[Assam] [WaterWatch] Question Time
Chan Mahanta
cmahanta at charter.net
Fri Sep 28 21:55:53 CDT 2007
At 6:17 PM +0530 9/28/07, rohit pathania wrote:
>On a lot of occasions, the role played by the bureaucracy has been
>more than questionable. But instead of criticizing them, we should
>also provide solutions on coming out of this overaged outdated model
>of governance and bring in newer ones where these people become
>directly accountable to the public.
**** Point well taken. But why not us all? You, me, everyone has a
responsibility to offer our ideas, our proposals to change what is
dysfunctional. Why I say this is to underscore the fact that those
who take the trouble of pointing out what is dysfunctional, like Dr.
Sharma has done in this piece, is doing us all a service. And the
reward for such service ought not to be an attempt to devalue his
contribution by
implying that he is behaving irresponsibly by not proposing how to
change things. Ordinarily, it would not even need a clarification
like this. But we all know how, when one gets heart-burn over
something critical someone writes, but is unable to refute or debunk
it, tries to devalue or dismiss it with the admonition that instead
of writing things critical, they ought to be suggesting solutions.
**** Having said that, I would go on to submit that "---On a lot of
occasions, the role played by the bureaucracy has been more than
questionable" is only the tip of the iceberg. The problem is far more
complicated and pervasive. It is convenient to focus on " the
bureaucrats", or them "politicians" or other simplistic targets for
all the nation's ills. But it is also just that : simplistic.
Allow me to give an example: The much maligned bureaucrat
might actually be a
highly intelligent, conscientious, public servant dedicated
to duty. But she also needs the
job in Delhi real bad and cannot afford to be transferred to
Assam as a punishment
for refusing to kow-tow to Sri Minister of This or That, who
having failed to graduate from
district college after four attempts, joined the party of
the-god-of-your-choice, and riding the
coalition band wagon, got his ministerial position. So, if
poor Ms. Bureaucrat does not do
the bidding of Sri Minister, she is done for. And if she does
, she gets the rap from Waterwatch
activists. Is she between a rock and a hard place or what?
The problem here is an absence of separation of powers (
constitutional problem) and
a defective electoral system ( one that allows an incompetent
and unethical individual
to rise to ministerdom). The problem here is not a defective
individual, Ms. Bureaucrat.
That is not all. If we dig farther , we will find that there are
other issues too, even more basic than what we just saw. And dig the
intelligentsia must . Keep doing it to where the root problems lie.
And then help change them after pinpointing them
That is what it is about. And it takes commitments.
>
>On 9/27/07, <mailto:mediavigil at yahoo.co.in>mediavigil at yahoo.co.in
><<mailto:mediavigil at yahoo.co.in>mediavigil at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
>
>Question Time
>
>It is an imaginative advertisement that unleashes the power of
>wireless communication. Reliance Communications advertisement on the
>television uses three distinct frames - majestic snow clad mountain
>peak, sprawling sea with a swinging boat, vast desert with an insect
>moving across - to mirror the absence of air, land and water in that
>order. Nothing is lost, the musical tone forming the background
>score reassures that there is indeed `network' to proxy for
>everything else! Like a bikini, this amazing ad conceals more than
>it reveals. If clean air is not a marketable good with a price then
>the market places no value on it, the ad seems to suggest! However,
>if land and sea could fit into the corporate balance sheet the same
>must be appropriated using the emerging `network' albeit of
>politicians, bureaucrats and businesses.
>
>From the Tata's controversial mini-car project that has displaced
>farmers in Singur to the Sethusamundram canal that will run across
>Ram's mythological bridge at the cost of fishermen's lifesaving
>catch, the fissure between what is good for `growth' (read
>`network') at the cost of `people' has been widening by the day.
>Yet, each of these projects and several upcoming ones being cleared
>by the `democratically' elected governments across the country (and
>even in other growing economies in the region) claim big gains for
>the poor. Despite the fact that doubts about benefits from such
>projects remain unanswered, bad policy making and insouciant
>politicians always pull such projects against all odds in India,
>purportedly to nurture the fledgling `network'.
>
>Skim through the published reports and it would be hard to get a
>single credible report on the benefits of the Sethusamundram
>project, the project to dredge sand across the so-called Adam's
>Bridge in the Gulf of Manner region. Yet, there is unstinted support
>to the project from powers-that-be in Delhi and in Chennai. One
>wonders if the Union Shipping Minister and the Tamilnadu Chief
>Minister have access to information that most others don't or that
>they haven't read most of what is available in the public domain? It
>is either a case of hiding strategic information from the public or
>about making ill-informed decisions on someone's behest, a shameless
>breach of trust of the public by its elected representatives that
>may hold the livelihoods and the ecology in the region to ransom!
>
>Politicians may play ignorant to published facts but do the babus
>(bureaucrats) help doctor such project reports to suit the vested
>interests? Whether or not they do so, the babus form an important
>link in the policy-planning process. The critical question is: are
>they better informed than their political masters? N C Saxena, a
>widely respected former senior bureaucrat and a member of the
>National Advisory Council constituted by the UPA Chairperson Sonia
>Gandhi, considers bureaucrats to be as poorly read, if not worse.
>According to Saxena, `one would find only three books in the house
>of an officer of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) - a
>railway time table because s/he is always on the move, a film
>magazine because that is the only book s/he reads, and of course,
>the civil list - that describes how many in the system are above
>him.'
>
>Does democratic governance not survive on peoples' faith in the
>collective wisdom of individual ignorance? Painfully so, even when
>we are living in a knowledge society where information and knowledge
>is only a press of a button away. Yet, it is ignorance that wields
>power. No wonder, as Saxena echoes the widely shared belief among
>the political and bureaucratic elite, the powers-that-be use the
>state as an arena where public office is used for private ends. The
>recent arrest of former Uttar Pradsh Chief Secretary Akhand Pratap
>Singh, a senior IAS who had tried to escape from the back door of
>his house only to be caught in Delhi's traffic snarl, is a case in
>point. Reports indicate that till his retirement the said bureaucrat
>was being protected (in disproportionate assets case) by his
>political masters. Amen!
>
>As corporations enter the public arena, the network is not only
>expanding but getting strengthened too. Conversion of public
>resources into private goods is exchanging hands faster than ever.
>Singur and Sethusamundrum reflect the tip of the iceberg. As
>neo-liberal economist viewpoint becomes central to political,
>judicial and executive thought process, street vendors will only get
>displaced on the pretext of protecting peoples' health as
>neighborhood shops will face sealing to make way for the glamorous
>malls. It is heartening that the the enlightened few have started
>challenging judicial decisions which have begun to serve vested
>interests at the cost of the fundamental ethos of this country -
>Satyamaiv Jaite Nanratam- that truth will triumph and nothing else!
>
>Need it be said that the recent trend of converting communal assets
>like land and water into commodities for trade in the capital market
>in the garb of `growth' (again read `network') will not only be
>anti-poor in short run but ecologically irreversible in long term
>too. In a market driven economy the environmental assets will need
>to be fully incorporated into the market for it (market) to
>transform ecological assets into marketable goods - generating
>profits for its stakeholders. Unless the move to bring the earth
>within the corporate balance sheet gets questioned, the network will
>only proxy the panch tatva, the five basic elements of air, water,
>land, fire and sky!
>
>Dr Sudhirendar Sharma
><http://jalebiuncoiled.blogspot.com/>http://jalebiuncoiled.blogspot.com/
>
>
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