The name “Collector” or “District Collector” was given to the functionary in charge of an administrative unit in India during the period of the British East India Company (EIC) as well as after the British Crown took charge of India in 1858. He was entrusted with the responsibility of land revenue collection. Apart from this task, he also functioned as the representative of the EIC and the Crown in managing the affairs of a fairly large area with a substantial native population. Independent India continued with this tradition in the absence of strong local government institutions. With the Indian state extending its reach to almost every area of social and economic activity, the Collector (Deputy Commissioner in some states) became the lynchpin of the administrative structure at the district level, functioning as the eyes and ears of the state government. Functions as diverse as law & order, food supply, guaranteed rural employment, natural calamity relief, conduct of elections and overseeing functioning of local urban bodies were entrusted to him (and increasingly to her).
The first inroads into the Collector’s powers came with the introduction of the panchayati raj systems for rural self-government. States like Maharashtra & Gujarat, followed by many others, including Karnataka (with its bold experiment of devolution of powers to rural local bodies in the 1980s), implemented fairly robust reforms to empower rural local government bodies. The political system and the bureaucracy at the state level saw this development as a threat to their powers of patronage and, using the old British argument that “the natives are not ready to govern themselves”, the powers of these rural institutions were whittled down over time. Urban local bodies had functioned under rules legislated by the state governments right from pre-independence days and the state had never ceded any significant decision-making powers to these bodies.
The passage of the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Indian Constitution was intended to devolve powers to the local bodies. In practice, state governments have been parsimonious in parting with their powers and, as of 2014, we are in a position where local bodies (whether rural or urban) still do not exercise any significant authority in performing their functions. State governments need to acknowledge that charity begins at home: if you clamour for devolution of powers from the central to the state level, you should be equally willing to shed your powers to the local level. It is here that the present discussion on the utility of the Collector’s post assumes relevance. The Collector represents the fulcrum of state administration at the district level and a debate on her relevance is also an assessment of the need for so many state government dominated departments at the district level and below.
The land revenue collection duties of the Collector can easily be handed over to local bodies. This revenue, along with local body cesses, is finally transferred to local bodies: there is no reason why, like property tax, local bodies cannot themselves levy and collect revenue on land. Maintenance of land records, too, is a specialised function, especially with the availability of sophisticated GIS tools. There has been too much debate and too little action on developing processes for guaranteeing land titles, as has been done in most developed nations. An independent authority (or a private organisation) can perform such a function quite effectively, once the necessary legal systems are in place. All quasi-judicial functions performed by the Collector can also be transferred to the judicial system.
Law & order maintenance and criminal justice systems administration are areas where the District Magistrate’s role and relevance have been steadily diminishing over the years. In major urban areas in most states, the Police Commissioner has effectively done away with the need for an executive magistracy. Over time, law & order functions in urban and rural areas need to be taken over by the respective local bodies, with police forces reporting to these bodies. As far as criminal justice is concerned, the entire process is managed by the judicial system: the few sections in the Criminal Procedure Code relating to prohibitive powers of the executive magistracy can be administered by the local police. Granting of parole to convicts may be one of the few functions that can vest in the state government.
Supply of essential commodities (officially termed “civil supplies”) is one area which is in urgent need of professional management. The present civil supplies machinery under the Collector lacks the capability and the expertise to efficiently manage the distribution of even foodgrains, let alone other commodities like pulses and edible oil. Handling the supply-demand balance and intervening to keep food prices stable can be managed by a company (as is already done in a number of states).
Nearly all the remaining areas handled presently by the Collector can quite effectively be managed by the respective local body, rural or urban. Natural disaster management, rural employment schemes, etc. should be within the purview of local bodies assisted, where necessary (as is the case today), by specialist units of the state and central governments. Elections to urban local bodies are already being conducted by the local municipal administrations. Management of the election process to the three tiers of governance – national, state and local – can be entrusted to local bodies under the supervision of the Election Commission of India and the respective State Election Commissions.
With local bodies, specialised agencies and the judicial system handling all the functions hitherto vested in the Collector, it is apparent that there is no further need for this institution, which had a major role to play in the first two centuries of its existence, but is today becoming an anachronism. Perceptive readers will observe that this also calls into question the role that a generalist service like the Indian Administrative Service can play in the years to come. Indeed, with growing specialisation of functions and an emphasis on local governance systems, there is need to focus on the entire range of civil services recruited at the central and state levels to see how they need to be recast to meet the administrative needs of India in the 21st century. But this will need a separate blog, given the ramifications involved…So, more anon.
15 Jul
We Don’t Need The District Collector!
30 Jun
The Welfare State is an Ill-fare State
Before I am accused of being a right of the road, capitalist pig, let me clarify that I am no unabashed advocate of the free market. I recognise that the market cannot meet the needs of groups which lack the skills and purchasing power to offer their services and buy the goods and services essential for their day to day living. I endorse the view that the state has the responsibility to arrange for the provision of public goods like quality healthcare and education, which are beyond the financial capabilities of large sections of the population. Why is it then that I harbour strong reservations about the Indian state having pushed the “welfare” envelope so strongly over most of the first sixty years of independent India?
I think the problem lies in thinking that redistribution can be pushed as a primary policy without creating the conditions for sustained growth. The Indian state has too often relied on distributing fishes to the populace without investing in teaching them how to fish for themselves. The result has been the development of an ‘entitlement’ mentality in the population, with the state being expected to deliver quality goods and services across a wide spectrum of sectors. There are two issues in such an approach – first, the state cannot mobilise the finances required to meet such a vast array of entitlements and, second, the quality of goods and services delivered rarely meets the expectations of the groups for which they are intended. The consequences are faced by the people in the form of price inflation (a corollary of large budget deficits) and crumbling public services, manifest in the most evident, wretched manner in decaying urban habitations. Lest anyone harbour the thought that these are manifestations only in an emerging economy, let me point out that the largest economy in the world, the United States of America, is beset with the same problems.
