Writing for a Decade...in Vain?

For the people of the country, things refuse to improve, whether it is Manmohan Singh at the helm or Narendra Modi. While corruption and sycophancy led to the failure of Singh, autocratic decisionmaking and polarised politics raise concern today.

FROM the second issue of gfiles, I have been writing in almost all issues, mainly on governance and civil services. I have lost count of the number of articles. But some of them stand out in my memory, particularly the two I wrote soon after Dr Manmohan Singh commenced his second tenure as Prime Minister in 2009 and another two soon after Narendra Modi became PM in 2014.

The articles in 2009 were titled, ‘Prime Minister has a Mandate– He should Govern’ and ‘PM Must Guard Against Inbreeding Parochial Agenda’, respectively. In these articles, I had pointed out that elements conjured to bring Dr Singh to the forefront and he has become the symbol of a dormant collective aspiration for governmental stability, governance, administrative performance and decency in public life. For that I had suggested a simple agenda:

Restructure governance system

Jawaharlal Nehru had called for a Constitution “wherein all power and authority of the Sovereign Independent India, its constituent parts and organs of government, are derived from the people.” This reflected Mahatma Gandhi’s description of ‘Swaraj’ as merely a “courteous ratification of the declared wish of the people of India”. These Founding Fathers envisaged people-based governance with a bottom-up process that would give every one ‘a place in the sun’. Urgent steps should be taken to reform and restructure the governance system in accordance with the spirit of India’s constitution.

Zero tolerance to corruption