Description
Need for Reforms and Voter Education to bring positive change in Governace for India. The Politicians are increasingly hiring or offering internship opportunities for young MBAs. the MBAs certainly need to know the rules of this business to be able to contribute to fraternity.
Poitical Analysis training for Young MBAs
A Suggestion on Electoral Model for Voters in a Democracy like India
-by: Amit Bhushan Date: 28/02/2012
Among the many gifts of the British/Europeans to the larger world, one is “Electoral Democracy form of Government/Governance”. This form of Governance is certainly amongst the most celebrated one, and rituals associated with it are pursued with huge fanfare within defined period in most of countries that have opted for this Governance model. This form of governance envisions that people are free to organize in political groups and to propagate their views. The people can elect/decide their own leader/s in free and fair manner. These leaders get chance to formulate legislations and approve projects/ budgets while sitting in Parliament/legislatures. Some of these are also able to occupy a high chair in Executive and are responsible for policy making/project development role along with monitoring performance of ongoing/approved/budgeted projects.
The democratically elected body/ies can be operating at country, province/state or local (municipal/village) level. They would have some clearly demarcated areas for which they would make regulations and take policy action; while in some other arenas they may be required to pursue their goals jointly with other/Senior Governments. So is the case for right to levy taxes. This is also defined for various level/type of government along with share of local/lower governments in various taxes. Some of the elected representatives head the executive where they are expected to maintain/formulate/modify policy according to which expenditure/investment in ongoing projects is guided. New projects and programs are also launched/developed basis these policies however these may require approval of Parliament/legislature/councils at the time of budget (usually an annual ritual).
The pundits/high priests of this form government have advocated and pursued their advocacy and chauvinism for this form of governance at high pitch to almost rhetorical levels. Often Western governments are seen placing demands on political establishments of disturbed areas/geographies to change governance structure to this form as a panacea to get rid of all ills that prevail in those areas. This is in spite of the fact that this form of governance has delivered little to people in most of the countries where this form of governance is practiced excepting Europe are ethnically European dominated nations.
1
Most recently, people in some of the countries in the MENA region and in places Burma, Cuba etc. are witnessing movement to transform their governance structure to Electoral Democracies. How effective is the transformation beyond creation of lookalike structures and organizations propagating this new euphoria among people of these countries is yet to be seen. It is indeed fascinating that bureaucrats and political spin-doctors in these countries are often seen exchanging views with heads of political institutions in India on how to institutionalize this new political structure and develop supportive legislations and procedures. This is even as a majority in India is still struggling to meet even their basic needs in spite of this ‘panacea’ form of Governance structure for past six decades. It is therefore important to understand and evaluate why people outside of Europe have failed to realize the benefits and more importantly what corrective actions may be pursued by people and how? It is also imperative that we understand the differences amongst our people and society vis-à-vis Europe and focus to highlight these gaps so that society can take a relatively more mature view towards its own governance. The differences are mostly known but strikingly, the same are not studied or debated in society/ education institutes/social or political forums or in media. One of the differences is lack of proper appreciation or awareness of our political structure amongst our people. They lack understanding about the Governance Role and legislative & regulatory boundaries amongst different levels of government. This fact is often witnessed during elections where politicians competing for positions at one level are seen debating performance and reforms at another level. Sometimes, a shrewd politician may be using it as a political tactic, however if probed, it would not be a surprising revelation that even knowledge of these boundaries amongst political class is also pathetically low. Having made the above point, now the readers can ponder on the understanding of our politicians about the Governance Role and performance boundaries of different wings/departments within a level of government say at state level or municipal level. The reason is historically political education in India has not been pursued beyond textbooks and where pupils are imparted little experience or skills in dealing with these structures; much less in reordering or reforming these structures. The fact that approx. a third of population is practically illiterate while most of the middle class (another one third) is disillusioned about political system is an added worry. The result is that even though India is an Electoral Democracy and apparently the World’s largest Democracy, however there is little political mobility i.e. traditionally non-political people joining politics and achieving a recognition in political space. The actual Governance is still feudalistic with politics being dominated by a class. The only difference is that if someone manages to break into this class, he gets adopted by the class. This person then has little incentives to bring a change in governing practices and may find rewards (read through corruption, nepotism…) in moving along the existing lines. Other area is the understanding of how the multiple layers of government interact with each other to collate resources and people and roll out services to people enshrined 2
