Author: cprindia

Listen to episode 37 of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Dr Christiana Iyasere, Dr Saumya Das, Dr Nim Pathy, Dr Jishnu Das and Yamini Aiyar.

While India goes into lockdown 2.0 and determines the best strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19, countries across the world have adopted myriad approaches to tackle the outbreak. In this episode, we step away from India to look at what is happening across the world, especially in the United States of America. We also delve deeper into understanding epidemiological models – what is required to build sound models and to what extent can they accurately predict the spread of disease. While the episode does not focus on India, we do probe lessons India can learn from what is happening in other parts of the world.

In the fifth episode on the Centre for Policy Research’s series on the coronavirus pandemic, co-hosts Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, and Dr Jishnu Das, Senior Fellow at CPR and Professor at Georgetown University dive into the medical, testing, and epidemiological aspects of COVID-19. They speak with Dr Christiana Iyasere and Dr Saumya Das, doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Dr Nim Pathy, an epidemiologist at Imperial College, London.

Iyasere, Das and Pathy talk to us about why the disease manifests differently in different people, speculation over aerosol versus droplet transmission, different testing mechanisms, variation in epidemiological model and whether or not comparisons between countries is justified.

This is the fifth in a series of episodes by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here.

Listen to the 35th episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Dr Rathin Roy and Yamini Aiyar.

The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent 21-day national lockdown have brought the Indian economy to a standstill. This comes at a time when India’s economy and public finances were already under considerable strain. It is with this backdrop that India must think about how it can deal with the current crisis and rebuild its economy once the immediacy of the public health crisis dissipates. How should the government generate finances and design a fiscal package to stimulate the economy? What must the government do to protect all Indians, especially the poor and vulnerable, and ensure they have income and food security?

In the third episode on the Centre for Policy Research’s series on the coronavirus pandemic, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Rathin Roy, Director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). Roy recommends thinking of the economy as a wartime economy where all resources are devoted to dealing with the pandemic medically, socially, and at the community level. He highlights that India could see a massive erosion in national wealth and national income if the proportion of the crisis reaches even a fraction of what it is in countries like the USA and China.

Roy calls for a rethinking of the social contract; increased accountability from the government to ensure that money is spent for the purposes it has been allocated for; and adequate financing to states so that they can take measures to tackle the crisis.

This is the third in a series of episodes on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. The first episode looked at how prepared India’s health systems are to deal with the pandemic and the second looked at the crisis of migrant workers. You can find a link to the episode in our show notes (https://soundcloud.com/cpr_india/episode33 and https://soundcloud.com/cpr_india/episode34). Stay tuned for updates on future episodes. For more information on our work on COVID-19, follow us on Twitter @CPR_India or visit our website at www.cprindia.org.

Listen to the 33rd episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Dr Jishnu Das and Yamini Aiyar, discussing the coronavirus outbreak.

As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian government responded to the threat by imposing an unprecedented 21-day lockdown. The lockdown’s stated objective is to buy time to slow the spread of the disease and ‘flatten the curve’, a phrase that everyone is all too familiar with now. But what does flatten the curve mean for India? Is a complete lockdown the ideal way to go about it? And how can our already strained health systems prepare for a widespread outbreak, if we do experience one in the coming weeks?

In this podcast, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Jishnu Das, Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR and professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr Jishnu Das’s work focuses on the delivery of basic services, and his in-depth research on India’s health systems makes him the ideal person to talk us through the challenges our health systems face as the Covid-19 outbreak unfolds over the next few months.

He recommends the adoption of a well thought out testing strategy along with widespread availability of testing, collaboration to get better data, and preparation of our health systems make it agile and draw on the entire gamut of health infrastructure in India – including informal providers, private doctors, and government doctors.

This is the first in a series of episodes we will be doing on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. Stay tuned for updates. You can read more on Jishnu Das’s work here.

Listen to the 34th episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Partha Mukhopadhyay, Mukta Naik and Yamini Aiyar, discussing the migrant worker crisis unfolding across the country.

