The power of a nudge

Including behavioural insights in policymaking is helpful.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 202 institutions around the world are applying behavioural insights to public policy. While most of them are found in the U.S., the U.K., Europe and Australia, some are found in developing countries in West Asia, Africa and Latin America. These institutions partner with behavioural and social scientists and combine psychology, sociology, anthropology, and politics to understand human behaviour to design effective public policies.

Understanding a paradox

Why are governments including behavioural science in policymaking? Over the last few years, it has been observed that even the most well-intentioned public policy programmes fail to be adopted by people who would benefit from them the most. On the contrary, people repeatedly make decisions that serve neither their own interests nor of others. In India, for instance, despite access to toilets, open defecation remains a huge challenge. Finding answers to this paradox is where behavioural frameworks become relevant.

Until recently, it was assumed that individuals make rational choices, and the right incentives determine the “right choices”. But evidence suggests otherwise. People’s choices and decisions are not rational but determined by a far more complex set of psychological, cognitive and behavioural factors. Given their limited attention and computational capacity, people gravitate towards the status quo, which often results in a gap between the policy’s intent and action. It’s therefore not surprising that people discount the risk of stroke and “choose” not to invest in health insurance. Decisions also tend to be clouded because of societal perceptions and adherence to norms — for instance, girls are still married young. Understanding these barriers is leading to recalibration of public policy design. By including ‘nudges’ — small, easy and timely suggestions to influence behaviour — we understand implementation outcomes better.

There are a few aspects that could be considered while applying this science. One, the advantages of deploying these insights can only be reaped if national contexts and differences in socio-economic, cultural and political narratives are appreciated. So, while success stories from across the world showcase the potential of informed behavioural adjustments to policies, these can’t be simply emulated in developing countries. There first needs to be an analysis of social norms. One such effort is cognitive scientist Christine Legare’s work in Bihar, to improve the quality of health-care service delivery by front-line workers. It takes into account popular ‘rituals’, like keeping a baby away from the ground in a cot (palna), or marking decorations around her hearth (chulah), for transmitting messages that are culturally acceptable.

Improving health services

Second, behavioural science can be applied to large-scale programmes. The very nature of the science being imbued in a social and cultural context enables it to generate effective and sustained results to public service programmes. PENN SoNG is collating the analyses of core social motivators for open defecation and related behaviours in Tamil Nadu and Bihar with culturally appropriate social measures to convert toilet usage into a sustained habit.

Third, interventions that are designed using this science can reduce the intent-to-action gap. There is a plethora of tools like defaults, reminders, prompts, and incentives that can reduce poor adherence and increase compliance for sustained impact throughout the life of an intervention — for example, Kilkari, a mobile service by the government that delivers free, weekly and time-appropriate audio messages about pregnancy, childbirth and childcare directly to families’ mobile phones. It focuses on improving uptake of health services.

Lastly, data collected and evaluated from a behavioural insights approach can be used for better management of programme performances. Rigorous evaluation of behaviour is often missed while measuring programme performances, and often this missing data can help explain the limited impact of well-intended government programmes. The impressive work done by the Ministry of Rural Development, on monitoring the implementation of national flagship schemes through DISHA dashboards, can be leveraged for evaluating behavioural change on the ground. While DISHA does not include measures on behaviour, it measures implementation of programmes. It shows how India can benefit from the use of behavioural insights in policy decision-making.

Archna Vyas is country lead, Behaviour Change Communications at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, India. Views are personal

An indefensible ordinance

The triple talaq ordinance is bound to fail the test of judicial scrutiny on several grounds.

An ordinance is a constitutionally sanctioned ad hoc mechanism by which critically urgent situations are met when Parliament or a State Assembly (as the case may be) is not in session and the government cannot afford to wait till it reassembles for fear of things becoming unmanageable if not legislatively redressed immediately.

Last week, the Union Cabinet, on the presumption that direful conditions prevail in the country due to the pervasiveness of instant triple talaq, convinced the President to promulgate the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2018. In the words of Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, the “overpowering urgency and compelling necessity” that gave birth to this ordinance was that talaq-e-biddat continued unabated despite the Supreme Court’s order last year.

The fact is, excluding isolated cases, there is no documentary evidence to show that the incidence of instant triple talaq had reached alarming levels to warrant the hasty promulgation of a presidential ordinance. And as Article 123 of the Constitution requires the President to ensure the existence of circumstances “which render it necessary for him to take immediate action”, the Centre, in the interest of a fair debate, must make public the evidence presented to the President.

