Economic Liberalization and Political Developments of the 1980s in India

The process of economic liberalization in India has propelled it in to an elite league of rapidly growing emerging nations. The governments in India have over the course of the last fifty years shifted “from a pro-capitalist state with a socialist ideology to an enthusiastic pro-capitalist with a neo-liberal ideology” (Kohli).Though one set of events in the advent of a grave crisis may symbolize this shift, in reality the change has been more gradual. The process of liberalization was meant to be put in place much earlier and historically there has been a move towards liberalizing in every situation of a looming economic crisis. The immediate debt crunch that forced the government to implement its economic reforms was only a pretext for enforcing these reforms. A range of factors contributed to these reforms being more effective than previous attempts. The growth of the middle class has been often been recognized as a product of liberalization, but it is also a major factor in the continuity of the economic reforms that have been initiated and implemented since the 1990s. The relationship between the market economics and the Indian political scene had become more intense over the 1980s. Indeed, the vested interests of the elite sections of society (even amongst the backward castes) have played a crucial role in determining the kind of liberalization the country is going through. The primary focus has shifted from alleviating poverty to getting dominating growth rates. While it is believed by many, that economic growth will eventually alleviate poverty and reduce income inequalities, the underlying preconditions that contribute towards those aims are simply not present in India yet. The paper aims to discuss the relationship between the economic reforms introduced and the political developments since the 1980s, to understand whether the economic reforms would be sustainable in the long run without a radical reworking of the state’s focus on development.

The ‘radical shift’ of 1991 initiated by Finance minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has been attributed by many as the causal action that has led to growth and development in the following two decades. However the initial impetus was present in the liberalization policies of the Rajiv Gandhi government. The root cause for India’s continued “marginalization was, quite correctly, ascribed to economic inefficiency (Corbridge and Harris).”; characterized by the inadequacy and incompetence of the public sector and the heavy regulatory framework. Hence the concentration was on “reorienting the public sector to facilitate expansion of the private sector” to allow domestic liberalization in the short run and shift the focus towards external liberalization later (Nayar). These seem on the face of it, a continuation of the policies that were to be put in place by the Indira Gandhi government, but they seek to do it in a fashion that would have showed a deeper commitment to liberalization than previous governments. The policies were unabashedly in favor of the middle classes with the deep tax cuts and the industrialists with the reduction of restrictions under the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices act. It was also in favor of the urban classes with a penchant for imports of consumer goods. The only lacking aspect in the reforms pushed forward by Mr. Gandhi was the presence of deep crisis and hence the lack of fear and desperation that led to the reforms being stalled. An opposition from within the Congress had emerged that feared being labeled as ‘a party for the rich’. The opposition also came from “key veto groups with concrete material interests” in the excesses of the public sector, such as the labor and the bureaucracy. There was even opposition at one point from the urban middle classes that resisted the rise in prices of public sector produced goods which was aimed at raising resources. Though the reforms had stalled, the expenditures that the government officials, the upper and middle classes had benefited from did not. The higher growth rate during the period of the Rajiv Gandhi government depended heavily on rather imprudent expansionary policy, which supported the massive subsidies to both agriculture and industry on successive large fiscal deficits and external commercial borrowings. The fiscal profligacy meant India quickly ate down on its substantial foreign reserves and was borrowing to stay afloat. Even though the governments changed, fiscal deficits soared to over 9 percent of GDP as compared to 6 percent less than a decade before. The focus in the summer of 1991, bearing an impending debt crisis much akin to the currency devaluation in the Mexican ‘Tequila’ crisis of 1984, was to stabilize the economy and restore “a measure of credibility to India’s fading reputation for economic consequence” (Corbridge and Harris).

The mismanagement of the political process from the 1960s onwards had profound consequences on the political and economic development in the 1980s. Ballots, more often than not, were being decided by the power of money and the same was true with legislatures. The vast majority of Indian industrialists had become accustomed to beating the system of controls, where licenses and approvals were required for production, imports and exports. Industrialists became past masters at the art of what Stanley Kochanek has aptly termed “briefcase politics”. Industrialists maintained excellent relations with the politician and the bureaucrat through their offices in Delhi. But the discerning change was the growth of the small and medium size industrialists, mostly in the technology sector. The ``quiet revolution'' within Indian industry has transformed the configuration of interests that on the one hand seek to influence government policies and on the other provide the medium through which the new policies will take effect. The change to a new economic policy in 1991 may be interpreted as a political reflection of these changes within the Indian society (Pedersen).

