Q.Did Nehru and Ambedkar have similar objections to local governments? What was the constitutional provision before 1992? Which States established local government during 1960s-70s?

Nehru and Ambedkar were both cautious about local government, but for different reasons — Nehru feared threats to national unity, Ambedkar feared rural society's own factionalism; before 1992, local government was only a non-binding Directive Principle; Gujarat and Maharashtra adopted elected local bodies in the 1960s. …

Nehru and Ambedkar were indeed both, in the chapter's own words, 'not very enthusiastic' about local government bodies, but their underlying objections were genuinely different. Nehru's concern was essentially about national integration: so soon after the trauma of Partition, he viewed extreme localism as a possible threat to the unity of a newly independent nation, and favoured a stronger unitary centre. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, and a powerful section of the Constituent Assembly associated with him, held a different concern: that the actually-existing faction-ridden and caste-ridden character of rural society would defeat the very purpose local self-government was meant to serve, regardless of any threat to national unity. So while both leaders were hesitant, one objection was about safeguarding the nation, the other about the practical reality of rural power structures — they were similar in outcome but not in reasoning.

Before 1992, the constitutional provision for local government was modest: local government, including panchayats, was listed as a subject in the States' own list, and mentioned only as one of the Directive Principles of State Policy — a policy directive to all governments that was, as the chapter notes, non-justiciable and only advisory in nature. This meant no government could be constitutionally compelled to establish, empower, or fund local bodies. …