Policy Making in India A Dynamic Process of Sttaecraft

Policy Making in India:
A Dynamic Process of Statecraft

Deepta Chopra
AbstrAct
This paper problematizes the concept of the state by studying its role and
interactions with society in the realm of making policy. To achieve this,
Delivered by Ingenta to: George Mason University IP: 5.101.217.246 on: Thu, 09 Jun 2016 16:53:39
the case of a recently formulated social policy in India, the National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), is examined. The paper provides
empirical evidence of policy making as a complex and iterative process,
which is mediated by a multiplicity of actors who operate in relation to
each other. In tracing the formulation process of the NREGA, theoretical
claims regarding the understanding of the state as an ideological construct
as well as comprising of material practices are substantiated. The paper
Copyright (c) Pacific Affairs. All rights reserved.
sees policy making as an act of governing, and contributes to ethnographic

understandings of fuzzy and porous boundaries between the state and society
that are redefined through the act of policy making. This dynamism, it is
argued, results in the two-dimensional phenomenon of statecraft: how the
state pursues policy making as a strategy for governing its population, and
in turn, how the state itself gets reconstituted in the making of policy.
I
ntroduction
The notion of the state as a monolithic entity, that is independent from
society, has been challenged from both theoretical and ethnographic
perspectives which document the ways in which the state and its political
systems are constituted within a broader set of social relations.1 In the context
of India, the body of literature on the “everyday state”2 has proven particularly
influential in disseminating and shaping more complex and nuanced
understandings of the state. This extensive body of work argues that the
Indian state is not a monolithic actor,3 and that the boundaries between the
KEYWORDS: State, Policy making, Statecraft, India, Politics
__________________
1
Bob Jessop, State power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008); Bob Jessop, “The State and Power,” in
Sage Handbook of Power, eds. Stewart R. Clegg and Mark Haugaard (London: Sage Publications Ltd,
2009).
2
Christopher John Fuller and Veronica Benei, The everyday state and society in modern India
(London: Hurst and Company, 2001); Akhil Gupta, “Blurred boundaries: the discourse of corruption,
the culture of politics and the imagined state,” American Ethnologist 22 (1995): 375-402.
3
This point is reiterated by Rai (1996) in viewing the “state not as signifying a unity of structure
and power ... [but] to describe a network of power relations existing in cooperation and also in
tension.” Shirin M Rai, “Women and the State in the Third World: Some Issues for Debate,” in Women
and the State: International Perspectives, eds. Shirin M. Rai and Geraldine Lievesley (London: Taylor and
Francis, 1996), 5.
© Pacific Affairs: Volume 84, No. 1 March 2011 89

DOI: 10.5509/201184189
Pacific Affairs: Volume 84, No. 1 – March 2011
state and society are porous and fuzzy. However, comparatively less research
has attempted to elucidate these ideas with respect to policy making, which
continues to be conceptualized as an activity confined to the jurisdiction of
the “state.”
This paper departs from explorations of the everyday practices of the state
and instead examines its role and interactions with society in the realm of
making policy. The case of a recently formulated social policy in India, the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA),4 is the key focus. In
tracing the formulation process of this policy, the paper draws on and
contributes to three understandings regarding the state: first, that the state
incorporates plural institutions, actors and practices; second, that these
practices (of which policy making is one) are material and help in experiencing
a discursive construction of the state; and third, given that the state is not
monolithic, these material and discursive constructions of the state are
continuously redefined through the act of governing, pointing to a dynamism
that is captured by the term statecraft. This paper also contributes to the
ethnographic understandings of fuzzy and porous boundaries between the
state and society by depicting the interwoven influences that different actors
bore upon the formulation process of the NREGA. It needs to be clarified
here that these three points are relevant only to understanding the nature
of democratic states. The type of relationships and boundaries between state/
governments and societies in non-democratic systems are very different, and
require extensive study before any conclusions can be drawn.
The next section reviews the debates that have raged over the understanding
and definition of the state, and accepts the state as both a material and an
ideological construct. Thereby, policy making is treated as a state effect,5
which in turn creates the “state as an effect”6 of this policy-making practice.
In order to provide the empirical basis for such a claim, I examine the recent
formulation story of the NREGA through four processes: parliamentary,
executive, party politics and civil society. In each of these, I highlight the
importance of these processes being porous in nature, as well as evolving
through a multitude of actors that operate within a web of relational
dynamics. In the analysis of this case study, I show how the idea of a state is
reproduced through the process of policy making. This leads the paper
towards the conclusion that statecraft has a twin-sided nature: it comprises
of the processes of governing that in turn create and reconstitute the idea
of a state. Understanding the workings of statecraft in India at the start of
the twenty-first century also sheds light on how processes of governance and
__________________
4
The name of the policy has been changed in 2009 to Mahatma Gandhi NREGA or MGNREGA,
however, it is commonly known as the NREGA as used in this paper.
5
Joe Painter, “Prosaic geographies of stateness,” Political Geography 25 (2006): 752-774.
6
Timothy Mitchell, “The limits of the State: beyond statist approaches and their critics,” The
American Political Science Review 85, no. 1 (1991): 77-96.
90
Policy Making in India
policy making are themselves transforming the state, as other contributors

to this volume have highlighted.
The State and Statecraft

Within different eras and disciplinary settings, the term state has been defined
and understood in a multitude of ways. From “the prosaic aspect of the state”7
to the “discursive construction of the state,” through to the everyday practices
of bureaucrats and their effect on the everyday lives of rural people,8 the
state has been a persistent subject of intricate ethnographic analysis.9 The
policy process literature, however, has failed to engage with these ethnographic
understandings of the state, focusing instead on traditional, institutionalist
perspectives. These perspectives range from seeing the policy process as an

