The State shall take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government. – The Indian Constitution The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny … it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.
– James Madison, The Federalist Papers
This reporter arrived in Madhya Pradesh in 2002, when the Congress party Chief Minister Digvijay Singh had a high reputation in MP for being an effective leader. In Bhopal (so went the view from Delhi), groundbreaking innovations were taking place in government policy on health, education, Dalits, tribals and, most importantly, Panchayati Raj. No doubt, decentralisation and the devolution of power to the villages was an admirable step, designed to empower the people. But throughout the course of reporting form Madhya Pradesh, it became clear to this reporter that the reality was something else.
The first time I had to face up to the contrary facts surrounding Panchayati Raj was when starvation deaths began to be reported from Baran, a Rajasthani district adjacent to Madhya Pradesh. As I traveled to the affected villages, it became obvious that deaths were the result not of a shortage of foodgrains in the state, nor even of such a lack in individual villages. The failure instead took place at the lowest level – the sarpanch had failed to shift the grain the final 500 metres. People were dying in sight of food stocks that could have saved their lives.
The two worst-hit villages were Suans and Bilkheda Mal. In Suans, the five quintals of wheat required to be stocked by the government were available with the sarpanch. His name was Gopal Gujjar, and he admitted: "We gave wheat only to those who had no one to look after them. I don't know the names, the patwari has a list. Not one of those who lost relatives where given wheat. This would have meant going around the village to check the condition of each person or household, and this was never done."