Vivekananda International Foundation: Gandhi

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Friday, April 24, 2015

NITI Aayog

Priyang Pandey

In an effort to restructure the growth vehicle of the nation, Sh. Narendra Modi has announced a paradigm shift from the erstwhile Planning Commission to a new institution named ‘NITI Aayog’ or the National institute of Transforming India. NITI Aayog, in a departure from the working methodology of the Planning Commission, will serve as a ‘Think Tank’ of the Government – as a directional and policy dynamo.

NITI Aayog will provide governments at the central and state levels with relevant strategic and technical advice across the spectrum of key elements of policy, including matters of national and international exchange on the economic front, rational distribution of best practices from within the country as well as from other nations, the infusion of new policy ideas and specific issue-based support.¹

On January 1, 2015 the new Government ushered in not only the Gregorian New Year but also a new era in governance. After 65 years of the Planning Commission, Sh.Modi in a bold stroke announced the dismantling of the Yojana or Planning Aayog and setting up of the NITI Aayog, which would infuse new blood into the system till the grassroots. The PM had already given inkling in his maiden speech from the historic Red Fort on August 15, 2014 about his epochal decision.

Civilisationally, we have had a culture of grand strategic thinking which can be proved by the epics like the Chanakya’s Arthashastra. In fact, in Mahabharata as well Virata Parva, Bheeshma and Krishna symbolise the strategic thinker. Now, NITI Aayog is the Grand Strategic Think Tank of the government. According to the Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta, “You have the right to work only, but never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive. Nor let your attachment be to inaction.” On the path of Karma and Jnana, NITI Aayog is to be the new charioteer to the Government’s chariot. The NITI Aayog will play the role of Shri Krishna, be the guiding force of the Government which is playing Arjuna or the Karmayogi in the battle against the evil of poverty and corruption and for the socio-economic growth and well-being of the people and the Nation.³

As laid out in the cabinet resolution on NITI Aayog, it has been established with an idea of ‘good governance’. The resolution clearly states: “Our legacy to future generations must be sustainable progress.” It goes on to spell: “Specific to the planning process, there is a need to separate as well as energize the distinct ‘processes of governance from the ‘strategy’ of governance.” This is important as despite decades of effort, policy solutions have always played second fiddle to increasing Plan allocations and expenditures without any “social benefit-cost analysis” or “Macro-economic models” to back the decisions.

Background to changing course

It’s not the first time that the Indian government has had to make a course correction. In 1991, the Indian economy was ailing with bankruptcy and evils of license-raj, resulting in a huge financial crisis. The then government framed the new policy and decided to open up the market to the world by implementing L.P.G (liberalisation, privatisation & globalisation). Coincidentally, it was also a result of the terms and conditions which was been put in front of the government by International Economic bodies in lieu of the heavy loans sanctioned by these organisations for bailing out the Indian economy.

Post LPG, we have reached at a stage where adherence to the global market is the basic necessity for the progress and sufficiency. To encash the global opportunities in a better way we need to frame policies in an efficient way to reach out the last downtrodden citizen of the country and make him a part of the development journey with a new vision and mission while ensuring upliftment of the people who are living a horrifying life of poverty lacking the basic amenities they are entitled for.⁴

Why the NITI Aayog

“From being preoccupied with survival, our aspirations have soared and today we seek elimination, rather than alleviation, of poverty, The role of the government as a “player” in the industrial and service sectors has to be reduced. Instead, government has to focus on enabling legislation, policy making and regulation,” says the mandate of the NITI Aayog. Globalisation is now one of the realities which can’t be neglected, where every nation and its economies are inter-connected and inter-dependent,

The international market which is a driving force of the economies worldwide is also playing a crucial role. We are no different, from crude oil to modern technology and sophisticated weapons, from gold and silver to diamond and other precious stones. India is also a big importer which makes us dependent on the global community on many fronts. Nearly 75% of the crude oil requirement is being catered by foreign countries which can’t be avoided or nullified.^5,6

Far from being a revamped Planning Commission, the NITI Aayog has been conceived as a wholly new institution that will function as the government's friend, philosopher and guide with State governments as equal partners. The NITI Aayog, as its name suggests, is about adapting governing institutions, policies, strategies and processes in keeping with the changed, and changing, circumstances.

