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Note: The original email sent to Mint has been corrected for visible typos. The article, in response to which this letter was written, was publised in Mint on 11th December, 2013. The article can be accessed at
Dangers of Activists Dictating Policymaking.
From merchant.kushagra@gmail.com Wed Dec 11 10:58:23 2013
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 10:58:23 +0530
From: Kushagra
To: views@livemint.com, asktheeditor@livemint.com
Subject: On "Dangers of activists dictating policymaking"
Dear Editorial Team,
This is with reference to the article "Dangers of Activists dictating policymaking: The National Advisory Council has done a lot of damage to the country" dated 11 December, 2013.
Since you have appropriately labelled it as "Our View" it is not worth debating on the merit/demerit of the basic premise, explanation and conclusion that you draw in the article. Since it, like almost everything else in media today is mostly an opinion, as a reader one has the luxury of putting an appropriate mark-down on the content.
However, the reader will have less of a leeway to be so lax with this discount if the methods in "our views" are substantiated. The current article caught attention because it seems a bad patchwork of arguments. If one were to scrutinize the structure of the article, it could run as a follows:
1. A remark by a "sly" politician is used as an excuse for an article. Interestingly, your opening sentence "Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has done well to set the cat among the pigeons." The choice of "done well" has very much conveyed where your view stands---the judgement has been passed on an entity to begin with. A reader can even entertain this conviction if the excuse for it was a more distinguished and measured personality than Sharad Pawar. Without again going into the extent of truth of the statement he made on his blog, the paper owes it to set this statement up against the context in which it was said, whether Mr. Pawar's previous judgements shown to have any true merit or not. It is interesting that your very paper yesterday reported a source from TISS quoting this as "Sharad Pawar's own brand of politics." In short, it would be worthwhile to separate the rhetoric from the content on this statement before you use it to open an article and directly reach a conclusion. One would have to observe that it was the impetuousness of the writer to voice his own opinion behind some one else's voice.
2. Of course, the article then seems to chide Mr. Pawar by saying that "The example of Indira Gandhi is not an apt one." It gives a lesson in history for the largely ahistorical readers. One has to admire the courage in including Nehru, Shastri and odd enough Mr. Vajpayee. One wonders what happened to Rajiv Gandhi when he too had famed advisors (who could in some instances also be called personal advisors) in his circle? A lesson in history like this cannot be captured in two paragraphs. Even if it is needed, the article could have explicitly higlighted one or two particular nuances that were worth keeping in mind and that also, surely influenced the writer of the article when he drew his bold conclusion in the very sentence.
3. Moving on, we are then told that "However, there are two important differences between the earlier advisers and the members of NAC." This is really a very courageous move. In one stroke the writer has clubbed all the earlier "advisers" on one side and the NAC on the other. It would be seem that NAC has had no preceedence on "the two important differences" that the writer is duly going to highlight. This is either being innocent or consciously playing on the credulity or indifference of the reader. The fact that NAC stands out so different in history is a point that needs a very serious proof. I am a management consultant and surely not tuned into the history of politics and policymaking. But I am sure such arguments are more subtle than they are made to appear in an article of this nature. This is a very good opportunity for educating younger readers like me but the newspaper has chosen to forgo it. One has to wonder why, because I am sure it would have made for an interesting series of articles instead of just cramming the final conclusion into one. On this point, at least you could have let the reader come to his own conclusion rather than voicing "your view".
4. Next we are given one word character sketches of Mishra and Haskar. But when you have taken a historical sweep right from Nehru to Vajpayee you might as well cover all the key names in this characterization. Picking two from the many and pitting them against NAC again seems a haste to reach the end, confidently by-passing the more mundane rules for building an argument and reaching a conclusion. A most ironic thing considering the article is commenting on the very art of policy-making which is a very complex and subtle exercise. The article is, sadly, devoid of both of these.
5. Now comes the interesting part "The NAC works at cross purposes with the Manmohan Singh government." Who is the NAC, what is the composition, is the NAC one monolithic unit or are there different ideological and political sub-groupings? Who in NAC has worked at cross-purpose? None of these answers are forthcoming. Neither is there an attempt to even push the reader's mind in asking these questions if lack of space does not permit answering these questions. All along the feeling is building up that the writer is bent on ramming his way through with one eye on the space left for the article.
6. But the award has to go to the sentence "NAC has done a lot of damage to the country." We are given three examples to substantiate a very serious charge such as this. At this point, the reader has to be exasperated and ask: has the writer understood the difference between an impression, opinion, reason and truth? I started with premise that this article was an opinion but when I reach here I am getting a vague impression that this article is an "impression" (no pun intended). An impression borne of popular discourse without any effort to subject it to details and analysis. And what is most ironical is that the sub-title "The National Advisory Council has done a lot of damage to the country" has been explained away in two paragraphs. Because following this is an educational diabtribe on the "great Max Weber's" theory of leadership. Whether Max Weber was "great" and whether his theory is the most appropriate one is a decision left best to scholars in the subject. The enthusiasm of the writer for Weber (and this paper too because I saw another reference to Weber in another article today) can only evoke a faint smile from the reader followed by a note of disapproval.
7. So in a short article that levies a serious charge, exactly two paras are there to prove the charge, rest are there to entertain a statement of a "Sly politician", give a sweeping history lesson in policymakers and their advisers, and as a climax, four full paragraphs on Max Weber, leading, as everything does today, to Modi. Somewhere in between poor Mr. Ambedkar has been stoshed in. One gets a feeling that Ambedkar was brought in precisely to give credence to the article. But the writer would do well to remember, Ambedkar said a lot of other things and that he would never have decried the "Jholawallas" that Pawar does. He would indeed have welcomed a multi-stakeholder discoure that also would include Jholawallas. Except when you bring Mr. Ambedkar in it, it does well to remember that he and his peers would have set the standard of discourse to be very high. Some thing that is consistently amiss in the quality of analysis (if any) and arguments presented in this article.
8. And finally, I would bring out a very glaring faux-pas, one that every one of us should be careful of not committing at least in a public discourse: There is a statement "Pawar has hit the nail on the head when he linked the rise of the Jholawallas to weak political leadership." Ask any scholar and he would be aghast at such a generalisation. You are taking two very independent notions "Jholawallas" and "political leadership" and trying to link them together. This, like a few other bold proclamations, too needs a sound proof. If things were so black and white one would not need a paper that proudly proclaims on the side "Mint 2134 First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream." I leave it to you to decide whether this article meets these two tests that you yourself lay out.
9. Finally, one question, when (and if) Mr. Modi comes to power would you be publishing "Dangers of Corporates dictating policymaking" and if you were bold enough "Rise of Right Wing Sectarian elements in National Government?"
Best,
Kushagra Merchant
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