Can reservation for women help their economic prospects?

WOMEN RESEVATION

Can reservation for women help their economic prospects?

Juxtapose two facts: 

LOW POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

First, India is among the countries in the world where women’s representation in politics is the lowest. According to the Election Commission of India, women accounted for only 10.5 per cent of all members of Parliament in 2021, lower than in sub-Saharan Africa (26 per cent), and our neighbours such as Nepal (34 per cent) and Pakistan (20 per cent). 

LOW LABOUR FORCE PARRICIPATION

Second, Indian women’s engagement in the labour market (the labour force participation rate) is abysmally low at about 25 per cent, relative to the global average of almost 50 per cent (as per World Bank estimates). Only 11 countries such as Yemen, Iran and Iraq show lower female labour force participation rates than India. 

The recent landmark legislation mandating the reservation of a third of parliamentary and assembly seats for women is potentially a game changer for attaining gender equity in political voices in the country.

  

But, does increased political representation of women also have implications for women’s labour force participation? 

What are the channels through which women’s participation in the political arena can translate into their economic empowerment?

As a first step, let’s lay out the factors that have kept women’s economic engagement low in India. 

1.The gendered division of labour within the household, which places a disproportionately high burden of domestic work on women; 

2. The social norms that emphasise marriage rather than careers for women; 

3. The lack of safety and perceived high risk of sexual violence 

4. An absence of reliable and safe public transport infrastructure that restricts women’s physical mobility — have been highlighted as some of the more salient factors constraining women from supplying their labour.

CHANGING REALITIES

1.  SHIFT FROM FARM TO NON FARM SECTORS

      On the other hand, recent research points out that the ongoing structural shifts away from agriculture and changes in agricultural technology have pushed women out of farms — a sector that has historically accounted for the largest share of women’s labour. 

2. DROP OUTS

The absence of alternative opportunities in the non-farm sector implies that these women drop out of the labour market entirely.

Increased political representation of women has some immediate implications for loosening the supply-side constraints to women’s labour force participation in India — both directly and indirectly.

1. Political reservation of women has a direct effect on making political and administrative careers for women more viable in the longer term.

2. More women are likely to enter the political fray — potentially rising from engaging with local issues to a seat in the state and national legislature. 

3. Evidence from the reservation for women sarpanches in Gram Panchayats indicates that women political decision-makers are more likely to emphasise and prioritise issues that align with the preferences and concerns of the electorate — sanitation, education (anganwadis) and health. 

4.The resulting increased emphasis on the provision of such essential public services can potentially reduce women’s time in the drudgery of daily domestic work (for example, collecting water, firewood, and child care) enabling them to take up productive work opportunities from within or outside the home. 

5. Similarly, if women political leaders vocalise concerns related to public safety and law and order, besides emphasising policies that bring a gender lens to urban infrastructure and transportation planning, it can potentially improve women’s physical mobility and thereby access to work opportunities further away from their homes.

Don't miss | Real commitment to women’s representation will be seen in 2024 Lok Sabha polls

6.Women’s reservation in Parliament and state legislatures is also likely to have indirect impacts on increasing women’s labour supply in the longer term. Evidence from gender quotas in panchayats suggests that exposure to women political leaders weakens traditional gender stereotypes of their role in society and within the home. Greater public visibility of women creates a role model effect for younger women, raising their aspirations. They too can enter and be successful in male-dominated fields; and be decision-makers, and it is not just acceptable but also possible for women to have visibility outside the home. Quotas for women in assemblies and Parliament can amplify the visibility of women political leaders as policymakers, potentially raising the intrinsic value of having a girl child and thereby parental investments in their human capital — education, skills and health. An entirely new generation of women with not just higher aspirations but also the requisite credentials could then enter India’s labour market.

7. Can increased political representation of women also influence the demand for women’s labour in our economy, increasing the opportunities for “decent” work for women in the formal, non-farm sector? There is much less empirical evidence available to provide a convincing answer to this question. However, extrapolating from what we know from quotas in Panchayats, women political leaders may be more amenable to introducing legislation that enforces gender parity in pay and work conditions in the formal sector, besides stressing policies that expand work opportunities for women in the manufacturing sector.

Also Read | The 4 percenters: India’s first set of women MPs punched way above their weight

An anecdote from a senior woman bureaucrat summarises this issue well. She recalled that as a District Collector posted in central India in 1982, she would have weekly meetings at the district headquarters with the panchayat leaders (invariably men) on local issues facing them. On one of her occasional visits to a panchayat, she noticed that the village handpump had not been working for several months. This is a rather serious matter since this was the only source of drinking water, but one that concerned only the village women who trudged miles daily to collect water. The men who did not have to do this chore were oblivious to the issue and did not mention the breakdown of the handpump at all in their weekly interactions with the collector.

