Niranjan Rajadhyaksha writes a good piece that India looks at all solutions only through the political and legal prisms and not through economic incentives. Fair point. In fact, very fair. In fact, in stating this point, Niranjan stumbles up on the real problem in India for policymakers who are inclined towards and open-minded about using economic incentives to change behaviour. That is, they are confronting a society that is not used to thinking along those lines and one that is still feudal – one that is moralistic, one that is feudal and not liberal. Niranjan’s piece can be read here.
In fairness, I must point out that Nitin Pai had pretty much made the same point by reiterating his case for second-generation reforms in his reactions to the Jan LokPal bill. His blog post can be seen here.
Since, by instinct, I lean towards economic incentives as Nitin and Niranjan do, I want to set up this crosscheck for myself. The criticism that Niranjan makes against India or Indians that we ignore economic solutions while putting political and legal solutions up in the front is valid. However, equally valid is the criticism that could be laid at his (or my) door is that we tend to think of economic incentives as the ‘catch-all’ cure for all societal ills. In other words, we – thinking like economists do – ignore the role of leadership and morality in public policy. It is hard to include them in economic policy-making models in an elegant way and hence, we tend to ignore them. But, that does not make them unimportant or irrelevant.
The reason why Anna Hazare has struck a chord among many Indians is this missing leadership factor. Any one providing moral leadership is given a long rope and have very few questions asked of them and that is why Mr. Hazare has not been subject to all the questions that Nitin and Niranjan are posing. It is unfortunate but understandable. To an extent, Ms. Madhu Kishwar’s piece plugs that gap.
She correctly questions the need for another body while many of the proposals of the administrative reform commissions would do the job that the LokPal is expected to do. It is appropriate that she brings up the administrative reform commissions proposals as a means of tackling bureaucratic and governmental corrruption. That may not be as intellectually fashionable as second generation economic reforms. But, to the extent that governments in India would exist with far-reaching powers and ability to affect ordinary people’s lives even after ten generations of economic reforms, it is important to put them on the table even ahead of economic reforms, as an anti-corruption tool. Madhu Kishwar’s piece can be read here.
Ashwini Kulkarni extends Madhu Kishwar’s reference to administrative reforms by calling for governance reforms and information capture and its public availability at every stage of the decision-making process, in this piece. That makes sense too.
But, back to Madhu Kishwar for one important point: she reminds Mr. Hazare of the unaccountablity of the self-appointed guardians of the civil society. There are double-standards in the civil society choosing its fellow travellers - shunning politicians while embracing equally or worse morally cuplable non-politicians.
My criticism of Mr. Hazare is that he has taken the easier route in directing people’s ire at an obvious target. People who are bestowed such leadership positions by public adulation should help the public turn the mirror on itself – do we violate traffic rules (f not, there is no reason to bribe the policeman for skipping a traffic signal), do we defecate or urinate in public, do we stand in a line (queue) for anything or more seriously, do we vote in elections. Leadership is about accepting personal responsibility and posing the hard questions of oneself and one’s own followers. In that sense, Mr. Hazare has failed. It is easier to ride the wrath of the public against politicians but it is a lot harder to use that leadership position to tell people of their own follies. If we change our behaviour before we demand it of others, that would transform them too, without us asking them to do so.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta alludes to this in his concluding paragraph of his piece which can be seen here:
His sacrifices should cause all of us to introspect. It should be in the service of self-transformation, not a vilification of political processes.
So, if the answers to administrative and political corruption are governance and administrative reforms, then Mr. Hazare and his core group should be demanding the following of the country’s political leadership:
(a) that the political leadership of the Congress, the BJP and that of State CMs commit to implementing the reform proposals of various Central and State Administrative Reform Commissions within a defnitive time-frame and
(b) to commit to updating the public about the implementation progress and timelines.
Equally, if not imore importantly, they should be asking the public to discharge their obligations starting with
(a) obtaining driving licenses after learning driving, observing traffic and driving rules
(b) not spitting or urinating or defecating in public places and in buildings,
(c) standing in a line and not jumping queues at airline check-in, at cinema ticket counters and in fast food outlets and
(d) participating diligently in democratic processes.
In other words, Mr. Hazare should remind his followers that India’s politicians simply mirror them with an imprtant exception that their powers enable them to be bigger images of the public. If he reads the comments that Sanjaya Baru’s piece and Mr. Raman’s piece have attracted, he should be more worried about his fans and about India’s future than the corrupt practices of India’s politicians.
Perhaps, I should undertake a fast-unto-death to force Mr. Hazare to accept these demands of mine?
But good sir, if Anna Hazara did indeed put forth these demands, then would the movement have been retained the sexiness(?) quotient that it has now ?
Is it only because of Anna Hazare’s popularity that this movement got such a wide support or was it also because of overtly-simple nature of message it seemed to deliver: that the problem of corruption exists today solely because of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. That might not necessarily be a problem with you, me or even the system that provides so much power to these people at the top ?
In other words, isn’t the success of the movement also a consequence of the fact that people prefer a simpler narrative and hence an simpler solution ?
I agree with your suggestions.( I haven’t yet read all the other pieces suggested by you). I’ve tried arguing with people around me on almost the same points, underlining JLP bill’s inherent flaws; coercive method adopted by Anna
and the need to shun corruption in our day-to-day lives if we really want to be rid of it. But, most people are ready to ‘face the consequences’and want to “give a chance to the JLP bill, then we’ll see !” Many are ‘for’ Anna because he is an ‘established’ Gandhian, not affiliated to any political or religious group and has no ‘selfish motive’. I suggest, you do undertake that fast, let’s see how Anna responds to it!( in lighter vein!).
