Engaging People

Before presenting the budget in the J&K Assembly, chief Minister Omar Abdullah held a series of interactions with different stakeholders. Whatever the outcome of these deliberations with people across different professions, and whatever the final outlay in terms of budgetary allocation for different segments and sectors of economy, the mere fact that people were consulted for inputs is politically very significant.

The essence of democracy is the involvement of people in the decision making processes. Since budget is the core decision for any government, taking people along sends a positive message. One may not be so sure about such consultations in terms of the outcome, but right now it is to be lauded for what it appears to be. Even if symbolic, given the constraints of the situation, these interactions can lead to cementing of the relations between the public representatives and the people at large. One can only hope that the Omar Abdullah led government takes the people's views, concerns and apprehensions along while taking any decisions.

There is a need to bolster such practice and engage more  people in matters related to governance. In fact the initiatives taken by the central and the state governments like Back to Village strengthen the democratic participation and give people a sense of participatory politics. In today's world it is all the more important to meet people as we have a crisis of fading out of human connections. The profusion of digital way of living has, besides giving us millions of benefits, robbed us off the human connect.

Now governments, political parties, institutions and individuals take recourse to on line ways of interactions. This has led to the over all weakening of human relations. In case of the political leadership it is extremely important to connect the people and be engaged with them in real human spaces. If we look at the above mentioned interactions through this prism the importance of the initiative taken by Omar Abdullah, as the leader of the civilian government can be better understood. The present budget in the J&K assembly would now be watched for how much it factors in the opinions and inputs generated in the wider public consultations.