• Home
  • About
  • Reading Lists
    • Egypt
    • Great Books
    • Iran
    • Islam
    • Israel
    • Liberalism
    • Napoleon
    • Nationalism
    • The Nuclear Age
    • Science
    • Russia
    • Turkey
  • Digital Footprint
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pocket
    • SoundCloud
    • Twitter
    • Tumblr
    • YouTube
  • Contact
    • Email

Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: socialism

Reading Hindi in India

07 Thu May 2015

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Anant Gopal Shevade, aur Rajya, जयवर्धन, दस साल बाद, दो लहरों की टक्कर, धर्म और समाजवाद, धर्म संस्कृति और राज्य, नए विचार नई बातें, बगुले के पंख, बुद्धि बनाम बहुमत, भगण मंदिर, भग्नाश, राग दरबारी, हिन्दू राष्ट्र, Bagule ke Pankh, Bhagna Mandir, Bhagnaash, Buddhi banam Bahumat, Chatursen Shastri, communism, Dharm, Dharm aur Samajwad, Do Lehron ki Takkar, Dus Saal Baad, Gurudutt, Hindi, Hindu Rashtra, Hinduism, INC, India, Indian National Congress, Jainendra Kumar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jayavardhan, literature, Mohandas Gandhi, nationalism, Naye Vichaar Nayi Baatein, novels, Raag Durbari, Sanskriti, socialism, Sri Lal Shukla

Do a web search for a list of the greatest works by Indian authors and you would be forgiven for thinking that India emerged from an English settler colony. These lists carry all the usual suspects – Upamanyu Chatterjee, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Kiran Desai, Vikram Seth, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Aravind Adiga, and if you are willing to dig back further, Nirad Chaudhuri, Mulk Raj Anand, RK Narayan, Ruskin Bond, Kushwant Singh, Arundhati Roy, and Kiran Nagarkar. The brave ones might even carry Salman Rushdie and VS Naipaul. Personally, I am a great fan of the works of Salman Rushdie and VS Naipaul, two authors diametrically opposite in personality as well as style of writing…one as succulent as a Kerala tender coconut, the other as dry as English toast!

Yet these lists perturb me: are the compilers of these lists truly claiming that the only books worth reading by Indian authors are in English? At least, that is what it seems when there is no disclaimer stating linguistic preference. One can only fervently pray that when we talk about the greatest books, pecuniary returns are not the sole or even primary criteria. What caught my attention about this is that when one thinks of the best books by, say, Egyptian authors – another country colonised by the British – the first names to come to mind are Naguib Mahfouz, Taha Hussein, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Nawal El Saadawi, Alaa Al Aswany, Youssef Ziedan, and so on – Arabic writers. It is hard to expect Indian authors to have such uniformity of language but it is odd that not even one writer in the vernacular – and there are so many to choose from: SL Bhyrappa, Shivram Karanth, Kuvempu, Jeyamohan – makes it onto these lists. One might not even realise that there are vibrant local literary circles in India.

To correct this fawning over English novels, below is a short list of Hindi novels that one should not miss. In the era of Google, it is not difficult to just search for critically acclaimed novels in Hindi or any other language. For that reason, this list leaves out the most famous littérateurs like Yashpal, Premchand, Kamaleshwar, Amrita Pritam, Nirmal Varma, Narendra Kohli, or Ajneya, of whom even those not familiar with Hindi might have heard. But why make a list of second-rate novels? That is not what is presented below, a list of B-grade works that no one has ever heard of – rather, it is a collation of lesser known works by equally accomplished writers. Mindful of the interests of many of Swarajya‘s readers, the suggestions below are novels with a political commentary. They have an interesting story to tell of a newly independent India, its politics and its society, and the doubts, worries, desires, thinking, and priorities of half a billion people that is often forgotten by the younger generation.

