Indian Journal of Law and Legal Research Volume IV Issue V | ISSN: 2582-8878

EVOLUTION OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN BRITISH

INDIA

Aditi Shekhawat & Ritesh Dhyani, Amity University, Jaipur, Rajasthan

ABSTRACT

The third tier of government which was given constitutional status through
the 73rd1 & 74th2 Amendment known as local government institutions are
more ancient than National governments. Since time immemorial, local
communities were supposed to resolve their local issues by themselves. The
history of local government can be traced from their self sufficient and self
governing village communities. This system went through several ups and
downs in the colonial era. Although local government existed in India in
ancient times, in its present structure and style of functioning, it owes
existence to the British rule in India. Local self government in India in sense
of representative organisation, responsible to a body electors, enjoying wide
powers of taxation and administration functioning both as responsible body
and vital link in chain of organism that make up the government of country,
is a British Creation. Thepresent paper is an attempt to describe the system
and regulation of local self government in the Colonial Period. The object of
this article is to understand the evolution of the local self government in the
Colonial era and the amendments which was brought in the system of local
self governance in the Colonial era.

Keywords: Colonial Period, Amendment, Self Governing, Local

Government.

1
Ins. by the Constitution (Seventy third Amendment) Act, 1992, s. 2 (w.e.f. 24-4-1993)
2
Ins. by the Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act, 1992, s. 2 (w.e.f. 1-6-1993).

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INTRODUCTION

A local government can be broadly defined as a public body empowered to decide and
manage a limited range of public policies within a relatively narrow subdivision of local
government or central government. As per the Encyclopaedia of Social sciences3, “Local
government may be said to involve the conception of a territorial non sovereign community
possessing the legal right and the necessary organization to regulate its own affairs.”

Local governments are at the bottom of the pyramid of government agencies, central
governments are at the top, and intermediate governments (states, regions, and provinces)
occupy the middle tier. Local governments usually have overall responsibility and are not
limited to performing any particular function or service.

The system of local government was introduced to the Indian Subcontinent in the 19th
century. Prior to Britain, there was no cooperative form of local body to achieve local
autonomy. However, these institutions have permeated Indian soil in the form of
Panchayatover the centuries. Its history can be traced back to Vedic times. Even in the
days of the Vedas, Ramayana and Mahabharat, villages were autonomous in function.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: A BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT

Local governments have existed in India since ancient times, but their current structure and
functioning is due to British rule in India. Both the village self-government system that
prevailed in the early days and the methods of town government at the time were the type of
regularly elected representative government accountable to voters developed in the West and
introduced into India by the British government. In India, local government, in the sense of
an extensive administrative body having financial powers in regard to taxation and acting as
a school of training in responsibility that makes up the foundation of the country’s
government,is a British establishment.

HISTORY AND EVOLUTION

PRE-INDEPENDENCE POSITION-

3
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Vol. 9, 10, p.574

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Municipal Corporation in Madras (1688):

The city of Madras is located around Fort St. George on a site granted to the East India
Company by a local chieftain in 1639 had grew the population, which created problems
related to the justice administration, cleanliness and public health, school construction
andmany other administrative matters.

To solve some of these problems, the directors of the Company proposed the creation of
Madras Municipal Corporation - the latest of its kind under British rule. In a letter, they wrote
to Council of Madras on September 28, 1687. A charter was promulgated on December 30,
1687, and the corporation was founded on September 29, 1688. It should be noted that there
was no provision for any majority of the English in the Corporation. Representation of others
was based on their respective communities.

Regulating Act of 1773:

Under the regulating act of 1773, the Governor General appointed servants of the society
andother British residents as magistrates to clean and repair the streets of Calcutta, Madras
and Bombay.

Between 1817 and 1830 there were desperate attempts to get jobs in Madras and Calcutta
with lottery money, and with this money much was done to plant these cities. In 1840, an
expanded law and in 1841, a law was passed for Madras. This law has expanded the purpose
for which municipal assessments are to be utilized. Residents of the city have control over
theassessment and collection of taxes. No response from public. In 1845, a law was passed
for Bombay. The act concentrated administrative power in the hands of a conservation
council consisting of two European and three Indian judges, with the chief of police as the
chair. The first law deals with the preservation and improvement of presidential towns. The
second action provides for better rat evaluation and collection. Special laws were passed to
appoint commissioners in each city. In Calcutta Act 1856, special provisions were made for
gas lighting and building sewers. In the Bombay Act of 1858, power was given to taxes.

