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South Asia Regional Hub: Mayoral Roundtable on Local Efforts to Build Social Harmony and Cohesion

Publication Date:

20/06/2023

Content Type:

Event Reports

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City-Led ActionNew DelhiSouth Asia Regional Hub

— 1 minutes reading time

On 17 June 2023, the Strong Cities Network South Asia Regional Hub, with support from the U.S. Department of State, held a Mayoral Roundtable for cities in India. The event featured 20 municipal corporation mayors and elected councillors from six cities – Chandigarh, Delhi, Mumbai, Patna Raipur and Shimla – to discuss the role of local governments in building and maintaining social harmony, tolerance and inclusion and, more broadly, in preventing hate and extremism. Each participant shared that it was their first ever opportunity for peer-level dialogue between elected representatives from different cities and parties, let alone on a set of challenges often considered a sensitive national security matter beyond the remit of city councils and corporations.

Despite the predominant role that the national government, and in particular security agencies, plays in addressing hate and extremism in India, participants generally agreed that:

• there is a role for cities and other local governments in this domain, including through initiatives led by mayors and city councillors;
• local government mandates should include these issues in addition to traditional public services they are expected to deliver;
• local governments can implement such mandates by leveraging existing local initiatives and structures in line with India’s legal framework;
• there are various structures such as peace and mohalla committees, social justice commissions and residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) which function at different levels of government and are designed to address broader community grievances and that can be also leveraged to address social issues that help fuel radicalisation to violence; and
• cities should (re-)claim competencies that the federal and state government authorities have increasingly taken over.
  
  Additionally, participants explored challenges and showcased good practices in multi-agency cooperation and civil society and community engagement. They remarked that the success of national-local cooperation (NLC) often depends on political alignment among authorities at the local, state and federal level.

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