The goal is to make India at par with West, i.e. solve the problems of India, not (or less) found in the West. How? Not by raising moral values, not by increasing history etc education, or not by increasing awareness but by
improving record keeping in GoI offices AND
by reducing nexuses in GoI offices, courts etc
How would above tasks help in reducing the problems of India, that are NOT seen in the West?
Improving record keeping
Each dept in Govt keeps records of individuals, entities like companies, trusts etc, land/buildings and its owners and so on. In addition, offices also keep records of payments and reciepts. The govt laws also require individuals to keep records of his incomes, payments, assets etc.
My proposal are to
index several such records, which is possible ONLY after govt offices issue unique static index to every individual, firm, land plot, building units, bank account, deemat account, share etc.
use multiple indexes if and where applicable
use "cross index" in such records
Using "cross indexes" is a powerful techinique to reduce tax evasion and reduce generation and transfer of black money. This in turn also reduces corruption. Lack of cross indexes is the singlemost important reason why tax evasion in India is so high compared to West.
I will give an example of cross-indexation.
In ALL Western countries, ALL citizens are required to have income tax ID irrespective of whether their income is high or low. This tax-id is the INDEX.
In almost ALL cases, if a person (party) wants to claim a payment as a deduction, he MUST note and report the tax-id of the reciever (counter-party) in his income tax return.
The income dept will check in the payment reciever's return that payment from the party has been cited.
IOW, the cross-index i.e. tax-id of reciever MUST be stated. IOW, the deduction or payment entries are CROSS-INDEXED. . This reduces the evasion of income tax.
I will give another example
In ALL Western countries, ALL citizens are required to have income tax ID irrespective of whether their income is high or low. This tax-id is the INDEX.
All land plots and building units too have a unique number called house number.
If a person buys house/land, buyers/sellers MUST provide his income tax ID to the local land record office. The office will report the purchase to income tax dept
If the purchase of house is NOT reported in the income tax return of the buyer, the income tax dept will immidiately come to know
If the seller does NOT report the income from house sale in his incomw tax return, the income tax dept will immidiately come to know
IOW, the cross-index i.e. ID of house is used to tally the entries of buyers and sellers. This reduces use of black money in purchasing the house etc
On a case by case basis, I will show how indexing and cross-indexing can be used to reduce our problems. On this web-page, I will state only following :
For a large number of problem, indexing and cross-indexing records of individuals, land/buildings, payments/reciepts etc is MUST to solve them
Indexing and cross-indexing is CHEAP i.e. material expenses are negligible. We ONLY enact the law which fixed the indexing rules. But political efforts needed to pass these laws may be high.
Indexing and cross-indexing solve ONLY some problems, NOT all. eg indexing can reduce evasion, but CANNOT solve judge-lawyer nexuses problem.
Indexing and cross-indexing is NOT sufficient in all cases
Now I will repeat : To improve India
we need to index and cross-index the records of various GoI-offices
we need to reduce nexuses in govt offices and courts.
I discussed indexing briefly here. I will discess nexuslessness now.
Nexuslessness in Administration
Lets take a look at nexuses in administration. A nexus in administration would be an unwritten and often "illegitimate" agreement between
two individuals in a government OR
one individual in government and a private person.
How does such illegitimate agreements come into existence? Consider the situation of a new officer. A new officer/judge is a stranger to everyone and so he may be afraid of the authority who is in-charge of expelling him. He may also be afraid that if he breaks a law, a citizen may file a complain against him before the authority and the anuthority may punish/expel him. He is also stranger to various private persons like agents, lawyers, businessmen etc who take frequent services from him, and so he is afraid of asking and taking a bribe from them.
Now the moment a new officer/judge arrives, various individuals such as agents, lawyers, businessmen, local leaders, other officers/judges etc IMMDIATELY start socializing with him and start building friendly relations with him. In most cases, the new officer/judge himself too may be more than eager to socialize with agents, lawyers, brokers, local leaders, other officers/judges etc. Within a few days, he develops freindly relations with the colleagues and seniors he is working with. And within weeks he develops friendly relations with agents, lawyers etc. With these relations, he starts cultivating nexuses involving exchage of illegal favors. This is how nexuses come into existence --- repeated oppurtunities to come into contact with SAME persons. There are NO other deep reasons. The nexuses is the ONLY reason, over and above poor record keeping, why Indian administration/courts are worse compared to West.
Now how can nexusproneness be reduced? The only way that I can think of is the way the West has used to decrease nexusproneness --- by increasing Democraticness
Democraticness in administration
What do I mean by "Democraticness"? The persons in-charge of making appointment/expulsion related decisions and some other legislative/administrative decisions in West are often very very large in number, unrelated with one-another, and in many cases it is the whole population of a region.
Raising Democraticness AUTOMATICALLY raises nexuslessness in the administration. How? When power is concetrated in the hands of few leaders, officers, judges, experts etc., since they are small in number, it becomes possible for would-be-beneficiaries to form nexuses with them get benefits even though they dont qualify. When power is transferred into the hands of lakhs and crores of commons, it becomes impossible for would-be beneficiaries to get benefits by nexuses, and so there is less tendency to form nexuses.
Is it possible to reduce nexuses WITHOUT increasing Democraticness? Is possible that we can have both oligaricness and nexuslessness? So far I have NOT seen any such administrative code. If someone knows an administrative code that would reduce nexuses in administration/courts without Democraticness, I would request him to send the code at MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com . But I am NOT interested in spending time in discovering non-democratic code to reduces nexuses.
Democracy and Democraticness
Just as most economies today are mixed economies, consisting of both, socialism and capitalism, most polities today are mixed polities. They are neighter pure Democartic nor pure oligarchic but partly Democratic and partly oligarchic. eg in India, the procedures of deciding MLA/MP is Democartic; but the procedures to appoint judges in High Courts and Supreme Court are oligarchic.
Now isn't India already a Democracy? Well, we certainly DO have elections of MPs/MLAs (not judges, police chiefs etc) every five years. The election of MP/MLA is certainly is a Democratic procedure. So indeed we do have some "Democracy". But is that the maximal Democraticness possible? No, it is NOT maximal. Forget maximality, it is far far below the level of Democraticness the West has achieved.
To some extent, even the kings and dictators have been slightly Democratic, and so one can say : why have elections of MPs/MLAs to implement Democracy? But this question is worthless ---- Democraticness has always been there in small or large extent every time and the demand for increaseing the level of Democraticness can never be rejected by saying "oh you have enough Democraticness, so you don't need more Democraticness etc"
How can Nexuslessness and Democraticness be raised
Now comes the main question : how can we raise Nexuslessness in India's administration and courts? The ONLY way I know is by increasing Democracticness. If a person is hostile to imcreasing Democraticness, I have NOTHING to offer him.
Now comes second question --- how can Democraticness in India be increased? I have suggested 4 administrative procedures to start with and some 90+ other administrative procedures. Enacting these 4 procedures would need some activism, but enacting other 90+ procedures would NOT need any activism or mass movement at all. It will be as simple as buying railway tickets.
For the details of those 4 core procedures and other 90+ procedures, please click here. For a list of all 90+ procedures, please click here.