I confess, I am no connoisseur of Hindi literature; my exploration of that world started when someone I knew from Twitter recommended the non-fiction works of Gurudutt to me (See? Twitter is not all about outrage, and you’re doing it wrong if you feel fatigued!). I was surprised at the difficulty of locating his books and in the process bumped into five or six other novels I enjoyed more for the light they shed on a historical period that has been whitewashed by the dominance of the Nehruvian narrative of scientific optimism. For that reason, I have deliberately selected political novels that serve as subaltern commentaries on Congress’ India of the first three decades. Why subaltern? Because subaltern denotes the voiceless and anything not sung in praise of the Party and its leader fits this description quite well. And it is fun to appropriate and repurpose words from those that disagree with you 😀

1. जयवर्धन (Jayavardhan), Jainendra Kumar. The protagonist after whom this 1956 novel is named animates Gandhian principles throughout the story. In line with Marxian political theory, Jayavardhan sees the state as an instrument of oppression and the legitimacy of political power deriving from its monopoly on the narrative of violence. True to his idol, of course, Jayavardhan believes that violence can be conquered by non-violence and thus present the strongest challenge to the state. Centralisation of the state’s functions also means a concentration of power, and industrialisation divides society into fractious classes. For the protagonists of this novel, the ideal situation would be the dissolution of the state into small cooperatives as people trust and depend on the government less and less. How exactly this is to be achieved remains a mystery as it does in the political theories that inspired this work.

Particularly interesting is a short discussion in the novel by one of the characters about how Jawaharlal Nehru and his cohort used Mohandas Gandhi for their own benefit before independence and then abandoned the old man as soon as their purpose with him was done. In fact, Nehru is strongly criticised for wanting to blindly ape the West in his desire for adulation and glamour. For its time, Jayavardhan comes off as a shockingly frank novel.

2. बगुले के पंख (Bagule ke Pankh), Chatursen Shastri. Written in 1958, this novel is a satire of Nehruvian India’s political system, or at least what it had become within just a few years of independence. Shastri tells the story of a Congress party MP who becomes the commerce minister in the national government. The protagonist, portrayed as a hypocrite and an opportunist, would do anything to capture political power. As such, Shastri provides an interesting view of electioneering tactics of all political parties from the perspective of an engaged citizen. Echoing Franz Fanon’s 1952 work, Black Skin, White Masks, Shastri compares the office bearers of independent India to their erstwhile colonial masters. The Congress has taken over the bungalows vacated by the British, a character says, and homespun has become a symbol of hypocrisy and malfeasance. Shastri’s works, including this one, are inspired by Gandhian utopianism, promoting the virtues of village cooperatives and non-violence while denouncing imperialism, nationalism, capitalism, as well as socialism.

3. भगण मंदिर (Bhagna Mandir) Anant Gopal Shevade. This is a fascinating novel from 1960 that has as its theme the slow yet steady increase in corruption in society. From Shevade’s perspective, this is due to selfishness and a non-spiritual outlook in life. Unable to resist the overpowering and seductive pull of moral decline, the protagonist, a chief minister, transforms from a highly principled patriot before independence into a governmental apparatchik who appoints and promotes his relatives above others, awards government contracts for favours, intimidates honest workers, and plays one group of civil servants against another. Such policies not only makes the government ineffective but it also repels competent people. Shevade was also a Gandhian, and his critique of India under Congress rule came from Gandhian principles of nonpartisan democracy.

4. राग दरबारी (Raag Durbari), Sri Lal Shukla. A biting satire written in 1968, this novel tells the story of a young academic who comes to stay with his uncle in his village. The uncle, a doctor, is one of the most powerful men in town. Through charm, connivance, bribery, and intimidation, he also wields influence over the grain cooperative, the intermediate college in the village, and even the panchayat. There is, of course, a rival faction in town, and during the stay of the academic, the village erupts into burglaries, lawsuits, and vandalism. Shukla is himself a retired civil servant from Uttar Pradesh and he brings that personal experience of dealing with factionalism, political horse-trading, and village level politics to the novel. The ineffectiveness and helplessness of the state political and legal machinery is clearly shown yet in a humorous manner. In the backdrop is a visiting intellectual who begins to realise how much of what is taught in “organised India” is simply idealistic make-believe and out of touch with the reality of “unorganised India.”

