A State of Demographic Distress

One of the many adjectives used against India’s populace is Diversity. A cursory search will reveal much that adds to this fact: many races, many divisions, many peculiarities, languages, etc. Essentially, India perhaps should have not been one people. What brings them together is a combination of expediency, a common but fragile thread of race, similarities in culture and language where one state meets another, and to a large extent religion.

This diversity would be inconsequential was it not for the fact that 67 years of democracy doesn’t guarantee domestic insularity. People migrate, are ruled by those who are not their own, have languages and culture thrust upon them, and have to follow economic policies that are not consonant with their beliefs. These cause demographic distress and are felt deeply. Take the simple matter of gender discord. Discord is not a misnomer here. Gender relations in India have been skewed and warped to the point of misogyny and misandry being a refrain. This is also the case even when gender ratios are relatively equal. Much of this comes from the fact that culture and religion play spoilsport when metamorphosing to the 21^st century.

If the religious make up of India is anything to go by, the most regressive and rigid religions exist in India. However, this may not be a problem of the dogma but of the combination of dogma and people. One can therefore see the fault of polarity in the Indian identity and culture itself. To exemplify, Abrahamic religions in the West have allowed reform and gender relations that maintain harmony and discourse; not so the case in India where Abrahamic religions never got reformed or allowed reform of existing traditions. Hinduism is quite clearly not a religion even by the standards of its loudest voices. In essence of principles, it could have been a reformist countercurrent dogma for even the Abrahamic ones; however, the eons will show that no paganism can reform bigger theisms.

To this backdrop, there are splits of upper and lower castes – the social apartheid blessed by religious sanction. Then there is the urban-rural divide, which puts a virtual moat between people. Finally, one can make the socio-economic division of Upper,Middle and Lower classes. There could be a case for intellectuals being a separate class as well but those are the freaks of nature occurring irrespective of any compartmentalization. In summation, one can see India, simplistically, as a landmass, different geographies, religions, genders, castes, and socio-economic contributions as dividing parameters: the relevance of all these lies in how the politics of the region and the sub-continent lives and breathes.

India is and has always been a poor country with more than half of its population living on less than a dollar a day.  Adjustments for PPP are constantly done but by economists who prefer to paint a rosy picture. It is also an extremely unequal country with the top 2% getting the lion’s share of resources. 70% of India lives of agriculture. This defined the early political ideologies as socialist, correctly, then moving on to a social democracy where it lies in a transitory flux moving towards a neoliberal state.

India has always been a spiritual if not religious place. The concepts of many a saint define the financial prudence, the apartheid, the political landscape, war, and even the fatalistic concept of Karma. At this point, a digression into the political changes is needed.

India was born of the biggest people’s movement that ended up shaking the world of colonial imperialism. The independence movement brought forth a newly born state that had to decide – Socialism or Capitalism. For all the right reasons, it chose socialism as the political religion of choice. Why not? It was also the flavor of the century since 1917 with Communism gripping more than half of the world. Now, Indian or Nehruvian Socialism is one that incorporates Gandhi’s principles with Marxism. Therefore, it allows the opium of the masses and big business to survive. It is essentially a convenient form of Marxism but Socialism nevertheless. This was useful in building the foundations of society via infrastructure, rules, constitution and an abolition of all the old ills of society; most importantly land reform. The 80s brought about a change within the confines of the socialist checks and balances called liberalization. This liberalization was one where the benevolence and vision of a leader was the guiding force of change rather than global movements. The 90s was the start of the next revolution: a movement of the ‘few’, Neoliberalism. As with all countries, Neoliberalism gives us a shiny exterior but rots the core of society. However, a permanent state of Neoliberalism would destroy any country so safe to say India remains a social democracy.

