The journey of the concept of Good Governance in modern times has gone through many phases. In the pre-independence period Gandhiji's vision of good governance essentially meant democratic decentralisation which entailed power to the Gram Panchayats and people at the lowest level of political hierarchy. By the early 1990s, however, the idea of good governance had turned into a metaphor of donor-conditionality for the debt-ridden countries of Asia and Africa. It was often blamed for social unrest and political upheaval in many parts of the world. But freed from the element of coercion and external force, the concept retained a certain attraction spurring a number of policy initiatives based on the demand for participatory development, transparency in decision making and empowerment of people to decide and shape their destiny.