1st part

Narendra modi has been inviting foreign investors in our country to put their money in India. He is giving promises to these foreign investors that investing in India is very safe and very profitable. However, we see that at the same time many Indian investors are going out to invest their money in other countries. Why this is happening? Foreign investors obviously want to know answer to this question. On this post I want to elaborate on this question. I have been studying this subject for some time and while doing that I found four monsters who are causing this transfer of investors out of the country. Presently, we do not have any solution to control these four monsters. I call them monsters because they are so big that ordinary efforts will not be enough to control them. These four monsters hold key to this country and marginalizing them to make them behave so that investment and doing business in India will become convenient is not easy. Most business prefers to keep out of any controversy to avoid their wrath. I am not any businessman and so I feel it is not difficult for me to expose them and suggest solution to this problem. Somebody has to do it for the benefit of all foreign as well as Indian businessmen so that they can come and invest in India. We all know their coming in India is essential for our development. I hope this post will clear all haze around this topic and these foreign businessmen will be able to voice their concern to our government and clearly demand that these monsters are quelled. India's progress needs that these four monsters are controlled in the most democratic manner. Let me spell them for my readers. 

Politicians is the first monster to begin with. Even though politicians are now being controlled by making them answerable to people; the efforts however are not enough and more control on them is required to make them behave as servants of people and not masters of people. Mr. Modi has called himself kamdar meaning a servant but how much of this will reflect in actual political circle is yet to be seen. Today we have rules by which politicians who contest have to declare their assets but there is no exposure to the party high commands. Recently somebody has filed a PIL asking political party high commands to declare their financial position in Court but that is not enough. Total answerability to people should be made mandatory for all party high commands by law to bring proper control on their activities. Looking to the present arrangement we observe that this high command is the actual rulers in this country even though they do it through members of their party. MPs and MLAs are only carrying on orders given by these high command of that party. Lot of work is being done in this direction and so let me hope that in due course this monster may be properly tamed and made to work properly. Taming this monster is comparatively easy because they have to face elections and at that time they have to answer voters. Other monsters of whom I shall write are not having this type of restrain and so taming them is very difficult; we shall see that in the following part of this post. 

Bureaucracy in second monster to be controlled. This monsters in as yet not brought under proper control at all. Bureaucracy is not answerable to people thus far. Their behavior is most objectionable. I came to know from some elected politicians that most failures of political parties are due to non co-operation of their bureaucracy. Failure in keeping promises is often the cause for fall of many parties. People blame them for not fulfilling the promises they give during elections but the real culprit is the bureaucracy involved. This bureaucracy simply does not co-operate with the concerned political person and the failure occurs. These politicians do not declare that fact to their voters because they are not wanting further harassment from the concerned bureaucracy. To resolve this and to bring this second monster in proper control we must make this bureaucracy totally answerable to people. We often hear news that MP or MLA assaulted a bureaucrat. Most cases only register this part but conveniently connive at the other side of the story. Why that politician became so desperate is never considered. I have found in most cases this bureaucracy never cares to reply or even acknowledge the letters sent to them or if at all they do it, it is done very late and the reply is mostly very ambiguous. A regular legislation must be passed to that effect so that similar to RTI all government departments care to answer inquiries send to them by citizens. The nature of questions will be direct to them asking them to explain why they have failed? Why the delay? It must be obligatory for every officer to give answer to public and all their replies will be open for public scrutiny. General behavior of offices in all government and pseudo government organizations is of total arrogance. They behave as if they do not care for people. This must stop. Foreign investors will suffer due to this high handed behavior of these bureaucrats. Indian businessmen are already suffering due to this behavior of bureaucracy. Nobody can control it since we do not have any powerful law to make them answer people. Our law designers, being themselves bureaucrats, are playing safe while preparing laws. It has been noticed that our bureaucracy is comprises of most incompetent, lazy, corrupt and unintelligent people. They are known to be competent in offering excuses to cover up for their incompetency, laziness and inability! Interesting part is that all bureaucrats are working in unison and try to protect each other from any onslaught on any one of them through any inquiry. This makes our Indian business to accept other option of going out of this country. Because there is no way to counter them. Bureaucracy is always right in this country whatever they do. Nobody can question them as there is no proper legal provision to help public who wants to ask them. This monster is primarily responsible for most failures of our governments. Making them answerable and giving out names of these incompetent persons holding top positions should be the way to make people know exactly who are stopping the progress of our country. News media is reluctant to mention their names while giving news of their irresponsible work. We often consider that our politicians are the cause of failures but the detailed study of most projects reveals that the real culprit is bureaucracy involve. While we can replace politicians we cannot remove a bureaucrat from his job. It is at least not that easy. At the most they are transferred to other department, that does not make any punishment to them. They are always sitting in some chair or other. At the most they are transferred but that is not enough to bring efficiency in the government. I know of one corrupt bureaucrat who was transferred from MHADA Mumbai office, to Nanded office. I asked him how are things with him? He told me, he is very comfortable and making his money in Nanded projects! He further told me cases are pending and they will keep pending. He seems to be not bothered about them at all. This is the condition with all bureaucrats. To protect them they often make use of rules demanding confidentiality in governmental work. This provision is most cleverly misused to avoid public interference. They are by today's available system most protected persons and invincible. A bureaucrat is particularly protected by some laws so that their courage has become a menace to public. Whoever may come as a political party final rulers are these bureaucrats. Controlling this monster is possible if we make them answer people on questions demanded on them similar to RTI act. However, I was told by some that present RTI act is not enough to squelch or tame this monster of hardened bureaucracy. Foreign investors make it compulsory for our government to bring all necessary modifications in the present law so that this monster is in complete control by making them answer public inquiry without protection of confidentiality. Confidentiality was introduced by British law to control public who were not masters then. Today this public is master of the country and so keeping things from them by this act of confidentiality is anti democratic and so must be abolished. Only those matters related to border security and national security may be retained under this act but this act of confidentiality is misused extensively by our bureaucrats today to protect their misdeeds. Foreign investors must be careful of this monster. So long as this monster remains as it is today; coming to India to invest is amounting to falling in their trap. I do not want to write any more on this. I include Police department in this monster but they are worst amongst all bureaucrats. Other bureaucrats indulge in only civic crimes but police indulge in both civic as well as criminal. The question often put to me by observers is about how to punish them? They cannot be removed from job easily. My suggestion is that a provision for demoting them can solve this issue. A bureaucrat will be demoted to lower grade such as clerk, a clerk to peon in the same department. This demotion will surely deter them from indulging in what they do presently. A DGP, IGP, whatever the title, will be demoted to level of a constable! And at that they cannot leave the job since it is their punishment. When I told of this to some of my friends who are bureaucrats they shivered at the idea. That showed to me how effective this punishment will be. 

Continues in the next post