WATER AND POWER-URBAN LESSONS FROM DELHI
WATER AND POWER-URBAN LESSONS FROM DELHI
Of the holy triumvirate of public goods cleverly coined by a political party - “bijli, sadak, pani” - two are haunting the Delhi Chief Minister. Over the past month, Mrs Dixit must feel like her dream re-election has turned into a nightmare, with her trusted constituency turning the tables on her. This is a story of different services, differing delivery challenges and unrelated underlying issues, bound together by public angst with a single message: “Do not take us for granted.”
How Delhi responds to these situations will provide important urban insights for the rest of the country, given its predominantly urban constituency; politicians in every other state still find it hard to overtly place urban reforms on the table, despite the fact that urban challenges are plaguing cities in many states.
From a public change perspective, these issues offer fascinating real-time opportunities to take lessons, the following five in particular:
o Lesson 1 - You can have the right script but still mess up your lines: there is no denying that the underlying issues in both power and water show that reforms are clearly required – Delhi’s water service, like most Indian cities, is woefully behind that of other developing countries, leave alone global standards; the same goes for power. However, in the drama being played out, government has played the part of a villain, being forced to play guilty until proven innocent.
o Lesson 2 - All the formal power of government can still not win the hearts and minds of people: In the new, urban context, government doesn’t realise how public opinion is shaped. While all issues require full information to be placed in the public domain, complex issues like water and power require more information, not less. Sufficient time needs to be allowed for genuine debate and dissent.
We are living in an age where a few experts, bureacrats and consultants cannot fully bake the reform cake, present it to the citizen, and then be surprised if they throw the cake out, even if they are going hungry. In the words of Ramaswamy Iyer, one of the country’s water experts, “Planning and implementation should be fully `participatory’, not in the sense of asking for comments on a complex document already prepared by officials but in that of involving and consulting the people from the very beginning.”
However, when faced with uncertainty, government’s response is to clamp down on information, the only thing that they can control. These are the old ways of wearing down the opposition, bulldozing people rather than really engaging them in genuine debate. Government’s attitude is often big brotherly, believing that such matters are too technical to be placed in the public domain, that ordinary citizens wouldn’t have the patience or capacity to understand. While this strategy might win an occasional individual issue, it breeds a sense of disenchantment and cynicism among the people.
o Lesson 3 - Ensuring genuine participation requires new political space to be created: Despite the initial success of the agitations, moving forward to substantive debates will be difficult because legitimate political space for citizens is seriously lacking – who will government debate with? The government’s own citizen platform – Bhagidari – is in a precarious position. The Bhagidari communities have been demanding greater role in decision-making, not just as cosmetic consultative outfits. However, this requires fundamental introspection about whether such roles should be given to informal resident welfare associations who – despite their best intentions – do not have political legitimacy, and certainly do not represent all sections of society, especially the poor.
The only long-term answer to citizen participation is to create formal political space for voters to engage at the grassroots, in their wards and polling booths, like the Grama Sabhas in rural areas. Studies in rural India have shown strong correlation between education levels, Grama Sabha participation and equitable outcomes – this bodes well for grassroot participation in Urban India.
o Lesson 4 - It is better to work from the front-foot than be cornered into these positions: Allowing participation is not only morally right, it is also strategically useful. Citizens today are getting away with taking pot-shots at government, with no accountability of their own, either in taking tough decisions on reforms, or in being honest participants in public services. For example, one of the sore points in the power crisis is the 50% power theft. While the responsibility to ensure compliance is the service providers’, in a society where contractual enforcement will take time, local stakeholders can exert far more pressure than a discom. Being completely open also allows the government to demand responsibility from citizens and constructive solutions from critics, rather than allow procedural criticism to obfuscate fundamental reform debate.
o Lesson 5 - This is new urban politics, not just short-term middle-class angst: There are implications for Sheila Dixit within the Congress, the BJP has called for an inquiry, and there will be more ripples, often with unintended consequences. There are also rural-urban issues, and fundamental ideological positions about the role of private players, and differences about tariffs and subsidies. While these have been simmering for a while, the role of the middle-class in triggering these through political mobilisation and citizen voice is a new phenomenon, deserving more study.
From Mrs Dixit’s standpoint, all is not lost. In fact, there is still political potential: if she responds to these twin crises with a genuine process of debate, establishes an institutionalised mechanism for such participation, and allows outcomes to be determined through consultation, she can show that she still has her finger on the pulse of the middle-class, saying “mea culpa” and bringing them back on board. Most importantly, she can be the torch-bearer of a new form of urban governance in India, one that is genuinely inclusive and participatory in solving the difficult reforms that lay ahead of us, be it in “bijli, sadak, pani” or any other public good.
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The author is founder of Janaagraha. He can be reached at ramesh@janaagraha.org