In the slimy, shambolic but highly relevant world of power/policy networking in India, the likes of Aruna Roy occupy a peculiar space. Sneeringly called jholawalas, they are genetically tuned to be suspicious and critical of the state but still engage with it to further the causes they champion. Even as a member of the National Advisory Committee, her activist yearnings remained intact as she continued to oppose the government on some of its policies like Aadhar and direct cash transfer. Almost four decades earlier, Aruna Roy had resigned from IAS to become an activist by joining her husband “Bunker” Roy’s Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan. Her decision to quit the NAC and work outside the system to pressurise the government has surprised many and jolted the government. But it also reveals, among other things, the unbalanced underpinnings of the UPA government’s institutional arrangements that shape policy.

In her letter to NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Roy expressed her discomfort about the non-implementation of flagship programmes like MGNREGA and requested that her term at NAC not be renewed. Interestingly, in her letter, Roy states that it was “extremely unfortunate the Prime Minister rejected the NAC recommendations on payment of minimum wages to MGNREGA workers and chose instead to appeal the Karnataka High Court judgment ordering the payment of minimum wages to MGNREGA workers”. Roy was however appreciative of Sonia Gandhi’s effort and remarked that she looked forward to a continued association with her outside the NAC. In an interview with Economic Times she said, “Mrs Gandhi is fully convinced about the need to enhance the social policy of the government…she has great conviction that it is the government’s job to include the poor and marginal….She stands firm but her ability to push through has come down over the years as the government continues obstructing these policies with its techno-economic arguments”.

More than the mere fact that the face of NAC resigned, it was the statements that accompanied the resignation which prompted the debate. It gave further validation to the perceived divide between Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. Therefore, the media discourse on Roy’s resignation from NAC was naturally focused on the “growing wedge” between Manmohan/Government and Sonia/Congress. Roy gave more impetus to this debate when she gave interviews to TV channels on how in UPA II the growth agenda of the government had taken precedence over the pro-poor agenda. However, the media chose not to substantively deal with the question of minimum wages for MGNREGA workers, the root of Roy’s dissatisfaction. So, in one of those rare media interactions the Prime Minister gave on Friday, while the question of the Sonia-Manmohan divide was asked, no one asked why the government had denied the payment of minimum wages even after the Supreme Court refused to stay the Centre’s appeal of the Karnataka High Court judgment.

Interestingly, the institutional character of the NAC has also come under scrutiny. Questions are raised regarding its utility, its lack of accountability and its non-statutory status. Many of these questions were raised even while it was first set up in 2004 and also at its reconstitution in 2010, but it nevertheless remains significant.  While much of the criticism of NAC being a “super Cabinet” is ideological or political, the institutional ambiguity in which it operates cannot be ignored.  Reserving all the criticism solely on NAC for having handpicked unelected outsiders advising and influencing the government (PM’s Economic Advisory Council does the same) or its non-constitutional and non-statutory status (like the Planning Commission) is unfair. What’s more critical is that the Government Order which created NAC placed it squarely under the PMO, but neither the Prime Minister nor any officials from the PMO have any role to play in its functioning. Instead, it is the chairperson of the ruling coalition, who is outside the government, who heads it. The NAC’s existence is predicated on fact that the most powerful person of the ruling party does not have a formal say in government. The institutional issue with NAC is therefore its personality-based functioning that rests uncomfortably in India’s governance framework.

NAC has over the years become less potent and its future looks even bleaker. Resembling the IPL saga that’s currently being played out, there are reports that after Aruna Roy’s resignation, two more members – Mihir Shah and Ashish Mondol – also decided to leave the council. Last year, the terms of three key NAC members – Harsh Mander, Madhav Gadgil and MS Swaminathan – were not renewed by the government after they differed with the government in some of its policies. The development economist Jean Dreze had also resigned earlier after having several run-ins with the government. After all the major actors of the NAC have left, NC Saxena is perhaps the only member left in NAC who has some recognisability and respect among the wider public.

While NAC in its first avatar (between 2004 and 2006) was instrumental in developing some of UPA’s most celebrated legislations like RTI, NREGA and Forest Rights Act, the impact of NAC II has been minimal. Although the reason for its ineffectiveness may be attributed to the government’s resistance in adopting its schemes, its mode of functioning has also been problematic. Its members meet only once a month for a few hours and operate out of a small secretariat, and its policy prescriptions are not always rigorous or coherently argued. The simple fact is that NAC as the government’s in-house think tank/policy-maker has clearly not worked.

The question then remains, what is the kind of legacy which the NAC wants to leave behind? In this context, it becomes important to pay attention to the last communication dated May 28, 2013 which the NAC sent the government – its recommendation on pre-legislative process. The process aims to democratise the process of law-making by creating an institutionalised space for people’s participation in the formulation of legislations. Under this process, the drafts of all new laws and rules have to be put up in the public domain for 90 days for comments, and before that the statements of objects and reasons of a proposed legislation should also be shared for feedback from the people. The NAC itself, according to Aruna Roy, is a type of forum for pre-legislative consultation – and the new recommendations seek to institutionalise public participation in a more robust manner. The need for evolving such a process became essential when the movement for the Lokpal bill asked a fundamental, uncomfortable question – what is the role of the people in framing the laws of the land?

However, NAC’s policy recommendation – that an executive order be issued requiring all ministries to follow the pre-legislative process – has come too late. NAC had decided to evolve a pre-legislative process in June 2011, but its recommendation has come two years later. Due to the uncongenial climate in Parliament, the government has not been able to pass any major legislation including the Food Security Bill. With only 2-3 Parliament sessions to go before the general elections, the government’s effort will be to push in its priority bills and not further delay this by mandating a pre-legislative process. It therefore makes little political and administrative sense to introduce this process before the elections. Else, the introduction of a pre-legislative process would have been the one move that has a lasting impact and made the NAC itself redundant.