In the previous post on this blog, a synoptic view of the politico-economic situation of contemporary India was presented. The prevailing situation in respect of morality in politics as practiced in India, corruption in public life, social unrest and insurgency in the country and poverty and economic disparity was discussed and was shown that, taking the situation prevailing in India at the time of its independence in 1947 as a reference point, these problems have progressively gotten worse over the six decades since then. There is also a general perception that the rate of decline in the situation in all these aspects has been rather on the increase over the period in spite of efforts having been made to arrest the decline. If this is so and there is no real ground to suppose otherwise, all concerned with and for India should really be worried about its future. There is lurking danger that many persons may be beguiled into complacency or even optimism based on the statistics of its economic growth, of its increased job opportunities in certain sectors of economy, or of increasing penetration of modern technology of mobiles and internet. But the stark facts of the Indian situation cannot, and must not, be glossed over by this flickering tokenism. If even these tokens are considered in perspective, they will reveal rather disturbing situation below their thin veneer. High rate of economic growth must be considered vis-a-vis increasing impoverishment in the country. According to one estimate, 77% of people of India live on an income of Rs. 20.00($0.5) a day. The so called economic reforms comprising liberalization, privatization and globalization have opened the vast Indian market to multinational companies, which resulted in creation of jobs and led to introduction of electronic and other goods manufactured by these companies in this ready-made market. These manifestations of ‘ positive changes’ in India are really the results of growth of related science and technology outside India as well as of ‘ liberalized , privatized and globalized economy’. These are indicative of neither development of science, technology and industry in India nor of corresponding or consequential changes in life and living of people .While India is the fourth largest user of internet i.e., consumers of related technology and industry in the world , this use is confined to only 7% of its people as compared to the next higher users Japan (75%) , U.S.A (74%) , and China (27%) . These positive changes are rather characteristic features of neo-colonialism, i.e., supplier of raw materials and resources including human resources and consumer of finished goods. The colonial British government too had introduced railways in India as far back as in 1857 and it did create jobs in India, in implementation as well as for its operation and maintenance. It, however, was meant to serve, and did serve, the ultimate purpose of economic exploitation of a colony.
The systematic decline since independence in the above mentioned four politico-economic aspects which broadly encompass the entire Indian situation is, however, too apparent to be denied or ignored. When India had been struggling under the inspiring leadership of Mahatma Gandhi for its freedom from exploitation and degradation that its people had been suffering from under the colonial dispensation , the freedom fighters would have hardly envisaged that the free India would evolve like the way it has done. And since the decline in the situation of free India has been evolutionary, it is obvious that free India has not been on the right tracks from day one. As the rate of decline has been increasing over the years, one may conclude that free India had positioned itself on rather a downward slope where descent naturally goes on with acceleration.
The moot point is to deliberate and determine where India went wrong right in the beginning of its journey as a free nation. If this is not done thoughtfully ,it is quite likely that we may misdiagnose the various ills that afflict the nation as it moved along , prescribe wrong remedies, get frustrated when the affliction does not go away or become more complex and serious and then declare in desperation that ‘India is not fit for democracy ’ , ‘politicians are to blame for the nation’s plight’, ‘corruption is too deep rooted and pervasive to be eliminated’, ‘administration is unresponsive and inefficient’, or similar such sweeping statements which lead nowhere.
In order to discover and determine where and how India went off-track since it became free, one must step back a little and look broadly at its struggle for freedom. It is widely agreed that Mahatma Gandhi gave a new direction, imparted a great momentum and introduced a novel weapon of non-violent non- cooperation in the freedom struggle. Moved by the plight of the people under the colonial rule, he drew the oppressed masses to this struggle and made it a real mass movement, which earlier was confined only to the intelligentsia. His guiding spirit and common refrain in the freedom movement was that he was fighting against the unjust and immoral system of governance through which India was systematically exploited and degraded and not necessarily against the British people who were merely operating it. This system was defined and elaborated in the Government of India Acts passed by the British Parliament. These Acts were amended from time to time to accommodate some of the demands of the freedom fighters under the overall objective of economic exploitation of India with consequent deprivation and degradation of its people. Under the Government of India Act 1935, a provision was made for governments to be formed in the provinces of British India by popularly elected representatives. However, the provincial governments so formed found various provisions in this Act abhorrent and constraining under which they were hardly able to act in order to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the people and consequently they resigned in frustration after only a year or so. Henceforward, abolition of this Act itself became one of the important objectives of their independence struggle. When India was granted independence through the Indian Independence Act 1947, two provisions in this Act may be pointed out; one that until India framed its own constitution the Govt. of India Act 1935 would remain in force, and secondly the rights and privileges of members of the Indian Civil Service, who were under the control of British Secretary of State for India, would continue unchanged. The Constitution of India framed by the Constituent Assembly whose members were elected not directly by the people based on adult suffrage but indirectly by the members or the Legislative Assemblies of the provinces of British India as well as were nominated as representatives of the native Indian states, adopted the same system of governance as was operative in the 1935 Act and against which the freedom struggle was waged. The draft Constitution was criticized on two main counts in the Constituent Assembly. One that it was hardly indigenous to India having a rich heritage of culture and civilization and secondly, while it rejected the British rule, it adopted the institutions developed for and under this rule. These criticisms were recognized by Dr. Rajendra Prasad in his concluding speech but were glossed over in the hope that the country would throw up men of character, vision, integrity and national commitment , who would be able to make the best even of a defective Constitution. And the Constitution was thus passed by consensus on 26 November 1949 in the Constituent Assembly when the people of India were said to have “adopted, enacted and given to themselves” a Constitution. Unfortunately for India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad’s hope which seemed understandably justified in the political milieu of that time proved to be utterly naïve in contemporary India. It must also be recognized that Mahatma Gandhi, the architect of India’s freedom, was conspicuous by his total non-involvement in the constitution making process even while he was alive. The Constitution of India, which became operative with effect from 26 January 1950 known as Republic Day of India almost two years after Gandhi’s death, not only doesn’t bear any real imprint of Gandhi’s thoughts (not speaking of Gandhian thoughts) about free India but in vital aspects is rather an anti-thesis of his entire motivation and rationale of waging and guiding a novel struggle for freedom , which has inspired a large part of the world.
