India Policy Watch #1: What Outrage Means
Insights on burning policy issues in India
— RSJ
Last week while writing about the Fabindia Diwali ad and the accompanying outrage, I wrote that this ‘arms race of purity’ might become a familiar feature in our cultural landscape. This week we got this:
“Homegrown FMCG player Dabur has withdrawn its advertisement on Karva Chauth showing a lesbian couple celebrating the festival in the ad campaign of its Fem Creme bleach and has issued unconditionally apology.
After facing backlash on social media platforms and also from a politician from the ruling BJP, the company has withdrawn the ad campaign.
In the same week, Bajrang Dal activists vandalised the set and assaulted the director and crew members of the web series Aashram because it ‘defamed the Hindu religion’.
There are a few larger questions I have about this phenomenon. Before I come to them, let’s look at this Dabur ad issue a bit more. The ad uses the classic “traditional plot with a twist” approach to make it stand out amidst the clutter. A karwa chauth ad with a lesbian couple must have checked all the boxes in the minds of the marketers at Dabur. It was topical and it celebrated diversity. The recent Cadbury’s Dairy Milk campaign that went viral where it switched the gender roles of its classic ads of the 90s is a good example of this approach. The new ad had the girl hitting a last-ball six while her boyfriend danced onto the pitch.
So, here’s a thought experiment: what if Cadbury’s had made the same ad with a same-sex couple? Would that have created the same outrage as the Dabur karwa chauth ad? I suspect there would have been some but nothing of the kind we saw with the Dabur ad. There are more than a few ads and TV shows right now featuring same-sex couples. In fact, the statement of the BJP leader who threatened legal action against the ad is useful to quote here:
"In future they will show two men taking 'feras' (marrying each other according to Hindu rituals)."
I suspect the issue becomes fraught when Hindu rituals are involved. I have argued in previous editions that the way ideologies are understood in India are different from their original conception. A liberal is used for a left-leaning activist kind instead of someone believing in individual rights and consent. People call themselves conservative that is, those who value order, custom and self-directed change in society, while they champion bigoted views and radical changes that will usher in an ‘ideal society’. They do so without any sense of irony. An absence of ideological clarity is a feature of our democracy.
Ideological Confusion
Now, if I were an Indian conservative, how would I look at the Dabur ad? Sure, I would wince a bit at the lesbian angle. After all, to me, marriage is a social institution and it is solemnised between a woman and a man. But then I would also reluctantly acknowledge that same-sex relationship is now accepted in many societies. It has a legal sanction in India. Maybe then as a true conservative, I will look at the ad again. Sure it shows lesbians but they are also following a tradition that I hold dear. The ad upholds my belief that individualism has to be grounded by custom and tradition. That social cohesion will be preserved only if we adhere to our cultural mores. So, I would welcome an ad that co-opts a new generation into this tradition.
But that’s not how the so-called conservatives behaved. What explains this? The simple answer is that it’s about outrage, not so much about the tradition. It is about using another incident to strengthen the narrative that there are insidious forces who will destroy sanatan dharma if we aren’t forever vigilant. And you can only trust us to protect you from these forces. Today it is a lesbian couple following the karwa chauth ritual that’s seen as a threat to the faith. Tomorrow it could be a straight woman in the ad but without a bindi. The reason for outrage doesn’t really matter. The narrative that religion is under threat is what is important. So, the far-fetched notion that marketing teams and ad agencies working for Fabindia or Dabur are either anti-Hindu or part of some global conspiracy. Not the obvious reality that almost every lever of power is now controlled by those of your ideological slant. That’s not enough. There are still some mythical powerful people who are brainwashing our young. Not the obvious reality that the young in these companies and their customers are slowly changing and accepting of diversity on their own like a conservative would have preferred. There is no real respect for tradition or for how society is changing itself. It is just another opportunity to play an imaginary victim card and keep the narrative of Hinduism in danger for future electoral gains.
Thinking About Culture
Beyond these specific instances, there are a few questions that come to my mind as I look at the cultural landscape in India.
