People's particpation in Democracy

We were taught in childhood that Democracy is of the people, by the people and for the people. Ironically in India, we see that democracy is off the people, to buy the people and far the people. We always end up blaming the Neta’s (Politicians) for all the blunders that has happened since Independence. Most people forget is their role in democracy after they cast their vote once in five years. Since people don’t demand accountability, naturally any party that comes to power easily forgets its promises and responsibilities. And we end up blaming the government and politicians all the time for the poor condition of the nation and people. Bollywood has nicely capitalized this issue by glamorous portrayal of bad politicians and honest policeman’s!

I am not interested in writing about the unhappy state of the nation, but rather on what can we do to change it? I am stressing ‘we’ as only a collective action of people can bring changes. These changes can be very broadly classified as local or a global depending on the scale of operation and impact (although this is highly subjective- depending on scale cut off). Of course each one influence the other and it is hard to draw a clear line between them and to decide whether we need one over the other.

We do see lot of efforts by NGO’s working on various issues like education, health care, women empowerment etc. Most of them concentrate their activities on a local scale- like village, slum in a city. Their work enables us to understand the ground realities and social dynamics. Some NGO’s work in a charity mode, they are bound be local unless there is a chain reaction to propagate their work. They help few people and can change their life significantly. Their effects often dominate within a given locality. On the other hand some NGO’s with good leadership, innovative ideas, active and informed members do a good job in developing a scalable, replicable and sustainable models in social development. Their work could be crucially considered for policy making.

Coming to the category of people who influence the govt policies the most (other than
Neta’s (Politicians)and Babu’s(Beauracrats) ) are social activists. They can act as the watch dog of democracy. To name few influential activists and their work we have Jayprakash Narayan who was instrumental in opposing state of emergency (1975-77) and thus bringing back democracy and protecting fundamental rights in the Nation. Environmentalist S R Hiremath in formulating National Forest policy(1988). Recently Aruna Roy , Arvind Keijriwal, Sandeep Pandey were instrumental in Save ‘Right to Information’ (RTI) act which resulted in GoI withdrawing its proposed amendment and thus saving the very spirit of the act. Their success was mainly dependent on awareness campaigns, media support, peaceful demonstrations and hunger strikes.

But all this work of few people is not enough. Unless there is mass movement, participation of all citizens we cannot create a society where everyone has equal opportunity, access to good education, healthcare and socio cultural amenities. To quote Janaagraha (a movement for participatory democracy in Bangalore) “citizen participation is central not just for greater accountability of government, but for better-quality governance, for equitable outcomes and for collective ownership”. How do we demand accountability? Now with the help of Right to Information(RTI) Act –one of the most powerful acts Indian Government has ever passed, we can question every governments move at every stage. RTI can used at every stage- to know why the passport application wasn’t processed, question delay in building and maintaining roads, why relief materials haven’t reached the beneficiaries, why a school hasn’t been built inspite of government sanctioning it? The government is obliged to provide all necessary information regarding all these queries. In this way one can track down the misappropriation of funds, corruption of officials, inefficient handling of resources etc. It is the mantra to root out corruption in public sectors.

RTI started showing its power immediately after it was passed in Oct 2005. There are thousands of success stories of the usage of RTI in getting the public work done in time. A person near Delhi gets a telephone connection in a day, passport application was processed within 10 days, 250 Villages got relief with the use of RTI act, a case building a road never existed was exposed… and so on so forth! All this appears like a miracle in India where the control of ‘Raj’ has been dominated for decades even after the British left. NDTV site on RTI http://www.ndtv.com/rti/default.asp gives various illustrative examples. Parivartan http://www.parivartan.com/Home.asp

RTI empowers every citizen to seek any information (other than defense, security issues and like ones) from the Government and no reason be given for such requests. You can also inspect and sample materials of any government work. The application process is quite simple and can be found GoI site http://righttoinformation.gov.in/. Officials are supposed to provide the information within 30 days of request else they will loose salary @ Rs50-500 per day!! It is precisely for this reason that bureaucrats are scared and are ready to give information right away and get the corresponding work done before further questions be asked! Success of RTI depends solely on the participation of people. Many activists and NGO’s are conducting various awareness camps to spread the importance of RTI. Media participation has been really significant with NDTV, Indian Express and Hindustan times being the major players.

