What is Wrong with the Indian State

At the risk of this sounding like one of those ‘If I were Prime Minister for a day’ essays that we were made to write in school, let me expound on what I think is wrong with the Indian state, how it affects our lives, and how we, as citizens can go about remedying it.

The Economist in one of its recent issues has pointed out that one of the main factors that are ‘holding India back’ is its poorly functioning and largely unaccountable bureaucracy. However, I think that is going after the easy prey. Painting those face-less, apparently emotion-less, rule-obsessed Babus as the villains of the piece is so much easier and politically correct than holding a mirror to ourselves and asking ‘So where did we go wrong?’.

The first question that might be asked is ‘Have we gone wrong at all’ ? From 18% literacy, a 1% growth rate and virtually no industrialization, we have, today, achieved 65% literacy (though it’s a lot worse among the rural populace, especially women) and we are one of the fastest growing economies in the world (being referred to as an ‘engine of global growth’ along with China) with an average growth rate of more than 8% in the last 4 years. That works out to be about 6% per annum in terms of per capita. And we did all this, even as our population trebled from 300 million in 1947 to 1.1 billion in 2007. From 1994 to 2005, we have brought down the number of people below the poverty line from 36% in 1993-94 to about 26% in 2005. There has been a small change in the basis of calculation now, which makes the current official figure about 22% of the population, roughly 240 million people. That implies that we brought food security to an incredible 100 million people. The government’s public distribution system, warts and all, has worked somewhere.

To exist with a reasonable degree of happiness, people need four things: basic necessities (food, clothing and shelter—which includes access to potable water and sanitation); universal primary education which creates opportunities for skill-development and further education (to those who are willing); thirdly, access to healthcare and fourthly, law and order. The reason why I give law and order such importance is that a country is not just an economy. It is about people, about civilization. And no civilization can exist, let alone prosper, without justice and fairness. By these measures, we could have done a lot better, especially when compared with other countries who started like us and at the same stage of development, like South Korea, Vietnam and Malaysia. Conceded, that we have a much larger population, but then we had larger resources too---both natural and intellectual.
To cite some figures - as per the World Bank, in 2007, 80% of India’s population lived on less than $2 a day, i.e. less than Rs. 2,400 per month, considering, with typical Indian apathy, that the poor can’t afford a holiday. Rs. 2,400 per month is good enough to pay for food for a family of 4 in a city. That is all. We aren’t even talking about clothing and shelter here. Even going by the government’s literacy figures (and literacy, by no means, is the end-state of education) we still have 35% of the population who are totally illiterate (that adds up to a mind-boggling 385 million people). As per the UN, in 2004, even though we had an impressive 96% enrolment ratio, only 73% reached grade 5. Compare that with 97% in S.Korea and 85% in Indonesia. The good news is that at least we have data; there is no data on this for China since 1991 (when they hit 86%). Gross tertiary enrolment ratio in India was only 12%.

As this data proves, we could have done a lot better. Here is my humble two-penny bit on what we could do better:

It’s someone else’s problem - Excessive Reliance on the State

I think the first battle that we have to fight is the mindset of most middle and upper class Indians, where they presume that it is somebody else’s problem. Children begging at crossings ? Bad roads ? Corrupt officials ? Poor standards in municipal / government run schools ? No water ? No sanitation ? We don’t care, because we drink bottled water, send our children to private schools, and drive air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned offices. I drive one myself, and I can’t find fault with that, but it is the apathy that is killing, in the case of farmers, quite literally. We, as private citizens, have to take up causes. We have to start getting involved. If not to bring about change directly, then at least to make those who are responsible, accountable for their actions. Do you know who your municipal councillor is ? Have you visited a local municipal school ? I have not, but I intend to. Many of us can ‘adopt’ a municipal school to make it better; to ensure that children get their mid-day meals; to ensure that they have uniforms and books and pencils.

Politics is Dirty

This is the second mind-set issue. Most people, especially young, educated urban Indians find it fashionable to bad-mouth politicians and politics like it were some kind of scourge. Agreed, that politicians, largely, have been venal and self-serving; but negating or wishing away the political class is hardly going to solve the problem. Before we become a failed state, we need to act. And the tragedy is that we have a lot of bright resources, in fact, the second largest pool of resources in humanity to draw on. Some of us have to volunteer to do public service, that is genuinely public service, and not running a kleptocracy in the guise of public service. And this will create a self-propogating circle of virtuousness - as more good people join, people will take pride in their identity as politicians (like joining the Civil Service).

Ineffective Bureaucracy

A poorly paid, poorly trained and demotivated bureaucracy can hardly be expected to deliver good governance. Most bureaucrats live in a strange Alice In Wonderland environment, where they have hundreds, sometimes thousands of fawning sycophants, and often an inept, rude and arrogant politician on top of them who holds the key to their career. I have experienced the lot of the honest bureaucrat first hand---my father was one. After retirement, he kept resolving every summer that he would buy an AC to make the uncomfortable Kolkata summer more bearable; but he never got around to do it. He has passed away now.
We need bureaucrats to be well-motivated. They have to be more than comfortable with their monetary compensation. We cannot hope for world class infrastructure and governance if we deny the people who will deliver this, a fair world class wage. The same goes for primary school teachers, and especially professors at elite government aided institutions (like the IITs and IIMs) where the problem has reached critical and ridiculous proportions, with most students getting paid more than the professors on their first jobs !

