Legal Strategies on Access to Justice & Digital Infrastructure for Rural Development in a Viksit Bharat: Reimagining Sardar Patel’s Vision

Abstract

In the past few decades, India has emerged as the epitome of cultural, technological, infrastructure, defence, foreign, and agricultural policies, and many other aspects. Emerging as a strong superpower has made the country reach greater heights globally. Holding on to its soil, heritage, and values has always been a virtue in its citizens. After India's independence, the establishment of democracy has structured the governance and intentions of India time and again. Through the sacrifices of various freedom fighters, India is determined to realise their dream of becoming ‘Sone ki Chidiyaa’ very soon. One of them was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, whose contribution to the development of society, participation in politics, and law is pivotal in shaping the governance structure in India. Unfortunately, the dreams that our forefathers and freedom fighters saw earlier have not been able to make them a reality. In India, a few cities are modernised and are on the journey to be developed into 'smart cities.' Still, the rudimentary reality of rural India has seen no change. There are still a few villages, such as Koolegoundenpudur in Tamil Nadu and Manibeli in Maharashtra, where electricity is still not regular! On the one hand, India is pushing towards Digital India and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as best practices. Still, on the other hand, the rural population cannot access necessities and justice. This paper intends to recall Sardar Patel's vision of India in the 1940s and evaluate its positioning in 2025, specifically in access to justice mechanisms and digital infrastructure. The paper will analyse the present vision of the government, namely 'Viksit Bharat @2047', and how this translates to the required change in existing policies to mitigate justice and the digital divide. Along with this target of 2047, the paper will also evaluate India's positioning at the international level through Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Overall, the paper will suggest how the gap between urban and rural India can be reduced in aspects of justice and digital infrastructure in the best possible way. This paper will act as a policy draft that correctly analyses existing development policies in rural India and evaluates whether they are beneficial or relevant to the rural population. It is high time that we bridged the gap between two drastically opposite realities in our country, which we categorise as urban and rural.