Arun Shourie on UPA 1’s “dream team” back in 2009

Arun Shourie is not just a noted Indian journalist. He is a renowned author and politician. The collection of the speeches he delivered in the Rajya Sabha form the first two parts of the book “We Must Have No Price”.

Shri Arun Shourie’s Book “We Must Have No Price” can be purchased from Amazon – click here and Flipkart – click here.

The 9^th chapter is based on a speech that he delivered in Rajya Sabha about the situation that prevailed in 2009 when UPA 2 was just formed.

According to Mr. Shourie :

“And the team that has taken office this time is more reassuring. The principal ministers are persons of substantial experience; none of them has the sort of taint that marred several ministers in the first Manmohan Singh Government; equally important, the principal ministers are ones who are less liable to ignite the acrimony that characterised the last five years.”

He had also stated that,

“We must remember that, yes, the country has enormous potential and, in the last ten years, we have had but a glimpse of what can be achieved; but, it is just as true that, unless we mend our ways, unless we improve our governance and discourse, the country can get stuck in that well-documented pit, the middle-income trap: Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Philippines and so many other countries also registered spurts of high growth rats, only to get stuck before attaining their full potential. In a word, all sides have been afforded an unexpected opportunity to do right by the country; they must seize it, inside Parliament as much as outside.”

Mr. Shourie had also spoken in 2009 about how precariously dependent India is on the US for dealing with Pakistan as well as China when it came to its foreign policy. He had elaborated way back then as to how the US needed help of both Pakistan and China and so will not help India. Pakistan was needed by the US to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq till the time US found an honourable exit. China was needed to finance bailout packages that were necessary then to save its economy and financial system.

With regards to defence policies during his 2009 lecture in Rajya Sabha he had said that,

“Both in regard to internal security as well as fortifying ourselves against external aggression, we face a dire situation.”

Back in 2009 during his speech in Rajya Sabha he had talked about how the countries like the US and UK had totally banned the adoption of communication systems from potentially hostile countries which had proved to plant backdoors and triggers in such hardware and software. He had also told that in India the very same companies had, in spite of the strenuous objections of intelligence agencies, been allowed to install the very same sort of equipment across the country.

During the same speech of 2009 in Rajya Sabha Mr. Shourie had talked about how in spite of the fact that a “dream team” was said to have been in place during UPA 1, reforms remained at a standstill. He had also said that,

“For we should not forget that, because Reforms had been brought to a standstill, the momentum of growth had already begun to slow down well before the international economic meltdown. By March 2008, to cite just one example, over 25 lakh jobs had already been lost in the three sectors. Several reforms, like the dismantling of the Administered Price Mechanism in the petroleum sector, were actually reversed. Similarly, several initiatives which were going to restore our competitivene3ss, had been brought to naught: when we met industrialists in October 2008, we were astonished to learn that for almost nine months there had been absolutely no disbursements from the Textile Modernisation Fund.”

Mr. Shourie in his speech had cautioned UPA 2 in regard to disinvestment and said that proposal of selling up to 51% shares in governmental enterprises while government control over the enterprises will be maintained was the worst possible alternative.

Mr. Shourie had while quoting Sachar Committee Report also sincerely hoped that the UPA 2 Government would think again about where the measures which it is pushing for the ostensible purpose of helping Minorities will eventually lead the country to ?

Sadlt for India that advice from Mr. Shourie fell on the deaf ears of the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh led UPA Government.

Source: http://www.niticentral.com/2015/01/18/arun-shourie-upa-1s-dream-team-back-2009-296807.html

Arun Shourie on Lessons learnt from Reforms

From the time of mid-1960s when those who argued for liberalisation were traduced as “agents of capitalists” as “World Bank-IMF men”, India has come a long way but there is still lots to be done as per many experts including Arun Shourie, the noted winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism in 1982.

Shri Arun Shourie’s Book “We Must Have No Price” can be purchased from Amazon – click here and Flipkart – click here. 

According to Shourie, India only changed its stand towards “socialism” when the Soviet Union itself broke, in a word, as the Marxist Quran got disowned in its own Mecca. As yet Shourie says that the correctives were not set in motion until there was a complete breakdown in India’s external account to furnish the weak and imprisoned political class the excuse to do the obvious things.

