Data for Accountability: A Lecture by Rajendran Narayanan
This blog is part of a series mapping the journey of IT for Change’s community intervention project in G.Baiyappanahalli called ‘Spoorthi’. Spoorthi aims to build a spatial data platform, train community youth to engage with it, and strengthen their claims-making capabilities.
Social audits are a powerful mechanism that afford all sections of society, including marginalized communities, the ability to monitor the workings of government and demand accountability. It entails reviewing public records and identifying discrepancies and issues and bringing them to public attention. Social audits have been proven useful in building transparency within the implementation of programmes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). By utilizing public information and data available on the NREGS website such as public works records, muster rolls, wage payments and other data, and subjecting them to an audit process, civil society organizations and local communities have been successfully able to make the NREGS programme accountable to citizens.
With a view to introduce the stewards to the idea of using public data sets to make public processes accountable, and get them thinking about how data could be used for direct democratic engagement, transparency and accountability, a lecture on public data sets was organised in Drishya Kalika Kendra, G.Baiyappanahalli on February 2, 2019. Rajendran Narayanan, Assistant Professor at the School of Liberal Studies, Azim Premji University, Bangalore, was the speaker for the session.
Rajendran works with an array of researchers and activists from various civil society organizations across several states to design and develop bottom-up information processes that can be used for continuous monitoring of government programmes and social audits. He began the talk by asking the stewards about the major headline that was doing the rounds. One of the stewards mentioned the news about the recently released data on unemployment. Rajendran then went on to explain the background of the problem — every five years, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) conducts a survey to determine the level of unemployment in the country. However, no survey had been administered since 2011. He then probed the stewards to think about the implications of the failure to update data in a periodic way. The stewards replied that without this data, the government would not be aware of the current situation of the country, and hence would not be able to effectively deal with the problem of unemployment.
Rajendran agreed with this and then informed the stewards that the NSSO did in fact conduct a similar survey in the previous year, the only difference being that it had changed the name of the survey (‘Periodic labour force survey’). However, the results of the same had not been released for a long time. In fact, three RTIs had been filed demanding that the Government release this data but the Government merely replied by saying the data would be released soon.
The stewards were then asked if they knew what RTI stood for. Unanimously, they chimed “Right to information.” Rajendran then asked the stewards where this information came from. One of the stewards replied saying it was supposed to come from the Government.
Agreeing with this, Rajendran gave an analogy of a child who receives Rs. 100 from her mother to buy some vegetables and would be expected to account for the expenses. The Government had a similar duty to be accountable to report all the facts to citizens when undertaking public expenditure. The stewards agreed with this — they added that India was a democratic country, whose citizens had a right to know how their taxes were being used.
Rajendran then introduced the concept of fundamental rights and asked the stewards if they believed that everyone in society was treated equally. The stewards did not believe this to be the case and gave examples of how Dalits were constantly being subjected to discrimination by other members of society. Building on this, Rajendran and the facilitators explained how there still existed discrimination against certain communities despite their being a fundamental right to equality. An offshoot of this problem of inequality was the prevailing problem of unemployment in society. People in villages have to shift between working on the lands of rich farmers and migrating to cities to work for temporary jobs when the harvest season ends. These temporary jobs were also mostly done in unsafe environments, causing the problem of ‘distress migration’ for the people, he explained.
Leaving these exploitative jobs, however, is not a choice for these people. To further explain his point, Rajendran gave an example. When employment was low, a company which ought to pay Rs.100 daily wage for one person, could decide to pay Rs. 50 to two people to do a job. Which means, applicants for the job who otherwise could have turned down the job if there was other employment, would be ready to take it up for such less an amount, desperate for any sort of income.
Using the introduction as a background, Rajendran began to talk about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005. The important provisions of the Act were first explained to the stewards. According to the Act, at least 100 days of employment will be provided to at least one able-bodied person in every rural, urban poor and lower middle class household, who will then be paid a minimum wage for doing this unskilled manual labour. If, however, a person applies for employment but does not get any work within 15 days of her applying, then the Government has a duty under the Act to pay her an unemployment allowance. In reality, this unemployment allowance is not calculated from the date of application for the registration, but only from the date of the applicants details being registered on the system (that is, when their details are entered into the system by the officials). In addition to this, these payments are made 50 days later than it is actually supposed to be made. Not everyone who had registered for employment gets work, and the only reason that the activists were able to get information about discrepancies in the implementation was because the data was available in the public domain.
The stewards took this opportunity to share their personal grievances with the scheme. They highlighted practical problems like inability of certain classes of people like Anganwadi workers to speak up due to their fear of the system and the tedious effort involved in the process of registering for employment.
Rajendran explained that it was important to be equipped with correct data in order to understand the true nature of a problem and make demands from the Government. Talking about a teacher who fails a student due to a personal vendetta against her, he elucidated the right of the student to demand a valid justification from the teacher, and be able to demand for the evaluated test if the teacher failed to prove her point.
He then explained the concept of social audits to the stewards, emphasizing that this should primarily be done by the affected/concerned community, rather than an authority from Delhi. The set up of a social audit is similar to that of a court except that it is a public hearing that involves citizens and the authorities, and can be used to hold the latter accountable for their actions. He spoke at length of the experiences of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, a civil society movement for transparency who have been credited with the idea of social audits. He screened a YouTube documentary to further elaborate his point.
He said that it’s easy to complain, but as citizens, we have to earn the right to complain. This can only be done by being aware, showing interest in the development of the society and participating in the processes. The stewards highlighted that people may not always be able to devote their time and resources to activism; they may also be scared to speak out. Rajendran acknowledged this and assured them that while change indeed takes long time, every small act counts.
The second documentary screened as part of the lecture explained the importance of participation in democracy and the difference that a community could bring about by voicing their opinions and demands. Finally, Rajendran took the stewards through the official NREGA website and showed them how to access various details like the data for various states, status of job cards etc. He ended the session by reminding the stewards that to bring about change, three factors were required — information, organization and grass roots mobilization of people.
