Information, Communication & Society 3:2 2000
173–191
DEMOCRACY AND INFORMATION: A
CASE STUDY OF NEW LOCAL
GOVERNACE STRUCTURES IN
BANGALORE
Shirin Madon
London School of Economics & Political Science, UK
Sundeep Sahay
University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract
The phenomenon of rapid urbanization is posing challenges to planners in
developing countries. As it becomes harder and harder for planners to disentangle
the global from the local, it is increasingly recognized that without a solid local
base, city governments will not have the strength that is needed to navigate global
circuits. This social integration requires democratized political mechanisms based
on administrative decentralization and the participation of citizens in municipal
management. Our paper focuses on the role of information in the democratic
process looking at a case study of new local governance structures in Bangalore.
The city has become a focal point for software development regionally and
globally. Such regional and global interconnections are taking place simultaneously
with a number of local level initiatives aimed at encouraging democratic decisionmaking via legislation and by introducing new local governance structures.
Keywords
democracy, information, local governance, Bangalore
INTRODUCTION
The rapid urbanization that is transforming the developing world is creating
cities that offer opportunities for global economic activity. These cities have
become hubs for dense networks of regional and global economic relations that
stretch beyond the control of any single state. The capital and technological
mobility brought about by globalization places tremendous pressures on these
cities, which are increasingly characterized by serious local social problems such
as the growth of slums and gross civic deficiencies (UNCHS 1996). It is the
perceived failure of formal bureaucratic government institutions to deal with
these pressures that has recently triggered off local transformations towards
Information, Communication & Society
ISSN 1369-118X print/ISSN 1468-4462 online © 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
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alternative forms of governance (Potter and Lloyd-Evans 1998). For example, if
we look at South Asia, the increasing prevalence of new forms of democratic
governance has occurred because formal government authorities have clearly
been unable to absorb the urban population increase (Mathur 1996).
There is growing recognition among social scientists and political theorists
of interactive governance as an alternative to formal bureaucratic government.
Far from the global order being remote from individuals, many writers argue
that the new interpenetration of global/local relations puts participatory
democracy on the agenda (Held 1995; Albrow 1996). For instance, these authors
defend the relevance of democracy in what they claim to be an age of increasingly
knowledgeable communities that are able to engage in a dialogue or negotiation
with service providers at the national, regional or global levels. Along similar
lines, Borja and Castells (1997) argue that in more developed forms of democracy,
citizens’ voices take on a character of autonomy such that citizens are able to
provide a direct input into policy-making. Experience reveals that the public
participation debate is not mere wishful theorizing. On the eve of the third
millennium, disillusionment with representative democracy has been openly
expressed (Young 1992; Gore 1994; Sardar 1996). In particular, it has been
argued that representative democracy appears to have an inbuilt bias against
citizens in unorganized and informal sectors without resources, who may not
be highly focused and may have no mechanism through which they can inuence
government policies and processes (Tonn 1996). Accordingly, in many cities in
the developing world, formal hierarchical government is giving way to new forms
of democratic structures as a way of overcoming institutional weaknesses in the
government and, is becoming more responsive to the needs of citizens, providing
them with improved service through the adoption of modern management
methods and computerization (Borja and Castells 1997). While the role of
government remains central to these new structures, more and more players such
as voluntary organizations, interest groups, the private sector, and the media are
becoming increasingly involved in the process. These new groups are providing
leverage to redesign the nature of democratic governance towards more citizen
participation (Coston 1998). Borja and Castells (1997) describe cities today as
privileged places for democratic innovation, where ‘the crisis of representative
institutions and bureaucratic organizations can be overcome through the many
possibilities for direct elector-elected relationships, for easy access to public
administration, for immediate consultation, for public-private cooperation and
for self-management that can arise in cities’ (Borja and Castells 1997: 251). They
go on to add that active communication is a prerequisite for citizen’s democracy
and, that there can be ‘no active responsible citizens if they are not well informed
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and if they lack any real opportunity to receive and respond to message from the
public and private agents who take decisions concerning the city’ (ibid.: 251).
