Crossing Over the Lockdown: Rise of e-Mohalla Sabha At The Time Of Crisis

The COVID-19 crisis not only locked citizens but government institutions also ceased their ability to deliver public services. With social distancing norms in place, the government was able to deliver essential services, however, citizens remain trapped in their homes with increasing agitation, apprehension, and consternation under the lockdown.

The lockdown disrupted activities nationwide but the seizure was distinct in urban areas. Urban psychological resilience enfeebled with biased scale and speed of corona virulence in cities - 12 cities constituting 60 per cent of COVID cases. The situation in cities deteriorated further in the absence of social institutions that promote solidarity for the exchange of resources, response, and recovery. What broke this seizure and promoted resilience in south Delhi was the novel initiative of e-Mohalla Sabha facilitated by Aam Aadmi Party MLA Somnath Bharti.  e-Mohalla Sabha is a virtual ‘neighbourhood’ that put a bridle on the lockdown by delivering social support and public services on time. e-Mohalla took a centre stage to recover from the social crisis and in responding to everyday concerns ranging from electricity, water, ration, sanitation, and travel permits. The ability to surpass multiple constraints during COVID-19 lockdown, suggests that e-Mohalla is a citizen-centric governance model to fulfil the statement of the object of an effective Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) as envisaged in 74th amendment. 

The amendment brought in 1992 envisaged ULBs as vibrant democratic units of self-government to promote decentralized development. The ULBs, a formal structure could not replicate the traditional function of the mohallas or neighbourhoods in cities due to their inability to deliver public services and decrepit social integration. The work of 2009 Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom suggests a linear model of public delivery with a rigid bureaucratic structure and a free ride on the provision of collective benefits is a universal problem. She established how local resources can be successfully managed by local commons without any regulation by central authorities or privatization. E-Mohalla with a virtually integrated model could sustain lockdown due to the confluence of multiple streams that opened a window of solutions for the citizens. It integrated problem stream, political stream, and administrative stream giving rise to win-win solutions. 

This article is an outcome of participant observation of everyday interactions of 250 members during the lockdown in one of the e-Mohalla Sabha platform from a total of 35 e-Mohalla Sabhas of the Malviya Nagar constituency. The constituency is divided into 35 e-Mohalla Sabhas. The 35 e-Mohalla Sabhas comprises approximately 15000 families with a direct reach to over 55000 voters. In an average of 1 million per year concerns are addressed. It is reported that over .25 million concerns were addressed through e-Mohallas during the lockdown. The mere size and frequency of concerns make it impossible for an elected representative to respond in time with the existing governance structure. Lockdown made it further difficult with limited access and mobility. These constraints gave rise to a model of e-Mohalla Sabha. The e-Mohalla Sabha is a three-tier virtually integrated association of members on WhatsApp from their respective wards, it includes citizens, government officers, and the MLA. One e-Mohalla Sabha constitutes approximately 4-5 colonies/urban villages. The cutting edge tier is an e-Mohalla Sabha group consisting of 2-3 coordinators and approximately 250 members along with the MLA.

The coordinators are expected to perform two critical functions; forward every request to the respective authority without a delay for timely action and maintain a non-political and non-religious dialogue with a focus on local concerns. The second tier is a group of coordinators and the MLA to establish horizontal accountability within the e-mohalla sabha. The third tier is a vertical accountability group that is dedicated to the functions of public departments, such as a group on water, electricity, and other important issues. The vertical group consists of the MLA, coordinators, and all the government officers and staff of the respective department. This creates vertical accountability on a real-time basis over action or inaction of ground staff by their superiors. Apart from virtual interactions, every e-Mohalla has dedicated a day in every month for the MLA, coordinators, and citizens to meet. During the lockdown, online virtual meetings were held. e-Mohalla Sabha organized music and cultural e-competition for children, 250  children of the constituency participated. It engaged families and established common interest groups of children. 

The experience of lockdown reinforced the need to integrate two critical functions of mohalla - social solidarity and decentralized governance. Evidence suggests that ULBs could not achieve the envisaged results due to limited political gain, linear public delivery system, rigid bureaucratic structure, and more importantly social and moral integration of citizens was absent.  According to Emile Durkheim a French sociologist, unlike cities, social solidarity in traditional cultures is expressed and experienced in higher levels of social and moral integration, there is little individuation, and most behaviours are governed by social norms.

The COVID-19 crisis reinforces the relevance of social solidarity in Mohalla or the neighbourhood. Although the Mohalla as a social institution lost its recognition in a market-oriented society, its universal presence across the world indicates its relevance. Mohalla is prevalent in Iran, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Romania, Former Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, South Africa, and many other countries. An interesting book by Morgan Liu, a cultural anthropologist at Ohio State University,  “Under Solomon's Throne: Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh” analyze Mohalla and its social relevance in the life of Uzbeks. Even today, mohalla (neighbourhood) in small towns and villages in rural India is expressed as a social institution to promote social solidarity in the form of an extended family. Customs such as funerals, marriage celebrations, and festivals are unacceptable without the active participation of “mohalla”. Lockdown experiences in e-Mohalla suggest that it is inevitable for cities to adopt the model to mediate poor social support, high risk of mortality, and economic problems. Crossing the class line, the e-Mohalla Sabha filled the void in cities through the integration of support and solidarity to overcome health risks and social vulnerability caused due to the lockdown. 

In the last 43 days of lockdown, the COVID-19 created a real-life laboratory to test the e-Mohalla Sabha as an effective architecture for citizen-centric governance to serve the constitutional purpose even at times of crisis. Irrespective of its collaborative advantage, the success of e-Mohalla architecture is a consequence of trust in the leadership and dynamic governance models to integrate diverse actors and resources that promote administrative ease at the local level. The experience of e-Mohalla in the lockdown suggests that the government and the elected representatives ought to invest in generating local capacities for democratic collaborations in a far more strategic and sustained manner than it currently does.