Leaders are those who take steps towards what they deeply care about and in ways that others wish to follow
On 29 January, I was slipping on icy roads in the ritzy resort of Davos. On 30 January, Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary, I was sitting on the floor of a room in the poor tenements of Sundernagari. In Davos, I had been dancing along with the tuxedoed and gowned participants of the World Economic Forum into the wee hours of the morning to the rhythm of Shiamak Davar and his troupe of young Indian dancers. We were celebrating the arrival of India on the world economic scene. In Sundernagari, the slum rehabilitation colony across the Yamuna, I heard the stories of the young volunteers of Parivartan who were empowering the poor of India to democratically obtain their rightful dues. In Davos, Davar’s dancers were a wonderful exhibition of the spirited youth of India. As I returned to my hotel on the icy streets of Davos, I was full of pride in my country. My faith in my country grew and my pride swelled further when I listened to the spirit of the young Indians in Sundernagari. While Davos was a story of arrival on a stage, Parivartan was a story of transformation in action. ‘India, the world’s fastest growing, large, free market democracy’ is India’s new advertisement. And whereas the bash at Davos was a celebration of India as a free and fast growing market, Parivartan was a celebration of the power of people building a grass-roots democracy. The beauty of India is that the nation is determined to have both together—to walk with kings, yet not lose the common touch.
‘Peacocks strutting and little birds scrambling’ is the scenario of the free market. It is the process of ‘cumulative causation’ in the growth of economies, wherein those who have the means—the wealth, the property, the education, or the connections—will get more. As they get more, the economy grows and there will be a trickle down to the scrambling birds some day. Is this process morally right? Is this process sustainable? These were questions addressed in many sessions in Davos.
Back in Delhi, the big news was that MG1, the upmarket designer hub in Mehrauli, was being demolished. The mecca of fashion designers who clothed the peacocks in their finery was being knocked down by bulldozers. The building was illegal. The unauthorized buildings of the rich must be treated in the same way as those of the poor, who are evicted from their hovels in slums, said a political leader. That is democracy. The designers reacted vociferously, complaining they had been victims of corruption! And they sought sympathy in their plight. One had to display her wares to some foreign buyers. Where would she do it now? Meanwhile, the poor families wonder where their children will sleep at night when their hovel is demolished. There is an inequality in plight, too. Whereas inequality may concern free market economists only as an element of risk within their model of growth, it is the human and moral issues that should be the primary concern. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, which, with its assertion of the inherent selfishness of man, is the bible of free marketers. But he also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which has been almost forgotten.
Parivartan is fighting corruption in the system. The corruption it is fighting is the corruption of need: corruption that affects those struggling for their basic needs of education, water, and subsidised food. Whereas the corruption that the MG1 walas are enmeshed in is the corruption of greed: The corruption to get even more by those who have quite a lot already. The latter’s corruption can be vicious and breed violence. In Parivartan’s office in Sundernagari hangs a portrait of Satyendra Dubey, who lost his life for exposing the corruption of big contractors in highway construction. Sitting beneath it, recounting what she was doing to help the poor to get their dues, was Santosh, who had her throat slit by goons when she bravely exposed the racket in ration sales to the poor. ‘Wolves prowling and little animals cowering’ is a scenario that often goes along with ‘Peacocks strutting and little birds scrambling’. The fear is that the violence can become a cancer and society begin to disintegrate if the violence gets organized into gangs looking for loot and Naxalites looking for power.
Good Governance
How should society be governed to prevent the potential instability within and keep the momentum for growth? When we think of governance, we instinctively think of ‘someone at the top’, and of government. Strong leadership at the top is the solution that often comes to mind when governance breaks down. A single cohesive political party. Or a benign dictatorship. The problem with this solution is that our wish may be granted and we may regret the loss of our cherished democracy. A more practical problem with this solution is how this single party or dictator will emerge. Indian politics is expanding its breadth. More interests are finding their voices. There is a centrifugal movement towards more regional parties, and more factions, and therefore to coalitions as the way to come together, but this complicates decision-making and hampers progress if the model of governance is top-down. ‘Buffaloes wallowing while the people are waiting’ is this scenario. The various parties squabble. The mandarins debate. And petty bureaucrats make people wait and pay for facilitation of their rightful dues. Some say the corruption is to provide funds for political parties. Others say that it is to feed the greed of those higher up in government echelons.
