I am now 70 and for the 42 years I have been closely connected with public governance as a member of the Indian Administrative Service from 16th June 1960 to 31st January 1996 and thereafter in two posts with Government of India as Chairman, Public Enterprises Selection Board (1996 – 1998) and as the Central Vigilance Commissioner of the Government of India till 3rd September 2002 (1998 – 2002).
Before we explore the subject of good governance and development, we should be clear about what do we mean by good governance and what do we mean by development. In my view, good governance should pass four litmus tests. The first is that there should be the rule of law. There cannot be any good governance in a society, if there is no rule of law. All must be treated as equal before the law and get equal protection under the law. The second litmus test follows from the first. There should be no corruption if not minimum scope for corruption. This is because where there is corruption, there can be no rule of law. The third litmus test is that good governance should provide an opportunity for every individual citizen to realise his or her full potential. God blesses each person with some talent. The state which is responsible for governance should ensure that there is an appropriate healthy environment created under which every individual citizen can rise to his full potential. The fourth litmus test is purely an economic one. There should be no wastage of any resources, physical resources or human resources or time. In other words, there should be maximum total factor productivity.
With this understanding about good governance, we may now examine the other issue of development. We may then explore how good governance can become an instrument for realising development in the real sense. Development in my view includes not only economic development but human development. Economic development is being measured in terms of the GNP (Gross National Product) but increasingly it is also being studied in terms of growth. At the same time, economic development alone does not matter. Human development also should take place. The extent of human development is measured by many parameters including the human development index.
More over, one method of ensuring that the real development takes place is to see that the quality of life for every citizen of the country is enhanced. This in turn means that there should be healthy, all round inclusive growth. The UNDP a few years ago identified the types of growth which were not desirable. To begin with, jobless growth, where economic development takes place and no jobs are created is not desirable. Equally undesirable is the ruthless growth, where pure economic development takes place without taking in to consideration the human dimension and the sufferings of the people who become the victims of development projects in terms of having to lose their lands and habitats are ignored. Another type of growth that is not at all desirable is what is called futureless growth. This is the growth where damage is caused to the environment in such a way that in course of time, the economic development may lead to the total harm to the planet earth. This is the only resource we have for our life. From the human point of view, there is yet another type of economic growth which is not desirable. This is rootless growth. This type of growth harms the social fabric and culture of the society in the process of globalisation. As Joseph Stieglitz pointed out this would include the discontents of globalisation.
Inclusive growth is what is required, if we want real development. Inclusiveness means that all members of the society, irrespective of religion, caste, language, should enjoy the benefit of development. Another dimension of inclusiveness would be spatial. The development should not only cover the urban areas but also the rural areas. The third dimension of inclusive growth is the one that helps all sectors of economy.
We may now analyse how good governance can ultimately ensure that we get the type of healthy human development described above. We may examine the four litmus test for good governance and see how they in turn contribute to the realisation of healthy human and economic development. As mentioned earlier, the first test is the rule of law. In the Indian context, the basis for rule of law in our country is the Constitution, which is the framework for governance of the country. Our constitution visualises three pillars of governance. These are legislature which makes the law, the executive which include both the political and permanent bureaucracy which executes the law and the judiciary which interprets the law. The rule of law is to ensure that all citizens are treated as equal before law and get equal protection of law. It is obvious that all the three pillars of governance have a role to play in ensuring the rule of law.
It is unfortunate that in our country, the legislature which makes the law itself has people who are law breakers. The Supreme Court directed in the year 2004 that every candidate to election must declare his criminal background and also his educational background and wealth. The sad fact is that nearly 25% of the elected representatives in our legislature today at the state and centre have got criminal cases against them. It is argued that most of the cases are politically motivated. We are having tainted ministers and the fact that under the law, every person is innocent till proved guilty provides only a fig leaf of respectability to the ministers. This vitiates the very process of law making.
If law breakers become law makers, what sort of rule of law we are likely to have? Therefore, I propose that in elections candidates against whom courts have framed criminal charges should not be permitted to contest elections till their names are cleared by courts. The judiciary takes enormous time in deciding cases. This delay in decision making is exploited by corrupt political leaders to capture power and vitiate the whole basis of good governance. A fundamental change that is required for ensuring good governance and healthy developments in our country is to ban all candidates against whom criminal charges have been framed in courts of law for contesting election till their names are cleared by courts.
