The New Casts and the Tragic Silence!
Arjun Sengupta Commission of Indian govt. reported in 2007 of about 836 million Indians living on Rs. 20 or less a day - they were termed ‘poor and vulnerable’! This may be about 800 million now. The UN reported in 2011, that there are 421 million very poor in 8 Indian states alone, compared to 410 million very poor in the poorest 26 African countries! This is based on the newly devised Multidimensional Poverty Index (MDPI). A recent video clip on life in Mumbai showed a guy making a living or non-living, by cleaning the ears of pedestrians. He said he learned it from his father who did the same. What made them do it? One may assume, they could not imagine of or manage any other means of living. He may be better off than the 20 rupee or less earning Indians. But, I believe that these very poor millions of Indians do not have a worthy life; they do not know about their abilities, possibilities and what is going on in India – the so called world’s largest democracy!
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There is a smaller group which is termed the ‘middle class’, consisting of a few hundred millions. Members of this group are happy of their earnings, even though many complain frequently of low earnings. They are proud to spend and enjoy their new found wealth to meet most necessities of life and some luxuries such as homes, AC rooms, cars, computers, vacations etc. However, they are busy with their lives in chasing the challenges and opportunities of the modern world. Tempted, overwhelmed and stressed by its endless offers, demands and threats, members of this class do not get time to live a peaceful life and hardly observe the abject poverty of their brethren on the footpaths, in the streets, in the slums close to their own cities, towns and in the villages of India. In the glamour and glitter of modern life, they miss the bigger reality of the extreme poverty of a bigger group than theirs, in their motherland. Persons of this group are busy; they frequently complain too and like to say proudly, they don’t have time! Based on the day-to-day performance and considerable capabilities of persons of this group, they cannot be considered careless, negligent or of poor intelligence. This group may be named the Timeless Cast!
There is a sub-cast in this group. This is a group of knowledgeable persons - highly qualified experts in responsible positions in various fields and includes the retired persons with lots of experience and know-how. Many of this group already know and others can find out what is going on in India and are capable to understand what should be done in their motherland for a fast socio-economic development. In fact this is the DECISIVE CLASS. India has lots of resources, has exported educated and highly qualified personnel all over the world. The non-resident Indians (NRI) remit the highest volume of funds in the world to their motherland; the Chinese are only second in this respect. The NRIs are perhaps the largest and highest qualified and talented group of experts in the world. The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of our age can easily provide the experts in India with all the know-how from all over the world and from NRIs. Persons of this sub-class inside India seem to be rather silent, inactive and negligent to cry out the foul play in India and point out the right path. The silence of this decisive group should be considered as unforgivable inaction and negligence. I remember and join in despair, the utterance of Indian Supreme Court, in the context of Indian black money in foreign tax havens, ‘what the hell is going on in this country?’ Martin Luther King, Jr. said “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people”. The media too, while highlighting many trivial matters as sensational, did not give more importance to socio-economic development themes, models, initiatives etc in and outside India. The result is poor infrastructure, continuing misery of hunger, malneutrition, disease etc among about 800 million Indians. Therefore, this group is heavily responsible for the lack of fast socio-economic development in India. For about 95 percent of problems in the world, there are solutions; in our age of information and communication, it is only a matter of searching, finding and implementation.
The third group is persons involved and active in innumerable political parties. Members of this group are also very busy, engaging themselves in the continuously troubled, confused and bewildered billion strong populace of India to tell them which way to go in choosing their government to achieve better governance and a better life. In their endeavour, and many in the pretext, to guide the common man and also thereby to capture the thrones of political power, they make all sorts of promises, distribute goodies, play diplomacy, tactics, poli-tricks, use money, muscle-power etc. When they achieve their goals and ascend the thrones of power, many of them do not know what to do! Some of them, even when they know what the right actions are, fail to act, out of greed and selfish motives. Many of this group succeed in amassing unimaginable wealth. They seem neither to understand how meaningless their actions are, nor the grave and disastrous consequences thereof to themselves and generations to follow. Based on their crazy actions, this group should be termed the Reckless Cast.
