Where a Citizen Can Actually Interrupt a Law

In 2014 the Government of India adopted a pre-legislative consultation policy: before a bill is introduced, the draft and an explanatory note should be published for at least thirty days so the public can comment. Compliance has been uneven and the policy is regularly criticised for that. But the window exists, and almost nobody uses it.

That is a strange thing for a democracy of this size, and it is an opportunity for anyone willing to read carefully - including a student.

The stages, briefly

A bill is drafted inside a ministry, sometimes after a committee or commission has recommended it. It may then be published for consultation. It is introduced in Parliament and given a first reading. It may be referred to a standing or select committee, which examines it in detail and can take evidence. It returns for debate, clause-by-clause consideration and voting, goes to the other House, and finally to the President for assent.

Most public attention lands on the debate, which is the most visible stage and the one where least changes. The two stages where an outsider can actually affect the text are the consultation window and the committee.

What a useful submission looks like

Ministries receive a great many submissions saying that a bill is good, or that it is terrible. Those are easy to set aside. What is hard to set aside is a comment on a specific clause, proposing specific replacement language, with a reason.

• Cite the clause number. This alone puts you ahead of most submissions.

• Say what the clause will do in practice, to whom, and how you know.

• Offer replacement wording. A criticism with no alternative is a complaint.

• Keep it to two pages. Length is not seriousness.

Reading the draft properly is its own skill, and we have set out a method in how to read a government document without being intimidated.

Expectations, set honestly

A student submission is unlikely to change a bill. Most submissions from anyone do not. What it reliably does is force a level of precision that no school assignment demands, produce a document that exists in public, and give the student a permanently different relationship to the phrase the government should do something.

Our participants are asked to make a submission on a live consultation as part of the programme. It is about as close to real participation as is available to someone who is sixteen, and the door was open the whole time.

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This is part of Model NITI Aayog, alongside the white paper every participant publishes.