5. दो लहरों की टक्कर (Do Lehron ki Takkar), Gurudutt. This is two-volume novel of historical fiction that puts the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj in opposition to each other. Both movements opposed British rule in India but the former tacitly accepted the superiority of Western thought while the latter rooted its opposition in Hindu philosophy. This is a fundamental dispute among Indian nationalists to this day – while some espouse notions of libertarianism and the free market, others stick by traditional values and moderation in all aspects of life. In the tussle between Brahmo and Arya, Gurudutt elucidates a traditional Hindu critique of unreflective Westernisation and its agent, the Indian National Congress.

Though Gurudutt’s historical fiction is an interesting work, his novels are, in my opinion, uninteresting and below par. In case you are wondering, some of his fictional works include दस साल बाद (Dus Saal Baad), भग्नाश (Bhagnaash), and नए विचार नई बातें (Naye Vichaar, Nayi Baatein). Unfortunately, they all become predictable after you’ve read the first one. The protagonists are usually enamoured by the false promises of socialism or communism in the beginning but are awakened to the realities of Leftist politics via their own experiences inside the system.

[Tangent] I came to Gurudutt through his political philosophy and it would be unfair to tar him for his shortcomings as a novelist now. Gurudutt’s non-fiction includes titles like धर्म और समाजवाद (Dharm aur Samajwad), धर्म संस्कृति और राज्य (Dharm, Sanskriti, aur Rajya), and हिन्दू राष्ट्र (Hindu Rashtra) in which he lays out the case against secularism and for the Indic spirit of the Indian state in the simplest and clearest articulation I have read in any language. By comparison, contemporary politicians and ideologues come off as incompetent fools trying to reinvent the wheel. His बुद्धि बनाम बहुमत (Buddhi banam Bahumat) challenges the democratic system from an elitist point of view with historical anecdotes and reasoning; in essence, Gurudutt echoes Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset when he rejects egalitarianism as a delirious fever of the masses.

Gurudutt’s ideology matches closely with that of Swarajya, at least in its older incarnation. He was a strong and vocal critic of socialism and the entire Nehruvian India ecosystem’s anti-Hindu policies. He was obviously no fan of either Nehru nor Gandhi, seeking intellectual camaraderie instead with the likes of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. He believed that concepts like ahimsa propounded by Gandhi were dangerous and had caused the Hindu to lose his kshatra, leaving him vulnerable to the dangers of missionaries, invaders, and half-baked political ideologies. [/Tangent]

There are, of course, novels written by Marxist authors too, yet they do not seem to have any positive things to say about Nehru or the Congress either. Others, like Phanishwar Nath Renu, who were not ideological in their writing, nevertheless depicted the failures of the Indian state in raising its citizens to a level from where they can take care of themselves. My foray into these novels was revealing because these books show a side of India and the political discourse that is not as easily visible were one to merely go through the archives of newspapers or the majority of history texts.

It is foolish to underestimate literature in the vernaculars; there is a goldmine out there, capable of teaching history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology all in the form of powerful and gripping stories. I hope that this short list encourages readers to consider what the five best novels – political or otherwise – in their own languages are and submit them to Swarajya in the form of reviews or annotated lists. It would be a simple way to encourage local literature.


This post first appeared on Swarajya on May 09, 2015.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Why I Am Angry With The BJP

27 Tue Aug 2013

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Food Security Bill, FSB, India, Marx + Cow, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, NREGA, socialism, Swapan Dasgupta, United Progressive Alliance, UPA, welfarism

The remains of the economic Right were laid to rest yesterday as the Bharatiya Janata Party, supposedly India’s right-wing party, supported the Food Security Bill and continued its decade-long custom of deference to the Indian National Congress. For a party that advertises itself as a party with a difference, little of this difference has been seen in the last ten years. Other than the lively and intelligent attack on the Indo-US nuclear deal by Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha between 2005 and 2008, India’s principle Opposition party has been absconding from its role for almost a decade and it seems, outsourced its duty to citizenry.

