FLAIR Honours the people who made and reformed the Panchayati Raj System Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was a strong proponent of swaraj. After India’s independence from British rule, India needed Panchayats to strengthen democracy, as India was a country of villages. Gandhi advocated gram swaraj and wanted panchayats in villages. But sadly, panchayats found no place in draft Constitution which disappointed Gandhi and he criticised it. His criticism was taken well and panchayats found place in Article 40 of Directive Principles of State policy of Indian Constitution. “The plea for greater autonomy to the rural bodies received conceptual strength with the advent of Mahatma Gandhi on the national scene and his enunciation of the doctrine of the national development through autonomous rural organisations, which he drove to model on the line ....