Policy for no Public
The below article is an excerpt from one of the newsletters I send to my subscribers every Sunday. You can subscribe and read the rest of these newsletters in the archive section here - reallyonlyharmessaboutnothing.
One of the recent subscriber to this newsletter sent across a wonderful article earlier this week on the rise of India's Newsletter Ninjas that I particularly enjoyed reading, having started this newsletter more than six weeks ago. Another subscriber sent across a story following my last email #12, which I also had separately planned to mention in this newsletter. It's heartening to see readers actually take an interest in what I write here and take out the time to give their feedback and ideas. Thank you! And to the others, please feel free to hit the reply button anytime with your thoughts!
If you would recall my last newsletter I spoke about a report on the future of news in India published by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. But while I read this report, my reading suggestions threw up back-to-back stories about Vidhi (I suspect the AI algorithms tracking my web usage is hard at work here) that REALLY spooked me. Why were articles being written about them (rather by them, which is the usual case)? What went wrong at Vidhi ?
Vidhi started out as a promising non-profit organisation that set to change the way India's laws were drafted, and sought to introduce research, sector-specific expertise and top quality legislative drafting. They made their mark quickly - major laws which even non-lawyers may have heard of like Insolvency Code, Aadhar Bill etc. all were developed with Vidhi's support, ushering in a new era of private-sector engagement by the Government. Plus they ensured that they remained non-partisan and a non-profit enterprise, which added to their reputation.
However, between working for the government on contract-basis and defending the government in controversial areas like security standards around Aadhar, privacy framework in India and the personal data protection bill (currently in front of the Parliament), the founder of Vidhi - Mr. Sengupta began blurring these lines. This reached a tipping point when he argued on behalf of the Government in front of the Supreme Court that the right to privacy is not a fundamental right (thankfully the Supreme Court did not rule in the Government's favor, for once). Since then, there has been renewed media scrutiny on the donations received by Vidhi from corporate houses like Tata Trusts and Mahindra Group, members of their Advisory Board, and murmurs of dissent from their own employee ranks.
In the past few years, several other notable institutions like Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) have come up and the government has been frequently partnering with them in various capacities - either Vidhi-like relations such as drafting key legislations (NIPFP was also involved in drafting the Insolvency Code), or using them as external resources for various government schemes (the Boston Consultancy Group for instance is involved in the government's education schemes). But these 3 articles give interesting insights into how the field of public policy works in India, and often what appears on the front as HARMLESS contract-work may soon turn into lobbying - a word that has always been frowned upon in India given our checkered history with corruption and kickbacks.
Today there are several established lobbying groups in almost every possible industry, like Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, Indian Venture Capital Association etc. Almost every major corporate in India has public policy heads - a position that was virtually unknown few years back - who are responsible for spearheading the company's strategy for public relations, interaction and outreach with the government, and media profile - classic management terminology for good 'ol fashioned lobbying. And it's not just corporates like Facebook, Twitter or Uber - which have large public presence and controversial moments in past few years and hence, sufficient common-sense-reason to appoint public policy directors - but also venture capital investors like Sequoia who do not have any particular public media profile and engagement with any common citizen, who also have public policy heads positions.
All of this ONLY goes to show that lobbying (sorry, 'public policy') is almost an indispensable need for any major corporate today if they are to navigate New Delhi's power corridors. And in watershed moments like Washington Post's expose of Facebook India's response to right-wing Indian politicians' hate speech and fake news posts, this nexus between corporate public policy and the government comes out in the worst possible form. It has taken immense public outcry in the past for governments to wake up, take action and ignore such lobbying efforts for the greater good. Facebook India's plans to launch Free Basics and Internet.org in 2016 were only thwarted due to continuous hue and cry from various sections of media and society on how it would violate net neutrality norms.
Similarly, the Adani group has been embroiled in a public war with Australian people and environmental organisation for almost 5 years over the largest coal mine project in the world. The controversial project has been widely criticized for its environmental harm and harping on coal in an era when the world is moving into renewable energy. Amidst concerns over whether a coal project was even viable in today's time, the NYT article linked above even had a thoughtful line - "Throw enough subsidies and anything can be viable".This project has shown the world exactly how lobbying and crony capitalism operates - not just 'funding' politicians but also engaging in wide spread misleading publicity, mass media guerrilla advertising and almost door-to-door canvassing for rural people to support the project. It has taken years of spirited public effort called #StopAdani to result in international banks and corporations withdrawing funding and support for the project (ultimately the Adani Group had to self-fund the project), and the Australian Government final approving only a fraction of the original project size.
Public policy / lobbying are treacherous waters. Often what is touted as beneficial to the country, or to the general public - ends up harming the both and is only beneficial to the corporation. These stories are all complex and layered, take your time in reading these. And it's important to know these stories, because the ones about whom these are - they rely on you to not focus on them. Enjoy your Sunday!
ROLLING IN THE DEEP END
+Something to Watch: Since I spoke ABOUT public policy institutions earlier, there's no better time to watch Thank You For Smoking. If you thought public policy institutions and the government are getting more and more entwined in India, it is NOTHING compared to the US, where lobbying is a recognized profession and practically governs how the country works (frankly, Indians never heard of this term until the Nira Radia tapes). This deeply satirical movie will leave you in splits.
+ Dark Waters: I haven't seen it yet, but read a lot about this true story. Mark Ruffalo returns as a real-life superhero in this one after Spotlight (you should definitely watch this one too).
+Parting Thoughts: After all that I read about Vidhi, Harvey Dent's classic line in The Dark Knight comes to my mind:
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."