The BJP’s position on the FSB has been most disappointing to many of its fellow travellers. Despite the severe opposition the bill has generated from many learned quarters, BJP President Rajnath Singh declared that his party does not oppose the bill. Nonetheless, other party members were reluctant to give up their 15 seconds of limelight: Yashwant Sinha opposed the bill on grounds of affordability and Murli Manohar Joshi on grounds that the coverage was not enough! Finally, Sushma Swaraj also extended her and the Party’s support to FSB despite the BJP’s amendments being defeated.

Putting the BJP in a worse light, the FSB had been moving towards a parliamentary vote for the past four years. It is another mark of resignation that the BJP did nothing to make its case to the people and thereby create an air of hostility to the bill. When D-Day came, the Party’s strategy was to hope that parliamentary disruptions would punt discussion until the next session!

It is not that the message of development and governance cannot be sold to the masses. However, it requires a confidence of purpose and intellectual clarity that few BJP leaders have shown. In his speech at the Shri Ram College of Commerce earlier this year, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi demonstrated how the idea of growth and prosperity could be packaged with simple anecdotes for the general electorate. It would be a self-defeating exercise if the BJP were to pull out PowerPoint slides and an arsenal of economic jargon, but as Albert Einstein is credited with saying, if you cannot explain an idea simply, you have not understood it yourself. Even farmers and village blacksmiths understand rent, food prices, and clean water if you care to explain it to them.

The BJP’s pro-business reputation varies depending on whether it is in power or in Opposition. A few months ago, the BJP objected to the opening of the country to foreign investment in retail. This discontent to the initiative smacked of political opportunism given that the Party had supported it while in power. Beyond political points, these volte-face decisions betray a deeper philosophical confusion. The agglomeration of swadeshi cultural nationalists with free marketeers and opponents of socialism has left the organisation in turmoil. To be fair to the BJP, its short stint in power was marked by economic liberalisation; what the INC tries to steal credit for in 1991 was done out of necessity while what the BJP did in 1998 was out of choice. Unfortunately, none of that vision has been seen in the last ten years.

The BJP’s silence – in fact, appropriation of bad UPA legislation – is felt acutely in another economic boondoggle: the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Rather than oppose another disastrous welfare scheme, the BJP actually promised to expand it to cities. This repeated fear of challenging the INC and populism hurts the BJP and the general Right cause in many ways. For one, it prevents the mainstreaming of the notion that it might be a good idea to be independent of government entitlement programmes and work for a living. There is a standard refrain in India that everyone is a socialist at heart. How could they be anything else, especially if government after government tells them that India’s “unique” problems can only be addressed by massive state intervention?

The political profession is much like advertising – a little substance and a little bending of the truth to make people want your product. Too much of the former may make your issue harder to sell and too much of the latter will only be fodder for a functioning Opposition. If the BJP is indeed a centre-right party opposed to socialism, it needs to explain to the electorate why economic black holes like the FSB, NREGA, or Universal Health Care (UPA-III?) are bad for the economy and hence ultimately bad for the people. The failure to challenge an out-of-control rights discourse reflects a lack of intellectual vitality to connect with the new India.

Whatever its history since 1947, today’s BJP has a large following among the upwardly mobile who are worried about the economic stagnation welfarism has brought the country. If the BJP keeps following the INC down a path of welfarist suicide, then it gives no reason for voters to come out and vote for them. What’s the difference if the only argument is whether grain should be subsidised at ₹1 or ₹3?

By playing the INC’s populist game for short-term optics, the BJP hurts itself in the long run; the INC can now always point out that the BJP ultimately supported the FSB in parliament and is as responsible for India’s coming economic woes as it is. Each time a “half-baked” scheme is supported, an opportunity to plant seeds of doubt about the socialist enterprise is lost. As it stands right now, in Swapan Dasgupta’s succinct phraseology, the BJP’s economic platform is simply Marx + Cow.

If the BJP wins in 2014, it will not be because Indians have accepted the BJP as a superior choice over the Congress; it will be an anti-incumbency vote, against the UPA more than for the BJP. For those who see Modi as a glimmer of hope in India’s darkest decade, it will be a vote for him. If Ashoka Road is wondering why, despite so many UPA scams and mismanagement, there is no BJP wave, it needs look no further than its own record in Opposition.