The impact of the middle classes in India on the politics has had a direct impact on the nature of the economic reforms in India. The middle classes of the 1980s, succinctly described by Sumanta Dubey in his article “The Middle Classes”, included not only the traders and petty bourgeoisie but also professionals and the middle ranked employees of the nascent corporate sector. It may have also included the richer peasants who led a similar lifestyle, though their interests with regards to economic reforms might have been much different. It cannot be denied that it wasn’t until the elections that brought Rajiv Gandhi to power, that the influence of the ‘Middle Classes’ was known. In fact, they could be held directly responsible for bringing him down as well, as the allegations of corruption hovered around the Congress leadership. They brought him to power in the hope of him continuing in his mother’s footsteps to benefit them. The benefits that accrued to the middle classes were to be matched with poverty alleviation programs that promised to include those classes that were inherently excluded in the process of economic development. The ‘bias of the reforms’, as Corbridge and Harris put it, has been evident in that the impact of the structural reforms has favored certain groups over others. The 1980s has been dubbed ‘the age of populism and patronage’ precisely because of this failure of including the excluded. But due to “electoral compulsions” political parties had to resort to more populism to continue getting the votes while in reality just patronizing to mediate the conflicts that might arise otherwise. The consequences of the policies of the 80s, according to Deepak Nayyar, were quite visible, firstly in terms of reducing poverty, and secondly and probably most importantly, shifting the arena of conflict from “the rich versus the poor to the center versus the states”.

In a sense, the fact that economic reforms have continued, almost unhindered through the 1990s is a testament to the resilience of Indian democracy. The reforms initiated in 1991 could have been easily abrogated by the successive government that formed on the support of the Leftist parties. It could have easily reverted to old ways in the following government of the BJP led coalition which supported in its Hindu ideology a certain measure of the ‘swadeshi’ movement. Jenkins considers that political institutions can neutralize opposition to reforms by promoting longer time horizons and institutionalizing bargains between competing groups. By turning the entire issue of reforms from the center to the state level, the Center fostered a sense of competitiveness that “tended to quarantine political resistance to reform within the confines of state-level political systems (Jenkins)”. Jenkins calls this process ‘reforms by stealth’ whereby the Central government initiated reforms without much hullabaloo and quietly eased them into the system. The central government has also raised side issues to shift the focus away from reforms. In this process, in particular, the Ayodhya issue came in particularly handy for the minority Congress government.

The reforms since the 1990s have been highly successful by most counts. The reforms have led a high rate of sustained economic growth for the better part of the two decades since the reforms went into practice, piece by piece. India has transformed into a emerging global economic giant on the basis of not only its strong educated human capital, but also a growth of cheap labor, and phenomenal markets for global players. This could be described as the Shining India. The benefits have trickled down to the poorer classes but very slowly. The part that has not benefited from the reforms, on account of its bias towards certain groups, has fostered growing inequality both on urban-rural scale as well as on class lines. The analogy of the ASEAN countries for growth sustainability cannot be applied as the ‘underlying preconditions’ that Atul Kohli describes, are not yet in place in India. Land redistribution and focus on education, which serve to foster egalitarianism and enhance human capital, are required by a democracy, at least in the long-run(Kohli). The important question is can they ever be put in place in India where the ruling elite or their political support have vested interests in the bias of the reforms. Until and unless the focus of democratic politics in India doesn’t go back to including the poor in a market based economy that excludes them, then even stealthy diversions of anti-reform protests will not be enough to prevent a revolt, not including the elite this time however, but directly opposing them.

Works Cited

Corbridge, Stuart and John Harris. Reinventing India. Polity Press, 2006.

Jenkins, Rob. Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India. Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Kohli, Atul. "Politics and Redistribution." Jayal, Niraja Gopal and Pratap Bhanu Mehta. The Oxford Companion to Indian Politics. 2010. 499-518.

Nayar, Baldev Raj. Globalization and Nationalism: The Changing Balance in India's Economic Policy 1950-2000. New Delhi: Sage Publications India Pvt Ld, 2001.

Nayyar, Deepak. "Economic Development and Political Democracy: Interaction of Economics and Politics in Independent India." Jayal, Niraja Gopa. Democracy in India. 2001. 361-196.

Pedersen, Jorgen Dige. "Explaining Economic Liberalization in India: State and Society Perspectives." World Development (2008): 265-282.

Why democracy has continued to be weak in Pakistan

The British Raj in India was the first time a colonial invader had successfully managed to conform India’s political identity to its geographical one for an extended period. The British style of ruling India through bureaucratic institutions that were to follow the Western principles and provide impersonal services was in direct contrast with the personalized patronage provided by the kings and emperors before. Whatever the intention might have been, since only a small Western educated elite class could run these institutions, they used the colonial state institutions to benefit themselves. The local Indian bureaucrats often “disbursed a personalized form of patronage”, though within the framework of the law, which was quite similar to our existing administrative structure.  The Indian independence leaders were so influenced by Western governance that they were willing to collapse the geographic and political unity that had been forged and establish either whole or part sovereignties that were centrally run in a manner of the centralized and institutionalized structures which for so long had troubled the independence movement.