The major issue he says with Reforms in India has been that “Reforms of the more basic sort have been implemented only during two phases: during 1991-1993, the first half of the Prime Ministership of PV Narasimha Rao, and during 1997-2004, the Prime Ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. As against these, Reforms in China have been more or less a continuous pursuit.”

He mentions in the book, “We Must Have No Price” that just as our leaders were for “Socialism for the masses”, many of our entrepreneurs are for “Liberalisation in all sectors except mine”. This he says is an unexpected obstacle that reforms have to face. As per Shourie, one well-known problem in executing Reforms is that “Those who are liable to benefit from them are diffuse and scattered, and the benefits that are liable to accrue to them lie in the indefinite future; on the other hand, the dislocations that Reforms are liable to cause are here and now; the ones Reforms are liable to dislocate are concentrated in industries, in tight geographical areas; they are liable to be organised.”

Also several characteristics of the media propel it to be an obstacle to Reforms as per Shourie. He says for media, everything comes to have two sides. At the least, national resolve is dissipated: people are dissuaded in advance from putting up with any dislocation for the change. The difficulty is compounded by what has come to be the very nature of “news”. Shourie says that

“The media will be full of stories of inefficiencies of the way things are. But the moment you change them, journalists will rush to the person opposing the changes, to the workers who have opted for the Retirement package, to allies of the Government who are opposing the reform.”

Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always advocated the role of States in bringing about Reforms and not just leave it to the Central Government, so advocates Shourie. He says, “It is a fashion today to say that Reforms should be “inclusive”. But, in our Constitution, each of the sectors that would ensure immediate benefits to the rural areas, to the poor are in the States’ or the concurrent list.”

These sectors include Agriculture; Irrigation; Health; Education; Rural infrastructure, in particular rural roads; Drinking water; Electricity; Housing. When you implement Reforms but there is no improvement in these, the people are easily led to believe, “They are only worried about the industrialists.” The Left as well as the activists get the ammunition to shout, “Reforms are elitist.”

“One of the principal steps that can be taken today to push Reforms is to reshape allocations among States so as to hugely reward the ones that carry through the changes that the country needs.”

Shourie, however, sadly concludes that even when there is a pressing need for them, just don’t get done. A succession of Finance Ministers have announced plans to reform the Public Distribution System; to bring down government equity in banks; to open up sectors like insurance more aggressively; to overhaul the pension system, but none has been able to make any headway on any of them.

Source: http://www.niticentral.com/2014/11/09/arun-shourie-lessons-learned-reforms-244114.html

Reflection in the jigsaw

Arun Shourie: Wednesday, May 30, 2007

In the concluding extracts from his new book, Arun Shourie makes a case for a strengthened judiciary, compulsory voting and a reformed legislature

The judiciary

Just as the authority of Parliament vis a vis the Executive must be lessened, that of the Judiciary must be assiduously preserved... the methods of selecting judges, of transferring them, for verifying their conduct when the need arises, have all to be made more robust than they are — and several proposals have already been advanced for this purpose. But, as that discussion will also make evident, it is not enough to preserve provisions for judicial review. The judges have to act the freedom and independence that have been accorded to them by the provisions. The assault on them through alterations like the 39th and 42nd amendments was defeated. But ever so often, the judges themselves have leaned over to assist the Executive in its excesses. That is the point to which we return later in the book.

Elections and voting

So as to further minimise social influences, voting should be compulsory. Both the Election Voting Machine and the compulsory Multi purpose National Identity Card should have biometric identification marks.

Legislatures

For elections to legislatures, three modifications are necessary:

• The size of the constituency has to be increased substantially so as to lessen the sway of one section or caste;

• The link between the electorate and the winner has to be weakened; and

• Qualifications and disqualifications for candidates have to be tightened.

Apart from scheduling elections simultaneously, the first step which is necessary was suggested by L.P. Singh in Electoral Reform. The rationale for a modified list-system is as follows. The present system of single member constituencies leads to the sorts of problems we have encountered earlier: for instance, the expectation, on the one hand, of the voter that the MP must attend to his personal problems; and on the other, the compulsion of the MP to put catering to voters and their controllers before all else. By contrast, if all of India were one constituency; parties declared lists of candidates; voters voted for parties and not for individual candidates; each party got to send members to parliament in proportion to its share in votes cast; in such a system, the link between the voter and the MP would be substantially reduced, and one set of problems would be minimised. But India is a continent. A person may have done exceptional service in Kerala and yet be unknown in the Northeast.

As for qualifications, candidates for the Lower House must be at least graduates. As for the Upper House, we need today not a Chamber of States but a Chamber of Talent. Therefore, in addition to being at least a graduate, a candidate must have distinguished himself in a profession including business and agriculture.

Disqualifications as they have been prescribed have become a farce: a list that lets criminals get into legislatures is actually worse than a farce — it is an accessory to a crime against the country... The first change that is required is that, from the moment charges are framed by a court against a person — whether he is a sitting member or not — he should cease to be a member and be disqualified from contesting an election till he has been cleared of the charges. For the one who has been falsely implicated, the incentive would then be the opposite: he will strive to ensure as expeditious a disposal of his case as possible.

‘But our opponents routinely implicate us in false cases,’ politicians say. First, the disqualification commences once charges have been framed by a court of law, not from the moment the police or some investigating agency has filed them. Second, this apprehension can be allayed by requiring that the charges be framed at the level of a sitting judge of the high court. Third, that such persons are inducted to man the courts as will serve the interest of the rulers of the moment, especially courts before which these cases are to come up, will only mean that, knowing that the next person could use the courts against them also, politicians will have an inducement to put more robust persons into courts.

‘The Parliamentary System: What we have made of it, what we can make of it’
By Arun Shourie

ASA/Rupa & Co, Rs 495

All the president’s persons

Arun shourie: Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Is the political class ready for reform? In his new book, The Parliamentary System: What we have made of it, what we can make of it, Arun Shourie makes a strong case for empowering the executive. Restructuring the system so that the president is elected by the electorate and is empowered to select his/her own ministers, he argues, will improve governance. Exclusive extracts from the book:

Today in India, two races are afoot. The first is the race between a creative society, a society that shows much energy and is surging upwards on the one hand, and on the other, the scaffolding of the state which is being hollowed by termites. The second is the race between those who are making the new India — primarily, the entrepreneurs and middle class professionals — and the political class that is stoking the old India — for instance, by pumping in the poison of caste — to keep itself in business.

If things are just left to proceed at will, the outcome may go either way: a dynamic economy and those forging it may be so hobbled by the worsening of governance that they may put enough pressure on the political class to mend its ways, to improve governance or let governance deteriorate to such an extent that Bihar and UP are generalised, and economic growth is once again pulled down.

Why is it that, to take the obvious contrast, in industry new leaders are emerging by the year, leaders who are doing better and more innovative things; but in public life second-raters are giving way to third-raters, politicians are giving way to politicians dependent on criminals, and the latter to criminals-who-have-become-politicians?

Why is it that while our entrepreneurs are venturing into newer and newer fields, that while they are registering conquests in more and more distant countries, that while they are thinking and planning farther into the future and transforming their operations today so that they may outdo the world in the distant future, why is it that while in one sphere we see these features, in the other sphere, our politicians are stoking ever narrower sections, why is their horizon becoming shorter and shorter?

This brief book is about features in the structure of the ‘parliamentary system’ — actually, that should be ‘in the structure of what we have made of the parliamentary system’ — which hurtle us into the kind of politics that we see today, which steer power into the hands of the sorts of politicians we see today. And about the structure that we may adopt as an alternative.

One structure will induce conduct of one kind; another structure will make some other type of conduct more profitable. Our tax system of the 1950s and 1960s, with its extortionate taxes, ensured neither higher revenues nor equality. It fanned the black economy. As the rates have been lowered, compliance has improved. Similarly, under the licence-quota raj, knowing the technology or the markets was not a fraction as important as knowing the minister for commerce and industries, and the civil servants in the DGTD and the Office of the Controller of Imports and Exports — yes, exports too; even to export something you had made and earn the foreign exchange the country so desperately needed, you needed permission which only these worthies could give. That structure induced one kind of effort, it brought one kind of entrepreneur to the top — the one whose core competence lay in his ability to manipulate the state apparatus. As that structure has been dismantled, we see an entirely different kind of conduct among our entrepreneurs, we see an entirely new type of entrepreneur rise to the top.

Pluck, as an example, a proposal that figures later in the book. We lament the fact that today elections are greatly influenced by the money that a candidate can deploy, by the castes that he can work up. We dread the advantage that dons now have over ordinary candidates because they have a network of criminals that they can mobilise. Suppose we dispensed with elections altogether, and instead selected legislators by lottery. That ‘X’ can throw out more money; that he is from one caste rather than another; that he has a whole posse of criminals to do his work — none of these ‘strengths’ would improve his chances. The influence of money/caste/criminality would be erased.

So, structures do affect the outcome. They do affect conduct. And therefore, the fact that there is no structure that cannot be perverted should not deter us from exploring alternatives.

The conclusions that this brief review urges are:

• The key problem today is that the parliamentary system and the electoral system from which it springs are fragmenting the electorate on the one hand and, on the other, are not yielding persons who have the competence, integrity and dedication to govern a billion people;

• Our legislatures, thus, are the root of the problems we face in governance today;

• Accordingly, we should find ways to reduce the role and influence of legislatures;

• Correspondingly, we should devise ways which improve the chances of getting a better type to man the executive;

• Thereafter, we should tilt the balance away from legislatures towards the executive;

• We should seek to secure accountability through institutions other than legislatures;

• In particular, we should strengthen the powers and role of the judiciary

The alternative

The two basic elements we need are: an effective — that is, a strong and competent — executive, especially at the Centre, and a continuing sense of belonging among the population at large, a feeling that the system of governance is responsive. For achieving these twin objectives, we should, on the one hand, weaken the link between the executive and the legislature, and on the other, strengthen the local government.

To ensure the first of these objectives, two features in the Constitution should be recast to provide:

• The head of the executive, the president, is directly elected

• He is free to select as his ministers persons from within or outside the legislature

The term of the president should be five years. A person should be able to be president for a maximum of two terms.

The president must be elected by more than 50 per cent of the electorate. As many candidates as are qualified for the presidency and want to contest may do so. In case one of them gets the votes of more than 50 per cent of the electorate, she or he becomes president. If no one does, the election is held again, as in France, within a fortnight, and only the two who have scored the highest number of votes are allowed to stand in the second round. (Were it not for the fact that many of our voters may find it difficult to indicate preferences, one way to ‘economise’ is to have not a second round but to make provision for it, so to say, in the first round itself. Instead of the second ballot, voters can be asked to indicate a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, preference against the name of each candidate. If in the 1st round of counting a candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the votes, she is declared elected. If not, the candidate polling the lowest number of 1st preferences is eliminated; the second preferences of the voters who voted for him are then assigned to the other candidates — till one of them gets more than 50 per cent.

It should not be possible to remove the president except by impeachment, and that on specified grounds. In other words there should be no equivalent of the current ‘vote of confidence’.

The president may select anyone from outside or within the legislature to be his minister. Any member of a legislature who has been chosen to be a minister must resign his seat. She or he may attend sessions of the legislature, and participate in the debates. But he or she shall not vote on any measure on which the legislature is voting.

‘But how can we let outsiders participate in the proceedings of the House? An outsider cannot even enter the lobby.’ Such a reaction is yet another example of what the management experts call IRI — the Instant Rejection Instinct, a reaction by which we exempt ourselves from thinking or doing anything. Ministers are today appointed from both Houses. Ministers who happen to be members of one House participate as fully in the proceedings of the other House as ministers who happen to be members of the latter. They answer questions, they participate in debates but they do not vote in the House, of which they are not members. The most vivid example of today is the prime minister. He is a member of the Rajya Sabha. In that sense, he is an ‘outsider’ to the Lok Sabha. Does he not participate fully in the proceedings of the Lok Sabha? But does he vote there?

‘The Parliamentary System: What we have made of it, what we can make of it’ By Arun Shourie
ASA/Rupa & Co, Rs 495

editor@expressindia.com