•How do you change this “executive” mindset of politicians? Can you give an example of how inputs from your NGO has worked on the ground?

Well, take one MP we work with — Dharmendra Pradan. He represents a mining area in Orissa, and its been a mining area for the last 90 years — so the biggest political issue there has always been displacement and rehabilitiation. And typically, politicians have only focussed on giving compensation — either agititation on behalf of the displaced, or accepting money from mine-owners. Traditional politics was very small-minded. But after we worked with Pradhan, both of us are able to see that the real problem, the policy issue, was that the displaced constituents in his area simply did not have the skills or the enabling mechanisms to benefit from industrialisation. His current focus is on ensuring that opportunities for skill enhancement are made available to a large number of rural youth. We have worked with many other MPs, but don’t want to mention their names. But our inputs involve facilitating a mind-set change from fire-fighting to policy making.

•When you talk about the smallness of the ambitions of our politicians, part of the problem is that voters reward this smallness. How do you plan to change this?

The key change required is the kind of communication between constituents and their elected representatives. Voters pass verdicts once in five years, and in the absence of any mechanism for systematic guidance from the electorate in between the elections, several political leaders just move from one election to another with no clear sense of priorities for development and their role in it. Change has to begin somewhere. For instance, we are currently working with a coastal MP and educating him about the policy implications of coastal politics; we have created focus groups of fisherfolk to meet with him repeatedly. He now understoods that there exists global research on how to deal with coastal issues. He will soon be completely clued into the needs of his most important constituents — fisherfolk. We are providing him with a communication channel that is independent of party workers and bureaucrats. Hopefully, voters will reward this.

... contd.