First, we often use the Breitbart doctrine - politics is the downstream of culture - around here. Like we have written before, there is a long history to this idea before Breitbart. Anyway, there’s an obvious counter to the Breitbart doctrine that comes up after seeing instances like these - isn’t politics influencing culture here? Hasn’t culture now become downstream of politics? The way to think about this is that the Breitbart doctrine is focused on the outcome. The outcome always is about a politics different from what it is today. So, yes, the politician in MP who threatened legal action against the ad was trying to influence culture today. But his goal is to create a kind of politics tomorrow that’s narrower and more bigoted than today. How your culture is changing today is still the best indicator of the kind of politics you will get tomorrow. Going by the spate of fake outrage about ads and TV shows, the future of politics doesn’t look promising.
Second, there’s another point that’s made when issues like these come up. No one votes on such issues and these are some fringe elements trying to get into a news cycle. Don’t overread this. I agree, with a caveat. Usually, these are indeed isolated instances of people coercing others to their point of view with limited success except when those doing this hold the levers of power. Then the consequences are both real and long-term. They cannot be likened to an equally stupid outrage by the other side who hold almost no power even if they are vocal. To take the US case, the QAnon and other right-wing crazy ideas can find support on social media but there are hardly people holding power in government, universities or corporates who believe in them. But ‘wokeism’ in universities and workplaces can be a real problem as seen in the dismissals of many alternative voices because those holding power in these places tends to support woke ideas. In India, the shoe is on the other foot. The right-wing ideas have the support of those in power. In edition #120 (A Short History of Breitbart Doctrine), I had written about the Gramscian idea of cultural hegemony which is being followed to the letter in India:
Gramsci argued a capitalist state had two overlapping spheres that helped it to thrive. There was the ‘political society’ that ruled through coercion and control of means of production which was visible to all. But there was also the ‘civil society’ that ruled through consent and control of minds. The civil society was the public sphere of ideas and beliefs that were shaped through the church, media or universities. To him, the capitalist state was successful in ‘manufacturing consent’ among people through the ‘cultural hegemony’ it set up through its control of the public sphere. People living in such societies didn’t question their position or their exploitation because they thought this was the ‘natural state’ of existence. The cultural hegemony was so complete and overpowering that there could hardly be any mobilisation of people against the ‘political society’ which ruled through coercion. The minds of the people were brainwashed through propaganda.
In short: establishing cultural hegemony is the first step to winning the minds and eventually, the votes of people (we are talking of democracy here). Over time, this hegemony in the public sphere will earn you the long-term consent of the people who will consider it their ‘natural state’. Self-censorship will follow as an outcome of this hegemony. That addresses the second question on why people self-censor themselves.
Third, there’s the other question that usually comes up along with the imagined victimhood. Why only choose Hindu rituals? Why not show such ads using rituals of other Abrahamic faiths? Well, if some 82 per cent of the people in India are Hindus, it is natural for an ad or a TV show to focus on this majority for their message; radical or otherwise. Dabur or Fabindia won’t show such ads in another non-Hindu majority country if we were to take the hypothetical case of them being present there. Everyone focuses on the majority. It is for exactly the same reason why more than 80 per cent of films and TV shows have protagonists with Hindu names and faith. Or, a majority of holidays in offices are for Hindu festivals. This is how it works for any overwhelming majority. You get everything in majority.
A decade or two back, I remember, there used to be articles and shows debating the relevance of rituals like karwa chauth and their place in modern society. Today, the debate is who can be shown observing the ritual and, maybe, what should they be wearing. That’s enough for you to know who is winning the culture war.
p.s: Growing up I had almost no knowledge of karwa chauth. I don’t recollect any film or TV shows that featured it in their plots. Till Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) and Kajol ‘universalised’ it in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Culture changes, gradually and then suddenly, to misquote Hemingway. SRK would’ve learnt it .
