Contemporary India

21

Democratic Decentralization and Panchayati Raj

Moitree Bhattacharya (Mukhopadhyay)

Democratic decentralization provides an opportunity to resolve the problems inherent in the working of our system. It is an opportunity that can easily be lost unless implemented properly. The concept of democratic decentralization has dominated the development discourses over the last two and a half decades. It became a popular policy in many Asian, African and Latin American countries since the 1960s. The idea behind democratic decentralization is that people will become the end as well as the means of development. Democratic decentralization rejects the idea of a highly centralized State and replaces it with the concept of distribution of power to people ...