What is the role of government? This question needs to be
answered clearly before any other discussion of institutions. As a citizen
I need someone to protect me from crime and from attack from outsiders. I
need the police and defence. There is no question about that. Whether the
government should print money is not quite clear. In almost all the
nations, the printing of money started out from private banks, and it is
not very clear whether there is any particular advantage in the government
being the sole custodian of printing of money. This tempts the government
oftentimes to forget its limitations, and tempts the politicians to get
out of the mess they have created by printing more money. But let us, for
the moment, allow the government to enter the business of printing of
money. What else? Public goods, such as roads. The case definitely gets
blurrier here with the increasing success of privatization and competition
in the telephone, energy, air transport, postal and other sectors -
sectors which were at one time thought to be "natural" monopolies and
hence the preserve of goverment. But even then, one can allow for at least
some role to the government in terms of reducing the costs for the people.
And yes, one must ensure that people pay for the mess they create. In
other words, government has at least some role in regulating pollution and
keeping the environment clean. What else? Zoning. Sure. This is critical.
The government (local) should follow standardized zoning practices to
ensure that the growth of cities is not haphazard and clumsy. Finally,
the government should regulate (NOT run) markets, such as financial
markets, to prevent loss to the people through unfair practices.
That's about it. I don't see where any role can come in for the government
to enter the business of charity (poverty alleviation and subsizition of
small industry) or the business of business. Why should a government
bureaucrat run a hotel and serve me tea? Why should a government agent try
to produce a car, or produce the cloth I wear? Who is a government
servant? He is paid by me through my taxes, to provide me security. Has
the government servant in India done that? Do I have security on the
streets? Can I lodge an FIR with the local Police Station fearlessly if
someone robs my house or kills a member of my family? Can I go to the
market without the fear of being blown up by a bomb? No.
Can I then at least hope that the government will not rob me by
printing money to pay for the losses being made by our breaucrats who are
producing goods for us - incompetently. I am paying government to produce
shoddy goods which do not sell in the market. I then bear the loss and
the goverment does the same thing again. Each year I am robbed, and each
year I have no choice but to get robbed. I do not get security but my
savings are devalued into nothingness.
In 1950, two rupees could buy one dollar. Today it takes nearly 40
rupees to buy a dollar. I have to work harder and harder to buy that book
which is (unfortunately) written by some professor in America and
manufactured only in America. Else I have to wait for a charitable fit by
one of the publishers (such as Prentice-Hall who produce the Eastern
Economy Editions), to buy one book instead of the many that I as a
student, need. The libraries of India have no money to buy books any
longer. Most books cost $60 or more. This becomes an astounding Rs. 2,400
in rupee terms, more than the salary of most Indians. A peon who works in
a Library in India gets less than what it costs to buy a book. Obviously
we are left with no option but to hire more peons since we cannot afford
to buy books (and perhaps hope that these ill-educated peons will somehow,
by magic, enhance the brains of our students). Therefore we are not only
left without money to run our present, but we are creating an entire
generation of mental dwarfs who have no way to learn what is happening in
the world. Books. Nobody talks about them any longer. And public
libraries. But books are the foundation of learning and of wealth. Of
course, this sounds like rubbish to our leaders and top bureaucrats, whose
children can study in top private schools and go abroad, if needed. And
the common people could never realize what hit them: they have never seen
anything better, anyway. They never ever need to buy a book priced in
dollars. So everybody is happy. It is a Panglossian world, after all.
The government bureaucrats and policitians, by their sheer incompetence
(and short-sighted "cunning") are robbing me. Don't think that they are
robbing only the rich or only the tax payers. They are robbing everyone.
EVERYONE. They are robbing our future. I have been robbed for 50 years and
I have no one to lodge this FIR against, because we are a sovereign nation
and we are being robbed by our own elected representatitives. We also do
not have any law which says that robbing people by devaluing their wealth
is a crime.
On the other hand, in the wise and successful nations, people are very,
very suspicious of the bureaucrat. They do not want to give powers of any
sort to another human being whose only qualification is that he or she
studied hard one night before a big exam. The role of the goverment has
been severely restricted by the law. The government is allowed to do only
those things which the citizens cannot do on their own. The government is
forbidden to try to produce a single good. The US is a large country with
a government whose budget is many times our own government's budget. But
not one penny or paisa of this budget goes toward production of any good.
The business people produce goods. That is their job. They are trained for
that and they spend a lifetime learning that. How does the goverment enter
the picture in any case?
Let us ask the goverment to get out of things which it has no business to
be in. I don't like the word "privatization." It sounds like the people
are selling off their common property to thieves; something public
becoming private. No. The truth is that we are directing the goverment to
get out of our hair. We as citizens will run our own businesses. We will
risk our capital and we will either succeed or fail. We will face the
market's discipline. I don't want to see a single bureaucrat in my whole
life as a citizen, unless I do something very wrong. If I do something
very wrong, I should be hauled up before a very powerful Police or a very
efficient Income tax administration. If I do nothing wrong, then I should
be able to lead my life without having the slightest of scents of a
goverment bureaucrat anywhere around me. I don't want to see bureaucrats
going about with red or blue lights whirring away on top of their cars. I
don't want to have to go to any office to seek subsidy or get a
permission. I want these government things out of my hair. Get off my back
and be what you were designed to be - an organization to do what I
can't do as a single citizen. Why do we tolerate such a large presence of
government in everyday affairs in India? Why?
