Examine the unique features of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment. Do you think this Amendment would contribute in achieving the goal of empowerment of marginalised sections of the society? (2022, 20 Marks)
Three decades of panchayati raj, from Balwantrai Mehta (1957) to the failed 64th Amendment Bill (1989), rested on state statutes that could be suspended at will. The 73rd Amendment (1992) turned Article 40’s hope into Part IX. Its novelty lies less in structure than in who is guaranteed a seat, and that is where its promise to the marginalised lies.
What was new
- Constitutional entrenchment — panchayats became a compulsory third tier; a state can no longer abolish them or keep them superseded.
- Direct election at every tier — the Mehta design had indirectly elected upper tiers.
- Electoral calendar with an umpire — a five-year term, polls within six months of dissolution, and a State Election Commission removable only like a High Court judge.
- Gram sabha (243A) — the only body in the Constitution made up of the whole electorate.
- Reservation of office, not just seats — SC/ST seats in proportion to local population; one-third for women, including a quota within the SC/ST quota; and, unusually, reserved chairperson posts, rotated. The legislatures got a women’s quota only in 2023, still not operative.
- Fiscal machinery — a State Finance Commission every five years, linked to the Union Finance Commission through Article 280(3)(bb).
- Eleventh Schedule of 29 subjects, and a hook (243M(4)(b)) later used for PESA, 1996.
The powers of planning and taxation (243G, 243H) remain permissive — the limit on everything that follows.
Marginalised sections: the case for
- Women — about 14.5 lakh representatives, roughly 46%. Lori Beaman, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande and Petia Topalova showed that two terms of women pradhans narrowed the gap in girls’ aspirations and reduced voter bias.
- SCs and STs — several lakh Dalit and Adivasi representatives. Reserved chairs place them at the head of village government. PESA reserves all Scheduled-Area chairs for STs.
- Political education — J. S. Mill called local institutions schools of political capacity; first-generation representatives from never-represented households form a new political class. In Amartya Sen‘s terms, office widens agency, not only entitlement.
The case against: capture and coercion
- B. R. Ambedkar called the village “a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism” (Constituent Assembly, 4 November 1948). Mahatma Gandhi‘s self-governing village assumed a harmony that caste denies.
- Elite capture — Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee argue capture is likelier locally where inequality is high and voters poorly informed. Dominant castes field dependants in reserved seats, take unreserved vice-chairs and rig beneficiary lists against the poor.
- Coercion — at Melavalavu (1997) the elected SC president K. Murugesan and six others were murdered. A 2022 Tamil Nadu survey of 386 panchayats found Dalit presidents denied chairs in 22, and others barred from hoisting the flag on Independence Day. The SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is seldom invoked.
- OBCs — reservation is only enabling (243D(6)). K. Krishna Murthy (2010) and the triple test of Vikas Kishanrao Gawali (2021) require empirical commissions, and litigation delayed Maharashtra’s local polls for years.
- A weak office — devolution stands at about 43.9%; panchayats raise about 1% of their revenue themselves, training is often a single induction, and the secretary answers to the block. A reserved chair often commands little.
Verdict
Yes, it contributes. The Amendment secured the recognition and presence of the marginalised irreversibly, and violence against Dalit presidents shows that real authority was at stake. Substantive empowerment, though, depends on land relations, women’s collectives and devolution, which the Amendment left to states. It opened the door; obligatory devolution, enforcement of atrocity law and longer rotation cycles are needed to widen it.