The State

Fukuyama spoke on the importance of the three pillars of the modern state: the state, Rule of Law and Democratic Accountability. He argues for a fine balance between the three institutions, as they need to counterbalance one another and prevent any institution from going overboard.

 In an ideal system, a powerful and efficient state is kept in check by the people, and by the law so that it does not become despotic. The State needs to be efficient to deliver on its mandate, maintain peace and order in society and create the framework for economic and social well being of people.  The state in India has not been effective in effective delivery of these objectives. They have met some of them to some extent, but service delivery remains far from satisfactory.

There is a widely prevalent feeling that “too much” democracy has been one of the major contributors of this inefficiency. Democracy has come to be synonymous with street level justice and not adherence to law and procedure and the opportunity to question state actions in prescribed fora. The legal system, judiciary, civil society, the press, political parties, need for transparency in democracy all act as pressure points against the state. All of them look at the same issue from their narrow perspectives and the objective that the state needs to be achieve gets watered down in an effort to meet the requirement of all these institutional and informal pressure groups.

This situation of excessive checks and balances leads to small interest groups blocking measures beneficial to the public at large. Dysfunctional political divides results in small networks capturing political outcomes. Special interest groups excessively influence the legislative process, steer public spending and taxes in narrow directions, introduce self-conflicting mandates to bureaucracies, and use the judicial process to challenge and delay actions in costly proceedings. These weaken the state and erode its effectiveness. Colonial era state was primarily concerned with protecting British business interests and the welfare state was marginal at best. The democratically elected governments of the time were limited to action that did not impact the British interests and looked at local and provincial issues including welfare. Post independence governments in the country faced an active democratic process while dealing with welfare and public good which is delivered by state governments and local bodies.

Most of the democratic processes and institutional mechanisms even today have very little impact on “Central List” issues, as grass roots democracy gets limited in its reach and understanding of wider issues. Civil society, for example, has little ability to influence the Income Tax law and Company Law, but focus their attention on the distributive aspects of Governance. As in colonial era, the influence of democratic and people institutions on trade, industry and commerce remains little, even today. In aspects of distribution of national income and wealth the actors are too many and simultaneously warring for the same pie. The state hence has become weak in delivering public welfare while is better off in the area of Trade, Industry and Commerce.