outcome of rational choices between institutions,10 or multiple streams of
actors and processes,11 or as the interaction of advocacy coalitions.12 All these
focus on explaining policy processes within a given set of institutional
arrangements, of which the state is a central player.
For the state to be an actor in its own right, it was argued that there were
certain core functions and historical tasks that every state had to perform.13
The making of social policies, in particular, constitutes one of these core
functions of the state.14 This view of the state, as a policy-making actor, has
been problematized, for it “presupposes a unified intentionality and internal
consistency”15 that the state does not have.16 The propensity to reify the state
as a monolithic or singular entity which is coherent and uni-directional in
its functioning is thus rejected. Instead, it has been suggested that it may be
__________________
7
Painter, “Prosaic geographies.”
8
Gupta, “Blurred Boundaries.”
9
Other understandings of the state include neo-Marxist perspectives (see Anupam Sen), and
critiques of the state by feminist authors (see Pringle and Watson, 1992; Rai and Lievesley, 1996).
Although interesting, these fall beyond the scope of this article. Anupam Sen, The State, Industrialization
and Class Formations in India (Routledge and Kegan-Paul, 1982). Rosemary Pringle and Sophie Watson,
“Women’s Interests and the Post-Structuralist state,” in Destabilizing Theory, eds. Michelle Barrett and
Anne Phillipps (Cambridge: Cambridge Polity, 1992).
10
Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
11
John Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).
12
Paul Sabatier and Hans Jenkins-Smith, Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).
13
Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, “On the road towards a more
adequate understanding of the state,” in Bringing the state back in, eds. Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer
and Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
14
Peter Evans, Embedded autonomy: states and industrial transformation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1995).
15
Christopher John Fuller and John Harriss, “For an anthropology of the modern Indian state,”
in The everyday state, 3.
16
Fuller and Harris (2001) also critique this view for assuming that the state is a neutral arbitrator
of public interest, especially in pluralist accounts where there are a large number of interest groups
at play.
91
more useful to understand the state as “bundles of everyday institutions and

forms of rule.”17
At the micro level, work related to the “everyday state” highlights the
plurality of the state, with different faces of the state shaping the spaces in
which state and society interact.18 Arguments have also been made against
the reification of the state as unitary by focusing on the intense involvement
of the state in many of the most ordinary aspects of social life.19 At the same
time as the state sees its citizens in myriad ways,20 work on the state also shows
that citizens experience and see the state through its various manifestations
and institutions and officials.21 Further, as shown by several authors, in
practice, “state functionaries often, or even normally, pursue agendas at
cross-purposes with each other.”22 In such conceptions, the state is plural,
not a monolithic and singular entity.

Theorists are divided over the nature of the state as a concrete institutional
realm and as an ideological construct. Some authors reify the state as a cluster
of concrete institutions and actors,23 whilst others view the state as nothing
more than an ideological construct, an illusory idea that can nevertheless
become a crucial object of study, which actually conceals the “disunity of

political power.”24 This resonates with the assertion that “the state is no more
than a composite reality and a mythicized abstraction.”25 Thus, “the state,
conceived of as a substantial entity separate from society has proved a
remarkably elusive object of analysis.”26
Adopting a slightly different position in this debate, some writers have
argued that the state cannot be reified and should instead be recognized as
a structural effect,27 in which both the material and the discursive elements
of the state are important. Thus, “the state cannot be dismissed as an
abstraction or an ideological construct and passed over in favour of more
real, material realities.”28 In fact there are very real state practices, offices
__________________
17
Fuller and Harriss, “For an Anthropology,” 15.
18
Fuller and Benei, The Everyday State; Gupta, “Blurred Boundaries.”
19
Painter, “Prosaic Geographies,” 753.
20
James Scott, Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
21
Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava and Rene Veron, Seeing the state: governance
and governmentality in India, Contemporary South Asia series, vol. 10 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005).
22
Fuller and Benei, The Everyday State, 22-23.
23
Ralph Miliband, The state in capitalist society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969); Nicos
Poulantzas, State, power, socialism (London: New Left Books, 1974).
24
Philip Abrams, “Notes on the difficulty of studying the state,” Journal of Historical Sociology 1,
no. 1 (1988 (1977)): 58-89.
25
Michael Foucault, “Governmentality,” in The Foucault Effect: studies in governmentality, eds.
Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (Chicago, University of Chicago Press), 87-104.
26
Abrams, “Difficulty of studying the state,” 61.
27
Mitchell, “Limits of the State,” 94.
28
92
and officers, and real sanctions,29 such that “the nation state…includes within
itself…institutions…such as armies, schools and bureaucracies. Beyond these,
the larger presence of the state…takes the form of a framework that appears
to stand apart from the social world and provide an external structure.”30
Ethnographic accounts of state practices in everyday life in India provide
an invaluable nuanced account of the production of the state as an idea,
both by state officials and by the citizens who experience that state, through
their different encounters and interactions.31 The manifestation of the Indian
state as an idea and as a plural set of institutions is also reproduced through
the phrases “reinventing India”32 and the “myth of the state.”33
This approach focuses attention on the discursive conceptualizations of
the state in which policy making represents one of the techniques of
government used to govern a society. However, this implies a rather linear

approach to the process of governing, contrary to the evidence provided by
my case study. In order to incorporate the potential agency and voices of
those being governed in the policy-making process, I employ the concept of
statecraft. In this paper, statecraft is seen as the art of government, wherein
even as the state undertakes policy making, it is redefined by these very

practices of governing. This twin-sided process is the essence of statecraft,
which can be understood to be not only the act of governing (through the
making of policies), but also a dynamic practice through which the state
itself is reconstituted and shaped through the agency of those who are sought
to be governed.
Assigning specific functions to the state (either in its monolithic or plural
form) introduces a clear boundary between the state and society. The roots
of this separation can be traced to a Weberian conception of state autonomy,34
which insulates states from society. This autonomy is what distinguishes state
authority and places it above society.35 Indeed, “unless such independent
goal formation occurs, there is little need to talk about states as important
__________________
29
Corbridge et al., Seeing the State.
30
31
Corbridge et al., Seeing the State.
32
Stuart Corbridge and John Harriss, Reinventing India. liberalization, Hindu nationalism and popular
democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).
33
Thomas Blom-Hansen, “Governance and myths of state in Mumbai,” in The everyday state, 32.
34
Weber argues that states are compulsory associations claiming control over territories and the
people within them. His idea of an autonomous bureaucracy is based on highly selective meritocratic
recruitment, strict selection process and competency subject to rules and authority. Max Weber,
Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968).
35
This notion of state autonomy has been studied in the Indian context by Anupam Sen, who
argues that contrary to the traditional Marxist class theory of the state, which posits the state as a
means of class hegemony, the Indian state has been able to play an autonomous role vis-à-vis the social
classes because of the nature of the mode of production. This paper questions this autonomy through
a case study of policy making.
93
actors.”36 This division is retained in the “state in society” approach, in which

