ABSTRACT

With the nation-wide lockdown announced on 24 March 2020, India came to a standstill. Despite substantial constraints, multiple initiatives by civil society actors in providing the much needed relief and assistance to vulnerable populations during the lockdown have emerged. Considering lockdown as a wicked policy problem, we examine the roles and strategies of two civil society actors in opening up policy spaces. Our focus is on the two most livelihood-intensive sectors of the economy (i.e. agriculture and forestry) during the first two phases of lockdown in India. The first case highlights the use of judiciary to reframe the problem for agriculture in the lockdown policy implementation at the national level. And, the second case shows change in policy implementation at the regional level, again using problem reframing for the well-being of forest-dependent communities using advocacy with policy-makers and sustained social media activities. Building on the two cases, we argue for the crucial role played by the larger civil society actors in bringing the issues of marginalized communities to the policy agenda by opening up diverse policy spaces, and thus contributing to the changes in policy implementation under unprecedented uncertainty during the lockdown in India.

摘要

随着 2020 年 3 月 24 日宣布全国封锁，印度陷入停顿。尽管存在重大限制，但民间社会行动者在封锁期间为弱势群体提供急需的救济和援助的多项举措已经出现。考虑到封锁是一个邪恶的政策问题，我们研究了两个民间社会参与者在开放政策空间中的作用和策略。在印度封锁的前两个阶段，我们的重点是两个生计最密集的经济部门（即农业和林业）。第一个案例强调了在国家层面实施封锁政策时，利用司法重新界定农业问题。并且，第二个案例显示了区域层面政策实施的变化，再次利用问题重新构建以森林为生的社区的福祉，利用政策制定者的宣传和持续的社交媒体活动。在这两个案例的基础上，我们主张更大的公民社会参与者通过开放不同的政策空间，将边缘化社区的问题纳入政策议程，从而在前所未有的不确定性下促成政策实施的变化。印度的封锁。