VISION OF INDIA IN THE TWENTYFIRST CENTURY

Jaideep Singh*

Today, a major churning seems to be taking place. Independent India’s dream of a quickly achievable
classless society, free from poverty, that made earlier generations work so hard and conscientiously has
been given up as an illusion. Out of the ashes of this myth, something new is emerging. In this short
piece, we shall be sharing our vision of the basic policies, institutional structures and practices required
to actualise a more realistic scenario of a vibrant, prosperous and happier India.

Let us start by looking at the whole as an interplay of the following ten interdependent systems:

1. The Political System

2. The Justice System

3. The Administrative System

4. The Technological System

5. The Economic System

6. The Cultural System

7. The Educational System

8. The Media-Informational System

9. Individual Personality

10. National and International Linkages.

Of course, all thought of progress is based upon the premise of avoidance of nuclear war. It would
seem ideal if humanity would move in the direction of total elimination of such weapons of mutually
assured destruction. But this is easier said than done. The reality seems to be that we will have to live
with the constant threat of total termination of our existence and yet pursue the adventure of progress
with faith and courage.

Our fundamental vision of progress is that every individual should experience dignity and the
possibility of progress, that progress be viewed as a multidimensional pursuit of various human values
*
Former Professor of Behavioural Sciences, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi.

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and not a narrow unidimensional economic pursuit and that freely chosen, mutually enhancing
relationships are the primary means of such progress apart from being one of the important ends.

There are eight generic values/assumptions/beliefs/fundamental truths/basic principles that we take to

be self evident which underlie all our thinking and it would be helpful if we list these first. They are as
follows:

1. Human nature is fundamentally good and individuals can always raise their quality of
consciousness and level of psychological existence. (People become negative in reaction to
policies, attitudes and behaviour which violate their essential being/nature).

2. Human behaviour is intentional/purposive, i.e., goal oriented and as individuals rise to

deeper/higher levels of personal existence their self interest and behaviour becomes
increasingly synergic with the best interests of humanity.

3. The principle of mutual dignity and open, honest communications is of primordial importance.

4. Interpersonal interactivity, teamwork, linkages and feedback have enormous power for
generating creativity, productivity and progress.

5. Simplicity and clarity are core values to ceaselessly work towards and utilise.

6. The principle of positive reinforcement/appreciation is very powerful in shaping and

influencing human behaviour.

7. Essential for all progress is a sense of inner discipline and responsibility.

8. The revolutionary advancements in science and technology are most important means for rapid
progress.

Let us now look at the ten interdependent systems and suggest some improvements that can be
implemented in the immediate future.

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM

Cleansing this system is a major task and would require:

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(i) The electoral process should be made completely free of all forms of violence. This is one
productive use to which the governmental machinery can be put under the overall authority of
the Chief Election Commissioner.

(ii) All financial expenditures must be openly accounted for by political parties and candidates
should be asked to declare their assets and income.

(iii) All communications which divide the society, for example, influencing people on the
basis of caste and religion should be forbidden by the Election Commission and this ban should
be actively enforced.

(iv) Bribe taking and bribe giving by members of parliament, legislative assemblies and
panchayati raj institutions should have the consequence of debarring the member from active
politics for a decade or so.

(v) Any party that has not cleared its earlier debts for the use of various resources, for example,
transport, should not be allowed to put up any candidates until the debts are cleared.

(vi) No person convicted of a criminal offence should be allowed to stand for election or be
given any position by the ruling party until the period of conviction has elapsed.

THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

(i) There needs to be a time framework for the disposal of all cases. At present, the enormous
number of man/woman hours that citizens have to invest for justice are at the cost of their own
and the nation’s progress. No case should require more than one year’s time for the issuance of
final judgement/decree. And there would be other cases in which immediate decisions, within a
day or a week, would be salutary.

