M S Sriram
At a time when data is being obfuscated, manipulated, and used selectively to justify policies and action, the book by N Bhaskara Rao turns out to be an important read. It provides the rationale for locating research in policy making and also gives us a broad-brush history of how research has evolved over decades. The book makes a compulsive case for research in planning monitoring policy interventions, in order to carry out course corrections.
A policy-maker seeks inputs from multiple sources. First, there is raw data gathered generically-the census, the multiple rounds of surveys by the National Sample Survey Organisation, the Periodic Labour Force Surveys and so on. These give inputs and insights about shifting patterns of our demo graphic, economic and social profiles. There is also specific data pertaining to interventions. This data could flow in the natural course through a management information system, on a real time basis reflecting on dashboards; or alternatively data could be specifically collected to understand design or delivery. The third would be survey-based feedback on satisfaction levels; or through involved and expensive exercises that inform impacts using Randomised Control Trials (RCTs). In addition, there are opinion polls looking at the broader "mood of the nation" type exercises. All these inform the policy-maker.
Apart from the data and the methods, there are agencies and think tanks that collect the data, analyse them and provide insights. Dr Rao examines the type of agencies that have been working in the field over time, how they have evolved and critically examines the current state of affairs.
Here, Dr Rao asks a basic question: How do we use these specifically? What is an appropriate tool to design an intervention? He answers this through examples of policy interventions over multiple decades and illustrates how the design and course corrections could happen. He deftly unpeels the type of insights that each one of these data sources could give, show-ering scorn on 'opinion polls and almost dis missing real-time dash-board data as something that does not give insights for policy making. Dr Rao shows his quest for looking thr-ough policies through the third eye - something that is not visible to the naked eye.
Apart from the data and the methods, there are agencies and think tanks that collect the data, analyse them and provide insights. Dr Rao examines the type of agencies that have been working in the field over time, how they have evolved and critically examines the current state of affairs. The question here is two-fold: How grounded should the agencies be to give insights into the design of research programmes without losing context? And how embedded they should be to avoid acting as echo chambers and ensure objectivity? The answers to both these questions are obvious, but the practices seem to be significantly at variance. He is unsparing about the way agencies are chosen in contemporary times, with particular anger towards multinational consulting agencies. He thinks that they neither check the boxes in terms of feet-on-the-ground qualities nor on objectivity and distance from the policy-maker.
Another aspect that Dr Rao deals with are the personalities that shaped the research programme in India, the ones that built research institutions that fed into policy making and how they shaped the exchange with certain sense of nostalgia in looking at the institutions that were built around the Nehruvian era and Dr Rao's respect for institutions and personalities keeps waning as we move towards contemporary times.
Though Dr Rao does not break the narrative into the silos mentioned above, the issues he deals with broadly pertain to data, methodology, agencies and personalities. He has seen most of these and done much work in the area. He has seen multiple regimes and has a deep sense of how field research has evolved. He has had personal interactions with many regimes. Therefore, the insights that he provides are very valuable. There is a sense of despondency and helplessness as he moves to contemporary times. This is represented by being embedded and wanting to please clients to tell them what they want to hear, reducing the research exercise to little more than an opinion poll. This, he says, leads to a reduction in the horizons and moving towards an immediate rather than a well thought-out-long-term response - leading to a transactional response from the state.
In the current times when data is under threat, an objective analysis of policies are not available and stories on employment are being built on the basis of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation enrolments and with anecdotal evidence from cab aggregators, it is important to flag the issues that Dr Rao raises and look inwards on informed policy making. The line that Dr Rao takes is about using data, information and insights in a smart manner. He does not seem to advocate extensive use of impact studies using RCTs, though he repeatedly mentions the name of Abhijit Banerjee in the book. Overall, in nearly 300 pages, he makes one significant and important point of the importance of research in policy making.
Though Dr Rao has a compelling argument, this book could have done with some serious editorial input both in terms of how it is organised so that it could have been broken into thematic silos rather than each chapter being divided between nostalgia and a rant. The experience is not about reading a book and reflecting on it, but is almost like hearing Dr Rao speak endlessly about his achievements and frustrations with events and anecdotes frequently repeated. Also, the editors would have possibly made the distinction between the phonetics of how the names are aurally heard and how they are spelt. But for these two significant irritations, there is no doubt that the book is and it comes from a very credible source.
Source: Business Standard,
October 18, 2022
