How are policies
formulated in this country?
Is there rationality in policy formulation?
Do we take into account actual experience?
Do we take into account studies?
Do we commission studies so that focused policies can be formulated?
Even if such commissioned studies are available, do we use them in policy formulation?
My answers to all these questions are somewhat skeptical. It would be an understatement, if I said that my conclusions do not surprise me, primarily because I view them in a certain historical context. Our policy formulators have been chosen from the very section, which is singularly unqualified to throw up any well-informed policy formulation. And the advisors, on whom they have to depend, are not, by and large, the ones who care much about how they should go about their job.
Where is civil society in policy formulation? Civil Society is no doubt asked to help in policy formulation, but this is not because their experience is necessarily regarded highly by policy formulators but because there are various pressures which have to be accommodated. The pressures are from several national and international sources that insist civil society views be taken into account. So at least a general impression is created that this is being done. In most cases, the time allotted for civil society experiences to be taken into account is very limited. This reflects the low value that is given to any meaningful consultative civil society process.
Returning to the first question - how is policy formulated? The answer is, polices are not formulated, they just happen. Rather, we are driven into certain policies without much rationality.
I will conclude in a lighter vein with an anecdote which relates to one of the now defunct socialist republics in Eastern Europe. There is a change in regime. An elderly Minister is given by his deputy a plan to spend the equivalent of Rs. 100 crores for improving the quality of primary schools and Rs. 10 crores for improving the quality of prisons. The experienced minister reverses the plan and sanctions 100 crores for improving prisons, and ten crores for improving the schools. His justification being, he and his deputy are more likely to return to the prison but never to a primary school!
This may be apocryphal, but it certainly reflects how polices could be formulated, certainly in former socialist countries, and perhaps in India too!
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