Unlike 1950 when the Planning Commission was set-up based on the presumption that the government should be in the driver’s seat for the economy, economic growth in India is now driven primarily by the private sector, the farmer, the pot makers, the tea vendors, the self-employed lower middle class, the small shop owner, and the multi-billionaire factory owner. The economy is driven by their decisions to invest, to borrow, and to hire.

Planning Commission and its formation

There has been a crying need to replace the Planning Commission for some time now. The Planning Commission was formed by a cabinet resolution on 15^th of March, 1950 and was formulated as per the needs and ways of functioning of the then government.

Formulating the Five Year Plans was the primary task that was assigned to the Planning Commission. The FYP was inspired by communist ideology. The first FYP was implemented in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin in 1920 and even now, many communist led nations like China are still following the pattern of FYP.⁷

India’s Planning Commission after its formation started working on the first FYP which was based on the Harold-Domar model with the total outlay of Rs.2378 crore and the target of the growth rate was set as 2.1%. After the end of the first FYP, the achieved growth rate was 3.6%, with the first few FYPs primarily focussing on agriculture, industrialisation, energy generation and infrastructure building.⁸

The second FYP based on Mahalanobis model focussed more on heavy industrialisation by the public sector, After a plan holiday of three years due to wars and famine and also due to BOP crisis at the end, which also led to food crisis in the country and to overcome the urgent scarcity, a new revolution was started in the field of agriculture named ‘Green Revolution’.

However, after the Third Five Year Plan (FYP), there has been a steady productivity decline till the ongoing twelfth Five Year Plan in terms of outcome, efficiency and efficacy.

Table 1- Five year plans: facts and figures^9,10,11,12

Till now there have been twelve FYPs with the total outlay of Rs.9929475.47Cr However, despite funds being allocated, there is not much to show on the ground.

Planning Commission and its failures

The failures of the Planning Commission are many. The reasons are also differing. Here’s a look at some of them.

Against the Federal structure:

The Planning Commission has been gradually expanding its jurisdiction. As per the Constitution, the Finance Commission shall formulate the principles and policies for tax collection by the government of India as well as its distribution among the state and the centre. The Finance Commission is to be set up every five years to keep in mind the current economic and social scenario while calculating the ratio of centre-state share as well the distribution among the states depending on its population and area. However, the previous government decided to take out the flow of plan funds to states from such fiscal transfers. Gradually a large discretionary element crept in, particularly when central ministries started developing their own schemes, called Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) even in subjects that constitutionally belonged to states.

This reduced the State governments to becoming supplicants with chief ministers having to approach the Planning Commission seeking funds that were legitimately theirs to begin with. In the process, the Planning Commission moved away from its key role in developing policies and sorting out inter-sectoral issues that span beyond a single ministry. It started concentrating on approving not just the overall five-year and annual plans of states, but also their individual schemes as CSS which was a clean attack on the federal structure of the nation.¹³

NITI Aayog however, will focus on building a knowledge base of strategies and policies while giving back the lost importance of a constitutional body, Finance Commission in terms of mandate of distributing funds to the states.

Against Inclusiveness:

To treat states of the Union as mere appendages of the Centre is a gross violation of the Federal structure. As the NITI Aayog says: “States should have a decisive say in determining the architecture of economic growth and development as per their own needs. The one-size-fits-all approach, often inherent in central planning, has the potential of creating needless tensions and undermining the harmony needed for national effort. Dr Ambedkar had said with foresight that it is “unreasonable to centralise powers where central control and uniformity is not clearly essential or is impracticable”.

