MANAGEMENT OF LOCAL AFFAIRS IN COLONIAL INDIA: ANALYSIS OF LOCAL SELF GOVERNMENT

Management of local affairs of a village or town by elected local bodies is called Local Self-government. It refers to those bodies, which are responsible to carry out functions relating to the development of a given area or locality and welfare of its residents. In the term Local Government, the word ‘local' signifies a specified local area while ‘government' means a system or a mechanism for the purpose of exercising authority. There is a no state, big or small in the world, which is without Local Government. Concept of Local Government includes the right of voters in a specific area to elect their local officers under a broad franchise and regular elections, and through their elected officials to control local affairs, determine local policies, and even to administer some central government's laws according to local wishes and interests. In this paper, an effort has been made to critically examine the functioning of these concepts in colonial India.