Big society in India– my final thoughts
on Jana Gana Mana (India), 01/Apr/2011 12:12, 34 days ago
So what have I learnt? My final reflections on the Indian big society…..and a summary of my thoughts:Historically, India has been a place with a strong social identity and cohesiveness. Themanifestation of this social identity and consciousness appears to be the directly organised and locally driven by NGO activity - rooted from within individuals, families and communities, and as such is embedded into the‘DNA’ of how the society operates and communities act.It seems that the social sector acts as a significant stimulus as well as a provider of public goods and services. This is perhaps because the local state maybe either does not have the resources or is maybe suffering from its overly bureaucratic systems and processes, but certainly unlike the UK there's never really been large scale, welfare focused spending. Consequently, there is an implicit recognition by the public sector of the importance of local NGOs and therefore creates the 'space' for them to operate effectively.India is rapidly developing and changing (although it is said there are 3 Indias.....1- the undeveloped 2- the developing 3- the developed) and, if you'll excuse this sweeping generalisation, despite the evident desire to take the 'Western' approach to development there is a social consciousness that is too deep, too embedded in the spirituality of the people to be squeezed out and I believe it will endure these changes because people wish it so.But getting the right balance between the social, private and public economy is critical - as too much Government leads to a stifling of innovation and a lack of 'space' for the private or social and community sector to flourish......too much/unconstrained commercial/private economy and growth occurs in a haphazard fashion and the benefits of growth aren’t shared.If you believe, like I do, that the state has become too big, impersonal and monolithic, then the concept of the Big Society has surely got to be a good thing. I fully support the idea that co-operatives, voluntary groups and charities can take on a role in the provision of publicly funded services. The problematic part of the agenda is pushing voluntarism when a) it comes at a time of considerable cuts to public services and ironically funding to these voluntary groups has been cut too; and b) Britons already do a respectable amount of volunteering by European standards (and somewhat telling when the Big Society‘Tsar’ – Lord Wei has reduced his time in that role as the Government’s unpaid adviser as he wants to spend more time with his family!The real risk is in one of timing. In the long term, it’ll take at least a generation for the culture shift to become embedded and that’s too long when political expediency is based on a Government term or political cycle. And in the short term, the emphasis on voluntarism makes the BS programme look like an elaborate cover for the cuts – and thatvolunteers are expected to do the work of Government!