INDIA AND INERTIA
How to Get the
Country Moving?
By
M.L. Sondhi
The Statesman, January 23, 1990
Many Western-oriented scholars are inclined to see Indian
democracy as a result of two dichotomous forces: first, the
divisive nature of Indian society and social forces, and
secondly, the integrative process of the Western
parliamentary system which tries to overcome the
contradictions of traditional India.
There is little need here to quote examples of how such
scholars who predicted "dangerous decades" for India have
been proved false prophets. The integrative process of
Indian culture has through the ages produced excellent
examples of democratic political practice. If on account of
historical circumstances, India's democratic identity has
been curbed by alien influences, the resulting social and
political breakdown should cause no surprise.
VALUES
An essential prerequisite for the success of the democratic
experiment in India is to remove disruptive foreign
influences and the authoritarian, dogmatic and hierarchical
values that have crept in along with them. The age-old
techniques of political accommodation and social tolerance
should be given full scope in shaping the identity of our
political society. The collective identity of India must be
rooted in economic and political freedom. At the same time,
India cannot have a nationalist attitude which is imitative
of European nationalisms, but must reach out to the
emergence of new civilizational imperatives for the coming
millennium.
There is still too much cultural discrimination and bigotry
in the world and India cannot compete on this basis. The
question of "How to get India moving" can only be answered
if the political leadership captures the imagination of the
millions with the kind of national image that is worth
defending in terms of our civilizational heritage. There is
a genuine lack of appreciation for the Indian values of
tolerance and pluralism in certain cultures which do not
cherish democratic values and civil liberties.
By transmitting the values of such unidimensional cultures
into the political process, we cannot generate a truly
national vision. The collective identity of India must be
clearly connected to the maturing of the democratic process
in a world society, through politics based on reason,
tolerance and human compassion.
The inertia of the Indian scene is the result of the lack of
faith of our decision-makers in the traditional democratic
values of Indian culture and their abject failure to educate
and shape public opinion. Instead of lauding and emulating
the achievements of cultures which have plunged the world in
violence and bloodshed, the Indian goal must consist in
breaking the chains of dogma and showing the way to world
unity without destroying the individuality of other nations.
Most Indians wish for an open society where there would be
ample space for individuals, families, social groups and
social movements to enrich the cultural life of the nation.
Unfortunately, till now, the rulers of India have regarded
such a society as a threat to their existence. During the
four decades after the transfer of power, the ruling
establishment has failed to make any fundamental changes in
the socio-institutional structures left behind by the
imperialist rulers.
The environmental crisis which India is now facing in both
its urban and rural life is the direct result of the
bureaucratic state created by Jawaharlal Nehru in the name
of socialism, and his failure to initiate democratic
participatory development. He and his advisers had an
obsessive interest in the models of development provided by
the European experience, especially that of Britain. Nehru
did not realize that the political imagination for building
a self-reliant India could not come through the imitation of
the West or of Soviet Russia.
The failure of politicians trained in the playgrounds of
Eton and Harrow, or in the corridors of the London School of
Economics, to bring about a political transformation of
India need surprise no one. With the advent of freedom they
could only build nationwide bureaucratic institutions but
remained singularly unresponsive to local needs. They may
have known how to use May's Parliamentary Practice, but they
did not know how to help decentralized small-scale
production and how to build local political structures.
It is the indifference to local needs that results in
exaggerating the importance of "national" institutions which
have been imported from Western political culture. In fact,
the inter-spaces between our major political institutions
are the areas where national self-expression and self-rule (swarajya)
have prevented outright distortion of national activities by
imported institutions. It is in the inter-spaces that much
hopeful activity will be possible in the future.
In the outside world little is known about the grassroots
democracy of India, and attention mostly is focused on the
Westminster model of parliament. It is easy, therefore, for
the world Press to project a misleading picture of
traditional elements which wish to obliterate the legacy of
British modernization. Movements such as the Cow Protection
Movement are castigated as obscurantist rather than valued
for their ecological potential. Similarly, the credit for
maintaining democratic rule when other Third World states
have come under military rule is wrongly attributed to those
elements who have not hesitated to make inroads into the
Fundamental Rights.
The real resistance to arbitrary rule in India lies in the
political will of hundreds of traditionally based opinion
groups throughout the country. Nehru's pet themes of
"secularism", "socialism" and "non-alignment" could not
provide the language of self expression which Indian
civilization needs in the contemporary era. If Nehru had
lived longer he would have realized that he was losing his
hold on the people not because there was a traditional
backlash against his modernization programme, but because he
was no longer able to express the political and social
profile of the nation in its tryst with destiny.
His successor in office, Lal Bahadur Shastri, proved many
political prophets wrong because he grasped the essential
fact that Indian democracy required traditional methods of
accommodation and conciliation.
In discussing the need to modify the political process to
meet new challenges, a suggestion is often made to change
from the British parliamentary type to the American-type
presidential system. This approach ignores the nature of the
basic changes which are required to meet the legitimate
participatory demands of the people. The formal procedures
of government are not sufficiently expressive of the real
political dialogue that is needed to revitalize the Indian
political system and political processes.
The presidential system will prove even more unsuitable if
it is imposed from above. The Americans adopted such a
system for a nation of immigrants who did not share a common
history, tradition or culture. In India, not only do we have
the consciousness developed during the struggle for freedom
from imperialism, we also have the unique features of a
common classical antiquity, a continuous history and
traditions received from a rich and chequered past.
TRUTH
The truth, unfortunately, that is not generally understood
is that India can make the best of its opportunities by
strengthening its political mind with the traditional ethos
of Indian civilization.
It is, therefore, necessary to create as many links as
possible between Parliament and the local political
structures of the country, so that the parliamentary system
can foster democratic participatory development at the
grassroots level instead of imposing the apparatus of a
centralized bureaucracy. Such a public philosophy will
strengthen national unity, foster democracy and promote
humane values in the service of peace and harmony. |