Democratic Decentralization and People's Participation in West Bengal

Abstract

After forty years of experiments in democratic decentralization, the constitutional directive was taken seriously and by 73rd (Amendment) Constitution Act of the Indian Constitution, the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) were accorded constitutional sanction. In order to ensure effective participation of the people in line with the requirements of local democracy as well as to revitalize and reorient the civil society, new institutions in the form of Gram Sabha were brought into being. The state of West Bengal pushed the idea of local democracy a step further by devising another institution below the Gram Sabha, namely, Gram Sansad to ensure more effective and more functional grassroots democracy. Consequently, people's participation in democratic processes as well as developmental activities assumed new and challenging dimensions. The present study seeks to identify and measure the level of people's participation in the grassroots democratic institutions particularly in the newly devised institution of Gram Sabha and Gram Sansads of West Bengal.