GDP growth a 'vacuous measure' of equity, argues IIM-A expert in podcast on civic space - 2

By Rajiv Shah  

In a thought-provoking dialogue on the UnMute Podcast (Part 2), hosts Gagan Sethi and Minar Pimple engaged Professor Navdeep Mathur in a deep examination of the tensions reshaping India’s democracy and civic space. The conversation challenged prevailing narratives on economic growth, dissected the evolving role of civil society, and explored tools for active citizenship in an increasingly complex landscape.

Gagan Sethi is a development practitioner with over 40 years of experience in organisational development, policy advocacy, and minority rights. Minar Pimple is the founder of YUVA (Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action), and has served as a senior director at Amnesty International, Regional Director for Asia Pacific at the UN Millennium Campaign, and founding chair of Oxfam India. 

Their guest, Prof. Navdeep Mathur, is an Associate Professor in the Public Systems Group at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, whose work focuses on public policy and civic spaces.

Addressing claims of poverty reduction amid high GDP growth, Prof. Mathur offered a sharp critique. “I find it a completely vacuous argument,” he stated, questioning the measures used to declare millions out of poverty. He highlighted the “sheer skew in the distribution of that growth,” pointing to missing data and the failure of metrics to capture environmental degradation and the brunt of the climate crisis borne by the poor. “A lot of the data is constructed on grounds that are performative in nature,” he argued, reducing poverty to a basic calorific line while ignoring widening inequalities.

The discussion turned to the foundational principles of civil society, which Prof. Mathur described as a tripod resting on service delivery, innovation, and protest. “The shift now is more toward delivery of services and less on asking the good questions,” he observed, noting a concerning tilt away from protest and accountability. 

This shift, he suggested, is exacerbated by restrictive definitions of citizenship tied to rising nationalist projects in India, the US, and elsewhere. “Citizenship of course is very restrictive because now it’s defined entirely by state jurisdiction… it’s becoming a question again who is a citizen,” he said, linking this to a coercive state that moves away from public service delivery.

On the global wave of protests, including those concerning Gaza, Prof. Mathur saw a telling barometer for civic health. The variation in state responses, from municipal resolutions for ceasefire to violent crackdowns, reveals “what kind of room there is worldwide.” 

He refrained from justifying violent civic action but provided critical context: “Violent movements don’t erupt from nowhere… when writing is banned, poetry is banned, art is banned… that’s a very good way to understand why there will be social violence.” He connected this to corporate complicity, noting that multinational corporations often operate within and tacitly support authoritarian structures that ensure profitable, low-standard working conditions.

The conversation critically assessed spaces for citizenship formation, particularly universities. Prof. Mathur noted that professional campuses like business schools are often politically disengaged, with ethics relegated to a vague, peripheral part of the curriculum. “Out of 800 or 900 sessions that students do, 10 are devoted to ethics… they are not central.” 

While social entrepreneurship emerges, he questioned its depth: “Does it contribute to democratic citizenship?... It’s privileging market forces.” He placed hope, however, in the lived experience of young people across society who, accessing information and driven by an innate sense of justice, are questioning and offering solidarity in innovative ways. “I see young people from a whole cross-section of society seriously questioning.”

Introducing a key tool for civil society, Prof. Mathur explained discursive and interpretive policy analysis as a means to “critically examine policy as a process that is imbued with power and values.” Unlike conventional analysis that accepts structures as given, this approach asks what kind of society a policy envisages and promotes. 

Using the example of digitizing Anganwadi services, he illustrated: “Is that actually helping them function better or is that shifting power to other actors who control technology and data?” This method, he argued, allows civil society to move beyond accepting schemes to protesting or redesigning them. “The first thing you could do… is to protest it, to see that there are deep problems with this.”

Looking ahead, Prof. Mathur identified crucial battlegrounds for civil society. Public education is primary, as it is a fight for “what kind of a nation we have, what kind of values we promote.” Secondly, he urged resistance to the overreach of market logics into governance and society. 

On a global scale, climate change is the overarching crisis, within which organizing for workers’ rights in the gig economy and confronting the marginalizing force of technology are imperative. “The idea of representation and worker rights are being completely erased in law,” he warned, advocating for strong worker representation in tech ventures and a reinvigoration of collective rights.

The dialogue concluded with a call for civil society to reclaim its disruptive, questioning role through rigorous analysis and a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and the preservation of truly democratic and civic spaces.