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Governance Failure & Need for Smaller States

What is government? It is a system of administration of the national resources, whether it is aristocracy, democracy or any other form of public administration, including monarchy. Objective of this public administration, or government, is the establishment of a welfare state. But what is welfare state? Word welfare has wide connotations. It begins with the rule of law or as our scripture says, Dharma. Social equity or equitable distribution of national resources or wealth, produced as well as naturally available, is another foundation stone of government. Spread of education, looking after health and hygiene, fulfillment of minimum need of clothing and shelter for a dignified human living condition to all its people, besides freedom from poverty and injustice are some of the other obligations of government.
Of course, the above description may sound as near-uthopian. But the fact is these are eminent possibilities of a human government. Because these are man’s concepts of what a proper governance can deliver. But of course there is a rider. It has got to be participatory. The government, as has been rightly observed by Abraham Lincon, has to be, of the people, by the people and for the people. Of course in the Indian context, the government is certainly of the people, the elected ones form the government. It is also by the people, since these governments are manned by both elected representatives and the responsible officials appointed by those elected to administer the state. But the problem, the real problem is, the third part of Lincon’s theory, which is the government for the people.
Again going back to the Indian context, our experience of the last 62 years of post independent India has amply demonstrated how governance has failed by all the governments that occupied the seat of power in New Delhi.
Governance is the craft of government which performs, and performs to the satisfaction of the greatest possible number of its people. Our scripture talks about "Sarve Jana Sukhino Bhavantu". John Ruskin said about ‘the greatest good of greatest number’. Thus performance of a government is measured by the Human Development Index(HDI). All in the government and all those outside the government who are privy to the news medium know that India as a whole, is fairly low in this HDI. The report of UNDP has stated year after year that successive governments, both federal & state, have failed to achieve a decent level of HDI. In the reports of the recent past, it has been around 130 in a status of about 180 countries, whereas a country like Cuba, which has not produced even one billionaire, is around 60. This is a very stark representation that India has grown but grown very unevenly.
Every socio-economic development leads to certain degree of unevenness but in India it has been very wide and wide spread.
But what could be the reason?
It is basically the failure of governance. The World Bank has defined good governance as "the manner in which power is exercised in the management of country’s economic and social resources".
Rajeev Gandhi, during on of his moments of deep introspection has famously observed that ‘only 15 paise in a rupee reaches the target’.
Isn’t this true? India is not poor but Indians are poor is an oft repeated observation from across the spectrum, which goes to confirm the inherent strength of the country in economic terms. But certainly this strength is so very unevenly distributed, that this strength has remained concentrated in a miniscule section of our society, leaving a huge section suffer from needs not adequately met. Isn’t it the same way of saying that 20% of India’s population controls 80% of its wealth, and 80% of Indians have access to only 20% of its wealth. This too is an oft repeated observation at different socio-economic fora in the country. This state of affairs represents the obvious failure of politico-economic administration of the country, stated neatly as ‘Governance Failure’.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", stated Lord Acton in the British Parliament long ago. The relevance of the statement was never in doubt. In the Indian context this dictum was loosely being applied during Indira Gandhi’s reign, by many media men and women. Combining the earlier quoted observation by World Bank on good governance and the saying of Lord Acton the question that cropped up was "Is good governance achievable in the negative?". In other words, whether good governance is possible even if there is absolute power in the hands of few?
Different socio-economic thinkers, the world over, have always observed that "as long as the exercise of power is held up to public scrutiny, more responsible would, those in power, become" Thus it deduces the theory that transparency and accountability are of utmost importance and therefore are vital components of any good governance agenda. However it must be accepted without any reservation that such good governance presupposes the existence and availability of leaders of integrity and transparent honesty.
This present write up in Focus, is supposedly on the attractiveness and the relevance of having smaller states in general and India in particular. One could wonder why are we talking about the governance, integrity of its leadership and transparency in its administration?
Surely, to say that socio-economic equity in the distribution of national wealth, both produced and naturally available is the core of any good governance, is absolutely no-body’s case. It is as true as the sun rises from the east. It is also absolutely possible that there could be some section and a % of population which can remain unaffected by the positives of the developmental process, despite good intention and well meaning efforts of all concerned. But then, this is how everything works, one can never guarantee 100%, the reach of all human efforts. But it is always possible that a good governance can ensure John Ruskin’s theory of ‘greatest good of greatest number," if not the Sarvodaya of Mahatma Gandhi.
