I object to the tone...

[venugopal <gvvs@nird.ap.nic.in>]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I object to the tone of krishnan kandaswamy's message dated 4th january
on the subject " Re:dismantling..."
Firstly, he has used the word 'leper' in an abusive manner. Leprosy is
mostly a curable disease and the civilized way of referring to any
person suffering from a disease is to refer him or her as a patient. If
you visit Anandwan in Maharashtra, nobody is referred to as leper there.

Everyone is a leprosy patient at Anandwan, some of them cured completely

and some still undergoing medication. From time immemorial, the word has

come  to denote some kind of condemnation, irreversibility, banishment
from society and even literally killing a person. I think definitely
bureaucracy does not deserve all these descriptions, any more than any
other group of persons in our society.. Like many other entities,
bureaucracy also is not 100 % evil. There are definitely some positive
elements.How many people can discharge duty in a supreme manner  like
the way the Station Master in Bhopal railway station did  on the night
of December 3, 1984? You may recall that he saw the spread of the gas
and saw the approaching train consisting of a couple of thousand
passengers. He took personal risk of the highest order, when all his
staff had already fled, and went to the train, showed the green flag,
prevented the train from stopping, saved a couple of thousand lives,
inhaled Methyl Iso Cyanate in the process and died. There are
innumereable examples of extremely good work done by individual
government servants. Any natural calamity or law & order situation or
general elections or tricky university students' agitations or
starvation deaths or any major upheaval always requires the same
category of persons whom you are denigrating, to 'handle' the situation
and in most such cases the responsibility is discharged quite admirably.

And of course long term solutions to deep-rooted problems, of course,
require clear political will.
Secondly, it is erroneous to confuse between the 'system' and the
bureacracy. The system has economic, political, social, historical and
cultural dimensions. It is the system that causes all of us what we are
and marginalises all those who are marginalized. It is the system which
makes 22.4 lakh Indian children die in a year before their first
birthday. (see my message dated 25 oct 2000 titled "shocking?") System
refers to a larger picture. But bureaucracy is a smaller portion of the
system. Members of bureaucracy advise the boss. But if the boss takes no

heed, the bureaucrat has no choice except giving up the job and trying
some other type of career. Members of bureaucracy are paid to give
correct and proper advice. How do you know that they are not giving
advice?  Many initiatives in this country have been taken by
bureaucrats, just as many good things have been done by people in
different other walks of life.  'System' comprises of all influential
sections of society including the politicians, journalists, members of
the judiciary,professors,  the bureaucrats, the educated lot, the urban
influential persons, the lawyers, the engineers, the rural elite and
increasingly the institutions from whom we are borrowing loans for
running this country.
Thirdly, why is such pejorative tone  attached to 'lowly peon' who wants

a bribe? How does he become 'lowly'? Because he gets paid low wages, or
because mostly he belongs to backward or Scheduled caste?. Or, because
his bosses do not ensure proper accountability? What about the role of
citizens? On what moral grounds does one justify a bribe-giver in
comparison with a bribe-taker, when we analyze a system? Corruption
thrives partly on the existence of bribe-givers. We should be rightly
bothered about overall system which permits bribes and not just empty
rhetoric  about 'finishing off'  bribetakers. It may be a part of the
story that corrupt government servants keep giving part of the booty to
higherups. But it is also equally true that they take bribes  because
there are people who keep giving them. Krishnan Kandaswamy has rightly
talked about the need for citizens' groups to take a bold stand and say,

"we pay no bribes". I am fully with him on this. There are also many
other aspects of the system like transparency,decentralization of
decision making, checks and balances, accountability, revision of
various rates, tender procedures, use of Information Technology etc, all

of which have to be considered while discussing corruption. A system
should of course take care of things in such a manner that following
rules and open procedures should be the rule rather than the exception.
But we are living in times, where somebody makes news just because he is

honest. Honesty has become exception and to be corrupt is the normal way

of life! And in this regard, why single out bureaucrats? Was Hansie
Cronze or some of our own cricketers bureaucrats? Please do not
misunderstand me. I am not defending corrupt bureacrats. I am only
saying that bureaucrats do not deserve exclusive condemnation. There
should be others also, who need to be condemned and then one should
slowly sit back and cooly analyze how to reform and provide alternative
framework as I have mentioned in my previous message.
Fourthly, how do you know that regulations don't work because the
implementors are themselves the bureaucrats?  In our democratic polity,
the MLAs and MPs make the Law, the bureaucrats are to implement orders
from above and the Ministers control the bureaucrats. If any of these
people commit mistakes, there is Judiciary. And to watch all this you
have another pillar of democracy, the free press. Where is the doubt
about this arrangement?
Fifthly, what is mentioned about chennai municipality may be true of
many other towns in the country. In Bangalore a few years ago a
beautiful initiative was taken by a citizens' forum. They have taken the

trouble of devoting their energy in a serious manner and developed an
exhaustive interview schedule. With that schedule, they interviewed a
number of users of different services in the city, including people who
use telephone, those who approach town planning authority for building
plan approval, people who want driving licences and so on. They
developed a 'corruption matrix', ranking different departments or
organizations in extent of corruption. They presented their findings
based on solid data to the heads of organizations. The Heads and their
political bosses got something in their hands which was so uncomfortable

and challenging. They swung into action and undertook a  number of
reforms, brought better transparency and improved to some extent, as
revealed by yet another detailed survey undertaken by the same
organization a few years later. It is a fantastic example of how a
citizens' forum can help bringing out change. Name of this organization
is Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore.Similar is the case with the Right
to Information movement in rural areas of Rajasthan launched by Mazdoor
Kisan Sangram Samiti and similar efforts in Madhya Pradesh.
Instead of lamenting and condemning, it would help a great deal if all
of us did some actual work in undertaking micro-initiatives or
supporting such efforts,  depending on our abilities. Just condemning
government servants wont help at all.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the National Debate on System Reform.       debate@indiapolicy.org
Rules, Procedures, Archives:            ../debate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------