the state is defined as a combination of practices and an image which is seen
as having boundaries between the public (the state’s public actors and
agencies) and the private (those subject to the state’s rules). 37 In fact,
according to this viewpoint the “state is not only separated, it is also
elevated.”38 This contrasts with approaches that stress the interactions
between state and society39 and the embedded nature of the state,40 such that
state-society synergy is created. This synergy combines both complementarity
(mutual supportive relationships between public and private actors), and
embeddedness, i.e., ties that connect citizens and public officials across the
public-private divide. 41 However, even in these approaches, the
conceptualization of the “state” remains limited to an identifiable entity that
is separate and although embedded in social networks, one that is autonomous

from society.
The argument that the boundary between the state and society is “elusive,
porous and mobile”42 goes beyond the notion of “embedded autonomy”43
and resolves the difficulty of studying the state as an entity separate from
society.44 The theme of permeable and shifting boundaries between state

and society is prominent in several contemporary ethnographic writings of
the everyday state. The boundary between the state and society at the local
level is shown to be a blurred one,45 while there is a multiplicity and
complexity of social relationships that permeate state-society relationships
in the informal economy in India.46 The lack of a discrete entity of the state
as separate from society is emphasized, 47 arguing for ethnographic
understandings of the state vis-à-vis lived experiences of individuals and
__________________
36
Theda Skocpol, “Bringing the state back in: strategies of analysis in current research,” in
Bringing the state back in, 9.
37
Joel S. Migdal, State in Society: studying how societies and states transform and constitute one another
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
38
Migdal, State in Society, 17.
39
Pranab K. Bardhan, The Political economy of development in India (Oxford: Basil-Blackwell, 1984);
Francine R. Frankel, India’s Political Economy 1947-2004, The gradual revolution (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2005); Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne H. Rudolph, In pursuit of Lakshmi: the political
economy of the Indian state (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
40
Peter Evans, “Embedded Autonomy”; Peter Evans, “Introduction: development strategies
across the public-private divide,” in State-Society synergy: government and social capital in development, ed.
Peter Evans (California: University of California Press, 1997).
41
Evans, “Introduction: development strategies.”
42
43
Evans, “Embedded Autonomy.”
44
Abrams, “Difficulty of Studying the State.”
45
Gupta, “Blurred Boundaries.”
46
Barbara Harriss-White, India working: essays on society and economy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003).
47
Fuller and Benei, The Everyday State.
94
groups in societies.48 These works point to the fuzzy and mobile boundaries
between state and society, and consequently the fluid and dynamic spaces
in which the Indian state operates vis-à-vis society.
All these accounts relate to the everyday functions and practices of the
administrative state. However, these accounts have yet to look at the domain
of large-scale policy making in the same critical manner, and this is where I
situate my analysis. By providing in-depth empirical data regarding the
formulation of a contemporary national-level social policy in India, I make
it possible to understand the effects that particular political conjunctures
have had on the state in India post-2004. Two of these effects are significant
for the purposes of this paper: first, the Indian state is talked about in
particular manners, which produce myths about its nature and role. Second,
through my analysis of the formulation of the NREGA, I show how the

boundary between this dispersed yet strong “myth of the state”49 and “society”
is porous and fluid—by which I mean that different actors can easily penetrate
the processes of the state. Going further, I propose that in and through these
porous interactions between the state and society during the policy-making
process, the nature of the Indian state itself is changed, thereby depicting
the iterative process of statecraft in my case study.
Making Policy: The Case of the NREGA

Rural public works programs have arisen out of “the task of ensuring
employment for India’s labour force (which) has been a persistent concern
throughout India’s post-independence development.”50 From the 1970s,
public work programs (both centrally sponsored and state-level ones) have
also been an important component of India’s safety-net objectives.51 Since
the early 1990s, there has been a more focussed effort to counter natural
disasters (floods, drought) through setting up food for work programs. In
addition, starvation deaths and farmer suicides in 2001 were attributed to a
spiralling “agricultural crisis” and the withdrawal of the state from the rural
agrarian scenario.
The formulation of the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act provided
the first impetus to the idea of state-provided employment as a legal
__________________
48
Rene Véron, Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams and Manoj Srivastava, “The everyday state and
political society in eastern India: structuring access to the Employment Assurance Scheme,” Journal
of Development Studies 39, no. 5 (2003): 1-28.
49
Blom-Hansen, “Governance and Myths of State.”
50
Kirsty McNay, Jeemol Unni and Robert Cassen, “Employment,” in Twenty-first century India.
Population, economy, human development and the environment, eds. Tim Dyson, Robert Cassen and Leela
Visaria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
51
Philip O’Keefe and Robert Palacios, “Strengthening Employment and Social Security for
unorganized sector workers in India,” in Globalization, Labor Markets and Inequality in India, eds. Dipak
Mazumdar and Sandip Sarkar (London and New York, Routledge/ IDRC, 2008).
95
guarantee.52 In 2004, national elections unexpectedly brought a new regime,

the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) into power at the centre. The Congress
Party headed the UPA along with several of its smaller allies, and critically,
was supported by the left parties. A joint statement of intent and commitment,
the National Common Minimum Program (NCMP), formed the basis for
this alliance.53 It was in this NCMP that UPA accorded a high priority to enact
a national employment guarantee act.
Although the NCMP was an official document of the new regime, civil
society actors played an important role in shaping these commitments. For
example, the idea of the Employment Guarantee Act can be traced to activists
demanding a Right to Food through a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to
the Supreme Court. 54 Subsequently, civil society activists influenced the
Congress Party’s leaders to include the idea of an employment guarantee

act in their election manifesto.55 Several important developments followed
the formation of the new government, notably the setting up of a National
Advisory Council (NAC) with Mrs. Sonia Gandhi as its chairperson.56 The
NAC was set up as an advisory body responsible for monitoring the
implementation of the NCMP. Members of this advisory body included the

