Book review: India after Gandhi

[Harold Schiffman]

 BOOK REVIEW
The great survivor

India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia

Throughout its 60 years of independence, speculation has been rife
about how long India would remain a single entity and a democracy.
Native and Western doomsayers have been predicting its imminent
dissolution, a descent into anarchy or authoritarian rule without much
reward. Historian Ramachandra Guha's critical yet affectionate epic on
contemporary India assesses why the oracles fail and how this most
"unnatural nation" survives despite being a "laboratory of social
conflict (p 9)".

Guha begins by asking why the unity of India could not be saved from
partition in 1947. The onset of modern electoral politics was the main
culprit because it encouraged appeals to fear and sectional worries
about being worsted or swamped by one's historic enemies. The Muslim
League cashed in on the "rhetoric of fear" in the Provincial Assembly
elections of 1946 so successfully that Mahatma Gandhi's dream of a
united India stood no chance. Among the princely states that contrived
to further balkanise India by declaring themselves as independent
countries, Travancore's bid was stoked by the British, who coveted its
Thorium deposits, "a material crucial to the coming Cold War (p 61)".
The monarchs of Jodhpur, Junagadh and Hyderabad flirted with defection
to Pakistan through the Muslim League's enticements, but the power of
Indian nationalism and the sagacity of Vallabhbhai Patel and V P Menon
staved off these threats. Kashmir proved much harder to integrate due
to its proximity to Pakistan and the opportunism of its Muslim
politicians.

The framing of the constitution of India involved hundreds of claims
and submissions from the public at large, a testimony to "the
precocious existence of a 'rights culture' among Indians" even before
democracy could be installed (p 117). The constitution assigned the
individual, rather than the village, as the basic unity of politics
and governance. The most acrimonious debates in the Constituent
Assembly were over language. Politicians from the south spiritedly
opposed Hindi as the official national tongue. Compromises had to be
worked out by leaving English as a fall-back option.

Although the Constituent Assembly initially considered affirmative
action only for the lowest Hindu castes, the exertions of Jaipal Singh
ensured that the repressed tribals were also promised reserved seats
in the legislature and jobs in the government. Singh tried in vain to
convince the rebellious Naga tribes that their hill areas "have always
been part of India" and that "there is no question of secession (p
271)". The gory conflict between Naga "hostiles" and the central
government in Delhi had serious implications for the unity of the
country and the legitimacy of its rulers.

Until 1950, the ruling Congress party suffered from infighting not
only at the district and provincial levels, but also at the summit
between prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and deputy prime minister
Patel. The two frequently disagreed on state control of the economy,
Hindu extremism and Cold War alignments. After Patel's death, Nehru
had milder tussles with conservatives like Purushottamdas Tandon and
the president, Rajendra Prasad.

Nehru's extraordinary popular appeal was vindicated in the country's
first general elections of 1952, a monumental event supervised by the
able bureaucrat, Sukumar Sen. Internationally too, Nehru's prestige
was at its peak in the 1950s, with his rival C Rajagopalachari
remarking that he was "becoming the biggest man in the world (p 187)".

>>From 1949, vigorous movements championing language autonomy collided
with the national leadership's belief that linguistic provinces fueled
fissiparous tendencies. Petitions, representations, street marches,
fasts and violence eventually forced Delhi to concede. Against its
will, the government of India had to allow formation of states on the
language principle in 1956 and later. Identity-based claims to ever
newer reconfiguration of political geography continue to this day.
Guha comments that, in hindsight, "linguistic reorganization
consolidated the unity of India" instead of endangering it (p 208).

Nehru hoped that the massive industrialization and socialist planning
projects of his time would heal the schisms of caste, religion,
community and region. His programs of agrarian uplift meant to "bring
about a rural revolution by peaceful means, not by the breaking of
heads (p 224)". However, the government was unable or unwilling to
redistribute land in favor of low-caste laborers and sharecroppers,
muting prospects of a "socialistic pattern of society". Economist B V
Krishnamurti's critique of the neglect of primary education went
unheeded. Gandhians decried the ecological damage of high modernist
development, but they were politically too weak to matter.

Reform of personal laws was an acid test of India's commitment to
modernization. B R Ambedkar's Hindu Code Bill attempted to introduce
gender equity but ran into determined orthodox objections that stalled
its passage for nearly 10 years. Among Muslims, who adamantly resisted
reform of unequal personal laws, there was not even a small liberal or
progressive contingent. The stigma that Nehru "dare not touch the
Muslim minority" weakened his secular credentials.

The central government's decision in 1959 to dismiss the first-ever
democratically elected communist government in Kerala tarnished
Nehru's reputation for ethical behavior. Corruption scandals involving
finance minister T T Krishnamachari made the first serious dent in the
halo enjoyed by Nehru's cabinet. The 1962 Chinese invasion
"represented a massive defeat in the Indian imagination" and
undermined Nehru's colossal status in the country and within his own
party. Parleys for a pact over Kashmir just before Nehru died could
not pass muster with his own party members. Nonetheless, Guha tributes
his promotion of social equality and secularism. "More progress had
been made in the first seventeen years of independence than in the
previous 1700 put together" (p 386).

As Nehru's successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri had to grapple with
disturbing anti-Hindi riots in Tamil-speaking areas. Despite his
personal preference for Hindu as the sole official language, Shastri
was compelled to guarantee a polyglot policy to preserve national and
party wholeness. He was decisive in war with Pakistan in 1965, belying
expectations of being a pushover. His brief tenure at the helm gave
India "a new steeliness and sense of national unity (p 404)".