Suddenly I find that an amazing amount of work has now been done by
the
National Informatics Center in bringing about information on Indian on the
Web. As a first step, one must acquaint oneself with information on
India's Constitution, and if possible, with the debates of the Constituent
Assembly. There is no better place to start this search for knowledge
than this.
* India - a "Socialist" Republic?
In 1977 (to reconfirm) India passed the amendment to the Constitution,
making India a socialist republic [
SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC].
Unless we get rid of the word Socialist, no amount of
"liberalization" of the economy will have any impact on anyone. In fact,
practically from the time of our independence we have followed socialistic
practices, though in a less draconian manner than the true socialistic
countries. But in each and every endeavor where we have applied the tenets
of socialism, we have failed. Most of the public sector firms, instead of
reaching the commanding heights of the economy, actually reached the last
of the depressing depths. They sank like a heavy anchor into the depths of
loss and almost pulled the entire ship of India down along with them.
Due to the great centralization, bureaucrats got busy in creating many
varieties of wasteful programs, arrogating to themselves the entire wisdom
of the Indian people and recruiting more and more lowly qualified and
politically supported people into government. Their fundamental premise
was that the businessman who can produce something was an enemy of the
people, since he may become rich. There could perhaps be no greater crime
in their eyes than a person becoming rich. They wanted to be the richest
of all themselves. After the political masters, perhaps. So all kinds of
laws and rules were invented in the name of socialism to curb production,
both in the private and in the public sectors. The net result was an
unprecedented increase in corruption. Almost everything that has been
created by our governments in the past fifty years has bred corruption. In
fact, the expertise in designing corrupt institutions and procedures has
been refined over the years.
By attempting to do everything itself, while at the same time
aggrandizing itself, the bureaucracy (including its lowest rungs),
effectively became anti-socialistic: look at the practice of having a huge
bunch of peons both in the office and at home: bureaucrats love servants.
We should modify our Constitution to state that we have a socialistic
republic for the ruling class and feudalism for the poor. Could no one
get rid of the system of peons in the past fifty years of socialism? What
kind of society are we trying to build? Where one human being has to serve
the petty needs of another human being? Will that be termed a civilized
society? And at the same time this is a system which destroys the
productivity of a large body of people. What, after all , does a peon
produce? Why cannot "officers" dust their table and carry their files and
briefcases? When even the most "capitalistic" firms are promoting flatter
organizations, what need to we have of such high rise hierarchies which
distance us from the common man?
Thus much of the "respect" given to working classes in India is
hypocritical. In a so-called capitalistic, developed country such as
Australia or USA, on the other hand, one is forced to respect the working
classes. Blue collared workers work with sophisticated machines which
increase their output nearly thirty to forty times of that of an average
Indian worker. Even sweepers sweep the roads with special machines which
blow the dirt to particular areas from where it is removed.
Consider the garbage lifter. Each household is provided with a large
plastic black bin with a cover, which is supposed to be filled up with the
garbage of the house. This garbage bin is kept in a particular place
outside the house, where a garbage collector can reach and collect. The
garbage collector comes in a huge truck fitted with complicated mechanical
devices, and picks up the garbage bin with the machine and empties it
without touching the bin at all, before putting the bin back, with the
help of the machine, to its original place. This garbage collector
performs his work at an amazing pace, and one such garbage collector with
his machines would be able to pick up the garbage of more than one
thousand households in a given day.
Then there is the employee who waters the public lawns. Now, there are
a huge number of public lawns in these countries. One "gardener" or
"lawn-engineer", as I call him, is capable of watering huge bodies of
lawns, and mowing them too, with his machine, yielding an output which
exceeds by thousands of times the efficiency of an average Indian
gardener. These workers are paid at very high rates, and often the manual
worker earns more than his white-collared counterpart. Does that not mean
that the capitalistic West is more socialistic than India? After all, the
main purpose of uplifting the working classes to the level of the
bourgeois has been achieved here. Further, social security systems offer
huge benefits for the unemployed, disabled and old.
Some of us might protest: "but if we replace our workers with machines
won't they starve?" Well, the answer is a clear "No." Capital represents
nothing but the state of the technology. And human beings have progressed
not by avoiding technology, but b y adopting it. Even our Golden Age was
not when we were resistant to technology but the world leaders in it. Why
do we believe that adopting technology today will hurt us as a nation? By
giving our workers the training and the tools, we will increase their
productivity manifold and flood the world with their products, like China
has done since 1979. And this will make the workers richer by far (we can
discuss the details about the training required and the structural
adjustment needed separately. The concept of adopting technology is the
key concept here). As a result of this huge adoption of technology, the
Chinese worker has not lost out. Instead, today, China is a far superior
place for the poor to live than India is.
So what is this elusive socialism that we are running after, so
hypocritically? Can we not be honest with ourselves now at least, after
the great fall of the USSR? What do we need this for in any case? To
produce more clerks and servants for our pampered ruling classes? To
create public sector undertakings whose reason to exist is the number of
workers that can be employed without any regard to profitability? (in
fact, here one is being charitable: in most cases, public sector
undertakings have been used to generate funds for politicians) To have
electricity undertakings which provide power only to the chosen few? What
has socialism done for us except to impoverish us both physically and
mentally?
India exported two percent of the entire world's exports in 1947, but
today we export only one half of one percent. We had Nobel Prize winners
even in Physics in the first half of the century. Now we are incapable of
even mimicking the Nobel Prize winners in science, not to talk of
achieving a Nobel Prize of our own. We did somewhat well in the Olympics
in the first half of the century, but now we are reduced to the most
pathetic position which even the worst enemies of India could not have
imagined for India. We have been made almost impotent in the world stage.
