It has been seen that the nexus between politicians and the bureaucracy is one of the main reasons behind corruption in Indian politics. Since you yourself have been a bureaucrat what is your opinion?
While this is true, one must not paint the entire bureaucracy with the same brush due to some bad apples in the institution. This corrupt nexus can be addressed in three ways:
- Removing bureaucratic assignments from partisan political pulls and entering a definite tenure,
- Voters enforcing the democratic accountability particularly in empowered local governments and through transparency mechanisms; and
- Strengthening the institutional structure for removing corrupt civil servants.
The first option has some limitations. A political representative should have the support of the bureaucracy to ensure that the wishes of the people are manifested in policy formulation and their implementation. If the bureaucratic assignments are independent of political functionaries, you will be removing the power from political functionaries, which will prevent them from fulfilling people’s aspirations. A balanced and moderate approach is needed.
As for the second option, it appears that the democratic accountability has not worked adequately to refrain politicians’ from indulging in such a nexus. However, there have been cases where people came out in support of honest civil servants and put political pressure to ensure that such bureaucrats are not transferred. If local governments are truly empowered, people will be emboldened to ensure accountability.
Lokpal is a step in the third direction. At present, the government has to sanction the investigation and prosecution of the civil servants against whom allegations are made. But the sanctions are very few and even when they are given, the disciplinary action taken is mild. With the setup of Lokpal and Lokayuktas, the sanctioning process goes to an independent body, which has no stakes in the decision process of a sanction and would be more effective. We advocated that the investigation by Lokpal or Lokayukta in the case of a civil servant be considered adequate for the constitutional safeguard available to civil servants under Article 311(2). Subsequently the recommendation of a disciplinary action by Lokpal or Lokayukta extending to dismissal of the civil servant should be normally implemented, unless otherwise government can provide a satisfactory objection in writing. Moreover, we are advocating for “The Corrupt Public Servants (Forfeiture of property) Bill, as recommended by the Law Commission of India, in its 166th report. This bill enlarges the definition of “proceeds of corruption” and provides a legal framework for forfeiture of these proceeds. Perhaps the most important step required is to ensure that crime investigation, including investigation of corruption cases, is truly independent, beyond the pale of politics. Lok Satta is fiercely committed to this. This set of institutional changes should minimize the nexus between politicians and civil servants.
What has been the greatest achievement of Lok Satta so far?
We have been successful in creating a mirror to the society in terms of the ethical standards a political party should adopt. Of course we have a long way to go in impressing upon people that this path produces fruits of political success. We are also constantly impressing upon people that politics by itself is not to be shunned; it is a noble endeavour in serving the people and therefore the people should play an active role in politics. One can undoubtedly say that the people who came forward to participate in politics as part of Lok Satta Party could not have come into politics, if this party did not exist. This political awakening among the society is a good achievement for us.
Lok Satta has an impressive and credible track record. As a movement, we achieved a lot: voter registration improvements; candidate disclosures; political funding law; limiting the size of council of ministers; strengthening anti-defection law; right to information; national health mission; gram nyayalayas law etc. We have walked the talk. We have proved that ethical politics is viable. Increasingly, people are attracted to this new politics. It may take some time to achieve electoral success in a hostile system; but we created a durable and credible platform.
What is your opinion on Jan Lokpal. Do you think it can only be the panacea for the evils of corruption?
Lokpal institution is the need of the hour. However, no agency should be given sweeping and arbitrary powers. Corruption should be tackled by concentrated efforts through focusing on the big fish which will then have a strong ripple effect across all levels of governance. This is not to say that corruption at the lower levels should be ignored, but should be tackled at an appropriate level and not by the Lokpal institution. The lower bureaucracy can be tackled by Central Vigilance Commission at the central level and Lokayuktas, Local Ombudsmen and ACBs at the state level.
Nobody claims that Lokpal will be a panacea in the fight against corruption. However, strong and independent Lokpal and Lokayuktas are an important first step. Corruption has multiple forms and multiple origins in the process of governance. It requires multiple instruments to tackle it.
- For instance, the electoral corruption has to be addressed by the Election Commission and electoral reforms.
- The corporate collusion with policy makers can be partly addressed by Lokpal, but a substantial realm would be in the form of technical manipulation, which the regulators of the respective industries would have a better competency to address.
- The bribes paid by government officials to politicians for transfers and postings have a direct impact on the public, because these bribes are in turn recouped from the public. This situation should be addressed by administrative reforms, citizen charters and grievance redressal mechanisms.
