324 



government, and ideas of sanitation are too refined and 

 modern to be popular in a poor and backward country ; and 

 education, by being dissociated from religion, has lost one of 

 its strongest supports. The creation of municipalities and 

 Union Panchayats has also been generally accompanied by 

 the imposition of additional taxation, a circumstance calcu- 

 lated to render the bodies unpopular. The funds at the 

 disposal of the local bodies have been much too limited to 

 admit of anything very substantial being effected in the way 

 of improvements and the recurrence of scarcities in several 

 parts of the country frequently throws the finances of the 

 local bodies out of gear and impairs their usefulness. When 

 these difficulties are borne in mind, it will be readily seen 

 why greater success has not been attained in Local and 

 Municipal administration. 



115. Further advance in this direction can be looked for 

 only by entrusting to local bodies more 

 adiJnirtratioir^^shonrd and morc of the work of real adminis- 

 be worked to ensure tratiou. The mcasurcs recommended by 

 grea er success. ^^ ^^^ ^^^ Settlement of petty litiga- 



tion — civil and criminal — by means of popular bodies will, 

 to some extent, have the effect of creating greater interest in 

 public affairs than has been displayed hitherto. The assess- 

 ment of taxes like the income-tax might, in rural tracts, be 

 entrusted in course of time to Local Fund Panchayats who 

 might be assessed at a lump sum which would be distributed 

 by them according to the means of the individuals liable 

 to assessment. The obligation to maintain village forests, 

 agricultural experimental farms, technical schools may, 

 wherever possible, be imposed on them. In the matter of 

 the dispensation of relief in times of distress the assistance of 

 Local Fund Union Panchayats might be made use of more 

 than it has been. Under the influence of a watchful pub- 

 lic opinion the duties and responsibilities of Government 

 in this respect have greatly widened of late years, as the 

 Government is made responsible for ensuring that, in times 

 of failure of crops, no deaths by starvation ensue. This is 

 a duty which it is very difficult for any government to 

 discharge satisfactorily. The Government has to act ac- 

 cording to fixed rules to prevent public money being 

 wasted or misappropriated, and this makes it difficult to 

 adapt the forms of relief to the circumstances and needs 

 of the different localities. While, on the one hand, it 

 would be in the highest degree demoralizing by a too liberal 

 dispensation of relief to teach the people to look for Go's*- 

 ernment assistance, whenever they feel pinched, instead of 



