India Since Independence Read online

  Tom linson, Mr Shin’ichiro Horie of the Japan Foundation, Toky o, enabled us to take tim e off from Japan and present m any aspects of this book in several universities in the US. Manuela Albuquerque, Catherine Harned, Abha and Anil Pandy a, Mohan Sood, Tom Metcalfe, Vasudha Dalm ia, Blair Kling, Arj un Appadurai, Bernard Cohn and Carol Breckenridge were critical in m aking the US visit very rewarding.

  We would like to thank the staff of the Nehru Mem orial Museum and Library , Jawaharlal Nehru University Library and the India International Centre Library in New Delhi and the Institute of Oriental Culture Library and Institute of Developing Econom ies Library in Toky o.

  Luxm i and Om Prakash shared a great deal of the burden of ty ping a large part of the m anuscript. Colleagues at the Academ ic Staff College, JNU, particularly Savitri Bisht, Aj ay Sharm a and S.C. Sharm a, went bey ond the call of duty to help the authors write the book situated thousands of m iles from each other, using inform ation technology .

  As usual Usha Chandra has contributed in m ultiple way s to the m aking of this book.

  We are very thankful to Raj Kam ini Mahadevan of Penguin India for undertaking the arduous task of editing the m anuscript and thus vastly im proving it and also for seeing to it that we didn’t fall too far behind schedule. We are also very thankful to David Davidar for encouraging us to undertake the writing of this work and then giving us great deal of latitude in term s of tim e.

  For the revised edition we are particularly grateful to Ravi Singh and Avanij a Sundaram urti for persuading us to work on the revisions and additions and then patiently egging us on till we com pleted the proj ect.

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  Introduction

  India’s independence represented for its people the start of an epoch that was im bued with a new vision. In 1947, the country com m enced its long m arch to overcom e the colonial legacy of econom ic underdevelopm ent, gross poverty , near total illiteracy , wide prevalence of disease and stark social inequality and inj ustice. 15 August 1947 was only the first stop, the first break—the end of colonial political control: centuries of backwardness were now to be overcom e, the prom ises of the freedom struggle to be fulfilled, and people’s hopes to be m et.

  The tasks of nation-building were taken up by the Indian people and their leaders with a certain elan and determ ination and with confidence in their capacity to succeed. Jawaharlal Nehru’s fam ous ‘Try st with Destiny ’ speech on the eve of independence, on 14 August, reflected this buoy ant m ood.

  Starting off with a broad social consensus on the basic contours of the India that was to be built —on the values of nationalism , secularism and dem ocracy and the goals of rapid econom ic developm ent and radical social change—was a great advantage. These values and goals, and the road to their achievem ent, had been m apped over m ore than seventy y ears by the national m ovem ent. Yet, there was a realization that this consensus had to be continuously widened and built upon. Crucial in this respect was the role play ed by Nehru and the ideas he developed and propounded.

  The Basic G oals

  The first and the m ost im portant task was to preserve, consolidate and strengthen India’s unity , to push forward the process of the m aking of the Indian nation, and to build up and protect the national state as an instrum ent of developm ent and social transform ation. Indian unity , it was realized, was not to be taken for granted. It had to be strengthened by recognizing and accepting India’s im m ense regional, linguistic, ethnic and religious diversity . Indianness was to be further developed by acknowledging and accom m odating the Indians’ m ultiple identities and by giving different parts of the country and various sections of the people adequate space in the Indian Union. The proj ect was, m oreover, rightly seen to be a long-term and continuing process with the concept of Indianness being constantly redefined.

  Basic, in this respect, was also the secular vision. The nation’s leaders set out to build a secular society and state, undaunted by the Partition of India and the ensuing riots.

  It was also clear that India’s revolution had to be taken bey ond the m erely political to include econom ic and social transform ation. Independent India had to begin its upward econom ic clim b from an aby sm ally low level. The technological and productivity levels of Indian agriculture and industry were to be constantly and rapidly raised. Moreover, the Indian econom y , even while being an integral part of the world econom y , was to be based on self-reliance, free of subordination to the m etropolitan interests or dom ination by foreign capital. This could not be accom plished through the unham pered working of m arket forces and private enterprise. It would require planning and a large public sector. India, therefore, set out to achieve, especially after 1955, an integrated/national econom y based on an indigenous industry , catering prim arily to its dom estic m arket. While socialism was also set out as an obj ective, the essence of India’s effort was towards the structural transform ation of her econom y , leading to its becom ing an independent, national econom y .

  The social scene also called for rapid transform ation. Despite lower-caste m ovem ents in several parts of the country and Gandhij i’s cam paign against untouchability , the caste sy stem still dom inated rural society and untouchability was the prevailing m ode—the lower castes had still not ‘stood-up’. Male dom ination was still nearly total, and wom en suffered im m ense social oppression in the fam ily . Poly gam y prevailed am ong both Hindus and Muslim s. Wom en had no right of inheritance, nor the right of divorce, and were still by and large denied access to education. For Indians, illiteracy and ignorance were the norm in 1951; only 25 per cent of m ales and 7.9 per cent of fem ales were literate.