in their doctrines. Since local government bodies in India are mostly dependent on higher level of government for monetary resources, it is important not only to understand he Role and boundaries of local government, but also, how a local government raises resources from the higher government for its programs. It may also be discussed that how aligned is the local government to higher government’s programs and how much resources they are able to draw in order to give benefits to local population. Another difference is poverty or relative poverty amongst the non-European nations or say, ethnically European dominated nations. The effect is population gets easily swayed by talk of basic issues related to Food, Electricity, Water, Roads etc. (Bijli, Pani, Sadak, Rojgar aka MNREGA etc.) and other populist talk compared to a debate on National Exports/Trade policy or debates on national competitiveness/productivity related issues or policy discussions etc. The political spin doctors know this fact and since this gives them an important leeway to support their feudalistic set up (often, this is their loyal political base and source of unscrupulous rewards); they see an incentive in maintain status quo. With limited recourse base under politician control (compared to the needs of people); limited number of honest political workers who may want to educate public (most are cronies out there to seek rent out of their association with politicians); the politicians find it hard to explain benefits of their policies however direct handouts or transfer from government resources, howsoever miniscule, is immediately visible. The result is politics is floundering in direction of populist measures, then policy debates that lead to sustained gains for the society. It may be pointed out that even well meaning politicians are not able to control/limit this effect. Fourth reason is very little objective assessment of government policies and action is presented/ debated amongst people or in media. For example, while media would diligently propagate government policies say for example- Golden Quadrilateral or DelhiMumbai Industrial Corridor. It would not analyze in depth about issues and challenges associated with it, its cost vis-à-vis similar other projects and the benefits, the time and schedule for the projects including budgetary allocations/funding mechanism. All these are matter which should be covered during parliamentary/legislature/council scrutiny of the budgets. However, thanks to our feudal structure embedded in our democracy, little is debated and budgets are seen as prerogative and domain of the Executive where activism by members of legislature is to be frowned upon. The system suits the ‘real governing class’ politicians while most others who have ‘somehow’ managed a seat at ‘temple of democracy’ should remain satisfied and occupied solving ‘their own problems’ generally with the executive officers at the middle layer of government. Fifth is lack of objective criticism of Distribution related issues. With any service of project, there can be issues related to structure of distribution e.g. a railway station/platform constructed at minister’s village may not be accessible to a greater majority of people living at some distance; issue related to procedure for distribution of benefits e.g. a government hospital may follow a cumbersome way of delivery of free medicine to people; last is leakages due to negligence, corruption and nepotism. The media unequivocally portrays these issues as ‘leakages due to corruption’. Often even 3
issues related to resource constraint are not segregated and bureaucracy is blamed with taint. This suits our politicians who escape unscathed and make bureaucracy a guinea pig. Since bureaucrats are long term players, they ensure that they aren’t hurt by blunting the government’s action on their fraternity. The result is a poor image of the bureaucracy while politicians gather votes by ‘playing savior of the ordinary people’. Sixth is lack of further due diligence requirement for elected representative before they are allocated high chair on executive. We have failed to understand that our elected representatives are human beings as well and that they have business interest (most elected rep. are owners of Small or Medium enterprise). While occupying position of power, they may get enticed by potential benefits to their own business. Frequently, this problem manifests into a Bureaucrat-politician nexus wherein politicians try to influence vendor selection for government projects (Involvement of Criminal elements to influence bureaucrats’ has also been heard). Sometimes, the problem also results in politicians ‘guiding’ executive/police to pursue actions against competitors for commercial advantages (Executive actions against political opponents may also be pushed). The result of this vilification is loss of public trust and their lack of involvement and disillusionment from politics. Seventh is pertaining to time spent by senior politicians (often occupying chairs in Executive) on policy making vis-à-vis their time spent in exercising bureaucratic control over their Departments/Ministries? The role of Politicians in Executive is not limited to policy formulation, getting budgets approval, monitoring project implementations and