Congress leaders, and critically, several of the actors propagating and
supporting the idea of an employment guarantee act. This provided a window
of opportunity for civil society actors and political actors to interact with
policy makers in a new and direct manner.
The activists and proponents of the idea of a state-mandated national-level
Employment Guarantee Act made good use of this window of opportunity
by presenting a draft NREG Bill to the NAC in its very first meeting.57 This
set the ball rolling on the formulation of the bill, with the NAC forwarding
the draft to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on 19 August 2004.58 This
“citizen’s draft” (as it was called) formed the basis of the bill drafted by the
Ministry of Rural Development (MORD), which had been designated as the
nodal ministry for this legislation.59
While there was a political consensus as well as support for the idea of such
an act, the passage of the act was not a smooth one. Even within the
government, individuals as well as institutions such as the Planning Commission
and the Ministry of Finance expressed serious reservations about the act’s
__________________
52
Government of Maharashtra, Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act (Bombay: Government
of Maharashtra, 1977).
53
Government of India, “National Common Minimum Programme,” New Delhi, 2004.
54
Registered in the Indian Supreme Court as “PUCL vs. Union of India and Others, Writ Petition
(Civil) 196 of 2001,” in Right To Food Campaign Secretariat, ed., Supreme Court orders on the Right to
Food: a tool for action, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Right to Food Campaign, 2008).
55
Indian National Congress, “Manifesto 2004,” New Delhi, 2004.
56
“National Advisory Council to meet in July,” The Hindu, 26 June 2004.
57
NAC press release, 31 July, New Delhi, 2004.
58
NAC, “Communications to government: Employment Guarantee Bill” (New Delhi, 2004).
59
PMO, “Letter to MORD regarding NREG Bill,” (New Delhi: Government of India, 2004).
96
financial implications.60 A conflict between the MORD and the Ministry of

Panchayati Raj (MOPR) was played out regarding the role of bureaucrats
versus local self-governing structures (Panchayats). 61 These examples
highlight the conflicts within the state over conceptual and philosophical
issues, and also boundaries of jurisdiction of the respective departments.
Moreover, most of these conflicts were resolved not through negotiation
between the conflicting parties, but by intervention from senior actors such
as the prime minister and Sonia Gandhi.
The draft prepared by the MORD was also critiqued heavily by civil society
actors, who stated that the MORD draft “substantially dilutes some key
provisions of the NAC draft.”62 This critique highlights a shifting of the locus
of responsibility and legitimacy of policy making from the MORD, a state
institution, to the NAC, an advisory body, but not a legitimized institution

of the state. Then, according to accounts that attribute policy making as a
function of the state, the NAC would have no legal mandate or legitimacy
to formulate a policy draft in the first place, let alone criticize the MORD
draft on the basis of a comparison with its own draft.
It is thus interesting to note that civil society actors chose to route their
objection to the state-formulated draft through the NAC. In turn, the NAC
was able to make the state listen to these concerns and take them on board
in revising the MORD draft. This can be attributed to the chairperson of the
NAC, Sonia Gandhi, who was not only an elected representative, but by virtue
of being the chairperson of the Congress Party, had a direct line to the prime
minister and his cabinet.
The processes pertaining to the formulation of the act also highlight how
the legitimacy of the state and its functions was perceived. At the same time
as the draft policy was being modified by the MORD in response to both
state and non-state interventions, there was also a sense of urgency to expedite
the policy-making process: “If … the Bill … [is] not introduced in the current
winter session … [it] cannot be taken up for consideration and passing
during the ensuing budget session 2005 … [this will] create embarrassment
__________________
60
The two main grounds of concern were regarding the open-endedness of the financial
implications of the program (through allowing state governments to decide the wage rate in a centrally
funded program), and a concern that an untargeted approach would involve a huge outlay on the
public exchequer (MORD file notings, New Delhi: Government of India, 2004). These were addressed
with the central government retaining some measure of control over the wage rates under section 6
of the act. The act was also initially restricted to providing household entitlements to only BPL families.
However, in later (and intense) negotiations, the BPL clause was removed, with the assurance that
self-targeting (hard manual work, low wages) would prevent a large drain on public resources.
61
Government of India, “Minutes of meeting of Group of Ministers August 5,” (New Delhi,
2005).
62
Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy, “Letter to Sonia Gandhi regarding dilutions in NREG Bill November
3,” (New Delhi: National Advisory Council, 2004). The most significant of these “dilutions” included
a restriction of eligible beneficiaries to BPL households, implementation in specific districts without
time-bound extension to the whole of India as well as an on-off switch which would enable the act to
be withdrawn if instances of corruption were found.
97
for government, which would not be able to provide adequate government

business.”63
The above quote implies that this sense of urgency can be understood as
arising from a desire to avoid the embarrassment for government that would
result if it did not live up to its promise of passing these bills in the NCMP.
Implicit in living up to its promise is the generation of an image of the state
as doing government business and thus producing the myth of the state itself.
In this case, it is also reflective of legitimizing the role of this state as a policy
maker, thereby being seen as fulfilling its commitment.
At the same time as the government was eager to table the bill, civil society
actors and the NAC were also pushing for the bill to be pushed out into the
public domain where it could be debated. This reflects the twin strategies
of the civil society groups: on the one hand, they were transcending the
boundaries of the state and negotiating changes within the bill, and at the
same time, they appeared to be standing in opposition to the state,
pressurizing the state to fulfil its commitment. An example of this visible
opposition can be seen in a banner campaign outside the Parliament: “a
huge signature display in front of the Parliament, demanding the passage

