Download or read book Democratic Decentralization and Panchayati Raj in Contemporary India written by M Shafi Bhatt and published by Onlinegatha. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The institution of Panchayati Raj is not new to India. It existed since earliest times. We get ample references about the Panchayats in the Manusmriti, the Arthsastra and the Mahabharata. During the Muslim rule also the system continued to operate unobstructed. With the assumption of power by the British and the adoption of policy of centralization, the Panchayats suffered a temporary setback. But soon the British realized the value of this institution and the Decentralization Commission recommended in its report in 1907. “In ignoring the village as the primary unit of local self- government, the government made the beginning with a false step. This scanty success hit her to make to introduce a system of rural self-government, is largely due to the fact that we have not built from the bottom and hence it is most desirable to constitute and develop village Panchayats for administration of certain local affairs with the villages”