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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

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Searching for Left and Right in Indian Politics

08 Sun Mar 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Society, South Asia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, culture, environment, INC, India, Indian National Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru, Left, Narendra Modi, politics, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Right, RSS, tradition, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

Frequently – nay, always – does one read and hear discussions about right-wing politics and left-wing ideology in India, each being pit as the antithesis of the other. Countless hairs have been pulled in the quest to define the Indian Right, Hindutva, or whatever incarnation seems to be trending that day. Comparison to right-wing movements and leaders in foreign countries add an exotic flavour to this cacophony of generalisations. All the noise, however, is embarrassingly misguided for there is neither a Left nor a Right, as understood in the West, in India.

Coined to describe the accidental sitting arrangement in the French legislature after the Revolution, the Western political nomenclature of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ does not strictly apply to the Indian political landscape. Not only does the country have a different historical experience and political evolution but it is also at variance with Europe in its developmental trajectory. As a result, Left and Right are often highly misleading descriptors that find greater use as pejoratives than as meaningful categories. Closely examined, the division in Indian politics is perhaps better understood as between traditionalism and a modernity imported from the West. It goes without saying that there is a spectrum of thought within each of these groups.

So what are the politics of traditionalism and imported modernity? One site of conflict is culture. Traditionalists believe that India is a Hindu country with an undeniably Hindu past and one should not shy away from this fact. Acknowledging this does not make, ipso facto, India a majoritarian state. Modernists, however, wish to emphasise the plurality of Indian history and argue that a country as diverse as India can stay together only as a secular state. Traditionalists argue that secularism does not provide a level playing field between different belief systems as it does in the West. In fact, non-exclusive and non-proselytising systems such as Hinduism, Jainism, or Sikhism need to be protected against the predatory practices of faiths that are not so. The petty point that receives the most attention at the cost of missing this larger issue is whether the Congress Party, which has ruled India for over three quarters of the time the country has been independent, is genuinely secular or is a conniving player of vote bank politics. Many on the “Right” accept the modernist narrative of secularism as equality but accuse the Congress of minoritarianism, whereas traditionalists beg the question itself and prefer a localised modernity with an Indic soul.

A starker example of the failure of the Right/Left dichotomy in India can be found in economics. Conventional wisdom portrays the Left as socialistic or welfarist and populist while the Right remain the champions of capitalism, open markets and business. In India, the “right-wing” Bharatiya Janata Party has market-friendly economic thinkers like Arun Shourie and Subramanian Swamy and yet it also has Swaminathan Gurumurthy who is suspicious of the entire American financial model. In fact, some of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s views on community and economics mirrors Israeli kibbutzim of the early years far more than it does Wall Street. In between stands Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is not allergic to capitalism or the free market but is also reluctant to abandon the country’s public sector units. Interestingly, the BJP, in its earlier avatar as the Jana Sangh, had stronger positions against state interventions than in its current incarnation.

The same might be said of the “left-wing” Indian National Congress, that some of its younger members might have much more in common with Arun Shourie than their own leaders of yesteryear who advocated control over the commanding heights of the national economy. The Congress party has itself now advocated a mixed economy, building a middle path between state and private capitalism.

The other parties, such as they are, contribute just as generously to the confusion: Babasaheb Ambedkar was a strong votary of capitalism and free markets, but most of the parties which now worship Ambedkar would be reckoned to be broadly to the left of the political universe.

The marriage of the Right with welfarist economics, though rare, is not a new phenomenon. In Europe, Germany’s Bismarckian socialism and the Vatican’s Rerum novarum (and its three sequels), an encyclical by Pope Leo XIII, are Western examples of a politics of tradition, nationalism, and welfare that are not identical but fairly similar to India today.

Another interesting variation on the international Left/Right political framework is the environment. It is difficult to pin down the BJP’s exact environmental policy as it has had very little time at the helm – it is easy to make speeches without accountability while sitting in Opposition. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently uttered repeatedly a concern for the environment. Some may indeed argue that the BJP’s actions do not match with Modi’s words but the net result remains to be seen. In terms of clean energy, both the Congress and the BJP are inclined favourably towards nuclear power; with the possible exception of France, worldwide, the Left has generally had its reservations on the matter. Similarly, the BJP is gung-ho on solar and wind energy which traditionally saw less support from the international Right – until recently.

It would be erroneous to conflate the traditionalist/imported modernity binary to regressive/progressive labels too. For example, it was India’s “progressive” first prime minister who introduced curbs on free speech and a “regressive” thinker like Vinayak Savarkar argued against untouchability and the caste system. Of course, these are singular examples but this mishmash of views is not uncommon and illustrates the care with which Indian politics much be approached.

None of this is to argue that India cannot learn from the West – it can and should without any shame or hesitation. However, it would not hurt to think through the political scene a little more carefully to make sure we are describing the reality of India and not the Republicans or the Labour Party. Perhaps then, India might start to make an iota more sense to observers.


This post appeared on FirstPost on March 23, 2015.

