DESIGN CONDITIONS AND THE REALIZATION OF PRINCIPLES OF EDD

The roots of democracy run deep in the institutional framework of Indian government. While this is promising for the effective implementation of EDD, we apply the theories of both Heller and Fung and Wright to assess how India as a whole, Kerala and West Bengal measure up both in terms of the enabling conditions for deliberative democracy and institutional design principles. In the following section, we will refer to India as a whole, and Kerala and West Bengal as more specifically defined subsets.

First, we examine Heller and Rao’s three enabling conditions for participatory governance (1) a strong central state capacity, (2) well developed civil society, and (3) an organized political force with strong social movement characteristics. India, Kerala and West Bengal all have a strong central state capacity in terms of resources and institutional framework (Heller and Rao, 2015). While Kerala and West Bengal have resources that work towards a more developed civil society such as literacy programs and women’s empowerment groups, the same cannot be said for India as a whole. While some regions in India might have a well developed civil society, it is not with certainty that the whole country can be said to meet this criterion. Regarding Heller’s third criterion, a political force with strong social movement characteristics, Kerala was backed by the CPM and West Bengal’s democratic movement was powered forward by the Left Front. Citizen participation in the deliberative bodies has been influenced by social movements in both Kerala and West Bengal, for example the People’s campaign for including women and ‘lower caste’ groups in decision making spaces in Kerala, and the women’s self help group movement in West Bengal. However, the same propensity for social movements cannot necessarily be said for India as a whole. Therefore, both Kerala and West Bengal fulfill all of Heller and Rao’s 3 enabling conditions, while India as a whole only fulfills the criterion of having a strong central state capacity.

Concerning the design principles for EDD delineated by Fung and Wright, the 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution ensure the devolution of public decision making authority, resource distribution and the creation of new state institutions (such as governing bodies) to support and guide the implementation of EDD. The three tier structure ensures funding is delegated to the village panchayats themselves resulting in the devolution of decision making power and authority. Furthermore the middle tier body (mandal panchayat) works to process plans and evaluate them from perspectives of social welfare, financial constraints and area development, and the top tier body (gram sabha) functions as a moderator and regional coordinator – this system serves to provide support and guidance through structure. Therefore India, Kerala and West Bengal all meet the design criterion. However, it is not enough to meet the design criteria if design does not result in the effective execution of the principles of EDD. Table 1 details how the principles of EDD are realized in each of the 3 implementations delineated in the prior section.

Table 1. The fulfillment of the Principles of EDD in India, Kerala and West Bengal.

In India as a whole, the Gram Sabha system was not able to obtain a focus on tangible problems, as it could not effectively establish village level priorities. In some cases the involvement of individuals and relevant officials could be considered successful , for example in the case of the Devadasi women, where the voices of the marginalized were amplified in institutional settings resulting in tangible changes. On the other hand, census data insinuates no correlation between meeting attendance and land ownership, meaning that there is no tendency for poorer or more marginalized groups to be involved in deliberative democratic processes (Datta, 2019).

In Kerala specifically, all three principles of EDD are satisfied. Training programs and the division of the deliberative body into groups ensures a focus on tangible and real problems in a variety of relevant areas. Furthermore, the regulations enforced on the allocations of funds to specific anti-poverty and development initiatives further hone the scope of the issues at hand by using funding to designate what warrants importance. The involvement of individuals affected by issues can be realized as the inclusion of women and lower caste groups via the People’s Campaign. Lastly, the use of deliberate development is well guided and is obtained through the use of supplemental working committees, training programs and development seminars held to create accessible spaces of deliberation and planning, which serve in an almost didactic manner.

In West Bengal, the largest category of attendees was agricultural laborers and only 16% of individuals that attended had more than 2 acres of land or non-farming income, which resulted in a narrow scope of discussion and a focus on tangible problems (Ghatak, 2002). Since the land reforms instituted by the Left Front including land redistribution, rural farming is a predominant occupation amongst villagers. Notably, the largest category of attendees being agricultural laborers speaks to the fact that the involvement of relevant individuals was obtained. Lastly, West Bengal somewhat meets the criterion of using deliberative development to derive solutions to the issues presented. On one hand researchers noticed participants actively demanding new projects and making suggestions on the allocation of funds, including deliberation on the specific design of certain projects and their execution. On the other hand, GP members were reported for ignoring the actual deliberation and proceedings and being intolerant of opposing viewpoints.

