The citizen-councillor in the mirror

State, Market, Society

For two months now, there has not been an elected council in the city. Has your life been better or worse during this time, or not very different? Chances are, most people don’t really feel the absence of their elected corporator. A few have even told me that it’s probably better this way.

I don’t agree. But before we get to that, let’s ask another question. During the last two months, considering that there isn’t an elected representative for each of our wards, how much has each one of us done to step up and do whatever it is that the corporator was supposed to do? That is, how much self-governance are we practising, now that there is a pause on governance?

We can look at this hiatus between the last council’s term and the next one as a problem, or as an opportunity. If we believe that all we really need to do to get good administration and governance is pay our taxes, then we’ll see this period as a failure. But if we accept that there are some things that we must do as citizens to self-govern ourselves, and only beyond that we should expect governance by others, then a different world can open up to us.

In fact, if we do our parts right now, we may even be in a better position to select a candidate of our choice whenever the municipal elections are held. The next few weeks could be a kind of trial period for those who want to contest the election to show how well they can work with public officials, and seek votes on that basis. The absence of a corporator provides a level playing field for such competition.

This do-it-yourself approach to governance is also helpful for another reason. The municipal councillor has a significant voice only in the BBMP. In many other agencies of the government -- Bescom, BWSSB, BMTC, Metro and others -- there is simply no role for your ward corporator. So, any improvements you’re looking for in those places must in any case be taken up in a different way. There’s no reason, therefore, why we can’t make similar efforts to engage BBMP, too, ourselves.

A lot of people complain about the futility of trying to engage with government, believing that nothing much will come of it. But in my experience, most people have come to this conclusion without ever trying to make a difference, or after making only a feeble effort. That merely creates self-fulfilling low expectations in our minds, and we quickly conclude that there is a good fit between our poor view of politics and the actual performance of politicians.

But the world of public problems is not very different from many others. There is simply no way to be a good pianist without a lot of practice, or a good mathematician or software engineer. This is true when it comes to being a citizen, too -- there’s no way to be a good citizen without practising it a lot. And if we give up on our obligation to practise good citizenship, we’re only setting ourselves up for poor outcomes from those who represent us.

For the longest time, we’ve confused our failure to engage our public institutions with their failure to engage us. Having elected representatives also made it seem easy to delude ourselves in this way -- we simply told ourselves it was not our job to do anything. But now that there isn’t anyone wearing the representative’s hat in BBMP, the obligation falls back on us.

What are some things we can do? There’s no shortage of answers to this question, since there are so many things that need more attention. The roads are in poor condition, the water pipes are leaking, there isn’t enough supply of water to homes, power supply is creaky, bus services are inadequate...the list is quite long. Pick one of those, and ask yourself -- how can I make this one thing better?

If that seems daunting, there is a simple way to overcome that. For any problem that you choose to work on, I guarantee you that there are already dozens of people in the city trying to do something about it. Join them. In fact, joining other people who are already in ‘active citizenship’ mode is the easiest and more powerful step that anyone can take to quickly become effective in working on public problems.

This is particularly true because a lot of people tell themselves that they would be willing to do something to make the city better, but they can’t find anyone to work with them on this. Well, then, simply invert the problem by looking for someone else that you can work with, and this problem will go away fairly quickly.

A few days ago, in conversation with someone about this, I said that no matter where one lives in the city, it is possible to find another public-spirited citizen within a few hundred meters of one’s home. We really live amidst a lot of others who have the same aspirations and hopes for a better Bengaluru as we do. All that remains is to connect with them.

As we wait for a verdict from the High Court to set a date for the next election, let’s also set the course of governance in the city regardless of when that election happens. What we do in society today tends to show up in governance tomorrow. The city’s first councillors are its citizens, and when we take that responsibility seriously, we’ll find a marked difference when the elected representatives take their places.