The inherent complications in the Indian tryst with the welfare approach can be best exemplified by studying its consequences in three sectors: jobs, housing and food. An over-reliance on the public sector as the engine of growth meant that jobs had to be created largely in government and public sector enterprises. Since neither of these institutions had to face the discipline of the market place, we ended up with bloated public institutions, where performance was never the criteria for keeping one’s job. Politicians vied with one another in creating sinecures for their constituents, the worst offenders being the railways and the municipal corporations. Getting a government job is still the ‘holy grail’ for large segments of the citizenry. At the same time, the over-zealous state felt it had to guard the worker from the evil designs of the private sector. So we have the Industrial Disputes Act, the Contract Labour Act, etc., which are ostensibly meant to safeguard workers’ rights, but which end up damaging the very basis for providing secure livelihood. Labour legislation in India has virtually precluded any laying off of workers even if the concerned firm is in no position to continue operations. Nor has specific provision been made for social safety nets to protect the worker’s (and his family’s) existence till he secures alternative employment and for retraining provisions to enable the worker to adjust to changes in technology and processes. Employers have, therefore, taken recourse to employing contract labour for years on end, creating a huge mass of unorganised labour. Apart from breeding unrest in workers with highly uncertain futures (Maruti is a recent example), this also lowers labour productivity. There is also the tendency to go in for capital-intensive technology, a disastrous development for a labour-rich economy like India.
Again, an overriding concern for the welfare of tenants and the state-sponsored provision of housing for economically weaker sections of society saw the emergence of laws controlling rents and restricting urban land ownership. The Rent Control Acts, designed to regulate rentals in urban areas, were introduced between the end of the First and Second World Wars and have survived for over seventy to eighty years in a number of states of India. The Urban Land Ceiling Act, enacted in 1976, served to choke the stock of urban land available for development. These two Acts, coupled with politico-bureaucratic control of the land use process in urban areas, has led to a totally arbitrary, unpredictable manner of urban development, exacerbated by the rapid inflow of migrants to cities in search of work. Government efforts at directly adding to the stock of housing have been woefully inadequate and of shoddy quality. Attempts to associate the private sector through slum redevelopment schemes have generally failed, with allegations of favouritism and large-scale corruption.
However, it is in the area of food provision that public policy has fumbled the most. The National Food Security Act seeks to provide subsidised foodgrains to a majority of the Indian population. This process is to be administered through a mechanism that is riddled with inefficiency and leakages, right from the Food Corporation of India at the central level to the civil supplies machinery at the district level. Inspite of boasting of a decades old public distribution system, the state has failed to check food inflation, with grim consequences for the poor. Inadequate attention has been paid to promoting agricultural productivity and developing farm to customer supply chain networks. Soil conservation is an area that has been talked about incessantly, without any real commitment to it: major programmes of soil conservation works funded by rural employment guarantee schemes like the MGNREGA could well have augmented groundwater levels and promoted efficient agricultural practices. Foreign direct investment in retail is another area where kneejerk reactions motivated by specific interest groups have obstructed the introduction of technologies and systems that reduce food wastage and guarantee secure incomes for farmers.
What is evident from the three examples above is the way in which misplaced welfare concerns have not only failed to achieve their intended objectives but have also inhibited the adoption of long term measures that could have laid the foundations for sustained economic growth and development. Governments come and governments go in India but the same blinkered approach to public policy persists. Even today, politicians of different hues seem to think that welfare measures, like free rice, loan waivers, consumption loans, etc. lead to poverty reduction. Such measures fail to address the root problems of inadequate purchasing power and access to credit. Not only that, the huge public financial outlays on these and other welfare measures limit the capacity of the state to invest in physical and human infrastructure, which alone can be the basis for future growth. European countries moved to a welfare state after the foundations for sustained economic growth had been laid. By trying to put the cart before the horse, the Indian state is achieving neither its welfare objectives nor its growth goals.
15 Jun
Demonetise and Develop
Indians have a fascination for black money. If they don’t generate it, they love to talk about it. And yet they share a major misconception about it — it is as if the money itself has a colour, either black or white. They would do well to heed what an Economics Professor of mine used to say “Money by itself is neither black nor white; it depends on the use to which it is put.” To give you an example, let us say you pay a hefty donation of Rupees ten lakhs to get your daughter a seat in a private medical college. You have raised this amount from your hard-earned life savings, from the gratuity and provident fund paid to you when you retired (and, therefore, indisputably white money). But when the college has to park this money, they will not take recourse to their normal banking channels: the funds will be routed through avenues that seek to evade the attention of the income-tax authorities. White money has, in a trice, been converted to black money, with a change of user.
Why does this transaction hit the normal economy? Well, for one, the government is denied its share of tax revenues, impacting public expenditure. The money could be invested in assets like land or gold, driving up their value and fuelling inflationary trends. Or it could be spirited out of the country through hawala channels, decreasing the money supply available for lubricating economic activity within the country. The real killer is the multiplier aspect of such behaviour — when such transactions outside the banking system become the norm, a huge parallel economy develops alongside the regular economy. Governments may then find that their interventions to stabilise inflation or currency rates are having little impact, since the demand for and the supply of money is operating outside the regular system.
How can governments tackle this problem? Lowering tax rates does not solve the problem: rates have come down over the past twenty years but the black money menace is more pronounced than ever. When there is an incentive to pay zero income tax, there are strong motivations to conduct transactions outside regular banking channels. So we have the spectacle of professionals accepting fees in cash and not declaring their incomes and land/building sale transactions being conducted in a black and white combination.
Two possible solutions suggest themselves: (a) Demonetise higher value currency notes to make cash transactions more cumbersome in terms of volume; (b) legally mandate that all transactions above a certain value, say, Rs. 10000 have to have an electronic footprint. On demonetisation, we have the example of countries like the USA, where the highest currency denomination in current use is 100 US dollars (higher denominations were not even printed after World War II). Unfortunately, we are headed the opposite way in India — we introduced 1000 rupee currency notes and are now contemplating 1000 rupee coins as well. It would seem that we are trying to make things as simple as possible for people who wish to despatch trunk loads of cash for illegal payments. If India were to demonetise all currencies of Rupees 100 and above, there would be a tenfold increase in the volume of cash that has to be carted around for cash transactions. This is where the second solution kicks in. Since all transactions above Rs. 10000 have to come through official channels (which are electronically monitored), cash withdrawals by an individual customer can be restricted to a certain value per month, say Rs. 25000. Barring minor payments for items like bus tickets and vegetable purchases, there is no need to rely on cash purchases at all.
Electronic payments would necessitate opening of electronic bank accounts for all citizens above eighteen years of age, an objective the Nachiket Mor Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services has already stressed in its recent report to the Reserve Bank of India. Issuing Aadhaar and/or PAN cards to all citizens would enable linkage of these cards to the account, to keep track of receipts and payments and ensure compliance with tax and other laws of India. The electronic footprint would also restrict cash withdrawals by an account holder to the amount specified above, to prevent huge cash volumes illegally exchanging hands. Who knows, this may well discourage payments at election time and speed money payments, till Indian jugaad comes up with some other ingenious solution. Payments above Rs. 10000 can be through bank transfers, internet transfers, cheques and/or mobile money.
