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Why don't we privatise the government?

The food you eat is grown by private farmers. The clothes you wear are made by private mills. The medicines you use are formulated by private pharmaceutical majors. The water you drink is bottled by private companies. The house you live in was built by private developers. The guards who protect it are from private security agencies.

You work in a private limited company. Your children go to private schools. You use private transport to commute. Your cellphone is provided by a private operator. You get your news from a private television channel. Your household gadgets are powered by electricity from a private producer. You spend your leisure time in a private club.

Private, private, private.

Everything in this country is in private hands thanks to an astonishing consensus of economic policy in the last decade. Governments cutting across party lines -- Vajpayee's BJP, Gujral's (and Deve Gowda's) National Front, Rao's Congress, Basu's Left Front -- have shown that ideology is just skin-deep, and pushed India deeper down the path of privatisation.

Meanwhile: • Is it pure coincidence that the Cauvery row has broken out between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, both ruled by members of the NDA, well after the election process was complete in both states? • If the BJP alone fails to get 200-plus seats and the NDA together fails to get 300-plus seats, is the verdict to be taken as a rejection of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's performance as prime minister? • Kapil Sibal wants a public apology from pollsters if the exit polls are proved wrong on October 6. Is it unreasonable for pollsters to expect a public apology from Sonia Gandhi if they're proved right? • If exit polls do not influence elections in constituencies still to vote, why is it presumed that the announcement of actual results will? Should results be announced as and when polls take place? • Virender Sehwag is to Madan Lal as Utpal Chatterjee is to Sambaran Banerjee. Noel David is to Shivlal Yadav as Pankaj Dharmani is to M P Pandove. Jacob Martin is to Anshuman Gaekwad as ---- is to Kapil Dev?

Privatisation, we were told, would unleash competition; competition would kill complacency; market forces would end monopolies; world players would weed out the worthless; superior technology would spell finis to the obsolete; and as a result there would be greater professionalism in products and services. And in the end, you, the consumer, would benefit.

If privatisation can do all that, and if the end justifies the means, I say: why don't we "privatise" the government? That's right, privatise the one establishment our "gifted" politicians haven't/won't. Disinvest our democracy of the deadwood. Expose the rest to the kind of cut-throat competition that they have exposed every domestic business to. May only the ablest survive, and may only they get to rule our lives till we float the next global tender.

No, this is not one of those wimp-ish calls for a "national" government that self-styled statesmen R Venkataraman and C Subramaniam float every time Parliament gets set to get "hung", which Sitaram Yechuri says is due on October 6. No sir, this is a wake-up call to politicians by administering them a dose of their own medicine.

Which is, privatise what Jairam Ramesh calls our "politics-surplus, governance-deficit" set-up. Or perish. In blaming all our current ills on instability caused by "fractured mandates" we are completely ignoring the very real possibility that our governments may just not be doing their job properly to earn the full and complete trust of the people. Could this be because 90 per cent of our ministers are not adequately endowed, qualified or experienced? For India to be governed better than it is, it is not enough for Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill to complain conveniently at election time that even a driver had to be a tenth standard pass, but there was no qualification to become a politician, much less a minister.

We need to do something more. The point is, what?

Let's try the "privatise government" formula. Since it's impossible to suddenly educate millions of self-styled politicians at the bottom of our political ladder, why don't we start at the top, with the Union Cabinet? By insisting on a basic minimum educational qualification with the requisite experience in their chosen field? A doctorate perhaps for Union minister with 12 to 15 years experience, a post-graduate degree for ministers of state with 8 to 12 years experience, and a degree for deputy ministers with 5 to 8 years experience? And how about extra benefits for those who've studied or worked abroad, and won a couple of fellowships or industry awards?

Clearly, these conditions will render 99.9 per cent of the next Cabinet unqualified to take oath. But that's exactly the idea. At one level, it gets rid of the kind of political expediency that results in a first time MP like G M C Balayogi being made speaker or a giant-killer like Siddhu Nyamagoud Patil being made minister. And at another, it sends a strong message down to the grassroots that prospects of political progress are bleak if they don't acquire the skills, experience and performance record. Top-down instead of bottom-up.

There's nothing, as far as I know, in the Constitution of India which says that only professional politicians can become ministers in government. So why don't we open it up to professionals qualified to deal with their portfolios, who have the track-record to show for their expertise, and who know what they're saying and doing? If George Fernandes drags along a couple of army chaps to a meeting of the BJP and its allies to explain what's going on in Kargil, it shows how little the defence minister knows about the post he holds. If Sharad Pawar congratulates the army on the nuclear tests in Pokhran, it's because he's unaware of the real brains behind it.

Since we are already into a knowledge-based economy, how about making knowledge the prerequisite? How about Julio Ribeiro/K P S Gill as Union home minister? N R Narayana Murthy/Azim Premji for information technology? Rahul Bajaj/Karsanbhai Patel for industry? Sam Pitroda for telecommunications? Mukesh Ambani/Sanjay Lalbhai for textiles? M S Swaminathan for agriculture? Sunil Gavaskar for sports? Except those bound by "contractual obligations" most should, if they've the best interests of this country at heart, jump at the possibility.

We can dream, can't we?

Obviously, professional politicians won't like it one bit. Much like our newspapers, magazines and television channels which feel competition is the only thing that can save India but cry and protest when the phrase "foreign media" is uttered, our neta-log, too, are going to say, "No, spare us. We're in the service of the people." But if privatisation could be good for slothful domestic businesses resting on their oars while taking us for a ride, can it be bad for the most slothful domestic business of them all -- politics?

It's no accident that a recent Economic Times opinion poll of businessmen showed that Dr Manmohan Singh is their first choice as finance minister, even in an NDA government headed by Mr Vajpayee. For a career-economist who was suddenly pitch-forked into government and entered the Rajya Sabha from Guwahati, that's some feat. In his bid to seek election as a Congress candidate from South Delhi, Dr Singh may have sullied his copybook a little lately with his claim (since denied, of course) that the RSS was behind the anti-Sikh riots in 1984. But the Manmohan Singh experience shows the wisdom of privatising government and stuffing it with professionals at all levels.

If P V Narasimha Rao hadn't "opened up" the finance portfolio to outsiders in 1991, we would still be stuck with politicians whose understanding of balance of payment would be limited to an unpaid bribe. And at another level, it shows that it doesn't require an elected MP with the full mandate of the people -- politicians' ready excuse to keep the qualified away -- to do a good job.

Naturally, the question will be asked that if politicians cannot look at a ministerial portfolio as a reward for a "long and distinguished career in public life", what are they in politics for? But when they've allowed everything concerned the public to fall into private hands, doesn't "public life" sound like a bit of an oxymoron? And isn't Rs 1 crore a year, or is it 2 crore, that the local area development plan fetches them ever year -- yes, every year! -- enough to play around with while the professionals set right things?

"Politicians who say they entered the profession only to serve the people are lying. Why don't they have the guts to admit that politics is a career and that they're proud to be in it?" Thus spake sage Pramod Mahajan the other day. Well said, sir. Politics, at the end of the day, is a career and, like any career, the end-aim of its practitioners is and should be upward social and economic mobility. In other words, status and money. But they've got to deserve both in the first place.

A career, however, demands a minimum level of qualification, a minimum level of experience and a minimum level of performance. Since Atal Bihari Vajpayee claims that he and his allies are duty-bound to provide good governance, is it unreasonable to insist that he include only those ministers in his Cabinet meet some reasonable level of educational, professional and performance requirements?

Mr Vajpayee's partymen may be surprised, but such a government could actually last, and save the country a few hundred crores of rupees.

Krishna Prasad