GovernMint in India
An Inside View
T.S.R. Subramanian
Copyright © T.S.R. Subramanian 2009
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CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction – What Ails Governance In India
1 Political Executive
2 The Parliament and the State Legislatures
3 Judiciary
4 Politician–Bureaucrat Interface
5 The Bureaucracy
6 The Presidency
7 Public Sector Undertakings
8 The Need to Revamp and Revitalise Institutions
9 Other Institutions and Private Agencies
10 Wages of Misgovernment
List of Acronyms
Index
PREFACE
GovernMint In India – An Inside View takes a good look at the various Constitutional agencies and other instruments of governance, making an assessment as to how they have performed in relation to the expectations from them at the time India became a Republic. In a sense, this is a stock-taking on Governance of sixty years since Independence.
The three pillars of the Constitution – the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive have been examined to assess as to how they have performed, in relation to the tasks assigned to them by the Constitution. The author has attempted a micro-analysis of the activities of the players involved in governance as well as the macro-results on the economy, polity and society of India.
This is not a manual or a report proposing a specific agenda for reform. The purpose is to assess the current situation and to reflect whether our institutions have performed to par. The book is also intended to provide basic information on the structure of government and the governance process in India, to the lay reader. The diagnosis described in the book leads up to a number of specific action points. The book could be the starting point for a debate which could lead up to an agenda for reform.
Much of what has been written is based on the personal experience of the author, who has been intimately involved in administration, at different levels, over four decades; while having ten more years to reflect on governance issues from the outside. There is no doubt that the author's perspectives, indeed prejudices, may have gotten reflected in the publication; he has tried hard to be as dispassionate as he could. A number of institutions, agencies, systems, indeed individuals have come in for criticism. This is without malice or intention to humiliate or overly criticise any group or class or individual – the author is of the conviction that any aberrations are the results of policy and system failures, and should not merely be attributed to individuals and agencies.
The armed forces, the para-military and the intelligence agencies play a major role in national security, including internal security. They play a vital role in the governance of the nation. Indeed the author has had close exposure to the role played by these institutions, in serving the nation. However, he has preferred not to discuss the role of these agencies, nor any aspect of our national security in this publication – public and open discussion of security issues may not always be in the national interest. Good governance should ensure great attention to policy and detail in this regard; a public debate on such issues may be counter productive.
In a sense, the book is a continuation of the author's earlier publication Journeys through Babudom and Netaland,which was well received. The style and approach in this publication are quite different, though governance is a theme common to both. Whereas Journeys through Babudom and Netaland approached the issues anecdotally, GovernMint in India – An Inside View is analytical in nature, relating the quality of inputs to results obtained. Without presuming comparing the two books with the great epics and literature of India in any manner, and without any pretensions to comparison and quality, and merely referring to the styles, Journeys through Babudom and Netaland would be like the Mahabharata whereas GovernMint in India – An Inside View is of the Bhagvad Gita style. Some friends of the authors has pointed out that the touch of humour seen in the earlier book is somewhat missing – this is not surprising; firstly the subject of governance per se is quite serious and 'dry'; secondly the current state of affairs could not be treated with any levity.
A number of anecdotes and incidents referred to in Journeys through Babudom and Netaland have been revisited in GovernMint in India – An Inside View, where they naturally fitted in. At many places this has been acknowledged, though there could be some of these without specific reference to the earlier publication.
I acknowledge the assistance rendered to me by Sudhir Sitapati, regarding the structure, contents and approach.
INTRODUCTION
What Ails Governance In India
t is now sixty-two years since Nehru's 'Tryst with Destiny' speech declaring India's independence as the British left India and handed over its governance to Indians. This period of history has been long enough to take stock of all the developments from then till now, and assess whether what we, as a people, had set out to do has largely been accomplished or not. The question is – are we at least on the right track?
The Indian Constitution is a wonderful document. Every time one sees it, or looks at some aspect of it, one gets a new insight – about what was intended and what happened since the document came into being. The Constitution is similar to the Bhagvad Gita – every reader can find his or her own interpretation in each stanza or article.
In the Preamble, which the citizens have 'given themselves', the Constitution refers to India as a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic. By and large, sovereign we have been – India has maintained an independent foreign policy and generally, as a nation, conducted itself with dignity and some pride among the nations of the world.
