By Kollengode S Venkataraman, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 1, 1996)
People in India now know the power of the ballot box. And now is the time for America and India to fine-tune their sometimes rocky relationship to the advantage of both countries.
In India’s recent parliamentary elections, a high percentage of the more than 600 million eligible voters ousted the ruling Congress Party. It had ruled the country for 45 of the 49 years since independence.
The party’s strength was cut in half, from 271 members to 135 in the 545-member parliament.
Even illiterate people in India recognize the strength of democracy. It is not so much in its ability to elect the most eligible people. It is in giving people the opportunity to throw out the rascals without bloodshed.
Considering the magnitude of the election logistics, it is remarkable that this election was well under control and relatively free of violence. This is a good sign for the future of democracy in India. The independent election commission has earned citizens’ trust by preventing partisan squabbles. There was no need for outside election observers, a la Jimmy Carter in El Salvador, to guarantee a fair process.
Like the proverbial Blind Men of Hindustan (India) describing an elephant by the parts they touched, most experts have sought to explain the outcome with a handful of cliches:
1) Corruption in government. But graft is nothing new in India. Through the decades, corruption has become pervasive in the Indian social fabric.
2) The lackluster leadership of Narasimha Rao, the outgoing prime minister. When Rao came to power, the media, after suffering through personality cults built around Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv, even made a virtue of his lack of luster. That aside, Rao and his finance minister Manmohan Singh definitely deserve credit for extricating India from a state-controlled economy outliving its original purpose and outgrowing its original scope.
3) The benefits of the recent economic liberalization not trickling down to the lower levels. India has a centralized political system and an inefficient criminal justice system. There is neither the fear of retribution (as in Western democracies) nor any overarching social ethical code (as in Japan) that forces people to behave.
And with increasing alienation between the educated elite cruising the information superhighway and the semiliterate majority crawling in bullock carts on dirt roads, what else can we expect other than the economic faucets running dry even before it starts trickling down?
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But there are other significant reasons for the results in this election:
The end of the Congress Party’s domination is not quite as sudden as portrayed in the media. Its slow decline started at least 20 years ago when Indira Gandhi became the prime minister. Since her time, democracy within the party was systematically subverted.
Independent-thinking party leaders were seen as a threat to be politically destroyed or left to wither.
Every prime minister since Mrs. Gandhi, fearing party revolt, also headed the party. While this tightened the grip of the prime minister on the party machine, it weakened it at the grassroots. Only sycophants and opportunists got close to policy makers. As a result, regional parties replaced the Congress Party in key states.
Another point: In previous elections, the Congress Party flagrantly manipulated government-owned TV and radio to its advantage. But, this time, its nemesis came in the form of independent cable TV telecasts from Hong Kong and Singapore. In addition, inexpensive VCRs project parties’ messages on truck-mounted screens throughout the country.
The Congress Party as we knew it is dead. It can still stay in government only as a weak partner in a coalition. The party ideologues, if they still exist, now have time to do soul-searching before planning a comeback strategy. If and when it recovers, the party will be quite different. It better be.
Even in Mahatma Gandhi’s time (1930s to 1948), the Congress Party was a coalition of intellectuals — lawyers, writers, doctors, professors, and economists — having a wide spectrum of ideologies united in the cause to end British colonial rule. Recognizing this, the Mahatma (no relative of Indira Gandhi) suggested after India’s independence in 1947 that the party be dissolved so that its members could form parties along ideological lines.
But the party resisted. With opportunists joining, the spirit of the original Congress Party was long dead. Politically, the Mahatma’s intent became a reality 50 years later, not in the way he would have liked.
On Wednesday, India’s president chose the right-of-center Hindu nationalist party to form a new government. But no matter how the Congress Party’s obituary is written and what the composition of the next government is, one factor is reassuring: With an expanding educated middle class, the enterprising business community, and a general population that reasserts its power in polling booths, India as a nation will endure and survive.
With a dynamic leadership, a sense of fairness, and with a little luck, it may even prosper.
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In this background, it may be necessary for opinion makers in India and the United States to look at each other differently.
A roller-coaster ride is the best metaphor for describing the Indo-O.S. relationship in the last 25 years. The love-hate relationship probably came about because one is the largest democracy – and the other is the most powerful and resourceful one.
India has a unique social and demographic reality – high population density and the ubiquitous caste system. The economic reality was, and is, one of widespread social and economic disparity. So even though India has traditionally been democratic, underlying social realities compelled leaders to subsidize state-run industries as a component in its mixed economy. Also, India was driven into the Soviet orbit out of geopolitical compulsions. These were grating to the United States.
On the other hand, the United States, in order to checkmate the erstwhile Soviet Union, found it expedient to align itself with despots and dictators in South Asia and throughout the world. That was grating to India.
While each saw the hypocrisy of the other, both were operating in their own political and economic self-interest.
The Iron Curtain has now been shattered. India is opening its doors irreversibly to the market economy. In this environment, it may be advantageous for India and the United States to improve their relationship for their mutual benefit. Ideological litmus tests, in any case, have become irrelevant.