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A
large-sized district in India is larger than about eighty
nation-states in the world in terms of population. Size-wise, most
of our larger states would compare easily with the large nations
of the world. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and West Bengal,
each would be the largest nation in Europe if independent. Even a
truncated Uttar Pradesh would be the world’s sixth largest
nation! Given these mind-boggling demographic realities, coupled
with unmatched diversity, our centralised, somewhat imperial style
of governance is archaic and ineffective.
An incident during British Raj some 80 years ago illustrates the
absurdity of over-centralisation in a democratic polity in the 21st
century. Chittaranjan Das, the great Bengali patriot, was elected
as mayor of the newly constituted Calcutta municipal corporation
in 1924. Das argued with the then British authorities that as the
head of the elected local government he should have the right to
appoint the chief executive officer (commissioner) of the city
government. The British offered him the services of any ICS
officer he chose. Das declined and won the right to appoint his
own official. He then picked a bright young 27-year-old as the
commissioner. He was none other than Subhash Chandra Bose!
The story did not end there. Bose did an outstanding job as the
city administrator and gained wide recognition in a few months.
Several months later, he was arrested as a suspected terrorist and
detained in Alipore Jail. CR Das again insisted that Bose did a
great job, the charges against him were unrelated to his work as
the city official, and the elected local government could not be
denied his services. Amazingly, the colonial government relented,
and directed that Bose should continue as the commissioner even
while in custody! Files were sent to him in jail, and his orders
were carried out. This extraordinary practice continued until Bose
was exiled to Mandalay in Burma. Bose went on to become Mayor of
Calcutta in 1930, and later Congress President in 1938 and 1939.
Today, the elected local government of even a ‘B’ grade
municipality enjoys no such autonomy, let alone the great
metropolis like Kolkata or Mumbai. One of the paradoxes of
democratic India is that our governance is far more centralised
than in colonial India or communist China.
Distortions of
centralisation
This
centralised exercise of power led to several inevitable political
consequences. At the macro level, when we examine a whole state or
the country, the electoral verdicts do broadly reflect public
opinion. More often than not, this verdict is a reflection of the
people’s anger and frustration and is manifested in the
rejection vote, or their support to a leader, promise or platform.
However, at the local level, caste or sub-caste, crime, money and
muscle power have become the determinants of political power. All
parties are compelled to put up candidates who can muster these
resources in abundance in order to have a realistic chance of
success. While political waves are perceived around the time of
election or afterwards, at the time of nomination of candidates
all parties are uncertain about their success and would naturally
try to maximise their chances of success at the polls by choosing
those candidates who can somehow manipulate or coerce the voters.
As a net result, irrespective of which party wins, the nature of
political leadership and quality remain largely the same, and the
people end up being losers. This is then followed by another
rejection vote in the next election and the vicious cycle keeps
repeating itself. Where the candidate cannot muster money or
muscle power, he stands little chance of getting elected
irrespective of his party’s electoral fortunes. Increasingly, in
several pockets of the country, people are spared even the bother
of having to go to the polling station. Organised booth capturing
and rigging are ensuring victory without people’s involvement.
There is much that is wrong with our elections. Flawed electoral
rolls have become a menace. About 40 per cent errors are noticed
in electoral rolls in many urban areas, and bogus voting in towns
exceeds 20 per cent, making our elections a mockery. Purchase of
votes through money and liquor, preventing poorer sections from
voting, large scale impersonation and bogus voting, purchase of
agents of opponents, threatening and forcing agents and polling
personnel to allow false voting, booth-capturing and large scale
rigging, bribing polling staff and police personnel to get favours
and to harass opponents, use of violence and criminal gangs,
stealing ballot boxes or tampering with the ballot papers,
inducing or forcing voters to reveal their voting preferences
through various techniques including ‘cycling’ etc., illegally
entering the polling stations and controlling polling process all
these are an integral part of our electoral landscape. No wonder
the Election Commission estimate that more than 700 of the 4,072
legislators have a criminal record!
Many scholars wonder how, despite massive irregularities, the
electoral verdicts still reflect public opinion, and how parties
in power often lose elections. The answers are simple. Happily for
us, though parties in power are prone to abusing authority for
electoral gains, there has never been any serious state-sponsored
rigging in most of India. The irregularities are largely limited
to the polling process alone, and most of the pre-polling
activities including printing and distribution of ballot papers,
and post-polling activities including transport and storage of
ballot boxes and counting of ballots are free from any political
interference or organised manipulation. That is why parties in
power have no decisive advantage in manipulating the polls, and
electoral verdicts broadly reflect shifts in public opinion.
However, the massive irregularities in polling process make sure
that candidates who deploy abnormal money and muscle power have a
distinct advantage. Sensing this, most major parties have come to
nominate ‘winnable’ candidates without reference to their
ability and integrity. Thus, almost all the parties sanction the
use of money power and muscle power, and often they tend to
neutralise each other. The net result is that candidates who do
not indulge in any irregularity have very little chance of being
elected. Election expenditure – mostly for illegitimate
vote-buying, hiring of hoodlums and bribing officials – is often
ten or twenty times the ceiling permitted by law. Criminals have a
decisive or dominant influence on the outcome in many parts of
India, and have often become party candidates and won on a large
scale.
