Re-Thinking Sovereignty
for Empowering Local Government in India
Lloyd I, Rudolph
University of Chicago
The reform of local government in 1993 as a result of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution sought to create a “third tier” in India’s constitutionally mandated federal system. The intention was to recover and empower the Gandhian state that Nehruvian Constitution makers marginalized in 1947 -1950.
To institute a Gandhian state requires re-thinking sovereignty. Gandhi was ahead of his time in conceptualizing sovereignty as bottom up rather than top down and as limited, contingent and negotiated. His views resembled medieval views of sovereignty and anticipated postmodern ones. Kenneth Pennington, a scholar of medieval sovereignty writing in 1993, tells us that “Today, as in the Middle Ages, sovereignty remains a difficult concept. A basic question that bedevils Europeans at present is whether a state may share its sovereignty.” In medieval times, Pennington shows that “shared sovereignty was commonplace.” The European community, he points out, has proposed something similar. Its members, he writes, are being asked “to relinquish parts of their sovereignty to a new Federation of European States …” [1]
John Montgomery, writing from a postmodern perspective in 2002 about “Sovereignty Under Challenge” observed, that “states may be said to wither away at least partially when their governments decide to yield some of their authority to subordinate local units, a process that can affect the international system as well as domestic politics.” “There are few people these days,” he continued, “who would argue that the state possesses the sole claim to loyalty in the face of competing aspirations and demands from other sources. When governments are compelled to respond to these other claims, they often do so by dispersing their own sovereignty, transferring the state’s authority elsewhere, either upward, as new means emerge for resolving issues between and among states, or downward, as governments increasingly recognize the legitimate moral claims of groups and individuals whose appeals the state is unwilling to reject.” [Sandel, 1996: 346 -351]. [2]
In an era when states are relinquishing functions to transnational authorities, becoming increasingly inter-dependent and learning to limit and share sovereignty, Gandhi’s views on the subject may help us to think more clearly and afresh about local government and empowerment. “My view of village Swaraj,” he wrote, “is that it is a complete republic, independent of its neighbours for it own vital wants, and yet inter-dependent for many others in which dependence is a necessity.” [3] “Independence must begin,” he argued, “at the bottom. Thus every village will be a republic or Panchayat having full powers. [underlining supplied] …. In this structure composed of innumerable villages there will be ever-widening, ever ascending, circles ….. The outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle, but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength from it.” [4]
Gandhi is aware that he is speaking figuratively about an ideal, an ideal that can guide action. Here is how he put it: “I may be taunted with the retort that his is all Utopian, and therefore not worth a single thought. If Euclid’s point, though incapable of being drawn by human agency, has an imperishable value, … my picture has its own for mankind ….. We must have a proper picture of what we want, before we can have something approaching it.” [5]
Gandhi’s view of sovereignty was more like a medieval and postmodern view of sovereignty than it was to the modern state view based on Westphalian centralized, monopoly conception of territorial sovereignty. For Gandhi sovereignty was located in the village at the base of a state pyramid and delegated upward. Sovereignty was divided, not unified. It was shared by bargaining and delegation.
Gandhi was ahead of his time because in the 21st century sovereignty is increasingly being conceptualized and practiced as limited and shared. Territorial sovereignty is being comprised by the creation and operation of international bodies such as the World Trade Organization and transnational bodies such as the European Union or EU. Members of the WTO follow its rules and obey its decisions. Europe’s sovereign states recognize the jurisdiction of EU courts for Human Rights and the Environment and enforce their decisions.
India is having trouble implementing the 73rd amendment for a variety of reasons. An important reason is that India’s federal states are unwilling to share sovereignty with panchayati raj institutions. Most of them won’t share the revenue and authority needed to empower panchayati raj institutions. Their ministers and MLAs don’t want to share benefits and patronage.
The Center as well as the federal states have trouble recognizing the constitutionally mandated sovereignty of PR institutions. One glaring example is the seizure in Singur and Nandigram without Panchyati raj participation of thousands of acres for industrial development. Nationally the Special Economic Zones Act of May 2005 which came into effect on 10th February 2006 authorizes the creation of 234 SEZ without any provision to involve Constitutionally constituted “third tier” institutions in the decision making process. A willingness to share sovereignty might have lead to a better outcome.
[1] . Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200 -1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1993. P. 284.
[2] . John D. Mongomery, “Sovereignty in Transition,” in John D. Montgomery and Nathan Glazer, editors, Sovereignty Under Challenge: How Governments Respond, New Brunswick and London, Transaction Publishers, 2002. P. 23 and 27.
[3] . 69. My View of Village Swaraj.,” in Anand T.Hingorani, editor, The Village Reconsruction, vol 14 of Bhavan’s Book University, Gandhi for the 21st Centrury. P. 115.
[4] . Hingorani, ed, Village Reconstruction, 70. Village Republic. P. 117.
[5] . Hingorani, Village Republic, p. 118