The last group includes persons from many fields of activity who possess a great amount of wealth by various means such as inheritance, business, religion, politics etc. The most prominent feature of this class is the huge volume of wealth they posses. Most of them live in a different world of theirs, engaging in politics, religion etc, doing social work, founding an NGO etc, as a mask or for some self-satisfaction. They do not seem to realize that the huge volume of wealth they posses is the result of a constellation of several incidental factors on which they had little control; one can explain it as a matter of luck, God’s grace etc! As the wealth of these persons is just a coincidence rather than hard work, government should persuade or compel them to contribute more to the society. In the absence of any logically good name for this group, one may call them the Limitless Cast!
My Suggestion and Request: I am convinced that there is a process that will make fast, inclusive, equitable, comprehensive and sustainable socio-economic development in India. All patriotic Indians and others interested are requested to spend some time to review the facts on that specific process in the paragraphs below, and give it good publicity. India’s new President Sri. Pranab Mukherjee, in his first address to the people of India, said that the word poverty should be eliminated from the dictionary of modern India. May this exceptional process come to his urgent attention; because only with worlds most systematic and efficient process mentioned below, India can achieve what the Indian President mentioned on 24 July 2012 and what all patriotic Indians dream of. Many others promised this and similar in the past, but never fulfilled!
As an NRI, when I realised the lack of socio-economic development in my native state Kerala and India, I searched for a model of good governance, so that I can point out to Indians. I discovered two Super-models. Singapore, the most successful city of 20th century, and Porto Alegre city of Brazil, which devised world’s most systematic and efficient governance process famous as Porto Alegre Innovation in Participatory Budgeting (PB)! What India urgently needs is a combination of the techniques and elements of Singapore’s very successful institutionalisation as well as most of the super-smart Participatory Budgeting process of Porto Alegre. It is practice-proved, well researched and world-wide adapted!
Without knowing the details of Singapore, anyone will shrug it off as any other city. Singapore port is worlds 3rd largest and the most efficient one with capacity to serve 700 ships simultaneously. It is world’s only mega-city without traffic jams. Its export volume will beat Germany, which is the world champion for exports. In 2007 Singapore made double the volume of Indian exports! It also had more foreign currency reserves than India that year. Singapore Airlines was rated worlds best, many times; its airport as best airport many times as well. Lately, the city is visited yearly by about 10 million tourists; more than double its 2011 population of 4.7 million! Many of its institutions are top in the world. Ministers of this rather small city has world’s highest salaries – Prime Minister’s salary is more than 3 million Singapore Dollar (equivalent to more than 2 million US$); US president gets $400,000 per annum. Singapore is a city of ‘Authoritarian Meritocracy’ – a rule by highly qualified technocrats with strict rules and regulations. Public caning is a form of punishment held in Singapore; as found very effective, it was adapted for more crimes recently. Kidnapping and drug trafficking is dealt with death penalty. Throwing paper, cigarette butts etc in specific public places are fined with S$500. Because of heavy fines it is ridiculed as ‘fine city’! The city is administered under five regions and divisions thereof with mayors and elected councillors for each division. There are 55 urban planning areas too. This 704 sq. km small city-state has many other spectacular and unique features. It may be nicer and shorter to summarise that Singapore is a city of superlatives! The architect of modern Singapore is its first Prime Minister Mr. Lee Kuan Yew who was on the chair from 1959 to 1991 and in the cabinet until May 2011. He initiated planting of trees in the thickly populated island in 1960s. In the 1990s, realising that smart youngsters are attracted by MNCs and do not join politics, he devised a formula for fixing high salaries for ministers. The formula is simple – it is the average of 4 top salaries in six leading professions in Singapore: Lawyers, Tax consultants, CEOs of Multinational Corporations, CEOs of local companies, Accountants and Engineers. His book ‘From Third World to First’ is the Singapore story! It reveals interesting details of the city-states spectacular success; it also mentions the four ‘Helicopter Qualities’ Mr. Lee adapted from Shell Oil company and set as required personality traits for his CEOs: 1. Analytical thinking, 2. Logical understanding of cause and effect, 3. Concentration to the point, and 4. Imagination. It explains that imagination is very important; because when many talented remain pedestrians, it is imagination that helps one to soar vertically and fly above others as flexibly as a helicopter!