There is another political revolution that occurred: that of Indian Nationalism. Indian Nationalism is a concept that is born of European fascism of the 30s. This Nationalism was even a silent counter movement to the independence movement for a while for the fear that any change in social order would endanger it. Movements like the RSS epitomized this duality of independent India. An organization that celebrated Indian independence, yet never fought for it; it hailed the casteist apartheid but embraced lower castes to be its muscles. The organization spread itself into fringe right wing elements with a religious tinge and to a political front as well. This dichotomy served it well to crush opposition with its right heel while winning hearts and minds. The political front called the BJP even won a 5-year term in office with a moderate head for a prime minister. The period was known for its violence and right wing extremism – curiously it fell because it overadvertised and was corrupt. Now, that force has come back; this time, without a moderate at the helm and without censoring its religious and political fundamentalism.

As a summary, perhaps one can say that for the first time, there is more definition in the Indian populace more than ever. One the one hand is the new, nationalistic, religious fundamentalist, anti-left and center, exclusionist and Neoliberal government supporters and votary while on the other hand, those that hark back to another leadership of relatively more centrist tendencies. This is a temporary agglutination of the people called the Hindu voters and Liberals. Temporary because one must understand that some basic things of the Indian ethos is that ideology can never supersede economics. 

The corruption of the State

Essentially, every leader would love to be a dictator/authoritarian/totalitarian. That is the nature of leadership. Even today, citizens hail absolute majorities given to leaders as a sign of democracy – ironically, by giving a dictatorial mandate to leaders. There is some truth to this paradigm as some of the major transformations in society and economics/social welfare/ policy are best implemented without questions asked; not within the mandated term at least.  Liberalisation, family planning, health care, military mobilization, and literacy are some examples.

Every successive term of government however seeks to corrupt the system that keeps it in balance. This is done through various means and the most visible being the use and misuse of law against the citizens. The foot soldiers of the Government are the army and police who implement the law as per the will of Government. It is very crucial to note that both the army and police take orders from Government and not the judiciary. Of course, this isn't the job of the judiciary but again note that the checks and balances mechanism against the Government does not have the control of the most potent weapon of control of the Government.

Therefore, the first step to absolute control of citizens by a government is to use the military and police. This corruption comes in the form of controlling dissidents, uprisings, demonstrations, and arrest. The military is used in state corruption by the use of martial law against citizens – basically the imposition of military rule with democratic blessings.

Once the dissidents are quelled, there is no opposition to resist; thereby, allowing the state to consolidate a majority mandate for further dictatorship. This step requires resources in winning hearts and minds done through propaganda tools. Ironically, the wealth of the citizens are used to suppress and quell them into slavery.

The last stage involves the subversion of law and constitution. This clips the wings of the Judiciary and sometimes even the co-opting of judiciary against the citizenry.

Is then corruption inevitable? In a large part, yes, or at least - the threat is ever present. This is where citizens must understand that Governance is too valuable, cherished, and dear an ideal to be left to Governments. To wash one’s hands of the processes of government is to leave the keys of the safe to a convicted felon for five years without ever checking up on him. Preventing corruption of the state requires involvement in its dealings. This is not so difficult because the final pillar of democracy is the fourth estate.Ideally, the Press is supposed to keep governments in check by giving us a view into its dealings. Not ironically, the clamping down of Press freedoms is the first step exercised by dictatorships. 

Corruption of the Press then is one the most insidious deceits because it is the betrayal of one’s own – people tend to view the press as being part of the citizens. This is infantile when the mechanics of the Press is understood. 

What is Government in the Indian context?

From an everyday perspective, the Government is that force that seems to be a consensus ruler of the country.  One can break this down further to the invisible hand that provides certain services that only a consensus-chosen body is allowed to provide – law and order for example.

Government cannot be looked at through this narrow prism of being a service provider because it is a monopoly player in this regard. It can make the rules for providing services and what services it provides.  This is a warning to society, irrespective of what kind of political system one exists in; it can be argued that a monopoly service provider called the Soviet state was more tuned to a mass of people’s needs after the Bolshevik revolution; it can also be argued that the biggest democracy in the world is most regressive in policies for the mass of people as it can be said of the US.

