Dinner Remarks
Richard Celeste
Democracy is always a risk exercise. It is a "never finished" piece of business. Democracy reflects human imperfections, how things go wrong. This can happen even with good people in charge. Power goes with the office and can be a competing influence.
I was recently in Chennai for the opening of a new college of journalism. We need to celebrate the free press as a vitally important part of a free society, even it does not make life comfortable, along with the importance of the rule of law and an independent judiciary.
As a practicising politician in my former role as Governor of Ohio, I know that politicians must "experience" the will of the majority, not just the voting or polling process. They must be willing to work to build constituencies for change so even the unpopular step becomes the chosen, preferred step. Most important historic steps cut against the grain of public opinion.
I know this from my personal experience in a crisis in my home state of Ohio when I was Governor. For my 1982 campaign, I raised $5 million including $100,000 from one particular donor. Then in the mid-1980s, I had to deal with a major savings and loan scandal involving this man, and I was faced with an executive order closing 69 savings and loan organizations. We tackled the crisis, we worked with the people and we had the state advance $90 million and we had the guilty man convicted and I was re-elected, and I have to say, 15 years later, the organization had repaid the state all the money owed and all the interest. So, I have to say, accountability and transparency is vital together with political leadership.
Arun Jaitley
It was mentioned by the Ambassador that democracy is a risk exercise. There are also costs to democracy, but it is a risk well worthwhile, because there seems to be now no other option. I must also confess, there have been very few opportunities to discuss a subject like making democracy work in this country, in the last decade or two, because it was no longer considered something about which there was anything left to debate. About a quarter of a century ago, when we had an aberration and institutions were suspended, there was a very extensive debate and a campaign for its restoration. But in the last 20 years or so, it is one subject on which there has been a complete consensus.
We are also passing through 50 years of the Indian Republic, and I think our experience on the subject has indeed been very encouraging. We started off with a great battle against poverty and hunger, a campaign for development, something which we are still endeavoring to achieve, the break up of the country, a multi-religious, multi-regional society, which housed one sixth of the world's population. We can now look back on the institutions which democracy has given us: we have a parliamentary system, which indeed has worked well, and the population, directly and in-directly, participates in the decision-making process of the country. We hold elections even at a few months notice, and we also complete our hand-counts in 48 hours, even with such a large voting population - while people across the world will wonder how we achieve it. We have different regions, languages, eating habits, yet we witness a unity and diversity, with our federal character pulling ourselves up. We have a constitution, which represents the spirit of freedom and liberty, in its 51st year. Our judicial institutions represent fairness, although we are concerned the process is a little slow. We also have a very powerful and vibrant press of 40,000 newspapers and journals, and in several different languages. In the five years since we opened up our skies, we have reached 100 TV channels, creating plurality and opinion of all kinds.
A second positive appears to be the strength of our democracy: we have faced many crises, five wars, natural calamities and tensions because of the character of our society. But despite all these crises, there is a tremendous resilience thrown up by this society, and we have a great capacity to emerge out of each crisis within days and weeks. And over the last 10 years, despite this large population and under-development in certain regions, we have been in the process of un-shackling the energies of the Indian people and attempting to move towards what could be a higher level of development in Indian society.
Having said so, we also have areas of concern, and some of these are directly related to making democracy work. One aspect that has been concerning me in various contexts is the co-relation between "good governance" and "good policy". Good governance, at times, implies difficult decisions and, at times, unpopular decisions and the acceptance of such difficult decisions, which may be an essential aspect of good governance, is not always there.
Then there is the fallout from electoral funding: this is an area of concern. No transparent system has been delivered, and in the absence of such a proper, transparent, identifiable system, there is a direct relationship to "dishing out of favors", making compromises, and questions being raised in public as to what are the considerations for which the political process gets funded. This is one area where we really have to work hard, to devise a legitimate source of funding for the political process itself.
On transparency and accountability, we started off with a culture of secrecy, which we inherited. We thought the culture of secrecy was an essential part of any governance. Indeed it is customary to stamp every paper that passes through government at a certain level, as "secret". I recollect, once after the president of India had, unfortunately, died, the next meeting of the cabinet had to pass a condolence resolution. After the resolution was passed, one of the participants in the meeting raised a question: "Why should this resolution be secret?" Well that is a culture that continues, that is a tradition that continues. Our law-making process was secret. After our discussions, when we had formally settled our proposals, it was still considered almost scandalous if any of these went out to the media. Even when the cabinet took a decision, until such time as we could introduce it in parliament, it remained secret. The law making process itself was not a very open or transparent process. We have also had governments claiming privilege not to show documents to courts or to the public.