Needless to say, if women’s political representation engenders heightened sensitivity and brings a gender perspective to everyday decision-making by policy-makers, it has the potential to transform not just the social but also the economic lives of India’s women.

The writer is Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute (Delhi) and Head, Digital Labor and Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme

© The Indian Express (P) Ltd — sanitation, education (anganwadis) and health. The resulting increased emphasis on the provision of such essential public services can potentially reduce women’s time in the drudgery of daily domestic work (for example, collecting water, firewood, and child care) enabling them to take up productive work opportunities from within or outside the home. 

4. Similarly, if women political leaders vocalise concerns related to public safety and law and order, besides emphasising policies that bring a gender lens to urban infrastructure and transportation planning, it can potentially improve women’s physical mobility and thereby access to work opportunities further away from their homes.

Don't miss | Real commitment to women’s representation will be seen in 2024 Lok Sabha polls

5. Women’s reservation in Parliament and state legislatures is also likely to have indirect impacts on increasing women’s labour supply in the longer term. Evidence from gender quotas in panchayats suggests that exposure to women political leaders weakens traditional gender stereotypes of their role in society and within the home. Greater public visibility of women creates a role model effect for younger women, raising their aspirations. They too can enter and be successful in male-dominated fields; and be decision-makers, and it is not just acceptable but also possible for women to have visibility outside the home. Quotas for women in assemblies and Parliament can amplify the visibility of women political leaders as policymakers, potentially raising the intrinsic value of having a girl child and thereby parental investments in their human capital — education, skills and health. An entirely new generation of women with not just higher aspirations but also the requisite credentials could then enter India’s labour market.

5. Can increased political representation of women also influence the demand for women’s labour in our economy, increasing the opportunities for “decent” work for women in the formal, non-farm sector? There is much less empirical evidence available to provide a convincing answer to this question. However, extrapolating from what we know from quotas in Panchayats, women political leaders may be more amenable to introducing legislation that enforces gender parity in pay and work conditions in the formal sector, besides stressing policies that expand work opportunities for women in the manufacturing sector.

Also Read | The 4 percenters: India’s first set of women MPs punched way above their weight

An anecdote from a senior woman bureaucrat summarises this issue well. She recalled that as a District Collector posted in central India in 1982, she would have weekly meetings at the district headquarters with the panchayat leaders (invariably men) on local issues facing them. On one of her occasional visits to a panchayat, she noticed that the village handpump had not been working for several months. This is a rather serious matter since this was the only source of drinking water, but one that concerned only the village women who trudged miles daily to collect water. The men who did not have to do this chore were oblivious to the issue and did not mention the breakdown of the handpump at all in their weekly interactions with the collector.

6. Needless to say, if women’s political representation engenders heightened sensitivity and brings a gender perspective to everyday decision-making by policy-makers, it has the potential to transform not just the social but also the economic lives of India’s women.

The writer is Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute (Delhi) and Head, Digital Labor and Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme

© The Indian Express (P) Ltd

Narendra Modi's Decade in Power Has Brought a Shrinking Welfare Landscape to India

Economy

Declining allocations on social welfare spending, and neglect of existing schemes and programmes, underscore how welfare has come to be constrained in the past ten years.

Asmi Sharma and Nancy Pathak
19 hours ago

Photo: Abhishek Kirloskar/Unsplash

ADVERTISEMENT

This article is the third in a series on the state of the Indian economy co-curated by the Centre for Financial Accountability, New Delhi and The Wire. Read the first article here and the second here.

 Construction of Waterfalls in the building 350, फीट ऊंची इमारत से बह निकला झरना - Travel Nfx

01:44 / 03:02

Copy video url

Play / Pause

Mute / Unmute

Report a problem

Language

Share

Vidverto Player

While announcing the government’s disinvestment and monetisation of public assets plan in 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi famously said that ‘the government has no business to be in business‘. Instead, he contended, the primary role of the government was to ensure the welfare and development of its citizens. However, as we approach a decade under the BJP government’s rule, a stark disparity emerges between rhetoric and reality. Not only has the government assisted the rise of crony capitalists such as Adani – who has swiftly ascended to become one of the richest men in the world – but during this period there has been a discernible dismantling of the welfare and social security framework that provides socio-economic protection to crores of citizens.

Declining allocations on social welfare spending, and neglect of existing schemes and programmes, underscore how welfare has come to be constrained in the past ten years. These developments – along with the erosion of other democratic rights – raise profound concerns regarding the future of welfare rights in this country, which as pointed out by the prime minister himself, is the fundamental duty of the state.

