Politics

India’s Promise – Prospects for Indian Democracy

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ December 24, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

India is, in the words of George Soros, ‘the flavor of the month‘. Reflecting that international euphoria, we Indians seem to have developed a proclivity for self-congratulation.

An excellent article in the Harvard Magazine by Devesh Kapur (PDF at CGDev), however, is a good reality check. It brings home the real challenge for India – not education, health, infrastructure or private sector reforms. The biggest challenge, and one that threatens our very existence as a state, is that of ineffectual and corrupt institutions:

The challenges arising from such a hollowing out of the Indian state should not be underestimated. As the quality of public services stagnates and in many cases declines, elites have de facto seceded from the state…India’s growing middle class is exiting public services—and democratic politics as well. As a consequence, a powerful voice for systemic reform and change is being lost. With India’s income inequalities increasing, as one part of society confidently integrates into a global economy while the other, much larger, part limps along, India is exchanging one set of inequalities—historic, deep-rooted, and caste-based—for another that is class-based and equally as troubling. These inequalities increase the support for populist demagoguery. At the same time, the state’s weakness in providing essential services has created space for more extremist groups to fill in the gap, whether the Maoist Naxalites on the left or the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on the right.

For the middle-class – that creates and consumes popular media – self-congratulatory euphoria seems understandable, because we see life getting better. Infrastructure is improving, education and health is world class, and economic opportunities are boundless. Even our judicial system suddenly seems redeemable, after commendable verdicts in the Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lal murder trials.

The middle-class is easily satisfied, eager to accept marginal improvements as indicators of positive, endemic change. But the middle-class is not all of India. And a few improvements do not constitute systemic change. To really give ourselves, as a nation, a fighting chance, that attitude has to change. We must look not only at our own challenges, but those of other segments of society. And to understand the root cause of the challenge, for India as a nation, we must look deep within.

There are many countering this doomsday scenario, pointing to our past performance of vibrant democracy as an accurate indicator of future trends. Yet, the author quickly dispels that optimism:

But Indonesia is a sobering reminder that even decades of growth are no guarantee against sharp and debilitating reversals. Even given the resiliency of democracies, beneath the veneer of India’s middle-class success and international recognition, its governing systems are severely stressed. Hundreds of millions of its citizens continue to be marginalized. India cannot emerge as a major power unless it urgently addresses state reforms, in particular by holding all state functionaries much more accountable for their actions than is currently the case. When the very source of the problem is its solution, the challenge is that much more difficult. Reform is possible, but self reform—the requirement here—is always the most difficult to effect.

The biggest challenge for India is one of governance. Institutions are important for an effective modern state. However, belief in those institutions is essential for a democracy. Thus far it is the middle-class which has withdrawn from democracy, with little faith in its institutions. The exercise of Indian democracy has largely been left to the poor and underprivileged. Today, we risk that much larger segment also loosing faith.