It is commonplace for us to complain about poor governance in India. Projects are not completed in time, promises are not kept, benefits do not reach beneficiaries.
I believe the solution for improving this poor state of governance is in empowering our elected representatives and expanding their number. I realize that this might be quite contrary to the prevailing (fashionable) mindset of disgust towards the incumbent politicians.
I believe that the key cause of inefficiency and ineffectiveness of governance is the fact that essentially nobody is responsible for good governance. Let me elaborate why:
Our first reaction towards poor governance (failed projects, sustenance of corruption, etc.) is to hold our elected representatives responsible. But the reality is that they hardly have any power. Even Narendra Modi, with all his supposedly dictatorial mgmt style, cannot choose his team. He must work with the same bunch of IAS, IFS, GAS, etc. officers that Gujarat has been bestowed with (by a body that reports neither to him nor to us the people). He cannot fire them; he cannot hire them; he cannot penalize or reward them with real performance incentives - he just has the limited ability of transferring them and maybe threatening them with pathetic assignments or dummy cases. He does not even have the ability to choose his ministers in charge of various departments - the finance minister must be an MLA popular in some constituency, while even a Nobel laureate in Economics is disbarred from being appointed!
The team given to ministers and the CM has lifetime job security. They will not even face any penalty for performing badly - in fact, they can indirectly threaten the minister to lose his department (and constituency) by choosing to ignore his directives. These "cadres" themselves form a power center, protecting each other from other layers, while within their layers, create a merit-less hierarchy. Seniority and authority must be given through age and time spent in service, and not on basis of effectiveness or service delivered.
It is not that these cadres have any authority either. Even the seemingly all-powerful IAS officers are forced to work with a team of much older and often motivation-less deputies, who are appointed entirely without his say, and also enjoy a lifelong job guarantee. Very often, the best an officer can do is insult or humiliate his subordinates, hoping (in vain) that maybe that the perceived fear might motivate his team, but his team is too smart to fall for that.
The ensuing result is that anyone in the chain can stop an initiative from succeeding, a project from completing. So the best our helpless-yet-responsible politicians can do is make some money at it while hearing their constituents' curses. We force them to make promises that they can't possibly keep, and them blame them when the inevitable happens. We do not give them authority, we do not pay them decently, we despise them and blame them for things beyond their control, and then we expect them to be honest and magically effective - are we that unrealistic and stupid?
Another reason for poor governance is the way authority is distributed. The city of Gandhinagar got a Municipal Corporation recently, but this corporation has hardly any authority to serve people - they cannot enact local laws, cannot spend for public welfare beyond a tight budget supported by meager taxes, cannot improve police security, cannot promote industries. How can this body be considered the authority over Gandhinagar? No wonder we never bother to remember who our councilor is!
In fact, given the deadlocked system, how can we even expect those councilors to do anything in our interest at all? Think of it, what motivation can these people possibly have?
I feel particularly disappointed at this situation because it has a simple solution, which we fail to follow - a solution proven and sustained over centuries at other countries, like the US:
The solution expects us to recognize the fact that we are a democratic nation. By definition, being a democracy implies that we must govern ourselves. We (through our representatives) must have complete direct authority to define our policies and priorities. We cannot be taken for a ride by a select few that passed a UPSC/GPSC examination. In fact, we must have authority to elect all senior officers - in the US, not just lawmakers, but even judges, public attorneys, police chiefs, heads of several departments, etc. are directly elected.
Hence the first step is to increase the range of positions that require getting elected to. Note that this need not be costly - these elections can easily be consolidated with others at fixed intervals by setting a chain of replacements. The US, over the past 200+ years, has not once required an emergency election of Congress or the President.
Thereafter, we must focus all executive authority to one Chief Executive. This CEO must be able to choose his/her team, ways of managing the team, ways of reporting, ways of managing projects and responsibilities, and so on. We must ensure that the CEO gets all the necessary flexibility and authority required to successfully fulfill the role we entrusted him/her. With this CEO in place, we are no longer victims of lack of accountability.
Next, we must set up systems to ensure that the CEO doesn't take us for a ride, say like Indira Gandhi did, or Narendra Modi might as some fear. We must maintain a set of basic guidelines and principles that our CEO cannot violate, and cannot modify without our direct and wholehearted consent. This set is what the "constitution" is supposed to offer. We must also set up checks to ensure that our CEO chooses appropriate people as senior colleagues - the way the board may have a say in appointing CFOs and EVPs and Presidents, an independently elected board (aka "legislature") (and not a politically appointed governor) must approve the CEO's appointments.
And finally, let us keep it our own business to determine the laws and objectives that the CEO should enforce and attain - the way shareholders elect a board to set the direction for the CEO, we should appoint this independent legislature.
At lower and more local levels, let us again set up similar structures, like say a council of directly-elected representatives that decide priorities for the city, and a CEO mayor that executes those priorities. Let us hold the board responsible if it charts bad priorities, and let us hold the CEO responsible if he/she fails to achieve the targets.
At the top few levels, we can maintain a decent critical body, like the shadow cabinet in the UK, or simply the opposition in the legislature, to continually monitor the role of the CEO and point out flaws that might go unnoticed. In today's age of information technology, the media can play that role even better than the opposition.
The system I have proposed has been proven to work and sustain. It will increase our faith in our representatives, because now they will be empowered to actually represent us. It will help our executives do their jobs, because they will not remain bound by rules (or appointees) that nobody really wanted in place.
Those of you who have bothered to read this write-up entirely: I ask you why we cannot or should not switch to the model I have suggested, and if you agree with me, suggest how we can manage this transition.
Hope to have your inputs!
