Civil society as policy entrepreneur in agriculture and forestry sector amidst COVID-19 lockdown in India

ABSTRACT

With the nation-wide lockdown announced on 24 March 2020, India came to a standstill. Despite substantial constraints, multiple initiatives by civil society actors in providing the much needed relief and assistance to vulnerable populations during the lockdown have emerged. Considering lockdown as a wicked policy problem, we examine the roles and strategies of two civil society actors in opening up policy spaces. Our focus is on the two most livelihood-intensive sectors of the economy (i.e. agriculture and forestry) during the first two phases of lockdown in India. The first case highlights the use of judiciary to reframe the problem for agriculture in the lockdown policy implementation at the national level. And, the second case shows change in policy implementation at the regional level, again using problem reframing for the well-being of forest-dependent communities using advocacy with policy-makers and sustained social media activities. Building on the two cases, we argue for the crucial role played by the larger civil society actors in bringing the issues of marginalized communities to the policy agenda by opening up diverse policy spaces, and thus contributing to the changes in policy implementation under unprecedented uncertainty during the lockdown in India.

KEYWORDS:

• Agriculture
• civil society
• COVID-19
• forestry
• wicked problem
• policy entrepreneur

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support provided by Mr. Arun Srikumar in sharing the case details on Professor Trilochan Sastry’s Supreme Court Petition, and surely Professor Sastry for his time. Also, we thank Mr. Giri Rao, Mr. Tushar Dash and other associates at Vasundhara, Odisha for sharing crucial information and sparing valuable time for our study.

Disclosure statement

All the authors of this paper declare no conflict of interest whatsoever.

Notes

1. In two phases, the data collection for this rapid assessment was done majorly by the students of the School of Rural Management at Xavier University, Bhubaneswar.

2. A research and advocacy group of academicians, practitioners, journalists, activists, people in the non-governmental and civil society organizations; basically, people interested in developmental issues around agriculture and allied sectors in the rainfed areas of India (http://www.rainfedindia.org/).

3. Mandi means a marketplace for trade of food and agri-commodities.

4. A copy of the suggestions sourced from Professor Sastry.

5. STs are such tribes or tribal communities, or parts of, or groups within such tribes, or tribal communities, as are deemed under Article 342 of the Indian Constitution. Forest dwelling STs primarily reside in and depend on forests for bona fide livelihood needs and include pastoralist communities (MoTA, n.d., p. 2).

6. PVTGs are tribal groups that have some specific features such as dependency on hunting, gathering for food, having pre-agriculture level of technology, zero or negative growth of population, and extremely low level of literacy (MoTA, 2019, p. 1).

7. OTFD means any member or community who has for at least three generations prior to 13 December 2005 primarily resided in and who depend on the forest or forest land for bona fide livelihood needs. One generation means a period comprising twenty-five years (MoTA, n.d., p. 2).

8. MFP means all the NTFPs of plant origin, including bamboo, brushwood, stumps, canes, tusser, cocoon, honey, waxes, lac, tendu leaves, mahua, medicinal plants and herbs, roots, tuber etc. (MoTA, n.d., p. 3).

9. The PDS in the state facilitates the supply of food grains and distribution of essential commodities to a large number of poor people through a network of Fair Price Shops (FPS) at a subsidized price on a recurring basis (D. of F. and P. D. GoI, 2018).

10. ‘From an economic only point of view, it undoubtedly looks costly right now; but measured against the lives of Indian citizens, there is no comparison itself’ (full speech at: https://www.narendramodi.in/text-of-pm-s-address-to-the-nation-549264)

11. Among notable ones, a PIL at SC for migrant workers was filed on 31 March 2020 (Alakh Alok Srivastava versus Union of India), another filed by MKSS on MNREGA implementation on April 4th, 2020 (Aruna Roy & Nikhil Dey versus Union of India).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gautam Prateek

Gautam Prateek is Assistant Professor at the School of Rural Management, Xavier University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.

Kaustubh Kumar

Kaustubh Kumar is an independent researcher. He is a graduate in rural management from the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), Gujarat, India. His research interests include food systems, livelihoods, institutions, and public policy.

Pranamesh Kar

Pranamesh Kar obtained his MBA degree in Rural Management from School of Rural Management, Xavier University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. His research interests include livelihoods promotion, public policy & sustainable agriculture.

Aathira Krishnan

Aathira Krishnan obtained her MBA degree in Rural Management from School of Rural Management, Xavier University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Her research interests include rural livelihoods and public policy.