How to ensure transparency and good governance in India

With the continuous efforts and dedication, India will soon become a country which will be educated, developed and which embraces the change with open arms. The only question now is how to coordinate the actions of the government and the nation. Why is it that most of us are usually clueless about what the government would come up with next? Why is there so much of gap between the government and the public when the country is democratic? And how can one actually change the scenario?

1. Transparency – If we want transparency in the governance system, then we need to be more responsible and alert as citizens. Let’s be honest here and think if even for once we ever thought about how we could add to the country’s economy, how we could make the nation developed? The herd mentality has done no good to any of us, but we still choose to stick with it, not realizing that each one of us needs to be answerable for our actions if we want the government to answer to us.

2. Accommodating – We all need to be way more accommodating than we already are, running a whole country which has a population of over 1.25 billion is not an easy deal. Things will go wrong, none of us had anticipated the events that are taking place right now, nobody is the guru of good governance. So we need to realize that like us the government will also make mistakes, what matters is how soon they try to make up for it.

3. Good governance – Good governance can happen only if the government is ready to work with selfless dedication. Money should only be used to run the country, people should be given opportunities to grow, people should be heard and they should be cared for. The words of the people, by the people, for the people should transform into actions. Listening to people and their demands, working accordingly, and ensuring that the policies are in the best interest of people is what good governance should mean.

4. Cooperation – The government and the public need to cooperate with each other. The VIP role of the government and the oversensitivity of the public should be done away with. These two things widen the gap between the people of the nation and the people running it. The public deserves to know where their money is going, why they have to pay so many taxes and what good has come from paying taxes from such a long time. The public needs to know about the deficit and the excess in the budget, we need to have a responsive government which listens to us and takes sensible decisions.

5. Elections – Elections should not be treated as trivially by the public as they are. And they should not be treated as a game of throne by the political parties. Elections decide the fate of the country for the coming years and it is very much in the hands of the public, if only they pay heed to the political scenario well in time. Cash for votes, paying people in kind, distributing goodies to get votes and support has done absolutely no good and we need to realize that temporary happiness has cost us citizens a lot so far.

We need to accept that we cannot blame the government solely, we are at fault too. We choose a government based on various notions, without even knowing who is running in the elections from our area and we expect the government to be answerable to us? To people who are totally unaware of what is even happening in the country? The people who focus so much on the wrong that they forget about the right happening in the country and keep claiming that the country is going to the dogs? We need to stop thinking that the people in the government are any different from the rest of us.