Is this then the point of off-track journey of the Republic of India? This will be examined and analyzed in some detail in the further posts on this Blog.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Synoptic Politico-Economic View of Contemporary India
While the glory that was ancient India, relative prosperity of medieval India and the impoverishment as well as degradation of colonial India are well documented by historians, the notion of the condition of post-independence, contemporary and evolving India is, at best, mixed as well as confusing and, at worst, downright depressing. While on the one hand, there is an image and perception of contemporary India being the largest functioning democracy and a modern, secular nation emerging as an economic power, there is a veritable picture of India being characterized by strident and widespread poverty and whose socio-political fabric is riven by casteism, communalism and insurgency, on the other. While India won its independence from a well-entrenched powerful imperial regime through a non-violent struggle informed by pursuit of politics of high morality, which called for sufferings and sacrifices on the part of its leaders, in post-independence India politics is practiced in increasingly blatant pursuit of power for self-aggrandizement, public life is reeking of corruption and neo-imperialism is unobtrusively creeping in. The salient features of the picture of independent India which has emerged in the last six decades have been discussed in the previous nine posts on this blog titled “Understanding Contemporary India and its Problems”. A synoptic view of this picture is as follows.
In the first two posts titled “India’s Illusion of Democracy”, it has been shown that in the democracy that India has adopted for its governance, the people have hardly any voice in how the governments are constituted at the centre or in the states, or in how the affairs that affect their day to day lives and living are managed at the local levels. In spite of the din, bustle and heat in stark evidence at the time of elections, democracy in India is too indirect, distant and convoluted for the people to make any impact in normal circumstances on how they are to be governed, i.e., how their concerns are addressed and their aspirations met. For this very reason, the basic constitutional stipulation that sovereignty of the nation lies with its people has been rendered insubstantial. This is clearly discernible in the interactions the ‘sovereign people’ have with the ‘public servants’, i.e., the government officials at all hierarchical levels, as discussed in the third blog post titled “Reality of India’s Sovereignty”. In the fourth blog post titled “Secularism in the India Republic”, the real character of India’s secularism, as proclaimed in the Constitution, has been discussed. While in colonial India, the secular government of British India played the religious card as part of their ‘divide and rule’ strategy to keep themselves in power, the communal divides are kept alive as vote banks by the political parties in their bid to capture or sustain power in the Indian republic. Another constitutional principle enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution of India, socialism has been given a formal burial in the name of economic reforms. In the case of India, embracing of the so called economic reforms, i.e., liberalization, privatization and globalization, followed from the government’s colossal failure in meeting its social responsibilities due to its institutional weaknesses, infirmities and aberrations, as discussed in the fifth blog post titled “What Happened to India’s Socialism?” As far as India being declared a republic in the constitution is concerned, one conjures up an image of the republic of India having a governance “of the people, by the people and for the people”. As explained in the blog post titled “Is India a True or Ideal Republic”, this image is not real at all. India is a republic only by its text-book definition of the headship of the state of India not being ancestral as in a monarchy. Ancestry in the Indian polity, however, is far from being uncommon.
The view of India as indicated above points out the basic institutional infirmities, the stark realities as against the illusions nurtured by the Indian republic. These infirmities, however, are very significant and fundamental for the health of the republic and for understanding the problems afflicting the nation. It is like a sick person having the illusion of being healthy will not be motivated to seek diagnosis for the problems he may be suffering from. He will run after symptomatic, rather than systemic, treatments for his problems, only to be frustrated at the end as these undiagnosed or misdiagnosed problems defy those superficial treatments. Similar situation has been happening with the Indian republic. When India became independent on 15 August 1947 and a republic on 26 January 1950, it got the illusion of being a healthy nation while its body politic inherited essentially the same germinal system of governance which had been corroding its vitals for the last century and a half of its colonial existence. It did not undergo the needed catharsis. Consequently, the problems afflicting the nation not only defied the conventional solutions applied but got more pervasive and complex with time. Three such problems have been dealt with in the previous posts on this blog. One is the problem of corruption in public life which has been systematically getting more serious, pervasive and corrosive over the years and decades. Secondly, the problem of insurgency and other disruptive forces crippling India has been increasing in extent and destructiveness over time. Last but not the least, the problem of pervasive poverty that emerged in the colonial period and prevailed in the post-independence period in spite of valiant efforts made for development, has now been perpetuated in the republic India. These problems, which characterize contemporary India, have been dealt with in the previous November, December and January posts. It must also be understood that the problems afflicting the nation are not only confined to these three. There are many others which are related, systemic and quite serious such as cross-border terrorism. Unless the basic illness afflicting the body politic of India is diagnosed appropriately and the treatment prescribed and acted upon accordingly, the prognosis will never be satisfactory and effective. This will be the subject matter of the next post.
In the first two posts titled “India’s Illusion of Democracy”, it has been shown that in the democracy that India has adopted for its governance, the people have hardly any voice in how the governments are constituted at the centre or in the states, or in how the affairs that affect their day to day lives and living are managed at the local levels. In spite of the din, bustle and heat in stark evidence at the time of elections, democracy in India is too indirect, distant and convoluted for the people to make any impact in normal circumstances on how they are to be governed, i.e., how their concerns are addressed and their aspirations met. For this very reason, the basic constitutional stipulation that sovereignty of the nation lies with its people has been rendered insubstantial. This is clearly discernible in the interactions the ‘sovereign people’ have with the ‘public servants’, i.e., the government officials at all hierarchical levels, as discussed in the third blog post titled “Reality of India’s Sovereignty”. In the fourth blog post titled “Secularism in the India Republic”, the real character of India’s secularism, as proclaimed in the Constitution, has been discussed. While in colonial India, the secular government of British India played the religious card as part of their ‘divide and rule’ strategy to keep themselves in power, the communal divides are kept alive as vote banks by the political parties in their bid to capture or sustain power in the Indian republic. Another constitutional principle enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution of India, socialism has been given a formal burial in the name of economic reforms. In the case of India, embracing of the so called economic reforms, i.e., liberalization, privatization and globalization, followed from the government’s colossal failure in meeting its social responsibilities due to its institutional weaknesses, infirmities and aberrations, as discussed in the fifth blog post titled “What Happened to India’s Socialism?” As far as India being declared a republic in the constitution is concerned, one conjures up an image of the republic of India having a governance “of the people, by the people and for the people”. As explained in the blog post titled “Is India a True or Ideal Republic”, this image is not real at all. India is a republic only by its text-book definition of the headship of the state of India not being ancestral as in a monarchy. Ancestry in the Indian polity, however, is far from being uncommon.
