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By John Samuel The people must reclaim the institutions of governance: questions need to be asked, policies need to be monitored, rights need to be claimed and accountability needs to be asserted
Democracy works when citizens and the most marginalised people have the capability to ask questions, seek accountability from the state and participate in the process of governance. Democracy becomes meaningful when people can shape the state and the state, in turn, is capable of creating enabling social, political, economic and legal conditions wherein people can exercise their rights and realise freedom from fear and want. It is not merely elections or universal adult franchise that defines the process of democracy. While a constitutional framework and human rights guarantees can form the grammar of democracy, it is always people and the ethical quality of the political process that make democracy work. Democracy involves dignity, diversity, dissent and development. Unless even the last person can celebrate her or his sense of dignity, exercise democratic dissent and inform and impact the process of governance and development, democracy is empty rhetoric. Democracy dies where discrimination begins and the politics of exclusion takes root. Governance is the process of exercising different forms of power (social, political, economic, legal and administrative) within various institutional arenas. The Human Development Report describes governance as “the exercise of power or authority -- political, economic, administrative or otherwise -- to manage a country’s resources and affairs. It comprises the mechanism, process and institutions through which citizens and groups can articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences.” The real challenge in a democratic process is to ensure that the process of governance is not subverted or appropriated or controlled by a set of economic and political elites. The key question that needs to be asked is: “Who exercises power in the process of governance: the people or the bureaucrats or those who control the government?” The problem is that the operational framework of ‘good governance’ is largely apolitical in nature, promoting a techno-managerial approach that focuses primarily on effective micro and macro management of economic resources.. The ‘good governance’ framework also fails to seek accountability from global institutions like the World Bank, IMF and WTO, and fails to question the unjust macro-economic policy framework that serves the interests of a few rich people and rich countries and perpetuates inequality and poverty. In such a top-down techno-economic and managerial approach, people are often seen as ‘instruments’ to facilitate effective economic management. A rights-based approach to governance is a function of power relationships within and beyond the institutions of government and the exercise of such power with a sense of justice, fairness and equity. Such an approach is based on four key elements: accountability, participation, legitimacy and rights. It is an expression of grassroots democratisation. Governance is crucial because it encompasses both processes and arenas wherein public policies are formulated, legitimized, legislated and implemented. Governance provides institutionalised means to claim rights and seek justice through the justice delivery system. It can be the interface through which citizens and marginalised people can interact and mediate with the state and seek accountability and answerability. However, the reality is that governance is the site of unequal and unjust power relationships: where patriarchy gets reinforced in various forms of marginalisation and oppression, where poverty gets perpetuated and people are mere ‘vote banks’ with caste, creed and colour. In the Indian context, the potential and possibilities of the liberal democratic constitution of India often get annulled by feudal, casteist and communal political tendencies and the colonial character of the Indian bureaucracy. On the one hand there seems to be unprecedented optimism about the potential of economic growth and on the other, there is a tendency to make the poor and marginalised invisible. Political parties are the legitimising agents and vehicles of the parliamentary democratic process. The erosion of transparency and accountability and increasing instances of corruption in various institutions of governance are a reflection of the patron-client culture of political parties. Increasingly, most political parties look like family enterprises or a network of families controlling parties. More often it is pedigree that determines political influence or power, rather than political commitment or competence for governance. Transparency, accountability, integrity, ethical leadership and democratic culture within political parties are prerequisites to ensuring democratic governance. The institutions of governance need to be reclaimed by the people: questions need to be asked, policies need to be monitored, rights need to be claimed and accountability needs to be asserted. Governance become accountable when people are educated, enabled and empowered to ask questions, seek justice and demand participation InfoChange News & Features, September 2005
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