Kejriwal's Vision For India-From What he says in his book 'Swaraj'

[rubyjackass]

You are talking about an utopian world where people will leave to pursue their own selfish goals and work towards common good, I am saying even in the Gram Sabhas there will be some people/group who will have greater influence over the decision making process, enabling them to exploit those powers to their own benefit.

This is no utopia. We are talking about a level where common good and selfishness come very very close. If an apartment/colony association can work out the details of their security guard and common facilities, so can a village. People at that level already do some things collectively. There will always be some people with more influence. We have the situation even in Lok Sabha. It does not change a thing.

I don't think villagers are some uncivilized brutes, but I do think there are many uncivilized brutes among common people including those who live in villages. And that's why female foeticide is a harsh reality. And haven't you heard about many such instances where doctors were beaten up and hospitals ransacked by mob due to alleged deficiency in treatment? Doctors are treated as God in villages or anywhere, at least not anymore.

The brutes will be few among all, as elsewhere. See it from the perspective of the person going to a doctor to understand ho they can behave. Yes, I know that doctors get beaten up for deficiency. But I haven't seen any doctor get beaten up for refusing to reveal gender. If people are told it is illegal, then they shut up or I imagine go to another doctor who will tell them the gender illegally. I am yet to see any big hospital at the village level with an ultra sound. The most common problem is rather doctors being absent from primary health centers completely because there is noone to check their attendance or doctors not hired at all in enough numbers. At this level, there is little scope of blackmailing the doctors. As I mentioned earlier, obviously there should be a check on these local bodies as a last resort to avoid such blackmail, if any.

So if police is not doing enough to stop honor killing, then the solution is to handover their fate to the honor killers!! Recently in Birbhum area a girl was raped by a dozen people by order of the "Salishi Sabha" as a punishment for extra marital affair, and the whole village is with the rapists, should police listen to the villagers or lose their jobs?

I explained this already. This devolution is meant to allow people to address their own priorities based on their needs. You are one of those guys who would have told Larry Page "what if people started searching **** and about how to make bombs". Let us first worry about doing some good. We will learn about the bad outcome and can then correct it.

What if villagers are allowed to complain to a police officer outside the ambit of the Gram Sabha? Won't that solve the problem? You can suggest a lot of alternatives here and there is always scope to correct as we learn.

And are you sure Gram Sabhas are qualified enough to evaluate evidences and act accordingly? I never knew the job of our judiciary is so damn easy!! I guess you didn't follow any of the numerous instances of wonderful judgements delivered by many existing "Sabhas".

If there is set procedure for Gram Sabhas, they can be expected to function well. How hard is it to make show cause notice and evidence like contract agreements part of the procedure? How about not simply giving the power to remove an official directly to the sabha, but just the power to penalize them and the power to recommend removal instead. There are a number of checks which we can have if we understand the basic premise of this system, which is accountability.

And how do you do that without a centralized system? And if you need a centralized system to appoint based on test scores, then what is the role of Gram Sabhas in it? Please don't get emotional about it just because it was proposed by Kejriwal, and please apply your own brain and think about it in a cohesive manner. What you are suggesting cannot go with Kejriwal's idea.

The central system I suggested is only for the qualifying test, like GRE. I don't get emotional about it because Kejriwal said so. The central principle for this suggestion is that villages currently get a money but it gets bracketed for some or the other scheme which is decided at the state secretariat level. A village gets money for NREGA but it has no employment problems. What do they do? They get money for food security Act, but they have, say worse emergencies with drinking water.
If you think about this in a cohesive manner with your own brain, the only solution is to let the people closest to the problems decide. Then comes the accountability bit. There is noone to check accountability of public officials. Again, if you use your brain, the best people to bring in the accountability is those who are closest to the problem. If that includes pay bonuses and also tanks, then great.

I have seen complain about Air India calling their service pathetic and staff arrogant. The situation is 10 times worse in our towns and villages in government offices. The solution is not increasing the number of inspection officials. Think with your own brain, you will end up where I am.
If you want to keep a check on these bodies, then fine. But calling them arbitrary and brutish is simply being snobbish. I also gave examples of where these bodies work well in the form of town councils and apartment associations. You are talking about risks like honor killings. I am saying illegal things happen even today. If you don't agree, fine, let us roll out the system in low risk areas first. Let us exclude law enforcement initially.

Yes, such misuse of power is a big problem, and unfortunately it seems that your solution is to give that "slapping rights" to common villagers. Once they have such powers, they will act just like those MLAs, human nature.

Again a strawman argument. Villagers don't get slapping rights. As I said there should be a review on the decisions taken by the local sabha.

My comparison with pdf was one of the best comparisons I ever gave, alas you didn't understand it. I said make every member in pdf a moderator with full moderation powers, and then watch the fun. Kejriwal's idea is to make everyone a moderator.

Topic aside, if we get to elect a moderator for India section from among the existing mods, wouldn't it be nice? Instead of dealing with some ahole mods here who think militants killing Indian soldiers is not something worth discussion.

Your comparison to pdf does not make sense. Our mods cannot be corrupt. They are not here to serve us. Public servants are. There is no allocation of resources in pdf, no priorities and hence no accountability needed from mods. We need accountability from all public officials including police. The power of the sabhas in this regard obviously should not be arbitrary.

Kejriwal is probably inspired from the Sheriff system in USA, where they are actually elected. We know that is not a fit for our country. But police should be accountable. When I say police should be accountable and removable, I do not mean removing any officer from any post arbitrarily. The least we could do is let the people recommend a police officials removal.

 

[jha]

He probably did not read "Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu " before using the story about this direct democracy. Even if we consider this work of fiction an authoritative source, it pretty much describes everything which was wrong with Vaishali. A system which decides everything with the help of such Gram Sabhas will eventually disintegrate just like it happened with my Vaishali.

People supporting AAP have a striking resemblance with those following Imran Khan. They find their leaders' rhetoric the gospel truth. In search of an alternative they are supporting anarchists who have absolutely no idea about governance. They are just exploiting the frustration prevailing.