There is another virtuous cycle that will come into operation once the above measures are introduced. We love to repeat ad nauseam that “of every rupee meant for a poor beneficiary, only 15 paise reaches her”. An obvious solution is the introduction of cash transfers. Instead of cash being paid, the amounts are directly credited to the account of the beneficiary. A combination of conditional and unconditional cash transfers can be employed. Where the amount is meant for daily use as in old-age pensions, there would be no restriction on the free use of the funds by the beneficiary. Where the funds are linked to fulfilment of a specific condition like the purchase of food grains, payment for health care or school vouchers, the amount would be electronically transferred from the beneficiary’s account to the institution/person providing the good/service when the good/service has been provided to the beneficiary. This should pose no technological problem to our IT geniuses, given that the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) is already handling such a large volume of capital market transactions. In fact, there is no reason why the same NSDL system cannot be fruitfully employed for this purpose as well.
We can talk about the scourge of black money and poor service delivery till the cows come home but unless we bring in reforms on the lines suggested above, I do not see any meaningful solution to these problems. The marriage of modern technology with existing systems can definitely create the conditions for sustained, inclusive growth and development.
31 May
The Writing Is On The Wall
The elections in India have come and gone like a tropical hurricane, leaving behind one of the most unusual results of recent times. After almost thirty years, the Indian voter has given an unambiguous verdict in favour of one political party. Today, I want to focus on the implications of these results for a state that has been my karmabhoomi for over thirty years – Maharashtra. After being a witness to six State Assembly elections since 1985, there are certain interesting trends to discern in the voting pattern in the recent Lok Sabha elections that could serve as a pointer to what might transpire in the forthcoming Assembly elections scheduled for October this year.
The one sided nature of the Lok Sabha election results in Maharashtra defied all predictions and came as a shock to the ruling Congress party and a very pleasant surprise to the victorious Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). As one of the two states in India where the BJP has stable, long term alliances with regional parties (the other being Punjab), the scale of the victory in Maharashtra catapulted the BJP to an absolute majority in the Lower House. In fact, the results in UP and Maharashtra were instrumental in propelling the BJP to a position where it need not employ coalition dharma in ruling the country for the next five years.
What is significant and a pointer to things to come in Maharashtra is the margin of victory of the candidates of the BJP and it’s allies, the Shiv Sena and the Swabhimani Paksha, in every constituency in the state. The final constituency-wise tally reveals that in 41 of the 42 seats won by the BJP alliance, the margin of victory exceeded one lakh votes. Even in Yavatmal-Washim constituency, the victorious Shiv Sena candidate’s victory margin exceeded 90,000 votes. This was higher than the largest victory margin for a Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance candidate. This, too, was in Nanded, where the former Chief Minister and son of the old Congress loyalist S.B. Chavan, Ashok Chavan, won by just over 81,000 votes. There are two disconcerting (for the Congress-NCP alliance) trends that will give them a lot of food for thought in the coming four months. The first is, of course, the six-figure defeat margin in all but one constituency, a first in the state of Maharashtra. Even more worrying for the alliance are the victory margins for the successful Congress-NCP candidates, which range from under 2000 to just over 80,000 (if we rule out the sole aberration of Satara, won by an ex-royal family scion). Even the Sharad Pawar bastion of Baramati was breached, with his daughter getting home by what, for the Pawar family, would be termed a wafer-thin margin of under 70,000 votes.
The results reflect a deep discontent (indeed anger) of the voter with a ruling alliance that, over the last fifteen years, has been riven with internal dissensions and squabbles, allegations of corruption in high places and a continuing failure to deliver effective, honest governance. The NCP came into existence with the ambition of becoming a major regional political alternative: it hoped to replace the Congress as the main centrist formation in Maharashtra. The marriage has been a fairly acrimonious one, marked by suspicion, intrigue and mutual recriminations. Even as this is written, the two parties in the ruling coalition are busy accusing each other of sabotaging the electoral chances of the other party’s candidates.
Corruption allegations against individual members of the Cabinet have surfaced at regular intervals, right from the first five-year term of the present coalition. Decisions in infrastructure areas like roads and irrigation as also resource allocation areas like land have been the target of public criticism for alleged favours shown to certain parties, including those politically well-connected. In recent years, both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister have had to resign in the wake of very specific allegations relating to their conduct while in office.
The failure to effect institutional changes to improve administrative effectiveness is particularly disquieting. Even after legislation to regulate transfers was brought into force in 2005, there is still a lot of opacity about the transfer process. Boards to regulate Civil Service and police transfers are yet to start functioning, in spite of Supreme Court directives. The recent disquiet at the highest levels of the police over excessive interference from the Secretariat and the political level is a notable example. Ministers have centralised most project approval, procurement and purchase powers at the Secretariat level, giving ample scope for doubts about the fairness of these processes. The attempted remedy, further centralisation of powers at the Chief Minister’s level, has delayed decision making. With no empowered, independent Lok Ayukta at the state level, there is no effective check on the actions of the executive. The state is yet to enact a Right to Public Services legislation, lagging behind other states which have already done so. Important steps like repealing the Rent Control Acts and devising policies for using the stock of land currently with the government subsequent to the repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling Act have not been taken, leading to artificial escalations in real estate prices and diminishing the stock of property available for housing purposes. No effort has been made to introduce responsible, efficient local government systems, with adequate financial and administrative powers: the result is particularly evident in decaying towns and cities with a poor quality of life. Promoting primary and secondary education and developing job skills have never been the priority of the government. Above all, there has been little job creation in the organised sector, creating a vast underbelly of underemployed, discontented youth.
It might be argued that the situation is not much better in many other states, where governments have been returned to power time and again. The real issue, however, is one of public perception. When the constituents of the government do not pull in one direction and there is a widespread feeling that there is no specific policy direction, public confidence in the governing dispensation is severely shaken. The recent election results reflect, of course, the rejection of the government at the national level. But the margins of victories for the main opposition parties in the state represent a rejection of the state government as well. 2014 is different from 2004 and 2009 in that, in the state elections in those years, the BJP alliance was going through its own existential crises. The BJP was going through a churning process at the national level and the Shiv Sena was beset with the exit of many important leaders, consequent on a leadership struggle in the party. With these issues largely resolved for now, the BJP alliance is much better placed to offer a more viable alternative to the current ruling coalition. Given the short time period available before the state election process kicks in, it looks well-nigh impossible for the present government to refurbish its image to attract voters to its fold once again.
