National

The Super Panchayat

With a new NAC, the Congress signals its focus won’t swerve off the aam admi

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The Super Panchayat
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Probable Members Of NAC-II

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Harsh Mander, SC-appointed food commissioner

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N.C . Saxena, Former IAS officer, development expert

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M.S. Aiyar, Former panchayati raj minister

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Jairam Ramesh, Minister for forests & environment

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Meenakshi Natarajan, Congress MP

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M.S. Swaminathan, Agriculture and food expert

The sudden revival of the National Advisory Council (NAC) with Sonia Gandhi as its chairperson, ten months after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) returned to power, is the clearest signal to date that the Congress feels the need to restate its commitment to the social equity agenda. Party leaders stress that the NAC-I’s social charter—as embodied in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Right to Information (RTI) Act—played a crucial role in the party’s success at the hustings in 2009, when a responsive electorate handed it a bigger mandate. “The NAC concept has already been tested,” says Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi. “In a democracy, the views of a cross-section of society provide valuable inputs. The NAC reflected those views. Its utility was felt by the entire country.”

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And so the NAC has been reconstituted, but clearly not without some nudging. Senior government sources confirmed that even though the new NAC draft had been ready for several months, it was reportedly sent back by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at least thrice without being signed. Naturally, there was speculation. One version was that the hunt was on for a chairperson other than Sonia, as she did not wish to revive the old controversy about two centres of power, but in the end, party leaders realised that the NAC—a body which only has recommendatory powers—would be of little use unless someone powerful like Sonia headed it. The party’s heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi, had in any case clarified that he wished to focus on rebuilding the party organisation.

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The revival of the NAC was also a considered response to the growing disquiet in party circles on the perceived rightward, people-unfriendly path the present government was tending towards. The unheralded burial of the NAC—along with the removal of the Left as a factor—was seen as an enabling factor in this. For the party’s socialist core, which wants UPA-II to “consolidate” the gains UPA-I made in the social sector, the recent budget, which hinted at a possible paring down of the government’s social sector commitments, was worrisome. Equally disconcerting was the finance ministry’s decision to push disinvestment and move towards slashing subsidy bills.

It was equally clear that as long as Sonia confined herself to being party president and UPA chairperson—all-powerful though that might make her look—her role in influencing government policies stood circumscribed. Hence the urgent need for her to return to the NAC.

The last impediment to Sonia returning to the NAC vanished in August 2009, when the Supreme Court upheld the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Act, 2006, exempting 55 offices occupied by MPs from disqualification, as constitutionally valid. (In early 2006, Sonia resigned as MP and NAC head after the BJP pointed out the latter job was not exempt from the Office of Profit Act. Sonia won again from Rae Bareli and Parliament amended the Prevention of Disqualification Act later that year, but Sonia chose to stay out of the spotlight. The NAC continued in a desultory fashion till it wound up in ’08.)

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So who will the NAC’s new members be? Government sources say their names will be determined by the council’s new priorities—food security, the long pending Communal Violence Bill, implementing the new Right to Education Act, revitalising agriculture, strengthening welfare programmes for the unorganised sector, and women’s issues. The new government order also mentions the possibility of including MPs.

Sources say that many of NAC-I’s members may be repeated. They include Madhav Chavan of Pratham, an ngo which works for universalisation of elementary education; scientist, educationist and planner D. Swaminadhan—a tribal himself—who had helped prepare a report on tribal affairs for the 2004 party manifesto; ex-IAS officer and development expert N.C. Saxena, who was appointed by the Supreme Court as a food commissioner; and Union minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh—if he can juggle his current responsibilities with those being on the NAC will bring.

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The new names include Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, who has emerged as a “spokesman” for core Congress values; Mani Shankar Aiyar, newly minted Rajya Sabha MP and panchayati raj expert; Meenakshi Natarajan, a fiery and articulate young MP; Harsh Mander, a Supreme Court-appointed food commissioner; eminent agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan; Nand  Kumar, the just retired agriculture secretary and architect of the original food security bill; Zoya Hasan, historian and former member of the Minorities Commission; and Abusaleh Sharif, economist and the man who helped draft the path-breaking Sachar report.

So why has the NAC been revived now? Crunch time, party sources say, came when government managers didn’t demonstrate the necessary will to steer the Women’s Reservation Bill through and Sonia was forced to crack the whip. Barely had the bill made it through the Rajya Sabha (it is yet to make it through the Lok Sabha) than news came that the government was planning to dilute the Food Security Bill. For Sonia and the party, the impending food security law is as important as NREGA was for UPA-I. At that time, too, social activists had fought against the legislation being watered down by a reluctant government. History now seems to be repeating itself with the Food Security Bill: this time, too, though it is still being scrutinised by the law ministry before it enters the public domain, the criticism has begun. Jean Dreze, former NAC member and development economist, has said that it “must go back to the drawing board”, while Mander, the IAS officer who took premature retirement after the Gujarat riots in 2002 and helped Sonia frame a model food security bill, has been scathing.

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Clearly, NAC-II has its work cut out. “It will strive to bridge the gap between government policy and civil society in areas where there are differences and incorporate into government policy the latter’s concerns in a diplomatic way, without annoying ministers who clearly don’t care for civil society interference,” a key source said. Its return also heralds a back-to-basics approach, with the PM himself acknowledging that it would provide “very important inputs impacting the impulse of civil society” and bring a “new dimension” to the working of government.

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