In this paper, we focus on the role of information in processes of democratization in Bangalore, drawing upon Ž ndings from our ongoing empirical research
on local governance in Bangalore. To give a little background, Bangalore is
an urban centre in southern India representing what is popularly called a ‘megacity’. A megacity is one which, on the one hand, provides tremendous growth
opportunities to its inhabitants and, on the other hand, struggles to realize these
opportunities because of the pressure it faces on its civic, economic and social
infrastructure (Sassen 1994; Castells 1996). A megacity is characterized by its
large population (greater than 5 million), rapid rates of population growth
(greater than 3% annually) and, the fact that it acts as a hub to global economic
activity. For instance, Bangalore is an important focal point for software development in the Asian region and also the global arena. Such regional and global
interconnections are taking place simultaneously with a number of lateral local
level initiatives. A key initiative in this regard concerns the attempts by the
government to develop systems of participative democracy. The Bangalore City
Corporation (BCC) is the focal institution involved in implementing the
decentralization of local governance processes in the city. In the next section, we
examine the role of information in processes of democratization drawing on
fundamental principles of democracy. In section three, we describe recent
initiatives towards strengthening local governance networks in Bangalore. In the
discussion section, we interpret the new local governance initiatives in terms of
the key principles of democratic decision-making in order to argue that, despite
the many challenges that lie ahead, the seeds of change have been sewn in favour
of increased participation of citizens in processes of local governance.
DEMOCRACY AND INFORMATION
The notion of democracy is a core contemporary political value strongly
associated with aspirations of freedom and justice. Yet, different writers have
isolated different sets of principles for democracy. Beetham (1994), for example,
takes the core principles embodied in the historical conception of democracy to
be political equality and popular control. Holden (1988) isolates the core ideas
in terms of liberty and popular sovereignty. If a word like democracy is to have
meaning for us, then we clearly need to examine its core elements.
We follow the argument that alternatives such as liberty, autonomy and
interests fall into place once the foundations of political equality are firmly
established (Lively 1975; Dahl 1989; Harrison 1993). If we take political equality
as the core principle of democracy, then we need to provide a justiŽ cation for
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political equality. The critical question, much debated in the literature, is why
should people be treated as political equals and many writers have been criticized
for not going far enough in convincing skeptics as to why political equality is
justiŽ ed as the core notion of democracy. For example, Dahl (1989) interprets
political equality to mean ‘intrinsic equality’ meaning that in any given society
there ought to be equal consideration given to the interests of all citizens. In turn,
his principle of personal autonomy tells us that no person in general is more likely
than yourself to be a better judge of her own interest and to act to bring it about.
Together, his two ideas result in the strong principle of equality, which, according
to Dahl, is the principle from which democracy’s fundamental worth, can be
deduced. However, Dahl himself says little to convince skeptics to accept these
notions. Barry’s (1989) argument ends up displaying similar deŽciencies to Dahl’s.
The key problem with his argument is again that the premise of natural or intrinsic
equality is presumed rather than argued for.
Saward (1989) suggests that one way of providing a more convincing justiŽ cation of political equality is to think about claims for non-democratic systems.
All such claims argue that some set of people with certain characteristics
are inherently superior to others. The most notable historical examples have
been based on sex, age, class, race and, religion. Among the key defenders of
the sex and age exclusion was James Mill in his celebrated Essay on Government
(1978). All the various forms of exclusion can be collapsed into a claim about
superior knowledge of interests. Saward and others emphasize that while a
political authority could have contingent superior knowledge of what is in the
interests of citizens with regard to a particular issue, claims to non-contingent
superior knowledge across the full range of a given citizen’s relevant concerns
are more difŽ cult to sustain (Walzer 1983; Saward 1989). Given that there is no
independent way of assessing different interests of different people, it follows,
therefore, that informed individuals must be regarded as the best judges of their
own interests across the full range of relevant concerns. In Rawl’s terms, which
centre on justice, while individuals presumably have varying capacities for a sense
of justice, this fact is not a reason for depriving those with a lesser capacity of the
full protection of justice. All that matters is that people possess the relevant
capacity for justice, not that they possess it to a greater or lesser degree (Rawls
1972). This argument can be transferred into the foundations of political equality.
The fact that we all have an autonomous capacity for the exercise of reason is
sufŽ cient for us to be regarded as having equal inputs in the making of decisions.
