Democracy : A Jumla

Idea of Nation State is active result of social contract. Institution are the base of this idea. Nation States are built for society, not for person, community, religion or family or particular group. If some one or some organisation think that they were, are and will be the savior of the nation State than its mockery of Nation State , which is sovereign. Nation State is and should be always be pursued to be under constant danger both from within and outside. Institutions of Nation State are threat to the very idea of Nation State if they are unchecked. Hence fathers of modern democracy(US) introduced checks(Jeffersonian Democracy). Nation State is built for society as whole , but with time power tends to concentrate in hands of very few; be it in hands of politician, executive, be it in judiciary or oligarchs. The greatest threat to Democracy are Demagogues and Un/under checked  executive. Most of dictatorial tendency , as world history has noted , is from Executive. Hence its necessary to protect society from the Executive who have sweeping power be its President, be its PM , CM or secretaries of any country. 

Dualistic Democracy emerged to this new challenge. Its also true that for South Asia, Democracy has always been idealistic "Jumla"(Hindi word for Simile). Its true that Nation Builders never built Nation State to concentrate power. Distributing and diffusing power were meridian ideas of Democratic Nation State. But with time ideologies have got degenerated and Nation States now revolves not around citizens but around power. This is due to the acts of those who rule in the name of people. Athenian Democracy was the only Democracy which was near to what Democracy is all about; all others seems to be "Jumla". South Asian democracies tend to have become "Jumla". Demagogue, messiah, family, group etc are player in this "Jumla". Dualistic Democracy  is one step to check this "Jumla". Having said that, we cant fully rely on this action as , this effort is also by the people who decide "In the name of people". Most of us have become part of "Boiling frog Syndrome". First Gods ruled us, we never asked; then Kings came who ruled as sons of god; then nobles and aristocrats ruled us in our name; now neo-aristocrats (be it particular family or particular group or mother group or hand few of people at executive level) rule us, all in the name of people. These people build cult at the expense of State, institution and citizen. This has always been tactic of demagogues and power centrist executive be its PM,CM or others, of any nations.

Yesterdays (13 th May 2015) judgement of Supreme court(Indian) that tax payer money must not be used for govt advertisement which has photos other than President, PM and CJI, is a-well coming decision. we seems to be moving towards actual democracy; Democracy by and for Citizens. Ask yourself, when Nation State has asked consent of yours, to change the frame work. Ask your self are we following "Rule of Law" or "Rule by Law". From Boiling frog syndrome it can be asserted that we are in "Rule by Law" and "Law" in India or most countries is created by handful of Parliamentarians and by Bureaucracy ; who both are not foolproof. System will never be perfect; most of time its "JUMLA" , Democracy by Judiciary(Dualistic Democracy) is small corrective mechanism to make this "Jumla" to walk the talk. It important that we need to move towards "Rule of Law" . Judiciary need to be strengthen , because historically no one has stopped executive to degenerate into dictatorial messiah. We as citizens are far more supreme than "Rulers in others Name", because it "We The People" who have adopted constitution Not the "Who Rule in the Name of Others".


By
Shivaprakash

Health4All

Public Health Policy

“The government is responsible for the people's health but the people themselves are the government"

 Dr Bamgboye Afolabi. 

How can I disagree with Dr on above statement. Its true that we have far more generalist in the health care system , be its secretary level or minister etc. Public health system is a complex system. Programs must be meticulously designed. In developing country like India we start to fail from planning itself. And loop hole are so numerous in number, some time i feel programs are designed in order to siphon off money. Very small amount reaches to the needy once. In India the biggest problem is poverty, next to it is corruption. So its not shocking that India has poor population equal to population of USA. 

When designing public health system, question comes is of financing. who has to pay the bills. Who it should be financed ; is it through public or private or both. This is question which has been debated from the start. But its also true that every thing is not free, some one has to pay some where. However ,it happens some times that ,Not all people has to pay, but certain amount of population have to pay and remaining will get benefit from it. Its unrealistic to have 100% universal health program without paying. And arguing that poor people cant pay and those will be left out ,is passive thinking. Differentiated paying could work. Govt must pay for poor and must allow other to pay for them-self , off course it should be minimal. We have seen far more cases of "Tragedy of common". Health care system must not be made one. Same boot doesnt fit all. Certain disease which have spillover effect ,hence needs a system where every one can be made to pay same or some times nil. But in some circumstances differential paying could be brought in . People must be given option in health care services; some will opt private; some who cant pay, will and must be serviced by Govt. Its about right to differencial choice. Person with ability must not be stopped from paying more if he wish to pay. Mosquito may not make difference while biting because its mosquito but our treatment is in human world not in mosquito's world. Here differentiation exist and if i wish to apply for it, i must be allowed.