Perhaps, only a few educated persons from the younger generation would be aware that the word 'Socialist' was inserted in the Preamble only in 1977. As many would know, this was when 'Emergency' rule had been declared; there could be questions raised as to why the Constitution was amended in a fundamental way, during that period. An impartial observer could note, with some irony, that India probably was genuinely socialistic before the amendment to the Constitution – it was increasingly capitalistic after the amendment! The heyday of the public sector and control of the commanding heights of the economy happened during the period before 1977. The Green Revolution, the cooperative movements, the agrarian reforms in favour of the poor and landless, were all features of the first three decades of Independence, when India was not 'Socialist'. Today, Socialism is considered to be a bad word internationally, as well as to many in India, and this is particularly true after the demise of the Soviet Empire. It was post-1977 that we really saw the
Hayek-Friedman model of free enterprise and globalisation becoming the ruling flavour; and continue to be the dominant philosophy governing our economy. Indeed many of our senior leaders, particularly economists, were trained in the London School of Economics or elsewhere abroad on Friedman's theories, and have applied these mutatis-mutandis to India, without any thought of appropriate modification or amendment. It was perhaps not adequately noted that the globalisation impulses emanated from the West, as it suited their interests at that time. Now that the October 2008 crash has brought the free-market down with a thud, when Karl Marx has started smiling again in his grave, and Alan Greenspan has bitten the dust, there has hardly been any response from the bemused Indian economic gurus. Suffice it to say that in the past thirty years, the majority of Indians in rural areas have been left to their own fate – the preoccupation of the governmental machinery has been on rapid 'growth', especially in the industrial and financial sectors. Perhaps the overall impact of the global 'meltdown' has been relatively mild in India, only because the majority of the population was already in such a condition that it could not have worsened – the poor of India never felt the tremors. Clearly, income disparities have sharply widened in this period, and the growth of new billionaires in India has only been equalled by the rapid rise in farmer suicides. In the Tamil version of Ramayana, by Kamban, Ayodhya is described as a city where its citizens were all poor, since nobody was richer than anybody else; and Ayodhya was rich, because nobody had any unfulfilled wants – can there be a better definition of a socialistic state?
Are we secular? By and large yes, though in a highly qualified manner. All over India, Hindus, Muslims and other communities have been living peacefully in their villages, side-by-side with each other for centuries. In Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and in nearly every state, there has been a culture, a tradition and a history of communal amity. In Uttar Pradesh, which has about one lakh villages, I surmise that at least ninety percent of these have more than one community as residents; the proportions may vary, but for hundreds of years, the peaceful existence was generally not broken. It is true that there was hardly any inter-marriage between communities, but there was no animosity between them either; there was cooperation and mutual respect between the communities. Yes, there were serious riots during Partition; there were also communal flare-ups here and there; however, the sustained attention to foster communal divides by the politician of every hue, and awakening of the consciousness on this issue in the psyche of the common man are indications that things are now not satisfactory. Sadly, every political party has used communal issues as an integral part of its strategy and tactics, and have kept on stoking the fire. Sadly again, there has been no effective political consensus to evolve convergent policies that mitigate the problem, and reduce divisive issues in this regard – in short, to work for communal harmony in the national interest. Many major events over the past thirty years will bear witness to the above. In fact, we have not yet become 'secular' – I am not even sure if we are converging, however slowly, towards this.
Are we democratic? Emphatically yes, if we look at all the outward manifestations of a democracy. We have had sixty years of governance in a totally democratic framework, to the envy of every other nation in South Asia; and surely, in many other parts of the world. This is no mean achievement. The election processes have seen continual improvement in terms of fair play and prevention of strong-arm methods – though the formal and informal cost of fighting the elections by each candidate has shot up manifold. Besides, the process of national elections which used to be concluded within three or four days, now takes nearly three months. One wondered in the 1970s and '80s as to why it took one month to complete the election process in the Philippines or in Indonesia – now we know. Now, the duration has progressively got shortened in those countries, while each time around, the duration has increased in India. Something akin to a war-like atmosphere is created in what ought to be a situation of healthy competition or rivalry to acquire power; the requirement of 'armed forces' is so large as to pre-empt any other public activity – e.g. a cricket tournament; it is as if the country is at war, all leaves cancelled, and all hands manning the deck! Clearly, for a country with ambitions to be a leader of the world, there is an element of incongruity here. Changeover of governments in states and the Centre have all been peaceful, despite the frequent political skullduggery displayed by the ruling party, the state governors and the speakers of various assemblies. The army is fully under civilian control, and is often called upon to assist the civil power in dealing with natural disasters and the like. Our processes, at least on the surface, are 'democratic'.