overall supervision, but they are often involved with a host of other roles not mandated to them. These can be to ensure that bureaucrats on a particular service are not able to carry out their roles properly so that their political cronies can operate outside stated policies. Or giving policies and procedures including vendor selection process such twists that it benefits their cronies. This may involve paralyzing monitoring of the project’s progress to the benefit of their cronies as well. Hindering bureaucratic ability to take actions within their mandate may involve playing with budget controls like sanctions and allowance process of bureaucrats, tweaking with their performance scrutiny procedures, challenging their information gathering network, creation of tough reporting formalities, tightening their rules of conduct or terms of references/supervision/authority limitation of the position of bureaucrat, internal coordination requirement and procedure amongst others. Even our so called ‘activist and independent judiciary’ as well as ‘robust media’ seems to be pygmies in front of a Goliath. The judiciary has on some occasion been able to confront the Government with landmark decision such a cancellation of 2G license, which has stirred a hornet’s nest amongst government’s spin doctors due to sheer quantum of monies involved. The Executive is shedding tears over the same, trying to create fear over the loss of jobs and disturbed psyche of foreign investors (rebuilding the lost credibility is of course the tougher option for them). The media keeps eulogizing itself for whatever little actions they are able to extract out of the executive, although they work mostly as mouthpiece of the government highlighting the press releases and communication of 4
departments/ministries as ‘special case discoveries’. The Judiciary is in dire needs for reforms just to be able to meet the backlog of demands on it and also to be able to come on the top of the new and ever-growing challenges in the face of growing complexity and technological developments. The media seems to be dominated by the youngsters and in need of greater maturity to be able to put government on mat and some discernible impact on minds of larger public. Presently the media is mostly occupied with getting TRP ratings through high reverberation but low impact stories. To make any meaningful change or to extract any benefits from the Electoral Governance structure the public need to understand the Role of Government and their boundaries at each level. They should also be able to analyze the interactions’ between these governments to ensure fair play and distribution of resources while at the same time trying to encourage the local government to have better alignment with higher government’s policies. They also need to learn to analyze the work of ruling dispensation as well as the challengers. They need to be able to segregate what can be achieved in the given resources, policy of the dispensation to bring in new projects be it in private or public sector or through Public-Private partnerships. They should empower themselves to objectively provide scores regards perceived impact that the policies these dispensation can have on their lives with reference to below matrix. While media can definitely play a supportive role in this, however the demand for such analysis must be from public so that media is encouraged to take these as one of their deliverables. The people also need to understand that media may be playing to a constituency which is consumer or supports the analysis be prepared by looking through a particular lenses or colour. Therefore, personal analysis of the policies cannot be substituted or outsourced to journalists. It is when publics start using objective analysis then the polity might change.
Candidates’ ability to share root cause and suggest policy action Candidate's past record in dealing/ driving with executive action for betterment of people
S. No./ Class Biological/ Physiological needs Clean Air Clean Water Clean Food Hygiene Safety Needs Physical security of Self/ Family Assets/ Resources security Health Assurance Employment/ Income Assurance
Availabili ty (Need Vs Supply)
Alternati ves available
Procurem ent power (for Best fit option)
Satisfacti on with Delivery Mechani sm
Overall Score
5
Belongingness Needs Social stability (freedom from Rioting/Arson etc.) Environment of trust and confidence (flows from free exchange of ideas) Freedom to pursue employment and avocation of choice (within defined laws) Total
Note that the above list is basically derived from some of the hierarchical needs defined by Maslow. The basis is just to consider direct impact felt or perceived that policies of the political dispensation may have on the individual. The policies may not be directly relating to these needs. For Example, the political dispensation may propose policies on External trade or Education and these may have an impact employment opportunities or income level of the individual. The result could be that the individuals’ ability to procure some of the items in the above list goes up. On the corollary, it may also be possible that the prices of commodities go up and bring down ability to procure. The publics need to be aware that government action on Transport infrastructure, Communications infrastructure, Power availability and other infrastructure sector bring about massive changes to the impact on humans with reference to above. These benefits accrue indirectly but necessary political weights need to be assigned in any objective assessment of the polity. These assessments if carried out by each individual application of the same during voting will bring about a political change that is required by the society.
