The underlying factors of underdevelopment can be explained by the governance deficit that results in poor performance of the development programmes. There are several constitutional provisions of guaranteeing several rights and entitlement to the citizens in India like right to employments, right to information, and right to education. The rights based development promotion is challenged by several impediments that affect realization of above mentioned rights by the most marginalized and poor citizen of the country. The denial of rights is even worse in the states like MP and Chattisgarh which are less developed and low on Human Development Index.
Supply side impediments
1. Weak political will in translation of rights into reality
Inadequate political will is found at the national level or state level to translate it into action. There are several examples where the operational rules have not been framed to translate the spirit of the constitution provision into reality. Panchayat Extension in Scheduled Area (PESA) is a classic example where rules have not been framed in states of MP and Chattisgarh even after 15 years of enactment of PESA.
2. Inadequate capacities to translate the intent of the Act as well as operational guidelines
In many cases where the operational guidelines have been worked out, the state machinery is not geared up to deliver the desired entitlements and respect the rights for its realization. There is a shortage of human resources in most of the key development programmes emerged from the rights regime viz. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, NRHM , NREGS etc.
3. Inadequate resource allocation and inefficient resource utilization
Most of the rights can not be fulfilled unless government ensures adequate financial resources to meet the current level of development challenges. In health and education sector, less than 2% share of GDP is currently spent which is abysmally low to fulfill guarantees of ‘Education for all’ or ‘health for all’. The recent commitments of 100 days of wage labour to any household demanding work and willing to do earth work requires massive financial allocation than currently proposed.
Demand side impediments
1. Inadequate knowledge of the rights and attitude as dormant recipient
The social fabric of the rural community is divisive and most marginalized population belonging to scheduled caste, scheduled tribe is historically discriminated. The dominant class and caste has controlled and misappropriated development resources actually meant for the poor and other deserving socially deprived households. Moreover, repeated oppression of the poor and marginalized communities has built a culture of silence and pessimism in the sub-conscious. Therefore, the language of rights or value of demanding rights does not get easily communicated to generate any action. Most of the communication strategy of the development programmes is based on ‘service delivery’ content rather ‘fulfillment of rights’ to awaken citizens to demand their rights. The development administration and development machinery is also composed of the dominant caste and class which unconsciously or deliberately discriminate the most marginalized citizen who are illiterate, live in remote part of the district or in slum areas of the city. They cannot muster courage to challenge the existing power equation of the village or withstand rent seeking culture of the administrative machinery.
2. Inadequate collective efforts of the people’s institutions to demand rights
One of the outcomes of chronic oppression is low self concept and isolation of the poor. Therefore, the poor become marginalized to find it difficult to individually fight for their rights in the struggle of daily survival of their families. There is no well defined political identity of the poor and most of the economically and socially oppressed have experienced high disillusionment with the political process and commitments.
The poor are not organized around the common thread of being poor or on social identity of being oppressed for caste, gender or tribal identity. Collectives of women as self help groups are more programme driven to facilitate micro-finance rather than realization of civil, social and economic rights. In absence of networks or institutions of the poor reflecting collective strength, micro realities are not getting transformed influencing macro development environment which is an anti-poor development paradigm. The existing institutions of the citizens which are democratic, constitutional and empowering like PRIs and urban local bodies are also not functioning democratically. These agencies have become cost effective executing agencies of the development programme rather than functioning as grassroots institutions of democratic governance.
3. Inadequate civil society voice and preparedness to address the rights regime
Over the years many campaigns of the civil society have become quite prominent. Collective strength of the campaigns is demonstrated to influence policy by encouraging introduction of progressive bills and converting it into Act- Right to Employment, Right to Education, Forest Rights Act, Right to Information etc. are recent examples. The size of the civil society is rather limited compared to the challenges of realization of rights for the poor on the ground. Many of the voluntary organizations are still working in service delivery mode. Many others are concentrated in sector specific reforms rather than working for overall governance reform. Moreover, collective platforms of the civil society are either missing or weak in capacities to address the growing challenges of shrinking democratic space for the voluntary sector for building an alternative voice in favor of the poor. Moreover, voluntary organizations have many other limitations such as
(a) Ability to engage with the Government system with evidence based criticism and suggestions/alternatives to change the scenario
(b) Will to collaborate and work together with the Government to influence large scale development programmes meaningfully in favor of the poor and marginalized
(c) Commitment and institutional capacities to work with governance reform institutions like judiciary, elected representatives of upper and lower houses, Regulatory Commissions etc.
(d) Skills to effectively apply governance tools viz. public expenditure tracking, report card, social audits, and public hearing to improve the situation realizing the rights- responsibility as twin concepts.
(e) Strategies to collaborate the compliment with other actors of civil society such as media and academic institutions to build a strong force to address structural and macro political economy questions affecting poverty, discrimination, equity and justice.
The impediments in realization of rights by the poor build up the theory of change for Samarthan. There is a need to work on these impediments. Samarthan draws its vision from the above described theory of change.