The lockdown imposed by the Indian government last week has brought the country to a standstill. Simultaneously, it has created panic in the lives of India’s migrant workers and labourers. Videos and images of migrants walking home hundreds of kilometres have etched themselves in our minds. Over 20 migrant workers, including children, have lost their lives since the lockdown due to hunger, exhaustion, or in road accidents on highways. Who are these migrant workers and what is compelling them to make this arduous journey home on foot, in the absence of buses and trains? What are their vulnerabilities and were these taken into consideration when the state announced the lockdown? And are we now doing enough to alleviate their concerns, meet requirements, and ensure that they do not bear the disproportionate brunt of this lockdown?

In the second episode on the Centre for Policy Research’s series on the coronavirus pandemic, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Partha Mukhopadhyay, Senior Fellow at CPR, and Mukta Naik, Fellow at CPR, on the migrant worker crisis unfolding across the country. Mukhopadhyay and Naik talk about what makes the migrant worker invisible to India’s policymakers, how the state has failed to address their needs repeatedly, and how that has led to an inherent mistrust of the state among migrant workers. They recommend winning back this trust with open and honest communication, abstaining from coercive means of enforcing the lockdown, and ensuring safe passage home for migrants who want to go home.

This is the second in a series of episodes on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. The first episode looked at how prepared India’s health systems are to deal with the pandemic.   Listen to the first episode here. You can read Mukhopadhyay and Naik’s opinion piece on the migrant crisis here.

In this series, T R Raghunandan (referred to as Raghu hereon) unpacks the successes and failures of accountability measures in the public housing sector in India, through studying these in Karnataka. He does this by investigating how housing policies are designed, passed on to finally reach the beneficiary.

• In the blog The Public Housing Sector- a Case Study of Karnataka, Raghu establishes the political importance of programmes for subsidised housing and sheds light on the reasons behind the high degree of competition amongst politicians and officials for assuming planning and execution responsibilities for delivering houses to beneficiaries.
• In the next blog, taking off from the introductory one, Raghu details the process of Beneficiary Selection for Housing Programmes, drawing a distinction between ‘identification’ and ‘selection’ of a beneficiary, and the authorities at the local and state levels that have the power to do so.
• The third blog, Rural Housing Wars in Karnataka; The Empire Strikes Back and Gets Shot Down, encapsulates the battle between the Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) and the Gram Panchayats in Karnataka, detailing how the former tried to amend The Panchayat Raj Act of Karnataka, in order to dilute the power of the latter, but eventually failed to do so.
• In the subsequent two blogs, Frontal Assault turns to Stealth: MLAs Sneak Back and Law, Technology and Tensions, Raghu highlights the implications of the decision of the government to give MLAs the power to decide how many houses could be allocated to each village and the mixed impact of technology on the governance of the housing programme.
• In his final blog, Saturation and Collaborative Construction; a Way Out of the Conundrum, Raghu concludes the series by sharing learnings on the entire exchange between and within the different levels of the government that eventually led to the way in which this programme was delivered at the last mile and the challenges that one can expect in the future.

Accountability Initiative’s blog and social media series deals with terms often heard in government offices which have come to be associated with the bureaucracy. Using wit and acute observation, the series unpacks some of the factors that drive government officials at work, and touches upon root causes that build a perception of the bureaucracy in the eye of the public.

Of Authorisation Letters, Samosas And Chai explores the conundrum of almost absolute obedience to authority based on ranks. It also observes how being hauled up for questioning by seniors, having a red mark on a permanent record, salary cuts, or possible suspension orders issued for deviating from norms hold officials back.

B is for Babu discusses how “Babu ki kami hai!” (there’s a shortage of clerks!) is an all too familiar concern shared by government staff in the middle and lower level offices. Babus are integral to the smooth functioning of government offices, and yet a sneak peek into their work lives and challenges (which this blog provides) has been elusive so far.

