Stéphanie Tawa Lama, a CSH researcher and a CNRS Research Director (Political Science) at the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (Centre for South Asian Studies, CNRS-EHESS), Paris, will be participating as speaker in CSLG Seminar Series “Reforming local democracy in Rajasthan and Haryana: routes, actors, ideas“, organized by the CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE (CSLG) on Friday, 16 February 2024 from 3 pm onwards.

Venue: Conference Room, CSLG , Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Abstract: The 73^rd and 74^th Constitutional Amendment Acts have been considered as a major source of democratic deepening in India because they made local self-government, in rural as well as in urban areas, more representative, inclusive and participatory. Local government being a state subject, from 1993 onwards the implementation of this agenda was left to the Indian states. A look at the many amendments brought to the Panchayati Raj Act and the Municipalities Acts in most states suggests that local self-government has been the object of many attempts at reform. This paper focuses on two states – Rajasthan and Haryana – where the reform process was particularly radical, since two amendments adopted in 2014 and 2015 made it mandatory to have a minimum level of education in order to be eligible in elections to village panchayats and urban local bodies. Tracing the process whereby this new qualification was introduced, contested, adopted, implemented – and in one case, cancelled –, this paper argues, demonstrates that the local level remains at the forefront of evolutions of Indian democracy.