Peace and prosperity. Part 2

In my previous blog, I was talking about how our world is turning better in terms of reduced violence and by reaping peace dividend. In this piece, as a sequel to it, I am trying to prove that in today’s world, how rich, comfortable and prosperous we are, in comparison with our older generation. I will also try to indicate the pathways with which we had progressed and its implication for the future.

Ordinary mortals sincerely believe that the present day generation is unfortunate to inhale polluted air, forced to eat unhealthy food stuffs, drink contaminated water and so on. We keep romantic belief of how our great grand fathers were fortunate to live harmoniously with nature, having good air to breath, had healthy food, did ‘worked’ a lot and hence lived long. We assume that, for them, their village life was much simpler, healthier and pleasant.

 However, contrary to that, for those mortals, life was never been simple and pleasant as we wish to assume.  In reality, they could afford to have far less food, fuel, and fibre than today. Both because of unavailability or un-affordability, they starved, sometimes died, stayed in darkness, died due to unknown diseases and many perished in fury of nature.

300 years back, a British thinker cum Economist called Thomas Robert Malthus infamously predicted that world will soon go over populated and many millions can’t feed themselves  hence will die. He theorised all along that world can tolerate only a certain fixed amount of human population and rest will have to perish if they happened to born.

However, what he underestimated was the human ingenuity to create more out of existing resources through knowledge and technology and find solutions to existing challenges. Contrary to Malthusian predictions, humanity didn’t perish due to famine. It prospered and could feed all.

Instead of Malthusian apocalyptic scenario, what exactly happened?

Poverty – How much poorer are we now? It is surprising to know that just 9% of the world’s population now lives in absolute poverty. In 1809 AD, this figure was almost 83 %. It implies, despite humongous growth in population over last 2 centuries, we pulled billions of people out of poverty in to prosperity.

Cheaper goods -Four basic human needs, ie food, clothing, fuel and shelter, had grown cheaper, (compared to our income), in the last two centuries. Many of us believe that prices of these goods are increasing. But data says otherwise. For most of us, a pair of dress would be costing not more than our two day’s income. Food we consume in a month may not cost more than 25% of our monthly income.  In earlier times, the same food and clothing would have incurred much higher share of our income. So with cheaper goods, more disposable income we have, and more pleasure hunting and more enjoyable our life is.

Less drudgery, more pleasure - We spend far lesser time in doing things which we don’t like. Most of us don’t have to wash our cloths using our hands. We spend much lesser time in our kitchen and inhale much less toxic gases than our grandmothers used to do. We have more leisure, more movies and TV shows to watch, and more time to read and pursue hobbies. We travel a far lot than our grandfathers used to. Life is easy. Is it not?

Machines work for us –Visit any modern factory floor shop and compare it what it was few decades back.  Much of the manufacturing is mechanised now. All dirty and risky jobs are done by soulless machines and humans are sitting in comforts of their Air-conditioned rooms. Yes, our workmen are getting far higher pay by working far lesser than what his grandparents used to have.  

 Are rich people getting richer? – Yes of course. Our Ambanis and Adanis are getting richer, but not by making us poor. They are getting richer by making things cheaper for us, example – data and voice by Reliance Gio. Similar is our innovators, entrepreneurs and scientists. Men who developed LED bulbs helped us to cut our electricity bills substantially. Pharmaceutical company Cipla made HIV drugs less than a $ a day and saved millions of lives.

Again, over the last 20 years, proportion of the world population living in poverty got almost halved.  While 85% of world s population was poor in 1800 AD, it was 50% in 1966. Now it is just 9%. Yes, you heard it right, 91% of the world s population are either rich or middle class.