While justiŽ cation is the Ž rst part of the jigsaw of democratic theory, other
pressing questions remain. The most critical is how does the principle of political
equality lead us to a Ž nal deŽ nition of democracy? Saward adopts the deŽ nition
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borrowed from May (1978) of responsive rule, which refers to a notion of
democracy in terms of the responsiveness of government agencies towards the
felt needs of citizens. If responsiveness is the democratic ideal, the next question
is how ought a system based on this principle be constituted. Many writers
have argued that it is precisely because no guarantee or verdict is ever possible with
regards outcomes on decisions that we need place such a high value on process
(Dahl 1989; Hyland 1995; Saward 1998). We therefore need to turn to the
requirements of democratic decision-making. If political equality is the grounding
principle of democracy, then citizens must have a right to procedural equality
at each stage in a democratic system. Integral to the democratic process are
considerations of substantive rights and interests:
• At the Ž rst stage of agenda setting, this translates to equal rights to vote, to
run for elective ofŽ ce, and to be treated under the law. These rights are clearly
fundamental to all that has been said about the justiŽ cation of democracy. Yet
rights can count for little without opportunities for their effective exercise.
The requirement of notiŽ cation of information is therefore essential at the
agenda-setting stage. By notiŽ cation, we refer to a public process of informing
citizens as objectively as possible about past issues, present debates, policy
options in order that they have an opportunity to become aware of issues that
need to be placed on the agenda for collective decision-making.
• NotiŽ cation is equally crucial at the second stage of decision-making, which
focuses on processes of debate and discussion. Beyond that, at the second stage
of decision-making, equal rights to basic freedom of expression and association
are imperative. Hirst (1994) argues that the empowerment of civil society
is a crucial condition for democracy given that the sheer size and complexity
of modern society means that contemporary legislature are too remote from
individuals for them to retain any real control. Civil society has an institutional
core constituted by voluntary organizations outside the sphere of the state
and the economy (Keane 1988; Putnam et al. 1993). At this stage of decisionmaking, equal social rights to adequate education, health care and minimum
income are also considered critical for citizens’ capacities to be receptive to
and engage in processes of democratic debate and discussion (Dahl 1989;
Saward 1998).
• The third stage of decision-making is the moment of the decision itself
requiring that the voice of citizens, rather than other factors, must decide
outcomes. At this stage, information should flow freely from citizens to
government. For this reason, most writers advocate that direct democratic
mechanisms be given formal and systematic priority over indirect mechanisms
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because it has a much greater Ž delity to the principle of political equality than
other alternatives (Dahl 1989; Budge 1996; Saward 1998). However, while
responsive rule leads us to favouring direct over indirect forms of decisionmaking, direct forms of democracy are often dismissed on the grounds that
they require small political communities, which facilitate face-to-face decisionmaking in the Athenian style rather than the modern nation state. In response,
it has been argued that direct democracy does not depend on the capacity
of the members of the political unit to gather together in one place to make
decisions. The primary modern form of direct democracy is allegedly the
referendum and today there exist increasing possibilities that citizens can
communicate at a distance and in complex networks by electronic means
(Manor 1975; Barber 1994; Budge 1996; Taylor 1998).
• At the fourth stage, the responsive rule idea would dictate that what the people
decided would be fully implemented without dilution, modiŽ cation and delay
requiring that appropriate time limits be speciŽed and adequate channels for
appeals and redressal should be in place for the realization of the substance of
public decisions.
Clearly throughout these stages of decision-making, there are strong grounds
to support the provision of information of options and outcomes with respect to
political issues. The last twenty Ž ve years or so have seen the passage of the ‘right
to information’ legislation in many countries beginning with the United States in
1966. South Africa, the UK and India are now seriously considering legislation
of their own (Chand 1999). Yet the relationship between information and systems
of democracy remains extremely complex and not easy to analyse. A very small
part of the information implicated in democratic processes is formal, documented
and easy to isolate. Much of the information that connects citizens to political
systems is undocumented, tacit, political and thus extremely difŽ cult to discern.