However, an important definition of democracy refers to it as 'largest good to the largest number'. This is not an unreasonable criterion. By this yardstick, we could reach a different conclusion. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite measure of the quality of life of the individual – the Indian HDI is at the bottom fifth among the nations of the world. None have seriously questioned the validity of the measure, or accused anyone of inaccurate measurement in India. It is a disturbing thought that large scale poverty exists in India; Below Poverty Line (BPL) is still an important word in the Indian lexicon, and the figures covered by this word are sizeable, even after sixty years of the country's Independence. These are issues which make us wonder if indeed this goal, outlined in the Constitution has been reached, or even attempted.
Let us now come to what the Constitution promises to its people: Justice – Social, Economic and Political – is guaranteed to the citizens. We shall see in the course of the later chapters whether this goal has been achieved.
The Constitution also guarantees to each citizen, Liberty of Thought, Expression, Belief, Faith and Worship. One can state with some conviction that there is freedom for expression of opinion in this country; however, this has to be qualified by the unseemly curtailment of individual rights by strong-arm methods here and there. It could also be stated that there is considerable freedom allowed in this country for following one's own faith and method of worship – with some sporadic but significant exceptions.
The other promise of the Constitution to the citizen is 'equality' of status and opportunity. Progress in this could be seen as only partly successful in a limited way with significant failures. While many steps have been taken to bring dalits, tribals and other downtrodden elements into the mainstream, these have been only partly successful. However, equality of opportunity is certainly not available in a large-scale manner in the country. Where the level of public education at the primary and secondary stages are abysmal, public health standards are appalling, the system appears to be designed to make the rich richer, and the poor even poorer. While one rare slumdog may become a millionaire to the accompaniment of world-class music, more slums get created, where even more millions live every year; unheralded by any music and unnoticed by anyone. There are definitely some individual success stories like the cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni emerging from the boondocks, but the reality in this regard is harsh.
Finally, the Constitution assures the Dignity of the individual. One cannot seriously discuss this with any credibility. When eighty percent of the population is in near-deprivation condition, can the individual live with dignity? Go to any village even ten kilometres away from city limit, or even try going to the slums hidden within every city limit – the reality will hit you immediately.
The Preamble to the Constitution finally assures the citizen that the 'Unity and Integrity of the nation' shall be preserved or maintained. Though the original version of this mentioned only unity of the nation, the word 'integrity' was added through an amendment in 1977. The wag may note with some irony that while the unity and integrity of the nation have been preserved well till now, there is definitely a sharp deterioration in the levels of 'integrity' among the rulers of the country – indeed in the whole country at large, especially after the amendment!
However, more seriously, the country was actuall
y unified for the first time about eight hundred years ago by Adi Shankaracharya, if not in geographical 'nation' terms, then definitely in terms of unity of culture and common ethos. Even today, it is the yearning of every devout South Indian to make a pilgrimage to Char Dham, much as every North Indian has to visit Rameshwaram at least once. The Hindu 'empire' then included even Nepal. Marriage rituals through the length and breadth of India, even today, follow the procedure adopted at Sita Kalyan, as described by Valmiki; the Saptapati continues to be the definitive focal point of the Hindu marriage ceremony. The slokas chanted at child birth and death anywhere in India by the Hindus are nearly identical – be it at Varanasi or Thiruvananthapuram. The Gita and the Bhagwat are the common heritage of every Indian. Thus, there has been a major element of unity, and level of common thought throughout the country. By and large, this survived the Turks, and later the Mughal rule over a large part of India, as well as the British period. There is no doubt about the fact that it was because of the genius of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel that the kings and nawabs were dethroned, and geographical India is now in its present shape. It should be added that during the time of the British rule, the railway systems they established (to aid them in ferrying raw material from the interiors of the country to the ports) definitely contributed to the greater development of the coastal areas as compared to the interior; regional economic imbalances and inequalities, which were already present at the time of Independence, have got accentuated since then.
The Constitution also guarantees fundamental rights such as equality before the law and equal protection of the law, to all citizens. We shall soon see how this promise has been discharged. There are many other rights that have been assured to the citizens; we will also analyse how these assurances have been met.
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