Poorly conceived and drafted

Nevertheless, the triple talaq ordinance is so poorly conceived and drafted that it is bound to fail the test of judicial scrutiny on several grounds. First, it could collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions. Section 2 (b) of the ordinance defines talaq-e-biddat as any form of talaq “having the effect of instantaneous and irrevocable divorce” but lays down in Section 3 that such a pronouncement in any form whatsoever “shall be void and illegal”. No explanation is offered as to how the pronouncement can be “void” and have “the effect of instantaneous and irrevocable divorce” at the same time. Besides, Section 4 mandates a three-year imprisonment and fine for this void act, and Section 7 declares it a cognisable and non-bailable offence. This fixation with talaq-e-biddat, even when it does not dissolve the marriage, is baffling.

Second, barring constitutional amendments under Article 368, Parliament is not competent to enact any law which is inconsistent with the fundamental rights enshrined in Part III of the Constitution. Article 13 (2) states: “The State shall not make any law which takes away or abridges the rights conferred by this Part and any law made in contravention of this clause shall, to the extent of the contravention, be void.” Endorsing this, Article 123 (3) warns that if an ordinance “makes any provision which Parliament would not under this Constitution be competent to enact, it shall be void.”

The ordinance, insofar as it arbitrarily curtails the personal liberty of a citizen without his having committed any offence, violates Part III of the Constitution, specifically Article 21 which states: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” It also goes against Article 19 which inter alia allows all citizens “to move freely throughout the territory of India” and “practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.”

Third, the Supreme Court in several cases, including Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) and Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), had made it clear that “law” means reasonable law, not any enacted piece. And a procedure established by it has to be fair, just and reasonable to avoid being struck down as unconstitutional. The ordinance fails on all these counts.

If by criminalising the mere pronouncement of the legally impotent formula talaq-talaq-talaq it violates the principle of substantive due process, the ordinance disregards procedural due process by laying down an iniquitous procedure for the “offender’s” imprisonment, bail, custody of his children and the amount he has to shell out as subsistence allowance to his wife even while serving a jail sentence. The unfairness, injustice and unreasonableness lie in the fact that the ordinance inflicts this torment on a citizen despite acknowledging the voidness of his pronouncement.

Fourth, Article 123 empowers the President to promulgate an ordinance only when urgent situations arise during the recess of Parliament. In the case of triple talaq, no such emergency came to light after the monsoon session ended. In fact, the triple talaq Bill passed in the Lok Sabha was already being debated across the country when the Centre, citing the reason of lack of consensus among parties, decided not to table the amended version of it in the Rajya Sabha during the monsoon session. This indicates that the Bill did not have the approval of the Upper House of Parliament. If despite this an ordinance resembling the untabled Bill has been promulgated, it lends credence to accusations that the legislature was undemocratically circumvented to serve the political interests of the ruling party.

The fact is, it makes no sense to bypass the parliamentary process because Article 123 (2) (a) demands that all ordinances be laid before both Houses of Parliament when Parliament reassembles. In Krishna Kumar Singh v. State of Bihar (2017), the Supreme Court ruled that tabling ordinances in Parliament (or a State Legislature) “is a mandatory constitutional obligation cast upon the government” because ultimately it is the legislature which determines “the need for, validity of and expediency to promulgate an ordinance.” And failure to table an ordinance before the legislature “is an abuse of the constitutional process” and a “serious dereliction of the constitutional obligation.” Therefore, one fails to understand the Union Cabinet’s wisdom in taking the ordinance route without discussing the triple talaq Bill in the Rajya Sabha. If it was due to the fear that the Bill would not have been approved, then the same fear exists for the ordinance because in all probability, the Rajya Sabha will reject it too, and the government would have achieved nothing except criminalising instant triple talaq for a short period of time till the winter session of Parliament starts.

A pointless ordinance

In this context, the Supreme Court’s pronouncement on the re-promulgation of ordinances assumes significance. In Krishna Kumar Singh, criticising the State of Bihar for re-promulgating ordinances without placing them before the legislature, the court declared that “re-promulgation of ordinances is a fraud on the Constitution and a subversion of democratic legislative processes.” The power to promulgate ordinances is subject to legislative control, it said, and does not make the President or the Governor “a parallel source of law making or an independent legislative authority.” As is obvious, the pointlessness and the indefensibility of the triple talaq ordinance stands out from every coign of vantage. One hopes that the President will examine the legal infirmities that the ordinance suffers from and consider withdrawing it at the earliest.

