Decentralisation in India: Towards ‘localism’ or ‘regionalism’?

This paper offers a commentary on what decentralisation has come to mean in India, based on recent research conducted in Kerala, one of the southern states. In particular, the paper discusses the tensions between ‘regionalism’ and ‘localism’. It begins with a brief outline of how decentralisation is conceived within the broad literature. This is followed by a case study, where the shifts in forms of decentralisation adopted by the Kerala state government are examined. The paper concludes with key findings that underpin an understanding of decentralisation within the Indian context. examines public rather

. Types of decentralisation (Basta 1999;Bennett 1994;Rondinelli et al. 1984;Shah and Shah 2006) Administrative decentralisation focuses on the different responsibilities that might be transferred from central (national or provincial/state) government bureaucracies to actors within smaller political units. These responsibilities often include the administration and delivery of social services such as education, health and social welfare. When such responsibilities are transferred to local or regional offices of central government agencies, this is termed 'deconcentration' (Manor 1999). For instance, the town planning department of a state government in India, situated in the state's capital, might allocate responsibilities to regional offices located within each district or administrative subdivisions of the state. In other cases, functions and responsibilities may be transferred to semi-autonomous institutions that are not directly controlled by central governments.
This form of administrative decentralisation is known as 'delegation' (Gaiha and Kulkarni 2002). For instance, in Delhi, the capital city of India, the task of planning the development of urban areas has been entrusted to a semi-autonomous organisation, the Delhi Development Authority.
Political decentralisation transfers electoral capacities or political authority to subnational and/or local governments (Falletti 2005). This is usually accompanied by GOPINATH: DECENTRALISATION IN INDIA: TOWARDS 'LOCALISM' OR 'REGIONALISM'? constitutional amendments and/or electoral reforms. In some cases though not always, political decentralisation involves describing the legislative powers of sub-national/local governments and how they can raise revenue for their day-to-day functions. Within the descriptions of political decentralisation, Shah and Shah (2006) note a distinction between local or regional government and local or regional governance. Through the former arrangement, the intention is to create state-centric forms of governance through devolution of power to lower forms of government, and other actors beyond the state are not involved directly in the policy process. In the latter description, the purpose is to create a facilitating environment for the active involvement of different actors including citizens and civil society actors (such as non-governmental organisations) in decisionmaking. The framework proposed by Shah and Shah (2006) will be used later to position the nature of political decentralisation in India.
In fiscal decentralisation, central governments transfer influence over budgets and other financial powers either to local governments or to their own regional/local offices (Manor 1999). In the former case, where budgetary powers are transferred to local governments, Bird and Vaillancourt (1999) discuss two further possibilities: First, where local authorities act on behalf of central governments in implementing revenue and expenditure policies; and secondly, where local authorities have considerable authority to decide the rates of some taxes.
These different forms of decentralisation will now be explored in the Indian context, particularly in the case of Kerala.

Decentralisation in Kerala
The state of Kerala is one of the 28 states in India (see Figure 2) that was formed in  District Collector) to obtain a range of certificates, permits and other important documents including those related to domicile, nationality, caste, age verification etc.
Although the District Collector is a national government appointee, he/she is attached to the General Administration Department of the respective state government. Local governments in Kerala are organised within districts or regions and total 1215 in number.

Attempts at political decentralisation: 1950s
The first Communist party-led government that came to power in 1957 in Kerala attempted to introduce political decentralisation through the constitution of elected district governments, the district, or regional councils. The intention was that districts would emerge as both administrative and political units within the state. This was based on the Report of the Administrative Reforms Committee (1958) that had argued for a twotier local government structure for Kerala -Panchayats (rural local governments) and Municipalities (urban local government) at the local level, and District Councils at the district level. The District Council Bill set out to transfer certain powers and responsibilities from the state government to elected representatives of a district (the administrative region of the state). However, the Bill could not be passed, as there were widespread protests against the Communist proposed reforms. The Congress-led national government dismissed the Communist administration in 1959 on account of the latter's alleged inability to govern the state, resulting in the failure of this early move towards regionalism.

Administrative decentralisation: 1970s and 1980s
In the early 1970s, District Planning Offices were established in the various regions of Kerala by the Congress-led administration in order to decentralise the technical division of the State Planning Board (the department of the state government that is responsible for economic planning). However, being outposts of the State Planning Board, the District Planning Offices merely employed a technical approach to policy making and did not attempt to involve communities and non-state actors in the policy process.
Although 'regionalism' was seen as important, there was merely a decentralisation of the state government's administration in the various regions of the state.

Mandatory political decentralisation under national legislation: 1992
Governance became an interesting discussion in the Indian context following the calls of the Indian central government in 1992 to legitimise the existence of local governments that could then engage with state governments in policy making. Rather than conceiving district governments with jurisdiction over rural and urban areas (Isaac and Franke 2000), such as those involved in previous attempts at political decentralisation Kerala, the national government strategy envisaged a three-tier local government structure for rural areas and a single tier structure for urban areas throughout India.
This was an interesting turn in Indian politics marking a departure from a centralised governance strategy and moving towards an agenda of 'localism'. The central government made amendments to the Indian constitution in 1992 through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts to facilitate the proposed new structures. These were, however, limited to a reconfiguration of what Shah and Shah (2006) refer to as state-centric forms . Responsibilities were shifted between different actors within the state, while actors beyond the state are not seen as significant in the policy process. government's budget to local governments. These shifts in the forms of decentralisation adopted over several decades in Kerala are illustrated in Table 1.

Conclusion
The literature on decentralisation in Kerala has been fragmented -advocates of the People's Plan Campaign (Heller et al. 2007;Isaac and Franke 2000;Veron 2001) and the Integrated District Development Plan (Easow and Thomas 2005;Karunakaran 2006) each argue that decentralisation is best understood through their respective strategy.
What is missing within these debates is a broader understanding of decentralisation strategies within the Indian context, and particularly how they relate to questions of 'regionalism' and 'localism'. Constitutional Amendment Acts 1992 with their focus on 'localism').
Secondly, while both the PPC and the IDDP advanced 'local governance' through political and fiscal decentralisation, the PPC was in fact more interested in 'localism' (for instance, by facilitating community forums in localities to discuss the local government budget), whereas the IDDP was focussed on 'regionalism' (for instance, in how the district or regional councils were seen as necessary to mediate local and regional priorities).
This commentary has thus sought to provide a description of the various forms of decentralisation that co-exist and/or compete in the Indian context; and an examination of how there remains a contest between 'regionalism' and 'localism' within the Indian states. A decentralisation strategy merely provides a clearer account of that struggle. It is in this context that further research needs to be carried out, particularly into the role of national government in shaping decentralisation strategies in state governments. A primary concern is whether this is desirable. An equally important issue that is particularly relevant in a federal structure is according constitutional status to local governments -not merely legitimising their right to existence but also by giving them powers to legislate. Just as there are subjects in the Union List and the State List, drawing on which national and state governments can legislate, so too there should be a 'Local List' describing areas in which local governments can legislate -otherwise local governments will remain simply 'creatures' of central and state governments.