My only fervent hope (indeed prayer) is that whichever group comes to power will focus on the basic issues that will make Maharashtra a vibrant, competitive state and give its over 100 million people a decent quality of life. The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance squandered its 1995 mandate and the Congress-NCP alliance has wasted three opportunities given to it since 1999. Politicians of all hues would do well to remember that you are only as good as your last term in office. If you wish to continue ‘serving the people’ (a favourite euphemism of all politicians), please set aside your personal goals and focus on policies that will give your people a better future.
15 May
Not on my watch!
The concept of watches is crucial to the safe and proper operation of a ship, especially when it is on the high seas. Different officers on board the ship are assigned different duties to ensure safe operation and navigation of the ship. Officers and men carry out these watch duties related to the routine of the ship in areas ranging from the bridge and the deck to communications and engineering. Failure to report untoward incidents and take immediate remedial action can lead to collisions with other seagoing vessels, seizure by hostile elements and even the sinking of the ship with consequent loss of men and material.
The ship of state is similar to a large seagoing vessel. In a lighter vein, it has been observed in the Yes Minister TV serial series that “the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top”, a reference to the tendency of top politicians and bureaucrats to divulge vital information to the media when they want to press for or stall a particular policy or course of action. But, more seriously, there are striking similarities in the two organisational structures, exemplified particularly in the maintenance of law and order by the state. I single out the law and order function because of the immediate consequences on the lives of ordinary citizens of the failure of the state to protect the right to life and property of the average citizen. The state here ranges from the topmost political executives (the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers and Home Ministers) right down to the lowest administrative functionary (the Taluka Magistrate and the officer in charge of a police station). It will never do for any functionary (political or administrative) at any level of the chain of command to claim that (s)he is not responsible for events leading to loss of lives and property. The credibility of the ship of state suffers serious damage when such events occur and leads to lasting scars and bitter memories in those at the receiving end.
I am motivated to write this piece by the reams of paper and the volume of verbal (often vituperative) discourse in the print and electronic media on the culpability of specific personalities for incidents that occurred while they were at the helm of affairs in the Government of India and different state governments. Unfortunately, nearly all the discussion has centred on partisan finger pointing and blame fixing rather than on the responsibilities cast on the political and administrative echelons to ensure safety and security of the populations living in their respective administrative areas. As examples, we have the decadal upheavals of 1984, 1992-93 and 2002, all of which represented conscious, tragic failures of the state to uphold the rule of law. More to the point, these represented instances where the state (from top to bottom) consciously abdicated its role for a certain period of time, in contrast to many other post-1947 incidents where the state machinery was found wanting in dealing with sectarian strife, but where the stigma could not be said to have spread across the entire governance strata and where those at the top could be accused of inaction but not of wanton neglect of their basic duties.
1984 represented the first major case where the state truly fiddled while the country burned. The anti-Sikh riots post the assassination of Indira Gandhi saw the national capital turn into a jungle as, probably for the first time after partition, mob rule prevailed on the streets of Delhi for the better part of three days. December 1992 saw both the Government of India and the Uttar Pradesh (UP) State Government benignly sitting by while a centuries-old mosque was demolished by right-wing activists. Immediately thereafter, we had the situation of the Maharashtra Government failing to control the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition and allowing mobs a free run of the streets of what was then Bombay. And, of course, we have the still hotly debated 2002 Ahmedabad riots, when one community was targeted for acts committed elsewhere. More recently, we have instances of recurring violence in Assam and the riots in Muzaffarnagar in UP.
It is not the intention of this blog to attempt to lay the blame for these unfortunate happenings at the doors of one or the other persons or organisations: the criminal justice system is supposed to take necessary action, even though there are serious questions on whether the guilty have been brought to book. What concerns us is the utter failure of the state to discharge its responsibilities and the failure of various administrative and political functionaries to live up to the oaths they had taken to the Constitution of India. Such occurrences not only leave deep scars on the psyche of the survivors but also instil in them a fear about the basic capacity of the government of the day to guarantee their fundamental right to life and liberty.
Three pernicious factors in the state and its machinery have led to this sorry state of affairs where we are unable to stop such upheavals at regular intervals: Partisanship, Corruption and Weakness.
Partisanship refers to that tendency where the functionary charged with the maintenance of public order is unable to rise above the pulls and pressures of caste, ethnic and religious loyalties to discharge his basic duties in a fair, impartial manner. (I have deliberately used the male gender to refer to the functionary, since a preponderant proportion of the acts of commission and omission are committed by males, although it is unfortunate that women are now getting infected by the same virus). The lower echelons of the police force and the magistracy take their cues from the higher levels of the political and civil administration. It has been repeatedly observed, for example, that districts in which the topmost officers like the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police set a personal example in fairness and impartiality rarely experience violent or long lasting eruptions of lawlessness. A ready example is the peace in then Bombay City in 1984 when the Chief Minister and Police Commissioner made it clear that no violence against a specific community would be tolerated.
Corruption is the insidious cancer that eats away at the body of the state machinery. Centralised posting and transfer powers have ensured that pliant (and often corrupt) officers and men are posted keeping caste, ethnic, religious and other similar factors in mind. The transfer auction industry creates a system where resources have to be gathered by those getting postings of their choice to repay the favours done to them. Easy sources of illegal revenue range from the traditional avenues of gambling, prostitution and illicit liquor to the post-modern riches of minor and major mineral mining, transportation, narcotics, straightforward extortion and collusion in underworld killings. This weakens the authority of the local officer to enforce the law in his area of operation. More than two decades ago, the presence of matka (gambling) dens and illicit liquor joints in a district were a pointer to the presence of unlawful elements; competition between rival groups was often the starting point for sectarian trouble, though the immediate provocation could be anything from eve-teasing to a streetside altercation after a minor accident. With access to immense wealth, criminal elements now rule the roost in many areas of the country — they do not even need to find politicians to support them, since they are themselves active in the political arena.
Weakness in law enforcement is an offshoot of the first two factors. Officers and men with inbuilt prejudices against certain communities can hardly be expected to be even-handed in handling sensitive situations. The problem is compounded further when such personnel are also compromised through their financial dealings with corrupt and criminal elements in their local areas and their readiness to do the bidding of the political masters who have secured for them their lucrative postings. With the system of centralised transfers, many such officers and men are not even bothered to follow the orders of their superior officers — indeed, they can probably arrange for the transfer of inconvenient officers, or, in some instances, for their elimination.