This great country, with great people, and great potential - ruined,
corrupted and destroyed - all by itself, internally. By socialism. The
scourge of mankind. We even lost our sense of human decency, and allied
with the terrible empire of the Soviets which systematically got rid of
its best people (how did we, belonging to the land of the Mahatma, condone
the massacres by Stalin, the Gulag, Siberia? - well, by aligning with
such a nation, we connived with all this, at the least).
I am sure that is not what Gandhiji wanted us to become. We have to
reaffirm our capacity as a great people; we have to regain our
self-confidence and hew a great country once again from the start: only,
this time we are in a worse position relative t o the world than we were
in 1947. Let us learn from our blunders and at least now think of the
tasks before us.
* Corruption
Recently, I was asked a good, "coffee table" question, by a friend, on
the Assam Net. The question is: What is your comment on the large scale
corrupt practices going on unabatedly in the DPI offices at Gauhati?
This was my answer:
I am an institutionalist. In other words, I believe that
organizations, institutions and even the society at large, are related to
each other. I do not believe that we are running an optimal society, and a
few basic lacunae are encroaching on our ability to run the system more
effectively. These include:
1. Our electoral funding
system. Keeping in view the common sense reality of elections needing
lots of funds, efficient societies such as the USA permit government
funding of elections, and in any case do not make a complete mockery of
electoral politics the way we do in India. Assuming that both you and I
are completely honest and idealistic, I can assure you that the
constraints of electoral politics will force us to be "corrupt" the
moment we wish to enter the political arena in India. Imagine trying to
feed the hundreds of daily visitors to your house on the paltry salary you
get, or organizing the vehicles, fuel, etc., you need to carry your
message to the people. Even though Gandhiji might have lived a meagre
lifestyle, the organizational expenses of Congress during the freedom
movement were heavy, and Gandhiji himself was not shy of collecting the
funds from every Indian. The complete hypocrisy that we have designed for
our electoral system is the ONE MAJOR AND DIRECT CAUSE of our corruption
everywhere in the country including in the Education department in Assam
and elsewhere. Bad institutions => bad leaders => bad selection
criteria (such as who can assist the politician in corruption) and
therefore bad officers. The few good officer s who really make the system
function (and I can assure you that it is TRUE that these few good
officers make the system function) are committed to the people and do not
care for the political consequences of their actions.
2. Our
bounded rationality. We can never be perfect judges of people.
Therefore even in the "best" system there will be black sheep. We have a
strong tendency to believe that our "relatives" and friends are somehow
"better" than others. This fallacy is a common human foible, however, and
we observe this problem in all societies. Only, in our political system,
this compounds the basic infirmity of the system, and as you can well
imagine, it is easier to be corrupt if the entire family or friends are
placed in important positions of power.
3. Our primitive
social beliefs. We have strong beliefs in our society that everything
is determined by God, and therefore we are very reluctant to try to change
things. In the modern technological world, this is fatal. Therefore, it
is not amazing
that while the educational institutions in USA have computer centers open
24 hours a day during the semester for the students to use, in Gauhati
University, Moloy Dutta was telling me that he was unable to get the peon
to close the computer center after 3 p.m. Therefore we lose valuable time
- which is ultimately the most precious resource. Today, the internet is
perhaps the most valuable tool of learning. But there is virtually no
momentum within Assam to get "hooked" on to this. As you can well imagine
, corruption can be reduced dramatically if the common man has the ability
to communicate through e-mail with the senior officers. This is an
organizational problem you might find strange that I am mentioning as a
cause of corruption. But if you think a b it, you will agree that lack of
transparency is one of the chief causes of corruption.
4. Our
poverty. Of course, being poor in general means that people are
willing to be "corrupt" if that means that they will get what they want,
e.g., a job as a school teacher, a transfer to the place of their choice,
etc. The system that we have i s therefore perfectly designed for
corruption. We have both forces of demand and supply working in favor of
corruption.
5. Finally, we have a relatively weak
understanding of economics, both amongst professors in our
universities (at least a few of whom are personally known to me) and in
educational institutions in Assam, and to a large extent, in India as a
whole. We therefore let administrators and politicians and lawyers design
our economic system, leading to the completely distorted set of incentives
which cause this rampant corruption that you are talking about. There is
no discussion with expert economists on the details of the incentive
systems that we have put in place in each department/ organization, to
increase efficiency.
In brief, there is no logical way of ending
this state of affairs, to the best of my understanding. Even a
"revolution" will not change it, as we commonly understand the word
"revolution."
We are therefore constrained to do whatever little
we can do within our personal means, till we become powerful enough to
shift the set of incentives in our economy. The latter is a possibility
that exists all the time, but as is obvious, it is not easy t o get a
person to lead our country who is not only a successful politician but a
good economist and a good administrator.