The view of India as indicated above points out the basic institutional infirmities, the stark realities as against the illusions nurtured by the Indian republic. These infirmities, however, are very significant and fundamental for the health of the republic and for understanding the problems afflicting the nation. It is like a sick person having the illusion of being healthy will not be motivated to seek diagnosis for the problems he may be suffering from. He will run after symptomatic, rather than systemic, treatments for his problems, only to be frustrated at the end as these undiagnosed or misdiagnosed problems defy those superficial treatments. Similar situation has been happening with the Indian republic. When India became independent on 15 August 1947 and a republic on 26 January 1950, it got the illusion of being a healthy nation while its body politic inherited essentially the same germinal system of governance which had been corroding its vitals for the last century and a half of its colonial existence. It did not undergo the needed catharsis. Consequently, the problems afflicting the nation not only defied the conventional solutions applied but got more pervasive and complex with time. Three such problems have been dealt with in the previous posts on this blog. One is the problem of corruption in public life which has been systematically getting more serious, pervasive and corrosive over the years and decades. Secondly, the problem of insurgency and other disruptive forces crippling India has been increasing in extent and destructiveness over time. Last but not the least, the problem of pervasive poverty that emerged in the colonial period and prevailed in the post-independence period in spite of valiant efforts made for development, has now been perpetuated in the republic India. These problems, which characterize contemporary India, have been dealt with in the previous November, December and January posts. It must also be understood that the problems afflicting the nation are not only confined to these three. There are many others which are related, systemic and quite serious such as cross-border terrorism. Unless the basic illness afflicting the body politic of India is diagnosed appropriately and the treatment prescribed and acted upon accordingly, the prognosis will never be satisfactory and effective. This will be the subject matter of the next post.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Emergence, Prevalence and Perpetuation of Poverty in India
One of the attributes, good as well as bad, by which India is commonly characterized is its poverty. There are, however, significant divergences in the estimates done by various agencies of the magnitude of this poverty. According to its own criterion used for the purpose, Planning Commission of the Government of India estimates that 27.5% of the population was living below the poverty line in 2004-05. While this estimate is contested by several states in India itself, according to the 2005 World Bank estimate, 42% of India live below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, which works out to be Rs. 21.6 a day in terms of purchasing power parity. Still another agency set up by the Government of India, National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS) in its 2007 Report asserts that 77% of Indians, i.e. 836 million people live on less than Rs.20 a day. Apart from these divergent estimates, poverty in India is reflected by several well recognized indexes and parameters. India has the highest rate of malnutrition among children in the world under the age of 3; India ranks 143 and 134 in the comity of 190 nations of the world in infant mortality rate (IMR) and human development index (HDI), respectively. India has also one the highest incidences of human trafficking, including trafficking in women and children. In spite of government regulations, child labour in India is rampant. Increasing criminality in life and living and growing insurgency unsettling various parts of India are largely caused and fed by poverty. The subhuman conditions in which the poor people live and survive in India have been recently depicted dramatically in the internationally acclaimed 2008 British film Slumdog Millionaire, which should shame India of Gandhi who was appalled and moved by the poverty and degradation of people brought about by the system of exploitative governance of the British colonial rule in India and it was these conditions which had inspired him to call for freedom from that system though a nonviolent struggle.
In order to understand the serious and complex problem of poverty in India, it will be helpful to consider it both in its historical as well as its comprehensive socio-political-economic perspectives. While the former will show that poverty is not at all intrinsic to India, the latter would indicate the framework in which the solution to the vexed problem lies. The Indus Valley Civilization which existed in India from 2800 BC to 1800 BC was a very prosperous period marked by trade activity and urban development. The Maurya Empire (321 BC to 185 BC), under which most of the Indian subcontinent was unified under one rule, was known for flourishing economic activities. The famous politico-economic treatise Arthashastra was written by Chanakya, the Prime Minister to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta under the pseudonym Kautilya. The Gupta period (320 AD to 550 AD) was the so called Golden Age of India marked by not only economic prosperity but also by singular achievements in art, science, literature, astronomy, mathematics etc. In fact, India is estimated to have had the largest economy of the ancient and medieval world between the first and 15th centuries AD under various rulers. Under the Mughal rule in the 16th century up to the period of the rule of the Marathas in central India in the first half of the 18th century, the Indian economy, i.e., its gross domestic product was either the largest or the second largest after China, controlling from 1/4th to 1/3rd of the world economy. The economic scenario, however, changed dramatically and drastically with the coming of the British colonial rule in India which was aimed primarily at exploitation of its resources for the benefit of Britain. India’s share in the world economy fell from about 24% at the beginning of the colonial rule to about 4% at the end, brought out systematically through a governance and economic institutional instrument specially designed for the purpose. India experienced several devastating famines in the period, killing an estimated aggregate of 30 million people. By the end of the colonial rule, India inherited an economy that was one of the poorest in the world and totally stagnant.
Free and republic India no doubt made valiant efforts to reverse the inherited economic trend, but using the same institutional instrument of governance, under the visionary leadership of Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. In spite of having made considerable strides in infrastructural development, particularly in the first two decades after independence, no appreciable dent on the problem of poverty could be made. In the mixed economy model followed by India to bring about a socialistic pattern of society, with considerable state controls and regulations of economic activities, the rate of economic growth hovered around 3.5% in this period accompanied by increasing corruption. With the state having the prime responsibility of alleviating poverty but being unable to accelerate economic growth, the government depended on public distribution systems and price controls of essential commodities to provide succor to the poor resulting in black marketing, bureaucratic red tapism and growing corruption.
With the policy of economic liberalization, privatization and globalization courted by India since the early nineties, bidding socialism enshrined in the Constitution a formal good-bye and the vast Indian market opened to multi-national companies, Indian economy did register an appreciable growth rate of around 8%. While this has appreciably increased the size of the middle class and has led to acute concentrations of wealth in a limited number of hands, it has depressed the poor even more, both in numbers as well as in intensity. According to a recent report by an expert group, the poverty level in India has risen from an estimated 27.5% in 2004-05 to 37.2% in 2009 even according to the Planning Commission’s criterion. Thus while the problem of poverty remains essentially untouched, its sting has become sharpened in the midst of visibly widened economic disparity. Many schemes launched by the government targeted at benefiting the poor directly are only palliative measures like pain killers aimed at making the sting bearable, on the one hand, and at scoring political mileage, on the other. While India’s poverty is becoming intractable, India’s poor are becoming an increasingly attractive vote bank in India’s power-centric politics. The much acclaimed National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme is illustrative in this regard. The scheme apparently aims both at creating employment as well as contributing to development at one go. In effect, however, due to the inappropriate delivery mechanism in place, while the benefits reach the target only minimally, the net of corruption has become wider to include even the village functionaries. The political advantage accruing to the party in power at the Centre is distinct. Using India’s poor as a vote bank, while widely practiced by all political parties without exception, is at times carried to ludicrous extents. Fully air-conditioned long distance trains named as Garib Rath (Poor Man’s Train) at reduced fares were launched some years ago, flaunting this to be done with the poor in mind. While even those reduced fares are way beyond the affording capacity of the India’s poor, these trains really benefit only the middle class. A premier political party once fought and won a national election on the specious slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’ (Remove Poverty). Thus, as the poor constitute a sizeable vote bank attractive to political parties, India’s poverty stands perpetuated in the present day polity.