Indira Gandhi's reign started with a precipitous decline in the
Congress' performance in the 1967 elections. New populist regional
parties shot up by focussing on policies that could bag mmediate votes
or by whipping up "nativistic" agendas against outsiders. When the
communists came to power in Bengal, Maoist guerrillas prepared to use
arms against the Indian state on behalf of the oppressed rural
peasantry. Beheading of landlords and random attacks on policemen
inaugurated unsettling class warfare. Weak state governments also
failed to contain an upsurge of communal violence that badly scarred
the country's secular image.

On the advice of P N Haksar, Indira Gandhi presented herself as an
arch leftist, marshalling socialism and a large public sector as
"weapons for forging a united and integrated India (p 436)". The
strategy paid handsome dividends in the 1971 elections. The clinical
dismemberment of Pakistan in the war for Bangladesh took Gandhi to the
pinnacle of Indian politics. From this height, she drifted towards
centralization of power, toleration of corruption, and grooming of the
authoritarian heir apparent, Sanjay Gandhi.

Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan mobilized nationwide discontent against
the regime that he likened to the British colonial state. Guha views
Gandhi's reaction of imposing a dictatorial emergency suspending all
civil liberties as a response "far exceeding the original provocation
(p 489)". Her justification for annulling democracy, that "too much
devolution was fatal and I have to keep India together", did find
proponents in the middle and upper classes but not among the bulk of
the poor.

Guha explains Indira Gandhi's decision to restore democracy in 1977 as
partially a repayment of debt to foreign critics who invoked her
father's memory. A motley alliance of right and left dislodged the
Congress in the historic election that ensued. Dramatic rural
assertion in the new Janata party government was an outcome of the
commercialization of agriculture ("green revolution") and milk
production ("white revolution") that benefited middle class and rich
farmers. Janata's rule witnessed a corollary sharpening of violent
caste conflict between the upwardly ascendant "backwards" and the
lowest-ranked Dalits.

Indira Gandhi's political renaissance was aided by the accusation that
Janata was against the wretched of the Earth. Her party's resounding
win the 1980 elections owed not to ideological appeal but to her
"ability to rule and hold together a government" in contrast to the
fractious Janata. The early 1980s saw volatile agitations for greater
autonomy in Assam and Punjab. Party rivalries bore the lion's share in
escalation of caste and communal violence, as in the initial nurturing
of Sikh fundamentalists by the Congress. Indira Gandhi's posture as
the "saviour of the nation's unity against divisive forces" belied
such ugly realities. The brutal counter-terrorist operation she
ordered in Punjab in 1984 was a case of "the army being used to finish
a problem created by the government (p 563)". The anti-Sikh riots
abetted by Congress politicians after Indira Gandhi's assassination
unleashed a secessionist war in Punjab that threatened another
partition of the country.

Rajiv Gandhi's record-breaking election victory in 1984 was achieved
by portraying the Congress as the only bulwark against forces of
secession. Sadly, he committed fatal blunders like pandering to Muslim
fundamentalists and Hindu chauvinists, and sanctioning an ill-fated
military intervention in Sri Lanka. Ridden with corruption scandals,
the Congress lost the 1989 elections to a 1977-style opportunistic
coalition.

Sensing the rising influence of intermediate castes, the new
government implemented a controversial reservation scheme that
polarized society in an unprecedented manner. New caste-based regional
parties arrived on the scene not only to "de-center" politics but also
to divide the country. Through the 1990s, violent caste wars dotted
the countryside from Haryana to Tamil Nadu, with Bihar emerging as the
touchstone. Jihadi terrorism and intolerance claimed fresh victims
among Kashmiri Hindus and went on to endanger public security across
the country. India was also rocked by a succession of religious riots
and pogroms, courtesy electoral dividends accruing to the Bharatiya
Janata Party. This was unlike politicians of Nehru's day who worked to
close social cleavages rather than deepening them for self-interest.

Since 1989, coalition governments have been the norm in national
politics. Guha associates it with the fragmentation of the party
system on the basis of identity. The change is a sign of "widening of
democracy", since it gives different regions and groups a stake in the
system. The downside of coalition politics is that cabinet ministers
now "think more of the interests of their party of their state, rather
than of India as a whole (p 656)". The writ of the center does not run
as authoritatively in the states as before and caste-based parties
lead the dossier on criminalization. "The lawmakers of India are its
most regular lawbreakers" (p 680).

Free market-driven economic growth, the 1998 nuclear tests and victory
in war over Pakistan in 1999 released a surge of patriotic pride as
the millennium approached, forwarding avowals that India had finally
"arrived" as a world power. In a way, this new assertiveness countered
the dissipation of "Indianness" in domestic politics. Beneath the
self-congratulatory gloss, though, 26% of the population lives below
the poverty line. Between 1995 and 2005, at least 10,000 destitute
farmers committed suicide. As income inequalities intensify, the
economist Amartya Sen worries that "half of India will look like
California, the other half like sub-Saharan Africa (p 700)".

Why is India a great survivor mocking at skeptics of the past and
present? Guha credits it to the existence of liberal freedoms and
institutions like the professional civil service, the apolitical
military, the English language, a common market, Hindi films, and the
cricket team. All of them generate spunk for India's oneness. A unique
patriotism, not necessarily tied to primordial identities, bolsters
the overall structure. Although Guha attempts scholarly detachment
from his subject, he himself unconsciously manifests this nationalist
creed. A concerned intelligentsia must hence be added to the list of
cementing factors that keep India alive.

India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by
Ramachandra Guha. New York, Harper Collins, 2007. ISBN:
978-0-06-019881-7. Price: US$34.95, 893 pages.

-- http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IL15Df01.html
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************