By Patricia Mukhim
There are few facts we have to accept so that we can come to grips with reality. First, Meghalaya like India is not a democracy in the real sense of the term. Inequality and distorted power equations make democracy impossible to work. A good example would be the relationship between the Block Development Officer in the village and the people. In a democracy where it is said power belongs to the people, the villagers can and should approach the BDO, not with folded hands looking for patronage (government schemes), but should be able to speak to the BDO as equals. But is that a reality? In villages people are afraid to enter a government office and rely on the village headman to get them their dues. Hence another power centre is created and the person occupying that position acts as the middle-man between the BDO and the village folks. Village residents’ interface with government is minimal and continues to be so. How then can they benefit from the multiple schemes actually ‘schemed’ by intelligent minds and aimed at populism and winning votes.
In the light of what happened in Tura, West Garo Hills on July 24 last one also feels the need to delve into what is the “Rule of Law,” its implications and whether such rule of law actually exists in Meghalaya. The rule of law is a mechanism and process which ensures the application of a set of norms that treat all citizens as equals before the law. This translates into a non-arbitrary form of governance. We usually associate arbitrariness with various forms of despotism. Yet arbitrariness is practiced as a rule in this country and even in Meghalaya. How else are some citizens sitting in vehicles with dark glasses and sounding their sirens to remind lesser mortals to vacate the road because “they” – the Very Important Persons – taking some decisions of life and death for us – are passing by. Can there be a worse form of demonstration of inequality than this? Yet, we citizens, all of us with one vote each, refuse to act – much less to protest this arbitrariness. We have internalized this arbitrariness to the extent of normalizing it. So let’s forget the notion of being equal citizens! A despotic government is one that makes rules to facilitate its own arbitrariness so that it can act without the constraint of law whenever and wherever it wishes to.
The rule of law has been critiqued by no less than Aristotle in the 4th century BC and later by French political philosopher Montesquieu. Both agree that while the rule of law is necessary to guide society it cannot be arbitrarily applied. It is generally accepted that the creation of laws, their enforcement, and the relationships among legal rules are themselves legally regulated, so that no one—including the most highly placed official – should be above the law. In simple terms this means that those running the government are also subject to existing laws as much as citizens are. We are supposedly equal before the law and hence no person shall hold special privileges because of the position that she/he holds. In the application of the rule of law (here rule of law does not mean the application of judicial processes; nor does it relate only to policing processes but across all government functions), the application and adjudication of legal rules by various governing officials are to be impartial and consistent without taking into consideration the class, status, or relative power among the citizenry or indeed their educational status.
For the law to be applied equally across all sections of society, citizens should know the law so that they can contest its arbitrary application. Can that happen in a society that is not just illiterate but which is wallowing in poverty? In Meghalaya 32.7 people live below the poverty line and that reduces them to a powerlessness only they can understand. This has happened because the bureaucracy which is tasked with bringing enabling schemes closer to the people spend more time in their office cubicles and hardly visit the people. Naturally, people learn to depend heavily on their politician (MLA) who they feel is one of them and in a better position to understand their plight. But considering that the MLA too is no longer one of them and lives in the comfort of his home in Shillong, the concerns of the villagers remain unaddressed and the governance a distant dream.
Poverty-stricken villagers are entertained only once in five years. Poverty forces them to accept doles and being conscience-stricken they vote for the highest bidder for their votes. These are the people who today are realizing that they have been given short shrift by the system of governance and that if they don’t unite and demand their rights they will not have access to those rights. Hence the demand for a winter capital in Tura! The arguments put forward are that some government establishments will function from Tura and that would bring governance closer to the people. But the question that follows is – what are the plethora of district offices doing that people need to come all the way to Shillong? Aren’t the district offices meant to address the needs of people in that district? Perhaps the more pertinent question is -What are the Block Development Officers (BDOs) doing? Who is monitoring their function and the outcomes? Aren’t some of the BDOs the richest among bureaucrats? Don’t they own several buildings that others can only envy? Where do they get their extra earnings from? Can anyone in the Government answer this? This is the broken link in the governance system and it has to be fixed. I am not so sure that a winter capital will be able to address the broken bureaucratic frame.
This brings me to the contentious issue of the relationship between the political class and the bureaucracy. Ironically, just a few days after his election in 2014, Prime Minister, Modi made a pledge to revitalize India’s administrative set-up which he said was suffering from the perception that corrupt bureaucrats are despised but thrive, while the honest are respected but do not rise. Modi pointed out that many of those wanting to do something end up in the boondocks. In its true sense the bureaucracy is meant to implement policies by the book and to blow the whistle when politicians waylay the smooth implementation of schemes because they need to make money on the sly. Why have bureaucrats become complicit in what their political masters have excelled in? What is also problematic is the political allegiance of bureaucrats instead of following their training module learnt in the LBSNAA Mussoorie. Of course, many are only looking at professional mobility and riling the political class means a punishment posting. It is unfortunate that the civil servants are not protected from political vengeance.
Of the many training modules the important one is to handle law and order so that it does not completely collapse as happened in Tura some weeks ago and in Manipur for 3 whole months and counting. But everywhere we see this aspect of the IAS training module falling into disrepute. Studies have shown how IAS officers have instead of investing in upgrading their skills and developing expertise in their respective tasks have instead used their affinity to politicians to leverage important postings. The absence of appropriate yardsticks to measure performance-based outcomes is also a huge drawback. It is important for an IAS officer and for the public to know what and how much an officer has achieved in the department he/she handles. And promotion should be based on performance and not on seniority alone. This would be a good indicator of how equal to the task a bureaucrat is.
In Meghalaya as in other states, some bureaucrats have allowed themselves to be used by all shades of politicians. This is a disservice to their profession and to the people of this country who they have professed to serve by using the rule of law equitably.