The right to life with dignity

More in Politics :

Manipur: Protests Rage in Valley Districts; 'Security Forces Used Minimum Force,' Says Police

Developing Countries Make a Compelling Case for WTO Food Security Deal

Why Bankim Chandra Chatterjee Dismissed the Claim of Mughals Being Colonisers

Manipur: Over 80 People Injured as Protests Continue in Imphal

CBI Begins Preliminary Enquiry Into 'Irregularities' in Renovation of Kejriwal’s Official Residence

Amrit Kaal and the Two Types of Retired Old Men 

It is, in fact, the constitutional obligation and duty of the Indian State, under the directive principles of state policy and Article 21, to ensure and promote the right to a dignified life for all its citizens. The notion of dignity underscores the most important component of the right to life, therefore understanding this concept becomes critical to facilitate a holistic approach to development and welfare. The right to life with dignity should then be understood as a composite of a bundle of rights, that collectively work to ensure the realisation of this overarching objective. Within this framework, fundamental rights and duties such as the right to work, the right to food and nutrition, the right to education, and the right to social security become integral components towards fulfilling the broader aspiration of a meaningful existence. Recognising this also underscores the core essence of citizenship. As Niraja Jayal articulates it, “Full inclusion – civic, political, social, economic and cultural – is the condition of full citizenship.”

However, within the context of welfare today, this has been reduced to the struggle for basic survival. Political gimmicks like slashing the price of LPG every election cycle overshadow the lack of substantive and transformative interventions that can genuinely improve welfare. Through its policies and actions, this government has obfuscated the fundamental understanding of the state’s role in welfare that came to be realised in the decade prior.

Nine-year trend on social security expenditure and policy failures

Union Budgets serve as a window into the priorities of the government. Since FY 2014-15, there has been a 150.88% increase in the Union Budget outlay. However, during this period, the share of budget allocations dedicated to social security schemes, with the exception of COVID-19, in relation to the overall budget has seen a downward trend, with many schemes in the present budget receiving a smaller share of allocation than before the pandemic. Budgetary allocations over the last nine years for programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), programmes under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), and the National Health Mission (NHM) confirm this trend. Additionally, in many instances, budget allocations for social security schemes are less than the revised estimates from the previous year – signalling the gap between the financial requirement necessary to sustain these schemes and the actual allocation made by the government. Both the policy choices and fiscal actions of the government have significantly eroded social welfare.

The allocation made to MGNREGA, as a share of the overall budget, has declined from 1.85% in FY 2014-15 to 1.33% in FY 2023-24. This allocation is the lowest that has ever been made to the MGNREGA programme, which is an economic safety net for millions of poor. The budget estimates at Rs 60,000 crore in FY 2023-24 see a drastic 33% reduction from the revised estimates of Rs 89,400 crore in FY 2022-23. The World Bank recommends that for the programme to run effectively, the allocation for MGNREGA should be at least 1.6% of the total GDP, this figure currently stands at an appalling 0.198%. Additionally, a large share of the budget is used to clear pending liabilities of backlog wages to be paid to the states. Policy measures like the adoption of Aadhaar-based payment systems (ABPS) have resulted in digital ostracism of 57% workers. The NREGA mobile monitoring system serves as another example of the various exclusionary tactics used by the government to deter the programme, exposing a substantial portion of the rural workforce to financial vulnerability.

The budgetary allocation for NSAP has remained almost stagnant over the past nine years and declined in real terms. The percentage share of expenditure allocated in the overall budget has decreased from 0.58% in FY 2014-2015 to a mere 0.21% in the present budget. Even more concerning is that the entitlements received under the NSAP programme have remained unchanged since 2007 even as cost of living has surged ahead. A meagre sum of Rs 200-300 per month for the various pensions covered under the programme is nowhere adequate for an individual to survive. With the cost of living increasing, the failure to index pension amounts to inflation leaves around 3 crore individuals under the centrally sponsored scheme vulnerable.

(%) Share of allocation of the total budget outlay for NSAP, NREGA & NHM (Budget Estimate).

(See here for corresponding numbers and sources)

Worrying trends can also be observed under NFSA, which, through its various programmes, provides food security and nutrition to economically vulnerable households, women and children. With the exception of COVID-19, the percentage share of the budget allocated towards food subsidies has decreased from 6.4% in FY 2014-15 to 4.38% in FY 2023-24. Global Hunger Index rankings from 2022 show an upward trend in food insecurity with India ranking 107 out of 127 countries. Despite persisting food insecurity, the current budget has slashed food subsidies by over Rs 89,000 crore, even though the revised estimates for FY 2022-23 stood at Rs 2,87,642 crore. This reduction is primarily due to the discontinuation of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) in January 2023, which has resulted in a 50% reduction in ration entitlements for 81 crore people.

