Cooperative Federalism: How do we achieve that!
Cooperative federalism is a
concept that the new Union government is publicizing, as way to solve most of
the issues of development in national interests. Simply, the concept advocates
robust state governments focusing on growth, which would add on to the growth
of the country. The idea is that, stronger the States in the federal structure
the stronger will be the Center. So, cooperative federal partners would help
build the nation.
However, the growth of the States
in itself depends on the cooperative growth sharing of the local
self-governments, that is the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI). So the thread
of the cooperative federalism starts from the lowest level of PRI i.e gram
sabhas at village or conglomerate of villages to Union government. Hence, the
dream of Prime Minister, Mr Modi, cannot fructify unless the dream trickles
down to the last straw of the federal system.
A million rupee question is ‘How
do we achieve that!’ How can the central government assure effective governance
at the last level of government?
This is what are the bane and the
boon of the federal structure! Even if the Union government is non-serious or
non-performer, the States can grow at great speed if the government at State is
effective and efficient. At the same time, all the great ideas of Union
government may go begging if the States do not cooperate. The arm-twisting
mechanism adopted by the Union is through sanctioning of grants. With further
devolution of funds to the States by the current government, the Union has
somehow promised to promote better State governance. However, to what extent
the States will be able to carry the spirit down the line to all levels of
local self-government, and at the same time they themselves keep up with
expected pace of the Union government, will determine the success of the
drafted story of ‘Collective Federalism’.
The worst part of the Indian political system has been the
poor responsibility and accountability of the representatives of the people.
The only possible way to ensure accountability is when politicians are put on
trial during elections. And, it is very common remark, coming from across the
board, from majority of electorates, that one contestant is no better than the
other. Which means that they are flock of the same feather. At the need of the
hour, when some unethical and malafide practice is unearthed, most of them
(political leaders), cutting across the political parties, scratch each other’s
back and protect the perpetrator from any harm. Which is why prosecuting
politicians for their misdeeds, for breaching the trust and faith of the
electorates, is far cry. NOTA was one chance to show the mirror to unethical
politicians, but that too turned out to be ‘no threat’ for lack of any teeth.
It became a mockery of an experiment rather than being a challenging experiment
to reform electoral process.
So, the system of cooperative federalism, which is largely
dependent on the strong political leadership at all levels, will succeed only
if the system of responsibility and accountability is put in order. The
bureaucracy, which has become a ‘committed bureaucracy’ of the political
masters than that of the law of the land,
will have to be shaken out of their submissive mode and oriented to deliver
according to the spirit of policy and demand of the beneficiary. The
beneficiary who most of the time remains embedded only in the papers of policy
and lost in all practical purpose of deliverance and implementation has to be
brought into the fold of policy-implementation-evaluation (PIE) network. Once
if it is worked out, we can sit and watch the wonders of hyperbole-‘Cooperative
Federalism.
