Yojana Bhavan and‘Public Reasoning’
LETTERS
Economic & Political Weekly, December 25, 2010,Vol. xlv no 52 5
The Planning Commission has recentlysought the engagement of civil societyin drafting the Twelfth Plan, asking themto identify the challenges and areas thatrequire special focus, so that the Plandocument is more holistic in nature andcould help in yielding the desired results.
It is apt to recall that the Planning Commissionhas been doing this for severaldecades now. Extraordinarily well organised,both regional as well as special, specific consultations with civil society havebeen held in the preparation of every oneof the last Five or Six Plans. However, the experience has revealed that these consultationsand especially the hard work putin by the NGOs, civil society groups withsuch optimism are of no avail in how thefi nal document and the proposals emerge.
There are many reasons for this mismatch.In most cases the first drafts of thesectoral chapters of every Plan are preparedby the concerned ministries and providethe basis for the Plan. These are embeddedapproaches, for example, the ministry ofwomen and child welfare brings up almostwith the regularity of a pump its ongoingprogrammes and goals, and adds or modify es some of it. It does not necessarily takeon the macroeconomic framework withinwhich a large majority of women aregrinding out their lives or the related sectorslike health or education links.
A second and signifi cant constraint is thefact that in the context of the post-reform
macroeconomic policy framework and allocations,where private players and internationalagreements, apart from the states,have a major role to play in policy as well
as investment choices, preparing a detailedPlan with allocations and suggestions is like
whistling in the dark. Drawing up a fi ve-yearplan at the centre, as was recognized even
as we went into the Eighth Plan can only beindicative and not what it was earlier.
The critical point is that the macroeconomicframework of planning has tochange for it to become what is calledholistic, what the policymakers call inclusive.The players and their power have changedover the last two decades. This understandingneeds to be brought into public debateas a huge structure such as the PlanningCommission with sectoral experts churningout informed chapters and informedpapers, is wasteful. Yojana Bhavan has notbeen and cannot be the vehicle to deliverinclusive growth. The players of the Indianeconomy are outside the Yojana Bhavan.
On the other hand, Yojana Bhavan cantransform itself to becoming a centre forknowledge and have public discourse andpublic debates, engage in what Amartya
Sen in his book, The Idea of Justice callspublic reasoning. “Open min ded engagement
in public reasoning is quite central tothe pursuit of justice”, he says. Yojana Bhavan
can draw attention to the aspirationsof the marginalised groups, further drawtheir arguments, their facts, their struggles,and achievements into public consciousness
through interface conferences. Theycould use the Constitution as a touchstonein fighting for the rights and ideas ofthe “excluded”.
In other words it can bring in a just political economy rather than draft chaptersand print reports which often cannot benegotiated as we are finding with mostministries and state governments.
Devaki Jain
New Delhi
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