Other schemes under the NFSA, the Mid-Day-Meal Scheme, renamed PM Poshan in 2021, have seen a reduction in their share of allocation within the overall budget, decreasing from 0.73% of the total budget to 0.25% in FY 2023-24. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), rebranded as Anganwadi Services in 2018 and merged into Saksham Anganwadi & POSHAN 2.0 in FY 2021-22, have seen an exponential decline in the budget allocated for these schemes. In FY 2014-15 (BE), the budget allocated exclusively to ICDS stood at Rs 18,691 crore compared to Rs 20,544 crore allocated for three schemes under Saksham Anganwadi & POSHAN 2.0 in the present budget. The share in the total budget for the aggregate schemes under Saksham Anganwadi & POSHAN 2.0 (ICDS/Anganwadi Services, National Nutrition Mission, National Creche Scheme and Scheme for Adolescent Girls/SABLA) has decreased from 1.08% of the total budget in FY 2014-15 to 0.45% in FY 2023-24. In the context of maternity entitlements, there has been a notable decrease in both the dedicated budget share and the overall allocation in the past four years, declining from 0.08% to 0.5% of the total budget. In FY 2017-18 (BE) and FY 2019-20 (BE), an allocation of Rs 2,700 crore and Rs 2,500 crore, respectively, was earmarked specifically for the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. However, starting from FY 2021-22, when it was merged into the Samarthya programme alongside various other schemes, the total allocation for all initiatives under this umbrella amounted to only Rs 2,582 crore.

(%) Share of allocation of the total budget outlay for PDS/MDM/Saksham Anganwadi & POSHAN 2.0/ & PMVVY (Budget Estimate)

(See here for corresponding numbers and sources)

The health ministry’s total budget increased from Rs 89,251 crore in FY 2022-23 to Rs 92,803 in FY 2023-24. While the nominal amount increased by Rs 3,552 crore only but when adjusted to inflation, there is a 2% decline in real terms, and the share of the health budget in relation to the total budget declined from 2.46% in FY 2019-20 (Actuals) to of 2.08% in FY 2023-24 (BE). As a share of the GDP, the health budget declined from 0.35% to 0.31% – moving further away from the 2017 National Health Policy goal that seeks to raise the nation’s healthcare budget to 2.5% of the GDP.  The National Health Mission, encompassing two pivotal programmes, namely the National Rural Health Mission and the National Urban Health Mission, stands as a critical scheme to provide accessible and cost-effective healthcare services.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, allocations to the NHM have experienced a consistent decline as a proportion of the total Union Budget, receding from 1.2% in FY 2014-15 to just 0.81% in FY 2023-24. While the out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) has declined from 62.6% in 2014-15 to 47.1% in 2019-20, the cost of health spending remains a significant burden for households, especially when private health services constitute nearly 70% of the health sector. Inadequate public health infrastructure and low insurance coverage are also growing concerns. Despite experiencing a substantial increase in allocations for sanitation and hygiene schemes over the past nine years, India still holds a relatively low position in the 2022 Environmental Performance Index, ranking 141 out of 180 countries on the drinking water scale and 138 out of 180 on the sanitation scale. Budget allocations for the Jal Jeevan Mission have increased from Rs 10,890 crore in FY 2014-15 (BE) to Rs 70,000 in the present budget, similarly, the budget for the Swachh Bharat Mission has also seen a notable increase. The government’s fixation on achieving one hundred per cent targets on paper while failing to deliver tangible results in practice is concerning.

Since FY 2014-15, the share of allocations made to the Department School Education and Literacy and the Department of Higher Education has consistently declined as a share of the overall budget since FY 2014-15, decreasing from 4.6 % to 2.5% in FY 2023-24. The current education budget is only 2.9% of the GDP, which is nowhere close to the 6% target stipulated by the National Policy on Education 1986. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, India witnessed a concerning trend in its education sector. The Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+) report revealed a decline in the number of schools from 1,509,136 in 2020-21 to 1,489,115 in 2021-22, with 20,021 schools closing. This included 4,909 private schools. Simultaneously, the dropout rate among students in classes 1 to 8 nearly doubled compared to the previous year, indicating the far-reaching consequences of the pandemic on education, including both school closures and increased student dropouts. The proliferation of private schools following the New Education Policy 2020 has heightened concerns about unequal access to education and shrinking the responsibility of the government. ASER 2019 data reveals only 39% of girls and 47% of boys for 6 to 8 years have access to private schools, challenging the policy’s aim of improving education through private sector involvement.

