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Inaugural Lecture of ‘Democracy Dialogues’ Series ( Webinar)
Organised by New Socialist Initiative, 12 th
July 2020
Prof Suhas Palshikar, Chief Editor, Studies in Indian Politics and Co-director, Lokniti at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, delivered the inaugural lecture in the ‘Democracy Dialogues’ Series initiated by New Socialist Initiative.
In this
lecture he attempted to trace the roots of the current moment of India’s
democracy in the overall global journey of democracy, the extra-ordinarily
ambitious and yet problematic foundational moment of Indian democracy and the
many diversions India’s democracy has taken over time. He argued that
unimaginative handling of the extra-ordinary ambition and Statist understanding
of the ‘power-democracy’ dialectic formed the basis for easy distortions of
democratic practice and that while populism and majoritarianism are the current
challenges, they are by no means only special to the present and therefore,
even as critique and course-correction of present political crisis is urgently
required, a more long-term view of the trajectory of Indian democracy is necessary.
Here follows a detailed summary of his
presentation prepared by Dr Sanjay Kumar
In
his talk Prof Suhas Palshikar located the current state of democracy in India
in a comprehensive framework which encompassed both the general characteristics
of democracy, as well as the specific history and character of democracy in
India. This provided a deeper understanding of the reasons for the current
state of democracy in the country.
There is a tendency to see democracy as a
linear progression. In reality, we see ups and downs, and there is no guarantee
that if once established, democracy will continue. Democracy requires
continuous willed action from its practitioners. This is so because the idea
and practice of democracy have internal tension. There are three nodes of this
tension. (i) Who are the demos, i.e. the people? This may appear
straightforward, but in practice, the constitution of demos also involves
exclusions. We saw how migrant workers were simply excluded from the ‘demos’ of
the cities in the recent pandemic. People at the margins, and minorities can
suffer threat of exclusion by the workings of the democracy itself. (ii) What
do the demos do? While initiative and action by the people is one pole of this
tension, the other is the demand of obedience, at least in some form, by all
governments. This is the tension between active and passive citizenship. (iii)
The third internal tension comes from the ordering principle. This can be seen
in the rights of citizens versus ‘law and order’ demands of the state.
In the theory of democracy it is widely
recognised that the Indian democracy has passed through a different path than
the north Atlantic region. There the idea of a free individual came first
through struggles against feudalism. And then, the people got constituted from
individuals. In India this ordering appears reversed. Here, the people were
first constituted as a nation during the freedom struggle. Another point of
difference between the experience of democracy in India from elsewhere is how
it has tried to deal with social diversity. The phrase ‘unity in diversity’ in
the context of Indian experience is actually misleading. Retaining diversity
while uniting is closer to reality. This means that in order to be an India you
do not have to give up any other identity. This should be compared with
experiences in Europe and the US. In the former the process of formation of the
people resulted in a nuclear homogeneity. In the later, waves of migration and
assimilation led to a pluralising homogeneity, as given by the ‘melting pot’
image.
The assertion of democracy in Indian freedom
struggle and constitution was a challenge and an ambition. This is what
Ambedkar says in his final address to the drafting committee. The architecture
for a new India was created in the constitution, but the challenge was to bring
it into reality. Unfortunately, the establishment of formal democracy was
accompanied by a schizophrenia about democracy. There was more focus on
creating state as a major apparatus under a set of assumptions which at best be
called naïve. Masses were effectively demobilised. The result was a docile
democracy. Our democracy became leadership centric, in which people were
expected to follow cue from the leader. Hence, the first phase of
post-independence democracy had hidden within it a number of problems. First
was the twin problem of violence. There was a failure to understand and
appropriately respond to private organised violence. On the other side was the
use of violence by the state. With time, state actually became more and more
violent. The second problem was the failure to integrate the most marginalised;
the SCs, the STs and minorities. The third problem continuing from that period
is our failure to make institutions which are both democratic and efficient.
Hence, our institutional structure often fails the promise of democracy as well
as effective governance.
It is best to come to the current state of
Indian democracy through four decadal challenges to democracy. We are still
living in the shadow of these challenges. These are 1. the Emergency in 1975,
2. pogrom of Sikhs in 1984, 3. demolition of Babri mosque, and 4. organised
violence against Muslims in Gujarat 2002. The perpetrators of the Emergency
were punished in 1977 elections. However, nothing was learnt from that
experience institutionally. That is, our institutions did not develop any
inherent opposition to unconstitutional authoritarianism and centralisation of
state authority. For the other three decadal challenges, the perpetrators were
not even punished. Hence there is no disincentive for doing such crimes.
