From telegrams to WhatsApp — how people’s ways of engaging with legislation have evolved

Today, political theorists would coin the act of soliciting and responding to feedback an act of building procedural trust in an institution. Procedural trust is the faith that arises in an institution which is believed to have followed due process fairly, irrespective of whether the outcome of the process is in one’s favour. The sense of ownership of the Constitution which this simple act of engagement yielded, lent legitimacy to the Constituent Assembly and yielded a comprehensive governing document for India.

India’s rich history of public participation hasn’t ended with the Constituent Assembly debates. In the last fiscal year alone, 280+ laws, policies and regulations have been opened up for public comment, under India’s Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy. This 2014 policy encourages government bodies to publish draft legislation for public comment for a period of 30 days before finalisation. On February 1, 2023, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech underscored the importance of such public consultation, especially for regulators, in achieving India’s vision of Amrit Kaal.

Akin to the letters submitted to the Constituent Assembly, suggestions on draft laws also often tend to incorporate a mix of practical suggestions and aspirations of those responding — with many making their way into the final regulation or legislation. The Securities and Exchange Board of India, for example, incorporated 72 per cent of feedback provided by stakeholders into revised notifications for green and blue bonds (financial instruments which enable sustainable finance in the country). The culture of engagement is not new. However, the ways through which we engage have evolved considerably.

Today, we can submit our suggestions on draft laws and policies through tools like WhatsApp, email, web platforms like MyGov and postal submissions. On the recently concluded One Nation One Election consultation, of the 21,558 responses received, 75 per cent came through email, 24 per cent through a web form and 0.7 per cent by post.

In recent months, Civis, a non-profit organisation working in the domain of public consultation, found that 98 per cent of citizens’ input on a recent consultation came through WhatsApp. These tools considerably ease the burdens of civic participation placed upon the individual. Gone are the days when a self-addressed and stamped envelope sent to the Constituent Assembly was the jugaad used to ensure a reply.

In countries like the United States of America, tools are being developed for voice-based feedback collection from group discussions and town halls. With engaging visualisations, Cortico, a non-profit established in cooperation with MIT’s Laboratory for Social Machines, aims to inform better decision-making and policy outcomes by understanding and surfacing communities’ life experiences. Using AI, the Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, a product of the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University, is developing automated moderators for group discussions, allowing for equitable discussions on a number of key issues.

With the evolving nature of deliberation on civic and social issues in the country, opportunities arise to make these processes equitable — and to reach those who were often left out of the discourse even at the time of the Constituent Assembly’s debates. The use of phone calls, interactive voice response and chat-based apps will perhaps be the new frontier of engagement in India.

With a strong foundation of deliberation and the technological opportunities to expand the horizons of participation — on India’s 75th Constitution Day, a vibrant picture emerges of how these tools can bring to the fore a growing culture of engagement.

The writer is the founder of Civis, an Ashoka Fellow and part of Forbes’ Asia 30 Under 30 class of 2021