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clinical and health research, it has not been so widely accepted in social research. Several objections
have been raised by social researchers. It is argued that obtaining informed consent is a complicated
process in a community since it either requires taking a proxy consent from the local government, or
tribal chief or a community leader, which would not necessarily mean that the community is aware of
having given such consent.

To avoid such a situation, a meeting of the study community is organized where the details of the
study are explained, and a voice vote obtained. However, voluntariness is essential. Informed consent
may not be obtained under the orders of any authority or through coercion. The researcher has to
understand the power relations or hierarchy operating in a community to ensure that it does not
impact issues of consent. This implies some understanding of the caste and class relations in the
society before embarking on the research.

In qualitative research the practice of respondent validation is used in which the study participants
are offered a transcript of their interviews so that they can review and comment on the researcher’s
interpretation and offer corrections if necessary.
It is the responsibility of the researcher to devise ways of ensuring that the study population
understands the objectives of the study and is a willing participant. Most importantly, the researcher
should not inadvertently become an informant to the community elders/leaders/local government
authorities.

Over time, as most studies get reviewed by institutional review boards, there has to be a stronger
insistence of paper proof of informed consent at both the community and individual level.

Box 1
Ethical Issues in RCTs

Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) are experiments devised and used to investigate the
effectiveness of certain interventions. RCTs involve the setting up of carefully chosen groups,
one of which receives the intervention and the other does not. They may be used typically
only in situations where the community or population would eventually benefit from the
intervention if proved useful.

RCTs have long been used in medical, clinical, and public health fields. RCTs are the gold
standard for determining the efficacy and safety of a new drug or vaccine. Their use in social
research is more recent, though growing rapidly especially in development economics. In 2019
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics
for their work on RCTs in social research. (See Ila Patnaik, op. cit.)

According to the American Economic Association, India tops the list of countries outside the
US where RCTs have been conducted, numbering 247 since 2012. Although experts aver that
RCTs are the best way of knowing if a certain policy or programme intervention actually works,
they are very expensive to setup and run. Over the years, RCTs in social research especially in
the developing world, have come in for heavy criticism. Apart from the cost, the main criticism
has been on two counts: ethical and methodological. One opinion points out that RCTs focus
on micro issues missing out the larger context. Also, the fact that two groups are created, one
that receives the benefit, and the other that does not, two groups of haves and have-nots gets
created, even if it is temporary, altering, social dynamics. On the methodological count, which
also is an ethical concern, some development economists point to the questionable randomness

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