The guidelines given to the drafting group were to prepare as detailed Constiutional provisions as were required but not to alter the Constitutional place of Panchayati Raj, namely, its position in the State List. In other words, the proposed Amendment would ensure full Constitutional sanction and protection to the institutions of local government in rural India but leave it to the States to work out the modalities for decentralization and the devolution of power.

During the course of the months devoted to datailed drafting, during which Rajiv Gandhi gave freely of his time and energy at every stage of the process, he decided that the Constitution Amendment must ensure uniformity in bringing Panchayats into existence, uniformity in provisions for dissolution and reconstitution by election within a reasonable period of time, uniformity in regard to the legitimate life of the Panchayats after which elections must be held, and uniformity in regard to the system for the representation of the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes and women. Initially, there was no particular desire to ensure uniformity in the structure of the institutions of Panchayati Raj. But it gradually became evident that there could not be uniformity in reservations for the three identified disadvantaged groups unless there was uniformity of structure. Thus, for example, if some States had only two tiers, or even only one, while others had three tiers, clearly both the representation of the people would be different in different States and, equally, respresentation for the weaker sections of society would also be different in different States.

This Rajiv Gandhi regrded as indefensible since, in principle, there was no reason why Tamils should find direct, elected representation at the village and intermediate level only while Bengalis found direct, elected representation at the district level also; or for reservations to operate through a direct election process at the intermediate level in Karnataka but not in UP because the middle tier there was composed ex-officio of the village pradhans. Uniformity in election schedules thus got married to uniformity in the structure of Panchayat Raj institutions and the system of reservations in these institutions. It also eventually led to uniformty in the method of electing representatives to these institutions and the methodology for electing office-bearers and the composition of the electoral college for this purpose. In determining the shape that such uniformity should take.

Rajiv Gandhi was persuaded that, if a parliamentary system was favoured at the State and central levels, a similar system should be introduced uniformly in the Panchayats in preference to a presidential model, advocated by many, of having the chief executive of the panchayat institutions directly elected by the electorate instead of, as in the parliamentary system, indirectly by the members of the panchayat body. To secure consensus on these basis systemic changes was no easy matter. He particulary relied on a determined band of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe Ministers to bring sceptics and doubters around to this point of view.

He demonstrated in Cabinet that the protection of the interests of the weaker sections was not possible uniformly without uniformity in systems, such reservations being the key to ensuring that feudal elements and gender bias did not result in Panchayati Raj becoming exploitative rather than representative. In the process of evolving this consensus, he had to concede two points that have since detrated from the degree of uniformity in systems.

One, he was obliged to leave it to the States to devise their own patterns of representation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). This has led to various anomalies in State legislation. He also agreed to leave it to State legislatures to determine the mode of election of the village panchayat president: some have favoured direct elections, others have gone in for the parliamentary mode.

At the end of the day, however, it is remarkable how much uniformity in systems has been secured in contrast to the systems devised under earlier dispensations. Of course assured representation for women is the single most important conceptual breakthrough. It is important, though, to appreciate the singn-ificance of the other major conceptual change; SC/ST rservation is now proportional to the population of SC/ST in each panchayat area, not weighted to some national average in the State as a whole. The domination of panch- ayats in SC/ST areas by non-SC/ST elements has.thus, been kept in check.

While questions relating to the structure and design of Panchayati Raj institutions compelled Rajiv Gandhi to call upon all his reserves of persuasion to secure consensus within his government, curiously the far more important provistions relating to dece- ntralisation and devolution for development had much smoother sailing. No one doubted that the primary function of the PRIs must relate to planning and the implementation of schemes of ecomomic and social development, nor that social justice (that is, equity in regard to beneficiaries from all classes) must be integrally built in to the planning and implementation process.

Despite his many other preoccupations, Rajiv Gandhi spent some three hours going over every entry, with a fine tooth-comb, as it were, of the proposed Twelth Schedule illustratively listing the subjects to be devolved to the PRIs, his painstaking attention to this crucial detail fully justified itself. Not only did the Twelth Schedule emerge unscathed from repeated examination by successor governments and Parliament’s Joint Select Committee, but every State in its State legislation had incorporated each of the entries in every particular into the legal schema of their patterns of devolution. This is, perhaps, an even more enduring and significant contribution to Panchayati Raj than establishing the irrversibility of Panchayati Raj in the warp and woof of our policy.

Rajiv Gandhi was now ready to go before the most crucial forum of all, the Chief Ministers of the country, the group most likely to have reservations over this encroachment into what had hither to been their virtually exclusive preserve. The country was, however, so firmly behind his endeavours that, some criticism of specifics notwithstanding, he was able to build a substantial measure of agreement at the meeting. Indeed, the meeting was chiefly notable for a query posed by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Narain Dutt Tewari. Why, he asked, had the Prime Minster concentrated exclusively on Panch- ayats for the rural areas. Why not a similar Constitutional Amendment for the Nagar palikas ?

Rajiv Gandhi immediately initiated consultations for such an Amendment and the process was every bit as intensive for the municipalities as it has been for the Panchayats, although concentrated within a much shorter time span. The 64th and 65th Amendments had an easy passage through the Lok Sabha but ran into serious straits in the Upper House. This had been anticipated as the Congress lacked the requisite two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha. The initial strategy had been to take the Amendments to the Rajya Sabha by Independence Day 1989, in the hope that the larger cause of Panch- ayati Raj would prevail over narrower partisan political considerations. But despite Rajiv Gandhi’s very generous ackno- wledgement of the contribution of non-Cogress governments in shaping his ideas, such constructive cooperation was not forthcoming. The initial strategy was to force the issue whatever the outcome, win or lose, and go to the country on the issue at the next elections. Subsequently, however, a detemined effort was made to secure the required 2/3 majority. On the night of Friday. 13 October 1989, these efforts came to nought as the Rajya Sabha fell five votes short of the required target. The following week, Rajiv Gandhi went to the country. The rest in history.

It was Ayodhya rather than Panchayati Raj that dominated the elections of 1989, But so firmly had the seeds of Panchayati Raj been planted that, in December 1992, Parliament passed into law a new part of the Constitution consecrated to the Panchayats and the Nagarpalikas, which in all but some matters of detail, was the scheme born out of Rajiv Gandhi’s dreams and ideals. The new part IX of the Constituti om remains the most enduring monument to Rajiv Gandhi’s stewardship of the nation.