Motivation, Spending and Health 

Not spending on health sector is bad idea. I dont agree with core idea of "not increase cost". Our spending on public health is at abysmal level(1.2% of GDP). As health and education are state subject, its state responsibility to increase spending. If motivation was the only factor then soviet union would have collapsed. We have far ignored the incentive part. Incentivisation of health sector is good, salaries has to go up. Bureaucratic red tape must be at higher level of administration not at lower level.

It must also be noted that front-line worker join system not by motivation but for living , hence it has to be kept that way. Their lives must be made worth while by providing incentives, be its their children education or salary or health insurance. Its might be shocking to put forward that in most state govt, govt dont even provide health insurance to Health Department worker. Its laughable, however some state have recently started providing insurance. We also have departmental co ordination problem. Departmental work of one fall in the other; example Women and Child welfare dept has same mandate as Health department in some programs. As i have seen , the former dept more like dead, and coordination in pathetic . Most programs are not implemented. All are cooked books except in TB program and polio program. Most PHC are under employed with ANMs and ASHA workers. There is systemic problem, and Not spending more is part of that problem. For sustainable health system we need both ideological motivation as well as incentive based motivation along with systemic reforms. We have had Civil service reforms but why cant we have Public Health System Reforms.

Obsession with GDP???

Obsession with GDP???

It is the fact that world including developing world is follow GDP as measure . I dont call its an obsession. GDP itself is new concept. National GDP is altogether post 1945 phenomenon. Its good that we had a measure. But developing measure for a Nation State was a thought process. It seem now, its non representative which is true now but not then. Coming up with index that is satisfiable is a huge thing. world walked till GDP now, it will move forward which could include all value related thing (even though these are hard to quantify). We have HDI, GII, Happiness Index, Gini coefficient, Failed state ranking, Press freedom Index and other smaller bigger and smaller index. These are getting incorporated in literature . Its not that developing country dont want to follow other index. Nepal have happiness index , way back from 1970s.


Index needs credibility, UN index are never debatable but Failed state index is. And Most of Developing Nation state see other Index as conspiracy of External power, so as a Nation State its very hard to come to terms on these other Index. Its known fact that Gender inequality, other inequality, HDI, violence, human right violation is rampant in countries of south Asia, Africa and other developing countries. Nation state take these index as challenge to there own claim. Take the exam of Human Right Violation during Eelam war(2009) in Srilanka or Maoist war in India, both Nation State dont except report on these. Its hard as of now to move away from GDP, which is a reality not the choice. But all these are nation specific Index centred at Nation State. We need to move beyond Nation State Indexes. How is question for Globalist to think.


And obsession of GDP hasnt hindered healthcare as for  as India is considered; It has actually acted like positive feedback mechanism. Spending of Indian State wrt GDP is less compared to developed and some developing countries. It has given civil society a measure to ask for more spending which is the need of time. Yes it could have been done better but its not worst. Time to time intelligentsia discusses HDI,GII, Gini, etc which puts politics and govt on toes to do something good to be in electoral politics. Food Security Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Food_Security_Act,_2013) , Education for all, Health for all(coming in few years) are output of those political and electoral debate.

Regards

Shivaprakash

We ,The Children of Aristotle

We ,The Children of Aristotle

“Let us study Aristotle : The Despot, The perfect Elitist; Philosophical son of Plato: The Tyrant”, This was how i got introduced to the greatest philosopher of ancient Greek world. Initially it intrigued me; a mere thought about such an introduction was kind of blasphemy for me. This was an year back, after turning some pages of ancient history of both know and not so known world , answer seems to be settling for me now; Yes there is certain truth why my philosopher called Aristotle The Perfect Elitist and Plato , a Tyrant. May be it depends upon how you read him; not one , not twice but any time you read. At time, he appears to be “A defender of Monarch”, “advocate of universal monarchy”, at some time he seems to be “Radical Republican”, at some he seems to be “naturalist”, at some point he is advocate of slavery and at others he denounce slavery. Aristotle is not single character , he is like Ravana with many heads.

A man of notorious secrecy and reluctance, he was just referred as “The philosopher” or “The Master of those who know”. He was an unchallenged man of his time; even today he is! After reading his work, i wonder what he would have to say about our world. Would he reject us or give a conning smile of acceptance. He was the first philosopher who said ,“we are the 'zoon politikon': political animal”. For him man alone ,among the animal, had speech or logos(reason). Human was the animal who used logos to distinguish pain and pleasure, who took advantages of harm, who measured just and unjust. It was very particular to humans. It was humans' logos that certain moral categorisation:a sort of moral constitution, to pick things that are harmless, just to him itself, was developed; he called it a family. Family developed into tribe, tribe developed into community, community into village , and then city and then city state. Its natural development .

