SPECIAL FEATURE: Does Size Really Matter? Reflections on India's 15th General Elections
DEVELOPMENTS
Though administered admirably and having produced a more stable ruling coalition government, India’s recently-concluded 15th general election signals the emergence of a dangerous complacency - both in India and abroad - regarding the mere existence of Indian democracy itself.
The conduct of this year’s elections, along with the world’s response to it, should compel leaders worldwide to initiate more critical debates centered on the quality - and not quantity - of Indian democracy.
When India emerged after the partition of the British Raj in 1947, it was not inevitable that this populous, poor, and overwhelmingly fragmented land would embrace Western styles of democracy and governance.
In 2009, though, the narrative visible to most in the West is precisely this: an English-speaking India with an accelerating economy, flourishing democracy, and political consensus centered on globalization and development. Attractive headlines and magazine covers abound with descriptions of a flat world fuelled by Indian companies, a middle class that will soon dwarf the size of portions of Europe, and, of late, an enthusiastic electorate of more than 700 million voters. A close look at this “consensus view” of India, however, reveals an infatuation with India’s size, an addiction to praising scale without a concurrent focus on quality per capita.
BACKGROUND
Since the inception of Indian democracy in 1947, India has always won global recognition for the mere existence of its democracy, especially considering the unmatched scale and complexity of the country.
The Economist summarized it best in April 2009 at the start of this year’s elections:
“A poor, diverse country of more than 30 main languages and six main religions, India also has, in the Hindu caste system, a tradition of hierarchy seemingly at odds with a system of universal suffrage. The country suffers security threats that would provide many a government with the excuse to suspend elections. Kashmir has been riven by insurgency for more than two decades; parts of the north-east for even longer. Maoist revolutionaries-cum-bandits stoke another fire in India’s interior and staged attacks as polling began this week. Yet, apart from the brief months of the ;emergency’ in 1975, India has never curtailed its people’s right to choose their rulers. And now, more than ever, that right is to be prized.”
How big are elections in India? Consider this from the Election Commission of India: five phases of voting lasting four weeks, 6.5 million staff, 543 parliamentary constituencies, 4,617 candidates representing more than 300 political parties, 714 million eligible voters, 828,804 polling stations, and 1,368,430 electronic voting machines.
Indeed, it is difficult not to admire the process and its continuity, and this past election is no exception. Though the first two phases of the voting did witness some rebel violence, the election in general was conducted peacefully and as planned - a testament to the vision and administrative excellence of the Election Commission.
Most commentators globally are delighted that the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has retained power and strengthened its position in parliament. In fact, in the months and weeks leading up to the conclusion of the election, experts and leading media houses were abuzz with speculation that the election would produce a further fragmented and weak coalition government dominated by opportunistic provincial leaders not prepared to lead the country at this pivotal moment.
Ironically, it is precisely this aforementioned scenario which would have yielded a process of serious self-reflection regarding the quality of Indian democracy.
But with the Congress Party having won an impressive 206 seats in parliament - the best performance of any single political party in nearly two decades - and Dr. Manmohan Singh set for a second term as Prime Minister, India and the world have moved on with confidence about the strength of their democracy.
But is this ignorance and “moving on” justifiable?
As The Economist and other news organizations fawn over the existence of democracy in India (the BBC India Election Train is a good example of a marketing stunt perhaps gone too far) and commentators hail this election result as representing the arrival of India’s moment, it is simultaneously important to reflect critically on what the elections have revealed about the state of Indian society.
While the ruling coalition may reflect an incrementally more unified India, fragmentation has continued its forward march in India’s cultural imagination and political culture. This is tangibly illustrated by the record number of political parties represented in parliament (37 in 2009 compared to 25 in 2004) and the Indian media’s nonchalant and energetic consideration of the possibility of a more fragmented government. While the ruling coalition may reflect increased unity, the Indian parliament at large and the media-centric public culture reflects increased fragmentation.