* The spirit behind rules
All of us know of the other bane of the bureaucratic attitude: being a
stickler for rules. This is an area on which I am commenting with great
risk, for there is no doubt that rules are necessary for the efficient
functioning of a society. The greater the adherence to rules, the greater
the predictability and hence the efficiency in the society. On the other
hand, there are rules which need to be interpreted with caution, and where
the spirit behind setting the rule should be considered. Narrated below in
the recent Times of India, is a story which shows how important it is at
times to rise above the rules. It is always the total package that counts,
and the sincerity of the person being considered. In this story, it is
clear to me that sooner or later we will have a political decision in
favor of the little girl with leukaemia, but this is the tragedy: we need
thinking people at ALL levels: if a politician can bend a rule, so can the
Principal, if he finds good justification, and records his reasons
clearly. The principal of a school is not a rubber stamp: if he were, one
could have replaced him with a computer. So also, a bureaucrat must
exercise due thinking and take a "speaking" decision, if necessary, by
violating an existing rule and explaining why its violation is in the
public interest.
Leukaemic girl denied promotion: By Utpal
Chatterjee
* Are we at the mercy of the foreigners?
Many years ago, in India we had a belief that the British have
oppressed us and reduced our capability. The Grand Old Man of India,
Dadabhai Naoroji wrote "Poverty and Un-British Rule in India." Much has
been said about the consequences of foreign
rule. But now we are no longer burdened by any person exercising external
interests on our economy (at least not directly). So now, who is
responsible for our failures? At whose mercy are we now? The answer should
be, at none other's but our own. Are we at the mercy of our "system" - our
democracy, bureaucracy, business?
It is very common in our thinking to attribute the present condition of
India to something "beyond us" or even "beyond our control". "One can't do
anything in this country." "No matter what you do it remains the same."
"No wonder our brightest people have to leave this country to do
something." "The system is rotten to the core - what can you expect?"
"The Indian is sure to fail within his country and to succeed
elsewhere."
I joined the IAS with the belief that out of the many jobs available to
choose from, this one gave the greatest scope to reach out to the people
directly and thus to "serve" the country. But this kind of talk was
virtually ridiculed by many of my "friends" who told me that it is futile
to join this service if my intention was to do something positive for the
nation; much better that I migrate abroad. I was told that no matter what
one does, nothing much will come out of it.
Later, I married an Assamese IAS officer and chose to move to Assam
cadre from the originally allotted Haryana cadre (which happens to be very
close to my "home town" of Delhi). And I recall an interesting incident
showing how some people (not all) perceived this shift: one day, in
Delhi, while sitting in a restaurant with a friend from Assam, I met a
friend of this friend, and that person wondered whether "there was more
money to be made in Assam?" Our public is almost completely cynical of the
protestations of some of us who claim to be in the service for the sake of
the people.
But I believe that we chose our systems. We were not born with these
"systems" and therefore we can shift these in the direction which we feel
is suitable. These are all man-made, and hence changeable by man.
Buchanan, a Nobel prize winner, was one of the
first to point out that bureaucrats and politicians are governed primarily
by self-interest, everywhere and therefore it is necessar y to design
systems around this self interest. In the context of Indian institutions,
this task is extremely complex, but not impossible, as I can state with
complete confidence based on my own experiences in the various jobs I have
held. It was difficult
but not impossible to bring about irreversible positive changes in many
areas of work.
The task of administrative reform can however, be only cosmetic, unless
we take care to bring into our system the concept of "whistle-blowing"
that only the most advanced democracies are now considering. Our system
is particularly well designed in terms of offering opportunities of
corruption by the politicians and bureaucrats (I leave the businessman out
since he would not pay up unless the first two forced him to [though
Pranab Bardhan has argued that it might be more efficient to punish the
"giver" ]). I quote from Bardhan, "corruption opportunities stimulate the
entry of permit-dispensers armed with new regulations." In other words,
there is a chain reaction of increasing corruption. As members of one
government agency begin to 'flourish' through u se of corruption, other
agencies which were at the periphery are motivated to somehow breed some
new regulation which will give them the power to enter the market of
corruption and skim off part of the 'surplus.' The process continues until
only corrupt bureaucrats and corrupt businessmen remain.
On the other hand, there are many bureaucrats who would like to stop
this chain reaction which has tremendous negative consequences, but find
themselves marginalized in the system. Therefore the only one sure way of
handling this problem is to give the powers of whistleblowing to all
bureaucrats (politicians do not require it: they can take strong action
against a corrupt bureaucrat within the present system, if they want to;
generally, it is the other way round, where the politician wants to hang
on to the corrupt bureaucrat to explain the tricks of the trade to him).
Through this power, it can be hoped that at least some
bureaucrats will attempt to stop the chain reaction from going
amuck.
Whisleblowing gives, in principle, the right to the bureaucrats to
disclose to the press and to the 'rest of the world', officially, the
corruption he or she observes in his or her department. I can safely say
that had this power been given to me, I could have shown concrete proof
against at least one major politician, i.e., if the Ombudsman or the
people are willing to believe that procedural impropriety is not merely
due to stupidity but due to deliberate design (in this context, it is
worthwhile to
keep in mind that most of the corrupt transactions can only be traced out
with the help of a large team of investigators going into different
aspects of the crime: those who are corrupt do not leave much evidence of
this activity). In any case, the point
is that bureaucrats are wedded to the Indian constitution and to its
people, and not to a particular politician; and therefore if we find the
public's interest being violated, it is necessary to stand up and discuss
the matter. The great barriers of the Official Secrets Act and the
absence of a Whistleblowing legislation prevent bureaucrats from taking
action against corruption at high levels, even when they can offer
concrete evidence about it.
