In 1998-99 I started a handful of articles/ academic papers which I never got to progress, having come down with the most acute case of RSI. I accidentally came across some of these old writings a moment ago. Some of these papers are over 14000 words long and not suitable for a blog post. But a few short ones might be OK for a blog.

This one, on good governance, is a preliminary paper of 1999. Some of this material has flowed into BFN. The rest remains unexplored/unpublished. 

=== DRAFT ARTICLE WRITTEN IN MAY 1999 ====

Introduction

The demand for good governance is voiced  across the country, but few have stated explicitly the fundamental changes it will take to arrive at this objective. We have dug our head into the sand regarding the analysis of the fundamental deficiencies in our democracy, and this is now beginning to take a heavy toll on our daily lives. I will touch upon four issues here which I believe are fundamental problems of our system needing to be addressed urgently.

Four Issues

1. Democracy costs a lot of money

Democracy does not come for free. Enormous expenses are incurred both in the organisation of elections by the Election Commission and in contesting elections by candidates. Whereas the first of these easily runs to many hundreds of crores per general election, and has our sanction as a citizenry, we seem to balk at considering the likelihood of candidates spending similar sums of money. We have not only imposed limits on electoral expenses, which are flouted blatantly by candidates, but we have also kept no relationship between the expenses incurred in election by candidates and the remuneration received after elections by the successful ones. The limit of expenditure in a Parliamentary Election is now Rs. 15 lakhs, a number of reports — informal as well as formal — prove that candidates spend on average well over Rs. 1 crore (for example, see pp. 272-278, pp.296-298 of The Black Economy of India by Arun Kumar, Penguin, 1999). At the end of this process in which one out of many are elected, the take-home pay of the successful representative, a Member of Parliament, is Rs.4,000 per month (details in Annexure I, including why other expenses are not part of this take-home pay). Clearly in this process there would be some who wish to provide charity to us citizens by spending their own money with no thought of returns, but on the whole, the main category of persons who enter this absurd process are those who have no compunction about misusing their elected office to capture rents from the Government machinery to recover their heavy investment . In not-so-polite language, we can say without fear of being rebutted that a vast majority have come into public office with the primary objective of looting the system. The N.N. Vohra Committee report on the nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and criminals including the Mafia is as explicit a statement of fact as any one can get from within the system. “In certain states … these gangs enjoy the patronage of local level politicians, cutting across party lines and the protection of  government functionaries.”  Democracies do not run on charity and we should not be depend as citizens on the good will of a few charitable souls who spend their own money in order to ‘serve’ us. Our representatives must not have to depend on loot and black money for their sustenance.

To make matters worse, the Election Commission of India prevents debate on whatever expenses have been declared to it by political parties. The mystification of the basic processes of democracy is causing large scale corruption in India. It is the root cause of corruption and unless this is removed, no amount of economic liberalization will help.

In brief, the solution here is (a) to remove limits on electoral expenses but to insist on transparency, and (b) to drastically increase the take-home remuneration of MPs while completely eliminating their ‘perquisites’ except those that are necessary in the interest of security. 

2.         Transparency

The Official Secrets Act of 1923 talks about not disclosing secret official information which is likely to assist, directly or indirectly, an enemy or which relates to a matter the disclosure of which is likely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State or friendly relations with foreign States. However, the system has made it a point to cite this Act each time any information which is relevant to the people is sought to be made available to them. This Act was designed for an imperial Government and not for a democratic India. There is no information in most departments of Government which is potent enough to affect the sovereignty or integrity of India in any way. India’s defence and security has been compromised by rampant corruption in the entire system. Transparency will help reduce corruption. That is a major priority. All information handled by the Government must be made accessible to citizens through the internet except in very rare cases. We also need statutory provisions to protect whistle blowers in the Government who bring to public notice the serious discrepancies that are occurring in their Departments. In April, 1997, the Conference of Chief Ministers on Effective and Responsive government recommended some of these steps. A bill on these lines is being brought to the Parliament soon, but mere information on demand will not do. Citizens will have to play an active role, and the internet will have to be fully used.

3.         Supervision of Government Machinery

We can skirt the micro-  issue of supervision of the government machinery at our own peril. In order to be truly representative, a democracy has to be designed to leave the control over, and superintendence of, governance, with the citizens at all times. India’s democracy does not meet this criterion principally because we have never explicitly enunciated or desired this control so far.

Under the current dispensation, we have a system of representing ourselves democratically at the highest level of governance. We give to ourselves a government every few years in order to carry out functions that we cannot perform ourselves as individuals. This representation is very thin, though. As a ratio, at the national level, one out of every twenty lakh people represents us. At the state level, this is slightly better, but still very thin. The actual structure of government is many tens of thousands of times larger than the number of representatives.