Not just poverty let us examine few other parameters.

a)      Number of battle death per 10000 populations in a year, is just one today. It was 200 in 1944.

b)      Our world had 64000 nuclear warheads in 1989. Meanwhile, there are just 15000 in today.

c)      1660 thousand tons of Ozone depletion substances were released in 1970. Now it is just 22 thousand.

d)      971000 people died due to natural disaster in a year in 1930 s. In the last decade, only 72000 died in a year.

e)      148 countries had small pox infection 150 years back. Now it is ZERO.

f)       Nearly 15% of the world’s surface area is protected as National parks and forest reserves. It was just 0.03%, a century back.

g)      Yield per hector of cereal production had almost tripled in the last 50 years.  It means we need far less land to feed our mouths, rest of which we can turn either in to forest or to a shopping mall.

h)      In our world, nearly 80% have electricity connection. Most of our grandfathers lived in darkness.

These are not exhaustive but an illustrative example of human progress in the occurred in the last few decades. 

Besides, whether it is number of movies produced, number of Pianos sold, or number of tourists visited, we are at all time high.

Despite this hard facts and figures, why we are still feeling that ‘things are getting bad’? Is it because of our negativity instinct which increases our tendency to notice bad more than good? Possibly. We often tempt to mis-remember and have romantic notions of our past. This romanticism stops us from cool thinking.

We often consume a lot of negative news. Our journalists often do selective reporting. For them, millions of people pulled out of poverty are not news. Stories of gradual improvements are not stories at all. They print stories which are dramatic in nature and hence these ‘boring’ ones are almost never getting reported.  Hence we have an illusion of being in a bad world.

I am not saying that everything is good in this world. there are many thongs which we don't like and want to get it changed.However, many of our problems are actually problems of plenty. Ex, Obesity is there because we have more things to eat, traffic congestion and pollution is there because more people can own a car now. Yes, there are many things which we need to be worried. In due course of time, human ingenuity will help us to find a way out as well.  What I am trying to point out is that despite things which appear to be bad; things are better, better than it was few decades back. It can be bad; still it can be better as well.

 If today is better than yesterday, there is every reason to believe that tomorrow would be even better. This is the message that I would like to convey through above said narratives and facts.

Data references and ideas from-

a) Factfulness-  by Hans Rosling-

b) Rational Optimist- by Matt Ridley

 

  

Violence and peace- Where are we heading to ?

Talk to anybody in your neighborhood, office colleague or Uber taxi driver about the present day world. Most likely, we all likely to get a similar world view that, things are not going well in this world, violence is all-pervading, human life is at peril etc. People offers an even more pessimistic view about the future, predict that the world will witness more violence, more sufferings, much more terrorism, etc. Majority of us would like to believe that a bleak future is waiting for the humanity in the coming decades.

Having noticed this phenomenon, I would like to make a proposition that the world we are living in, is the most peaceful and far less violent than the one our fathers were living.

To prove the above point, I would like to bring out some unidirectional changes that happened in the last 30-40 years, in our lifetime, which is too visible to us, yet we ignore its relevance.  All these changes are proving that we had done away with many implicit and explicit forms of violence in the last couple of decades itself. Many things would look small, but its cumulative impact is much bigger than we imagine. 

a) Caning and child beating-

30-40 years, it was normal for a school teacher to cane children. Parents themselves were advocating physical punishments (read, beating with sticks). Not anymore now. We have strong rules and regulations against canning, protection of children, a slew of legislation like POCSO Act, etc which makes sure that our children face much less pain today.

b)  Ragging and bullying 

  People who were in Colleges and Universities in 80 s and 90 s must have been either a victim or a perpetrator of campus violence and inhuman treatment towards juniors called Ragging. This barbaric practice was legitimized in the name of ‘better interactions’, making junior students ‘tough’ etc. However, in the last few years, we realized that it is to be ended and we armed ourselves with better rules and stringent enforcement. The result- Ragging got almost vanished from our campuses.

c) Animal sacrifices and self-inflicted acts of violence-

Gone are the days when we used to kill animals in the name of god and inflict violence on our own body for propitiating gods and goddesses. Not anymore. Our gods are happy nowadays with our monetary offerings and they don’t ask for ‘blood’ anymore.

d) Domestic violence-

      Beating your wife and starving her was believed to be the right kind of response when she indulged in something which you didn’t like. 