But coming back to that crucial word called ‘consensus’… the compromise or unanimous mandate of all. This is then to confer the role a majority of people to the right to governing policies over the minority. This is the essence of leadership in a democracy. Fortunately, it is the constitution that then restricts the government form reigning chaos upon a minority.

The crux of the matter, therefore, is that government whether a servant of the public or its ‘parent’ cannot be allowed to rule citizens lives. Sounds obvious but the hard work in this regard is that citizens cannot simply ‘outsource’ custodianship of constitutional rights to a government. Let no citizen forget that a majority government can change constitutional rules. It is akin therefore to a service provider revising the terms of service when it deems fit.

But we are forgetting a pillar of the democratic state – The judiciary. Most people are familiar with the simple fact that should the government trample upon your rights or contravene law, you can take the government to court. Most importantly, these adjudications result in the setting precedence. This makes Judiciary out to be a knight in shining armor to the citizens, which in most cases might even be an accurate assessment; however, this in large part depends on an efficient Judicial system and honest law enforcement. Many pronouncements and variables and constants have been stated above, the reality of the situation is beyond theory and warped and this is extremely visible in India.

The Government of India was born in 1947 and like all newly-formed governments, glistened of idealism. It even brought forth one of the most superior constitutions in modern history – at least considered so at that time. The constitution nearly 70 years hence looks more like a book of amendments and loopholes for backdoor amendments. Nevertheless, it is a governing document that has dispensed justice and most amendments have worked positively.  But times change, idealists die, idealism dies, and practicality and survival instincts take over. If the first governments were charged with the duty of building a nation, the subsequent governments were charged with growing it; however, this is where the corruption of the state begins. It eventually leads to the subversion of democracy itself.

India is in the growth stage and has been for long. From a transition from a socialist state, to a social democracy to finally the Neoliberal machine that it is now stands testimony to that.

Prologue to a New Passage to India

To many a native, the subject of India, can go quite remiss. It is a large landmass, borscht of people, heady mix of elitist and proletarian dialectics. It is summarized as one big mess. To those, like me, who have dabbled in India from a distance and from within for a while, it is fascinating. It is in fact as fascinating as it is to the non-South Asian observer.  However, no part of India is perhaps more fascinating than its politics. I like to believe that the intrinsic nature of Indian politics is one which truly came forth after Independence. I states so despite have no credentials as a historian, an academic or an erudite observer.

The reason that India’s politics is fascinating is because it was born as an epilogue to one of the greatest upheavals in world ideologies.  If the Magna Carta was the first assertion of people’s power upon government, 1917’s Bolshevik revolution was another; even the Fascist surges of the 30s have much purchase in people’s movements. However, it was after WW2 that the world stabilized in terms of a definition of Left, Right and Centrism to the common man. It is of course very sad to know that Anarchism as an ideology was sent to the badlands of students’ deconstructions in political science class. It exists in the hearts of every Socialist and Democrat – perhaps even regarded as a vestigial quirk in the DNA of the Capitalist – a quirk that destroys the political stability every now and then.

India was born amidst the greatest people’s movement in history that destroyed colonial imperialism as a form of Government. It must never be forgotten that the Gandhi is the man who was instrumental in the collapse of the British Empire as much as the losses of WW2. He also sparked a million revolutions all over the world. With all this glory there was a cellular discontent within the subcontinent of Right Wing Fundamentalism – marginalized politically because that was neither the soup d’jour of the time nor did their involvement in the assassination of Gandhi help. Nevertheless, their genesis and existence is equally interesting.

There are certain milestones of Indian politics; when people democratically revolted against Government. I can and will only comment in due course about 2004 and 2014. Many might call Centrist-Leftist bias at this.  Time and pages succeeding will tell if this is the case or not but the author will attempt a disconnected analysis. Finally, these are the writings of the average Joe; therefore, all dismissals from the better knowing academics and elite are expected.

This is not the voice of the Elite, it is the voice of the ordinary – the same ordinary that changes history.