The Autonomy is for India

Hmmm. We have too much economic disparity between states for autonomy to work (although you can argue that not having autonomy is what caused this..but its too late now). A handful of wealthy states are the source of almost all of New Delhi`s revenues and with autonomy, they surely would not send the cash over as easily.

Bihar runs like its own little banana republic with or without federal approval and look what happens there. On the other hand, Kerala and Karnataka, and AP have benefited greatly from not having the ladoo-popping overweight clowns in Delhi meddling in their affairs.

It may work in the long term but we aren`t ready for it yet.

Anil:

I could have sworn I have read this article elsewhere before.

Are you sure that India has reached a level of maturity in its political discourse where it is ready to adopt ideas of state autonomy? Different democratic societies have taken different routes towards attaining that goal. Even the US which you have tried to use as a model has gone through a tumultuous time demarcating state and federal jurisdictions. Even the presidential debate a few days ago showed Bush and Gore differing on the issue with regard to enforcement of a potential hate-crimes law. And you of course would know about the continuing debate about internet taxation.

I would be interested in knowing your thoughts about a PRACTICAL approach that an emerging democratic superpower like India can adopt to try and limit the role of the omnipresent federal structures thereby granting more autonomy to the states. The alternative is the usual poppycock academic talk laced with terms like devolution and confederation in which case I shall excuse myself and look for intellectual stimulation elsewhere.

later

-sac

Anil: A very sensible and well organized forward looking proposal. Such proposals must be be tested at pilot-plant level before applying broadly over all of Indian states. A good starting point would be to select one or two states, say Karnataka and Assam, to draw their own state constitution guarenteeing state rights roughly what you are proposing. Both in India and Pakistan, states are bigger than most countries of the world. It is imperative to dilute even states power down to district and ``tehsil`` level, with enough power to make serious decisions regarding law and order, dispensing justice, curriculum boards to select textbooks, culture-related issue and practically all affairs of governing, except foreign trade, defense, foreign affairs, election comission, traffic laws and so on.

What is necessary for India is equally necessary for Pakistan. I wonder how long it took you to come up with a fine basic proposals; it took Pakistani government with all the hoopla, roughly 6-8 months to come up with 6-point proposal. It is not difficult for one to extrapolate the time it would take to actually implement it - [after considering the recommendations of the 3rd Review Committee to make amendments to the amendments suggested by the 2nd Review Committee to the feasiblity studies by the Review Committee to study the original proposals by..........].

Just like in India, all Pakistani provinces/ states are not linguistically homogeneous. It is not advisable for any state to stress on one particular language. In Punjab, for example, many Saraikis conside their language distint and separate from Punjabi. Even creation of new provinces like Saraikistan does not solve the problem because within Saraikistan, there are large pockets of non-Saraiki speaking people and in places like district Bahawalnagar, they outnumber Saraikis almost 9 to 1. That is why, the power should be so diluted within state that basic human rights (like language) of the people could not be violated. Actually, I think, districts should get most of the share of provincial taxes, after provincial share of the overall revenues is increased. This is one of the possible way to decrease the power of the center and their spending habits.

Another beneficial outcome of increased powers of provinces/ States and districts, which you forgot to mention, has to do with Indo-Pak relations at the masses level. Conside some of my random proposals, provided Centers to not have the powers to override the states decisions except for defence and currency matters:

1) Different districts can strike cultural deals across the borders, as sister-cities or brother-districts, local sporting teams playing friendly matches, mushairas, music functions etc.

2) Universites can strike deals as joint seminars and joint semesters. For example Punjab University Lahore and some University in Amritsar.

3) Pakistani and Indian Punjab can mutually grant no-visa entry to say 500 eminent Punjabis on each side of the border (sort of honorary citizens).

4) Allowing and entertaining large number of people during certain Sikh religious, Sufis Urs and other festive occasions.

4) Rajputs of Sindh and Rajhistan or Karachi-UP cultural exchanges.

5) Trading partnerships.

6) A relationship between highly entrepenurial cities of Sialkot and Jammu might solve part of the Kashmir problem. Oooooops!!!!

What is good for Indians is also good for Pakistanis.

Stop the desis bashing each other and start a desi friendship somewhere in the Sub-Continent.

Re Mohajir #6

sorry for the misread and assuming you were the mothsmoke dude. Missed the top part of your response. But still, whoever you are, you sure do a nice job of posting interesting stories from around the web.

Anil,

Excellent article. You make some very good points--but this is more like a wish list--and that is the way one should start with even though the end point may well be a compromise--though a step forward every which way.

