Where is the inner voice now?

Next month the Manmohan-Sonia government completes a year in office. I call it this because it is now widely acknowledged in Delhi8217;s po...

Next month the Manmohan-Sonia government completes a year in office. I call it this because it is now widely acknowledged in Delhi8217;s political circles that despite her 8216;8216;sacrifice8217;8217; Sonia is our real prime minister and not Dr Singh. People more cruel than I have taken to calling him the head clerk. Sonia herself has no compunctions about showing who is boss. Visiting dignitaries flock to her doorstep and are always photographed meeting her, when there is a problem in some ministry or within the coalition it is she who is turned to, if there is a natural disaster it is she who arrives to give succour and not even the bus to Muzaffarabad could leave without her being there to make a speech in Urdu. Only sycophants and the politically naive would, when assessing the government8217;s performance in its first year in office, exclude her from responsibility.

So, how well or badly has the government done? In a sentence: not as well as it would have done if the Prime Minister and Sonia had done what they said they would do. As someone who believes that the two things that hold India back from becoming a superpower tomorrow are our inability to understand administration and our inability to understand the importance of education, healthcare and sanitation I pay careful attention to anything said about these things. It gave me great hope when the Prime Minister in his first press conference admitted that administrative reform was badly needed and that it would be a priority for his government. And, despite my opposition to foreigners holding high office officially or unofficially I became a Sonia supporter when I heard her talk about the importance of education, healthcare and sanitation. She has done this on more than one occasion, most recently a couple of weeks ago in Delhi.

The problem is that all she has done is talk. It is true that the Finance Minister allocated more to education and healthcare in his Budget but this will make not the slightest difference because what is required is to first make dramatic improvements in the delivery system. More than ninety per cent of Indian schools are so bad they would not be called schools anywhere else in the world. The reason why they are bad is because the wrong things have been considered important so teachers8217; salaries have been increased but not their accountability. Most village school teachers live in the nearest town and come and go as they like. As employees of the state government they treat the panchayat and villagers in general with disdain. In any case the level of education in rural India is so abysmal that a child is lucky if it can read and write when it leaves school. In the past year has our Minister of Human Resource Development done anything by way of reform? No.

Village hospitals and health centres face a different problem but again as a result of mistaken priorities. Vast funds have been spent on building hospitals and health centres but only the most desperate go to them because there are usually no doctors or only those that come in from the nearest town if and when they like.

Healthcare and sanitation are closely linked because more than eighty per cent of diseases in India are caused by unclean water so a nationwide scheme to encourage sanitation in rural India would make a huge difference. Any number of private organisations these days are showing how cheaply toilets can be built in villages and how villages in which everyone has a private toilet become almost without disease. From the government all we have had is talk.

When it comes to administrative reform the biggest problem is that officials waste huge amounts of time and money doing useless things when there are so many useful things they could be doing.

This is true of every interface between government and the citizens, whether it is getting a passport, registering property, paying your taxes or getting permission to set up a factory. Why should these things be so difficult?

Story continues below this ad

One reason is that nothing has been done by way of administrative reform since the British left us a colonial civil service. The other is that our officials and politicians have become very good at wasting time on the wrong things and a fine example comes from Maharashtra8217;s Congress government. Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil has started a passionate crusade against Mumbai8217;s unique, and quite wonderful dance bars but appears to be able to do nothing about children being beaten to death in the city8217;s sweatshops. Why does it take the death of 12-year-old Afzal Ansari last week for the government to discover that the sweatshops in Mumbai8217;s slums are running on child slavery? Why does it take the rape of a 13-year-old girl for the government to discover that the city8217;s brothels use children as sex slaves? Because the police is too busy closing down dance bars and guarding VIPs.

That ghastly acronym brings me to the first thing the Prime Minister should do if he gets around to administrative reform. Abolish all VIP privileges 8212; like that special toll gate on the Mumbai-Pune highway that is reserved for VIPs 8212; and all VIP fringe benefits. Dr Manmohan Singh is too humble to use the prime ministerial BMW but appears not to have noticed that he would be doing the country a bigger favour if he got rid of VIP privileges. When VIPs have to deal with government as ordinary citizens the importance of administrative reforms will become instantly obvious. Meanwhile, we can only hope that Sonia8217;s inner voice speaks up to remind her of her unfulfilled promises.

Write to tavleensinghexpressindia.com