Ambedkar’s Vision of Fiscal Decentralisation in India: Implications for Urban Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj Institutions
Abstract
Fiscal decentralisation is a cornerstone of democratic governance in India, evolving from the colonial period into the post-independence constitutional framework. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the principal architect of the Indian Constitution, brought a scholarly understanding of public finance and decentralisation, rooted in his doctoral research at Columbia University on ‘Provincial Finance in British India’ and his Doctor of Science (DSc) thesis at the London School of Economics on ‘The Problem of the Rupee’. These works laid the intellectual foundations for India’s fiscal federal structure and underscored the centrality of financial autonomy to effective self-governance. Ambedkar’s constitutional vision consciously adopted the ‘individual’, ‘not the village’ as the basic unit of democracy, in contrast to Gandhian idealism, reflecting his concern that decentralisation without financial safeguards could entrench local hierarchies and perpetuate social exclusion. This article is written in the context of the centenary of Ambedkar’s PhD thesis, which was first published in book form in 1925. The article employs a qualitative historical-analytical approach to examine his vision of fiscal decentralisation and its enduring relevance for democratic decentralisation. The article concludes that, from an Ambedkarite perspective, true democratic decentralisation requires financial autonomy, social accountability and equitable resource distribution, not merely functional devolution.