We also have legislation on the statute book, though not enforced very regularly, which has two strong provisions for secrecy. The first, of course, relates to securing security, which in any system is quite understandable. The second concerns any document that comes into your possession when you are not supposed to be in possession of it: this has created a serious debate for the past decade or two, with popular demands that this provision be repealed. So I must say, in all fairness to successive governments, although this second provision has not been very seriously enforced in the last decade, it is still there in the statute book.
Now the process of getting out of this culture of secrecy has itself evolved as a process, and I think the most significant factor in this has been the Indian media. We started off with investigative journalism because journalists did not respect the "top secrecy" of commercial documents and decision-making. It is convenient for any government to say that it has taken a decision, which involves billions and billions, but as it is a secret process, nobody is entitled to see any of the relevant documents. But then truth always has an inconvenient habit of leaking itself out. In the last two decades, we have seen a large number of documents reaching the media, and popular opinion, by and large, has respected those in the media able to get hold of these and bring some vital investigation to public knowledge. The courts have, by and large, diluted to an extent the privileges, which governments used to claim. This evolving situation seems also to be affecting the political process.
Our law-making procedures are now completely changed. Even before we go to the cabinet, and parliament, and even before the government takes a final view, every successive draft is put out on the web for public discussion. In fact, we have been inviting suggestions on several occasions, before government finally takes a view. That secrecy in the law-making process has more or less been completely abandoned.
When we discuss accountability, it is the politicians who have been at the receiving end. This has been a point of view with which I have normally disagreed. One of the largest accountabilities in parliamentary democracy has been of the political fraternities. It is extremely difficult, in the context of accountability, if you are in government and you are a minister. Every morning when you pick up the newspaper, you keep your fingers crossed as to which decision you took yesterday which is being adversely commented upon, because nothing is secret these days. Your decisions are questioned by your colleagues in the cabinet, and by your colleagues in your party. You are accountable at those levels and you are grilled everyday in parliament and by the media. Governments are more accountable because the original five-year terms get reduced for some reason or other, and you have to go to the people almost every second year and we have to answer a lot of inconvenient questions.
It is very convenient for any government to say that it has taken a decision, which involves billions and billions, but as it is a secret process nobody is entitled to see any of the relevant documents. But then truth always has a very inconvenient habit of leaking itself out.
Discussion
- Democracy is about building consensus, not merely relying on majority voting, and in all the discussion about transparency and accountability such a key point must not be lost.
- Sometimes democratic politicians take hard, unpopular decisions, and they can pay a heavy price for this in terms of losing electoral support at the next election. Two examples given were the Mongolian democratic opposition party, which after winning power for the first time set out to reform the political institutions and ended up badly beaten at the next election by the Communist MPRT Party. Also, there is the case of Chester Bowles, who lost the governorship of Connecticut after setting up to reform the liquor trade. However, losing for the "right reasons" can build the strength of a political party and of democracy.
- The arrival of electronic media has changed the way the media conducts itself, and its function of democratic accountability, not least because the time frame now is constant and it cannot be so easily controlled. While there remains a tendency to sensationalism at present, it is thought that the new media would settle down and contribute positively to democratic processes. At present, satellite television has more viewers than terrestrial television in the state of Tamil Nadu, suggesting the increasing role of new electronic media.
- There was a diversity of views over the degree to which civil servants can be protected from having to disclose information. It was noted that, in many countries, civil servants are protected from freedom of information requirements to varying degrees to avoid their being targeted, to avoid commercial and other exploitation of material, and because civil servants cannot use the media to defend or refine their views if they are put in the public domain. It was argued, however, that this disclosure was a key element in transparency and accountability.
- Obligations for increased transparency in government can lead to less candor among civil servants and politicians. This could be offset by arranging for different levels of public disclosure within information law, for example, to private citizens and to juridical courts. In India, the right to information is gaining ground, dating back to a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that "free expression" in India is not just freedom of expression but also a right to information.
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