  The founders of the Indian Republic had the farsightedness and the courage to com m it them selves to two m aj or innovations of historical significance in nation-building and social engineering: first, to build a dem ocratic and civil libertarian society am ong an illiterate people and, second, to undertake econom ic developm ent within a dem ocratic political structure. Hitherto, in all societies in which an econom ic take-off or an early industrial and agricultural breakthrough had occurred, effective dem ocracy , especially for the working people, had been extrem ely lim ited. On the other hand, from the beginning, India was com m itted to a dem ocratic and civil libertarian political order and a representative sy stem of governm ent based on free and fair elections to be conducted on the basis of universal adult franchise. Moreover, the state was to encroach as little as possible on rival civil sources of power such as universities, the Press, trade unions, peasant organizations and professional associations. The m any social, econom ic and political challenges that the country was to face were to be dealt with in a dem ocratic m anner, under dem ocratic conditions.

  One of the m aj or political tasks facing the leadership was to further develop the dem ocratic consciousness am ong the people initiated during the period of the freedom struggle. The leadership com pletely rej ected the different versions of the ‘rice-bowl theory ’, that the poor in an underdeveloped country were m ore interested in a bowl of rice than in dem ocracy , and that, in any case, dem ocracy was useless to them if it could not guarantee them adequate food, clothing and shelter.

  Further, it was realized that given India’s diversity , a dem ocratic political structure was necessary for prom oting national integration. Dem ocracy was also considered essential for bringing about social change. Jawaharlal Nehru, in particular, upheld perhaps the Utopian notion that the poor would sooner or later assert their power through their vote and bring into being a social order responsive to their needs.

  Econom ic developm ent and a dem ocratic political order were to be accom panied by rapid social transform ation so that existing gross econom ic, caste and gender inequalities were rapidly elim inated, poverty was rem oved and the levels of living raised. The structure of Indian society was to be rapidly transform ed in a broadly socialist direction, but not necessarily to resem ble Soviet-sty le com m unism . It was also realized that these
obj ectives required the broadest unity of the Indian people. Therefore, a large social consensus had to be evolved around the vision of the freedom struggle and the dem ocratic form s through which the obj ectives would be achieved.

  The national m ovem ent had aroused expectations of a rapid rise in personal and societal prosperity , of social and econom ic equity and equality , of the good life. Indira Gandhi’s slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’ in 1971 further fuelled these expectations as did the process of continuous politicization since 1950. The constantly rising aspirations and expectations had to be fulfilled as rapidly as possible, and without letting too wide a gap develop between expectations and fulfilm ent. In short, the Indian people and their leaders hoped to achieve in a few decades what others had achieved in a century or m ore. And this was to be on the basis of dem ocracy , avoiding bloodshed and authoritarianism , and through a process of accom m odating diverse social, econom ic and regional interests. Agrarian reform s, state planning and a strong public sector were to serve as the m aj or instrum ents for the purpose.

  At the sam e tim e, political stability had to be ensured for the accom plishm ent of all these tasks.

  The political sy stem had to com bine stability with growth, social transform ation and deepening of the political process. The Indian revolution had to be gradual, nonviolent and based on political stability , but it had to be a revolution all the sam e.

  A Troubled Democracy

  Since 1947, m any Indians and foreigners, critics and adm irers, have expressed doubts about India’s ability to develop or continue its advance, or even sustain its societal and developm ental design. From the beginning there have existed vocal prophets of doom and gloom who have been predicting that neither freedom , nor dem ocracy , nor socialism would survive in India for long, that the Indian political sy stem would collapse sooner or later, that the Indian Union would not survive and the nation state would disintegrate into linguistic and ethnic fragm ents. They have repeatedly argued that India’s num erous religious, caste, linguistic and tribal diversities, besides its poverty , social m isery and inequity , growing disparities of wealth, rigid and hierarchical social structure, m assive unem ploy m ent and m ultiple socioeconom ic problem s were bound to underm ine its national unity , its dem ocratic institutions and its developm ental efforts. India would, therefore, either break up or alternatively be held together by a civilian or m ilitary authoritarian, dictatorial regim e.

  Ever since regional parties started em erging in the 1960s and m uch m ore during the 1980s and 1990s, m any com m entators have been speculating—som e with enthusiasm —as to when the disintegration of India would take place. Even the success in holding together and working a secular and dem ocratic political sy stem over the y ears has not deterred the prophets of doom . At every instance of turm oil or perceived political crisis, as for exam ple the wars with China and Pakistan, the death of the towering Nehru, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, com m unal, linguistic or caste violence, Naxalite uprisings, secessionist m ovem ents in Kashm ir, the Northeast, Punj ab and earlier in Tam il Nadu, these critics articulated and renewed their foreboding.

