:: Pran Chopra

Time to put the right people in right jobs

Pran Chopra

Dec. 15: Most of the major events that have surrounded India of late have carried the hallmarks of the way we operate. First, we are slow to respond to the early signs of an approaching crisis. Then we manage to rise to it with flashes of bravery and brilliance. Then we breakout into internal dissentions which slow us down to our usual pace while the time for making an adequate counter response slips away.

The reference here, of course, is to the bombing in Mumbai by a handful of very well-trained and motivated terrorists suspected to be from Pakistan. They were ultimately mowed down, but only just before they came within an ace of inflicting irreparable damage not only on that city but upon the economy, the polity, and the overall reputation of the whole country.

Now that the immediate crisis has abated, the country should survey the scene as a whole and consider some immediate lessons which stand out. These will be needed when, only a few weeks ahead of us, everyone will get so immersed in the outcome of the impending elections that no one will be able to spare a thought for the kind of governing arrangements needed thereafter. But what about the "arrangements" needed till then?

When heads began to roll in the government in Delhi, the general reaction was one of relief, and there was jubilant expectation that more heads would find their way to the waste paper basket, both in Delhi and Mumbai. Some did, more might. Some of that action might appear to have been misconceived. But, as will be shown later in this comment (which has got delayed in the press), all that has been done already contains the seeds of a scheme for some useful reorganisation of the government of India in Delhi itself.

Early warnings of the attack on Mumbai and of what could follow were available four months ago, and when the storm did break upon Mumbai, the warnings turned out to have been not only early enough to give the defenders time to mobilise Mumbai, but also surprisingly accurate. But they remained inadequately heeded for weeks.

Fortunately for India, the other side of defenders’ capabilities also came into play soon afterwards. Once proper information came into their hands they were able to mobilise such bursts of bravery and stratagem that they could finish off the invaders to the last man and crush them within the safety nests the invaders had built for themselves.

By the time the intruders were done with, the clock had begun to tick for Indian authorities to decide which defender should be serving where till the people could decide who should be "there" at all. The best available team for meeting the next set of challenges in the fields of the economy and governance is already in or near the portals of the government. What is uncertain is whether each of them, and above all Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is in the slot which needs him most, especially in the light of the recent (or on-going?) mini-shuffle in the government in Delhi. There are many slots, in fact, way too many, which the Prime Minister can fill adequately, including the one he has now chosen — the post of finance minister. There are others too who can competently fill more than one slot, and have done so at various times in the past. For example, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, who has been an admirable minister of defence and of external affairs at various times. But these are not the only two whose competence can be used better, at least till the next parliamentary election, than it is being used at present.

All that is needed in the meantime is to relieve either or both of them of the executive and administrative burdens of the portfolios now entrusted to them, and to free them for shaping the policies of the two ministries first and then of the government as a whole. Each may also be given a minister of state, to be designated in the way best suited to the concerned ministry or the needs of political protocol. The functions shed by the two senior ministers can be entrusted, at least till conditions return to normal, to junior ministers attached to each.

If these two senior and experienced ministers (and Mr P. Chidambaram as a third?) can guide this experiment to useful ends, they can serve purposes that go much beyond the current crisis. If the experiment can start soon, its general acceptability can also be tested out in the wider field of the coming parliamentary elections. If it passes that test as well, it can be extended to other senior ministries too until we are able to try out a full-scale model of this two-tier government.

This is an unorthodox view to take of the functioning of our Cabinet system which rests on the principle of collective responsibility. But no country in the world needs this kind of innovation more than India does, and at no time has India needed it more than today, in whichever way the need may be met, whether today or after the next Lok Sabha elections.

India is too large and too varied a country for it to be equally suitable for the same system of governance throughout its length and breadth and at all levels and at all times. What we now have has been there for more than half-a-century already. Its political shape has been allowed to evolve but not the shape of its governance. Different forms of administration, with different levels of centralisation and devolution, should be tried out at different points of time, all, of course, with the prior approval of the electorate. But the time to start the test is waiting in the wings.

India’s federal structure makes it possible for all parts of the country to co-exist under the same Constitution. The letter of the Constitution may seem too detailed for experiments. But it has room for many forms and degrees of responsibility as given by the government to the Cabinet, by the Cabinet to Parliament, by Parliament to the people, by the people to the Constitution, and from there a new cycle can start whenever the people decide that it should. There is no room for rigidity in any of this.