Ripon’s Resolution of 1882

The Government of Ripon desired the provincial governments to apply in case of local bodies the same principle of financial decentralisation which Lord Mayo’s Government had begun towards them. For his contributions, Lord Ripon is called father of local self-government in India. The main points of the resolution were as follows.

● Development of local bodies advocated to improve the administration and as an instrument of political and

popular education;

● Policy of administrating local affairs through urban and rural local bodies charged with definite duties and entrusted with suitable sources of revenues;

● Non-officials to be in majority in these bodies, who could be elected if the officials thought that it was possible to introduce elections;

● Non-officials to act as chairpersons to these bodies;

● Official interference to be reduced to the minimum and to be exercised to revise and check the acts of local bodies, but not to dictate policies;

● Official executive sanction required in certain cases, such as raising of loans, alienation of municipal property, imposition of new taxes, undertaking works costing more than a prescribed sum, framing rules and bye-laws, etc.

In pursuance of this resolution many Acts were passed between 1883 and 1885 which greatly altered the constitution, powers and functions of municipal bodies in India. But, an era of effective local self-governing bodies was still a dream unfulfilled. The existing local bodies had various drawbacks.

● The elected members were in a minority in all district boards and in many of the municipalities;

● The franchise was very limited;

● District boards continued to be headed by district officials, though non-officials gradually came to head the municipalities;

● The Government retained strict control, and it could suspend or supersede these bodies at will.

The bureaucracy, in fact, did not share the liberal views of the viceroy and thought that the Indians were unfit for self-government. The closing decades of the 19th century were a period of imperialism, and the high priest of that creed, Lord Curzon, actually took steps to increase official control over local bodies.