Note: In preparation for the Raj Centennial conference, CDS faculty and PhD scholars have put together notes on the research work from the Centre using the conference panels as categories. This note on Decentralisation and Governance should be interpreted as a work-in-progress, and the Centre hopes to work on it further based on feedback and more archival exploration. Further, we acknowledge that there are different possible thematic narratives of the research; the present note can be seen as a preliminary perspective constructed by the author using their preferred style and approach.
Decentralisation and Governance
Decentralisation was an integral part of K. N. Raj’s vision of a relatively painless transition to urban industrial development. Interest in this theme at the CDS coincided with policy shifts furthering decentralisation. With national legislation in the 1990s, the CDS became an important centre of discussion in decentralisation in Kerala—and specifically, the People’s Planning Campaign (PPC). Much academic writing on the PPC followed the process and provided analysis. A later research programme (the Kerala Research Programme on Local-level Development, KRPLLD) brought together activists and researchers, encouraged action research and the use of mixed methods, and gave attention to women’s issues in development. By now, faculty research at CDS, often with international collaborators, brought together the village studies tradition with researching local governance, and introduced sharply critical perspectives. Another research programme (the Research Unit on Local Self-Government, RULSG) at CDS extended the KRPLLD’s themes and introduced new concerns such as ecological crises, focused on the Kudumbashree network, and conducted policy dialogues to expand the inclusiveness of local governance. At present, research on the local at CDS employs multiple theoretical lenses and focuses on the politics of local governance, in the background of Kerala’s transition past ‘Kerala Model’ times.
Local area planning
Local self-government occupied a central position in K. N. Raj’s vision of economic growth in India. Raj believed that the process of the transition from agriculture should be gradual and without distress to agriculturists and rural artisans (Jacob, 2024), and improving incomes and services at the local level through better utilisation of local labour was integral to this vision. Not surprisingly, then, the very first working paper published by the CDS was on local level development (‘Planning from Below’, K. N. Raj (1971)). It presented reflections on planning at the district-level and integrating it with State-level planning:
Though the need for “planning from below’, and the potentialities of district development planning from this point of view, have been recognized for a long time the progress in this direction has not been very striking … The case for district development planning is however still a strong one. The kind of centralized planning India has had so far – with its reliance mainly on selected projects for building up the overheads of development and on certain general policies and measured for mobilising and allocating resources – has had little visible impact on vast areas of the country. (p.1)
Such concerns in research at CDS tended to surface alongside significant policy shifts towards decentralisation. For instance, a working paper by a group of CDS scholars (CDS, 1980)—T. M. Thomas Isaac, K. P. Kannan, John Kurien, Sudipto Mundle, P. G. K. Panikar, K. N. Raj, and A. Vaidyanathan—responded to the passage of the District Administration Act in Kerala:
Development planning in India has so far been primarily planning of the investments required for building up essential economic overheads … It is now a commonplace that the benefits of these investments have gone mainly to the top decile or two of the population…. Since the reasons lie deeply embedded in the structure of tile economy and its institutional framework, it would be unrealistic to expect any spectacular improvements through changes in the methods of planning or in the content of the development programmes. Yet there is some scope for improvements through (a) more careful selection and coordination of the investments directly or indirectly supported by the public sector, and (b) evolving organisational structures at different levels for promoting more broad-based and equitable use of their potential… The proposed implementation of the legislation for setting up District Administration Councils, and the further decentralization of development activities through panchayats which it makes possible, offer an opportunity for considering concretely what can be done and how. (p.1)
People’s planning and local development
In the 1990s, a decade of considerable policy shifts nationally in local self-government and a time of policy excitement in Kerala, the CDS emerged as a major voice supporting the decentralisation of development. The active collaboration of CDS scholars with the development civil society organisation Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishat, and the keen international interest led to many significant events around the resource mapping exercises and the pilot project of the People’s Planning Campaign (PPC) at Kalliasseri. These drew a very diverse set of participants. Reporting on one such seminar at CDS which focused on the framework for local governance laid down in the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments and State-level action to set up local bodies in a year’s time as efficient functioning institutions, Kannan (1993, p. 2644) observed: ‘Participants in the seminar represented a cross-section of public opinion. There were political leaders, academics, senior civil servants, activists of voluntary organisations, and representatives of panchayats and government employees.’ Senior political leaders such as E. M. S. Namboodiripad and E. K. Nayanar sent papers to be presented.