Mayo’s Resolution of 1870:

It was only after 1870 that real progress was made towards local autonomy. Lord Mayo's
government, in its 1870 resolution on financial decentralization, mentioned the need to

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discuss further measures to promote local interests and oversee the management of
expenditure funds. for education, sanitation, public works, etc. New municipal laws were
passed in various provinces from 1871 to 1874. The Acts expanded the principle of election.
The results of the policy of 1870 were described in the Resolution on Local Government of
1882, thus considerable progress had been made since 1870. Substantial revenue from local
fees and taxes has been secured, and in some provinces, revenue management has been left
freely to local authorities.

Resolution of Ripon, 1882:

Lord Ripon's4 resolution has set out the following principles to inform and guide the
localgovernments of India going forward:

i. State control over local governments should be indirect rather than direct.

ii. These agencies must be provided with sufficient financial resources to enable them
tocarry out their duties. For this purpose, local governments must be provided with
specific local revenue sources and receive appropriate subsidies from the state
budget.

iii. Local government officials must operate under the administrative control of the
localgovernment. Government employees assigned to local governments must be
treated as local government employees and placed under government control.

The 1882 resolution is interpreted by state governments according to thecircumstances of each

state.

Another important step in the history of local government was the 1906 report of the Royal
Decentralization Commission, published in 1909, which made the following major
recommendations:

i. Villages should be cities; should be regarded as the basic unit of -

Governmentagencies and villages should be formed in urban areas.

4
Lord Ripon is known as the “Father of local self government”

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ii. Local bodies require a significant majority of elected members.

iii. The ward must elect its own president, but the district collector must continue to
serveas president of the district board.

iv. Municipalities should be given the necessary powers to prepare the budget after
setting taxes and maintaining reserves. The government should provide subsidies
forpublic works such as water supply, drainage.

Resolution of 19185:

The purpose of self-government in 1918 was to educate people about local administration,
and this kind of political education must essentially take precedence over considerations of
departmental efficiency. Local authorities should therefore represent, as far as possible,
thosein charge of matters under their control, and their powers in the matters entrusted to
them should be real rather than nominal, it follows that they should not be subject to
unnecessary controls when mistakes occur. Learn and benefit from it.

The resolution included:

i. There should be Panchayats in villages.

ii. Local governments should have large elective majority.

iii. Local autonomy should be laid on a broader basis by appropriately extending

theright to vote.

iv. The presidents of local bodies should be citizens and should be elected,
notnominated.

v. Locals should be given freedom to formulate budgets, collect taxes and

approveconstruction works.

5
Chelmsford’s Government Resolution, Dated 16th May, 1918

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Government of India, 1935:

Diarchic system was replaced by provincial autonomy. The national independence

movement also reached a new scale. India is no longer just a proving ground for self-
government as the national movement grows in India. The Central Provinces set up a
Commission of Inquiry in 1935, the united provinces in 1938 and Bombay in 1939. Although
the recommendations of the municipal commission of inquiry were unevenly implemented
in different provinces, there was a clear trend towards democratizing local government by
reducing powers and abolishing the system of nominations and by the separation of the
deliberation function from the executive.

POST-INDEPENDENCE POSITION-

Constitutional Debates:

Debates in the Constituent Assembly indicated that the leaders of that time were reluctant
tointroduce a radical change in the constitution.

The administrative system then came into force and as a compromise, it was agreed that
theinstitutions of the Panchayati Raj would find a place in

The Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV, Article 40), in addition, provide that the
State must take measures to organize village Panchayats and give them the necessary
powersand authority to enable them to function as units of self-government. But there is a
general view that local government agencies will be organs of the state legislature and
therefore, there was no reduction in the power of the state government.