Given the different groups of people through which the information needs to
 ow through in a democratized and decentralized system, there lies great potential
for these  ows to be obstructed, terminated or even ignored. In an interesting
analysis, James Heitzman (1999) discusses various strategies used by the governmental machinery in Bangalore to thwart decentralization attempts by citizens
and other groups. Heitzman specifically sets out to explore the relationship
between information and urban governance within the context of a participative
democracy. He argues that the practice of public participation in administration
implies access by an informed citizenry to interviews, reports, studies, opinions
and project proposals that pertain to local problems and issues. This access to
information and knowledge involves both institutionalized and also informal ows
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between the citizens and different agencies that are involved in issues of urban
governance. Heitzman uses a case study to describe the relationship between
information  ows and processes of democratic governance in Bangalore.
The case of the implementation of the
N agarpalika Act (74t h Amendment)
The Nagarpalika Act provides a deŽ nition of urban settlements and establishes
a population of one million as a deŽ ning characteristic of a metropolitan area.
It requires the constitution of electoral wards for representatives within each
municipality and mandates the establishment of ward committees, the constitution of which, however, is the responsibility of the state government. The ward
committees are subject to reservations for women and backward castes, as is
normally the procedure in the Indian political system. The mandate for the
creation of the ward and zonal levels is seen as an innovation that could provide
the opportunity for the decentralization of municipal affairs and for a larger
involvement of citizens in municipal affairs.
In the implementation of this Act in Bangalore, Heitzman’s analysis points out
that the state government and the bureaucracy adopted various strategies of
information blocking which prevented the input from citizens being seriously
taken into account. According to Heitzman, the vast majority of the people in
the city, including many politicians, remained unaware of the provisions of the
Act or its political impact years after its enactment. Even non-government organizations (NGOs) who were Ž ghting hard to incorporate the input of the citizens
into the implementation of the Act seemed to be largely incapable of mobilizing
and sustaining a mass movement towards this end. This meant that the implementation of the Act remained the job of state bureaucrats acting in alliance with
members of the ruling party. Heitzman speculates on a theory of an ‘elite
conspiracy’ which precluded the involvement of the citizens. Bureaucrats were
skeptical over any system that allowed the potential for politicians and political
parties to take control of development projects. Politicians, on the other hand,
engaged in regular obstruction of processes that would potentially allow increased
access to information for the public.
Heitzman describes a strategy effectively used by this ‘elite group’ to block
access of information to the public, especially the NGO community, through the
control of time. The implementation of the Act took place through a series of
events in which the Act would disappear from public view and then suddenly
reappear without giving adequate time to the NGO community to mobilize their
forces and oppose this reintroduction. Heitzman writes: ‘While the Act remained
invisible, any person or group who intended to address local governance was
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forced to discuss previous drafts or proposals, which were by then obsolete, or
to hypothesize on future versions which remained unknowable. Within this overall
strategy, the government exercised a tactical command over time that restricted
access to information’. Heitzman gives a number of interesting examples to show
how this strategy was put into practice with the result that, ‘the state bureaucracy,
by manipulating the timing of information release, was able to direct the entire
implementation process with little interference from outside agents’. Ultimately,
the state legislatures passed the ordinances into law with no changes, ignoring by
and large the various suggestions and protests put forth by the citizen groups,
especially the NGO community. In this example, the inherent complexity of the
relationship between systems of democracy and information stems from a variety
of factors including:
• The manner in which people in power who were going to beneŽ t from the
events formed coalitions to take control of the information and prevent its
access to the various groups of people who were in opposition;
• The inability of the protestors to develop strong alliances and put forth a
coherent and strong voice of protest;
• An absence of a culture, which encourages open information, its access and
sharing;
• The apathy of citizens who failed to get actively engaged in voicing their
opinions to protest against events, which may be detrimental to their own
interests;
• A complex system of bureaucracy, which involves multiple procedures and
agencies making it extremely difŽcult to pinpoint accountability; and
• A legal system in which processes of grievance redressal are extremely long
drawn and complex.
There was limited scope for citizen input at the early stages of agenda setting
and debate. As a result, decision outcomes were biased in favour of the state
government without acknowledging the voice of citizens. Given this extremely
complex and deep-rooted context, what is it then that we can say about the future
of participative democracy in a developing country city like Bangalore? Do
we resign ourselves to a system that we believe will never change on the
ground despite the ongoing rhetoric of democracy? On the contrary, we reinforce
the arguments made by many social and political theorists that actors are in a
constant state of re exive inquiry as they continuously monitor their situation
and the potential for change, either consciously or subconsciously (Held 1995;
Albrow 1996). Rather than believing solely in radical democratization through
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government decree, in this section we argue that a key aspect of reform arises from
the subtle incremental democratic processes that are taking place in Bangalore.
