DailyPost 2618
NO EXPERTS PLEASE, WE ARE A DEMOCRACY!
No experts please, we are a democracy can well go down as the tagline of Indian governance for last so many decades. Both the political and permanent executive have always believed that they are competent enough to plan and execute our fate and that of the nation. They have also tried to make us believe in the competence, directly or tacitly and that is the reason for the complacence of nation, and of it believing, that if they really mean it, they can deliver. Bureaucracy has always believed in superficial knowledge, enough to talk and barely document and take us through parliamentary sessions unscathed.
They could create the right sounds and ripple effects in UN, in international conferences and summits and create documents, which have never been thought of in terms of delivery. The document itself in is an achievement. The politician on the other hand even after getting rechristened as the political executive does not show any signs of change. They remain as callous of their education, training and skills as they have always been. They and the world seem to believe that they can deliver with their present skill sets or the lack of skill sets altogether. It is a pipedream. Even having lowest of the certificates and degrees is a commendable achievement for them even in this age.
Not to comment what expertise the present set up of governance resources have or not, what is self-defeating is that is they sit in judgement to decide who has relevant technical skills/ expertise/ experience or not, and their judgement is final, going through whatever decorative official modalities. They can decide on an economist, jurist, scientist, normal finance to the expertise to run the central bank of the nation. Well-structured expert support on legally mandated mechanism for governance support, policy making, audit, validation and upgrade seems to be still centuries away. From nitty gritty of developmental administration to the nascent machine learning and artificial intelligence, the battle remains to be the same.
How many social welfare and social security experts do our political parties hire to provide them assistance in the whole process of deciding on the details of the election manifesto / announcements / freebies et al. Schemes and cash doles are being dropped like bombshells by the most well-meaning Santa Clauses in human history. Who does the financial calculations to enable them to take such a call? Political parties are bereft of experts of any kind and same culture is carried to the government. No political party can claim to have experts sufficient enough to carry out their legally mandated tasks either before or after coming to power. Non-matured governments work on flights of fancy or vested interests and at its best appoints experts wherever they desire, persons who are loyal and fit into their political alignment. What they would deliver as experts is no one’s concern.
EXPERTLESS DEMOCRACY IS A CURSE FOR ITS ELECTORS.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.