ABSTRACT
The generous empowerment of the panchayats was a remarkable achievement, but it was the Hegde government’s last. Even as over 50,000 elected members of councils at the district and sub-district levels began learning to make local democracy work and matter in the lives of ordinary people, the wretched squabbling among the ruling Janata Party’s legislators proceeded apace. It was as dismal a spectacle as the new panchayats were encouraging.
