Orientation of Indigenous Public Policy Research
The “Swadeshi Shodh Sansthan” an initiative of Swadeshi Jagran Manch aspires to fill the gap in such public policy research domain. — Alok Singh
Public policy research organizations are an essential constituent in influencing the formulation process, drafting, and acceptance of public policies. Such organizations are owned and funded by the government, or owned by non-government organizations and funded by the government, or owned and funded by non-government organizations, or any other variants of funding and owning. The other characteristic of such organizations is the mission and vision which can be holistic across sectors of public policy, or restricted to one sector of public policy. There are many public policy organizations that are domain or sector-specific, for example, health sector public policy organizations, education sector public policy organizations, international relations-specific public policy organizations, defense sector public policy organizations, telecommunication sector public policy organizations, and so on.
The profile of work done by public policy organizations varies as per the mission and vision statements. Usually, such organizations are academic in nature but do not necessarily offer academic programs like master’s or Ph.D. programs although the people who work in such organizations are designated as professors or fellows, or researchers.
Many such organizations are funded by corporate bodies, so conflict of interest arises between the financers and the public policy research organizations. Such research organizations are obliged to their financiers and in return manipulate the research design including dodging data and manipulating statistical tools to support the public policy which favors their financial sponsor’s business, it implies that the owners of such public policy organizations are the finance suppliers, it is as good as buying favorable public policy recommendations from public policy research organizations and hence impact the government’s decision-making process. This is a business cycle of manipulation and such public policy organizations are enemies of the public. The survival compulsion of research organizations is dependent on private financers and the solution exists in pooled finance for the public policy research organizations and declaration of conflict-of-interest related affidavits by the research organizations. Public policy research organizations should be bought into the purview of conflict-of-interest declaration.
In today’s business world, the business stakeholders have changed. Earlier the products or services were developed first and then bought to the market and success or failure depended on the market’s response to the product or services. Later on, the companies started taking feedback from the market about the product or services which the customers will accept. Then the role of activists arrived who cared for society and the environment. The role of the judiciary and media is also impacting businesses today. The endorsement of the product or services by celebrities and the psychology of the customers matters today more than it was earlier. So, today’s business is impacted by the owners, the managers, the activists, the judiciary, the media, the politicians, and the public policy research organizations.
The primary objective of such organizations is to participate in filling the gap which appears due to inappropriate presentations of the public issue to the concerned decision-makers. Inappropriate presentations mean that the issue or the grievances or the recommendations by the stakeholders miss the contemporary presentation style in terms of writing style, in terms of safeguarding beliefs, thoughts, tradition, impact on society, impact on the environment, impact on sustainability, empirical research design, and many more.
There are occasions when few research organizations are dependent on government consultancy to sustain themselves. Such organizations are relatively unbiased in their research-based public policy recommendations.
One clarity is that those who fund public policy research organizations expect that their interests be safeguarded in a rational and logical way. There are many stakeholders who are victims of public policy biased in favor of big corporates or biased in favor of foreign companies.
The public policy which impacts the general public at large in the immediate run, short run, or long run should be such that it is understood and interpreted the same way by all the stakeholders. The laws emerge out of public policy. The laws such as ‘Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act, 2013’ (LARR Act); and ‘Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016’ (RERA) are in ‘Black and White’ for all the stakeholders while laws such as ‘Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016’ (ICB); and ‘Goods and Services Tax (GST) are in grey area and hence needs consistent evaluation and reformulation and continuous changes.
Within these laws, there should be one dedicated policy for each objective. For example, the ‘Open Network for Digital Commerce’ (ONDC) is a policy whose sole objective is to democratize e-commerce for buyers and sellers. Before ONDC, there had been occasions when there was the exploitation of the buyers and sellers by these e-commerce companies apart from the tax theft and practicing money-burning business model, creating grey are for policies like an inventory-based model or just a platform model. The ONDC had clarity in its objective and hence one policy was formulated so that there is no scope for contradictory interpretation either by the companies or lawyers or customers or the media.
The policymakers recently implemented 28 percent GST for all online games. The competing public policy lobby including the multinational companies are trying to malign the decisions on the basis that such high GST on online games will kill the startups. There are many governments supported programs for startups and tax holidays. The internet-based companies are the biggest headache for regulators and tax collectors. They also are sources of cultural attacks including social behavioral changes and psychological thought changes on the young vulnerable users.
There is a need for public policy organizations which is financed by end-user consumers and nationalist stakeholders to counter the public policy research and recommendations which are inclined and biased in favor of looting our wealth, our culture, our tradition, and our youth. The “Swadeshi Shodh Sansthan” an initiative of Swadeshi Jagran Manch aspires to fill the gap in such public policy research domain.
(Alok Singh is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Indore, a freelancer academician, and associated with AGET Business School, Jhajjar.)
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