Governance at the grassroots

In a contest where people slowly lose their faith and trust in public institutions, one could see the unfathomable trust in the grassroots institution as the leader of the institution took the lead in engaging people in governance and development activities. This we have witnessed in Muthugapatti Gram Panchayat, in Namakkal District in Tamilnadu. It is a notorious village panchayat known for caste rivalry and hence police clamped 144 in that particular panchayat area. It is not a poor village economically. It has got fertile land and agricultural activities are going on throughout the year. One could find Palacious houses with all amenities in the panchayat area. Yet caste conflict occurs frequently. The village witnessed murders due to caste conflict. People migrated from the village to North America and they are all well placed yet no one could stop this culture. Though there are 18 caste groups, the rivalry is primarily among two or three caste groups. How to solve this issue is a million-dollar question. Arul Rajesh, having got trained in a National political party, wanted to explore the possibility through a mission mode when the local body election was declared as the post of the Gram Panchayat president reserved for scheduled castes. He belongs to one of the sub-castes of the scheduled caste involving rivalry with other dominant caste groups. As he was involved in helping poor men and women get old age pensions, getting ration cards for a number of families continuously, people started believing him and hence he ventured into the electoral contest to become the president of the Gram Panchayat.

Having understood the psychology of the people, he started working on the issue which is in everyone's mind in the village. His friends belonging to dominant castes sent a message to the people that Arul Rajesh wants to become the president to solve the caste rivalry in the village. His priority is establishing peace and tranquillity in the village. It is his mission to bring all caste groups into one community to achieve development in the village for all the social groups. He seeks the support of all the communities in the village to achieve this goal and not only that the village panchayat will work with the active participation of all the communities through their representatives and for which he will find an innovative mechanism of governance. This message was taken to all the caste groups very effectively by his friends.

Yet another promise he made to the people through his friends was that he is contesting the election not to earn money by doing routine work of laying roads, constructing community halls and public toilets and cleaning streets. He comes to the public space to make the Gram Panchayat a model one not in infrastructure building but in bringing harmony among the caste groups and engaging people in all the development activities and governance of the panchayat. He will not spend money for the election and he will not touch a single rupee in the public purse. All panchayat activities will be decided through Gram Sabha and the panchayat activities will be in the hands of the people. He made a further assurance that he will act only as a facilitator and enable the people to take responsibility for the total transformation of the village. This visionary promise made everyone look at him with a positive note that he is a worthy candidate. To build this vision he took a long time and through a consultative process with a few grassroots development institutions to concretize an action plan. He invested a huge amount of time in creating a new consciousness for village unity and development among the people in that village.

He abandoned his party affiliation and with a new promise he contested the election with the support of his friends from other communities and won the election. The moment he won the election he has not started the panchayat activities in a routine way as per the direction of the officials as done by his counterparts. He started preparing the people by feeding them basic data about the panchayat. While doing so, how much of common properties have been encroached on and how much natural resources are being exploited from the common properties of the panchayats by a few families in the village have been explained to the public. People started spreading this news to everyone. While explaining to the public he made it clear that by allowing these activities we have lost several crores worth of properties and several crores worth of natural resources which provoked the people to think of ways and means to remove the encroachments. Having created the needed awareness among the people, he started removing the encroachment legally with the support of the people and he succeeded in that attempt. The panchayat has created a public well in that place to meet the drinking water requirement of the people. This has been done with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment scheme.

The removal of encroachment was a test case for the leader. By mobilizing people, he removed the encroachment and saved public property. People belonging to the dominant community have not extended their support to the encroachers even though they belong to their caste. Instead of supporting them, they have supported only the panchayat. Having seen the success, he moved over to the next encroachment. It was occupied by a blue metal quarry owner belonging to the same dominant caste. He got the license for half an acre to take blue metal. But he extended the activities to nine acres illegally. He approached him and informed him that you are doing it illegally. He knew that this president had the support of the people and hence he agreed to vacate the land. As a result, the common lands worth about 10 crore rupees were saved for panchayats. Now, this land is being used for a waste management yard and organic manure preparation shed with a huge investment.

Having seen the improvements in the village, the NRIs and a few donor agencies have poured money into the development activities of the panchayats. Since he is a man with a vision the president has created a trust to handle the money. In the trust, he put representatives of all caste groups and political parties as trustees to manage the money. He developed a huge infrastructure by using the trust money to keep the village clean and neat. After seeing the developments in the village, the line departments of the state government have selected this panchayat to carry out some of their schemes. He activated the self-help group to venture into the production of consumable goods and marketing the same. The women's self-help group members have been involved in nursery activities sponsored by the horticulture department of the government. Mission Samriddhi has embarked on the development plan preparation activities by collecting household and panchayat data. In many of the panchayat's MGNREGA activities, one could not find worthy assets. But in this panchayat, tangible assets have been created. He activated the public schools by arranging extracurricular activities for the students by inviting experts from outside by paying honorariums from the trust fund. As a result, the school enrolment rate has increased.

All the above achievements are with the active participation of all the ward members and volunteers. Government officials have come forward to work with the panchayat as the panchayat works professionally with a sense of commitment. Now the Muthugapatti panchayat gets a new name, and a stream of visitors is visiting these panchayats. The old name has gone, peace has been established. Innovatively to use the CSR and donor funds a trust has been created to work with the panchayats. Primary schools and cooperatives are made to work vibrantly. Now the panchayat is known to the whole of the state. He has been invited as a trainer to training institutions to take classes for officials and elected representatives. He has been invited to participate in the programmes organized by higher learning institutions. He is a beacon light to many of the panchayat leaders in Tamil Nadu. It is demonstrated that a leader with a vision and commitment makes a difference. A little republic can be created if a true leader emerges from the grassroots.

The writer is a former Professor and Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayati Raj Studies, Gandhigram Rural Institute. Views expressed are personal