A Framework a Week: Rules For Political Survival
Tools for thinking public policy
— RSJ
I’m reading The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (2011) by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. The Netflix series How To Become A Tyrant is based on this. It is an interesting book with the central premise that politicians, dictators and democrats alike, are all the same. They must follow the same playbook of self-interested behaviour to stay in power. I will write about the book in a more relevant context some other time, perhaps. For now, I will leave you with this excellent set of rules that authors suggest leaders can use to succeed in any system:
Rule 1: Keep your winning coalition as small as possible. A small coalition allows a leader to rely on very few people to stay in power. Fewer essentials equals more control and contributes to more discretion over expenditures.
Bravo for Kim Jong Il of North Korea. He is a contemporary master at ensuring dependence on a small coalition.
Rule 2: Keep your nominal selectorate as large as possible. Maintain a large selectorate of interchangeables and you can easily replace any troublemakers in your coalition, influentials and essentials alike. After all, a large selectorate permits a big supply of substitute supporters to put the essentials on notice that they should be loyal and well behaved or else face being replaced.
Bravo to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for introducing universal adult suffrage in Russia’s old rigged election system. Lenin mastered the art of creating a vast supply of interchangeables.
Rule 3: Control the flow of revenue. It’s always better for a ruler to determine who eats than it is to have a larger pie from which the people can feed themselves. The most effective cash flow for leaders is one that makes lots of people poor and redistributes money to keep select people—their supporters—wealthy.
Bravo to Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari, estimated to be worth up to $4 billion even as he governed a country near the world’s bottom in per capita income.
Rule 4: Pay your key supporters just enough to keep them loyal. Remember, your backers would rather be you than be dependent on you. Your big advantage over them is that you know where the money is and they don’t. Give your coalition just enough so that they don’t shop around for someone to replace you and not a penny more.
Bravo to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe who, whenever facing a threat of a military coup, manages finally to pay his army, keeping their loyalty against all odds.
Rule 5: Don’t take money out of your supporter’s pockets to make the people’s lives better. The flip side of rule 4 is not to be too cheap toward your coalition of supporters. If you’re good to the people at the expense of your coalition, it won’t be long until your “friends” will be gunning for you. Effective policy for the masses doesn’t necessarily produce loyalty among essentials, and it’s darn expensive to boot. Hungry people are not likely to have the energy to overthrow you, so don’t worry about them. Disappointed coalition members, in contrast, can defect, leaving you in deep trouble.
Bravo to Senior General Than Shwe of Myanmar, who made sure following the 2008 Nargis cyclone that food relief was controlled and sold on the black market by his military supporters rather than letting aid go to the people—at least 138,000 and maybe as many as 500,000 of whom died in the disaster.
Cynical? Maybe. Illuminating, nevertheless.
India Policy Watch #2: Musical Chairs
Insights on burning policy issues in India
— Pranay Kotasthane
In September, you would have come across many headlines to this effect: "right to sit" becomes a workplace law in Tamil Nadu. Or Tamil Nadu Becomes Second State After Kerala to Establish Right to Sit for Workers. Or Tamil Nadu’s ‘right to sit’ Bill, a long-overdue fundamental right.
Of course, the change in law doesn’t mean the ‘right to sit’ is now an enforceable fundamental right. Nevertheless, the news coverage on this issue seems to suggest tha a legal right to sit for all workers in shops and establishments in the state would improve the conditions of workers.
As someone skeptical of framing entitlements as rights guaranteed by the state, I was intrigued. How is the government going to enforce such a legal right? What does the right cover? What qualifies as seating? What does adequate seating mean? What’s the market failure here? How will smaller shops provide space for adequate seating?
A useful philosophical distinction to consider here is between negative and positive rights. The holder of a negative right is entitled to non-interference. That is, having a negative right to sit implies an employer cannot stop a worker from sitting. A positive right is entitled to the provision of some good or service. That is, having the positive right to sit implies an employer must provide workers with a chair to sit on. The framing of the news reportage seemed to indicate that the government was leaning towards a positive right.
