+ Checks & Balances

There is something called the system of checks and balances – essentially, a lot of people watching each other’s backs. However, this requires that everyone put up their hands and choose to be counted. What usually happens – and this is true, whether we are talking about India, the US, or any other democracy – is that the only people who are involved in anything proactive are those who are looking for power, prestige, gratification, or big bucks. So, this has become a game of looking for and finding one’ own needs. No wonder, politics is called the art of the possible.

And empowerment does happen in a cynical sense – I might be a nobody, but if I grease a few palms, I could get a lot of things done my way. The way to go about it, I would say, is to appeal to groups of people who are idealistic about certain things – environment, civic infrastructure, health, etc – and create groups with them to build active and sustained pressure, and ensure that there are numbers and names to make it count. And macro issues don’t make as much of a difference as specific points. Macro issues enable authorities to waffle, specific issues do a much better job of pinning them down.

Coming to the issue of two parties, bad and worse, it is the same. They are bad and worse also because it is possible to be so. The first thing is for the people to get the right to question, convert that into power to question, and extend that to the ability to get answers.

Recently, three idealistic iit-ians have got together and started a political party. The momentum is important, and also the results they can show quickly - these will determine whether this venture succeeds and to what extent.

In a truly open and empowered system which continually produces results, checks and balances will work well enough. Of course, there is nothing like the perfect system!!