Whatever happened to collective responsibility

They swim together or sink together, is how the collective orientation of the cabinet has been described in the Indian parliamentary system. By definition therefore,cabinet is a body which makes coherent efforts towards the progress of the nation.within the cabinet, there are deliberations and member's dissent is taken into consideration. But once a decision is taken, the cabinet has to defend it both in the parliament and in public.This arrangement worked well in the Indian polity for the first couple of decades after independence.

With growing political instability post 1970s, the whole landscape of Indian politics has changes substantially.Now that the trend of coalition politics has settled in the Indian democracy, collective responsibility seems to be the latest casualty. This flows for the fact that in a coalition government cabinet berths are not allocated on the basis of merit, rather hardcore political bargain is resorted to. Also, this bunch of opportunist politicians have one eye always set on their support base. This leads to chaos and confusion. Ministers choose to stay away from the cabinet deliberations over supposedly controversial issues, or worse if they do attend the meeting, they openly criticize the decision. A case in point is the recent cabinet decision to decontrol the pricing of petroleum. Several ministers openly criticized the step. Also with a controversy looming large over the 2G spectrum allocation most ministers washed their hands off.

Turf wars between ministries is becoming increasingly common. Recently, a minister on a foreign trip criticized his cabinet colleague over the latter's way of functioning. The list is endless, which clearly indicates that cabinet responsibility and collective responsibility is passe.This is a clear indication of the degenerating political scenario in the country. Unless some radical measures are taken, the situation does not appear to be improving.

Lets build a consensus on consensus...

Of many imitated concepts of Indian democracy, consensus based decision making is a rather humble one.After centuries of decisions being imposed by the autocratic rulers, when Indians got their independence and with it power to write their own destiny, they understandably wanted to take everybody on board while taking all major decisions.

On the face of it, consensus is a rather noble phenomenon in model liberal democracies where people have a major say in the process of decision making, more so in some Scandinavian countries where even small decisions are put to referendum. Since India borrowed the concept of democracy intoto, consensus came along. India, however, is a unique case with multiple religions, zillions of castes, languages, cultures and what not. So it is practically impossible for Indians to build a consensus on major issues, especially because the diverse forces in play against each other result in a zero sum energy.But we are still obsessed with consensus building..

History of independent India tells us that whenever an issue is postponed till ' a broad consensus is evolved', it keeps orbiting in the endless universe of Indian politics for eternity. Even if finally a decision is taken by accommodating all opinions, it gets so diluted that the original purpose is defeated..

In our heterogeneous society, if everyone is to be kept happy, we will never move forward.This is precisely why our politico-administrative system has become status-quoist. Hard decisions are bound to ruffle a few feathers, but the political leadership does not have the guts to be visionary, look beyond what common people can see.

The need of the hour is, therefore, to re-asses our obsession with consensus. Lets build a consensus on consensus building!