Democratizing India…the Gandhian way!!

Our long struggle to establish an egalitarian society still seems to be a far off dream. After sixty years of independence we unfortunately found ourselves trammeled in the clouds of scams varying from crores to even lakhs of crores.
What is wrong with us (read ‘system’ if you wish)? Why people are often cynical when they talk about government, politicians, and bureaucrats? Why we even shy of raising such difficult questions?
Recently I happen to read Gandhiji’s vision of democracy. The very first impression it created was of being impractical and too idealistic. Well, this is how most of his ideas had been received in the past. But he is right (as always) in pointing out the need for establishing bottom up grassroot democracy.
His last will reads as “Every panchayat of five adult men or women being villagers shall form a unit. Two such contiguous panchayats shall form a working party under a leader elected from among them. When there are one hundred such panchayats, the fifty first grade leaders shall elect from among them a second grade leader and so on….all second grade leaders shall serve jointly for the whole of India and severally for their respective areas.” This article attempts to further institutionalize the great man’s idea in the modern world.
The very idea of having a political system in a country is to ensure a just and progressive society. The present form of governance however has not been able to deliver it as expected. We need an overhauling.
For a democracy to work the foremost condition is to empower people. The process of decentralization which got the boost after 73rd amendment can be further strengthened by deploying Gandhi’s approach.
The whole of India can be organized on the panchayat system. There will be a hierarchy defined by the first grade, second grade, third grade leaders and so on. Every member will derive his authority from the service to the people to whom he is responsible. States will be nothing but the administrative units created for convenience. Each level in the hierarchy would be responsible for the well defined tasks. For example the planning would be decentralized in a true sense which would be done at the lowest level. This will take care of the concerns of local people especially tribals and other socially and economically backward classes.
Similarly people’s councils at the state and national level will look after internal security, law and order, finance, external affairs etc.
There will be no as such political parties; the consensus will be achieved by the individuals responsible to the people directly. So instead of political parties imposing their agendas on people it’s the people who will carry decisive power.
Do then we need bureaucracy? We know Wilson’s politics- administrative dichotomy failed a long time back, why can’t we now just merge them. The role of bureaucrats (so called people with expertise and sharp acumen) can be played by the people’s representatives themselves. An exam can be conducted which can be taken up by only third or higher grade leaders. This will encourage the educated people to participate at the grassroot level.
There should also be a system of negative election where people can de-elect the corrupt people from the system and it doesn’t matter whether he is serving as the council’s member or as a bureaucrat. During the process when new member comes in, the position would be taken up by the representative of the next contiguous panchayat thus providing the needed stability.
There will be greater power being given to specialists, technocrats in the system. The public private partnership model will work as it is working now but yes free from the clutches of greedy politicians and Parkinson bureaucrats. There would be decentralized decision making on every issues where only panchayats directly affected would participate in conformation with aspirations of the people of the whole country.
There would be heavy privatization in all service delivery mechanisms and all other public bodies would be legally scrutinized by social audit conducted by voluntary sector. The right to information would then be the major instrument in the hands of people to ensure transparency, responsiveness and accountability of the whole system.
Gandhiji laid special emphasis on the moral and ethical integrity of the leaders. He even called the elected councils “body of servants”. He emphasized the need for building personal contacts with every villager, training of workers, education of the village folks, use of khadi etc. but unfortunately his ideas have long been forgotten and given simple manifestation in the form of famous “Gandhi topi” wore either by corrupt politicians on the Republic day or by poor “dabbawallahas” in suburb Mumbai.
The truth is no political system in a democracy is going to work until the people are truly empowered. We have to transform the present system of representative democracy into a participative one and as Shakespeare said,”Something is rotten in the State of Denmark”, it can very well be said for the present Sovereign, Secular, Socialist, and Democratic Republic of India. We need to act.