The LAMP Fellowship: What's great about it, and what isn't

Since a lot of people who wish to apply for the LAMP Fellowship have gotten in touch with me and other current/former LAMP Fellows, I thought I'll do an exhaustive note on some of the great things that the Fellowship has to offer, and a few things that may not be so great for everyone.

Please note that this is based mostly on my own experience during the Fellowship, and my understanding of the experience of other Fellows. Other Fellows may have very different opinions based on their experience. It’s my personal assessment of what the Fellowship offers, and the issues with it, though I have tried to be as objective as I can be. Also, go through the FAQs that are there on PRS' website as well.

What is the LAMP Fellowship?

LAMP stands for 'Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament'. It is a fellowship programme run by PRS Legislative Research, which is one of the few organizations in India working exclusively on tracking and analysing any and all issues related to the activities of Parliament of India.

Their website has great data, research material, primers etc. on legislations, parliamentary procedure, activities of MPs etc.

The LAMP Fellowship, very simply speaking, places a person in an MP's office for the duration of three sessions of Parliament- Monsoon Session, Winter Session and Budget Session. The programme usually starts in June, and finishes by April/May of next year. However, you usually join the MP's office some time after the starting of the Monsoon session, so you may not be able to contribute as much in the parliamentary work for that session, as compared to other sessions.

As a LAMP Fellow, you are expected to provide research assistance to the MP on any and all issues that he/she may have to deal with at any point for the duration of the fellowship.

Do I need to have any specific educational qualifications to do the Fellowship?

No, the Fellowship has candidates from various backgrounds -- engineering, economics, commerce, law, history, public policy etc. While students who have studied policy-making in some form (such as those who've studied law, political science, public policy etc.) are definitely in a better position in terms of their knowledge, other Fellows also catch up pretty fast during the course of the Fellowship. 

I must mention here that the diversity of the LAMP Fellows is one of the best things about this programme. They do not have any preference for students from known institutes, or who have impeccable academic records, or x years of work experience, or who have done x number of debates, competitions etc. You simply need to demonstrate enough interest and understanding in the subject of legislative policy, which is gauged through their application process. It's a very objective selection process.

What is the general course of the programme like?

In order to ensure that a fellow is prepared for the tasks ahead of her in the MP's office, PRS conducts a one-month training session at the beginning of the Fellowship, right before the Monsoon Session. They have lectures and assignments which will give you a good overview about the Constitution, legislative policy making, functioning of Parliament, the Budget and so on. While it's not easy to cram such broad topics into one month, it gives you a very good starting point for understanding what kind of issues you may have to work on in the MP's office.

They also do lectures throughout the Fellowship (like 2-3 days every month) on a wide range of policy areas- public finance, tech law and policy, agriculture, international relations, public health, law etc. Some of the best experts in the fields come and take lectures on different topics, including people working with prominent think tanks, former Government officials, professional experts etc. It's a great opportunity for learning and networking.

What's the process for the MP allocation?

Fellows are allotted randomly to the MPs, as its extremely difficult to come up with a criteria for allocating a certain Fellow to a certain MP. You do not get to give any kind of preferences for MPs that you may wish to work with. However, in order to ensure the smooth execution of the Fellowship, certain considerations such as language, regional understanding etc. matching an MP’s profile and preferences may be taken into consideration. 

What exactly is an MP's expectation from a LAMP Fellow? / What do LAMP Fellows do, exactly?

The idea behind the Fellowship is to plug the gap created by the lack of a dedicated research staff for MPs in India, even though they do a lot of technical work across a wide range of areas, which cannot possibly be handled one person. However, certain MPs employ people exclusively to assist them with research work.

This research broadly is for the following purpose:

1. Briefs on Govt. bills

2. Speeches (both in and outside Parliament)

3. Parliamentary interventions (such as notices and motions) that your MP may be interested in raising

4. Filing of parliamentary questions (the one thing that 99% of MPs do)

5. Private Member's Bills (the best thing that an average LAMP Fellow can work on)

6. Committee work, in case your MP is part of any of the various parliamentary committees (almost all MPs in the Fellowship programme are a part of some committee)

7. Writing articles for MPs

8. Constituency work

Thus, a LAMP Fellow is a research resource for an MP for all of the above, and for any other assistance the MP may require during the course of the fellowship.

Are all MPs as active in terms of giving work to LAMP Fellows? Should I only be interested in working with popular MPs?

This is an important question.

Many people join the Fellowship in the hope that they will get to work with a popular or well-known MP. But there's a lot more to the Fellowship than that.

First, you must realise that there are a lot more MPs out there who are doing a lot of great work. You should research about them, and get over these big popular names, especially if you're considering doing the Fellowship. It is imperative to research on the MP allotted to you and note down ways in which you can contribute as each MP, who is answerable to lakhs of people and her political party, is carrying out extensive work in different areas that involves large number of people. 

However, from what I understood from the experience of other Fellows, you must remember that not all MPs who are a part of the Fellowship Programme are able to give great work on a regular basis. Some MPs give good work in spurts, and some do so rarely. There are a good number of MPs who are not able to pay that much attention to the Fellow allotted to them, and sometimes, they may not be that interested also (though the latter happens very rarely). An MPs busy schedule and her other commitments may have a direct impact on your workload. This tends to result in a situation where you find yourself sitting idle, especially during the period when Parliament is not in session. Most MPs have work to give during parliamentary sessions, but there are also MPs who aren't that active during sessions as well. 

