This paper provides a broad overview of the past and ongoing efforts at decentralising the governance of natural resources (DGNR) in India. The focus is on ‘governance’, which includes both day-to-day management as well as broader decision-making regarding resource ownership, access and use, and associated legal, administrative and fiscal arrangements. We assume that more decentralisation than what prevails today is better, but emphasise the need for multi-layered governance as well.

The post-independence efforts at DGNR can be broadly categorised into 3 groups. State initiated partnerships include joint forest management, participatory canal and irrigation tank management, and participatory watershed development programmes. In parallel, there are state-initiated efforts at full devolution of governance, viz, the setting up of Panchayati Raj institutions in general and the special efforts in tribal areas. The third category is community and NGO-initiated efforts, with or without state recognition.

The motivations for and the design and implementation of these programmes vary significantly. In particular, decentralised governance is not the goal of partnership programmes. However, the experience shows that these programmes fail to meet even their limited objectives (let alone the rhetoric of community participation and empowerment that they adopt) in a sustained and equitable manner precisely because of lop-sided institutional design and inadequate devolution of powers. The community-initiated efforts show that when the state has limited its role to that of legal support and laying down the ground rules for sustainable use, resource management is much more effective. Unfortunately, even historically state-recognised community management systems are falling prey to the bureaucratic push for increased state control through the socalled partnership programmes. And the devolution efforts have essentially not taken off the ground.

Our review provides insights into several ongoing debates about the shape of DGNR. It shows that successful decentralisation does not mean complete handing over of resource ownerhip but a judicious structuring of relatively autonomous local organisations within transparent and reasonable regulatory processes. It also suggests that because governance issues include questions of resource access and allocation across diverse users, the local organisation should be a broad-based democratic one, not confined to particular user groups. At the same time, to prevent elite capture, the direct economic benefits from resource utilisation need to be kept out of the local organisation’s purview. On the question of top-down versus bottom-up implementation of DGNR, our review suggests the need for a graduated, enabling approach with focused implementation in a few areas. At the same time, it warns against throwing money at DGNR—the changes required are primarily in rights, responsibilities and mindsets, and the role of funding has to be kept secondary.

Mainstreaming DGNR into national democratic processes in India faces several challenges from within and without. Internally, political and bureaucratic support is sorely lacking. Externally, the economic environment and development policies being pursued militate against both decentralised governance and sustainable natural resource use. And the deeply embedded hierarchical social structures in most parts of India continue to pose a formidable challenge to decentralised democracy. Efforts will be required on many fronts and levels to make significant progress on decentralising NR governance in the country.