(ii) In this context we may note that the inhuman almost barbaric practice of keeping persons in
custody as ‘undertrials’ for years and sometimes decades should be completely stopped. A
person should be taken into state custody only after the judicial process has resulted in a
conviction and any deviation from this should be allowed only in exceptional cases for genuine
and justifiable reasons. Furthermore, a separate cadre of judicial police should be utilized for
dealing with persons while they are in custody and being transported to courts, hospitals, etc.

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The usual law and order police should not be allowed to interact with such persons at all so as
to prevent their mistreatment, harassment and exploitation. The basic constitutional principles
of separation of powers of the judiciary from the executive and commitment to the Rule of Law
must be fully realized in actual practice.

(iii) There is infinite scope for simplification and clarification of our laws and acts. Some of
the laws were created in the 19th Century and still continue without being examined for their
relevance for our times. Also, the language utilized should be easy to comprehend for the
average citizen.

(iv) Laws should be made keeping in view a realistic understanding of human nature. Thus, for
example, total prohibition in the USA from December 1919 to December 1933 was a very self
defeating exercise and was the main cause of the rapid expansion of the criminal underworld.
The recent attempt to adopt a similar policy in the State of Haryana was having similar negative
consequences. Finally, good sense prevailed and the policy was reversed.

(v) Computerization of all laws and cases should be urgently achieved making it easier to find
the cases and judgements relevant to a particular situation.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM

(i) The movement initiated by the Fifth Pay Commission to make the Indian Administrative
Service (IAS) still further ahead vis a vis other services was a negative step in our opinion.
Instead, all Group A Services should be brought on par with the IAS. This will reduce rivalry
among the key decision makers in the government and bring about better coordination and
cooperation.

(ii) Furthermore, the present policy of by and large automatic promotions to the highest level
should be stopped at the level equivalent to Director in the Central Government, i.e., the level
below Joint Secretary. All positions of Joint Secretary and above should be declared open to all
services and the public in general so that anyone, from any profession or industry, can also
have a fair chance at serving in these roles.

(iii) There should be absolute courtesy and transparency in all dealings with the citizen.
Presently, there is absolute transparency in the way bribes are demanded from the citizens and

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they, being at the mercy of an incomprehensible decision making process and many callous,
thoughtless rules and procedures are forced to become bribe givers. Urgent thoughtful action is
required to reverse this situation.

(iv) Presently, there is a high degree of intentional deception in the collection and collation of
statistics in order to show ‘administrative performance’. A major effort will have to be made to
cleanse the administrative system of myriad forms of manipulation, deception and fraud. This
is only possible if the political and administrative leadership awakens to the imperative of
humanistic values and behaviour for the development of an enlightened organisational culture,
an emotionally and mentally healthy work force and a prosperous society relatively free from
the ravages of alienation, violence, crime, terrorism and other disintegrative forces.

(v) The size of government should be reduced greatly. Over the coming decade, with the
maximum use of information technology, radical delegation and decentralization in an officer
oriented system and suggestion systems for further improvement open to all, there could be a
fifty per cent reduction in the size of government.

(vi) Government’s role has to completely change. Pre July 1991, India’s failure to progress
adequately could be laid on the adoption of a wrong ideology that the government will develop
the nation. Thus, the concept of a centrally planned economy and ‘commanding heights’ for the
public sector was attempted. It has now become very clear that this road leads to politico-
administrative strangulation of the citizenry, the transformation of free citizens into serfs and
ultimately, to the disintegration of the nation. Rapidly, we need to go further with the correct
understanding that the entrepreneurial energy, intelligence and voluntary cooperation of the
citizens is the primary force for the nation’s development and the role of government is to
guide and facilitate. For this role, we require only a relatively small number of persons of
wisdom, integrity, knowledge and managerial competence.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL SYSTEM

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Revolutionary advances in the world of science and technology comprise a most important resource for
rapid progress. For example, the Information Technology revolution which makes every individual a
global participant and every place in the world equidistant should be incorporated by every
organisation and individual in the pursuit of efficiency, quality, learning, production and service.