This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on August 27, 2013.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Indian Condition

02 Fri Nov 2012

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Theory & Philosophy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

crony capitalism, feudalism, India, Indian National Congress, Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, mai-baap, NDA, socialism, statism, Third Front, UPA

It is remarkable how entrenched statism – and to a slightly lesser extent, socialism – are in the Indian psyche. In any discussion of the country’s shortcomings, the common refrain one hears among Indians is that the government does not do anything. In a country whose parliament is essentially filled by the socialist Left and the religious Left, this is no loss to the political masters. But how much does it help citizens? Or is it still subjects?

It is not fair entirely fair to blame the people for this, though they must bear some responsibility. The pervasive resignation to mai-baapism takes more than a few people in a few years. This feudal mindset takes generations to develop, and it takes generations to escape. In Europe, it took revolutions and liberal governance to create an as yet imperfect balance of rights between the state and individuals. For better or for worse, there is no sign of either in India.

Call it fate, or blame the vagaries of history, but around the time of the Enlightenment and the subsequent Industrious and Industrial revolutions, India underwent significant de-industrialisation and was ultimately colonised. Three factors for India’s economic decline are thought to be, 1. cheaper machine manufactured goods in Europe, 2. a Mughal economic policy ravaged by war and worsened by the dissolution of their empire, and 3. a gradual shift to commodity exports from manufactured goods due to relative trade advantage of the former over the latter. For whatever reason, these factors indicate an intellectual decline, or a failure to convert science to technology, thereby ceding the edge to the West.

There is some debate on the nature of Mughal rule and its impact on India, and I am no expert in this area. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the arguments that claim a decentralised, liberal Mughal rule that allowed small entrepreneurs and ideas to flourish is flawed on one basic count – if such were the case, why did they succumb to a vastly smaller military force? The need for military technology was as prevalent in India as it was in Europe – the subcontinent was hardly a peaceful and idyllic place! Furthermore, why were the most prized items of trade Western weaponry in exchange for spices, tea, and other products from the subcontinent? The valiant defence of the Mughals reminds me of Diogenes – when confounded by Xeno’s airtight argument on the impossibility of motion, just stood up and walked around. If the Mughals were indeed so liberal and not in decline, why did they fail totally against not even a European state army but a corporation’s militia?

The impact of the Raj went beyond merely restraining material prosperity; rapacious imperial policies reduced the overwhelming majority of India (or at least kept them there) to thinking about the next meal than about a better steam engine or water pump; literacy was not encouraged either. Technology in India had few achievements to boast of in the two centuries before Company rule, and slow dissemination of Western machines such as the printing press, the telegraph, railways, did not create a vibrant public sphere. Power – political, economic, and military – remained vested in the government and embrace a new class of entrepreneurs.

The real betrayal came after independence. Indians, despite a nascent outward habitus of voting, remained largely in the feudal mindset of state patronage. Unlike the American revolutionaries, the leaders of the Indian independence struggle used the rhetoric of nation rather than individual liberty to drive out the British (quite understandable, given the differences). Jawaharlal Nehru, a committed Fabian socialist, used his popular appeal to showcase socialism as the only face of modernity. Opposition to Nehru’s ideas made for good reading in the Lok Sabha records but carried little weight among the masses. Used to seeing the state as a patron, first from kings and then from the colonial masters, socialism fit right in with their worldview – if they had one. Nehru’s education policy focused on grand projects such as the Indian Institutes of Technology but paid much less attention to primary and secondary education. Nehru promoted heavy industry and neglected cottage industry and the private sector, keeping the economy largely in the hands of the state. The rise of the bureaucratic class to build, maintain, and lackadaisically run the state machinery, from banks and media to nuclear power and communications, ensured that the state remained the godfather of most educational and economic opportunity; control of the media ensured that this narrative was not challenged by greedy private or “subversive” foreign elements.

