Local self-government

The study by Dr Mohammad Mohabbat Khan of the Department of Public Administration, Dhaka University, on ‘the functioning of local government in Bangladesh’ stands good for most local self-governance in the world, notwithstanding adaptations to suit local conditions. He quotes provisions made in Articles 9, 11, 59 and 60 of Bangladesh’s constitution for administering state affairs to safeguard democratic values and secure justice at the local level.

Similar clauses in Pakistan’s constitution constitute the supreme source of all laws, ordinances and rules relating to the local government system, there being no alternative to facilitate the consolidating of democracy and promoting good governance.

During the medieval ages, the village panchayat system required village administration to collect revenues, with adequate financial resources to perform their many different functions, maintaining law and order, supervising education, irrigation and religious rituals, governing the moral behaviour of the villagers, punishing crime, settling disputes, managing communal lands and public utilities. This subsequently included construction of roads and other public works. During the pre-Mughal era, village-based local government administered their own affairs. An elected body with executive and judicial functions, the village headman often controlled the panchayat.

During the Mughal period, sarkar/chakla and pargana became the nerve centres of general and revenue administration, with the panchayat system ultimately disappearing altogether. Government at the village level gradually lost its long traditional independent and self-sufficient nature. Considerable importance was given to towns instead; each town included a number of wards or mohallas. An appointed ‘Mir Mohalla’ acted as spokesman for each mohalla. The CEO was the ‘kotwal’, wielding wide-ranging magisterial, police, fiscal and municipal powers. A qazi was the judicial officer with a ‘mohatasib’ assigned to prevent illegal practices. With citizen participation missing in the Mughal system, a top-down hierarchical administrative system extended central authority into the local areas.

The British abolished both the pargana and panchayat systems, replacing these effective indigenous mechanisms with the British model of local governance meant to promote and sustain the feudal system. The Permanent Settlement System required the civil and criminal laws and courts to become the basis of local administration. Landlords became the local rulers, and the British rule considerably weakened the traditional independent village government system. They were forced, though, to introduce the Chowkidari Act 1870 in an attempt to revive the age-old panchayat system.

The British experiments with local government system served only imperial interests, ie the maximisation of land revenue collection and maintenance of law and order. The panchayat became a local police body to further British rule, with little to do with public welfare. This continues to be the practice in today’s Pakistan. Which political party, including the PTI, really intends to break these feudal shackles? Take a close look at the Sindh LG Bill 2013 – voted by the feudals for the feudals.

Imperial power had little understanding of and/or interest in indigenous local self-governing institutions. The Bengal Local Self-Government Act 1885 established union committees responsible for the construction of roads, primary education, sanitation, upkeep of ponds and registration of vital statistics. For administrative convenience only, the UC had the power to raise funds from villagers owing or occupying adequate properties. The 1919 Act was only a minor improvement, conferring powers to form union courts for settlement of minor offences. Village governments enjoyed much more judicial power during the medieval ages.

Ayub Khan’s Basic Democracies Ordinance of 1959 made the functional jurisdiction and financial resource base of the union council self-governing and significantly strong on paper. In actual practice, though, this council was under complete political control of the central government. The four-tier system in Bangladesh comprises 40392 Gram Parishads (village councils) in the rural areas duly elected by the people. With the gram parishad and union parishad bills passed by parliament in September 1997, the implementation of the local government structure was attempted at the grassroots level.

The largest municipalities – Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi – were given metropolitan status as city corporations, Sylhet and Barisal being added later. Electing mayors since 1994, members of the city corporation council (ward commissioners) are elected from respective wards. However, some tiers have nominated instead of elected officials.

Theory notwithstanding, the version in practice in Bangladesh today enjoys very little power. The ‘feudal mindset’ is the reason why it does not work in Pakistan. In Bangladesh those pocketing enormous amounts of money through corrupt practices are the ‘new feudals’, their financial clout giving them enormous powers in the urban areas – much like what the landed feudals once had in the rural areas.

Self-governing local bodies must have appropriate administrative and financial authority as well as institutional capability at the grassroots level. This is only possible through an accelerated decentralisation process on the principle of specialisation followed by different ministries, departments, directorates, and such other agencies of the central government. To quote Dr Mohabbat, “several abortive attempts have been made at decentralisation but the system has remained highly centralised. Local bodies are characterised by weak administrative capacity, a limited financial and human resource base and little participation”.

While citizen involvement in day-to-day local government thwarts attempted poll rigging, more importantly the meaningful participation of citizens in communities immediately identifies strangers, and unearths ‘terrorist safe houses’ .

With laws for local government in the offing, will the ‘democrats’ elected to the provincial assemblies permit democracy at the local level? In a democratic farce, the Sindh chief minister has powers to suspend local bodies for three months at will. Should the laws framed for local bodies also be applicable on the assemblies? Will the CM accept his provincial government to similarly suspended by the federal government? Notwithstanding the rosy contention of the Sindh advocate general, many constitutional aberrations in the Sindh LG Bill 2013 need rectification.

Imran Khan claims a genuine devolution of government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will take place. He says, “if the present PTI-led coalition in KPK flops, PTI flops.” This may well come true. Notwithstanding the outstanding ‘whistleblower’ protection in the Right of Information (RTI) Act and the proposed Ehtesab Commission, the Khattak government is showing signs of becoming dysfunctional.

Despite the mixed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa performance in the first 90 days, Imran Khan’s charisma will probably carry the August 22 by-polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and give MQM a fright – if not a fight – in Karachi. However, charisma can go only so far in ensuring good governance. Imran must prove he means what he says, make effective changes in governance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and introduce a kind of local self-governing model that other provinces will find difficult to ignore.

Effective laws for local self-governance must: (1) ensure constitutional provisions and ordinances to enable local government to function in an autonomous manner; (2) ensure institutional efficiency; (3) explain the responsibilities and authority of local government institutions with the organisation and structure clearly defined to discharge these properly; and (4) by stopping bureaucratic and political interference in their functioning eliminate outside pressures in making decisions.

Democracy’s stakeholders must genuinely exercise their rights and executive authority at the grassroots level, instead of paying mere lip-service to local self-governance.The writer is a defence and political analyst. Email: ikram.sehgal@wpplsms.com