Juxtaposing the Central Government’s spending of over Rs 4,000 crore on the beautification of New Delhi for the G20 Summit, with the outstanding due of Rs 6,366 crore in NREGA wages, alongside the displacement of lakhs of citizens, constructs a clear narrative of increasing social exclusion and economic marginalisation, that no amount of publicity or scaffolding can hide. The decreasing trajectory in social welfare expenditure, along with the government’s inclination towards an ‘ease of doing business’ approach, as evident in the most recent monsoon session where a plethora of pro-business and pro-corporate bills were passed, indicates the government’s long-term intent to reshape the character of the Indian State, where business, not people, are at the centre of the discourse.

India is currently at a juncture where challenges extend beyond welfare rights to include a growing threat to civil liberties. That the government continues to expand its discretionary powers, suppresses information through internet shutdowns and reduces the space for democratic protest to 500 metres, are, amidst others, indicators of a rapidly shrinking democracy. The last decade has stood witness to the fact that erosion of democracy is also the erosion of accountability, subverting accountability not only within the sphere of welfare but also the government’s accountability to the people. These changing circumstances force us to reckon with the potential future of both – welfare and democracy – and its implications on the broader questions of democratic governance, citizenship and the fundamental right of all citizens to live with dignity.

Asmi Sharma is with Jan Sarokar and Nancy Pathak is with the national finance team at Centre for Financial Accountability.

Make a contribution to Independent Journalism

//

Based on Prof Amartya Sen's essay DEMPCRACY AS A UNIVERSAL VALUE

 Democracy and Economic Development 

            (Based on Prof Amartya Sen's essay DEMPCRACY AS A UNIVERSAL VALUE).

 It is often claimed that nondemocratic systems are better at bringing about economic development. This belief sometimes goes by the name of "the Lee hypothesis," due to its advocacy by Lee Kuan Yew, the leader and former president of Singapore. He is certainly right that some disciplinarian states (such as South Korea, his own Singapore, and postreform China) have had faster rates of economic growth than many less authoritarian ones (including India, Jamaica, and Costa Rica). 

The "Lee hypothesis," however, is based on sporadic empiricism, drawing on very selective and limited information, rather than on any general statistical testing over the wide-ranging data that are available. A general relation of this kind cannot be established on the basis of very selective evidence. 

1. For example, we cannot really take the high economic growth of Singapore or China as "definitive proof" that authoritarianism does better in promoting economic growth, any more than we can draw the opposite conclusion from the fact that Botswana, the country with the best record of economic growth in Africa, indeed with one of the finest records of economic growth in the whole world, has been an oasis of democracy on that continent over the decades.

Botswana is one of the most economically developed and politically stable countries in Africa. It is classified as an upper-middle-income country by the World Bank, and has had a sustained record of economic growth since independence in 1966. Botswana is also a multi-party democracy with a strong tradition of peaceful elections.

In terms of economic development, Botswana ranks amongst the top 10 African countries on the Human Development Index, which measures a country's progress in terms of life expectancy, education, and income. Botswana also has one of the highest GDP per capita in Africa.

Botswana's political stability is also noteworthy. The country has never experienced a coup or civil war, and has held regular elections since independence. The ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has been in power since independence, but there is a vibrant opposition scene and the country has a free press.

Here are some of the factors that have contributed to Botswana's economic development and political stability:

• Sound economic management: Botswana has a history of prudent economic management, with low levels of inflation and debt. The government has also invested heavily in education and healthcare, which has helped to improve the standard of living for its citizens.
• Political stability: Botswana has had a stable political system since independence. This has created a conducive environment for businesses to invest and grow.
• Natural resources: Botswana is endowed with abundant natural resources, including diamonds, copper, and nickel. The government has used the revenue from these resources to invest in infrastructure and social programs.

However, Botswana also faces some challenges, such as a high unemployment rate and a reliance on diamonds for exports. The government is working to address these challenges by diversifying the economy and investing in job-creating sectors.

Overall, Botswana is a success story in Africa. It is a country with a strong economy, a stable political system, and a high standard of living.

 2.We need more systematic empirical studies to sort out the claims and counterclaims.  There is, in fact, no convincing general evidence that authoritarian  governance and the suppression of political and civil rights are really beneficial to economic development. Indeed, the general statistical picture does not permit any such induction. Systematic empirical studies (for example, by Robert Barro or by Adam Przeworski) give no real support to the claim that there is a general conflict between political rights and economic performance.