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W(h)ither Right?

07 Thu Mar 2013

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Opinion and Response

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Conservative Party, Cornerstone Group, cultural Right, democracy, elitism, France, India, Left, Parti chrétien-démocrate, populism, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Republican Party, Republican Study Committee, Right, RSS, UK, Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, US, welfare

So what’s wrong with the Right? Despite a steady diet of expanding government, foreign debt, and runaway welfarism from the Left, the Right finds it difficult to excite the electorate enough to be voted into power. Failure breeds internecine conflict, further weakening the Right. In India, for example, despite nine years of criminally poor governance by the incumbent party, the Right does not yet have an assured victory in the upcoming general elections and even that chance seems based more on an anti-incumbency sentiment than a genuine embrace of the Right political platform. Describing the woes of the Right, as a friend put it, the issue is not that the Left is so powerful but that the Right is not loved.

Why is this? Part of the reason lies in the agglomerated nature of the Right. More than a coherent and uniform ideology, the Right is fundamentally a reactionary political movement. As Thomas Sowell argued in Intellectuals and Society, it is “simply the various and disparate opponents of the Left.” These opponents of the Left are bound by nothing beyond their common disagreement and can come in all hues and colours, from Islamists to libertarians. In the cacophony of ideologies, a clear and unified platform is lost.

From this Right jumble, two broad themes emerge: a Right motivated by economic ideals, and a Right grounded in cultural certitude. Economic conservatives have not been able to capture the electoral imagination; their message is too abstract for the average voter. Preaching long-term fiscal responsibility to an impatient electorate not used to institutional stability and good governance is like lecturing an obese person on his way to a triple bypass on the benefits of yoga. Furthermore, quotas and entitlements are an emotional argument, not an economic one. It is difficult to argue against feeding a hungry man, or providing medical aid to sick child. The misery of an individual moves one far more easily than lofty principles of governance and economics.

It is for this reason that the economic Right has usually had to seek allies among the cultural Right. Such partnerships are quite common – the Parti chrétien-démocrate and its association with the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire in France, Republicans and their Christian fringe in the United States, the Cornerstone Group within the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, the and the revolving door relations between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in India. However, social conservatives are not necessarily fiscal conservatives; whether due to their cultural mores, national pride, or religious beliefs, many on the cultural Right have greater sympathy for socialist policies than their fiscally conservative allies. This dissonance creates an ambiguous political platform that leaves the centre of the political spectrum confused.

Language, religion, ethnicity and all those other strands that make up the web of life are just as tangible as government dole. The average voter can relate as easily to soft loans and subsidies as the razing of a nearby temple or a gradual change in the lingua franca due to the influx of outsiders into his/her village. However, cultural protectionism militates against socialist practices, making the cultural Right natural foes of the Left and pushing them into the arms of the free-market libertarians. The social conservatives offer the economic Right not only the advantage of their mass appeal, but also the benefit of their well organised cadre at the grassroots level. The cultural Right thus becomes the base of the entire Right. As a result, most economically right-of-centre parties find it difficult to jettison their cultural agenda and still remain a viable political force.

Unfortunately for the Right, cultural protectionism is an inherently divisive message that can mobilise the excluded as easily as those included. Be it the Ten Commandments in government buildings or a ban on beef, such issues guarantee fierce opposition as much as rally the base. The economic Right loses ground among their own, who may otherwise have been persuaded by a fiscal argument but are forced away by the cultural agenda. The wisdom of the political pundits so far, however, has been that people moved primarily by fiscal conservatism are less likely to vote and wooing the social conservatives is a electorally more rewarding tactic.

Beyond the fissiparous difficulties of the Right, the Left has one more advantage – they understand humans better. While the free marketeers repeat the mantra of self-interest incessantly, the Left seems to understand human beings in context. One interesting term psychologists use that may apply to quotas and entitlements is “social trap.” It is a situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains that leads to a loss for the group as a whole in the long term. Given the uninspiring institutional integrity in India and an environment of lack, people are understandably tempted to seek advantage when possible rather than invest in a future. Another way of looking at it is, as Prospect Theory explains, how people understand risk and reward – the outcome of an entitlement is guaranteed immediately while the benefits of the market are in the future and probable at best. Other selfish and self-serving beliefs and behaviour such as psychological entitlement feeds into these traits as well.

So is it the end of the road for the economic Right? Perhaps, if they cannot package  their beliefs in a more enticing cover. Fiscal prudence must supercede narrower personal, regional, or communal sentiments.  This is easier achieved when the state is stable and impartial in the dispensation of services and justice. As the powerful story of the 9-year-old boy from Fukushima illustrated, people also have a capacity for remarkable fairness and generosity if they trust the system. Yet it is difficult to reform the system if one is not in power, or if one is bogged down by socialist impulses within one’s own ranks…and power is difficult to achieve if one is viewed merely as an anti-incumbent alternative. It is a pretty little vicious cycle the economic Right finds itself in.


This post appeared on FirstPost on March 25, 2013.

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