My blog post on social audits as change agents has attracted more engagement than I would have expected. Some of it has been through conversation but a substantive part has also been in writing. Keshav Desiraju, a senior IAS officer writes:
You have raised several issues.
1. Everything depends on how social audit is institutionalized. If the intention behind social audit is to bypass the political system, it is not going to work. No political system will allow a “people’s initiative” that has been pushed as a more credible, more honest, alternative to itself. A public audit will need to be based either in the established political system (MLAs, Assembly, Assembly Questions, Calling Attention Motions, etc.) or in the PRIs, both of which have legal sanction.
2. In any case, we cannot presume that NGOs are better motivated or better trained or are better poised to be the voice from the grassroots than the peoples’ representatives or the PRIs. The record of NGOs (Orissa, Andhra, Manipur) is patchy.
3. Of course, there is the very salutary example in Rajasthan where, as you note, it is something of a movement. This is crucial. It is not simply committees, or NGOs or whatever, but a movement, driven by highly charismatic leaders.
4. In Step 1, you say that as a result of government intervention, citizens ‘put their lives on the line’. I don’t think so. To be fair, I know very little about NREGP, but Village Education Committees or Village Health and Sanitation Committees are lack-lustre in their functioning. VECs inevitably include the reasonably well-off, whose children are going to private schools. The BPL persons are caught up in the process of survival. Village dynamics tend to dictate as to who says or does what.
5. On the other hand, reservation for women in PRIs has indeed been ‘a huge step forward in empowerment and confidence building’. It would be interesting to see how this impacts on social audit programmes.
6. Step 2 is the strong message from above. Of course. We know this works, as for instance in MGR’s total and widely reported commitment to Noon Meals. But that was in a system of one-party (and one leader) rule.
7. Step 3 is to report back to the communities. Of course, again. But you cannot have the seamless loop unless there is a formally specified role for the social audit, preferably in law. You are actually talking about a new tier of governance. Can this be done by a politically neutral, socially aware, professionally trained, morally upright social audit group (even assuming that such an animal exists)?
8. There is nothing in what I have said that you do not already know!
Rick Messick, Senior Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank points to an ongoing debate in the US on citizen engagement in democracy and the role of the press. He directs me to a recent New Yorker article, which incidentally also demonstrates the power of blogging.
Finally, a retired Indian civil servant who prefers to be anonymous writes in support of social audits:
Apart from government's aversion towards social audit by NGOs and the latter's reluctance to annoy government, the problem is the sporadicity of social audit. What is happening is in the nature of making a point – isolated brilliant initiatives….. For it to impact the system it would be necessary to create networks of NGOs and CBOs, build organization of women and youth and to emphasise step 2 in Maitreyi's post.
As part of a technical assistance and advocacy program on enhancing local accountability we commissioned documentation of processes of accountability. One of the reports on Udaipur was done by Ila Patnaik and really demonstrates the power of social audits . Other writings on social audits are linked to the MKSS website.