Looking into the Watershed Machine

This chapter takes a closer look at the conditions in which the key actors implementing the 1994 watershed guidelines were situated in the two Indian states of study. Since I started this investigation in 1999, Andhra Pradesh in southern India and Madhya Pradesh in central India have been the subject of much interest and fascination for their simultaneously unfolding albeit distinctive initiatives regarding decentralization (see Manor 2000 and 2002, Jenkins et al 2003 and Johnson, Deshingkar and Start 2005). Curiosity has endured in the popular media about the two men – Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh – who as Chief Ministers spearheaded bold reform processes in their ten-year stints of power, which in seeming political synchrony ended roughly around the same time. Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP) lost to the Congress in Andhra Pradesh in 2004 and Singh's Congress regime succumbed to the BJP in Madhya Pradesh a year earlier, in 2003. While the reasons for their defeat were rooted in statespecific factors, what is of interest here is the contrast that has been drawn between their respective attitudes and policies towards decentralization. Both Naidu and Singh projected themselves as proactive governance reformers, of which decentralization was the ostensible cornerstone. Naidu's governance reforms emphasized technocratic efficiency of the bureaucracy, popular mobilization through strictly monitored government initiatives (Janmabhoomi for example), and the unabashed promotion of local user bodies for local participation, but did not attempt to integrate these initiatives with panchayats (Reddy 2002, Mooij 2003).