 3.The directional linkage seems to depend on many other circumstances, and while some statistical investigations note a weakly negative relation, others find a strongly positive one. If all the comparative studies are viewed together, the hypothesis that there is no clear relation between economic growth and democracy in either direction remains extremely plausible. Since democracy and political liberty have importance in themselves, the case for them therefore remains untarnished.  The question also involves a fundamental issue of methods of economic research. We must not only look at statistical connections, but also examine and scrutinize the causal processes that are involved in economic growth and development. 

4.The economic policies and circumstances that led to the economic success of countries in East Asia are by now reasonably well understood. While different empirical studies have varied in emphasis, there is by now broad consensus on a list of "helpful policies" that includes openness to competition, the use of international markets, public provision of incentives for investment and export, a high level of literacy and schooling, successful land reforms, and other social opportunities that widen participation in the process of economic expansion. There is no reason at all to assume that any of these policies is inconsistent with greater democracy and had to be forcibly sustained by the elements of authoritarianism that happened to be present in South Korea or Singapore or China.

5.Indeed, there is overwhelming evidence to show that what is needed for generating faster economic growth is a friendlier economic climate rather than a harsher political system. 

6. To complete this examination, we must go beyond the narrow confines of economic growth and scrutinize the broader demands of economic development, including the need for economic and social security. In that context, we have to look at the connection between political and civil rights, on the one hand, and the prevention of major economic disasters, on the other. Political and civil rights give people the opportunity to draw attention forcefully to general needs and to demand appropriate public action. The response of a government to the acute suffering of its people often depends on the pressure that is put on it. The exercise of political rights (such as voting, criticizing, protesting, and the like) can make a real difference to the political incentives that operate on a government. 

 I have discussed elsewhere the remarkable fact that, in the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred [End Page 7] in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press.4 We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look: the recent famines of Ethiopia, Somalia, or other dictatorial regimes; famines in the Soviet Union in the 1930s; China's 1958-61 famine with the failure of the Great Leap Forward; or earlier still, the famines in Ireland or India under alien rule. China, although it was in many ways doing much better economically than India, still managed (unlike India) to have a famine, indeed the largest recorded famine in world history: Nearly 30 million people died in the famine of 1958-61, while faulty governmental policies remained uncorrected for three full years. The policies went uncriticized because there were no opposition parties in parliament, no free press, and no multiparty elections. Indeed, it is precisely this lack of challenge that allowed the deeply defective policies to continue even though they were killing millions each year. The same can be said about the world's two contemporary famines, occurring right now in North Korea and Sudan.  Famines are often associated with what look like natural disasters, and commentators often settle for the simplicity of explaining famines by pointing to these events: the floods in China during the failed Great Leap Forward, the droughts in Ethiopia, or crop failures in North Korea. Nevertheless, many countries with similar natural problems, or even worse ones, manage perfectly well, because a responsive government intervenes to help alleviate hunger. Since the primary victims of a famine are the indigent, deaths can be prevented by recreating incomes (for example, through employment programs), which makes food accessible to potential famine victims. Even the poorest democratic countries that have faced terrible droughts or floods or other natural disasters (such as India in 1973, or Zimbabwe and Botswana in the early 1980s) have been able to feed their people without experiencing a famine.  Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence (the last famine, which I witnessed as a child, was in 1943, four years before independence), they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and a free press.  I have discussed these issues elsewhere, particularly in my joint work with Jean Dr'eze, so I will not dwell further on them here.5 Indeed, the issue of famine is only one example of the reach of democracy, though it is, in many ways, the easiest case to analyze. The positive role of political and civil rights applies to the prevention of economic and social disasters in general. When things go fine and everything is routinely good, this instrumental role of democracy may not be particularly missed. It is when things get fouled up, for one [End Page 8] reason or another, that the political incentives provided by democratic governance acquire great practical value.  There is, I believe, an important lesson here. Many economic technocrats recommend the use of economic incentives (which the market system provides) while ignoring political incentives (which democratic systems could guarantee). This is to opt for a deeply unbalanced set of ground rules. The protective power of democracy may not be missed much when a country is lucky enough to be facing no serious calamity, when everything is going quite smoothly. Yet the danger of insecurity, arising from changed economic or other circumstances, or from uncorrected mistakes of policy, can lurk behind what looks like a healthy state.  The recent problems of East and Southeast Asia bring out, among other things, the penalties of undemocratic governance. This is so in two striking respects. First, the development of the financial crisis in some of these economies (including South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia) has been closely linked to the lack of transparency in business, in particular the lack of public participation in reviewing financial arrangements. The absence of an effective democratic forum has been central to this failing. Second, once the financial crisis led to a general economic recession, the protective power of democracy--not unlike that which prevents famines in democratic countries--was badly missed in a country like Indonesia. The newly dispossessed did not have the hearing they needed.  A fall in total gross national product of, say, 10 percent may not look like much if it follows in the wake of a growth rate of 5 or 10 percent every year over the past few decades, and yet that decline can decimate lives and create misery for millions if the burden of contraction is not widely shared but allowed to be heaped on those--the unemployed or the economically redundant--who can least bear it. The vulnerable in Indonesia may not have missed democracy when things went up and up, but that lacuna kept their voice low and muffled as the unequally shared crisis developed. The protective role of democracy is strongly missed when it is most needed.  

