Proposed Changes towards Democracy in Governance Systems of India

Vivek Umrao Glendenning MCIJ

International Journalist, the Chartered Institute of Journalists, London
Member, Wikimedia /Wikipedia Australia
Member, International PEN
Member, International PEN Sydney Centre

• Indian Administration Services should be renamed as the Indian Public Facilitation Services or Indian Public Services.

(It was called as Indian Civil Services, ICS, and after Independence it was changed to Indian Administration Services, IAS. The term “Civil” is a democratic word and was used by the British Empire in pre-Independent-India. The term “Administration” is an undemocratic word and is used by the Indian Governments in independent India. The British Empire ruled India, but used a democratic word for a undemocratic ruling. But in Independent and democratic India, the people do not enjoy a democratic ruling because they are being ruled with similar characteristics, rules and attitudes of undemocratic rulings as during the British Empire. And the situations are worse today, because in Independent India the people have lost a democratic word for public services. In a valued democracy, governments and their structures are for public facilitations, not to rule on them.)

• Any government employee, from chief secretary to village guard, who gets any salary or facility from the government, should be directly addressed as SERVANT (SEVAK) in place of Officer. It should be compulsory in all name plates, all documents and in all types of conversations.

(It is contradictory that people take oath as public servants, but they behave as masters of the people of India and are called Officers and Lords. For example, in some states, District Collectors are being termed as JILADHISH, which means owner of district. It is undemocratic and violation of fundamental values of a Democratic Constitution.)

• There is a demand in India for ‘Right to Recall’ for public representatives from Parliament, Assemblies, Pachayats etc. even though these representatives face elections each 5 years. They have to face the people of India to prove accountability to the people, but there is no concern for unaccountability of government officers, even though they are public servants. There must be another high priority demand for Public Rights on government officers. Public should have direct and open rights to monitor any government employee and should have direct and open rights to dismiss or suspend or punish or remark in character-service book to any direct or indirect government employee or department or structure. The Public of India must also have rights for social audit of any government department or structure.

(In a democracy, Government means representatives of the people. Because large numbers of people cannot sit to make decisions for each thing and for routine things, thus systems of representations were evolved in history of human society leading to democratic systems. Representations does not mean ownership or mastership. Representatives make policies for the betterment of people and people provide them assets and money collectively (known as taxes). Government employees can never be masters or owners or superior to the people in a democracy, because they are employed by the people, to serve the people. Thus if there should be rights for calling back public representatives, there must be rights for monitoring/suspending/ dismissing/others on government employees. In India, there are too many black-holes in execution and policy making systems that violate Democratic Values, for example Government officers behave superior to the Public & Public Representatives.)

• All National/Regional/Local policies including Judiciary, Education, Health, Development, Commerce & Finance and Others should be strictly verified by the people of India as the final and last authority. Local Public Representative Bodies should be the final authority to form policy for themselves and government machineries should work for to execute those policies.

(If governments have not capacities/abilities to arrange direct & open systems for verifications then they should not have rights of formations, executions and implementations of policies. India is a country of social and geometric diversities and cannot be understood by reading a few lines of text books to qualify in the examinations to become Administrator and Policy Maker of the public of India. Governments represent common people, thus they cannot act as rulers and masters of the People of India. Because governments make policies and work for the welfare of the People of India, the People of India should have the final rights of verifications of policies. It is commonly said that common people do not know how to improve their welfare and are incapable of understanding. Parliament and Assemblies are the highest authorities for policy makings and representatives are elected by the common people. But if common people can decide their representatives, then they should also have rights of verifications of the works of their representatives. People should have fundamental rights to verify policies, decisions and rules which are being made for them and on behalf of them.)

• National/State Budgets are finalized by closed & centralized powers, without being verified by Local Societies. How can big financial groups, high level secretaries and centralized political powers be accountable for larger society, without having ground understandings of Local Communities/Societies? How can these very small groups decide for millions without any verification or concern? These nonsocial, non-accountable and non-democratic processes should be changed in public accountable systems. Budget should be verified by Local Social Systems and government machineries should execute the decisions of Local Social Systems.

(In many decades after Independence, it has been understood that there are big black-holes in the governance systems of India. Things are becoming worse and moving towards greater unaccountability. Policies should be verified by the people of India. An open and easy verification structure/system should be formed to get active participations of the people of India to empower Democracy and to stop violations of the fundamental values of Democracy.)

• All governance systems i.e.- Parliament, Assemblies, Panchayats, Execution Systems and Judiciary Systems should be converted into direct-open-public-facility-management systems from centralized-closed controlled-administrative ruling systems and should be made direct accountable to the People of India.
  

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First Draft was written in 2006