Image by Jorge Bassy via Flickr
By Kedar Nath Pandey
This election process is on, and India will put in place a government at the Centre that will have a democratic mandate to rule.
Unlike past experience, this time voters seem silent and determined, having witnessed unpleasant verbal assaults that opposing candidates have hurled at one another as well as the blatant opportunism of smaller parties desperate to make a bid for Delhi and the spoils there.
Will India reject those who have merely indulged in stale political rhetoric and look towards an experiment that could change the future and open up opportunities? Scanning through the manifesto of the Samajwadi Party one wonders what madness overtook them to spell out an agenda that moves back in time. Is it because real change on the ground that comes with inclusive governance and social action could dramatically dilute their vote share and make them increasingly passé?
A majority of Indians, regardless of caste, class and community, find the present-day political jargon and antics unsavoury and increasingly unpalatable. Will they dump the khichdi?
Mayavati has been relentlessly criss-crossing the country, making her national presence felt. She has tried to absorb all the castes into her party, having got the Dalit vote-bank under her belt, and now hopes to build the Bahujan Samaj Party into a strong national party. The premise of the Congress had been the same. It represented India in all its diversity. Internal factionalism, centralization of decision making, with general secretaries calling the shots from the divan-e-khas- rather than diwan-e-aam, disconnected from ground realities but believing they know it all, reduced the party to becoming an ally of regional parties hungry for power at the Centre. A generation of party workers fell into this comfortable trap and brought the tally down to figures unimaginable some decades ago. The battle to wrest that plural space in the near future will be a fight between the Congress and the BSP. In the coming years, India will watch the last act of this particular political play that belongs to the theatre of the absurd.
In spite of all kinds of political absurdities it is business as usual for all political parties and their leadership. Political leaders who promised heavens to the electorate have gone back to their air-conditioned comforts leaving the poor and downtrodden to fend for themselves. Promises held out are forgotten. It is business as usual.
There exists a nexus between political leadership, bureaucracy and captains of industry. All of them are involved in the governance of the country. They operate a whole network of manipulation of the different segments of society in the name of caste, religion and economic reforms.
The consensus based governance provided by Jawaharlal Nehru was based on a stabilised and almost harmonious coalition of political, administrative, industrial and regional peasant leaders. And this coalition successfully co-opted the organised working classes and the emerging middle class professionals.
A few factors facilitated the smooth functioning of the dominant elite consensus during the Nehru phase of governance. First, with the launching of the Second Five Year Plan, very optimistic and goal-oriented elite started exercising power with a view to eradicating the structures of underdevelopment inherited by India. The various centres of power functioned coherently because they were the beneficiaries of national development process.
This enlightened self-interest of the elite facilitated the functioning of the political system from 1947 to 1964. During this foundational phase of our democracy, multiple centres of power developed a very positive relationship with the institutions of the state because peasantry in rural India was excited by the ongoing process of land reforms, and every important social groups of urban India was actually experiencing social and economic mobility. Second, the political process of India during this phase was effectively managed by the locally powerful and traditional elite on the basis of the politics of vote- banks and patron -client relationship.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi emerged as a leader after fighting pitched battles against the powerful Congress Party machine and some of the important industrial groups supported and financed the Congress Party "bosses" in this struggle for power. During this struggle Mrs. Gandhi learnt that democratic India had multiple centres of power and to remain in power she had to establish her pre-eminent position vis-à-vis these power centres. Mrs. Gandhi adopted a two- pronged strategy to tackle the power elite of India. If on the one hand, she projected an ideological face for popular mass mobilisation, on the other, she followed a totally non-ideological, thoroughly manipulative and normless approach while dealing with political, industrial, bureaucratic and peasant leaders.
She emerged as an undisputed leader because she could effectively manipulate the masses on the basis of the powerful slogan of Garibi Hatao, and the powerful classes and groups were subordinated through a comprehensive network of patronage which was solely distributed by her. Mrs. Gandhi publicly patronised artists, scientists, environmentalists and intellectuals, and in reality she showed an utter contempt for the elite because they were just patronage seekers.
Mrs. Gandhi's strategies of governance were not having a smooth sailing because fundamental changes were taking place in power relations in rural and urban India. During the 1970s and 1980 a very powerful new rural middle class emerged which posed a challenge to the power of the historically entrenched social elite groups. This inter-conflict was emerging during the 1970s and 1980s and it has fully matured.
The politics of Mandal and the unstoppable caravan of reservations in public institutions are a response to this logic of contest between the new upwardly mobile rural and urban middle classes on the one hand, and the equally powerful entrenched social elite. Mandal has nothing to do either with the poor Dalits or the doctrine of social justice.
