Reserved Representation, Persistent Domination: Elite Capture and Caste Power in Panchayats of Madhya Pradesh

The Constitution (Seventy-Third Amendment) Act was adopted in 1992 to democratize rural administration in India by institutionalizing the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and ensuring political representation for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs). Even though the impacts of these reforms on redistributing substantive power are controversial, they have greatly widened the scope of descriptive representation of historically marginalized groups. The paper examines the law of contradiction between reserved representation and caste domination in the Panchayats of Madhya Pradesh. The paper is based on the theoretical framework of elite capture and on how the elites of the dominant caste group negotiate changes within the institution, thereby reforming control informally without surrendering their power. This paper examines the persistence of caste-based domination in the Panchayats of Madhya Pradesh despite political reservation. While reservations have expanded the presence of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in local governance, their impact on decision-making remains uneven. Based on qualitative fieldwork conducted across five Gram Panchayats over four months, including 32 semi-structured interviews and direct observation, the study analyzes how dominant caste groups retain influence through informal mechanisms such as agenda-setting, bureaucratic mediation, and economic dependence. The findings indicate that although reservations have transformed the formal structure of representation, underlying power relations continue to operate through informal channels. The paper highlights the limits of institutional reform and emphasizes the need to engage with everyday practices of power in decentralized governance. Since the research shifts the analysis to the effects of representation on practices of everyday power, it adds to the argument on decentralization, caste, and the threshold of institutional reforms in addressing structural inequality in rural India.