Taming the predatory State of today

Author: Rajeev Srinivasan

Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: August 17, 2002
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/17rajeev.htm

The predatory Christian State lives on India in the bureaucracy: the 'steel frame'
of the erstwhile imperial state. Do you notice how the district administrator is
still called a 'Collector'? And what is he collecting? In the old days, he was the
tax- collector, the monstrous one whose job was to squeeze water out of a
stone. It is clear that the steel frame has rusted badly, as the bureaucrats now
seem to outdo the politicians in venality. As an example, take Harsh Mander,
and his simultaneously holding on to his IAS seniority while drawing a princely
sum from the NGO ActionAid. Not to mention the fact that allegations of
conversion activities apparently disappeared as soon as Mander became head of
ActionAid. Curious coincidence, isn't it?

As for the Nehruvian-Marxist State, the examples of its viciousness are legion.
You just have to walk into any government office. I mentioned in my previous
column Two strikes about how Kerala government employees returned to work
after losing a month's salary. The trade unions, for once, got their
comeuppance. Reader Chandra wrote, perceptively, that they lost even more in
untaxed, unreported bribes that they have become addicted to: classic 'rent-
seeking' behaviour.

With the failure of the 2002 Southwest monsoon, attributed by some to yet
another El Nino in the Southern Pacific, we will see hardship and starvation;
but there will not be a famine. This would be a good time, however, for India's
bureaucrats to thoroughly read the superb Mike Davis book, which compares
the results of El Nino droughts over several seasons and over several
continents. To give credit where it is due, the Nehruvian Stalinist State has
managed without a single major famine since Independence (something the
Chinese Stalinist State did not manage, by the way).

The State and its institutions have nevertheless been hijacked by self-seeking
individuals and philosophies. Look at the State-run educational system: the
Nehruvian Stalinists and the Marxists have successfully subverted the
curriculum to alienate Indians from their patrimony and heritage. They have
simultaneously failed to provide universal mass literacy. The only successful
schools are the for- profit private schools: nobody queues up or pulls strings or
gives donations to admit their child to a government school. And the
Macaulayite curriculum still teaches children to despise everything Indian:
perfect for imperialists, but today? What a contrast with China's curriculum that
teaches raging jingoism and contempt for outsiders! No wonder Indians grow
up into anti-national 'secular' 'progressives' and Chinese into hyper-nationalists.

I had to laugh when I heard Comrade Sitaram Yechuri declaim at a conference

that more and more schools need to be brought under the public sector, as if
they hadn't screwed up enough already. He is right from his selfish perspective
though: that is the only way more children can be brainwashed into Marxist
drones. See my previous column on historicide and an item in The Telegraph of
August 2: a 1992 examination paper in West Bengal in which students were
required to write an essay on one the following topics (thanks to reader Ravi):

* National unity and integrity are false political slogans

* In Hindustan, there is no place for Hindu and Hindi
* Five-year plans are a sham
* Statistics on national development are a fraud
* Democracy is a conspiracy
* National revolution is the only way for progress
* National means of broadcasting are useless.

Personally, I would choose 'Five-year plans are a sham.' In 'Statistics on

national development are a fraud,' they must be talking about their fatherland's
accomplishments in this area: see my previous column, India vs China:
Startling Economic Facts.

In another question, students could write an essay on: 'Red Flag in Red Fort,
that is the demand of Hindustan.' I must be confused -- I thought the Marxists
supported the Islamist desire for the Green Flag over the Red Fort.

Alternatively, the students could write a précis of the following paragraph:

'The guardian of national, politics. Delhi, is a heartless administrative seat, on

which sit not elected representatives of people, but anti-social poisonous snakes
coming out of the caste jungle. Progress has been destroyed by tradition,
education by the English medium, religion by political secularism, human
beings by greed, idealism by dirty consumerism. Litterateurs have turned
alcoholic, democratic representatives and administrators have become national
villains, who only like secret accounts in foreign banks.'
As usual, the Marxists show that their only allegiance is to their own worldwide
brotherhood. An illusory brotherhood, it has disappeared; alas, it is only in West
Bengal and Kerala, and nowhere else in the world, that such dinosaurs still strut
about taking themselves seriously! But they have managed to do plenty of
damage already.