- Anti-corruption laws should be strengthened to cover other forms of corruption, to provide for stringer punishment, and ensure confiscation of properties of corrupt public servants similar to SAFEMA Act.
- The judiciary should be strengthened adequately in terms of adequate capacity to dispose the cases in a speedy manner.
But ultimately, the people themselves should resolve to vote the corrupt political class out of power. That is the best safeguard.
You have said the best and the brightest in society should embrace politics as a noble endeavour. But the problem in India is the “vote bank politics” where the best and the brightest end up losing their deposits while the criminals and corrupt moneyed politicians end up as winners. What is your take?
There is a significant amount of vote buying in Indian politics. Cases have come to light where the politicians have gone to the extent of compelling voters to promise on their gods or their children to vote for them in return for the goodies they offer. Ideally we would expect that voters refuse money for their votes. But it has become a quick opportunity for poor voters to make some money and hence they are also actively squeezing money from politicians. Voters are taking money because they lost faith in the electoral outcomes improving their lot. They are merely maximizing short-term gains. Now, the silver lining in this process is that while they take money from politicians, they do not necessarily vote for them. Electoral studies have shown that while large election expenditures are necessary, they are not correlated with electoral success.
There is an institutional measure that can be adopted to minimize vote buying. This process is partly due to the fact that politicians can find out booth wise electoral voting percentages and hence can monitor the voting patterns of communities in the booth, although they will not be able to decipher the individual voting patterns. This process has also resulted in a backlash from the political parties and electoral candidates, once they found that the communities didn’t vote for them. The Election Commission in the recent Tamil Nadu state assembly elections instituted a reform in the counting process, where they released only constituency-wise results. The impact of this reform would most probably be felt on the future elections and this could be a model to adopt for the whole country.
There are multiple reasons why the “best and the brightest” might not win elections, leaving aside the distortions in the electoral politics with practices like vote buying etc. A good political representative is and ought to be much more than a technical genius. There are other political and social qualities at the very least, which people look for in candidates. The candidates have to be a strong political leader who can deliver in a system, which is ridden with conflicting demands. Most importantly, the candidate should also be socially approachable for people to air their grievances and get them resolved. Therefore, the non-entry of the “best” candidates into legislatures at the state and national levels need to be placed in this context to derive a better understanding of the system, despite all the barriers for their entry.
It is a chicken or egg situation. Until voters vote wisely, the best and brightest won’t participate in politics and voters will continue to succumb to inducements. We should break this vicious cycle. Lok Satta proved that it is possible to inspire voters, and achieve success if credible leaders are willing to lead. I am sure the young people and middle classes will lead the way and transform the present reality.
You were an IAS officer who resigned from the service. What according to you are the main problems in the IAS?
There is a lot of political interference in obstructing the performance of the civil servants. Legitimate intervention is deliberatively provided for in a democratic setup so that the political representative could instruct the bureaucracy to fulfill the people’s aspirations. However, in the current scenario, this interference is mostly illegitimate, and borders on deriving personal benefits for the political class.
The current performance management in the civil services seems to be rewarding people who do not take any initiative, as that can be prone to failures and no civil servant wants any failure recorded in his annual confidential report. The system should incentivize taking incentives so that ultimately innovation can take root in the process of governance.
The current career paths are built around spending short spells of time in different departments.
What is wrong with our electoral system? What can be done to revamp it?
The fundamental thing wrong with our electoral system is the way in which finances are mobilized for contesting elections. Either candidates spend their own money or they get money from party leadership or interest groups for election expenditure. The party also has to raise money from interest groups. Now, this money usually comes with strings attached, either expecting a higher rate of return in the process of increasing personal wealth or getting favorable policies or programmes enacted for the interest groups. It should be noted that the phenomenon of political fundraising in short amounts from broader public at large has not taken off in India yet. So when political parties or candidates contest elections with finance which comes with strings attached how can there be a corruption-free society? This is just theoretically impossible, forget the practicality involved. Therefore, the existing system is unfair to citizens at large, because there are institutional distortions in terms of donors or the ‘investors’. It is expected that the candidates stick to the limits on election expenditure and this provides a fair level-playing field for all candidates in elections. However, due to various nefarious practices like vote buying and paid news and probably other legitimate requirements of legitimate expenditure, election expenditures are never adhered to by traditional parties, despite the candidates stating the contrary in their affidavits filed with the Election Commission. Although Election Commission has been aggressively attempting to control the election expenditures through help from Income Tax Department and other financial departments, it still leaves a lot to be desired. The system is also unfair to the candidates.
