Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Why not democratic governments run like a pure managerial exercise ?


Why should our enlightened age carry on democracy as a political drama instead of  having it  as a plain managerial tool for running peoples government ?  Why can not we get rid of its rhetoric and  the propagandist deceptions ? Why can’t we bring an end to its primary image as a non-stop fight among political parties for advantage over the other, while all the rest priorities of the nation falling back to secondary priorities ?

We have a well prepared policy document called constitution to run the country. The philosophical, political, psychological and historical needs of a people are well documented in the constitution.

What we need is a representative team to run the country with the best of managerial expertise, like the way corporate houses run their business, or like constructing a building according to its blue-print plan.  

Targets for achievement of each ministry could be prepared with the help of organizations like FICCI or CII, or any of the top management school in the country. Inexperienced ministers could be trained in the art of delegating responsibilities to his subordinates and bureaucrats. Thus every bureaucrat and minister will have his/her well documented, transparent target for each year. His/her performance could be assessed by the same agencies and monetary incentives could be provided for achievers and punishments for losers.

When administration of the state becomes a managerial exercise, with its responsibilities,accountability and pains, its existing glamour quotient will naturally come down. Media persons can stop following them day and night,even up to their toilets, with cameras,in search of scintillating  news. 

This single media act was chiefly instrumental in converting plain country administration into a glamour business of politics. It also has converted these purely managerial  occupations of country governance into a fantastic, parallel world of glitz and glamour, which was  totally unmatched to democratic values  and traditions.

If run like a plain managerial exercise, at the end of each term of a government, people will be easily able to judge the better performers,  and decide wisely when their votes are asked for the next time.

Media also will be able to concentrate more on meaningful social themes when they get free from the routine act of following leaders day and night. Media’s absence will itself distract many leaders from  running after political career. Thus, the wasteful exercise of politics could be slowly eliminated from the scene of country administration.    

Such a shift of priorities will get democracy reinvented into a rational, no non-sense managerial exercise, the sacred purpose for which it was intended for.  

Media should wake up, and take up the cause of reinventing democracy, and help it to become a national agenda. 


Abraham Joseph
Founder secretary
Conscience of the society- a non-profit for philosophic initiatives into  the cause of strengthening and reinventing democracy.