Missed opportunity or ill-timing?

The acrimony over the proposed Foreign Ministers’ meeting has set back India-Pakistan ties

That was quick. A quick cool breeze turning into a scorching slap of hot wind of the desert. We had a rocky start when the routine congratulatory letter by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan calling for constructive engagement was translated as the signal for resumption of dialogue. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) wasted no time to embarrass Pakistan’s Foreign Office for its lack of capacity to understand the diplomatic language. Despite another facepalm over the contents of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s phone call with Mr. Khan, the Pakistan Foreign Office put up a brave face to ease the tension between the U.S. and Pakistan on the eve of Mr. Pompeo’s five-hour visit on September 5.

The pundits in Islamabad saw a prize for the patience. Besides the same ol’, same ol’ statements issued unilaterally from both sides, there was something special discussed on the sideline related to India and Pakistan. While the U.S. insisted on pulling the plug on India and Afghan-centric militants, Pakistan prodded the U.S. to push Delhi for positive engagement and a commitment to act positively should India accede to normalisation and finding mutually acceptable solutions to long-standing problems.

On the heels of the U.S. visit to the region, Mr. Khan sent Mr. Modi a letter, presumably to respond to his congratulatory letter but actually to bring a thaw into the frozen relationship. The letter might not be rich on style but did offer something to both countries. It offered Pakistan a face saver by mentioning Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek, while it offered India the possibility of resumption of trade and the T word. Pakistan was willing to talk about terrorism, Indians have always wanted to talk about it as they have maintained it as the main hindrance in the resumption of the comprehensive dialogue.

Back and forth

On Thursday, September 20, the MEA spokesperson acknowledged the letter from Mr. Khan, requesting a meeting of the two Foreign Ministers, Sushma Swaraj with Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and said a meeting would take place but should not be construed as the resumption of the dialogue process.

The U.S. Department of State wasted no time by welcoming the scheduled meeting in an almost condescending tone. Within 24 hours, the very next day the MEA Spokesman made a U-turn, cancelling the meeting. Had it been just the cancellation, it would have been taken lightly, but the direct accusation against Mr. Khan by naming him created a new crisis.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party now ruling Pakistan, had in the past used very harsh language against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who had contested the 2013 elections on the promise of improving relations with India. “Modi ka yaar gaddar (Modi’s friend is a traitor)” was a theme that ran for almost the entire campaign period against Mr. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the elections this summer. The PTI had accused the PML-N of establishing personal relations with Mr. Modi and doing personal business with him instead of promoting the national interests of Pakistan. The party had hit Mr. Sharif hard for Mr. Modi’s visit to Lahore in December 2015 and had blasted his government on an Indian businessman’s visit to Pakistan in April 2017.

With the controversial elections of July 25 behind him, Mr. Khan turned the corner. His first informal acceptance speech offered the olive branch to India. “If India moves one step, we will move two,” he said.

Islamabad was rife with rumours that he wanted to invite Mr. Modi besides his friends in Bollywood and cricket friends for his oath-taking ceremony on August 18.

Somehow Mr. Khan was prevented from inviting Mr. Modi, but one of his cricket buddies, Navjot Singh Sidhu, did turn up. While his seating arrangement and the japha (bear hug) with the Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, created quite a stir in India, Pakistan government circles were bullish on the offer to open the Kartarpur border crossing for Sikh pilgrims. While The New York Times even suggested that the Pakistani military had tried to reach out to the Indian side to discuss outstanding issues, a story never denied by the military, the very ambiguity created a positive atmosphere before the scheduled meeting between the top diplomats of both countries on September 27.

More fireworks

All that changed on Friday, September 21, with the cancellation of the meeting that almost insulted the Pakistan PM. While the Pakistan Foreign Office and Mr. Qureshi expressed their disappointment, they stayed within the diplomatic ambit and did not attack the Indian side. That changed when Mr. Khan on Saturday, September 22, attacked Mr. Modi without naming him and chiding him as the small man holding a big office. As if that was not enough, the statement by the Indian Army Chief threatening Pakistan and the retaliatory statement by the Pakistan Army spokesperson has made the situation more toxic than the pre-election situation. We expect more fireworks in New York City during the UN General Assembly.

Will the two men in Delhi and Islamabad find a way untangle the relations should Mr. Modi continue to rule after the upcoming elections in India is a question that hangs in the air in both countries now. Politics is the art of the possible, and thankfully both Mr. Modi and Mr. Khan are politicians.

