Revitalizing the state: 7. options for India

Abstract

Successful experiments in governance the world over suggest a number of options for revitalizing the Indian state. Several options are first considered for revamping the political system. These include options for achieving fairer representation in the legislature, for selecting in good and selecting out bad candidates for election, for professionalizing politics, for stabilizing fragile governments, and for professionalizing political executives. Based on the lessons of successful efforts in several Commonwealth and East Asian countries, options are discussed concerning the revitalization of the Indian bureaucracy. These include creative fragmentation of the monolithic bureaucracy, options for strengthening the responsiveness of public agencies to the public, options for revamping justice, options for energizing the management of social development, selective privatization, and selective deregulation. Next, the cancer of corruption and the way corruption manifests itself in developing countries are discussed, and a number of options for vanquishing corruption are presented. The case for a corporatist but democratic Indian state is presented, involving deliberation councils and modifications to comprehensive state planning. The emergent model of the Indian state is compared and contrasted with the model of the state promoted by the World Bank. A case is made for a strong but democratic hub of India s federal structure. It is suggested that the options for revitalization of the Indian state are extendable to many other developmental states.