Power flowed fairly easily from father to daughter, and the reign of Indira Gandhi spelled a new Dark Age for India. Perhaps Durga for Pakistan in 1971, Indira Gandhi was a Lamashtu for Indians. The disasters of the IG years are beyond the scope of this post, but the state grew in power during her tenure, personality cults were encouraged, and cronyism rewarded. Indira Gandhi, the Gandhi family, the Indian National Congress, and the state it wielded – in that order – became the only source of…everything. News was censored, institutions were bent, banks and airlines were nationalised, and private enterprise was taxed and regulated almost out of existence. The Emergency was yet another demonstration of the power of a rotten state. Throughout her iron fisted rule, the state was advertised as the provider of goods and opportunities, and the license raj which had now grown into astronomical proportions inhibited any private initiative. Indian subjects had yet to be weaned away from statism.

Only the naïve believed that the post-1991 Open Era would spell the end of mai-baapism. It is true that sectors of the economy have opened up, and private media is also tolerated. However, this has only resulted in an unhealthy nexus between big business, the media houses, and the government. Many private media channels are controlled by politicians, and, as the government remains the single largest advertiser, the fourth estate has sold out to the highest bidder. Indeed, with more money in the system, consumerism has risen and has improved the lot of most small business owners. Yet larger businesses still need political godfathers who can extend favours and immunity – for a price – to  them. Despite becoming a more open country, theoretically at least, it is surprising the impunity with which the government still blocks twitter accounts and demands that webpages be removed. Red tape is still a noose around the country’s entrepreneurial instinct. The government’s enlarged budget has been used to extend further subsidies and entitlements to sections of society, further reinforcing dependence on the state. In a way, the Indian government has become society’s peddler!

The cost of missing an intellectual upheaval has been incalculable. All three of India’s political coalitions, the United Progressive Alliance, the National Democratic Alliance, and the Third Front, offer only different flavours of statist solutions. The UPA foists state welfarism on India, the NDA prefers to use the state mechanism to promote religion and will not dismantle the welfare state it inherits, and the Third Front seems set to dissolve the country in parochial state-sponsored minoritarian subsidies and handouts. There is no liberal tradition, based on individualism and liberty, in India. Through historical accident and then by INC misrule, such heretical thoughts were never allowed to flourish.

Some might think it is the aam aadmi‘s fault for his political apathy. Indeed, that may merit a small apportioning of the blame, but the lion’s share must lay with politicians, particularly the INC (they ruled almost ten times longer). For a creature conditioned into muted criticism of the government and dependent on state largesse, the common man finds it easier to manipulate the system and succeed than striking out on his own in a brave new world of individualism, liberty, and capitalism. This is, of course, assuming anyone has time to think after balancing the monthly budget in an era of high food inflation, sluggish economic growth, power shortages, skyrocketing fuel prices, water scarcities, pollution, juggling quotas, poor roads, petty corruption at every step, and public transportation stretched to bursting. A wrung out common man suits the government just fine; after all, as Sir Arnold reminds us in Yes, Prime Minister, no government would reform the system that put it into power in the first place.

In defence of the aam aadmi, it must also be acknowledged that not all people chose mai-baapism – to assume so would be to deny them any agency, which, despite the power differential, they do have. They have proven to be realists, manipulators, and opportunists, using the statist metanarrative to their benefit rather than actually believing in it. In fact, some argue that the whole notion of welfare is too top-down a view and unhelpful; in reality, the lower strata are opportunistic and switch patrons based on who gives the most benefits. Thus, the agency is more with the recipients of patronage than with the politician patrons. Over the years, as welfare structures ossified whether for political reasons or neglect, it has created vested interests in the maintenance of these schemes. This is not necessarily parasitic in nature – many people may have just lost faith that the state could actually deliver better opportunities.

