Unaccountable ministers

Everyone, almost, has heard of the king of the Turkish province of Phrygia, Midas, who saved a minor god from certain death and was granted a boon in return, namely, that whatever he touched would turn to gold. Few, however, remember the ending of this tale. Absent-mindedly Midas touched his young daughter, who also turned to gold. The moral of the story is: "Don't be a fool". Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, the union minister for health, when he was given the present job, received the modern equivalent of Midas' boon. He has done much good work but now, as his handling of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) shows, he has made a mistake, which is odd, considering he is a doctor himself and ought to have been sympathetic to the issues. As a result, the AIIMS director, Dr P Venugopal, has gone on protest leave, saying he has seen his authority being undermined for two years. Dr Ramadoss, on the other hand, says he is not guilty, as accused. What precisely brought on this confrontation is not clear. Some reports say it was the 17-day pay cut imposed on AIIMS doctors when they were striking over the reservations issue. Other reports say that it was because Dr Ramadoss removed some AIIMS office-bearers. But in such cases the immediate provocation is usually not very important because it is only the last straw. The underlying tensions that have created the overall burden are far more relevant. It is these that need to be focused upon, rather than just the current spat.

It is an old saying that there can be only one sword in a scabbard, meaning an institution can have only one boss. It was to ensure this that Parliament, which once upon a time used to act very sensibly, adopted the concept of autonomous institutions even when such institutions were funded by the government. The idea was that the government would provide the wherewithal for setting up centres of excellence, which could become excellent only if they were run by professionals who had complete freedom. However, thanks to our peculiar system, it was the minister who was responsible for the actions of the institute or the centre. As long as the director and the minister were on the same wave-length, things worked very well. But since the power of appointment lay with the ministry and the minister, he was and is the real boss. Sagacious ministers do not use their powers except when absolutely necessary. But for several years now, the term sagacious minister has been an oxymoron. That is why institution after institution has faced ministerial onslaughts with very poor consequences for excellence.

As has been seen in the case of regulators, there is no easy way of addressing the problem arising from the need for ministers to be accountable to Parliament. Pettiness aside, there is a much larger problem here that the country has to resolve because it affects not just educational institutions but everything that is funded by public money, because however much we may pretend to the contrary, such funding makes the minister the boss. In the final analysis, there is no substitute for good sense.