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A new National Advisory Council could help the government if it is a pressure group for reform....

In its first outing,everybody knew what the National Advisory Council was supposed to do. The United Progressive Alliance relied on support from the Left; that support was supposedly conditional on the implementation of the Common Minimum Programme; and,since the CMP was a political compromise,a political group outside government to monitor its implementation seemed a straightforward idea. So the NACs mandate then was clear. But this time its the government that got a mandate. What,then,are we to make of news that the NAC is back? Sonia Gandhi has once again been appointed its chairperson,and its other members will reportedly be named shortly.

A re-formed NAC,one without a clear mandate,will have quite a tightrope to walk. On the one hand,India cannot afford that it become a cosy talking shop for those who feel that their leadership of what they would choose to call civil society somehow entitles them to have more of a say in policy formation than anyone else including

the elected representatives of the people. Where,after all,is the guarantee that a clubby insiders-only group will not start reflecting the reflexively statist views of the anti-reform group that exists within the Congress party? On the other hand,a group that works on the political calculations required to ease the passage of important legislation to which the ruling coalition is already committed the food security act,the nuclear liability bill is something that is clearly missing. And if it can also gauge which reformist steps would both super-size Indias growth while including in the process more and more of our citizens and be politically implementable,especially by creating a non-partisan consensus on the subject,then that too is needed.

So the NAC must,of course,advise on policy. But its composition will be crucial. An officially-sanctioned pressure group for the party is one thing; a group of experts that can figure out pragmatic steps forward for reform,and begin the process of bringing on board non-UPA parties to make the legislation happen,is something quite different. It cannot,therefore,be a group composed purely of social-sector do-gooders or,for that matter,of apolitical technocrats. We will have to watch carefully as the new members of the council are appointed; for in those announcements the governments commitment to reform,and the scale of its ambitions for the remainder of its term,will both be made clear.