There is considerable experience in India, dating back to the colonial period, with respect to legislation of local bodies. In the Kerala context, the functioning of (he district board in Malabar district (now comprising the northern districts in Kerala) was cited as an example. The irony is that such devolution of functions and powers as was enjoyed by that district board is now nonexistent in Kerala. It was emphasised that while the legislative process in the states would have to take into account the mandatory provisions in the amendments such as the reservation of scheduled castes, tribes and women, periodic elections, and the appointment of a State Finance Commission every five years, several matters were left to the discretion of the state legislatures and they were extremely important. It was pointed out that the legislative process should take care that there was no misuse of the discretion as in the case of the centre-state relations. It was emphasised that the new legislation in Kerala for the establishment of local bodies should be a comprehensive one, replacing the existing subject legisla- ANAND PATWARDHAN's films have consistently attempted to bring forward battles which the underprivileged wage against different forms of oppression. If it is, in one film, a cruel municipal administration which uproots productive citizens from their habitats in another, progressive political activists in Punjab are subjected to state terror on one side and fundamentalist-inspired Sikh militancy on the other. Now Patwardhan seeks to portray the viciousness of majority communal ism, masquerading as a re-assertion of tradition and culture, in his documentary Ram Ke Nam (In the Name of God).
