Essential Elements That Can Give Rise To A New Kind Of Politics
By Dr. Satinath Choudhary
13 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org
We know the age old but evergreen truism: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It holds the key for reducing corruption! A corollary to this truism may be: The greater is concentration of power into a single or few hands, the greater will be corruption. This was recognized way back in 1775 when the seventy-year-old (Benjamin) Franklin had drafted a plan for an “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.” Franklin's plan included a twelve-person executive council empowered to carry out administrative and executive functions while Congress was in recess; on the other hand, when the Congress was in session, they envisioned it to be the supreme power without the necessity of concentrating power in the hands of one or a few. He and his followers feared that an executive body headed by a single person would be a “fetus of monarchy”. The single-seat positions of power need to be collectivized, with a collective of equals replacing the single monarchical positions, to cut down corruption and usher better democracy.
It would have been ideal for all of legislators to continue to have equal power with no chief minister, ministers or deputy-ministers. Various legislators could join collectives interested in guiding various departments of the government. For different decisions different small collectives could be formed even in the same department. However, the decisions of the collectives would have to be approved by the whole legislature. In case there more than one collective dealing with the same issue, they can meet with each other to iron out their differences before or/and after they present their proposals to the full legislative body. Full legislature would be the supreme body to put final seal of approval on any issue or legislation.
Chief Ministerial collective may be an omnipotent collective that can projects or legislations under any department. Additionally, they could resolve turf-wars among different departments and issue advisories to all departments.
Once a proposal of one of the collectives or joint proposal of more than one collective has been approved by the whole legislature, a small collective of those responsible towards giving the proposal/ bill final shape would be formed who would be responsible for implementation of the same. We could call such small collectives executive collectives (EC). All those willing to be part of an EC should be welcome. The fact that decisions of all collectives have to be ratified/approved by the whole legislative body, and all would be welcome to be part of all ECs would effectively make all legislators to be of equal standing. To ensure that the legislators vote their conscience rather than under some kind of pressure they may be allowed to vote by secret ballots, just as the EUP (European Union Parliament) members are allowed to do any time at least 15% of the parliament members make a request for the same.
Even the bureaucratic hierarchy above a certain level should be equalized and collectivized and made horizontal from which various legislative collectives could pick up individuals deemed to be sympathetic to the decisions approved by legislature. When the legislative body is not in session, the collectives could form even smaller collectives that will be responsible to oversee execution/implementation of a decision by the bureaucratic collective chosen by the legislative collective. Working of the legislature and the supporting bureaucracy described above would go a long way towards making them horizontal or non-hierarchical and diminishing autocratic/dictatorial and arbitrary practices.
Now that a number of people have been anointed as ministers, it may not be good to take away their titles as ministers. However, self-selected collectives can certainly be formed to help the ministers. In case of more than one opinion on any issue between the minister and various factions of the collective, all of those opinions may be presented to the whole legislative body and voted on after some deliberation to pick one or the other proposal. The full legislative body may, if it wishes, pick one or more of the proposals and ask some of the collectives to come up with a final form from one or more of the proposals. Legislative body's decision would be the final one on the issue/proposal. The concerned minister together with a collective of those most involved in giving final form to a piece of legislation would be responsible for implementation of the decision taken by the legislature with the help of a few bureaucrats selected by the EC.
This way each of the legislators would be actively involved in legislations and its implementation on issues closest to his or her heart. No one would get the sinking feeling of being considered less important than anyone else. They can be as active, creative, innovative and productive as bodily and mentally possible for them. Each of them have won mandate of roughly 2 lac electorate; they must have a good deal of capability, pride and earned esteem of a lot of people. They should not be reduced merely to individuals whose duty is to say YES to everything that emanates from the cabinet or the CM's office. Each of the MLAs would try to be as creative as possible to leave a lasting imprint on the government. With just a few declared to be ministers, for the rest it is difficult to for the others to be much creative and innovative. The equalization of ministers with other MLAs would be complete if the ministers refuse to accept any monetary or physical amenities bigger than those offered to any other MLA. That would be a new style of politics, different from the old-style politics as usual.
Picking a few of the MLAs and awarding them a ministerial post can be and has been one way of bribing them and making the left-out members feel disappointed, smaller and dejected. This way of bribery must be ruled out if we want to create more transparent, more honest, more democratic, more humble, less autocratic, less arbitrary, less pompous, less arrogant government.
Even if Mr. Kejriwal proves to be one of the most honest administrators, which I have no doubt about, that would be just that — an honest administration under an honest administrator — nothing more. It will be politics as usual. On the other hand, if the structure of the administration is changed to something wherein it will be difficult to be dishonest, that will be the birth of a new politics!
In this article I have tried to explore how a legislature can govern in a democratic fashion with the least amount of autocracy and maximum amount of democracy, transparency and honesty. As far as electing the legislative body to represent the people most faithfully, we will explore various possibilities later.
Dr. Satinath Choudhary t aught Computer Science and Electrical Engineering in the USA. Currently a social activist in Delhi Email: [email protected]
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