GOVERNMENT BY Twitter
SOME MINISTERS HAVE BEEN QUICK TO GRASP THE POWER AND REACH OF MICROBLOGGING SITES. THIS IS WHY IT’S NOW EVOLVED INTO A POTENT PLATFORM FOR DIPLOMACY AS WELL AS GRIEVANCE REDRESSAL
One of the pinned tweets ( meaning the message permanently on top of his account) of K. T. Rama Rao is this: To those of you wondering if I look at your posts on issues such as Roads/ sewerage/ water supply, I assure you that I do & forward them to my various heads of departments for action. Can’t respond to each of you individually as there are many requests.
Keep them coming though.
KTR’s home page has individuals asking for help whom he has responded to. An orphan asking for money for studies, the daughter of a beggar interested in studies but without access to a school, someone with a health problem looking for assistance, another talking about the unwell child of a taxi driver, yet another poor child in need of leg surgery, a child on a ventilator. All of this, mind you, only in the first three days of July. All of these people are promised assistance. This is government by twitter.
Readers will find this hard to believe, but politicians are the hardest working people in India. This is not sarcasm and this is true of the whole category.
Any leader of any standing will have to follow the same ritual. In the morning there will be a queue of people at his door. They will be constituents, relatives of constituents, people who vote for his opponent but hide this fact, party workers, neighbourhood associations, retired bureaucrats, former sportsmen and other assorted categories.
They will line up with requests for his intervention in any number of things. It could be getting someone a job, having their snipped electricity connection restored, arbitration over some business squabble, coming to a wedding reception, inaugurating a shop and so on. These people will have to be dealt with through the day and then again when the leader returns home, late into the evening.
Giving up privacy and personal time is the first requirement of the Indian politician. The delivery of services to people is actually how one becomes a leader. And this does not change, whether one is a municipal councillor or a member of Parliament, indeed even a minister: the people will come to you and they must be served.
It is therefore absolutely vital that leaders be seen as providing what is expected of them.
This has historically always been the case and the Mughals responded to it by introducing a uniquely Indian phenomenon to their court ritual: the darshan. Every morning, or perhaps at some prescribed time, the emperor would show himself in public and the janata would go away, satisfied that they had witnessed the state personified. As long as the emperor was visible, the government continued.
Four hundred years ago, there was born the legend of the justice of Jahangir ( AdleJahangir). The story was that in the palace of the emperor was a chain attached to a bell which was in his quarters. The citizen seeking justice could walk up and rattle the chain, and summon to emperor to give him a hearing. Of course, this was highly unlikely to be practiced with any frequency if it existed at all ( and Jahangir was notoriously lazy), but the fact that story exists itself says something about our culture and what is expected of its leaders.
Looking at KTR’s tweet, and particularly his assurance that he forwards the complaints and demands to the various heads of department for action, I was reminded of an exchange I had with Anil Deshmukh, who was Maharashtra’s minister for education a decade and a half ago. A friend of my father’s brought his grandson to my office ( I was editing a newspaper) to ask if the boy could be admitted to a particular college. Specifically, he asked if I would request the minister to recommend him. I had no experience of this and so telephoned Deshmukh. He said that it would not be a problem for him and he would send the letter across immediately.
After this was given, and the individuals had left, I called Deshmukh again and asked if this letter would make a difference. He was honest, and said it would not. I asked why. He said that he received thousands of such requests from people and he could not say no to anyone and so issued the letters. So what did the principal of the college do, I asked. Deshmukh said there was no way he could possibly accommodate all the requests the minister sent and so he accommodated none. He just ignored them.
And of course KTR’s style has parallels in the Union government. One of the most active twitter users we have is Sushma Swaraj, whose home page is a veritable front office for her ministry. Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson does not assure visas over Twitter as she does. America’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo ( who cancelled a meeting with Swaraj a few days ago, presumably on account of proper business and not because he had to manage his twitter feed) doesn’t have a 24/ 7 helpline open on social media for distressed citizens who need the assistance of the government. In their nations, the governments are designed to handle the routine and the extraordinary equally capably. No special nudge is required from the minister and no minister can pass off social media activity as an indicator of effectiveness.
Praising the hyperactivity on twitter of his foreign minister, prime minister Narendra Modi had this to say on one of his visits to the United States last year: “If any Indian in distress tweets from anywhere in the world to the External Affairs Ministry, even at two in the night, within 15 minutes Sushma Swaraj replies to it, the government takes prompt action and delivers results. This is good governance.”
Actually, it is not. Good governance lies in deeper things. In putting processes in place, in predictability and regularity, in ensuring that urgent intervention is in fact not needed.
Personal interventions are required in systems that do not work. The state is dysfunctional in India at every level. This is not a secret. Nor is this a criticism of the current government: it has always been so. Things do not work. The myth of the justice of Jahangir existed because it reassured the citizen that there was hope, in a part of the world where the hope gets extinguished immediately on contact with reality.
As long as this remains the case, we will see the personal ( and highly visible) interventions from our leaders.
Citizen: Amit K Narnoli (@ ANarnoli): @ sureshpprabhu@ RailMinIndia sir plz arrange food for school students in train 12370( B- 1) bcoz of 7 hours delayed, route diverted, No Pantry
Suresh Prabhu: @ ANarnoli we have informed divisional authority, at Varanasi they will arrange, give ur Mobile no.
Citizen: Bibhutti Shrivastava (@ goneinseconds): @ sureshpprabhu@ RailMinIndia need medical attention.. One of the child 6yrs old fell off upper seat.. cut back of the head
Suresh Prabhu: @ goneinseconds Matter forwarded to the concerned official @ Drmfzr required medical help as train reaching LDH Stn.
GIVING UP PRIVACY AND PERSONAL TIME IS THE FIRST REQUIREMENT OF THE INDIAN POLITICIAN. THE DELIVERY OF SERVICES TO PEOPLE IS ACTUALLY HOW ONE BECOMES A LEADER. AND THIS DOES NOT CHANGE, WHETHER ONE IS A MUNICIPAL COUNCILLOR OR A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, INDEED EVEN A MINISTER GOOD GOVERNANCE LIES IN DEEPER THINGS. IN PUTTING PROCESSES IN PLACE, IN PREDICTABILITY AND REGULARITY, IN ENSURING THAT URGENT INTERVENTION IS IN FACT NOT NEEDED. PERSONAL INTERVENTIONS ARE REQUIRED IN SYSTEMS THAT DO NOT WORK. THE STATE IS DYSFUNCTIONAL IN INDIA AT EVERY LEVEL. THIS IS NOT A SECRET