While the new economic regime professes to benefit the poor by the process of trickling down of prosperity from the top to the bottom, it has certain disastrous fall outs. One of them is the growing nexus between the national and multi-national businesses, on the one hand, and politicians, on the other. Several high level and high magnitude corruption and scandals have been increasingly coming to light in recent years.
It is high time that we understand and appreciate that India’s poverty is rather systemic and is not amenable to any political gimmicks or economic stratagem. Its solution lies at systemic level only. More light will be thrown on this aspect in another post under this Blog.
In order to understand the serious and complex problem of poverty in India, it will be helpful to consider it both in its historical as well as its comprehensive socio-political-economic perspectives. While the former will show that poverty is not at all intrinsic to India, the latter would indicate the framework in which the solution to the vexed problem lies. The Indus Valley Civilization which existed in India from 2800 BC to 1800 BC was a very prosperous period marked by trade activity and urban development. The Maurya Empire (321 BC to 185 BC), under which most of the Indian subcontinent was unified under one rule, was known for flourishing economic activities. The famous politico-economic treatise Arthashastra was written by Chanakya, the Prime Minister to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta under the pseudonym Kautilya. The Gupta period (320 AD to 550 AD) was the so called Golden Age of India marked by not only economic prosperity but also by singular achievements in art, science, literature, astronomy, mathematics etc. In fact, India is estimated to have had the largest economy of the ancient and medieval world between the first and 15th centuries AD under various rulers. Under the Mughal rule in the 16th century up to the period of the rule of the Marathas in central India in the first half of the 18th century, the Indian economy, i.e., its gross domestic product was either the largest or the second largest after China, controlling from 1/4th to 1/3rd of the world economy. The economic scenario, however, changed dramatically and drastically with the coming of the British colonial rule in India which was aimed primarily at exploitation of its resources for the benefit of Britain. India’s share in the world economy fell from about 24% at the beginning of the colonial rule to about 4% at the end, brought out systematically through a governance and economic institutional instrument specially designed for the purpose. India experienced several devastating famines in the period, killing an estimated aggregate of 30 million people. By the end of the colonial rule, India inherited an economy that was one of the poorest in the world and totally stagnant.
Free and republic India no doubt made valiant efforts to reverse the inherited economic trend, but using the same institutional instrument of governance, under the visionary leadership of Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. In spite of having made considerable strides in infrastructural development, particularly in the first two decades after independence, no appreciable dent on the problem of poverty could be made. In the mixed economy model followed by India to bring about a socialistic pattern of society, with considerable state controls and regulations of economic activities, the rate of economic growth hovered around 3.5% in this period accompanied by increasing corruption. With the state having the prime responsibility of alleviating poverty but being unable to accelerate economic growth, the government depended on public distribution systems and price controls of essential commodities to provide succor to the poor resulting in black marketing, bureaucratic red tapism and growing corruption.
With the policy of economic liberalization, privatization and globalization courted by India since the early nineties, bidding socialism enshrined in the Constitution a formal good-bye and the vast Indian market opened to multi-national companies, Indian economy did register an appreciable growth rate of around 8%. While this has appreciably increased the size of the middle class and has led to acute concentrations of wealth in a limited number of hands, it has depressed the poor even more, both in numbers as well as in intensity. According to a recent report by an expert group, the poverty level in India has risen from an estimated 27.5% in 2004-05 to 37.2% in 2009 even according to the Planning Commission’s criterion. Thus while the problem of poverty remains essentially untouched, its sting has become sharpened in the midst of visibly widened economic disparity. Many schemes launched by the government targeted at benefiting the poor directly are only palliative measures like pain killers aimed at making the sting bearable, on the one hand, and at scoring political mileage, on the other. While India’s poverty is becoming intractable, India’s poor are becoming an increasingly attractive vote bank in India’s power-centric politics. The much acclaimed National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme is illustrative in this regard. The scheme apparently aims both at creating employment as well as contributing to development at one go. In effect, however, due to the inappropriate delivery mechanism in place, while the benefits reach the target only minimally, the net of corruption has become wider to include even the village functionaries. The political advantage accruing to the party in power at the Centre is distinct. Using India’s poor as a vote bank, while widely practiced by all political parties without exception, is at times carried to ludicrous extents. Fully air-conditioned long distance trains named as Garib Rath (Poor Man’s Train) at reduced fares were launched some years ago, flaunting this to be done with the poor in mind. While even those reduced fares are way beyond the affording capacity of the India’s poor, these trains really benefit only the middle class. A premier political party once fought and won a national election on the specious slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’ (Remove Poverty). Thus, as the poor constitute a sizeable vote bank attractive to political parties, India’s poverty stands perpetuated in the present day polity.
While the new economic regime professes to benefit the poor by the process of trickling down of prosperity from the top to the bottom, it has certain disastrous fall outs. One of them is the growing nexus between the national and multi-national businesses, on the one hand, and politicians, on the other. Several high level and high magnitude corruption and scandals have been increasingly coming to light in recent years.
It is high time that we understand and appreciate that India’s poverty is rather systemic and is not amenable to any political gimmicks or economic stratagem. Its solution lies at systemic level only. More light will be thrown on this aspect in another post under this Blog.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Insurgency and Other Disruptive Forces Crippling India
Apart from the problems of precipitous decline in political morality, rampant corruption, growing impoverishment and stark economic disparities, other serious problems, which are distinct but related to or caused by these problems, plaguing India are insurgency and other disruptive movements raging in, and outraging various parts of, India. These movements appear in diverse forms which may be categorized broadly as separatist including secessionist movements inspired by cultural, religious, linguistic and ethnic identities or movements caused by socio-economic disparities and marginalization. Very often these movements are violent, being directed against established authorities of government. Sometimes, they are directed against certain groups of people who, being outside the identities characterizing the local population, are perceived to be either exploiters or undue beneficiaries at their cost. Depending upon the nature and strategy of perpetrating the violence, the movements may be termed as militant, extremist or insurgent. With the advent and currency of suicide bombing, these movements, particularly those associated with religious fundamentalism, even deploy terrorism involving wanton killings in order to make their point.
