Bihar, with a population of 103 million, is the third-most populous state of India. About 17 per cent of the population is Muslim, which makes Bihar host to the second-largest population of Muslims among the Indian states. Bihar had posted a compound annual growth rate of 16.71 per cent during 2011-12, which was the highest among the Indian states. Bihar’s spending on development increased tremendously during the past five years with the expenditure during this period being higher than the cumulative expenditure during the preceding 50 years.
Bihar’s landmark governance initiative has been the passing of the Right to Public Service Act in 2011, which guarantees 52 basic services to its citizens within a fixed timeframe. Citizens can demand these services as a right and penalties are prescribed for public office holders who fail to provide them within the prescribed time limit. The state received 20 million applications during the one year after the passage of the Act of which some 95 per cent were disposed of within the target time.
Another innovation is that of providing the right to information (RTI) to the marginalised and illiterate sections of society, which cannot make written applications to demand information. Now, any citizen can file an application for information using mobile phones and the state is obligated to provide it within 30 days. Call centres have been established to convert public calls into written RTI applications. It is worth noting that RTI has assumed the scale of a movement in India and is extensively used by citizens.
Pakistan, which faces tremendous challenges when it comes to getting children vaccinated, especially against polio, can learn from Bihar, which has succeeded in increasing the percentage of full immunisation from 18.6 per cent in 2005 to 66.8 per cent in 2012. No fresh case of polio has been detected in Bihar since September 2010.
Pakistan and India have discussed issues such as Kashmir, Siachen, river waters, trade and terrorism for many years. However, public issues such as education, health, poverty eradication, right to services, etc, are new and welcome items on the menu.
As Kumar completes his second consecutive term as chief minister after serving six terms in the Lok Sabha and holding portfolios in the Union cabinet, he is being widely tipped as one of the most potent candidates for the future premier of India. His visit to Pakistan and exchange of views with top political leaders will provide him with necessary insight into Pakistan-India relations. Now that Pakistan is transforming itself into a stable democracy, the challenges of providing good governance under a democratic set-up may be easier to face by learning from each other. The goals of peace and friendship can be achieved not only by holding dialogues on bilateral issues but also by sharing experiences on good governance.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 11th, 2012.
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Progress and prosperity of Pakistan or any nation for that matter is possible through peace and peace alone. A close coordination and cooperation with the neighbours will alone can and should be considered as the right and appropriate part. Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister of Bihar has indeed proved to be one of the best of India's Chief Minister's to have brought the state that had been the 'bimaru' state of India to one of the fastest growing state. This is the achievement of this Chief Minister which deserves full marks. His future as the Prime Minister of India is possible if and only if the Third Front that shall include the Left Parties gets an absolute majority on the floor of the Lok Sabha in the next general election that will be held in 2014. India and Pakistan are turning more cordial since the last few years and the focus is changing from issues like Kashmir, water sharing and terrorism to trade, governance etc. There is a lot to learn from India that is now a mature democracy which has reached the desired level since 1947 and is now seen as a potential market by the entire globe. Political Nationalism in India is being replaced by Economic Nationalism and the future of Indo-Pak relations lies in promoting economic relations as neighbours. The granting of Most Favoured Nations status to India by Pakistan should give the desired push to further economic relations and set aside the old obsolete differences between the two neighbours. Democracy in Pakistan is taking roots and will need time. The focus however has to be on getting more liberal, democratic and progressive by breaking away from the feudal paradigm.
@ahmed41: What we can re-learn from each other is (a) to forget the events of 1947 And of 1965. And of 1971. And of 2002 and the ceaselessly continuing infiltration into India expressly to cause civil hatred and destruction? (b) to not wast money on arms and ammunition. Let us see you give a lead on this. But wait, all the arms you have were freebies given to you to fight communists by the US which you turned against us, committing breach of trust of your "ally". (c) that neighbours can be trusted friends Now, that is a laugh! You have proved yourselves to be untrustworthy by every interlocutor you have dealt with, including Saudi Arabia and China. (d) that regional rivalry is childish ; we need regional trade. We never considered you to be our rival (and you are not, to your chagrin) regardless of self-puffery you indulge in, every moment of your lives. (e) that the two peoples across the present borders were citizens of the sub-continent for centuries. They still are, at least geographically! It is Pakistan which has joined itself to Middle East and the Arabian peninsula.
That NATIONAL INTEREST means economic growth !!!! National interest means unburdening yourselves of self-assumed, un-appointed self-ordained "thekedaars of Islam". When you are able to do that, come back and we can talk!