We are going to see a new government take up the reins of office in Delhi in the next week or so. At this juncture, it might be apposite to remind the incoming government that no excuse for failure to protect the life and property of ordinary citizens will wash with the public. We also have silly solutions being advanced in Assam like arming certain groups to protect themselves. Apart from promoting armed conflict among different groups, such suggestions (if they emanated from the government of the day) reflect a bankruptcy in governance. A government countenancing such ideas has no business to continue to rule. It is the primary duty of an elected government to provide security to its citizens as they go about their daily business. The comparison with a naval vessel can again be made, with one important difference. The captain of a ship stays with it to the last, even going down with it when it sinks. We certainly hope the ship of state never sinks. But its captain, the leader of the government, has to, at all times, secure the safety of the occupants of his ship.
30 Apr
Thy Hand, Great Dynast
“Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
(with apologies to Alexander Pope)
The soap opera ‘Dynasty’, based on a fictional wealthy family in Denver, Colorado, USA, aired on America’s ABC Channel from 1981 to 1989. A much longer soap opera has aired on the Indian political scene for the last sixty years or so. Continuing with the glorious tradition of the Gupta, Chola and Chalukya dynasties as well as the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal dynasties, independent India has reinvented dynastic rule in a democratic framework. The creature has mutated in new forms over the years, transcending the boundaries of political affiliation, caste, religion and gender, and is now well entrenched on the national scene as well as in nearly every state in India.
In the beginning, as in many other stories of independent India, there was the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The handover of the Prime Ministerial baton, albeit with a runner in between, from one generation of Nehrus to the next, was followed in the 1970s and 1980s by Generation X of varying dynasties ascending to the top of the pyramid. It did not take long for the framework to be copied across the board and the 1990s and the first ten years of the present century have seen Generation Y asserting their birthright to rule, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Dwarka to Dimapur. Almost no political party can claim to be immune to this phenomenon. What does this portend for the future of Indian democracy?
For a start, dynastic succession imposes severe barriers to entry and stifles competition, with adverse consequences for merit and efficiency. The first generation of the dynasty could be drawn from a professional political family, a former ruling princely family, a johnny-come-lately neo-rich real estate or liquor baron or a more modest loyal servitor of one of the above classes, whose major virtue is his/her undying loyalty to the powers that be. The absence of inner party democracy and the prevalence of widespread sycophancy ensure that election tickets circulate within a small body of modern-day monarchs and oligarchs, with the occasional concessions being made to celebrities, professionals and out of work bureaucrats, police and army officers. To be fair to it, the modern Indian dynastic system does not necessarily operate by the laws of primogeniture — spouses, sisters, brothers and daughters can all be successors to the jagir of the patriarch (or matriarch, as the case may be). Whether or not India applies it on the sports field, the phrase “catch them young” certainly applies in the political battlefield. A recent analysis of Indian MPs found that all MPs below the age of 30 were drawn from political lineages. The high costs of fighting elections and the benefits of political patronage ensure that those with a family political background start life in politics with a significant advantage.
Hereditary accession is certainly no guarantee of ability in governance, whether in the corporate sector or in politics. The easy access to position and wealth generates complacency and a certain distancing from the electorate. This is changing swiftly in recent years as anti-incumbency has kicked in in the last few elections. And yet, there are many parliamentarians and legislators who are just not able to make a mark in their constituencies and deliver the services that their constituents expect of them. A major reason for this is that many of these legislators/parliamentarians are complete greenhorns in public administration. The political generation of the 1950s to 1970s (Generation W, should we call them?) had been schooled either in the struggle for independence or in local administration in village panchayats, Zilla Parishads or municipal bodies. When they became legislators or parliamentarians they already had a good understanding of how the wheels of government moved — many of them were consequently very able administrators, who were respected and feared by their bureaucrats. Generations X and Y have often been born with the proverbial silver spoon and hence have had neither the time nor the inclination to master the details and intricacies of public administration.
A third vitiating factor has been the growing and easy access to patronage and business cronies. Businessmen and contractors have established cosy linkages with politicians; in a number of instances, they have themselves jumped into the political fray, given their access to resources. As we move from Generation W to Generation Y, the tendency to succumb to the lure of easy money, coupled with the astronomical costs of fighting elections, has seen a throwing of ethical norms to the winds and a general acceptance of the principle that all’s fair in politics, whether in manipulating contracts, auctioning postings or protecting shady friends from the arm of the law. Where Generation X/Y politicians try to carve out their own paths clear of these obstacles, they are often obstructed by the party oligarchs of an earlier generation, who resent any interference in their existing, comfortable status quo.
There is a very real danger that mediocrity and superficial involvement will crowd out excellence and passionate commitment in the political arena. It is already noticeable that very few legislators can grasp the complexities of public policy and the intricacies of law-making. Innovation and bold decision making in government have also taken a back seat with political leaders going in for feel-good and expedient solutions that favour certain social groups rather than sweeping institutional reforms that can significantly transform the lives of their countrymen and women. In this rather dismal scenario, the growing restlessness of the middle classes, if harnessed on constructive lines, can play a major role in enforcing political accountability for outcomes that set India on a trajectory of rapid growth and development that reaches the largest proportion of the population. As the philosopher Karl Popper defines it, the identifying characteristic of a democracy is the change in government without bloodshed. Political parties that fail to focus on long-term solutions or rely on obsolete ideologies run the risk of being marginalised or even wiped out. It is time they read the writing on the wall.
15 Apr
…No one asked you, sir, she said…
The 5 April 2014 issue of the Economist has stirred up a hornet’s nest with its recommendation that a government led by Rahul Gandhi is a less disturbing option. A lot of righteous indignation has been expressed far and wide about what is termed an uncalled for interference in voter choice. My old friend Sanjeev Ahluwalia (blog site: http://www.ahlu-india.com) has compared the Economist article to the legendary “dog that failed to bark” in the Sherlock Holmes story; the only difference, he observes, is that the Economist actually barked this time. He wonders whether the Economist is acting at someone else’s behest to help bring about a BJP win without the Gujarat strongman at the helm.
It would be instructive to know whether the Economist took a similar view at the time of the 1984 Lok Sabha elections, which were held in the immediate aftermath of a horrifying massacre of Sikhs across a number of Indian states, most of which were governed by the then ruling Indian National Congress party. In any case, after ten years of Congress party rule, with all its trials and tribulations, the Indian voter will, come 16 May 2014, deliver a verdict that reflects her considered assessment of who is best suited to occupy the Delhi gaddi for the next five years. The Indian voter has voted decisively in election after election since 1952 and at no point can she be faulted for error of judgment, given the choices open to her.
