Trends in Indian politics
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overview of recent trends in Indian politics. Takes a look at caste, religiom, federalism, judiciary, etc in Indian politics
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Trends in Indian politics
- 2. Nehru era caste , religion, corruption in Indian politics One party dominance Voters demanding governance Indira era starts Emergency Rise of federalism Then Rajiv Gandhi era Beginning of coalition politics
- 4. Politics Coalition Politics Planning Commission India’s favourite sport Ally is never a friend and a firend need not be an ally Keeps poverty in India low, by definition Inclusive Growth Every party will get an opportunity to stand in the way of growth Opposition Party A party guilty of exactly the same things it accuses government of Silence Those who shall speak the lease shall be the PM longest
- 6. Indian society is vulnerable Irreversibility of choices Largest ever rural to urban transition Identity wars
- 11. State is increasingly getting intolerant society is getting more tolerant
- 12. scope of what is offensive is increasing Narrative of victimhood Icons and not their thoughts Political Insecurity
- 14. Political consensus, not normative Expanding categories of backwardness
- 16. Moderate middle has expanded System will not excuse what it excused in 1984
- 17. Women
- 19. “Ethical maturity of society will be measured by how women fare in it”
- 21. Law creates its own fear Judiciary is political unbiased
- 22. “In India we don’t get punishement after due process due process is the punishment”
- 25. Serious lack of intellectual self-confidence Lack of credibility of media and academics
- 26. “It is hard to imagine India achieving any measure of greatness, if it cannot take its own measure.”
- 28. Power In mess Education Not one national class university Urbanisation Imbalances Devolution Not done
- 29. “States should grow in importance but they are not panacea to all our problems”
- 31. Effective management of international environment Central challenges cut across disciplines
- 35. Vertical accountability Secrecy Horizontal accountability RTI, mobilisation of Information Discretion Centralisation Elimination of arbitrariness Federalism
- 36. “Congress is trying to win, BJP is trying to win, I hope in the end India wins”
- 37. Thank You!
Editor's Notes
- Before we begin, it is important to understand the language of Indian politicsSo here are key terms:Politics: India’s favourite sportCoalition politics: ally is never a friend and a friend need not be an allyPlanning commission: keeps poverty in India low, by definitionInclusive growth: every party will get an opportunity in the way of growthMinister of jails: only ministry where the minister might have first hand domain knowledgeOpposition party: a party guilty exactly of the same things it accuses government ofSearch for consensus means “ I don’t want to be held responsible for making a decisionSilence: it is the most valuable trait in Indian politics. Those who shall speak the least shall be the PM longest
- We all make fun of politics. We have also become very cynical of Indian politics. There is widespread frustration with democracyDemocracy is seen as impeding the decisive action needed for rapid economic growthBut in reality the importance of democratic politics has increase manifold. This is because of many reasons:1. societies are vulnerable when things are improving and not when they are stagnant. For that we need politics2. the various types of choices that we are going to make in this decade, once taken will be hard to change later. To make the best choices we need to have wide public discussions. For that we need politics3. India is going to preside over largest rural to urban transition under democratic condition. 4. Identity wars that caused much conflict in 1990s have been largely dissipated. Partly because of growth and party because of politicsFor all this requires politics. Grassroots politics.
- So lets take a brief look at our 2 major national parties. First congress.Congress is medievalIn congress loyalty is rewarded rather than competence which is typical of medieval dynastiesIts ministers are neither grassroot politicians nor are they administratively competent.They are good at one thing: palace intrigue
- For BJP, it is not a national party at all. But it is a coalition of 6-7 state partiesThis is because many people think that central dilemma of BJP is between Hindutva and a more centrist position. This is not the case. No matter what BJP does, it is never going to be acceptable to most radical muslims.So the central dilemma of BJP is that it does not understand federalism. BJP is entirely composed of state units. It has some very strong state level leaders. So for this state level leaders, the national leadership is not of any benefit. Or sometimes it is even a liablity.Evidence of this can be seen in ArunJaitley’s remark that all India Politics is mathematics. It means stiching together a coalition
- So our both major national parties are in really bad shape. But at the same time Indian state faces a lot of challeges which we will discuss one by one. First, freed speech. We have seen some very serious attacks on freedom of speech in India in the form of AseemTrivedi case, Salmanrushdie case, NCERT cartoon controversy etc.This is an evidence of the fact that Indian state is becoming less tolerant. So, does that mean that Indian society is also becoming less tolerant. Actually, reverse is true. Indian society is becoming more tolerant.This is because, now, many people have started thinking what was previously unthinkable. And therefore attacks on free speech are increasing.There is also one more trend here. And it is this: we have a public culture in which what counts as offensive is rapidly expandingThis is mainly because of three reasons: First most community identites in Indian politics are built around a narrative of victimhood. Community needs to feel under assault to keep them together. Otherwise difference within a community will cause it to split.Second is that what unites these communities is icons and not their thoughts. Community membership is signaled by defending iconsThird is political insecurity. The only Indian politicians who are secure are those who are embedded in community indentities. So they have a vested interest in getting outraged easily.
