My Poor MP

 

Everyone has views on who to vote for… but who do we really vote for?

Siddharth Jhawar

 

Imagine applying for a job in which your odds of selection were 1 in 2 million. However, once you got in, you realize that what your job description says and what your bosses expect from you are essentially different roles. Your clients are suspicious and cynical of your day-to-day activities, and some of them loathe you. Compensation is quite poor, you would get paid better elsewhere, and, in fact, you may have to bear your office expenses too. All this while, many other people want your job and so you try hard to keep it. Welcome to the life of an Indian Member of Parliament!

As the Modi government comfortably sailed through the motion of no-confidence, India’s democratic machinery is gearing towards general elections in 2019. While there is no dearth of views on who to vote for, or who to vote against, it is worth understanding what that vote means. The 2014 election was more presidential than parliamentary, given how people voted for a Modi Sarkar. So, one major impact of our vote is that it indirectly chooses the central government. However, our direct vote goes to elect our Member of Parliament or MP, who will then solve our bijli-sadak-paani problems, create jobs, improve healthcare, promote business, open education institutes, improve law and order and the list can go on. That is precisely the problem!

It is not unreasonable for ambitious citizens of a historically deprived society to have such expectations. It is also the role of the state to provide utilities. The issue is, however, that the MP is neither equipped nor in-charge to fix these problems.

The first parliaments in 12th century Europe were intended to be councils to “talk” (parlamentum in Latin means talk), judge and later help the monarch in legislation. Over centuries, as democracy made parliaments more representative, MPs typically started representing different geographic areas of the country. However, while their rights and responsibilities remained around representing, discussing, and legislating, the expectations from their constituents changed. When citizens need basic amenities, they have been trained to turn to their local raja, the MP.

Our democratic setup and constitution has clear divisions of executive and legislative responsibilities. An MP is well equipped to raise important issues in Parliament, keep the executive branch transparent through questions, and at least on paper, decide how to vote on a Bill. But really, that does not matter to their ordinary voters who have not had running water since the last two days. The executive powers mostly rest in, as the saying goes, “desh mein PM, rajya mein CM, aur jila mein DM” (PM in the country, CM in the state, and DM in the district). While the Central Government is the ultimate authority on issues of national importance (national security, macroeconomic stability, direct taxation, etc.), it is the State Government which is more empowered to deal with issues closer to the people’s day-to-day needs (law and order, health, local government, etc.). This division of responsibility increased further when the 14th Finance Commission recommended more money to be devolved from the Centre to the States, with the reasoning that states were better placed to deal with regional and local issues.

Who holds power in the Indian democracy is a very interesting subject, one which can be discussed at length. One measure of power is having the financial resources to implement. Ultimately most of the money allocated to state and central government schemes flows down to the third most important person of the executive hierarchy, the DM! District Magistrates / Collectors and their mammoth administrative machinery is eventually responsible to spend the money and implement government projects. Thus, if your MP wants to improve local education, they can “recommend” steps to the DM, on which the DM has a great amount of discretion. And while we are on the issue of money, readers outside the Government system would be shocked to know that a Municipality councilor, a Mukhiya, or an MLA is much better placed to provide you with civic amenities than an MP is. But an MP is given funds, right? As always, the devil is in the detail. An MP gets INR 5 crore per year under the MP Local Area Development Scheme (MP LADS), and when spread over 25 lakh people in a constituency, this boils down to a princely sum of INR 20 per person annually. Contrary to this, MLAs get INR 3-5 crores for 4-6 lakh people, the number changing with states, but implying a discretionary spending power of ~5x. It is almost embarrassing to realize that MPs are not even provided with enough expenses to make their offices function or live a semi-decent life, which may not be the only factors, but surely end up being important contributors to the corruption prevalent in our lawmakers.

What power do they have then? Money is one form, but clearly MPs don’t have it. Another form of power is the ability to reward or punish employees, which can be leveraged to push one’s policies. This form of power keeps the bureaucracy’s steel frame intact, since a bureaucrat knows that their superior can decide their next posting. An MP, however, has virtually no say in deciding any postings within the setup. While they can make some nominations to committees and supervise the district’s administration performance, their tangible authority is minimal. A truly astute MP uses an intangible source of power – that of his or her stature. Just like the Queen of England can boost a cause by attending a dinner in its support, an MP can raise issues in the media and in the Parliament, bringing them under the limelight. Through the respect, and fear, which they command as public representatives, they can request, lobby, threaten, bully, and coax the concerned authority to pay heed to their recommendation. This, in the author’s humble view, is the only true power which directly rests in the senior-most elected representative in our democracy.

The intention of the article is not to sympathize with MPs, but instead, to point out this structural flaw in our democracy and administration. Without being mindful of the helplessness and challenges which our representatives face, we, the normal citizens, would neither be able to reasonably evaluate our MPs nor be able to approach the relevant authority to demand our civic amenities. NGOs and government machinery should create awareness and educate the voting public around the roles and responsibilities of our various representatives, and who should be approached for what. The intelligent voters should understand the role of their MP and what to expect or not to expect from them. In the longer term, as our democracy becomes more mature and robust, lawmakers should have relatively more autonomy to vote on bills based on their own conscience or their electorate’s benefit, instead of blindly voting along party lines. This would increase their representative power in the Parliament and bring decision-making closer to voters. On a structural level, the bureaucratic machinery should gradually become more answerable to the directly elected representatives of people. The MP LADS should be allocated more funds, which of course, should be subject to the highest levels of scrutiny.

In 2019, when your local MP candidate promises bijli-sadak-paani, be the smart citizen and ask, “Par Netaji, yeh karoge kaise”?

 

 

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