Often the laws that were instituted, though in conformity with the rationalistic principles of British ideology, conflicted with the social and religious mores of the Indian society. This dichotomy between the colonial principles and its implementation led to society that was getting divided, more and more, in communitarian terms (Jalal). The nationalist leaders fought against the British central institutions, only to want to control these institutions to command the fragmented nation (Jalal). Both Congress and Muslim League leaders were looking to form independent sovereignties out of the unified and centralized administrative structure only to run them on the basis of an impersonal and institutionalized bureaucracy. And it is exactly what they got.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Though India and Pakistan set out in the same vein, with the aim of a unitary state in a federal form with the center keeping the important controlling powers, Pakistan lost its way for the simple reason that it could not maintain the central political authority, given the lack of a political party that had support in most provinces. There are several reasons for why Pakistan’s center was weak. Firstly, the sole nationalist party in Pakistan remained the Muslim League which had only shallow presence in many Muslim majority provinces and only got the support of large Muslim landlords towards the very end of the independence struggle (Cohen). Since a greater part of politics in many of the areas was played at the provincial level, the Muslim League had to first compromise with the lower level bureaucracy still existing at the provincial level. While struggling to come to terms with the aim of central authority, it had to deal with enormous defense expenditure on the various borders. While the Indian government managed to coax, compromise and come to various revenue and administrative arrangements with the various princely states and provinces, their Pakistani counterparts coerced the provinces, by passing authoritarian government ordnances to direct funds to support the burdensome military apparatus.

General Iskander Mirza

 Unlike India, Pakistan did not inherit a strong central state bureaucracy which made them unable to deal with the provincial bureaucrats (Jalal). The political center had to rely heavily on the administrative arms in its initial years to come to grips with even forming the Constituent Assembly. The weakness in the center could also be attributed to the lack of able successor to Mr. Jinnah in the Muslim League. Through the Government of India Act 1935 and the working constitution, the governor-general had a variety of powers that included, but are not limited to, dismissing a Constituent Assembly, passing statutes and replacing provincial governments. Jinnah, through his powers as governor general created the position of Secretary General who would oversee the secretaries of the various ministers (Talbot). Mr. Jinnah believed this would speed up decision making. What it did instead was offer the Punjab dominated bureaucracy to become one giant state run apparatus under one man. This was the first instance of the bureaucracy gaining a grip on the politics. Chaudhry Muhammad Ali became the first and only Secretary General as this position was scrapped as the bureaucracy strengthened with General Iskander Mirza becoming Governor General.

Secondly, the two Muslim majority areas that were declared to be East and West Pakistan respectively were separated by over a thousand miles and had been previously ruled from New Delhi. Though political and bureaucratic power remained in the hands of leaders in West Pakistan, a majority of the population was Bengalis living in the eastern part. Already lacking the central administrative machinery that the British had established, the landlord politicians of provinces in the western wing had to forge a partnership with the non-elected institutions such as the military and civil services to prevent Bengali domination in Pakistan, which they believed would lead to stringent land reforms.

The meager resources that Pakistan had got after partition, were being employed to benefit the non-elected institutions rather than for social welfare. In her book Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia, Ayesha Jalal points out that increasing power of the non-elected institutions sought to undermine the power of both the parliament and the judiciary. It allowed the process of strengthening central authority without democratic checks and balances. The political party system decayed and a combination of bureaucratic and military officers held power in the center, delaying the framing of the constitution. Ghulam Muhammed, the third governor-general of Pakistan dismissed the Bengali Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin even though Nazimuddin held a clear majority in the parliament. Following the ousting of Liaquat Ali Khan and his successor Khwaja Nazimuddin, Ghulam Muhammed installed a relatively unknown Muhammed Ali Bogra as Prime Minister. He further dismissed the Constituent Assembly when Bogra and others in it, tried curbing the powers of the Governor General. Now one might wonder why the judiciary never intervened. The president of the constituent assembly did take the case to the Sind High courts where it was ruled in his favor; however with the backing of the Supreme Court, Ghulam Muhammed got his actions ratified as “constitutional” The Supreme Court invoked the debatable and dubious principle of necessity. This overturning of the high court judgment set a precedent and was used to provide cover to the military bureaucratic interventions in Pakistan later.  This principle has ironically been absent in the Supreme Court judgments subsequently, rather against the democratic governments when the Prime Ministers sought to change the constitution after the dismantling of an authoritarian regime.