Murtaza Solangi is a broadcast journalist based in Islamabad, and is a former Director General of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation

Language matters: on Amit Shah's 'termite' remark

The BJP should give up its shrill rhetoric on immigration and the NRC

he process of filing claims and objections by persons left out of the draft National Register of Citizens in Assam began on Tuesday, in an atmosphere fraught with uncertainty about the documentation needed and possible recourse for those who may ultimately not clear the final list. In the draft published on July 30, as many as 40 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants found their names missing. It is vital that the state do all it can to create an enabling environment to assist people grappling with paperwork and bureaucracy to assert their claim to being legitimate citizens of India. It is equally important that the government, in Assam and at the Centre, think the future through humanely and practically in regard to those who may remain off the final list. These persons will have many levels of appeal as next resort — but India needs to officially give the assurance that it will not condemn undocumented immigrants, who lack wherewithal and are the most unfortunate victims of poverty and South Asia’s complicated history, to their own devices. This empathy is in keeping with India’s tradition of giving refuge to those who have nowhere to go. It is disturbing that instead, even as the finalisation of the NRC is on, the register is becoming a pretext for political outreach based on xenophobia and demographic messaging. Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is also in power in Assam, are freely recommending NRCs across India, and using the process in Assam to create new fault lines.

This weekend, at a public meeting in Delhi, the BJP president, Amit Shah, rallied the crowd by referring to infiltrators allegedly in the country, claiming they were eating away at India’s future. The comparison he made for this eating away from within was with “deemak” (Hindi for termites). Mr. Shah has, of late, dwelt many times on the need to identify illegal immigrants in the country, whose numbers he says are in crores. This has already drawn a response from Bangladesh, with Minister of Information Hasanul Haq Inu calling Mr. Shah’s comments “unwanted”, and also reiterating Bangladesh’s position that the NRC exercise is India’s internal matter. Mr. Inu has also referred to Delhi’s own communication, including from Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, that the NRC process is India’s internal issue. Beyond the data and diplomacy angles, there must be concern about the language being employed. Analogies to pests that attack a society from within are the staple of dangerous polarising rhetoric. The use of the NRC in electoral rhetoric is even more dangerous. Regrettably, the BJP seems determined to proceed with such mobilisation, knowing full well the damage it will cause to Indian society.

Voters’ choice: on Maldives presidential polls

The Maldives turns the page on pre-election cynicism with a dramatic result

he interim results of Sunday’s presidential election in the Maldives have given the joint opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih a resounding victory in the direct contest with the incumbent, Abdulla Yameen. The final results will be published by the election commission by September 30 and the current government will, according to procedure, hand over charge on November 17. But it is immediately clear that Maldivian voters have ushered in change, with 58% of the voters choosing Mr. Solih. Regardless of political affiliation, Maldivians have much to celebrate with the successful completion of the election. To begin with, the turnout of 89.2% has disproved pre-election cynicism about the integrity of the electoral process. Early on, the opposition had suffered a setback when former President Mohammed Nasheed, who was seen as the frontrunner, was disqualified from contesting because of a “terrorism conviction”. Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was behind bars on the charge of attempting a coup in February this year. Just ahead of the elections too, there had also been many misgivings over the conduct of the election commission, the courts and security forces, with these worries heightened when the headquarters of the main opposition party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, to which Mr. Solih belongs, were raided. Counting procedures were changed at the last minute, which led to some confusion during Sunday’s polling, and many foreign journalists, including from India, were denied visas. Fortunately, the outcome has belied the worst fears about the election, and after meeting with Mr. Solih, President Yameen conceded defeat and vowed to ensure a smooth transition.

For New Delhi, the results are especially heartening as they present a chance to reset ties with Male, which have been on a downward spiral for several years. This was perceived to be a result of Mr. Yameen’s close understanding with China, to which the Maldives is now heavily indebted. Mr. Yameen responded to India’s criticism of the emergency he declared this year by clamping down on visas to Indian job holders, hundreds of whom await some movement in the matter after the new government takes over. India can also now renew talks over the fate of Indian Coast Guard and Air Force personnel stationed in the Maldives, whose visas have been pending since June. India was quick to welcome the provisional results and to congratulate, among others, the Maldivian Democratic Party, and the Jumhooree Party — to which the Vice-President-elect Faisal Naseem belongs. Going forward, New Delhi must stay clear of partisan positioning on the internal politics of the Maldives. The larger agenda must be to partner the Maldives in its stability and development rather than engaging in a tug of war with China.

