The institution of the Panchayat is a crucial part of the architecture of the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) where broadband internet connectivity is sought to be provided to every village in India. The word Panchayat translates to the council of five and refers to a form of self-governance at the village level. It is a decentralised unit of government, and
Indian states with a population of more than 2,000,000 people are mandated to have a three-tiered system of governance terminating with the Panchayat at the bottom level. As a unit of local government at the grassroots, the institution of the Panchayat as a termination of the optical fibre network represents digitalisation of grassroots democracy and yet at the same time, an extension of the State down to the last mile. Further, the physical building of the Panchayat becomes a significant space where the materiality of the network terminates and subsequently is supposed to ‘branch out’ to all citizens and households. As a result, the
‘Panchayat’ appears frequently in my research and deserves to be unpacked.
Although the Panchayat, as an informal institution, has existed for centuries, it received moral and political strengthen in Gandhian political discourse in the early 20th century.
Gandhi pushed for decentralised village government through Panchayats as a counter to the centralised colonial rule by the British empire. Post-independence, the Indian central
government passed the 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution in 1992 formalising Panchayat rule. The Indian Constitution mentions a 'Union list' that specifies issues like communication and taxation of income (for instance) that will be continue to be controlled through the Central government but other issues such as public health and agriculture that fall under a 'State list'.
The devolution of politics through Panchayat comes under the State list and typically State governments, like the state of Chhattisgarh, have a three-tiered structure. Each state is divided into a number of districts, an administrative geographical unit headed by an official appointed from the Indian Administrative Service (a colonial institution retained after Independence). Each district is divided into sub-districts, often called blocks or taluks. Each sub-district then has a number of Panchayats. Urban bodies have a parallel structure called municipalities. The distinction between an urban local body (municipality) and a Panchayat is based on the population of the area, the agricultural income and the amount of land used for agricultural purposes. However, the state government makes these decisions with inputs from the governor - appointed by the Central government.
Panchayat members are elected every five years by residents of villages. Each candidate is assigned a political symbol and the election is fought by individuals, not by political parties.
In practice, political parties spend large amounts and carefully nominate candidates in order to control Panchayats. Once members are elected, the members elect the President of the Panchayat. The state government appoints an official to collect local taxes and fees and maintain records. As per the 2011 Census, India has just above 650,000 villages but 250,000 Panchayats35. A Panchayat usually covers a few nearby villages, so every individual village is assigned to one Panchayat.
The Chhattisgarh Panchayat Act was passed in 1993 and the state currently has 10,976 village Panchayats (also called Gram Panchayats), 27 district Panchayats (one for each of the 27 districts) and 146 block Panchayats (also called Janpad Panchayats) across the state36. My field work is based in Surguja District, in the northern border of Chhattisgarh and has 7 block Panchayats and 400 village Panchayats. Most of my work was based in Ambikapur Block Panchayat (it is also the administrative capital of Surguja District), villages close to the Ambikapur Block (which has 86 village Panchayats) and Udaipur Block (which has 53 village Panchayats). In Chhattisgarh, the post of the Panchayat President is reserved for
representatives from the Adivasis. Often during my interactions with both city and non-Adivasi village residents, this was a common complaint – that even if a village had four or five Adivasi households, they were forced to only choose a President from those households because of the reservation policy. Such complaints were usually followed up by other more common stereotypes - that the Adivasis are illiterate, uninterested in governance, and were too often drunk to be able to perform their duties.
By the early 2000s, many of the higher tiers of the Central and State governments were connected through fibre optic lines and/or satellite networks provided by National Informatics Centre (NIC), a public body also responsible for government email accounts, websites and online security of information. The NIC also ensured that other important public institutions such as High Courts and large public hospitals were connected – meaning that their records were digitised and connected to the local administration, supposedly for
35 Ministry of Panchayati Raj report, based on Census Report of 2011. Retrieved from:
https://www.panchayat.gov.in/documents/10198/456811/MoPR%20at%20a%20Glance_English%20%2820.09 .2016%29.pdf.
36 As per figures from https://dpcg.cgstate.gov.in/English/cg-panchayat.aspx
transparency. By 2010-12, most of the Block level institutions were connected but the last mile - Panchayats remained offline. A crucial part of the NOFN infrastructure that seeks to wire up all 250,000 Panchayats across India, aimed to fill this gap of connectivity. Many of my informants, especially working in the block level government institutions pointed this out as a key objective of the NOFN.