     However, if you wished to be the same, you would have already landed up and rotted in jail.  Our legislatures were enlightened enough to pass laws against Domestic violence to see that violence even inside four walls of your home itself will not be tolerated and women are to be treated with dignity. Similar is the case with marital rape.

e)  Capital punishment –

     

     Capital punishment had been banned in most of the modern Nations and in many others, it remains only in paper. Even in our Country, even though it is still in the statute, it is given only in ‘rarest of the rarest case’.  It implies human civilization had moved away from impulsive, retribution oriented punishment towards a more humane one.   

f) Lockup torture, violence perpetrated by Police, etc-

     

     Earlier, Police were seen as an instrument of violence. They could perpetrate any amount of violence against citizens if they wish to do so. Not any more, particularly in states like Kerala, etc. Police are now coming under Human right watchdogs and any deviance would be treated as a dereliction of duty and will not go unpunished. 

      g) Our pets and animals

     We treat our pets and domestic animals far less cruel than one generation before. Laws are there in place on how to transport animals, how they should not be paraded in festivals, circus, entertainment, etc. Recall how our Courts banned Jallikkattu and restrained elephant parades in festivals like Poorams in Kerala. Again, laboratory tests on animals are much regulated now and our school children don’t dissect mouse and frog anymore.

)     f) Reduction in recreational violence –

The consensus here is that one cannot inflict pain and misery on animals just to make ourselves happy. Hence, you can’t hunt animals in the forest, kill tigers for their skins, and shoot an elephant for their tusk. Similarly, shark fins are banned and killing the shark for their fins is prohibited in most of the countries. So, sharks are safer now than what they were earlier.

      

The above-mentioned changes are not exhaustive but an illustration of how things are moving and in what direction. Similar things can be talked about homicide, rapes, burglary, etc even though data is not readily available. Collectively, here we can see that any and all kinds of violent behavior is losing its legitimacy and social approval. 

I am sure that these kinds of changes are happening not by accident even though I am not certain why it is happening. Still, I can point out some plausible reasons why things are moving in this direction.

There are a few socio-political and technological forces that had a modernizing effect on human behavior. Firstly, we are all valuing lives, limbs, and dignity of strangers much more than what our grandparents used to bother about. This is because we humans are seeing each other as much more valuable economic agents with whom we can trade, exchange ideas, work with, and co-create value. As author Yuval Noel Harare says, it is now more profitable to do trade with strangers than raiding and killing him.

Increasing feminization-

Does our society go feminine? Yes. As per author Steven Pinker, both sexes had become increasingly feminine. Ideas like chivalry, self-respect, revenge, social shaming, etc are having a different set of meaning than what it used to be in earlier times.

Campaigns for rights-

 Social groups are actively involved in protecting and safeguarding the rights of sexual minorities, children, prisoners, animals, and many other groups who are believed to be incapable of articulating themselves. These volunteers are instrumental in identifying cases of violence and are making critical public policy interventions to take suitable remedial actions.  This was not the case earlier.

State and its policing forces too are gaining more capabilities now and are less tolerant towards violence unleashed by non-state actors.

My conclusion here is simple. It is not that everything is perfect today. Many things are yet to do. Still, we are living in a far better and prosperous world than what our fathers and grandfathers used to live. We are better fed, better employed, and better educated than any generations who lived before us. Our lives and limbs are far safer and our chances of getting died or mutilated in a violent incident are far lower than any point of past.  Many times, we don’t fully appreciate undergoing changes that resulted in the reduction of violence, and once changes got entrenched, the process was forgotten. We take it for granted, without realizing that changes have indeed happened. 

Therefore, there is no reason for us to complain about the present and compare it with the past.  Even though we often get romanticize with our past and have fear about the future, the truth is exactly the opposite. Extrapolating the trends and trajectories, it is quite sure that in the future, our children will be in living in a world which would be better than the one we have. There is certainly no case for being pessimistic and worried.

