Introduction

The preceding quotes by both members of the academic community and the political party suggest that identity defined by Jati (caste) ought to define political processes and help achieve desirable development outcomes for those groups defined by such identities. From Chapter 10, it can be noted that enabling panchayats will create avenues for households to access services. Villages have social networks formed along caste identities that may fracture the ability to arrive at a consensus. Under such circumstances, will decentralization lead to identity-based voting? In fact, from chapter 3 it is learnt that the likelihood that the possibility of such behaviour by households was the reason for many of the founding members of the constitution to oppose decentralization being provided for within its ambit.

With respect to identity-based voting, Munshi and Rosenzweig (2010) have shown that it could result in group members being able to hold elected officials to account and, therefore, allow than to elect more able representatives. This section also analyses bribes, and with respect to both behaviours it goes further by analysing how identitybased voting and payments of bribes improves the access of households to public services and their consumption in the face of imperfections of the governance system.