Reforms, industry, stakeholders and people
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 30th June, 2014
Reforming economic macro models is difficult to conceive and implement. For one, there are multitudes of conflicts of interests since it is difficult to envision some sort of end state where such change will stabilize. Each organized group tries to put across its point of view while the decision makers involved will also need to consider the point of views and interests of the silent stakeholders since any neglect of such groups is a recipe to invite continual change rather than a progress towards stabilized end state. In such a scenario, it is therefore imperative that the multitude of interest groups give adequate respect to the views & interests of other groups including those who may not be so vocal like retail consumers, sundry environmentalists, local communities and the larger society. We still do not political groups being organized to represent such stakeholders at the negotiating table and reflect a holistic sum of interest being pondered upon since our polity continues to be largely driven around caste, creed and religion even as India moves to fix its economic working model through various exercises by the government.
This is even as we witness emergence of new political avatars and leaders who try to bring with them new set of goodies and promises to larger population and carve out a space for themselves in an already heated political cooker. What we are witnessing is industry trying to identify the set of reforms that will help them catapult to the next level while environmentalist crying foul at these efforts which they feel will undermine the interest of society in the long run. A new set of initiatives are rolled out to enlist support of such environmentalists like cleaning rivers or tree plantation as it seems with prior such scheme yielding zilch with enormous waste of money. Different scheme are also rolled out to satisfy communities on warpath like houses for economically weaker groups to higher compensation for land to employment guarantee & skill development. The political parties are yet to mature up to monitor and decipher the schemes as well as implementation of such schemes and send out clearly worded assessments to their constituents about net value being delivered to them basis interpretation by the political party.
We still continue with slogan shouting leaders and workers in the political party who have little interest in improving the awareness level of political workers and masses even in this age of super-duper hyper communications through various means like social and mass media. This is because the leaders of the political parties do not want to be open to scrutiny by underlings in the party and so a state of ignorance is bliss for the leadership. The parties also do not want to commit anything about to what they would do differently, should they be voted to power. India, unlike say the US still does not have political constituencies organized basis economic priorities of people since most leaders (including those in governance) continue to be indulgent in hyperbole as a means to rally masses and their ‘commitments’ in public speeches can rarely be delivered to public in realistic scenarios.
The throttling of judiciary as well as investigative machinery of police in India where an ordinary person cannot expect timely resolution of grievances in accordance with laws has given a little excessive leeway to the media. The media continues to pick issues as per choice to highlight points as desired by the interested groups and ‘build/manipulate’ public opinion around issues. The long judicial process ensures that public opinion is already etched and political judgments by people get exercised even before trial is completed. We may witness courts granting reliefs and subsequent hyperactivity of interest groups. Though political leaders exist at both ends however this has largely resulted in excessive power to politicians, journos and lawyers.
While this political tumult is on and we continue to witness a high degree of fragility of political careers where more than 50% of the elected reps are first times in any elections i.e. about half of existing leaders witness sunset of their careers; lets see if any political party or leader is learning lessons to build upon new electoral platforms where issues are analyzed in more objective manner and generate greater participation from public in such process. This would require leaders to involve a lot more people especially experts from various fields to ensure that issues are well understood and point of view well articulated to public. It would also require the political parties to liaison much more with businesses and other stakeholders than they currently do to ensure more acceptability of the views they ascribe to or propagate. The Neta business in India is on course to become a bit costlier for the Netas where they now need to grasp a host of issues which require some degree of expertise; rather than old ways of handling things where the Neta had everything for opinion making power as well as the booty involved. But off course it can be done in some NGO format as has been demonstrated with some success. Presently though most political parties and leaders have maintained ambivalence towards change other than a few who promised to work towards change though never clearly highlighting what that change will actually be and how will this get delivered. However such parties have reaped electoral dividend and what actually gets delivered is a point to be gazed. Lets’ see if more political parties embrace the change in the changed technological, economic and socio-cultural scenario.