Both Kerala and West Bengal meet all 3 of Heller and Rao’s criterion for enabling deliberative democracy while India as a whole does not necessarily meet the conditions of having a well developed civil society and a political force with strong social movement characteristics. Since the institution of deliberative democracy in India as a whole meets Fung and Wright design principles, while only Kerala and West Bengal come close to realizing the principles of EDD in practice, we can perhaps understand how the nature of society and political structure is integral to the translation of the design criterion of EDD into actual principles. Well developed civil society and a political force with strong social movement characteristics go hand in hand in shifting focus to specific and real problems. In both the case of Kerala and West Bengal, social movements have proven effective in involving marginalized groups which narrows the scope of issues discussed, and strong political forces have been integral in empowering marginalized groups which results in increased participation. Castells proposes the idea that social movements resist different facets of imposed identity; in the case of India social movements have the potential to incite individuals to redefine their identity from powerless to empowered as it pertains to their relationship with the state and the power they hold in producing institutionalized change (Castells, 1997). With these criterion failing to apply to India as a whole, but to Kerala and West Bengal in particular, we can see the extreme importance that these criterion bear in cultivating an environment where EDD can be effective. While West Bengal has some issues in the use of deliberation as a tool to derive solutions to issues, these can be attributed more to discrepancies in power amongst members of the deliberative body than the criterion for effective EDD.

AN ANALYSIS ON THE EFFICACY OF EDD IN INDIA

While it is useful to compare implementations of EDD within India, the actual efficacy of such deliberative bodies must be considered with respect to some metric. In order to understand how effective institutionalized participatory governance is in India, Kerala and West Bengal, we will use Fung and Wright’s six metrics for effective EPG. Table 2 details how each of the 3 case studies measures up using these criteria.

Table 2. The analysis of EDD in India, Kerala and West Bengal using the metrics presented by Fung and Wright

Notably, deliberative democratic institutions have been present in the infrastructure of Indian government throughout history. The 73rd and 74th amendments sought to improve the efficacy of EDD systems by providing more structure to the processes. Therefore, we cannot say that the outcomes of the processes are significantly improved from a prior system, but can only understand that through increased support and devolution of power, such as increased allocation of funds, and the effective implementation of the 3 tier structure, there is more promise for favorable outcomes. This criterion was excluded from the table for these reasons. Similarly, the metric of how genuinely deliberative EDD processes are was also excluded as this was detailed to some extent in the previous section and overlaps with the third criterion for effective EDD, or the extent to which deliberation was used as a tool for problem solving.

Examining the remaining four metrics, we can see some similarities in unfulfilled criteria. In none of the 3 geographical regions were decisions concretely translated into action (Thorlind, 2000; Datta, 2019; Bhattacharya, 1998). In Kerala for example, of the plans that were submitted many were poorly integrated with credit or financing schemes that were inadequately structured (Fung and Wright, 2003). There are some cases in which Kerala has seen great successes. One such example is the village of Punsari, which has made use of institutionalized EDD to provide the village with plumbing, roads, street lights, toilets in every house, and 15,000 houses with connected water facilities amongst its most basic amenities (Joshi, 2018). However, such extraordinary results cannot be generalized to the whole region. It is important to note here that though the structure for deliberative bodies are in place in all three regions, often meetings are not attended, are postponed or do not obtain quorum, decreasing their efficacy in functioning as efficient institutions for empowered governance (Datta, 2001, 2009; Das, 2015).

While the 3 tier structure is in place to ensure that deliberative bodies are both monitored and able to monitor the implementation of their deliberative outcomes, the data suggests that they do not function effectively (Thorlind, 2000). Therefore, in India, Kerala and West Bengal we can say that while resources are available to result in actual implementation, there seems to be failure in execution. Similarly in evaluating the extent to which reforms coordinate the action of local units and diffuse innovations, we can reconcile the institutional structure with actual results. While the intermediate and top tier bodies within the 3 tier framework serve to meet this exact criteria, the lack of consistency in meetings and participation (with attendance being as low as 13 percent at meetings) coupled with the lack of accountability placed on these bodies results in inconsistency (Das, 2015; Datta, 2003b). In both Kerala and West Bengal, deliberative and monitoring bodies function relatively more efficiently than on the regional scale, leading to a somewhat effective outcome when it comes to coalescence and the diffusion of innovation. Later on, we will examine these challenges with respect to the drawbacks of EPG. Lastly, we consider the extent to which deliberative processes increase the deliberative capacity of the participants. While the fulfillment of this metric is inconclusive for India as a whole, West Bengal has literacy programs and policies in place to hone deliberative skills and Kerala supplements the triple tier system with working committees and development seminars (Fung and Wright, 2003).