The impracticality is apparent from the fact that Sh. Narendra Modi, serving as a Chief Minister of Gujarat, had raised his voice during the Dr. Manmohan Singh led UPA government against the structure and working style of the Planning Commission which led to discrepancies and enemity in fund allocation to the non-UPA ruled states which they were entitled to.

The fallout of not including states in planning process is apparent from the failure of the MNREGA and the PDS like schemes.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA)

In a field research in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, on terms of not getting quoted, an Engineer from the local civic agency said that there are many flaws in MNREGA. As Planning Commission decided everything on its own without even taking the states advice into cognizance, the scheme wage rate per day was decided by the Centre, and the labour rate per day is different in every state and region, the places with rich soil have labour rates more than the backward or remote states. Places with great agriculture production have daily wage rate up to Rs.393 per day as mentioned in the state government’s schedule of rates policy on its website, which is much below the wage rate decided by the centre. The state agencies have been asked to employ MNREGA job card holders into the non-machinery works for rural connectivity.

A minimum employment of 100 days was guaranteed at the statutory minimum wage of Rs.120 (2.63$) per day in 2009 prices, after six years it has been increased seven times to Rs.174 per day and it differs from state to state but there is a huge rate disparity which is evident from the data of Schedule of Rates of respective states, unskilled workers in Haryana would get the highest daily wage of Rs. 214, up from Rs. 191/day but still its less than the actual market rate of labour per day.¹⁴

To compensate the difference in the schedule rates of state and daily wage rate of MNREGA, government offices are forced to employ one labour at the cost of two as per NREGA norms to fill the wage difference and to show the work done they use JCB machines which is against the policy of MNREGA.

Out of the total outlay of Rs. 272945.2 crore¹⁵ on MNREGA last year, the rural connectivity area shared the major potion of 36.7%¹⁶ where these labours were deployed to aid the civic agencies. If this doubling of the figure to adhere with the existing local wage rate is prevalent throughout then it’s an issue to be addressed promptly with consultation of the state government to fix the base wage rate according the regional rates and prevalent conditions.

Moreover, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has come under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court which said money was not reaching real beneficiaries and in many cases, going to wrong hands. “There is no uniform policy. The money is not reaching actual beneficiaries,” a bench comprising CJI K.G Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B .S Chauhan said. The Bench, which expressed concern over the implementation of MGNREGA said several projects under the scheme are failing as the funds allocated for them either remain unutilised or in many cases money lands up in wrong hands. “There has been distribution of money. But in many cases, it is going to wrong persons and real beneficiaries do not receive the cash,” the Bench said. It added money under MGNREGA is not an ex-gratia payment as people in villages are assured that money is guaranteed in lieu of the work performed by them.¹⁷

The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) performance audit report of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has also shown significant decline in per rural household employment generation in the last two years and increasing corruption.¹⁸

NITI Aayog is going to be a boon to solve such issues of corrupt practices which is depriving the needy in getting their entitled benefits. If the policies are formulated with the state stakeholders as members in the policy formation group then on one hand it will help in curbing corruption and malpractices while on the other hand it will also provide the states their right of having a say in the policy. This will eventually result into a ‘healthy democratic federalism’.

Public Distribution System (PDS)

Due to the centralised nature of decisions, successive PDS schemes have been failures. For instance, in many areas, where the population is majorly wheat eating, supplying nearly equal quantity of rice is redundant as it goes undistributed. This is then used by the local vendors to sell in their stores elsewhere. An example is West Bengal which is majorly a rice eating state where according to the PDS data portal,¹⁹ wheat which is supplied in the same quantity or more gets into the system of black markets and corruption.

CAG have pointed to the loopholes in public distribution system (PDS) on non- availability of grain to beneficiaries, poor oversight and possibilities of diversion into open market. ²⁰ Under PDS, beneficiaries get rice, wheat, sugar, edible oil, tur dal and kerosene. Under Targeted PDS system 35kg of food grain is issued per month at subsidised rate to BPL families. Functioning of PDS had several deficiencies; Identification of BPL families was faulty due to enlisting ineligible families and leaving out those eligible. Non-lifting of food grains from FCI led to BPL beneficiaries being deprived of benefits, there was avoidable expenditure on purchase of rice from open market, said the CAG report on PDS.