A few important developments of contemporary India have exercised great influence over the functioning of the multiple centres of decision-making power and their impact deserves to be analysed. Gandhi and Nehru attached great importance to the moral dimensions of power and many important industrialists who were nationalists in their ideology also cared for moral aspect of business and industry.
Nehru further strengthened the moral dimensions of power by linking power centres with national and social goals of development and nation-building. Mrs. Indira Gandhi and all her successors of almost all political parties supported by all other centres of power redefined power in terms of immorality or amoral activity. Politicians, civil and military bureaucrats, industrialists and traders, surplus generating peasantry, organised working classes and urban lower, middle and rising upper middle classes are all working in harmony because they have all accepted logic of power which is based on self- advancement and self-developemnt.
India of the 21st century is fundamentally different from the Nehru phase of politics because Nehru " harmonised" elite-centres of power on the basis of commonality of national goals, and the current Indian elite has achieved harmony on the basis of self-aggrandisement and self-development. The opposition parties and political groups do not hesitate in paralysing the work of parliament and government because of the acts of omission and commission of the ruling party. But MPs do not hesitate in approaching the same ministers for their personal work and ministers enthusiastically respond to their critic MPs.
Bureaucrats use every opportunity of projecting their innocence and presenting the political leadership as the real villain for all the ills of society. But the same bureaucrats establish linkages with political leaders for all kind of favours for their career goals. The industrialists are always critical of the lience-permit-raj but individual entrepreneurs have their linkages and lobby men who effectively deal with decision-makers. The business community keeps on making noises about every economic regime, but its growth march continues because it has proper linkages with all decision-makers.
Politicians and bureaucrats need the support of industrialist and businessmen, and business needs the support of all institutions of the state. Judges want credit for their activism and public litigation facilities, and sometimes Bar and Bench also come to a clash. But the existing time -consuming and high cost litigation system of India continues without any self-correction by either the Bar or the Bench. The main thrust of this line of argument is that the logic of raw and immoral concept of power interconnects and interlocks the various elite centres of power in India.A few trends of the behaviour of the elite require to be noticed. On the positive side, the Indian power elite can easily relate India with new global developments. Many a time elite of the developing world is very parochial and inward looking.
On the negative side, all the elite power centres have established mutual linkages and differences among them are just a shadow boxing, and all the elite groups have distanced themselves from the poor of India. At one level, industrial elite attaches great value to the emerging rural market and rural demand, at the lower level, urban India maintains a great cultural distances from rural India. INAV
Source: www.theshillongtimes.com
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This election process is on, and India will put in place a government at the Centre that will have a democratic mandate to rule.
Unlike past experience, this time voters seem silent and determined, having witnessed unpleasant verbal assaults that opposing candidates have hurled at one another as well as the blatant opportunism of smaller parties desperate to make a bid for Delhi and the spoils there.
Will India reject those who have merely indulged in stale political rhetoric and look towards an experiment that could change the future and open up opportunities? Scanning through the manifesto of the Samajwadi Party one wonders what madness overtook them to spell out an agenda that moves back in time. Is it because real change on the ground that comes with inclusive governance and social action could dramatically dilute their vote share and make them increasingly passé?
A majority of Indians, regardless of caste, class and community, find the present-day political jargon and antics unsavoury and increasingly unpalatable. Will they dump the khichdi?
Mayavati has been relentlessly criss-crossing the country, making her national presence felt. She has tried to absorb all the castes into her party, having got the Dalit vote-bank under her belt, and now hopes to build the Bahujan Samaj Party into a strong national party. The premise of the Congress had been the same. It represented India in all its diversity. Internal factionalism, centralization of decision making, with general secretaries calling the shots from the divan-e-khas- rather than diwan-e-aam, disconnected from ground realities but believing they know it all, reduced the party to becoming an ally of regional parties hungry for power at the Centre. A generation of party workers fell into this comfortable trap and brought the tally down to figures unimaginable some decades ago. The battle to wrest that plural space in the near future will be a fight between the Congress and the BSP. In the coming years, India will watch the last act of this particular political play that belongs to the theatre of the absurd.
In spite of all kinds of political absurdities it is business as usual for all political parties and their leadership. Political leaders who promised heavens to the electorate have gone back to their air-conditioned comforts leaving the poor and downtrodden to fend for themselves. Promises held out are forgotten. It is business as usual.
There exists a nexus between political leadership, bureaucracy and captains of industry. All of them are involved in the governance of the country. They operate a whole network of manipulation of the different segments of society in the name of caste, religion and economic reforms.
The consensus based governance provided by Jawaharlal Nehru was based on a stabilised and almost harmonious coalition of political, administrative, industrial and regional peasant leaders. And this coalition successfully co-opted the organised working classes and the emerging middle class professionals.
