Asia Times: Part 2: A democracy on the move


	February 15, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Asia Times Online presents this series of articles in collaboration with Heartland. Issues that are covered include: One India, many Indias?; Doing business in India; Ways into the Indian market; The EU and India; Does India need nuclear weapons?; and Energizing India.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INDIA
Part 2: A democracy on the move
By Benedetto Amari

The great American diplomat George Kennan once said, talking about the Soviet Union, that in the science of sovietology one could be ignorant to a lesser or a greater degree, but never a real expert. After two years in Delhi, I think that Kennan's remark fits India too, whose "diversities", among other things, constitute a constant challenge for those who aspire to a deeper knowledge of the country.

Therefore, in this article I merely wish to offer some personal impressions, limiting them to the major differences that exist, in my view, between today's India and that of 10 years ago, and to those parts of Jawaharlal Nehru's political message - which inspired the Indian leadership until the end of the 1980s - that are still valid at the moment.

In order to understand both the differences between the India of 10 years ago and of today, as well as the choices of Nehru's times that are still valid now, it is necessary to have a clear picture of India's political situation in the aftermath of the 1999 elections which confirmed the BJP (Bharatya Janata Party, or People's Party of India) as the relative-majority leader of a 23-party coalition.

First of all, what is the BJP? It is a party that in Europe we would place at the right of the political spectrum, whose hard core comprises primarily high-caste supporters but has succeeded in expanding consensus also among large sections of the middle class, the business and trade communities and even among the less privileged castes. The basic strategy of the BJP in recent years has been to coalesce the Hindu vote by placing nationalist-religious identity - ie Hindu identity - above all other national characteristics and by launching a gradual "hinduization" of civil society.

The party has basically two souls, one pragmatic and the other ideological. The first, personified by the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs, is, though probably in a minority, the one that exercises the largest influence within the party and is capable of keeping the second soul under control. Its leanings are liberal-conservative; its leaders understand that government responsibilities demand moderation to keep the coalition in place; it sincerely believes that the future of India cannot be found in an inward-looking and almost autarchic vision, but rather in creating the conditions for the country to open up outwardly and assume in the world the role of key player to which it aspires.

The other soul of the party is ideological. It claims the right to pursue the program of Hindutva (Indianness) and invokes the return to a remote past when all Indians were originally Hindus who only later were converted to other faiths: Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and others.

The BJP is also a party of cadres and not, like the Congress, a "movement party". It is well structured, motivated, disciplined. It has an ideological wing for its support, the RSS (Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh, or National Association of Volunteers), whose principal duty is to keep alive the party's aims and ideological purity and to spread its ideals. In other words, the RSS is the engine of Hindu nationalism, even though it has always tried to exercise its influence from behind the scenes. It never comes out openly by itself, but no BJP premier can rule without its support.

This Bharatya Janata Party, which emerged victorious from the 1999 elections, governs India together with myriad regional parties, on the basis of a coalition that, all said and done, has proved quite stable. Of course this relative stability is also due to the absence of alternatives to the present setup, a fact that discourages the regional parties from seeking alternative alliances. The Congress of Sonia Gandhi, the party that leads the opposition today, is too weak to aspire to national leadership for the time being.

After this necessary detour, I would like to return to the issue of Nehru's choices that have either been abandoned or retained, recalling that India, until a few years ago, was generally perceived as a non-aligned, socialist, secular and democratic country, a definition that is engraved in its constitution but has actually undergone a number of changes in the course of time. As a matter of fact, today's India is neither non-aligned nor socialist; it certainly continues to be secular; and remains the greatest democracy of continental Asia, at least according to the European interpretation of the concept of democracy.

India's de facto renunciation of non-alignment in foreign policy was probably the biggest change intervened in the traditional image of a country that was still remembered until recently - together with Yugoslavia, Indonesia and Egypt - as a promoter of the Bandung Conference and one of the founding fathers of the movement shaped in the Cold War era as a pillar of international politics. But neutrality in foreign policy and non-alignment no longer fit with India's present reality. Though the country is still a member of the non-aligned movement, it pays it scant attention and considers it obsolete.

The Delhi government's foreign policy since the BJP has been in power has been non-ideological - I would say almost pragmatic - and its aims are to earn India a place among the major powers, freeing it from the conditioning of non-alignment. This line, which I would define as neo-nationalism, is pursued by India with much determination, a certain boldness and a dose of diplomatic dynamism that are unprecedented, perhaps except for the best years of Nehru's leadership, but is not aggressive. The overall impression is that India, while still searching for a definitive role in international politics, and particularly in Asia, is shifting from the position of an object-country (as it was at the time of the East-West confrontation) to that of a subject-country, a protagonist in international relations and, more important, a country that not only does not ask for protection but is capable of producing and offering security.