Though some may reason that this trend is expected and even desirable given India’s size and complexity, this trend ultimately reflects a cultural incompatibility with the desire to compromise and, potentially, an incompatibility with democracy itself. Democracy flourishes most when its primary actors are willing to compromise. In India, however, internal debate within a party often leads to the start of a new political party (usually with sizable support).
This lack of interest in compromise and willingness to submerge the national interest in favour of regional identity is indicative of an electorate that remains largely uneducated and, therefore, uninformed about unifying, pan-Indian issues. Indeed, even the middle class, where one would expect to witness more national activism, continues to demonstrate disappointing apathy. In Mumbai, for example, in spite of the civic engagement following the November 26th terrorist attacks and the innumerable voter awareness and government openness campaigns of 2009 - including the ‘Jaago Re’ campaign and the new Google India elections transparency site - voter turnout was an embarrassing 41 percent.
Above all, though, India’s system of identity politics - that is, where political parties and candidates explicitly organize themselves on the basis of religion and caste - has proved to be the lead cause of division and fragmentation; the media and public at large’s willingness to tolerate, sensationalize, and entertain themselves by the consequences of this system has cemented its stranglehold on Indian democracy. Politics, at its most serious best, ought to be boring; in India, the political culture may more entertaining than Bollywood itself. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) stands for the lower castes, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Party (DMK) stands for the Tamil people, the Shiv Sena stands for Maharashtran heritage, and so on and so forth. Does the trend towards smaller, identity-based, local parties increase the quality of democracy and governance?
A dark example from this year’s election provides one answer: Varun Gandhi, the 29-year-old, elite, Western-educated great-grandson of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and newly-elected Member of Parliament for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Uttar Pradesh, caused a stir in March when videos surfaced of the young Gandhi allegedly espousing alarming and violent hate speech against Muslims. He said in Hindi (excerpt from speech):
“This is not the (Congress symbol) ‘hand’, this is the hand of the ‘lotus’ (BJP's symbol). It will cut the throat of the Muslims after the elections... Varun Gandhi will cut... cut that hand]”
While power-play state politics did ensure Gandhi served a short jail sentence for his insensitive speech, he quickly emerged a pan-Indian hero supported by the masses, ready to win his election and launch an ambitious career in politics.
Why? Because identity is the premier issue of Indian politics. Varun Gandhi wasn’t off topic; he was precisely on topic. Now, imagine this story played out hundreds of thousands of times across the subcontinent and what it does to the vision of an issue-based democracy.
ANALYSIS
While we should continue to celebrate the existence of democratic processes in South Asia and the start of a stable government, it is important to acknowledge the potentially dangerous consequences of the current state of Indian democracy.
To be sure, India is, at its best, is everything the West imagines it to be: young, vibrant, and positively expanding.
The truth, however, is that this nation of 1.1 billion remains one of the poorest in the world: more than 800 million Indians live on less than two dollars a day. Moreover, India is surrounded by unstable nations: Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
India has a crucial role to play as the global community seeks to eradicate poverty and terrorism; indeed, high-quality democracy, genuine stability, and effective governance is perhaps more important in India than in any other country in the world.
A fragmented political culture - fueled by middle class apathy, a poorly-educated electorate, and a petty, divisive (though, at times, even entertaining) identity-driven politics - will yield an India less focused solving big problems via good governance and one more focused on power and the various permutations of political alliances.
Western governments and western institutions have a critical role to play here. The more the West cheers on the fact of democracy, the more it feeds the ego of Indian leaders - especially given the supposed impossibility of their task due to the size and complexities of the Indian nation. This all serves to distract India from the massive structural problems that need to be addressed.
The U.S. has traditionally sought the expansion of democracy worldwide as one if its foreign policy aims. The next phase of American foreign policy, however, should center on the expansion of quality democracy.
In the case of India, it’s important that the United States not be blinded by size and not lose sight of the goal of democracy itself: the positive progress of a unified people.
---
Rishi Jaitly is Founder of India Voices (www.indiavoices.org) and Head of Government Affairs for Google in South Asia based in New Delhi.