In the past decade India has seen many strong efforts for systemic change. Until now, such activist-led efforts, advocacy initiatives, and public debates have not automatically resulted in a more important goal: deeper citizen awareness about, assertion for, and participation in the restructuring of our governments for greater local powers. But the tide may be finally beginning to turn.
In a campaign of collective assertion - a message that political parties could hardly ignore - more than 10 million (one crore) citizens of Andhra Pradesh recently endorsed greater devolution of executive powers to local governments. This has been the largest and most promising mass mobilization of non-partisan public opinion in India in recent times. It isn't party-managed, nor is this a trade-union supported initiative. The state administration is now working with a federation of local governments to chalk out a program for systematic devolution. While some skepticism that this is merely an electoral promise is inevitable, it must nonetheless count as a victory for citizen involvement in governance.
That alone warrants our attention. But how did this happen?
First, the backdrop. There is no dearth of solution advocacy in India. On every conceivable policy issue there are volumes of research, policy perspectives and agendas for action. To varying degrees, some of this is highlighted in the media. Still, all of this continues to fall by the wayside as governments and a stratified civil society stumble long before the objectives are met. As a result, everyone - literate and illiterate alike - appears to take it for granted that this is the Indian condition, and that real hopes for change are futile. Journalists, opinion-makers, politicians, businesses, and government departments pass each other like uncoordinated ships in the night.
Thus, despite strokes of progress here and there, what India has seen is one well known outcome, witnessed worldwide, of the lack of collective action - a repeated tragedy of the civic commons. It is in this light that the initial success of the FELG/Lok Satta campaign in Andhra Pradesh must be seen. And the view is startling. Unless the citizens of AP descended from a hitherto undocumented and glorious civic culture, we should expect more such non-partisan campaigns on several fronts. And if this state's people were merely acting on media pronouncements of the importance of local self-government, we should already have witnessed several others all over the country.
But we haven't. Demographers and sociologists will tell us that the citizens of AP are by and large no different from their counterparts in other states. FELG's success is a triumph of organizational conduct and inspirational leadership, attained by deliberately knocking down the barriers that have thwarted previous civil society initiatives.
First, FELG marshalled and disseminated information - as well as an agenda - superbly. Second, this was blended with inspiration of a very special kind - one that allows people to persuade themselves that their participation in collective civic action is indeed a worthy and beneficial goal. Three, a well coordinated platform provided the all-important method for citizens and citizen groups to learn and act practically, without having to give up their careers and dreams. A crucial element of civic engagement is this: the few who are deeply engaged must not scorn lesser participation from others. Instead they would do far better to embrace every addition to their efforts, however small it may appear.
But more important than these to FELG's success is that the movement has created
a civic dynamic that united constituent groups of citizens without divisive
moralizing based on economic class, caste or other distinctions. The focus on
the driving issue - local empowerment - was not thwarted by the usual lines of
separation that mark much political development and discourse in India. The
formation of FELG
and subsequent efforts have also been quite deliberately timed; by choosing
a period when local governments are not facing re-election, but state legislators themselves
are, the demand for devolution has been turned into a key electoral issue.
One enduring lesson from this campaign may be that associational behaviour that values the common interests of citizens without regard to their class or ethnic identity can be a powerful political force. In India, the level of such associational political conduct is the lowest among the world's free societies. Clearly our history of social stratification does not make it any easier. Diverse opinions permitted by our political freedoms, and the grave socio-economic disparities in Indian society, may both appear to keep us away from associations for the public good. But civic connectedness can overcome this.
FELG's success is proof that the pursuit of progressive goals is likely to yield better results when civic unity is placed at the heart of the quest, and furthermore, that civic assertion on matters of common local importance may not be impossible to marshall.