STRENGTHENING LOCAL GOVERNANCE
NETWORK: AN INCREMENTAL PROCESS OF
REFORM
In this section we describe some recent initiatives that have taken place in
Bangalore towards establishing closer linkages with key stakeholders. Each of
these initiatives aims to strengthen partnerships between key stakeholders
involved in local governance and we give examples of how this is being achieved.
While individually these initiatives may not lead to any radical reform, there is
every reason to suggest that their cumulative impact will ultimately strengthen
the local governance network to withstand pressures from above. Of central
concern to us in this section is the role of information in democratic decisionmaking processes.
Swabhimana
Swabhimana is a citizen-government interactive forum founded in 1995 based
on partnership between local government, communities, corporate/business
groups and voluntary organizations. ‘Self help’, as the name Swabhimana implies,
is the guiding principle of this forum, which aims to sensitize citizens towards
playing a more proactive role in urban management in order to enhance the quality
of city life. Present efforts of the programme are concentrating on city planning
and development, and on the improvement of civic services through community
participation at the ward and neighbourhood level. The forum is striving to create
models for city planning and civic management through various pilot projects,
which include the following:
• Facilitating debates and meetings on the encouragement and sustenance of
partnership between public and private sectors. Initiatives in this direction
have resulted in the BCC identifying areas where corporate sponsorship would
be appreciated;
• Emphasizing the role of public feedback in facilitating the reformative
processes being undertaken by agencies providing public services. For
example, it recently organized an interactive meeting to enable the Karnataka
Electricity Board to incorporate public suggestions into its efforts at reform
and, thereby making it more responsive to public demands;
• Working towards strengthening neighbourhood groups and their participation
in city management. It ensures this by disseminating information among
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residents regarding the administration of their ward such as whom to contact
in case of a grievance, the method of preparation of ward budgets, the objective
behind decentralized governance, and the scope for community monitoring
of public works; and
• Facilitating the framing of a Citizens’ Charter of Demands, which was used to
demand accountability from elected representatives.
S t a k e h o l d e r s’ F o r u m
In August 1998, the NGO called CIVIC, based in Bangalore, signed a contract
with the Urban Management Programme, South Asia of the UNDP. UMP/UNDP
agreed to provide consultative and financial support for the effort to build a
Stakeholders’ Forum and CIVIC was given the responsibility of coordinating it.
The Stakeholders’ Forum is a movement where the local government, voluntary
organizations, resident groups and individuals participate in a collective and
coordinated effort to facilitate a participative mode of planning and governance.
The Ž rst meeting of the forum members resulted in the identiŽ cation of issues
perceived to be requiring immediate attention. These issues were then prioritized
as per public feedback through a mailed survey with particular attention
being given to concerns voiced by groups and individuals working for the urban
poor.
A Bangalore City ProŽ le Document has been compiled by CIVIC as part of its
efforts to foster a city consultation process for establishing the Forum. Preparation
of the proŽ le has itself been a shared exercise with various civic and academic
groups contributing sections to the report, or agreeing to their own papers and
reports being used for the purpose. CIVIC has also obtained some documents and
Ž gures from various government institutions. The actual compilation of data and
the writing of comments have been in the hands of CIVIC members. The city
proŽ le document attempts to present the status of the city – its demography,
quality of health and educational services, housing, economy, transportation,
infrastructure service provision, urban governance, municipal finance, and
partnerships with the private sector and voluntary groups. Each of these sections
discusses the major concerns or issues that are worthy of discussions and debate
between all stakeholders of Bangalore, to arrive at a consensus on priorities.
