Theorising change in India

I've been thinking to see if I can put together thoughts about how change could come about in India.There is a phrase that's become quite popular : 'theory of change'. So this is about theorising change in India.  

A series of articles I read recently on sand mining in Tamil Nadu offers an initial peg for exploring this. The first part of the three part article series is here, with links to the others:

http://scroll.in/article/815138/tamil-nadus-political-parties-are-making-money-from-sand-worth-a-whopping-rs-20000-crore-a-year


It explores the destructive practice of 'mining' of sand from river beds that is then used for construction. Sand mining is very bad for the groundwater, as the sand acts as a sponge to hold the river water and allow it to percolate into the ground. In the absence of sand this doesn't happen.

Observations:

Firstly the entire practice is driven by the huge amount of construction going on in TN and the rest of India. In the absence of sources elsewhere, the markets somehow find a way to access river sand. So the core push for illegal sand mining comes from economic development.

The third article does a useful analysis on how different organs of society have failed to address this practice. The political system is directly collusive in this practice, partly fuelled by the need for big money to finance election campaigns. Citizens have not been able to come together and oppose it, the courts have not been effective, and media has not gone beyond a point in investigating this. This is a useful lens in general to explore the functioning of society - these (markets, political system the citizens themselves, the judiciary) are key parts of society and how well they are functioning individually and collectively tells us about how society as a whole is doing.

Looking at the discussion there regarding the role of the media some points stand out. Important media channels are controlled by political parties. While you can understand that the media controlled by the ruling party will not do much, the article is less clear on why the opposition-controlled media doesn't either. Possibly because none of the parties want to kill the golden goose of sand mining. There is also a fairly rich independent media but mostly controlled by large corporate groups which don't have an incentive to go strongly after the government.  The Hindu stands out as as exception that has enough muscle to buck the trend but hasn't. However that fits into a pattern, for all its strengths, the Hindu has regrettably never had the guts to do really hard-hitting oppositional journalism.

A difficulty in this issue is the problem of 'attribution'. The connection between sand mining in a river bed and the reduction in groundwater levels in the areas around is not so clear-cut and intuitive. Further,  overextraction of water from bore wells is already leading to falling levels of groundwater and separating this and other effects from that due to sand mining is not so easy. So the public isn't as concerned about sand mining as it might otherwise be. 

So what might we say then in terms of how to create change? 
I don't have very promising ideas but here are some thoughts:

A background context to the entire dysfunctionality is the power of money and the threat of violence. These combine to prevent corrective action from taking place. In my mind, most analyses finally come down to money and the hold it has on the current human, and Indian mind. At a deep, root-cause-analysis level then, one has to address what people are willing to do, and not do, in the quest for money.

In general there is dysfunctionality in all the institutions and society at large, as described above. The final end state we want to arrive at is healthy institutions and a healthy society. Working on particular problems like sand mining should be done keeping this broader context and goal in mind. In this case the dysfunctionality of media seems to be the proximate solution most amenable to improvement. Putting a better environment for media like separation of political parties from media and preventing media businesses from being a part of larger corporate groups are some immediate ideas. More serious study should certainly be able to come up with good practical solutions for a more useful watchdog media. 

An angle that occurred to me is the Cauvery dispute. Practices like sand mining are irresponsible in terms of water conservation. Therefore they weaken the case of the Tamil Nadu government in arguing water scarcity. The courts and tribunals dealing with the matter could bring water conservation into the ambit of the argument. They could say that the quantum of water you get is partly determined by how conscientious you are in general about conserving water. After all, if you are profligate with whatever water you have, why should hotly contested waters be allocated to you ? Such an approach could well have enough impact that it could overcome the formidable political economy of sand mining in Tamil Nadu. Needless to say , it is not as if TN is the villain of the piece, there would also be wasteful practices that are being followed in Karnataka which that state should be held accountable for.

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PS: Back from a good trip to Timbuktu and leaving immediately to Priya's mother's place in Tamil Nadu.