I therefore consider India's present foreign policy more mature than it was a few years ago, notwithstanding the state of her relations with Pakistan and the persistent complexity of New Delhi's relations with its other neighbors.

The neo-pragmatism of India's foreign policy finds a brilliant example in the new relationship that it has managed to create, in little over two years, with the United States, which from being enemy No 1 has become a "natural ally" (Prime Minister Vajpayee's definition). This was confirmed a few weeks ago by New Delhi's offer of full cooperation to Washington after the terrorist attacks in the US of September 11. Thanks to the ability of Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, this exceptional development in Indian foreign policy occurred without prejudice to India's equation with Russia, which remains its principal political ally and a supplier of vital defence equipment, and its relations with China, now at their best.

India's present foreign policy - seen as an evolution from the former non-aligned position - includes new relations with Israel, which has become an important partner, particularly in the security field. It should be emphasized that this development has not taken place at the expense of India's relations with the Arab world, which are now weaker in political content compared with the non-alignment period, but stronger in terms of economic cooperation, especially in the energy sector.

For the rest, the present dynamism of New Delhi's foreign policy toward both Southeast Asia and the European Union, particularly after the June 2000 EU-India Lisbon Summit, does not have much to do with India relinquishing non-alignment but rather with the international changes that have occurred in the world in recent years.

In general, the present government is probably the most Western-friendly India has ever had, not so much because it has abandoned non-alignment or adopted a foreign policy tinged with nationalist nuances, but simply because India now intends to cooperate with the West with greater engagement than before. In other words, India will never flatly embrace a Western position nor dispense with the originality of its foreign policy, but is ready to dialogue with all nations without unnecessary ideological or political pangs, knowing that it has as much to gain as to offer.

Another important change was the shift away from socialism that followed the 1990-91 economic reforms. It is true that India still has a Planning Commission and five-year plans - a legacy of the 1950s - but they are very different from the past and their functions today cannot be compared to those they had when the state was in full control of the national economy.

The progressive dilution of India's socialist character has been aided by a series of international and internal factors. First of all the fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of an ideological point of reference and highlighted the anachronism of the socialist model. But it was India's unsustainable economic situation in the late 1980s that forged its passage to a more liberal economy, beginning with the 1991 reforms. Already under the Rao government the economic system went through a major overhaul and finance minister Manmohan Singh designed a series of changes. This first spurt of reforms introduced India to the market economy and heralded the era of liberalization.

Yet it was just the beginning. The responsibility of fine-tuning the process of reforms and of launching the radical changes known as "second-generation reforms" fell on the shoulders of the following administrations, particularly the BJP governments.

The process has yielded positive and less positive results. Certainly positive have been all the measures for the direct involvement of the states in the liberalization process aimed at attracting foreign investment, the removal of market barriers and the streamlining of bureaucratic procedures (though there much remains to be done in some sectors).

But the opening of the economic system has been carried out with evident limitations in terms of depth and speed. Take for instance the great caution with which the government has addressed trade-union issues and the reform of labor laws, the slow pace of privatization, the abiding centralism in decision-making and the large drain of public resources that a policy of subsidies causes both to the states and the center.

Therefore, it is not surprising that foreign investors have given a lukewarm response to the country's great infrastructure plans. Nor is it surprising that the process of privatization has so far concerned only marginal industries; that the reforms in the sectors of power supply, telecom, stock exchange and banking are met with resistance - also political - from various quarters; that no incisive steps are being taken to reduce the serious deficit of both the centre and the states, which has risen above 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

This said, the transition from a socialist to a market-driven economy has been managed in a gradual, non-traumatic fashion, steering clear of the political risks that could have derived from a more sudden and radical break with the past. But on the whole the results are still limited although the Vajpayee government has achieved in some cases - such as in the insurance sector - good results.

Having examined the major changes of the past 10 years, I now wish to highlight those among Nehru's choices that have been confirmed and are still valid.

One major factor of continuity is that India has remained, for the more than 50 years of its independence, a secular nation, and by this I mean a nation that takes it upon itself to pursue equality for all religions as one of the pillars of its action. In fact in India there is not only total religious freedom but also equality in the treatment of different faiths. But on the neutrality of the state, by which we mean that the state does not accord preferential treatment to one faith above the others, sometimes the behavior of the regional governments leaves a lot to be desired. In some episodes of violence between communities of two different religions, local authorities have been known to abdicate their institutional duty and not act with total neutrality.