Now it would be rather convenient to attribute Pakistan’s lack of democracy to the initial political instability but the issue goes far deeper than that. The reasons mentioned above may have been more supporting than being the central reasons for bureaucratic and military dominance in Pakistan during the early years. Ms. Jalal points out it was in fact a combination of domestic, regional and more importantly international factors that sought to reduce and diminish the power of parties and politics in Pakistan. The non-elected institutions used their connections in Washington and London to portray Pakistan’s geo-strategic importance and forged a relationship with USA that allowed them to get military aid. The event that reduced Pakistan’s international isolation in its early years was the nationalization of the Iranian oil. The US then recognized Pakistan’s importance as an important ally strategically in the Persian Gulf. The military aid allowed the Pakistani army to inflate and become more powerful. Almost abruptly the military aid stopped due to a policy of non alignment between the Indo-Pak conflicts in 1965. Yet the increase in size of the military set up has increased its dominance. Pakistan forges ties with China and France for its military supplies. US Aid started again once President Reagan came to the conclusion that Pakistan was of geo-strategic importance to combat the Soviet Union who had made a move towards Afghanistan. Pakistan was a medium to channel military aid to the Afghan mujahideen and during the ten years of Soviet occupation, the Afghan mujahideen received more than half a billion dollars of funding and more importantly military aid from Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of Pakistan. (Cohen)

Initial military-bureaucratic control was not an equal partnership between the civil authorities and military ones. In fact the military was almost a junior partner in the alliance till General Zia ul Haq. General Iskander Mirza, the fourth governor general, though holding a military title was a hardened bureaucrat from the Indian Political Service as well. He succeeded Ghulam Muhammed after the latter fell sick and fully assumed the title very soon. One of his first moves was to install General Ayub Khan as the Commander in Chief of the Pakistani Army, a move many consider to be an “error of judgment” that ultimately led to his downfall. In 1958, during military rule imposed by Mirza where he appointed General Ayub the chief martial law administrator, Ayub turned against him and overtook the reigns of the government. The balance of power in the civil military relations changed with the civil authorities taking more of a backseat in the following regimes.

General Ayub Khan

Though General Ayub Khan’s government is considered, by far, the most stable government in the history of Pakistan, it only sought to enhance the death grip of non-elected institutions on the political process in Pakistan. With the help of the civil services, he instituted an electoral college which was heavily tilted towards the rural areas. The Electoral College consisting of 120,000 members would elect members to the higher level local bodies and were also responsible for election of the president, national and provincial assemblies. The nominations of these members would be under the indirect control of the bureaucracy as they controlled more than half the nominations to the district and divisional councils. The regime was also a time that effectively took “the sting out of the political process” by denying basic political rights in practice, while at the same time fostering economic growth by issuing policies that concentrated the wealth amongst the landlords and merchants. The land reform and fiscal policies are special examples of this agenda. In what was supposed to have improved land distribution and introduced agriculture income tax, the Pakistani government ended up concentrating the access to land amongst the largest landlords in the provinces. It also gave senior military and civilian officer access to buying large tracts of agricultural land.

Corruption, nepotism and general discontent in the east wing led to the downfall of General Ayub Khan, Pressured from all sides, he stepped aside to give way to General Yahya Khan. The new general conducted elections the following year in 1970 (Taylor). The Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto administration that came to power on principle of populism and support of the middle sized land lords in Punjab and general majority in Sindh, was quite limited in terms of political maneuver as the differences between the East and the West wings of Pakistan continued to grow (Alavi). It allowed General Yahya Khan to delay the transfer of power and provincial autonomy in East Pakistan to the massively popular Awami League. With the support from India however, East Pakistan managed to secede from Pakistan and form the present day Bangladesh. The division certainly had far reaching implications in terms of politics in Pakistan. The social base for party politics changed as it did not have the heavily populous Bengali region in the electorate (Taylor). The main achievement of the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto government was the introduction of the 1973 constitution which is still in place albeit various amendments throughout the years. In practice however, he was almost as autocratic as any military dictator before. The growing discontent amongst the opposition party, allowed for the formation of the Pakistan National Alliance. In the elections that followed in 1977, PNA still lost but boycotted the provincial elections and declared the Bhutto government illegitimate (Cohen). In an almost opportune moment, General Zia ul Haq assumed the role of Chief Martial Law Administrator as Bhutto imposed the martial law and had Bhutto and his close associates arrested when Bhutto’s loyal military officers were attending a command course. (Alavi) The Supreme Court again defended the military coup d’état by invoking the Doctrine of Necessity in times of political instability and martial law. Thus began, the rule of Pakistan’s third military regime.

