Description
This paper critically examines political power in local governments for the past three decades concerning deliberative democracy and decentralization of power at the grassroots level in South Asia in general and in India in particular. However, substantial political power was still concentrated in the hands of Landowners from the dominant caste in most of the villages. Moreover, voicelessness, powerlessness and helplessness among subaltern sections are prevailing. Constitutional provision in thirty years has established local elites among the dominant caste and created puppets among marginalized communities. When it comes to women, still proxies are exercising power in all the communities. Meanwhile, graduates and white-collar job holders from lower castes have migrated to urban cities for employment opportunities. However, lockdowns during the pandemic made them work from home. As a result, they had to stay in the village. In that conscious period, they have seen the visible and invisible forms of oppression, suppression and exploitation of the dominant caste over the subaltern communities. They also saw how the dominant caste was an organized minority who helped each other from top to bottom to perpetuate their power. This made the educated people among the unagonized majority organize themselves to resist. however, the main objective of this paper is to understand the methods of resistance against the local elite and also to analyze the possibility of shifting the power to the people to achieve total democracy.