Why
do people take money to vote?
In
a large and complex country like India, it is impossible for the
national or state legislatures to fairly or effectively represent
the people and all shades of public opinion. Given the largeness
of constituencies and complexity of elections, there will always
be a tendency to abuse public office or resort to vote-buying.
Even with the best will, and the most comprehensive electoral
reforms, in a poor country many voters are often swayed by the
inducement of money and liquor. The most credible citizens are
discouraged from contesting as long as voters expect money to
exercise their franchise. In order to address this question we
should first understand why the citizens are selling their vote
for money.
This habit of taking money to vote is actually a rational response
to an irrational situation. It is often tempting to blame the
illiterate and poor citizens for this plight of our democracy.
But, in reality, it is the democratic vigour and enthusiastic
participation of the countless poor and illiterate voters which
has sustained our democracy so far. However, most people have
realised with experience that the outcome of elections is of
little consequence to their lives in the long run. As a net result
of several distortions, elections have lost their real meaning as
far as people are concerned. If, by a miracle, all winners in an
election lose, and all their immediate rivals are elected instead,
there will still be no real improvement in the quality of
governance. This remarkable inertia and the seeming intractability
of the governance process have convinced citizens that there is no
real long-term stake involved in electoral politics. Therefore,
many poor citizens are forced to take a rational decision to
maximise their short-term gains. As a result, the vote has become
a purchasable commodity for money or liquor. More often, it is a
sign of assertion of primordial loyalties of caste, religion,
group, ethnicity, region or language. Very often, without even any
material inducement or emotional outburst based on prejudices, the
sheer anger against the dysfunctional governance process makes
most voters reject the status quo. Often, this rejection of the
government of the day is indiscriminate and there is no rational
evaluation of the alternatives offered. In short, even the
illiterate, ordinary voter is making a rational assumption that
the vote has no serious long-term consequences and the choice is
between Tweedledom and Tweedledee. Therefore, he is attempting to
maximise his short-term material or emotional gain!
Link
between vote and public good
This
situation can be corrected only when the citizen appreciates the
link between his vote and public good. If the local elected
representative has no alibis for non-performance, then vote
acquires a new meaning. If the school, road, drain, water-supply,
traffic regulation, land records, health centre and a myriad other
public services are directly the responsibility of the elected
government at the local level, then people see that who they elect
has a tremendous bearing on what happens after the elections. Such
a situation is possible when the local governments – panchayats
or municipalities – are truly empowered, and authority is
exercised as close to the citizen as possible in an accountable
manner. When there is a clear link between their vote and public
good, and when tax monies are directly transferred to the public
services, then people start using we vote as an effective tool to
make fine political judgements and elect suitable representatives.
The 73rd and 74th Amendments to the
Constitution merely created local governments. It is now mandatory
to create panchayats and municipalities, to hold regular
elections, to have a State Election Commission and State Finance
Commission. However, in the absence of constitutionally mandated
entrustment of responsibilities, local governments are at the
mercy of the state legislatures. The state governments are often
wary of parting with powers and functions. The Eleventh and
Twelfth Schedules of the Constitution are merely recommendatory
and many state laws have violated the spirit of the Constitution.
These provisions do not have the force of the Seventh Schedule,
which clearly demarcates the functional jurisdiction of the Union
and States. It is therefore necessary to clearly demarcate the
functions of local governments constitutionally on par with the
Seventh Schedule, and to ensure that the required resources and
control of public servants are entrusted to the local governments.
Only then can representative government be truly democratic,
accountable and effective.
State
legislators vs. local governments
Another
important and unhappy consequence of a parliamentary executive and
unaccountable executive power in the hands of state legislators is
the severe weakening of local governments. A local legislator
whose sole preoccupation is local political patronage often sees
the elected local government as a serious rival encroaching into
his territory. As local governments have been at the mercy of
state legislatures until 1993, in most states local governments
either did not exist or, when constituted, they tended to be
feeble and ineffective. The states rarely showed any degree of
commitment to transfer resources, functions and control over
functionaries to local governments. As the state’s political
executive owes its survival entirely to elected legislators’
good will and support, it is but natural that local governments
would not be allowed to take roots against the will of the
legislators whose dominance is threatened by empowered local
governance. This situation underwent marginal change after 1993,
with the advent of the 73rd and 74th
Constitutional amendments. However, given the reluctance of the
states, these amendments did not result in truly empowered and
effective local governments. The Constitution now only ensures
that local governments are constituted, elections are held
regularly, panchayats and municipalities are not superseded
en masse, and independent constitutional bodies are appointed to
monitor elections and advise on financial devolution. However, the
Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules of the Constitution have no
mandatory force and the state legislatures are free to transfer
such subjects and powers as they deem fit to local governments.
Given the political realities of legislators’ unaccountable and
disguised executive powers, most states chose not to empower local
governments effectively. Even the constitutional obligations of
constituting local governments and holding regular and periodic
elections are violated with impunity, by employing a variety of
disingenuous and undemocratic devices and stratagems.