of the Act … more than 200 organizations joined together … from all over
the country … on sarees, banners, dhotis … about 10 lakh signatures …
hanging on trees … from that point onwards, many people showed more
interest in this.”64
These pressures resulted in the slightly modified MORD Bill being tabled
in Parliament on 22 December 2004. But this happened only on the last day
of the Parliament session, thereby precluding any debate on it. Following
the general process of policy making, this draft was then referred to a
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development65 It was from this
point onwards that the bill entered into a phase of intense contentions,
negotiations and debate, which changed the face of the policy itself, and
also reinvented the very parameters of the state.
Following the tabling of the diluted bill, a significant event took place: the
birth of an umbrella organization called the People’s Action for Employment
Guarantee (PAEG). The PAEG was a loose conglomerate of various individuals
and organizations who came together to lobby for the passing of an improved
act. It is difficult to say that this network was comprised exclusively of civil
society members, because both its membership and leadership consisted of
a variety of actors who were associated with social movements, academia,
NGOs, as well as political parties and their auxiliary organizations, such as
__________________
63
Ghulam Nabi Azad, “Letter regarding government business to Raghuvansh Prasad Singh,”
(New Delhi: Ministry of Parliamentary, Government of India, 2004).
64
Respondent T1, interview with author, tape recording (New Delhi, 17 March 2007).
65
Henceforth referred to in the article as the Standing Committee.
98
women’s unions and trade unions. Many actors had personal or indirect
professional links to parliamentarians and bureaucrats.
Significant campaigning initiatives from the PAEG included depositions
in front of the Standing Committee, some of whose members were indirectly
associated with the PAEG, 66 lobbying with various members of Parliament,67
and garnering the support of left party leadership (again through left party
supporters who had close personal links with the leadership). One initiative
that deserves special mention is a “Rozgar Adhikar Yatra”68 that the PAEG
planned and conducted for 50 days across 10 states, showing a groundswell
of support for the act from amongst the general population. This culminated
in a public forum where members from all political parties were called and
asked to state their stand on the act.69 This generated substantial media
interest, and bolstered the activists’ reply to a very critical and negative debate
that was going on in the English-language media.70 Another significant
strategy employed by activists was to pressure the MORD through the NAC.
The NAC continued to direct its concerns through the PMO as well as the
Group of Ministers (GOM), thereby lending its recommendations both
powerful pressure and credibility.71 Meanwhile, even within the bureaucratic

locus of decision making, activists made inroads through their informal (and
often personal) networks, and started negotiating with the Planning
Commission and the MORD. Here, it can be seen that though the boundary
between society and state was maintained visibly through oppositional writings
and demonstrations such as the bus yatra, it was behind the scenes that this
boundary was regularly transgressed and even redefined.
__________________
66
MORD, “Standing Committee report on ‘The National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill,’”
New Delhi: Standing Commission on Rural Development, Lok Sabha Secretariat, 2005.
67
PAEG, “Minutes for meetings, January 8 and January 9,” New Delhi: People’s Action for
Employment Guarantee, 2005.
68
A yatra is a journey using various modes of transport, often undertaken as a popular mobilization
strategy to garner public support. The Rozgar Adhikar Yatra (Journey for Employment Rights) was
carried out on a bus, covering a pre-planned route, relying on support of local organizations and
counterparts for logistics and organizing public meetings.
69
PAEG, “Jan Manch on Employment Guarantee: summary report,” New Delhi: Peoples Action
for Employment Guarantee, 2005.
70
The English-language media had mainly been opposing the act on the grounds that it would
mean money down the drain with such activities as merely digging up holes and filling them up being
unproductive, too expensive for the government’s limited resources, and a drain on the public
exchequer. See Shankar Acharya, “Guaranteeing jobs or a fiscal crisis?” Business Standard, 30 November
2004; Surjit Singh Bhalla, “Ten lies and an Act: Part 1, 2 and 3,” Business Standard, 25 December 2004.
These writings were countered by civil society actors arguing for the need for employment,
demonstrating the fiscal viability of such an act, and above all, critiquing the government for falling
short of its commitments as set out in the NCMP. See Jayati Ghosh, “Rural Employment as a policy
priority,” Frontline 2.4, 3-16 July 2004; Smita Gupta, “Promises to keep,” Frontline 21.6, 31 December
2004; Jean Dreze, “Unemployment Guarantee Bill,” The Hindu, 31 December 2004.
71
NAC, “Minutes of various meetings,” New Delhi, 2004-05; NAC, “Letter to MORD for GOM
meeting,” New Delhi, 2005; NAC, “Letter to PMO regarding concerns in MORD NREG Bill,” New
Delhi, 2005.
99
A direct positive outcome of these negotiations and activities came in the

form of the Standing Committee’s recommendations, which were wholly
supportive of the demands of the activists and in line with the original NAC
draft.72 It was because of this report as well as the huge pressure that activists
put on the MORD (through direct but informal negotiations, media advocacy
as well as political pressure) fed into the redrafting of the bill by the MORD.
Once again, it was with a sense of urgency that these changes were made
and the modified bill was finally presented in Parliament on 18 August 2005.73
While there was no doubt at this stage regarding the passage of the bill, this
period marked the most intense negotiating period around the content of
the final act. This conflict was mainly because of two competing pressures:
the UPA government wanting to pass the bill in the monsoon session (with
pressure from Sonia Gandhi as well), and on the other side, activists and left
parties refusing to compromise on some further tenets that had not been
changed in the bill.74 This created conditions for active negotiations and
hectic dialogue between the various actors who, although they were objecting
to the bill’s provisions, realized the political unfeasibility of publicly opposing
the bill itself. Several meetings of the UPA-Left Co-ordination Committee of