General Zia-Ul-Haq

General Zia was the first military dictator in Pakistan who was bent on pressing with the Islamisation of the Constitution by introducing for the first time in Pakistan a Sharia benches based on Hudood ordnances that worked simultaneously with the Pakistan penal code which is based on the British legal code. His commitment to Islamisation pleased many religious leaders in Pakistan and garnered wide spread support to his policies against Ahmediyas in Pakistan (Alavi). Some of oppression resulting from constitutional amendments decreed by the Zia regime immediately after taking over can be seen in the following recount:

On Sept. 27 1982, by Martial Law Regulation 53, General Zia decreed, the death sentence as the prescribed punishment for "any offense liable to cause insecurity, fear or despondency amongst the public." Crimes punishable under this measure, which superseded civil law, included "any act with intent to impair the efficiency or impede the working" of, or cause damage to, public property or the smooth functioning of government. Another was abetting "in any manner whatsoever" the commission of such an offense, or failure to inform the police or army of the "whereabouts or any other information about such a person." Thus one was liable not merely for what one said or did but also for what one did not do. As if this were not enough jeopardy for citizens, Martial Law Order 53 reversed the most fundamental principle of justice - in Pakistan you were guilty until proven innocent. The law provided that "a military court on the basis of police or any other investigation alone may, unless the contrary is proved, presume that this accused has committed the offense charged." (ZIA UL-HAQ AND MILITARY DOMINATION, 1977-88)

Till date the sect of Islam is prosecuted and harassed in Pakistan. As President he passed many constitutional amendments that increased his powers. He was the benefactor of much of the aid that America sent to Pakistan to fight a proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He reduced the already meager spending on social welfare. The constitutional amendments made under the Zia rule were in place until very recently. His tenure as President and Commander and chief was the icing on the cake to celebrate the control of the military and civil bureaucracy on Pakistan’s democracy. Under international and domestic pressure, notably from the Movement for Restoration of Democracy to hold elections, he organized non party elections and got Muhammad Khan Junejo appointed as Prime Minister. Seen from the outset as a puppet for the Zia regime, Junejo was eventually removed from the position by the usage of Presidential powers because he made foreign policy decisions against the wishes of the military regime.

Benazir Bhutto

His death paved the way for a period which analyst’s like to call “Pakistan’s 10 year experiment with democracy”. However democratic the process of elections might have been, the fact that a military dictator ousted the Prime Ministers twice in five years speaks volumes about the death grip the military had on the country’s political process. The Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) saw the demand for elections complied with and the Pakistan People’s Party resurged with Zulfiqar’s daughter Benazir at the helm of the matters. She offered hope to millions of women and advocates of progress, in providing a safer and more stable government. She was a disappointment for the most part, as she and her government failed to pass any notable legislation. Her failure especially to work against the Hudood Ordnances was a letdown for many of her women supporters. Also the military-bureaucratic oligarchy, though not directly involved, supported all anti-PPP elements so as to disallow PPP from getting a grip on the politics. She was ousted from her position when her assembly tried to change the eighth amendment challenging the powers of the President General Ghulam Ishaq Khan (Alavi).

The newly appointed Nawaz Sharif government of the Pakistan Muslim League was in a better position to tilt the balance of power from non-elected institutions to elected institutions. Not only did Sharif enjoy a stronger base of power in Punjab (a huge majority of officers of non-elected institutions come from this area), but he was more acceptable to the Islamic parties who were against the western policies of Benazir Bhutto. However he was removed as well, without completing his term by General Ghulam Ishaq Khan. He was eventually reinstated by the order of the Supreme Court (the first such instance of the Supreme Court supporting politicians against the military bureaucratic establishment). However he had to later resign amidst immense pressure from the military, but not without getting Ghulam Ishaq Khan removed as well (Alavi). Both Bhutto and Sharif enjoyed two incomplete terms in office at the end of which both left the country. Bhutto left due to charges of corruption against her and her husband Asif Ali Zardari. Nawaz Sharif was also in a similar position at the end of his tenure, when he was exiled to Saudi Arabia after a military coup by General Pervez Musharraf.

