Actor network in urban governance of a tribal city : case of Shillong

Abstract

Keywords: Actor Network Theory, Urban Governance, Parallel Governance, Traditional self-governance, Informal governance, Trust in governance, Contestations The 6th schedule to the Constitution of India was implied to some of the Tribal states, to protect the indigenous tribes and their traditions, to protect the tribal ethnicity to ensure their autonomy in the management of their tribal affairs and to allow them to develop and administer themselves according to their own genius. These states have the Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) which has been set up to protect the traditional institutions as the 73rd and the 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts are not applicable here. This has given rise to parallel governance between the State, the ADC and the traditional institutions. Meghalaya, whose 97 per cent of the state is under Sixth Schedule, is the only Indian state which still exists without a constitutionally and legally constituted unit of traditional local self-governance throughout the state. There are three ADCs in Meghalaya protecting its three major tribes, i.e., the Khasis, the Jaintias and the Garos. The study focuses on the urban governance of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, and the relationship among the actors of the parallel institutions that comprises the urban governance network which majorly can the classified as the Traditional institutions and the Constitutional institutions. This research aims to identify and study the different actors associated with the urban governance of Shillong with the help of Actor Network Theory, map their functions and the network of their interactions to find contestations, overlaps and gaps in the network, map the scale and role of the actors with varying spaces in the city and analyze the ground reality of the urban governance network. This study reveals problems in the urban governance of the city due to the play of the parallel roles of the various actors, overlapping jurisdictions and contestation between the traditional and constitutional institutions. Recommendations in the form of a new governance model is made to overcome the challenges of the present urban governance network without compromising the powers of the traditional governance and can be consensually accepted by all the actors of the governance.