It would, however, be foreign to the purpose of this book to go into the details of the organisation of the Indian village republics. Suffice it to say that one of the saddest results of British rule in this country is the effacement of this system of village self-government.Britain has tried to set up a Local Self-government on her own lines, an exotic, instead of one on Indian lines. That is why it has been a tragic failure. As Dr Annie Besant observed, “The officials keep the old names, but the old Panchayat[57] was elected by the householders of the village and was responsible to them. Now the officers are responsible to government officials and their interest lies in pleasing them, not in satisfying the electors, as of old.”[58]