Essentially, this means that your experience during the Fellowship depends a lot on who your MP is, and how much initiative you take on your own. Whether your MP is a Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha MP (RS MPs don't have a constituency), whether he/she is from a regional or national party, whether it's a senior leader in the party, whether he/she has some responsibility in the party- all these factors will impact the kind of experience you will get in the Fellowship.

It also makes a huge difference as to whether the MP has an organised office or not. Some MPs have structured offices, with a dedicated research team. These teams will often have former LAMP Fellows. Most offices, though, have no setup of such sort. You could be the only person handling core research work in the office. At the most, there will be a PA/PS to help with administrative work (like filing and all).

It also depends a lot on which year you join the Fellowship in. Since the upcoming year will be the first year of a new tenure of Lok Sabha, MPs would generally be active in terms of their participation in Parliament. Since the last year was (still is) a pre-election year, MPs were more worried about catering to their constituency work as opposed to their parliamentary work.

There were about 55 MPs in the programme last year, but this number may change this year, depending on who all get elected. Some MPs who were there in last year's programme may not even be there this year. 

Most MPs are very encouraging and responsive if you are enterprising enough to go to them with new initiatives. This is particularly true for new MPs, who will definitely be active and enthusiastic about parliamentary work.

Bottom line- A lot of your experience during your Fellowship depends on a lot of factors, some of which you can control, and some of which you can’t. You may end up doing some very interesting work during the Fellowship, but you may also spend a good portion of it without getting to do any cutting edge political work. You may be extremely busy, or you may end up spending a good amount of it sitting idle, doing irrelevant work, and not liking what you do.

This is not to discourage you from doing the Fellowship, it's just something you must consider when you make your decision of taking it up. Again, all of this is my personal opinion and understanding of the Fellowship, based on my experience. Please speak to other Fellows also before making your decision.

Are there any restrictions on LAMP Fellows with respect to social media usage?

Yes. PRS has a very strict social media policy for LAMP Fellows. As the office, work and life of an MP is almost always in the public eye, the Fellows working with them are restricted from publishing anything in public domain that has the potential of becoming 'political' (which essentially includes everything) during your tenure as a Fellow, unless it is being published on behalf of the MP.

So you cannot publish any of your research work during the Fellowship under your own name. You are also expected to not air your political views on social media platforms.

So, should you do the Fellowship?

If you're someone who's looking to get an introduction to the world of politicians, how an MP's office functions and get an idea of the kind of research work required for Parliamentary and constituency work, this is probably the best opportunity to take up in India. It's also a great opportunity to get introduced to the public policy space in India.

However, if you're a lawyer or public policy professional looking to develop expertise in a particular area, or looking for professional experience, you should look elsewhere. I feel that the Fellowship is more suited for fresh graduates, or people who are still exploring what they wish to do, and want to keep their options open. This is solely because one’s idea of work may not match the work they eventually do, as it is contingent on the MP.

By the end of it, even though you would have spent a year doing this, you may not have much to put on your CV in terms of work experience. Additionally, you also need to consider if it's worth it to do this for almost a year on a monthly stipend of 20k in a city like Delhi (not too much of a problem if you're from Delhi).

What's so great about the Fellowship?

1.  Excellent peer group. There are people around you from various walks of life, various regions of India, and various sectors- the diversity of the batch is amazing. It's a great platform to get to know so many like-minded people (not ideologically, but generally in terms of interest in socio-political issues), and to even learn from them. 
2. The access to MPs. That itself is a pretty big incentive for doing the Fellowship. The fact that you have the ear of an MP (again, depends on who your MP is), makes you feel quite responsible. It's very much possible that the speech you work on for your MP may change the way the public perceives him. Something you researched on may attract national attention, and may even be acted upon by the Govt. 
3. The access to other things through the MPs. Your identity as a member of the MP’s team gives you access to other MPs, heads of research organisations, invitations to private events involving policy discussions and so on. The fact that you may have the ability to request your MP to raise certain issues in Parliament will lead to a number of NGOs and research organisations reaching out to you.
4. I personally feel it's a great opportunity for getting introduced to the public policy space. You end up interacting with so many people, thanks to PRS' network and the lectures they organise, that it gives you a good idea of the kind of options that are out there. And these are things which you can't really find out about on your own.
5. Knowledge of functioning of Parliament, and the political scenario in India. Even if you're not a political junkie, you get to know so much just by virtue of being in an MP's office. Even PRS does a number of training sessions on technical issues like research resources, budget documents, passing of Bills etc., that you develop a very good understanding of what's happening in the Parliament and in the country, and what it means for you. It's not exactly a professional expertise, but it's a great thing to learn, nevertheless. I developed a habit of following the news intelligently, thanks to the Fellowship.
6. It gives you a reality check about how things actually work, and how hard working most MPs (individually) are. I wouldn't say it gives you a great idea about how politics work, because a lot of MPs don't involve their Fellows in that kind of work, but it definitely gives you a broad picture about that too, if nothing else.

(Many thanks to Amrita Shivaprasad for giving extensive inputs for this note, along with Jayasimha KR, Ashutosh Chauhan, Raghav Kaushal, Praneet Jaswani, Kanksshi Agarwal, Padmaja Menon and Nikita. Views expressed are those of the author alone.)