The Great Indian Rope Trick
Pub: Roderick Matthews
Pub: Hachette, Rs 599
Democracy has thrived among Indians both because of, and in spite of, all the multifarious virtues and vices that Indians display. The more democracy is seen to work well, the better it will work, says Roderick Matthews
The wealth generated by industrialisation has tended to obscure the reality that democracy has not, since 1945, been quite the revolutionary force that many on the left hoped it would be. The main benefits of democracy are not generally found in direct Government action, but in the way it nurtures popular demands for change, to end traditional social structures of discrimination, both economic and cultural. The fact that democracy has not yet made all Indians wealthy should not therefore come as a surprise. Nor should it be held against democracy as a system, or Indians as a people, too heavily.
India is a country that has lived with democracy while retaining a great many of its traditional social features, but it is a mistake to believe that a similar phenomenon has not been occurring in other democracies. The US, for instance, still maintains many of its ancestral inequities, partly because the tradition of American democracy draws clear limits around what kinds of social interaction the state has been allowed to address. In India the limitations have been more of resources than of political purposes, but the result has been similar — a degree of social conservatism.
Surface change in democracies can be swift, with the rise and fall of leaders, parties and Governments, but deeper social processes are gradual. Most importantly, the poor as a block are not condemned to stay poor if political parties adopt aspirations to mass education, economic growth and the promotion of equal opportunities. In a functioning democracy they should do so, to secure the loyalty of electors, and in India they have.
For all its current shortcomings, the continued functioning of democracy in India is a success, even a triumph. Democracy is the vehicle that has delivered such gains in equality as there have been. Colonial modernisation did little in this area, and non-democratic systems, especially those that shun capitalist practices, have never delivered much beyond stability.
It is very difficult to take violence out of politics, let alone out of a whole society. Democracy deliberately narrows the gap between winners and losers in all areas of social and economic life. It softens the sting of defeat, and over the long term it should mitigate the forces that drive violence and diminish the need for it at least as effectively as attempting to discipline the population by the use of more violence.
One great merit of the Indian political system is that its weaknesses, such as they are — particularly in Centre-State relations — encourage the exercise of moderation, and it has tended to work best when moderation has been exercised by all parties. The habit of moderation is always a help in allowing democratic systems to work well. The least moderate formations — Kerala in 1957, Mrs Gandhi’s Congress Government of 197 1-77, and the abortive Vajpayee Government of 1996 — encountered the most resistance and therefore did less well than moderate administrations.
Where, then, should we look for relevant factors to explain that success without making tendentious remarks about the character of Indians or the nature of Indian societyIJ Notoriously, all generalisations about India can be as true as they are false, but some comparisons can be attempted. Indians are as class-conscious and status-loving as the English, as materialistic and individualistic as Americans and as theoretical and argumentative as the French.
Above all, Indians have a cultivated appreciation of the refinements involved in acquiring, managing and distributing power, which also makes them very like Italians. It should not therefore be a surprise if India’s democracy exhibits all sorts of traits that can be found all over the democratic world. And it does, along with a good few eccentricities of its own. For instance, no other major democracy allows candidates to stand in two constituencies, as is the case in India.
Democracy has thrived among Indians both because of, and in spite of, all the multifarious virtues and vices that Indians display. There is no one magic explanation, and shelves of books on the subject can confirm that this is and has been true all along. There is no special quality hidden in the Indian constitution, or some unique character among Indians en masse. Democracy has flourished, in varying degrees, because of the willingness and invention that Indians have brought to the institutions of Government, the (general) reluctance of leaders to use political power to hunt down opponents and the capacity of the wider political culture to absorb diversity and dissent.
Perhaps the key lies not in details at all but simply in the dynamic nature of India’s original engagement with democracy. It started well and came right quickly. Once up and running, like riding a bicycle, it proved to be relatively easy to keep going. Indians, like the rest of humanity, are frequently fractious and undisciplined when structures are weak, but also compliant and loyal when social parameters are clear and accepted. With principled leadership and a balanced constitution openly agreed, the right sorts of boundaries were put in place early and were maintained. The more democracy is seen to work well, the better it will work.
Excerpt from The Great Indian Rope Trick by Roderick Matthews and published by Hachette India, Rs599