The Korea Local Administration Review

Due to the Constitutional Reform in 1993, Indian government has introducedboth Panchayat Raj, or a local self-governing system and Gram Sabha, or atown hall meeting for direct democracy. Despite of the reform, the centralgovernment in India has not literally devolved the authority and accountabilityof function, personnel, finance to the local governments. In the rural India, theprinciples of direct democracy has not been realized due to a strong Castesystem and its power structure and the public misperception ofself-government.However, the paper reveals that the local self-governing system and thecommunity meeting for direct democracy have positive effects on themodification of unbalanced power structure, the improvement in the socialstatus for women and the underprivileged such as STs and SCs, and thesettlement of local problems such as poverty issue. Finally, this study providesthe strengths and weaknesses in applying the indian direct democracy model toKorea, in the case that we replace the current Administrative District such asEup, Myeon and Dong with a new local self-governing system.
□ Keywords: Gram Sabha, Panchayat Raj, Decentralization, India Local Government,People’s Participation