After Salzburg: on rejection of post-Brexit blueprint

he rejection of Prime Minister Theresa May’s post-Brexit blueprint at the Salzburg summit rules out nothing as yet in Britain’s rocky negotiations on withdrawing from the European Union. All the same, the development is a blow to Ms. May, who faces a possible backlash at the Conservative party conference this month. Her proposal, adopted by the Cabinet in July, has deepened divisions among the Tories. Two senior Eurosceptic ministers have quit. A controversial idea in the July white paper is for a hybrid arrangement, with Britain staying in the common market only for trade in goods and agriculture, and without the obligations of free movement of people. This is at odds with the EU stance of not allowing cherry-picking when it comes to its four basic freedoms — of movement of capital, goods, services, and labour. The other dispute is over the post-Brexit status of the soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Maintaining the status quo is critical to keeping the peace under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday agreement. Brussels seems flexible on its original proposal for full regulatory convergence and jurisdiction of EU courts over Belfast. This is meant to assuage London’s concerns about two separate jurisdictions operating within the U.K. Britain’s alternative proposal to avoid the return of checkpoints on the Irish border and to get around the difficulties of erecting invisible borders is to bring all of the U.K. under a common customs arrangement. Eurosceptics see this as aligning the country too close to the EU and curbing its freedom to negotiate trade deals outside the bloc. For Brussels, it would still amount to an unacceptable division of the EU’s four freedoms.

European Council President Donald Tusk’s remarks in Salzburg that the July proposals were not workable amplified these concerns. They drew angry reactions from Ms. May, who harked back to the mantra that a no-deal was better than a bad deal. But then, discrepancies in the opposing positions go back to the 2016 referendum outcome. Brussels had said then that while it regretted the verdict, it respected London’s decision to leave. It stuck firm on established procedure and stressed that withdrawal negotiations could not commence until Article 50 of the EU treaty was triggered. It emphasised that exit from the bloc would involve costs for Britain, just as the benefits of membership entailed obligations. This accent on process could harden in the wake of the populist threat across the region to the European project. With elections to the European Parliament due next May, the leaders are keen that the anti-EU parties see the economic and political perils of quitting the bloc. Brexit uncertainty will linger, meanwhile.

Celestial misfit

We should accept Pluto as a dwarf planet, though an exceptional one

fter years of arguing over whether Pluto is a planet, in 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to remove Pluto’s planetary status. Now some researchers are challenging this decision, citing the manner in which scientific tradition has dealt with the taxonomy of planets. The IAU, in 2006, designated Pluto a ‘dwarf planet’ along with Ceres in the asteroid belt and Xena, an object in the Kuiper belt, which is an icy ring of frozen objects that circle the solar system beyond Neptune’s orbit. It was a bid to overcome sentiment and go by scientific rationale. The meeting defined three conditions for a celestial object to be called a planet: one, it must orbit the Sun; two, it should be massive enough to acquire an approximately spherical shape; three, it has to ‘clear its orbit’, that is, be the object that exerts the maximum gravitational pull within its orbit. Owing to this third property, if an object ventures close to a planet’s orbit, it will either collide with it and be accreted, or be ejected out. However, Pluto is affected by Neptune’s gravity. It also shares its orbit with the frozen objects in the Kuiper belt. Based on this, the IAU deemed that Pluto did not ‘clear its orbit’. Dwarf planets, on the other hand, need only satisfy the first two conditions.

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For the love of Pluto

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This rationale has been questioned by Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist who has worked with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and others who have studied the history of classifying planets and come up with several exceptions to the third rule. In a paper published in the journal Icarus, they point out that the only work in history that used this rule to classify planets was an article by William Herschel in 1802. They also argue that this work was based on reasoning and observations that have since been disproved. However, the last argument does not build up a strong enough case to give up what is, in fact, a sensible rule. Physics has many examples where an idea was once discarded for being incorrect, and much later emerged in a different form and gained acceptance — the concept of photons, for instance. And then again, if Pluto were to be re-designated a planet, many more complications would arise. For one thing, Charon, Pluto’s moon, is much too large to be called a satellite. Judging by this, the Charon-Pluto system should then rightly be called a binary planet system. This would then lead to classifying several other sets of bodies as binary planets. Recent research shows that both the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud, a shell of objects that surrounds the entire solar system far beyond the Kuiper belt, contain objects that can then be called planets, thereby complicating the issue. Denying planetary status to Pluto is then nothing less than a sweep of Occam’s razor, and Pluto remains a dwarf planet, albeit an exceptional one.