Borrowed clothes cannot make a man a role-model. By grafting lofty ideas and senseless welfare measures on an unstable structure of governance, our leaders are leading the nation into a dark world. They have been busy in demeaning and defaming their own ruling structure.
The current Aadhaar entanglement is suggestive of not only the deterioration within India’s governance but also its general crisis of confidence. In fact, if there is one country in which the opposition parties, groups and individuals have been trying to create the worst fears about the nation and the government, it is India. Now, people live under mistrust and fears created by the opponent of the present government.
Even if we avoid the theoretical and ethical critiques of the welfare state, made by left-wingers and other left thinkers, we will find an innate contradiction in welfarist and governance as it was practised in India. Right from the independence, policy and decision makers of sovereign India have disregarded a basic truth: that the welfare state is first and primary, a state and not a playground for the power hunting individuals.
They have used or rather misused most of their power and resources on making their vote banks and expanding welfarist measures to them to consolidate their vote banks. In this, the institutions suffered. They did not strengthen the institutions of the state, which are necessary for a welfare state. Now, for their failures, they blame the present government.
This bewilderment has eroded the credibility of almost all the institutions. Judiciary, CBI, Police, ED, Income Tax Department, Election Commission, EVM, Media, Defence, Universities etc are a victim of the crisis of confidence. People doubt their honesty and integrity.
Nation followed the British system blindly. Britishers enacted the laws and devised policies to further their own kingdom. They created institutions to perpetuate and strengthen the Empire. They propped up the extortionist land revenue structure to boost the exchequer. They made economic policy that supported the manufacturers of Manchester, London and Lancashire rather than those of Kanpur, Surat and Bombay. Even then, they developed India without any corruption.
They designed an administration to suppress and repress the Indians rather than to give them any rights with an order. They commissioned the police that had least concern for human rights of the natives. Even then, people have faith in their governance and institutions. But they also brought modernity, merit and the Enlightenment ideas and ideals to India. They have tremendous faith in ancient Hindu scriptures and Sanskrit.
That is another story; Indian rulers never follow these good ideas. They do almost everything, which is against the interest of their country. Almost nothing is done to improve that situation by way of state capability growth. On top of that, the Indian state took upon itself a variety of tasks: becoming the main doer of growth, controlling infrastructure ventures, constructing dams and setting up PSUs, regulating the economy and trade, taking care of health and education, trying to thrust a socialistic model of society.
In short, controlling everything, under the sun. But, nothing improved. The situation has worsened. Insufficiency, ineptitude, corruption, commission, transfer-position industry, reservation, casteism, minority appeasement etc in the functioning of the government, has not only ruined the system but created a crisis of confidence.
Our leaders not only love it but enjoying this mess. In their method of governance, the cure for this rot is not a good and efficient government; but the solution is added or, at best, a different kind of rot.
For example, when public distribution system (PDS) marred by corruption, a new targeted public distribution system (TDPS) was formulated only to benefit particular vote banks. It was by and large implemented by all the states in the same manner. Similarly, when the states failed to check the cheating in exams, evaluation and admissions, No Detention System was devised; which completely ruined the education and merit.
The government knew the rot but failed to correct it. In the report of its performance evaluation report, erstwhile Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia noted down in April 2005: “About 58% of the subsidised food grains supplied from the central pool for the PDS do not reach the below poverty line families because of identification inaccuracies, corrupt and wrong practices in the distribution of TPDS. Even the handling cost of food grains by public agencies is also much higher than the market rates.
Einstein has defined madness as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. This is totally applicable to our system and political masters. So, our political masters still focus on making the state bounty more targeted so that they can win elections.
Judiciary was conceptualized to give justice but now it is facing so many problems. Apart from inordinate delays in delivering judgements due to date and adjournment game, judges are fighting like cats. When some judges could not get benches according to their choices, they found democracy, judiciary and system in danger.
Some parties have been losing elections regularly. They found EVN faulty and hacked by the winning party. Election Commission was badly attacked and defamed. The approach is classic. All know the ailment, but our politicians keep trying an array of not only ineffective therapies but also infectious ones, – even when the diagnosis is palpable. Everybody knew that inadequate and corrupt approach but nothing is done to address the real issue; instead, something new with a new name is tried.
Similarly, the caste and religion based quotas and reservation system has proved to be less than satisfactory, but the government aims at an even more ambitious Economically Weaker Section (EVS) quotas. In addition, of course, we are told that reservation will redeem and empower the poor.
More than lack of courage, this is power greed: our rulers are eager to, as Ayn Rand would say, check their premises. The premise, in this case, is that all have failed in the promise of a welfare state. The national capacity has not been used to build truly a welfare state.
All the leaders and people have almost put the cart before the horse, and they fool convincingly, this will work, which connotes that the state can pull boundless load without enlightening the mind and behaviour of the people and without judicial and administrative reforms. Now it has become a fashion like secularism to abuse the builders of the nation; like teachers, doctors, bureaucrats, judges, politicians, industrialists, ancient Hindu scriptures etc but mercy and sympathy are showered on backward tag, poor, poverty, labourers, criminals, terrorists, stone pelters, squatters, etc as if they are doing great favour to the nation and society or they are the victims of the state cruelty.
So many administrative reforms commissions have been formed but nothing positive has emerged. The last one was the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, headed by Congress leader M Veerappa Moily, it submitted fifteen reports, and the last one was in April 2009. But nothing has improved. The reforms, as initiated by the great Cambridge economist Dr.Man Mohan Singh was to sell or shut the government companies, undertakings and institutions.
It says something about the dim-wittedness of our politicians and people that neither the government nor the opposition is bothered about administrative, judicial and police reforms; they are happy with hallow secularism, largest democracy, quotas, freebies, Sharia and minority civil laws, Article-370, name changing, symbolism and other caste and communal issues.
All claim British was was unsound and insecure; instead of revamping it, politicians have loaded it with quotas, corruption, freebies, divisive laws, branded as multiculturalism and innumerable of senseless welfare measures.
The conclusion is the mess that is India, which has created a big crisis of confidence.
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