The Committees:

Balwantrai Mehta Committee (1957)-

This committee suggested democratic decentralized by setting up Panchayati Raj Institutions

and allocating the necessary resources, powers and authority to them. The committee
suggested that the basic unit of democratic decentralized was to be at the block (Samiti) level.
Furthermore, Zila Parishad should play a consultative role. The committee focused on the
rural sector and recommended that the functions of Panchayati Raj Institutions should cover

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the development of agriculture, the promotion of local industries and other services such as
drinking water, road building, etc.

K. Santhanam Committee (1963)-

This committee was made to look solely at the issue of Panchayati Raj Institutions’ finances.
Its recommendations have influenced the self-government and the debate so far on this
issue:

The Panchayats should have special powers to tax on income from land,
watertax, etc.

All grants at the state level should be consolidated; and

A Panchayati Raj Finance Corporation should be made which would look

intothe financial resources of Panchayati Raj Institutions, which would also
provide loans and financial assistance to these grassroots level
governments.

Asoka Mehta Committee (1978)-

Asoka Mehta Committee has given their recommendation of conceiving a system for
supporting rural development and buttressing the planning process at grass root level,
hence improving the situation with some of the states like West Bengal, Karnataka,
Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh setting up effective Panchayati Raj Instituions.

GVK Rao Committee (1985)-

This committee was appointed in1985 to revisit the obstacles in the way of effective
Panchayati Raj Institutions. It recommended that Panhchayati Raj Institutions at the
districtlevel and below should be assigned responsibilities for planning, monitoring and
implementation of rural development program. The block development office should be
thebasic structure of rural development.

L.M. Singhvi Committee (1986)-

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L.M. Singhvi committee suggested that local government should be constitutionally

recognized by the addition of a new chapter in the Constitution of India. It also viewed with
concern the asymmetry of elections and engaged with the issue of the role of political parties
in Panchayat elections. It stated that a non- involvement should be consensual rather than
through legislative edict.

73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments-

The present democratic design for local self-government in India has evolved through a
seriesof historical events, acts & commissions. 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act in 1992
has been enacted to give constitutional status to the Panchayati Raj in Part IX6 as “The
Panchayats”.

74th Constitutional Amendment Act in 1992, has been enacted to add Part IX-A7 in the
Constitution of India as “The Municipalities”. It has inserted 18 new Articles and
TwelfthSchedule relating to Urban Local Bodies. While Part IX contains Articles 243 to
243O, PartIX-A contains Articles 243-P to 243-ZG.

6
Part IX inserted by the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992, S.2 (w.e.f. 24-4-1993).
Earlier Part IX dealing with Territories in Part D of the First Schedule was repealed by the Constitution (7th
Amendment) Act, 1956, S. 29 and Sch.
7
Part IX-A inserted by the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act, 1992, S. 2 (w.e.f. 1-6-1993)

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CONCLUSION

During Colonial period, there has been no discernible progress from the establishment of
these local government institutions to the period of provincial autonomy. In addition to the
administrative failure of the provincial government, the political and nationalist movements
that began in the 1940s also played an important role in engaging rural people in the political
process. Consequently, people became enthusiastic about independence and self rule. Local
government representatives also diverted their attention from their original functions of local
administration to national politics. In 1947, after the division of India into two independent
states, India and Pakistan, British left India, leaving the entire edifice of local government in
this degraded state.

Nonetheless, local government is one of the most innovative governance transformation

processes our country has experienced. The lofty idea of leaving national government in
grassroots hands is truly admirable. Several major resolutions and committees, like Lord
Ripon’s Resolution of 1882, Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, inter alia, have played an
important role in the development of local autonomy in our country. It works locally, which
is not feasible for state governments. However, this system, like most others around the
world, is also imperfect. Problems of mismanagement and misappropriation of funds are
recurring in nature. However, this should not get in the way of efficient governance. And
once these bad practices are eradicated, no one in the world will be able to compare to our
local government system.

In the four decades, since the adoption of the Constitution, Panchayati Raj Institutions have
travelled from the non-justiciable part of the Constitution (Part IV-Directive Principles of
State Policy) to one where, through a separate amendment, a whole new status has been
added to their history.

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REFERENCES:

1. Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, Vol. 9, 10.

2. Mahajan V.D., Modern Indian History.

3. V.N. Shukla, Constitution of India (13th ed. 2017)

4. Constitution of India, 1950, Part IX & Part IX-A

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