Accountability and responsibility are important pillars of our democracy, just as constitutional rights and liberties are. Being at the heart of good governance, accountability fixes responsibility for outcomes on specific individuals, positions, departments, ministries and organizations. It is a fundamental element of administrative performance, and the culmination of policy making and its implementation. Accountability thus refers to the legal and hierarchical locus of responsibility, while responsibility is an obligation of individual to perform assigned duties to the best of her/his ability and hence has ethical and normative connotations.
India is perceived to be one of the world’s greatest democracies, largely due to our regular and efficient elections, a free media and significant civil liberties. In reality, India is far from being the perfect democracy that we would like to imagine. ‘The Democracy Index 2011’ complied by the Economist Intelligence Unit, that measures the quality of democracy around the world, and categorizes countries into full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian countries disappointingly classified India as flawed democracy, ranked 39th of the 167 countries evaluated.
Further, a study by Global Integrity (2011) assessed the effectiveness of key accountability and anti-corruption mechanisms across countries. While we were given a high score on the existence of accountability mechanisms, we scored low on their implementation. Central to this disappointing performance is the lack of accountability in public office, plainly visible in all facets of our lives. The consistently mediocre governance is largely due to the inability to hold the corrupt accountable for their actions. Governance, economic and social performance are tightly coupled to accountability, the absence of which creates a vicious circle that constantly gathers momentum.
We cannot afford to neglect any more the creeping danger of weak accountability. LIBA’s Beacon 2013 will debate and discuss issues of accountability and responsibility so critical to the economic, social and political development of India and come up with suggestions and strategies to improve accountability among corporates and in government.
