Fifty years of missed chances

The Commission accuses the government of ‘‘neglect of the people’’. The democratic processes have not promoted self-governance and the people have no effective control over their social, political and economic destiny. The system of administration, designed by the political executive with the active support of the civil services, has limited the sovereignty of the people to the mere right to cast their votes in an election.

The Commission rues the fact that public servants and institutions are not alive to the basic imperative that they are servants of the people and points out that constitutional protection for the civil services, under Article 311, has been largely exploited by dishonest officials. As a result, citizens have lost faith in the institutions of democracy and ‘‘needlessly harsh, lugubrious, unimaginative and indifferent administration’’ has pushed the poor to the wall. Crises of leadership have resulted in extra-legal systems, parallel economies and even parallel governments.

There has been an enormous increase in the size of Cabinets — in the Union and the states — adding to the cost and clumsiness of governments. The Commission stated there should be a law or convention to limit the size of the Cabinet, particularly at the present juncture.

When it comes to concrete recommendations, the Report of the Commission, unfortunately, does not give much evidence of any proposals for comprehensive and meaningful reform. Take the chapter on executive and public administration, which is more a chapter on administrative reforms and little else. Here, too, the recommendations are vague, peripheral or elitist, with hardly any reference to the ground reality. For example, a closer relationship between the government and civil society is recommended. It is suggested that officials take an oath of good governance, that think-tanks are promoted with state funding, that chairmen of Commissions of Inquiry are consulted about their tenures and that the MEA is reorganised to change the form, working and structuring of foreign affairs mechanisms.

Among the other recommendations of the Commission with regard to administrative reform, are greater devolution, decentralisation and democratisation of power by making the elected bodies at the district level as the basic units of planning for development; the use of modern methods of management to curb the runaway expansion of the bureaucracy, and the setting up of Civil Service Boards for recommending the placements, promotions and transfers of civil servants.

The Commission would like the Lok Pal to be made a constitutional office but recommends that the office of the prime minister be kept outside its purview. It suggests a mention of state Lok Ayuktas also in the Constitution and advocates the early passage of CVC Bill. Legislation is also recommended for a Public Interest Disclosure or Whistle Blower Act, with protection to informants. It argues that public servants must be made liable to pay for the losses that result from their mala fide acts, and would like the law to provide for forfeiture of benami property of public servants and others and the confiscation of all illegally acquired assets and property disproportionate to known sources of income.

If citizens wonder why all these recommendations do not seem to fulfil even remotely the basic approach and perspective outlined in the introductory chapter, one can only repeat what the Commission has stated: ‘‘It is only when we fulfil the basic duty of politics and restore the power of the Constitution and its institutions back to their legitimate owners — the people — that things will begin to change.’’

The writer was a member of the NCRWC