Impartiality in politics- Myth personified…..

I read this piece in today’s newspaper, on Sushma Swaraj (Deputy Opposition leader) demanding the newly appointed speaker of the house (Parliament) to resign from her party membership in the name of being seen as an impartial head of the house. If any of you have seen how the helpless speakers of the past have tried in vain to control our so called Leaders, then you will know what the poor headmaster goes through. No surprises that some of them have been admitted to the hospital complaining of chest pain. Imagine managing a group of highly heterogeneous people- some highly educated, some hardly educated, some young, some forever young, some others with half their feet in a coffin, some progressive and many others extremely regressive…..I remember those college days…. When you don’t want to take up a test, you plan a class bunk en masse’ or plan a strike for a bus running in some other route not stopping for some class mate. All this in the name of not wanting to do what is expected of you- i.e. To study. Most times than not the last 5 years we have seen our elected members of the parliament run away from what is expected of them- discuss issues that concern the common man. Instead they ran towards the well (the central part of the parliament) at the drop of a hat to postpone or cancel the proposed debates on topics of national interest. What a waste of time and money to engage 600,000 people and USD 1.5-2 billion to elect 543 people who would represent people from all walks of life in the parliament. And what do they end up doing- bunk class en masse’ and not engage in any serious debates or contribute by way of their silence if not ideas.

Coming to the topic on impartiality in politics and related appointments, all I can say is that this is probably the biggest myth that I have ever heard of. How can someone who has supported a particular lineage or ideology or a party all his/her life, ever claim to be truly impartial overnight? In our country, we have several positions which are categorized as impartial and bi-partisan one’s, meant for people with proven capabilities. The latter part I don’t question as my great country is proud to have abundance of talent and I am proud of that fact. But the former (impartiality) I simply cannot digest? These positions include that of Government corporation heads, Governors, Speakers and finally the highest constitutional position with no executory powers, that of the President of India. (In India, The Prime Minister is the top most leader in India and the President is more of a non-executive head of India. Unlike the US Presidential system, we follow the British format)

No personal attacks here. But, how can Smt. Pratibha Patil (President of the country), SM Krishna (Ex. Governor of Maharashtra) or Miss. Meira Kumar (Speaker of the Parliament) be expected to function as impartial conductors of their function devoid of any party considerations. Ms. Kumar has been with the current ruling front for over 20 years plus the time her father was with the party, while Mrs. Patil and Mr. Krishna have been with the ruling party for over 30-40 years. Overnight they are rewarded for their administrative capabilities and party loyalty with plum posts which expect them to be impartial in every sense of the word. I can only think of one parallel- Most corporates do not allow “better halves” to work together for it’s near impossible to keep household loyalties and considerations away from work and be impartial in the true sense of the word.

When a state or central government comes to power and finds it hard to accommodate all of its regional leaders with considerable clout, they offer them Governor or positions as heads of Government corporations based on their negotiation powers within the ruling front. Heads of Government corporations are considered very highly and given more importance than that of the Governor of a state for the sheer kick-backs and miscellaneous revenues it brings to most political heads. No wonder why we have leaders who far outweigh any of the investment bankers or the benchmark index by reporting 550% and 1200% growth in their officially stated income records. Guess they should be the preferred choice as investment managers and not those who sit with dual monitors, statistical software’s and all. Surprisingly though, most of them cant manage our country’s ex-chequer and that needs a select few individuals. We have had 7 governments since 1991 on to 2009, but only 4 Finance ministers (Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, P.C.Chidambaram & Manmohan Singh)

If parties are really serious about being bi-partisan and appointing impartial leaders, then we need to look at some constitutional amendments for these key posts (That of a President, Speaker and Governor) that are critical to the functioning of our machinery. Like how we have one seat allotted for the Anglo-Indian community in the Parliament and needs no elections, we should reserve these 3 seats for people who have not belonged to any party and have headed key functions like the Reserve Bank of India, Indian Police, defense forces or Indian Space Research Organization. I can think of people like Mr.Rangarajan (ex RBI head) and Ms.Kiran Bedi (ex Police commissioner) on the top of my head. Analysts in the US have for long claimed that if US had a regulator as strong as India’s, then some of the recent US financial industry down turn would not have attained such measures of gigantic proportions.

The reason I suggest these names are for three main reasons:

They are bound to be more accountable for they have lead positions of high accountability

Having been at the receiving side of bureaucratic and governmental delays, they are bound to show more apathy towards the need for running these functions responsibly and efficiently

They have no parties and hence no inhibitions or un-learning that they have to put themselves through

The second suggestion I have is for any outgoing Parliament/Assembly to nominate people for these posts and for the common man to elect individuals from this list along with the normal central/state elections. This way we have new leaders who would manage, run and hopefully discipline the group of leaders we nominate from various parties.

The third suggestion I have is for introducing a compulsory cooling off period for all switches from positions held within a party to positions which require you to be completely impartial. 2 years seems to be a good starting point.

My fourth suggestion is for appointments to Government corporations to be purely based on the norms followed in appointing Chairman’s to Public sector companies and other government funded corporations. They could be experienced business leaders with proven records or people who have cleared IAS/IFS examinations. Appointing people who have missed plum government positions by a whisker or aren’t deemed to be fit enough to manage party posts is the worst nightmare for these government corporations. Many of whom are sick, while others are growingly becoming un-competitive and surviving on the back of constant capital infusion in the name of saving the jobs of thousands of Indian’s living in semi urban and rural areas. Talk about deploying tax payer’s money in the right area!!! The need of the hour is to strengthen these corporations to compete on their own strength and further fuel the economies growth and not to use these corporations to satisfy disgruntled party leaders.

The final suggestion I have is to give them powers equivalent to that of judiciary; both in terms of the independence of their functioning and their powers in taking decisions which have a legal standing.

Having said that, this needs more thought and debate to ensure that they don’t end up becoming larger than the group of people who are elected to lead our country. We don’t want another tussle like the one we see between the judicial system in our country and the government in many cases.

I invite suggestions from all…..