I have another thought on this subject: To bring about a complete
transparency in the assets of all our politicians and bureaucrats, I
suggest that all of us be required to submit a copy of our assets to a
body legally appointed for this purpose, which should place all this
information - for each and every officer, from the time of his or her
joining public service, and belonging to each and every department of the
nation - on a web site in India. Those officers who provide such
information can be awarded a promotion immediately to the next pay scale,
and those who do not provide such information can have an inquiry started
into their assets at once. Further, if any complaint is filed showing
sufficient proof of the actual assets of the officer being higher than his
declared assets, then an inquiry should be started at once into that
officer's case also.
The only real check to the moral hazard problem (where the public is
the principal and the bureaucrat its agent) is to promote transparency and
give the public complete knowledge of what their agents are doing.
This might sound extremely impractical at the moment, and will invite
tremendous resistance (from the agents, i.e., the bureaucrats), but I can
assure you that the public, who have appointed us, would really benefit
from this, and would be able to judge for themselves the honesty of each
and every official of the government.
It is true that honesty does not translate into efficiency, but I claim
that dishonesty among bureaucrats is dangerous to efficiency, as it
creates these problems: (a) envy among those who are not corrupt and hence
forced to live inferior lifestyles, (b) demotivation for doing good hard
work among the honest and (c) cynicism and a sense of distrust of the
system: neither the public nor the honest bureaucrats trust the 'words' of
the corrupt officer or politician; they examine the issue inordinately,
delaying decisions, avoiding meetings with the corrupt officer, etc.
Of course this kind of "system change" would not be enough. Even if we
were able to unearth all the "scandals" it would not help us achieve
greatness as a nation. Therefore I would rather emphasize the introduction
of good policies than even the importance of administrative reform
including whistleblowing legislation. Good policies would be things like
promoting greater competition, allowing the market to operate wherever
there is the possibility of government failure, and so on.
In any case, coming back to the point I started from, it is not the
British who are responsible for our plight fifty years after our
independence (though they are responsible for splitting up our nation and
thus causing perennial bloodshed even today).
We must accept responsibility almost entirely for not building
appropriate institutions and promoting good policies.
* Ego of Indian bureaucrats
By the way, everything bad I say about bureaucrats in this write-up
also applies to me. In other words, I do not wish to single out other
bureaucrats as being 'bad' - rather, I too have been guilty of being 'bad'
in many ways. One way in which I have been particularly 'bad' is in terms
of my ego. Many members of the Indian Administrative Service are extremely
egoistic about their having been selected through the competitive
examination system that we have in place in India. It is almost as if
everyone in India is evaluated by these bureaucrats on the basis of one
yardstick, the Civil Services Exam. What happens is that each year
thousands of our best graduates appear for the Civil Services Exam. Many
of them appear upto three times. But only a ver y, very few, get selected
to join the Indian Administrative Service. What do the rest do? Well,
there are thousands of other jobs, and I am sure that each of those who
fail to get into the IAS, gets into other good jobs, because they are
basically very competent people. Now, that would be fine, but
unfortunately, this leads to a strong suspicion in the eyes of many IAS
officers that most members of other professions, such as bankers,
teachers, etc., are those who have failed in their attempts to get into
the IAS. This might or might not be true. But the suspicion is quite real,
and is the basis of the tremendous ego that IAS officers have, whereby
they believe that they are definitely superior to all the rest.
This is not to deny that most IAS officers are somewhat competent in
terms of raw intellectual ability. But that merely would not explain their
inordinately large egos. In one sense, the society in India itself uses
the Civil Services exam as a yardstick. To have got into the IAS
immediately sets you apart from the rest of the crowd, and the society
begins to believe that you are 'really good.' In fact, the value of IAS
officers, as measured by the dowries offered to the male IAS officers -
has been consistently the highest in the Indian society [that this is an
extremely bad indicator of value is another thing, to be discussed
elsewhere]. The jobs that IAS officers do also encourage such 'delusions
of grandeur.' Their jobs often make them 'decision makers,' sitting in
judgment over the proposals and work of a huge number of other
professions, like bankers, doctors, engineers, scientists, army officers,
etc. Only lawyers (through the judiciary) and politicians are exempt from
this category and are given some, albeit grudging, respect.
But I strongly believe that the chance factor is extremely high in the
process of selection, and many officers who have come into the IAS have
actually relatively low IQs (below the 80th percentile), as measured by
various yardsticks such as the GRE exam . In other words, in terms of
sheer raw intellectual power, at least 10 percent of the comparable
population of graduates is smarter than most IAS officers. Further, a
strong memory is an extremely strong asset for any bureaucrat to possess,
since we are meeting people all the time and need to remember not only
their names but what they do. But only very few officers really possess a
very strong memory. I, for one, possess an extremely average memory, which
troubles me immensely in my job, as I forget
names and sometimes, even faces. In terms of competence, the truth is
that even a simple shopkeeper is often equally or more competent that IAS
officers, who are usually bested at the task of making a profit by even
the petty paanwallah. IAS officers run
various public sector undertakings - at the state level at least - and
generally manage to get the firms into great losses. Further, many other
professions expect you to keep up-to-date with the latest knowledge in the
discipline to progress in life. But
due to the complete absence of any incentive system, most IAS officers
have never read anything serious outside magazines and newspapers in their
life, after joining the service. They are completely unaware of the latest
advances in economics, public administration and management - the fields
which should be their forte.
