Managing debates on change

In the 1960s, Daniel Bell proclaimed the "end of ideology". It proved a false dawn and it took three more decades for that great ideological schism of our age to climax with the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the euphoria surrouding that event, Francis Fukuyama re-opened the debate by claiming the "end of history", with the triumph of western capitalist liberal democracy. But since then, the forces of globalisation, liberalisation, and privatization have unleashed dramatic socio-economic and political changes across the world. These changes have generated heated and intense debates about their consequences, especially on those not equipped to tackle them.

These debates are often obscured by ideological shibboleths and slogans. In an age of commoditized media, it has become standard practice for us to see every issue in binary opposition. Whether it be globalisation-privatization-liberalisation, or those issues of more immediate concern like reforms in service delivery and improving efficiency in the utilisation of our assets, it has become the fashion to circumscribe our debate to a simple one of whether we should accept it or reject it.

Most often these debates cannot be adjudicated on such simple terms. For example, when the entire world is moving in one direction, we simply cannot afford to turn our backs and reject ushering in reforms and changes. The challenge before us is to accept them and try to work out how these reforms and changes can be ushered in at our terms and conditions. We should spend our energies trying to develop capacity in our citizens, so as to cushion them against any pain arising out of them.

I have been witnessing some of these unfolding debates in the recent months, and it has helped me better understand the dynamics of such debates. Over the past year or so, there has been fierce and growing debates in Vijayawada on a few issues like water meters, outsourcing, cost recovery , user charges and Public Private Partnership (PPP). Of these, water meters and PPP have generated the greatest opposition. This is happening in a context when, both water meters and PPP are fast gaining universal acceptance as part of the solution for reducing NRW in urban water supply and in leveraging private capital for augmenting the scarce resources available with Government.

In keeping with this trend, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) also initiated steps to install water meters and also take up development of government assets through PPP. The opponents of both immediately claimed that introduction of water meters would result in higher water tariffs and PPP would be a surrogate for Privatization and handing over of valuable public assets to private agencies. A debate got initiated. The Council of the VMC got into over drive and passed resolutions banning the fixing of water meters on houses and executing any project under PPP. Given the inevitability of both, instead of discussing about how we can use water meters and PPP to our advantage, we have decided to completely turn our back on them. In fact, the Council also passed resolutions barring any outsourcing of civic service delivery, or collection of user charges to achieve cost recovery.

Instead of wholesale rejection, we should implement outsourcing wherever it has evident economic and technical benefits, and that too at terms and conditions which do not place additional burden on the citizens and the VMC. Similarly, cost recovery and user charges can be adopted in certain sectors and for certain categories of population. Before erecting water meters, we need to have a well thought out tariff policy that ensures no extra burden on the common citizen. PPP can be an option in some sectors, where the Corporation does not have resources to invest upfront.

If we continue to stick to a position of dogmatic binary opposition, we could end up having both water meters and PPP implemented in VMC, without none of the concerns being properly addressed. In the absence of any debate, I would not be surprised if water meters gets implemented in Vijayawada with a tariff structure that would not take into account the genuine concerns about the burden imposed on poor households and universal access to safe drinking water. The concept of PPP could get adopted in undesirable and inappropriate projects, and not being utilized where its impact would be beneficial. We could end up with incomplete and harmful outsourcing contracts in the wrong sectors, which would ultimately fail and discredit the entire outsourcing concept.

We have witnessed similar debates before too, across the national scene. The debate on WTO was restricted to whether India should join it or not. There was precious little analysis and discussion about the issues on the agenda of WTO and how they were beneficial or harmful to India's interests, and how we could steer the debate to leverage our strengths. There was limited appreciation of the fact that the world was moving inevitably towards a multi-lateral trading regime and an inter-connected structure, and we had no choice but to join WTO.

Finally when WTO became a reality, we did not have our citizens and our private sector properly equipped to face the challenges arising from it. By not being ready with counter proposals, meeting our requirements, on a variety of issues ranging from the Multi Fibre Agreement (MFA), TRIPS, and liberalisation of trade in Agriculture and Services, we were not able to influence the WTO decision making process on these issues. We were left repsonding to proposals put forward by other nations, most often dogmatically opposing it. In hindsight, all of us would agree that we ought to have more proactively come up with alternate proposals suiting our requirements and structure the phasing out of MFA, or the schedule for accepting TRIPS or GATS.

It is in our interest that we are active participants in any debate on reforms and changes, if possible be even leading it. Indeed the agenda for the debate and its Terms of Reference should be set by us. Blind ideological opposition to change will not get us anywhere and will only result in our marginalisation in the debate, ultimately resulting in our being unable to shape the change in the way best suited to our interests. By refusing to participate in the debate we are effectively giving a free hand to our opponents to implement their agenda unfettered.

We need to move beyond this binary paradigm on most issues facing us today and focus on how we can manage these changes and reforms to our advantage, rather than rejecting it wholesale and in the process losing out fully. We need to be active participants in the discourse that sets the agenda for change, rather than play catch up. Policy making is about identifying your priorities, then setting the context and trying to influence the terms of the debate. By blind ideological opposition and refusing to even participate on a debate, we risk completely marginalising our position and waking up one day to find a changed world and without any of the support mechanisms necessary to confront it.