Righteousness of electoral choices

India’s perhaps most polarized election in its recent past, concluded with a thumping victory for India's right-wing forces lead by Sh Narendra Modi. Its electorate sidelined Indian National Congress, which primarily positioned itself as a Left to center political ideology. Congress tried to become a ‘champion of poor people’ promising ‘justice’, yet it got much less support than its rival rightwing party.

Both Left and Right are equally defensive about their ideologies, philosophy, programs, and agendas. Why are that seemingly intelligent people, who are all likely to well-educated, still having sharply different political ideologies? Why such people don’t sit across the table and debate amongst themselves to find policies that are consensual so that Policymaking would be faster and easier. ? But in the real world, it can’t happen so. We will examine why and how both Left and Right are essentially different and hence any argument between them would be like a dialogue between dumb. Let’s examine why it is like that.

We all support a political ideology essentially because we sincerely believe that it is the right thing to do for the betterment of the world. We, most of us, support either left or right, not because of our selfish interest, but because of our sense of Self-righteousness. We also tempt to believe that our opponents are selfish to the core and that is the reason why they oppose ‘my righteous’ idea.

This disbelief is more acute for Leftists than to Rightists. Leftists are least bothered to know why many people are outside its fold and why these people believe in ‘backward-looking, regressive, fascist’ Rightwing ideas. Their sense of self-righteousness is so strong that they always demonize and even de-humanize anybody who believes in ‘Rightist’ ideas. They are at disbelief that how ‘educated’ men can embrace the party of ‘evil’. This is because; they deny that there is an alternate moral world which has a certain set of values those Leftists dismisses altogether. The truth is that both Rightists and Leftists live in a different moral universe.

To understand why Leftists and Rightists have different kinds of ‘Righteousness’ let’s look into some aspects of Moral Psychology. According to Jonathan Haidt, author of the book ‘Righteous Mind’, we vote for a party/idea which we sincerely believe as right and that sense of righteousness comes from some set of moral foundations. Accordingly, he opines that we, humans have 6 foundations of Morality. They are

a)      Care Foundation

b)     Fairness foundation

c)      Liberty  Foundation

d)     Loyalty foundation

e)      Authority foundation

f)       Sanctity foundation

While Leftists focuses only on first 3 foundations of morality and rest 3 are irrelevant for them, Rightists consider all the 6 moral matrices but focuses more on the last 3 without ignoring the first 3.

Moral values based on Sanctity Foundation is the most important one to understand the crucial difference between the Rightist and Leftist preferences. For Left, Nation is nothing but just a land mass to be used for human consumption.  People living here are just human beings, who happened to born here and acquired citizenship thereby. For Rightists, this Nation is not just a land mass but a divine entity, worthy of worship. People living here are not isolated, unconnected, selfish human beings, but belong to a Moral community. ( For Rightists, even if you are a legal citizen, but does not have belief and sense of  belongingness  to this Moral community, you may be  called as Anti-national ) Individuals are not of prime importance, but the moral community which is bonded together by a certain set of divine values that should get primacy over individuals.

Rightist war cry of Bharat Mata ki Jai, Jai Shriram etc is an attempt to reinforce believes that this land and its gods are not just utilitarian objects but are sacrosanct. They know that people have deep-rooted believes in these ideas and hence they bring Sanctity foundation of morality into these ideas.

Let us come to the main focus area of Congress party which essentially is a Leftist oriented party as of today. It focuses on NYAY or Minimum Support Income, farmer welfare, compassionate leadership. (in contrast to Masculine leadership style of Mr Modi ) etc,  which is nothing but moral value system based on Care Foundation. Again it talks about simplified GST, taxing rich more, etc which is based on Fairness foundation.

BJP or Mr Modi talks about a tall leader who can bring order and discipline in this country, which is about moral values based on Authority foundation. Again it talks about anti-India forces ( tukde- tukde gangs), Maoist insurgency, Kashmiri militants etc which they believe is a threat to the unity and integrity of this country and hence need decisive leadership to lead this country. Again, it questions the loyalty of these people to this country and brings Loyalty foundation of morality.