However, we are already seeing a slow but steady movement in that direction with the collapse of the Congress and the coaltions which for the first time have given the taste of power to the regional parties. It was alwas a UP/Hindi belt driven govt for the longest time. States now have the upper hand, rightly or wrongly in the centre-state relationship--as we saw with the fat lady of Madras causing a fresh set of elections or Mr. Naidu and his temper tantrums over subsidies for Mamata lately. This may appear bad, but it is actually a damn good thing from a devolution point of view. Also, isn`t UP in the process of being cut up into 3 states?

Remember the old days when Mrs G changed state governers and CMs like undergarments? The responsibilities of state govts should be to the people who elected them, not to the levers that control the ruling central party.

That said, there are some more barriers to a devolution by the centre. Thanks to Nehru and his misguided Fabian socialism, India adopted a top down centralism that will be hard to shake. Admittedly, the results of capitalism vs statism/communism weren`t there yet and this was a market test of two differing ideologies. We just happened to make the wrong choice.

One of Nehru`s biggest mistakes, of course with hindsight being a perfect 20/20, was getting the centre involved with industry. The state is saddles with a huge assortment of white elephants which are strategically placed all over the country. Bringing accountability to these mis-ventures alone will prove to be an ugly task. These companies never had a profit motive and knew that the centre was always there for the extra money. Think of those morbid behemoths--Coal India, SAIL--the steel authority, telephones, banking, insurance, etc. We are already seeing some selloffs which is a good sign. But all the good horses will go and the centre will be left with the handicapped donkeys.

Seeing the centre do it, the states also followed their own misinterpretation of control economy via various state electricity and infrastructure boards that are nothing but a boondogle designed to strip the state of cash flow/revenues.

While some have questioned the viability of the US model, there are some terrific lessons we can learn from them--specially when it comes to attracting industry and jobs. We wee it every time some company wants to open a plant hiring 2000 people. Not only do states compete, but counties within the states compete to snag the project. Our earlier generation of politicians have viewed private enterprise with aless than favorable light except when it came to shaking down money at regular intervals. They have never thought of it in terms of jobs and in terms of the imapct of jobs on the local economy in terms of enhanced economic growth to support the additional incomes of the locals.

India has never been a country in the true sense of it. It was alwas an area inhabited by competing kingdoms etc. It took the foreigners to see the initial commonality of the natives. But the last 53 years have been a positive experience in this direction. Most people years ago saw themselves in the following light: caste/religion first, state second, and nationality last. For example, one was a nair first, a keralite second and only Indian later on or a gowda from Bangalore and so on. We all became Indians first only at times of test matches or wars. But this is slowly changing with time and economic development just as the caste system is slowly dissolving away though it may never totally vanish.

Getting people of their subsidies addictions is going to be very, very tough but it can be done, preferably cold-turkey [sorry YLH--I refer to that rapid withdrawal approach, not your dream state]. It is going to be tough on laggards like UP/Bihar and great for the southern states and Maharashtra. The concept of fiscal responsibility and accountability is long overdue.

RE: Mohajir--wonderful sentiments of a level headed person. Man, you shouldn`t have blown your cover. Also enjoyed your back page piece in the Times magazine a while ago [or was it the New Yorker?--getting old, I suppose] that I finally caught up with last weekend.

Sorry for the long winded response.

Some comments on the article :

1. The historical reasons for having a strong Central government in India are manifold. One was the need to integrate the princely states, another was the need to push through land reforms. Yet another was a belief in socialism.

A strong advocate for the strong central government in India was none other than Dr. Ambedkar, who felt that in a federal system, states would neglect remedying the situation of the Dalits.

The one-party rule of Congress also consolidated the central power and undermined the states` powers, quite contrary to the intentions of the Constitution.

The last situation no longer applies, and to the extent the other conditions no longer apply, India can afford to move to a more lose-knit structure.

2. I think the author confuses economic and political issues. Going over the economic issues :

a. The currency-issuing entity (the central government) can have whatever deficits it likes, because it can print money, while the other entities (the states) cannot. This is a matter of fact, and is as true in the United States as in India.

b. As pointed out by the author, the states have poor fiscal discipline and give away far too much for free or below cost ( electricity, water, etc.). Political autonomy doesn`t solve that problem, or at least the author hasn`t demonstrated how it does.

c. The problem of inter-state commerce -- the octroi and levies that hinder movement of goods between states actually suggests that the power to levy these taxes be removed from the states.

In the United States, only Congress -- the central legislature -- has authority over inter-state commerce. If the same held in India, it would actually REDUCE the autonomy of the states.

d. Yes, the parliamentary system does slow things down -- but that is the nature of a democracy. China by central fiat, can accomplish things much faster than India with democratic debate. But I don`t think the author wants less political freedom; he is arguing for more.

