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Panchayati Raj in West Bengal: Popular Participation for the People or the Party?

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  • Neil Webster

Abstract

Since 1978 the Left Front government in West Bengal, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — CPI(M) — has pursued a strategy of decentralized planning through locally elected panchayats (councils) in the countryside. The stated ideological commitment of the CP1(M) is to support and eventually empower the poor and oppressed and this has resulted in Panchayati Raj assuming the status of not just a state sponsored decentralization strategy, but the institutional forum for the mobilization of the poor and the expansion of the party's base. However the CPI(M)'s strategy is to some extent ambiguous in that it combines a need to maintain an electoral status as a party leading a state government within the Indian Union and a political status as a party promoting the conditions for, and the transition to, a people's democracy and thereby socialism.

Suggested Citation

  • Neil Webster, 1992. "Panchayati Raj in West Bengal: Popular Participation for the People or the Party?," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 23(4), pages 129-163, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:23:y:1992:i:4:p:129-163
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.1992.tb00472.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Dey, Subhasish & Sen, Kunal, 2016. "Is Partisan Alignment Electorally Rewarding? Evidence from Village Council Elections in India," IZA Discussion Papers 9994, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Natasha Cornea & Anna Zimmer & René Véron, 2016. "Ponds, Power and Institutions: The Everyday Governance of Accessing Urban Water Bodies in a Small Bengali City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 395-409, March.
    3. Ribot, Jesse C. & Agrawal, Arun & Larson, Anne M., 2006. "Recentralizing While Decentralizing: How National Governments Reappropriate Forest Resources," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 1864-1886, November.

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