This does not mean that Rightists completely ignore the Care and Fairness foundation. Mr. Modi often talks about LPG cylinders, toilets, houses for poor, etc to emphasis on his ‘Care’ aspects. He also talks about his poor backgrounds, his contempt towards entitlements, privileged classes etc which in reality is his ‘Fair foundation’.

In conclusion, it can be said that Leftists care only about Care, Fairness and Liberty foundation, but Rightist top up it with Sanctity, Discipline and Loyalty foundations of morality.  So Rightists have more ‘Right things’ to talk about, while Leftists have limitations and fewer things to discuss.

We also see how a single incident was viewed by both of them. For Rightists, Pulwama killings were not just a human tragedy but also an assault on Nation (Sanctity and Loyalty foundation). But for Leftists, they were seeing it through the prism of Care foundation, ie people got killed and their families became orphan, etc. Similarly, Rightists in India view Cow as divine (Sanctity Foundation) and hence to be protected, while Leftists see it just another animal. Similar issues of conflicts between the two are those issues which both sides see it through different Moral foundations. Hence seemingly irreconcilable differences between the two groups, in reality, are those in which both of them use different Moral foundations to see through.

These six foundations of morality upheld by a Rightist politics gives it a superior competitive advantage to its rival Left-wing politics which mainly focus on Fairness and Equity Foundation.

It is a delusion that people’s voting preferences are decided exclusively by Care and Fairness foundation. Conventional wisdom says that poor people bother mostly about their livelihood issues and do not have the luxury to think about other moral values. However, truth is that people are bothered to think about all six foundations of morality and not just the first two. Rightist politicians are intuitively aware of this aspect and hence try to reach to all the six foundations of morality and not just the first two as foolishly done by the Leftists or Congress. Hence, Rightists are having more issues to talk about and can get extremely popular amongst a large section of the population. However, the only condition is that there should be one super efficient messenger who can take this message to the people and whose credibility is beyond question. That explains the secret behind the stupendous victory of Mr. Modi and his colleagues.

Voting preferences- Myths and realities

The nation had entered into an election mood. For the next 40 days, political leaders, opinion makers, intellectuals and all will dish out their opinions, commentaries, wish lists and ‘predictions’. Ordinary men and women will be deluged with all kinds of propaganda materials to catch their attention and swing their opinions.

Many amongst us may be resigned to the fact that politicians of all hues are making huge noises and grandeur promises without being result oriented. Why are they doing so? Are they really fooling the electorate or just play according to the rules of the game? Let us examine the election propaganda using some tools of behavioral science.

a)      Recency bias-

This is one of the cognitive biases which are well exploited by Politicians all over the world. We, the common man always over-emphasis things which happened in the near past and under-appreciated things that happened long back. In practice, people remember the good or bad things done by a politician/incumbent government in the recent past. That is the reason why we see a flurry of inaugurations, stone laying, etc. Due to this bias, we tempted to support the leader who does maximum (good) things in the last few months than the one who did much better, but in earlier years.

Next time, when you see a ‘Neta’ does some inauguration or stone laying just before an election, don’t blame him. Just blame ourselves, as we all have a short memory and hence we will appreciate his good work (and vote him) only if it was done in the recent past.

This is the same reason why the Election Commission is imposing Model code of conduct so that voters won’t fall into the trap of this Recency bias. But our smarter Netas does inauguration just before Model Code come in to force.

b)     Barbarians at gates syndrome-

Many voters are vulnerable to this syndrome and then fail to make an intelligent choice. They are fed with an idea that every effort must be done to defeat the opponents who are portrayed as ‘barbarians’ and hence any kind of alternative is better. When this syndrome captures one's imagination, one will tempt to go any extent to prevent any victory for his opponents.  People, in this case, are ready to ally/ vote for anyone whom they believe can defeat the ‘barbarians’.

It is one of the best strategies to win the election as not much effort is required to put up an alternate plan and vision. Just create an impression that if you don’t vote to us, worst is waiting for you. It prevents our ability to think and our mental faculties are suppressed by this ‘fear of barbarians’.

