An open letter to our leaders on corruption
“We are a small group of like-minded citizens who are concerned with the general deterioration in the overall value system of the nation, but have abiding belief and commitment in India’s potential and prospects as a successful democracy.
“We are a fraction of a very large number of Indians who, we believe, share our hopes and aspirations but have no means to channel their views and opinions in India’s public domain.
“In the last few months, the country has witnessed eruption of a number of egregious events, thanks to an active media eagerly tracking malfeasance. There are, at present, several loud and outraged voices, in the public domain, clamouring on these issues which have deeply hurt the nation.
We do not wish to add to the confusion by joining that debate. What we are deeply worried about is not to allow India’s huge growth potential and poverty alleviation challenges to be diluted or digressed from, and which would be a great loss, especially to the poor and the dispossessed.
“Our aim is to try and rise above the present clamour and seek a more confident and purposeful national environment.
“As concerned citizens, who have full confidence in the country’s ability to reach its social and economic development potential, and who have a deep and abiding faith in India’s prospects for a vibrant, pluralist and successful democracy, we have put down a few thoughts.
“This letter is the beginning of our aim to develop specific actions and recommendations which shall be placed in the public domain, from time to time.
“We are alarmed at the widespread governance deficit almost in every sphere of national activity, covering government, business and institutions. Widespread discretionary decision making have been routinely subjected to extraneous influences.”
The topmost responsibility of those at the helm of the nation’s affairs must be to urgently restore the self-confidence and self-belief of Indians in themselves and in the State, as well as in Indian business and public institutions which touch the lives of every Indian.
“The judiciary is a source of some reassurance but creation of genuinely independent and constitutionally constituted regulatory bodies, manned by persons who are judicially trained in the field concerned, would be one of the first and important steps to restore public confidence.
“Possibly, the biggest issue corroding the fabric of our nation is ‘corruption’. This malaise needs to be tackled with a sense of urgency, determination and on a war footing.
“The institution of Lok Ayuktas, vested with adequate powers, would go a long way in effecting the needed correction, as is evident from the example of Karnataka.
“There is a need for every State to have effective and fully empowered Lok Ayuktas and, indeed, for early introduction of the Lok Pal Bill at the national level, for the purpose of highlighting, pursuing and dealing with corruption issues and corrupt individuals.
Apart from speedily installing independent Lok Ayuktas, it is essential that their investigative agencies and law enforcing bodies should be made independent of the executive.
“Amongst several urgent steps needed, this is possibly the most critical one that the nation can immediately initiate in order to reassure its citizens that corruption will be most severely dealt with, both at the branch and at the root level.
“Time is overdue for India’s elected representatives to distinguish between dissent and disruption, while in the era of coalitions, tolerance of compromise still remains a challenge.
“Elected legislators and leaders must acknowledge and demonstrate their collective role and responsibility in restoring a sense of purpose and confidence in national institutions.
“It is widely acknowledged that the benefits of growth are not reaching the poor and marginalised sections adequately due to impediments to economic development.
This is because of some critical issues like environmental concerns and differences in perspectives between central and state governments.
“It is imperative to establish ways and means, for every Indian, to feel that they have genuine equal opportunities, access to decision makers and a stake in India’s progress.
“Dealing determinedly with governance and aggressively against corruption, while openly debating these issues by elected legislators is the only means left to reassure our citizens.
“We believe that through urgent, concerted action in which we are ready to lend a hand, positive change can be achieved.”
Signed: Anu Aga, Ashok Ganguly, Jamshyd Godrej, Bimal Jalan, Keshub Mahindra, Yezdi Malegam, Nachiket Mor, M Narasimham, Deepak Parekh, Azim Premji, B N Srikrishna, N Vaghul, A Vaidyanathan, Sam Variava.
(January 17, 2011).
Published all the Newspapers in India on Jan 18th
Note; A group of 14 educated but normal citizens of the country drafted a response to the open letter and circulated among the variety of the Newspapers yet none of the Newspapers published the same. The media is an important check on governance and normal citizens in India find it extremely difficult to voice their concerns using the print media today. You have to be distinguished already to have your point of views published even if the issue is burning. This is an open invitation to Newspapers being published in India to publish the response to the open letter. The 14 distinguished citizens have raised an important and pertinent point and at least the debate must continue. The response is as below; The main point being discussed is; Is compalining enough? Does any one have a plan to ensure right, Just and efficient Governance?
‘An open letter to the ‘Group of 14 distinguished citizens’ from a ‘group of 14 ordinary citizens’
Respected Madam/Sirs,
It was heartening to read your letter sent to the prime minister on the issue of corruption and ‘governance deficit’. Let us congratulate you all for daring to do so. It is always a group of minority which shakes the conscience of the people and leads the civilization from darkness to light. No nation has ever achieved anything substantial without an enlightened and ethically pure leadership. We do not need to go too far back in history. Hundred years back, the best of the enlightened souls ethically elevated, ready to self abnegate themselves at the call of the nation came together and achieved independence.
Today, we do not know where are we heading for? We are either in the process of becoming a big power or in the process of self degradation/ self dissolution. Let us leave the verdict to the court of history. But as your letter suggests the historical conjuncture is such that we need to act immediately to restore morality and probity in public life and thereby the legitimacy of the democratic institutions. We think, all of you will agree with us that the common man has started losing his/her faith in the democratic institutions. If it continues, the day is not far when common man will start disrespecting and eventually disobeying the democratic institutions. Before it gets too late we think you fourteen are a substantial force to initiate the process of the desired change. We are very sure, none of you is so naïve to believe that writing a letter to the prime minister will suffice the purpose.
To our mind, the “cause of all causes” for all the ills of the country is the lack of national character and the colonial nature and structure of state and polity. Let us accept honestly that our education system hardly contributes in building the character of pupils. Let us also accept that we have not restructured the colonial state as per our needs after independence. In other words, at the ‘archaeological level’, Indian state still remains colonial. And it is the structure which determines or generates the events. Stashing away money in Swiss and other offshore banks is a stark example of it .Now let us see how our ‘Deep Structures’, the structures of the Longue Duree remain colonial.
Let us take the case of education system. With the establishment of colonial power English replaced Persian, as Persian had replaced Sanskrit/Pali in the medieval age, as the language of Science and Civilization. In the last sixty years English has remained the language of Science and State. The result is dual education system – the one for the praetorians and the other for the plebeians, the one for primary and secondary education and the other for the higher education. The end result of this dual education system has been that modernization through education right, since independence, has been confined to a sub-culture of college and university educated youth and elite and never did become a mass phenomenon. Secondly, the ‘merit’ generated for the professions has been limited to the few.
Thus the dual education system not only confined the Enlightenment project within the four walls of the colleges and universities but also generated ‘merit’ in the system in a limited number so that ‘rent’ can be earned. By restricting the spread and teaching of English, short supply of teachers, doctors and other professionals has been created and maintained in perpetuity. Short supply in turn creates the conditions of possibility to fetch rent.
In the Indian educational system, it is only the two percent of the population which competes among themselves for the jobs in state, universities and industries. It is only the best of the two percent and not the best of hundred percent which serves the state, universities and industries The end result of confining competition among the two percent is that sub standard professionals are ruling the roost in politics, universities and industries. In a democracy, it was the best way of disqualifying the majority from participating in the competitions for the white-collared jobs and wider political and social arena. We think this is the cause causi for India not being able to produce globally competitive personnels in proportion to its share in global demography.
A further effect of inequality of education has been the perpetuation of income inequality. India has one of the highest Gini co-efficients in the world i.e. 0.69. Educational inequality has also led to unequal growth in the productivity of labor and thereby highly skewed income distribution. The majority of developing countries have less educational inequality than India.
Colonial legal system in terms of codes and courts persisted in independent India with an extravagant tenacity. Today Indian courts are in serious crisis because of overload of cases. Indian courts are overburdened because of the colonial nature of procedural codes - civil and criminal. There are four causes which contribute to the mounting arrear of cases in Indian courts (1) government caused delays (II) courts caused delays, (III) bar caused delays, and (IV) litigant caused delays. These four causes are inheritance of the colonial rule. Colonial rulers had no intention of delivering justice; their ulterior motif was simply to keep the litigants engaged. We have been totally indifferent to change this colonial legacy precisely because we too do not intend to deliver justice. The very failure of the adjudicative system has contributed to the rise in litigiousness. People, more often than not, go to the court not in order to secure relief or vindicate rights but with the objective of harassing the adversary. As far as codes are concerned, there are many laws in the statute book which have either outlived their utility or the state is in no position to implement them. Thus we have a judiciary in India where the courts and the codes, both are assailed, threatened or are in crisis precisely because Indian legal system still remains colonial in form and content both.