the government were held in this politically charged environment. These
meetings saw left leaders actively negotiating with the UPA leaders outside
the formal parliamentary system but still within the confines of closed doors,
signifying the internal deliberations of the state. At the same time, there
were also live transmissions of hectic and lengthy discussions and debates
within Parliament, enabling people to be witness to the state’s discussions.
Finally, there was a huge signature campaign and a “Dharna”75 at Jantar
Mantar, just outside the Parliament. Behind the scenes, the PAEG actors
involved themselves in intense after-hours consultations, worked hard to
convince political party leaders to support their points, directly negotiated
with MORD officials and used their links with Sonia Gandhi and other state
officials to determine the final tenets that would be included in the act.
These negotiations resulted in several changes being made to the bill
during the last few days.76 These changes reflected compromise both on the
__________________
72
MORD Standing Committee report. This report reiterated the importance of removing the
restriction of beneficiaries to only BPL households, reinstating the irreversibility clause (removal of
on-off switch), providing minimum wages to workers, and a time-bound extension for implementation.
The report even went further to argue for individual-level entitlement (rather than household level),
and provision of work for disabled workers.
73
GOI, “Text of Lok Sabha debates (August 18 – 22),” New Delhi: Lok sabha Secretariat, 2005.
74
These tenets included rewording of the minimum wage clause, removal of the on-off switch
thereby making the act irreversible, removal of the BPL restriction, and reservations for women
workers.
75
A place just outside Parliament, it is popular with civil society groups as a protest site, attracting
media coverage and publicity.
76
MORD, “Amendment to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, 2004 - ex-post-facto
approval of Cabinet,” New Delhi: Department of Rural Development, 2005.
100
part of the “state” officials as well as the activists and other actors. Finally,
after several hours of parliamentary debates, the bill, with amendments, was
passed with a 100 percent majority in the Lok Sabha on 23 August 2005.
While the immediate feeling amongst most actors upon the act being
passed (both state and non-state) was one of elation, there were mixed
feelings of happiness over the concessions won, and resignation at the
compromises that had been made. In fact, one activist expressed that several
important points had been given away by their contacts in the state.77 This
points to the powerlessness felt by non-state actors who were not the final
decision makers.
The NREGA was not notified until a few months later on 2 February 2006,78
as the terms of the rules, guidelines, financial and administrative implications
had to be finalized. Though officially within the ambit of the MORD, a

blurring of the boundaries also continued throughout this process. Both
Ministry officials and activists were involved in the process of making the
operational guidelines. The consultations between these two groups were
mainly in the form of informal talks and emails. Another significant aspect
during this phase was the creation of the Central Employment Guarantee
Council (CEGC), in which the informal links of several of the same activists
who had formulated the NAC draft, were formalized by their appointment
to this council. This brought the non-state actors together on a common
platform with the MORD officials to help in the implementation and
monitoring of this policy. This is an example of how informal networks led
to a reconstitution of the boundary between state and societal actors.
Even as the NREGA was implemented in 200 districts,79 the next few
months saw a massive demand to include other districts of the country within
the purview of the act. These demands were directed either at the MORD
or the PMO, indicative of expectations being expressed towards the state as
a provider of this policy. However, these demands were routed through a
variety of actors, including political party leaders, ministers from different
political parties, members of Parliament, and bureaucrats.80 From April 2007,
the NREGA was extended to an additional 130 districts of the country.
Requests and petitions for bringing the remaining 265 districts under the
jurisdiction of the act continued over the next year, in both non-official
__________________
77
Of these, the most significant was that relating to minimum wages, which the activists managed
to get reworded during the last couple of hours through informal links, but these changes were far
from satisfactory. Other provisions that were “given away” included the act providing a guarantee for
only 100 days, and that, too, at the household level rather than an individual entitlement.
78
Kumar Venkateshwarlu, “National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in place,” The Hindu, 3
February 2005.
79
Identification of the initial 200 districts was done within the Planning Commission using a
report listing the most backward districts. See Rohini Nayyar, Identification of districts for wage and self
employment programmes (New Delhi: Planning Commission Task Force, 2003). The Planning Commission
also worked out the financial implications and budget calculations for the program.
80
MORD, “File Notings,” (New Delhi: Department of Rural Development, 2005).
101
forums such as the media, and official forums such as the Parliament. 81 In
September 2007, when a decision to extend the act to the entire country was
announced, it sparked off the involvement of a new actor, Rahul Gandhi,
who was seen to have heralded this extension as a new member of Parliament.82
From 1 April 2007, all 612 districts were included in the implementation of
the act.
The above story highlights four critical drivers that came together at a
particular point of time and facilitated the formulation of this act. These
were as follows:
1. the creation of spaces and networks (e.g., NAC);

2. powerful, astute and sympathetic state actors and networks (e.g.,
Sonia Gandhi, high-ranking state officials);

3. active and responsible civil society actors and their networks (e.g.,
PAEG leaders); and
4. political compulsions (e.g., left-supporting UPA from the outside).
It is in the workings of all four drivers that the actors affiliated to both state
and non-state built networks. These networks and inter-linkages transcended
the binary distinction between state and society, as they extended across
affiliations and actor groups. In this way, they demonstrate the agency of
actors as representatives of the act’s beneficiaries. Further, strategies such as
the creation and use of windows of opportunity, as well as operationalizing
principles of vigilance, accountability and expectations towards the state
were additional hallmarks of the NREGA’s formulation, and which
characterize policy-making processes more generally in a democratic setting
such as India. But, the fact that non-state actors were able to not only
permeate boundaries (reflecting the porosity of these boundaries), but to
also reconfigure the actual arenas or domains of decision making is unique
to the NREGA process. By recognizing the importance of the agency of actors
in shaping the nature of the state, the workings of statecraft become apparent,
as discussed below.
The workings of statecraft

