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PERSEPTIVE OF GOOD
GOVERNANCE (Part -I)

Shree R. Venkatraman
Former President of India

The subject "Good Governance" is both topical and timely, It is an axiom of political science that a state comes into being for life (that is, for protection of life and liberty) but it exists for good life (that is, for the welfare of its people).

The duty of the state is not only to protect life and liberty but go further and enable the people to live in a measure of physical and mental comfort.

The subject Good Governance has been discussed in several seminars and symposia. Many of these gatherings concentrated their attention on electoral reforms, constitutional changes, corruption, malfunctioning of institutions etc. While each one of them is relevant and important for a good governance, I feel that the problems should be considered in depth and the inadequacies frankly owned and the remedies sought.

Democracy is a government by the citizens themselves. The people should realise that they are responsible for choosing the right and proper persons to represent them in national affairs. In colonial administration the government was different from the people. Those governments ruled without the consent and concurrence of the people. This old concept still persists in the masses today They do not realise that the general election is the occasion for them to choose a government for themselves. On the contrary, the masses feel that the franchise is a patronage to be conferred on their kith and kin, or the local candidate, or one of their caste and religious fraternity. In mature democracies a person who changes his party affiliation or crosses the floor seldom gets reelected by the electorate. They do not trust him to stand firm by the policies and programmes proposed by him. In India a person who was in the Congress Government and immediately thereafter in the Janata Government and then in the Chandra Shekhar Government was re-elected and came once again into the Congress Government!

The electorate votes for a criminal, or a corrupt candidate and bemoans that they have a bad government.

Furthermore the electorate does not realise that even as they contribute to their own household expenditure, they have to contribute to their country's governance. They are easily misled by unscrupulous promises of political parties of free food, free clothes, free electricity, free everything. Even enlightened people plead for tax concession, subsidies and incentives oblivious of the fact that the are met by borrowing which in turn impose burdens indirectly on themselves.

Besides, in true democracy the people voluntarily observe the laws, rules and regulations as they are forged by themselves in the interest of good governance. It is only because 90 per cent of the people abide by the laws and 10 per cent transgress them that the state is able to maintain order and harmony. If the situation were reversed with 90 per cent transgressing the law and 10 per cent abiding by it, there can be no organised society, no peace and harmony. Some of the advanced countries, notably Switzerland, have perhaps the highest degree of compliance. A mere board stating that the road is closed will be complied with by almost 100 per cent of the people.

Therefore, the chief malady that afflicts our democracy is absence of responsible electorate. We have an electorate consisting mostly of illiterate, uninformed, poor and starving masses. The struggle for existence obliterates all the finer qualities of man.

Rome was not built in a day nor a democracy in a century. Britain became a mature democracy after 800 years from the days of Magna Carta. Britain went through a prolonged persistent struggle for devolution of authority from the Crown to the people. She had also patches of nepotism and corruption during the period of the struggle. Students of British constitutional history will recall the notorious statement of Prime Minister Walpole that every man had a price.

Unfortunately India did not try to educate its masses on its duties in a democracy. Our leaders assumed that the masses were all Nehrus, Patels and Azads. Had we introduced in all schools subjects like citizenship duties and moral instructions the present generation of voters would at least be conscious of the duties of a citizen in a democracy During the discussions on the People's Representation Bill in the Provisional Parliament in 1951, 1 had pleaded for compulsory voting by the electorate so that the citizen may realise that it is a duty to the state and not a patronage to be conferred on their favourites. Even now it is not too late to introduce compulsory voting for the Central and State Assemblies.

As a result of all these shortcomings, the sovereign people of the country and even intellectuals want the failures to be cured by legislation.

They vote for the criminal or the corrupt but want a law to prevent criminals and the corrupt from standing for elections. The law-makers search for a definition of a criminal and the jurists come to the conclusion that only a man convicted of a crime can be called a criminal. Since it takes years to get a conviction and get it confirmed in the Highest Court, the criminal (in common parlance) will have a merry time for two or three terms in the legislature.

People vote for a person who defects from party to party like a merry-go-round but want a law to prevent defection. The feeling that law is cure all for our ills is the antithesis to democracy where people maintain and observe right conduct voluntarily.

I am striving to bring out that we are flattering ourselves that we are the largest democracy in the world. We are no doubt the second most populous country in the world, maybe the first within the next decade. But we have yet to become a mature democracy in the true sense of the term. Merely holding periodical elections and adopting parliamentary procedures do not make a country a true democracy. We have to educate our people on the duties of a citizen to the country and its people.

It is not easy to define good government but it is possible to identify the ingredients. A government which

1. is stable and truly representative of the majority of the people,

2. maintains its territorial integrity and national sovereignty,

3. accelerates economic growth and development,

4. ensures the welfare of all sections of people,

5. and renders justice without delay,

may be termed good government. An administration which fulfils these criteria may be termed a good government.

During the last fifty years, no government at the Centre ever secured a majority of the votes cast. In a multiparty system no candidate normally polls a majority of the votes cast in the constituency and the one who polls the largest numbers of votes among the contending candidates is declared elected. Very often a candidate polling 30 to 35 per cent of the votes is declared elected even though 65 to 70 per cent votes were not in his favour. The majority which has not voted for the candidate or the government feel it is not their government. India fails in the first of the criteria and must take steps to correct this morbidity Political parties are reluctant to change the present system since they are now winning most of their seats on a minority of votes.

POLITICAL instability is a corollory to minority governments. Faced with the acute balance of payments crisis in the early nineties Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Finance Minister, said that India's problems cannot be solved by a single party and the cooperation of all parties is necessary to put through stringent measures. He was assailed at that time by pressures from within and pulls from outside. India can gain a respectable place among nations if it can have a national government consisting of the political parties in the House committed to economic development for at least another 25 years after which it may be reviewed,

National prosperity is the index of good governance. Merely maintaining internal peace and security, though vital for national progress, cannot be equated with national development. Nor can mere increase in volume of production without adequate purchasing power with masses through enlightened policies, bring national prosperity Nor should economic policies and programmes be static. They have to change with the needs of the times. During the post-war period of acute shortages of food, clothing, raw materials, savings and capital resources,

a measure of control and regulation was necessary for social justice and accelerated economic development. Planning played a useful role during the first

fifteen years of our Republic. Even during the very First Plan the state started three one-million tonne steel plants, fertiliser plants, power stations, major irrigation dams etc. These were at that time beyond the resources of private enterprise. At the end of 15 years India had become one of the top fifteen countries in the world in industrial production.

Source: Mainstream