on policymakers

In the 1970s, Sam Smith wrote in the DC Gazette that "formerly unpretentious occupations" like teaching, journalism and politics were getting ahead of themselves, and like doctors, lawyers or engineers, wanted to call themselves a profession. The setting up of 'journalism schools' and faff about professional 'ethics' was all a front for limiting access to a profession whose significance in democracy was its acceptance of anyone with words and an opinion, or even just an opinion. Limited access means monopoly means money and screening of candidates, he said. He also linked real integrity with home-grownness—health is not bought from doctors, etc.

Now, whatever my view on journalism as a profession, it appears to me that government, rather than politics, deserves to be looked at in the same way. We know politicians and governance professionals (bureaucrats, think tanks, people like that) decide how things work, in the ratio of final decision to exploration of all possible options given the political, economic, social status quo and narrowing down to a few desirable options. We would admit that specialists do all the groundwork. Yet in polite conversation, media trials, anywhere where the so-called common man's views are expressed, the underlying presumption is not to the role of the politician, but to that of the bureaucrat (for now let's call him that, not restricting this category merely to the much-stereotyped babu). How? We don't look at the facts of the case and decide which way the government in question should decide for our interest to be fulfilled; we don't really know what the facts are. We come up with the scenario that needs to be achieved (to each her own) and trash the relevant persons for not getting there. And then say people need to change, else the country will never improve.

I shall acknowledge at this stage that this post does an logically unsound thing. It addresses a problem anecdotally observed on the assumption that it is generally the case, and then locates the reasons why it should be the case in the fact that its causes exist. However, bear with me. I have no solutions, only problems.

So why is this the case? In the first place, the invisibility of bureaucrats enables us to forget what exactly they do and the fact that they're trained in it. Secondly, politicians come along on air and explain simplified-into-political-positions versions of events to further aid this amnesia. Then the media takes over and makes a hullabaloo about the positions in question, and the criminal or elite past of the people defending each side. Effect: decision-making process effectively obscured. Apparent uses: Allows the professionals to get on with the job, leaving the politicians to defend them (they've got to earn their keep somehow). The downside of this is that the outcry and disillusionment with the perceived outcome affects the effectiveness of the intended outcome, the credibility of the process and the credibility of the government. Apart from a few RK Laxman cartoons, nothing much happens to the policymakers, except that they have to spend some time supplying the arsenal for the politicians. If you notice, most accusations against the Congress have been responded to with counter-allegations that the BJP did the same when they were in power. If you think about it, there's a sort of bureaucratic determinism running below the surface there that's not visibly accountable to anybody.

The facts of the decisions taken are never revealed—understandably, there's a reason why experts are handling these, some things shouldn't be simplified. Yet the repeated halt of parliamentary proceedings indicates that there is some need to explain the government's actions to its people, whether they be represented by the Opposition or (self-appointed leaders of) civil society directly. In other words, there's an increasing demand for visible democracy, (even if it is be spearheaded by, maybe even limited to, certain social groups) and the corresponding demand for putting away the professional secrecy that Smith so feared. Not, of course, that we believe in the kind of de-professionalizing he's talking about. But like the growing demand to be informed consumers of the services of doctors (which doctors of the old school take as an insult to their credibility), the tax-paying public now demands the same of its government. Value for money.

Perhaps this would require policymakers to be like cricketers—professionals constantly accountable to the public for their time and pay, but even more so because it's not merely at the level of implementation, but also at the level of policy. Actually, just showing results on the field would be enough, but that's harder to accomplish. In the given scenario, a utopia where we only worry about the effectiveness of the implementation could only come about if people were as informed and interested in governance as they are about cricket. But if the IPL keeps up the overdose, and Anna keeps blogging, we might have a chance yet.