At the heart of all this is a crisis encompassing several features: failure of the best citizens to provide leadership – as opposed to what happened during freedom struggle; centralized government making delivery difficult, which in turn undermined public confidence in electoral outcome; entry of criminals and money hags; vote buying because of the importance of marginal vote in a winner-take–all system; parties becoming private jagirs; failure of middle classes to assert and use vote as a weapon to change the system; and monumental corruption that made politics a flourishing business. We need to address each of these issues systematically and thoroughly.
What is your party’s stand on the Telangana issue?
We have been consistently stating that creation of Telangana state is neither a catastrophe nor panacea. It is seen as a zero-sum game, which is unfortunate. We can resolve the problem by patience, fairness and open dialogue. But emotions should give way to reason. If there is a give-and-take approach, the problem can be resolved either way: by creating a separate state, while addressing the concerns of other regions and Hyderabad city; or by retaining integrated state, while giving real regional and local autonomy and self-governance.
What is your party’s stand on Right to Recall and Right to Reject political candidates?
“Right to reject” is a feasible option for implementation. Lok Satta movement urged the Election Commission to adopt this in 1999. The Election Commission later recommended such a change in the rules to the government. A voter could be given the right to reject all the candidates with an anonymous vote. Currently, the Election Commission can register such a vote, but separately in a manual process in which the identity of the voter is noted. Placing this option on an EVM provides the anonymity. A rejection vote may bring some protest vote, and increase the turn out; though the available evidence shows that it will be only about 1%–2%. One can hope that a high “reject vote” sends a strong signal to the parties and candidates as it reduces their political legitimacy in the constituency. But we should not think that rejection vote will achieve anything substantial. It will be merely a symbolic vote to put moral pressure on parties.
“Right to Recall” is neither a feasible nor desirable option, except at the local level, although it sounds good on the face of it. Most likely, there would be requirement that there are a few lakh voters who should sign a petition to recall an MP. Now the logistical difficulty of verifying the signatures is a nightmare, not to mention the fatigue of having multiple elections, which might result due to recall at various levels. There is another strong argument against this. A five year term is chosen so that a representative has a reasonable time period in which he can take some unpopular decisions which might provide long term benefit, but might not satisfy the public in the short term. A recall will invariably drive governance further towards short term populism and destroy the long term prospects of the country. In effect, our right to recall perhaps might come only at the cost of the well being of our future generations! Also in areas plagued by militancy and secessionism, recall will derail our democracy. Punjab saw restoration of normally only because elected governments with legitimacy have worked hard to win public confidence in our republic and the constitution of terrorists had a chance to force recall, there might have been no end to terrorism in Punjab. Whatever we do, national unity is paramount.
In this era of coalition politics, how feasible is it for an ideological political party to remain rigid in its policies and manifestoes?
An ideological political party perhaps carries more credibility in a society and would come across as trust-worthy. However, the policies that a society needs depend exactly on the prevailing conditions. These might be in sync with one’s ideology or might not. Being rigidly ideological might not necessarily be a virtue in any democracy. The extreme expressions of rigid ideological positions are manifested in the debates on budget deficit in the United States and the results are there for everybody to take notice of. We must not confuse ethical and transparent politics with rigid ideological posturing and orthodoxy. We need a strong moral compass and democratic accountability combined with the maturity to frame policies based on evidence, logic and contemporary realities.
The lack of intra-party democracy in political parties has created a scenario where every strong faction of a party is forming a new political party every now and then. In such a scenario that leads to coalition politics, you will invariably have a mix of personal preferences of the leaders of parties or their ideological predilections. Increasingly it has become a cross power game to share the spoils and we are stuck in this rut.
What made you announce that you would not contest as President of the state Lok Satta Party again?
We need to translate our vision into reality by creating conditions for new leadership to constantly rise. If, as founder, I contest, there is little chance of competition in our society, which is still centred on personalities. I will continue to lead from the front. This is empowerment; not abdication. This step is meant to develop collective leadership, and ensure that the society especially the youth and middle classes can own this platform, embrace it, and aspire for leadership. We need to create a durable platform for people political participation. That is why I am not accepting a formal position in the state. For some time, I will continue to be directly involved in spreading Loksatta across the country. But even at national level, my effort will be to build strong, durable collective leadership. No one is indispensable in a democracy.