In this election, the very strategy of ‘Mahagadbandhan’ and Congress is this only. If Modi comes again, they say, India will turn in to a Fascist state, Hindu rastra will be established, minorities will be driven away, etc. On the other hand, BJP would say, if not Modi, it is chaos and Nation will become a banana republic, so vote for us.

Fear is one of the primary driving forces for human initiatives. Our animalistic instinct will alert our brain about any impending threats to our life and limbs more quickly than any positive thoughts. Hence, don’t just blame our leaders. It is the way our human brains are wired. 

 

c)      Familiarisation bias –

Ever wondered why our candidates try to reach each lane and by-lanes of our residential area and roaming around public places and speak boring, same old kinds of stuff. Why he simply can’t send a letter to us and we can read about his ideas and program? The truth is that he wants to make sure that he meets the maximum possible number of people and as many people can see his face.

Voting preference of an average voter is highly influenced by the familiarity factor. Given a choice between two individuals, whose policies and ideas don’t make much sense to him; an average voter prefers a familiar face which he encountered at least once in front of his house. 

d)     Social proof- Why a leader organize mammoth rallies?

An average voter is not an isolated, unconnected individual and his political choices are always influenced by the opinions and choices of those nearby. Hence he would always try to ensure that as many people support a party which he supports. Most likely, he would also support a party/ candidate whom others would support in large number.

Political parties are aware of this psychological phenomenon and that is why they are organizing huge rallies and road shows. They are trying to bring maximum people together to assure each of them to see that there are many alike so that every body’s beliefs are reinforced and strengthened. We all are hungry for social approvals and wish to be an ‘included’ than being left alone.

e)      Halo effect-

Again, it is one of the shortcuts used by our brain to judge and evaluate a person. Leaders who want to get popular support take special care to see that they are always viewed by the people in a positive way. Intelligent leaders are very much bothered about the way in which they dress, body language, facial expression etc.

Ordinary people many times, won’t understand many of the policies of a particular leader, but they trust, support and vote him based on the ‘halo’ created around him over a period of time. 

This list is not exhaustive, but just an indicative one.  As voters and human beings, our rationality is not absolute and what we have is ‘Bounded rationality’.  No voter in this earth can calculate the impacts of all the policies of a leader and find whether those policies are beneficial or not. We have limited computational capacity, limited attention span, and biased reasoning. Hence the idea of ‘rational electoral choice’ is nothing but a myth.

Given these circumstances, our voting preferences are based on our cognitive biases and mental shortcuts we often use in expressing our political preferences. Hence, leaders and parties who can play with our biases and preferences will be able to muster maximum popular support.

Winning an election is a mental game. It’s about putting across new narratives, catchy slogans, and emotional appeals. Voters can be easily manipulated, cajoled, threatened by intelligent propaganda and communication strategies.

No voter would admit that he can be manipulated easily and he sincerely believes that his political preferences are based on rationality. Yet the truth is that most of us are unaware of our vulnerabilities and limitations. Hence, our Netas are not capitalizing our ignorance per se, but they are making use of our ignorance about our being ignorant.  

The great Indian Urban mess .

Contrast to cities in the developed world, urban India is a mess. What we see in a typical Indian city are shabby buildings, congested roads, encroached public spaces, pathetic state of garbage disposal, and a lot of such woes which we are all experiencing if we happens to live in any Indian city. Yet millions of young people are migrating from rural areas to urban India, leaving their farmland behind, in search of economic opportunities and better life style. 

People primarily blame their local Member of Parliament and MLA s, and many others for this state of affairs. Media often brings MP s, MLA s , Chief Ministers, when they talk essentially municipal issues like garbage, condition of roads, slum issues etc. We make these elected representatives responsible for all the ills because we essentially don’t know who the real culprit is. Let’s examine the issue in perspective and see where the real problem lies.