6
doc_269926264.docx
Need for Reforms and Voter Education to bring positive change in Governace for India. The Politicians are increasingly hiring or offering internship opportunities for young MBAs. the MBAs certainly need to know the rules of this business to be able to contribute to fraternity.
Poitical Analysis training for Young MBAs
A Suggestion on Electoral Model for Voters in a Democracy like India
-by: Amit Bhushan Date: 28/02/2012
Among the many gifts of the British/Europeans to the larger world, one is “Electoral Democracy form of Government/Governance”. This form of Governance is certainly amongst the most celebrated one, and rituals associated with it are pursued with huge fanfare within defined period in most of countries that have opted for this Governance model. This form of governance envisions that people are free to organize in political groups and to propagate their views. The people can elect/decide their own leader/s in free and fair manner. These leaders get chance to formulate legislations and approve projects/ budgets while sitting in Parliament/legislatures. Some of these are also able to occupy a high chair in Executive and are responsible for policy making/project development role along with monitoring performance of ongoing/approved/budgeted projects.
The democratically elected body/ies can be operating at country, province/state or local (municipal/village) level. They would have some clearly demarcated areas for which they would make regulations and take policy action; while in some other arenas they may be required to pursue their goals jointly with other/Senior Governments. So is the case for right to levy taxes. This is also defined for various level/type of government along with share of local/lower governments in various taxes. Some of the elected representatives head the executive where they are expected to maintain/formulate/modify policy according to which expenditure/investment in ongoing projects is guided. New projects and programs are also launched/developed basis these policies however these may require approval of Parliament/legislature/councils at the time of budget (usually an annual ritual).
The pundits/high priests of this form government have advocated and pursued their advocacy and chauvinism for this form of governance at high pitch to almost rhetorical levels. Often Western governments are seen placing demands on political establishments of disturbed areas/geographies to change governance structure to this form as a panacea to get rid of all ills that prevail in those areas. This is in spite of the fact that this form of governance has delivered little to people in most of the countries where this form of governance is practiced excepting Europe are ethnically European dominated nations.
1
Most recently, people in some of the countries in the MENA region and in places Burma, Cuba etc. are witnessing movement to transform their governance structure to Electoral Democracies. How effective is the transformation beyond creation of lookalike structures and organizations propagating this new euphoria among people of these countries is yet to be seen. It is indeed fascinating that bureaucrats and political spin-doctors in these countries are often seen exchanging views with heads of political institutions in India on how to institutionalize this new political structure and develop supportive legislations and procedures. This is even as a majority in India is still struggling to meet even their basic needs in spite of this ‘panacea’ form of Governance structure for past six decades. It is therefore important to understand and evaluate why people outside of Europe have failed to realize the benefits and more importantly what corrective actions may be pursued by people and how? It is also imperative that we understand the differences amongst our people and society vis-à-vis Europe and focus to highlight these gaps so that society can take a relatively more mature view towards its own governance. The differences are mostly known but strikingly, the same are not studied or debated in society/ education institutes/social or political forums or in media. One of the differences is lack of proper appreciation or awareness of our political structure amongst our people. They lack understanding about the Governance Role and legislative & regulatory boundaries amongst different levels of government. This fact is often witnessed during elections where politicians competing for positions at one level are seen debating performance and reforms at another level. Sometimes, a shrewd politician may be using it as a political tactic, however if probed, it would not be a surprising revelation that even knowledge of these boundaries amongst political class is also pathetically low. Having made the above point, now the readers can ponder on the understanding of our politicians about the Governance Role and performance boundaries of different wings/departments within a level of government say at state level or municipal level. The reason is historically political education in India has not been pursued beyond textbooks and where pupils are imparted little experience or skills in dealing with these structures; much less in reordering or reforming these structures. The fact that approx. a third of population is practically illiterate while most of the middle class (another one third) is disillusioned about political system is an added worry. The result is that even though India is an Electoral Democracy and apparently the World’s largest Democracy, however there is little political mobility i.e. traditionally non-political people joining politics and achieving a recognition in political space. The actual Governance is still feudalistic with politics being dominated by a class. The only difference is that if someone manages to break into this class, he gets adopted by the class. This person then has little incentives to bring a change in governing practices and may find rewards (read through corruption, nepotism…) in moving along the existing lines. Other area is the understanding of how the multiple layers of government interact with each other to collate resources and people and roll out services to people enshrined 2
