Banyan Tree Adventures

by Keith Forrester

  However, as perhaps was expected, critical comment on Modi is not encouraged. As Surjit S. Bhalla wrote in the daily The Indian Express shortly after the election, “to the best of my knowledge no individual in India or world history has been unjustly vilified as much as Modi has been. This vilification continues today, especially by the ‘sickular’ parties and their left-intellectual stormtroopers.” Watch out, all you ‘stormtroopers’ – there is likely to be much more of this generous and tolerant view to discussion and disagreement in the years ahead! As Arundhati Roy remarked after the election, “Now we have a democratically elected totalitarian government.”

  India’s democratic ‘top dressing’

  In a way, the Indian 2014 general election and landslide by the BJP brought to a head a number of larger issues which have been rumbling away for some time – indeed, ever since Independence. Two of these issues are big, big issues – namely, the nature of democracy in India, and secondly, its claims to be a secular society. Maybe it was the shock of the Modi victory, the baggage that accompanies the BJP or the encroaching Hindu militancy and intimidation on everyday life unleashed by the victory that returned commentary and interest to these topics. Maybe they never disappeared, but instead, were resting for a while. Whatever the reasons, the issues of democracy and secularism once again were the focus of increasing comment and debate.

  The post 2014 Lok Sabha (Parliament) has its lowest ever Muslim representation – 4% of a 14% population share. For the first time ever, India’s largest state (200 million and the world’s sixth most populous) – Uttar Pradesh – has no Muslim Member of Parliament despite constituting around a fifth of the population. And the first-past-the-post electoral system resulted in the country’s fourth largest party the Dalit Bahujan Samaj Party (BSS) with 4% of the vote having no member in Parliament. Similarly the Congress Party which has historically benefited enormously from this electoral system was greatly disadvantaged this time around. India remains in many important ways “the greatest show of democracy in the world” as Ramachandra Guha wrote in 2012. Few people in 1947 gave India’s proclamation to constitutional democracy much chance. But helpfully, Guha also drew attention to a number of worries and concerns around the greatest show – “pervasive faultlines,” as he calls them.

  Firstly, he identifies the threat to democracy of the territorial unity of the country. In three states – Nagaland, Manipur and of course, Kashmir – there are claims for independence backed by military activities. These situations are ‘normalised’ only through the presence of massive military strength by the central government. Secondly, Guha identifies the continuing struggles of the tribal communities aided by the ‘Maoists’ insurgency against mining companies and loss of lands in a number of states. Thirdly, there is the threat of religious fundamentalism from a number of sources that have often resulted in murderous pogroms. Fourthly, there is the problem of “the corrosion of public institutions”. He mentions here the conversion of political parties into family firms, the politicisation of the police and bureaucracy, everyday corruption and huge scandals at the national level of government. The fifth threat to the democratic system is seen as the environmental degradation increasingly pervading the country. Examples given by Guha here are water pollution, chemical contamination of the soil and the continuing decimation of forests and biodiversity. The final threat given by Guha is the growing and gross economic inequalities. As he puts it, “The super rich exercise massive influence over politicians of all parties, with policies and laws framed or distorted to suit their interests.”

  This is a formidable list and charge sheet but Guha is not alone in his concerns about the nature and future of the country’s political system. Andre Beteille, the doyen of Indian sociology, is another commentator who has discussed the understandings and practices of Indian democracy over a lengthy period of time and in popular outlets. One of his main points relates to the gap between the huge attention focused on the Constitution to the detriment of a focus on custom and culture. Irrespective of the claims and guarantees of equality in the Constitution, “everyday life is still governed substantially by hierarchical attitudes and sentiments carried over from the past,” he writes. There is this gap or gulf, Beteille seems to be saying, between the formal, bureaucratised rituals of political parties and behaviour on the one hand, with existence and beliefs of many constituents especially the poor and those in rural areas on the other. Although he doesn’t mention them, perhaps Beteille had in mind also the large number of Parliamentary members with criminal cases against them (around 30%), roughly the same percentage of members coming from “political families” and the widespread belief that politics is one of the quickest ways of becoming wealthy. A third of all Congress members in the previous administration inherited their seat through family connections and every one of them under the age of 35. It looks like the Lok Sabha (Parliament) increasingly is a club for the super-rich. Before the last elections one in five members were dollar millionaires; the total assets of all 543 members were estimated to be two billion dollars. And this is in a society where over half the population live on less than two dollars a day.

  Today the gap between laws and customs and between the ruled and the rulers remains as wide today as it was at Independence. In a later 2012 article Beteille takes this concern with the malfunctioning democratic institutions in India a little further. Unlike other countries, India’s democratic institutions did not evolve or renew themselves through conflict and turmoil. There was not this “churning”, as Beteille puts it, in India. The argument for democracy emerged as part of the struggle against the British – a demand raised before the institutions were created and established on the ground around the country and reaching into everyday life. As Beteille reminds us, it was this structural weakness that led BR Ambedkar to argue, “that democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil that is essentially democratic.” Beteille’s article finishes on a worrying note: “(W)e must recognise that the arguments about the virtues of democracy that served us well during the struggle for independence are not enough to bind us together now.”

