PUBLIC DELIBERATIONS IN PALLI SABHAS OF PANCHAYATI RAJ INSTITUTIONS A Study of Odisha

Abstract

The complexities of modern world demand that democracy cannot simply be a matter newlineof procedures. There is a need to invoke the old idea of civic virtue in modern democracies. newlineThis assumes more significance in India where there is huge gap between rich and poor and newlineabsence of the poor in the decision making process. The large number of marginalized and newlineexcluded groups compels us to think about deliberative pattern of democracy. Deliberative newlinedemocracy argues for public deliberation and civic engagement. Indian democracy as it has newlinebeen practiced so far raises many questions with regard to the exclusion of many groups from newlinethe decision making process. It is true that the formal procedural aggregative model of newlinedemocracy has failed to evolve an inclusive policy which could ensure the inclusion of the newlinehistorically socially and culturally excluded groups in the decision making process. Dalits, newlinetribals and women are mostly excluded from the mainstream Indian political system. Can newlinedeliberative model provide them the space they deserve in a political system? PRIs reflect a newlinedecentralized pattern of democracy. The proposed research would like to examine to what newlineextent PRIs can be a model of deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy makes a case newlinefor serious engagement of citizens in the decision making process. PRIs effectively present a newlinemodel of democracy where there is ample scope for people s participation. But in present newlineIndia, poverty and illiteracy and hunger and malnutrition- along with the manifesto of apathy and newlineindifference- It is in this context that the present study assumes significance. The present newlinestudy intends to probe the deliberative understanding of democracy in Indian context. It takes newlinePRIs as the subject of investigation. newline