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With over 2.5 lakh gram panchayats, and over 2,000 municipalities and municipal bodies, India’s local government ecosystem is unparalleled in scale, reach, and purpose. From tall cities to humble villages, local governments are often presented as a way to deepen democracy and improve governance through people-led decision-making. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a prominent political scientist, in an article (Not a local government, IE, March 11) that the implementation of the 73rd and 74th Amendments in 1992 remains our best hope for the same, but assumes that it has been delayed because fundamentally the state is not serious about decentralization. On the other side of the debate is Nitin Pai, founder of Takshashila, the School of Public Policy. “The argument that the amendments are flawed or that their implementation has been undermined by Indian political economy avoids confronting the more fundamental issues,” he says in an article.
There is an important factor that one must take into account in this debate, one that has far-reaching consequences and is changing rapidly. technology. The relationship between citizens and the state has changed drastically due to the widespread penetration and use of technology. Decentralization has made for an evolving pragmatic negotiation between dozens of citizens and state actors (and local leaders). Citizens now have tangible channels to directly influence the state and vice versa. Thus, it is necessary to take into account in the discussion the three broad ways in which technology has affected the relationship between citizen and state.
First, the exponential growth of social media platforms has broken down communication barriers between sections of our society. It has become easier to organize like-minded individuals and present a united front. Public grievances such as open sewers, bad roads, bribe-seeking official etc. are no longer ‘routine’. One can organize large groups on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and have their voice heard. People can coordinate protests and sign petitions through WhatsApp groups.
State agencies have responded by channeling issues raised on such platforms into an organized grievance redress system. For example, the IRCTC has an active and direct mechanism for addressing public grievances raised on social media. The Chief Minister’s Office in Haryana is seeking and resolving complaints on social media through relevant government departments. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs also recently launched a WhatsApp bot to receive citizen complaints. In the pre-social media era, one can only hope for a solution if they can find a way, the time, and the means to make their voices heard.
Prominent politicians have developed their own mechanisms to replicate their success on social media platforms. It is only a matter of time before grassroots leaders, panchayats, councils, etc. join the bandwagon. Citizens will soon be able to choose from several methods that can help better address their concerns.
Secondly, the adoption of technology as a means of communicating with citizens is gaining momentum among government agencies. Earlier, seeking input from citizens involved mind-boggling efforts—advertising, compiling letters, reading, synthesizing, and so on. Today, state representatives have created channels dedicated to including citizens at the click of a button (maybe a few).
Today, more than three crore citizens can provide input and feedback on government policies and programs through the MyGov app. The Himachal Pradesh Ministry of Education conducted ‘parent-teacher meetings’ through WhatsApp video calls, which meant that parents did not have to skip a single day’s work to connect with teachers. The Supreme Court and some higher courts routinely hear cases via video conferencing and live streaming to larger audiences. District courts have created Telegram groups to directly share relevant information such as case listings, orders, notices, etc. with attorneys and litigants. Earlier, one had to physically visit the court and read bulletin boards. Local entities such as Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs) have improved public participation with active support from start-ups such as MyGate and ApnaComplex. Citizens’ input and needs are actively included in the design and improvement of service delivery.
But all these technologies come at a cost and thus only those who have the resources (financial and otherwise) can develop and benefit from their benefits. Pratap posits in his article that “Technology has been a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can create local capacity; on the other hand, it has been used to bypass political negotiation and control to a large extent.”
This brings me to the third way technology has changed governance. A more recent development, but one that can arguably transfer power into the hands of citizens, is open source technology. Technologies like Aadhaar, UPI, and CoWin were built as open source, publicly owned digital infrastructure. By their very nature, the source code for these technologies is publicly available, and modifications to the code (“push” in the term for the technology) can be suggested by the citizen independently. During the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination campaign, many citizens “paid” a token into CoWin after encountering bugs and glitches with it. An active open source community that contributes to the digital public infrastructure can increase the direct influence that citizens have on the state. Given the improvements in AI tools, it will become more accessible for citizens to directly contribute to development policy grants. It won’t be long until the Sarpanchs can seamlessly leverage technology to run their panchayats.
Technology (including artificial intelligence) is a critical factor in the decentralization debate and implementation of the 73rd and 74th Amendments in their true spirit. Pai put it succinctly: “We should think of more effective models that can improve grassroots governance in Indian conditions in the information age.” It’s time to reflect, now it’s time to act.
The writer is a senior director at Samagra, a mission-driven governance consulting firm
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