in their doctrines. Since local government bodies in India are mostly dependent on higher level of government for monetary resources, it is important not only to understand he Role and boundaries of local government, but also, how a local government raises resources from the higher government for its programs. It may also be discussed that how aligned is the local government to higher government’s programs and how much resources they are able to draw in order to give benefits to local population. Another difference is poverty or relative poverty amongst the non-European nations or say, ethnically European dominated nations. The effect is population gets easily swayed by talk of basic issues related to Food, Electricity, Water, Roads etc. (Bijli, Pani, Sadak, Rojgar aka MNREGA etc.) and other populist talk compared to a debate on National Exports/Trade policy or debates on national competitiveness/productivity related issues or policy discussions etc. The political spin doctors know this fact and since this gives them an important leeway to support their feudalistic set up (often, this is their loyal political base and source of unscrupulous rewards); they see an incentive in maintain status quo. With limited recourse base under politician control (compared to the needs of people); limited number of honest political workers who may want to educate public (most are cronies out there to seek rent out of their association with politicians); the politicians find it hard to explain benefits of their policies however direct handouts or transfer from government resources, howsoever miniscule, is immediately visible. The result is politics is floundering in direction of populist measures, then policy debates that lead to sustained gains for the society. It may be pointed out that even well meaning politicians are not able to control/limit this effect. Fourth reason is very little objective assessment of government policies and action is presented/ debated amongst people or in media. For example, while media would diligently propagate government policies say for example- Golden Quadrilateral or DelhiMumbai Industrial Corridor. It would not analyze in depth about issues and challenges associated with it, its cost vis-à-vis similar other projects and the benefits, the time and schedule for the projects including budgetary allocations/funding mechanism. All these are matter which should be covered during parliamentary/legislature/council scrutiny of the budgets. However, thanks to our feudal structure embedded in our democracy, little is debated and budgets are seen as prerogative and domain of the Executive where activism by members of legislature is to be frowned upon. The system suits the ‘real governing class’ politicians while most others who have ‘somehow’ managed a seat at ‘temple of democracy’ should remain satisfied and occupied solving ‘their own problems’ generally with the executive officers at the middle layer of government. Fifth is lack of objective criticism of Distribution related issues. With any service of project, there can be issues related to structure of distribution e.g. a railway station/platform constructed at minister’s village may not be accessible to a greater majority of people living at some distance; issue related to procedure for distribution of benefits e.g. a government hospital may follow a cumbersome way of delivery of free medicine to people; last is leakages due to negligence, corruption and nepotism. The media unequivocally portrays these issues as ‘leakages due to corruption’. Often even 3
issues related to resource constraint are not segregated and bureaucracy is blamed with taint. This suits our politicians who escape unscathed and make bureaucracy a guinea pig. Since bureaucrats are long term players, they ensure that they aren’t hurt by blunting the government’s action on their fraternity. The result is a poor image of the bureaucracy while politicians gather votes by ‘playing savior of the ordinary people’. Sixth is lack of further due diligence requirement for elected representative before they are allocated high chair on executive. We have failed to understand that our elected representatives are human beings as well and that they have business interest (most elected rep. are owners of Small or Medium enterprise). While occupying position of power, they may get enticed by potential benefits to their own business. Frequently, this problem manifests into a Bureaucrat-politician nexus wherein politicians try to influence vendor selection for government projects (Involvement of Criminal elements to influence bureaucrats’ has also been heard). Sometimes, the problem also results in politicians ‘guiding’ executive/police to pursue actions against competitors for commercial advantages (Executive actions against political opponents may also be pushed). The result of this vilification is loss of public trust and their lack of involvement and disillusionment from politics. Seventh is pertaining to time spent by senior politicians (often occupying chairs in Executive) on policy making vis-à-vis their time spent in exercising bureaucratic control over their Departments/Ministries? The role of Politicians in Executive is not limited to policy formulation, getting budgets approval, monitoring project implementations and overall