Non-responsive and Disconnected Governance : The Choice of Masses?

Non-responsive and Disconnected Governance : The Choice of Masses?

“We haven’t got Indiramma Houses although we are unquestionably eligible; only the henchmen of the local Congress leaders have scooped up all of them regardless of their eligibility. Same is the case with old age pension benefits or any other welfare schemes launched by the Congress government.” This is the opinion expressed by the public when TV9, a popular Telugu News TV Channel has organized “ Auto Yatra”, which is an oral survey of the common people conducted in April, 2009; it is an attempt to find out the public perceptions about the how the government have performed so far. This corresponds to what some villagers have repeatedly told me: welfare schemes are the monopoly of Congress supporters only. This confirms what Columnist Gurucharan Das comments: though every political party promises more rice, more schools, more hospitals and so on but 80% of the rice will not reach the poor, 25% of teachers will be absent from the schools, and 40% of the doctors will not show up at the primary health centers.

Simply stated, welfare scheme don’t reach the eligible; nobody knows what procedures are followed; it is an easy guess that there is no accountability in the functionaries. Given this, it is quite likely that citizen’s requests or their grievances are considered Cinderella and so they are either pushed under carpet or forgot. As far as my experience goes, there is neither the grievance handling mechanism nor a semblance of interest on the part of the Congress governments to make existing mechanism successful.

Congress governments, if what I see in the A.P. is any indication, have apparently adopted a non-responsive, non-transparent governance as a strategy; by pursuing it, it is possible that only the handpicked beneficiaries are identified and favored; they are expected to form a strong vote bank which the party can fall back on with aplomb for future elections as well; it is also possible that certain government officials are encouraged to favor only the handpicked beneficiaries, for which government functionaries are either suitably rewarded or let off with no accountability or encouraged to be corrupt and low performers. But I don’t ever harbor even the faintest feeling that all this is done frivolously or purposelessly; nor is it the output of the inefficiency of the Congress government. It surely is a well-conceived and carefully pursued strategy, which is corroborated by the facts I recount in following parts of this article. Non-responsive governance systems help the party functionaries amass more wealth and muscle power; such resources can again be used for the next elections. It is needless to say that such corrupt systems have no place for either inputs from the public, or transparent and responsive governance. This can generate money and muscle power to fund the elections, besides loyal employee groups; these resources are assumed to help Congress win the upcoming elections; back to power, the party would ladle the same non-responsive, non-transparent and corrupt governance to generate money, and create or maintain loyal employee groups. This kind of cycle which is expected to repeat over many future elections is apparently made the centerpiece of the strategy of the party in power in A.P.

Before putting any stock in this theory of non-responsive, non-transparent and corrupt governance being pursued as a strategy, let us find out if, by any chance, the chief functionaries of Congress are prepared to create transparent governance systems, and interested in properly handling the grievances of the general public. As a citizen and as a victim of governance systems, I happened to send many representations to many government functionaries including Chief Minister and Vigilance Commission and principal secretaries, and down to mandal revenue officers. No letter is ever acknowledged, leave alone taking of action on them, no matter how many years I, the aggrieved, waited! Andhra Pradesh state deserves the label ‘Action-less (ignored) Papers State. Similarly, Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy cannot be reached on email, which contrasts sharply with the Chandrababu who invites representations and acknowledges them; besides, he adopted a well-conceived method of disposing of them as well. Further, look to see how the Congress party deals with the inputs from the public. Deplorably, even in the votecong website of the local Congress too, there in no provision for feedback or grievances or suggestions. Similarly, the Congress party website, aicc websit does not have a button for recording the opinions of the public. What about the top brass? Are they any different? About four years ago, I happened to write letters to Sonia Gandhi, Sushil Kumar Shinde, and YS Rajasekhar Reddy about the problems I was facing from the government systems; none of my letters was acknowledged, leave alone action taken on them. My experience with the government portal, pgportal website too says that its operational responsiveness is just lackadaisical.

Congress governments typically turn a deaf ear to public grievances and a blind eye to responsive governance. But it shows an assuring hand (their election symbol). By and large, one is left to believe that Congress party does not want inputs from public; nor is it willing to effectively deal with the public grievances.

There is a clear disconnect between the public and the governance in the Congress regime. At the most, it cares for the opinions of the local leaders, their henchmen, who obviously have their own interests, definitely not those of the public in general whose opinions might often change; the interests of the local leaders and governance offenders are stealthily safeguarded; this generates money, muscle power and loyal employee groups to ensure success in the future elections. ‘Will this strategy work?’ is question the Congress leaders have to reflect on quite seriously. This may mean doom to the Congress since the voters are increasingly becoming aware of how governments are performing. The voters who voted for Congress last time (26.54% in 2004) may not all prefer Congress again due to subsequent realization of how non-responsive the Congress governments are. The efforts of the local Congress supporters and loyal employee groups, who are just a minority, may fail to bring victory. Congress people may reason that other parties like Telugu Desam too did the same. But Telugu Desam was relatively more transparent and tilted towards better governance.

But, it is unfortunate that the voters don’t want good governance, clean governance and efficiency! I think this is a trade-off for stability and populist schemes. 2009 elections pushed India 10 more years behind!