Contributed articles on socio-economic profiles, historical evolution and functions of Panchayati Raj.

Kerala'S Development Experiments And Experiences Are Of Profound Significance Throughout The Globe. This Handy Volume Is A Collection Of Twelve Papers Which Deals With Hetrogeneous Topics Ranging From Panchayati Raj, Municipal Administration, Financial Administration, Electoral Politics And Politics Of Development. These Papers Will Help To Throw Light On The Transformation Of The State Polity During The Recent Past. Papers Can Be Broadly Categorised Under Three Major Captions Politics Of Democracy, Decentralisation And Development. The Focus Of Attention In The First Five Chapters Is On The Inestimable Impact Of The Modern Political Forces Political Parties, Interest Groups And Pressure Groups On Kerala Polity. Special Attention Is Paid To Assess And Evaluate The Electoral Process, Voting Behaviour, Participation Of Women And Weaker Sections In Its Dynamism. Chapters Six To Eleven Depict On The Origin, Growth And Performance Of The Civic Bodies Both Rural And Urban On Kerala. This Part Is Of Paramount Importance Because Of The Adoption Of The 73Rd And 74Th Constitution Amendment Acts By The Centre And Its Ratification By The State. The Central Theme Of Discussion In The Concluding Chapter Is To Evaluate The Various Developmental Measures Carried Out By The State For The Upliftment Of Weaker Sections Of Kerala.

This book discusses the evolution of the third tier of the Indian federal system, with a focus on rural local governance (commonly known as Panchayati Raj) against the backdrop of important theoretical and empirical literature on the relevance and effectiveness of service delivery in the decentralized system. It evaluates the quintessence of the functioning of the Panchayati Raj in the past two decades of its existence. This pioneering book also discusses the treatment of the third-tier government in the inter-governmental fiscal transfer framework and the delineation of the unique institution of local self-government in the Northeastern Indian States. In the light of the loosely evolved fiscal relations between three levels of government, it has been observed that local self-governments in the bottom tier have not been truly empowered yet. The book argues in favor of integrating the third-tier government into the Indian federal system and suggests how this could be achieved.

Contributed articles, some of which have been previously presented in a seminar and in two journals.

In reaction to British imperialism during the 19th and 20th centuries, Indian Muslims and Hindus imagined and invented their separate and distinct religious communities and communal nationalisms. These were institutionalized in the subcontinent's political systems by the British government in collaboration with Indian politicians. Stern argues that this production of communalism has been crucial in structuring the composition and organization of South Asia's politically dominant classes, and that they, in turn, have been crucial in determining parliamentary democracy's growth or atrophy on the subcontinent. In what became India, the overwhelmingly Hindu National Congress formed a coalition of professionals and landed peasants, later joined by industrialists, that was friendly to the development of parliamentary democracy. In its western provinces, Pakistan's legacy from British government was a ruling coalition of landlords and civilian and military bureaucrats that has continued to impede the development of parliamentary democracy. Until 1971, this coalition equated parliamentary democracy with the loss of their dominance to Pakistan's Bengali majority. Only among them, in Pakistan's eastern province, now Bangladesh, was there a politically dominant coalition of classes that was friendly to the development of parliamentary democracy. It had the ironic effect in Pakistan of entrenching the west's anti-democratic coalition. Dogged by the legacies of twenty-four years as Pakistan's subordinate province, disorganization among its dominant classes and a vanished rural base, the development of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh has been slow and uneven.

This is a comprehensive work on India's fiscal federalism. The book surveys and analyses the evolution of fiscal federalism from the angle of political economy and brings to bear analytical skills of a very high order to assess and relate the political and administrative dimensions of India's federal system to fiscal federal issues. The authors present a synthesized framework, combining both economic and political elements in a political economy prism such as the Cente–State relations with not only the political perspectives but also the economic ones with the belief that only such a framework can provide a useful guide to implementable reform of policies.