While India remains a democratic and secular country, there is no doubt that in BJP's India religion has acquired more importance than in the recent past. There are many examples I could quote, but one will suffice: the rebuilding of the Ram temple at Ayodhya (birthplace of Lord Ram) is an issue that continues to come up at every anniversary of the 1992 riots when a crowd of Hindu fanatics destroyed, even with bare hands, the Babur mosque. The issue reached the news again during the December 2000 anniversary, when the prime minister stated that the movement for the rebuilding of the Ram temple was "an expression of nationalist feelings and the work had yet not been completed". Needless to say, this statement inflamed the opposition, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who saw in the words of the prime minister a renewed attempt by the BJP to woo the Hindu community for political gain in the exclusive interest of the party.

The renewed importance given to religious identity has reawakened a certain Hindu fanaticism breeding serious frictions, particularly with the Muslim population but also with the Christian community. However, since the Indian prime minister's visit of to the Vatican in June 2000 the situation has improved, and the government has finally understood the need to warn the state authorities that they must enforce the prevention of religious clashes. Some of the accused in episodes of violence against Christians have been brought to justice.

India continues to be engaged in the protection and strengthening of democracy. India's institutions remain solid and enjoy the strong support of the people. Individual rights, group identity, local autonomy and federalism are protected. It is true that at times one hears the system being criticized for its alleged inadequacy to solve core issues, and at times references are made to other countries, such as China, which have solved national problems with other methods. But I have never had the impression that India could be ever tempted to sacrifice democracy, or freedom in a larger sense, for a better lifestyle.

In this sense it is remarkable that India's democracy has never weakened even in the face of internal and external crises, inadequate reforms or shortcomings in the public administration. Democracy has found in the country's diversity its main strength and its biggest antidote against authoritarian temptations. This fact - together with the absence of Bonapartist ambitions in the armed forces and the solidity of democratic institutions - is a definite guarantee of the survival of democracy.

Where will India go and, more important, will it remain united? Yes, it will. First of all, because nobody really threatens the country, and Pakistan does not constitute a military danger for India. Even "communalism", and conflict among religious communities, is not a danger to national unity, since the leaders from various religious factions do not harbor territorial ambitions.

On the internal front, the three questions that theoretically could or would have constituted a problem for New Delhi - Punjab, the northeast and Kashmir - do not unduly worry the Indian government, since they are (in Punjab they were) religious/nationalist issues that will never degenerate into secessionism.

Moreover in the past few years other important factors have strengthened India's unity. Among these, I would like to mention the stronger economic ties between the various states of India, a growing sense of belonging, which runs very deep in the Indian psyche and grows even deeper roots among those Indians who live and meet each other in a foreign land, the recent progress on federalism. In this last regard, Nehru was able to reconcile the "centrist" philosophy (then indispensable for healing the still fresh wound of "partition") with local sentiments. But even then he seemed inclined to make concessions to federalism, understanding its potential for the unity of the country.

The BJP, following a line of action that had earlier belonged to the Congress, and realizing that the sheer vastness of India and of its problems could not possibly be managed by a centralized government, has promoted and strengthened local autonomy. The number of Indian states has recently grown from 25 to 28. Therefore, the future of India is moving toward a strengthened federalism, also because this is a good way of rewarding the ambitions of local leaders.

From what I have said, I would like to draw the following conclusions. What I saw, heard and read during these two years confirms that India, by abandoning some of the choices made by Nehru and by retaining some others, has succeeded in strengthening democracy, which is seen both as a value in itself and as an instrument to fight the endemic problems of the country, in particular illiteracy and poverty.

However, while the first way of perceiving democracy has been proved right, the second has found recognition only in more recent times, changing the fatalistic attitude that viewed India as damned to a miserable existence since its leaders were incapable of resolving the contradiction between democracy and poverty. In India there is still an appalling level of poverty and illiteracy, no doubt, but the situation - even though embarrassing compared with other Asian countries - is improving. This year's census shows that in the past 10 years illiteracy has been reduced by 13 percent and "clocked" in Kerala, the most literate Indian state, at 10 percent.

It also seems to me that democracy is slowly creating a more just society, both in terms of actual equality and of economic development. A slow but certain progress. And I have observed that the routine difficulties of life have not in the least affected people's commitment to democracy. At the same time enormous problems still await solutions that will take time.

((c) Heartland. This version has been edited by Asia Times Online.)
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Part I: How Asian is India?