India prides itself as a government “of the people, for the people, and by the people”, worthy of praise for being a rare model of democracy in the region. Yet, the government is criticised as the perpetrator of injustice upon the very people whose rights it is to protect. Even though India is a resource-rich country, poverty is a serious problem, in scope and magnitude. The absence of appropriate parameters to identify and demarcate a poverty line has marginalised many, and exclusion from much-needed state benefits has resulted in an increase of hunger deaths.
This article draws on the case of the Madhya Pradesh Public Services Guarantee Act, 2010 to illustrate the contradictions of governance in India. The above-mentioned Act was perceived as an innovative solution to strengthen the civil rights of the citizens, through upholding their right to public services. According to official statistics, 4.78 million people have applied for various services between 2010 and 2013, and about 97 percent of applicants granted access to the relevant services. These numbers may seem testament to the state government’s progress in protecting the civil rights of its citizens. However, the fact that the government also spent Rs. 1 billion on advertising that success raises doubt as to whether the accomplishment is plain for all to see, and to the real intent of the government in opening up public services to its rightful recipients.
To critically assess the effectiveness of this legislation, it is important to first be reminded that the state government’s perspective is limited by its position in office, which shades it from the realities of what the people face on the ground. The following are but a few instances demonstrating how this law has played out in reality:
(1) Lack of proper sanitation for the Baiga community in Rewa district despite four applications to the Public Health Engineering Department;
(2) Threats instead of justice, were handed out to Ms. Laxmi Charmakar from Riva district after she attempted registering a complaint against the local bank manager who cheated her of Rs. 22,000.00, allocated to her through the Indira Awas Yojana;
(3) Lack of electric supply in Amkera village of Dindori district even though the electricity poles have been constructed for six years and repeated applications were made to the electricity department and the district administration;
(4) Negligence of a school principal that resulted in 40 regular students from Kesaliya village in Betul district being mistakenly classified as private students;
(5) The continuation of illegal mining operations in Devra, leading to the loss of homes by 6 Dalit families, even after villagers lodged a complaint against the mining activities;
(6) The wrongful exclusion of 1200 victim families of the Bhopal gas tragedy, living in Bhopal from the group of “Below Poverty Line”, despite consistent underestimates of poverty due to inaccurate understanding of the poverty problem.
These instances provide a glimpse of how Madhya Pradesh Public Services Guarantee Act, 2010 has (or has not) materialised. The fact that corruption is rife in India has perpetuated the social immobility in the society. To maintain its position of power, the political party that has formed the state government has secured the resource loot of the privileged class with a policy shroud, in exchange for bribes and support from the privileged class. What this has achieved is a perpetuation of the disadvantaged class’ poor outcomes, which is evident from the cases cited above.
Instead of being a mechanism for ensuring uniform access to public services across its people, the Act has served to limit its distribution to a narrow crowd to enjoy. It is common to perceive the activities the government undertakes for its citizens as a privilege bestowed from a charitable donor. However, this misconception has to be addressed because access to public services is a fundamental right of the people for which the government is responsible.
To address the problem, an awareness of the loopholes in the system is important. As it stands, the system is designed such, that the existing loopholes allow the government escape routes in an issue they are duty bound to address. The accountability mechanism should be reformed to hold the higher levers of the decision-making organs responsible, instead of giving them room to shirk the responsibility to the lower rungs of that leadership, who have lesser authority. The governance of the people is corrupted by the power-centric model, with the state behaving as violators of the people’s rights, instead of being the deliverers of justice.
*About the author: Mr. Sachin Jain is the advisor to the Supreme Court of India from the state of Madhya Pradesh. The author could be reached at sachin.vikassamvad@gmail.com