Look at the electricity boards, at the (erstwhile) telecom monopoly, the public
airlines. Not one of them offers you the services that you as John or Jane Doe
deserve. They insult you, humiliate you, act as though it were a great favour
that they serve you, whereas they are paid to serve you. I find especially
instructive the 'volume penalty' imposed by the phone company: that is, if you
make more calls, you must pay more per call. In most systems, there are
'volume discounts,' that is, good customers get to pay less per call, but not here!
This is another example of an interfering, failing State.

What is the solution? I honestly don't know. I present this analysis so that at
least we are aware of the problem.

For one, I think the Indian Administrative Service needs to be revamped. I say
this even though I know dedicated, intelligent and wonderful human beings of
great integrity who are in the service. But the system has been thoroughly
corrupted, because of political interference and the lure of money. I look at the
Singaporean model: there the civil service is incorruptible because they are
paid extremely well and because they are not under the thumb of the political
class. Is this possible is India? Clearly there has to be administrative reform.

Another possibility is performance related appraisals in the vast bureaucracy, in

addition to the proposals of the Fifth Pay Commission. The commission asked
the government to reduce its strength by 30 per cent, if I am not mistaken, and
to increase salaries by 20 per cent. The first recommendation has been ignored,
and the second implemented, naturally. The fact of the matter is that the bloated
imperial bureaucracy is not needed. When government employees went on
strike in Kerala, life continued as usual, nobody missed them at all. As I keep
suggesting in the case of India's hapless cricketers, let us give the bureaucrats a
mechanism of 'Management by Objectives:' their goals are well laid out, and if
they meet them, they get incentives; else they get fired. It is important that
public sector jobs are no longer sinecures for bribe-seeking.

Since much of the problem in the State arises due to politicians, there needs to
be thoroughgoing reform there too: for instance, insisting on standards of moral
probity and on full disclosure of assets. In other words, no criminals, and only
those who have some transparency in their financials will be allowed to stand
for elections. And defections will be banned altogether: if you wish to change
parties you have to resign and run for elections again. And, oh by the way, the
cost of the by-election will be charged to you, personally. This will work
wonders for stability, and see the end of the ameba-like asexual reproduction of
political parties based on somebody's idiosyncrasies, the effects of which
Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress demonstrates daily.

The other, perhaps more important thing to implement, is true democracy,

where all citizens are treated the same under the gaze of the law. A uniform
civil code is an absolute necessity. The definition of 'minority' is meaningless in
India, since everyone is a linguistic or communal minority because of the
proliferation of caste based identity in India. I would be very surprised if
anyone thinks of himself as a 'majority person:' for everyone owes their
allegiance to their linguistic and caste peers; and in pretty much all cases, these
groupings are minority groupings. I think the State has to treat everyone
equally, with a few selective affirmative action benefits given to the truly
deserving, instead of blanket, loophole-ridden preferences given today to
'minorities:' I do believe in reservations as they have demonstrably helped the
truly downtrodden.

Finally, the government itself needs to change its attitudes: instead of being the
omniscient and omnipotent Big Brother, it needs to redefine its role as an
infrastructure provider, whose main role is law and order, defense and external
affairs and the protection of national interests in multilateral and bilateral world
for a: a shameless mercantilist State, just like all the other major powers.

Postscript

Rajiv Malhotra mentioned an astonishing forthcoming book, Dowry Murder:

The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime by Veena Talwar Oldenburg. The
author argues that 'these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an
Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather,
such killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era.
In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for
women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an
emergency. As a consequence of the massive economic and societal upheaval
brought on by British rule, womens' entitlements to the precious resources
obtained from land were erased and their control of the system diminished,
ultimately resulting in a devaluing of their very lives.' More good things thanks
to the Christian State.
Speaking of Malhotra, I would recommend his extraordinary article at
sulekha.com, The Axis of Neocolonialism for the insights into how the
representation of India through a new Orientalism continues to follow the
trends set by the predatory imperial State.

Fortunately, the Traditional Knowledge Systems of India have not died a

complete death despite the best efforts of the Christian State, which banned,
among other things: Ayurveda (burned all manuscripts it could find), Kalari
Payat (destroyed all kalaris it could find), smallpox vaccination (declared the
application of cowpox pus 'barbaric'). See the note on Dharampal at the Infinity
Foundation's mandala. Happily, there are plenty of tinkerers still around: here is
a heartwarming story about India's 'barefoot inventors' and the Honey Bee
database at the Good News India site.