To take another example, the science of cloning can greatly increase the quality and productivity of our
animal husbandry resources. There is a great need and infinite potential for constructive utilization of
the findings of the latest researches in science and technology for the improvement of individual,
organisational and societal productivity, development and satisfaction.

THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM

(i) The beginning that India made in July 1991 towards debureaucratisation, privatisation and
globalisation has to be greatly accelerated. An overall ten per cent growth rate of the economy
is definitely achievable and should be the bedrock of our national policies.

(ii) Simultaneously, substantial incentives and a social infrastructure of sanitation, clean

drinking water and health care should be instituted to reduce the population growth rate and
enable a higher per capita income and quality of life. Most importantly, a social security/safety
net must be developed for the poorer fifteen per cent of our society.

(iii) The new thrust of using entrepreneurship as the prime mover of the economy needs to
be consolidated and crystallised by a drastic reduction of individual and corporate tax rates to a
maximum of ten and twenty per cent respectively. This policy would also rapidly reduce the
size of the parallel ‘black’ economy which is currently estimated to be nearly as big as the
official ‘white’ economy and would go a long way towards developing a confident,
enthusiastic, honest and proud citizenry and country. We would make still greater progress in
this regard if individual income tax is totally abolished and replaced by a tax on consumption
expenditure. Similarly, many obsolete economic laws and constraints on entrepreneurship
should be removed.

(iv) The Indian diaspora around the world is also a critically important and valuable resource for
national development and its active participation should be urgently secured.

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 THE CULTURAL SYSTEM

Heterogeneity and cultural pluralism should be viewed as among the great assets that our civilization
has bestowed upon us. The insensitivity that we have shown in the past to those who seemed different
from the mainstream should become a sad memory through the inculcation of sensitive, respectful,
humanistic policies, practices and behaviour in the immediate future.

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

India’s biggest failure after independence, in our opinion, has been the inability to provide every child
with a reasonably good quality education. It is a crisis that requires urgent rectification because the
foundation and mainstay of all national progress lies ultimately in education and human development.

THE MEDIA – INFORMATIONAL SYSTEM

(i) Often, government controlled media has a tendency to become a form of propaganda and
brain washing in the service of selfish, vested interests of control, power, and economic loot of
the country and its citizenry. It is therefore of the utmost importance for the public to have
diverse media and a heterogeneous informational system that is free and professionally
organised and managed.

(ii) Whereas advanced societies like Sweden adopted a freedom of information policy long ago,
we are still constrained from obtaining a clearer picture of the decisions, procedures and
practices in our contemporary bureaucratic monoliths by way of the Official Secrets Act. The
value of the citizens’ right to information should have been given top priority after gaining
independence but, as they say, it is better late than never.

INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY

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The most revolutionary understanding of modern psychology that human beings are fundamentally
good, that our deeper human nature is spiritual and unselfish, should have made trust in the citizen the
foundational premise of all the other systems of society. Unfortunately, its opposite, i.e., distrust, with
the resulting consequence of policies, institutional structures and practices of repression and control
were laid in place by alien rule and continued after independence. The overthrow of this debilitating
premise and the adoption of the scientifically correct, nobler understanding of human nature would
greatly facilitate the creation of an India of which we can all be proud.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LINKAGES

It is a sine qua non of human nature and our mutual interdependence that our deepest identification is
and should be with humanity. The feeling for nationhood and national identity should not become a
barrier to one’s respect and love for other people, cultures, nations and civilizations. Consequently,
greater linkages between the over two hundred nations in the world can be a major force for the
progress of each nation and over the coming century, we can aspire to move towards a world free of
most of the walls that presently exist, psychological and institutional, between the nations and their
citizenry. .

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Source: Jaideep Singh, 1999, “Vision of India in the Twentyfirst Century” in Jaytilak Guha Roy, ed., Policing in
Twentyfirst Century (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Public Administration), 1-7.