Prologue
The
above is the cover of the October 5th-11th issue of The Economist, suitably edited to stress
upon the point I wish to make; how badly the country in question, the US, is
being run in the context of the ongoing standoff between the two parties of
governance. The Federal Government has shut down, more than in name. What
exactly the Federal Government employees are advised to do till they are called
back to work? The Economist in its
characteristic in-your-face response says, “Put your feet up, open a beer and
watch Congress implode” as the title of the infographic in its inside pages screams
(see below)!
In
short, the US is being deemed dysfunctional and the blame is squarely put on
its politicians and also its system of governance, with checks and balances
where, as of now, only checks are visible. There is no balance, to be explicit
about it.
Introduction
It
is typically people with a head full of gray hair or no hair who write columns
/ blogs / opinions in newspapers and e-news sites. Well, I have 7/8 head-full
of gray hair and that is the reason I limit myself to quasi-public forum like
my own blog space. In this post I am going to take on a bald media eagle whose
column I unfortunately stumbled upon in a fully public space.
Thesis
Let
me take you to the bald headed member of the commentariat. Given below is the
piece I am going to shred to pieces. It is about ten days old, the time lag to
be attributed to the time to gather my multi-dimensional outrage dimension by
dimension and also the wait for the US system to implode. Now that both have
happened, I am off from the gates!
The
piece starts with what the young people of India want. This is a promising
start because the young of today are the leaders of tomorrow, as the saying
goes. But, what they want must be moderated by the wisdom of the baldies. No,
the piece does not help. Instead, it takes their wishes at face value and as
validating the core ideas of our republic. The youth are the republic and they want
a presidential form of governance; who are you to say no, the article asks the
other baldies and gray haired.
The
article says that “Coalitions and concomitant pork barrel politics [my italics] increases uncertainty and impacts
national interest and growth.” The stressed phrase, pork barrel politics is of American origin and that led me to
understand that the author is enamored of the US system. Now, the logic of
putting up the prologue must make sense. That model presidential form of
government is creating chaos out of nothing. This is what our youth want. Good!
The
“Westminster model of democracy is unsuitable for a stable government in India.”
The piece is big on the requirement of stability, repeating it many times (I counted
half dozen!). Two things. First, the presumption of the virtues of stability
and the requirement of a stable government in a democracy.
Second,
the issue that I will address first, the claim that there is a suitable model
of democracy that is suitable to India. Barack Obama is comfortably ensconced
in the White House and will not be evicted till January 2017. That is stability
for you. And, that is why the Federal Government is undergoing such severe
governance convulsions. Take that.
OK,
if not the US model of democracy, what other models can we adopt, preferably
without any adaptation to suit our genius? I need to explain a portion of the
previous sentence. If we adapted any system, the commentariat will be upon us
in a flash, just as it has done with the Westminster model. No adaptations;
true to the original, in letter; spirit be damned.
The
focus is on centralization of powers of governance; the fewer the better. This
is absolute trash, particularly in such a severely heterogeneous country such
as India. There are a number of statements that celebrate such centralization
and I will pick only one. The objective of the Sri Lankan system is to “eliminate
smaller parties from parliament so that a few major parties could populate the
house.” In the recent elections in the northeast of Sri Lanka, the smaller
party asserted itself, and could not be “eliminated”. The use of word “eliminate”
in a conversation about governance! Abrades like sandpaper. I am wondering
whether the writer ever read what he wrote. He is calling for the situation
that led to the infamous Emergency!
If
you have a powerful figure in governance without an effective counterbalance,
you get Emergency. If you have a system of checks and balances, you become
dysfunctional. Pick your poison, please.
The
other systems mentioned in the article are those adopted in France, Germany,
and for God’s sake, South Korea! Citing Germany, the writer calls for, at least
wistfully, a unified government of the Congress and BJP. The communists may
want to say something about that. Then, he calls for scaling up our own system
as obtained in the panchayats encompassing areas of quite severe homogeneity to
the whole nation, characterized by a more severe heterogeneity! Comparing
Germany and India! He talks approvingly of the French system without ever
giving even a nod to its negatives! The only acceptable point he made was that
in Germany, “parties usually select competent people”, and that too only for
nominated positions. Indeed, this undermines the writer’s thesis that it is the
system that is to be set right! He, unfortunately, did not catch that irony.
Now,
to the first point, about stability and democracy. Democracy is inherently
chaotic, balancing the interest of the numerous competing groups. If a country
experiences stability of government, there are only two possibilities. One, it
is not a democracy. Two, the balance has been fine tuned. Obviously, rather, I
would assume that the writer wants democracy for India. Therefore the first
alternative is out. The second alternative is about the working of the system
and is not a characteristic of the system itself.
This
can be brought out by looking at the systems the writer did not deem necessary
to mention, address. South Africa, Israel, Italy, Greece, Ireland. Why did the
dog not bark, to ask the question that Sherlock asked of himself. Israel is a
coalition of an uncountable number of parties and the government survives only
because of the external threat. South Africa has such a dominant party
governing the country, that it does not feel the need to be answerable to its
own constituency. The less said about Italy or Greece, the better. Ireland is
another fine example of democracy to be skipped over.
Why
was Switzerland model of governance through referendum not mentioned? What
about Japan? No democratic government has been able to extricate the country
out of what indeed appears to be stasis. The UK, that hot seat of Westminster
model is swinging on a vicious pendulum, between Labour and Tories, with Liberal
Democrats adding fuel to fire.
Conclusion
To
make it short, there is no system as of now that will provide a stable government
that is guaranteed to be democratic and also answers to the competing forces in
a democracy. And the writer did not even give a hint how such a system could be
devised, what are its parameters. Then, why did he choose to write that piece?
Is it worth the paper it was written on or the number of bytes it occupies in a
server somewhere in the Information universe. No, but he has his acolytes and what do they say? See below:
Matches the guru's inanities,to be mild about it!
On the whole,
I am thankful that he did, though! I could add to the list of my posts!
Raghuram
Ekambaram
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