Need of the hour: A directly elected, long-term mayor

Thus, for example, we want our cities to be like London or New York, and in more recent times like Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Shanghai. These comparisons reflect and expose very different aspirations. Let’s take the Asian cities first. It is interesting that the most comparisons we make nowadays are to cities that do not have democratically elected governments.

Perhaps people have become so disillusioned with politics and its practitioners here in India that they no longer see much value in the old adages about democracy, representation, public opinion, and such. Instead, they simply want good infrastructure, reasonably good schools and health facilities, and some well-maintained public spaces. If a dictatorship can provide these better, they reckon, so be it.

It would be easier to value and celebrate our personal and political freedoms if they were more closely linked with the things people want. Did you notice that in Beijing and KL, people sometimes hold demonstration asking for more freedom — in effect, they still want to be like New York or London! And remember also that Londoners don’t hold rallies demanding to be like KL or Dubai.

Thus, the real goal post is still unchanged — we want democratic governance that delivers economic and social well-being to the people. We also want governance in which the people have a strong say, and are not just peripheral actors who go through the motions of voting once in a while, and are then quickly forgotten.

How do we get this? I believe that one important part of the package is a directly elected mayor. But let us also understand a few things about the election of the mayor in Bangalore. The current system is that after the BBMP polls, one of the new council members will be elected by the corporators themselves to be the mayor of the city.

However, this election does not require a majority proven through a confidence motion as in Vidhana Soudha or parliament — whichever councillor gets the most votes becomes the mayor. Thus, in most cases mayors are elected by a minority of the corporators.

Removing them is more democratic. Anytime the council wants to, it can table a no-confidence motion and if this motion passes by a simple majority, the mayor can be ousted. But this arrangement also demonstrates the weakness of the system. A mayor who has only been elected by a minority of councillors knows that he can be removed at any time by the majority.

No one wants to be mayor unless he can be confident of continuing support of the majority, but in this multi-party era it is impossible to get this support and retain it. The wheeling-dealing that goes on at state and Central levels is accelerated manifold in the cities, and the mayors are always unstable.

No control

Next let us look at governance. The mayor does not control much of the public services in the city — transport, water supply, electricity, health care, education, etc are all provided by departments that don’t report to him. Moreover, a mayor who has been elected from a constituency — say, Konankunte — can hardly be expected to know the problems of HBR Layout and respond to them. Nor will he be well-known and respected in HBR.

One last point about the mayor. Their term is only one year, after which they will need to be rotated out and replaced by someone based on a reservation system, and a new arrangement among the councillors. Thus, even if by some stroke of luck we were to get a mayor who understood the issues well and was willing to work to resolve them, he would be gone from office by the time he’d mastered the governance establishment.

I remember an event some years ago, when the Administrative Reforms Commission held a conference in Bangalore to discuss the problems of urban governance. Very good inputs were received from many participants, but there was one notable exception — the mayor of Bangalore. She came mid-way through the event, sat quietly in the room, unable to comprehend the discussion or add value to it. And a few months later, she disappeared from public attention altogether, replaced by the next one-year office-holder.

Can you imagine a conference on urbanisation and governance held in New York or London where the mayor would have very little to say? Absolutely not. Politicians who are genuinely representative of their cities can speak confidently about them and steer plans for their growth. Temporary place-holders can’t do this.

There is a tendency to brush all this aside by saying, “but this is India. We have the parliamentary system, and we don’t work like the rest of the world.” For those who believe this, here’s a parting thought — the parliamentary system we refer to came to us from London, which has a mayor directly elected by millions of people. It is time we chucked a legacy whose creators have themselves abandoned it. A few states in India, by the way, have already done this.

(The writer is an expert on urban affairs)