Orchestra, without the troupe

State, Market, Society

Very quickly after the new government took over, we began to see a buzz of news about fixing the problems of the city, which have remained unaddressed for a long time. The Deputy CM conducted reviews of BBMP, the different city utilities, BDA, and others to come up to speed on some of the problems. Things that were going too slow were nudged to get going faster. A few people were pulled up, perhaps to signal a strong new purposefulness.

Alongside these, we began to hear that the government would form a new task force for the city, and also solicit ideas for change from different people, based on their expertise. This conveyed two things. One that the government was keen on gathering implementable ideas quickly, and secondly that it valued sensible solutions with a fair chance of solving problems.

On the face of it, these are good steps to take. The public is fed up with inaction and delay on so many fronts and the resulting chaos in the city. They would probably be relieved to see someone doing something, at last. If the roads don’t crumble and the buses run on time, and the streets are clean, and there’s water and power in every home -- a lot of people don’t want much more than this. If a new dispensation is kicking up the dust to make these things happen, great.

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It’s also a nice thing that the government is stirring up a conversation among the public for ideas. Political leaders need to be comfortable interacting with the public and with domain experts. Too often, leaders spout gyan about things they don’t know, and use their power to talk down to people. And when that happens, after a while no one bothers to say anything useful to them. Listening is a virtue, because then you can derive the benefit of others’ good ideas.

So, we have action and conversation. What can we expect? It would be nice to have an encouraging answer to that. But governing for progress is a lot like an orchestra. It looks and sounds good when lots of people do lots of things in harmony. But if we remove some of the players on the stage, or some of them begin to play to a different tune, it’s just a cacophony in fancy dress.

Here are some of the players missing from the orchestra. The Mayor, the Corporators, the Metropolitan Planning Committee members, the Human Rights Commissioner, the members of the Heritage Conservation Authority and the Grievance Redressal Authority. Hydro-geologists in BWSSB and urban transport planners in BMTC. Competent board members in most of the government companies, including those delivering public services. The orchestra is missing close to the whole troupe. This week, the High Court heard PILs asking why so many key positions are vacant, and issued notices to the government.

The majority of any government’s work happens by role-play. Lots of people have to do their bit, in different departments, in key roles. Those roles are reserved for them and can’t be easily handed off to someone else. That’s like taking ten instruments on the stage and telling one person to play them all. It just can’t be done. For a while, people pretend that’s not the case, and there is a lot of bluster as new trailers are advertised and theatres are readied, but when the show starts, it’s quickly clear this is not going to bother the box office beyond the first night.

This isn’t new. Incompleteness has been a hallmark of governance for decades now. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, which mandates that metropolitan cities like Bengaluru should have a regional planning body, was passed in 1992. Periodic gaps in the terms of local councils like BBMP have now become common across India. Police reforms have been pending for 20 years. An effective Lokpal and Lokayukta was first proposed in the 1960s. The gaps are vast and long, and we have paid a big price for it.

To be effective, a government needs to be confident about the institutions of governance. It can appoint its preferred people to different roles, but it can’t miss the appointments altogether. And it cannot appoint people to other roles, hoping that somehow, they will be able to mimic what those in the institutions should be doing. They won’t. Whenever a party tries to get by with that, all it really achieves is further erosion of its capacity to govern. We should fill the ranks of government, and trust in that.