Indian Democracy

[Quasim Hamdani]

Indians will vote but will they really have democracy?


By Sarmila Bose


The queues at polling stations next week will be real enough. But the prospects of voters' lives improving are an illusion


As India prepares to go to the polls for its general election next week, a familiar tone of wonder has crept into commentary about “the world's largest democracy”. Once again we are regaled with colourful stories about this huge exercise in people power - an electorate of about 714 million. Comparisons are made with the region's other countries, racked by military rule, civil war, “Talebanisation” and instability. Nobody disputes that Indian democracy has its flaws. But with 14 general elections and seven changes of government through the ballot box since 1977, even India's sternest critics acknowledge its remarkable achievement.


Yet India has failed to deliver even the basics of a decent life to most of its citizens. Indians vote, but they still go hungry. The International Food Policy Research Institute ranks India 66th out of 88 countries in its 2008 Global Hunger Index: hunger is at a “serious” level in four of its 17 biggest states, “alarming” in 12 and “extremely alarming” in 1. This poor performance is unrelated to state-level economic growth or who holds power: this is a systemic failure.


The scenes of villagers queuing at polling booths are real. The poor vote more than the rich, and rural turnout overtook urban 25 years ago. Yet nearly half of Indian children under 5 are stunted. India is beaten in school enrolment, parity between the sexes and child mortality indicators by Bangladesh, which has suffered repeated collapses of democracy.

In 60 years India has been unable to solve armed conflicts in Kashmir, its north east or with the growing communist “Naxalite” movement in its heartland. India's human rights record is poor - and not just in Kashmir or the north east. The latest figures from the National Human Rights Commission show that the largest numbers of complaints about abuses came from states outside conflict zones. Corruption is endemic. Contrary to assumptions in the West, anyone who has lived in India knows that the country doesn't really have the rule of law.


Democracy is supposed to produce greater accountability but India's democracy does not respond to the needs of its people. One excuse used to be that time was needed for democratic habits and values to put down roots. But India has had 60 years to reach maturity. And many political scientists believe that the mere process of going through elections may not be enough to guarantee the survival of democracy. Indeed, over time, confidence in all important institutions has eroded in India. The Election Commission, which is entrusted with ensuring that elections are free and fair, was one of the last to enjoy public respect (another being the Supreme Court). But this election will be overseen by a Chief Election Commissioner, who has been appointed by the present Government, but was deemed unfit for public office by a national inquiry commission because of his role in the “emergency” declared by Indira Gandhi from 1975-77.


The second excuse was that India's challenges were so vast that more time was needed to make democracy work. Political scientists have shown that the poorer a country, the greater the threat to the permanence of its democracy. India's per capita income remains below the risk threshold identified by these academics. But since embarking on economic reforms in 1991, “emergent” India's growth rate has risen dramatically and has been about 9 per cent a year for the past five years. This is good news for its politics. Yet despite that improvement, India's service to its people ranks below countries with neither democracy nor high growth.


There is something wrong with the story of democracy in India. Elections have not produced government that serves the greatest needs of the greatest number of people. Could this be because what India's politics has produced over six decades is not really a democracy? The political system clearly serves somebody's interest, but its political currency is not the common good, but the distribution of patronage by the elite.


India is a curious case of a “democracy” in which none of the important players believes in democracy. Almost all of India's political parties are personal autocracies, in which leadership is inherited, or contested among sons, daughters, widows, sons-in-law - and in two refreshingly “liberal” success stories, the female partners of male leaders. The Congress party has long been a family retainership masquerading as a political party.


The most significant political development in the past 25 years has been the rise of parties based on identity - regional, caste or religious. The only two parties whose appeal is ideological and whose leadership is not determined by family relationships are the communists and the Hindu nationalists. But neither party is a standard-bearer of inclusive parliamentary democracy.


Two potential future prime ministers who - unlike the nice Dr Manmohan Singh - have real political power are Narendra Modi. of the Hindu nationalist party (BJP), and Mayawati, leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which represents the lowest in the caste system. Mr Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, is formidably able, but will be forever stained by his willingness to ride to power in 2002 on the corpses of his Muslim fellow-citizens.


Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, has happily allied with both the BJP and the Congress party, misled Parliament and transferred hundreds of civil servants every time she took power in the state.


She throws lavish birthday parties for herself, bedecked in jewellery, and has been accused of misappropriating her party's funds. Her political support rests not on welfare programmes or economic policies that help the downtrodden, but on the vicarious “dignity” that her own advancement brings them - last year she emerged among the top 20 income-tax payers in India.


She is emblematic of an India that is not a democracy, but more a competitive autocracy, in which authoritarian forces (still) seek legitimacy and access to resources through the ritual of elections. Just as India has taken cricket and changed it for ever, it has adopted “democracy” and transformed it into its own unique political game.


Sarmila Bose is a senior research Fellow in the Politics of South Asia at the University of Oxford

[moin quadri]

Only those can witness rightly who have lived with Arabs.

Having experience with them for more than 15 years, I have

no hesitation to say that although Quran & Hadees are all in

Arabic, but the Arabs have never adapted these in their lives.

Islam is their culture, not the way of life. In most of the rich

Arab countries, no foreigner is allowed to live without i d. one

has to live in fear and terror if he doesnt have i.d. Islam too is

like an illegal immigrant here.What Americans doing with Arabs is

just deliniating the real picture of the illiterate society.


moin quadri

[Sidqi]