Independence, Everyday

A few weeks ago I was in Delhi, trying to get on the Metro, and I couldn't.

Why? Because of NEET protests. 

A lot of activists, some students, angry, blocking gates that are usually the most reliable thing in this city. I stood outside Rajiv Chowk for nearly ninety minutes, and I had time to think - which is rare in Delhi, where I am usually too busy avoiding bumping (a real – physical bump) into strangers on public transport.

I haven't written on this blog in nine years. The last time I did, it was also August, also around Independence Day, and I was writing about what makes a civilization call itself a nation. I don't know why I stopped writing. Maybe I got busy being Indian instead of writing about it.

But standing outside that gate, watching protesters, activists, and students who were protesting for the resignation of the federal minister, and a fair exam, I kept thinking about Vikshit Bharat 2047. We have twenty-one years left to arrive somewhere. 

Arrive where, I am not entirely sure anyone has told me clearly.

My father once explained money to me using four letters: R, I, P, E. Rich is when Income is more than Expenditure. I think Vikas might work the same way, except I'm still working out what the Income and Expenditure of a nation really are. GDP, maybe, is just one column. Trust might be another. I don't think we've been keeping a full ledger.

Which brings me to what troubles me most this Independence Day - our fault lines. 

Caste, region, religion, language, class. I don't believe these cracks are proof that something is broken. Every old structure has them; age itself leaves fissures. The oldest civilisation on Earth was bound to. The question is not whether cracks exist, but what we do at the crack.

Those NEET protesters, standing at the gate I couldn't access, were one such crack. Not my enemy. Not, I suspect, of the government's either, even if it felt that way on TV screens around the world.

Democracy is a tool - like a wheel, morally neutral. It can carry a civilization forward, or it can be wedged into a crack and hammered to widen it for short-term gain. I have watched both used, by many hands, over many years. I will not name them here - that is not the point. The method is the problem, not the player. 

A democracy that keeps discovering new wedges is not competing; it is quarrying its own foundation.

What holds a crack shut is not paint, applied fresh each election cycle. It is mortar - something older than any party, older even than 1947. 

Ours is a civilization identity: karma, tolerance, the discipline of questioning our own beliefs before we question anyone else's. Paint can be reapplied by whoever holds the brush. Mortar cannot be so easily replaced.

We often speak of Gen Z inheriting Vikasit Bharat. I want to speak of Gen Y - the Yuva governing, building, and voting today. The Gen Y is not tied to a year of birth.

The test for this generation isn't ideological purity, age, a persona, or a pattern that the market wants to understand. 

It is simpler, and harder: did you leave the civilization more whole than you found it?

Because independence was never meant to be a date on the calendar. It is a daily audit - are we sovereign, today, in our data, our medicine, our thinking? 

Vikas without sovereignty is just borrowed prosperity with better packaging.

2047 should not be the year we arrive. It should be the year we finally set our own coordinates.

I stood at that Metro gate for nearly two hours, and nobody around me stopped being Indian!

Upgrading the Anti-Defection Law - putting a tube on the neolithic wheel !

Electoral reforms:

One of the most striking inventions that set humanity in motion was a wheel. But we would have been stuck if we chose to stay with the wobbly, donught-shaped discs of stone that jumped & bumped. 

So, how did we move on and gain speed ? By making it smoother, reducing weight by adding spokes and reducing bumpiness by putting a pneumatic tube on the circumference.

When a product was made - it was done by a creative empathiser who operated out of his box of empathy towards the world. But why is that the product did not remain useful forever. If product is an answer to a problem, the product would lose value as the problem itself will change. 

Imagine using the neolithic wheel on a freeway! 

Similarly when rules are made - they are made for a certain time with contextual empathy.

That is a fairly long explanation to come to the point of electoral reforms.

When India became a country and our forefather wrote our constitution, they did a great job with contextual empathy. They foresaw problems, but it would be unfair to expect them to foresee things as they would shape after five or six decades.

Let us look at elections: the party with simple majority gets the invite from the Governor to form the government. That is simple. But it became complicated as fractured mandates started appearing. Then came the ‘fair norm’ of ‘Single Largest Party’. This led to the concept of Common Minimum Program. This has led to another problem - blackmailing by smaller parties to keep the bigger parties in power. Common Minimum Program conveniently shapes as Common Maximum Plunder under disconnected coalitions.

What if the rules of ‘horse trading’ apply on the pre-/post- election coalitions. I know this is not very clear. Let me try to explain. 

Case example: In Goa there 40 MLA. A simple majority means that the government must have the support of 21 candidates. But the common minimum program once enacted would keep the CM on toes as he can face the black-mail by the smaller parties - who could conveniently switch to join a potential Congress government.

Is there a solution to this trouble ? What if the anti-defection law would apply to not a party but the group in power. This would mean that a smaller party can’t evade anti-defection law just because it has three members. Instead the group size must be 1/3 rd of the group of MLAs (i.e. 7). Hence to bring down a coalition government there must be exit of at least a third of MLAs from the coalition.

This would bring down instability in a multi-party system. Any takers ?

I hope we can upgrade the 52nd Amendment, 1985. Using a neolithic wheel on an Expressway ? Maybe put a pneumatic tube on it.

Responsible Politics - Financial appraisal systems for Netas!

Can we innovate in the modality of democracy?

Can we somehow learn to make our leaders deliver?

Nothing could be more dastardly for Delhites (I am one!) than the AAP vs BJP confrontation.

When we say India is a rising superpower (I believe in it!), and I look at the grim situation in Delhi - power cuts, poor roads, holy cows on ring road (yes!), water supply at 2 AM (get it or buy it), I am amazed!

When I compare the amenities a common man (I can’t use the term 'aam aadmi' anymore) in Delhi gets with a villager in France/Japan/Australia, I am shamed. I know that I would be immediately given photographs of Delhi Metro. I agree we have made significant progress, but is that not too little, too late!

Clearly, all our choices so far have failed us - and they blame each other. Who loses ?

We, the citizens, do!

What if we mandated the politicians to complete the tasks they have promised. 

And what if their appraisal was not voting them out if they failed but to give them a financial penalty. 
They should return the money tax-payers have spent on them for getting things done.

We after all don’t elect highly paid irresponsible ‘netas’. 

In their own words they want to be ‘responsible’, ‘diligent’ and ‘useful’.

As a nation we can set up new benchmarks of a responsible and accountable democracy.

Any takers ?