Except for religion-based movements which originated in pre-independence India due to the British rulers playing the religious card in an attempt to preserve and perpetuate their colonial rule and promoting the preposterous principle of religion as the rationale for nationhood, all other movements are post-independence phenomena. Even if the seeds of these problems existed then, they remained dormant and subjugated to the British rule. They blossomed and bloomed in the post-independence Indian republic, bringing the Indian nationhood in question and to ransom. The salient such movements and consequent disruptions in various parts of India are indicated below.
India’s independence accompanied by its partition into two nation-states based on the two-nation theory, which was unacceptable to India, set the stage for future separatist movements in free India. One example is the emergence of many self-styled organizations in Kashmir demanding autonomy, self-determination, independence, or even accession to Pakistan, often using violence, mostly aided and abetted by cross-border instigations and occasionally accompanied by terrorist activities. For the last at least two decades, Kashmir has been an insecure and disturbed part of India, resulting in several hundred thousands of casualties involving civilians, militants and security personnel in insurgency and counter-insurgency operations, and in near collapse of the thriving tourist and related trades. Another example of unrest and violent movement emanating from the acceptance of religion as a basis of nationhood is the Khalistan movement aimed at creating a separate Sikh nation, which rocked the Punjab region by violence, militancy and terrorism for almost two decades in the seventies and eighties. It was preceded by a movement for creation of a Sikh majority state, which was done in 1966 through an Act of the Parliament. The high points of the Khalistan movement were Operation Blue Star of the Indian Army in order to quell the armed secessionist movement, assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the subsequent outbreak of anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and the mid-air blowing up of the plane of an Air India Flight. The movement, in which the Sikh Diaspora have played an active role, is now at least dormant largely because of other overwhelming developments in the country.
Another part of India which has been one of South Asia’s hottest trouble spots since the sixties is its seven north-eastern states. As many as 30 armed insurgent organizations such as ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom), NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland), PLA (People’s Liberation Army) of Manipur, NSCN (National Socialist Council of Nagaland) and NLFT (National Liberation Front of Tripura) have been operating in the region, fighting the Indian state with demands ranging from right to self-determination and autonomy to secession. As this region having an area of 255,000 sq. km. (8% of India’s geographical area) has 4500 km long highly porous borders with four countries, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar, this insurgency has been rendered complex and intractable due to its trans-border ramifications and operations. It takes several diabolical forms such as extortion, kidnapping, wanton killing, particularly of people having migrated from other parts of India and settled here, as well as confrontation with the police and the army. Even though some of these organizations have been banned because of their patently anti-national activities and agenda, insurgent activities have been going on, overtly or covertly, for the last four decades or so in this region.
Apart from these major insurgencies, various other events and activities such as narrow regionalism in the name of ‘sons of the soil’, demands for bifurcation of states with the professed objective of more balanced development and various water disputes are actually manifestations of negation of integrity and unity of India. Moreover, due to these forces of separatism, India has increasingly become a soft target of pan-Islamic terrorism.
The above-mentioned insurgencies are abetted by, and ultimately aimed at, separatism and are based essentially on religion or ethnicity. In the last four decades, however, altogether another type of insurgency has gripped parts of India and is growing. Originating in an obscure West Bengal village called Naxalbari, marked by strident poverty, as a left-wing extremist uprising against the establishment, this movement now afflicts almost half of the 28 states of India, concentrated mostly in tribal and mine rich parts of eastern and central India. This insurgency has been expanding both in area and population being affected as well as in level of violence associated with it. Today, the Naxalities or Maoists as these insurgents are called control about 92,000 sq. km. of India, where only the writs of their parallel government run. Their cadres consisting of both men and women are mostly recruited from their rural strongholds and are given professional training in armed insurgency. Their primary targets are police, government property and installations, highways, railways and the activities symbolizing present day governance such as elections and even developmental works.
Thus, we see that basically two types of insurgency afflict contemporary India, one based on fractured identities of religion, ethnicity, region and language as against a national identity, and the other based on increasing impoverishment and widening socio-economic disparity. At the root of both these types of insurgencies lies a sense of non-participation and alienation from the prevailing system of governance. While the first category of insurgents reacts to this sense by seeking a separate institution of governance in which they matter, the second category expresses their wrath at the failed system of governance which has not been able to deliver the goods over the decades. Whatever, these insurgencies cost a tremendous amount of national energy and resources. A nation saddled with such disruptive and dissipative forces can hardly hope to get out of the woods.
Except for religion-based movements which originated in pre-independence India due to the British rulers playing the religious card in an attempt to preserve and perpetuate their colonial rule and promoting the preposterous principle of religion as the rationale for nationhood, all other movements are post-independence phenomena. Even if the seeds of these problems existed then, they remained dormant and subjugated to the British rule. They blossomed and bloomed in the post-independence Indian republic, bringing the Indian nationhood in question and to ransom. The salient such movements and consequent disruptions in various parts of India are indicated below.
India’s independence accompanied by its partition into two nation-states based on the two-nation theory, which was unacceptable to India, set the stage for future separatist movements in free India. One example is the emergence of many self-styled organizations in Kashmir demanding autonomy, self-determination, independence, or even accession to Pakistan, often using violence, mostly aided and abetted by cross-border instigations and occasionally accompanied by terrorist activities. For the last at least two decades, Kashmir has been an insecure and disturbed part of India, resulting in several hundred thousands of casualties involving civilians, militants and security personnel in insurgency and counter-insurgency operations, and in near collapse of the thriving tourist and related trades. Another example of unrest and violent movement emanating from the acceptance of religion as a basis of nationhood is the Khalistan movement aimed at creating a separate Sikh nation, which rocked the Punjab region by violence, militancy and terrorism for almost two decades in the seventies and eighties. It was preceded by a movement for creation of a Sikh majority state, which was done in 1966 through an Act of the Parliament. The high points of the Khalistan movement were Operation Blue Star of the Indian Army in order to quell the armed secessionist movement, assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the subsequent outbreak of anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and the mid-air blowing up of the plane of an Air India Flight. The movement, in which the Sikh Diaspora have played an active role, is now at least dormant largely because of other overwhelming developments in the country.