Jana Sahayog
This non-government organization was established in 1995 with the aim of
improving information and communication  ows between slum dwellers and
the network of agents who interact with them. Jana Sahayog presently works with
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1,200 families in six slums in Bangalore city, as well as in six other cities in
Karnataka. With its strong focus on information as a strategy for empowering
slum dwellers, Jana Sahayog strongly adheres to the principles behind the ‘Right
to Information’ movement in India. A major objective of the organization is
therefore to inform slum dwellers about the (lack of) provision of basic services
in their slum and ways in which their rights are being violated by municipal
authorities. Jana Sahayog argues that publicly available information in the
BCC’s Corporate Plan Document totally misrepresents the extent of slums and
the problems faced by dwellers. To remedy this, Jana Sahayog has created a proŽ le
on twenty slums in the city documenting information about slum land, and
the gaps in the provision of basic services such as water, drainage and latrines. The
proŽ le is explicit in indicating to slum dwellers, sometimes by obtaining information from illegal means, that the BCC is violating human rights laws and public
interest litigation. It also alerts slum dwellers to government malpractices such
as the manipulation of land highlighting the role of middlemen in exploitation,
child labour exploitation and, the real intention behind government schemes.
The information from the profile is presented to slum dwellers in ways they
can relate to. As an example, Jana Sahayog uses wall newspapers to depict
exploitation pictorally and, also prepares audiocassettes in Kannada which is the
local vernacular describing slum legislation and issues of exploitation. The wall
newspapers are then cut into smaller sections and made into a magazine for
mailing to elected representatives, government officials, other NGOs, media
persons and, other interested bodies.
Through the creation of its slum proŽ le indicators, Jana Sahayog have been
effective in identifying key areas of exploitation and approaching the BCC for
comments and legal action. For example, out of twenty slums, Jana Sahayog found
that sixteen are consuming contaminated water. It has facilitated the formation
of a group consisting of one representative from each slum to Ž le public interest
and human rights litigation against the BCC. Between 1997 and 2000, it is estimated that the NGO will have assisted people living in twenty slums to obtain land
titles to their home sites, potentially ensuring people access to permanent
housing, drinking water, sanitation and electricity.
Citizen web page
The citizen’s web page was an initiative designed to make available for the Žrst time
in history, a repository of information about the structure and internal functioning
of the BCC and, its achievements. The web page was designed by an enthusiastic
ex-Commissioner of the Corporation for the period 1998–1999 and contained
the following information:
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• General powers vested in the BCC through municipal acts, followed by a listing
of obligatory and discretionary functions;
• The constitution of the corporation and its hierarchical structure;
• Details of funds allocated and monies spent by the Bangalore municipality
on central government-sponsored megacity projects for infrastructure
development;
• A historical background of Bangalore;
• An administrative report of the BCC detailing the names of officers and
assistants who have served in particular functions; and
• A performance budgetary report showing Ž scal targets and achievements.
While, in principle, the concept of the BCC initiating a web page for citizens
signalled a step towards increased public participation in municipal affairs,
the experiment was left incomplete. Once the web site experiment was launched
on a pilot basis, it came under severe criticism from the Indian press. Criticisms
were made in terms of design, layout and content. The web page needed to be
more explicit about its intended audience – the citizens. If one of the main
purposes of the site is to encourage citizen-BCC interaction, then the site either
needs to be interactive or to signpost channels of communication to citizens
in order to provide feedback at various stages, for example, by giving e-mail
addresses of people to direct comments and suggestions to. Regarding content,
a lot of information was deemed irrelevant for citizens such as the names of
ofŽ cers and assistants and, the textual historical account of Bangalore. The fate
of the web site is uncertain because of the sudden transfer of the ex-Commissioner
of the BCC, who had masterminded the initiative.
A si an Develop ment Ba nk
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) conducted a forum on municipal management in Tokyo in February 1998 in order to initiate local government reform
in ten Asian megacities. Bangalore was one of the cities chosen by the Bank
for assistance in improving municipal service delivery capability to citizens.
The ADB proposed to achieve this by benchmarking civic services in the city and
then helping participating municipalities to identify, adopt and implement ‘best
practices’. The project has been phased over a period of 18 months and focuses
on the improvement of six public services, namely public grievances, property
tax, parking, hawking, road maintenance, and solid waste management. At a
time, two services have been taken up for benchmarking. The public grievance
system and solid waste management were the first two to be taken up after
consultation with BCC.
