Mahatma Gandhi wrote in the Harijan on July 26, 1942, “My idea of Village Swaraj is that it is a complete republic, independent of its neighbours for its wants, and yet interdependent for many others in which dependence is a necessity.” But long before that, as early as May 15, 1806, a Britisher, Thomas Munro, who later was to become the governor of Madras, described the Indian village as a “little republic” and India as “a mass of such republics”.
Gandhi went on to describe his concept further in the following words:
“The government of the village will be conducted by the Panchayat of five persons, annually elected by the adult villagers, male and female, possessing minimum prescribed qualifications. These will have all the authority and jurisdiction required…. (T)his Panchayat will be the legislature, judiciary and executive combined to operate for its year of office. Any village can become such a republic today without much interference, even from the present government whose sole effective connection with the villages is the exaction of the village revenue. I have not examined here the question of relations with the neighbouring villages and the centre if any. My purpose is to present an outline of village government. Here there is perfect democracy based upon individual freedom. The individual is the architect of his own government. … He and his village are able to defy the might of a world.”
However, in today’s India when a village tried, not to defy anyone’s might, but to cross-check its own preferences, all hell seemed to break loose!
A “village republic” tries to assert itself
The village is Markadwadi, in the Malshiras constituency of Solapur district in Maharashtra. Twelve candidates had contested the 2024 state assembly election in this constituency. In the results declared by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on November 23, Uttamrao Shivdas Jankar of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) (NCP (SP)) was declared elected with a total of 1,21,713 votes (50.12%), with Ram Vitthal Satpute of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being number two with 1,08,566 votes (44.70%). Satpute was a former MLA.
Supporters of the winner, Jankar, should have been happy because he had been elected but strangely his supporters in the village of Markadwadi were not happy. The source of their unhappiness was that in their village, the loser, Satpute, had got more votes than the winner, Jankar, with Jankar having polled only 843 votes to Satpute’s 1,003 votes. The village was reported to have around 2,000 registered voters out of which around 1,900 were reported to have voted. The villagers seemingly believed that there was no way Satpute could have more votes than Jankar. They also believed that the number of votes cast for Jankar were much more than 843 that the official vote count showed.
Apart from the source, the intensity of the unhappiness was such that they decided to conduct a kind of a mock-poll only in their village to confirm the reason for their unhappiness. And since they did not have access to electoral paraphernalia as EVM, VVPAT, etc., they decided to conduct the poll using good old ballot papers.
Once they decided to do this, they approached the local officials, tehsildar and other election-related officials, to guide them and oversee the election. All the officials declined. The villagers then offered to pay for the costs involved but even that did not move the authorities.
The villagers went ahead, collected money from the residents of the village, got the ballot papers printed with all the 12 candidates who had contested the election, got ballot boxes made, and were all set to conduct their own election, in their own village, on December 3. It was also reported that some residents of the village, supposedly supporters of Satpute, said they would not take part in the proposed fresh election but the process went ahead.
The state response to the assertion
On the morning of December 3, the village woke up to find a large contingent of state police, reported to be around 500 personnel, in the village, and Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (equivalent to Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973) prohibiting the gathering of five or more persons anywhere in the village having been imposed.
Also read: Why Residents of a Maharashtra Village Wanted to Conduct a Mock Election
Senior police officials and the sub-divisional officer concerned arrived in the village early on December 3 morning and tried to dissuade the villagers from conducting this exercise. Bulk of the residents of the village were determined to continue what they thought was their right as citizens of a democratic nation. However, after prolonged discussions which went on for several hours in the panchayat office, the villagers relented and decided not to hold the election.
Some of the villagers who participated in the discussions were reported to have said that the officials warned them that if they went ahead with the exercise, they would be arrested and charged with serious offences and would be forced into litigation which could go on for years.
The reason that was reportedly given for imposing Section 163 of the BNSS was that there was a risk of law and order in the village being disturbed if the election was held. Based on eye witnesses, there were no overt or covert signs of any disturbance happening in the village. Some of the villagers had decided not to take part in the proposed election but that is not an abnormal situation. Every election has some people who do not take part in it.
An alternate reality
We can only speculate what the “real” reasons for the imposition of Section 163 of the BNSS and the threats to the villagers of serious legal, and possibly criminal, consequences, might be.
There are any number of institutions in civic life who conduct their own elections. There is a plethora of them in cities. Resident Welfare Associations, housing societies, all kinds of associations such as those of doctors, bar associations, all kinds of clubs and recreational bodies come to mind. All these bodies also decide the process of elections themselves without any interference from the government.
It is, therefore, not clear why the residents of a village holding an election to cross-check how all, or most, of them might have voted in the assembly election should be seen as problematic by the state government.
The result of the assembly election had already been declared on November 23. The residents of Markadwadi village were not challenging the result of the state assembly as declared by the ECI. The candidate whom the villagers were supporting had already been declared the winner of the election. They were merely trying to re-confirm what they thought should have been the number of votes their preferred candidate should have got. To the best of this author’s knowledge the villagers were not violating any existing law.
Exemplary initiative
The initiative by the residents of Markadwadi should be seen as an exemplary model because it takes democracy where it really belongs – to the people. In an election that the villagers were planning to conduct, there are many unseen advantages. All the complications and problems associated with electoral rolls that keep coming up all the time, will simply disappear because in a village with around 2,000 registered voters (as is the case with Markadwadi), by and large everyone will be known to everyone else. The questions of impersonation and duplicate voting would just not arise, just as the issues of fake voters being added or some real voters being deleted.
Such initiatives will also ensure the three cardinal principles of democratic elections where the voter must be satisfied that the vote had been (i) cast as intended, (ii) registered as cast, and (iii) counted as registered.
Also read: The Return of the Brahmin in Maharashtra
Initiatives like the one taken by the residents of Markadwadi are actually an attempt by citizens to help and assist the state in democratic functioning of the society and should be seen in that light. These initiatives can be very useful in bridging the trust-deficit that seems to have been developing between the citizens and the state in recent years.
Tailpiece: At the time of writing, there are reports of similar elections being attempted in at least two more villages in Maharashtra. Whether the state facilitates, allows, tolerates, or resists the assertion of village republics remains to be seen. Here’s hoping for the best for the Republic of India and for all the “Village Republics”. Co-existence is certainly possible, and is also desirable.
Jagdeep S. Chhokar is a concerned citizen.