This clearly undermines the intention of launching such centrally sponsored Schemes where the needs of the target group are not getting catered efficiently and honestly, due to lack of co-ordination between the Centre and the States.

Corruption

There were many other controversies related to Planning Commission earlier. In 2012, the Planning Commission was accused for spending some Rs. 35 lakh in renovating two office toilets, and then it was questioned for suggesting that people who spent Rs. 27 or more a day were not poor, which in a way ridiculed the poor. The commission had remained powerful over the decades because it had emerged as a sort of parallel cabinet with the Prime Minister at its head. The Commission's power in allocating central funds to states and sanctioning capital spending of the central government was deeply resented by states and various government departments.

The Shift

“The people of India have great expectations for progress and improvement in governance, through their participation. They require institutional reforms in governance and dynamic policy shifts that can seed and nurture large-scale change (paragraph 3, NITI Aayog Resolution).”

The abolition of the Yojana Aayog and its replacement by Niti Aayog by the new government will help change the emphasis from projects and programmes to policy and institutions, from expenditure inputs to real outcomes through better governance and from political disputation over incremental allocations to new challenges and opportunities in a global environment. The discussion of India in a global context also reminds one of Gandhiji’s sayings: “Let the windows of my mind be open to winds from across the world, but let me not be blown away by them.”

Benefits of a more Inclusive Structure

As the cabinet resolution on NITI Aayog says: “An important evolutionary change from the past will be replacing a centre-to-state one-way flow of policy by a genuine and continuing partnership with the states. We need to find our own strategy for growth. The new institution has to zero in on what will work in and for India. It will be a Bharatiya approach to development.” A case in point is the redressal of inequalities based on gender biases as well as economic disparities. We need to create an environment and support system that encourages women to play their rightful role in nation-building. With this thought in mind, a new scheme was launched by PM Modi on 22^nd February, 2015 in Panipat district of Haryana state: ‘Beti Bachao- Beti Padhao’.²⁰

The scheme is a perfect example of the vision and ideology on which NITI Aayog was formed. In Haryana, the sex ratio is the worst in comparison to the national average, where it stands at just 879 females per 1,000 males.²¹

The Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao scheme will be implemented through a national campaign and focussed multi-sectoral action in 100 selected districts, covering all states and UTs. The campaign is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The campaign will be aimed at ensuring stricter implementation of existing laws to prevent sex determination tests, ensuring proper education for girls, improving sex ratio and empowering women.

The reason which makes this scheme relevant is because of its future outcome and benefits in the states like Haryana and not in a state like Kerala where the sex ratio stands at 1084 ²². Again, villages are the shield of our culture and civilisational values. They need to be fully integrated institutionally into the development process so that we draw on their vitality and energy. Broadly focusing upon the development in the villages which includes socio-cultural development and motivate the village community,“ Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana²³ was launched by the PM on the birth anniversary of the great socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan, on 11 October 2014.

Policy making must focus on providing necessary support to villages in terms of skill and knowledge upgrades and access to financial capital and relevant technology. An example would be the possibility of using infrastructure of Railway Stations across India and involvement of the ex-army men as trainers. According to Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the skill development minister (independent charge), there are 65,000 kms of railway network in the country with over 8,000 stations, out of which 2000 have busy transactions and rest 6,000 stations have good infrastructure, electricity as well as 4,300 km of optical fiber cable network. This is to be utilized for the Mission Skill India. The Indian Army in this case, would be a vital partner from where ex-servicemen who have had an average experience of 20 years in skilled service could be facilitated as Master trainers or Entrepreneurs. ²⁴

In conclusion

Swami Vivekananda said “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” Through its commitment to a cooperative federalism, promotion of citizen engagement, egalitarian access to opportunity, participative and adaptive governance and increasing use of technology, the NITI Aayog will seek to provide a critical directional and strategic input into the development process. This, along with being the incubator of ideas for development, will be the core mission of NITI Aayog.