*******************************************************

      The Functions of Democracy  

         (Based on Prof Amartya Sen's essay DEMPCRACY AS A UNIVERSAL VALUE).

I have so far allowed the agenda of this essay to be determined by the critics of democracy, especially the economic critics. I shall return to criticisms again, taking up the arguments of the cultural critics in particular, but the time has come for me to pursue further the positive analysis of what democracy does and what may lie at the base of its claim to be a universal value.  

What exactly is democracy? 

1. We must not identify democracy with majority rule. 

2. Democracy has complex demands, which certainly  include voting and respect for election results. 

3. But it also requires the protection of liberties and freedoms, respect for legal entitlements, and the guaranteeing of free discussion and uncensored distribution of news and fair comment. Even elections can be deeply defective if they occur without the different sides getting an adequate opportunity to present their respective cases, or without the electorate enjoying the freedom to obtain news and to consider the views of the competing protagonists.

4. Democracy is a demanding system, and not just a mechanical condition (like majority rule) taken in isolation.  

Viewed in this light, the merits of democracy and its claim as a universal value can be related to certain distinct virtues that go with its unfettered practice. Indeed, we can distinguish three different ways in which democracy enriches the lives of the citizens. 

(1) First, political freedom is a part of human freedom in general, and exercising civil and political rights is a crucial part of good lives of individuals as social beings. Political and social participation has intrinsic value for human life and well-being. To be prevented from participation in the political life of the community is a major deprivation.  

(2) Second, as I have just discussed (in disputing the claim that democracy is in tension with economic development), democracy has an important instrumental value in enhancing the hearing that people get in expressing and supporting their claims to political attention (including claims of economic needs). 

(3) Third--and this is a point to be explored further--the practice of democracy gives citizens an opportunity to learn from one another, and helps society to form its values and priorities. 

Even the idea of "needs," including the understanding of "economic needs," requires public discussion and exchange of information, views, and analyses. In this sense, democracy has constructive importance, in addition to its intrinsic value for the lives of the citizens and its instrumental importance in political decisions.

The claims of democracy as a universal value have to take note of this diversity of considerations.  The conceptualization--even comprehension--of what are to count as "needs," including "economic needs," may itself require the exercise of political and civil rights.

 A proper understanding of what economic needs are--their content and their force--may require discussion and exchange. Political and civil rights, especially those related to the guaranteeing of open discussion, debate, criticism, and dissent, are central to the process of generating informed and considered choices. These processes are crucial to the formation of values and priorities, and we cannot, in general, take preferences as given independently of public discussion, that is, irrespective of whether open interchange and debate are permitted or not.  In fact, the reach and effectiveness of open dialogue are often underestimated in assessing social and political problems. 

For example,  public discussion has an important role to play in reducing the high rates of fertility that characterize many developing countries. There is substantial evidence that the sharp decline in fertility rates in India's more literate states has been much influenced by public discussion of the bad effects of high fertility rates on the community at large, and especially on the lives of young women. If the view has emerged in, say, the Indian state of Kerala or of Tamil Nadu that a happy family in the modern age is a small family, much discussion and debate have gone into the formation of these perspectives. Kerala now has a fertility rate of 1.7 (similar to that of Britain and France, and well below China's 1.9), and this has been achieved with no coercion, but mainly through the emergence of new values--a process in which political and social dialogue has played a major part. Kerala's high literacy rate (it ranks higher in literacy than any province in China), especially among women, has greatly contributed to making such social and political dialogue possible. 

 Miseries and deprivations can be of various kinds, some more amenable to social remedies than others. The totality of the human predicament would be a gross basis for identifying our "needs." For example, there are many things that we might have good reason to value and thus could be taken as "needs" if they were feasible. We could even want immortality, as Maitreyee, that remarkable inquiring mind in the Upanishads, famously did in her 3000-year old conversation with Yajnvalkya. 

