Good governance is a broad mechanism to accommodate every stakeholders in the process of inclusiveness, in terms of decision making and implementation. Simply, good governance means governing together to realise collective well-being. Here, I’m going to explain the basic principles of good governance for better insight of this issue.
Overview of Basic principles of good governance
Principles are truth ridden normative rules designed to shape the activity, process or behaviour in order to realize something.In this regard, World Bank is credited for designing the key basic principles of good governance in the interest of people of the world. So, let’s see the basic principles of good governance one by one…
- Responsibility
- Transparency
- Accountability
- Consistency
- Equity and fairness
- Public participation
- Adherence to law
1.Responsibility
To reduce the degree of chaos and confusion, government or governing agencies need to be more responsive, as well as flexible to deal with unpredictable or predictable changes in the society. By doing so, they gain the trust of people in making difficult decisions.
2. Transparency
It is all about the decisions taken by government should be in the light of public attention. It means that the decision making and implementation should be in the open atmosphere to make public as witness.
3. Accountability
Being the guardians of public exchaquer, it is the duty of public officials to maintain and give an account of expenditure and income to the exchaquer on demand of public or when necessary. In this way, they can ensure that the public resources are properly used in the interest of people only.
4. Consistency
Consistency in government decisions in time and place is utmost important to infuse the sense of predictability in public. It helps to empower people to plan in future accordingly without uncertainty. It is also essential to create business friendly environment to attract investment.
5. Equity and fairness
It is wisely said that development without equity and justice is equal to death recipe for democracy. Hence, impartial policies and all inclusive development is indispensable to realize peaceful and just society.
6. Public participation
The ultimate meaning of good governance is governing together for all. Accordingly, without participation of public in the process of decision making and implementation, the idea of good governance will be incomplete. And, public participation cannot be restricted mere to cast only vote, but they should be empowered to voice theirs opinions to shape decisions.
7. Adherence to law
Any decision taken by the government should be in the ambit of constitution or based on the rule of law. It is important to ensure proper checks and balances in case of misuses.
These are some important principles of good governance designed to realize the idea of good governance in the interest of people.
Understanding Good governance in India
Good governance is a process of making public administration more responsive, transparent and people centric so that citizens could be transformed as an active stakeholders in pursuit of collective goals. In short, good governance means governing together. Here, you will know about the true state of good governance in India.
Meaning and definition of good governance
Unlike traditional governments, good governance is a set of processes of widening the scope of public administration in the interest of people.
The rationale behind good governance is to
Minimize the gap between governing agencies, especially administration and public
Eradicate corruption, ensure active participation of people in the process of decision making and implementation, and to strengthen democracy.
Right to information act 2005
In order to bring better transparency in the functioning of governing agencies and ensure the faith of people, the UPA government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh passed the RTI act in 2005.
Definitely, it was a praiseworthy step taken by government in the process of ensuring the decision making more open and understandable.
By this act, citizens were empowered to demand information regarding any work done with the help of public money. Despite this, large number of incidents of corruptions were noticed in the regime of UPA government itself.
State of public participation
In India, the degree of public participation in voicing opinions to shape decisions, is too poor compare to others. Largely, the public participation is restricted to only voting in elections.
Even in respect to more sensitive or important issues, media institutions are shrewdly misused to manipulate the opinions of masses in favour of wrong decisions, such as the propaganda operated in the time of demonetisation and lockdowns.
Examples of demonetization and lockdowns
It was the worst form of authoritarian decision making without understanding the degree of negative impacts that common people were going to face. And, obviously, the fallouts were disastrous — loss of businesses, jobs, and even lives.
Most surprisingly, both highly sensitive decisions were taken haphazardly and untimely in the so called largest democracy in the world. So far, no person is held responsible for the grossly failures and there is no chances of evaluation.
Incidents of lynching and rule of law
In the last five to six years, hundreds of people were lynched by unruly mobs on the name of to protect cow slaughteing.
No due process of law were followed to trial these people in question for cow slaughteing, under law of soil. Then, what about the adherence to law or rule of law which is the basic principle of good governance.
Religious intolerance and discriminatory tilt
It is another one jolt on the claims of good governance that people in power are frequently making. Without equity, the idea of good governance is worthless. Growing communal rift, targeting minorities, partiality in favour of majority to garner votes is the worst form of tactics to remain in the power.
The voices of civil society citing the issue of religious intolerance have been systematicly buried on the name of patriotism.
And, at the present, it is crime to speak in favour of pluralism and tolerance. Then, let me know how the process of governing together is possible in such divisive atmosphere.
In short, the state of good governance in India in the present context, is below par and need to improve it to justify the legitimacy of largest democracy. After all democracy without good governance in India looks redundant and meaningless.
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