Discourses, Agencies and the Micro-Politics of Local Bodies

The watershed machineries in Kurnool and Dewas embodied the constraints and opportunities presented by their wider political and administrative environments of decentralization. These were most strikingly manifested in the extent to which the two adopted discourses of depoliticization regarding the selection of watershed villages and agencies. However these machineries were not homogenous entities; they comprised a hierarchy of officials and, in cases where NGOs were engaged, then actors from ‘outside’ the formal state apparatus. As the implementing agencies of watershed projects, these actors came into close contact with villages. They were responsible for initiating the formation of watershed committees in a peaceful and cooperative manner, as these would be at the fulcrum of the participatory decision-making that the 1994 guidelines so eagerly espoused. But they also had to take a stand with respect to village panchayats, which are typically maligned as bodies torn apart by ‘pointless politics’ arising from the domination of entrenched interests as well as seemingly endless contest. As my previous chapter has illustrated, whereas the discourse to distance panchayat politics from the watershed programme was clearly articulated by officials at different levels in Kurnool, this was not the case in Dewas, where integration of decentralized development with panchayats was a state priority.

This chapter will empirically ascertain the extent to which watershed committees could be distanced from the respective panchayats in the four villages where the fieldwork was carried out.