I must digress a bit here and talk about the incentive structures in
the IAS here, to illustrate the strong tendency among the IAS officers NOT
to study and widen their vision. The IAS has a provision for study leave
for 2 years wherein people are expected to take a sabbatical, to think a
lot, and return to their job after being rejuvenated about the latest
ideas in the academic world. But based on my personal knowledge, only very
few officers ever take this leave. Most have to be forced to attend a few
training programs here and there [particularly if the training program is
located within India; if the program is held outside India, then of course
there is a strong waiting list, and unbelievable amount of political and
other kinds of lobbying to get
nominated].
On the other hand, the system is totally blind to one's academic
qualifications, and there is absolutely no incentive to make people study
on their own - apart from the study leave provision. For example, I spent
substantial amounts of my own money (and time), after joining the service,
to take a Masters degree in Economics through the Panjab University
Correspondence Course, and later the Graduate Diploma in Management
through the All Indian Management Association. There was no incentive
offered to m e for this - and even the possibility of re-imbursement of
the fees spent by me [which would be in the range of just a few thousand
rupees] - was rejected. But at the same time, crores of rupees are spent
in organizing luxurious training programs in the best institutes in the
nation where officers go for a week or three weeks, and learn almost
nothing new. Most of the material taught at these courses is pretty basic,
and repetitive. These training programs, by the way, are counted toward
'promotion' in an
indirect way, but advanced studies in economics, public administration or
management - which should be strongly encouraged since these studies would
help IAS officers become aware of the developments in policy analysis -
have absolutely no impact on an officer's career (maybe even a negative
impact), and definitely a negative impact on his pocket.
Therefore, IAS officers remain content to feel 'proud' of their having
cleared the Civil Services Exam years ago, and sit in judgment over other
disciplines without having improved their own analytical skills. Obviously
this is a serious problem, and such people can not really make good policy
for our nation. We must therefore learn to respect others who have spent
years in their own disciplines, such as medicine, teaching, etc. This will
help us to listen to the voices of wisdom which are currently often
drowned in the droning self-praise of IAS officers [more on this strong
tendency to praise oneself, found in IAS officers, later].
* Penny wise, pound foolish?
I narrate here an anecdote to illustrate how we - in the bureaucracy -
can become pennywise and pound foolish. It is not that good intentions are
missing. Only, the vision is often very small, indeed.
How much does a meeting of field officials cost? A huge amount, indeed.
For example, a meeting of all Project Directors of DRDAs of Assam in 1989
used to cost at least Rs. 50,000 (@ about Rs. 2000 for the TA/DAs of the
officers and their drivers, per DRDA) and here one is not counting the
social cost, of villagers wasting their time in the offices of these
officers in the districts in the absence of the heads of the offices. I
remember organizing such a meeting as the Director of Rural Development,
Assam. Now, my personal experience as a Project Director had alerted me to
the fact that much of the reading material circulated at these meetings is
incomprehensible, not only being typed badly but then cyclostyled on poor
quality paper. Therefore, as Director, I converted from this system to a
computerized printout which was then photocopied in adequate quantity for
the officers who were present. Unfortunately, I found myself confronted by
a senior officer in the department who questioned my use of such a n
"expensive" style in a poor country like ours.
My view on this is that this officer's good intentions were misplaced.
I was trying to pass on the message that it is important for each person
to write clearly and to make it easily readable. The cost of this exercise
was in a few hundred rupees. It paled into insignificance in terms of the
cost of the meeting. The properly printed document would bring about a
spirit of professionalism in the organization, and would raise the
expectations about the quality of work expected from the field officers. A
good presentation is a sign of an organized mind, if nothing else. And
finally, the material, by being legible, would probably get read, unlike
the previous cyclostyled printouts which were incomprehensible.
It is not that this officer was averse to the concept of a good
personal presentation. For example, when calling on the Governor, he would
invariably wear an impeccable suit. But it seemed lost on him that
presentation is a complete package. The West understands this very well
indeed. Take a look, for example, at their cities: the street signs are
standardized, the malls are clean and tidy, and so are the documents
written by them.
By questioning the expenditure of a couple of hundred rupees - perhaps
less - on making the agenda items and notes for the meeting costing
thousands of rupees, easier to read, this officer was displaying what I
consider a chronic problem in our society: being penny wise and pound
foolish.
We often do not spend on research which will lead to a better
decision; we avoid hiring the best people; we refuse to delegate power to
those who are ultimately responsible for getting things done, and so on.
The basic point, we conserve a penny but we squander a pound of time or
resource.
* Let us keep our perspective
I came across a very useful comment made by Pandit Nehru which should
make us think a bit about the continuous clamour that goes on in our
society about corruption. Nehru said, "Merely shouting from the house-tops
that everybody is corrupt creates
an atmosphere of corruption. People feel they live in a climate of
corruption and they get corrupted themselves" (in Bardhan, 1994). I would
like to emphasize therefore, that while one of the favorite topics of
coffee table conversations is corruption, let us not over-do it. Not all
politicians and bureaucrats are corrupt. In fact, I would venture to state
that our nation has reached a point of take-off because we have so many
honest and hard-working politicians and bureaucrats who are slogging away
to overcome the constraints we function under. Let us consider corruption
as merely one of many problems; and it can be solved through a proper set
of policies and mechanisms. It is not 'out of control,' and can never
overtake the positive features of our society.
* Finally, a whiff of relief to the people!
This, below, is great news indeed. The people of India, who are the
owners of our government institutions and our masters, will finally be
able to find out what their servants (our government officials) are doing
with their money. I have felt since long that the greatest bane of our
nation is the secrecy within government and the power to treat the people
like dirt and get away with it. Finally, however, both our judiciary is
waking up and our legislatures - and bringing to the people their rights .