Much academic writing about the PPC from the mid-1990s was from scholars at the CDS, some through collaborations with activists and local and international scholars. Such research was to proliferate considerably with the Kerala Research Programme on Local-level Development (KRPLLD) (1999-2005). The KRPLLD promoted mixed-methods and action research and accorded considerable importance to the study of gender relations shaping local-level development. This was a shift away from the quantitative orientation and gender-blindness of mainstream research at the CDS and its focus on financing local governance and development. Set up with the support of the Government of Netherlands, the KRPLLD was described thus:
The fundamental objective of the Programme is to develop scientific research capability for understanding the problems of socio-economic development in Kerala. By tracing long-term processes of evolution in Kerala society, relevant policies and programmes for sustainable development will be formulated. With this end in mind, the KRPLLD will promote multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research. It also hopes to strengthen the research capabilities of voluntary organisations and people’s movements while actively encouraging women researchers. … The KRPLLD studies call for intensive interaction with local communities with extensive application of participatory research methods. Developing such studies effectively is possible only if the research team involved is socially concerned. (http://www.cds.ac.in/krpcds/ )
While the KRPLLD studies covered a wide range of topics including agriculture, animal husbandry, environment and biodiversity, local institutions, village resurveys, credit and finance, women’s issues, housing, health, sanitation, and so on, they almost always focused on the micro level and on local governance and its possibilities. Of these studies, 32 were on local-level planning. The nine papers in the KRPLLD Discussion Paper Series explored several issues regarding local planning and the functioning of local governance institutions. Although student interest in panchayati raj and development registered an increase in the 1990s, the numbers did not increase substantially: there were only five MPhil dissertations, and all focused on either finance or participation. However, scholars at the CDS had been publishing about panchayati raj in these years, both by themselves and with external collaborators. T. M. Thomas Isaac, a leading theorist and practitioner of the PPC, who published prolifically in English and Malayalam, was a member of the CDS faculty.
Critical frames and gender lens
Some of the research on local governance merged with the village studies tradition, such as the study of agrarian distress and vulnerability In Idukki’s Upputhara panchayat by (Nair & Ramakumar, 2007). Critical voices also became more audible. These focused on the very frame of panchayati raj, especially from a gender lens. From 2005, studies at CDS or involving CDS researchers turned to critiques of the PPC’s patriarchal-familial imagination of local-level development (Devika & Thampi, 2007; Heller et al., 2007; Kodoth & Mishra, 2011). While the KRPLLD studies had a micro-level focus, encouraged mixed methods research, and advocated a focus on women’s issues, they differed from these studies in their degree of criticality and disciplinary moorings—and addressed broader debates in development studies, agrarian studies, and gender studies. Not only did they build critical insight into local body functioning, but they also critiqued the very frame in political terms rather than on policy terms alone.
Following the KRPLLD, in 2005 the CDS set up a Research Unit on Local Self-Government (RULSG) funded by the state government. Besides research, the objective was to strengthen capacities for research and action and link with government training institutions such as the Kerala Institute of Local Administration. Early RULSG studies were on housing and other welfare activities in local bodies, and then infrastructure programmes. New themes were explored later, such as micro-level studies of the emergent ecological crisis using intersectional critical lenses—including five major studies in the CDS-RULSG Monograph Series on Ecological Challenges and Local Self-Government in Kerala (https://cds.edu/publications/rulsg-publications/ecological-challenges-series/). Further, the RULSG published a series of short papers on Kudumbashree, the network of women’s self-help groups. At the end of the 2010s, the RULSG also organised five policy dialogues, along with seminars and notes, to strengthen local bodies and make them more inclusive.
Research seems to be moving from training a ‘Kerala Model’ lens that assumes the presence of a welfare state, to using a ‘Post-Kerala-Model’ lens that acknowledges the fresh challenges of the new century, the emergent ‘workfare’ state, and deepening neo-liberalisation. Contemporary research at CDS includes a focus on the local from multiple perspectives such as labour geography and transnationalism, as well as studies on power and politics in decentralised governance and local development.
References
CDS. (1980). Some Notes on Possibilities of Decentralised Development in Kerala. CDS Working Paper, 106.
Devika, J., & Thampi, B. V. (2007). Between ‘Empowerment’ and ‘Liberation’: The Kudumbashree Initiative in Kerala. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 14(1), 33–60.
Heller, P., Harilal, K. N., & Chaudhuri, S. (2007). Building local democracy: Evaluating the impact of decentralization in Kerala, India. World Development, 35(4), Article 4.
Jacob, S. (2024). Raj the Scholar: Humanist Vision, Grounded Theorising, and Focus on Institutions [Paper prepared for the K. N. Raj Centennial conference, Centre for Development Studies, October 20-22].
Kannan, K. P. (1993). Local self-government and decentralised development. Economic and Political Weekly, 28(49), 2644–2646.
Kodoth, P., & Mishra, U. S. (2011). Gender equality in local governance in Kerala. Economic and Political Weekly, 46(38), 36–43.
Nair, K. N., & Ramakumar, R. (2007). Agrarian Distress and Rural Livelihoods – A Study in Upputhara Panchayat Idukki District, Kerala’. CDS Working Paper, 392.
Raj, K. N. (1971). Planning from Below: With reference to District Development and State Panning: A Preliminary Note. CDS Working Paper, 1.
Prepared by Prof. J. Devika.