ekkentros reports october 08

EKKENTROS FORUM

The Matter: Report of the proceedings of the discussion held on
14-10-08(Tuesday)
Venue: Residence of Prof. P.M.Sankarnkutty
Coram: Eight members attended and participated in the discussions. Prof. Mohanan Nair could not attend

Dr. Md.Abdulla: We have discussed here several aspects of the Government and Governance in general and that of our country in particular. Drawbacks and shortcomings of governing have also been mentioned and highlighted. But the most important of all viz. the governed, the citizens of the country, who bear all the brunt and burden of any bad governing, has not yet been touched upon. Nobody has yet commented on the ‘ruled’. So I propose to discuss that now.
It is time that we, the ruled, introspected. Do we observe the laws of our country? Do we as good citizens of the country follow the prescribed rules and regulations laid down by our own legislatures? The answer has to be ‘no’. People drink and drive with impunity, never bothering whether it is illegal or not. They smoke in public places. The roads are littered all over.
Sri Kunhikrishnan: That is because no body bothers much about civic sense.
Dr. Abdulla: It is lack of consideration for the laws made for the public good, and disrespect for law that creates all the criminality and violence. We fight against the law made by ourselves. Any law is objected to and fought against by the political parties when in opposition. People do not have any definite opinion or stand about anything. They cannot form any opinion because things are made controversial politically and argued upon endlessly even after the court gives a ruling. Every law inconvenient to some is fought against even if it may be for the good of the majority.
Dr. Babu Ravindran: The rights are stressed, not the responsibilities.
Dr. Abdulla: The failure of any government is because of the non-cooperation of the ruled.
Prof.Sankarankutty: The average citizen has the civic sense, he has a face. But a group or gang is faceless, and loses all sense when emotions are whipped up by politicians.
Dr. Abdulla: Violence is a way of showing superiority. The party in power wants to exhibit superiority. Police indulges in violence to show that they are powerful and superior. The opposition wants to capture that superiority by fighting and indulging in counter violence. It is a vicious circle.
Prof.Sankarankutty: Governance is an art. And the art of governance is idealistic. It is a product of culture and not politics alone. But in actual practice it has deteriorated into capturing power and retaining power.

Prof. Richard Hay: Mine is a continuation of the point put forward by Dr. Abdulla. The relevance of the people in governance and government. Let us take the outcome of elections in our country. In actual practice twenty or thirty per cent of the total votes enable a party to rule the centre as well as the states. The party who gets the largest number of votes, and not necessarily who gets more than 50% majority, rules, either by coalition or by outside support. It is always a minority that rules by manipulations. Who is actually responsible for this sort of situation? The citizens themselves. The people get the government they deserve.
Governance is not confined to government alone. All institutions are ‘governed’ by governing bodies, or governing authorities. Organizations like N.G.O.s, political parties and others have their own methods of governance. Certain private sectors may be governed by individuals. In all these forms of governing there will always be an ethical grounding for governing. Public accounting and transparency is the most important of them all. The test of good governance is its respect for rule of law. Good governance will be based on strict rule of law and at the same time, relying on the principle, ‘one who governs the least governs the best.’ Society expects a clean, transparent, open, accountable, corruption free administration. And it is for this purpose we change governments by elections. That way India is not a banana republic. But still we do have criminals as members of parliament and representatives of state legislature. What recourse, what remedy is there to correct the situation? In advanced countries they have the best management institutions and universities like Harvard to take up leadership training to create good leaders. The resources of the country should be entrusted for management only to people of high principles and talented knowledgeable leadership. Sustainable human development is essential in this regard.
Good governance can always show good results. The experiences of third world countries like Malaysia and Singapore are examples that show results in the matter of economic advance within a very short time.
It is necessary to identify what actually perpetuates poverty in the country. If one looks deeper it can be noticed that it is the incompetent political leaders who are actually responsible. Unqualified and unprincipled and inefficient political leaders entering the legislatures and parliament have interfered with not only the political system but also in the social, civil and legal institutions to infuse inefficiency, nepotism and corruption. The remedy would lie only in evolving an intelligent political guidance system to create and sustain competent and principled legislators.
Broadly the purpose of government and governing can be said to be for,
Protecting individual rights,
To provide stability,
Maintenance of public order and security,
To provide economic and social security,
And to promote environmental security.
At present we find that for all this there is no political consensus on development issues.
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