Since its inception, Pakistan has battled hard for democracy but never been able to come to grips with effective military bureaucratic stranglehold on politics in the country. The Muslim League, without the essential support amongst bureaucrats and provinces, remained weak from the outset. The initial financial pressures due to conflicts with India imposed severe financial restrictions on the government. The military, predominantly composed of Punjabis received a majority of the benefits of public funds. From the start, the civil bureaucrats exercised domination in a decisive manner and never relinquished control to the legislature. The position of Secretary General allowed bringing all the segmented ministries and their bureaucracies under one single authority. Non elected institutions systematically chipped away at the tenets of democracy by never allowing a political party to settle. The military regime of General Ayub Khan fattened themselves on foreign military aid and made Pakistan extremely dependant of American assistance. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, though elected democratically was corrupt and almost dictatorial. Islamisation followed with installation of General Zia Ul Haq as president and his orders and amendments to the 1973 constitution gave him ultimate authority over Pakistani politics. The Bhutto and Sharif governments were the hotbed of rampant corruption whereby the families of those in power got wealthier. The experiment with democracy, though improving Pakistan’s economic state in some ways, has only shown the power of the military and civil authorities in Pakistan a new way to regain control. The military coup of 1999 reaffirmed the status of the importance of military in political process. Recently Pervez Musharraf was ousted, after an eight year Presidency, and replaced with the late Benazir Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari. The hope is that it ushers in a new era where fair elections and fairer democracy is carried out. The fleeting moments of shackled democracies have dotted Pakistan’s sixty four year old history but have not been able to tilt the balance towards legislature.

                                                                                         

Works Cited

Alavi, Hamza. "Pakistan." Mitra, Subrata K. The Post Colonial State in Asia:Dialectics of Politics and Culture. 1990. 19-67.

Cohen, Stephen Philip. The Idea of Pakistan. 2005.

Jalal, Ayesha. Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Talbot, Ian. Pakistan:A Modern History. 2005.

Taylor, David. "Parties, elections and democracy in Pakistan." Journal of Commonwealth and Comparitive Politics March 1992.

ZIA UL-HAQ AND MILITARY DOMINATION, 1977-88. 2005. <http://www.defencejournal.com/april98/ziaulhaqdomination.htm>.

Significant Changes in Indian Democracy since 1947

Post-Independence, there was always doubt in the minds of people and political analysts in particular, whether India would survive as a democracy given its intricate social and political diversity and structure. It has survived, indeed, but it hardly remains the kind of system that it started out as.  India has undeniably come a long way since 1947, not only in terms of developing a system of democracy of sorts that has conducted “free and fair elections” without fail in the past sixty four years, but also one with an increasing political consciousness amongst all levels of society. There have been significant changes in what the country’s democracy constitutes of and how it functions. Firstly, the change has been in the competition between existing political parties, where India has moved from a Congress dominated arena to a tightly contested field where the Congress was on one side and all other opposition (however ideologically different they might have been from one another) on another, and finally to a largely two party democracy where both the parties have a pan-India presence and are ideologically diametrically opposite (Yadav). The second significant change can be outlined by the change in people’s perception of democracy, the increasing levels of participation in elections, and the shift in the demographics of electoral participation. It has not only led to a more diverse electorate but has deepened the roots of democracy at the local levels. The final significant change that I would like to outline in this post is the rise of Hindu nationalism from what was a largely secular polity along with the growth of the Sangh parivar in determining the political scenario presently.

One of the more significant transformations in Indian politics has been the change from a “one party dominance system” to one where there is a greater contest in the elections and more developed multiparty democracy (Chatterjee). There are several reasons why the Congress managed to hold on to such a dominant position in Indian politics for so long. Firstly, since the independence struggle, the Congress party had developed into a mass party with a very mature organizational structure that originated at right at the grassroots. An important feature of the ‘Congress system’ that led to such kind of supremacy at the state levels is the autonomy and influence that the top provided to the provincial committees of the Congress. There was a distinct form of intra-party democracy. No other organization had a pan-India presence to challenge the Congress in the Lok Sabha. In fact even in the state assembly elections Congress was dominant throughout. Until 1967 the Congress ruled every state with the exception of Kashmir, Nagaland and Kerala. Even in Kashmir, apart from the initial government of Sheikh Abdullah of the National Conference, the subsequent governments of Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad and the National Conference essentially became Kashmir units of the Indian National Congress. Since the states were also under Congress control, the relationship between central and state governments was cordial and crucial to the one party dominance system (Chatterjee). Even after Nehru’s death, the central bloc (often referred to as ‘the Syndicate’) of Congress that controlled the party was comprised of Chief Ministers or Party heads from various states. It is this bloc that supported, first Lal Bahadur Shastri and then Indira Gandhi’s ascent to the position of Prime Minister. The social situation in India was deteriorating when Indira Gandhi formed her government in 1966. Massive famine coupled with inflation due to the devaluation of the rupee and grave economic conditions caused immense dissatisfaction amongst the people, as witnessed by the huge, often violent protests across the country. Further, there was internal dissatisfaction amongst some of the members of the Congress party and they left the party. As a result, the Congress suffered a massive blow in the 1967 elections. Though remaining in power in the center, the Congress had become considerably weak in some major states. A key reason for the loss of power in the states was the formation of anti-Congress alliance amongst the smaller parties in a state and some of the defectors from the Congress party. Notably amongst these were the alliances in Bihar, Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. However, this should not be misconstrued as the end of the one party dominance as many of the governments that were formed as coalition governments did not last very long, often due to ideological differences.