Polis is for Aristotle a natural entity , which allows humans to achieve their ends and perfect them. Participation in city is necessary for human excellence. A person who is without city is either above humanity(god) or below humanity(beast). However he makes it clear that , naturality is not biological but sociological. He say man(sorry for sexual bias) is political animal not because we have some biological impulse or drive to participate in politics, but , we have power of reasoning. Its reasoning that makes us “political”. We participate because we have reasoning capacity. Connecting logos ie power of speech or reason to politics ,was the greatest outcome of his argument. The power of speech as he calls ,helped us to develop common moral language, a common concept of just and unjust, common shared ideas etc. This is what made the city. Its also brought with it power of love, affection , friendship, sympathy and all the qualities that make us human.

So far he is great , but he starts to narrow down from here. For him this city is a particular city , the polis will be a small city. A polis of closed society. A society that helps us to get our perfection. To achieve these perfection we need to be held together by bonds , bonds of trust, bonds of friendship etc. For him, we cant trust all people, trust can only be extended to small circle of friends or fellow citizens. Only a small city built on trust can be governed justly and in political sense. The empire can only be ruled despotically. Hence imperialism must go in hand with despotism. Think of this statement. These were the first seeds of imperial despotism sown by Aristotle himself.

Man is a political animal and city is by natural but city cant be universal state. It can be something that cant encompass the whole humanity, a world state or world government will be a dream. World state will and can never be as a small , self governing city state. In city, Loyalty is prime virtue , citizen has to be loyal to city. A good citizen of one city cant be good citizen of another. City will exist, and will have enemies and friends; inside city there will test of loyalty and disloyalty, a test of citizen ship and non citizen. Think of this with respect to modern conflict involving nations like India and Pakistan. A City cant be friends with all cities , there will be wars . Wars are unjust but have to be fought.

Inside each city, perhaps during war, citizens have to participate in the offices of city. Freedom will be there but only through political participation, ie only when there is political responsibility(compare this statement with statement related to casting of vote ). Freedom doesn't mean living as you like , but freedom will be in the form of restriction and awareness . Awareness that, not all is permitted(think this wrt PDA, public display of affection ). This society will promote moderation, restraint and self control(think this with respect to dictact on what women should ware in public). In many angle he seems , atleast for me a critique of freedom.

In this city state , according to Aristotle , in equality is basic rule. Its a human rule, hence there exist hierarchy in the citizenship. Those who cant be citizens , they can be owned , because only citizens cant be owned in citizen and all other things can be owned. Hence non citizens can be brought as slaves. As inequality is natural and basic rule ; slavery can be deduced as natural. Distinction between master and slave is natural (think of this argument; think of slavery that exist in world till recently). For me he seems to be the most anti-democrartic philosopher that i have encountered till date. He who is equivalent to Indian Manu. But he also points out that slavery was controversial topic even at that time. Was he speaking in defence of slavery?Perhaps some say yes he was, and some disagree with a note that you better read him once again. He does oppose slavery that is built on unjust wars. He says these type of salvery are not natural , slave-master relationship is relation of power. But it can be argued that when polity is about upbringing and its not biological, which he himself said. How can , hierarchy of intelligence which defines hierarchy of citizenship, be natural and hence how can slavery be called a natural thing?

In all , Aristotle seems to regard , all men are not free. Hence all don't have equal rights to participate in ruling (as citizens) and being ruled as citizens of a state. He seems to advocate that discipline and self restraint is necessary for an educated mind . This education should be for closed society. A group of closely linked citizen , who can govern the city(think of modern politician, bureaucrats, corporates , film industry). To be specific, A well educated and well trained aristocrat. Best regime will be an aristocratic republic or monarchy ,where a group of educated elites governs the city or nation for the good of all. Its seems atleast for me ,a very elitist proposition. But think of this, Is is not easy for cricketer son to be a cricketer; Is it not easy for Bhatts or kapoors to enter film industry; Think of political parties: are all becoming group or family run entities; Think about IPL teams and there owners, running show in the name of all Indians ; Think about how officers in Delhi or Bangalore take decision in the name of “Good for all”. Think how we accept our own social hierarchy. Think how we choose our friends and our life partners. Think of our own leaning towards people. Its not hard to imagine how Aristocratic we are. If Aristotle would visit this planet now , he would say ,“YOU ARE ALL MY CHILDREN”.

Dedicated to those who taught me.

Shivaprakash