However, the key to Kerala’s relative success might be the large-scale organizational and administrative effort that was engendered to support the ground up approach of participatory democracy. This is exemplified by developing individual villages’ capacity to conduct rural assessments and formulate development plans. The “development seminars” previously discussed had over 300,000 participants, and actual planning processes have involved more than 100,000 volunteers to develop village projects and more than 25,000 volunteers to combine projects into village level plans (Fung and Wright, 2003). The appropriate training and education of individuals coupled with empowerment through budget reforms work to be driving forces for EPG.

Therefore, we can conclude that while institutionally the design of systems of empowered deliberative democracy in India seem to embody the principles of EDD, they do not result in widespread effective implementation according to Fung and Wright’s metrics. Returning to Gaventa’s six propositions for empowered deliberative democracy, we can see two clear factors that could contribute to these flaws in execution. The first is the failure to close the gap between the poor and institutions that govern their lives. While social movements and political forces can empower marginalized groups and encourage participation, there is still a lot of abstraction between individuals and an understanding of the nature and structure of deliberative bodies and their potential. Furthermore, governance may seem like a rather inconsequential subject to most individuals that deliberative bodies actually seek to serve, resulting in lower attendance in meetings and a lack of accountability. The second is building relationships between citizens and their local governments through new forms of participation, accountability and responsiveness. It seems to be the case in India as a whole, that deliberative democracy has created two one-way channels between the government and local deliberative bodies that run parallel to one another but do not seem to intersect to produce appropriate implementation. On the institutional side, framework and structure for deliberative bodies as well as the devolution of funds and power to the local level exists. Conversely, on the village level, in some cases plans are being drawn up to bolster development initiatives and counter local issues. However, it seems like a lack of structure and accountability for implementation causes the rift in effective communication between the local and regional bodies from both a top down and a bottom up approach.

DRAWBACKS OF EMPOWERED PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE IN INDIA

In this section we will delve into the drawbacks of EDD as they manifest themselves in the case studies discussed above, measures taken to address these drawbacks and their efficacy. One of the main drawbacks of deliberative processes is vulnerability to power domination by certain factions. In Kerala, this is not reported to a notable extent. On the other hand in West Bengal, it was found that those who participated were usually members of a political party (Datta, 2019). The intolerance of village-level leaders to ideas of opposing party viewpoints led to decreased participation by apolitical individuals and those affiliating with other parties. No measures have been taken in West Bengal to address this drawback, which has the potential to significantly affect the efficacy of deliberative processes in this region. In Kerala, it is possible that the presence of development seminars and training on how to go about effective deliberation led to a decrease in this kind of power asymmetry. Another significant drawback in EDD is unrealistic expectations of commitment from individuals. This manifests itself to a large extent in West Bengal where census data (used by Datta) shows that over a third of the villagers had no awareness of the Gram Sansad system, and that attendance to meetings was considered a low priority due to increased farm work and the notion that meetings did not influence the final decisions (Datta, 2019).

Robust inclusion processes have the potential to remedy both of the issues discussed above. If those from other political parties and apolitical individuals feel that their voices would actually lead to meaningful change, this might encourage participation. Furthermore reimagining how individuals are included in these processes might alleviate apathy. We can look to Kerala for an example of robust inclusion. Social movements such as the People’s campaign fostered inclusion of women and other marginalized groups in decision making spaces. This emphasizes Castells argument of the power of social movements in the involvement of marginalized groups – it “shows the breaking of traditional molds by global trends of identity politics” as groups that are used to being told that they don’t belong in empowered and decision making spaces are redefining their identity of belonging with the force of social movements (Castells, 1997). The drawback that we will discuss next is unequal power of participants due to asymmetrical access to information and class inequality. In some cases, deliberation itself leads to a sense of community. For example, in India as a whole regular GS meetings reduced casteism and communalism due to increasing discourse between individuals across all castes and communities (Datta, 2019). In other instances – West Bengal for example – literacy programs were implemented to combat asymmetrical information due to circumstances of inequality such as poverty. While the educational programs themselves were effective in increasing literacy rates, this did not necessarily combat the issue of inequality in debate, as it pertained more to political polarization. Lastly, in the case of Kerala, the combination of seminars, training programs and community outreach engagement seemed to alleviate issues of asymmetry and class inequality.