Another part of India which has been one of South Asia’s hottest trouble spots since the sixties is its seven north-eastern states. As many as 30 armed insurgent organizations such as ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom), NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland), PLA (People’s Liberation Army) of Manipur, NSCN (National Socialist Council of Nagaland) and NLFT (National Liberation Front of Tripura) have been operating in the region, fighting the Indian state with demands ranging from right to self-determination and autonomy to secession. As this region having an area of 255,000 sq. km. (8% of India’s geographical area) has 4500 km long highly porous borders with four countries, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar, this insurgency has been rendered complex and intractable due to its trans-border ramifications and operations. It takes several diabolical forms such as extortion, kidnapping, wanton killing, particularly of people having migrated from other parts of India and settled here, as well as confrontation with the police and the army. Even though some of these organizations have been banned because of their patently anti-national activities and agenda, insurgent activities have been going on, overtly or covertly, for the last four decades or so in this region.
Apart from these major insurgencies, various other events and activities such as narrow regionalism in the name of ‘sons of the soil’, demands for bifurcation of states with the professed objective of more balanced development and various water disputes are actually manifestations of negation of integrity and unity of India. Moreover, due to these forces of separatism, India has increasingly become a soft target of pan-Islamic terrorism.
The above-mentioned insurgencies are abetted by, and ultimately aimed at, separatism and are based essentially on religion or ethnicity. In the last four decades, however, altogether another type of insurgency has gripped parts of India and is growing. Originating in an obscure West Bengal village called Naxalbari, marked by strident poverty, as a left-wing extremist uprising against the establishment, this movement now afflicts almost half of the 28 states of India, concentrated mostly in tribal and mine rich parts of eastern and central India. This insurgency has been expanding both in area and population being affected as well as in level of violence associated with it. Today, the Naxalities or Maoists as these insurgents are called control about 92,000 sq. km. of India, where only the writs of their parallel government run. Their cadres consisting of both men and women are mostly recruited from their rural strongholds and are given professional training in armed insurgency. Their primary targets are police, government property and installations, highways, railways and the activities symbolizing present day governance such as elections and even developmental works.
Thus, we see that basically two types of insurgency afflict contemporary India, one based on fractured identities of religion, ethnicity, region and language as against a national identity, and the other based on increasing impoverishment and widening socio-economic disparity. At the root of both these types of insurgencies lies a sense of non-participation and alienation from the prevailing system of governance. While the first category of insurgents reacts to this sense by seeking a separate institution of governance in which they matter, the second category expresses their wrath at the failed system of governance which has not been able to deliver the goods over the decades. Whatever, these insurgencies cost a tremendous amount of national energy and resources. A nation saddled with such disruptive and dissipative forces can hardly hope to get out of the woods.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Culture of Corruption in Public Life in Contemporary India
In the previous posts on this Blog, it has been discussed how democracy has been an illusion, both at the top as well as at the grass roots of governance in India, how secularism has been negated in the practice of politics for pursuit of power, how sovereignty of people of India is far from a reality, how socialism has been formally forsaken by India and how India is far from being a true or ideal republic. Thus, the declaration made in the Constitution in its Preamble of India being a “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic” remains a pious wish rather than a reality of life and living in contemporary India. In fact, India has diverged more and more from the path envisioned in the Constitution over almost six decades of its republican journey. Alongwith this divergence in basic constitutional values, other concomitant values have also progressively deteriorated in India. Among these, the most pervasive and intense is the cankerous growth of corruption in the Indian republic, so much so that it has evolved as a culture of its public life. Growth of this culture in public life is quite at variance with that in personal and social life in contemporary India, or what may be called the core culture of India evolved over centuries and millenniums of its national life.
Obviously then the cause of corruption and its growth is inherent in the operative part of our Constitution, i.e. the system of governance adopted. As this system remained essentially the same as was used for colonial administration of British India, the corruption that prevailed in that administration in a systematic and established manner, particularly at lower levels, continued unabated in free India. With the Constitution, which retained the same system of governance, coming into force on 26 January 1950, corruption became more pervasive and it spread to higher levels at accelerated pace. The Mundhra scandal, which involved the then Finance Minister was brought to notice on the floor of the parliament in the fifties just serves as an example of corruption at the highest levels even in the initial years of Indian republic. In those years, however, the political morality was still at high level. The case was promptly and transparently investigated by a judge of impeccable reputation and upon establishment of the charge, guilty officials were punished and the Finance Minister had to resign. In later years and decades, cases of corruptions at high levels, scams and scandals came to light with increasing frequency, each dwarfing the previous ones in magnitude, pervasiness and turpitude of political morality. The latest major scandal which came to light 10 days ago relates to a scandal involving embezzlement of public funds, illegal laundering of black money as well as depositing and investing in foreign countries to the true of more than 50 billion rupees. The king pin of this scandal had been a minister and then Chief Minister for only a few years of a newly created mineral-rich poor state. The story of his rise to being a minister or the Chief Minister in spite of being an independent member of the State Legislature makes an interesting reading in democratic functioning in contemporary India. It demonstrates how all tenets of right political behaviour and ethics are blatantly thrown to the winds in order to capture and retain power, directly or by proxy, and how contemptible and obnoxious maneuvers are done by political parties to have a pliable government of choice and convenience.
While talking of major scams and scandals involving political leaders in power, one must not forget that corruption is not confined only to the political levels. Far from it. Corruption is rampant in various measures at all levels of governance in India, from political to bureaucratic down to the lowest ones.
There is one qualitative difference between the scandals and corruption in the earlier years after independence when the first generation post-independence political leaders were still there at the helm of affairs, and now. Then, while the system of governance was prone to and promotive of corruption, people entered the profession of politics with a sense of service and the system still operated under certain norms and canons set by the British administration. Now, the morality of the political profession has tremendously fallen and the whole system of governance has commensurately degenerated. Then, people from the grass roots took to politics inspired by a sense of service to the nation, and political wrong doers were a rather scarce commodity. Now, 56% of the MPs in the 15th Lok Sabha belong to upper less than 0.1% of the Indian people and about 30% of them have criminal records. Increase in the extent and magnitude of corruption and fall of the political morality and criminalization of politics in India have gone hand in hand. This progression, however, has been happening not with constant speed but rather with acceleration.
The inference is inescapable and obvious. This Indian phenomenon is not specific to political parties or people as politicians per se. It is rather systemic and the system is obviously the system of colonial governance that was chosen and adopted to govern a free nation aspiring to become a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.
