Saturday, June 06, 2009

Governance by Precedence

India inherited from the British a steel frame work for governance. The then political leadership, largely uninitiated in matters of governance, opted to retain the steel frame without any modification. It helped it to levy taxes and collect revenues, to run the affairs of the state in maintaining law and order and a semblance national security. In matters of setting up infrastructures, like roads, ports, power, water supply, health care, telecommunication, and broadcasting, manufacturing industries, the officialdom was generally out of its depth. Like wise, in administering the development activities related to such unprecedented areas as, rural and urban development, agriculture, education, the officialdom had no clues. So, all such activities by the government have failed miserably.

The reasons for the deficiencies of the officialdom are traceable largely to their methodology. The officials are indoctrinated to rule according to precedents and the governing policies. They are tutored never to innovate, lest they err and thereby create a wrong precedent. The time it takes to search for the exact precedent is irrelevant to the existing principals of governance taught to them by their British masters and carried on by the succeeding political masters. Any inquiry why the decision making is taking long, evoked the standard reply, " THE MATTER IS UNDER CONSIDERATION". As a matter of fact, the honest reply should be that the search for precedence is taking time. There is no value attached to the lost time, and the corresponding lost opportunity. Assisted by babus at lower levels, they are very thorough in searching for precedents in the available archives and apply to a case under their consideration. The babu at the lowest level researches for the precedents, prepares a draft decision and passes on to his successive superiors for signing on the dotted line and for issuing the order eventually, generally on the lines of, " am directed to convey the order that ...". Hardly any value is added at the higher levels to the quality of the 'decision'. Of course, the language is progressively 'refined'. They are at a great loss to decide if no precedent is located. They are not expected to form any new policies. So, initiation and creation of innovative policies are out of question. So, if the imperial masters did not carry out any development, precedents can not be located and any proposal for development is intrinsically out of order, hence, in-executable. Even if the political bosses formed new policies or initiated new schemes, the officialdom can not implement them for want of precedents.

The officials at the time of entry are taken through "training". From their behaviour during subsequent postings on jobs, one can easily deduce that that they are thoroughly insensitive to the feelings of those they govern, lest they are branded partial. During their training, personality development seems to get a lot of attention. It seems, they are taught to administer, rather than facilitate. For example, it does not seem to matter to them if the pension of a retired person is not fixed for a long time for want of some trivial information. There have been pathetic cases, in which a pensionsr did not receive pension in his life time.

If Government wants to succeed in development activities, it has to engage a different type of officialdom. Such officials should be able to identify the beneficiaries as well as those likely to be affected adversely. They should be dedicated to implementation within a given time frame and boundaries of costs. They should be able to foresee obstacles and implement remedies. They should be willing to tackle unforeseen problems. This would require that they stick to an assignment till its completion and not be just rolling stones, because 'rolling stones do not gather any moss'.

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