- Now lets talk about caste and reservation.Now there is an upcoming bill on reservations in promotions.There seems to be political consensus around it. This political consensus does not mean normative consensus.This is because caste and reservations run so deep in Indian society that all political parties feel that only sensible thing to do is withdraw in silence.One more trend can be mentioned here.At the time of independence there was consensus that affirmative action must be benefit Dalits.But now this affirmative action has been generalised by indiscriminately expanding categories of backwadness.Reservations are no longer about historical wrong or discrimination. But they have become tools to access power
- Lets turn to another daunting challenge Indian state faces and that is communalism.NarodaPatiya case. This was the first case in the history of India where senior politicians were convicted for riots.Many feel that if such type of convictions had happened in 1984, then perhaps 2002 would not have happened.So there are 2 trends here: first is that Indian moderate middle has grown much larger and it continues to expand.Second trend is that the system will not excuse what it excused in 1984
- Women. Ethical maturity of our society will be measured by how women fare in it.But unfortunately Indian state has been ignoring one of the central challeges and that is transformation of gender relations.A survey can be cited here. According to Thomas Reuters Foundation, India is the 5th worst place to be a women. First is afganistan, Congo, Pakistan and somalia.There is also talk of women’s reservation bill and etc and but one trend that can be mentioned here is the impact of NREGA.Majority paricipants of NREGA are women, so in 10 years from now its effect will be visible on empowerment of women.
- Now on law and judiciary, a quote by arundhatiroy is very important. She says that” in India we don’t get punishment after due process, due process itself is the punishment.”Law is required to liberate us from fear. But in India law itself creates its own fear.Second trend here is that our judiciary is political. Now normally people think that Indian judiciary is independent. But that is not the case in reality. This is because suppose, if Indian judiciary challenges exisiting power structure too radically, there is fear that it will be overruled by unconstitutional means. This has actually not happened in India precisely because Indian judiciary has never ever seriously challenged the exisiting power structure.Indian judiciary is political. This is not in partisan political sense like for BJP or for congress. But political in the sense that the judiciary takes care that it does not lose its power by taking on the state too radically.3rd and postive trend that can be mentioned here is that Indian judiciary has been mostly unbiased in dealing religious, ethnic or linguistic minorities
- The “time” magazine called our Prime Minister an “Underachiever”.This is like Sherlock Holmes saying” now we have firm grasp of the obvious”.This article became news, it was front page headline in many newspapers even PMO responded to the article.It was just an article. But still why this happened? There are 2 trends here:1. there is serious lack of intellectual self confidence. We constantly take our measure from abroad.2. there is serious crisis of credibility both in our media and academicsWhat we can say with regards to this is that it is hard to imagine India achieving any measure of greatness, if it cannot take its own measure.
- Indian politics follows the law of opposites.We feel that if public sector is faltering, private sector will deliver.If centre is faltering, states will deliver.There is a lot of enthusiasm for states in IndiaThis is because some CMs on mission mode do some things right. Like PDS in TN, Manufacturing in Gujrat, cycle distribution in Bihar.But in reality most of the states have been unable to takcle the most serious challeges they face.First, power. Power is in mess in almost all states. Evidence of that we have seen in recent grid failureSecond, education. Now, education is a state subject. But still not one state has been able to come up with one national class university.Third, Urbanisation. Some states like Andhra Pradesh, Karanataka, Maharashtra went for developing an economic powerhouse. But this has created unstainable imbalance in the state. The cities are also in bad shape. It is said that Mumbai is in such a bad situation that it can collapse at any timeFourth, states have also failed in properly devolving power to panchayats and states.So we can say here that, state should grow in importance but they are not panacea for all our problems.
- We will very briefly discuss foreign policy here. Now there is curious seperation between domestic politics and foreign policy.Foreign policy is simply not an election issue.Our national governments are coalitions having many regional level parties who have no interest in foreign policy.This is going to change.Just as in 1970s economy became part of politics, foreign policy will also become part of politics.
- If politics is India’s favourite sport, then corruption is the most favourite player.There is so much anger and frustration against corruption. But actually I am very happy about all this corruption that is coming. People tend to think corruption that has been exposed is just the tip of iceberg. Some feel that it is not even tip of the iceberg. People feel that this is symptom of deeper malaise in the system.That is not true. Actually it is a sign of governance revoultion happening in India. And here come my most favourite part of this presentation.
- Governance revolution.Revolution means that the old is getting replace by something new.The old Indian state is getting replace by a new Indian state.This old Indian state was founded on 4 principle. And all these prinicples are collapsing.First is verticle accountability. Previously we had a system where secretary was accountable to the minister, minister accountable to PM, PM accountable to Parliament. Parliament accountable to people. Now this structure has completely collapsed. Now anybody can question the govt. let it be CAG, media, judiciary or evern ordinary aamadmi.Second priniciple was secrecy. Everything was secret. The Indian state knew much more that aamadmi. This has changed because of 2 things. First is of course, RTI. And secondly and more importantly, civil society can themeslevesmobilise information. For example if PMC does not want to measure how much pollution is there in city. An NGO can come up and measure on their own and say to PMC look how much you are polluting the city.Third principle was dicretion. There was wide discretion, there still is. But there is so much anger against this any new law that comes up will try to minimise discretion.Fourth principle was centalisatio. We are already familiar with the fact that federalism is rising in importance.So all the corruption exposes that we have seen are actually because they violated some of these principle. 2G scam ecposure violated verticleaccountibily. Irrigation scam ecposure in maharashtra violated the secrecy principle. Etc.So these corruption exposures are actually cleaning up the system. One thing that can be said here with confidence that no matter what happens. No govt can dare allocate natural nresouuceslik e this.
- I would like to conclude here by quoting one prominent Indian politician.“ congress is trying to win, BJP is trying to win, I hope in the end India wins”Thank you.