Friday, June 10, 2011

Crowdsourcing Governance Reform

I just came upon this article in PopSci proclaiming that "Iceland's Citizens Are Writing Its New Constitution Online" thanks to a friend who shared the link on Facebook.

Without getting into the whole issue all over again, of Anna Hazare's fast demanding active participation of the civil society in drafting the Lok Pal Bill, I just want to make a point here in this post: in a democracy sovereignty ultimately lies with the People -- beyond the Constitution or Parliament. Iceland's bold experiment is testimony to this simple fact. And this point begs to be made, flying as it does in the face of criticism to the effect that citizens' active (and "official") participation in changing the law of the land: (a) is unconstitutional (b) subverts Parliamentary processes (c) undermines our democratic institutions.

Perhaps it is time to recognize that in today's day and age (relevant zeitgeist: increasing empowerment of common citizens) a purely representative democracy is unsustainable if it does not conflate at least some elements of participatory democracy. Some burning issues just cannot wait till the next elections, especially if the average citizen strongly feels that the establishment and its political processes have failed to deliver clean governance. Clearly, such is the case when it comes to the twin issues of graft and capital flight in the Indian context -- the Government in office has failed to check these chronic maladies over the years (even worse, its officials are suspected to be perpetrators of the same crimes themselves) and the main Opposition party has failed to correct that failure (even worse, is suspected to more or less equally guilty).

I sincerely hope our Indian think-tanks (who are wont to quote Dr. Ambedkar's quip about the "Grammar of Anarchy" at the drop of a hat these days) sit up and take note of the precedent set by Iceland, without bringing up feckless counter-arguments like: "Oh but you can't do that here because only the elite in India have access to the Internet" or "Oh but you can't do that here because the Indian public lacks maturity". We can definitely replicate Iceland's experiment in India (especially considering the urgency of the need to reform our antiquated and obsolete legal and regulatory framework). We have the technology, we have the intellectual capital (what the heck -- we export that stuff!) and we have the maturity too. We can do it, and we must do it. I just hope we will!

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Thursday, June 9, 2011

Minor Observation #7

The kerfuffle caused by a certain "Swami" (a.k.a."Baba") Ramdev and his followers recently, inspired me to explore the many meanings and applications of the word "Capital". Here are a few:

Capital Flight: The siphoning out of ill-begotten wealth from the mainstream economy, and then stashing it away secret bank accounts overseas. This forms the main thrust and focal point of Ramdev's crusade: to bring pressure on the Government to "bring back"  that wealth and declare it as a national asset.

National Capital: New Delhi, the place where Ramdev was received like a VIP on arrival, and from where he was unceremoniously booted out a few days later, after he earned the wrath of the high and mighty.

Capital Punishment: What Ramdev thinks the corrupt deserve: the death penalty (he seems to have settled for life imprisonment, in later interviews).

Human Capital: Ramdev's flock -- the several thousands of followers who had gathered for satyagraha at the Ramlila grounds, who a day or two later were gassed, caned and evicted in the dead of the night, some of whom have sustained serious injury.

Intellectual Capital: The one thing that is conspicuously absent in almost everything that almost everybody has uttered on this subject on national television and newspapers.

Capitalizing on Opportunity: What the national political parties are doing against this backdrop, each to further their own political agenda.

Capital 'F' for Failure: Failure of the Government (to check graft and bring the guilty to book); Failure of the Opposition (to ensure that the Government does its job); Failure of Civil Society (to remain civil and shoulder civic responsibilities while protesting against the aforementioned failures); Failure of the Intelligentsia (to develop meaningful solutions before the public at large acts out of sheer outrage); Failure of the Common Citizen (to eschew all forms of corruption in daily life; to stick to the straight and narrow path despite its inconveniences).

Posted via email from HyperActiveX's (Pre)Posterous Posts