The real answer is that redistributing of economic powers between various levels of government is not going to solve anything. The only way is to abolish unnecessary governmental regulatory power, whether it is currently in the Center or in the States.

This too has nothing to do with political autonomy.

3. Going over the political issues : here the author is on firmer ground. There is a case to be made for the Indian states to be more like US states, as individual experiments with democracy. However, this has little to do with economic issues, but rather has to do with bringing every shade of Indian into participating in the political process.

The author is also correct that the United States system explicitly separates powers, in a way that parliamentary systems do not. However, the United States system also tends to reduce political diversity -- for most of history there have been only two viable political parties in the United States. I do not think that this has to do with any peculiarity of American culture; it has to do with the way the chief executives of state and Federal governments are chosen, i.e., it is built into the system.

The parliamentary system in India affords some degree of representation and power to a great many diversities and I do not think that the author has made the case that reducing this will be beneficial.

The author does not address the case against any such change in Indian governance -- namely, it is hard to see how having a state constitution would improve the governance of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. The other approach -- of having more, smaller states (e.g., the three new created states) -- in the current system is being tried; let us see if that yields better results.

-arun gupta

A well written and well-reasoned article. No system in this world is perfect and we need to learn to improve what we already have (if it has much merit). India has a well established federal system which seems to be working with reasonable success. Anil, you need to inform how and why the Indian federal system should be reformed in the image (if this is what you desire) of the American model. Anil, are you thinking on the lines of a confederation (or a common market) of the Indian states?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

We should guard against the dangers of comparing India with the US and blindly copying whatever the US does. US states may have their own laws, flag etc, but the history, background and people of US and India are different.

Cries for fiscal autonomy go hand-in-hand with fiscal and other responsibility. There is scope for greater freedom in decision making at the state level, but this has to be clearly defined.

Anil Kapuria!

I agree with the main thrust of your article.

Do you think it is possible?

Do you think, there might be resistance from defenders of Faith, because of the risk of disintegeration of India?

Because once autonomy of some form is demanded, the more advanced state would also like to keep most of the money generated by them and increase their prosperity. This in effect would put the less advanced states at disadvantage, who would like to share the pie. Particularly the states bordering the sea such as Tamil Nadu etc will have no problem in International trade and except force what other option do you think is available for such a scenario in current situation? Moreover why would federal Government provide umbrella of security to such states, if they don`t share their wealth?

The situation in India is very different from USA.

I don`t know about disparity of wealth among different states, but standard of living is even reasonable in so called rural areas and moreover they have come to current status after a lot of bloodshed and pains.

I think these are valid questions which come to mind.

The article makes a number of insightful observations - the rapid improvements taking place in Indian society, that India (like the US) is more of a system than a nation state. The question of provincial autonomy is an interesting one. While there is much to be said for the US model of states rights, I am not sure if autonomy should stop at the state level, and perhaps it is local government autonomy (with basic human rights vigorously protected by the center) that should be stressed. Anyway, successful economic and political developments in India are ultimately good for everyone - not the least being us Pakistanis.

Mohsin Hamid:

The future I dream of for India and Pakistan is in some ways more like our pre-Partition past than like our present. But Partition is itself the key to getting there, and our Partition is not yet done. Imagine what India can be:

a secure and prosperous land where the prosperity is shared across more diversity than exists in one nation anywhere else in the world; a global

leader in thought and personal freedom, in the development of new technologies, in the export of film and music and novels; a great power distinguished from other great powers by its mix of cultures and its colonial experience and therefore more tolerant and just, more strongly

opposed to expansionism and hegemony. I would like to live to see such an India.

I believe in neighbourhoods. I believe a successful India is a good thing for the Indian subcontinent. And I also believe that a successful Indian subcontinent is a good thing for India, because I cannot imagine the land of prosperity and tolerance I hope to see surrounded by impoverished, desperate, nuclear-armed

enemies. No, our future is a shared one, like it or not, and the sooner we begin, as Europe is doing, to combine our strength for our common benefit,the better off all of us will be.

It is not impossible. A free-trading subcontinent where the commute from Lahore to Amritsar took 45 minutes and required no visa was something we

managed in this part of the world at the time my parents were born. Surely we can manage it again.

(Yes, we also had well laid out cities with underground sewage 4,000 years ago. But let us not be pessimists.)

The problem we face in coming closer is that we are not yet done pushing each other away. Pakistan and India are like Siamese twins cut messily from hip to armpit and left connected at the shoulder. The most dangerous part of

the surgery is done, its wounds healed into grotesque scars, but in the decades since then our relationship has been defined by violent conflict over how we tear the piece of flesh that still ties us together.

