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| Feb 28, 2000 | ||
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| Shakha
and the State India doesn't need ideologically hung-up babus
Number Crunch A small-family aspiration is fine. But why don't politicians set an example ?
The content of the policy itself is innovative, if that be the word, in that it conflates two streams of population strategy. Traditional methods such as promoting the values of having no more than two children, monetary inducement and target dates are all there. So are those ideas that have replaced orthodox thinking -- checking maternal and infant mortality, a driven women's empowerment. Policy planners deem this second strategy holistic. It is also seen as more acceptable in a society where the term "population control" and the mention of numbers evoke great passion. In a typically Indian synthesis, the Government has combined both schools. If it succeeds, it will create a new paradigm. If it fails, the future is a Malthusian nightmare. |
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There
is the other point about politicising the bureaucracy. Indeed, to some
extent this has already happened and the neta-babu nexus is a regular,
regrettable and regressive feature of Indian life. It can be traced to the
high noon of the socialist state, when Indira Gandhi sought to replace a
fairly independent civil service with a subservient bureaucracy.
Indoctrination poses an even greater danger; it not merely slackens
administration but absolutely strangulates it. The example of West Bengal,
where a district magistrate virtually reports to the local CPI(M)
functionary, is there for all to see. In a time when there is talk of
rolling back the state, of making officialdom more responsive and
efficient, to give employees such an umbrella is illogical. What if
bureaucrats organise themselves under the banner of, say, the RSS and seek
to elevate rampant trade unionism to a moral principle? Perhaps the next
step would be the appointment of a joint secretary, shakha.
About
the best thing that can be said with regard to the population policy
announced earlier this week is that it is there. After two decades of
theory, the Union Government has finally made public how it plans to
tackle the ever-present and ever-growing population problem. Like so much
else in this country, a decision was finally forced by political
imperatives. The fresh delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies scheduled
for 2001 has now been pushed back by a quarter century. Else, it would
have rewarded big breeding north Indian states and punished the south,
where control measures have proved far more effective. The overpopulated
and underperforming Hindi belt would have taken an even greater control of
national politics. There were expectations that a two-child stipulation
would be proposed for those seeking political office. That this has not
been done speaks volumes for the fecklessness of the Indian politician,
who sets norms for others but refuses to be a role model himself.