  Journalist Simon Denyer, who has recently authored a book on democracy in India, agrees with Beteille. There is “this tension between Nehruvian ideals of a secular, democratic nation and India’s dysfunctional parliament,” he suggests. It is this dual nature of Indian democracy that is at the heart of understanding India. This reference back to Independence that Guha, Beteille and Denyer make when discussing democracy is not accidental or unusual. So too do Dréze and Sen in their study An Uncertain Glory that has been used in earlier chapters. There have been identifiable “flaws in India’s practice of constitutional democracy” since the time of Nehru onwards. As examples of “lapses from democratic practice”, the authors raise and discuss a number of examples which are not dissimilar to those raised by Guha. Top of their list is Kashmir which “is the most prominent case of infringement of democratic norms in India.” Other cited examples similar to the Kashmir case are the separatist movements in the north-east where the “strategy of brutal suppression not only results in the violation of many basic human rights, but also it often ends up aggravating the situation.” The Maoist rebellion in central India likewise has been met by state “violence that is completely out of tune with the norms of democratic India.” The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 has similarly attracted much criticism with the parallels between the colonial powers and this 1958 legislation raising uncomfortable worries.

  Common to most critical discussions on Indian politics though is the relationship between social and economic inequality and democratic practices and ideals. As was discussed in the previous chapters few countries in the world have to deal with such extreme inequalities and disparities in the economy and in caste, gender, sexuality and class. In a detailed discussion of these issues in their book, Dréze and Sen conclude that the political system’s “achievement in removing inequality and injustice has nevertheless been quite
limited.” They ask in their book, published in 2014 before the general election, whether the country’s democratic system is up to the task of remedying these hierarchies and answer, “mostly no.” Later on they conclude, “What is really very special in India is the fact that the comparatively small group of the relatively privileged seem to have created a social universe of their own.”

  It is likely given the results of the 2014 election that the astounding inequalities and massive disparity between the privileged and the rest will increase. Although justly celebrated around the world, India’s democratic system, argue Dréze and Sen, falls well short in terms of achievements. There is “strong incriminating evidence against taking Indian democracy to be adequately successful in consequential terms.”

  Yes, there are considerable achievements such as the democratic way of governance, multiparty elections, subordination of the military to the civilian government, independence of the judiciary and freedom of speech, but increasingly, there is a small growing focus on the weaknesses, failings and inadequacies of governance in India as practised and understood.

  Secular India

  The other great topic apart from the nature and characteristics of the political system, that has rumbled away ever since Independence but has now emerged from the shadows over the last decade or so, is secularism. Given that the country’s constitution was seen as embodying three key ideas – socialism, democracy and secularism – it is not surprising that each of these is being re-examined in light of the Modi victory. For many people and commentators, it is this issue of secularism that has aroused the fiercest debates and worries with the victory of the BJP. Understandings of ‘secularism’ seem to vary. For some it is the separation of the state from religion; for others it is the equidistance that the state maintains between the different religions. In the case of the Congress Party especially in the struggle for independence, the legitimating ideology had always been seen as secular nationalism. Indeed one of Nehru’s claims to historical greatness has traditionally been seen against all the odds as his commitment to secularism. His vision for the new India was enthusiastically endorsed by all, cutting across caste, geographical and religious divisions.

  Lauded as a ‘world statesman’ largely because of what he suffered due to the struggle for independence and for being the country’s first freely elected prime minister, Nehru’s reputation today is more ambivalent, especially by those of a Hindutva persuasion.

  The recent trend towards more polarised ‘religious identities’ together with the ever-simmering Kashmir situation has resulted in more critical appraisals of Nehru’s secular settlement. Perry Anderson, for example, noted in his recent 2013 book The Indian Ideology that: “Congress failed to avert Partition because it could never bring itself honestly to confront its composition as an overwhelming Hindu party.” It might have advocated a secular programme for all in the contest with the Raj, but in the years after Independence this was shown to be a lot more ambiguous. As Anderson puts it, “If the state was not truly secular… nor was it overtly confessional.” It together with the Congress Party made much of its secular ideals but “both in composition and practice (Congress) is based squarely on the Hindu community… (party and state) both rested sociologically speaking, on Hindu caste society. The continued dominance of upper castes in public institutions – administration, police, courts, universities, media – belongs to the same matrix.”

  Maybe this underpinning of Hinduism to India from the beginning of its independence was and is of little significance. After all as some have argued, Hinduism is predominantly an extremely tolerant, peaceful collection of deities, beliefs and rituals that easily accommodates others, with or without faith. This might have been and maybe is still true today for some. However, this is not the brand of Hinduism espoused by the BJP. With their vision of Hindutva, they uphold secularism. How is this done? Because, “India is secular because it is Hindu.”