India is an emerging market as it encompasses of a major chunk of the world’s working population, especially the middle class. The cabinet resolution on NITI says: “Our continuing challenge is to ensure that this economically vibrant group remains engaged and its potential is fully realised.” Recognition is also given to Non resident Indians. This is a crucial geo-economic and political dividend which can’t be ignored. Sh. Modi has realised this and announced lifetime visas and plans for voting rights during his recent visits to USA and Australia. An ordinance amending the citizenship act, 1955 has already been effected.²⁵

What makes NITI Aayog unique and relevant to today’s India is not just the emphasis on developmental planning – versus merely project allocation but also the understanding that development has to be global. Geo-political economics is getting increasingly integrated - ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ a term propounded by our sages which literally means the whole mother Earth is our home – is turning into a reality with the increasing globalisation.

End-notes:

Published in Vivek: Issues & Options, January – February 2015, Image Source: http://www.indiagk.net

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The Complex Art of Political Organisation

Dr. M.N. Buch

Visiting Fellow, VIF

The science and business of government is what politics is all about. In fact the dictionary meaning of politics is “The science or business of government; moves and manoeuvres concerned with the acquisition of power”. Politics is played by political parties and in a democracy it is political parties which contest elections and which, if they are fortunate enough to be favoured at the polls, form a government. Therefore, in a democracy any group of people which wants to capture power and thereby determine the manner in which a country will be governed has to form a political party. Anna Hazare, who had taken up the theme of fighting corruption and eliminating it, largely through a law in this behalf to be enacted by Parliament, finding that the agitational approach alone was not enough to win success, has now decided to use the political road to power in order to achieve his objective.

Before India embarked on its campaign for independence this country did not have any meaningful political parties because the road to government and to power lay not through the political process but rested on the bayonets of an imperial power. One was either British; therefore a ruler or one was an Indian whose principal task was to be governed by his imperial masters. Here there was no room for politics or a political party. No doubt there were movements such as the revolutionary movement led by the Anushilan Party in Bengal, but this was a pure campaign of terror whose ultimate objective was nihilism and, therefore, this group did not really constitute a political party. Its origin was the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon, which it hoped to undo by creating a situation of anarchy through terror. It suffered the fate of all such movements, which was that the British security apparatus penetrated its cellular structure and then destroyed it. This was an excellent example of how a terrorist movement could be broken, but in my view it did not constitute a political movement.

My contention could be questioned because on 28th December, 1885 the Congress was born in Bombay through the initiative of Allan Octavian Hume. This initiative had the blessing of the British Viceroy, Lord Dufferin. Hume intended this party to be a group which would meet under the chairmanship of the Governors of the Provinces as a type of grievance court which could place before government issues relating to India. However, the Viceroy wanted an Indian to preside over the Congress so that it could place the Indian point of view before government without inhibition. Hume was the first General Secretary of the party and remained so till 1907. Lest it be understood that the Congress at the time of its origin was a party fighting for independence, it might be noted that in 1888 the President of the party was George Yule, an Englishman, in 1894 it was Alfred Webb, in 1904 it was Sir Henry Cotton, a retired ICS officer and in 1910 it was Sir William Wedderburn, who had been Secretary to the Government of Bombay. The early role of the Congress is best described in the words of Louis Fischer in his book “The Life of Mahatma Gandhi”. I quote, “The Congress was organised to channel popular protest into legal moderation. But into the channel flowed the fresh waters of national revivalism… The world theosophist movement … likewise fed that pride in the past which constituted the foundation of the movement for national regeneration.

