bodies serve as an appropri-
ate point for the most basic of
exercises in politics — the
forming and re-forming of
associations and of the
debate around the creation of
tangible public goods.
As we move further and fur-
ther away from local bodies,
the ability of the public to
judge politicians and the
issues they discuss becomes
more and more abstract. The
fact is that human beings are
hardwired to live in small com-
munities. Governance struc-
tures are needed for these
communities to be able to raise
taxes, manage technologies for
water supply, sanitation or
road maintenance, and create
public goods and services for
the inhabitants.
As things stand in India, for
all these tasks, local bodies
are almost entirely depend-
ent on the state government
and the Centre.
This creates a paradox that
su do ku
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3 calendar
9 ■ Aashadh Shaka
2 1
likes. A man may help his
country even if he is poor. We
are prevented from doing
wrong by respect for the
authority and law. We work to
protect the injured from
those that would do them
harm.” Such is the city for
which our ancestors fought,
he said; they fell in the name
of a noble cause.
The chief characteristics of
democracy, according to Per-
icles, are: prevention of con-
centration of power in the
hands of the few, equal jus-
tice for all, rewards for the
meritorious, freedom to do
as we like in our private
lives, trust between citizens,
helping others, tolerance for
others’ opinion, respect for
authority and law, and pro-
tection of the vulnerable.
There is no mention of apo-
litical notions of gover-
nance, national security or
law and order, even though
Athens was in the first year
of a prolonged war.
But we also see the main
contradiction that plagues
democracy. Democracy was
born in Athens, but privi-
leges of democratic citizen-
ship were reserved for Athen-
ian-born men. Women, slaves
and men born in other coun-
tries did not have citizenship
rights. This contradiction
continued right up till the
advent of modern democra-
cies in France, the US and the
has huge implications for gov-
ernance. State and Union gov-
ernments do have the
resources to generate the awe-
inspiring projects of new-age
India, including transporta-
tion and water supply systems,
but for any kind of execution,
their daily operations and
maintenance, they are entirely
dependent on the very local
bodies that have been emascu-
lated over the years.
Such is the fear of devolu-
tion of powers among the
state governments that even
after the enactment of the
73rd and 74th Constitutional
Amendments in 1992, the
ability of local bodies to make
a difference to the communi-
ty remains rather limited.
In states such as Andhra
Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh and Tamil
Nadu, the mayors/chairper-
sons are directly elected by
the people for a period of five
years. In other states, they
are indirectly elected. Often,
the expectation is that after
being in office for a year, the
incumbent mayor would
make way for the others.
Limited tenures with no pow-
er make the office of the may-
or largely a ceremonial one.
To make matters worse, local
bodies in India have limited
authority to tax or control pub-
lic utilities, even in strictly
local matters such as health
and education. All these
remain under the control of
those who have no stake in the
well-being of a locality.
Even the manner in which
local bodies are set up is out-
dated and has little rationale.
Article 243Q of the Constitu-
tion specifies that a munici-
pal corporation shall be con-
YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION
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JULY 8, 2023, SATURDAY
■ Shaka Samvat
■ Aashadh Parvishte
7 ■ Hijari
■ Krishna Paksha Tithi 6, up to 9.52 pm
■ Saubhagya Yoga up to 5.23 pm
■ Purvabhadrpad Nakshatra up to 8.36 pm
■ Moon enters Pisces sign 2.58 pm
UK. Women initially were not
granted the right to vote.
We must also recognise
that freedom and equality
carry the kind of resonance
few political concepts do.
They have become, over
time, the rallying cry of
the struggle for equality,
freedom and justice by Dal-
its, African Americans,
women, the colonised, the
working classes and immi-
grants. The value of democ-
racy is condensed in these
concepts; that is why they
form the central plank of
social struggle.
Equally significantly, Peri-
cles’ address reinforced the
right to privacy. No state that
interferes in the private
domain without due cause
can be called a democracy.
He spoke of tolerance and of
the need to protect the vul-
nerable. Above all, Pericles
spoke of solidarity as a defin-
ing feature of democracy. The
oration enables us to realise
that elections are but a
moment in the life of democ-
racy. Democracy is about the
institutionalisation of values
outlined in this oration.
It’s time we realised that
democracy has much more
to it than elections. Elec-
tions bring an elite to pow-
er. In history, democratic
imagination has inspired
struggles for emancipa-
tion from absolute power.
stituted for a larger urban
area, a municipal council for
a smaller urban area and a
nagar panchayat for an area
in transition from a rural area
to an urban one. The determi-
nation of such areas is left to
the states, taking into
account criteria such as the
total population, the density
of population, non-agricul-
tural employment, annual
revenue generation, etc.
On the ground, these dis-
tinctions make little sense.
Whether it is a village, a town
or a large town, the functions
in local governance remain
the same. And those func-
tions would be far better per-
formed if the local self-gov-
ernment is given the
authority to discharge them.
If 24x7 water supply is to be
provided to people in small
towns and villages, it makes
sense to empower the local
authorities to raise money for
those schemes and then
recover taxes for their main-
tenance. Such measures
would give the local bodies a
stake in development.
In our research on ‘Jal
Swaraj’, where we recorded
the experiences of local com-
munities in building piped
drinking water supply sys-
tems, we found that commu-
nities that raised funds them-
selves — and kept the
government out — had far
more commitment to run-
ning those systems fairly and
equitably. They had man-
aged to run a healthy water
supply system for many
decades, even as the neigh-
bouring areas were flounder-
ing, trying to live up to the
whimsical norms thrust on
them by the government.
forecast
SUNSET: SATURDAY 19:27 HRS
5
9
1
3
7
8
SUNRISE:
CITY
SUNDAY
MAX
05:28 HRS
MIN
2 6 4 Chandigarh 30 26
8 5 3 New Delhi 32 26
1
4
7
9
6
2
Amritsar
Bathinda
29
30
22
25
Jalandhar 30 24
6
7
8
4
5
1 Ludhiana 29 25
Bhiwani 31 28
3 2 9
Hisar 31 26
Sirsa 31 27
Dharamsala 26 18
1945 Manali 23 14
17
24
Shimla
Srinagar
22
22
15
15
1444
Jammu
Kargil
28
24
24
13
Leh
Dehradun
22
34
12
23
Mussoorie 26 17
TEMPERATURE IN OC