Social Welfare Action through Democratic Empowerment of Society (Swades) is an outreach programme of the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Porvorim.

Democracy, if it is to be successful, should be strengthened at the grassroots. The grassroots of the democracy are found at the local (village, municipal) levels as it is here that people deal with problems of immediate and direct importance, and which are intelligible to them in terms of personal experience. Local bodies which are the product of democratic decentralisation have been aptly termed ‘local self government’. India being the world’s largest democracy and having the 73rd constitutional amendment in favour of Panchayati Raj Local-Self-Government, still in practice uses the top-down bureaucratic approach in solving the critical needs of the community without involving the main stakeholders in the developmental process. As a result, what we encounter is varied problems related to social disparity, oppression of the poor and the marginalised at the hands of the powerful few supported by the socio-economic and political unjust structures. The vast majority of our people who live in rural areas are largely dependent upon remote and unresponsive government structures historically characterised by bureaucracy, corruption and lack of transparency. People are very oblivious of the plans and actions of government for lack of proper information causing a deep chasm between the people and their government. If we do not have information on how our Government and public institutions function, we cannot express any informed opinion on it and therefore our fundamental right of expression under Article 19 of the Constitution of India, cannot be realised in its true sense. The lack of proper information renders people helpless in influencing policies, programmes, or resource allocation for development. Many have no effective means of participating in shaping their future and government officials are not always accountable to the communities they purport to serve, on the contrary they are co-opting the language used by the voluntary organisations of the participatory approach to social development which of course they do not mean at all when it comes to implementation. It is no wonder that progress in improving the conditions of life in most parts of our country has been slow to nonexistent.

The 73rd amendment mandates that resources, responsibility and decision making power be devolved from central government and placed in the hands of rural grassroots people. Rural women who for centuries have lived in conditions of malnutrition, illiteracy and powerlessness are now taking leadership roles in addressing these issues as one-third of all panchayat seats are reserved for them. This revolution is not going unopposed as social and political elites in many areas are seeking to undermine and nullify Panchayati Raj, since they perceive it as a threat to their monopoly on power and a challenge to their domination of society.

Rural development is the overall development of rural areas with a view to improve the quality of life of rural people. In this sense, it is a comprehensive and multi-dimensional concept which encompasses the development of agriculture and allied activities, village and cottage industries, socio-economic infrastructure, community services and facilities and above all the human resource development. As a fitting response to this need and the challenge before us, Swades (Social Welfare Action through Democratic empowerment of Society) an organisation and a movement aspires to create ‘we feeling' and ‘belongingness’ among the people of this land by taking the responsibility of their formation and development into their own hands. Thus Swades aspires to be active in the field of empowering rural communities especially poor and marginalized people and extend all possible help to bring the constitutional amendment into reality. Swades wishes to focus on panchayati raj in association with like-minded individuals and organisations, who strive for the cause of the deprived, the underprivileged, the marginalised and other weaker sections of the communities of Goa and Maharashtra in order that the people assert their rights over common property resources, natural resources and other means of production for self-sustained livelihoods through conservation and judicious use of natural resources and self-governing village institutions with equal participation of both genders. While paying particular attention to the marginalised and disadvantaged people in the village, such as poor farmers, landless labourers, youth, children out of schools and women, Swades will strive for integration of the community as a whole into the socio-economic, political and cultural life of the village.