So we don’t need the Economist (or any other so-called intellectual journal or paper) giving gratuitous advice to the Indian voter. Having said this, it would be salutary to pause and reflect on the Western (specifically Anglo-Saxon) tendency to pontificate on the “White Man’s Burden” while ignoring serious blunders much nearer home. The history of today’s Western democracies is a case of “trial and error” – the errors of judgment of the then Great Powers have led to trials for the less privileged communities subjected to their ministrations for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this, they have often relied on the mass media in their societies (owned generally by powerful economic interests) to sell the message of their civilizing mission to the world at large. That the societies for whose benefit interventionist policies were devised failed to appreciate them has often baffled Western democracies.
The Vietnam War was one of the major events where the media (especially its American arms) were at pains to stress the efforts to contain the spread of Communist influence (and, presumably, aid the spread of democracy). Magazines like the Readers’ Digest highlighted offensives by “North Vietnamese forces”, when the issue in question was the legitimacy of the American intervention in a country far from its shores, never mind the treaties with dummy, often highly corrupt and autocratic regimes. Subsequent interventions in war theatres as diverse as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have also merited little dispassionate media analysis. Consequently, whether driven by revenge (Afghanistan) or removing old enemies (Iraq and Libya), military adventures in recent years have invariably ended in fiascos, with the “beneficiary” countries no nearer a resolution of their internal conflicts or a move towards democratic norms. Media discussion has always focused on how American interests are best served by such interventions and rarely (or never) on what the implications are for the native populations. Not surprisingly, recent events in Egypt and Syria have seen far more muted American responses, given the uncertainty of outcomes. Even today, media response to brutal, oppressive regimes in Asia and Africa is governed more by geopolitical interests rather than a genuine interest in human rights or democratic values.
Gratuitous advice is also more forthcoming from the Western media on other issues like environment, economic and energy policy. Homilies are delivered to emerging economies on the use of nuclear energy, ecological management and promoting economic growth. After the East Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, the IMF administered the medicine of structural adjustment to economies of these countries regardless of their impact on the living standards of the poor, with the tacit approval of the media in developed countries. One would have thought that growing debt (both public and private) in the OECD countries would have worried the media in the first half of the first decade of the twenty first century. And yet, no admonitions were forthcoming as the housing bubble grew to worrisome proportions in this period. After it burst, leading to the global meltdown post-2008, there were any number of post-facto analyses of what went wrong, ignoring the basic facts of irresponsible lending and flagrant violations of the basic norms of fiscal prudence.
The sum and substance of what I am saying is that Western media advice should be directed first to those nearer home, since their actions have domino effects across the globe, especially on emerging and poorer economies. With the United Nations and multilateral institutions having little real influence on the big boys, it is only international public opinion, informed and shaped by print, electronic and social media, which can play a balancing role in curbing the unequal exercise of economic and military power.
So the Indian people’s final words of advice to the Economist in its concern for India’s well-being would be the same as those uttered by the fair maid who was initially courted and later rejected by the country squire “…No one asked you, sir, she said…” Come the Ides of May, the people of India will shape their destiny, which goes far deeper than a superficial preoccupation with particular personalities or political formations.
31 Mar
Not Quite, Commissar…
At the outset of this blog, let me put in two disclaimers — the initial reference to a political figure is only to acknowledge his title and authorship of the blog post quoted here and his mention in no way represents a departure from the policy of this blog site to defer from discussing (or dissecting) personalities but to analyse only trends and tendencies in social, economic and political behaviour. Having got this mea culpa out of the way, let me jump into the discussion in right earnest.
The BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s blog of 23 March 2014 on his website http://www.arunjaitley.com states “Membership of political party is a privilege. It is also an act of self-oppression where personal views and ambitions are subjected to the collective wisdom of the party. At times, the party may flood leaders with privileges and positions. On other occasions, the leader may have to take “no” as an answer to his desires. How does a politician or a leader react to such “no”? He must accept the decision with a smile. This becomes a test of his loyalty and discipline.” The use of the term “self-oppression” which reeks of repression (even if by one’s own self) makes one wince given that one always thought that human endeavour in all areas (including political activity) seeks to give fullest expression to human individuality and creativity. There is also the term “collective wisdom of the party” which echoes the sentiments of a Stalinist-era Commissar. In fact, words like “collective wisdom”, “the party”, “loyalty” and “discipline” fit in far better with the vocabulary of the former Soviet or the Chinese Communist Party rather than of a party functioning in a noisy, vibrant democracy like India.
But although Indian political parties function in a democracy, they are not democratic in their inner functioning and processes. Even the venerable Indian National Congress was not immune to this charge right from pre-independence days. The basic cause lies in the readiness of political workers to rally behind the vote-getting charisma of a leader and to be willing accomplices in the centralisation of party power so long as their interests (and those of their kith and kin) are looked after. The recent murmurings in many parties and the bed-hopping that has started in real earnest are reflections of thwarted desires and ambitions, as Jaitley has rightly observed. The problem, however, lies in the lack of institutionalisation of democratic processes in party functioning.
Take the issue of candidate selection for any poll in India, from village panchayat to Parliament. The United States has its primaries (however flawed) and the United Kingdom has its local constituency committees, which select party candidates, either themselves or from a centrally approved list. In India, there is little or no transparency in the method of selection of candidates. In most cases, names of candidates handed down by the party high command have to be accepted at the local level with little or no dissent being tolerated. While there are cases of locally popular candidates making it to the final list, there are also many instances of wards of powerful party functionaries, crony business associates and financiers and musclemen making it as the official candidates. This has not only promoted nepotism in and criminalisation of party politics but has also created a vast underclass of embittered, disgruntled political workers, who are vulnerable to the appeal of any sectarian, authoritarian outfit that can hold out a promise to them of their day in the sun. Established national political parties in India have suffered on this count at the hands of regional parties, which today hold the power of life and death over their survival in office, almost always at the cost of good economics and politics.
The awareness of their charismatic hold on the electorate, at least in the short-run, has bred a class of highly authoritarian leaders in India. They feel no sense of accountability to institutions of democracy. Indeed, leaders arraigned on charges of corruption in recent years have held themselves accountable to the “court of the people” rather than to the judicial process, as though victory in elections can cleanse them of all sins committed while holding public office. Such leaders, like Louis XIV of France, can claim “I am the state.” What is even more noticeable over the years is the tendency of subordinates of these leaders to turn a blind eye to every transgression of public ethics on the part of their leader and resort to abject submission even when they know in their heart of hearts that a policy inimical to public interest or which violates the norms of good, sensible governance is being followed…the days of a Rajaji or a Feroze Gandhi seem very far away indeed!
