Establishment of Composite District Legislatures in India Cannot be Delayed Anymore

 It is just a question of time before the debate shifts to the “root cause” of the strife in the alarmingly large number of districts that the Maoist extreme left wing terrorists control. The official figure for the number of districts under Maoist influence is 200 but actually it is much more than that. We’re living in denial as usual although that isn’t going to change the ground realities or the root causes of the disquiet. So what are the root causes? Hunger? Grinding poverty? State apathy? Complete absence of governance in the countryside? Apparently, they are. Now, isn’t it already over 6 decades that this has pretty much been the state of affairs? 

So, what new hardware is going to be unloaded in these areas now that it’s going to change everything in a whiff? It also depends on what is special about the hardware and who’s in charge of the unloading to make any difference? All over the world and across all walks of life, if a particular delivery mechanism doesn’t work, the usual practice is to either rectify it or replace it. The governance delivery mechanism in India especially in the countryside has been malfunctioning from day one of our independent existence. So, what do we do? We wait for six decades till our dirt poor folks can take it no more and go wild. We want to do good for these poor folks. After all, they’re our blood brothers, our very own countrymen. Fair enough, there’s no doubt about the good intentions. However, good intentions must be followed up with worthy action or else everything goes down the drain or mysteriously vanishes as has happened till now. 

The NREGA is a good idea but only if it is delivered well. Unfortunately, there are hardly any areas where the NREGA could be delivered and leveraged optimally. These are hard-earned taxpayers’ money and that’s why they shouldn’t get wasted. Let’s face it – the failure of the Indian state to deliver anything to our dirt poor folks is mainly due to the faulty administrative structure at the level where the government of India actually interfaces the multitudes in our countryside. This level begins from the districts downward. The districts in India are not democratically structured as the union and the states are. The pyramid of the Indian administrative system bottoms out at the state level and from the district level downward, it presents a truncated, divided and confused scenario. 

At the district level, not only is the legislature divided between the urban (Nagar Palika) and the rural (Zilla Parishad) areas but even the executive authority is not an elected member of either legislature. In fact, it is normally a rank outsider, who in many cases, is not even from the state itself let alone, the district. Of course, we’re talking about the district collector who is normally an IAS officer and is a government appointed authority. Any district resident has all the reasons to ask ‘why is it so’? Especially, when this rank outsider is found wanting in the conduct of his duties in almost all the areas he is responsible for. To add salt to the wound, the district collector is not accountable or answerable to either the Nagar Palikas or the Zilla Parishads. In fact, he heads them and in most cases, they are answerable to him.

Now, if this is the scenario at the top of the district administration what should be expected at levels further down at the sub-divisional and block levels? So, is it any wonder that no governance worth the name ever reached the dirt poor folks who are staking their lives to protect the Maoist terrorists today? I’m not saying even for a moment that everything will start working well immediately after an overhaul of the district administrative structure. It might not, for all we know but if we have a proper democratic structure in the districts as in the union and the states, then true accountability emerges and deals with the rest, especially non-performance. People then have the option of replying democratically to misrule and not fall into the trap of the totalitarian monsters like the Maoist terrorists. 

On the other hand, who are we to impose this quasi-authoritarian district collector on the people of the districts? It is illegal and unconstitutional and if the matter is properly presented in the courts, the ruling will be decisively against the state governments or whichever authority is found to be imposing such administrative coercion on the people of the districts. Such coercion will be seen by the courts as standing in the way of democratic decentralization, e.g. a composite district legislature, from evolving in the districts. Without a composite district legislature emerging there’s no way that districts can ever have an executive authority which is democratically elected and is accountable to the people of the districts. It’s a simple enough solution if we really want to arrive at one because all it needs is just a little mental adjustment. We have to stop thinking that a composite district legislature would weaken the state administration without strengthening district administration.

In fact, that was the sentiment of the 2nd ARC (Administrative Reforms Commission) which had the good sense to suggest that the office of the district collector has to make way for an elected district mayor who will be accountable to a composite district legislature or a district council. Accountability in governance from the district level downward is not possible without this democratic decentralization and delivering NREGA and other worthwhile government programmes without an accountability mechanism will just remain a pipe dream. The Maoist problem has only added urgency for the recommendations of the 2nd ARC with respect to district governance, to be implemented without any further delay. The question is, who will bell the cat?