The above story can be understood in terms of four main decision-making
arenas in which the different actors met: parliamentary, executive, party
political and civil society domains. Table 1 presents the various activities and
sub-processes that constituted these domains, as well as the various institutions
__________________
81
MORD, “Letter from MORD to Planning Commission,” New Delhi, 9 February 2007. GOI,
“Rajya Sabha Question No 157: ‘NREGA in North Eastern States,’” (New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Secretariat,
2 August 2006).
82
“3 days into job, Rahul extends NREGA to nation,” IBN Live, 2007.
102
Table 1
Processes and institutions involved in formulation of the NREGA
(I) Parliamentary domain
1.1 parliamentary negotiations Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, UPA and Left
parties
1.2 Standing Committee Standing Committee and various civil
depositions and deliberations society organizations
(II) Executive domain
2.1 processes within government PMO, MORD, MOPR, Planning
ministries (including co- Commission and other relevant
ordination by the PMO) ministries, civil society actors

2.2 objections, detailing and Planning Commission, Ministry of
notification Finance, MORD and some international
organizations (World Bank, United
Nations Development Program)
(III) Party political domain
3.1 Congress Party processes Congress Party, civil society actors

3.2 Building of the NCMP Congress, UPA and Left parties
3.3 NAC processes NAC (including civil society actors and
PAEG members), PMO
3.4 Left party political processes Left parties, trade unions and women’s
organizations
3.5 UPA processes UPA-Left Coordination Committee, PAEG,
ministers from UPA coalition partners
(IV) Civil society domain
4.1 Rajasthan initiatives RTF campaign, MKSS, Akal Sangharsh
(including Right to Food Samiti, Supreme Court and other
RTF, judicial processes and Rajasthan-based organizations
Akal Sangharsh Samiti)
4.2 civil society initiatives various civil society organizations and
(Rozgar Adhikar Yatra, social movements, academics and
Dharna, building linkages interested individuals: PAEG
to parliamentarians,
external influences on
MORD, public forums)
4.3 contribution of the office Supreme Court Commissioner’s Office
of the commissioner to the
Supreme Court
4.4 support of organized unions trade unions
(trade unions and women’s
organizations)
4.5 media writing journalists, academics, research
organizations, bureaucrats, politicians
103
involved in them. Examining these domains and the institutions involved

highlights two things: first, that the state cannot be said to be a unitary actor;
instead, there are multiple institutions and actors involved in it. Second, it is
difficult to classify these institutions as exclusively state or non-state. This is
because actors interacting within these institutions had multiple positionalities
and affiliations with the institutions, and performed a wide range of roles
that involved confrontation and negotiation as well as support within various
processes.
The above table highlights how different ideas of what the state is, and
what its role was, were produced by these various domains through different
processes and at different moments in time. In the Indian context, the post-
colonial state has set itself up as the initiator of development through social
policies. In fact, the legitimacy of the Indian state has been crucially tied to
its developmental efforts.83 The formation of the NREGA needs to be situated
within this context of seeing the state as a maker of social policy. The
expectations from the state, especially in times of drought and natural
calamities, was that it would provide relief in the shape of public works
programs. In fact, it was through the implementation of existing public works

programs, a state-run operation, that civil society actors concretized their
image of the state as a provider of relief, and subsequently as the formulator
of an employment guarantee act. “Public works programs have proved a very
effective way of dealing with [drought] … but we began to see it much more
as not relief, but as a need for sustained employment input into families.”84
However, even as the state was constituted through these expectations
within the civil society domain, it was reconstituted through the process of
policy making within other domains. For example, the NAC can best be
understood as part of the party political domain, and lying outside the
traditional executive domain. Yet it wielded considerable power (due to
Sonia Gandhi), and also took on the very function of the state in terms of
drafting the policy document in the first instance. Further, civil society actors
used the NAC as a window of opportunity at several critical junctures to get
the state to act in certain ways. This implies a reconstitution of the boundaries
between state and non-state decision makers, as well as the creation of the
NAC as a legitimate body that could take on the role of the state. In this way,
the idea of what the state is was formulated anew within the party political
and executive domains.
The visible oppositional tactics of the PAEG (such as media writings,
dharnas, etc.) further created an idea of a separate “anti-poor state” which
needed to be pressured to act in response to their demands. However, these
same PAEG members were very much part of closed door negotiations and
__________________
83
Partha Chatterjee, “Development planning and the Indian state,” in State and politics in India,
ed. Partha Chatterjee (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).
84
Respondent C1, interview with author, tape recording, Rajasthan,10 March 2007.
104
decision-making processes, and were thus part of the state within the
parliamentary and executive domains. Similarly, the idea of the concrete,
institutional state was reinforced by media writings which argued about
whether the act represented state money down the drain, or whether these
state resources would be used efficiently. Advocates of the act tempered
concerns about the drain on the public exchequer in the same language of
demonstrating that the state had enough funds to operationalize the act.
These debates reinforced the idea of the state’s existence and its economic
capacity within the civil society domain.
Once the idea of the state’s existence (as a concrete institutional entity)
had been established, its role was articulated as that of governing its
population through the making of social policies by the party political
domain: “The central government has to continue to play a principal role

in the financing of rural development and social sector schemes.”85 Debates
about the efficiency of the works that would be undertaken under the act
can be then understood as debates about whether the “beneficiaries” of the
act were worthy of this state’s benevolence.
The above case study thus highlights how the state actually gets
reconstituted through the process of governing society through acts of policy
making. It can be argued that the state was reconstituted (with state and
non-state actors coming together to shape decision-making processes) in the
very making of this social policy. In other words, Mitchell’s state was created
as an effect of the practice of policy making.86 This point is underscored by
the fact that throughout the making of the NREGA, networks and groups
were built and operationalized across the state-society divide. The following
quote demonstrates a reconstitution of the state and its power: “[T]hrough
that time, the [MORD] were revising the act…various drafts were coming
out…standing committee was giving their recommendations…[the joint
secretary] was…going crazy between the standing committee, between her
own minister…all of us—running back and forth, trying to negotiate with
everyone, have to please them also, us also.”87
It has been shown above that following the interaction and negotiations
between state and non-state actors, the policy itself was reshaped. Importantly,
many of these linkages were carried forward by the formation of the CEGC
and the inclusion of several key activists as members of this organization.
This is an example of how the state was reformulated in the process of policy
making. In other words, the agency of non-state actors (those who the state
seeks to govern) can be recognized in their permeating and working with
state actors (those who sought to govern) in order to shape the policy-making
__________________
85
Sonia Gandhi, “Govern With Commitment,” Congress President’s Opening Speech at 3rd Conference
of Congress Chief Ministers, Guwahati, 12 April 2002.
86
Mitchell, “Limits of the State.”
87
Respondent C3, interview with author, tape recording, New Delhi, 22 March 2007.
105
processes. It can thus be said that the dynamic process of governing both
constituted and reshaped the state itself, which reflects the twin-faceted
workings of statecraft.
Conclusion
This paper has documented the story of a recently formulated social policy
in India to substantiate three aspects regarding the state. First, that the state
needs to be understood as multiple institutions and actors rather than as a
monolithic entity. Second, it has shown that the boundary between state and
society is porous and fluid, by demonstrating how the state is both an
ideological construct as well as a material set of practices, institutions and
actors. By examining experiences of the state policy-making processes from