Notwithstanding that the people are being aware of RTI and using it effectively (which sent the heat waves to the corrupt bureaucrats), government decided to amend it by excluding file notings. File notings are records of movement of files b/w officials and their statements on them. Excluding file notings would have taken the very life of RTI as people would have no access to understand how a decision was made and cannot bring any person to accountable. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of activists in India and abroad(AID was closely involved in this campaign http://rti.aidindia.org), NGO’s, media and millions of people who supported ‘Save RTI’ campaign, Government finally decided not to take up amending RTI this year. This is a great victory to the people who actively participated in government affairs and prevented it from taking such a retrograde step.

Web Links
RTI
http://www.ndtv.com/rti/default.asp
http://rti.aidindia.org
http://www.righttoinformation.info/
GOI site: has lot of info regarding act and has forms
http://righttoinformation.gov.in/

NGO’s for participatory democracy
http://www.janaagraha.org/
http://www.egovernments.org/
http://www.loksatta.org/
http://prsindia.org/

burial of Right to education bill-Is India really 'shining'?

A few days back government of India decided to shelve the ‘Right to Education’ (RTE) Act. To me as a person interested in education and education policies of India, this was shocking news.

Here is a brief background of RTE: After years of struggle and pressure by many Educationalists and NGO’s, government had finally passed RTE bill in Oct 2005. The act makes education a fundamental right to all children between 6-14 years. Thus it makes the government accountable to guarantee this fundamental right. The act differs from previous polices on education with respect to the fact it is not a ‘directive principle’ to frame policies but an obligatory commitment to ensure education to the children in the prescribed age. Detailed analysis of the bill exposed many of its fallbacks suggested need for serious amendments. In fact as a good measure, government had solicited suggestions from various educationalists, NGO’s and policy makers. In US ASHA-for education has been seriously discussing RTE and was about to come up with its final stand. I was part of this venture as my personal and professional interest. Inspite of all limitations RTE does have the potential to provide universal elementary education to all and thus achieving a total literacy in the coming years.

A good reading on RTE can be found in the following links

http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/dec/edu-lbrighted.htm

http://www.pratham.org/documents/DraftEducationBill.doc

http://nac.nic.in/concept%20papers/edubill.pdf

http://www.ashanet.org/ashawiki/pmwiki.php/General/RTEDBDiscussion

Coming to the actual issue, recently government decided to revoke the RTE bill citing some spurious financial limitations.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/21/stories/2006072102841400.htm

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1748745.cms

Well these ‘limitations’ are seriously questionable. Lobbying by the private schools is seen to one factor in slacking of RTE. More than this, for the government the ‘Vote bank politics’ seems to be far more important than seeing India literate. During the recent protests against increasing the OBC quota by 27%, government had no problems in increasing seats in all higher education institutions to retain the exiting merit seats. Such an increase cost the exchequer Rs.8000 crore, an amount equal to 1/3 of the Indian education budget (Rs 24,000 Crore)! The government had taken this decision within two weeks of protests! One wonders, how it ever thought of such an approval when it didn’t have enough money for the implementing ongoing committed schemes. Well the reason is simple: reservations are needed to keep the ‘vote bank’ alive, where as primary education issue wouldn’t create big waves to topple them.

On a closer note, why is Primary education loosing all its priorities? Well National Advisory Council (NAC) had recommended that at least 6% of GDP should be spent to achieve total literacy(Well it is still less than what most rapidly developing countries like China and South Korea area spending). In reality not even 4% of GDP(Rs. 24,000 Crore) is being spent on Education. To give a feel for the numbers lets look at other budgetary spendings- Urban renewal: Rs50,000 cr, Pay hike for the Babu’s: Rs20,000 cr etc. How are we ever going to achieve the ‘Vision 2020’ of making India a superpower with more than 30% of its people illiterate and many more not receiving an ‘equitable’ quality of education?

I do agree that globalization and free market has generated huge wealth in the last couple of years. But this is no way a sufficient condition for Nation’s progress as a whole. Progress of a Nation depends on how empowered and informed its citizens are and not just its roads, buildings or industries. Empowered citizens are those who can think and act independently. Only proper education can achieve such empowerment.
Looking at the current situation I wonder if India is really "shining"!

What I think of freedom.

Looks like I too (along with the million others!) have fallen into this Blogosphere.

(This being my first blog I am not sure how good it might turn out)

The very fact that the blogs gives us the freedom to express ourselves and share our thoughts with e-world, let me start by writing on my views on freedom! I am sure many might not agree to my views wholly, but I would really appreciate constructive criticisms.