Is the narrative as simple as has been painted above – a statist, top-down approach manipulated by individuals starved of opportunity? Of course not; few things are in India. One factor that complicates the equation is the reach of the state and another is caste. Despite the enormous footprint of the Indian state, the fact is that it doesn’t reach everywhere. Not all regions of India have comparable access to services. Beyond schools and doctors, this goes to bureaucrats and police officials, who could with ease run a minor fiefdom in the backwaters due to lack of oversight. In the case of such state weakness, how can a state descend into a crony system? This question shows a very good perception of the realities of the modern Indian state, and the answer reveals the layers of mai-baapism. In the case of weak state presence, caste plays a large role. Political operators organise along caste faults for maximum demographic advantage to assume power. In power, patronage is extended to the community that raised the leader and oftentimes other castes are excluded from state largesse. The reward for voting “correctly” is state bounty for oneself and one’s kith and kin. Caste becomes a voting criterion. With the right network, one might even be awarded a party ticket for elections (a cross-party analysis of election tickets would yield interesting data). Thus, caste is fused with the welfare state in an odd blend of modernity and feudalism.

There is, of course, the question of the Opposition, specifically the NDA. If the average Indian does not want a massive and interfering state, surely the NDA has overwhelming support to come to power? There are multiple problems with this: 1. the NDA has been in power barely six years of independent India’s sixty-five years, giving them little time to overhaul the state; 2. with the faith in the state so shaken  after decades of INC rule, the entrenched welfarist structures – however suicidal – seem far safer to rely on than yet another government scheme, particularly if it sounds too good to be true; 3. call it political cowardice or electoral suicide, once entitlements have been declared, it becomes a prisoner’s dilemma situation between the voters and the politicians – the former wonder if the government will stay true to their word and implement real change rather than yet another handout, while the latter wonder if the voter will crucify them at the next elections. The institutional breakdown initiated by Indira Gandhi has taken a severe toll on the Indian political landscape.

So what is the solution? I do not have one. It is far easier to jump through the hoops as you are told to and manipulate the system than to challenge it. Besides, who has time for such a project? Not only is it a generational task but also one that requires generous funding, rigorous intellectual effort, and good media relations. Furthermore, no good deed will go unpunished in India. Who will bell the cat? In 1947, after almost three decades of non-violent struggle, India obtained swaraj…swatantrata might be a little more difficult.


I’d like to thank Amar Govindarajan, Harsh Gupta, Manohar Seetharam, Harini Calamur, and Sajid Bhombhal for their comments on an earlier version of this post. I have factored in the criticisms, opinions, and additional data they provided into this version.

A version of this post was published on Niti Central on November 05, 2012.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Chirps

  • As Palestinian Islamic Jihad rains down rockets on Israel, Hamas stays out of conflict: bit.ly/3Q7J3kX | T… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 17 hours ago
  • RT @Israel: Hey @CNN, we fixed this headline for you. As of 8:13 PM, 450+ rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel. #OperationBreak… 1 day ago
  • How listening to uninterrupted noise helped millions to focus: bit.ly/3zB7CzU | Temporary fix, methinks. T… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
  • Conspiracy theorist ordered to pay parents of slain child $45.2 million calling school shooting a hoax:… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
  • Israel kills Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza strike, rockets fired into southern Israel: bbc.in/3bzfI3S |… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 days ago
Follow @orsoraggiante

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 225 other followers

Follow through RSS

  • RSS - Posts

Categories

Archives

Recent Posts

  • The Mysterious Case of India’s Jews
  • Polarised Electorates
  • The Election Season
  • Does Narendra Modi Have A Foreign Policy?
  • India and the Bomb
  • Nationalism Restored
  • Jews and Israel, Nation and State
  • The Asian in Europe
  • Modern Political Shibboleths
  • The Death of Civilisation
  • Hope on the Korean Peninsula
  • Diminishing the Heathens
  • The Writing on the Minority Wall
  • Mischief in Gaza
  • Politics of Spite
  • Thoughts on Nationalism
  • Never Again (As Long As It Is Convenient)
  • Earning the Dragon’s Respect
  • Creating an Indian Lake
  • Does India Have An Israel Policy?
  • Reclaiming David’s Kingdom
  • Not a Mahatma, Just Mohandas
  • How To Read
  • India’s Jerusalem Misstep
  • A Rebirth of American Power

Management

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com
Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Chaturanga
    • Join 225 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Chaturanga
    • Customise
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: