India’s Politics; a view from the back bench
By, Bimal Jalan (Ex governor RBI)

“What is more dangerous, the political corruption or the wide acceptability in the public that is an unavoidable feature of Indian politics?”

This book, in Bimal’s own words, is a sequel to the book ‘The future of India” reviewed already above thus it is obvious that the next book to be reviewed is the current one. Bimal was nominated to the Rajya Sabha as the Member of Parliament though this book has been written from the perspective of an informed citizen of India. The book elaborates lucidly about the role of the political leaders and political parties, which off course is not very flattering. Notable observation is how, in the wake of emergence of many regional parties, normal legislature is expensed with because the head of the party (small or big) has become too powerful and thus the political dynamics has undergone change which currently is not complying with the constitution. Mr. Jalan warns us, through this book, that if the citizens of India remain ignorant and complacent then they may have to pay too heavy a cost should some of the emerging trends not be reversed. It is possible that ‘Indian Democracy’ may turn oligarchic-i.e. ‘of the few and for the few’.

The world and a section of Indians are indeed praising India’s democratic achievement and economic rise, yet this book warns us that neither democracy nor economic resurgence could be taken for granted. Constant vigil by the people is of utmost importance should the people of India wish to enjoy the fruits of Democracy and economic progress. Governance, distribution of power among the agencies of the state, functioning of the political parties and the work of Parliament all needs to be reviewed periodically since al of them are in mess.

A federal and written constitution demands that the process of amendments is difficult so to ensure that the constitution is not stripped of its salient features. In the last 60 plus years we have witnessed 105 amendments (till the time the book was written). How many amendments the country folks are aware of? Have the amendments helped the country or the political hegemony is yet to be ascertained. It is high time we go beyond praising the sustainability of the democratic electoral system India has rather, which no doubt is a necessity, yet we need to ensure that this sustainability could be made to work for the betterment of the majority citizens of the country. Bimal, like a true optimist goes on to propose the political reforms since the political situation has undergone change due to multiplicity of political parties and coalition governments. Internal security has gone from bad to worse since the political supervision of the administration of public delivery is grossly inadequate. Indian democracy has just been able to elect kings and multiparty democracy has just enhanced the competition among many aspiring kings. The citizens come into picture only during elections and then they seize to exist. The poor which we boast of having in largest number in the world depend solely on the government controlled administration and public delivery systems which itself is in shambles since it is indifferent to the social priorities of the country.

Since Independence the rate of growth has been highest in the shape and the size of the government machinery, ministries and departments have multiplied uselessly, the five year plans have only launched loud programmes involving unimaginable sums of money. The money but has not been spent rather siphoned. Ministers have increased their role but nullified their accountability. Bimal has urged us to take a stock of political economic and security landscape of the country and take measure to strengthen our political system.

I ask Bimal and all the citizens of India, how do we do it? Shall we urge our political leaders? Will they take cognizance and change? What do we do if they don’t buzz? Shall we vote them out? Who do we chose then?

This book is a very aptly deliberates on Democracy vs dictatorship, politics of power, role of the parliament and the facade called collective accountability of cabinet and the apolitical nature of the civil service.

Let’s witness some excerpts from the book.

“There is no inherent contradiction between democracy and the ability of the government to generate high growth and alleviate poverty in reasonable time.”

“The economic tigers may be dictatorships but all dictators are no tigers”

“The peaceful co-existence of the power available to the people to elect their representatives and their continuing poverty has baffled…” all except the politician and the bureaucracy

“Why is it that the people continue to tolerate the widespread failure of public delivery systems in health, literacy, sanitation and basic civil facilities?”

“Politics is the most lucrative business in India with all the powers and no responsibility”

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The prime question Bimal is attacking through this book is “is politics in India losing its importance in the wake of economic exuberance (till the end of 2007) specifically in determining economic outcomes?” Bimal, through the five chapters in this book, is arguing that effective governance and responsible politics are of utmost importance in shaping India’s economic future. 

Poverty elimination is the biggest hurdle India stops short at and the effective policy around it has to be economic in nature but the solution to this problem has been consistently eluding us primarily because our governance has been ineffective and the politics has been extremely irresponsible. 

Bimal pin points that during the tenure of free India there have been three instances when the growth rate in India has been high resulting into exuberance about India’s long term economic future and everything looked very rosy. However, soon thereafter, the economy plunged into prolonged periods of low growth. Year 2004 is the recent example quoted when BJP government was ousted despite India shining plank and the general confidence collapsed leading to declining stock markets. In 1950’s India was seen as the leader among the developing nations of the world but in mid 60’s, after a bad drought, India had to beg for food aid from the US. Congress returned to power in 1971 in the wake of Garibi Hatao but hardly anything changed. Bimal educates us with the fact that the period during 1966 - 1980 is considered as the darkest period in the post independent India. In the first 15 years of post Independent India Industrial production witnessed a growth rate of 7.7% whereas it was 4% during the 1966 – 1980. During this period the annual growth was only 3%, population growth was more than 2% per annum and annual growth in per captia income was less than 1%. 1981-1990 things started inching up but 1991 brought with it the economic crisis in India when India had to mortgage gold to manage for the BOP crisis. It forced India to relieve itself from the red tape, license raj and all this is commonly known as the beginning of half hearted reforms. 

Please read this book to understand elaborative as to why India faces such swings in its economic performance. In a nutshell it is because of the lack of vision and concern on the part of the politicians governing India and corrupt bureaucracy administering India.

When I was reading this book the market was about to touch 21000 mark and it looked very unlikely that Indian economy would take a pause and today we can see for ourselves that the market is reduced to more than 50% of its peak value. The world is talking about recession and it looks India too will take time before it embarks upon into the boom phase again. It indeed is premature to ignore the role of the government in shaping the economic environment in the long term.

Bimal, like many writers on India, appreciates Indian democracy and yet laments with dissatisfaction with the actual functioning of the Democracy and its failure to deliver sufficient benefits to the people. This is what Bimal has to say on what Indian Democracy has been able to achieve so far for the people “…as soon as the elections are over, and a new government takes office (of whatever complexion and colour), the government becomes a power unto itself. The people’s interests tend to be overtaken by the power of special interests and distributional coalitions. These coalitions are generally more interested in influencing the distribution of wealth in their favour, rather than in the generation of additional output for the benefit of the public. Ministers and bureaucrats become authoritarian, self centered and autocratic…. Their accountability to the public is also more apparent than real- atleast until the next elections…. Politics itself has become an area where norms exist only in their breach. The very mechanism, designed to secure the liberty, well being and dignity of citizens, representative democracy, is routinely throwing up forces that threaten to undermine it; the very laws that are supposed to enshrine republican aspirations are incapable of commanding respect, and their inaction subjects the entire political process to ridicule. The corruption, mediocrity, indiscipline, venality and lack of moral imagination of the political class, those essential agents of representation in any democracy, make them incapable of attending to well being of citizens.”

The first chapter attempts to understand why the governments (which comes and goes) which are the tenants of the State (the sum of executive, judiciary and legislatures whose prime role is to ensure well being of the citizens) and that it should be working in tandem with the ideals of the State has failed miserably? It is because the governments are more representative of the political party or the coalition of the parties. These parties in turn represent the special interests of the select section of the society rather than the country as a whole.

The second chapter ‘The economics of non performance’ warns us of certain features which may impede India’s growth over the long run, despite upsurge in interests and confidence in India’s economy in the current era. Bimal states three factors which will primarily jeopardize India’s progress namely ‘deadweight of the past’, ‘the power of distributional coalitions’, and ‘the growing gap between economics and politics’.  How, please read the book.

The third chapter deals with crisis of governance in India. Bimal pronounces here plain and simple that the administrative in India is more or less non functional and unresponsive to the economic and social priorities of the country. It is rightly pointed out that the lower staff in the government service which is the majority is not only over weight but is compensated 2-3 times more than their skills deserve and the top brass which is a compensated way too low as compared to the private sector. The people above use unfair means to make extra money and the lower staff too does not miss any opportunity in coercing normal people leaving the whole machinery extremely corrupt,  ineffective and counter productive.

The next two chapters lucidly and elaborately deals with ‘demand and supply of corruption’ and the political reforms.

It is a cause of concern that people like Bimal who have so clear and better understanding of the economy, politics and governance yet they just stop at writing and do not lead from the front to change which is most desirable. Bimal has listed down some very good recommendations that should be implemented right away for the good of the majority of Indians but do we not know that these recommendations would remain closed in this book and that the legislatures and executors would not even look at them. Vast majority of the politicians would not even pick this book since they would not be able to make sense of a single sentence even though Bimal has written in very simple English and could be understood by any, all and sundry.

Witness these comments;

“It is increasingly evident that despite the spread of political democracy to all parts of India, which is a laudable achievement, a government’s performance in regard to the growth rate or alleviation of poverty is not an important factor in determining electoral outcomes.”

“At present, ministers such as those for rural development, water resources, health and anti poverty programmes are quick to announce ambitious annual or five year targets for the benefit of poor. However, no minister has actually been held accountable (or censured) for poor performance.”

“The shrinking role of parliament in the functioning of India’s democracy was eloquently demonstrated in on 26^th August 2004, when contrary to convention and well established rules of procedure, Parliament decided to suspend the question hour, and pass the regular budget involving an expenditure of more than 4,75,000 crore, and the finance bill without any discussion, within a few minutes. This was the result of the backroom agreement between the leaders of the government and the Opposition.”

“….in several crucial areas the political-economic balance in actual practice has turned out to be narrow and wasteful. How did the stranglehold of special interests last so long; where were the majority of the people who did not gain sufficiently from the economic bargaining process? The answer is not difficult to find. The simple fact is that the so called majority is fractured into large number of subgroups of individuals who are divided among themselves by several factors (such as caste, religion, location or occupation), while special interests are united in protecting their share of economic pie. …it is for example, the trade unions of employed persons that are likely to go on strike when their economic interests are threatened, rather than the vast majority of the unemployed across the country.”

“there is fundamental breach of the constitutional faith on the part of the governments and their method of governance lies in the neglect of people who are the ultimate source of all political authority. … there is thus , a loss of faith in the governments and governance. Citizens see their governments besieged by uncontrollable events and are losing faith in institutions.”

“According to a survey, at least six or more central ministries are involved in controlling or regulating every sector of the economy……. Take for example the matter of providing better sports facilities for young women in schools. A proposal to this effect would require consideration by practically all the divisions and organisations as it concerns women, sports, education, youth and perhaps welfare.”

The first book featuring in this section is “In Spite of Gods” By Edward Luce first published in the year 2006. Let’s check first what the distinguished readers have said about this book.

‘Remarkable… a comprehensive audit of modern India covering economics, politics, the bureaucracy and the police, diplomacy, religion with of course caste, entertainment – you name it, it is here……’ Mark Tuly

‘A deeply insightful account of contemporary India’ Professor Amartya Sen

‘Very thought provoking’ A.P.J Abdul Kalam

‘A perceptive and witty book that is set to become the definitive generalist’s account of India’s political, economic, and social development and it’s future prospects’

The Economist

I picked up a book by Shashi Tharoor with a revealing cover depicting a bare foot sadhu sitting on a TVS moped fiddling with his cell phone and the title of the book contained the word cellphone too. I would have not gone beyond 8-9 pages when Shashi started elaborating on this book called ‘In Spite of gods’ and the first thing I did next was to pick this book up. The book lived better than my expectation. The book is in first person with a lot of interviews with variety of who’s and who from different communities, politics, bureaucracy, and journalist’s etc. After having devoted a paragraph to the growing confidence and consumerism among the new found middle class of India this is what he says on the rest of the vast majority of Indians;

‘……..India remains home to more than a third of the worlds malnourished children (as defined by UN), and has an average life expectancy and literacy rate that lag pitfully behind many other developing countries, most glaringly China. Roughly 750 million of India’s 1.1 billion people continue to live in its 680,000 villages, almost half of which lack access to all weather roads, and countless number of which are not in reach of effective primary healthcare centers or competent elementary schools. Almost half of India’s women do not know how to read and write, and a large proportion of those who are technically literate can do little more than sign their name’.

It is not that majority of us do not know this fact and this is even more glaring that even after the knowledge of such stark and shameful reality we have not translated our frustration via the ballot box (we do not have much choice as well) and our political and bureaucratic nexus has some how ensured to work against their core duties to ensure that the vast majority of Indians keep on in the same situation as they have been. The status quo is favorable to the current breed of executives and the legislatures. When such a high base of population is ignorant and illiterate it is inevitable that majority of the elected representatives would be ignorant and incapable and add it up with the minority elite of the bureaucratic class whose main agenda is to live for itself at the cost of people of India. This is what an honest bureaucrat had to say in one of the interviews illustrated in the chapter called Burra Sahibs; “When I talk to left-wing friends……… the true exploiter class in India is the bureaucracy. About one or two percent of the population work for the government and they live off the people. These are your exploiters. If you look at the new recruits to the IAS they are worse than my generation. They want money straight away. They want to be wined and dined in the most exotic holiday resorts and they make no attempt to disguise their love of money.” The time has really gone from bad to worse as the previous age of IAS officers had at least the courtesy to disguise their love of money. Read this chapter further to see how the bureaucrats and politicians are fattening on the blood of poor people from the slums of urban areas or the villages of rural areas.