If we go back to the politics 1980s and 1990s
to understand where we are today, it was both a period expansion of democracy,
while also its narrowing down. Yogendra Yadav, Christopher Jaffrelot and Sajay
Kumar have described the former as a democratic upsurge. Excluded groups like
minorities, women, STs and Dalits started voting in large numbers. Politics
became more competitive, and there was a change in the social basis of
political elites. A political consensus emerged for affirmative action for
socially marginalised. However, there was also a narrowing down of the agenda
of politics and rigging of political menu. When more and more marginalised
sections begin participating in democracy, the democratic politics got
depoliticised. It is in this period that the media starts setting the agenda,
so that even politicians begin to talk the agenda set by it.
A consensus among dominant political players
emerged on the three Ms, namely Mandal, Masjid and Market. The Mandal question
disappears in 1993-94, as all players accept affirmative action. On the
so-called masjid-mandir controversy there is no contrarian position in Indian
politics. The Supreme Court has only given legal sanction to a political
consensus. Regarding Market, all parties, including the Left in West Bengal
accede to its demands.
The two longstanding challenges continued to be
ignored. First is the challenge of creating a strong individual with a set of
rights. The second is a commitment to India’s diversity. Failures on these two
issues have made it only easy for current rulers.
Eight structural features characterise the contemporary state of politics in
India. 1. unprecedented centralisation and personalisation of state authority.
In the light of what is happening today, what Indira Gandhi did appears
amateurish. 2. decay of federal politics, 3. unprecedented abdication of its
role by the judiciary. ADM Jabalpur at least had to make an attempt to justify
its abdication. Not even a justification is given for the current abdication.
4. beginning of the politicisaiton of armed forces, 5 misuse of investigative
agencies, 6 complete subordination of the entire bureaucracy, 7 Irrelevance of
political parties, and 8. closure of all popular resistances.
Given these structural elements, the current
moment is nor a routine diversion. It should be seen as a moment of hijack of
democracy. We also need to appreciate two processes, which give strength to
these structural elements. These two processes are (a) populism and (b)
majoritarianism.
Indira Gandhi was also called populist,
populist leaders were always there. The three elements of populism are (a) an
idea of people as an anti something, which can be anti elite, or anti-minority,
(b) a moralistic idea of politics; seeing it as a war between good and bad, so
that your adversary is not just a competitor but a bad element who needs to be
eliminated, and (c) disregard of institutions.
Survey of popular political opinions by Lokniti
and Azim Premji University throw some interesting and disturbing results. There
is an attraction for populism, but this attraction is not overwhelming. In fact
populism is not so much attractive to people, as it is to politicians.
Majoritarianism is always an issue in elections,
because elections are one way to legitimise a majority. Majoritarianism reduces
democracy to electoral politics. Popular opinion data regarding majoritarianism
is worrying. When it is asked if the will of the majority community should be
accepted, then one person in three agreed in 2000. By 2015 this proportion had
increased to one in two. Hence, the majority of Indians probably agree that the
demands put in the name of majority community are automatically legitimate. At
the current moment majoritarianism justified through three arguments. First is
the argument of the hurt sentiment of the majority community. Second is
branding of dissent or difference as anti-national, and the third puts nation
above democracy.
Hence we see that only BJP is not anti-democratic.
Preference for anti-democracy is spread out in the political class, and has
widespread popular acceptance. An interesting recent book by Levitsky and
Ziblatt is titled ‘How Democracies Die?’ Democracies are eroded from within. We
are witnessing this process in India.
Given our current situation, future scenarios
can only be bad or worse. The two big questions about immediate future are
these.
1. Will there be a victory of a higher ideology
of exclusion, i.e. will India become a Hindu majoritarian society. This perhaps
will not happen for another decade. So, we probably have some time.
2. Will there be a complete taming of politics
of resistance? We are staring at this prospect today. Spaces for a simple
politics of resistance are drying out fast.
Prof Palshikar’s presentation was followed by a lively question answer session.
Some of the issues discussed in the Q&A session were related to the role of
social and cultural factors in democracy, reasons for the failure of popular
mobilisation after Emergency, global spread of majoritarian politics and its
relationship to neo-liberal political economy, privatisation of development,
consociational democracy, and vernacularisation of Hindutva.
( Democracy Dialogues Series )
The idea behind beginning this series is basically to initiate as well as join the ongoing conversation which is going on around this theme in academic as well as activist circles.
One sees that the very idea of democracy which has taken deep roots across the world, has come under scanner for various reasons. We have been witness to the ascent of rightwing forces, demogogues via the same democratic route and also the anamolous sounding situation that deepening and spread of democracy among hitherto marginalised sections – has not led to commensurate percolation of liberal democratic values.
Coming to India, there have been valid concerns about rise of
authoritarian streak among Indians and how it has helped strengthen BJP’s hard
right turn. The strong support for democracy here is accompanied by increasing
fascination towards majoritarian, authoritarian politics here. In fact, we
would like to state that a vigorous electoral democracy here has become a
vehicle for religious counterrevolution.