Whatever be corruption’s causes, people are now rising to claim their rightful dues. They are using the emerging instruments of democracy to expose the vested interests and corrupted processes of decision-making. Governance is not government. Governance may not even require a governor. Governance is the process by which decisions are made in a society and within an organization. How decisions are made, in whose interests they are made, and who participates in the decision-making process, are three central questions of governance. Parivartan is teaching the people in Sundernagari to use their rights under the new Right to Information Act to expose the decision-making processes in government, to obtain their dues of education, food, and roads, and to expose the wastage and leakage of resources. The young people of Parivartan are a visionary scenario of democratic change. They, and many others like them, are ‘Fireflies arising’, who will change India and can make it the country that all Indians will be happy and proud to live in.
These fireflies are leaders in the truest sense of the word. They are taking steps towards what they deeply care about and in ways that others feel like following. They have no money to compensate those whose support they need. And they have no physical power to coerce others. Yet, people are joining the movement all over the country. It is important that people should not have to join a particular organization to join the movement, says Arvind Kejriwal, who is the principal force in Parivartan in Sundernagari.
Arvind’s answer to the question of how Parivartan will be institutionalized and ‘scaled up’ is startling. It exposes our deeply held mental model of how growth is organized and what an institution is. He says that, unlike most non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Parivartan does not ask for nor will accept funds from any donor agencies, though many may like to support such wonderful work. Parivartan accepts money to pay for its expenses only from the people in the community that are benefited by its work. Thus, customer satisfaction has to be built into its work or the contributions will dry up. Parivartan is assisted by lawyers, engineers, and consultants, all of whom work for free. Their motivation is the cause, and not the money. While Parivartan supports many similar initiatives in Delhi and elsewhere, it has no franchises. Indeed, Parivartan learns from others, just as they learn from Parivartan.
Perhaps Parivartan is an example of the non-hierarchical organizations Vinobha Bhave had said, at the meeting in Sewagram in March 1948 mentioned in the ‘Rise of Civil Society’ earlier in this book, that India would need for true democratic development.
The purpose of this article is not to praise Arvind and his Parivartan, though I honour them highly. I write to provide an insight into the broader scenario of ‘parivartan’ (transformation) of India. There are many fireflies arising across the country. They are connected with each other in networks and not by hierarchies. Many networks are emerging motivated by different causes. Parivartan’s cause is empowerment of the poor to obtain their dues and to prevent corruption using the Right to Information Act. Others are devoted to provision of water, education, micro-lending, and women’s issues, etc. These are expanding ‘communities of practice’ with which India will change bottom up. They will spread across the country and not scale up into pyramidal organizations.
Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner in economics, has pointed out that development must be concerned with the spread of freedom and not merely the pursuit of economic growth. Douglass North, an earlier Nobel Prize winner, said that institutions should not be confused with organizations. Institutions in societies encompass norms and values, as well as the rules of the game—both written and unwritten rules. Arvind Kejriwal, Santosh, Parivartan, and other such fireflies are changing the rules of the game even without building a formal organization in the traditional form. Perhaps, counter-intuitive though it may seem, it is the not building of a formal hierarchical organization that will enable the movement to spread. The question that leaders in government who are granted formal powers and leaders in business who have resources to help should be asking is, what is the nature of the supportive frameworks they can build that will enable many more fireflies to rise in India. Because that is the only way that India can democratically accelerate its growth within a free market.
Perhaps there are no precedents for this course in the histories of other large, poor nations that have grown their economies in modern times. China has taken a different course, emerging from its history. Just as our course must emerge from our history. The clock cannot be turned back. We must go forward and find our way to accelerate the development and growth of a large free market democracy. Coming from Davos to Sundernagari, I believe we are.