It is obvious
that citizens are at risk in India. Rape & murder the foulest crimes happen
in the capital city at regular intervals, then what would be the situation in
the hinterlands? How much information goes unreported, God only knows. Ask any
middle aged citizen and the reply would be that governance is nowhere as per
the standard we had set for ourselves. In fact we are leaving behind a standard
of governance for our children which are way lower than that we inherited. In
1978, the Geeta & Sanjay Chopra murder case rocked the nation. Many of us
were students then. Today’s crime on similar lines has rocked the nation once
again. Many are youth today. The youth 34 years ago and now middle aged have
started realising that their approach of tacit tolerance of non-performance by those
who should be resolving our problems but not doing so has resulted in passing
the same problems to their children. We the middle aged could not ensure that such
a barbaric lapse in civil society which we faced as youth and for which we had zero tolerance should have
been addressed by a firm hand, but instead tacitly allowed it to be passed on
to our children. This is an inter-generation transfer of problem and reflects
poorly on us. All the time many of us
did was talk, talk and talk. In short made the right sound bytes and no one
class of society can be singled out. Collectively our generation did not have the
guts to ensure that our elected representatives (whether in parliament,
companies, societies, cooperatives, etc.) acted on stated lines. Instead there
are debates on whom should the Delhi police be reporting to? The police, law
ministry, home ministry, state govt have adequate resources to find a solution.
They really don’t need our guidance. Instead we need to hold them accountable
for their failures in performance and kudos for achievements. Instead during
failure we become magnanimous and start giving them solutions or in other words
tacitly condoning their failure. But can we honestly be so forgiving and remain
a noble soul in spite of such action eating into our children’s future . Our problem is that we lack courage to seek answers
to our unaddressed basic requirements from those we put in power. What do you
call such a generation? We fail to take
up matters on performance, which is what the citizens should be looking for. This
is in all spheres and all levels. Take judiciary. As per newspaper articles
there are over 3 crore cases pending in courts. That is a huge, huge number in any sized
population. The judiciary and the law ministry have adequate resources to find
a solution within a reasonable time. What we need to be asking is the time
bound program by when pending cases fall within normal limits? Are we talking
about 2020 or 2050? Once the timeline is agreed then that is all that is to be
focussed upon during discussions with our elected representatives. Instead we
take pride that the Supreme Court will eventually take decisions and justice
will finally prevail even though a simple and straight forward matter as a
tenant eviction case could take 14 years and the parents who in their youth
added rupee by rupee to build the house to eventually stay there in their old
age could not do so. You pride that courts are forcing the executive to act and
at times issuing what appear to common citizens as administrative directives. This is indeed a relief; however that is not judiciary’s
day job. Other than the CAG who else is holding
the executive accountable for performance?
Also who is asking similar questions to the private sector & social
sector entities? Coming back to basics, how many kms of new roads were added
last year? Is anyone questioning why so few and highlighting the difficulties
and inconveniences the delayed implementation is causing us? Take large fiscal deficits.
At each budget a promise is made to bring it down. Has that happened? Missing targets should
automatically lead to new leadership. Isn’t that common sense. During a weak monsoon
is someone questioning the backup plan? Is there a quarterly forward looking projection? Now day’s even companies give such projections.
Are food grains rotting in FCI godowns
while many go hungry? Look at the FDI
drama that ate away parliament’s time. Eventually they got the approval, but
the real problem has not been addressed. For e.g. MNCs prefer to work with global
contractors who further sub-contract to the locals. For e.g. An auto
manufacturer may engage a MNC logistics company to move the vehicles from the
production plant and this logistics company would further engage local sub-contractors. The
problem is that bulk of the profits gets kept with the contractor while the
Indian sub-contractors only get small margins. How is then capital formation
going to take place with Indian companies? Without that there is no money for
skill development. Futhur with weak Balance Sheets how will they be able to
compete with international players in the future? So a self-perpetuating capital
deficiency circle starts falling into place. This is a known risk but can be managed. No MNC can afford to be seen objecting to
equitable conditions to stake holders in their markets. However are policies
being made to address this risk across sectors? If you keep loose ends then you
lose the right to feel hurt when others take advantage of the situation. Also
someone needs to keep a watch. What are
the trade associations doing in this regard? Who has the time for this? Take
primary education which everyone is talking about. Again it’s alright for tens
of thousands of primary schools not to have teachers, but it is not all right
for citizens to question this and keep on taking this issue up till it is
resolved? Everyone who is in power of some sort, whether in Govt or private seems
to have misplaced priorities? Look at the health sector. People die in govt hospitals because of such
basic issues as mismanagement of oxygen supply. God knows how many similar
cases get unreported. On the other hand some of the private hospitals are seen
to be having sharp business practices which are becoming increasingly
questionable and unacceptable. Mind you we are dealing with human lives over
here. PSUs get privatised and within a span of 5-7 years some of them become highly
profitable in their industry and that too globally. Who’s questioning such decisions?
On the other hand private sector enters
into an industry where PSUs are leaders and soon the public sector companies
become laggards. Is anyone questioning as to why this is happening? Look at
sports. Firstly the way we held the Commonwealth games has not brought us
laurels. Now we are no more part of the International sporting community. Is this
situation all right even for a day? Why had this situation been allowed to exist?
What is the
overall impact? Sometime ago India was looked upon as the new find. During that
time going overseas was a joyful experience. Indians were said to have finally
found their spot. And all this gets wiped out within a matter of few months? What are our temperaments made out of? India rubber?
We are all aware of these problems. There is a lot of sensationalising
but we have yet to be sensitised to this and need to be brave enough to ask the
people responsible to be accountable.