Excellent article!
Everyone can learn from others. Pakistan is definite learning point for those budding countries that are using religion to bind societies. No where is such failure noted among any new nations. Additionally the mistake of not taxing the rich and using religion in school textbooks is such a mistake that any new nation can see and learn from this. I do not agree with those who say Pakistan has not much to offer. At the cost of its misguided suffering population, Pakistan has a lot to offer the world-what not to do and what can happen if you blindly follow religion only.
@gp65
A very informative post, balanced as well. I was following the RTI movement with interest since Aruna Roy and others started working on it, but the bit about 'malnutrition' and 'ease of doing business' was not known to me.
What we can re-learn from each other is (a) to forget the events of 1947 (b) to not wast money on arms and ammunition. (c) that neighbours can be trusted friends (d) that regional rivalry is childish ; we need regional trade. (e) that the two peoples across the present borders were citizens of the sub-continent for centuries.
That NATIONAL INTEREST means economic growth !!!!
G Din : Why not from Pakistan ? We all can learn how not to govern, cant we?
@G. Din: India can certainly learn how not to govern from Pakistan!
@G. Din: Actually PAkistan has grown at a faster pace than India for 4 decades. While US aid was part of the reason - a greater level of economic liberalization was also an important factor. Pakistan ranks higher than India in Ease of Doing Business. The current investment levels and economic growth maybe way down due to security issues and also in the last 2-3 years due to load shedding but there can be many things India can learn from Pakistan. The number of underweight kids in Pakistan at birth in Pakistan is 32% and India is 28% yet by age 5 - in Pakistan this ratio remains at 32% while in India it grows to 40%. So clearly Pakistan has been more successful in capping malnutrition once child is born than India is.
Ofcourse best practices within Indian states themselves have not been transferred effectively t other states in India - so the opportunity is immense. But the notion that India has nothing to learn from Pakistan is unnecessary arrogance.
@Author: RTI was implemented nationally in 2005, so Nitish does not get credit for that. The states that were leaders in implementing it at state level and pushing it at national level are Maharashtra and Rajasthan. The ont ehing that Nitish did effectively accomplish is virtually elimnate the extortion and kidnapping rackets that were driving businessmen out of Bihar. I am sure rulers of Sind would like to implement some of those lessons in Karachi.
we all know who is more deserving chief minister of India that deserves such a blog and will also become prime minister of india. Bihar was in a state of free fall.Nitish has just stopped that fall.Bihar is still a little pakistan in india. Always begging for money from the centre. we all know which state has 24X7 electricity and water and whose CM the japanese,chinese now even british and American cant wait to meet. Bihar has a loooootttttttt to prove.
RTI was nationally passed in 2005, so while he deserves credit for many other things his is not one of them.The pioneering states that had passed state legislation and championed for it at national level are Maharasthtra and Rajasthan.
Some of the things he can rightly be credited with is virtually eliminating kidnapping and extortion industry - a lot of which were connected with politicians themselves - something maybe people in Karachi may want to learn from him. The other things is women's empowerment - he started giving a cycle to every girl that passed class 8 - thereby reducing drop out rate of girls from school and simultaneously increasing their mobility and hence confidence.
YEars of neglected infrastructure and the pushing out of industry in earlier regimes due to unacceptable levels of criminalization means that even now Biharis need to migrate to other states if they want white collared jobs. Hopefully if he stays in power for yet another term, he will have ensured that transformation path he has begun reaches some level of completion. I hope he chooses that rather than being a weak PM with outside Congress support. As #BlackJAck aptly mentions, the prior experiencesof Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar,I K Gujral and Deve Gowda are instructive.
Learning from best practices followed elsewhere will always help.
"... learning from each other." "...sharing experiences on good governance." Now, honestly, Mr. Author, what could India learn, or share experiences on good governance, from Pakistan?
Ensuring that India's economic growth is broad-based and equitable is impossible without its least-developed states sharing in the rising prosperity - so the achievements of the current JD(U) - BJP govt in Bihar is heartening, and we need more of the same. While I welcome shifting focus from issues that prevent improvement in relations with Pakistan to ways that we can learn from each other, these best practices need to be shared across India as well. Nitish Kumar will not become the next PM unless he is supported from outside by the Congress, thus ignoring experiences of Charan Singh/ Chandrashekhar/ Deve Gowda/ IK Gujral; in this case, the country will go through another prolonged period of remote control rule; hopefully he prefers to be the biggest fish in a mid-sized pond than a goldfish in 10 Janpath.