Porto Alegre city was poor and bankrupt in 1988, spending 96 percent of its revenue for salaries and routine expenses. To resolve the financial crisis, its new leftist Workers Party Mayor introduced Participatory Budgeting (PB) in 1989. Brazil’s new constitution of 1988 gave some autonomy to local governments. Utilising this decentralised powers, the mayor, together with local NGOs, devised an ingenious process for residents’ participation in shaping a prioritised city budget. This PB process was a ward-wise decentralised process in all the 16 wards of the 489 sq. km city. Residents of each ward, after three months intensive discussions, voted to prioritise, three of their urgent infrastructure requirements for the following year. A PB Council of two each from each ward was elected for one year, to follow up the priorities set by the people. They were also entrusted to supervise the budget implementation and the projects. Continuing this ingenious, yearly cyclic PB process with yearly revisions, corrections and improvements it became a very systematic and efficient process for fast socio-economic development. By 2001, Porto Alegre became Brazil’s city with the best quality of life based on 15 factors. These are: 1. Housing, 2. Sanitation, 3. Life Expectancy, 4. Infant Mortality, 5. Number of Hospital Beds, 6. Literacy, 7. School enrolment, 8. Standard of Higher Education, 9. Job Availability, 10. Catering Facilities, 11. Per Capita Consumption, 12. Highways, 13. Airports, 14. Climate, and 15. Criminality. Porto Alegre’s spectacular development made PB world famous. Now more than 40 countries including, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Spain, South-Korea, US etc are adapting various forms of PB. The beauty and wonder of Porto Alegre Innovation is that it is a ward-wise prioritised infrastructure development alone! The type of PB is decisive in its efficiency and results. Only the Innovative Porto Alegre PB can give fast and exceptional socio-economic development. Additionally and most importantly, as it gives local people the autonomy to decide on their basic needs, this process will eliminate all discrimination and oppression in many parts of the world and thereby eliminate almost all the regional conflicts within many countries. Incidentally, Porto Alegre’s Innovative PB is world’s best Panchayati Raj model! Details of Porto Alegre Innovation are on the link below (Porto Alegre population 2011: 1.37 million).
With Porto Alegre style Innovative Participatory Budgeting, INDIA CAN ACHIEVE FAST, INCLUSIVE, EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - India will be a developed country in 15 to 25 years!
On observing the spectacular success of decentralisation in Singapore and Porto Alegre, I searched Kerala and India to see what is going on with the Panchayati Raj, first introduced in 1959 and incorporated into the constitution in 1992 thru amendments 73 and 74. The fact is it is not implemented all over India, and even where it is publicised as implemented, it is not effectively done. My native state Kerala is well known for its version of decentralisation or Panchayati Raj, as Peoples Planning since 1996. It has been manipulated, hijacked and derailed out of track by several political and structural factors. However, I discovered some solitary, rare success model Panchayats or Local Self-governments in Kerala and India. They are: Adat Panchayat (Mr. Anil Akkara), Trissur district, Kerala; Religan Siddhi (Sri. Anna Hazare) , Hiware Bazar (Sri. Popat Pawar); both in Maharashtra and Kuthambakkam (Sri. Elango Rangaswamy)Tamil Nadu. On a review of the history of all these four success models, one and the same main element stuck out as the secret of success - the dedicated efforts and influence of one person each (given in brackets above). What is urgently needed is a person independent, Systematic Process. Based on the success of Hiware Bazar, Maharashtra state govt. has initiated a project for 300 model villages after it; but progress of this project is not known. What is mainly missing in Kerala and India, are the following: 1. Strong political will, and 2. A Systematic and Efficient Process, independent of personalities, for the decentralised regime or Panchayati Raj. It is in this context, the ingenious, systematic, super-efficient, flexible, and above all practice proved, Porto Alegre Innovation is to be considered as the solution for Kerala and India. Many will argue that India is different, diverse, etc and needs its own model. Porto Alegre Innovation is democratic, flexible and self-adaptive; it will evolve into unique success models in each region and locality.
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