Recently I heard a beautiful song from 1966 movie Born free:

Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Live free and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

Stay free, where no walls divide you
You're free as the roaring tide
So there's no need to hide

Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
'cause you're born free
- Andy Williams

To me this summarizes the very purpose of life. I believe Freedom is the main factor for a human to grow into a unique individual. Degree of freedom to an individual also reflects in some sense the degree of happiness. By freedom I am not talking absolute freedom to do anything. Freedom should come with responsibility to see to it that it does not harm others in any way. To me this topic is interesting since I have lived in two different countries: India and USA, with each country offering different degree of freedom to individuals. Also you can see the distinct attitude difference between an average Indian and an American.

Any society which tries to curb the basic freedom of speech, expression, culture etc poses a potential threat to growth of an individual and in turn creating an unrest and disharmony in itself. In India, freedom is restricted right from childhood in almost all socio economic classes. In the school, child has to strictly follow whatever the elders say (parents and teachers). Getting better grades than his/her classmates becomes a top priority. There is no freedom for the child to explore the world on its own. This inherently narrows the growth of the child. Participation in theatre, art or music is considered unnecessary and often takes a back seat in favor of board exams. Child is left with no choice than to become prey to the ambitions of their parents, to choose a career of their wish. Most of the Indians choose their career by force and competition than by choice and love. I regret that during the childhood I didn’t have freedom to choose what I liked to do. Now it is hard to revert it back. I am sure there are millions of people in India whose dreams were shattered due to lack of freedom and opportunities. At some point either they regret their life or blame situations. Inspite of we getting Political freedom and living in a democratic world I still wonder why society tries to restrict freedom? Conservative attitude is still rampant in Indian society.

Couple of months back, great writer Salman Rushdie gave a talk at Penn State on importance of freedom of expression in society. He held the audience astounded with his in depth understanding and clarity of thought. His book Satnanic Verses was banned in India as some of its content appeared to be offensive to Muslim Community. Much more conservative countries like Iran have announced a Fatwa of $3mn on him! In a reply to them, Rushdie said- If you don’t like the contents of book, close it, it then looses the ability to offend you! (Ironically most of those protesting against the book, had hardly read it!). His message at the end was-“Let’s make the world bit more open”.

Recently Indian government tried to ban ‘blogs’ after Bombay bomb blast, citing that it might create turmoil in society. Censoring books, articles and blog’s is a sign of autocracy. How can democracy be successful if people are not free to express themselves?

Let’s come to the issue of social freedom. In Indian society social freedom is severely restricted. Familial and social obligations forces people to choose not on the basis of what they feel is right but by what others think is right and what is accepted widely by the community. Here Women suffer the most. Consider this, girls are not allowed to come home late (guys are hardly questioned). Parents of girls look suspiciously watch daughter’s movements. Well with respect to guys they are quite liberal. Even economic liberty for women is severely limited in many house holds. Not to talk about their sufferings in villages. Most of them are not even sent to schools. In cities many parents from middle and upper middle class families still feel that higher education is not needed for women. There is also an attitude that men should be more educated than their life partners.

Let’s come to ‘forbidden topic’ of Sex. In India talking about Sex in public is a taboo. In this way freedom of speech is limited. Every one is afraid of talking about it openly. Conservative mentality, societal compulsion, shyness and ignorance seem to be the main reason for it (Ironically most of the Bollywood movies directly or indirectly portray the sexual attitude of society often linked to the higher class society). But this in no way means that Indians are not interested in sexual topics or do not indulge is sex outside nuptial bond. India currently stands #2 in the number of HIV infected patients. Teachers are reluctant to teach sex education to kids. Parents ? No No.. how can they talk about such issues with kids??!! Well this is the attitude people carry. This breeds ignorance and misconception among young minds. Sexual curiosity leads them to Pornography and later some turn to prostitutes. The more society tries to curb, the more it comes out. How then do we expect people to develop a healthy attitude towards these issues?

Lack of social freedom shows its dirty face when it comes to the issue of marriage. barriers of Caste, religion and family come out in all wildernesses. In most of the conservative families, sons/daughters loose their right to decide their life partners. Some, who boldly venture against such evils often, have to meet stiff resistance. Parents assume that they know very well their son/daughter interest is in marrying to whomever they like. At the end most of the marriages just ends in compromise between the girl(/boy) and parents. In my most such ‘happy marriages’ are forced upon. Continuing on the same line, what is the state of most women after such marriages? Most of them become partial servants to their husbands (in the name of loyalty to their husbands). Most women

loose their freedom to take decisions on their own. Women have to compromise their career options. This is not only the case in middle class but also in many high profile societies.

Well so far I talked about the freedom and society. I do plan to write an article on how freedom is also intrinsically linked to the development of a Nation. This would be based on the book Development as freedom-Amartya Sen.