A Circuitous Journey delves deep into the all-important bureaucratic artefact- the circular. In practice, the circular acts as the official order or notice giving directions regarding any work, discussion or meeting that the bureaucracy undertakes. In an environment where officials are already inundated with more work than they can cope with, the lack of a circular implies an absence of legitimacy – used both as an escape clause, and a way of discerning the relative importance of the person/task at hand. So is the circular only a directive or a tool for crafty bureaucrats to wield based on convenience?

Lastly, How Important Are Deadlines In The Bureaucracy? delves into the management of a multi-layered, diffused and a highly interdependent public bureaucracy. What does the race to meet deadlines look like in the bureaucracy? What are organisational repercussions if a deadline is missed?

In all, the public bureaucracy, like any other organisation, has a vocabulary, work culture and an internal logic that is unique to itself. You can view the complete set of the series here.

In the next six weeks, Bihar will elect 243 members to its state assembly. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looks to continue its momentum in Bihar from a sweeping victory in the 2014 national election, while once bitter enemies, Janata Dal United (JD(U)) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), have banded together to try to stop BJP’s ascent.

In this piece, we summarize the changes that have taken place in Bihar since 2010, and use data from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide a perspective on broad trends from the 2010 and 2014 elections. We pay particular attention to the relevance of the “caste arithmetic” of wooing different caste groups for electoral outcomes in Bihar.

Bihar since 2010

In 2010, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar, comprised of BJP and JD(U), virtually swept the state election, winning 206 of the 243 seats. Since then, Bihar has seen a spectacular reconfiguration of party alliances.

The 2014 election saw BJP and JD(U) parting ways over the selection of Narendra Modi as prime ministerial candidate, with BJP picking new partners and JD(U) running alone. The BJP alliance won 31 of 40 constituencies, with the JD(U) winning just two. Then chief minister (CM) of Bihar, Nitish Kumar of JD(U), resigned after taking responsibility for his party’s poor show. In his stead, JD(U) appointed Jitan Ram Manjhi, a leader for vulnerable “Mahadalits”, as the CM. However, when Nitish Kumar sought to return as CM, Manjhi was forced to leave his post.

Since then, a disaffected Manjhi has formed his own party, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), joining hands with BJP in NDA. The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), previously breaking with NDA in 2002 while calling BJP a communal party, has come back to NDA. Fearing the ascent of BJP, once opponents, JD(U) and RJD led by Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav, respectively, have formed a pre-electoral coalition with the Congress Party to fight against the BJP-led NDA in this election.

The 2014 National Election: The NDA in a Dominant Position

Like much of India, Bihar strongly supported BJP (and NDA) in the 2014 national election. Although the election was contested in larger parliamentary constituencies in 2014, the ECI provides a vote breakdown by smaller state assembly constituencies (ACs) of the 2014 polls. The AC-wise analysis provides a benchmark of the popularity of each party just one year ago.

In 2014, NDA, comprised of BJP, LJP and Rastriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), was the leading vote-getter in 172 out of 243 ACs in Bihar. Of these 172 ACs, RLSP won 17, LJP won 34, and BJP won 121 ACs (almost a simple majority). By contrast, RJD, JD(U), and Congress won 32, 18, and 14 ACs, respectively. To understand party performance, we calculate the strike rate for selected parties in 2014, i.e., the percentage of ACs contested by the party in which the party was the top vote-getter.

The strike rates of each of the major parties challenging NDA fell below 20% in 2014, with RJD and Congress displaying strike rates of 19.5% and 19.2%, respectively, and JD(U) winning a paltry 7.8% of the ACs in which it contested. By contrast, the parties forming NDA in 2014 (all of which have returned under the NDA banner) had strike rates of at least 65%, with BJP and LJP displaying strike rates of 66.5% and 79.1%, respectively, and RLSP winning a nearly perfect 94.4% of the constituencies in which it contested. Importantly, the strike rates of BJP’s coalition partners are even higher than BJP, showing their indispensability to NDA.

How Much Does Vote-Splitting Matter?