But we do not see immortality as a "need" because it is clearly unfeasible. Our conception of needs relates to our ideas of the preventable nature of some deprivations and to our understanding of what can be done about them. In the formation of understandings and beliefs about feasibility (particularly, social feasibility), public discussions play a crucial role. Political rights, including freedom of expression and discussion, are not only pivotal in inducing social responses to economic needs, they are also central to the conceptualization of economic needs themselves.  

STATE OF INDIAN DEMOCRACYBased on Land of the partly free by Sankarshan Thakur in The Telegraph 6.9.23

STATE OF INDIAN DEMOCRACY

Based on Land of the partly free by Sankarshan Thakur in The Telegraph 6.9.23

1. As I write this, the capital city of what Modi calls the ‘mother of democracy’ is turning into an enactment of totalitarian advisories, being barricaded against its own citizenry in preparation for the G20 gala it is to host. A temporary blockage has been decreed on the heart of town — shops, schools, offices, enterprises, nothing is to work, even the shadows have been ordered still as khaki platoons and municipal apparatchik go about purposing a besieged, flower-potted garrison that is to stage the crowning pageant.

2. Five  months have ticked over since fires broke out in Manipur and were allowed to score scars that will rebuff healing. Close to two hundred people have died, inestimable property destroyed, and multiple thousands displaced in the process of forging a bitter ethnic divide. Wo­men have been stripped, raped, paraded and filmed; worse was done to them than the viral circulation of their pain. The prime minister has not gone to Manipur; he has spoken of Manipur for a few odd minutes. Such are our priorities.

3. The chief minister of Manipur, N. Biren Singh, set his police after a fact-finding team of the Editors Guild of India whose report had damned him as, among other things, patently partisan. Earlier, when clips of the horror done to Manipuri women surfaced, Singh’s first resort was to locate the source of the “leak”, not the perpetrators of the crime. Such too are our priorities. In Kashmir just last week, the police threatened legal action against a BBC report on the throttling of the media. Never mind where irony found refuge. India this year has slipped to 161 out of 180 nations on the Press Freedom Index, twenty spots below Somalia, which has no record of making claims to mothering democracy.

4.  India has also been rated “partly free” by the Washington-based rights advocacy body, Freedom House, mainly on account of how imperilled our minorities have come to be. But Freedom House is an agency of the West, best disregarded. Let’s examine our conduct ourselves. A schoolteacher instructs her class to take turns at thrashing a fellow student because he is a Muslim, then says she doesn’t regret what she did. A uniformed jawan walks up and down a moving train, marks out Muslim men by their looks, uses his service weapon to kill them and then delivers a cold sermon on what’s acceptable and what’s not. Later, he says given the chance, he’d have killed more. Sectarian hate has been whipped and served from the highest quarters in recent years and the street allowed to wreak unspeakable violations. 

5. The shape of justice is quite often a bulldozer whose wanton marauding nothing seems to be able to check. The absence of disapproval at all or any of this is deafening; it speaks to collective corruption and collective failure.

6.  The dog-whistler of violence has a seat in government. Convicted rapists and murderers are free and openly felicitated. Those who have demanded their fundamental freedoms and invoked constitutional rights are in prison. Should it be any surprise that record numbers of Indians are forsaking their citizenship and seeking out lives elsewhere?

7. The ruling party is out on the offensive in defence of a brutally oppressive caste system and daring the Opposition to take on its sectarian populism. 

8. The head of its IT cell is a flagrant propagandist of lies and poisoned prejudice. But the IT cell is but a part, although a critical part, of the larger scheme.

 9.There are also, for instance, the ED and the CBI, never mind that they are entities of government and not of the party, such distinction may no longer count for much. Nation, Party, Leader, Government — they have come to denote one cohabitation. And so, depending on how ill- or well-behaved you are to that one purpose, agencies like the ED and the CBI can either have you in their crosshairs or airbrush you out of trouble. 

10. In ideology, tactics and optics, it is almost a carbon impress of the Hitlerian playbook. The Modi cabinet is barely embarrassed that it trots out in public fashioned after a brigade of HMV sycophants. Almost nothing that the ministers of the Union do is not courtesy pradhan mantriji or, simply, Modiji, the one and only. So unyieldingly the one and only that when the nation held its breath and its eyeballs on Chandrayaan-3 landing live on the moon, the euphoric moment of touchdown had to be obscured because the cameras had to be turned on Modiji beaming live and beatifically from a far corner of the world. You’re about to be treated to a more wholesome, and probably uninterrupted, encore. Keep watching. We are a spectacle.