ABSTRACT
Khap Panchayats practiced by peasant community in the North Indian state of Haryana, in many ways represent an amalgam of the pre-colonial Village Panchayats and some aspects of post-colonial Gram Panchayats (GPs) and Gram Sabhas (GSs). The emerging conflicts between institutions of formal and informal governance point to the deepening of local democracy, which is in part an impact of the 73rd Amendments on the nature and scope of village politics in rural Haryana. It is so because the conflict by nature is not destructive; rather, it is an intense engagement of the people in rural Haryana with issues of local self-governance, which can be best understood as a search for better ways of self-governance. The socio-political aspects of development process in Haryana show that mere material and technological prosperity is no guarantee of human well-being. Nonetheless, not everything that peasant community practices in the villages in the name of self-governance is undemocratic.
