Governance sans Democracy

Twenty-seven year old Utpal Biswas works as a car driver. He has been working for a car hire company for the the past seven years. His parents wanted him to study and do a government job, which never happened as his father lost his job when Utpal was only four years old.

Debal Biswas, Utpal's father, used to lead a team of about hundred people in Belgharia's one-time well known textile factory the Mohini Mills, which closed down permanently in 1988. Since then the Durga Puja there has stopped, most of the workers were forced to take up meanial jobs for living and some even committed suicide. Utpal can't even recollect the Durga Puja days at the mill complex. He was barely four then when it all stopped. Now the deserted mill complex stands like as if it is in ruins. Utpal's father became a rickshaw puller to sustain his family and whatever money he earned was not enough to send Utpal to a good school. As a teenager, Utpal learnt driving to relieve his father from pulling rickshaws.

On a recent trip to Kolkata, Utpal was driving us from Belgharia to Bandel. While driving past the Durgapur Expressway, near Singur,I asked him what he thought about Mamata Banerjee. From Utpal's enthusiasm and energy it seemed as though he was waiting for the question to be asked, especially near the place which built Banerjee's political fortune for years to come.

"Didi will bring about real change", quipped Utpal, the glimmer in his eyes showing the real conviction unlike the rhetoric that political elements are used to. I tried to understand what he meant by 'real change' and there was no defintive answer but only a sense of euphoria and hope.

"But how is it going to affect you, what will happen to Mohini Mills where your father worked for years and yet didn't get his dues!"

My sense of suspicion or being a devil's advocate, failed to make any change in Utpal and he said, "Didi-r kachhe khabar chole gechhe. Mohini Mill-e rail-er karkhana habe". (Banerjee is aware of Mohini Mills and will set up a railway factory there.) My questioning the validity of such an expectation was, however, not 'hopeless' enough to dampen his hopes.

Utpal was not the only one who was euphoric about Mamata Banerjee. A fruit vendor at Dunlop or a man selling cheap dresses outside Baghbazar Bata also spoke in similar vein.It seemed as if the dispossessed were more hopeful than others and I could not figure out why. A senior colleague, who has been a well known correspondent in India for years, feels, "the people of Bengal were desperate for change".

Will the people of Bengal move to a higher trajectory of democratic polity or practice? Will the new government ensure better governance?

Governance is the buzz word for Banerjee these days. Her unannounced visits to government offices, hospitals, schools, market places are making people happy although the real reason behind such happiness is not very clear to me yet. Are they happy because they hope that good days would return or they are pleased that those who were reaping the benefits of being paid their salaries for not doing enough work or extorting the ordinary man are being pulled up?

From the surface though it seems that people are pleased with the effort to ensure governance and bring it back within the public domain. The danger of expecting too much on governance is that both the government and the governed tend to confuse between 'democratic governance' and governance which is not necessarily participatory and democratic.

Democracy and governance are probably both mutually exclusive. Governance is no pre-requisite for democracy and the vice versa is also probably true. One can ensure governance without stains of democracy.(Even a military regime can ensure governance without any obligation for democracy.) The best example is probably the emergency days of Indira Gandhi. So when a US Congressional report praises Narendra Modi for governance, they tend to overlook his pluralistic credentials or lack of it, which also raises serious questions about their understanding of democracy.

I am not in any way comparing Modi and Banerjee but I can see in her a desperation to ensure governance without much concern for participatory practices. Remember the way she announced closure of schools a day after students drenched to the core celebrated the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Thakur or the way she keeps on announcing welfare projects in the state. They are definitely intended to bring about welfare but there is no mechanism or any evidence to ensure that the objectives are desired and would be achieved.

Banerjee prefers the 'top-down' approach of development but the 'bottom-up' path is a more participatory one and hence mindful of the essence of democracy. Democracy definitely has many deficits but whether governance bereft of democratic values is desireable calls for a much wider debate.

All comments are personal and have no bearing on my present or past places of work. Comments on the post are welcome at the blog site.