Modi’s Participatory Policies: Motives and Methods

By Deepak Parvatiyar

August 26, 2014

How should one evaluate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative to involve public in decision-making?  Modi has linked it to his concept of better governance or ‘Surajya’ – “Surajya is not possible until each and every citizen will be an equal and integral part of the decision-making process.”

In his election rallies, Modi had promised to ensure people’s participation in government decision-making. After assuming the mantle of the PM post-election, he launched a portal –MyGov.nic.in – to offer a platform to the citizens in the matters of governance.

Inviting People’s Participation in Public Policies

The portal is meant for the people to share their ideas on selected themes – Clean Ganga, Girl Child Education, Clean India, Skilled India, Digital India and Job Creation. (Many more themes are still to be added here). It also invites public participation in undertaking certain online and on-ground tasks.  Some of these tasks include – to suggest a PPP model that can be adopted to make our cities clean; to visit a mid-day meal kitchen and assess the cleanliness standards; to design a logo for Digital India; to suggest policy measures for integrating our farmers with technology that can give them real time information, connect them to global markets and thus contribute to India’s agriculture sector; and so on. Besides, MyGov’s ‘Creative Corner’ enables various ministries to seek creative inputs issues relating to their departments.

In Modi’s words, the portal ‘is an online platform that celebrates people’s ideas and suggestions…. (and) stands for participative governance and pertinent ideas that will create a powerful India”.

For Greater Good or Political Agenda?

Obviously with the portal, Modi lives up to his digital-savvy image. The government claims the portal is a hit with the people. For the beginners, they must have felt elated when someone from them won the contest to name a government scheme and won a cash prize in the bargain — The Jana Dhan Yojana, was decided upon by participants on the MyGov portal! Of course, this is good politics over nomenclature at a time that most of the schemes are named after only a few political leaders (Read Nehru, Indira and Rajiv).

Can we expect the posts here to have a more direct bearing on government policies than any other public forum? Or is the portal just a deft move to mobilise the people for high level of political engagement?

Legitimising Curtains on Nehruvian Legacy?

The above questions need a close scrutiny and here I wish to refer to the decision of the new ruling dispensation at the Centre to disband the Planning Commission that it terms as a Nehru era relic.

I don’t seek to deliberate on the implications of such a decision but as the mass media deliberates on the merits of it, the government does succeed in channelising the public involvement to a desired level through the dedicated portal. The people’s involvement here is not on discussing merits or demerits of the Planning Commission but to provide

a) Inputs and ideas for the institution to replace the Planning Commission 

b) A new name, logo and tagline for the institution to replace the Planning Commission.

Obviously, there is no denial of the people’s involvement in the government process to replace the Planning Commission. Yet, isn’t the participation-threshold confined to just providing inputs on a decision already taken?

Sparking Heated Debate on Article 370

Let’s have a look at another contentious issue – the proposal for abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir which grants a special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The issue has always remained close to the ruling BJP’s heart and an integral part of its successive election manifestos. External dynamics however ensured non-execution of the plan when last time the BJP-led NDA was in power. This time though, with no pressures of coalition, the BJP soon after taking over the reins in New Delhi has sought to rake up the issue and involved its Sangh Parivar allies to raise the issue from various public forums even as its own ministers flip-flopped. (Remember the sharp reactions to minister of state in PMO Jitendra Singh’s statement that the government was open to debating Article 370 and a subsequent denial by minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju in the Lok Sabha when quizzed if the government planned to repeal Article 370).

Yet Modi in his election rally in Jammu in December last year, did underline the need for probing whether Article 370 has indeed benefited the people of state. What queers the pitch now is the BJP’s communication cell sending email invite to about 1000 people to join the Article 370 debate. Based on the findings of the debate, the party plans to send a white paper to the Centre as well as the J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

The question thus arises: why should the BJP involve only a selected group of people in the name of public involvement? The larger question here again revolves round the use of new media for the purpose. Isn’t it for obvious reasons that the party prefers direct one-to-one communication through Emails instead of the use of mass communication?

This reminds me of the agenda setting theory in mass communication that describes the “ability [of the news media] to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda.”

Isn’t it true that the new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is circumspect about the role of the media, of late? While the Sangh Parivar unambiguously categorises media into ‘secular’ and ‘pseudo-secular’ categories, Modi had even coined the term ‘news traders’ in a mocking reference to a section of media hostile towards him and his ideologies.

This perhaps explains the reason for the government opting for a parallel space – other than more conventional print and electronic media platforms – to set its own agenda via new media!    

Beyond Cosmetic Participation

The prime minister’s drive to involve the people in policy-making is laudable because people’s participation is often a sin qua non for the success of government policies.

Yet public participation in government decision-making has a much wider context and can’t be confined to a controlled environment and a few portals. Obviously participation cannot be construed as a substitute for democratic decision-making.

 Take the example of the United Kingdom. Studies have shown that participatory practice in the UK has reached the stage where “it is attracting almost as much scepticism as enthusiasm” because it is being realised that more than “more participation”, it is “better participation” that is essential.

So what does ‘better participation’ mean? Obviously, no participatory process can proceed without establishing a clear purpose. But the purpose has to be good. There are though, bad purposes too and this is where the government and the public will have to tread cautiously. It is because to legitimise a wrong motive through a participatory exercise can dent the very fundamentals of a democratic process!

To ensure such a transparency in the government-public participation, can we afford to sidetrack the mainstream media for long – irrespective of its particular biases and inclinations? After all, despite all ills, it serves as the watchdog of democracy!