| Accountability for Commons (clinical course)

Shared ownership, management and governance of commons gives people in general, and affected communities in particular, an opportunity to address the interconnected challenges of environmental degradation, social and economic inequalities and assertion of identities. Here it is important to bear in mind, that in addition to natural resources such as air, water and land, the scope of commons also includes cultural traditions and mores, mineral resources, digital commons, urban commons, information and so much more.

Various attempts have been made in the past to strengthen peoples’ claims over commons and secure their institutionalized democratic participation in decision making around the management and use of commons. This has taken the form of sustained movements, campaigns, progressive judgements, legislations and academic work. This has taken the form of a plethora of rules, laws, institutions set up to govern the management of commons, including an articulation of the role of the State for implementing Article 39 of the Indian Constitution. However, there is still plenty to be achieved. The intersections between the state, market and society that surfaces when the contestations over commons arises; the increasingly unchecked eminent domain status of the State; multiplicity and contradictions of norms and standards governing the legal framework of the commons are just some of the challenges that we need to address in our continuing pursuit to strengthen peoples’ rights over the ”material resources of the community” so that they are “distributed as best to subserve the common good” and ensure accountability of the governance structure of commons back to the very people it exists for.

Despite clear laws that secure peoples’ rights over a host of common resources such as Forest Rights Act (forests); National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (common lands), Right to Information Act (information); Mines and Minerals Act (mineral resources); Environment Protection Act etc the ground level machinery to uphold the accountability of officials and public representatives towards the public is heavily compromised. Efforts to expand open access to information and its use; mechanisms to reinforce transparency, social accountability and monitoring of program implementation at the local level by the public are required to ensure that government and private sector actors are held accountable to their mandate. Greater efforts are required to increase compliance with existing laws and rights governing the Commons, as well as the enable meaningful representation of women in decision-making. This includes community led efforts to increase local media engagement for creating attention on issues of Commons, including raising issues of encroachment by large-scale commercial enterprises and unsustainable harvesting of forest produce, often with the support or collusion of local officials. It also entails leveraging social accountability mechanisms within village and Gram Panchayat institutions, to further enhance public scrutiny of public investment choices, and to ensure that these benefit the groups most in need.