Fiscal
responsibility and local governance
It
is now common knowledge that India is in the grip of a severe
fiscal crisis. The combined fiscal deficit of the union and state
governments is of the order of about ten per cent of the gross
domestic product. As borrowings are diverted to meet the revenue
deficits, and as interest burden on the exchequer keeps
increasing, the crisis is deepening. While the economic dimensions
of the crisis are well understood, it is often not recognised that
this is largely a governance crisis. Fiscal deficits can only be
addressed by significant increase in revenues or reduction in
costs. Revenues can be raised painlessly only by very high,
sustained growth rates. As our infrastructure is weak and
inadequate, and as the productive potential of the bulk of the
population is shackled on account of low levels of literacy and
poor health care, there cannot be rapid growth on sustained basis.
To overcome these obstacles we need both resources and governance
reform to effectively implement policies. The more painful way of
increasing revenues is higher taxation. As much of the tax revenue
and public expenditure do not result in realisable public goods
and services, citizens resist and evade high taxation. With
rampant corruption in a centralised governance structure, there
cannot be tax compliance in high-tax regime, nor is high taxation
politically feasible in a liberal democracy without tangible
improvement in public services and community assets. Another way
of raising resources is privatising public undertakings, but our
record and the difficulties encountered indicate that it is
unlikely that significant revenues can be raised from public
sector sales.
There are two ways of reducing public expenditure – reduction of
wage bill and elimination of subsidies. Savings through wage
reduction or retrenchment of employees are very hard to
accomplish. In a centralised governance structure, no government
has the power or will to antagonise the vast army of employees. In
any case, the problems with public employment are not the
excessive number of workers and high wages, but the wrong
deployment and lack of accountability. We have too many support
staff and too few teachers and health workers, and where public
employment is in the right sectors, there is hardly any effective
delivery of services. Subsidies cannot be eliminated unless the
beneficiaries are satisfied that the money so saved is improving
the quality of their lives in some other manner. In centralised
structures where such a link is not visible, desubsidisation is
difficult. All these factors make our fiscal crisis a highly
intractable problem in our centralised governance model.
This fiscal crisis can be addressed only through effective and
far-reaching decentralisation of power and citizen-centred
governance. People would elect better representatives and attach
value to the vote in a mature and responsible way when their vote
is directly and locally linked to public good. We accept tax
burden voluntarily only when we see the link between the taxes we
pay and the public services we receive locally. Finally, the vast
army of employees can be redeployed from areas where they are
redundant to sectors where they are needed only in local
governance. Once employees are available in the needed sectors and
institutions, they perform satisfactorily only when they are
accountable to the local people, and when authority and
accountability are together.
Citizen
empowerment and subsidiarity
All
this clearly establishes the need for effective local
representation and empowered local governments. We should
recognise that all politics is ultimately local, and the citizen
is the centre of our political universe. In our democracy the
spirit of the Constitution envisages that true sovereignty vests
in the citizens. Therefore, citizen-centred governance based on
the principle of subsidiarity should be the norm. The fundamental
failure of our representation and governance so far has been
because of the high degree of centralisation delinking the citizen
from governance. In a rational and democratic model of
representative democracy, it should be recognised that the citizen
and his family occupy centre-stage. Most decisions that affect the
happiness and well being of individuals are taken by the citizens
and their families. The state comes into the picture only when the
citizens’ actions have a bearing on others’ lives, or when
common goods and services need to be provided for economies of
scale or to harmonise relations between individuals and groups.
The first focus of governance in such matters should be the local
community of stakeholders who have a common interest in a service
or institution. For instance, the parents of children who attend
the same school, the farmers whose lands are irrigated by the same
source, the consumers who obtain essential commodities from a
ration shop, or the producers who sell their product in a market
constitute such stakeholders’ groups. To the extent feasible,
the responsibility for organising and managing these services
should be entrusted to these and other stakeholders’ groups.
Many public goods and services do not have clearly defined
stakeholders. The people at large would need such services from
time-to-time. Therefore, such tasks should be entrusted to local
governments. Such local governments should have adequate functions
entrusted to them, and commensurate resources should be devolved
on them. All the public servants dealing with those functions
should be clearly and fully accountable to such local governments.
The state government should be responsible for limited tasks which
necessitate economies of scale, or coordination and sharing among
several local governments, or involve complex technical or
managerial issues. Finally, the union should be entrusted with
those national tasks which cannot be fulfilled at state and local
levels.
This principle of subsidiarity should inform all our
representative and democratic institutions. Not only is it a
democratic necessity, but it is also a fiscal and economic
imperative. Good governance in a democratic society is not
possible in centralised structures. Therefore, our representative
democracy needs to be reorganised facilitating the growth and
empowerment of local governments and stakeholders. The insipid
uniformity and stultifying central control are inimical to
democracy, economic prosperity, release of human potential, social
justice and good governance. This restructuring demands giving
mandatory status to the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules of the
Constitution on par with the Seventh Schedule. We should also
evolve mechanisms for devolution of sufficient resources and
effective control of employees at each level commensurate with
their functions.
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