  It is the fear of increased communal violence that worries many people, inside and outside of India. As mentioned earlier, communalism is not a recent concern. It has rumbled away just below the surface since Independence, flaring up at different times in different circumstances. After all, and as was noted earlier, the Dalit and outstanding ‘forgotten’ activist at the time of the struggle for Indian independence, BR Ambedkar, converted to Buddhism in 1956 as a sign of his exasperation at the caste inequality and religious intolerance of Hinduism. These fears seem to have increased in recent decades and have proved stronger than Nehru’s secularism, Gandhi’s pacifism and Ambedkar’s egalitarianism.

  When tracing this rising tide of muscular Hinduism, it is worth noting that it was the Emergency of 1975 declared by Indira Gandhi that not only undermined the base of the Congress in the countryside (wealthy farmers leading the rebellion against the Emergency) but also breathed life into the BJP. This key episode still hotly debated today was declared by Indira Gandhi over a 21-month period between 1975–1977. Initially a very popular Prime Minister through her ‘green revolution’, her support for the creation of Bangladesh from East Pakistan and the military defeat of Pakistan, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency when she was convicted of political corruption by the High Court in 1975. An ensuing ‘reign of terror’ began with civil liberties suspended, the media censored, and the majority of the opposition and thousands of others imprisoned without trial. In March 1977 with the ending of the Emergency, new elections were called. Gandhi lost but was returned in fresh elections in 1980. She was assassinated in 1984 as a result of troops regaining by force the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Holy Temple of the Sikhs.

  Ironically one of the beneficiaries of the post Emergency situation was the BJP. As Anderson notes, the growing success of the BJP from around the 1980s onwards was that “they had the ability to articulate openly what had always been latent in the national movement, but neither candidly acknowledged, or consistently repudiated.” Nehru was able to mask this “latent Hinduism” for the first decades of Independence through personal charisma and through a preference and focus on economic development rather than religion. He also had this mantle of legitimacy through his ties and links to Gandhi’s religiosity which had been useful in the struggle against the British but were of little interest to Nehru in the New India. The Congress Party in the post-independent decades was the unchallenged party of the unchallenged ruling elite. Sixty years later things are very different.

  In trying to situate secularism today and the Modi electoral landslide in 2014, Radhika Desai’s writings have been useful in raising avenues which are not often explored in the popular press. The rise of the BJP and its associated groupings and organisations, she argues, need to be situated within a wider context. There are a variety of interrelated processes at work, namely the gradual shift in favour of an increasingly market-driven economy (slow at first and then turbo-charged from the 1990s onwards), the rise of regional parties from the 1980s onwards, and finally, the decline of the Congress Party. These changes, she argues, were working their way through the political system “like a slow earthquake”. The first instance of BJP electoral success – a coalition government in 1998 under Vajpayee – witnessed, as Radhika Desai describes it, an “increasing ‘saffronisation’ of the state.” The narrow, authoritarian and intolerant version of Hinduism that was encapsulated by Hindutva was increasingly embedded within the country’s cultural, educational and civic society institutions. The five nuclear tests carried out by the government in 1998 against an anti-Pakistan backdrop together with the tension in Kashmir (the Kargil episode of 1999) increased political anxieties and further embellished the claims of Hindutva. The BJP and its brand of authoritarian Hindu nationalism, as Desai describes it, had managed to break out of its traditional Hindu bases in the northern states, its Gangetic heartland or ‘cow belt’. Ironically, the BJP and subsequent regional political parties have been greatly helped in this political breakthrough through the desertion of the middle-caste supporters of Congress. These �
��link-men’ who traditionally delivered the rural vote tended to be propertied and saw the Congress’ emphasis (rhetorically, at least) on the lower castes and the poor as too narrow for their economic and political aspirations. Their own economic and political situation was changing in the 1980s and 1990s with a focus that included investments in urban and industrial sectors. The growing importance of regional political parties provided a more sympathetic and possibly lucrative home. The 1984 general election won convincingly by Rajiv Gandhi on a wave of popular sympathy for his assassinated mother was as Desai put it, “a last hurrah of single party majority government.” That was until 2014.

  If a wider historical lens is used to examine the political and economic developments in India over the last decade or so, perhaps the emergence of the BJP is not that surprising. As Dréze and Sen document in painstaking detail, the sums of money provided for health, education, training and other services are pitiful when compared to other countries at a comparable stage of development. Redistribution of resources is urgently and massively required. In fact, their entire book An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions is a powerful indictment of the Indian political order, the increasingly criminal nature of its political class, its priorities, its character and its democratic record. It is also a sustained and savage criticism of the numerous and triumphalist commentary around the current India growth rates and economic prowess. By contrast, their overwhelming focus on the need for redistribution and the ability of the poor to play a part in the new India – the ‘capabilities’ approach to development – places egalitarian agendas at the centre of their concerns.