The time has come to finish the job. Nuclear weapons and self-destructive chauvinism on both sides make it highly likely that any defeat in our stale and senseless competition will become mutual. Kargil and Siachen stand as reminders that the line of control is just that: a front on a battle-map, determined not by law or by principle but by strength. India, with a larger

military, controls a bigger chunk of the province. Pakistan, under the great equalising umbrella of the mushroom cloud, is challenging that control. The Kashmiris themselves have yet to be consulted; people who inhabit battlefields rarely are.

Despite all this, the prevailing attitude on both sides (forgetting, as is the custom, the fact that there is a third side) remains what it has always been: ``To hell with them. We`ll stay our course and take our chances.`` But in the end, any just solution to the conflict over Kashmir must involve asking the people who live there what they want.

In theory, most Pakistanis I know like this idea, thinking (perhaps incorrectly) that Kashmir would choose to come to Pakistan. But there are

other possible outcomes: Kashmir could become independent, or could be partitioned between the two countries based on district majorities, or could become a joint protectorate with open borders on either side. Kashmir could

even, if the Kashmiris so choose, go in its entirety to India.

The particulars of the settlement matter far less than the fact that there is a settlement, that Partition is completed with mutually accepted borders and that the people of Kashmir are spared the violence they endure.

Those who believe that letting the Kashmiris have a say in deciding their own fate opens the door to a stampede of other defections underestimate the strength of Indian democracy and mistake the source of its legitimacy. It seems to me that the vast majority of people who inhabit the states of India are not kept together by the fighting men of some Delhi-based Empire. They have chosen to be part of an enormous experiment, an attempt to create the largest country in the world that is ruled by the will of its citizens. They are, by and large, proud of what that experiment has achieved and optimistic of what it will yet do. It is this consent and shared hope that is India`s

reason for being. Democracy cannot exist without it.

Nor does a compromise over Kashmir undermine India`s secular status. More than a hundred million Muslims live willingly in India, as do many Sikhs, Christians, and others. But the fight over Kashmir strengthens chauvinists on both sides. Those of us who oppose this trend ought to realise that our shared goal stretches across our borders. As do so many things: markets,

rivers, languages, poems, history. Separate nations need not preclude shared dreams.

Let Kashmir complete partition with a choice. For all of us, it is the first step to regaining the entire Indian subcontinent.

(The author grew up in Lahore and currently lives in New York. He`s recently written a novel called Mothsmoke)

Did you say at the end ``angry investor``?

AHAHAHA hey who is not tonight!

Re: Mr. Kapuria

An interesting article. I do share your concerns about the need for economic growth. However, I would like to point out some of the contradictions in your article.

I agree that states should have the right to formulate their own laws to promote economic growth. But it is not true that states in India don`t have this right. In fact, in your example of Punjab and TN, the state legislatures are using their independence to provide free electricity and water. If you remove the checks on their budget all states will start accumulating huge debts (like african nations). What we really need to do is to reduce central government deficit ALSO.

Absolute state control on laws or something like the US will lead to a lot of duplicate procedures and grey areas. Such a system exists in the US for historical reasons but this is not the cause of the economic success of the US. Rather it is a drag on their economy and pace of social reform. Imagine the delays in the legal system of India, already pathetically slow, if you have a scenario where state supreme courts and federal supreme courts start debating who has jurisdiction on a certain issue as the current battle between the state of Alabama and the federal government on the issue of discrimination on the basis of physical diability.

You bemoan lack of interstate trade in India and the bureaucratic hurdles in the path of this. Indeed it is the right of states in India to impose taxes like octroi which is the cause of the hassles. Removal of octroi and other restrictions on inter state trade (which served imperial purposes in British times- and national purposes in the princely states- and are not inventions of independent India) will have to be achieved by the central government. This would reduce the power of the states on taxation not increase it.

There is no state sales tax/ state income tax in India and we should be thankful for this. Though collection of both state and federal taxes will perhaps improve if state taxes were allowed. Taxation will not decrease but increase with such autonomy- which will probably not be bad viz. western Europe. I am not arguing against autonomy on this issue but just pointing out that the result may not be what you are expecting.