It is amazing that we call ourselves a democracy when we have such
strongly reactionary and regressive information acts such as the Official
Secrets Act behind which our corrupt take shelter. When our public is
empowered, it should be empowered completely, so that anyone, and
particularly our press, should have the right to look into ANY transaction
carried out by the government. One would rather see a heavy expenditure
on this - viz., the opening of a counter for the public in each office
where they can
inspect all records of government - than the continuation of a system
like the current one where people are denied access to such information.
Our politicians and government servants are no saints. Everyone knows
that. Therefore, we must empower the citizens completely, and enable them
to monitor the activities of their representatives and servants. That
would be the only true democracy. [By the way, I had advocated such strong
rights to information in my book published in 1988 -
this download will be in MS-Word format.]
An example of how the Freedom of Information Act works in the
USA:click here.
India News Network Digest Sat, 8 Mar 97 Volume 2 : Issue 1522
#1 Right to Information Act likely in TN
By Statesman News Service - Chennai - The Statesman - 6th March
1997
Tamil Nadu will be perhaps the first state to have a right to
information Act.
The proposed Bill, providing people with the right to information about
the administration, may be passed during the current budget session. The
Chief Minister, Mr M Karunanidhi, made this announcement while presenting
the state budget for 1997 - 98.< /DD>
The general public will have the right to get details about the state's
schemes, work done by government agencies and the quantity of rice and
other essential commodities supplied to shops under the public
distribution system. Stocks for the public distribution system will no
longer be a secret and people can question irregularities.
Rajasthan and Karnataka, too, may pass a similar Bill. Even the Centre
is reportedly considering a similar Bill to eliminate corruption at most
levels. But Tamil Nadu officials claim that the state appears to have
taken the lead in the enactment of such a law.
To prevent irregularities "that occurred during the previous regime"
because of the executive's interference in "tender procedures", the state
government may prescribe a "transparent and fair" process in the awarding
of tenders. This will be done through the enactment of a legislation. The
chief minister said it would restore people's confidence in the
government's tender procedures.
As part of its "reform process", the government has set up a high -
level committee to suggest suitable legislative measures for setting up of
an inquiry forum. The government had earlier announced its "intention to
set up an inquiry institution called the Ombudsman". It will recommend
administrative reforms to check corruption.
* A news item on judicial activism
India News Network Digest Wed, 8 Jan 97 Volume 2 : Issue 1294 #3
Australian judge defends Indian 'judicial activism'
NEW
DELHI, Jan 7 (PTI)
The special features of Indian society and its institutions and the
urgency of problems presented to courts explain the demands for ''judicial
activism`` in the country, Mr Justice Michael Kirby of the Australian High
Court said here today.
''The Indian courts, particularly the Supreme Court, have a respected
reputation for creativity and ingenuity in the development and adaptation
of the common law to the enormous contemporary problems and opportunities
of this country,`` Mr Justice Kir by said while delivering the Fifth Bar
Association of India lecture on the theme Judicial Activism here.
Some landmark judgements of the Supreme Court on such matters as
''right to go abroad``, ''right to privacy``, ''right to protection
against solitary confinement``, ''right to speedy trial``, ''right against
custodial violence`` and ''right against public hanging`` have established
basic principles, he said.
''Sometimes, in my own court decisions, I have drawn upon the
jurisprudence of Indian courts to sustain a small advance in the
exposition of the common law,`` Mr Justice Kirby, who is also the
president of the International Council of Jurists, said.
He said controversies about so-called 'judicial activism` were natural,
since ''for every litigant demanding judicial activism, there is
ordinarily another urging judicial restraint.``
Citing instances from
the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, he said controversies
about judicial activism were not confined to India alone.
''In the
USA, the tension between judicial activism and judicial restraint has been
present since the foundation of the republic and the creation of the
Supreme Court,`` Mr Justice Kirby said.
Pointing out that the burdens which society cast on its judges were
greater today than ever before, he said, ''The challenge for modern judges
is to find where the line (limits) lies in a particular case, at a
particular time and place.``
Mr Justice J S Verma of the Supreme Court, Justice (retd) H R Khanna,
Justice P B Sawant, Mr Desmond Fernando, president of the International
Bar Association, Mr Justice Jagannadha Rao, chief justice of Delhi High
Court, Mr F S Nariman, Dr K K Venugopal, Mr Lalit Bhasin and other legal
luminaries from India and abroad were among the prominent persons who
attended the lecture.
* Review of India is for Sale by Chitra Subramaniam:
By KHUSHWANT SINGH (March, 1997)
''Nobody lets India down like Indians, writes Chitra Subramaniam of the
Bofors fame. In her biting expose India Is For Sale (UBSPD) she has much
to say about Indian delegates attending international conferences. Though
a lot of it is under-graduate stuff, it also has many painful truths which
deserve to be taken seriously. Our newspapers, radio and TV are fed by
reports sent by selected journalists accompanying these delegations. What
they send back to their papers and the electronic media is heavily biased
in favour of the delegates and largely untrue.
