Political Socialisation and Capacity Building through Decentralisation Rural Local Leadership

Abstract

After attaining Independence in 1947, a committee headed by Balvantrai Mehta studied the problems of local government, like the absence of people’s participation, and suggested ways and means for improving the execution of ‘Community Development Programme’ (CDP) and ‘National Extension Service’ (NES) scheme, launched on 1952 and 1953 respectively, in a phased manner. The partial success of both CDP and NES led to the formation of a three-tier arrangement, which is the process of democratic decentralization. The political socialization process is through every human being learning the essentials of socio-political life science he or she comes into the world. The behavioral movement has sensitized scholars in comparative politics to shift their research area from the static aspects of structural, legal, and historical analysis of the rural local governments to the dynamic aspect of the functions of these institutions. This area has received impetus, especially from scholars who have been oriented toward the methodology of functionalists. India is acknowledged for its local administration through the ages. The present local government structure has its roots in Lord Mayo’s strategy of decentralization of 1870, followed by Lord Ripon’s enunciation of local government in 1884, which had heralded a new trend of bringing people to the centre-stage in managing their own affairs. Mahatma Gandhi said that “the centre of power is not in Delhi or Calcutta or Bombay or in big cities; it should be distributed among the seven hundred thousand villages of India.” The significance of local government in India has considerably increased in the post-independent India. There is a paucity of research work on political socialization aspects of the rural local body leaders at the national and international levels. This research work would add to the multidisciplinary research literature relevant to Politics and Public Administration, Social Work, Sociology, Rural Development, Economics, etc. The present research paper examines the political socialization aspects of the rural local body leaders from Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu, India.