World over, small states with transparent and honest leadership have not only progressed economically very well but have also ensured a decent and higher socio-economic standard of life to its ordinary citizens. These countries have ensured to its population, a good level of education, health and succeeded in creating opportunity for individual socio-economic growth. In particular, they created gainful employment opportunities not only by prudent economic policies but also helping its people in upgrading their technical and administrative skills.
If these small independent states have been largely successful in realising their socio-economic goals of an egalitarian society, it should be eminently possible for large states in India to reduce it to a manageable size to produce good results in terms of both economic growth and a better HDI.
It is also true that the essential condition for the good governance is the honesty and transparent integrity of its leadership. India being 84th in the degree of honesty according to the Transparency Internationals latest report, is it too much to expect good governance in India?
Yes indeed, the experience of Indian people is, that political leadership largely failed in addressing the issues concerning vast majority of Indians. It is true, since 1991, a new and booming middle class, in the wake of liberalisation, did succeed in improving their lot. But the benefits of this new found wealth did not percolate down to the masses away from the 6 laned highways and golden quadrilaterals.
In fact the emergence of naxalism, as never before, is the reflections of the changing times. It was some 40 years ago that naxalism, started from Naxalbari, had mustered hardly any support. But with political class and business class looting their resources for all these years, the movement has comeback with vengeance. The frequent attacks by naxalites in recent days, is a result of injustice done to the people behind the movement. As sociologist Ashish Nandi puts it "The blessed, comfortable Indian, refuses to accept that it has antagonised a sizeable population of dalits, tribals and adivasis, looted their resources and turned them into Maoist extremists".
Of course the violence from naxalites need to be condemned so is the brutal repression by the state. However, this issue of violence is an entirely different dimension unrelated to the issue of smaller states.
Yes, as an emerging economy India has announced its arrival in the big league. Technologically and economically it has done quite well to be recognized and acknowledged internationally. Our so-called leaders are having a vision of India becoming a super power by 2020. But the fact remains, that, some 500 million Indians do not have toilets and they still shit in open. Some 35% world’s underweight children are in India due to endemic malnutrition. Some 30% of Indians still earning about a $ or less a day. Other indices on housing, health, gender equality, spread of education, both among urban poor and rural folks are all very low, and demands concerted action plans. Then of course there is the lack of road connectivity to rural areas.
All these ills are mostly due to the failure of delivery system. As Rajeev Gandhi observed, 85 paise of the rupee gets siphoned-off the system. So how do you expect a better result? The corruption being endemic, not many options are available for better management of country’s resources.
Could it be, that big states, due to its sheer size pose some impediments in the greater development of all regions of the country? It does not require great intelligence to understand distance do create vacuum. We do have a commonly used saying that "out of sight is out of mind". This is such a simple analogy it is inexplicable how it has not disturbed our planners, economic thinkers and mighty IAS lobby that for all these 62 years, our development has largely been urban centric. This development has only made the urban life a big mess with large scale migration from rural to urban. This has resulted in stretching all urban infrastructural facilities. Then the government in power, without applying its mind to address the basic malaise again spends its scarce resources to improve urban infrastructure leading again to greater influx to these areas.
Granted, our politicians have less of intelligence to understand the socio-economic implication of developmental paradigm, what about their advisors, the economists, the sociologists, IAS managers and administrators? These well paid, well looked after, highly educated bureaucrats have failed the country along with their semi-literate political bosses-if not all, but most of them-to bring about the over-all development of the country. It is no secret that there are huge developmental challenges before the country to be addressed in right earnest. Whether, it is the spread of primary and secondary education, whether it is the rural road connectivity to make health and education available to the rural masses. Improving opportunity for the rural folks for employment and other economic and gainful occupancy in villages, how to stop rural migration, so that the infrastructure in urban centres are not pushed too far, which are anyway bursting at the seams. The challenges are very daunting.
Especially with the corruption being endemic, the challenge becomes even more acute, how to cope with the dwindling resource availability to reach out to these under-developed and undeveloped areas of the country. Then you have politics playing its usual dirty role. Public memory should be still fresh with Bundelkhand controversy. It could remain a victim of politicking. But that’s a very sad Indian dimension of development.