Thanks in part to the unification and orderly administration of the country by the British, Indian industrialists, Hindus and Parsees in particular, grew rich and began to buy out their British partners. The emergence of Indian capitalism and a new Indian middle class gave a powerful impetus to the urge for self-government. Under these multiple influences the Congress outgrew its collaborationist boyhood and became a demanding youth”. Here it needs to be acknowledged that in the conversion of the Congress from a group which petitioned the British into a political party which became a formidable instrument for organising the whole of India into a freedom movement, the greatest credit must be given to Gopal Krishna Gokhale and to Bal Gangadhar Tilak who coined the slogan “Swaraj is my birthright”.

The metamorphosis of Congress from a group representing Indian interests into a political party whose objective was the same as that of any modern political party, that is, the ousting of foreign rule and then gaining power to govern the country, followed a long and tortuous path. A comparison could be made with the African National Congress in South Africa which also began as a group of people believing that the white masters could be petitioned to recognise the existence of the black population and then gradually turned into a political movement which combined militancy with genuine politics and then culminated in the elimination of apartheid from South Africa and its replacement by a genuinely democratic polity. Because the Congress had a leader of the stature of Mahatma Gandhi and ANC of the stature of Nelson Mandela the transition of power from imperial rule in India to independent India and from white supremacy to genuine democracy in South Africa could take place without embitterment or hatred for the British in India and the whites in South Africa. In this lies a lesson for those who want to constitute new political parties in India, for example, Anna Hazare. There seems to be a belief in the followers of Anna Hazare that because theirs’ is a popular movement against corruption and if the movement converts itself into a political party it will instantaneously be voted to power. Thereafter it will then be able to use this political power to abolish corruption. Fortunately politics is not like a packet of Rasna, a flavoured powder which one dissolves in water to create an instant cold drink. Politics, even the politics of revolution, is an evolutionary process in which first there is an idea, then the idea is converted into a seed, the seed into a seedling, the seedling into a tree on which grow various branches which together constitute politics. People who start a political movement need enormous endurance and staying power if they want their ideas to mature into the tree of which I have spoken.

Let us take the example of two revolutionary movements, that of Lenin in Russia and of Mao-Tse-Tung in China. The seed of Marxist philosophy was sown by Karl Marx in the latter half of the 19th Century. It was the consequence of the horrors of the industrial revolution which planted in Karl Marx’s mind an idea that the future belonged to the proletariat and that could only be achieved through a total egalitarian dictatorship of the proletariat in which ultimately the State would wither away. This gave birth to the Communist Party which, after intense struggle in Russia and in the midst of the total defeat of that country in the First World War, resulted in the elimination of the Tsarist regime and the establishment of the Soviet Union under Communist rule. The objective of this political movement was the destruction of the existing State in Russia, but it was not an anarchist movement because its sequential objective was to establish the Soviet Union as a dictatorship of the proletariat. There was no instant fix in the change of the political and social order; it came at the end of a long, hard struggle. Similarly, the Communist triumph in China in 1949 was the result first of the Sun Yat Sen Movement in China in which the Kuo-min-tang party established by him overthrew the old imperial order and established a republic. Despite the interregnum of Chiang Kai-shek, during whose regime the Kuo-min-tang descended into the depths of corruption, Mao Tse Tung’s Communist Party struggled against the government and this ultimately resulted in the Chinese Revolution of 1949. Unlike the Soviet Union, where Lenin and Trotsky heavily depended on the urban proletariat, the Chinese Revolution was entirely peasant based because the reality of China was that it was a predominantly peasant based country. Mao’s genius lay in realising that dogmatic Marxism which depended on the urban industrial proletariat needed redefining in the Chinese context and here it is the peasants who constituted the proletariat.

