Narendra Modi was right when he said that development must become a mass movement. So must the struggle for good governance. like their Government, people get the governance they deserve
There has been much talk about governance ever since the word, along with another — development — became the staple of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election campaign. Both words encompass a wide range of meanings and processes whose implications require careful analysis if efforts to implement them on the ground are to benefit the public. We shall start with governance as development depends on its effectiveness.
The Pocket Oxford Dictionary — the only lexicon I have in the hills — defines ‘governance’ as the “act, manner, function of governing”. In the given context, ‘good governance’ should mean governance that functions or acts in a manner that achieves its ends, which, in any society, must be the wellbeing of the people. The enormity of the task involved in ensuring this becomes clear on recalling that governance has many levels and dimensions in a complex, modern state. The Government’s functions range from the safeguarding of the country’s sovereignty and integrity, the maintenance of law and order, the administration of justice, the working of its communications system and transport and power infrastructure, the management of the its economy and resources, and a whole range of welfare activities from education to healthcare. In each area, governance involves a multiplicity of functions from policy formulation to implementation at various stages form resource allocation to delivery on the ground.
Given the multiplicity of the functions involved, efforts to revolutionise each of these overnight are likely to fail. To hope for success, one must prioritise some areas for concentrated action while keeping up a strong pressure on the whole system to perform. A Government often fixes its priorities in accordance of its doctrinal bent. Thus believers in socialism would want the state to own the principal means of production and/or dominate the commanding heights of the economy. A dispensation committed to capitalism would keep the state’s role to the minimum and want private enterprise to call the shots. The economic travails of the erstwhile Soviet Union and of China (until it launched the era of reforms in 1978) underline the dangers of a dirigeste approach. The Great Depression which is generally held to begin from 1929, the latest one which has been compared to it and which still afflicts the world, and the recessions in the interim, all bear testimony to the vulnerability of the capitalist system.
The message is simple: Doctrinaire approaches founder. Ideology is a poor guide and its rigid interpretation can lead to the kind of disaster that Stalin’s forcible collectivisation of agriculture caused in the erstwhile Soviet Union. Good governance needs to harnesses and guides private initiative for public good through governmental action. This is easier said than done. The trick lies in defining the spheres of both and asking two questions. At what stage does the Government’s action stymie private initiativeIJ At what stage does the leeway given to the private sector make for crises like the latest global one triggered by Wall Street recklessness and corporate corruptionIJ
Finding answers would require taking a wide screen view of the global and national realities that set the macro context for governmental functioning, an understanding of the situation on the ground, including its social, economic and political dynamics, a knowledge of how the system works and what is possible. If this is tricky business, perhaps much more so is making the system — especially its administrative arm — deliver.
The magnitude of the task here requires hardly any elaboration in a country like India where the public is a prey to a predatory and extortionist political and administrative system where development is hobbled by the regular diversion of money for public projects to private pockets. The result is the creation of assets on paper despite huge expenditure and utterly shoddy work when things get done. The Maharashtra irrigation, the 2G and the Commonwealth games scams are only three of the more prominent and recent ones in a long line of skulduggery at the public’s expense.
Neither this nor the fact that the main cause of this are those managing the administrative structure at all levels, is a secret. It is common knowledge that a disquietingly large number of those who get elected to political offices or representative bodies or find Government or quasi-Government employment, consider themselves as recipients of the license to loot. The result is that the accessing of any service to the Government — from a driving licence to the registration of property or the obtaining of water and power connections and even public employment — requires liberal greasing of palms.
Efforts to ensure good governance must begin with a serious attempt to make the Government and its functionaries serve and not oppress and plunder the public. This, again, is a tall order made taller by the fact that even if the Centre means business, it has very little power to compel the State and local Government bodies, which most people have to deal with most the time, follow its path. Given the will, it may, however, ensure that its own departments and agencies — some of which have become almost synonymous with corruption, are set right. This will put the State Government, at least, under some pressure from the public to straighten out its employees at all levels.
One can hardly over-emphasise this point. Extortionate corruption and administrative delays, often involving the denial of a citizen’s fundamental, rightful dues, is the most important cause of the public’s alienation from the system. Once a serious attempt to combat this is in evidence, people will be willing to bear even such heavy burdens as they are called upon to bear to take the country out of the economic mess engulfing it, as it will help to remove one of the major causes of the unwillingness to shoulder it — scepticism, born out of long experience, about the credibility of official pronouncements, and the tragic failure of earlier efforts to end corruption.
Grandiose schemes like that of an omni-competent ombudsman, will not work. No lokpal, whether carrying the prefix of ‘Jan’ or not, can help if citizens are not responsive. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was right when he said that development must become a mass movement. So must the struggle for good governance. In the last analysis, like their Government, people get the governance they deserve.