So I searched for the exact text of the Kerala and TN amendments to their shops and establishment acts. This is what they say:
Tamil Nadu LA Bill 29 of 2021:
“22-A. Seating facilities -The premises of every establishment shall have suitable seating arrangements for all employees so that they may take advantage of any opportunity to sit which may occur in the course of their work and thereby avoid ‘on their toes’ situation throughout the working hours."
Kerala LA Ordinance 50 of 2018 is almost identical:
12B. Seating facilities — In every shop and establishment, suitable arrangements for sitting shall be provided to all workers so as to avoid ‘on the toes’ situation throughout the duty time, so that they may take advantage of any opportunity to sit which may occur in the course of their work.
That’s about it. Although there’s no mention of a ‘right to sit’, my friend Ameya Naik educated me that such an obligation on a shop or establishment by definition creates a legal right for workers.
So, how effective is this right likely to be? We can anticipate the following unintended consequences:
Shops might procure a few chairs and yet prevent workers from sitting. Since the act does not define what ‘any opportunity to sit which may occur in the course of their work’ is, enforcing the right will be quite difficult.
Smaller shops and establishments with limited space might find it difficult to comply to this law. Expect chairs to appear miraculously just before the inspector pays a visit.
This gives another tool in the hands of the inspectors who are also supposed to check if shops comply with laws on holidays, opening and closing hours of the establishment, cleanliness, ventilation, lighting, prevention against fire etc. — a total of 32 sections under the Shops and Establishments Act. Given the limited capacity, we can expect that the bribe rates to increase.
In sum, this ‘right to sit’ is, in reality, a mandate at par with other compliances for shops such as a holiday a week, a maximum work day of eight hours, wage for overtime work etc. In the most optimistic scenario, we can expect its compliance levels to be at par with these other pre-existing mandates.
Finally, I am honestly unable to identify the exact market failure that necessitates government intervention on seating facilities in a shop. If I had no choice but to recommend a government intervention, an ethical labour sourcing certification that shops can voluntarily opt for, would be my first solution.
India Policy Watch #3: Effecting Policy Change
Insights on burning policy issues in India
— Pranay Kotasthane
This week I read Himanshu Jha’s Capturing Institutional Change: The Case of the Right to Information Act in India. The ‘Right to X’ in a book title is usually a red flag for me but I am glad I ignored that thought. This book is an excellent read for anyone trying to understand how public policy changes happen in India.
On the RTI Act’s promulgation, the first dominant narrative is that a bottom-up social movement with the Mazdoor Kisaan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) ultimately culminated in the RTI Act 2005. Another dominant narrative highlights the key role played by the UPA-1 government. Jha challenges both these narrative and argues, rather convincingly, that:
‘institutional change in the case of RTI in India is an incremental and gradual process of ideas emerging from within the state.’ [page 12]
That’s a bold claim. Jha argues that key elements in the Indian political ecosystem were on board with the idea of freedom of information many years before the RTI act came into being. It was an idea whose time had come long before 2005. First the opposition parties and later, the mainstream parties played a major role in overturning the established norm of secrecy. The social movement did have a role to play but it too had a co-dependent relationship with elements in the state; the narrative that it was an outright contest between the society and the state in which the former won is incorrect.
As a public policy student, this argument interests me because it again challenges a deep-seated belief in India that only crises drive positive changes in our polity. Many reforms, like the RTI Act, the National Pension System reform have actually come about as a result of a gradual process involving aligning cognitive maps, smart negotiating, and display of political will. That is a sign of hope and a call for rejecting cynicism. Crisis is no guarantee for a policy reform. The well-thought-through reforms take time and perhaps for good reason.
HomeWork
Reading and listening recommendations on public policy matters
[Article] Pratap Bhanu Mehta in The Indian Express on Aryan Khan affair: It's not about establishing that everyone is equal before the law. There are larger ideological connections here.
[Podcast] Jordan Peterson podcast: Peterson, Steven Pinker, and Jonathan Haidt sit down to discuss truth, how societies function, utopias, the role of religion, & more.
[Book] Successful Public Policy: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand is a rare book that identifies elements of good policy design. The chapter on water markets is particularly relevant to India.
#145 The Escalation Ladder of Outrage