"Choose to be optimistic,it feels better"- The Dalai Lama
Over the last few years, almost every day when you pick up the newspaper, you sigh in despair. Regardless of which aspect you look at whether its political , economic,social, communal, or defence you wonder whether we are deluding ourselves in thinking we are on the right track. Whether we will be able to reduce poverty, whether we will achieve our widely stated aspirational goal of becoming an economic super power. Looking at the head lines and the television screen you would say " lets stopping kidding ourselves".
Mine is probably a solitary view but if you look closely and not get clouded by the big picture, you will see isolated glimmers of hope emerging which when consolidated does not appear to be as bad , particularly if you look at it from a long term perspective.
Looking at the negatives, enough is being written and spoken so there is no need to list them.Let's look at the law makers, by which I mean the political parties. The only difference between the two dominant parties is that the Congress, in spite of what they say, appears to take a dynastic approach in selecting its leaders and I am not just referring to the Nehru-Gandhi family.The Bharitiya Janata Party whose leaders are not hereditary , has had its share of problems with aspersions cast against some of their leaders as well. So regardless of who comes into power do not expect major changes in policies. It is expected that in the next elections neither party will have enough seats to form a majority, but will have to rely on the support of the regional parties, so you will continue to have the push and pull which will affect the implementation of policies .
Why then do I look at the Indian glass as being half full ?
First look at the economy and the dynamics of economic decisions made in the country.This is done by the nexus between the politicians, the bureaucrats, and a few major business houses. While I would not be as bold to say that this has been swept clean, there are indications of change, which I think will make the crony capitalists and the fixers a bit more careful and hopefully lead to a gradual decline.With the reduction of these underhand deals, it forces the government to level the playing field.
Also the recent downturn in the economy and the decline of the Rupee, the government has realized it cannot arbitrarily change the rules, (such as changing a law with retroactive effect going back to fifty years) and expecting it not to have any impact. This made both the foreign and increasingly the honest large Indian business houses nervous and all exercised their the option to invest elsewhere.The rules are now being changed and the economic situation is now stabilizing.
The most visible and forceful impact on unearthing the the links between the government andthe business groups, has been the former Controller and Auditor General of India. Under the guidance of a career bureaucrat who was probably appointed to the job because the government probably thought he would be someone who would toe the line. Yet once he stepped into the job, he highlighted the mis-deeds of the politicians, the bureaucrats and the business.With the help of the media a a series of "favored" deals were highlighted and the government was forced to take action. Where the government hesitated or public interest groups or individuals such as Subramanium Swamy and Prashant Bhusan or a Non Governmental Organization stepped in and went to court. They are not afraid to take on the government and the courts have taken cognizance and pressurized the government to investigate the charges and report to the courts. This would not have happened in the past. Things would have been swept under the carpet.
In my blog of July 16th, I had mentioned that on July 3rd the Supreme Court had ruled that convicted legislators should not be allowed to attend the state or central legislators. Recently there were two prominent politicians were expelled. This is a giant step as 1460 Members of Parliament & Member of the State Legislative Assemblies have criminal cases against filed against them. The legal process being what it is in India, it took close to twenty years for these two politicians to be convicted and finally removed.Politicians from all parties tried hard to submit a ordinance to the President which would over ruled the judgement , but facing a huge surge of public opinion against that, it was withdrawn. The impact of this is that convicted felons will no longer grace the halls of parliament and legislature.
The second significant event is the passing of the Right To Information Act. This was passed a few years ago.While not universally successful throughout India, the common man is increasingly using it to seek information from the the government as to why a particular service is not being delivered ( for example why is it taking six months for his passport to be issued ?). Also details about government expenditure and stories are emerging about the misuse of funds by politicians and bureaucrats and reported in the media. Using the results, in some cases public interest litigation is being filed against the culprits.
The other battle which the government and the political parties are fighting is to keep political donations out of the ambit of the Right To Information by introducing a bill. It will be interesting to see if this eventually gets passed or will the government be forced to withdraw it because of public opinion ?
The third significant tool to root out corruption which is battling its way, with strong opposition is the Jan Lokpal Bill.or the Citizens Ombudsman Bill. It is effectively a Anti-Corruption, Grievance Redressal And Whistleblower Protection Bill. Since 1963 attempts have been made to introduce this bill but is bitterly opposed or attempts are made to water it down so as to dilute its effectiveness. In my opinion it will be passed within the next political term.
The fourth item which is having an impact is the gradual implementation of E-governance. Almost all of the states have started this initiative with Gujarat leading the way. This ranges from speedy delivery of public services to passport issuance to public sector tendering of projects to the issuance of bio-metric Aadhaar cards which ensures that the needy have some identity which enables them to claim the benefits and open bank accounts. While these are far from perfect and it will take some time to be truly effective, the Economic Times of 29th October reported that over a billion e-governance transactions have been consummated
With the Supreme Court ruling, the Right to Information and the Jan Lokpal Bill ( once passed), the continued implementation of e-governance, you will see the cleansing of the Indian system starting to happen.
On the political front, activist Arvind Kejriwal has launched his own party with its candidates being selected in a transparent manner and strictly adhering to the Election Commissioners rules on expenditure. Having started less than a year ago, it has made substantial in-roads in the capital. Based on initial surveys it is expected that it might end up playing the role of a king maker. It will be an embarrassment to both the political parties.
As Gurcharan Das a management consultant and former head of Procter & Gamble India, had mentioned in one his presentation that when the middle class reaches close to fifty percent, they start playing an active role in demanding a change in the how the country is run. While we might have not reached that level yet, the middle class is becoming increasingly vocal and active in expressing their unhappiness, such as the recent rape cases in Delhi and Mumbai,
The media is of course playing an active role in highlighting the crimes, the mis-deeds, but the bias appears to be towards the urbanized middle-class. Nevertheless even at the state level if the perpetrator is a politician, a relative of the politician or a high level bureaucrat, the media picks it up and this forces the police and the state to take action.In the past this would have not even be brought to light.
All this does not mean to say that we can expect better governance, better security, better services being provided by the government departments in the immediate future, but as pressure is being put to make their operations more transparent, they will gradually have to start delivering. The change will be gradual, but the pace of change is going to start picking up.
In a recent book "The Party " I am reading about China the author mentions that in terms of economic development,what China has been able to achieve in thirty years, it took the United Kingdom and the United States a century, but do we want to follow in China political model?
Its bad enough having our own dynastic rulers, but shall we replace this with a non-transparent system which every decade or so, foists some unknown party leader as our ruler - although even in China the dynastic approach seems to be seeping in through the appointment of sons and grandsons of Mao's closest comrades, commonly referred to as princelings, being appointed to senior positions.
While I did not anticipate some of these changes during my life time, I am a bit more optimistic now and feel that we will start to see some of these happening in my lifetime. After all I did see these radical changes happening over a period of two to three decades in the city of states Hong Kong and Singapore where I lived. I recognize that India is on a different scale, but it has been more than fifty years since independence. All it takes is for good governance to start from the top and you will be amazed at how quickly it filters down I hope that I will live to see the day.