supervision, but they are often involved with a host of other roles not mandated to them. These can be to ensure that bureaucrats on a particular service are not able to carry out their roles properly so that their political cronies can operate outside stated policies. Or giving policies and procedures including vendor selection process such twists that it benefits their cronies. This may involve paralyzing monitoring of the project’s progress to the benefit of their cronies as well. Hindering bureaucratic ability to take actions within their mandate may involve playing with budget controls like sanctions and allowance process of bureaucrats, tweaking with their performance scrutiny procedures, challenging their information gathering network, creation of tough reporting formalities, tightening their rules of conduct or terms of references/supervision/authority limitation of the position of bureaucrat, internal coordination requirement and procedure amongst others. Even our so called ‘activist and independent judiciary’ as well as ‘robust media’ seems to be pygmies in front of a Goliath. The judiciary has on some occasion been able to confront the Government with landmark decision such a cancellation of 2G license, which has stirred a hornet’s nest amongst government’s spin doctors due to sheer quantum of monies involved. The Executive is shedding tears over the same, trying to create fear over the loss of jobs and disturbed psyche of foreign investors (rebuilding the lost credibility is of course the tougher option for them). The media keeps eulogizing itself for whatever little actions they are able to extract out of the executive, although they work mostly as mouthpiece of the government highlighting the press releases and communication of 4
departments/ministries as ‘special case discoveries’. The Judiciary is in dire needs for reforms just to be able to meet the backlog of demands on it and also to be able to come on the top of the new and ever-growing challenges in the face of growing complexity and technological developments. The media seems to be dominated by the youngsters and in need of greater maturity to be able to put government on mat and some discernible impact on minds of larger public. Presently the media is mostly occupied with getting TRP ratings through high reverberation but low impact stories. To make any meaningful change or to extract any benefits from the Electoral Governance structure the public need to understand the Role of Government and their boundaries at each level. They should also be able to analyze the interactions’ between these governments to ensure fair play and distribution of resources while at the same time trying to encourage the local government to have better alignment with higher government’s policies. They also need to learn to analyze the work of ruling dispensation as well as the challengers. They need to be able to segregate what can be achieved in the given resources, policy of the dispensation to bring in new projects be it in private or public sector or through Public-Private partnerships. They should empower themselves to objectively provide scores regards perceived impact that the policies these dispensation can have on their lives with reference to below matrix. While media can definitely play a supportive role in this, however the demand for such analysis must be from public so that media is encouraged to take these as one of their deliverables. The people also need to understand that media may be playing to a constituency which is consumer or supports the analysis be prepared by looking through a particular lenses or colour. Therefore, personal analysis of the policies cannot be substituted or outsourced to journalists. It is when publics start using objective analysis then the polity might change.
Candidates’ ability to share root cause and suggest policy action Candidate's past record in dealing/ driving with executive action for betterment of people
S. No./ Class Biological/ Physiological needs Clean Air Clean Water Clean Food Hygiene Safety Needs Physical security of Self/ Family Assets/ Resources security Health Assurance Employment/ Income Assurance
Availabili ty (Need Vs Supply)
Alternati ves available
Procurem ent power (for Best fit option)
Satisfacti on with Delivery Mechani sm
Overall Score
5
Belongingness Needs Social stability (freedom from Rioting/Arson etc.) Environment of trust and confidence (flows from free exchange of ideas) Freedom to pursue employment and avocation of choice (within defined laws) Total
Note that the above list is basically derived from some of the hierarchical needs defined by Maslow. The basis is just to consider direct impact felt or perceived that policies of the political dispensation may have on the individual. The policies may not be directly relating to these needs. For Example, the political dispensation may propose policies on External trade or Education and these may have an impact employment opportunities or income level of the individual. The result could be that the individuals’ ability to procure some of the items in the above list goes up. On the corollary, it may also be possible that the prices of commodities go up and bring down ability to procure. The publics need to be aware that government action on Transport infrastructure, Communications infrastructure, Power availability and other infrastructure sector bring about massive changes to the impact on humans with reference to above. These benefits accrue indirectly but necessary political weights need to be assigned in any objective assessment of the polity. These assessments if carried out by each individual application of the same during voting will bring about a political change that is required by the society.
6
doc_269926264.docx