The delays in our judicial system are another important aspect which go against the good governance in our country. There is need urgently for reinventing our judiciary. A number of ideas have been mooted and what is required is action. Judiciary enjoys very deservedly a very high degree of independence. It is the judiciary and its independent approach that has preserved the real spirit of democracy in our country. In order to ensure that the enormous delays taking place in our judicial process are eliminated, I would suggest the following
(i) The time taken in disposal of cases must be reduced by drastically reducing to number of appeals in any case not more than two in every case;
(ii) There should be a law that when a court start hearing cases, it should continue to hear them till they are disposed of and the present delay due to enormous adjournments must be eliminated;
(iii) Equally important requirement is that the judges who hear cases should deliver the judgement within limited time and the practice of some judges not delivering judgements at all after hearing the cases should be given up.
(iv) In order to ensure that the judicial system is not end up with any antique laws, there should be a sunset law in every law so that automatically every law lapses after a period of time and unless it is again re-enacted in the light of the circumstances prevailing at that time of such a re-examination this law seems to be exist. This will ensure that the complication arising out of obsolete laws is reduced.
(v) Information technology must be extensively used to speed up the process of the listing and hearing of cases and also provide greater transparency in the judicial system.
The second important aspect for good governance is the issue of eliminating corruption. A number of suggestions have been made but the following require priority.
(i) The first of course, is that extensive use of information technology must be made to bring in greater transparency and speed in our system of public governance. Many a time, it is the red tape and delays which give rise to corruption, as people resort to the practice of speed money.
(ii) The Right to Information Act should be effectively utilised and liberalised to see that transparency in our system of governance is maximum and the citizens realise their rights;
(iii) The responsibility is also of the citizens to get educated and assert their rights so that the scope of corruption is reduced.
(iv) Apart from the application of computers in the system of governance, there must be a fundamental rethinking about the processes in the light the principles of business processes reengineering. This is necessary to see that the application of computers and e-governance does not in effect come to mean doing the same type of paper work now done manually by using computers. The principles of work study must be used to generate alternative ideas for improving the process. The concepts of elimination, combination, resequencing and substitution and modification must be applied for every process, so that the scope of corruption is brought down to the minimum.
(v) The media also has to play an important role in ensuring good governance and sting operations in which the citizens armed with the camera phones can act as citizen journalists and can play an effective role in checking corruption.
We then come to the third aspect of realising human potential. Two areas require maximum attention and focus. One is health and another is education. In both these, we must be able to make use of non government organisation initiatives so that merit is given full encouragement through out. In this process, the present policies of reservation and affirmative action for the weaker sections are significant. As recently clarified by the Supreme Court in the reservation issue, the concept of the creamy layer should be adopted to check that only a selected few do not exploit the reservation meant for the really disadvantaged weaker sections. The concept of private public partnership should be extensively used to not only improve the educational services but also the health services. In both these sectors, full use must be made of the benefits of information technology, by bring down costs, improve access and mobility.
We then come to the final aspect of total factor productivity. We have seen how Japan, Singapore and the United States were able to focus on productivity and achieve improvement in terms of energy efficient technologies. Following the petroleum shock 1973, Japan focussed on energy efficient technologies, made progressive so far as these technologies are concerned. United States focused on productivity in 1980s under President Regan which resulted in extensive application of the information technology in manufacturing. This gave a lead to the US technologies in the global competition in the late 1990s and the 21st century. Singapore focused on productivity under Lee Quan Yu from 1970 onwards which resulted in that country with hardly any resources emerging as a first world country, starting as a regular third world country along with other countries like India.
In short, the concepts of good governance and development are very clear and well established. We must be able to in India realise real good governance. What is lacking is determination and action on the part of all those concerned and especially those in public life. The Bhagwat Gita says that if we can combine vision with action, we can get success, prosperity and justice. This is the message as I see in the last sloka of the Bhagwat Gita:
Krishna represents the vision and the Arjuna represents action. When both are combined there is success, prosperity and justice.
Yatra yogeshwara krisha yatra parto dhanurdharaha
Tatyasri vijayobhutir druvanitir madhurmamaha
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