Root cause of the issue of urban mess in India is that   we don’t have an urban leader in our cities. What we have instead is  multiple authorities operating in silos and sometimes at cross purpose. We have a Mayor post which is more like a titular head without much effective powers. Real executive powers are lying with a bureaucrat CEO who is appointed by Chief Minister and is accountable only to him.

Elected Councillors of our municipal bodies are mainly rent seeking, career politicians whose roles are limited to choosing Mayoral candidates. They play a minimal role in administration of municipalities. Meanwhile whole Municipal administration under the bureaucrat CEO is mainly concerned about garbage disposal, a few roads, water supply and sanitation, building permits, registration of births and deaths, a few public works etc.

Urban administration in developed countries is much different from what we have in our country. In those places, an elected Mayor is a very powerful entity, who looks after almost everything related to that city which includes appointment of Police chief who report directly to him.  He does have the power to tax, formulate land use pattern, prepare master plans, recruit and dismiss municipal bureaucracy, Engineers , firemen and all others whom he deemed fit for smooth functioning of his municipality.

Voters, in return can evaluate Mayor’s performance very clearly and can put all the blame on him if something gone wrong and can outvote him if wish so. Many times, Mayors are seen to be competing with each other for fresh investments and thereby creation of jobs and new tax revenue. We can recollect how cities and mayors vied for newly announced campus for Google. Let us recollect the  highly visible and commendable role played by Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani when 9/11 happened.

In many aspects, these mayors of capital cities are perhaps second most powerful authorities next only to Prime Minister/ President. In many countries, mayor post is a stepping stone for highest political offices of that country. 

Contrast to this is the way we see our Mayors. I am sure that very few people in our country know the name of mayor of their own city. He or she does have a limited role to play whenever any key decisions are taken. Most of the decisions and approvals pertaining to any cities are directly approved and monitored by Chief Minister/ Cabinet minister himself and are executed by concerned District collectors/ CEO s of municipality.

First step towards urban renewal in our country should be about real empowerment of our Mayors who should be a directly elected one and can appoint officers under him. Mayor should be a man/woman who should have enough financial resources and managerial bandwidth to take up every, matters related to urban administration and should have command over all the authorities and bureaucrat under that geographical area.

Since he is an elected representative and if sufficiently empowered, he will be having a clear incentive to do things which are in the larger interest of his city as he will be always interested in re election. Further like in Developed countries, his political career and ambitions are directly connected to his Mayoral performance. This is unlike a bureaucratic Municipal commissioner who does not have any incentive to have a better administration for the city. Let us keep our MP s, MLA s, away from Municipal issues and let them concentrate on their legislative role.

Unlike other countries, there is a reason why Mayors in our country is a powerless entity. During freedom movement, Indian leaders were getting elected to Municipalities as popular representatives. Remember, Sardar Patel was the President of Ahmedabad municipality and so was Jawaharlal Nehru in Allahabad. British government was not ready to give sufficient powers and authority to these popular leaders and kept real executive powers with British bureaucrat in the form of CEO s and Governors of the provinces. After independence, the CM s and Commissioners continued to exercise these powers. Hence we continue to have the institutional legacy of British municipal administration.  Even the 73 rd and 74 th amendment couldn’t bring much needed changes.

There is a huge amount of institutional persistence when we talk about urban governance. Bureaucrats don’t want to cede any powers to an elected Mayor nor do our ‘All India Service’ officers want to serve under such commands.  Neither the CM s wants to bring any changes to this status-quo situation. An empowered mayor would be a real political rival to the incumbent CM. Besides no CM wish to lose control over the these cities, since much of the discretionary and rent seeking powers for the incumbents come from the land parcels, necessary approvals, building permits, infrastructure building etc.

Faster economic growth can happen only if we can re-imagine our cities as more vibrant, productive, environmental and people friendly.  If we want our cities to be transformed in that manner, we need to have a complete overhauling of our municipal administration from what we have today. However, what stops us from having a modern, accountable and incentive based Municipal administration is that it will be vehemently resisted by the present day authorities and power holders, who will be having much to lose.