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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | ET Awards Agenda for Renewal: Involve people in decision-making, says Arvind Kejriwal

ET Awards Agenda for Renewal: Involve people in decision-making, says Arvind Kejriwal

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published Published on Nov 19, 2011   modified Modified on Nov 19, 2011

-The Economic Times

 

What should be the agenda for national renewal? Should we discuss what should be done in individual sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, energy, etc., and plead before the rulers of modern democracy to accept some of our suggestions or should we focus on the decision-making processes itself, which exist in governance today? Who takes decisions in our 'democracy'? Who influences these decisions?

Are these processes really democratic? Is lack of people's participation in decision-making processes at the root of most of our problems today? I happened to visit Vidarbha recently. The prime minister had announced a relief package in 2006, out of which a huge amount was to be spent on creating irrigation facilities for the dying farmers.

I was told that when the irrigation facilities were finally ready, rather than allow farmers to use that water, it was diverted to some company with strong political connections. Interestingly, the application for diversion of water to that company was processed and decision taken within 48 hours.

The farmers were left to die. The company was "permitted" to make profits because the people in our democracy, who had the power to take decisions, had been influenced. Likewise, Vidarbha is a power surplus region. Huge quantities of electricity produced in this region are sold outside. The farmers in this region go without power for 18 hours daily. Why shouldn't the power produced in this region be sold to farmers in this region first?

Till we question the decision-making processes of our democracy, merely creating more power and more infrastructure would not help. We vote and elect our representatives. Our forefathers who drafted our Constitution assumed that since people would vote a representative to power and they would also have power to vote him out in the next elections, the elected representative would regularly ask his constituents what kind of laws do they want.

They assumed that elected representative would vote in Parliament according to the wishes of his constituents. Unfortunately, after winning election, the representative is controlled by his party high command. The party high command issues a whip on all major issues and all MPs have to vote in accordance with that whip, even if the MP and his constituents want otherwise. This became amply clear during our Lokpal campaign.

In many constituencies, large number of people came on the streets. As a result, the local MP openly declared his 'personal' support in favour of Jan Lokpal but also admitted that he would have to act in accordance with party's wishes when it came to voting in Parliament.

Therefore, people vote for parties and not individual MPs in elections. Due to complete lack of internal democracy, each party is run by a few individuals, in many cases just one individual. So, in effect, after every election, we hand over the power to rule India for the next five years to these few individuals in the winning party or winning coalition. And this power is absolute, almost without any accountability.

People have absolutely no control over the ruling party between two elections. So called "checks and balances" like CAG, standing committees, etc., are mostly advisory and successive governments have mastered the art of dodging them. Barring creating some short-term adverse media coverage, these bodies have little impact on altering power structures. So, the few individuals who control the ruling party turn into absolute despots for the next five years. If people are aggrieved, they can only plead before them.

But final decisions will be taken by these few individuals. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. India has been a victim of this absolute concentration of power. These few individuals control both legislature and executive. By controlling appointments, transfers and removal of judges, they even control the judiciary to some extent. Very few people, often powerful lobbies, have access to these few individuals.

Otherwise, how do you explain the anxiety to bail out Kingfisher? Therefore, the crying need of the hour is to deepen Indian democracy. The power concentrated in party high command needs to be dismantled. On the one hand, the elected representatives need to be given more freedom and more powers, and on the other, they also should be made directly accountable to the people of their constituencies rather than their party high commands.

Rather than restrict the role of people in Indian democracy to voting once in five years, the people ought to have a direct say in decisionmaking processes. Is it possible to directly involve people? Yes, there are several models available, provided the party high command of the present ruling coalition agrees to do it.

The Economic Times, 19 November, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/ET-Awards-Agenda-for-Renewal-Involve-people-in-decision-making-says-Arvind-Kejriwal/articleshow/10787536


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