DailyPost 2834
ELECTIONS & GOVERNANCE DELINEATED!
In the copybook style of democracy, it was schemed to have direct connection between what happened at the hustings and governance and then what happened in governance during the life of a government and their performance at the subsequent elections. Our 75 years of democratic governance has ripped apart this classical model of democracy. What has come in its place, is that elections are delineated from governance to the extent that the vitals of current governance remain unconnected to the common man. He has been made to understand that some services and benefits provided to him is the sum total of governance.
Elections have become stand alone activity. It no longer validates whatever has been done in the last five years by the incumbent government and also is unable to validate what the new government would be doing in the subsequent five years. It is treated like an court giving a carte blanche to do whatever you feel like for the next five years. What interests the government caters to, is all too well known by now. Are the requirements of the electorate and the masses ever been documented constituency wise and added up to state and national requirements. Some motley mix of weird characters with an equally weird vision and methodology to create a document called Manifesto.
Elections are not a consent for it. It has no legal standing, it’s not binding on anybody and is used to rally people together again, in the next elections. Some few points of the forgotten manifesto would be proven to have been accomplished. There are no parameters to measure, even the most flaunted of the accomplishments and we have to go by their word of mouth. Word of mouth of a politician is a contradiction in terms. Elections by now has been well proven to be fought and won employing mechanics of a kind, which has barely been documented or debated upon. Nor are seasoned bureaucrat’s suggestions asked for, for providing elements of their electioneering and manifesto.
People who run the nuts and bolts of governance are not a part of the democratic agenda of elections, which decides the nature of governance. The political class feels election is its core competency and they know how to handle it. They keep getting the feelers from the information provided by their mode of intelligence gathering and analysis. Interestingly, everything is manipulated and camouflaged get that one push of the EVM button by the voter, which can transform you into demi-gods for the next five years. Freebies have become governance. Free redistribution of the taxpayers money cannot be called governance. The desperate need to fish money courtesy BCG’s expertise is tantamount to governance. Manipur stands as a shining example of the total mismatch between elections and governance. What to say of the leaking papers all around the place. Governments can’t even respond. What to talk of real financial and developmental administration, leave aside social security and the infusion of tech to elevate our lives. We can go on and on endlessly.
TODAY WE ARE AT THE CUSP OF DECLARING ELECTIONS AS GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNANCE AS ELECTIONS.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.