an ethnographic perspective, the apparent dichotomy (perceived by some
scholars) between the state and society has been disrupted. Finally, the policy-
making process behind the NREGA has been presented as an example of the
working of statecraft, through which the state itself underwent a
reconfiguration.
It is in operationalizing the state effects through policy making that the

boundaries between state and society are redefined and transgressed through
the formation and building of networks, which in turn reconstitute the
decision-making arenas of the state. This reformation was demonstrated
through the lens of four domains of policy making: parliamentary, executive,
party political and civil society. In all these domains, the fluidity of actors
and their positionalities within and across networks points to the dynamism
that underlies the policy-making act of governing.
These porous and relational domains not only redefine the boundaries
between state and society, but also construct different ideas of the state’s
existence and its functions and responsibilities. One way of generating the
“state as an effect” is to place certain expectations upon the state’s functions
and efficacy. Another way is its reconstruction with a change in government
practices of how policies are made and who has a voice in these processes.
In summary, this paper has demonstrated the utility of adopting the notion
of the state as a disaggregated effect of various techniques of governance
with policy making being a significant component. The case study of the
NREGA has demonstrated the dual nature of state effects: how the state
pursues policy making as a strategy for governing its population, and in turn,
how the state itself gets reconstituted in the making of policy. This acts as a
validation of the dynamic process of the state, both making policies and in
turn getting reconstituted in the making of these policies, which can be
termed as statecraft.
The working of statecraft in the post-2004 elections scenario in India as
shown in this paper highlights a shift in the type and scale of influence that
non-state actors have been able to exert on the Indian state. Never before
106
has the influence of civil society actors (or in fact any other types of non-state
actors) led to the formulation of a specific piece of legislation on such a
significant scale. While this story supports the well-established argument that
the state is not isolated from external influences, it presents two crucial
insights which pertain to this particular socio-economic and political juncture.
First, it demonstrates a significant change within the sets of influences that
the Indian state is responding to, with civil society actors becoming more
influential than ever before. This is counter-intuitive given the increasingly
neo-liberal tendencies of the Indian state and the difference from historically
influential groups like farmers or industrial confederations. Second, this
paper has shown that the Indian state itself has been reconstituted in the
process of policy making. This goes beyond showing that the boundaries
between the state and society are porous and negotiable, to demonstrating
a transformation in the character of the Indian state which has been
prompted by the internal dynamics of the particular political and social
circumstances of the Indian polity in and after 2004. Such findings therefore
provide evidence for the changing nature of the Indian state through the
context of policy making, which reiterates and substantiates the trend also
highlighted by other contributors to this collection.
University of Sussex, UK, November 2010*
__________________
* This article uses fieldwork material collected during the author’s PhD at the Department of
Geography, University of Cambridge. The author acknowledges and thanks her respondents from
the Right to Food Campaign for sharing their thoughts, information and advice. Special thanks to
Dr. Bhaskar Vira for his support and guidance, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable
feedback.
107

Policy Making in India A Dynamic Process of Sttaecraft

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Policy Making in India:

A Dynamic Process of Statecraft

sees policy making as an act of governing, and contributes to ethnographic

© Pacific Affairs: Volume 84, No. 1 March 2011 89

policy making are themselves transforming the state, as other contributors

The State and Statecraft

perspectives. These perspectives range from seeing the policy process as an

more useful to understand the state as “bundles of everyday institutions and

not a monolithic and singular entity.

become a crucial object of study, which actually conceals the “disunity of

government used to govern a society. However, this implies a rather linear

even as the state undertakes policy making, it is redefined by these very

actors.”36 This division is retained in the “state in society” approach, in which

is separate and although embedded in social networks, one that is autonomous

society.44 The theme of permeable and shifting boundaries between state

through my analysis of the formulation of the NREGA, I show how the

Making Policy: The Case of the NREGA

guarantee.52 In 2004, national elections unexpectedly brought a new regime,

Congress Party’s leaders to include the idea of an employment guarantee

implementation of the NCMP. Members of this advisory body included the

financial implications.60 A conflict between the MORD and the Ministry of

institution, to the NAC, an advisory body, but not a legitimized institution

for government, which would not be able to provide adequate government

huge signature display in front of the Parliament, demanding the passage

powerful pressure and credibility.71 Meanwhile, even within the bureaucratic

A direct positive outcome of these negotiations and activities came in the

the bill itself. Several meetings of the UPA-Left Co-ordination Committee of

had to be finalized. Though officially within the ambit of the MORD, a

1. the creation of spaces and networks (e.g., NAC);

Sonia Gandhi, high-ranking state officials);

The workings of statecraft

ordination by the PMO) ministries, civil society actors

3.1 Congress Party processes Congress Party, civil society actors

involved in them. Examining these domains and the institutions involved

programs. In fact, it was through the implementation of existing public works

domain: “The central government has to continue to play a principal role

actors. By examining experiences of the state policy-making processes from

It is in operationalizing the state effects through policy making that the

University of Sussex, UK, November 2010*

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