The structure of colonial politics has not only remained unbruised but has gained strength since independence. The colonial strategies of subjugating the masses were very simple. It was to exploit the social divisions prevalent in the society. After the first war of independence in 1857, British had realized that the key to consolidating power in India was to keep the Hindus and Muslims, the two large communities at cross-swords with each other. It was in order to perpetuate a political schism between the two communities that the British brought the system of reservation by introducing separate electorates for the Muslims. The element of reservation imported into the structure of Indian polity continued even after independence and thus reservation is an element of the country’s political structure of the Longue Duree’.
That is how reservation has come to be the ‘Politicians’ Stone’ for the political elite of India. The carrot of reservation is just one example of independent india’s continuation of British style of politics. The other is institutionalization of communalism. Communalism is an element of Longue Duree in the political structure of the country. The British had proved its efficaciousness.
In polity, Congress followed the Brahmanical model of divine kingship by birth. The result of perpetuating the rule of one family was that Congress in the course of time gradually lost its mass character and became a party of a few select families. This transformed the Congress at the ‘Archaeological level’ from a party of the masses to a party of mammons. A democratic Congress turned into an aristocratic Congress. In Congress, democracy means superiority of the part over the whole. For example, the interest of one family, Nehru-Gandhi is paramount over the interests of other families. There is a possibility of circulation among the few families, but there is no possibility of replacing the one – the ‘supreme’, the ‘divine’. Similarly the interests of the few families are paramount over the interests of the Congress, and Congress interest is paramount over the interests of the country. This is Congress hierarchy of interests. In other words, the ‘Deep Structure’ of Congress is Pars pro toto – substituting the part for the whole. Other parties followed suit. Congress has already entered the phase of tamas –eo ipso, its final dissolution in the days to come. The second stream of Indian politics is BJP, reincarnation of Jan Sangh. BJP is the bearer of unalloyed Brahmanism - a new version of Congress. The third stream of Indian politics is communism. By now, communists have outlived their utility and have nothing to offer because they can not go for ideological reproduction.
All three streams of politics, - Congress, BJP and Communists have outlived their utility and are no more in a position to lead the country in the new century which demands a new outlook and approach. At the moment the country has lost all hopes and the sense of direction. To our mind, the greatest threat to our country is neither china, nor terrorism, nor naxalism but the opportunistic political class which has emerged in independent India. Unless we replace this political class, nothing substantial can be achieved. The mere discourse - that India is on the threshold of emerging as a great power, is not going to make India a great power. What we need at this juncture of history is a new political formation with an ideological and programmatic orientation which serves the needs and desires of our people and at the same time exploits the opportunities thrown by the ‘third wave’ of technological revolution. To make India a superpower, a clear vision and a new agenda is indispensable, which can remove the existing bottlenecks and road blocks in the path of this great civilization to occupy its worthy place in the community of nations.
You have concerns, we have ideas – a vision and an agenda for a resurgent India and we are sanguine that the future belongs to us.
Dear Sirs, we are still on the other side of the Rubicon. Let us have the courage to cross it. Otherwise, we are afraid, since the court of history favours none; you and we are going to be condemned.
Thanking You!
1. Dr. MUNINDRA 2. Dr. DEVENDRA SINGH 3. Dr. SHYAM ANAND JHA 4. SUNIL KUKSAL 5. Dr. SHAMBHU SINGH YADAV 6. Dr. PRADIP KR. SINGH 7. ANUJ SRIVASTAVA, 8. SHAILENDRA SANSANWAL, 9. Dr. DHIRENDRA B. SINGH 10. SHADAAB AHAMED, 11. Dr. S. N. SHASTRI 12. Dr.D.B SINGH, 13. RITESH SHUKLA 14. SHANKER ARNIMESH