It has been argued that in 2014 NDA benefitted significantly from vote-splitting between JD(U), who contested the election alone, and the coalition of RJD and Congress (UPA). That is, in most constituencies both JD(U) and one of RJD or Congress each fielded a candidate. Perhaps NDA would have fared much worse in Bihar if voters didn’t distribute their votes across these two NDA-opposing candidates. In order to test this hypothesis, we coded landslide victories in 2014, where the winning party had a larger vote share than the next two parties combined. The NDA won 79 constituencies by a landslide in 2014, clustered mostly in western Bihar, with the BJP getting over half of its victories (61) by landslide. In other words, even if the coalition of RJD, JD(U), and Congress were allowed to field two candidates and take their combined vote share, they still would have lost to NDA in 79 constituencies in 2014. By contrast, JD(U), RJD, and Congress recorded 5,5, and 6 landslide victories, respectively, largely clustered in the Muslim-heavy northeastern part of the state.

If NDA can continue its electoral dominance in a significant share of its 79 landslide constituencies, it will be tough to beat. NDA’s success in 2014 is not a simple case of vote-splitting, and its opposition must make significant inroads into NDA’s electoral base to win the election.

Comparing 2010 and 2014: Wither Caste-Party Outcomes?

When we compare the electoral results in 2010 to the AC-level data in 2014, the immense amount of electoral volatility in Bihar becomes apparent. Only 30.9% of ACs were won by the same party in 2010 and 2014. The standard caste narrative posits that there are “dominant castes” at the constituency level who act as kingmakers. While these castes may switch partisan allegiances, there are purported to be strong caste-partisan affinities such as Yadav support for RJD and upper caste support for BJP. Empirically, this implies that parties like RJD and BJP should consistently stand for election and win in the same sets of constituencies, thereby displaying significant incumbency advantages.

Yet, we find a different picture. RJD increased its tally of ACs from 22 in 2010 to 32 in 2014, but it only held on to 7 of the 22 ACs it had won in 2010. By contrast, 23 of the ACs the RJD won in 2014 were actually won by NDA in 2010. BJP had a strike rate of over 50% in constituencies where RJD had won in 2010, significantly higher than RJD’s strike rate in the same constituencies. In 2014, BJP had a strike rate of 70.1% in constituencies it won in 2010, but this was not significantly higher than its overall strike rate of 66.5%. In short, constituencies won by RJD and BJP in 2010 did not carry a discernible caste advantage for re-election.

While caste matters a lot to voters, it may not translate neatly into electoral outcomes. Although voters may prefer to vote for someone of their own caste, many parties select candidates from the same dominant caste group at the constituency level, thereby splitting the caste vote. This may be one reason the BJP has selected many Yadav candidates in the upcoming election. Second, Bihar’s electorate is young, with 56% of voters under the age of 40. This is a population that is less likely to be beholden to traditional caste boundaries and more focused on generating economic opportunities. Bihar exhibits significant electoral volatility, while caste is static. Electoral outcomes are, thus, more likely driven by variable issues such as economic and development concerns.

Conclusion

Our data suggests that NDA is in a stronger position going into the 2015 Bihar election. However, three additional factors could well turn this around. One, it is important to remember that the electorate can shift quickly. Support for parties often swings heavily during a campaign because voters receive a lot of information about parties and candidates at once. Two, national parties like BJP may be more appealing in a national election, but this appeal may not translate as cleanly to the state level. Three, people in Bihar seem satisfied with Nitish Kumar’s tenure as chief minister, and NDA will have to make a convincing argument that it can govern better than him. At the same time, our analysis suggests that the coalition of JD(U), RJD, and Congress will have to do more than banking on the caste vote in order to win the election.

There are two additional “joker-in-the pack” variables. While in most cases this is primarily a contest between the two alliances, the presence of third party candidates (whether from the Left alliance, the Samajwadi Party or Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM)), could well determine close contests between the two alliances. And young voters of Bihar are likely the pivotal group in this election. Who gets their vote, is likely to win Bihar.

We thank Devesh Kapur for helpful comments in writing this piece.

We have furnished a dataset & labels  collated from publicly available ECI data, which was used for the analysis in this piece. All data errors are our own.