The Hindu rate of governance

By Harish Khare

THE PRIME Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, has just effected a kind of reshuffle in his Cabinet. The exercise is supposed to have re-established his authority over his own Government. If this turns out to be so - and, it will be a big ``if'' - it would merely signal a return to a semblance of constitutional normality. After all, the Prime Ministerial supremacy is the sine qua non of effective governance at the Centre.

The question, however, is whether this one-time show of Prime Ministerial assertion, if at all, would be sufficient to help the Vajpayee regime break out of the Hindu rate of governance, which after three years of the first genuine non-Congress Government in New Delhi appears to have become our defining arrangement. Many years ago, Professor Raj Krishna had popularised the concept of ``Hindu rate of growth'', which tried to explain the pattern of minimalist rate of growth in the Indian economy. Prof. Raj Krishna had posited a certain kind of immobility of institutional arrangements, cultural preferences and intellectual predilections that did not allow the Indian economy to achieve a rate of growth higher than a paltry 3.5 per cent. The economy finally managed to break out of this stranglehold in 1991; but, as our current economic difficulties so painfully remind us, unless the process and substance of Government is liberated from the Hindu rate of governance, the gains on the economic front may well be jeopardised and there will be no satisfactory solutions to the challenges before the Indian state.

If an assertion of Prime Ministerial authority over his own Government is not sufficient enough a condition, then what would it take to break out of the Hindu rate of governance? It would not do, for example, to be content with the limits of a coalition arrangement; coalitions at the Centre are fast becoming a recipe - and, an excuse - for minimalist performance by leaders who are expected to provide leadership and by administrators who are supposed to implement policies and programmes. Almost all the Chief Ministers are convinced that performance on the administrative front does not matter - and, does not yield the commensurate electoral dividends - as much as their capacity to perform competently a few familiar political managerial chores. Inversely, an incompetent Giridhari Gamang would find himself replaced by an indifferent and insensitive Naveen Patnaik; the ritual democratic accountability had been performed without any relief to the citizens.

Nothing drives homes the invincibility of this Hindu rate of governance more than the near-starvation deaths in Orissa and other parts of the country. What is more, it took a proactive Supreme Court to shake the governing process out its institutional slumber. Neither the Prime Minister nor the ruling party at the Centre nor in Orissa displayed the minimum of moral conscience in the matter; the belated response, again, is bureaucratic.

For the last three years, the NDA Government has taken great comfort in measuring its success by the past failures of others. After three years the joke is now on the NDA crowd. The joke is particularly cruel because the NDA crowd continues to take a partisan pleasure in the pronounced inadequacies of the Sonia Gandhi Congress. The toll this rite of partisanship is taking on the entire process of governance was touched upon, if only just partially, by Mr. Arun Shourie, a few days ago in the Rajya Sabha during the debate of disinvestment: ``You are just now saying that it is all the failure of this Government or that Government. I am telling you that it has become a pervasive characteristic of Indian governance. That is the real problem''.

The extent to which the BJP leadership has happily house-trained itself in the Hindu rate of governance can be judged from the ejection of Mr. Jagmohan from the Ministry of Urban Development. Here was one administrator who was willing to follow the classic textbook approach: spell out the larger vision of a city two or three decades down the line, conceptualise a plan of action in tune with that vision, prioritise the tasks in the plan of action, summon the supervisory energy, attend to the nuts and bolts of details, stay unwavering in achieving the task at hand, despite the opposition from the vested interests.

There has been not a single rumour, leave alone an allegation, that in his drive to clean the capital out Mr. Jagmohan was susceptible to the familiar charm of the slumlords and the builders lobby. He obviously had the mandate of his Prime Minister and his Government. It was the backing of his Prime Minister that enabled Mr. Jagmohan to stand up to a whole array of opposition voices, from within and outside his own party. And just when he was on the verge of proving the point that it was possible for a good man, with the requisite dedication, integrity and competence, to move an agenda, he finds himself thrown out.

The presumed political costs of Mr. Jagmohan's anti-encroachment drive have apparently been cited to the Prime Minister, and the local party bosses have been allowed to have their way. The half- hearted explanation that Mr. Jagmohan's successor in the Ministry of Urban Development would not tinker with his priorities does not wash. The Hindu rate of governance would not let a Jagmohan break out of the stranglehold. The Jagmohans of this world would always displease some sections; after all the society is forever engaged in an intense struggle over collective resources. The idea of good governance is to ensure that the choices this struggle produces are in the larger interest (as collectively defined at any particular time) as well as are morally defensible.

The question, then, becomes that if Mr. Jagmohan had to be defrocked as the Minister for Urban Development because he was generating too much political costs, what is the guarantee that a painstakingly hard-working Minister like Mr. Shanta Kumar would be allowed to finish the task of streamlining the public distribution system.

Sooner or later, Mr. Shanta Kumar's efforts would start hurting some vested interests. Or, for that matter, how long would Mr. Arun Shourie be shown the prime ministerial indulgence. Already Mr. Shourie has earned the displeasure of the corporate crooks and their political stand-ins; he has invited the charge of breach of privilege for daring to call a political operator's bluff.

Even more pertinent a question presents itself: can individual Ministers - however competent, however dedicated, and however sincere - break out of the Hindu rate of governance without the Prime Minister of the day providing a hands-on leadership. Even if they could create little islands of ministerial efficiency, they would hardly change the fundamentals without a new collective approach.

Without a Prime Ministerial commitment, courage and clarity about our national vision, about what is right for India in the long term, what are the costs and who would pay these costs and who need to defer gratifications, there would be no breaking out of the hindu rate of governance.

The imperative of the day and the age is an inspired and inspiring Prime Minister, who would use the vast authority of his office to reorder the institutional arrangement and administrative energies of the Indian state in a manner that would excite and mobilise this disparate, multi-cultural society. The historic onus is on Mr. Vajpayee. He must begin by coming to terms with the inadequacies of the RSS world view. He is welcome to perform the guru dakshina once a year but he must mentally exorcise himself of the antediluvian demons that abound in the RSS mythology. Only then would it be possible for him to demand and get cooperation from political foes and friends in breaking out of the Hindu rate of governance.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Quotas as incentives
Next     : Judges in their own cause - II