Chitra starts off with some general observations on our national
character: ''Doesn`t matter who it is as long as there is someone or
something else to pass the blame on to. The 'they` can be anything and
anyone from your neighbours to the World Bank to your boss`s wife to the
USA to Saturn and to that damn cat which crossed your path as you set out
for an examination, ensuring with that one careless act that you would
fail. All that effort trampled by a cat. What a karma!``
''How long are we going to gripe?`` she asks. And continues: ''India
is fifty. How many more years are we going to spend blaming the
imperialists, external forces and Pakistan?``
I agree with her analysis. We are a leaderless nation. ''Our leaders
are not responsible for their actions because it is our destiny to be
looted and lectured to about values and morals between two looting
sessions, that is to say, between two general elections... Champions at
this blame-game are our elected representatives.
Chitra was present in Geneva when Pandit Sukh Ram arrived with a team
of senior civil servants to buy telecommunication equipment at the
international bazaar. He rarely bothered to attend business sessions and
was usually not to be found in his hotel.
At a press conference he was unable to answer the simplest of questions.
Chitra writes: ''The next day Telecom 1995 was over. Swiss newspapers ran
stories about how impressed the world was with China, Nigeria, Brazil and
the Philippines. Thee was a box item on India. It said the Indian team had
not only left without paying their telephone bills at the Indian pavilion,
but that the Indian delegation had walked away with telephone sets
provided for the occasion.``
A year later, Indian sleuths discovered 19.7 million in ministerji`s
house. It is the fault of all these multinationals, he said in his
defence. As he was taken into custody, he was worried about being infected
by the dengue epidemic in New Delhi. Multinationals are responsible for
that too. To suggest anything else would be anti-national.`` In short,
Mantriji made an ass of himself and laughing stock of his country.
* An excellent suggestion from Sandeep Kayastha:
When
I was in the Academy an outstanding suggestion was made by one of our
Management faculty, Sandeep Kayastha. This suggestion rang a bell in the
ears of some OTs (Officer Trainees), and to others it sounded like an
amusing possibility which detracted from the very purpose of their
existence.
All he said was that IAS officers, on joining their
respective posts anywhere, should spend a considerable time not only in
learning what they have to do in their new job, but also to find out what
they should NOT be doing at all. Now, as Milgrom and Roberts have rightly
said, "Bureaucrats look for something to do, whether or not their
intervention is likely to be helpful." What we do when we join a new job
is usually, to expand our work. We not only like to do the job that our
predecessor was doing, but create new work. Now, some of this change might
be useful, and change is always welcome. But the key point which Sandeep
made and I remember having heard for the first time in my 12 years of
service was to think analytically of ways to completely eliminate some of
the tasks that our offices do. This is indeed a big challenge, like
shutting the Pandora's box once opened, and is not for the meek, but if
someone is determined to show the path, it is possible not only to shut
down particular tasks, but also major wings of various government
departments.
* Humility
We have been taught by Gandhiji to as humble as possible about our
abilities and possibilities. But in our system:
a) The government arrogates to itself the power of deciding when and
where an industry should be set up; how much it should produce, and what
price it should charge. According to this logic, the if an Edison were to
arise in the society, he would have
to secure the approval of each experiment at each step by the government.
We forget that each of us has a specialization that the other cannot
excel. Bureaucrats have to be good managers: they have to provide
incentives to others to work. We have to be humble about the act of
creation. Very few of us are capable on our own to set up even a small
industry. Let us therefore respect the entrepreneur who has taken the bold
initiative to create something that was not on the planet earlier. That
does not mean that we should interfere in the work of the banker and
provide him with incentives to finance the industry. The banker is smart
enough and in his or her own interest [provided the bank is subject to the
discipline of the market], will design a contract such that he saves
himself in case the industry fails. Let us be humble and
remain in our own area of specialization as policy makers: which is to
provide incentives and guidelines to our citizens to grow. Let us neither
block their growth nor support them like we would support children. If an
entrepreneur has decided to start an industry, let him take the risks
himself, and let us not soften the test of market forces.
b) We have been generally 'acting tough' with multinationals, like
throwing IBM out of India, etc. We seem to be sending a message across
that you might be the king of technology in the rest of the world, but in
our nation, we are the king and we can show you your place. Please,
please, be humble enough to admit that the success of a multi-national
corporation has not come about on the basis of political favors alone. In
fact, a country can support its own industry only in that nation. If
someone has competed globally and succeeded, let us admit he or she
deserves all respect, for he or she has passed the test of the market,
which is larger than all of us. If a bureaucrat exists that can create
better technology than IBM and succeed internationally, then by all means
thrown out IBM and all other MNCs physically. But if you can't, then have
the humility to learn from other human beings whether they disguise
themselves as Mother Teresas or as IBMs. Perhaps a single IBM can do more
for our nation than a hundred Mother Teresas: new technology can provide
us economic growth, jobs and a new perspective toward life. Our approach
to global success reeks of petty jealousy: you might be IBM, but here you
are entitled to meet only my junior officer. I am not advocating that we
respect mere owners of capital: but that we respect those who are "gold
medallists" on the global markets.
c) I would not like to mention it here since it can prove extremely
difficult to prove, but I have begun to think that our 'arrogance' and
false emphasis on self-reliance in an increasingly global economy is a
sign of envy. We are envious of the industrialist who earns thousands of
times more than us (that is why we tried to set limits to the salaries of
CEOs in India), and of the foreigner (whether he be from USA or from
S.Korea) who travels in luxury cars. We are 'human beings' after all, and
it is quite possible that our false pride of being 'the chosen ones' in
India can lead us to believe that we are 'better' than all others. But
this is something quite untrue. We are NOT better than others: we are
there simply to serve the best interest of the S OCIETY in India. Perhaps
humility has to be brought in a big way here.