Obviously then the cause of corruption and its growth is inherent in the operative part of our Constitution, i.e. the system of governance adopted. As this system remained essentially the same as was used for colonial administration of British India, the corruption that prevailed in that administration in a systematic and established manner, particularly at lower levels, continued unabated in free India. With the Constitution, which retained the same system of governance, coming into force on 26 January 1950, corruption became more pervasive and it spread to higher levels at accelerated pace. The Mundhra scandal, which involved the then Finance Minister was brought to notice on the floor of the parliament in the fifties just serves as an example of corruption at the highest levels even in the initial years of Indian republic. In those years, however, the political morality was still at high level. The case was promptly and transparently investigated by a judge of impeccable reputation and upon establishment of the charge, guilty officials were punished and the Finance Minister had to resign. In later years and decades, cases of corruptions at high levels, scams and scandals came to light with increasing frequency, each dwarfing the previous ones in magnitude, pervasiness and turpitude of political morality. The latest major scandal which came to light 10 days ago relates to a scandal involving embezzlement of public funds, illegal laundering of black money as well as depositing and investing in foreign countries to the true of more than 50 billion rupees. The king pin of this scandal had been a minister and then Chief Minister for only a few years of a newly created mineral-rich poor state. The story of his rise to being a minister or the Chief Minister in spite of being an independent member of the State Legislature makes an interesting reading in democratic functioning in contemporary India. It demonstrates how all tenets of right political behaviour and ethics are blatantly thrown to the winds in order to capture and retain power, directly or by proxy, and how contemptible and obnoxious maneuvers are done by political parties to have a pliable government of choice and convenience.
While talking of major scams and scandals involving political leaders in power, one must not forget that corruption is not confined only to the political levels. Far from it. Corruption is rampant in various measures at all levels of governance in India, from political to bureaucratic down to the lowest ones.
There is one qualitative difference between the scandals and corruption in the earlier years after independence when the first generation post-independence political leaders were still there at the helm of affairs, and now. Then, while the system of governance was prone to and promotive of corruption, people entered the profession of politics with a sense of service and the system still operated under certain norms and canons set by the British administration. Now, the morality of the political profession has tremendously fallen and the whole system of governance has commensurately degenerated. Then, people from the grass roots took to politics inspired by a sense of service to the nation, and political wrong doers were a rather scarce commodity. Now, 56% of the MPs in the 15th Lok Sabha belong to upper less than 0.1% of the Indian people and about 30% of them have criminal records. Increase in the extent and magnitude of corruption and fall of the political morality and criminalization of politics in India have gone hand in hand. This progression, however, has been happening not with constant speed but rather with acceleration.
The inference is inescapable and obvious. This Indian phenomenon is not specific to political parties or people as politicians per se. It is rather systemic and the system is obviously the system of colonial governance that was chosen and adopted to govern a free nation aspiring to become a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Is India a True or Ideal Republic?
A Republic has been defined in several ways. In a strict limited sense, a state or a country headed not by a hereditary monarch but by a citizen of that state or country fulfilling certain eligibility criteria, generally titled as President, is called a Republic. Here, any of such citizens can potentially be a candidate for being a President. On the basis of this definition, even a country having a dictator as its head can be said, and has been actually proclaimed, to be a Republic. Also, countries which are non-secular and are governed in accordance with a set of religious laws and edicts have proclaimed themselves to be republics, such as Islamic Republics of Pakistan and Iran. Similarly, countries having one-party or authoritarian rule call themselves as republics such as People’s Republic of China. Nations subscribing exclusively to a particular political or socio-economic policy are styled as republics such as the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Certain countries which have a particular desire to emphasize their claim to be democratic, even though they may have only limited or circumscribed democracy, call themselves a ‘democratic republic’ such as Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
This definition is then further qualified that the President has to be elected directly by people such as in the USA or by elected representatives of people in which case it may be named as a parliamentary republic such as in India. This also has been subjected to manipulation and maneuvers by powerful and crafty military and civil dictators. Another definition, which is not too specific but is imbued with its essential sense, is that a state or a country where people have impact on its government and is headed by a citizen fulfilling specified eligibility criteria is a Republic. In an ideal sense, a state or a country having a government ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ is truly a Republic. Thus, we can see that while India is a republic in a technical sense, but is not so in a true or ideal sense. On account of the prevailing system of governance, people have impact on the government in a very convoluted and indirect manner which almost negates it. Ideally, India is still far from having ‘a government of the people, by the people and for the people’, as indicated in the previous posts on this Blog.
This definition is then further qualified that the President has to be elected directly by people such as in the USA or by elected representatives of people in which case it may be named as a parliamentary republic such as in India. This also has been subjected to manipulation and maneuvers by powerful and crafty military and civil dictators. Another definition, which is not too specific but is imbued with its essential sense, is that a state or a country where people have impact on its government and is headed by a citizen fulfilling specified eligibility criteria is a Republic. In an ideal sense, a state or a country having a government ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ is truly a Republic. Thus, we can see that while India is a republic in a technical sense, but is not so in a true or ideal sense. On account of the prevailing system of governance, people have impact on the government in a very convoluted and indirect manner which almost negates it. Ideally, India is still far from having ‘a government of the people, by the people and for the people’, as indicated in the previous posts on this Blog.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
What Happened to India's Socialism?
Socialism has been defined, interpreted and understood in various ways. Broadly and essentially, socialism means, and should mean, that whenever and wherever the interests of the society conflict with those of the individual, the former would prevail. Ideally, the social and economic interactions in a socialist society should be so structured as to promote and preserve this concept of socialism. Moreover, any type of modern government should dominantly serve this purpose, whether or not socialism is explicitly adopted as a sole or a guiding doctrine of governance. In British India, as the dominant purpose of the colonial government was economic exploitation of the country, serving of the social purpose over the individual one was subordinated to the colonial purpose for which a type of governance system suited to this unwholesome purpose was devised and put in place. When India became independent on 15 August 1947 and framed its own Constitution, which came into force with effect from 26 January 1950, it declared itself to be a “sovereign democratic republic”. Although there was no specific and explicit mention of ‘socialism’ or ‘socialist’ in the constitutional declaration, provisions or even in the non-enforceable directive principles of state policy, there are certain clauses incorporated in the latter which are characteristic of ‘socialism’ or ‘socialist state’, such as the state striving, (i) to promote the welfare of the people, (ii) to minimize the inequalities in income, (iii) to secure that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as to best subserve the common good, and (iv) to ensure that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment.