The election debacle, nevertheless, was straining relationships within the Congress, as the younger generation of leaders belonging to the Socialist forum inside the Congress supported Indira Gandhi while the Syndicate was growing increasingly wary of the shift of power from the party to the hands of Indira Gandhi. Eventually, the strife ended in the split of the Congress party into Congress (Requisitionists) which supported Indira Gandhi, and Congress (Organization) which consisted of the old bloc. In the aftermath of this split, the Congress(O) MPs removed their support. By the end of 1970, Indira Gandhi did not want to continue with her minority government and called for fresh elections, The results of the 1971 elections were not only surprising but also ushered in a new era of party politics in India. With the record breaking majority that Congress secured, the organizational structure of the Congress under the Indira Gandhi began changing. She took an aggressive stance within her organization and fostered a hierarchical system that was undemocratic and highly centralized around her.  The appointment to various positions came from top down and it caused “people at all levels to tend to tell people above them what they thought those people wanted to hear, so the government’s once formidable power as an information gathering agency soon wasted away”(Kochanek). It created a more dysfunctional organization which allowed opposition to grow and acquire real substance against Mrs. Gandhi’s government. Indira Gandhi’s reaction, which is best described in this account by Stanley A. Kochanek, as:

“Dissent within the Congress, party opposition and press criticism ceased to function as thermostats measuring discontent. They were now interpreted as anti-party, anti-national and traitorous or even foreign inspired…Opposition party attempts to mobilize and express local grievances, valid or not, were perceived as law and order problems”

The Emergency imposed by Mrs. Gandhi, led the power to be even more centralized. James Manor attributes this ‘centralization’ to the weakening of Congress and her power, at least for the elections that happened after the Emergency. On the basis of discontent and hatred towards the Mrs Gandhi and her party, coupled with many members leaving her side and joining the opposition, a coalition of a majority of the opposition consisting of Bharitiya Lok Dal, Congress(O), Bharitiya Jan Sangh formed the Janata Party and swept the elections in 1977. However, ideological differences between senior party leaders who had different agendas, led to the weakening of the alliance and the main allies deserted soon. Congress(I) used the idea of a “stable government” to get reelected into power. The period of power for Janata Party, though insignificant in terms of ushering in a new era, it is a landmark in the history of Indian democracy for being the first time a non-Congress government was in power in the center. An important aspect of the shift in dynamics of Indian politics is the creation of this new class of politicians, the rich farmers, notably created with the advent of the Green Revolution and the rise of the middle and lower castes (OBCs). The tussle for the power bloc between the rich peasantry and the industrial bourgeoisie led to fallout amongst the Janata party and presented Indira Gandhi with an opportune moment to seize and gain control.

A similar decade of Congress dominance followed, notably intervened by the death of Indira Gandhi and the vicious anti-Sikh riots after which her son Rajiv Gandhi took over the reins. Though similar in terms of the political party that governed the nation, there was a significant change in the dynamics of the electorate. Political parties, whether at the state or national level, started focusing on select segments of the polity to benefit themselves. State political parties forced a resurgence which was led by the film star turned politician NT Ramarao in Andhra Pradesh. Under the umbrella of Janata Dal, state-wide political formations had already begun to exercise a significant role in national politics. It was almost like a vicious democratic cycle was being put into place. First, the Congress would win with a massive majority and disappoint those who elected them and then a feeble opposition alliance would be voted in which would fail eventually, not because of the lack of intentions but because of the differences in ideologies. The Rajiv Gandhi government did try to alleviate some of the criticisms against her mother’s government by moving towards a more liberal stance on the economic policies of the country.  The “decisive stimulus” of change in the 1989 elections was what is commonly referred to as the 3Ms of Indian politics:  Mandal, Mandir and Market. These three issues that took political center stage in the closing years of the decade had the perfect conditions to allow for a total realignment of the political ideologies. They did show their effects in the 1991 elections, which considering the cycle established, Congress was supposed to win with a landslide majority. However, they only managed to get a plurality and formed a minority government with the help of the Left parties. The Congress minority government managed a full term and was the game changer that many attributed India’s rapid growth post-1991 to.

The election is said to have ushered in a new era of politics characterized by a more distinct two party democracy, though one could only see the full effects in the 1998 elections. The rise of BJP and its increasing voter base through the 80s was a “three dimensional” growth for the party. It not only increased its presence in Maharashtra and Gujarat, but also beyond the Hindi speaking belt into South India. It also expanded its social structure as it sought to include a formidable rural base consisting of upper caste farmers, OBCs and a few adivasis.  In the political arena, they managed to forge alliances with political organizations at the state level, which were outside the Hindutva ideology. “The third electoral college” as Yogendra Yadav calls the state of politics in India in the 1990s and onwards, remarks a shift of politics from national to the state level.