  As early as 1960, the Am erican scholar-j ournalist Selig S. Harrison predicted: ‘The odds are alm ost wholly against the survival of freedom and . . . the issue is, in fact, whether any Indian state can survive at all.’1 In 1967, Neville Maxwell, a Times correspondent, in a series of articles entitled ‘India’s Disintegrating Dem ocracy ’ declared, ‘The great experim ent of developing India within a dem ocratic fram ework has failed.’ He predicted that the fourth general elections which were then forthcom ing would be surely the last elections to be held in India.2

  Many of the Cassandras felt j ustified when the Em ergency was im posed. Many argued that it provided a signpost to India’s political future. Som e went further and said that the dem ocratic sy stem in India was finally and perm anently in eclipse, or at least that it would never be the sam e again. Another set of doom -wallas stressed the incapacity of India to achieve econom ic developm ent. India’s political institutional structure, according to them , did not coincide with the developm ental goals that had been set as these required a degree of coercion if not dictatorship to be achieved.

  Then there were leftwing sceptics who held that no social, econom ic or political developm ent was possible without a violent revolution and that nation-building, political dem ocracy , econom ic developm ent, national unity and nationalism were m ere sham s m eant to delude the oppressed and the exploited. They , therefore, argued for or anticipated a peasant-based revolution as in China during 1925–49 or a worker-peasant-based revolution as in Russia in 1917. According to them , poverty , inequality , class dom ination and social oppression would sooner or later lead the vast m aj ority of the people on the path of revolution, putting an end not only to capitalism and feudalism but also to ‘bourgeois dem ocracy ’ and the ‘m ultination state’. In the early 1970s, m any observers, including the writer of a note prepared by the Hom e Ministry , predicted that the Green Revolution would turn Red since it would benefit only rich farm ers and displace sm all peasants from the land and create further unem ploy m ent am ong agricultural labourers. Som e of the leftwing prophets of doom even denied the possibility of independent econom ic developm ent in India and continued to m aintain over the y ears that India was entering a phase of dependency and neocolonialism , if it had not already done so.

  It is also interesting that those who did not share this scepticism of the left or the non-left were usually portray ed by them as apologists of the Establishm ent. As W.H. Morris-Jones, perhaps the m ost perceptive of the political scientists study ing India, put it as early as 1966: ‘It has becom e custom ary to adopt highly sceptical views on Indian developm ents . . . The position is now reached where failure to share such attitudes is taken as the m ark, in an Indian, of som e kind of governm ent public relations m an and, in an outsider, of a m isguided sentim entalist.’3

  Another set of observers of the Indian scene, who were less pessim istic about the dem ocratic political sy stem , were puzzled by India’s success in sustaining itself in the face of its failure on so m any fronts—inadequacy of land reform s and the existence of large-scale landlessness in the rural areas, the slow rate of growth in industry and the national incom e, the failure to check the high rate of population growth, persistence of gross inequalities, caste oppression, discrim ination against wom en, a dy sfunctional education sy stem , environm ental degradation, growing pollution in the cities, hum an rights abuses, factionalism in politics, chaotic party situation, growing political unrest, seccessionist dem ands and m ovem ents, adm inistrative decline and even chaos, police inefficiency , high levels of corruption and brutality , and crim inalization of politics. The perplexity of m any of these ‘puzzled’ observers was also fuelled by the truism that dem ocratic institutions cannot be transferred by the fiat of the fram ers of a constitution. But what they failed to appreciate is that dem ocracy had already been indigenized and rooted in the Indian soil by the freedom struggle and the m odern Indian intelligentsia during the previous hundred y ears or so.

  In our view the prophets of doom were basically wrong in their prophesies, but they were quite often right on the target as critics. Many other analy sts of Indian developm ents, who have not shared their scepticism and predictions, have pondered over the problem s of dem ocracy and developm ent in an extrem ely diverse society having an underdeveloped econom y and facing econom ic scarcity . They , too, have been worried by the fragility of India’s political stability .

  They do not believe that there is a situation for adm inistrative or political breakdown but m any of them would argue that India is beginning to face ‘a crisis of governability ’. Over the y ears they have continuously em phasized that basic structural and institutional changes were necessary for desirable social developm ent and the deepening and effective functioning of dem ocracy . Even while arguing against the supporters of authoritarianism , the feasi
bility or desirability of a violent revolution, and predictions of the break up of the country , they have advocated and worked for the im plem entation of a program m e of radical reform s, m ore or less around the Gandhian and Nehruvian agenda and its further developm ent.

  Political Leadership

  India’s survival and growth as a nation and a dem ocratic polity , as also the achievem ent of the national obj ectives set by the freedom struggle depended on the configuration and developm ent of long-term socioeconom ic and political forces. But the quality , skills and approach of the political leaders would inevitably play a significant role.

  An asset for India’s early efforts at progress, starting in 1947, was the personal calibre of her leaders. They were dedicated, im aginative and idealistic. They enj oy ed trem endous popular support am ong the people and had the capacity to com m unicate with them , to enthuse them around a national program m e and national goals, to reflect their urges and aspirations, and to provide them strong leadership. The leaders had trem endous confidence and faith in the people and therefore in dem ocratic institutions and depended for their power and legitim acy on them .

  During the national m ovem ent the leaders had also acquired the vast capacity to negotiate and accom m odate diverse interests and approaches and to work within a consensual fram ework.

  They could take a long-term and all-India view and work through state and local leaders.