Last week I attended a panel
discussion captioned “The Battle for India’s Future: Democracy, Growth and
Inequality” at
Chatham House, London. Mr Gareth Price,
who was chairing the session, was kind and generous not only to include me in
the select list of audience but also permitted me to make longish observations.
Rise of high
number of billionaires, 131 in 2018 as per Wikipedia, in India is a testimony
of success of market economy in the country over the past two and half decades.
It does demonstrate entrepreneurial and leadership prowess of the Indian corporate
sector, which should evoke a sense of pride among most Indians. However, when we stumble upon a data that
nearly 40% of Indian children are
suffering from malnutrition, stunted growth and impaired cognitive skills, our
joy turns into worry. Inequalities have
risen all over the world but these have probably been the starkest in India. In
a 2.4 trillion dollar economy, which is roughly one-fifth of the size of China
and 12% of that of America, with per capita GDP being one of the lowest in the
world, we account for the third highest number of billionaires. One of the panellist
in the discussion pointed out that no other economy of our size ever had as
many billionaires. These figures cause concern in the context of
sustained allegations of rise in crony capitalism in India in recent years and perception
of subversion of financial institutions, where episodes like Nirav Modi and
Mallya could just be tip of a larger iceberg.
This is
certainly not to deny exceptional achievements of several corporate leaders of
the country. I would like to believe that Indian economy has been doing extremely
well and it is on course to double its size in next 7 to 10 years to improve
the plight of entire population. Our growth story should be capable of shoring
up the fortunes of even rest of the world. However, wider perception is that we
are still nowhere close to our potential given our size and inherent strengths.
It was only until three and half decades backs that the Indian and the Chinese
economies were of same size. Five times gap certainly tells a tale of
relatively weaker institutions in a competitive global order. It is certainly
time to explore greater efficiency and innovation.
I felt
offended, hurt and eventually sad as an Indian, when one of the panellists
observed that Indian democracy was driven by power games revolving around caste
identities and the state was incapable of defending even individual right to
life and liberty. She cited a specific case study of Western Utttar Pradesh where an influential
village leader, exercising de-facto powers of his “Sarpanch” (Elected Village Chief) wife, was able
to brush aside even a murder of a woman in complicity with local police. Panellist
mentioned that several of the dubious financial dealings of this man did have a
positive impact on quality of lives of people in that remote village but a
crime as heinous as murder of a woman going unpunished, with apathy of
authorities, was shocking to human sensibilities. This is certainly not the
story of 21st century India that one would like to hear.
All the
four panellists chosen by Chatham House had fairly good exposure to India and
they had closely watched various dimensions of advances in India’s society,
economy, politics and geo-strategy. Their analysis of various policy
initiatives and outcomes threw mixed images on how India was performing on
major indicators. Most, however, concluded that Indian authorities and Indian
media were able to spell out big vision and big talks but India's institutional ability to
deliver on ground was quite deficient, if not crippled. Despite the high priority attached
by the Government on geo-strategy and national security issues, tardy progress
on Chabahar port, was cited as Indian state’s constraints on implementation. Soon
the discussion drifted to who would win the next parliamentary election
scheduled in 2019.
I believe that the panel discussion did paint a fairly realistic image of what
was happening in India. However, it felt more like a summary of media clippings, without any deep insight on why
things were evolving in this direction or what could be possible way forward.
Sadly, the same approach has been visible even in most of discourses on politics and governance even in Indian
media. People condemn and criticise issues and developments but one comes
across very little in-depth discussion on underlying causes behind major issues
or possible solutions, or even ways of finding these solutions. May be this is too
complicated and hence most consider it avoidable.
Since this
discussion was not held under Chatham House rules, I can quote that I did express
my reservations on observations of the panel.
I maintained that ‘the issues that they had pointed out were at best
symptoms of a larger problem and not the problem itself.’ I believe that Indian society is not as
atrocious as the story of the husband of lady village Sarpanch makes it sound. It
is nearly a century back when Prem Chand wrote “Panch Parmeshwar”, outlining a
tale of Indian villagers upholding truth and fairness in that era even in face
of personal emotions. India has come a long way since then.
It is also true that some of the dysfunctional state institutions and poor
implementations are impacting entire society and undermining credibility of
Indian democracy. Despite dysfunctional governance and undesirable social
changes, we do come across stories of individual excellence and
commitment in many of the state institutions.
However, a
country of India’s size in the modern era has to graduate from relying on individual
excellence to pursuit of consistent and dependable institutional excellence. It
is time that we explored reforms not only in State policies but also in some of
our key institutions and structures that implement these policies. As of now,
there is very little space and incentive for individual excellence and
initiative in most of these institutions. Hence, the output is mostly deficient and inconsistent, except
in cases when these policies are being monitored or pushed from the very top. Most
of the promotions in Government, which are major incentives other than some
lucrative postings, are based on
seniority rather than a combination of performance and leadership attributes. It
is possible that the police officer, mentioned in the case of murder of village
woman, may have taken stronger initiative to nab the culprits, had there been
incentives for high quality output and inbuilt safeguards against extraneous
pressure. This certainly is no defence for lack of action but active measures
need to be put in place for high quality and consistent institutional output.
On my emphasis on need for
improvement in regulatory and enabling capacity of Indian State, I received a
shocker from one of the Indian panellists. He remarked that the ‘prevailing
system had worked very well for politicians and they were unlikely to reform it
because they would be threatened by a transparent and efficient state.’ He went
on to conclude that India did not need any reforms in this sector and it could
still grow. One of the co-panellists objected immediately stating that people
of India deserved a functional and efficient state as much any other people. State
had far too many responsibilities that needed to be performed with integrity
and professionalism. Soon the popular mood, especially among members of Indian
diaspora who had come to attend the discussion, became unambiguously in favour
of reforms in the Indian state. There is little doubt that mere reforms in
policies would not be able to push India on course to optimize its huge
potentials. There is need for serious and sustained reforms in governance
structures of India, which we shall discuss with specific details soon.
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