Media unfortunately do not play its positive role to effect. They have the tendency to touch and go.
If only our men and woman in media had played its role in letter and spirit situation would have been far better than what it is today.
While accepting that corruption has to be fought, we have to recognise that it cannot be eliminated fully and in a short time. It can be laborious and time consuming. Any anti-corruption drive can necessarily take a long drawn out plan of action. But this has to be fought with commitment and in all seriousness by giving appropriate teeth to the law, like giving more power to Lokayukta in Karnataka. Also with reforms in judicial process, this menace can be addressed to a great extent. Of course, eliminating corruption completely may not be possible, by the very nature of things, but it is certainly possible to decrease it.
Surely there are many ways to address this scourge of corruption, making smaller states shall be the most effective in the long-run. Again it does not require great intelligence to understand that, every time you break a big state into two or three states, it automatically increases so much socio-economic opportunities. You will have two or more Chief Ministers, two or more governors, and the whole battery of men to work for them. Two or more centres of activity. A whole lot of economic activity shall lead to multiplier effect. Budget can be bifurcated or trifurcated. So that the same amount available for developmental activities can be apportioned accordingly with so much less lost in transit. There will be more people getting benefit out of this division, more employment and more commercial opportunities. Decentralisation of economic and commercial activity will have its spin offs. Thus the benefits of the smaller states can be elaborated with conclusive arithmetical models to prove that in the long run smaller states shall be the most important factor that will take development to all corners of India.
Commenting on the recent agitation by Telangana politicians, where a break-up of Andhra Pradesh was demanded to create Telangana, an English daily of South India had this to say, quote "Aside from the un wisdom of breaking up South-India's largest state, a separate Telangana will demand for a separate Rayalseema, for a separate coastal Andhra, and may be, even for union territory status for Hyderabad-and there will be no Pradesh left. The problem of uneven regional and inter-state development is one of the major challenges rising India faces but there is little to suggest that smaller states will make for a more even process of development. Surely, regional imbalances can be corrected without recourse to bifurcating or trifurcating a stable and potential prosperous state-which came into being through historical struggle and sacrifice and show case the virtues of post-independence linguistic reorganisation. For a start, the Regional Development Boards could be given more resources and more powers. Successive chief ministers have avoided resourcing the boards with sufficient funds, for fear of creating regional power centres and undermining their own authority. This must necessarily change. The diagnosis is right. Telangana is backward and cries out for rapid development and the regional autonomy needed for this. But the cure pressed by a succession of militant movements- a separate Telangana state-will do serious harm to the patient", unquote.
While there are many grounds of contradictory statements in the above editorial comment, its conclusion that ‘creation of a separate Telangana state will do serious harm’ is a plain load of rubbish. Of course it has not elaborated the ‘serious harm’ which it feared. Who-so-ever has written this editorial, is-plain and simple-reading without the book, and to say that ‘breaking up south India’s largest state is unwise’ should listen to Maayawathi. The U.P. chief minister. Whatever her record as a chief minister, she has got to be applauded for her political maturity in understanding the advantages of smaller states. Of course, survival politics too must have prompted her for this latest proposal. Besides, Prime Minister Singh had reportedly told in Varanasi that he is "all for smaller states". The above editorial unequivocally admitted, to the lack of development being the prime-mover for the demand for separate states. And accepts Telangana region being a victim of neglect by successive governments at Hyderabad. Hence any linguistic bond may have little relevance if development is the crux of the demand for separate state. The fact that Regional Development Boards have failed due to the open neglect by all the past Chief Ministers, it is a good enough ground for going separate. About demands in different parts of India for separate states, the union government should take a pragmatic stand and take lead in addressing the issue. The smaller states are certainly good for the country, and its people.
Editorial comment that "there is little to suggest that smaller states will make for a more even process of development" is to exhibit complete lack of knowledge of social indices. One of the significant barometer which reflects the better human development index is the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR). Both Goa and Kerala which are smaller states has the IMR of around 15 per 1000, as compared to the national average of over 50 per 1000. How do you explain this better governance result if not for its smaller size where the rupee was better spent.
Thus the case for smaller states is a strong one. Except for some vested interest of some political parties and some well entrenched politicians who want to preside and rule over a larger geo-political area, surely most ordinary people are only interested in development and in increased socio-economic opportunities to have a dignified living.


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