I think a lot of intellectuals and political commentators are unduly harsh on Anna Hazare’s initiative and some (including you) are just raising the expectations that Anna Hazare’s movement should deliver. There seems to be an implicit implication that if Anna Hazare’s movement doesn’t cleanse every ill that India has, it has failed. I do not think that Anna Hazare made that sort of claim, hence such expectations imposed on him is unfair.
Anna Hazare’s movement just called to attention the fact that the Government was completely insincere with their efforts to create the Lok Pal bill. Their proposed bill was full of holes and would perhaps not achieved much purpose. I am not for the bill proposed by Anna Hazare either (as it has its own set of flaws), but with the government now firmly called to attention, a better bill will finally emerge after some debate and discussions which we all can live with.
While I am not condoning bribery or a dysfunctional administration or even the lackadaisical approach of citizens, one needs to remember that we are living through a period where scams of huge magnitude and corruption are known to all and yet the political establishment remain either oblivious or obfuscates the issue. Institutions like the CAG are under attack by Ministers like Kapil Sibal who can argue that there was no loss to the exchequer because of the 2G scam. If the Supreme Court had not taken an “activist” role, perhaps we would not even have an investigation into many of these scams. Neither would the government (as high as the PM) be called upon to answer. One can even argue that the Supreme Court has exceeded it’s brief (as was envisaged by the founding fathers of the Constitution)but the circumstances of the day dictated that it was a lesser crime to commit rather than be a passive spectator and allow the system to collapse.
Huge failures are essentially multi-causal in nature and hence the solution necessarily has to be multi-pronged. Any starting point that elevates the collective consciousness and gets a call to action is good enough. The need of the moment was to call attention to the political apathy and the movement accomplished the objective. Bringing a new order is rarely orderly; it is inherently chaotic. Hopefully some things will fall into place in due course naturally and some will need to be built consciously.
To his credit or otherwise, Anna Hazare did not issue a call to the people and did not make a claim to leadership in the conventional sense. His was a solitary endeavor though it is another matter that he gathered followers and supporters. He didn’t make promises of any kind.
Now that the starting point has been arrived at (the new Lok Pal bill), it would perhaps make sense for intellectuals to ponder what other things need to be done and work towards that. Merely pontificating what the Lok Bill will not accomplish or what Anna Hazare’s limitations are is missing the opportunity which Anna Hazare has provided.
The behaviour of a few individuals can be altered by moral suasion. But to expect 300 million middle-class Indians to change behaviour in the absence of correct incentives/disincentives is, pardon me, wishful thinking. Scant respect for fellow-citizens is as much a part of our culture as is idol and hero worship.
When former health-minister Mr. A Ramadoss “castigated” celebrities for smoking in public and in front of media, the “Indian idol” Shahrukh Khan had the temerity to call a press-conference to field questions regarding Mr. A Ramadoss’ decision (to ban smoking in public places). He chain-smoked through the conference.
What more can be said about herd mentality when most people support the Jan Lokpal bill because “everyone is supporting it and therefore it is the correct thing to do.” Do you genuinely believe that behiavour of people can change just by telling them not to spit on roads or not to cross lanes while driving?
Even movies of Mr. Bachchan end at persuasion to be the change they want to see (without a sequel to check whether the change really took place).
Your last sentence said it all….
Thanks, Subba. Madhu Kishwar’s article does not pontificate but proposes implementing ARC recommendations. Nitin and Niranjan call for more economic reforms and less discretion in the hands of the government to remove opportunities for corruption and influence-peddling. Kaushik Basu, who is in the government, has made a specific proposal on making bribe-takers in some specific situations to be named the sole guilty party. These are specific suggestions and not intellectual pontifications.
you said it well in your last sentence.
I think the ‘movement’ or the ‘Anna Hazare show’ (respectively used by pro and anti camps) was OK. This government deserves all the trouble it can get from the people. And unlike steadfast constitutionalists, I think a bit of anarchy now and then does no harm. Some of the most cherished values like liberty and equality came out of otherwise anarchic revolutions (not saying this was one). And as the protagonist says in the movie V for Vendetta- the government should be afraid of its people and not the other way round.
For me, the problem lied in people’s reaction. So I watched with dismay as a girl announced “the end of corruption” on NDTV while others danced merrily around her on Bhangra beats. To be blunt, I think we Indians are suckers for hero worship. So one day it was the cricketers and the next day, Anna Hazare. To be clear, the world cup victory gave me immense joy and as I said earlier, I have no issues with people marching against the govt. But the word “balanced” is missing from our national narrative.
The point of dealing with corruption through economic incentives made by you and others is bang on. That is the way to reduce corruption as opposed to “weeding it out” that politicians and anti-politicians like to promise. The morally chauvinistic arguments about corruption miss this entirely leading to a myth that India is corrupt solely because of its politicians. India is corrupt because there is too much governance, too little transparency and too many loopholes.
We are in middle of a mass Orwellian doublethink where the middle class that is most vocal about corrupt politicians indulges in wilful corruption every day to maximise its payoffs. When a middle class policeman stops a middle class motorist for jumping the traffic light, they transact at 500 rupee making each better off by 500 (assuming the legal fine to be paid was 1000). It is so obvious and routine to understate the value of property for stamp duty purposes that the bank loan officers actually discuss the white-black ratio with you! So let’s not pretend that we are living in Satyug. Whether it is aam-aadmi or A Raja, everyone likes to exploit loopholes. Plugging loopholes through economic and governance reforms may not be as cool as a revolution, but probably more effective.