Revision summary
Gram Swaraj is Gandhi’s village self-rule in production and decision, stated in Hind Swaraj and village writings. The quoted task is local resource identification for farm and small industry. The 73rd Amendment and Eleventh Schedule constitutionalise that task through panchayat and gram sabha. Mehta committees had asked for planning from below long before 1992. Without real devolution and a power to refuse extraction, mapping is not swaraj.
Model answer
Introduction
The statement asks panchayats and gram sabhas to map local resources for farm and small-industry development. M. K. Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj is the right context: the village republic as a producing and deciding community, not a mere agency of a distant plan.
Body
Gram Swaraj
- In Hind Swaraj and later village writings, Gandhi wanted swaraj as self-rule in the village: bread labour, khadi, and a limit on industrial centralisation.
- Gram Swaraj is moral and economic. The gram sabha is the people in assembly, not only a statutory quorum.
- Jayaprakash Narayan and the after-Gandhi sarvodaya stream kept the village as the unit of planning.
- The statement’s stress on identifying local resources is Gandhian: development starts from what the place already has, not from a ministry template alone.
Constitutional organisation
- The 73rd Constitutional Amendment gives the gram sabha constitutional status and lists agriculture, irrigation, khadi, small-scale industry, and poverty alleviation in the Eleventh Schedule.
- Article 243A leaves the powers of the gram sabha to state law, which is why organisation is uneven.
- Balwantrai Mehta (1957) and Ashok Mehta (1978) had already asked for planning from below. The 73rd Amendment is their delayed legal form.
- State Finance Commissions and the Fourteenth Finance Commission’s local grants are meant to match functions with resources, without which resource-mapping is theatre.
Agricultural and industrial sectors
- Local identification fits watershed works, seeds, storage, and MGNREGA assets, and also rural crafts and micro-enterprise.
- Gandhi was wary of industrialism as a civilisational choice. Contemporary panchayats must still deal with agro-processing, power looms, and mineral leases that Hind Swaraj did not design.
- Gram sabha consent under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, and mining consultation, show resource identification as a veto and a plan, not as a survey for extraction only.
- Elite capture, sarpanch-pati, and un-devolved functionaries remain the gap between the sentence and Gram Swaraj.
Examination
- The quote is sound as a directive of method: organise sabhas to know and to decide on local productive resources.
- It is Gram Swaraj only if the sabha can refuse a project, not only inventory it for a department.
- Without funds, functionaries, and freedom, the 73rd Amendment’s list does not become Gandhi’s village republic.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD GS[Gram Swaraj] --> SAB[Gram Sabha] SAB --> R[Identify local resources] R --> AG[Agriculture] R --> IND[Local industry khadi] AM[73rd Amendment] --> SAB
Conclusion
Panchayats with gram sabhas as local resource planners is the developmental face of Gram Swaraj. The 73rd Amendment and the Eleventh Schedule supply the legal frame. Gandhi’s swaraj is met only when the sabha is a deciding producer-community, not a mapping unit for someone else’s industry.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Analyse the workers' movement in India in the pre-Independence period.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2022 · Q5(a)). View answer →
-
Did Gandhi want factories in the village?
He wanted village industries and a limit on concentrated mill civilisation, not a copy of urban heavy industry in every hamlet.
-
Is the gram sabha already a planning authority everywhere?
No. Article 243A leaves its powers to state legislatures, so practice ranges from strong assembly to a formal meeting.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2022 · Q5(a) · PSIR GS 1 · 10 marks
Analyse the workers' movement in India in the pre-Independence period. -
2022 · Q5(c) · PSIR GS 1 · 10 marks
Legislative Council is a house without any effective powers. Comment. -
2022 · Q7(b) · PSIR GS 1 · 15 marks
The Speaker represents the freedom and dignity of the House. Examine -
2022 · Q8(a) · PSIR GS 1 · 20 marks
Ethnicity is the underlying cause which poses a great challenge in the resolution of the problems in the North-East region of India. Comment -
2021 · Q5(a) · PSIR GS 1 · 10 marks
"The Constitution of India is a product of a historical process, rich with constitutional antecedents." Comment. -
2021 · Q5(d) · PSIR GS 1 · 10 marks
Analyze the Marxist perspective of the nature of Indian National Movement. -
2021 · Q5(e) · PSIR GS 1 · 10 marks
Underline the significance of the first constitutional amendment. -
2021 · Q6(c) · PSIR GS 1 · 15 marks
Do you think that despite having significant limitations the Panchayati Raj Institutions have strengthened the process of democratic decentralization? Give your views
More from this topic
Q7(b) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 1 · 20 marks
Caste remains a vital axis for political mobilisation in India. How would the caste census address the aspirations of people? Discuss
Indian Nationalism
Caste remains a mobilisation axis because it still structures dignity, land, and access to the state, as Kothari, Mandal, and bahujan politics show. Parties already count jatis; the demand is that the official Census should too, beyond SC and ST. Aspirations include fairer reservation design, targeting of welfare, and recognition after the unpublished 2011 SECC caste data. Risks include reification of identity and a pure percentage war that forgets class, gender, and Ambedkar’s horizon of annihilation. A democratic census would publish usable aggregates while protecting persons and keeping constitutional individual rights at the centre.
Q7(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 1 · 20 marks
Enunciate the impediments to women's participation in local governance in the process of political decentralisation
Indian Nationalism
The 73rd and 74th Amendments reserved local seats for women, which is a structural opening, not yet equal participation. Sarpanch-pati proxy rule, unpaid care, and a male bureaucracy remain the everyday patriarchal impediments. Caste and class decide which women can act; Dalit women office-holders face additional violence and veto. Thin devolution of money and staff makes many local offices ceremonial, so participation has no policy content. Parties and seat rotation often transfer the reserved ticket to a household rather than building a woman’s public career.
Q6(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 1 · 20 marks
Parliamentary Committees are a strong tool of Parliamentary Democracy. It provides for the opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas among members of the Parliament. Discuss
Indian Nationalism
Parliamentary committees are the efficient working form of Indian parliamentary democracy, where bills, grants, and CAG reports can be examined in detail. Department-related Standing Committees mix Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members across ministries; PAC, Estimates, and COPU are the financial core. Cross-pollination happens because the whip is weaker, witnesses bring expertise, and members may agree on technical text they would never concede in the well of the House. The tool fails when bills are not referred, demands are guillotined, or ordinances replace debate. Committees strengthen democracy only if the House and the executive treat their reports as more than annual ritual.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.