Inside out
In all my years of observing Government systems and ideologies, my natural response to every issue was — This is how the Government functions in India. To try and change that, and in an attempt to understand this world from the inside, I joined the office of the Chief Minister of Haryana as an associate in July 2019. The idea was to observe the way a government machinery functions from the inside and participate in the truest element of democracy — its governance.
In the role of an associate to the CMO, Haryana, I have had the opportunity to work in various government departments such as education, taxation, health & sanitation and critical issues of women’s safety and efficient service delivery to citizens, to name a few. Moreover, I have had the opportunity to experience certain issues firsthand and launch my initiatives to have ‘model roads’ in Gurugram.
During a conversation with an esteemed bureaucrat one afternoon, I discovered a particular street in Gurugram where three family members on separate instances, passed away crossing the same street. The roads here were built very quickly and were not planned to handle a cybercity and its growing population. It pained my heart that people had to actually pass away for me to take notice of such a relevant and prevailing issue in today’s Gurugram. But it moved me and I guess for the first time there was something that could be done about it from my end. I could contribute without fearing the consequences of feeling small, realizing I was now thinking from the inside. The more I discussed with my stakeholders, the more I realized that everyone was on board because they felt its relevance on a daily basis.
This is when ‘Pakke Raaste’ was born.
The idea being that ‘Raaste hamare Pakke zaroor hain, par is par Pakka kaam bohut kam logon ne kiya hain’. I could now think from the citizen’s lens and it was the pedestrian who acts as a central theme around which all our roads should be designed, built and implemented. I could empathize with the common pedestrian whose family members lost their lives crossing the road, but could at the same time act from the government’s point of view. It is this combination that acts as an achievement from the lens of the CMGGA program. The project was expensive, and my Deputy Commissioner backed the idea, all guns blazing. He has been an important reason not only why such a financially ambitious project got funded but also why it’s on track to reach all its deadlines. The validation that the stakeholders showed on the project — reiterated the beauty of Governance, where intent in a vacuum is of no use but the marriage between intent and actions, backed by the right stakeholders, leads to a conducive environment for governance to thrive. With this project, I could understand, implement and channelize that.
A key takeaway so far from the program has been the re-defining of governance. In its purest form, Governance can’t be done in isolation, especially not good governance. It is a team effort and requires a touch with the real world to experience the lens of the citizen. A lot of planning, right resources and correct alignment of stakeholders are important factors that judge whether the ‘right intention’ sees the light of the day.
In conclusion, the biggest superpower I feel I can take home with myself is empathy — to think from that citizen’s perspective who crosses the road every day, trying to do simple tasks on the road like dropping their child off and in the hustle and bustle of government functioning, is often forgotten, while policies are made inside four walls. Hence, to not look from the outside and critique, but to understand, apply, appreciate, mobilize and channelize the resources of governance while imbibing empathy as a central theme is what I am to achieve when thinking like an insider and yet not being one.