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 30th June, 2014
Reforming economic macro models is difficult to conceive and implement. For one, there are multitudes of conflicts of interests since it is difficult to envision some sort of end state where such change will stabilize. Each organized group tries to put across its point of view while the decision makers involved will also need to consider the point of views and interests of the silent stakeholders since any neglect of such groups is a recipe to invite continual change rather than a progress towards stabilized end state. In such a scenario, it is therefore imperative that the multitude of interest groups give adequate respect to the views & interests of other groups including those who may not be so vocal like retail consumers, sundry environmentalists, local communities and the larger society. We still do not political groups being organized to represent such stakeholders at the negotiating table and reflect a holistic sum of interest being pondered upon since our polity continues to be largely driven around caste, creed and religion even as India moves to fix its economic working model through various exercises by the government.
This is even as we witness emergence of new political avatars and leaders who try to bring with them new set of goodies and promises to larger population and carve out a space for themselves in an already heated political cooker. What we are witnessing is industry trying to identify the set of reforms that will help them catapult to the next level while environmentalist crying foul at these efforts which they feel will undermine the interest of society in the long run. A new set of initiatives are rolled out to enlist support of such environmentalists like cleaning rivers or tree plantation as it seems with prior such scheme yielding zilch with enormous waste of money. Different scheme are also rolled out to satisfy communities on warpath like houses for economically weaker groups to higher compensation for land to employment guarantee & skill development. The political parties are yet to mature up to monitor and decipher the schemes as well as implementation of such schemes and send out clearly worded assessments to their constituents about net value being delivered to them basis interpretation by the political party.
We still continue with slogan shouting leaders and workers in the political party who have little interest in improving the awareness level of political workers and masses even in this age of super-duper hyper communications through various means like social and mass media. This is because the leaders of the political parties do not want to be open to scrutiny by underlings in the party and so a state of ignorance is bliss for the leadership. The parties also do not want to commit anything about to what they would do differently, should they be voted to power. India, unlike say the US still does not have political constituencies organized basis economic priorities of people since most leaders (including those in governance) continue to be indulgent in hyperbole as a means to rally masses and their ‘commitments’ in public speeches can rarely be delivered to public in realistic scenarios.
The throttling of judiciary as well as investigative machinery of police in India where an ordinary person cannot expect timely resolution of grievances in accordance with laws has given a little excessive leeway to the media. The media continues to pick issues as per choice to highlight points as desired by the interested groups and ‘build/manipulate’ public opinion around issues. The long judicial process ensures that public opinion is already etched and political judgments by people get exercised even before trial is completed. We may witness courts granting reliefs and subsequent hyperactivity of interest groups. Though political leaders exist at both ends however this has largely resulted in excessive power to politicians, journos and lawyers.
While this political tumult is on and we continue to witness a high degree of fragility of political careers where more than 50% of the elected reps are first times in any elections i.e. about half of existing leaders witness sunset of their careers; lets see if any political party or leader is learning lessons to build upon new electoral platforms where issues are analyzed in more objective manner and generate greater participation from public in such process. This would require leaders to involve a lot more people especially experts from various fields to ensure that issues are well understood and point of view well articulated to public. It would also require the political parties to liaison much more with businesses and other stakeholders than they currently do to ensure more acceptability of the views they ascribe to or propagate. The Neta business in India is on course to become a bit costlier for the Netas where they now need to grasp a host of issues which require some degree of expertise; rather than old ways of handling things where the Neta had everything for opinion making power as well as the booty involved. But off course it can be done in some NGO format as has been demonstrated with some success. Presently though most political parties and leaders have maintained ambivalence towards change other than a few who promised to work towards change though never clearly highlighting what that change will actually be and how will this get delivered. However such parties have reaped electoral dividend and what actually gets delivered is a point to be gazed. Lets’ see if more political parties embrace the change in the changed technological, economic and socio-cultural scenario.