Foot‐march: Large‐scale mobilization for a public cause or a tool for fanning political ambition

• Date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Ankur Sarin,Astha Agarwalla,Ishu Gupta
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1895
• Published date: 01 May 2020

PRACTITIONER PAPER

Foot‐march: Large‐scale mobilization for a public cause or a

tool for fanning political ambition

Astha Agarwalla

1

|Ishu Gupta

2

|Ankur Sarin

2

1

Economics and Public Policy Area, Adani

Institute of Infrastructure Management,

Ahmedabad, India

2

Public Systems Group, Indian Institute of

Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India

Correspondence

Astha Agarwalla, Assistant Professor, Adani

Institute of Infrastructure Management, Adani

Shantigram, SG Highway, Ahmedabad

382421, India.

Email: asthagovil@gmail.com

We present the case of an awareness campaign, strategically crafted by a local stu-

dent political leader, based on a national level policy for urban poor and marginalized,

in the city of Ahmedabad in India. The campaign, designed in the form of a foot‐

march, was aimed at mobilizing the urban poor, but with a clear ambition of gaining

visibility for political mileage. This study reinforces that the mediation role taken up

by local leaders transcends the traditional policymaking, in democracies with blurred

boundaries between the state and citizens. Further, in local governance structures,

with weak participatory spaces for the poor, foot‐marches have the potential to

become an extended invited participatory space.

1|INTRODUCTION

We document an experience from the largest democracy in the world,

that is, India, where an ambitious, young student political leader takes

it upon him to disseminate information about a policy specially

designed for children belonging to economically weaker section and

disadvantaged group, in the city of Ahmedabad. In an attempt to reach

out to maximum beneficiaries and also gain as much visibility as possi-

ble, he chooses a unique communication strategy, namely, the pad‐

yatra (foot‐march). The objective of the campaign was to generate

awareness about the policy and help with implementation by voluntar-

ily creating information channels and complementing the official gov-

ernment channels. Local student leaders from colleges and

universities were involved as volunteers. It provided them with an

opportunity to work on national policy and gain visibility in their

respective areas. As the policy is meant for all children in school‐going

age group from poor and marginalized families, the intended beneficia-

ries were large in number and widespread in the city. This increased

the chances of gaining visibility among the masses.

Ours is a humble attempt to showcase how the choice of commu-

nication strategy by local small‐time political leaders hinges upon the

often‐unrevealed political ambition. Further, in a democratic setup,

where the state has limited capacity to serve the citizens, mediation

roles taken up by local political leaders become important for actual

implementation of policy.

The study is based on fieldwork conducted between November

2015 and March 2016, when the foot‐march took place on December

26 to 28, 2015, in Ahmedabad. The analysis is based on information

gathered by interviewing the protagonist, a local municipal councilor,

in the city of Ahmedabad, who was also a senior position holder in

one of most active national level student unions. Because the authors

were already involved in an initiative and were working on generating

awareness about the same policy, we got actively involved in design-

ing the material to be distributed for awareness generation through

the campaign.

We suggest that the foot‐march was successful as a tool for

effective intermediation in the policy process by the local leader, espe-

cially in the absence of a specifically designated role for them in the

policymaking. We also recommend that foot‐marches have the poten-

tial to become a successful tool for mass mobilization, as they provide

an extended invited participatory space for the urban poor.

The next section discusses the history of foot‐marches as a dem-

ocratic communication tool in India. Section 3 sets up the context for

the study, with details regarding local governance and primary educa-

tion in the city of Ahmedabad. Details about the Right to Education

Act and specific provisions therein are discussed in Section 4, describ-

ing the need for generating awareness regarding the act. Section 5

provides details of the foot‐march. Section 6 discusses the effective-

ness of the strategy. Section 7 concludes.

2|FOOT‐MARCHES AS A DEMOCRATIC

COMMUNICATION TOOL IN INDIA

Foot‐marches have a long history to be employed as a tool to mobilize

masses in India. Many national political leaders used foot‐marches to

Received: 15 November 2018 Accepted: 16 November 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1895

J Public Affairs. 2019;e1895.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1895

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of6

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https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1895