Key features of Article 40, 73 and 74 Constitutional Amendments Gram rd th Sabha and Participatory Democracy

For nearly four decades, Article 40 sat in the Constitution as a direction the State was merely asked to keep in mind, with no binding force behind it. Then two amendments, passed together in the early 1990s, turned that aspiration into a detailed constitutional structure with elections, reserved seats and a name for the village assembly at its base: the Gram Sabha.

In two minutes

Article 40, a Directive Principle, originally directed the State to organise village panchayats, and this direction was given detailed, binding constitutional shape decades later through the 73rd Amendment (rural panchayats) and 74th Amendment (urban municipalities), which mandated regular elections, reserved seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women, and gave constitutional recognition to the Gram Sabha as the base of participatory local democracy.

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