Setu Abhiyan: Strengthening Local Governance

India is poor because villages of India are poor. India will be rich if the villges of India are rich. Panchayats should be given greater powers, for we want the villagers to have greater measure of Swaraj (Self Government) in their own villages.

Jawaharlal Nehru, The First Prime Minister of Republic Of India

When I joined Setu Abhiyan, I was asked to visit all Setu offices. I was happy and excited because it gave me a chance to understand and explore both, the organization and the place. My first visit was Kabrau office where I met Khimjibhai, the team leader. Khimji Bhai is a very interesting person who did not let me feel like a stranger. We talked about almost everything – his inspiring personal journey starting from volunteering in Unnati to becoming team leader of Kabrau Setu office. Let me give background and gist of what Setu Abhiyan is all about; as heard from him.

Post 2001 earthquake, SETUs emerged as a cluster-level information centre and played a major role in fulfilling effective relief and information needs in the region. Over the years SETUs started facilitating local people and agencies towards strengthening communities to decide, negotiate and monitor the developments with respect to its kind and pace both and whether it is sustainable. Initially, SETU was a programme of Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan (a district network of organizations). In March 2014, SETU Abhiyan got registered as an independent organization. SETU Abhiyan focuses on facilitating local governments (Gram Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies) to strengthen efficiency and fulfil the principle of local good governance. SETU Abhiyan also facilitates local governments in capacity building and training on various issues pertaining to local governance (both rural and urban).

You can think of Setu Abhiyan as basically a facilitator working with the local government bodies. It facilitates between people and local governments, provides training to local bodies on GPDP (Gram Panchayat Development Plan). GPDP is a guideline of Central Government-mandated by 14^th Finance Commission of India which mandates Sarpanch to plan for the village in association with various committees/groups including women, marginalized community, SC/ST community etc according to their need. Accordingly, the Government sanctions grants for various activities and demand.

The Learning Lab of Setu Abhiyan is mostly involved in the research and training aspects of the organization. It helps Abhiyan as an incubator to initiate programmes/activities through research, documentation and learning events in collaboration with local government bodies, civil society organizations and academia. The vision of the Abhiyan is to strengthen local governance and help in implementing bottom to top model of governance. It follows the principle of Mahatma Gandhi who advocated the idea of ‘Gram Swaraj’. Article 40 of the Constitution of India laid down that the state shall take steps to organize village panchayats and endow with such powers and functions to enable them to function as self government which furthered the need for Panchayati Raj system in India – to achieve the concept of the welfare state in India.

The organization also works on documenting communities and activities of village panchayat and distributes pamphlets and books to the Panchayat and community itself. It was interesting to note that the organization distributes the documented material on the community in the shape of a book because the organization believes that they are the real owner of the document, says Kirit Bhai, team leader, Bhimasar Setu. However, I suggested that if the information is uploaded online with the permission of the community it would help many people like me to understand about the communities which we otherwise might not be aware of. Will keep this space updated as we get there.

The idea of bio-culture is to preserve the traditional, ancient usages and culture which is disappearing or to revive old practices. This is also to document the history and its people who once lived in these areas. We are actively working on this.

True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting together at the centre. It has to be worked from below by the people of every village.

Mahatma Gandhi

It was my first experience where i witnessed some of the very important and interesting Gram Sabhas (including grand Gram Sabha at Kunariya). I met Khimji Bhai, team leader of Kabrau Setu, mentioned at the start of the piece, who took me to my very first visit to Gram Sabha at Kanthkot. Gram Sabha is a meeting of people of a particular village to discuss and raise issues pertaining to that particular village. It was interesting to see that a large number of people gathered and questioned the Sarpanch about various social welfare schemes and demanded various interventions required for the welfare of the village. Kanthkot is a beautiful and historic place. It is said that the first Surya Mandir in India was situated in Kanthkot which got destroyed in the 2001 massive earthquake in this region.

I realized that people in these villages are very active and they turn up in good numbers. Not only they turn up in numbers but also raise their issues as sensitive(as per the norms of many communities) as issues of pregnant women availing welfare schemes and lack of basic facilities for them. Women participation was less but they did participate. When I inquired the reason for less female participation, I was told that timing is an issue in some places; however, some villages simply follow the patriarchal norms still, which does not allow women to be out in public as simply and easily as men do.

Setu Abhiyan also trains Gram Panchayats and Taluka/Block Resource Group (T/BRG) on GPDP that includes participatory rural appraisal activities. It was interesting to note that the programme team i.e. Abhiyan had a unique introductory circle paper where people wrote their names, designation and their skills. We also went out in the field for the PRA activity where the members were trained as to how to do transact walk, how to identify problems of the village and so on. for me it was a kind of flashback of my induction programme where we were taught all of that. Abhiyan prepares different modules for training to both local government members i.e. members of panchayat and ward committee members and councillors for urban local governance.

I am still picking up the expanse of the work of my fellowship host organization. It is as intriguing as it is overwhelming. It was not built in a day and understanding it with all its philosophy, values, norms and ground realities is a huge learning curve. In conclusion, to fit the various aspects i discussed above into a comprehensive landscape, here is a visual.