This Republic Day, Empower Yourself

How a book shaped my journey from software towards development sector

I first read “In Service of the Republic, The Art and Science of Economic Policy” by Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah, five years ago and found it unputdownable. The book led me to follow Ajay Shah to dig deeper and perhaps pushed me over the edge to get into ‘development sector’ after 23 years in software industry and civic activism. As I re-read the revised edition, I realise it might have shaped my own journey.

As a student, observer and sometimes participant of politics, I spent years trying to understand the big economic and political debates, Hayek Vs Keynes, GDP Growth Vs Rising Inequality, Capitalism Vs Communism, Market Failure, Political Economy of India that influences everything. Politicians, bureaucrats also respond to incentives in their own contexts, just like citizens. To push any reform, we need to find approaches that can be seen as win-win for everyone. Doing the right thing should also become ‘profitable’ for all involved. If you’ve been frustrated by lack of policy response for Bengaluru’s traffic and or wondered why most policies and rules don’t seem to make an impact, this book will help you understand better.

My Reflections from the book and my lived experience:

• The Capacity Gap: India has high “political capacity” (we hold elections regularly and elect our leaders) but low “administrative capacity” (we struggle to get households to segregate waste or make our cities walkable). In tech, we call this a scaling issue. In policy, it’s a reality check. You can’t run high end software in a 20 year old hardware. Unless state capacity improves, no magic will happen.

• Stop Being Dismissive: It’s easy to criticize “the system” from the outside. But working with government employees has taught me they are often capable people trapped in bad “plumbing” (red tape). Leadership changes everything—I see this daily in Bengaluru. Bringing people together, making research actionable, finding avenues to convert ideas into practical work streams, are eminently doable.

• The Umpire vs. The Player: Government should not play both roles; we need independent regulators, for example to fix auto meter fares so both the auto drivers and commuters find them acceptable and reduce friction.

• Penalizing the Polluter: Air pollution isn’t a “behaviour” to be banned; it’s a “market failure” to be priced. Banning old cars hurts the poor. Taxing the actual pollution (like dynamic taxes on dusty construction sites based on real time monitoring) changes the incentive for the builder.

• Ecosystem, not Echo Chamber: To solve information asymmetry, organizations and individuals with deep domain expertise must come together and align better with the ‘system’. Instead of depending on few Government owned pollution monitors, there should be a dense network of meters everywhere, leading to better reporting and specific actions based on spikes of PM 2.5/PM 10/NO2 etc.

• Overton Window Having worked on election campaigns and mobilizing civic action for various causes, I’ve experienced the ‘Overton Window’ first hand– what is politically acceptable Vs what is seen as ‘radical’ or ‘unthinkable’. The Window has shifted on public transport - today, politicians and bureaucrats acknowledge the importance of public transport more than earlier. Congestion Charges on Bengaluru’s Outer Ring Road sounds radical today because of our vocal middle class. But if we can provide alternatives like Bus Priority Lanes and convince large corporate employers to nudge employees towards public transport, we can perhaps shift that window too, where congestion charges are seen as reasonable.

This Republic Day, do yourself a favour. Read this book. You might not just find a better understanding of policymaking in India; you might find a new path for yourself.

Happy Republic Day!