Panchayat Act helps villagers regain control over resources

New Delhi: As the government toys with devolving more powers to gram sabhas, villages are doing their own thing to regain control of resources and manage them, empowered by the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act.
Decentralization is not just a mantra in these villages that have declared themselves village republics. Gandhi’s idea of Gram Swaraj has come true, in part.
The radical PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, gives gram sabhas in tribal areas authority to decide the use of natural resources. States have preferred not to but villages like Kamyapeta in Andhra and Mendha in Maharashtra have wrested control.
Some experts estimate more than 1,500 villages across the tribal belts have asserted their rights under the powerful act, some with better results than others.
Richard Mahapatra of the Centre for Science and Environment, who studied some of these villages, says the number of such villagers is rising. ‘‘Villages which declared themselves republics are ones which saw threats to their resources.’’
The most touted story is of Mendha in Gadchirolli district of Maharashtra.
The battle began for the Gond tribals of the village to control the dense forests that cover 80% of their village. When the forest department tried to deny people their traditional rights, they decided to take the battle full on. Other villages around them came out in support.
Like every battle fought the Gandhian way, they picked an icon — their Ghotuls or dormitories for adolescents to learn tradition and culture. Ghotuls are made of wood and when the forest department destroyed one that Medha had made, the tribals rose in protest. Neighbouring villages also built Ghotuls of wood from the forests. A mahasabha of several Gond villages was convened and decided to back Mendha.
After four years, the government handed back control of the forests to the people of Mendha and today the forest department works with villagers.
The village has an anthem, ‘Mawa Nate mate Raj, Dilli-Mumbai mawa raj (in our village we are the government, in Delhi and Mumbai it is our government)’’. The gram sabha’s permission is a must to undertake any work in the village area. Once even the governor of Maharashtra had to seek permission from gram sabha to enter its domain.