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In keeping with the best practices identified, modifications in the existing
public grievance redressal system have been made. The new system, which has
received a lot of publicity in the press, aims to redress grievances within stipulated
time-frames, to keep the complainant informed about the status of the complaint,
and to demand greater accountability from the concerned authorities. The system
is now called the Customer Complaint System probably to highlight ‘customer
orientation’ and to bring about an attitudinal change in the BCC towards greater
local accountability. Under the new system, all complaints irrespective of department are to be lodged at one of the twenty eight local range ofŽ ces (the second
lowest rung in the administrative hierarchy after the ward) and recorded on
computer. Only unresolved complaints are reported up to the BCC headquarters.
Immediately on receipt of a complaint, a computerized acknowledgement is
issued to the complainant and, entered on the range computer system mentioning
the name of the ofŽ cer to whom it will be referred and the period in which the
complaint has to be resolved. If there are delays in the redress of a complaint, the
complainant can contact the concerned revenue ofŽ cer directly. Another copy of
the acknowledgement along with the complaint petition is sent to the department
concerned at the local level. The ofŽcials have to take immediate action within
the period mentioned in the acknowledgement form, and send feedback to
the concerned revenue ofŽ cer in the range who in turn prepares a computerized
reply for the complainant. A new channel for grievance redressal has been
initiated a couple of months ago which is the ward committee meeting thereby
moving towards the fulŽ lment of the objectives of the 74th Amendment of the
Constitution. While these new structural changes in the public grievance promise
to improve accountability, efŽ ciency and transparency, the ultimate impact on
improving public service delivery remains to be seen.
Democratization of processes of governance is seen by ADB as a major step
towards improving other municipal services such as property tax administration.
With the proposed move towards a system of self-assessment of annual rental
value by citizens, efforts have been made to decentralize the system of property
tax administration by incorporating the input of local NGOs and citizen groups
to assist in the new procedures to involve citizens in property tax assessment. For
instance, the BCC has commissioned a citizen survey to gather views on the
current system and on their suggestions for improvement. The survey was
designed with the help of researchers and CIVIC (assisted by ten resident welfare
organisations) who have taken on the responsibility of interviewing residents in
their respective areas. The questionnaire was also released in a newspaper for
wider dissemination among the general public. Presently, the information from
the survey is being tabulated for presentation before the BCC council meeting.
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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Pressures for democratization are providing a context of tremendous transformation for the BCC. Both externally and internally, BCC is under pressure
to make its systems of information management more effective so as to become
more responsive to the needs and concerns of the citizens. Externally, for
example, BCC needs to develop and sustain effective linkages with groups where
such linkages did not exist before, such as with private companies who are
becoming responsible for providing certain services. BCC also has the extremely
complex task of developing and maintaining institutional relationships at multiple
levels, such as with international aid agencies like the Asian Development
Bank, with other local level agencies responsible for providing utilities like power
and water to the citizens and, also with citizens and community groups who
are the end users of the BCC services in the city. Internally, existing processes
of decision-making and management are being placed under pressure to change
with the organizational mandate shifting from one of regulation and control to one
of facilitation. For example, the newly constituted Bangalore Action Task Force
(BATF) is a forum initiated by the private sector, including an amalgam of public
sector and BCC representatives, and various NGO bodies. The role of the BCC
in this forum has changed from one of regulation to one of facilitating key stakeholders involved in city governance to commit themselves to improved service
delivery and city management.
Within this climate of change towards new forms of governance structures,
the implicit promise that democratisation occurs via legislation rests upon a naïve
view of administrative reform. In Karnataka, despite the alleged commitment to
decentralisation in terms of adherence to the Nagarpalika legislation, efforts were
blocked resulting in no citizen participation in development. Increased calls
for democracy and citizen participation demand that attention be given to those
who have been excluded and to their interpretations of the world, which have
so far been ignored or have remained invisible. A notable example of this are
the recent initiatives by various stakeholders involved in urban governance in
Bangalore to incorporate citizens, including slum dwellers, centrally into the
urban development process. A re exive understanding and appreciation of the
value of other ways of perceiving the urban development task are gradually
replacing the heavy hand of state bureaucracy in urban governance. Citizens
re exively monitor their position of dependence on the government for the poor
provision of basic services. The capacity of citizens to re exively monitor their
situation has resulted in their active involvement in forming resident groups,
which we described earlier.
