Recently Government of India (GoI) initiated to organize “Back to village program” at grass root level of Government from 21/06/2019 to 27/06/2019. Unprecedented dissent shows that people lost hope in governance. In every country, village and tribal communities are suffering most. It is due to which, rural communities mostly take part in government formation. Taking importance of “Back to village program “into consideration in government for people. It can be regarded as, “Ears of Government”. So many grievances of people were documented by Gazetted officers appointed by state Government. Only listening, which means opening, Ears of government isn’t complete task. To do well, like human needs to listen, understand and to open hands to complete the task. Back to village program held are only Ears of the government through which unheard grievances were documented, which needs to be prioritized. Prioritization of documented grievances should be analysed, as the primary goal of the program was to give five most social service institutions or works. As the interests of people are different and influence of local government at many panchayat Halqas is like conflict zones. The idea of local governance is same. It grew in size and strength with time. To make successful ” Bact to village program ” announced by center, local government had to take vital part, as it already played in the program. Still local government seems dysfunctional as compared centuries old local government. When we move behind decades and centuries. We can say, local government was strong. As the judicial institutions grew in number from last decades due to growing population and dysfunctions of local government. From decades ago, village elders elected as punches and Sarpances had enough influence and good faith to govern the communities. They mostly solved local disputes and handed over murder cases to Judiciary. They were helpful Judiciary, Executive. In this way, local government was regarded as grass root level democracy. As the people mostly illiterate, they had great faith in local governance. As the time changed, literacy rates rose up, people became aware day by day, and misdeeds local government to work for the welfare of people fairly changed faith of people in local government. This resulted in lesser participation of local people in grass root democracy. Ultimately, it weakened over time. Due to lost faith, lesser people participated in program. So, we can say, still many grievances can be unheard, when the Ears of government were at door step to hear unheard grievances.
As the nature of program is open and discussions between government, administration and people are going on. It can be regarded as reality democracy is in power. On the other side, when government budget can be analysed, there are several important highlighted issues, which were never solved till now. As the five social service institutions/works prioritized needs lot of time and resources.So, it can be said, five year planning can be made as per documents submitted through these programs. Government plan to help these programs after five years is a good initiative to make societies better. In conclusion, we can say “Back to village program” have so many merits. It also can have some weaknesses. As much as grievances documented can be solved, which are in progress. People may gain faith in local government and in its programs like back to village. Increasing faith can drive people to take part in local government. In this way, we can strengthen local government. Conversely, it can strengthen state and center governments.
As the local government can be formed on the basis of universal adult franchise, which is good and acceptable for each one of us, it has its own drawbacks that illiterates are given mandates as they are paid low. It is mandatory, educated youth especially from Economics and Development studies background are given opportunity to work in their Halqas and they must have good earnings for their tenure.
(The author is a freelancer. Views are his own)