In India independence saw the Congress in power in the Centre and the States, just as in Pakistan it was the Muslim League which gained power. After Jinnah’s death and the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan the politics of Pakistan underwent a change. Multi-party democracy virtually disappeared and despite its sporadic emergence from time to time in various forms, the fact remains that in Pakistan it is the Army which calls the shots. India continued in the democratic mould. The Mahatma realised that the Congress was all powerful in India, it was in government and could not, therefore, oppose government and, therefore, Congress rule would degenerate into one party rule. No one-party rule can be truly democratic. He fully appreciated that the Congress consisted of many disparate elements which come together in the freedom movement, including the powerful group of socialists. The cementing force which held these groups together was power and this is the worst kind of a bond because it only temporarily binds groups within a larger whole which can ultimately only be destructive. He recommended that the Congress should dissolve itself and new parties should be formed according to their respective ideologies which could help democracy to function. When this did not immediately happen the Mahatma tried to create a group of Constructive Workers. They would not go into power politics but would guide government and the people in the running of government on truly democratic, nonviolent lines. For Anna Hazare and his associates I would like to quote the words of the Mahatma who said, “I do not want to take power into my hands, but abjuring power and devoting ourselves to pure, selfless services of the voters we can guide and influence them. It would give us far more real power than we shall have by going into the government. A stage may come when the people themselves may feel and say that they want us and no one else to wield power. The question could then be considered”. Let Anna Hazare not feel that he is the only crusader against corruption. This is what the Mahatma had to say “There is so much corruption today that it frightens me. Everybody wants to carry so many votes in his pocket, because votes give power… Banish the idea of the capturing of power and you will be able to guide power and keep it on the right path… There are other ways of removing the corruption that threatens to strangle our independence at its very birth”.

To return to the main theme of this paper, a multi-party democracy needs more than one political party, but does not need and cannot survive fragmentation of parties into tiny components, each with a highly selfish agenda of its own. Therefore, before a new player enters the political scene it must first identify its own ideology and spell it out, first to its members and then to the people at large. The Communist Party was born out of a Marxist ideology, the parameters of which were created by Marx and the body of which was created by Lenin. Karl Marx was the ideologue and Lenin was the person who gave substance to the party. Fabian socialism in Britain grew out of an idea and the originator of this dogma was the London School of Economics. Even the Nazi party, or the National Socialist Party to give it its full name, was born out of a somewhat confused amalgam of racist thoughts, Nietzsche’s philosophy of rejecting the Christian compassion for the weak and advocating the creation of the Ubermensch, or superhuman, combined with an ill formed idea which was generally anti capitalist and ultimately focused onto extreme anti Semitism. The point being made here is that even the ultimate horror launched on the world by the Nazis came out of some form of ideology. However, let me hasten to add that this was an aberration and does not represent what I mean by ideology in the context of politics.

From the ideology of a party emerge its programmes, aims and objectives. Whereas these can be flexible to a contextual reality, ideology must be based on firm foundations. Judged by the criteria of ideology and ideology-based programmes, no political party in India lives up to their ideal. Politics is a game of power and ideology is what lends a direction to the purpose for which power will be utilized. When Clement Atlee came to power as the head of the Labour Party in Britain his programme, based on the ideology of socialism, was to make available universal health care and education to all, to nationalise major industry and to transfer from private ownership to the public domain the major utilities and capital goods industries. Atlee’s government proceeded to achieve its objectives with single minded purpose and succeeded. That is the power of an ideology based programme. By contrast in India, especially after 1967, almost all programmes of all parties are based on expediency because the objective is no longer to govern but to gain power and to use it for self-aggrandisement. This means that even the existing parties are no longer ideology based and, therefore, Indian politics has become rudderless. That as a result of this India is fast becoming a victim of non-governance does not seem to cause any worry or concern to any politician or political party. I can think of nothing more cynical than L.K. Advani’s recent statement that in 2014 India may face a situation in which neither the BJP nor the Congress can form a government, that some third party candidate will become Prime Minister and an extremely weak coalition will be cobbled together, either with the support of the Congress or the BJP, which will just not have the capacity to govern India. As the senior most active leader of the BJP it was Advani’s duty to suggest steps which could strengthen the major political parties and thus enable either the BJP or the Congress to be sufficiently strong in Parliament to form a meaningful government. I am afraid a leader of his seniority and status cannot enjoy the luxury of making cynical statements without suggesting a remedy.

