When in Bombay recently, I was asked: "How are decisions actually made in the Capital, and why does it take so long to implement them?" At first, I could not quite appreciate why this query when the answer was so apparent. Subsequent thought provided the reasoning: what is obvious to Delhi is not so to the rest of the country. Winston Churchill had once remarked, from the Opposition: "All governments forget how damnably difficult is a comprehension of their ways to the rank and file of the public."

We have to go back quite a bit to understand the origins of this malaise. Upon Independence, the framers of our Constitution had to make a choice between a truly decentralised, federal polity, or a Union of States on the federal principle but with powers largely concentrated in the central government. Compulsions then were unarguably strong in favour of the latter. As the country had just been partitioned, a reactively predominant sentiment favoured a strong centralised authority as a precaution against further splintering — or so it was then reasoned. Besides, our Imperial legacy was also of a powerful Delhi.

DUAL CHALLENGE
The Constituent Assembly was then aware of the challenge; not just of amalgamating the princely states with the Union but also of harmonising their disparate administrative systems with what were former British Indian provinces. There was then the consequence of the 1948 invasion of Jammu & Kashmir, by Pakistani raiders. All these considerations led to the creation of our present, centralised structure of decision making.

This inheritance began to crumble with our humiliating reverse at Chinese hands in 1962. This single event is our first great national divide, within two years of which Panditji. the architect of post-Independence India, was dead. A year later, we had another war with Pakistan, soon after which Lai Bahadur Shastri was gone and India entered the era of Indira Gandhi.

The second divide affecting the machinery of government came with the Congress split of 1969; the third with the janata interregnum of 977-79, resulting in Indira Gandhi's return to power. It is really her second premiership, her subsequent assassination and the resultant election to office of the present government that has thrown the system completely out of gear.

The question posed to me in Bombay, therefore, articulates a commonly felt perplexity: our present Prime Minister has an overwhelming strength within the Parliament; he dominates his party totally, and nationally there is no visible alternative to the Congress or to him. Why then cannot Rajiv Gandhi deliver what he promises? He announces liberalisation' as his basic creed, and an unshackling of the Indian systems from over-control as one of his objectives. What is stopping him from doing so, rapidly and effectively?

The answer is that an excessively centralised polity and a free, decentralised, liberal economic system just cannot cohabit: centralisation of political power lies antipodallv to the basic requirements of liberalisation. If decision making is not politically decentralised, then no other kind of decentralisation can possibly take place.

CRUEL DILEMMA
This is a cruel dilemma. The very nature of Rajiv Gandhi's political power prohibits a sharing of it; the moment he does it, even within his own party, he would lose it. Not that he would immediately stop being the Prime Minister, but he would certainly not, thereafter, be the only person in his party to whom the rank and file would owe allegiance.

Examine for a moment, the experiment of having Arjun Singh as a Working President (whatever that means) of the Congress Party. In the very nature of the task entrusted to him was the conferring of a right to take a decision, hence to power. Rajiv Gandhi could have permitted this healthy breath of fresh air within his party, but only at the cost of eventually losing it himself. The paradox, simply stated is that you cannot simultaneously be a dynast and a democrat.

Now transfer this political dilemma to that level where all of us are affected: day to day administration. With political power centralised, decision making has got focussed on one single individual; bureaucrats thereafter no longer remain public servants, they become private servants. I do not, at present, want to go into individual cases like that of the disgraceful manner in which the Prime Minister recently treated a distinguished civil servant, A. P. Venkateswaran or the brusque manner in which he told off C. S. Sastry; but they do illustrate what I am trying to explain. Either our civil servants are free to decide or they are not. As, obviously, they do not now take a decision if they can send it up, then equally they will not implement the handed-down decision with any great enthusiasm or a personal sense of commitment.

FIEFDOM OR REPUBLIC?
If we persist with this process, if only one Indian, out of 750 million, is presumed to have all the ability and all the decision making powers in his hands, then we are a fiefdom not a Republic. Not unnaturally, then, the very first casualty is our sense of involvement; a classical 'them' and 'us' divide occurs.

Two other consequences follow. Firstly, in a country the size of India where literally hundreds of thousands of decisions have to be taken daily at all levels, this tendency to transfer issues upwards, so as not to be held responsible, grows geometrically; its cumulative consequences are incalculable. Secondly, thereafter, even if some decisions do get taken, as they must, their proper implementation, their success or failure is not treated by those lower down in the chain of command as anything with which they are personally involved.

Predictably, therefore, files remain on tables, projects on paper, wells undug, water not in taps and despite direct Prime Ministerial helicopter hops into districts, the poor continue to remain abjectly poor.

It is this choking over-centralisation of power that has resulted in people despairing of any of our successive governments. It is because of this that we often comment: "In India, leave alone the ethic of work, we do not work at all." But then like in every other facet of our life, an uniquely Indian way has been found out of it. In Rajasthan, we call it 'suvidha shulk' or 'convenience tax', which the less elegant term as 'bribery' and refer to the paying of it as 'corruption'. To my mind, this 'tax' is not only the most willingly paid impost, it is negotiable, it is result oriented and it is our only answer to governmental incompetence: the only trustworthy bridge that spans decision making and implementing.