Why We Forgot to Build the ’Janata Bhawan’

BOOK REVIEW

by PADMINI SWAMINATHAN

Civil Disobedience: Two Freedom Struggles, One Life by L.C. Jain; The Book Review Literary Trust, New Delhi; 2010; pp. 266; Rs 395.

The meticulously recorded details and hard-hitting nature of the contents of the above book are in complete contrast to the person that I knew as Lakshmi Jain—a very calm and composed person, with a very curious mind, and a great listener.

This is the second book of Lakshmi that I have read from cover to cover; the first one being The City of Hope: The Faridabad Story, published by Concept Publishing Company in 1998, which book I reviewed for a journal. Civil Disobedience has included the ‘Faridabad Story’ as one of its chapters.

If I have to sum up the contents of both the books in one word that would capture their essence it would be GOVERNANCE, even though Lakshmi himself does not use this latter-day buzzword in his books. Today, very often Gover-nance, like Empowerment, has gained coinage post the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution but has been reduced to how we run our welfare programmes and/or how inclusive the design and implementation of these programmes are with respect to the marginalised groups and locales of the country. That Governance has to do with the entire fabric of society and with all Institutions of state is conveniently not publicly discussed any more. But that’s what Lakshmi does in Civil Disobedience; deploying a ‘personal journey’ methodology, he dissects the manner in which Institution after Institution that was envisaged to play a constructive role in nation-building fell prey to destructive machinations either from bureaucrats or politicians or both. The personal association of Lakshmi with each of the Institutions, the manner in which he has narrated the process of the rise and fall of these institutions, the actors involved and their roles in the rise and downfall, at once provides readers insights into as well as makes clear why these institutions are the way they are today—be it cooperatives, handicrafts and handlooms, rehabili-tation measures, the Planning Commission, etc.

Frankly, even a cursory reading of the contents of this book leaves one extremely distressed. Lakshmi’s anguish is evident all over the book. Sixty odd years after Independence, one is aware of the deep erosion that has set in, in every aspect of the country’s public life. But, while the results of such degeneration are patently evident in the rising ‘crimes of development and non-development’ against the common people, there is as yet very little systematic documentation of the manner in which even stray cases of people-friendly, people-oriented, functioning institutions are destroyed by a powerful self-serving bureau-cracy with or without the connivance of politicians. This book, being an insider’s account, admirably fills this gap, even as it graphically captures the underside of what passes for democratic governance in this country.

If there is one message that comes out quite powerfully from Lakshmi’s documentation of the different experiments in setting up Institutions for nation-building, it is this: that Institution-building requires leaders of vision and that integrity is only a necessary condition. The sustenance, growth and constant restructuring of such Institutions to meet changing demands requires political, administrative and public support—the lack of any or all of which is sufficient to undo the work as well as the Institution itself. This is the bitter truth; it is not, however, a lesson learnt since, as Lakshmi himself records at different moments in his narration, nothing much has changed in the political and bureau-cratic administration of the country. If anything, the administration remains not only insensitive but also contemptuous of the common people’s needs and aspirations.

The personal is political—is something that the Women’s Movement always foregrounds; in a different way Lakshmi makes the same point when he talks of the first lessons in equality, issues of social segregation that he became aware of while growing up in an orthodox Jain household [his nana’s first bus journey when he was upset that he had to sit next to a barber and that there was no separate seating arrange-ments for people of his class!].

•

ACADEMICALLY, this book is rewarding for several reasons: one, it is an exercise in multi-disciplinarity. The setting up of the Institutions followed meticulous planning that very often also involved surveys that required combination of different methodological tools for the sheer fact that there was no database to aid a programme of action. Two, the Institutions are so conceptualised that there is no room for seeing planning and implementation as different sets of activities; implementation was part and parcel of the plan and design itself. The current crop of irresponsible economists [that includes the PM] could do well to read the chapter titled ‘A People’s Bazaar’, which came up in 15 days under Lakshmi’s supervision precisely to tackle price rise and inflation. Apart from the fact that the supermarket that was set up did not compro-mise on quality, quantity, or price at which articles were procured, it demonstrates the level of coordination that had to be achieved between different arms of the government and bureau-cracy if arresting price rise was the primary goal. It also speaks volumes about the commit-ment of some of the persons in authority then as compared to those in authority now.

Again, as a student of economics, the chapter on the Bhoodan movement is an eye-opener: while economists were keen to distribute the gifted land in measures that would make for viable cultivation, the landless were adamant that land should be distributed equally among the landless so that everybody gets something. Lakshmi records how he had narrated this experience to Prof V.K.R.V. Rao who replied: “It is a great thing for us to know that for the people who practice economics in the field, economy of scale is not important, the ethics is important.” Lakshmi’s account of his stint in the Planning Commission during the Janata Government, particularly his efforts to turn the Plan on its head by not starting with investment or size of the Plan but the instruments through which Plan objectives would be achieved, gives a clue as to why the Institution of the Planning Commission finds itself in disarray and has been rendered remote and ineffective.

Nearer home, we have an account [p. 214]

of how the Tamil Nadu Government under Karunanidhi accepted the L. C. Jain Committee Report on the why the 73rd Constitutional amendment to the Constitution was to be imple-mented in the State but could not operationalise it due to “political compulsions because the MLAs were up in arms about having an elected Zila Parishad. They were concerned that the bureaucrat, the Collector, will no longer do their bidding. So they made Karunanidhi change his order.” Lakshmi ends that chapter by noting the following: “power is concentrated in the Bhawans of New Delhi: Yojana Bhawan, Rail Bhawan, Udyog Bhawan, Krishi Bhawan. We have forgotten to build the Janata Bhawan.” [p. 220]

The distance that the country has travelled away from its vision [however imprecisely articulated] at the time of Independence and the anguish that it caused persons such as Lakshmi who have spent almost their whole lives trying to build people-oriented Institutions can be summed up in the way he took the South African Foreign Minister’s observation as a compliment: Lakshmi was India’s Ambassador to South Africa when we exploded our second nuclear device. Lakshmi’s observation that nobody would be comfortable with a nuclear device did not go well with the powers that be, which Lakshmi himself was aware of and asked to be recalled. At the farewell banquet the South African Foreign Minister told Lakshmi that, if Lakshmi allowed him, he would appoint Lakshmi as South Africa’s Ambassador to India.

Reflecting on Lakshmi’s books in today’s context, I would end with the following observation: Lakshmi had an abiding faith in people’s power and felt that “villages or cities of hope can rise like Phoenix, if we let people lead the endeavour”. I do not fully share this optimism but would add the following: Unless we also learn to deal with regressive and people-unfriendly institutions like the Indian bureau-cracy and politicians, cities of hope will, in no time, get reduced to centres of despair. We are back to the necessary and sufficient conditions with which we began.

The reviewer is a Professor, MIDS, Chennai.