This sycophancy has led to a serious erosion of legislative responsibility. By definition, legislators are law makers. However, since the only motivating force is the display of loyalty to the party (and by inference, the leader), there is little incentive for the legislator to make a mark through excellence in debate or contributing to framing of effective laws. The Anti-Defection Law has only worsened the problem with legislators having little or no room to question policies of their party, leave alone voting against the party on issues where their convictions clash with the official party position. Little wonder then that anarchy prevails with uproarious scenes in the state legislatures and Parliament being the rule rather than the exception.
The inherent assumption in the Jaitley blog quoted above is that it is the party that has the right to thrust a candidate on the electorate, never mind their wishes or aspirations. When all major political parties adopt this principle, the voter is left with a Hobson’s choice. Low voter turnouts at elections are a natural corollary. Even the introduction of NOTA (None Of The Above) as an optional choice to voters does not solve the basic problem; when candidates are not thrown up from the people, TINA (There Is No Alternative) will always triumph over NOTA. The casualty here is democracy: when my representative from the village panchayat to Parliament is not of my choice and, knowing she is not beholden to me, can largely ignore me for five years, why will I show any interest in taking an active interest in public issues? The urban anger manifested in the last three years is a reflection of the perception of the Aam Aadmi that no party cares for her interests and no elected representative truly wants to help resolve her problems of day to day existence. It needs to be clearly understood: the candidate exists not for the party, but for her electorate; the political party is only a medium for the right person to sincerely and strongly represent her constituency in whichever political forum she is elected to.
21 Mar
PPP and the Indian political class
We are all familiar with the acronym PPP, which has been touted as a solution to raising resources and bringing in operational efficiency in various infrastructure sectors. Alas, in the Indian context, PPP (or public private partnership), has an altogether different connotation. It represents the use of public money for private gains – a partnership that benefits just a few and condemns the many to indifferent public services. PPP, as it has evolved over the past six decades of independent India, stands for something else altogether – Patronage, Procurement and Postings. The fascinating story of this PPP is woven closely into the common man’s social, economic and political life.
The tale begins, as always, in the 1950s with the introduction of the “socialist pattern of society”. Large areas of economic activity were reserved for the public sector; where the private sector was tolerated, it had to beg for scarce licenses. Controls on movement of goods and services, both within and outside the country, were imposed. It was not long before those exercising political power saw the benefits of these arrangements. The public sector became the vehicle for political patronage of various sorts – people from your constituency could be employed in different undertakings without considerations of merit and efficiency coming into the picture and procurement contracts could be awarded to your supporters or to those offering the highest “economic rent” (ER). It was even easier with the private sector: the quid pro quo for granting production licenses could be in direct cash. Controls on scarce items like foreign exchange and consumer goods raised the premiums payable on acquisition of these scarce commodities and the development of thriving black markets.
Forty years passed and the Indian economy developed a severe illness. The treatment involved freeing economic activity of some controls and allowing the entry of the private sector, both Indian and foreign, into sectors hitherto inaccessible to them. This posed new threats and challenges to the Indian political class and others who had benefited from the earlier dispensation. The reduced role of the public sector meant that procurement contracts in certain sectors no longer yielded the sort of ER they had earlier. At the same time, natural resource allocation became a new source of ER, especially since no norms for auctioning these resources in a transparent bidding process were evolved. We are still grappling with the aftermath of this phenomenon in sectors as diverse as coal mining and telecom spectrum allocation. The growing disposable income with a rising middle class and the trend towards rapid urbanization saw land becoming a major source of revenue for politicians and builders. Since decisions on land use are largely vested in state governments, its allocation gave ER access to state-level politicians. But there are also a variety of permissions on use of land that require clearances at the national level, notably on environmental grounds. Land use and land allocation are areas where there has been a long tradition of unwarranted state interference in what ought to have been independent urban planning decisions. It is common knowledge that this sector has contributed in no small measure to the funding of election campaigns.
However, natural resource allocations are still concentrated in a relatively small number of ministries at the national level. Procurements again are much larger in major infrastructure sectors and in areas like defence. The solution worked out around this problem by the political class has been to squarely put its finger into the “procurement pie”. In many ministries and departments at the national and state levels, the tendency has been to centralize purchases at the secretariat level. While the reason ostensibly given has been that these reduce costs through discounts on bulk purchases, actual experience shows that the ER factor kicks in here as well. The problem is compounded by bunching together purchases near the financial year end (March 31) so that there is inadequate financial scrutiny of proposals; a number of purchase decisions also escape audit scrutiny because of the sheer volume of transactions in the last couple of days of the financial year.
A third area of increasing political interference has been in postings and transfers of officers and staff. At the recruitment stage itself, there is substantial evidence of extra-legal considerations playing a role in selection, as witnessed in the number of state public service commission scams that have come to light in recent years. About twenty five years ago, most decisions on transfers of subordinate staff were handled by the head of the department, or District Collectors (and Divisional Commissioners, where they existed). Between 1990 (when I was a District Collector) and 2000 (when I became a Divisional Commissioner) in a state like Maharashtra, the situation saw a sea change. I found I had not even a fraction of the transfer powers I had ten years before, thanks to administrative orders issued in the mid-1990s. This not only led to a breakdown in the chain of command (since employees did not have to meet performance expectations of their superiors to continue in a post), but also led to the extremely damaging phenomena of political proximity of the bureaucracy as well as the pernicious practice of a thriving “black market” transfer industry. While some efforts have been made in a state like Maharashtra to rectify this situation through legislation, there are still enough loopholes for officers and staff to secure postings of their choice. The recent disquiet in the Indian Police Service cadre in Maharashtra is an indication that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark. There is no reason to suspect that the position is better in other states; if anything, it would be far worse.
What is dismaying to any observer is the nonchalant attitude of nearly all political parties to this vicious PPP cycle, which can only result in continued poor public service delivery to the Aam Aadmi. Because of judicial intervention and sustained media pressure, some reform in natural resource allocation processes is slowly taking place. There is still no clear policy on procurements in government. In particular, there are still no clear directives on moving procurement decision-making out of secretariats to independent institutional set ups. The highly belated passing of the Lokpal legislation will hopefully instil some accountability in decision-making processes, though the Lokpal is still to become active. There is also no guarantee that different states will pass the Lok Ayukta legislation in the prescribed time frame – it will probably require further judicial intervention and vigilant public opinion to ensure that effective anti-corruption bodies start functioning at the national and state levels. Finally, the establishment of independent Civil Service Boards, free of political interference, is a must if responsible and accountable governance is to have any meaning.