Higher Education
This brings me to the next aspect that needs urgent fixing: higher education. As I see it, though our savings rate has progessively increased as a % of GDP, as a nation we have been eating out of our savings as far as our intellectual resources are concerned. Though the government has done a stupendous job with institutions of higher learning (the IITs, IIMs, the elite law schools like NLSUI Bangalore and NSUJS Kolkata), its vice like grip on higher education is befuddling and counter-productive. While countries like Singapore and Dubai are welcoming foreign universities of repute , we are doing everything we can to keep them out. This is the same 'Keep them in poverty, so they'll be grateful for the crumbs' philosophy that plagued our official establishment till the early 90s when finally even the government went broke.
So the result is that while China produces more than 3000 Phds in Computer Science, we produce about 40. And more often than not, those pursuing Phds in India are those who couldn't get good jobs earlier in their career, barring the few radicals who are really passionate about teaching, or pursuing the subject. Under the false pretext of 'ensuring social justice' (a phrase that politicians like Arjun Singh mouth a lot) the government refuses to give autonomy to these institutions, to either manage their funding or decide what to pursue and how (actually that is linked to funding). Institutions like CSIR, which have made great contributions to scientific and industrial research in India, are in need of urgent attention and repair. There is a strong case for continuing public funding of research institutions. Private funding tends to skew research in particular areas. However, these institutions should be able to fund themselves from both sources: company sponsored research within earmarked areas (for example where private funding is invited for a particular project) and general funding of the administration / budget shortfall by the government. This will ensure that pure research in areas that do not hold current private sector interest can be carried out. Addionally, faculty and students who come out with new inventions should be able to share in the benefits of their commercialization to incentivise results. There was some talk about this last year, but I am not sure what became of that proposal. Additionally, if the government cannot do anything about the abysmal pays in these institutions, consulting assignments should be allowed for faculty members. Some institutions have already started this. Research publications in international journals of repute also need to encouraged with handsome monetary rewards, since this is a key determinant of 'quality of instruction' in international surveys and adds to the brand equity of the institutions.

Leadership
To repeat a cliche, it all boils down to leadership. And to restate the axiom, leadership is more than efficient management, though that is perhaps a sin-qua-non. India's government needs to be manned by our best and brightest. Not just in the bureacracy, where this is still often the case (thanks to the crushing competition that these ladies and gentlemen crack to just get there), but also in the political class. A sycophantic, venal, opportunistic political class (and they come in all colours - from Raj Thackaray rustling up parochial sentiments against 'migrants' from other states in Mumbai, to a Narendra Modi presiding over sectarian violence in Gujarat, to a Mayawati who is acquiring prime real estate all around the country even as she portrays herself as a champion of the Dalits and an Arjun Singh increasing reservations on the basis of birth in educational institutions to steal her thunder). Well-educated, liberal, secular people need to enter politics. If I am sounding elitist, I am. 'Repesentation of the poor' in India has become a cruel travesty, where people like Laloo Yadav and Mayawati have become like feudal lords cultivating criminals and coteries, doling out illegal benefits to them.
But the party I blame the most is the Congress, perhaps because I have the highest expectations of it. As Mr. Tarun Tejpal wrote in Tehelka, "The Congress, in whose crucible the idea of India was once born and delivered, is today a poltergeist — its shape amorphous, its intentions shadowy, its substance insubstantial. People may occasionally fear the sectarian animal and its ugly snarl, but they dread the untethered ghost more — for it scares you periodically, and is never there to be cornered for any kind of reckoning". http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne120108to_kill.asp

The Congress, and hence, the Government of India, today is a toothless animal. It does not stand for anything other than short term opportunism to stick to power. We do not take any pricipled stands, whether in domestic or foreign affairs. When monks are shot in Mynamar, or Tibet is burnt; when people throw things at Taslima Nasreen, a guest of India, who came to us asking for refuge; when a Doctor who is internationally acclaimed for his good work (Dr. Binayak Sen) is incarcerated by a state government on unsubstantiated, perhaps false charges, when women are raped by the Indian Army in Manipur (where it has draconian powers thanks to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act) , the Government of India stands a mute witness. The top leadership of the world's largest democracy, the men and women who hold the reins of a 5000 year old civilization, are paralyzed, because they are too scared to react, should it have any deleterious impact on their political prospects.
This hardly augurs well for us as a nation. A country is about geographical boundaries; but a nation is about pride, about principles. And the men and women who gave shape to the idea of India were mostly people who could die for a principle. We need that fire in our public affairs again. Not the fire that opportunistic politicians have been lighting to divide us on communal or caste lines and thereby create a consituency for themsevles.