Go to the next chapter to have a stroll around and inside the bungalow addressed 27 lodhi estate New Delhi, the official residence of Amar Singh, or witness the uproar when Mulayam Singh appointed the second most corrupt bureaucrat as his chief secretory, or observe the election turn contest between two mafia gangs both belonging to parties such as BSP and SP who swear for the upliftment of dalit and the minorities. Dalit and minorities keep on jostling with their miserable situation and these representatives are racking moolah in the name of social upliftment.

Next three chapters are devoted to sycophants called Hindu nationalists, secularists called congress and Deoband school of islam. Have you heard of biofuturology? There are two ways to know about it one by reading the fourth chapter of this book called the ‘Imaginary horse’ or visit the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. You will get to feel enlightened by their interpretation of History. Those of you think Hindu community is peaceful and benevolent by nature and the state governments in India are protective of their citizens then you would like to witness the testimony of Jannat Sheikh to an independent legal inquiry after the Gujarat riots “ The mob caught my husband and hit him twice on his head with the sword. They then threw petrol in his eyes and burned him. My sister in law was stripped and raped. She had a three month old baby in her lap. They threw petrol on her and the child was thrown in the fire. My mother in law was unable to climb the stairs so she was on the ground floor with her four- year-old grandson. She told them to take away all the money and jewellery but to spare the children. They took the money and jewellery then they burned the children. Unmarried girls from my street were stripped, raped and burned. The police were on the spot but they were helping the mob”.

The perpetrators of such gruesome incidence could certainly not be called as hindus as those could not be called muslims who have perpetrated similar violent incidences. They are simply criminals but what do you do with the state machinery whose job is to nab the criminals but they help the same criminals?

After deliberating on the sycophancies of Congress Luce moves on to discuss the love of boy child in the so called immaculate Indian societies and the rampant foeticide specifically in the Northern and the western India. Punjab and Gujarat are supposedly the most prosperous states in India and they have the lowest female to male ratio. Gujarat has fewer than 900 women to every thousand men and Punjab has fewer than 800 women to every thousand men. Here is a question you would like to ponder on; “Just imagine, these people (Jains) have a religion that says you cannot even harm a fly or a microbe, and yet they are killing off about 15% of their daughters. How to explain this?” In 2001 there were 878 jain daughters to every 1000 jain sons. Gujarat has a worse gender ratio than even Pakistan and Bangladesh. Luce goes on to elaborate on the hypocrisy towards bollywood actresses as they should be sexy but conservative, and then the expensive evil called dowry and expenses incurred on marriages. On the issue of child labour witness these comments;

“When it came to the crunch, people from across the political spectrum, including Gandhians, disliked foreign capital more than they disliked child labour” Majority of child laborers are Hindu by religion but Hindu nationalists do not seem to have anything against it. May be they are too buisy buliding temple walls and demolishing deserted mosques.        

“The state has internalized the message of Bhagvad Gita – only intentions matter not the consequences”

“How else could one explain why a country which made education compulsory two generations ago should tolerate the daily absence of upto 40 million children from its schools?”

There is a chapter a chapter on the implications of relationship between India, China and US over the whole of the world in the 21^st century.

Finally a joke in the conclusion chapter “ India never misses an opportunity to miss an Opportunity” Luce goes on to say that India is currently suffering from pre mature triumphalism, believing it is destined to achieve greatness in the 21^st century without  having to do much to assist the process. A nation should surely be judged by how it treats its people, and not by how many people it has. The key to overcoming the problems lies in injecting a much greater sense of urgency into the mindset of India’s politico-bureaucratic elites.

This is where the problem lies. There seems to be no way how this urgency be injected in the existing politico-bureaucratic elites. The only way out seems to be by replacing this class by a new breed of professionals who can serve the country. It is easier to replace the current breed than injecting urgency in them. Let’s come together and replace them.

Do not miss the opportunity to unite and act at the earliest.