Planning Commission member Arun Maira?s book, Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions, follows close on the heels of Sanjaya Baru?s book, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, in claiming that Sonia Gandhi called the shots in the UPA government. The book?s focus, however, is the need for institutional reform. Maira writes that institutions need to adapt and change with the times in order to be effectively functional. And, India seems to be the principal laboratory for this change. While the book dwells on how to go about these reforms, we ask Maira to name specific organisations in need of urgent and overwhelming change. Edited excerpts:
Which five institutions in India do you think need to be scrapped or completely overhauled? Please list in order of priority.
?Institutions? are not merely ?organisations?. Institutions are the ways in which societies conduct their affairs. Institutions may be supported by several organisations. Some organisations with critically important roles in societies are also ?institutions? in themselves. With this in mind, I would pick the following five to fix. (Though I can name several more too!):
* The IAS/HR management in government
* Police services
* The Planning Commission
* The National Development Commission/Council of States
* Political parties/election funding
What path do you think the Planning Commission should follow to become more people-oriented?
The Planning Commission should be much more ?people-oriented?. It is seen as ?out-of-touch?, as ?arm-chair critics?, as ?economists confused by their own numbers?, etc.
The Planning Commission must understand people?s needs and aspirations tangibly, not through selective numbers that purport to represent peoples? realities. The Planning Commission must create more open and effective processes to ?listen? to varieties of stakeholders, and make sense of realities with them, and appreciate their aspirations too.
The Planning Commission must develop better ?models? that explain this reality and that are geared to meet people?s aspirations. ?Inclusion? and ?sustainability? must be integrated into the process of ?GDP growth?, not as separate chapters in a plan for economic growth.
The Planning Commission must communicate to people in mediums and a language they understand.
Bulky plan documents sprinkled all over with numbers do not communicate to people (or even to politicians).
What according to you should be the first steps taken by the new PM/government?
Among the first steps the new government must take is to instill faith in people that the government will improve the institutions that serve them, and that it is strengthening institutional abilities to get things done speedily and transparently. The ruling political configuration lost the faith of the people as well as investors in it because it let institutions decay. It did not respond to peoples? and business investors? pleas to tone up institutions and make them perform. That is what the anti-corruption movement was about. That is what the massive protests following the Nirbhaya rape were about too.
It is worth noting that three years ago, at the World Economic Forum?s annual India Summit in Mumbai, where some 400 foreign delegates and about 400 Indian delegates had met for four days, they prepared a message to be sent to the Prime Minister, which I was given at the closing plenary to bring to Delhi. The message was the two actions that the foreign and Indian business communities urged the PM and Indian government to take expeditiously.
One was: ?get the coal to the power plants?. They said the country needs good management and faster implementation rather than any more big-ticket economic reforms. They said investments were languishing. Why would people make more investments if they would not produce results quickly? The second was: ?pass at least one strong law in Parliament in the forthcoming winter session that shows the people that the government is going to determinedly root out corruption?. ?Win the trust of the people?, they said. ?Investors like to work with governments that are trusted by their citizens, because these are stronger governments?.
Sadly, the government did not respond fast or firmly to these demands of citizens and investors to fix the institutions. This has led to a decline in economic growth and also in a loss of confidence in the government.
What has to be done to fix institutions is fairly well known. For example, the second Administrative Reforms Commissions recommendations, known for three years now, must be implemented fast.
The prime minister should have a cell reporting directly to him that follows up the implementation of institutional reforms.
Excerpts: redesigning the aeroplane while flying
India?s principal political party, the Indian National Congress (INC), which was in the vanguard of the freedom movement, and for whose redesign Gandhi had called the meeting in Sevagram in 1948, has become less democratic and more centralized since then. Its centralization was accelerated by Indira Gandhi. And with her ascent to power, the party was set towards becoming a dynasty. Following her, her son, Rajiv Gandhi, became prime minister. Then her daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, became the president of the Congress party. Sonia Gandhi chose not to become prime minister when she led the party to a stunning victory in the national elections in 2004. Instead, she anointed a loyal technocrat, Dr Manmohan Singh, as the prime minister, while she has called the shots on all important appointments and policies. Now her son, Rahul Gandhi, is being called upon to do his dynastic duty and lead the Congress party. Unfortunately, many other Indian political parties have also adopted similar autocratic and dynastic structures.
More than sixty years after its independence, India?s governance structures retain elements of the British government of India: civil services designed like iron frames (though rusting rapidly) and monarchical political parties in place of the British monarchy.
Over these years, the world has been changing and India too. The forces of change in the world and in India have been explained earlier. The inability of India?s institutions of governance to change adequately has resulted in the growing decline of citizens? trust in them. Reform of institutions has become imperative.
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Excerpted with permission from Rupa