Right person for the right job

I would wish to quote a constituent assembly debate regarding the need of “RIGHT MEN FOR THE RIGHT JOB”.

Shri Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri: All right, Sir. What I wanted to say is this: that the responsibility for framing this Constitution is not on the lawyers, but is on the layman, on the Members of the Constituent Assembly, the majority of whom are non-lawyers. It is the strong common sense of the Members of this House, which will decide the several points of the Constitution. The lawyers are there to advise us. Just as in a trial by jury, you cannot lay the responsibility of the Judge and lawyers, but the case has to be decided according to the common sense of the jurors themselves, similarly, in this House, the responsibility of framing the Constitution is entirely on the Members of this House, the majority of whom are not members of the legal profession. Therefore, I would invite the House to look at this question from a layman's point of view as well.

The whole universe has been scrambling to define “Right men” since our existence. If we look at our past, one class was named as Ruling class and it has received the self-assurance to adopt decisions regarding the then other classes. Initially, there was no difference of interests among the categories, one taught how to preach god, one did business, oneruled the other classes and the remaining classes remained as the working classes. As the societies progressed, other classes claimed their positions in the ruling class. There has been no proper definition of ruling-class or Right men, the Administration became a generalist Subject rather than a Specialist Subject. The engineers became better managers and administrators, the administration became everyone’s subject after the Industrial Revolution.

Coming to Political Class, democracy shone like a dazzling dream for many non-ruling classes. Lawyers, doctors, actors, bureaucrats, layman, murders, rapists; many claimed their positions in the political class and many were successful and stand as an ideal example for policies and their governance. Our constitution, therefore didn’t placed any restrictions on the contestants' qualifications. This provision did well in the past, but it left many serious concerns about the functioning of the political class in the development.

Political Class not merely a representative body, but also a level-playing class in the development of the nation. There has been a shift in the governance, civil servants are playing a major role in the development and the political class has been merely confined to signatures. Many contestants of the 15th Loksabha are political-illiterates; I have seen a debate few days back, a member asked an actor contesting from South Mumbai, "Where do you raise complaints about the roads?" She answered, "I'm an Item girl, I don't know about the roads; do you know about dance? Can you dance like me?" If you are good at dance, please continue in that profession don't ruin people's life choosing political career.

With the increasing population, complexity in governing has been increasing. Foreign Policy got huge importance with the globalisation. We should convert the democratic norms for the amelioration of the society and to safeguard Democracy. Democracy is a dream for many societies, it shouldn't bend to be a nightmare for the development (Social, Economic and Political).

I don't believe in facts, but I don't have any other choice, because they don't lie. The productive time of the Lok Sabha in the past five years stands at 61%. This has been the worst performance of the lower house in more than fifty years. In comparison, the 13th and 14th LokSabhas worked for 91% and 87%, respectively. 3rd Lok Sabha worked for 107%. The 15th Lok Sabha passed 179 Bills of the 328 to be considered and passed during its five year tenure. In the worst 68 Bills lapsed. 36% of the total Bills passed were debated for less than thirty minutes. Of these, 20 Bills were passed in less than five minutes. In the Rajya Sabha, 38% of the total Bills passed were debated for more than two hours, and 7 Bills were debated for less than five minutes. Lok Sabha lost 61% of the time scheduled for Question Hour and Rajya Sabha lost 59%. The Interim Budget in 2014 was passed without discussion. During the tenure of the 15th Lok Sabha, in the 2011 Budget was passed without standing committees scrutinising the demands for grants from various ministries.

Finished with stats and open to your interpretations how our Parliamentary Democracy has been working. We left out one statistic which actually shows us the fate of the maturation process, Hours spent on lapsed bills by the administrative officials. Lapsed Bills will be scratched by the next Lok Sabha, ultimately we are wasting the efforts of the bureaucrats and demotivating the bureaucrats is not good for the country, as the national development depends on the bureaucrats.

One can argue that the majority members of the constituent assembly were also illiterate, you wrongly interpret me; here illiteracy means "Political Illiteracy"- Common sense, according to Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri. So, are our Political executives lacking Common sense? I say, Bureaucracy dominates the common sense of our political executives and they feel inferior to the civil servants. Now our Political leaders are much concern on their political career and shares. How many of our Political executives can deal with the development model? How many of our representatives can really claim that they are real-representatives of the people? How many has the vision of Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar? Very few, might be your answer, but almost ZERO can also be the answer.

There is a grave need for the political reforms and every state holder should aware of his rights and responsibilities. I cannot say only specialists should enter into politics, because it’s a statutory right of every citizen given by the state. People should feel responsible for the fate of country (People includes representatives, they are not Namo or Amma). Whether you choose a Specialist, Generalist, Illiterate, Rapist, Murderer, God, Amma, Papa, Anna, Akka; think of the person you choose, stand to the other side of your representative, can he/she tolerate your actions against him? If he/she can then he/ she is well suited for the job. Representing the whole constituency or nation, one should have tolerance in listening to the people (for and against), technical stuff can take care of civil servants.

Tolerance is the quality you should look for, as Power can corrupt people! He/She should consider the power as a trusteeship and people as the donators.