As the dominant motivation for India’s struggle for freedom under the inspiring leadership of Mahatma Gandhi was the abject poverty of the masses of India, the leaders of free India’s government adopted policies and measures which may be termed as ‘socialist’ or ‘socialistic’. Under the charismatic leadership of Pandit Nehru, who was also the head of government, the dominant political party in power, the Indian National Congress adopted a resolution for “a socialistic pattern of society” in its Avadi session in 1957 and a resolution of Democracy and Socialism in its Bhubaneshwar session held in 1963. Similar resolutions were also passed in the India Parliament. In view of rather strong anti-socialism forces in various interest groups in the country and even in the ruling Indian National Congress, who were ever ready to resist or even sabotage what they viewed as radical socialist measures of the government, the word ‘socialist’ was introduced, along with ‘secular’, through a constitutional amendment passed in 1976 under the stewardship of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in the very Preamble of the Constitution, declaring India to be a ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’. Various socialistic measures were taken under this dispensation, such as nationalization of banks and insurance; establishing many public sector undertakings, particularly in key and critical areas of national economy; setting up a system of licenses and permits to regulate the wayward behavior of private industries and businesses; providing subsidies to promote agriculture and other economic activities pursued by the masses for their livelihood; and governmental programmes targeted at the poor and vulnerable sections of the society. However, these well intentioned measures of a democratic socialist republic were executed under the same system of governance which was used for economic exploitation of a colony, thus resulting in the same sort of ills that afflicted other general activities of the government such as inefficiency, corruption and callousness. Instead of realistic analysis and diagnosis of these ills, the policy of socialism itself was brought into disrepute by powerful vested-interest groups. Aided and abetted by certain sweeping global trends such as liberalization, globalization and privatization of economy and catastrophic event like the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, which was actuated by its own inner contradictions, the cherished ideal of socialism was formally bade good bye, many public sector undertakings were disinvested and subsidies were withdrawn, all in the name of economic reforms in the early nineties. This no doubt gave spurt to enhanced economic activities by indigenous industrialists and entrepreneurs. This is, however, at great social cost. Several of the directive principles of state policy such as those related to disparities in incomes and concentration of wealth have been grossly outraged. The vast consumer market and cheap manpower of ‘economically reformed India’ also attracted multi-national companies to operate here. Thus, while the Indian people were considered as a ‘vote bank’ by the political parties in their bid for power under the post-independence colonial system of governance, they now also became a ‘market’ for exploitation by the multinationals in the globalised economy.
In its zeal for privatization, India has left capitalist countries behind even in certain such vital sectors as education and health. While in the USA, public funded schools cater to more than 90% of school going children; in India school education has emerged as a big lucrative thriving private business. Even in higher and technical education, the government seems to be contracting its role and being selective in expansion to meet the growing demands, leaving ever widening space for private entrepreneurs to play, understandably with profit motivation. Similarly, in another vital sector like health services, while the trend in capitalist countries is towards more and more socialization, in India it is just the reverse. Increasing number of people have to take recourse to private doctors, clinics and hospitals on account of deficiency, inadequacy and low standards of health services provided by the government. And obviously, this is to the enrichment of the private players at a high or even back-breaking cost to the people who pay taxes for various services including health and education.
So, where is India’s socialism and what happened to it during the post-independence period? It is a moot question for deliberation by all concerned. It may reveal certain disconcerting and disturbing facts and indications about whither the Indian Republic is heading.
As the dominant motivation for India’s struggle for freedom under the inspiring leadership of Mahatma Gandhi was the abject poverty of the masses of India, the leaders of free India’s government adopted policies and measures which may be termed as ‘socialist’ or ‘socialistic’. Under the charismatic leadership of Pandit Nehru, who was also the head of government, the dominant political party in power, the Indian National Congress adopted a resolution for “a socialistic pattern of society” in its Avadi session in 1957 and a resolution of Democracy and Socialism in its Bhubaneshwar session held in 1963. Similar resolutions were also passed in the India Parliament. In view of rather strong anti-socialism forces in various interest groups in the country and even in the ruling Indian National Congress, who were ever ready to resist or even sabotage what they viewed as radical socialist measures of the government, the word ‘socialist’ was introduced, along with ‘secular’, through a constitutional amendment passed in 1976 under the stewardship of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in the very Preamble of the Constitution, declaring India to be a ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’. Various socialistic measures were taken under this dispensation, such as nationalization of banks and insurance; establishing many public sector undertakings, particularly in key and critical areas of national economy; setting up a system of licenses and permits to regulate the wayward behavior of private industries and businesses; providing subsidies to promote agriculture and other economic activities pursued by the masses for their livelihood; and governmental programmes targeted at the poor and vulnerable sections of the society. However, these well intentioned measures of a democratic socialist republic were executed under the same system of governance which was used for economic exploitation of a colony, thus resulting in the same sort of ills that afflicted other general activities of the government such as inefficiency, corruption and callousness. Instead of realistic analysis and diagnosis of these ills, the policy of socialism itself was brought into disrepute by powerful vested-interest groups. Aided and abetted by certain sweeping global trends such as liberalization, globalization and privatization of economy and catastrophic event like the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, which was actuated by its own inner contradictions, the cherished ideal of socialism was formally bade good bye, many public sector undertakings were disinvested and subsidies were withdrawn, all in the name of economic reforms in the early nineties. This no doubt gave spurt to enhanced economic activities by indigenous industrialists and entrepreneurs. This is, however, at great social cost. Several of the directive principles of state policy such as those related to disparities in incomes and concentration of wealth have been grossly outraged. The vast consumer market and cheap manpower of ‘economically reformed India’ also attracted multi-national companies to operate here. Thus, while the Indian people were considered as a ‘vote bank’ by the political parties in their bid for power under the post-independence colonial system of governance, they now also became a ‘market’ for exploitation by the multinationals in the globalised economy.
In its zeal for privatization, India has left capitalist countries behind even in certain such vital sectors as education and health. While in the USA, public funded schools cater to more than 90% of school going children; in India school education has emerged as a big lucrative thriving private business. Even in higher and technical education, the government seems to be contracting its role and being selective in expansion to meet the growing demands, leaving ever widening space for private entrepreneurs to play, understandably with profit motivation. Similarly, in another vital sector like health services, while the trend in capitalist countries is towards more and more socialization, in India it is just the reverse. Increasing number of people have to take recourse to private doctors, clinics and hospitals on account of deficiency, inadequacy and low standards of health services provided by the government. And obviously, this is to the enrichment of the private players at a high or even back-breaking cost to the people who pay taxes for various services including health and education.
So, where is India’s socialism and what happened to it during the post-independence period? It is a moot question for deliberation by all concerned. It may reveal certain disconcerting and disturbing facts and indications about whither the Indian Republic is heading.
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