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While efforts to date may not have resulted in any major change in the status
quo, through the regular action of stakeholders involved in local governance,
patterns of interaction and work practices are gradually becoming institutionalized. If we believe that it is this incremental process of reform that will ultimately
lead to greater equity and citizen participation in urban development, then the
formation and dynamics of the various initiatives that have been introduced to
strengthen local governance networks deserve closer examination. For each of the
recent initiatives discussed, Ž gure 1 summarizes the subtle way in which reform
is taking place by identifying the ‘network’ of stakeholders involved and the
information  ows between them. Going beyond merely recording the existence
of the various initiatives that are taking place, our mapping tries to expose the
dynamics of the interaction between these efforts at each stage of the process
of democratic decision-making. The Swabhimana initiative, for example, is
integrated as a key actor in the Stakeholder Forum spearheaded by CIVIC. It
is this cumulative and incremental process that promises to institutionalize local
government networks.
With an emphasis on process, each of the initiatives we have described in
the previous section can be conceptualized and linked explicitly to stages in the
process of democratic decision-making. The first stage of agenda setting was
described earlier as a public process of informing citizens of public options, issues
and debates in order to enable them to prioritize their concerns. The Stakeholders
Forum initiative can be categorized as a forum devoted to providing information
about the status of the city and, about major issues worthy of debate and discussion
through its city proŽ le document. The Citizen Web Page initiative can also be
conceived of as an initiative devoted to introducing a public process of informing
citizens about the BCC, its functions, expenditures and administrative processes
in order to sensitize citizens over priority areas for later discussion. In its present
form, however, without channels of communication for citizens to voice their
concerns, no opportunities exist to proceed to the second stage of decisionmaking through debate and discussion.
In terms of the second stage of democratic decision-making – that of debate
and discussion, the Swabhimana initiative and Jana Sahayog provide relevant input
through the formation of neighbourhood groups and slum dwellers associations
respectively. A major role of the Swabhimana initiative is to disseminate information about procedures for the preparation of government schemes, budgets,
grievances and monitoring to neighbourhood groups in order to encourage debate
and discussion. Jana Sahayog has put in place a regular process of informing slum
dwellers about government schemes and the provision of basic services and social
187
Figure 1 Mapping emergent local governance networks and information  ows inBangalore
DEM OCRACY
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rights in their slum proŽle document in order to motivate slum dwellers to debate
and discuss their status quo.
In terms of the third stage of decision-making, the Swabhimana Forum tries
to ensure public input into decision outcomes – for example, via its Citizen
Charter of Demand. Jana Sahayog is also committed to ensuring that slum
dwellers concerns are re ected in legal outcomes as well as in BCC decision.
Both these initiatives aim to ensure that information flows from citizens to
government and, that action is taken based on citizen concerns. With the Asian
Development Bank initiative, the focus has been on both the decision outcome
and the implementation stages of democratic decision-making. At the decision
outcome stage, for example, the new system of self-assessment of property tax
aims to institutionalize the input of citizens in tax assessment. At the implementation stage, the best practices developed specify key criteria for the
implementation of decision outcomes such as the setting of time limits and the
establishment of channels for grievances and appeals related to the provision of
services.
To conclude, we recognize that it is still early days for the initiatives we have
described in this article and we will continue to closely monitor how each of these
networks develops in our ongoing research on urban governance in Bangalore.
At the same time, we see that there is already considerable ‘learning by doing’
taking place. For example, the new procedures introduced for dealing with public
grievances are currently being ‘tested’ out on citizens and a questionnaire has
been designed to provide feedback for further improvements. Another example
is the case of Jana Sahayog where since the organization was set up, there has been
continual ‘learning from the Ž eld’ taking place through long-term immersion
into the lives of slum dwellers. There are hopes that within the current climate
of change within the BCC, the criticisms made of the web page experiment will
be used constructively within the Corporation to re ect on many aspects of its
present functioning. An important lesson about reform towards democratization
is that lasting development requires a willingness to alter how problems are dealt
with.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge help from Jyotsna Sahay and Smita Bidarkar
Shirin Madon
Department of Information Systems
London School of Economics & Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE, UK
[email protected]
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MADON
AND
SAH AY
Sundeep Sahay
Department of Informatics
University of Oslo
Norway
sundeeps@iŽ.uio.no
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