Public (and political) discourse needs to move from the short-term “freebie” culture to promoting the institutionalization of responsive, transparent governance systems. Till we realize that our own inaction contributes to our plight and take steps to move our elected representatives in the desired direction, there will be no meaningful growth or development in the country.
15 Mar
The Illusion of Leadership
Some years ago, a film called “Nayak” made its appearance on the silver screen. The well-known star, Anil Kapoor, essayed the role of an intrepid journalist who was made the Chief Minister of the state for a day. Through his hands-on approach to the job, Anil Kapoor not only endeared himself to one and all, but also brought all the baddies in society, the administrative and political hierarchies to book for the various misdemeanours committed by them.
This film comes to mind today at a time when the Indian public appears to be obsessed with a vigilante approach to solving its problems. The popular feeling seems to be that an all-powerful Jan Lokpal with sweeping powers will solve all the ills associated with corruption and usher in an era of Ram Rajya. On top of this, a tendency has developed to look to the top person for solutions to every issue. When quick fixes to longstanding problems are not forthcoming, the public (including the media) is more than ready to heap calumny on the top leadership.
It is no one’s case that the political elite is not responsible for many of the evils associated with the ubiquitous existence of corruption in Indian society. But it also needs to be recognised that a mere change of guard at the top is not going to improve matters. And yet, whenever there is a change in government at the state or central level, one would think that utopia has been achieved, the way the media and popular opinion immediately repose touching faith in the new occupant of the top post. This honeymoon usually lasts for six months to a year till the acts of omission and commission of the new incumbent occasion deep disillusionment in the same sections that were so enthusiastic some months earlier.
It would help to remember that leaders in India are just as human as the rest of us and as much a prisoner of circumstances as the Aam Aadmi. Leaders come to power bowed down by the weight of expectations. The acquisition of power, often after many years in the political battlefield, opens up vistas of opportunities for those who are tied to them by blood or association. The selection of competent, reasonably honest ministers is often the first casualty in the jostling for pelf and power. There is the issue of meeting sectarian demands, promises for which have been made in the heat and dust of the electoral battle. There is also the unwieldy, considerably compromised administrative machinery handed down to them by their predecessors. The politician always lives with the uneasy knowledge that she has only a five year claim on his job, in contrast to the guaranteed tenure of the permanent bureaucracy. The attitudes and the functioning of this gigantic government machine are reflective of the larger social milieu in which they operate, an environment which has steadily worsened in terms of ethical values over the past forty years. And finally, there are the purely external factors, which our leader cannot even anticipate – these can range from terrorist attacks and natural calamities to unexpected local flare-ups.
Allied to these external factors are the aspects internal to the leader. Every individual has her own worldview and her prejudices, built up over the years through the environment she has been exposed to, her understanding of economic and social issues and her own insecurities and private fears. Politicians, and especially their Indian variety, display certain traits without which they would probably not be in that field. An analysis of these would be instructive and interesting:
a) A lack of understanding of basic economics and a refusal to apply basic commercial sense to matters in the public sphere. Indian politicians remain mired in an antiquated socialist mind-set, inherited from the Nehru era. They have convinced themselves that that is what their voters want. In part, this reflects their obsession with public opinion, largely a product of the intelligentsia chatterati and the media. The latter are part of the upper middle class which is more often concerned with its own well-being and is often as ignorant (or even more) of economics and commerce than the average politician. This explains the half-baked reforms of 1991 and the failure of parties of almost every ideology over the past twenty years to deepen reforms at the national and the state level.
b) An obsession with state participation in every activity. This springs out of two motivations. The charitable explanation is that the politician has convinced herself that the private sector cannot be trusted with the non-exploitative, efficient delivery of goods and services, which in a deeper sense reflects a “socialist” unease with the operation of markets. Rather than look at creating the conditions for the effective functioning of markets, creating unwieldy state organisations for service and product delivery is the favourite pastime of Indian politicians (and bureaucrats). The rather more uncharitable reason for this state proliferation is the patronage powers it bestows on the politician. In the pre-1991 era, it was largely centred around employment (in the public sector) and awarding contracts for public sector procurements. In the post-1991 era, it has expanded to allocation of scarce natural resources and favourable financial treatment to segments of the private sector, with growing allegations of crony capitalism.
c) The failure to reform public service delivery mechanisms. Even if the Indian politician wanted to use the state machinery to deliver essential public goods and services to the citizen, she ought to have been aware of its major failings and sought to rectify these to ensure greater consumer satisfaction. What we see instead is a steadfast stonewalling of all reports on administrative, judicial and police reforms over the past twenty years, with cosmetic changes being made instead of deep-rooted institutional reforms.
d) A deliberate refusal to understand the consequences of the “business as usual” approach. It is here that the Indian politician is most culpable. Enough ink has been shed and words wasted in trying to educate them on the factors inhibiting equitable growth and improvement in the life of the Aam Aadmi. And yet, approaches to macro-policy continue on the same time-worn lines. Employment creation is sought to be tackled through a rural job guarantee rather than through innovative labour market reforms that will lead to growth in manufacturing jobs. Food security is mooted without tackling a corrupt, outdated food distribution mechanism. A right to education slogan is promoted which does not go into the causes for the dismal state of public education and the measures needed to ensure that all children complete education at least upto the secondary level and acquire the skills and competencies needed to function in a globalised economy. Agricultural market reforms are deliberately stalled when these could act as engines of rapid agricultural growth. The less said about FDI in retail, the better! No politician has been bold enough to call a spade a spade. Either she is still caught up in the dreams of socialism or (more likely) is cynically aware that thorough-going reforms in the economic, political and administrative domains will spell the end of her monopoly over resource distribution. It is even more disheartening when politicians one would normally associate with common sense and a vision for the future peddle the same obsolete shibboleths of their respective parties.
It is hardly surprising, then, to observe the repeated disenchantment of the voter with every political formation that comes to power at the national and state level riding the elephant of grand promises. But as has been presciently said “A people get the government they deserve.” The Indian intelligentsia, including but not limited to its media, academia, bureaucracy and civil society, has displayed the same myopic tendencies listed above about Indian politicians. Until the middle class sheds its illusions about a painless transformation to Utopia and is willing to support hard but unsettling decisions, foregoing short-term benefits, the current tamasha will continue. As George Santayana has remarked “Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.”
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