The second remarkable change in Indian democracy has been that of the demographics of the electorate. The change in how voters have effected elections since the first elections in 1952 is quite noticeable and has shaped in many ways, the nature of politics in India in the present. In the initial two decades much of the population did not understand the power of their votes and there was generally a low level of electoral participation. Since the 1970s and especially in the 1980s there was democratic upsurge that can be best identified by the significance most political parties attributed to in their election campaigns, trying to appease the aam junta or the ordinary people. At the state level many political parties developed focus on a certain part of the demographic and sought votes from the particular sections. A vote, has the same power regardless of the standing of the person in the society and the more the oppressed and backward classes realize this,  the fate of those who will rule within our parliamentary governance will be” determined, in an unexpected way, more and more by those who are weak and powerless and driven by need”. The voters have developed consciousness of their voting power which can be characterized by an analogy of sorts in two examples comparing 1980s and the present. Rajiv Gandhi won the 1984 elections on the basis of a “sympathy wave” following the death of his mother. 20 years later, Chandrababu Naidu called for fresh elections in Andhra Pradesh, after being in power for over 9 years with the hope that they “sympathy wave” would ride with him following the Naxalite attacks on his convoy near Tirupati. He was summarily broomed out of power due to poor performance of his government in key sectors.

The rise of Hindu nationalism has been a long process latent under the dominance of secular Congress. Always been perceived as being on an extreme end of the spectrum of political ideology, the Hindu fundamentalists were more or less kept out of the national political scene by the secular party campaigns of Congress. The rise of RSS and its alliance of Sangh Parivar, not as a political organization, but a cultural one required it to have a political affiliation. Jana Sangh, though started off independently, quickly came under the control of RSS activists. Despite the direct affiliation with RSS, Jana Sangh failed to counter Congress during the early part of India’s democracy because it failed to transcend its roots in the RSS and the Hindi speaking belt in North India. Not only did it not have a pan-India presence, but also lacked support past its “Brahministic interpretation of Hinduism”. The much needed stepping up came in the 1970s when the party in conjunction with Janata Party members managed to provide a stiff resistance during the Emergency and eventually formed a coalition government. The ideological differences aside, the time in control allowed for a rapid expansion of the Jana Sangh machinery. The party broke away from the Janata Party and formed the Bharatiya Janata Party under the auspices of Atal Behari Vajpayee. Though the BJP started out with a Gandhian ideology heavily influenced by J.P Narayan and the experience of some of its members in the Janata Party, its failure in the 1984 elections lead to a reversal back to a communal ideology under L.K. Advani and close cooperation with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad(VHP). The blend of BJP and VHP used religious symbolism to garner votes and saw a remarkable jump in support in the 1991 elections. Though the support afterwards in the state assembly elections in 1993 went down because of the preceding Ayodhya issue, the BJP was quick in distancing itself from the extremist factions of the Sangh parivar, without losing their support. The election campaign canvassed against a corrupt government and raised important social issues and gained unprecedented support in South India, Gujarat and forged an alliance with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. They also shifted their stance to a more centrist approach that was both appeasing and appropriate if they wanted to claim control in the Lok Sabha. The end of the 90s saw them develop the National Democratic Alliance and push India into a dual alliance democracy led by the BJP and the Congress. The NDA consisting primarily of BJP, Janata Dal, Shiv Sena and other smaller state parties, has since led the battle against the Congress led United Progressive Alliance.

The important changes that have been outlined may not be the only ones. The change in the role of the central institutions such as the judiciary and role of the bureaucracy could also be considered determinants of the system we have. But it is clear that the changes in democracy outlined are significant. The dominance of Congress in a one party dominated democracy gave way to an oppositional alliance based system that has finally turned into a dual alliance system with the formation of UPA and NDA. Electoral participation has increased and changed in form, with a greater political consciousness amongst various strata of Indian society. The rise of BJP and Hindu nationalism in politics has given way to a new brand of politics, one that is not only communal but sectarian as well. Indian democracy will continue to transform depending not only on the governments that come and rule, but greater political understanding amongst the people of the country.

Works Cited

Alam, Javeed. "What is happening inside Indian Democracy." Economic and Political Weekly 37 (1999).

Chatterjee, Partha. State and Politics in India. 1997.

Corbridge, Stuart and John Harris. Reinventing India. Polity Press, 2006.

Hasan, Zoya. Parties and Party Politics in India. 2002.

Kochanek, Stanley A. Congress Party of India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.

Yadav, Yogendra. "India's Thrid Electoral System." Economic and Political Weekly (1999): 2393-2399.