Article 356 certainly needs to be used less frequently or modified to ensure less usage. But I disagree that there are less checks on the Indian government. The impeachment by the senate of the president of the US is a very rare occurance and needs 2/3rd majority in the senate. In contrast, the Indian PM is constantly under the gun of a no-confidence motion which needs just an absolute majority (more than 1/2). The problem in the past has been that the MPs were willing to go along with 356. This has changed with the recent coalitions because the centralized power structure of the Congress-I no longer dominates. A presidential system in India (adopted in the US at the time of their independence as it resembles a monarchy with a strong individual authority) will only make abuse of power more frequent and take us back to the Indira Gandhi era (Nehru should not be accused of her doings). You have to look at other presidential systems in poor nations to see its potential performance in India (something most advocates of this don`t seem to consider). Again it is not the presidential system that is the cause of US prosperity. Japan doesn`t have one and seems to have done ok.

The separation of the judiciary and legislature is better in India than in the US. The judicial appointments do not require approval by the legislature. This is the reason why our judiciary has not been politicized like the US. Imagine a populist president from Bihar in a presidential system, (unlike our current presidents who are more academic type) appointing judges to the Supreme Court, who will ensure that no progressive legislation on gender equity is passed. After all, it is some MPs from Bihar who through their paper snatching and hullabaloo succeeded in delaying the legislation on 1/3rd reservation of parliamentary seats for women.

The current structure of the government is not the problem in India. There is sufficient autonomy in place already. Indeed many consider this to be a failing of the Indian system compared to, say, the Chinese model. But this doesn`t mean that we should get rid of our own system and adopt something which may aggravate existing problems and which doesn`t show any logical reasons to expect improvements, either American or Chinese. There is a lot of progressive legislation that has been enacted through our current system in the past 50 yrs. What is needed is for the public to put pressure on politicians to reduce economy related restrictions and bureaucracy(a legacy of the Raj), improve revenue collection (for this the defaulters shouldn`t be elected in the first place as MPs), improve efficiency in public spending while simultaneously increasing spending, and balancing the budget to reduce inflation. Yes, I believe a lot more needs to be spent if infrastructure is to be improved. And this is possible if a larger fraction of our population than the current 0.7% pays taxes. In fact, I believe we can simultaneously cut taxes, increase revenue by improving collection, increase spending substantially, and also balance the budget. Such a thing is unthinkable in developed economies.

Which brings me to my pet suggestion. That is an increase in the size of the judiciary. Mind you, I am not calling for any qualitative or structural reforms. Merely, increasing the size of the judiciary, by forcing our MPs to allocate more money, will reduce backlog and re-establish the faith of the populace in the judicial process. Again, criminals shouldn`t be elected by us for this to happen. If this is done the public might even discover that they already have pretty decent laws. This scenario will involve increasing the current judiciary by atleast 5 times.

Changing the system to introduce the confirmation of judges by the parliament is a nighmarish scenario in the Indian case. With the current power of only allocating resources, politicians have succeded in emaciating the judiciary. Imagine what they will do if they have the power to actually influence the quality of judges.

An improved judiciary will put criminals behind bars and not in legislative assemblies, enable quick settlement of business/agricultural disputes and reduce misuse of power by the executive branches (like the police). The law abiding majority will gain confidence and start improving the economy through entrepreneurship. They won`t have to operate from within modest buildings like the diamond industry or software but will have the confidence to actually invest in traditional industries in a large way.

All this talk of changing the system of government is just hogwash. What really needs to be done is to improve the way it operates. Which is mainly in the hands of the electorate. And the responsibility for providing alternatives to the current crop of politicians lies with the middle class. The uneducated poor can`t do it and the established rich won`t. And when we have elected a sincere crop of politicans they can make the relatively minor corrections ie. ordinary legislation not constitutional amendments to achieve rapid economic growth. Current levels of autonomy will do just fine.

Ashish

Yes, that is the next frontier....no doubt. We were right to sustain a more centralized state for the first fifty years. Now, we need to move into ``Phase II`` of our national development. We need to be cautious and circumspect--heck, changing the entire governance structure in a country like India is no mean task--but the direction towards greater autonomy should be clear.

Let each of the great myriad cultures, languages, traditions, and economies making the magnificent mosaic of India flourish locally. That is the dream of India we should all work towards. Nationally we have little to fear.

Re: Anil

A really thought provoking article!

In the case of India, I would have to caution you! Just as in Pakistan, the colonial system of goverance is quite strong in India and a greater sense of autonomy might be, in the present sense, problematic for the Indian Union.

You have mentioned the United States as an example, but the difference between the United States and India is in the levels of education and the awareness of personal rights.

Are the Indians aware of the fact that with autonomy comes a greater sense of obligation, but sadly, most of the Indian states are heavily dependent on the Indian government. Can they exist without the government`s indulgence?

Too much autonomy amounts to anarchy unless it is correctly balanced in a moderate sense without tilting to either extermes!

Ciao!