Our representatives are authorised to create laws and statutes by which we are to be governed. Some of these representatives are then empowered to execute these laws. We also expect the representatives to supervise — through the use of mechanisms such as government auditors and committees of the legislature — the actual implementation of these laws and the thousands of rules framed thereunder. Unfortunately, due to the way the system of supervision has been designed, most of the laws are violated fearlessly by the very same gargantuan governmental machinery which was designed to assist our representatives execute them. I believe that a vast majority of these violations are never even brought up to the notice of various committees of the Assembly or Parliament, and therefore, functionaries continue to violate laws with impunity.                              

Once the contentious process of framing laws is resolved democratically, each of us should resume to ourselves the power to verify that these laws and rules are being followed strictly. The Local Board that I envision would be attached to each local office of the government, such as each district library, each post office, each branch office of each public sector undertaking. Without having any power to legislate or to execute, its sole function would be to supervise the procedural aspects of functioning of the governmental organisation to which it is assigned. Voters of the city or village in which the office is located would be eligible to apply for membership of such Boards. A public drawing from among the eligible applicants would take place. Members of the Board would be authorised to inspect all records with due advance notice. Members would be responsible for pointing out errors of omission and commission in procedure to the concerned elected representatives and to the people directly through the press. They would, in addition, be invited to all statutory meetings, where they would act as observers, such as at the time of opening of sealed tenders.

            Local Boards will ensure that the fundamental control of our country’s governance vests with citizens at all times.  As part of the process of deepening and strengthening democracy in India, and as part of the package of reform of governance, such direct supervisory mechanisms need to be designed and implemented.

4.         Using the best technology 

By now India could have been be a powerhouse of technology. Instead, it is hobbling along using primitive technology in most cases. There is an urgent need to educate our government machinery about technology. Technology, by definition, is labour-saving. By enabling us to do many more things in the time available to us on this planet, technology — embodied in the latest discoveries and inventions, latest machines, the latest software, the latest management tools — multiplies the power of the labour that we possess, improves the quality of our life, and increases our life span by destroying disease. Its economic effect is seen through lower costs, such as in the case of USA where it costs 20 times less in real terms to produce a bushel of wheat today than it cost 150 years ago. Ayn Rand very aptly called machine “the frozen form of intelligence” (Atlas Shrugged, Part 3, Ch. 7).

This does not necessarily mean that the use of latest technology is optimal for each situation. In the case of private goods, the most labour-saving technology chosen — and the availability of this choice is of the essence — by a self-interested individual facing a personal budget constraint can be defined as optimal. If all technology, of all vintages, is freely available, then all individual decisions made in the marketplace of technology are optimal and thus appropriate, making the term appropriate technology tautological, merely representing free choice. It then does not possess meaningful content for a policy maker, leaving no scope to interfere with the forces of the market.

            For public goods, the choice of appropriate technology is not quite as obvious. It is difficult to choose between hand-made roads (labour-intensive) and machine-made roads, for example. Since social cost-benefit analyses have serious shortcomings, I suggest that human dignity, safety and standardisation of quality be considered in making these decisions.

Using manual labour for tasks such as collection of garbage in cities, cleaning public drains, breaking large stones into gravel and carrying bricks up bamboo scaffolds, is inhumane. These activities are almost always carried out without concern for the safety of the citizens involved. Since labour is cheap, the life of these temporary workers, often hired newly each day by contractors, is itself felt to be cheap, and little is heard of their injury, disease, and consequent lay-offs in government sponsored projects, except when a major accident takes place and tens of them are crushed to death here or there.

Machines provide dignity and also standardise quality. The construction of roads by machines leads to durable roads, permitting the use of larger trucks of higher quality to operate, reducing the cost of maintenance of roads as well as the cost of transportation of goods across the country.

As a very important spin-off, machines demand and indeed compel, the development of indigenous skills, both to handle them properly and to build and manage them. Vocationalisation of education will become meaningful if government insists that contractors employed by it should employ only licensed technicians empowered with the best tools.

Paradoxical though it may appear, societies which set incentives for the best technology generally enjoy a low rate of unemployment. The compulsion to use the best technology forces an entire society to become intellectually competitive over time. Competitive societies in turn overwhelm other countries with their exports and ability to lower costs internally. Japan did not become a great competitor on the foundation khadi and pot-holed roads.

Thus as a nation, only the world’s best technology is appropriate for us. We have to put an end to the annual sacrifice of thousands of citizens at the alter of our Temple of Low Standards. 

Conclusion

I have touched briefly upon some of what I thought were the more important issues relating to the strategy for improved governance. These are of course many more areas which deserve our urgent attention, and we must try to set aside time in our daily lives to look into these matters. For example, improved governance needs vast improvements in economic and social policy at the same time. These are vast topics in themselves and need further debate. As a matter of principle, a free democracy needs much more open debate and interaction in order that  its citizens understand the issues involved and to collectively act in order to bring about significant change in the lives of the common man. Bureaucrats are citizens first. They should come out and talk about what they have learned from their experience. 

STATEMENT SHOWING  THE SALARY, ALLOWANCE AND OTHER

FACILITIES ADMISSIBLE TO MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT