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Forget spin doctors, anti-incumbency theories, the 1998 elections were all about effective governance, says Abheek Barman Everyone had seen exit poll projections, where constituents say who they vote for on election day. These showed that the Congress would win in Bhartiya Janta Party ruled Delhi and Rajasthan, the BJP would win in Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh and the Mizo National Front plus allies would swamp' the Congress in Mizoram. In every state, incumbent governments looked likely to lose. Talking heads began waving their arms and chattering about 'anti-incumbent' voting. |
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By evening, the Congress was winning Delhi and Rajasthan like anti-incumbencywallas predicted. This wasn't difficult to understand. Both have been ruled long, and disastrously, by BJP governments. People were eager to boot out bumbling regimes in both states. However, the Congress was winning in Madhya Pradesh as well, and this confounded anti-incumbency parrots. But they weren't going to give up without a fight. The results, claimed one ferocious hand-waver, confirmed his new theory: in every state but Madhya Pradesh, anti-incumbency voting decided winners. In Madhya Pradesh anti-Central-government-incumbency decided the issue. This is facile, contrived and wrong. The real factor behind this, or any other election results, is simpler. Voters hate governments that don't deliver what they want. And, they reward performance. This work for all levels of government-central, state and local. Dig around India's democratic landscape, to find the carcasses of regimes that ignored voters. There are many ways to go wrong. Today, we'll talk about one government that listened, got a lot of things right, and won. This is the regime of Digvijay Singh, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (MP) for the last five years. MP is one of India's poorest states. In 1994-95, a person could expect to earn Rs. 5,845 per year on average, about 40 percent that of prosperous Punjab and about a third of what the average Delhiite makes. About 44 percent of the population is literate, far below India's average of 52 percent. Tribals and minorities constitute a big chunk of voters. People in administration are no less corrupt than anywhere else in India. Yet, Singh's government managed to make a difference. The government realized that a lot of state funds were stolen by intermediaries who were supposed to hand them over to beneficiaries. Many well-international projects were therefore starved of resources, which led to failure. It also understood that official figures were routinely doctored to hide the lack of development. Worse, government insiders fleecing the exchequer were cooking the numbers to hide their capability. A lot could be done if only resources could bypass administrator's itchy finger and reach beneficiaries directly. After that villager would get to use those as they saw fit. Education was a good and important target. Government figures show that a high 86% of kids in the age group of 5 to 14 got enrolled in primary school but less than 30% were literate. This suggested that nearly 60% dropped out of school because parents pulled them out. The implication was that if parents, impatient with the education systems were pulling children out of school, what was the poor government to do? To see whether this fact was correct, Singh's team did a survey, called the Lok Sampark Abhiyan {LSA} , calling every door in 34 Districts in the state. Official numbers were lying. Many children classified as dropouts had never been to schools in their lives. There were either no school or no teachers. Funds had been allocated for many years to pay for non-existent schools and absconding teachers. State employees who had pocketed this; knew funding hinged the enrolment number which shows how hard they were working and measured whether money had been put to use. The LSA found that actual enrollment was 73 per cent, far below official numbers. A little less than five percent of kids, and not 60 percent as government numbers claimed actually dropped out. People were eager to learn if learning could dodge babus and reach them. Instead the state government decided on funding and implementation of district, local area and village education programs. Singh's government let villagers decide where they wanted the schools to be. Under its education guarantee scheme any bunch of 25 children from a tribal area or 40 from a non tribal area who found that they do not have a school within one kilometer, could ask for one within 90 days, the government has to respond with Rs.8500/- delivered to village heads. This pays a teacher Rs.500/(a little more than the average per capita income) for ten months, trains the fellow, buy books for kids and provides for contingent and administrative expenses. Villagers can choose their own teachers and sack them if they do not like them. This is an improvement on permanently absent ten guaranteed pay, appointed by state governments. Till December last year, more than 15,000 EGS schools had started operating; more than 87,000 children (more than three per cent the number enrolled in schools) were going to these centres. Nearly 47 per cent of EGS students are girls, compared to 43 per cent in ordinary schools. Stuff like Digvijay Singh's efforts at handing power over to local bodies to make things run better, are what long running political successes are made of. Many people are surprised at the resilience of the Left Front government that's ruled West Bengal continuously since 1977. This smack-in-the-eye for anti-incumbency pundits comes from deep-seated and fundamental reforms in how people want to be governed. For the vast majority of voters, the Left government formalized agricultural property rights during Operation Barge. The Left also let people govern themselves by implementing local self-rule. It has always cracked down on caste- and religion-related bigotry. Compared to most Indian states, Bengal is a haven of law abiding tranquillity. Bengalis offended by the last sentence should look at the law and order situation in Assam, Bihar, Maharashtra or Uttar Pradesh. Or glance through the city pages of a Delhi newspaper for perspective. Sure, Bengal's Marxists could do better. So could Singh's MP government. Bengalis grumble about declining industrial growth, urban joblessness and low investment in the state. In MP, you hear about petty officers called gram sahayaks skimming development funds. These people are employed by the district collectorate to 'help' unskilled village heads with paperwork like encashing cheques. In the process, these guys take a cut. Yet, in a few years from now, literate children of illiterate villagers will handle their own paperwork. They won't need greedy sahayaks, and will kick them out. If Singh continues to be savvy, he will hand over more financial powers to panchayats. This will reduce peoples reliance on predatory babus. Digvijay Singh is a rare Indian politician who has an eye on constituent's real wants. The real demands of voters are still a mystery to bigots in Indian's BJP-led government. Voters can see through nuclear bomblast, sneaky tricks at communalisation and arm waving, to the incompetence below. Parents of EGS kids can educate Central Ministers on grass roots reform. Provided the latter can spare a minute from singing hymns to Hindutva. | |