Have citizens lost faith in government bodies?

AS INDIA enters 2012, the country is at an important crossroads. At one level, the expansion in the quantum and breadth of economic activity remains impressive, and reflects the ways in which sections of the country’s population are transforming their lives for the better. Despite this, 2011 heard a cacophony of voices raising questions about the tenuous character of India’s growth story, repeatedly flagging concerns about systemic inertia, policy paralysis and leadership weaknesses. What accounts for all this? We should start by recognising that the scale of changes in India over the past few decades has placed an extraordinary amount of pressure on governmental institutions that were created in the period of the licence raj, and some, even earlier. Many of these institutions are characterised by attributes that they inherited from the colonial period, when the state’s priorities were different from those that came to be articulated in the Indian Constitution in 1950. Many of these postcolonial inertias and inefficiencies, instead of going away, ossified in the early years of independence, through to the 1980s. A product of such a past, branches of our government are clearly feeling the pressures of keeping up with a globalising India with all of its attendant energies — an information economy, accelerated migrations, the widening gap between rich and poor, and so on. Simultaneously, the distinctions between the state, private sector and civil society are becoming fuzzier than in the past, posing serious questions about the character of India’s democratic culture. Without underplaying the importance of economic growth, it is clear that for the majority of citizens to experience the benefits of a growing economy in their liberal democratic polity, institutions of the state — the legislature, executive, and judiciary — have to tread a fine line. They have to perform in ways that are aligned with their economic context, while simultaneously remaining true to the principles enshrined in the Constitution. To achieve this balance, institutions have to perform efficiently and consistently, but also retain their legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry whose interests they serve. It is a truism of political theory that political legitimacy is considered a basic condition for governing, without which a government will suffer legislative deadlocks and collapse. It is in this context that we must look at the events of 2011. There is a widespread consensus that 2011 should be seen as year in which dissatisfaction with the status quo manifested itself in unexpected ways around the world. The Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street gatherings merely serve to punctuate what has been a much more widespread phenomenon globally, over the past decade. Closer to home, the climactic (or, anti-climactic, depending on your point of view) denouement of one phase of Anna Hazare’s movement in December serves to vindicate the views of many who feel that India’s governmental apparatus, especially the legislature and executive branches of the state, are failing to meet the expectations of an India witnessing the heightening of social and economic divisions. When the winter session of Parliament recently ended unsatisfactorily, a collective groan of disenchantment spread through the country. This sense of disappointment grew out of a growing realisation that India’s institutional arrangements are not only finding it difficult to function effectively; but more troublingly, that they are disconnected from the majority of Indians, in a quixotic land of their own whose internal turf battles have little meaning for most of the country’s people. How has this played out? Let us list some of the issues that were centrestage at the national level this past year: corruption, food security, land acquisition, foreign direct investment — the list is long. A glance at the ways these issues were debated reveals that by and large, the political class expressed themselves along party lines, and the country’s policy establishment predictably built on these debates by going deeper into the operational challenges posed by the proposed reforms. As in the past, the flurry of excitement surrounding the arrival of each of these issues was succeeded by a period of passivity, and worse, of condescension about people’s expectations. Where 2011 was different, however, was in the way that citizens reacted when they were confronted with governmental indifference. The events of 2011 reveal how far Indians feel skeptical about the ability of the many existing institutions of the state to deliver on what they have been mandated to do. Anna Hazare’s movement, in this sense, touched a chord of popular disenchantment against the apathy of governmental institutions; the ‘corruption’ issue was largely a subplot. This reading of the events of the recent past raises questions for the current discussions on the challenges of ‘institution-building’. It is relentlessly argued that India today needs better institutions, ideally those that are professionally-run. One agrees with this claim (with the caveat that the meaning of ‘professionally-run’ is debatable) — but matters do not end there. I say this because one’s interpretation of this exhortation — that we need institutions — depends largely on one’s definition of an ‘institution,’ why it exists, towards what end, and most importantly, for whom. Fundamentally, the successful implementation of rules and systems is tied to their legitimacy in the minds of those who are expected to follow them. What are the determinants of such legitimacy? Start with the tasks and outcomes that a citizenry expects its institutions and systems to deliver, and then work backward from there. Is the mail reaching on time? Do schools successfully educate kids? Does the garbage get cleaned up? Rather than counting post offices, ensure that the mail is getting delivered. Instead of tallying the numbers of enrolled students, find out if they’re learning anything. Do not tout the amount the government spends on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, make sure that roads are free of potholes. In a nutshell, find ways of making institutions accountable to citizens in ways that have a tangible impact on their lives. This is the bare minimum people expect of their government. Such outcomes earn institutions their legitimacy. The legitimacy of our existing institutions has taken a battering this past year. Let us hope that in 2012, the good sense that sustains any good democratic polity reverses this pattern. Such reversals have occurred in the past, and there is no reason that this cannot happen again.