The Centre for Social and Economic Progress, King’s College London, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and the Royal Holloway, University of London hosted a discussion on “Democracy and Health in India: Is Health an Electoral Priority?” on Wednesday, February 22, 2023. The event was held at the Lecture Room – II (Basement), India International Centre.

India’s voters and its politicians politically under-invest in health. Voters do not typically highlight health as a factor bearing on their voting decisions, nor do most politicians foreground health in their electoral campaigns or priorities in office. The first systematic exploration of voter attitude to health in India sought to understand the reasons for the low political prioritisation of health. It examined the extent to which political representatives serve as intermediaries for navigating the health system, whether there is evidence to suggest a link between health services improvement and electoral decisions, and if there is clarity in responsibility across level of governments, influencing political incentives accruing from health services and accountability mechanisms via the ballot box. 

The report has been authored by Oliver Heath, Royal Holloway; Sanjay Kumar, CSDS; Jyoti Mishra, CSDS; Louise Tillin, King’s India Institute and Sandhya Venkateswaran, CSEP.

The survey was supported by funding from the British Academy.  

Speakers:

• Reetika Khera

Reetika Khera is currently an Associate Professor of Economics at IIT Delhi, and was previously Associate Professor at IIM Ahmedabad. She was also a visiting scholar at GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad; Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics, and the Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Her research interests focus on social policy in India including health and nutrition, employment, poverty and inequality. She has authored several books and reports such as “PROBE revisited: A report on elementary education in India.”

• K Sujatha Rao

K Sujatha Rao served as the Former Union Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the Government of India and previously Secretary of Health in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Of her 36 year career as a civil servant, she spent 20 years in the health sector.  As Secretary, Health she was involved in the first-ever national program for non-communicable diseases; the process for a national policy for use of antibiotics; and the introduction of vaccines in public health. Ms Rao has also represented India on the boards of the WHO, Global Fund and UNAIDS.  She was previously a Takemi Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and is also the first Gro Harlem Brundtland Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.  She has authored  “Do We Care? India’s Health System”, with insights on the health system.

• Abhay Shukla

Abhay Shukla is a public health physician, currently serving as Senior Programme Coordinator at the Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives (SATHI) in Pune. As one of the National convenors of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA or People’s Health Movement in India), he was centrally involved in the organisation of the National Right to Health Care campaign during 2003-04. He has been working on health issues in collaboration with people’s movements and NGOs in Western India for over two decades now and is also a member of the National Health Mission Advisory Group for Community Action (AGCA). He has co-authored “Dissenting Diagnosis” with Dr Arun Gadre.

Media:

Health Is A Larger Concern For Indian Voters- Study – India Education Diary

Contrasting health visions in the Indian election– Lancet Report

Please contact Trishna Wahengbam at TWahengbam@csep.org or Aruna Bose at ABose@csep.org for event-related or media inquiries.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.