Farm Laws have attracted experts’ commentaries from different disciplines in India and abroad. A trend that can be distilled from the commentaries is that if somebody is not consulted the policy is flawed. Because, though initially the comments were about the technical aspects of the laws, later the discourse got turned political to lack of consultations, timing, and trust deficit. If the experts say that the laws are fine if these aspects are somehow managed, wouldn’t these suggestions amount to hoodwinking the farmers? It is this that makes one believe that the maxim seems to be, ‘Consult me, else you are flawed’. This is the norm and syndrome today.

When it comes to consultation, in the public policy sphere everybody is a stakeholder, even if they have no stakes, what is increasingly called ‘no skin in the game’. In the 70s and 80s, the literature on the public enterprises used to characterize the owners of PSEs as stakeholders without stakes. In public systems, the civic societies usurped the role of public interest custodians and waged through protests and public interest litigation.

Unfortunately, this trend is catching up with   academicians, writers, and experts. The world of political discourse and opinions is divided along the lines of ‘for Government’ and ‘against Government’ which in turn comes from whether one belongs  to the circle of consultation or not.

This behaviour of neglection has another strand of reasoning. In psychology, it is called ‘Attention Seeking Behaviour’ (ASB). This is normally prevalent in the childhood when a child seeks to attract attention by being affable or naughty. One can see this behaviour often in TV debates when an anchor ignores a panelist and how he screams his way back into the debate. Generally, it gets over at early age. As behavioural specialists would say every adult carries both parent and child elements in his life.

Headquarter Syndrome

This feeling pervades in all walks of life. This happens more at Head Quarters where there is a constant power struggle. In corporates, it is generally called Headquarters Syndrome. When people get left out of decision making networks invariably their entire energy gets directed to fault finding and ‘I told you so’ opinions. The existential crisis comes from finding one’s irrelevance in the decision making circle that matters. They constantly try to position themselves in the networks in various roles as ‘conscious keepers’ or ‘ethical whistleblowers’. It is ego games that grownups play.

This protracted expensive consultation process is called consensus building and getting buying in. Corporates handle this by hiring management consultants and getting it through them. One saving grace in corporates is that at the end of the day everybody falls in line due to the quarter on quarter pressure. In politics there is no such binding condition.

Consultation in Politics

I got provoked to writing this as I was listening to the interview of Dr. Abhijit Banerji in a channel. He had some words of appreciation for the Laws but finally ended up saying it should be taken back to the policy drafting table. Being specialized in policy-making, I know the strenuous journey a policy takes. Copious policy input papers are produced, consultations are done, committee meetings are conducted before the agenda reaches the policy radar.  It then goes through extensive discussion in the respective parliamentary committee and finally a Cabinet note is made which goes to the Cabinet for approval, after which it gets referred to Parliament for discussion. In the Parliament it again goes through extensive discussions. We are talking of years, if not decades.

So, if somebody says take it for consultation again, it means not in the near future. It is difficult to fathom why a well-meaning expert would want to put the clock back. A concerned expert should rather offer his services to mediate and help find mutually agreeable rules.

We can understand when opposition parties make vociferous objections to any policy, which is in consonance with their role. In fact, sometimes they might be opposing something which they themselves have proposed when they were the ruling party or which is part of their manifesto, but seeing the public mood may oppose. This is also understandable, because they are fighting for their political space and we can still generously consider this as a sign of vibrant democracy.

Independent Experts?

There were times when the world of academics, experts, analysts, and writers was divided along ideological lines. Today the world being bereft of any ideology has no option but to fight on the lines of alignment. We still hear people saying they are right of center or left of center; the fact is there is nothing on left, and everything starts from the middle. The alignment is generally on the lines of ‘for or against’ government and we find that in India, writers and speakers move seamlessly ‘across the aisle’ like students participating in moot courts of law colleges.

This polarized expert world is the fallout of years of operation of ‘spoils system’.  In the US, the academic world and the Think Tanks absorb the people who have to exit through the revolving door of spoil systems. Even in India every regime change will see the exit of experts from the comfort of formerly Planning Commission, International Agencies, Tribunals, etc. The vacuum created by the regime change for the old team is quite hard to take. India badly needs Think Tanks and research centers which can provide platforms for them.

It is often said that the government should consult independent academicians and experts. In policy literature the writers question if there are indeed ‘Independent Experts’. In US, the consultation is provided by the Think Tanks which provide the platform for both the national parties. These give them the platform to argue among themselves in media and writings, and there is no need to appear at protest sites.

In contrast, in India the Think Tanks are still at a nascent stage. Sadly for the experts, the Indian media pits them against the spokespersons and activists, and after a point it becomes difficult to differentiate the experts from the rest. Not satisfied with the exposure, they are in social media, at the University gates, Jantar Mantar, Gateway of India and are keen to be seen rather just being heard. In this war of protests, the supporters of the government are decidedly at a disadvantaged position as there is nothing heroic about protesting to support a Government.

How do you negotiate when the goal is to stall it?

The independent experts are saying that the Government should consult the farmers. There are different arguments being put forth that the Government has failed to communicate. The Reality is they are protesting because they understand the implications and their fear is similar to any industry that enjoys protection. Another argument is that the Government did not consult stakeholders before passing the law, for which I detailed the process which is of public knowledge. So, why the logjam?

The logjam happens when ‘independent’ interlocutors step in. This is farmers’ moment of reform and their future. Having shown their strength, it is in their interest to come to negotiation table and strive for a favorable negotiated settlement. However, among the farmers’ groups there may be some segments whose interests lie in keeping it ‘intractable’. Northrup, a sociologist, writing on negotiations says, negotiators beset with fear of survival put forth demands which are by design intractable (as cited by Susskind). He writes the very success of the venture depends on keeping the conflict alive. In such cases he continues, parties indulge in distortions and obfuscations. Abhijit Banerji might have called for taking the Laws back to the drafting table to resolve this intractability. If this route is taken, the draft negotiation table will be filled with all the laws passed by the parliament. A law is after all an overarching frame and the desired changes can be brought about in framing of rules.  In public policy statements the government should satisfy all segments that are highly laudable but in effect means sticking to status-quo.

Vaidyanathan Ayyar writing on negotiated settlements cautions, “Marry in haste and repent in leisure captures the consequences of unwise agreements. A penchant to compromise, regardless of outcomes, may jeopardize long-term strategic goals. ‘Conviction politicians’ like Margaret Thatcher have ushered in far–reaching reforms by refusing to compromise easily and insisting that ‘the lady is not for turning’” (p83).

Of course, no one can suggest the Government to be intransigent. It has to try various skills of negotiations to bring the farmers on board. The Government should be accommodative to improve the law and to alleviate the fears of farmers, but not to accommodate the vested interests whom the law seeks to unsettle.

 

References

Susskind, Lawrence. “Arguing, Bargaining and Getting Agreement.” The oxford Handbook of Public Policy. Ed.Michael Moran, Martin Rein, and Robert E Goodin. Oxford University Press. Oxford, 2008.  pp. 269–295.

Ayyar, RV Vaidyanathan. Public Policymaking in India, Pearson, New Delhi, 2009. 

Image credits: Gerd Altmann via Pixabay

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