In an earlier paper I have referred to what is happening to this country because of the state of degeneration of our political class. Now into the fray has jumped Anna Hazare with his motley group of supporters whom he has now disowned. I myself was approached by a person who is a former civil servant, whom I personally like, to join this group and offer my candidature for Parliament. Fortunately I have had the experience of a parliamentary election in 1984 which I narrowly lost because the then Chief Minister, Arjun Singh, had heavily manipulated the votes in two assembly segments where I have not served as an officer. I am proud of the fact that I carried all six assembly constituencies of Betul District where I had been DC twenty-five years before the election. That, however, was a one time phenomenon only, because I had no organisation, no money, no vehicles and the entire election was fought by the students of the district and by people at large who had fond memories of me as their D.C. I certainly do not have the resources and energy to again fight such an election and I also acutely realise that I retired from Service twenty-eight years ago and I cannot expect people to fight an election for me on the basis of old memories. I mention this because whatever its intentions, the Anna Hazare group must realise that fighting an election calls for an organisation, which we call a party. Even after totally eliminating the corruption factor it should be understood by Anna Hazare that a parliamentary constituency, especially a rural constituency, covers an area of about ten thousand square kilometers and embraces at least eight assembly constituencies. For the candidate and the supporters to travel around the constituency and place their point of view before the electorate requires fairly complex logistics, including ten to twelve off road vehicles, their drivers, POL, maintenance, etc. A parliamentary constituency has probably about five thousand polling stations at each of which a candidate would need two polling agents to look after his interests. These agents would have to be given some small sum of money, say Rs. 100 each for the day of poll, for refreshments and food. Taking into account the cost of travel and of the polling agents’ allowance alone, a parliamentary election campaign needs a minimum of rupees twenty-five to thirty lakh. Which honest candidate from an ordinary background would be able to find this large amount? That is where party funding comes in and this becomes the root of all corruption. The very process by which Anna Hazare now wants to eliminate corruption is the genesis of corruption. By all means go into politics because that is a fundamental right of every Indian citizen, but do so with eyes open and an acute awareness of what politics requires.

At present Anna Hazare has no ideology at his command. Neither he nor his colleagues understand dialectics, they do not have the capacity to formulate long-term programmes, they have no clearly enunciated objective other than the elimination of corruption and that, too, through an Act, the draft of which has been prepared by Prashant Bhushan and his father, Shanti Bhushan, together with some inputs by their colleagues. The very act of drafting the Bill and then insisting on its adoption by Parliament without changing a comma or full-stop is aimed at completely undermining the democratic process as exercised through Parliament and does not bode well for the future of any political party to be set up by Anna Hazare. What will be the stand of this party on economic organisation in India? Will the economy be based on free market capitalism, will it be socialism or will it be a continuation of the present mélange? How will the new party tackle the problem of unemployment? How will it deal with questions relating to energy, physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, the future of education and health services, the policy relating to industry and a future blueprint for agricultural development? In other words, what will be the philosophy of government of this new party? I do not think anyone has applied any thought to these issues. It would be a tragedy if an anti corruption movement ultimately becomes a farce in which Don Quixote, Anna Hazare, mounted on a spavined charger and accompanied by his Sancho Panza, Arvind Kejriwal, goes careening across the plains of La Mancha tilting at windmills. That is how I see the fate of the Anna Hazare movement, for which I blame Anna himself. A novice at politics, totally unable to fathom how complex a political organisation is, led by the nose by unscrupulous former bureaucrats and half baked activists, on whose bandwagon has now jumped V.K. Singh , I see Anna Hazare and his laudable campaign to fight corruption disappearing without a trace in the dreary desert sands of Indian politics. Gandhi understood politics, used it to build a national movement for freedom, but then by choice preferred to stand outside politics. Anna is the exact opposite.