It has been clear for many years now that one of India’s great weaknesses has been the inability to produce a large number of strong independent institutions that can question public policies rigorously, craft alternative policies and new ideas, intervene meaningfully in public debates, and nurture the human capital needed to play such a role. This has been confirmed by an independent global survey of think tanks which also surveyed more than 200 Indian think tanks and found none good enough to be ranked amongst the top 30 in the world. While there are obvious methodological flaws with the survey, it is a good indicator of the pathetic state of public policy debate in the country, which was evident even during the fierce, if polarised and superficial discussion, on the Lokpal Bill. The irony is that in terms of numbers, India, with its 292 think tanks, ranks behind only the United States (1815 think tanks) and China (425 think tanks), but these organisations do not measure very high in terms of quality. The danger is that in the absence of quality, homegrown, autonomous institutions, we may soon have a mushrooming of organisations, which are franchisees of think tanks based, for instance, in North America or Europe. Already, we have the Carnegie Endowment, Brookings, RAND and other powerful think tanks beginning to make overtures and are seeking ‘junior’ partners in India to establish their presence.
For five years now the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Programs has produced its ‘Global Go To’ Think Tank Rankings. While critics have identified many errors in the survey, the program’s list remain the ‘first and most comprehensive ranking of the world’s top think tanks, and are based on an annual global peer and expert survey of close to 1,500 scholars, policymakers, journalists, and regional and subject area experts’. Only one Indian think tank, whose work I am not familiar with, the Delhi-based Centre for Civil Society (founded by Parth Shah) ranks among the top 50 non-US think tanks. Predictably, the list is dominated by the US and Western Europe, with the Washington-based Brookings Institution ranked first followed by the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). But there are Chinese, Russian and even a Kenyan think tank listed in the top 50.
However, India performs relatively better in the survey of Asia’s top 30 think tanks. The Pratap Bhanu Mehta-led Centre for Policy Research (CPR) is ranked fourth, Isher Judge Alhuwalia’s Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) is at 15th, Rajendra Pachauri’s The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is at 17th, Centre for Civil Society is ranked at 18th (an obvious error given its global ranking) and the Arvind Gupta-led Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) is ranked at 24th in Asia.
In determining the ranking of think tanks, the survey evaluated the organisation in terms of a number of indicators. These included: Direct relationship between organisation’s efforts in a particular area to a positive change in policy; publication of the organisation’s work by peer reviewed journals, books and other authoritative publications; ability to retain elite scholars and analysts; access to elites in the area of policymaking, media and academia; level of organisation’s financial resources; overall output of organisation (policy proposals, publications, interviews, conferences, staff nominated to official posts; number of recommendations to policymakers, staff serving advisory roles to policymakers, awards given to scholars; organisation’s ability to produce new knowledge or alternative ideas on policy; ability to bridge the gap between the academic and policymaking communities; ability to bridge the gap between policymakers and the public; ability to include new voices in the policymaking process; ability of organisation to be inscribed within issue and policy networks, and; success in challenging the traditional wisdom of policymakers and in generating innovative policy ideas and programmes.
Even without the survey, it is even intuitively obvious that there are very few think tanks in India that would rank high in terms of any of the above indicators.
What are the reasons for the inability of Indian think tanks to really make a global or indeed a national impact? There are clearly three factors that seem to have played a role. The first and important reason is funding. Few think tanks in India have a strong funding base, and even fewer have a corpus that can meet their regular operational requirements. Apart from IDSA (if we consider the list above), which has the luxury of being funded by the Ministry of Defence, CPR, ICRIER and TERI rely principally on project funding, even as they may be building a corpus. This means that most faculty appointments are usually short-term, priorities can often reflect the agenda of funders and there is a constant pressure to raise funds. A ‘guesstimate’ would suggest that 50 per cent of all project funding to India’s top think tanks would come from foreign sources including international foundations.
In addition, despite the mushrooming of Indian thank tanks, the government is still suspicious of truly independent think tanks. There are a larger number of instruments, some blunt others insidious, through which various agencies of the government like to exercise control over organisations and the work they produce. Even now, for instance, think tanks cannot invite foreign scholars from the neighbourhood without getting clearances from various ministries of the government and receiving foreign funding too requires multiple permissions from agencies that view external support as deeply suspicious and frown upon research funded by foreign sources.
There is and has been a leadership problem with most think tanks in India. Idealistic founders often become feudal patrons who view think tanks as their fiefdoms and are unwilling to relinquish control. This inevitably chokes talent and prevents better governance within the organisation.
What is the way out? While this may seem like a quick fix, it may be time for the Manmohan Singh government to consider creating four new think tanks with a corpus of one thousand crore each in the areas of economics, security, politics and governance and social change. These new think tanks should have the freedom to hire the best global talent to work on critical areas of policy without being constrained by government interference or lack of funding. Serious think tanks are needed not just to generate a more informed public, but are essential if India is seeking to influence the world outside its borders.
(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own)
Amitabh Mattoo is director, Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne and professor at JNU.
E-mail: amitabh.mattoo@gmail.com