In classical political theory the word state has many definitions. But the basic concept is that it is a community or society politically organised under one independent government within a given territory exercising its own control over that territory. A country also comes under the idea of a state and it’s supposed to be governed by a legitimate authority. Legitimacy, however, is acquired through some rational legal means. The state is governed buy a machinery created for orderly and proper management of its affairs. The basic requirements of orderly functioning are legal, social and moral codes as enshrined in the framework of governance called constitution. The state is thus the ruling entity run by an independent, objective and responsive machinery consisting of humans. The catch lies in in two words responsive and human. Being responsive and being human are two sides of the same coin. If state machinery is responsive it will naturally be human having a head, a heart and a soul. The head gives objectivity, the heart emotion and the soul morality. Combination of the three makes the machinery responsive. This machinery is run by a bureaucracy which is the main apparatus of the state. This apparatus is supposed to be independent and neutral, free of outside influences and biases. In Management theory, doubts have been raised about the independence and neutrality of the bureaucratic apparatus and a term bureaupathy has been given to describe a bureaucracy that is not neutral and independent. It was Max Weber who first visualised the idea of bureaucracy as the apparatus to run the government of a state. But he was unmindful of the fact that bureaucracy in due course can acquire beauropathic tendencies. It is against this backdrop that there is need to examine what is the state of this apparatus. Not just in India but elsewhere too. For many serious observers beauropathic tendencies are on the rise making the state unfair and partisan. Though e-governance was introduced to make the state fair and responsive, things do not have improved much. Rather, it has given a reason to be more callous. Responsiveness is an attribute of humanness and technology can only help if the human element is fair. But if technology drives humans, a Frankenstein like monster is in the making. Faceless doesn’t mean headless and heartless. That is what excessive technology intervention has become. Human intervention has to be given the primary role. But in a mad rush to digitise too much intervention of artificial intelligence has made the system alien and indifferent. It is time to take stock of the situation and let technology be what it is. An aid and not a substitute of humans. But what is happening is that technology is becoming replacement of human beings. The purpose of digitisation has to be responsiveness. Trust and empowerment are the two key concepts that can make digitisation achieve its objectives. For a country like India where both the physical and psychosocial ecosystem is still in a formative stage digitisation has to hasten slowly. And more importantly, digitisation is not about data, social media and Netflix. It is something entirely different. To create a responsive state that delivers, it is important to ensure that the digital interface allows for more listening rather than following the commands of the algorithm in the system blindly. Let humans be driving the machine and not otherwise.

Pathak is a professor of management, writer, and an acclaimed public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com