BEYOND THE STATUTORY LAW…RETHINKING ON CAPABILITY LINES

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”

The celebration of Labor Day on 1^st May has become a perennial pedantically pose rather than actualizing or furthering rationale behind commemorating the same. While we are shifting from real to virtual forms in various sectors, there still persists a vast number of people in our country, engaged in both formal and informal sectors being subjugated to severe exploitation. While the government has been active in addressing this over-exploitation through the institution of statutes and codes, for example, the New Labor Codes, addressing the rift between the increasing informal sector disguised under the cumbersome contracts of the conglomerates, the plight of the labour persists. Indeed, it is the statue that would garner the sanction, however, along with this, the government needs to ensure the empowerment of labor such that they are not only safeguarded but are also capable of ensuring the implementation of these safeguards. Amartya Sen’s Equality for What? discussions over the course of the Tanner Lectures strive to reason against this staggering inequality in spite of welfare policies. Ashok Acharya and Rajeev Bhargava, in their work Political Theory, written for  novice political science students, explain this by referring to Sen’s bicycle example, how could one ride a bicycle, even when it is available, in absence of the very road.

The Statute-Implementation Divide

India has a mammoth section of unorganized labor that carries both the formal and the informal economy of this country on its shoulders. While we can point to the disparity faced by the unorganized sector in the workforce, we cannot ignore their passive suppression due to the lack of infrastructure and social structure. Merely drafting welfare policies and trying to implement them in the formal workforce cannot ensure their equal participation without the government making the milieu conducive to such participation. Though we have the laws, their implementation remains largely challenged due to procedural hindrances acting as deterrents. The cumbersome adjudication is one such deterrent that hinders the workforce from actualizing its rights. Further, the lack of accessibility to government policies also hinders them. Therefore, it is not just the laws that the government needs to focus on, it must also reckon with their implementational challenges.

Dignity, Gender, and the ILO Mandate

The International Labor Organization has chosen “Ensuring a Healthy Psychosocial Working Environment" as this year’s Labour Day theme. Dignity and rights form two of its formidable tenets. To actualise this, we need to begin with discussions on non-inclusive and gender-dominated work environments, particularly in the informal sector. The informal sector contributes a significant share to the Indian economy. However, ironically, it is the unorganized workforce that remains the most ignored and bereft of welfare and social policies aimed at benefitting it. Further, it is the women who are doubly marred due to this non-inclusion, as they not only face economic subjugation but also social subjugation at the hands of their male counterparts. While we discuss dignity, rights and stress-free environment, these cannot be achieved without a holistic and inclusive work environment. This inclusivity, however, cannot be ensured without empowering the underrepresented.

State Initiatives and Civil Society: Closing the Capability Gap

The Indian Government along with the Constitutional and other statutory provisions, focuses on policies for ensuring such representation. The Skill India Mission and the National Skill Development Corporation seek to enhance employability through vocational training, reskilling and industry-oriented education, particularly for youth and workers in the informal sector. Similarly, the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) focuses on certifying and training workers in diverse sectors, thereby enabling economic participation with dignity. Further, the government’s push for e-governance and digitalization is another active step towards reaching the targeted section of workforce. For example, the e-Shram Portal introduced by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, attempts to create a national database for unorganised workers, enabling access to welfare schemes, insurance, and social security benefits.  However, due to a gap in advocacy and knowledge about access to these policies there still remains a wide gap between the potential and actual beneficiaries. One way to address this is through the proper utilisation of civil societies working in the country.

Civil society has been a strong pillar supporting the government in aiding and augmenting its policies and purposes. The Spark Collective, one such the civil society organisation, is a commendable initiative that’s engages in empowering women by building their capabilities. Organizations such as Self-Employed Women's Association, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan and PRADAN have persistently worked towards empowering informal workers, women labourers and rural communities through awareness, collectivisation and skill-building initiatives. Internationally, bodies such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) also continue to advocate for dignified and inclusive labour conditions. These organizations strive to bridge the gulf between statutory promises and lived realities by creating the very social and institutional milieu necessary for labour to actualise its rights and capabilities. Indeed, what Sen writes is from the people-government narrative. However, the State and the civil society go pari passu in the contemporary era, therefore, the policies being advocated by the government can be more beneficial when they are widely disseminated. Civil society can be of essential help due to its temporal and spatial accessibility, thus, providing the government with an established institutional framework for the timely dissemination of information.

Conclusion

Governance need not become governmentality, and for that, the government needs to ensure that intended benefits reach the targeted beneficiaries. This can be achieved only when all sections of society, including the formal and the informal sectors, work in concordance towards ensuring capability along with boosting capacity.