A few factors facilitated the smooth functioning of the dominant elite consensus during the Nehru phase of governance. First, with the launching of the Second Five Year Plan, very optimistic and goal-oriented elite started exercising power with a view to eradicating the structures of underdevelopment inherited by India. The various centres of power functioned coherently because they were the beneficiaries of national development process.
This enlightened self-interest of the elite facilitated the functioning of the political system from 1947 to 1964. During this foundational phase of our democracy, multiple centres of power developed a very positive relationship with the institutions of the state because peasantry in rural India was excited by the ongoing process of land reforms, and every important social groups of urban India was actually experiencing social and economic mobility. Second, the political process of India during this phase was effectively managed by the locally powerful and traditional elite on the basis of the politics of vote- banks and patron -client relationship.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi emerged as a leader after fighting pitched battles against the powerful Congress Party machine and some of the important industrial groups supported and financed the Congress Party "bosses" in this struggle for power. During this struggle Mrs. Gandhi learnt that democratic India had multiple centres of power and to remain in power she had to establish her pre-eminent position vis-à-vis these power centres. Mrs. Gandhi adopted a two- pronged strategy to tackle the power elite of India. If on the one hand, she projected an ideological face for popular mass mobilisation, on the other, she followed a totally non-ideological, thoroughly manipulative and normless approach while dealing with political, industrial, bureaucratic and peasant leaders.
She emerged as an undisputed leader because she could effectively manipulate the masses on the basis of the powerful slogan of Garibi Hatao, and the powerful classes and groups were subordinated through a comprehensive network of patronage which was solely distributed by her. Mrs. Gandhi publicly patronised artists, scientists, environmentalists and intellectuals, and in reality she showed an utter contempt for the elite because they were just patronage seekers.
Mrs. Gandhi's strategies of governance were not having a smooth sailing because fundamental changes were taking place in power relations in rural and urban India. During the 1970s and 1980 a very powerful new rural middle class emerged which posed a challenge to the power of the historically entrenched social elite groups. This inter-conflict was emerging during the 1970s and 1980s and it has fully matured.
The politics of Mandal and the unstoppable caravan of reservations in public institutions are a response to this logic of contest between the new upwardly mobile rural and urban middle classes on the one hand, and the equally powerful entrenched social elite. Mandal has nothing to do either with the poor Dalits or the doctrine of social justice.
A few important developments of contemporary India have exercised great influence over the functioning of the multiple centres of decision-making power and their impact deserves to be analysed. Gandhi and Nehru attached great importance to the moral dimensions of power and many important industrialists who were nationalists in their ideology also cared for moral aspect of business and industry.
Nehru further strengthened the moral dimensions of power by linking power centres with national and social goals of development and nation-building. Mrs. Indira Gandhi and all her successors of almost all political parties supported by all other centres of power redefined power in terms of immorality or amoral activity. Politicians, civil and military bureaucrats, industrialists and traders, surplus generating peasantry, organised working classes and urban lower, middle and rising upper middle classes are all working in harmony because they have all accepted logic of power which is based on self- advancement and self-developemnt.
India of the 21st century is fundamentally different from the Nehru phase of politics because Nehru " harmonised" elite-centres of power on the basis of commonality of national goals, and the current Indian elite has achieved harmony on the basis of self-aggrandisement and self-development. The opposition parties and political groups do not hesitate in paralysing the work of parliament and government because of the acts of omission and commission of the ruling party. But MPs do not hesitate in approaching the same ministers for their personal work and ministers enthusiastically respond to their critic MPs.
Bureaucrats use every opportunity of projecting their innocence and presenting the political leadership as the real villain for all the ills of society. But the same bureaucrats establish linkages with political leaders for all kind of favours for their career goals. The industrialists are always critical of the lience-permit-raj but individual entrepreneurs have their linkages and lobby men who effectively deal with decision-makers. The business community keeps on making noises about every economic regime, but its growth march continues because it has proper linkages with all decision-makers.
Politicians and bureaucrats need the support of industrialist and businessmen, and business needs the support of all institutions of the state. Judges want credit for their activism and public litigation facilities, and sometimes Bar and Bench also come to a clash. But the existing time -consuming and high cost litigation system of India continues without any self-correction by either the Bar or the Bench. The main thrust of this line of argument is that the logic of raw and immoral concept of power interconnects and interlocks the various elite centres of power in India.A few trends of the behaviour of the elite require to be noticed. On the positive side, the Indian power elite can easily relate India with new global developments. Many a time elite of the developing world is very parochial and inward looking.
On the negative side, all the elite power centres have established mutual linkages and differences among them are just a shadow boxing, and all the elite groups have distanced themselves from the poor of India. At one level, industrial elite attaches great value to the emerging rural market and rural demand, at the lower level, urban India maintains a great cultural distances from rural India. INAV
Source: www.theshillongtimes.com
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